[Mike]

I'm inspired. I'm setting up a new game for my kids and their friend. Next time the friend spends the night, I want to run a game using Stories System that should be similar in tone to our much-talked-about BFF game. In this one, each of the three will play themselves attending Boy Scout camp. The camp is one that the two older boys know extremely well--they've each been there three times. The younger son will be going for the first time this summer. It's a highly-structured week-long camp geared for younger scouts, but I want to run a terrifying horror story in that setting, with the boys playing themselves.

I have maps of the camp, both satellite imagery (that I put together myself), and the simplified map the camp itself hands out. I've also been there three years in a row, so I've hiked to all the hidden locations that the staff keep hidden from the campers, and I know the internal layouts of all the building. But it's about a mile across, with mid-sized river on one side, a marshy lake on another side, and farmland/highway everywhere else. It is heavily wooded with many hills. There are large central buildings (office, medic, chow-hall, barn, pool), and then it is surrounded by various outlying service buildings and many many campsites. Each site has around 12-20 tents intended to sleep two per tent. There are shower houses, a small outdoor amphitheatre setup, the nature building way out at the edge of camp where they keep all sorts of creepy crawlies.

One of the gimmicks at camp is that the campers have no idea where the staff sleep at night. I know, but all those places are carefully hidden. The staff maintain the myth that the staff quarters are underneath the lake. They tell tales of lavish air-conditioned luxury suites at the bottom of the lake where staff retire at night to play X-Box on their wide-screen TVs.

I don't know if I want a semi-traditional vampire or werewolf story, or if I want alien invaders. Maybe combine one of these with a natural disaster. Maybe the staff are conspiring to kill campers. I don't know.

I have an awesome setting, and I know I can make it super-creepy. I just need the bad guys and a plot to bust it wide open. I'll take any suggestions.
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When you're in your little room, and you're working on something good... but if it's really good, you're gonna need a bigger room. And when you're in your bigger room, you might not know what to do. You might have to think about how you got started, sitting in your little room

[Mike]

One of the nice things about this setting is that the older boys know the place. They know it well, but they don't know most of the hidden areas. So when shit goes down, they know where to go to find shovels and rope and industrial cleaning supplies (and even the wooden stakes they use to support the newly planted saplings).

Also, the older ones are only 13, so neither one has a drivers license, but if they got into automatic and had the keys, they could probably drive, but badly.
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When you're in your little room, and you're working on something good... but if it's really good, you're gonna need a bigger room. And when you're in your bigger room, you might not know what to do. You might have to think about how you got started, sitting in your little room

[Threadbare]

Don't make it about the staff, that might freak out the young one.

I move for alien invaders, though, maybe shapeshifters.
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how I get here?

[Mike]

Scenario has changed now. Now it will actually be played with four or five scouts, all of whom have been to this camp at least once.
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When you're in your little room, and you're working on something good... but if it's really good, you're gonna need a bigger room. And when you're in your bigger room, you might not know what to do. You might have to think about how you got started, sitting in your little room

[Mike]

I think I'm getting it now. I'm going to start off with creepy ghost/horror stories, and let them think it's a traditional monster tale of some sort. These kids are smart, and if I do anything too cliche, they'll call me out on it right away. My own son is especially good and guessing where I'm going with a plot.

Ultimately though it will be a story of shifting worlds. Some [advanced sci-fi tech talk] thing is causing chunks of the various parallel worlds to shift and bleed into each other, unleashing disaster and possible horrors.

Step one will just be getting them into the mood of the game. It's after dark. Everyone's had dinner, the flags have come down, everyone's sitting around the fire, roasting marshmallows and swapping stories. Then, once they are comfortable... *RUMBLE-CRASH*... it's like an earthquake combined with a lightning storm. This is where the scout leader (me) gets all stern: "All of you stay here. I'm going up to the office to see what happened." And I never return.

After the first *RUMBLE-CRASH*, I'm going to set a kitchen timer--one of those loud ticking ones with the annoying buzz alarm. I won't tell them why, and I won't let them know for how long. I throw a cover over the timer, so they can hear it but not see it. No matter what is going on in the game, when that timer goes off, they get another *RUMBLE-CRASH*, and the world changes. I reset the timer. They get the hint.

