Not a slasher-horror game, but not a million miles from that either.
The Game: Sleepaway
The Publisher: Possum Creek Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one
Sleepaway is a Belonging Without Belonging game, which basically means it's GMless PbtA. Moves are either Strong, Normal, or Weak - Weak gives you tokens, Strong costs tokens. I played one of these at Origins some years back (I think it was Dream Askew?), and as GMless go I think it's a good approach.
This particular game is an odd duck; you're playing counselors at a summer camp and trying to protect them from the Lindworm, a monster that flays people alive and sometimes wears their skin. The game has a weird mashup of magical realism and body horror, and I'm intrigued by it, though I have a couple of (very minor) niggles.
One is that the game spends too much time telling us that summer camps are racist and colonialist. I don't disagree (I attended any number of summer camps with co-opted Native names in my youth), but I think it probably would have been better to have one page in the book say it, explain it, get it out of the way, and not remind us about it so much. The other is that the Lindworm is a shared responsibility but you determine who's acting for (never roleplaying as) the Lindworm with some card draws involving closing eyes and it all feels very Are You a Werewolf just in terms of logistics. It's a game that, were I to host it, I'd need to check out some actual plays so I can get a sense of how it looks at the table, but fortunately there are a bunch of those.
So anyway, let's make a character. This is pretty straightforward - pick a playbook and answer the questions. I'm gonna go with the Ropeskeeper, the counselor that handles the ropes course. They're portrayed as being stoic and sort of distant, and it calls to mind a counselor I knew at Camp Innisfree (long defunct summer camp I really loved as a kid; it's shown up in a lot of games and fiction of mine over the years). He was a former stand-up comedian and he had that "make a joke to deflect real emotion" energy about him. I'm kinda feeling that today.
Name: I'm gonna go with "a name said thoughtfully" and say he's called "Diggs." None of the campers know if that's first name, last name, or nickname. He doesn't like "Mister" appended to it, though, but he generally laughs it off if someone does say it.
Look: Dull eyes, wiry body, that's easy. Diggs has a deadpan, Nate Bargatze-like delivery when he speaks.
Describe Your Gender: And then there this list:
This feels like a Gen Z thing that I'm not fully hip to. The book explains it, kind of; you might be a man but are you more (in this case) Hermit or Sailor? I think Diggs actually feels kind of Sailor to me; sociable but not social, full of yarns but not a lot of real connection.
How the Woods First Helped: Helped what? It's not specified, and there's no example of chargen. Mrph. I think let's throw Diggs into the deep end and say "The Lindworm was trying to kill [him]." There was a rope tied to a branch that had once sported a tire swing, but it was far too high to reach. The Woods lowered it so that Diggs could climb up, away from the Lindworm. Maybe he dreamed it.
Choose the Woods' Impact: Keeps promises with sunlight. I like that, even if it's a little overtly cheerful for Diggs.
Choose Why You Still Have Friends: I don't fucking know...oh, right, Diggs. He's funny.
Next bit is ask other peoples, but I don't have those, so that's basically it. Diggs is wiry, lean, sandy hair and muddy eyes. He's a got a flat delivery and you have to listen to him to find him funny. He wakes up early and goes to the ropes course to check all the knots and connections, because the ropes course might be a way to escape something horrible and he wants to make sure it's ready.
