Character Creation: Our Traveling Home

Can't run home if the home runs, too.

The Game: Our Traveling Home
The Publisher: Peach Pants Press
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one 

Interesting little game, this. It's meant to be queer romance and found family, inspired by Ghibli films, and all that's great. What I find interesting is the very firm requirements the game puts out.

To wit: Four or five players, not more than five, not less than four. It has a happy ending, full stop. There is a romance between the Wizard and the Cursed, that's part of the game. The game consists of two Acts, each of which consists of a number of scenes, but the scenes are named and some of them restrict which characters can be involved.

Understand, this isn't criticism. I don't think there's anything wrong with setting up solid expectations for how the game works, and if we're honest, it's not that much different than the structure of, say, Fiasco or Ganakagok (or A Tragedy in Five Acts, for that matter). It's just interesting because PbtA games in particular (and this game does claim to be PbtA, though what that means is hardly an objective fact) are usually a bit more open-ended, and this one is very specific and proscribed. 

Reminds me a lot of Once More Into the Void, what with the mini-games in the scenes, as well as Back Again From the Broken Land, kinda. Would I play it? I dunno. I think I could put together a group of my players who would really like it, but it's mechanically weird and while you can play it as a one-shot (which is probably how it would work out), it's got a lot of front-loading for that. I think honestly if I wanted to play something like this I might want to play one of the games I already listed, or else Thirsty Sword Lesbians. 

But anyway, let's make a character. There are some decisions that the group would make about the world, but I think I can make a character without doing that. First off, we choose a playbook. Our options are Wizard, Demon, Cursed, Child, and Monster. 

Well, if I were actually playing this game, I would 100% want to play the Demon or the Monster. Let's assume we have five players and so the Monster is available. (The Monster's themes are all about finding healing and suffering consequences for past actions and move past them, and it's nicely escapist to play a story where it's possible to do that sort of thing.) Printing!

I appreciate that the playbooks can be folded into, like, little books, always appreciate it when PbtA games do that. Less enthused about the ink-heavy artwork on them and I wish there were an art-free version.

Right, so. The Monster is some creature of the wilds that "got their comeuppance" and was stripped of their powers. Ignoring for a moment that something that is not and never was human getting stripped of their powers and forced to be something they never wanted to be might not be quite the definition of "comeuppance" (but we're splitting hairs now), let's start with Look. 

Gender: This game, much like Sleepaway and Thirsty Sword Lesbians, treats gender as something more like a descriptor of vibe and less like something tied to sex (which only makes sense). The options they give us here are witch, demon, and beyond mortal ken. I'm thinking demon.

Eyes: I've always found black eyes (like, shark eyes, not shiners) very compelling as a way to make something scary, so I'll go with that.

Body: I think I want my Monster to mostly look human, so I'll say he's got the body of an old man (and pick "old body"). 

Clothing: Let's keep the theme going and say "tattered clothing."

Detail: I'm mean to explain who took my powers and how, why I deserved it, and what illusion I can no longer maintain. So I need to think about this a little more. 

My Monster's name is Dread. It was a demon lurking in the dark, watching, the shape just out of focus in the mirror that vanishes when you turn around or the creak on the staircase that you swear sounded like a footstep. Dread is (was) a demon of fear, but not a jump-scare, not the kind of fear that leaves you running screaming away. It's the kind of fear that you feel silly confessing to anyone, because you know ("know") that there's really nothing to be afraid of. Probably. Dread is the knowledge that something awful could happen, and the stupid little brain glitch that people have that makes them think if something can happen then it will. 

Before Dread lost its powers, it was a shapechanger, but never really had much of a defined form. It was usually humanoid, basically, usually bigger than you, usually just slightly dark and large enough to be menacing. It could slip between shadows, just out of sight, and pull attention from across a room or a street. 

And then one day someone called Dread out. (If I were playing this game, I would push for the Child to be involved, because it seems like a very Ghibli thing to have the Child dress down the Monster. As it happens, the relationships section requires the Cursed be involved, but without other players it's really impossible to get too specific.) They pulled Dread into the light and revealed it for what it was - something potentially dangerous, but not if everyone's watching. And Dread became an old man with tattered clothes, with hands that shake and a bit of a limp, and the only vestige of its lost power is those freaky shark-like eyes. 

Now, at this point, normally we'd do the Relationships and figure out why the Cursed brought me home and how the Wizard feels about that, but again, it's just me, so I'm pretty much done.