When I was a kid, one of my favorite occupations was to observe grownups. I fed imaginary stories and daydreaming with the details I stole from the adults wandering around me: the long and skillfully decorated nails of the hairdresser as her hands ran through my hair; the melancholic eyes of the retired trumpeter drinking a bittersweet Moresque at the counter of the local café; the scratched, blood-like red leather bomber of the school bus driver. My favorite spot was the cinema. Before the film started, while commercials for local malls and computer shops were screened in a still fully lit theatre, I used to turn back, rest on the seat’s backrest, and stare at the audience behind me. Luckily, I grew up in a place where staring is, in many circumstances, an accepted behavior. Everyone looked at everyone, and that for an infinite number of reasons. One might argue that was even expected. Avoiding eye-contact with another member of the community could be interpreted as particularly rude.

I often think this is the reason why I worked for years as a photographer and filmmaker, considering myself as some kind of portraitist.

I somehow often build my creative endeavors on top of things I have experienced, and that had a strong emotional impact. Game design is no exception. This curiosity for people, for real-life characters, is probably the reason why The Lost Bay RPG is a character-first game.

character-first game

The overall expectation of the game is that playing will most certainly lead to discovering unexpected and surprising things about the characters you play, as they survive the suburban gothic adventures of the Bay. This design paradigm is infused in all aspects of the game. It is the reason why Miracles, TLB Anti-bosses, can’t be defeated (easily). It’s also built into the game Vibes, the TLB version of character classes. They are inspired by fiction archetypes, Troika backgrounds, and some creation mechanics are drawn from Trophy Dark.

Vibes are one of the main ways players get to discover the implied lore of the setting. Although the character creation process is quite nimble, each step gets the player to discover one chunk of the implied lore. I’m using the phrase implied lore because information is distilled in very few words, sometimes sentences, and is voluntarily incomplete. In some way, the character creation process, in addition to outlining the character, provides a series of sparks players and even the GM can use during the game.

It’s no surprise that the TLB community has already created amazing third-party vibes, which in turn contribute to extending the game lore.

This happens mainly because each Vibe is tied to a Living Saint, an immortal entity that grants the Vibe a fraction of their power. The Vibe somehow reflects in the mortal realm the Living Saint they serve. It also bears the same excesses, fears, and contradictions that inhabit the immortal.

Below is the standard Vibe Framework.

VIBE Framework

When building a custom Vibe, it might be helpful to identify the internal conflict or flaw that characterizes it. All the aspects of the Vibe should express in some way that internal struggle. Of course, this is totally optional, and as always, the best design advice is to be sure to have fun and break the system whenever it feels right to you.

• Vibe: name of the Vibe as PCs know it.
• Description: directed at the player. Evokes the (internal) conflict.
• Offering (d6 table or list). Six ways to offer Weird to the tutelary Living Saint. Chosen or rolled on creation. Actions that require time and effort. Most are unsettling; some of them might put the character at risk.
• 6 Gifts. [Verb + Description]. Weird abilities that have an effect on the direct environment or on the character itself.
• Starting Gear (d6 loadout table). Each table entry has three items. Optionally, give each table entry a Persona descriptor.
• 6 Scars banes and boons for Summoning a Living Saint. Mostly banes!

MORE ON GIFTS

Gifts descriptions should be short and open to interpretation even when they describe precise actions. Some examples [in brackets the Vibe they’re taken from]:

• Suffocate, prevent someone from breathing [Firestarter]
• Pause, stop time until you inhale [Scanner]
• Lie, tell or detect lies [Seer]
• Hypnotize, make others do what you desire [Monarch]
• Metabolize, annihilate effects of drugs and liquors [Splinter]
• Sush. Put living beings to sleep. [Screamer]

Vibes are not god-like characters. They are humans who can channel a fraction of their tutelary immortal’s power at a great cost. Gifts should be limited in scope and intensity, but also open to interpretation.

MORE ON SCARS

Characters get one Scar every time they summon their tutelary saint. Scars are a list, and characters get them in sequence. Scars should affect their body, soul, or immediate environment (or several of those) in ways thematically linked to the Vibe and the Living Saint. They’re burdens, but they shouldn’t just be annoying wounds. Scars should add something to the relationship the character has with their power, their Living Saint, or the Weird. They should raise questions and push the fiction forward. Each scar is paired with a question.

Examples

Broken. You lose control of the Weird; it shatters a piece of you. Which one is it? [Firestarter]

Live. You’re live on every TV screen tuned into Channel 7. You’re popular now. Forget privacy. Do the masses cherish or despise you, and why? [Scanner]

Epiphany. For just a moment you have a vision of when and how you will die. How are you going to live with that? [Seer]

The last scar consumes the character and inevitably makes them unplayable. Their body or soul undergoes one last radical transformation. They are consumed by the Weird and come together with Lost Bay. How they feel about it is up to the player; they can rejoice, rebel, feel indifferent, or something else.

Examples

PHOENIXED. You’re a human pyre. Everything around you is set on fire. You commune with the Fire Demon. What do the flames cleanse? [Firestarter]

VHSed. Your belly rips open and a plastorganic VHS tape emerges from it. It contains the video of your life up to the moment you play it. Watch it and recreate your character from scratch. Works only once. Describe what you’ll see in the VHS. What does it tell you about your accomplishments and failures? [Scanner]

VESSEL. She’s just a teen like you. Her deep eyes hypnotize you as she appears from nowhere. She gently kisses you and lays a viscous egg in your mouth. You have a purpose now; you are a vessel for Saint Jennifer’s offspring. It’ll hatch tomorrow. Describe what will happen? Are you scared or relieved? [Monarch]

LIVING SAINT

The tutelary Living Saint is a Vibe on steroids. Neither good nor bad, it personifies the Vibe’s conflicts, powers, and inclinations, pushed to the extreme.

• Immortal You Serve: Name
• Form: physical incarnation, human-ish | alternate incarnation, can be an element, animal, or a combination of those.
• Shrine: simple location. Generally a mundane place with a weird or unsettling twist.
• Clergy: monks and followers.
• Omen: what happens when they’re near or when a character Summons them. Affects and modifies the immediate environment or the playing characters. It should be only narrative.
• Relic: Weird item, description of its effect. Relics are powerful and might have a short lifetime once used.

Thanks to the framework, Vibes are relatively simple to design. The Found Footage of the Bay game jam starts in just a few days. Creating a new Vibe is a perfect way to start designing RPGs, or for The Lost Bay, and there will probably be a handful of new Vibes created by the community during the jam. What is a 199X urban or suburban archetype from 90s media you love, or even inspired by the world around you, that could be turned into a new Vibe?

The entire game is built on an experience-first approach, as opposed to a theory-first approach. It’s the model for all my creative endeavors. Putting characters at the center of the design is a way of putting the players at the center of the experience. By analogy, in web design, that means putting the user and their experience at the center of the design considerations, before any other metrics or abstract considerations. Following this paradigm as faithfully as possible leads to radical changes in design. As a publisher, it also leads to a different kind of relationship with the audience, which contributes to the extension of the lore of the book, as the third-party vibes testify.