Love is kinda crazy with with a spooky little boy/girl like you...
The Game: Our Haunt
The Publisher: Possum Creek Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one
Our Haunt is a GM-less game where everyone plays ghosts, but it has this surreal and...I don't know, cozy? atmosphere to it. Things can get scary, but the game is really about living (so to speak) in a house with found family.
I've been thinking lately about the OGL debacle, and, more specifically, how I keep seeing people posting on reddit and so on asking for game recommendations for something other than D&D. Setting aside that that's really not a useful criteria (it's like asking for a drink that isn't milk), you get takes like this:
Setting aside that I haven't actually seen people recommending more the esoteric games when folks say they're stepping out of D&D (mostly, in absence of other limiting factors, people recommend stuff like SWADE or Fate), it puts me in mind of the old adage that anyone kinkier than you is crazy and anyone less kinky than you is vanilla. Put another way, any game can be FishBlade to someone. To someone who only ever plays D&D, I'm sure a game like Chill, with its "tokens" and its emphasis on genre conventions and so on, might feel pretty fishy-bladey. To someone with more experience with not-D&D but very little with storygames, perhaps a game like Our Haunt would invoke the FishBlade comparison, seeing as how it's GM-less and diceless.
What does all this mean? Not a lot. I've been reading Our Haunt and imagining how it might go at my table, and I think it'd work pretty well, actually. Though I suspect several of my players might fight over who gets to play the Cat.
First thing we do in making a ghosty-ghost is to pick a playbook.
I have to say, I do like the playbooks here. When you're breaking down ghosts into categories it's very tempting to go by means of death or regret or legends of ghosts, and Our Haunt goes into some more original territory while still leaving room for classic takes. I think I shall pick the Faceless. There's something tragic and compelling about a ghost that doesn't have much of itself left; kinda makes the bits that do remain more precious and vivid. And, in my lower moments, I often think of myself as being fairly hollow, so it might be cathartic to play.
I'm picturing my ghost as faceless, body-less, just an old, comfy button-down shirt that floats around. Cuffs are frayed, most of the buttons are gone, this thing has been worn and loved for years.
First thing I do is choose a name. One of the ideas on the list is "A name of an object I found," and so I think I use the name of the label in the shirt - Carhart.
Next we choose a look, or rather, 2-3 options off a list. Well, being just a shirt is "something else that shows how little of me remains," I think, though I also like "dark footprints and handprints left on the wall." No visible part of my human form anymore.
What I remember - I need to choose two. Ooh, "smiling for the camera" jumps right out at me. I like "the sound of breaking glass," too. I have the thought that this person died suddenly and never quite learned how they died, but the sound of breaking glass might indicate something swift and/or violent.
What I yearn for - just pick one. Oof, these are hardcore. I think that my ghost wants "to become someone again," but he'd never admit that. If asked, he's more likely to claim he wants to find his rest and cease to be, but the truth of the matter is that he wants to be included and seen.
Bonds! I choose two. Ooh, "A Living Tarot reader who comforts me with the cards." I love Tarot, and I think it'd be fun to have a Living person that doesn't really know I'm there, but talks to me anyway (and probably assumes I'm not a ghost but some kind of ethereal being - she's in for a bit of a disappointment). Her name is Sammi.
And then I'll also take "a mysterious person that speaks to me through a book that writes itself." I think the tone of the relationship is...not antagonistic, but not friendly, necessarily. Maybe more like the relationship between the Ancient Reptilian Brain and Harry Du Bois in Disco Elysium (speaking of games that evoke the FishBlade comparison). Carhart just calls it "the book," and doesn't know really if there's a person behind the words that appear or if the book is sentient or if it's a memory or Lord Voldemort or what. It's just nice to have someone to talk to.
Relationships I'll skip because it's just me.
Now, that's it for the ghost, but part of chargen is to pick a Room. Hmm. Any of them would work, but I kind of want something pretty mundane on the face of it, so I'll take the Parlor. I'm thinking of a living room, with a big picture window that can be used to see out to the yard and the street. I'm picturing too that the Parlor isn't usually entirely visible, but only starts to take form when you pay attention to it. Otherwise, it's just dark and shadowy corners, but it's there if you look.
I pick two or three aesthetics here. I'll take "an old board game that plays itself again and again." If you take a piece off the board, the game gets annoyed with you, and apparently other entities in the house owe it favors because the house gets hostile until you give the piece back. It's not interested in playing with other people, thanks.
I'll take "a tarot deck containing a swarm of mismatched souls." That sounds sinister, so I think it's less human souls and more just that the Arcana on the cards might jump off the cards and interact. Strength chases her lion, the Emperor and the Empress are constantly bickering, and the Fool is always about to fall off something.
I get to pick one or two unsolvable problems. I like "the ghost made of fear and spite that hides under the carpet and whispers terrible things." Up to now it's been pretty fantastical, but there's a real sense of loss and menace here, whether anyone wants to admit it.
And that's it, actually. I think Carhart likes the parlor because there's only as much of the room there as there needs to be, and he relates to that. Also Sammi comes here to read the cards (she brings her own deck but sometimes her cards get mixed up with the living ones), and Carhart feels like he needs to shut the ghost in the carpet up when she does.
