Paroxysm: Playtesting One-off

[Nathaniel]

I GMed a two hour one-off session of my new sci-fi horror rpg, Paroxysm.  It was a simple little scenario where the characters are trapped on a ship as an alien horror picks them off one at a time.

There were three PCs: a "efficiency consultant" in his late thirties (the guy whom big companies hire to determine who gets fired during layoffs), a Marshall on route the the next star system trying to track down and capture an escapee from a prison for the criminally insane and a private investigator who's case was leading him to the next destination.

It was nice that the players understood the genre.  They had a near brush with whatever it was that was after them and their characters were noticibly shaken.  They were trying their best to figure out how to restore power to the ship, complete the docking process and escape onto the space station to which it was partially attached.  The engine room was gigantic and they decided to split up to cover more ground.  It was a rather grimm moment because everyone knew that when you split up in a sci-fi horror movie or show, someone dies.

Paroxysm allows players to make some director stance narrations and modifications as part of their contribution to the shared imagined story.  The player of Reginald Black, the business consultant volunteered a nice little tidbit:

"After we've split up past the point where we can't really see eachothers' flares anymore, Reginald hears a noise behind him and spins around..."

Players aren't ever allowed to make statements about aliens or the supernatural, but they are allowed to make statements about their characters reactions, even to imagined circumstances.  As my GM, it was my option what to do next.  I could have it be an escaped pet, a child, the monster, etc. that made that noise.  Or I could have it be nothing at all.  Given that the player knew that one of them would die and set his character up for it, I obliged him and had it be the monster.  Soon it had it's vice like hands around his throat and it was all over for Mr. Black.

After this, the private detective found Mr. Black's body-- with a crushed throat and with his face and throat covered in cold burns and blistering.  His descent into complete and total panic began here.  They immediately decided to trying to find some space suits, open the airlock manually and chance the last bit of distance from the ship to the station.

Unfortunately, the gravity field gave out at this point and the ship shifted back to zero gravity.  The two remaining characters madly dashed about, looking for space suits and trying desperately to keep tabs on what was up and what was down (as their flares were running out).  Robert Bruce, the PI, ended up encountering the monster again and completely lost it and took off down the tunnels of the ship.  

Martial Tazz tried to catch up with him but instead encountered the creature.  After a valiant struggle where the good Mashall tried to use his hand gun, then his knife and finally a screwdriver he had picked up, the creature dispatched him.

Robert Bruce ended up finding a suit amidst his mad shufflings about the ship.  He made it all the way out the airlock, shutting it behind him just as the alien horror caught up to him.  He managed to boost his way across to the station, which, to his horror, also appeared to be without power.  He manually cranked open the airlock and entered the station.  He opened the second airlock door and started his last flare.  

"As you lift your flare, you notice 4 or 5 tall grey forms, black smoke flowing from their eye-sockets.  They move towards you reaching for you with their gigantic three fingered hands."

"Fade to black.  Credits."

The players who lost their characters still participated.  One of them saw fit to make statements concerning the various different things he came accross while he was alone.  The other added effects to his failing sanity and volunteered noises, creaking and other sensory info that may or may not have been the imaginings of a panicked man.

I figured out that I need more guidelines for the mental health rules.  Things are two cut and dry and it leaves a little too much to the players to come up with effects on the spot.  A nice sheet of suggestions, what different results might look like at different severities would make a great resource for the players for better narrating their insantiy and the insanity of others.

For those interested, there's a sample page of Paroxysm available here:
http://nenigma.netfirms.com/paroxysm5.pdf  -- the example of play uses the same scenario and there's a picture of the thing that was hunting them (which I created from an old unfinished painting of mine scanned in and photoshopped to completion).  By the end of the week, I'll be releasing the quick play rules and launching a small website.  Hopefully two weeks after that will see the release of the full pdf version.

I'm looking for suggestions on the best way to reflect the mental health of characters in a game where the breakdown of such is often in the forefront of the narration.  So far I have two scales: emotions and rationality, which range from 0 to 10.  Rationality represents their grip on reality while emotions represents their current emotional stability.  Also, each character has a couple mental health related descriptors that give direction for narrating insantiy.  As they experience horrible things, they lose points off their scale and different results occur.  Has anyone come accross the *perfect* mental health/insanity system?

Combat was fairly brutal.  The game doesn't have a *combat system* per se.  Some characters might have combat related skills, but it's just an opposed roll with the players and GM narrating results (all damage is simply recorded as a descriptor).

Another thing I would really like some suggestions on is a mechanic that better guides when players can make narrations.  Right now I have it pretty much completley open but with GM veto (and a complete prohibition on statements about aliens or the supernatural).  I'd love to figure out some sort of system like Donjon or the Pool or a myriad of other games.  The problem though, is maintaining the atmosphere of horror.  Two much sweeping control and things aren't very creepy or scary anymore.

Thanks for reading this super long post,

Nathan Hiebert

[Mike Holmes]

Has anyone come accross the *perfect* mental health/insanity system?

Have you seen Unknown Armies? Sorry it it's been pointed out already.

Mike