Silenty hilly

[Mindhazingsquid]

Spel, Schnookums, Creeper and I are looking for one more player for a Silent hill based game.  It won't be THE Silent Hill but will feel and taste much like Silent Hill, the town's name is Heaven.

I should say this now, I abhor killing PCs without their concent but to add to the feel of the game I would just like to let you know that while death might not come easily (I don't WANT to kill everyone.  Where's the fun in that?) if you persist with stupid things (everyone knows wrestling with zombies is a bad idea) or if the situation dictates (***** who had his back against the door to hold the zombies at bay while the others start pushing furniture around to actually block the door, a smart thing, doesn't realise that Pyramid head with his 7 foot long sword is on the other side... oops, now he's been scewerd by a long sword as PH makes his own door.) it will happen, please don't take it personally.  I hope everyone is okay with that.

It's modern day, I was thinking of making it the cliche of a bunch of friends get together for a camp, get lost in a spooky old forest, while trying to reorient themselves they stumble across a ghost, mining town.  I wouldlike it if everyone knew at least one other character, you can be siblings, friends, significant others, what ever you like.
I would also like everyone to have some kind of deep dark secret (maybe you lust after your sibling, maybe you raped and killed (on purpose or not) someone).  I'm pretty open about the age of everyone.  I was picturing like college students but it could be 40 year olds getting together with old friends for a little camp.

There will be sex, but any soft, vanilla sex will be up to you to innitiate, anything I (as GM) start will be pretty bondagey.  There is a story, it will have a start and a finish (one way or another).

That's fair, although I must ask: Would you be willing to choose a secret for me and reveal it over the course of the story?  I ask because one of the reasons that I enjoy the Silent Hill series is that I like to gradually learn just what it is the protagonist is guilty of.  Also, would you prefer that our characters' secrets be connected in some way?  This could explain why all of our characters are in Silent Hill at the same time and might allow you yourself to streamline the theme and imagery.

Spel

You know, I think I do have an idea.   I could do that if everyone else is cool with it.  It might make it easier.

[Sabby]

I am so in :) if you'll have me that is.

I'm thinking a fellow college buddy that is slightly older then then, like late twenties, and is a disgaced police officer, kicked out for something... thats a good place to bring out his dark secret :) gruff and sort of just coasting through life, obvious haunted but trying to let his friends drag him along to fun stuff.

[Fyrangel]

I'd love to be part of this...  Maybe a college grad who started her own life and made some bad choices with who she got into business and bed with.

[Mindhazingsquid]

Well, I think I'll work out a shared deep dark (repressed) secret.
Anyway, I'll take you both but no more, 5 with one being a "guest" is enough.
I would like some depth to your characters.  I would like some working together on character history at least.  You were childhood friends, most of you if not all.  If it would help I can make a list of questions to help round out your characters.

[Fyrangel]

That would help.  I look forward to seeing the questions and I'll be working on fleshing her out more.

[Spookie Monster]

Anyway, I'll take you both but no more, 5 with one being a "guest" is enough.

Aw, shucks.  I was hoping that you were going to make them wrestle!

(Not make them wrestle for the final slot -- just wrestle.)

Seriously, mindhazingsquid, thanks for incorporating all of us.  I think that we've got a great group going! :)

Spel

[schnookums]

I do have a question about the game though..since there is a chance of death, does that mean the player is out of the game? It'd be odd to add someone once things got started, but I was curious.

[Mindhazingsquid]

Well, I might make them NPCs.  Anyway, I'm not saying that anyone WILL die, just that I'm not going to hold myself back like I'd like to.  Honestly, I don't WANT to kill off the characters, Silent Hill is a psychological horror, it's not about Freddy or Jason jumping out and killing you, it's about a kthulian world feeding off people's crazy and using it against them.

[Sabby]

Umm... what exactly is the premise of Silent Hill. The movie explained nothing, and game wise, I played a demo of SH4: The Room, which I understand isn't a true SH game.

[Mindhazingsquid]

Well, the first three are the best because all the monsters are the protagonist's psychie.  4 moves off to make the monsters the antagonists.
Silent Hill is a town that seems to be on the cusp of reality.
It's kind of like Innsmouth from Cthluhu mythos.
This is a brief rundown of the story.  It contains SPOILERS.

The Cult of Samael is trying to bring back their God.  In the first one Harry, the protagonist, is going for a vacation in Silent Hill with his daughter.  On the way he has a bad accident (like the movie only it's the father) and his daughter is missing.  The creatures in this aren't really suggestive of anything in his mind except the creepy ghost babies who could reprisent the daughter for whom he's looking or something like that.  Now the game doesn't say it but it suggests that all of this is happening in his mind and that he's actually on the cusp of death.  Samael gives him the choice of dying or raising his daughter who has his seed inside her (seed in most senses of the word).