Now they have to figure out what's going on and stop it and/or somehow save themselves, knowing that every time the timer goes off, the rules change again, and shit gets progressively worse. Sometimes it's only 2 minutes. Sometimes it's 20. They have no way of knowing.

Now I only have to figure out what's actually causing everything, and how it's happening in such a way that the scouts can actually figure it out and be able to stop it. At camp. Secondary to that is figuring out what sort of horrible things I can unleash on them at each CRASH of the timer--all the while keeping the game as PG-13 as possible.

Wow. I can't tell you how fond of this idea I am. It was talking it out with Kyle on the podcast last night that really helped get me started. I've got a lot more work to do, and I still need your ideas, but these are good first steps.
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When you're in your little room, and you're working on something good... but if it's really good, you're gonna need a bigger room. And when you're in your bigger room, you might not know what to do. You might have to think about how you got started, sitting in your little room

[Mike]

0. Clear night. Sitting around the campfire. Joking, telling stories, making smores.

1. The air chills. Did it just get darker? Squeaking/chirping grows slowly louder, until the woods are swarmed with something that looks like bats. (If they catch/kill one, they see it's not quite bats). No serious danger.

2. It's beginning to drizzle. There's a huge knocking/crashing something from the parade grounds, and now water is flowing several inches deep down all the hills (everywhere is hills). Trying to leave camp involves slipping and mud and mess. Is there something in the water? Aaaahhh!

3. Water stops flowing and fog rolls in. Yapping dogs--lots of them--are heard in the distance. If anyone checks topside, one or more buildings are gone and/or possibly replaced with something similar but not. The remains of a HUGE shattered pipe/tube cover the parade field.

4. Fog becomes very thick dog attacks begin from the fog. The dogs are crazed (and scared?). Note that the dogs are the same horned demon-dogs that appeared in BFF. Brief return of the bat-things.

5. Pouring rain and return from the flooding. Water swirls in from all directions. Hard to tell where/if the flow is. If anyone remains in campsites (they are all on low ground) they will be under 10-15 feet of water pretty soon. Still some remaining dogs, however they will be even MORE panicked trying to escape the rising waters. Should be lots of dead things in the water. If they are lucky, they could get to the canoes.

6. Stop! [Hammertime.] Everything clears up. Water suddenly drops. If there are dogs or bats about, they suddenly vanish. There's a full moon out, and we have light (wait... was the moon full before?) Somewhere in the distance, there are lights--some sort of installation where the stables should be.

7. The air is electrically charged. Everything smells of ozone. Lightning, small thunder. Intermittent rain. Everything's still muddy and damp. And I think this is where the zombies start. They aren't brain eaters, and if you talk to them, there are hints of a person inside, but they are basically out to cause as much destruction as possible--and killing living things is preferable to smashing inanimate stuff.

Now I need to start working in some plot items. Clues that might lead them to something. However, for the most part, I think I'm mostly going to play off what they choose to do, and any place they wind up will end up being relevant.

The installation at the stables is the key. There will be lots of clues to getting to it. From all the high points of the camp, they should be able to see it. If they try to drive a car out, the only road out leads right past it. It will change with each new switch, but it will stay there til the end. Inside they will find the machine/generator/experiment that is causing all of this. Along with some requisite sobbing scientist who offers up some plot exposition.
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When you're in your little room, and you're working on something good... but if it's really good, you're gonna need a bigger room. And when you're in your bigger room, you might not know what to do. You might have to think about how you got started, sitting in your little room

[akiva]

Mike--This sounds great. Those scouts are up for a helluva time.
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Shocked to find himself the father of 3.

[Mike]

[akiva]

[rerwin1]

Running in to Zombie Camp Leader Mr. Jones might be fun. I keep thinking of Zombie Homer on Ambien, I mean Nappien, doing whatever Bart says. But every other zombie is out for destruction. Perhaps zombie Mike just keeps asking if they want to play Pathfinder.
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All I needed was 101 damn puppies. You brought this on yourselves.

[Threadbare]

You should definitely introduce situations where their boy scout skills (rope work, first aid, etc) could come in handy
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how I get here?

[Mike]

[akiva]

[quote="MikeI really want to do this.[/quote]

I want you to do it so that we can hear a report on how it went.
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Shocked to find himself the father of 3.

