The second session of Black Stars Rise went well. The game runs great. In this session the characters found that pictures of halls in the building show extra doors. The reporter got the artist to sketch a section of wall the librarian bashed through the outer surface of.
Instead of sketching the patchwork of different wall types under the drywall, the artist ended up sketching a wall full of doors without realizing it. He then decide to try opening a door in the picture. It worked. He failed to keep it together and perfectly drew Other Me. The door was the door to his other self’s office where he had his medical practice.
The other characters went in and spoke with him there. The reporter’s babble insanity meant he could only speak coherently to he doctor or everyone else. When they exited the office, he became the artist again.
It got crazier from there, even after they shutdown the problems in the apartment building it had spread elsewhere. The artist has a video of the building unfolding like a flower into many different possible versions of itself. They are now off to save people lost elsewhere.
It got very crazy! I thought we were going to be buried under an avalanche of insanity. So far in the game, my Father Dennis has avoided any problems owing to his fantastic Steady +2, but I did take a hit once Ricardo opened the door in his bloody painting. That gave me goose bumps in real life!
With everyone else going bonkers, I just had to go outside to chill, with NPC Ruth, to to regain my sanity.
Adam Koebel Sage LaTorra
There was also the horrifying moment when the SWAT team the cop called in (four guys with a van and a battering ram – it’s a small town) attempted to break down the door the artist drew in the wall. It opened of it’s own accord, and closed again, locking them inside.
While it got very crazy, I also felt we had a better handle on things. There were recognizable patterns that we exploited to our benefit, almost like we were learning how to use magic. That’s why I had my character ask the artist to sketch the walls rather than risk more damage to our cameras.
Move-wounding and randomly drawn insanities are both wonderful mechanics. They add a lot of flavour, and provide amazing jumping off points for role-play and story. I vividly remember my character insisting that he is fine – in Japanese, while the other characters are trying to rush him to the hospital. I also remember when the cop suddenly couldn’t see the Priest anymore, and when the Librarian couldn’t see the Artist. Really freaky. They DO add up though. At one point, I stopped rolling Keep It Together as much – we got into the habit of voluntarily rolling Keep It Together whenever something we thought was sufficiently weird happened., and after my third insanity, I decided enough was enough. I’m not sure how much of that was me figuring my character had seen enough that he wasn’t getting more freaked out than he already was, and how much was my reluctance to track yet another insanity.
I’m not a fan of horror generally. But this is a lot of fun.
Best moments:
The priest asking the librarian to go to costco with him, so they could buy a bunch of pillows so he could muffle the freaky knocking sound coming from inside the altar of his church. And the librarian agreeing, if they can also buy some baseball bats, hip waders, snorkles, cold lights, and a lot of nylon rope.
The cop, who had not suffered any insanities, explaining to the SWAT team correctly and in great detail what was going on, and sounding like a madman. Then the priest (who’s Unitarian and really cool) explaining that someone has been cooking psychadellic drugs in the building, and we’re all suffering from bad trips.
My character asking the artist “Can you draw?”
“Well, most of my work is in video installations and collage, but I do teach at the university you know…”
“Yes, but can you actually draw?”
Sean Winslow portrays the Artist in a hilarious and genre appropriate fashion. The Playbook really encourages insane behaviour.
Also, the different takes on the situation from the different players is great. Michael Atlin has his Reporter grimly pragmatic about it while cracking. The Librarian is ruthlessly focused on extinguishing the situation. Michael Prescott is playing the Priest as someone trying to ground everyone (“what matters is your relationship to yourself” is something he’s said a lot in helping people deal with it). The cop is totally sane and taking things hard as he sees more and more screwed up stuff.
It has been lots of fun, and the combination of a great playbook and basically choosing the most hilariously wrong choice at every juncture has made the Artist a blast.
If I were to suggest one change, it would be that gaining an insanity should heal the Keep it Together move. Since insanity is a coping measure, you should be able to cope, outside of the insanity, of course.