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If your characters frequent yard sales and flea markets, they might encounter some of the following items:

A jar of water from an old well where a voice cries, “Where is my body?” on the night of the new moon.
A mantel clock.  A drop of blood appears on the dial each night at 11:11.
A tarnished silver ring with a spider engraved on the inside along with the date 7/9/1992.
A 1961 yearbook in which the eyes of every other picture have been blacked out with a pen.

A shoebox full of railroad spikes.  Anyone who sleeps in the room with the box dreams of riding a train on a foggy night.

A cigar box full of pennies with strange runes gouged into the tails side of each.

An hourglass full of nail clippings instead of sand.

A photo album of polaroids showing piles of clothes.  A red candle rests on each pile.

An old grade-school dictionary.  A torn medical file has been tucked between the pages.  It describes a patient with geometric scars.

A high school varsity jacket found draped over a grave.

A framed photo of a family smiling while standing around a child tied to a tree.

An old teddy bear with one ear that sighs when the first traces of sunlight appear each morning.

An unlabeled LP of someone reciting poetry in Hittite while pigs grunt in the background.

An old VHS tape recording a group of middle school students rehearsing a skit.  A pale face peers through the window behind them.

A program from the 1954 county fair that includes the Incantation of the Cairns in the list of events.

An old metal protractor that is 1d6+3⁰ off in each measurement.

A cast-iron bank shaped like a wood-belly stove.  Inside are coins dating from the 1910s through the 1960s and a note reading, “I am a prisoner here.”

A baseball bound in human skin.

A postcard showing a picture of Main Street during the 1950s.  The back bears the address of a house that was torn down years ago along with the message, “See you at the weeping tree.”

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Running Free

Photo by Dominik Schröder

Running Free is a story game for two or three players about teens on a journey to find connection, wonder, and mischief.  Using a deck of cards and a map created before the game, players narrate the experiences of a group of teens who have ventured out on a spring or summer night, violating the local curfew to wander the streets of their small hometown.

You will need to create a setting and cast of characters.  The story takes place in a town of 5000-10,000 people.  Going around the table, quickly sketch out the major streets of the town and add a few key landmarks and labels for different areas (e.g., a circle for "trailer park behind lumber mill" or a star for the old grade school the characters attended).  You can also use the map to note events during the game.  The story can take place any time during the last quarter of the twentieth century.  Cell phones are non-existent or extremely uncommon in your small town.  You might want to pull up a playlist of songs from the year you’ve chosen for your story.

You will also need to describe the teens taking the night journey.  Take turns adding traits to each of the two or three characters.  Each teen should have three or four traits or tags.

The player who most recently went for a walk at night goes first.  At the beginning of each scene, the narrator draws a card to establish the focus and another player draws to determine a subtheme.

• Hearts:  connection (friendship and romance)
• Spades:  wonder (awe and sublime beauty)
• Diamonds:  mischief (shenanigans and delinquency)
• Clubs:  curfew (cops and other authorities)

The narrator crafts a scene, weaving together the themes determined by the cards and the story that has unfolded so far.  Other players can ask questions or make suggestions if the narrator is stuck.

A mischief/wonder scene finds the characters discovering an unlocked door at the Methodist church.  Two start to write a note from Satan to leave on the pulpit, but the third character calls them up to the bell tower where they look out and see stars shining over the town.

During a connection/curfew scene the characters go to a friend’s house to see if they want to join the trek.  Just as they toss a pebble at the friend’s window, headlights flash across the lawn and a cruiser shudders to a stop as the characters run between houses to escape.

Keep cards drawn by the narrators in stacks by suit.  When a narrator draws a card that would put the total over twenty-one the scene describes some kind of turning point related to that theme.  The characters could declare their love for one another during a connection scene, or see a shooting star during a wonder scene.

There is no sub-theme if the narrator draws a club.  Instead, the second player draws to determine how the characters escape.  If the card is black, they use their wits.  If red, they rely on sheer speed and adrenaline.  Although they escape from the cops, the close call casts a shadow over the journey.  Randomly discard a card of the suit drawn by the second player to reflect the setback.  Do not discard a setback card from a theme that has reached a turning point.  Do not keep a running total of curfew cards.

