The Triptych Games
What about the Children
by Barbara Kearins
You think you’ve been here for two weeks. It’s hard to tell, confined to these four rooms as you are. The only sounds from the outside world, carried by the wind, are the sounds of children. Happy at first but then, something changed, you debate amongst yourselves (when the wind is in the right direction) are they angry, sad, frustrated or in pain? Are there less voices now, it’s so hard to tell, maybe, one day, when you are released you will finally know and then discover or decide: ‘What about the Children?’
| What’s the game again? |
A moral dilemma for 5 test subject/investigators. |
| Seriousness |
Serious note the following Trigger warnings: Medical Experiments, Distressed Children |
| Genre/setting |
Blood Tests, apple pie and the faint whiff of a cold war. |
| System |
Systemless. |
| Rating |
M |
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As Blossoms Fall
by Luke Jordan
Mythic pre-feudal Japan, in a time that never was. Five champions make their choices as tribal war looms on the horizon.
For longer than anyone can remember, even the little gods of field and stream, three tribes have laid claim to the Shoku Valley: the cunning Gomori, the fierce Tatara, and the friendly Yayoi.
Each has rights to the valley and its land, gifted by long-dead Emperors. Each has put down deep roots through long lifetimes of sacrifice and labour. Each has ties to the gods of the valley, great and small, and obligations to them.
For twenty Emperors’ lives there has been an uneasy peace in the valley, intermarriage and trade holding firm against greed, hate, and tribal pride
But no longer.
Cherry blossoms open all through the valley, and a strong wind blows from the east. Spring is come, and the very world seems to hold its breath.
Any day now the storm will break, and the valley will be littered with blossoms: beautiful, and bittersweet, and cut down before their prime.
If only we might fall
Like cherry blossoms in the spring—
So pure and radiant !
A single-session game about champions torn between duty to their tribes and the bonds of feeling that tie them to each other, forced to choose what they will save, what they will give up, and what they will destroy.
Characterization-heavy. This is a game about characters struggling with messy complicated choices and their responsibility for the consequences. Play the characters hard, and play them honestly.
System-light, but system-driven. This game uses a custom mechanic driven by the emotional demands that characters make of one another, with meaningful consequences flowing forwards from each roll.
Competitive/PvP. This is a game where characters want and need opposing things, and may have to escalate to violence to make sure they get them.
| What's the game again? |
Tribal champions make their choices between duty and human bonds. |
| Seriousness |
On the serious side. |
| Genre/setting |
Mythic pre-feudal Japan. |
| System |
Custom, Apocalypse World inspired. |
| Rating |
M – R, by negotiation. |
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SHELLSHOCK
by Joe McNamara
Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
"I see your lights!" But ours had long died out.
The Sentry , Wilfred Owen
It is 1917, and for the ghosts of the Craiglockhart War Hospital, the war will never be over. You huddle together against the storm-ravaged No Man’s Land that surrounds the hospital, unable to move on, haunting the inhabitants of Craiglockhart, haunting each other, haunting yourselves.
Outside, there are miles of barbed wire, fields of severed hands, rains of blood and shrapnel and the howling, hungry dead. Inside, it’s you, a ghostly doctor whose violent death you are almost sure you had nothing to do with, and the cold voice of Oblivion. The Shadows in the halls and rooms are growing darker, and the black mould is creeping up from the cellar, and you may not be the scariest things which roam Craiglockhart much longer.
A Wraith: the Great War tabletop game for five war-ghosts.
| What's the game again? |
Five ghosts surviving the hostility of the wartime land of the dead, fighting amongst themselves, dealing with their issues. |
| Seriousness |
Generally serious, but tone may vary based on player preference |
| Genre/setting |
Wraith: the Great War, surreal historical horror |
| System |
Old World of Darkness, but system and setting knowledge is not necessary. |
| Rating |
R (Violence, war, adult themes, mental illness, suicide). |
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