Playing as Belief

[Demonspahn]

I once came up with a idea for a game in which the characters played "imaginary friends", protecting children (their wards) as best they could.   Now I'm thinking Drop Dead Fred vs. the evil stepmother _and_ the monsters of Closetland.  OK, maybe that's silly.  But, would a concept like this fit in with Little Fears and if so, does anyone have any thoughts on how?  

I guess each character would be tied to a child's Belief.  Maybe a group of Beliefs/imaginary friends would be centered around one particularly important child, or the group could be mixed between real children and imaginary friends.  I guess the real trick would be maintaining the "feel" of Little Fears and not having the game devolve into a mini (as in child) super powers game.

Pete  

PS - Jason, as a relatively new father, your book really put me on edge.  The real world horrors didn't bother me so much, we all know what's out there, but now I honestly wonder what I will say when my daughter starts telling me about the monster in her closet.  :)

[Comte]

Hey I was actually kicking around a similar idea.  However i was going to hold off on advanceing it any untill the closet land book comes out.  That way I think I will have a better idea of just where beleif magic stands in the struggle of the children versus evil.  I would also like to get some games under my belt before I start tinkering.  Still if you want to kick ideas around I'll be glad to help.  I would of replyied earlyer but I spent most of the time doing finals and kicking around the idea you proposed.

[Comte]

Christ I just spent an hour typeing up my ideas for this but the browser crashed and now it's all gone.  When I have the energy I'll do it again.

[Demonspahn]

Christ I just spent an hour typeing up my ideas for this but the browser crashed and now it's all gone.

Man, I _hate_ it when that happens.  Can't wait to see your ideas though.  

Pete

[Comte]

Alrighty then.  Anyway the way I decided to go about doing this is by looking at what exactly imagniary freinds do, how they act, and what they look like.  These three things will be handled in reverse order because I just now realized I typed them backwards.  Anyway the way they look and act is definatly along the lines of the Drop Dead Fred/Little Monstors vein.  They get kids into harmless good fun, provide them with someone to talk to, and is general there for them whenever they need it.  That is what the child sees with their imagniary freind.  Someone who is there to do stuff with every once in a while.
  The way imaginary freinds actually are would be a cross between the room mate from a Beautiful Mind and a gaurdien angel.  You see with the ethos I am kicking around imaginary friends are half spirts half pure beleif magic.  They are half real but they can only been seen and effected in a sort of spiritual relm.  This spiritual relm is mostly in control of Closet Land.  In fact this is how I have crossing overs happen, several of these spirts get together, peel our world back, and reveil send whom ever happens to be around into closet land.  
    An imaginary freind manifests itself when a child beleives in one, this is both a benift and a weakness.  In an imaginary freind you will have a best freind.  But it also opens up a weakeness that allows the spirts to get in.  This is where the game aspect takes hold.  An imaginary freind can see all these spirts, he can see the evil inside of them and he knows that they want to take controll of the kid.  An imaginarty freind is in almost constant battle with these spirts trying to ward them off and to keep his creator safe.  It is a fairly bigh job and the imaginary freind is more than overmatched.  He has to use his wits and planning to keep his child safe.  
    When an imaginary freind looses and the spirits gain control they take the place of the imaginary freind.  To the child they will most likely notice no diffrence at all.  The friend will still look and act the same, there will only be subtle little changes.  Now the harmless mischif that we all seemed to of gotten into as children will take a vaugly sinister turn and it won't be so harmless anymore.  The spirt will use the child's trust against him and lure him into closet land, or to do dangerouse and hurtful things to the people around him.  It is up to the imaginary freind to get contol of the child's body back.  This is where some of the horror comes in because as the child dose progressivly worse and worse things the displaced imaginary friend can only watch helplessly as he struggles to get back in controll.  These guys don't have souls they only excist as long as the child beleives in them, once they are gone they never were.  It's quite a sobering thought when you think about it.
    Anyway.  The way a play group would work is that imaginary freinds can all see each other, and when a group of freinds gets together a bond forms between them and they can work together trying to ward off the dangrouse sprits that are all around thier creators at any given time.  Whenever the children go off to fight a great evil or to save one of their own there is a multitude of spirts about.
    Lets define the spirts in greater detail now.  These spirts are evil creations of closetland.  They fully excist in closet land and only half excist in out world.  They can not physicaly effect anything, in fact all they seem to be able to do is occationaly pull back reality giveing enterence into closet land or gaining control of a child through use of an imaginary freind.  Spirts are as varied and as horrible as the closet monster and they all use a wide variety of tactics to try to gain control of the child.
    The younger a child is the stronger and more real the imaginary freind is, and as the child gets older the weaker he gets.  This is due to both the dwindleing beleif and the reduction of their releince on the imaginary freinds.  This isn't always the truth, the exception is known as schozophrania.  Also imaginary freinds don't always have to be good.  Some times they can't handle the fact that one day they are going to phase out of excistense and they will do everything in thier power to stay as real as they can.  This could lead to some distressing choises about killing a childs imaginary freind then seeing the after effects due to that.
     For charecter generation I think it would be a two fold process.  First they would  make up a child throught the tradtional little fears vein.  This child would have to have a hightly developed background and be fairly young.  Then based on that child stats and beleif we can get the stats for the imaginary freinds.  Then you need to think of a description and some other things and you are off.

