Welcome to Fill in The Gap, a column devoted to individual, "one-off" scenarios, that any GM can run for his/her group.
This month's scenario is set in a fantastic landscape, where one's very thoughts can come alive.
If you need to know more about the FITG(Fill in The Gap) system/column, please check out the first (and second) of these monthly columns. Without further ado, I bring you today's scenario:
As always, if you're going to play in this scenario (run by your favorite GM) then please read no further, for fear of spoilage.
Today's is a scenario for four players. In today's scenario, three of the players will play strangers, pulled from their homes and deposited in a strange wonderland where their very thoughts will effect what's around them. The fourth is the one who is responsible, and doesn't have this power. They won't know at first that they have this ability, but as it becomes clear, they will need to take advantage of it to get home.
The Premise
A Thinking Man's Game is a scenario based around three basic premises. Firstly, the players are three strangers each with their own goals, history, and motives, and a fourth individual who is from this magical landscape but is powerless to effect it. Second, they've all been pulled together into a strange locale, in which their thoughts are twisted to become physical entities in the world. Third, for most of the characters - they don't know what the goals are, or why they are there at all. Let the three players by virtue of knowing their characters, attempt to formulate their own goals.
The four strangers in this scenario will be detailed in the Characters session. One is a regular gal, another is somewhat of a hero in the real world, a third is something of an outcast, and the last truly isn't a stranger to this place at all.
In the setting section, we'll detail how the landscape should work - although thoughts take form, the more of the three of them that concentrate on any one goal, the likelier it is to succeed. For certain goals, they will all need to work together. We'll also show the "default" setting information there, or what were the three character's thoughts when they woke up.
To handle thoughts in this scenario, every short while (4 minutes of real time or so, or whenever offered by the players), ask them to jot down their characters exact thoughts on a piece of paper and pass them to you. They can describe these out loud to the other players, but it is expressly forbidden for players to look at each other's thoughts. For three of the players, do your best to (as detailed in the setting section), manipulate the landscape to match their thoughts. For the fourth player, feel free to just pass notes back and forth since his thoughts don't actually effect the landscape or matter one bit. Make sure if two player's thoughts are diametrically opposed (I hope we get out of here soon vs. I hope we don't have to leave), nothing should occur. More on this in the setting section. If necessary, feel free to solicit (either through private conversation or through more notes) more information on various thoughts. If they are thinking about "a monster" ask them what it looks like and how strong it is, whether they think they could take it. Ask leading questions to get the answers you need to run the scenario.
Since it's a player's thoughts that directly interpret the landscape, players don't have stats in this scenario. Make everything relative. If the firefighter thinks about something bigger and stronger than him, infer that it's bigger and stronger than the other three as well. If they imagine a treacherous cliff-face, make it as dangerous as the person who is thinking about it believes it to be.
No Events section, we'll detail what can occur based on the goals and purpose of Gordon, the "local" as it were, in the Setting section.
When running this scenario, you'll have to be creative and cautious regarding the usage of the player's character's thoughts. Let them know that what they right down will be taken literally, and take it literally. That isn't an excuse to be silly though - if one player is thinking "I want to leave", he shouldn't sprout leaves.
The Characters
Below are the four characters, three who are regular guys and a gal, one who is a creature of this place.
John Jacobs - A firefighter, and a tough all-around American guy. A hero of several natural disasters, he's always Mr. January on the calendar. He's got left behind in the real world a wife, and two small children. Afraid of nothing, and quite determined.
Michael Winco - A teenager from an abusive home, still marked from his last beating, and unpopular at school, with few to no friends. Afraid of his family, and of his life.
Samantha Donaldson - Samantha is an early-twenties, attractive, intern at a local news station. She has no strong family ties behind, but a happy life with many friends. Afraid of spiders.
Gordon - Appears to be a 5'11" somewhat shifty looking guy, with a nervous effect around him. Is actually intimately familiar with the characters, their histories, and their phobias. He also knows that if he's killed they escape back to their world, and if they die then he wins, but he can't directly attack them or do anything to them.
The Setting
The setting for this scenario starts as a forest. Full of elms and willows, as well as a bright starry sky and some hungry sounding howls. The forest is endless in all directions, but it will surely adjust as their thoughts take shape.
Here's how the thinking landscape works. First, a player hands you a note with their thoughts. Then you think about how the landscape would be gradually adjusted by these thoughts. If multiple players think the same thing, then change can be both quicker and more drastic. Try to introduce it within context, although slightly off, as in a dream. Imagine dreaming of a terrible woods, stretching forever in any direction. Now, imagine you're thirsty, or hungry - perhaps (quite reasonably), a babbling spring with clear waters appears. Let's say you miss your family, maybe you hear your daughters voice or laughter from in the distance - always out of reach. Introduce these things gradually over time - so don't just immediately read the card. Also, make sure you allow the thoughts to interact. If one person is thinking bears, and another is thinking wolves, and the last is thinking about food - maybe they run into a bear and a wolf fighting over a found bag of trail mix.
One thing is not possible to think about and thus create, and that is the exit. A way out. The only way out is to kill the one who brought them all here - who obviously (as per his character section) had a vested interest in bringing them here. He's their tie to this place - any thoughts of leaving, exits, etc. should not be answered. They're stuck until they deal with Gordon.
Anything that breaches the internal fiction of the landscape in its current form (be it a forest, etc.) requires at least two people to think about it. Basically put, if they want to leave the forest and find a beach - at least two of the three of them had best be thinking about the ocean.
Anything that is 100% non-sequiter needs to be addressed in such a way that would make sense for the internal consistency of the landscape, unless all three think about it together - at which point it simply instantly occurs. For example, let's say Mike was thinking about twinkies. If still in the forest, perhaps the group finds a ripped up backpack, with a twinkie inside. This works doubly well if someone else was thinking about dangerous animals (since this would be evidence of their existence).
Another rule - nothing that they encounter can be sentient. If they think of people, those people aren't simply there, they just hear their voice or see their picture, or something else that fits - but no one but the four of them can ever be in this place. If they all make it to a "city", it'll be deserted. Animals and monsters are ok, but nothing that can talk (which means no parrots either).
Lastly, Gordon's goal is to get the three of them killed, by implanting them with suggestions to think about dangerous things. If he does so, then the fantasy ends. If people die at any point, then he relative nature of the landscape is slightly damaged, changes get more abrupt and need less force to make them occur - they're appearances are less gradual. I.E. if it took three people before to make something instantly occur in a non-sequiter fashion, if two are dead it only takes the thoughts of one.
What is this place? Who is Gordon? Lots of possibilities for that, pick the one that makes the most sense for your group. Maybe it's a collective nightmare, and Gordon is some nightmare creature who feeds on dead minds. Perhaps they've been trapped in some sort of hyper-advanced thought-landscape, and Gordon is the protagonist of an intergalactic prank program that they are being broadcasted on to hundreds of worlds. Perhaps it's all just a nightmare in Gordon's head, and he's simply that sadistic.
This one takes a lot of improvisational skill from the GM, but can be quite a trip for the players (especially if it takes them a long time to figure out the rules), so it's definitely worth it.
The end.
Let me know what you thought of this scenario by E-mailing me at Msturnbull@comcast.net
See you next month!
