The Invisible Carnival

[Simon_Pettersson]

Hi, name's Simon, and it's my first post to the Forge (though I've been lurking around here for some time). I've been thinking about this game for some time now. I like to let a game (or scenario) mature and grow in my mind for a couple of months before I actually write anything down. But I've sort of run into a swamp, and I'm having trouble getting further. So I'll describe what my game's about, what I want players and GMs to do in it, and what my problems are.

The setting: The world in which The Invisible Carnival takes place is quite similar to our own, think England in the late 19th century. It's a very bleak place. The countryside is littered with little towns and villages, in which people lead a dreary existence; they wake up, eat their porridge, go to their job, get home, eat some more and go to sleep, probably without saying two words to their wife. The sun never really shines in this world, it's always foggy or raining.

Or both.

The only colours you see around are different shades of grey and brown. Even the flowers seem to be colour- and odourless. It's a world where nobody really seems very happy. Now, into one of these dreary, grey towns, our heroes, the player characters, a small troupe of Commedia dell'Arte actors enter. They're clad in tattered, old rags, colourful only by comparison to the rest of the world. They come in muddy, rundown carriages pulled by scrawny horses. They set up stage at the town square and hold some performances, earning just enough to get by. Most people see them as a gang of no-good do-nothings, too lazy to get a proper job.

In reality, they'll most likely save the town from destruction.

You see, behind this dreary reality is another. This is the plane of existence of the faeries and trolls, of the elven queens and underworld gnomes. All the creatures that in the other world exist only as myths and fairytales are here, in living colour. They can't really interact much with the regular world (in fact, they can't see most of it). This plane is called, by the few who know of it, the Invisible Carnival. It can be seen by very small children, but that ability disappears quickly, as parents level-headedly explain that it's all in their imagination. But some children are never told this by their parents – maybe because they don't have any – or simply refuse to stop believing. These children never lose the ability to see the Carnival as they grow up, but learn, with some help, to choose which world to see – our heroes the actors. When they put on their masks, they can see the Carnival and interact with it. And they can see and interact with the Blight. The Blight is a terrible thing, an abomination created when people do horrible things to each other. When the butcher goes crazy from the dreariness of his existence and brutally cuts his family into little pieces, when the policeman snaps and shoots his colleagues and himself, the Blight is formed.

It cannot be seen by ordinary people, it's only visible in the Carnival, but it's a horrible threat all the same. The Blight affects people. It steadily grows and it poisons the minds of the populace. A week after the butcher's terrible deed, little Sandy is found in the woods, having nailed three chipmunks to a tree. The mayor's wife keeps trying to kill herself and must be held under watch 24/7. In the Carnival, things are even worse. The Blight manifests itself as tentacles of darkness, crawling with insects, and mouths with rows of razor sharp teeth. It comes out of the ground or thin air and grabs the helpless gnomes and faeries, tear them asunder or devour them whole.

This is what the PCs are fighting. They travel to towns and villages tainted by the Blight and try to set things straight. They have to find out what went wrong, and how to set it straight. All the while, the Blight is there, poisoning the minds of the townspeople. Let your guard down for a second, and little Lisa will be trying to slit your throat with the scissors. And if they succeed, nobody will know what they did, and nobody will thank them. Except the people of the Invisible Carnival.

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Wow. That's a long pitch for the setting. But on the other hand, that's almost all I have. I have no mechanics, only ideas of what the characters will be doing. I see it as a detective story. People don't want to talk about what's happened, and the Blight will try to kill them. I'm not even sure how (or if) they'll fight the Blight. I do have an idea about the GM, though. I'd like him to represent the Blight. I'd like him to be the enemy of the players. I'd like him to really try to kill them. That means there would have to be some serious GM-limiting rules in place.

So here are my questions:

1) Does anyone have ideas on how to limit the GMs power? I'm thinking some sort of resource management, here. He has a couple of tries to get surprise attack on the characters by possessing people with the Blight. And the closer they get to endgame, the more resources he gets. After a while, he'll start to try to posses the characters themselves. Another idea is having a separate player playing the Blight. So the GM is neutral, but all of a sudden, the Blight player spends a point to possess the count and attack the players with the rapier on the wall.

2) Does anyone have ideas on how the endgame could look? I'm thinking either that the PCs have to ”set things right”, but how do you set things right when someone killed a bunch of people and then himself? A more plausible idea might be to simply find out the source of the Blight and there they will find its ”heart” (like the butcher's knife or the policeman's gun). Here they have to fight the Blight in some way (some sort of mental combat where the Blight tries to possess them and make them kill each other?) and destroy its heart.