The characters end their journey after they've reached turning points in connection, wonder, and mischief (for a shorter game you can use only one or two themes).  One scene unfolds after the night the teens spent wandering the town.  Players draw cards and the high card narrates a scene that takes place ten years after the journey.  One of the characters has returned to the town, and as they visit old haunts the events of the night come to mind.  The player describes how the character feels about the events, focusing on ways that life events in the decade since the journey and changes in the town itself shape their reflection.

Inappropriate Robots

One afternoon my friend Julie turned to me and randomly said, "You should make a game called 'Inappropriate Robots.'"  I rushed to find a notebook.

Inappropriate Robots

Inappropriate Robots is a word game designed to be played by a group of people as they stroll along or drive together.  During their turn, a player will use four elements to describe a vile or uncouth piece of technology:

1.  An adjective.
2.  A noun to serve as a subject.
3.  A verb.
4.  A noun to serve as a direct object.

The subject and direct object can be compound nouns or proper nouns, so "The saucy VHS rewinder tickles Philo Farnsworth" would be perfectly acceptable.  The player scores one point for each element they can actually see while describing the robot. 

After a few moments have passed and the group has continued its journey the next player takes a turn.  Players cannot repeat elements used in earlier turns unless they see another one during their turn.

Each player gets three turns.  The player with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.

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The Magnolia's Shadow

Early on the morning of 24 March a neighbor noticed that the front door of the Cutright home was open.  He soon discovered that the family was missing, and that someone had scratched the words "The Magnolia's Shadow" on a bedroom door. . . .

The Magnolia's Shadow is a collaborative writing game in which players create clues related to the family's strange disappearance and then craft explanations for the mystery.  You will need access to Wikipedia to play.

Play unfolds over the course of about a week.  Each morning for five days, players visit Wikipedia and read a random article (just search for "special:random").  The article provides inspiration for a clue, which can include evidence found by the police at the scene, background about the Cutright family, or town gossip.  The player then writes a short description of the clue and adds it to a shared document or email chain for the others to read.

A player receives the entry for the Peter, Paul, and Mary album Peter, Paul, and Mommy.  Perhaps police found the CD playing on repeat in a bedroom.  Maybe--inspired by “Leatherwing Bat”--investigators found pages torn from birdwatching guides scattered around the house.

Another player ends up with the entry for Eastern Finland Province.  Inspired by the bow in the coat of arms shown in the article, she writes how the Cutright father blinded another camper in one eye during archery practice as a child.

At the end of the week the group selects five random clues from the list they've created.  You can print the clues and draw them from a hat, or assign a number to each clue and roll to see which ones will be used in the final round.  However the clues are chosen, every player incorporates the same five clues into her explanation of the family's disappearance.  As a variant, the group can pick three clues that everyone will use and allow each player to pick two additional clues at random.  

Players can write the explanations from the from any perspective they choose, such as police investigating the event or teenagers describing the disappearance in an urban legend.  Share the explanations with other players, preferably while driving down a dark, lonely road.

 

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The Sound of Black Wings

Painting by  Mikoláš Aleš.

The Sound of Black Wings is the result of NaGaDeMon 2018.  The horror game* grew out of experiences running around the woods when I was a kid and some of the weirder happenings when I began bird watching as an adult:  deer staring at us in unsettling ways, getting lost on looping trails, abandoned hospitals peeping out above the treeline, the strange laughter of other bird watchers.  As the game unfolds, players narrate the experiences (and growing tensions) of a group of bird watchers, and then describe what happens to the group when things go horribly wrong.

*  I started to write "survival horror game" but realized that would be terribly misleading.  Everyone in The Sound of Black Wings dies.

AetherCon!

AetherCon VII is coming up in a little over two months.  It's a great way to explore new games, meet new friends, and wander lands unknown.  We'll keep you updated about Wheat Penny-related events.

At Night All Cats are Grey

The short horror-fantasy adventure "At Night All Cats are Grey" originally appeared in slightly different form in Protodimension Magazine as "Hunting Ground."  The scenario was inspired by the library in my hometown--a cozy, welcoming place made oddly unnerving by the works of taxidermy displayed in the children's reading room.