The haunting of towns is the haunting of time.
This Game of Hours is a vehicle for telling stories about time, horror, communities, and resistance.
This is a horror role-playing game. Together, all present weave together a tale about a haunted town of their own creation, the people who live and die there, and the way time structures their actions and the actions of the world. This game requires a higher degree of player participation and imagination power than your standard war-gaming/fantasy RPG.
Horror is tricky, even for veteran role-players. Be patient with yourself and others. Player discretion is advised.
The Town
The game begins with the players and Storyteller creating a town together using the prompts given. This is done collaboratively in a round-robin style until the table is satisfied with the town’s history, characters, and details they have created. During this phase, the Storyteller then chooses the primary Hour that will serve as the session or campaign’s antagonist.
The Players
After building the town, the players choose a playbook with a set amount of actions and flavor and create a character to defend their town from profound horror. The playbook will differ depending on the era that is chosen (child, adult, and the far future Time Wastes). If the players wish, they can flesh out their own relation to each other via the optional Life Path rules.
Each player will work together with the Storyteller and co-create the story, its themes, and the general tone of what the narrative will be.
Part of this will be through role-play and part of this will be through a custom narrative oracle deck called the Poveglia Deck (which is available on this website).
The Characters
The characters are a band of people who live in the town created, who come together to fight the profound horror brought by the antagonistic beings that control and build Time, the Hours. They are chosen by the counter-force to Time, two mysterious beings who bring life and meaning: Cinder and Dust.
This choice brings them the basic boon of being able to resist the Hours in a limited fashion. They are not immediately undone by the powers of Time.
Over the course of the session or campaign, depending on the choices made, the characters may align their goals more with Cinderdust or with the Hours. This unlocks different possibilities.
The Storyteller
The Storyteller is one person or a group of people who establish the circumstances around the characters. They play all the non-player characters in the world via giving them objective, desire, and means.
The Storyteller is an organizer of the narrative and the conversation, both teacher and explorer. However, they are not the sole person in charge of the game. They act as a general guide to player desires and development, as well as a safety net when players are struggling to perform in some way or fashion.
In other words, they present opportunities and objectives, rather than hard decrees. The exception to this, however, may come when the table’s safety needs to be preserved, or when there is inter-player conflict regarding narrative goals.
Playing the Game
A single session of This Game of Hours has a set progression of role-play phases. Usually it takes anywhere from two to six hours to complete a single session. These role-play phases are as follows: Investigation, Exploration, Confrontation, and Down Time. Rather than rolling dice, each player has a total of 13 action points which are refreshed once the session concludes. Each ability in their playbook costs 1 action point. These actions will automatically succeed, however they may not bring the consequences desired all the time. They may introduce complication.
Players also have to consider The Clock. Every scene before the Confrontation phase causes the The Clock to tick forward one hour. As The Clock ticks closer to thirteen, the situation will get worse and harder to navigate. More on this later.
Play is concluded when the players either deal with the monster in the narrative (called a Logic Ghost) or they have failed to prevent the monster’s goals. Failing to prevent the monster’s goals does not end the story.
Advancement
Characters do not level up in the traditional way. Rather, their advancement is tracked along their affinity. Their affinity refers to whether or not this character follows the path of Cinderdust or The Hours. This is represented by 9 pips on the playbook. 4 aligned with Cinderdust, 4 Aligned with the Hours, 1 aligned with Balance. More will be explained in their respective sections, however. As they take action in the world, the characters will lean toward one side or another, each unlocking different abilities or amplifiers.