As the train pulls away they realise that they are at a station that they have never heard of before. When another train does not come, they explore the station looking for an exit only to find that the station is barred up and they are locked in.
As things continue there seems to be no way out of the station, and some people claim to have been here for years. Each time they turn there back someone disappears or new arrives, or their are signs of much time passing.
Each attempt to escape the station is thwarted by an infinite hallway or a looked door.
Finally the people at the station either become part of the station, a permanent fixture, or they think of the monotony of their lives and how they would change it.
Little clues are given throughout that they have been leaving the station, only to return the next night without any memory of having been gone.
When they decide to change their monotonous life, an exit can be found. They leave the station and they are presented with their lives. If they follow through with the desire for change, they are free. If they do not change their lives, they will wake up back in the station, their escape only a dream.
That is the game that I wanted to run this last week. I wanted a game about the monotony of life and the daily commute becoming purgatory. It was an excellent idea that a friend of mine back from my home town suggested I try.
Sadly that is not the game I ended up running. I will start off by pointing you to an article over at Gnome Stew.
My first and most major mistake was in giving out characters. I did not emphasise enough the monotony of their lives. As the game progressed, two of the three characters turned out to have been happy all along. It slipped by me that they were happy at first. But as the players filled out the characters, there was really on reason to be stuck in at the station.
So the game, at least for two of the players, was simply a case of being stuck somewhere in time.
The second main mistake was with what I like to call "infinite hallways". Its a reference to a game I played in a year back were we were stuck in some compound for some ridiculous number of sessions. Every idea we had for escape was met with an infinite hallway or some other arbitrary and insurpassible obstacle.
The infinite hallway has always been something that I have tried to avoid in my games. But it seemed needed in this case. The nature of the story was vary Dues Ex Machina, and you could not have people just strolling out of purgatory.
However, since two of the players were playing almost an entirely different game, it was just an annoying and brutal case of infinite hallway. I think I need to apologize to these players for this.
One of the tools I like to use in my games is The Stool. A little to the side of the circle of gamers I place a large wooden stool and occasionally I send people to it. Then we play it a little "reality tv" style. When a player is on the Stool they have to give the internal monologue of their character, in character. Just like the confession booths in various reality TV shows.
In general, this helps the player fill out their character and lets everyone get a sense for that character. It also seems that roleplaying spills over from the Stool and can facilitate a much more lively session.
My third mistake for this game was that I did not give the players enough back story for their characters to use in the Stool. Instead the Stool became awkward and no-one seemed interested in it by the end of the session.
I had planned for the Stool to let me know when a character had reached some sort of breaking point to move the story forward. But it was not so helpful in this session.
But in the end there was one player who had a terrifically monotonous character. He went through various stages of coping with the situation including contemplating suicide. He even escaped from the station once only to carry on with the monotony and wake back up in the station. His character found a new resolve and up making it out of the station permanently.
Looking back on the session, I find it difficult to decide if the success with the one player outweighed the disaster with the other two.
I think I will put this idea back on the shelf. Perhaps I will give it another try a year or so down the road. But next time I will have learned from my mistakes.
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