3) What kind of mechanics should I have? I'm thinking maybe the PCs should have special powers based on the role they're playing in the Commedia dell'Arte. So the Harlequin is extremely agile and Il Capitano is a master of fighting. So some sort of system for the physical fights might be necessary (with ample support for surprise attacks). But the important piece is probably the effect that the Blight has on the characters. They will start to be affected by it just by walking around in town, and they'll also be attacked by it when trying to get to the heart. Maybe some sort of twofold damage system (”creep” damage and ”acute” damage, or something)? I'd love it if the physical and mental systems overlap, so at the same time as you're fighting little Sarah (yes, I think little girls who try to kill you is fun), you have to fight the psychic waves of Blight that's emanating from her. Basically, I know what the characters will be doing, but not what the players should be doing.

4) Is this really just a copy of Dogs in the Vineyard? I haven't read or played that game, but if I could just buy it and exchange the setting, there's really no point of doing this game.

I'm thankful for any comments or ideas you might have. I'm hoping I've explained enough about my vision (there sure is a lot of text), but you can never be sure, so feel free to ask away.

[Sane]

I love the basic idea you've got going there, it's certainly a game I'd be interested in playing once or twice, but I'm a little turned off by the 'fairies and gnomes'. Makes me feel like this essentially dark, gothic setting is being infected with cutesiness. Ok, they get eaten and torn apart and stuff, but even just using those names makes it sound awfully twee. I'd prefer something darker, more twisted, not necessarily evil but unusual.

See, the first thing I think of when I think 'Carnival' is the old-fashioned 'Freak Show', and the connection (albeit a very loose connection) with Voodoo and the Loa known as Baron Samedi in particular. That's the kind of atmosphere I'd want to create if I were making the game. Dark and saturnine, while at the same time being joyful and energetic, with slight undertones of eroticism. And no freakin' zombies.

Recommend you see Neil Gaiman's "Mirrormask", the recent movie "Pan's Labyrinth" (AKA "El Labyrinto Del Fauno") and maybe "The Nightmare Before Christmas" for ideas.

Ash

[Jason Morningstar]

Welcome to the Forge!

Your setting sounds cool.  On the surface the structure is strongly reminiscent of Dogs in the Vineyard (traveling outsiders arrive to restore order), but that is in no way a bad thing.  I'd definitely suggest taking a close look at Dogs, because town creation there provides a highly structured model for creating compelling situation.  There's tons of goodness there and I bet it will be inspirational to you. 

I like the idea of using commedia tropes as a way to differentiate characters.  I love the idea of everyone having a dual role, almost like being ridden by a Loa - I'm mousy little Elsbeth, but I put on my mask and I'm sexy, powerful Innamorata.

My gut feeling is that your concern about combat and sneak attacks may be misplaced - if your game can create interesting conflicts, the Blight can take forms more subtle than the butcher knife in the back.

[baron samedi]

You've got a colourful setting worth exploring, especially if it's aiming for strong scene framing and short games. Seems to me, essentially, like a formalized story structure applied to a world reminiscent of John Tyne's Puppetland. Which is good!

For ideas how to structure your Endgame, you might want to check out a novel and movie called Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury. It's got a similar "corrupted parallel fairy world" theme and is more clearly plotted than the analogous "MirrorMask" movie. Its plotline evolves with the following steps.

1-Beginning: Circus coming to town, offering people their greatest wishes.
2-Hubris: The wishes cause torment in the form of poetic justice (e.g. the ugly woman who wanted beauty also became blind, and can't see herself).
3-Rise of tension: Kids investigate, nobody believes them, more people fall to the monsters.
4-Climax. Monsters try to catch the kids. Desperate battle for help and allies.
5-Endgame. In the carnival proper, the kids triumph by choosing love over fear.

Kids could gather "Good points" and "Blight points" over steps 1-4 with step #5 being the Endgame. Steps could evolve by round-table player turns or gathering enough points for the next steps.

In fact, perhaps you could work something out from Paul Czege's My Life With Master RPG, except that kids would be fighting victims of the Blight instead of its minions.