In the second Samael is trying to rebuild his cult so He lures James to the town with a letter from his dead wife.  This one everything is very sexually suggestive.  There's nurses and weird double manaquin leg things.  But the whole thing is to show James just how evil and sadistic he really is and that he would be good to be the leader of his cult.  So he joins up.

The third one is also (in a sense) sexually suggestive in that everything is embrionic.  Monsters look kind of like feteuses or womb like.  It's Harry's daughter, Heather, in her teens gets tracked down by the newly resurected Cult of Samael so that she can give birth to their new god.  She doesn't like this idea (giving birth to gods tends to kill the mortal mother) so fights back.

Four was just very weak compared to the other three, I played it briefly, couldn't get into it.

[Sabby]

ehh... I've heard good stuff about SH2, but I only played 4 and it seriously put me off. If 1 or 2 are any good, then go on and convince me I may try them

[schnookums]

The problem with 4 was that it wasn't intended to be a Silent Hill game in the first place. It was supposed to just be a horror game but it got rebranded with SH so people might be more interested in it. What I've experienced of it tells me it's not BAD, just not SH.

[Mindhazingsquid]

I'll make up the questions on the weekend when I have more time by the way.

[Mindhazingsquid]

Things I need to know.
Name (of your character), hobies (maybe you're an avid survivalist or maybe you love to watch horror movies, I need to know), age (I would like you all to be roughly the same age, I was imagining college age), sexual orientation (of your character), what have you been doing over the years since you were friends (unless you're a significant other then it's "Where are you from?"), have you kept in touch (why not if no), what you look like, how you act (do you like to take charge?  do you always have to win?)
that's all I can think of for right now.

[Sabby]

I've gotten kind of over loaded of late... is this a good time to step down?

[Mindhazingsquid]

Awww, I hate when that happens, but if you have to now is a good time since we haven't really started.

[Spookie Monster]

I would like you all to be roughly the same age, I was imagining college age

Are we indeed going with, say, 18- to 22-year-old characters?  If so, that's cool, but I'm going to set aside the late-30s graveyard-shift DJ that I was drafting rather than try to revise him -- I've come to like him too much to send him back to college!

I've gotten kind of over loaded of late... is this a good time to step down?

Dang... I'm sorry to hear that you probably won't be sticking around, Sabbat.  That said, I totally understand how packed one's schedule can get sometimes.  I hope that you're having fun with the games that you're involved in! :)

Spel

[Mindhazingsquid]

I was thinking like early 20s, yeah.

[Spookie Monster]

I was thinking like early 20s, yeah.

Fair enough.  Have we got a "theme" for the group?  Similar to what I was suggesting earlier, this might grant us a good reason for being together at the same time and permit you, mindhazingsquid, to more easily tailor a cogent theme for Heaven.  I mean, perhaps our characters are all on the track and field team, all in a band, all in the chess club, or all members of the local chapter of the A Flock of Seagulls fan club.  (O.K., O.K., maybe I'm joking about that last one.  Then again, think how horrifying a A-Flock-of-Seagulls-themed Heaven would be! )

Spel

[Mindhazingsquid]

Have we lost everyone?
I do have a theme but I was planning on making it a surprise.
My vision was that you were a bunch of childhood friends, you lived on the same street, went to the same school, but as happens, over time you went your own way.  You did keep in touch and decided to have a get together once in a while.  There's a something that links you bunch specificly together but it's been forgotten over time.  I figure when you around 16 is when you all more or less split up.

[schnookums]

I'm still interested but life has been crazy...I'm moving out very soon and it's kinda consuming my life

[Spookie Monster]

Have we lost everyone?
I do have a theme but I was planning on making it a surprise.
My vision was that you were a bunch of childhood friends, you lived on the same street, went to the same school, but as happens, over time you went your own way.  You did keep in touch and decided to have a get together once in a while.  There's a something that links you bunch specificly together but it's been forgotten over time.  I figure when you around 16 is when you all more or less split up.

Ah -- that's cool.  Because our characters were going to be of college-age, I foolishly came to the conclusion that our characters were supposed to be in college together, heh!, and therefore had met there.  (Needless to say, it would be pretty unlikely that they'd have grown up together only to attend the same college.)  "Duh!" on my part.

(And I'm here, of course. )

By the way, schnookums, best of luck with your move! :)

Spel

[Spookie Monster]

Er... also, I should mention that I've got a character drafted.  Should I post his tentative biography or should I just hold onto it for now?

Spel

[Mindhazingsquid]

Sure, post it.

[MadPanda]

Daaaaaamn....NOW I spot this one!
Let me know if you need a replacement victim player at some point, please!

By the by, I managed to get my mitts on a copy of Silent Hill: Origins just before we left on our trip.  It's sort of like the prequel to SH1.  The first transition scene is especially creepy.  Predictable, if you've played the others, but still creepy.  Bloody handprints on the inside of a mirror?  (shudder)