black lipstick
the goth roleplaying game by Jared A. Sorensen

Nights
Each Night (game session) is comprised of three stages:

Getting Ready: the stage when preparation for the night’s festivities takes place – this stage runs from sundown to the time when the characters enter the nightclub. Every Night starts with character creation (even if those characters have already been introduced, they are re-created). Getting Ready usually spans a period of time between 8:00 pm and 9:30 pm. Some characters will need more time and could be Getting Ready as late as midnight. A character that spends too much time Getting Ready will succumb to Sleep and will miss the Clubbing stage completely.

Clubbing: the stage when all the Nightclub scenes take place – this stage runs from the time the characters enter the club to the time the club closes. The club is often a set period of time and characters who spend too much time Getting Ready not get to spend as much time Clubbing. Note that if the characters club-crawl (go from one bar or nightclub to another), time will elapse.

After Hours: the stage when post-club events will happen – this stage runs from the time the club closes ‘til the characters go to sleep. It could even run into the next day. The Night ends as soon as this stage is concluded.

Nightclubs
Nightclubs (clubs) are where the characters go to socialize, drink, dance and hook-up with other people. The usual hours for a club are 9:30 pm – 2:00 am but times will vary depending on various circumstances (some clubs open as late as midnight and stay open until sunrise). The maximum time a club will be open is sundown to sunrise. The minimum time is any four-hour period within that span. Note that extenuating circumstances might cause a nightclub to close early. If this happens, the characters are still assumed to be either Clubbing until the time the nightclub usually closes or After Hours if there’s nothing really to do and everyone is just “hanging out.”

Time
Time is represented by abstract units of measurement called “Songs.” Why songs? The reason is that Goths measure the passing of time by listening to music. They figure out how many songs have been played or (if the play list is predictable enough) what song the DJ is up to. A Song is roughly equivalent to a period of time between four and six minutes. Figure ten Songs to an hour and around forty or fifty Songs per Night Clubbing.

Getting Ready, aka Character Creation
Every Night, the players have the opportunity to re-invent their characters. This is done through the effects of Experiences and Relationships of the previous Night, through manipulation of Social Status or through actual number juggling in an effort to boost the character’s Style Attributes.

Social Status
The first time a character is created (ie: the first Night you play black lipstick), you must set your characters Social Status. Your Social Status is defined by choosing one of several kinds of dice.

6-sided: relatively low Social Status; a new face in town or a total wallflower.
8-sided: a regular patron of the club (but nobody special) or a new face with a lot of style.
10-sided: a regular patron of the club with a lot of style
12-sided: a well-known, widely-recognized face; an original member from “back in the day.”
4-sided and 20-sided dice are used for a special kind of Social Status and cannot be chosen by characters.

Your Social Status is represented by the number of sides on your selected die (6, 8, 10 or 12) and determines many elements of your character including their Style, how many people they know in the club scene and what events might happen while they’re out on the town. In general, if you want a social butterfly character who is always caught up in nightclub drama, choose a higher Social Status. If you want a more subdued, introspective character, choose a lower Social Status. You Social Status may change from Night to Night, but if it does it will be a slow process.

Style Attributes
The two Style Attributes are Beauty and Grace. Beauty is physical appearance, specifically a measure of how close the character is to the “ideal” (beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but in this game, it’s a definite set of characteristics: wild hair, skillfully-applied make-up, cool clothes and nice boots). Beauty changes each Night while your character is Getting Ready (it usually goes up).

Grace is a measure of physical coordination and confidence. Even if the character is a lousy dancer, Grace enables her to look good doing whatever it is she’s doing (Goth dancing, stomping and punching or just standing absolutely still in the middle of the dance floor). Grace can go up by spending money but it usually goes down (as a result of drinking or wearing uncomfortably fashionable clothing)

Each Night, distribute a number of points between your two Style Attributes equal to your Social Status.

Hair & Makeup, Threads & Boots
It’s possible to raise your Beauty Attribute by spending more time on your Hair & Makeup (and thereby missing one or more Songs) or by sacrificing comfort (and thereby lowering your Grace) by wearing stylish Threads & Boots. For every point you gain in Beauty, you can add one superficial characteristic to your character. As a general rule, anything you’d remove before taking a shower would be considered Threads & Boots (yes, there will be exceptions…especially if you’re one to wear PVC boots while bathing).

Examples for Hair & Makeup:
• a shaved head
• a winged skull tattoo
• dyed purple hair
• pony-girl falls
• Big Goth Hair
• a labret stud
• face powder
• black lipstick
• custom-made fangs
• tons of earrings

Examples for Threads & Boots:
• platform heels
• a spiked dog collar
• buckle boots
• an antique whalebone corset
• violet-tinted sunglasses
• a red velvet gown
• black leather pants
• a big silver ankh pendant
• welding goggles
• fairy wings

Note that you may give your character any characteristics you choose, regardless of whether or not you alter your Beauty and Grace Attributes. It’s just that characters that do are required to write this stuff down. Needless to say, permanent body modifications (tattoos, body jewelry, cosmetic dental work, etc.), once written down, are always part of your character unless somehow removed.


...that's it so far. Lots more to come...just gotta write it down first.

Oh, and if anyone can find me a nice clean image of an unfolded 10-sided polygon, please let me know.

- J

This page has a lot of snaggable polyhedrons. They're free for non-commercial use, too.

Joe.