[Mike]

I can't believe I never wrote up a report on this game. We ran it a year an a half ago almost, and it was spectacular. I know I talked about it on the podcast, but it needs a writeup too.

We were in a meeting room with horrible acoustics and were right next to the gym where some guys were playing X-Box or Wii or something, so the noise level was definitely a problem, but the game itself came off great.

I had a giant whiteboard available, so I put the Stories System success/failure chart up there for easy reference, and then I hung up a 3' x 5' full color satellite image of the entire camp, with important parts highlighted and labeled.

The timer worked out better than I could have dreamed. I was keeping it between 2 and 15 minutes each time--usually right around 7 or 8. One of the kids had never roleplayed before, and by an hour into the game, every time that timer went off, he screamed out loud. I couldn't ask for more. He was seriously freaked out by the whole thing. I asked him a few times if he wanted to quit, but he said absolutely not.

I basically just kept setting the scene and describing the changes around them, and then let them wander wherever they wanted to go. Ultimately, they battled demon-dogs, ran from zombies, tried to get into the messhall which has become a medieval fortification guarded by an ogre, stole a car, drove to the source of the strange lights and flashes, discovered the scientist with his amazing whirring machine, and then drove their car into it (killing two of them) in order to stop the madness.

This is a concept I may use again someday, and the experience highlighted for me so extra prepwork I need before ever using it again... if I were to do it again, I'd have the first 7 or 8 scene changes outlined just like I do above, but then after those just have a small random table to work from as the work keeps jumping back and forth. Also, I need to give some thought to each of the major buildings and areas of camp--giving each of them some guidelines and maybe even a quick table for how that particular area might appear under different circumstances. I was doing all this stuff on the fly, but the transitions would have been a lot smoother sometimes if I didn't feel pressure to make up something new each time the timer went off.

Overall, a great time.
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When you're in your little room, and you're working on something good... but if it's really good, you're gonna need a bigger room. And when you're in your bigger room, you might not know what to do. You might have to think about how you got started, sitting in your little room

[zircher]

Fun stuff, if you run it again with the same group, try using an angry indian shaman spirit as the big bad. Perhaps his mojo includes distorting the perceptions of those that are on the anicent indian burial ground (the camp site, of course.) Some kind of fear/panic mechanic might be handy.
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TAZ
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Slithy — Combination of "slimy" and "lithe." The i is long, as in writhe.
Tove — A combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew. They are very curious looking creatures which make their nests under sundials and eat only cheese. Pronounced so as to rhyme with groves. Note that "gyre and gimble," i.e. rotate and bore, is in reference to the toves being partly corkscrew by Humpty Dumpty's definitions.

[Mike]

Good idea.

Building off of that, I'm going to say that there's a building/area under construction, and it's closed off. Some older teens have broken in and are vandalizing the place. They think it'll be really funny to make it look like Satan worshipers. They vandalize the place and start a fire. Things get out of hand, and they actually do some stupid shit to open a gateway to other realms (thus all the shifting/flooding/hideous monsters/zombies/etc). Some of the vandals are now dead, but the scouts can eventually find a sniveling survivor who explains what they did and that some goblin-imp thing appeared through this rift and stole their MacGuffin. The scouts will already have found some clues that will tell them how to track and find this goblin beast. They'll need to recover the MacGuffin and destroy it or pitch it through the rift or something.
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When you're in your little room, and you're working on something good... but if it's really good, you're gonna need a bigger room. And when you're in your bigger room, you might not know what to do. You might have to think about how you got started, sitting in your little room

[Mike]

Rules.

I'm also going to take the merit badge idea above and do a little character building. Every scout gets 4 traits and 6 merit badges at the start. Any time you do something that a trait might affect, you get a +/-1. Any time you do anything covered by one of your merit badges, you get +2.

Merit badges will run the gamut of Animal Husbandry, Astronomy, Native Cultures, Knots, Climbing, Hiking, Canoeing, Tracking, First Aid, Lifeguard, Botany, Fire Building, Automotive Care, Music, etc.