Good luck,

Erick

[Simon_Pettersson]

Thanks for all the replies. RE Sane, I'm definately not going for "cutesiness". The Carnival is in my mind a very strange place, that's a bit hard for humans to comprehend. The "faeries and gnomes" was probably a bad way of describing it. The creatures aren't good, but not evil either. They work in a different way. Thing is, I want it to connect with children's imaginary worlds, and I don't want long descriptions of "fantasy races" (i.e. The Kreblongs are a race of small creatures with blue skin and red hair...). To avoid this, I'm thinking I'll use more or less well-known creatures. But the inspiration is not fantasy, but folklore. Think of it as old folklore-type elves and gnomes (as opposed to fantasy-type ones), crossed with a carnival freak-show, as you suggest. I tried to find some images to show what I mean, but none seemed to fit. When you go see the elf queen, you're not visiting Galadriel. She'll probably be a stunningly beautiful, pale-skinned woman, clad in a dress of cobweb, wearing a crown of living mistletoe in her hair, which is black like a night sky (you can even see the shimmering stars), surrounded by a court of small, crooked, ugly creatures, all praising her beauty, and sitting on a throne of living roots which constantly seem to slither around, etc. Or something to that effect. I want the Carnival to be like a drug trip through a Grimm's fairy tale. Interestingly enough, the whole idea formed after watching the Mirror Mask (for those who haven't seen it, check out http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/mirrormask/main.html to see what I mean). That's probably the best way to envision the Carnival. That's what I want it to be like, but with folklore-inspired creatures. I also want some of the old myths to be true. For example, nightmares might well be caused by a dark-elf/dwarf sitting on your belly, or a mare riding you in your sleep. But the creatures don't interact physically with the human world, just indirectly. Oh, and it's colourful (but not neccessarily bright), especially compared to the grayness of the human world. I'll probably need a lot of pictures to convey the image. I might post again after I've made some images (but that might take some time).

I just took a look at the trailer for Pan's Labyrinth. It looks very interesting! Thanks a lot for the tip.

And Jason, yes! I never even mentioned it, but you got the idea. The masks change the wearer, definately. You might be a very different person when you put on your mask than you are in ”real life”.

Baron Samedi, I'll have to check out the movie (don't have time for the novel at the moment).I think there might be too few phases for a structuralized story:

Arrival: the characters come into town, set up their show and assess the situation. How bad is it?
Investigation: This will probably take place both in the human world and in the Carnival, to locate the source of the Blight.
Endgame: They battle it out with the Blight.

The main part of the game (which will be quite short, you're correct there) will probably be the investigation. What started the whole business? I'm having difficulty envisioning this as a point-based system triggering the endgame.

[Simon C]

I think the idea of having one player who plays the "Blight" and one who plays the impartial GM would be a cool way to go.  It's different from most other RPGs, and it allows a very adversarial feel without the difficulties of an adversarial GM (which is a nightmare to try to balance).

I'd especially like it if the Blight player got resource points (which could be spent on various creepy effects) based on what the other players did, so causing violence and mayhem feeds the blight, but sometimes it's the only way to beat it. 

For an even stranger feel, I think it would be cool if the "Blight" player controlled a character as well, who was kind of the "Dark Side" of the troupe, the person who when the mask is on, is the link to the Blight, a way of communicating with it.  If you kill the person, another person takes the position, from among the troupe, so everyone's invested in keeping the person alive.  It would have a sort of "Carnivale" feel, where they take the good and evil with them wherever they go.

I think it's also a cool idea to have a list of characters, and also a list of roles (including the "adversary" role from above).  The characters can change, but the roles are always the same, and if someone dies or leaves, another person can take on their role, or rthe others can switch around their roles.  I like the idea of these old masks being kept around, and a new member of the troupe accepting the mantle of a role, that was maybe held by someone years ago.  And some of them are kind of creepy, and some are very powerful, and so on.

This is an idea with a lot of milage, and I look forward to seeing where you take it.

[Simon_Pettersson]

I'm still very sketchy about the mechanics, but I've had some more ideas of late. First off, I think I'll decide on using a Blight player. It takes up an extra player, but I think it'll be worth it. An adversarial GM is a nightmare to balance, as (the other) Simon mentioned, and I do want the players to have someone to beat. I want them to have someone to win over, not just win because of the GMs mercy (Yes, you beat my orcs, but only because I didn't arm them better. You all survived because of my benevolence, hahaha).

