The show must go on.
The Game: Opera House
The Publisher: Corone Design
Degree of Familiarity: None with the game, a little bit with the setting
Books Required: Just the one
Opera House is a game in which you play the denizens and employees of the Royal Grand Opera House - performers, chippies, sound techs, and so on - except that the PCs all ticked the little box in their contract agreeing to "extra duties" for a pay bump. Turns out "extra duties" can mean "make sure the monsters from the Void Below don't snatch away pay customers" and suchlike. The Royal Grand is a haven for the surreal and the menacing, but what really makes the game work is that high level of detail in how theater actually functions.
I have a degree in theater (performance), but I never worked on anything bigger than college or community theater, so while I recognize a lot of the terms and so on being used, Opera House obviously goes further than my knowledge. The result is that it's a game that would fit neatly into a cinematic universe including games like Don't Rest Your Head, Exquisite Replicas, and (if you wanted to play the rats in the theater, which is an option), Things That Go Squeak in the Night. Hell, Edge of Midnight would even fit in.
With all of that in mind, let's make a character! First thing I do is choose a department. I'm kinda torn; a performer would be fun, but I've had such a great time working stage crew, too. Yeah, let's do performer. My guy's an actor (as opposed to a dancer or musician).
I get three points to put into Attributes, but "Attributes" here aren't a fixed list, they're just general character traits, positive or negative. I can pick three at level one or one at 2 and one at 1 (but not just one at 3, because I have to have a positive and a negative).
Well, actors tend to be somewhat narcissistic, but I don't want that to be this guy's defining trait. "Pompous" is a little better, so I'll make that my negative and put it at 2. I'll give him Honest 1 as a positive trait.
Skills! As an actor, I start with Actor 3, Style 2, and Music 1. I get 10 more points to throw around, but I can't go higher than 3 except in my three specialty Skills, and even then I can only go to 4. Let's see.
Crew seems like a good idea. I picture my actor as being a larger fellow, which means he gets put in the back of chorus numbers. The Crew Skill is used for heavy lifting, among other things. I'll put points into Dancer, Flyman, Security, and Stage Management as well. So at the end of the day, Skills look like this:
Actor 3
Crew 2
Dancer 1
Flyman 2
Music 1
Security 1
Stage Management 1
Style 2
Traits! These are personality traits or appearance things. They differ from Attributes in that...they don't have ratings, and that's basically it (weird). I'll say my guy is Large, and that he has One Arm (I saw a production of Mikado many years ago and the guy playing the title role was missing an arm; that stuck with me).
Ritual! This is an optional rule, but I like it. It's basically a little superstitious tradition that the character follows while in the theater. I'm gonna say that before a show opens, my guy goes on stage and looks out at the empty house and silently communes with the author of the show, or the spirits of actors gone before, or whatever (he's not really specific). If someone interrupts him, he considers that a bad omen.
And now finishing touches, and Opera House is kind enough to provide a list of questions, which it then does not apply to the sample character. I'd be saltier about that, but the chargen process is pretty straightforward. Anyway!
- Age and appearance. My actor is in his mid-20s. He's tall (over 6'), and stocky, though not what you'd call swole. He's missing his left arm just below the shoulder. He's got brown hair and blue eyes, and he sings low baritone.
- Why did he come to the Royal Grand? He always had a dream of playing in an orchestra and was a fairly talented cellist, but then a cut on his arm got infected and he lost it. He still isn't sure he wasn't hired just for the novelty, but whatever, at least he gets to perform again.
- Why the performance department? Everything else would've required two hands.
- Why take on "additional duties?" The money's nice, but it's not that nice. Mostly he just wanted to prove that he could do more than stand at the back and sing loudly.
- How does he dress? He prefers short sleeved shirts (easier to put on, easier to deal with), but has a "Sunday best" suit that some folks in the wardrobe department altered for him.
- Is he ambitious? Kind of! He heard a director say once that it would interesting to see him play a character like Richard III with some military experience, since he would bring some obvious visible history to the role. He's not a terribly competent Shakespearean actor, but what the heck, he'd give it a shot.
- What is his greatest hope? He wants to be able to perform well without people noticing his missing arm before his talent.
- Greatest fear? Getting sick again. He doesn't remember losing the arm, just fading in and our of consciousness with fever and then waking up without it.
- Favorite and least favorite things? He loves playing darts, and he's damned good at it. He's also a fan of dark beers. He hates getting his hand dirty - sticky, especially - and wears a thin glove a lot of the time, especially during rehearsal.
- Is the character in love, married, etc? He was something of a playboy before the accident, and while he's not opposed to a tumble here and there, he feels weird about pursuing lovers now. Not to say he wouldn't, he's not painfully shy, but he's not as confident as once he was.
- What is his name? Hugh Parry
And that's me done!
