Character Creation: Star Crossed

THE SECOND GAME OF XMAS, TWENTY-TWENTY-TWO,
IS STAR-CROSSED,
AND THE FIRST ONE WAS THE ONE RING 2nd ED!

The Game: Star Crossed
The Publisher: Bully Pulpit Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Star Crossed is one of those games that's a really cool idea, well-executed, and that does nothing for me personally. It's a two-player, GMless game where the players take the roles of people who want to be romantically or intimately involved, but for whatever reason can't (or rather, shouldn't). It uses mechanics similar to Dread; when you make moves in the game you make pulls from the tower, and if the tower falls then you act on your desires. The result of that depends on your total attraction rating, and if it's too low, then everything goes tragic. 

Or, maybe the tower just doesn't fall and you never act on your feelings. C'est la vie. 

I chose this game as the "two turtle doves" because it's a two-player game, so that's easy enough. I also waffled a bit about whether to include it in my project at all, since a lot of games in this vein don't really have chargen as such (I was just reading Quietus yesterday, which is Forged in the Dark but character creation is almost entirely part of a collaborative process). But then today I thought of an inspiration for a character. 

The Ohio City Singers are a local band; Michelle put this song on a CD she made me a couple of years back. The song is about a dream that the singer had about the titular "Town Called Christmas," part of which is an elf named Ralph that shows the singer around. 

Now, catchy songs aside, I think it'd be an interesting framework of Star Crossed to have characters that meet up under very specific circumstances, either once a year or when once of them dreams the other into existence. So I'm gonna make Ralph the Elf as my character, and assume that the other player would make whoever it is that's visiting Christmas Town or dreaming it. I'll avoid making up any more details about that person than I absolutely have to, just to stay focused on my character. 

So the first question is: Is Ralph the Lead or the Follow? The difference is that the Lead does most things intentionally, and the Follow does most things unintentionally. I think that since Ralph is by nature a magical or ephemeral being, he can be the Follow - it's the other character that's really driving the action. 

Making characters is a matter of answering these questions:

 So! 

• Who am I? I'm Ralph the Elf, magical denizen of Christmas Town. My function is to show new arrivals around town, take them on sled rides, and so forth.
• What is my most attractive feature? My upbeat, Christmasy nature. 
• What are two things about me I don't realize are attractive? Gonna skip this one, since this would be up to the other player to answer. 
• Why can't I act on my feelings? The relationship between dreamer and dream is mysterious and unstable at the best of times, especially at Christmas. I'm not sure what acting on these feelings - forging a real connection with a living person - would do.
• Why is that important to me? It's potentially an existential threat to Christmas Town. At the very least it's unknown and scary. 

That's actually it, because all of the stars and stuff would get filled in during play. Ralph looks like a traditional Christmas elf, pointy ears, dressed in red and green, but like, not tights, please. Has a leather pouch of carrots on his hip for the reindeer. 

You know, this is all very silly and fun, but it would actually be really interesting to play this setup as a series of meetings over a period of years, where the human participant visits Christmas Town annually and grows up as Ralph remains an elf of indeterminate age. Might take on a kind of Giving Tree/Puff the Magic Dragon sort of feel, because, y'know, Christmas is a time for tragic relationships. 

Season's Greetings!