You have one list of suggested traits and one list of available badges. To make a character, you just do a quick mix and match and you can have everything you need in about 5 minutes.
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When you're in your little room, and you're working on something good... but if it's really good, you're gonna need a bigger room. And when you're in your bigger room, you might not know what to do. You might have to think about how you got started, sitting in your little room

[zircher]

Nifty, I heard the scouts were adding a badge for video gaming. Did that ever go through? It would probably useless for this game unless a player can talk you into saying that driving a car is just like the Need for Speed video game.
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TAZ
_________________
Slithy — Combination of "slimy" and "lithe." The i is long, as in writhe.
Tove — A combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew. They are very curious looking creatures which make their nests under sundials and eat only cheese. Pronounced so as to rhyme with groves. Note that "gyre and gimble," i.e. rotate and bore, is in reference to the toves being partly corkscrew by Humpty Dumpty's definitions.

[Mike]

Stats
A scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent. Furthermore, a scout must strive to keep himself "physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight."

So, to simplify and rewrite these for the "Wilderness Scouts" of my game, I came up with the following Scout Code:

A Wilderness Scout strives to be...
Honorable in every transaction,
Gracious to all,
Resourceful in planning,
Brave in the face of adversity,
Physically Fit,
and always Alert

Put that right on the character sheet, and there's your character attributes.

Honorable -- covers trustworthy, loyal, moral. Knowing right from wrong and sticking to it.
Gracious -- charitable, kind, caring, friendly, courteous. This is a social stat.
Resourceful -- not just be prepared, but be able to make do with what you have, inventiveness, able to recycle and repurpose.
Brave -- willpower, able to face danger as well as having the courage to stand up for what's right
Fit -- healthy, strong, physically skilled
Alert -- perceptive, quick thinking

Merit Badges
On top of your stats in the Scout Code, you also get to pick six merit badges, and you're just about ready to go.

Just pulling from the official Boy Scout list, I got the following (some more useful than others): Animal Science, Archaeology, Archery, Architecture, Art, Astronomy, Athletics, Auto Mechanics, Aviation, Backpacking, Basketry, Bird Study, Bugling, Camping, Canoeing, Chemistry, Cinematography, Citizenship, Climbing, Communications, Composite Materials, Computers, Cooking, Crime Prevention, Cycling, Drafting, Electricity, Electronics, Emergency Preparedness, Energy, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Environmental Science, Family Life, Farm Mechanics, Fire Safety, First Aid, Fishing, Forestry, Gardening, Genealogy, Geology, Graphic Arts, Hiking, Home Repairs, Horsemanship, Indian Lore, Insect Study, Journalism, Law, Leatherwork, Lifesaving, Mammal Study, Medicine, Metalwork, Model Design and Building, Motorboating, Music, Oceanography, Orienteering, Painting, Personal Fitness, Personal Management, Pets, Photography, Pioneering, Plant Science, Plumbing, Pottery, Public Speaking, Pulp and Paper, Radio, Railroading, Reading, Reptile and Amphibian Study, Rifle Shooting, Rowing, Safety, Salesmanship, Scholarship, Sculpture, Shotgun Shooting, Skating, Small-Boat Sailing, Snow Sports, Soil and Water Conservation, Sports, Surveying, Swimming, Textile, Theater, Traffic Safety, Truck Transportation, Veterinary Medicine, Weather, Wilderness Survival, Wood Carving,

Quirks
The last thing to complete your character is to pick any number of quirks to fill in/round out your personality. Quirks are mostly to get players to focus on personality in character creation, and then in play, they can be used to help or hinder as you go. If used to hinder, they earn you credit that can be called in at a later time.
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When you're in your little room, and you're working on something good... but if it's really good, you're gonna need a bigger room. And when you're in your bigger room, you might not know what to do. You might have to think about how you got started, sitting in your little room

[zircher]

Pretty nifty, I hope someone chooses bugling. It's just so out there that it might come in handy.
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TAZ
_________________
Slithy — Combination of "slimy" and "lithe." The i is long, as in writhe.
Tove — A combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew. They are very curious looking creatures which make their nests under sundials and eat only cheese. Pronounced so as to rhyme with groves. Note that "gyre and gimble," i.e. rotate and bore, is in reference to the toves being partly corkscrew by Humpty Dumpty's definitions.