Step One: Building the Town

Required Materials: A d20, a shared document where information can be recorded, a safe word, a few hours.

During the first phase of the game, the focus is on the place that we will be creating together. The characters will come later.

Each person present at the table reads the following aloud. Speakers are ordered alphabetically according to name or screen name, changing to the next speaker with each paragraph break.

We are here to invite the dream of a town through the passage of nightmare, so as to change its dreams.  All present will be architects of a new dream, one where the fire of hope still burns.

This dream of a town may arrive like a waterfall or like sparse rain.  But together, we will answer the questions posed below.  Together, we will weave answer and revision and suggestion together to help this dream become more real for us.

We understand that multiple answers exist.  We understand contradictions to be productive, not paralyzing.  We understand that we should save our “no” for that which jeopardizes our safety, or for that which betrays the dream of the town.  We understand that we are building off of each other, that our questions are meant as clarity builders.

Our focus is solely on the town and the town alone.  We do not need to know every street, every shadowed place.  The town will provide, we only invite it in.

There are twenty questions, numbered in a list below, that bring the town closer.  When everyone is ready, each person will roll a twenty-sided die.  The result of the die is the question you are assigned. If doubles are rolled, the person who rolled most recently will re-roll their die to get a different result. 

The person who is assigned the question provides the first answer.  This first answer may or may not be the final one.  That is up to the rest of the group, who may elaborate on the answer, or revise it.  Collectively, we all decide, in a spirit of good faith, collaboration, without betraying the narrative of the town that is being manifested.

If things get too intense for a player during this phase, they should utilize the safe word.   This will signal to the others that something is going to work, or that some time is needed.  This should be honored by everyone at the table without question.

Let us begin.

Each player then rolls their d20 and consults the following list:

Questions For Summoning The Town:

1. What endures in the town despite everything?
2. What memories linger in the collective psyche of the town?
3. Which victory does the town cling to for dear life?
4. When strange cars arrive, are they noticed?
5. When the opportunity came and went for the town, what made it leave?
6. What places make the birds silent and the air thick?
7. What knowledge insists to be known here?
8. What strangles or structures the friendships or romances in this town?
9. Whose design imposes itself upon the town?
10. What wounds still fester behind the walls?
11. What nightmare lurks in the drunken places, still feared by children?
12. When do the plants bloom within the town?
13. What do the festivals keep sacred here?
14. What futures are ridiculed here and which are celebrated?
15. Who is held as an icon of the town?
16. How many names has this town burned through?
17. What crime made this town what it is today?
18. Do homes cluster together on streets or are they distant?
19. What seasons are known to this town?
20. Can anyone be trusted with the truth here?

Players should again answer in alphabetical order. The question should be read aloud, and then the first answer should be given. This answer is then taken up by the group and discussed until the group feels the result is satisfying.

This phase ends when everyone has agreed that the town feels established and fleshed out, the storyteller deems it over, or until all questions are answered.

If a player really does not like their question, they should be allowed to trade questions with another player or to just hand it to the storyteller.

Disputes should be handled respectfully. The theme is existential cosmic horror with a dash of magical realism, not Ending Real Life Friendships. If things get heated, have the players take a break, cool off, and then try again.

Please try and be genuine in your answers. Light trolling can be funny, but don’t argue for a joke answer if you can help it.

All answers should be kept in the collaborative document, so everyone can reference at their leisure.

Once this is done, players may choose a playbook and, if they wish, another session to establish Life Path can be held.