I'll do adventure ideas next time.

[Comte]

I was in the middle of playing Diablo when a freind instant messaged me and the game crashed.  So in a fit of depression I've wandered here.  Alright when it is all said and done it dosn't matter how cool your idea is if you can't write adventures for it easly.  That's what makes little fears neat, not the struggle for inspiration but the stuggle to choose from the flood of ideas.  Anyway this has been a long enough into so lets get on with it.

Children are happy freewheeling little things that go where they want and do more or less as they please.  Thier imagniary freinds can only make vauge suggestions and hope the kids listen.  Haveing said that more often than not children find themselves playing in areas that isn't exactly safe for them.  Why is this?  Well mostly because Spirts, being evil things from Closet Land, tend to congegate in areas of extream truma and pain, espeicaly where loss of inocents is involved.  Since inocents is only lost by children, these area's are usually ripe with pain, trauma, loss of innocence, and horrible things like that.  These are things like play grounds, day care centers, schools, places the children find themselves in a lot, either by choise or by force.  There for it is these places that the imaginary freind must be the most on gaurd.  

Imaginary freinds can only go so far from thier children.  The farther they go the weaker they get...I took a 5 minut break for a bit and realized this has nothing to do with adventure ideas.  I'm also hungry.  THe conclusion I must be in love.  As soon as I go destroy the object of my obesssion I will return

[Demonspahn]

Hi,

You went totally opposite from what I was originally thinking (which was Imaginary Friends are always the "good guys") but I like your ideas better as they more fit the game.  

Here's another twist, and this might have been what you meant, but what if there were no spirits, but the IF itself is dual natured.  The "good side" of it is in control most of the time, helps/befriends the child and earns its trust while the "bad side" occasionally takes control and leads the child into petty mischief (both physical, emotional and spiritual).  I would almost call this the Drop Dead Fred Mechanic.  

Adventures would consist not only of protecting the child, but of keeping the bad side in check.  Don't know what kind of adventures or how it would all play out though.  

Been extremely busy lately, but I have been mulling over your post and will post something more in depth when I get a chance.

Pete

[Comte]

Alright it's 3:30am on my 4 consecutive night without being able to sleep very well.  My thoughts have become more and more erratic and this will probley need a heafty re-write but here it goes anyway.

My ideas have problems, big ones I can feel them as I respond to this topic and it is starting to bug me.  So mabey if I let you know what's bugging me you can help me out.

First of all the horror dosn't seem in it.  I mean I have all sorts of neat little adventure ideas scuttleing through my head but they read more like a D&D adventure than anything related to horror.  This might have something to do with me writeing for toon and SLA the last couple of weeks but I don't think so.  

Second I've run a couple of protchion adventures in the past but it seems like they don't work out so well.  Partly it's my fault but also players don't like things comeing to them and they just standing around.  I mean that's just playing the city guard and it dosn't work.  So I've tried to incorportate some more movement and freedom into my last post.  Also since the child reguarly inhabits areas where the spirts roam the imaginary freinds can be ready.  

I got it.  Time moves slower for imaginary freinds, or it can.  Around people touched by closet land there is something peculiar, something diffrent that the spirts but equaly powerful.  Maby some sort of space where closet land's influence seeps in and takes hold.  The imagianry freinds realize that closet land can over take our reality by touching enough people.  This is why the kings have a hord of lesser creatures that posses people, to help spead this influence into a world only inhabited by belief and spirts.  Once this is won, there is no stopping them.  Creatures of beleife know this and sometimes have to put thier child in danger in order to help curb the effects of closet land on the rest of the world.  Sort of a sacrfice for the greater good.  THis is where the real adventures can come in.

You see in closet land there is a thin layer of excistence that is also inhabited by spirts and beleif, this is why beleif magic still works there.  When, oh lets say the Defilier, takes Control of the local ice cream man some of that thin layer from closet land mixes with our own creating sort of a pocket world of corruption, these places are uber dark, like closetmonstors for the closet monstor.  A place where man's darkest images and subconsiouse collide.   In these pocket worlds beleif has to get through and disband them before they do damage.  Of course the stronger the controling entity the stronger the pocket world is.  For example many children and thier imaginary freinds have been lost to the Defiler.  The pocket world that acompanys such a dark and evil figure's are some of the most fearsom and terrfiying.  Of course dismantleing a pocket dimension and driveing off the creature means putting the child in the clutches of some pretty nasty people.  It also puts one helluva time limit on adventures.  But this stuff is pretty wild and I'll give you a chace to mull over it and ask questions.  But there is the dark horror aspect I was looking for.  

This also figgures in for the Drop Dead Fred Mechanic, in fact that's what inspired that whole upper paragraph, thanks!  I've been puzzleing over this for days.  Hmm an hour till sunup...I'll try sleep again.