For town creation, I still have to take a look at DitV, but I had the idea of using a tarot deck. The Major Arcana would be used to generate locations in the town that are possible sources of the Blight. The High Priest might be a church or the mayor's house, the Fool might be a mental institution, etc. They're laid out in a map-like manner. And the Minor Arcana could be used as dice (exact manner of use still very uncertain). Possibly the cards will start face down, and the players will buy the rights to flip them. Naturally, then, Death would signify the Blight.

I want the investigation part to be a tactical combat between the Blight player and the rest. The Blight should be rewarded for being insidious and clever, and making the characters go to the wrong places. Time should be on the side of the Blight, as the characters will collect Creeping Taint (I think I'll call the psychological ”damage” Taint) as they spend time in the town. The reason I want it to be ”gamey” is to provide some replay value. The story is pretty standardized, so this will be a way to vary gameplay.

Besides the Creeping Taint, there's also Acute Taint, which is dealt to the characters when they combat the Blight (most notably in the endgame, but also combatting possessed townspeople and the ”physical” manifestation of the Blight in the Carnival), and Permanent Taint, which is acquired by doing wicked deeds. If they kill a possessed townsman/woman/child, they get some Permanent Taint. As the name suggests, this never heals between towns, as other Taint does.

I'm not sure how the mechanics should handle the Blight and its way of defeating the characters. I'm not even sure of what the Blight should be doing. I want it to, besides possessing people, spread misinformation and confusion, lead the characters astray and into traps, etc. What kind of mechanic will allow me to do this? I'm fresh out of ideas here, at the moment. I'm thinking that a clever way for the characters to localize the heart of the Blight is by its strength in different places. The closer to the heart, the stronger the Blight will be, so if its attacks are feeble, you're probably far away.

Finally, I'm thinking using completely separate statistics for the characters and the masks, possibly even separate sheets. Partly, it's for emphasizing the difference between the character's normal personality and that of the mask-wearing character, but also since, for the game to be fair and exciting, the Blight player and the rest have to be pretty evenly matched (with some advantage to the characters). This means that characters will die. I don't think it's a game you'll play campaigns in, but you might want to play several times with the same character. Using the old mask on the new character is a fun way of keeping the old one alive, whilst still making a new one.

Oh, and I don't think I want the Blight player to control a character. Sure, it'd be easy to keep the other players from killing him, but it'll be hard to keep him from constantly trying to kill them. Remember, I want the Blight player to do everything in his power to make the characters a wet spot on the pavement. It makes for a much more satisfying win (no matter who wins).

[sean2099]

Perhaps I am missing something here but it almosts seems like the battle is more of hope vs hopelessness.  You have the townsfolk, like us in the 19th century but with a bleaker outlook.  Then there is the Blight, a force that poisons their minds and keeps them focused on the negative.  Then you have the invisible Carnivale, a group of people who see beyond the current situition and see a world of possibility (represented by the world of fey). 

I am seeing different ways this could go.

1.  "Guardians of Hope" The world is so bleak that the masks offer the only glimmer of hope.  Without the masks, no one could see beyond the darkness in the world. If the Blight could lay its hands on the mask, then humanity loses all hope.  Perhaps new masks could be made but its a long arduous process where they have to attuned to a particular person.  It takes awhile and they have to keep their "target's" hope up despite the world.  The Blight would be interested in the target as well. 

2.  "Hope vs. Hopelessness"  Most people possess a glimmer of hope but its buried due to seeing cruelty after cruelty.  A few people, like the players, see beyond the current world and see all of its possibilities.  There are creatures in this world like the mythological beings mentioned in previous posts.  However, there are a few who have lost so much hope that they have given in to the Blight.  They wear masks given to them once they gave up hope.  They see all of the negative invisible creatures in the world but they cannot see the fairies, etc.  Now, they only desire to spread their condition onto other people. 

2b.  What about the natural world?  "This self-awareness thing is overrated.  Blight and Hope are barking up the wrong tree.  Men need to return to the wild, where things are simpler.  Hope and Blight would both lose their hold on the world if this happened."  Now you have three different forces in the world.  One force wants to raise mankind up, one wants to crush it, and one wants to balance it by making all creatures equal.

3.  Does there have to be one Blight?  What if there are several varieties?  One makes people hopeless, one make them place hope in things like greed, murder, etc, one variety changes people into the dark invisible creatures seen only by the PCs and certain NPCs...Now the Blight is a competing mob held together by loosely defined goals instead of a monomanical force.

