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(From The Heavens To The Center)
To play this game, you’ll need at least two other people and temporary pigments that are okay to use on human skin. No permanent markers.
Your characters live in a city, surrounded by desert. The city has fallen, or is on the verge of falling - your characters’ community is tenuous. The desert is wild and dangerous and full of hidden things.
Talk for a while with each other about what that means. Develop character concepts with each other. let your characters influence the setting, or vice versa. Feel free to make up history, society and background NPCs as needed. At some point, you’ll be ready to play.
There are two stages to play: desert and city.
Eventually, there will be something your character needs that they can’t find in the city. They must go out into the desert. Water for a community dying of thirst, gasoline to fill your almost-empty car, a part-time job to pay the rent, or a cursed emerald as big as your head because You Want It are all good reasons.
If it’s your character who is going out, it’s your round. You must take at least one other character with you. At least one player must sit out. If no one wants to go with you, your character must do without and the round passes to the player to your left. If no one wants to stay, the player with the most marks who isn’t leading the round must stay.
During a desert round, each player takes turns narrating. Players with characters in the desert narrate the actions of their characters. One of their goals is to have memorable experiences. Players sitting out narrate the world. Their goals are to provide challenge, put characters in tight spots, and create opportunities for memorable experiences.
The round ends when all characters either find what they’re looking for and return, give up and return, or are overcome. Each player of a surviving character chooses one player who accompanied them. Rhey paint a mark on that player’s arm that represents a moment from this round, something significant or memorable. Ideally it should be something abstract or symbolic. If there’s no more space, that player must wipe off one of their current marks to make some.
At the end of the round there is a city stage, in which the current characters react to what happened in the desert and participate in city life. All players are free to narrate the world as well as their characters, including supporting NPCs. The goals of this stage are decompression and freeform character development.
When it is appropriate, another player takes on the next desert round. The default assumption is that the round goes to the player to the left of the previous round-holder, but players may prefer to have the decision rise organically from play.
During desert stages, a character’s players are only allowed to narrate their character’s actions, but this also covers their character’s reactions, including bodily integrity. World players can put characters in situations that will almost certainly result in harm, but only the character’s player says if that harm occurs. There are two exceptions. The first is that a character’s player can choose to wipe off one of their marks in order to narrate a single statement about the world, like a world player can. The other is that if a character’s player has no marks at the end of a desert round, their character leaves the game in whatever manner they choose.
Notes:
Credits: We Know The Devil, With Those We Love Alive, Game Chef
To play this game, you’ll need at least two other people and temporary pigments that are okay to use on human skin. No permanent markers.
Your characters live in a city, surrounded by desert. The city has fallen, or is on the verge of falling - your characters’ community is tenuous. The desert is wild and dangerous and full of hidden things.
Talk for a while with each other about what that means. Develop character concepts with each other. let your characters influence the setting, or vice versa. Feel free to make up history, society and background NPCs as needed. At some point, you’ll be ready to play.
There are two stages to play: desert and city.
Eventually, there will be something your character needs that they can’t find in the city. They must go out into the desert. Water for a community dying of thirst, gasoline to fill your almost-empty car, a part-time job to pay the rent, or a cursed emerald as big as your head because You Want It are all good reasons.
If it’s your character who is going out, it’s your round. You must take at least one other character with you. At least one player must sit out. If no one wants to go with you, your character must do without and the round passes to the player to your left. If no one wants to stay, the player with the most marks who isn’t leading the round must stay.
During a desert round, each player takes turns narrating. Players with characters in the desert narrate the actions of their characters. One of their goals is to have memorable experiences. Players sitting out narrate the world. Their goals are to provide challenge, put characters in tight spots, and create opportunities for memorable experiences.
The round ends when all characters either find what they’re looking for and return, give up and return, or are overcome. Each player of a surviving character chooses one player who accompanied them. Rhey paint a mark on that player’s arm that represents a moment from this round, something significant or memorable. Ideally it should be something abstract or symbolic. If there’s no more space, that player must wipe off one of their current marks to make some.
At the end of the round there is a city stage, in which the current characters react to what happened in the desert and participate in city life. All players are free to narrate the world as well as their characters, including supporting NPCs. The goals of this stage are decompression and freeform character development.
When it is appropriate, another player takes on the next desert round. The default assumption is that the round goes to the player to the left of the previous round-holder, but players may prefer to have the decision rise organically from play.
During desert stages, a character’s players are only allowed to narrate their character’s actions, but this also covers their character’s reactions, including bodily integrity. World players can put characters in situations that will almost certainly result in harm, but only the character’s player says if that harm occurs. There are two exceptions. The first is that a character’s player can choose to wipe off one of their marks in order to narrate a single statement about the world, like a world player can. The other is that if a character’s player has no marks at the end of a desert round, their character leaves the game in whatever manner they choose.
Notes:
Credits: We Know The Devil, With Those We Love Alive, Game Chef