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And They'll Hear You When It's Done • 2018 rpg

Aleks Samoylov • twitter.com/aleks_S

You're an obscure band on a very important cross-country tour. This is your shot. Unfortunately, you're all quite thoroughly cursed. 

Each player invents a backstory and selects 2 curses:

Pain - Everything hurts.
Fear - Everything is terrifying. 
Gab - Must keep talking. 
Honesty - Can't lie. 
Speed - Must keep moving.

Curse counters start at 2. 

When a musician does something important or stressful, roll 1d6. If the roll is equal to or under their highest curse counter, they stumble: increment either curse by 1 point. 

If a curse is at 3 or higher, it flares whenever the musician stumbles. When it reaches 6, it remains in effect until dropped to 3.

To drop a curse counter, a musician can cope or remember. Frame a scene and roll. If they don't stumble, subtract 1 from either curse. Alternatively, they can seek comfort: another musician rolls instead. 

Each player defines the nature and location of at least 1 gig on the tour. Hold a band meeting after a gig is defined. The last, most important gig is defined collaboratively (everyone adds at least 1 detail). Every gig presents each musician with a major task or challenge. Take turns framing scenes until the tour ends.

Author Comments

Almost everything I make is a loose, imperfect metaphor for mental illness. This is an attempt to give my morose preoccupation a fun (more so than usual, at least), community-focused spin. It’s about a group of people who are each forced to live with a difficult condition that directly impacts their ability to function, and it’s about those people working together to achieve something meaningful, or at least make some art in the attempt.


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