I just wanted to offer some different "looks" here.  Right now, I have the forces in play and several interesting ideas but I was wondering things like Is the Blight intellgent?  Why does it want to crush mankind's hope?  How does the player combat the Blight without falling prey to it?  What roles do the townsfolk play?

Keep on going with the ideas.

Sean

[Simon_Pettersson]

Well, Sean, that's kinda how I see it. Except I don't really see it as hope versus hopelessness. My vision, which will of course be much clearer in the final product, is that of a battle between imagination and despair. The underlying symbolism is that the gray, lifeless inhabitants of the towns are your everyday people who spend half their day working, half watching TV, and the weekends drinking. The human world in this game is sort of a metaphor for the listless, unexciting life that's a byproduct of modern society. The Carnival is imagination run wild. It's crazy colours, unpredictable events, exciting places, wacky creatures, technicolor stadium surround. The player characters are the free people, not really accepted by society, but unburdened by the living death that plagues the others. They manage to live in both worlds at once, and their lives are so much more interesting (that's why they're the heroes!). The Blight is basically the consequence of the listless life of the unimaginative people. Sooner or later, someone snaps, and that's when things turn bad. The only cure is a healthy dose of imagination and distance to the world. The basic premise is sort of that if Hitler had had some imagination, he wouldn't have invaded Poland.

As for the tone, I want it pretty dark, but the PCs should be leaving the towns a smidgen more colourful than they found it. The reason they can see the Carnival, and hence avoid the hopeless fate of the rest of humanity, is because they never stopped believing. And I'm thinking that, when visiting the towns, they'll occasionally come across and talk to little children on the verge of losing their belief. And they'll blink and whisper "Yes, I see the little creatures, too. Don't worry, they can't hurt you. But don't for a moment think they don't exist, just because your parents can't see them. They exist, despite what everyone says." I think the masks should be quite easy to make, but it takes a good while before they develop. Maybe the characters will even hand a simple paper mask to a child and say "Keep it, but don't tell your parents. Wear it when you want to see and talk to the Carnival creatures, and you'll never lose them, like your parents did."

As to the question "Is the Blight intelligent?" the answer is, "that depends on what you mean". In the sense of being clever, the Blight is highly intelligent. But in the sense of being sentient, the answer is no, the Blight is not a sentient being. The Blight is more of a natural phenomenon, sort of the psychic version of a volcano eruption. It's a consequence of human madness and cruelty, born out of the human mind. It's kind of like, when the mind reaches a large enough concentration of suffering, cruelty and insanity, part of it breaks free and starts to grow by itself. It's a black hole. Once you reach critical mass, it'll collapse on itself and start sucking in everything around it to feed its insatiable hunger. But instead of being a physical phenomenon, it's a mental one, which means the way it develops is much like a living creature, not because it is one, but because it is born of one.

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Quick note on the mechanics ideas I've been having. I'm toying with the idea of having a Blight Arcana, a part of the Major Arcana of the tarot deck, consisting of five to ten cards. During conversation, the Blight Player can slip a card to the GM, to tell him what sort of influence the Blight has over the person. The cards vary from the Fool (just a ruse, to fool the players. No influence) to Death (possession and attempt to kill the characters).

To make it easier for the Blight Player to fool the other players, I'm considering letting him do all the talking, with the condition that untainted persons may not lie, and the players can use skills and resources to make them speak (as they'll refuse to talk by default). I'm a bit concerned that this'll make play too boring for the GM, though, who is suddenly more or less only responsible for framing scenes.

[sean2099]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for explaining some of your concepts in more depth for me.  I guess I was splitting hairs there but I hope the comments tried to help.  As for the mechanics, I just wanted to point that Ron Edwards wrote a thread here about splitting gaming responsibility.  I am not going to try and outprose him but he explains how splitting up gaming duties can be a good thing...this refers to in-game roles and "real life" social responsibility.  If you find the article, I believe this will help with what you are doing right now.

Sean

[JCunkle]

Nice concept for a game, this would be right up my alley, and that of the group I play with.

Have you given any though to having one of the players being linked to the blight, without knowing it?
That could, in itself, become the focus for the game...   "Is it me? . . .   I hope it's not me. . . No, it's defenitly her . . ."
The game play might be like a certain game about samurai travelling up a mountain...

Really, any mechanic that alows the players to transfer the blame of being the blight's unwitting slave might be nice.  Rather than Fan mail, it'd be hate mail.

Jeremiah