Sunday 14 July 2019

Dropbox Downtime

I recently did a bit of mental cleansing and wiped my Dropbox account clean.

DB's terms and conditions changed, and the price was due to go up. I realized most of the stuff crammed in there was junk, and certainly not worth $12 a month storage fees. So I saved what I wanted and axed the rest.

In doing so, I found a ton of notes for projects that never quite made it off the ground. As I'm in a hurry today, rather than a full post, I'll give you a sampler from the grab bag:


A Pleasant Afternoon. The character is invited to a private showing at an art gallery. It is the tail end of the season, when invitations of this type are thin on the ground. 
If they inquire, they discover that the gallery (Pyke’s, of Chapel Street) is supposed to be in murky financial straits. The owner of the gallery, Montague Pyke, is slightly known to the investigator as an acquaintance from years before, but they have not spoken in some time. 
Should the characters attend, they find that most of the gallery’s work is of the usual Victorian type; herds of Highland cattle, crofter’s cottages, still life with grouse, hunting scenes, views of the Thames and so on. None of them are worth much more than £20, though the asking price is a good £30-40 above that figure. 
Pyke is not present himself at the viewing; his assistant, Mary Hope, is in charge of the evening. There is a private viewing room separate from the rest of the gallery, which is only available by invitation, but as luck would have it Pyke has left their invitations at the door. 
The pictures in this gallery are more interesting, in the pre-Raphaelite semi Medieval style, and all are by the same artist, who signs himself as Schablone [German: Mask]. Each depicts a scene from some kind of morality play, with a character who very much resembles Pyke in the role of Everyman. Everyman, in each painting, is being abused by various figures who represent stock characters such as Popular Fashion, Ignorance, Folly, Greed, Envy, and so on. 
In the final portrait, Everyman is nowhere to be seen, while all the other characters are celebrating some kind of victory. In the background, easily missed, is Everyman, hanging from the rafters of a house. When the characters emerge from this private room, the gallery is completely vacant. The other attendees have vanished, as has Hope, and the walls are completely bare. A sign tacked to the front door advises that the previous occupant has been evicted for non-payment of rent. The canvases in the private room, meanwhile, are now blank. 
I originally intended this as a Victoriana flavor text moment. It was never supposed to be a full scenario. The idea was, the characters would encounter these minor notes in the larger plot every so often. There was no mystery to solve, really, but the mood of the piece and the overall weirdness of it was meant to cement the overall pattern of the campaign.
That said, there's no reason it should stay Victoriana. It could as easily appear in a Bookhounds, Dreamhouds, Esoterrorists or modern game. It's perhaps a little too quiet for Night's Black Agents, though it could fit an NBA Dust or Mirror game. You'd need to update the art style, but that's all. 
I suppose the larger point I was getting at when I first wrote this bit - many moons ago, now - is that in any campaign you need a few downtime moments. When players provide you with opportunities to use those moments, take them. However players won't always do that, nor will they necessarily provide them at the right time. 
So you, as Director/Keeper/Insert Shiny Hat Here, need to prep for that. Create a downtime moment to be used as needed. It doesn't have to be anything major. There are no stats in this example, no clue spends. No victory condition either, nor is there a reward, though it could be a kicking-off point for something more. Who is Schabone, for example? Is it Pyke's pseudonym, some supernatural force, something else? Is this a manifestation of Carcosa? Is Pyke dead? 
What would happen if you stared at one of those Everyman portraits, trying to drink it all in? Would the figures begin to move? 
Enjoy!

No comments:

Post a Comment