=============== GHOSTS =============== by Jason Morningstar --------------- INTRODUCTION --------------- Ghosts is a game for four players. It could work with more but it won't work with less. It is a kinesthetic game - there's a lot of touching and you must sit close to one another. Ideally, you play in total darkness. I designed it as a game a blind person could play without impediment. ------------------------------ THE CITY OF THE SUN ------------------------------ The city is under siege. Choose a character. As the **Old Monarch**, you are well-loved but infirm, frail in body and mind but enjoying the unquestioned loyalty of the nobility. Some say you are not as fragile as you appear. The Prince Regent is your son and rules in your stead. As the **General**, defender and war-lord of the city, you command every warrior upon the beleaguered ramparts. A thousand loyal soldiers live or die on your order. Some say the city does, too. The Prince Regent is your liege lord. As the **Dimber-Damber**, you are the ruler of all the canting crews and criminals in the city. The seething underclass answers to you, and on your word the machinery of daily life grinds on - or grinds to a halt. The Prince Regent is a reasonable man and your best customer. As the **Anchorite**, you fulfill the implacable needs of the terrible, ancient Gods who sleep beneath the great city. The priests and priestesses in temple, fortress, and slum are your eyes and ears, and the Gods themselves speak with your voice. The Prince Regent is clay to be shaped into a more perfect ruler. As the **Architect**, your heavy burden is to shine a light on the darkness of filth and barbarity that surround you. All learned men and women rally to your cause and through them - slowly, ever slowly - you effect change. The Prince Regent holds the purse that fuels engine of progress. As the **Destroyer**, you lead a hardened cadre of mercenary soldiers, hated and feared professionals who keep the city safe in exchange for gold and other considerations. Your troops are adept at demonstrating the correctness of your occasional points of order. The Prince Regent is your employer. As the **Champion**, you fight for an ideal, and a small army of zealots go to war in your wake. Countless more cheer you from the shadows. Some say your devotion to the city's freedom masks greater - and less noble - ambitions. The Prince Regent is your nemesis. As the **Magician**, you traffic in demons. You draw them from the very stones of the city and bend them to your will - and that of your employers. Sometimes they whisper secrets in your ear. Those fools who aspire to the dark arts crowd around you and eagerly do your bidding. The Prince Regent is your patron. As the **Grand Slave**, you do as you are told. While the world once trembled at your name, now you are a trophy of war. A broken thing - or so you appear. All those enslaved within the city are your brothers and sisters, and slaves of slaves - for you are their master, just as the Prince Regent is yours. As the **Ambassador**, you are merely an observer to the recent unpleasantness. Your Lord and Lady are far away, and you have only an extensive retinue to remind you of more pleasant pastures. Still, you do what you can to cement good relations with whoever wields influence in this miserable, besotted backwater. The Prince Regent is your diplomatic challenge and opportunity. ------------------------------ SITUATION ------------------------------ The King is old and weak. The Prince Regent rules the city. Everyone has a strong agenda of their own, as well as VIGOR, represented by five beads. Each player also plays a **ghost**. Ghosts either want to ATONE for a crime or AVENGE a wrong committed on them. Each ghost is focused on the character of the player to their right, and will seek to either aid them or ruin them, player's choice. One or the other, decide immediately. You'll still touch both scene partners, but with the aim of influencing the circumstances of your "target" character. OR ... you just decide how you feel about all three other characters and take it from there. This prevents a situation where I'm both scene partner and ghost of some other dude. Lights are off. Play in darkness. Any player can frame a scene for any two characters. Ghosts are not characters. Those two characters (or their representatives - you could have a scene between a common soldier, representing the General's influence, and, say, the Sorcerer) play out a little scene and find a conflict. The ghosts may choose to influence the scene. They have three choices: 1. Do nothing. 2. Influence - by touching the player, they indicate influence. 3. Dominate - by grabbing the player and hanging on, they indicate possession. Influence means some evidence of the supernatural enters the scene - a cold wind, a bad smell, whatever. It is worth ONE POINT. Domination is worth THREE POINTS. When you dominate, you must whisper a sentence in the person's ear and they must, at some point, say it in the scene. Since both ghosts interact with both living scene partners, laying a hand on each, there are six possible combinations: *Nothing/nothing: 0 *Influence/nothing: 1 *Influence/Influence: 2 *Nothing/Dominate: 3 *Influence/Dominate: 4 *Dominate/Dominate: 6 ------------------------------ SCENES ------------------------------ When the scene reaches a decision point, the two living players confer by touching hands - the player who has more points (0-6) will win the conflict, and the scene is resolved. The winner loses a point of VIGOR. When a character runs out of vigor, they are a lifeless puppet of the ghosts, who may automatically dominate them in every conflict and whisper instructions. A Vigor-less character automatically loses every conflict they enter. The game will find its own course, theme, and ultimate resolution.