Okay, the session is over. Everyone went home and I'm alone again. My roommate will arrive in about an hour, and I don't feel like calling anyone on the phone, so you'll just have to do, /tg/. I'm scared shitless. I need you to keep me company for a little while. Some of you will call me a pussy, and that's fine. It's probably true. The game was Enter The Shadowside, if you don't know about it (it's fairly new from what I understand) the premise is that there is this spirit realm which is shaped by your thoughts and emotions. So if you fear something exist, you give it form, even if you didn't want to. It feeds on whatever you're feeling or thinking and gives it shape and makes it real while you're there. In the session my character is basically Johnny Depp's from the Ninth Gate, an extremely specialized antique hunter who finds rare satanic books. The thing is, the StoryHost kept describing a lot of events that actually match things that have happened to me in my life and which I've told no one about. Not a fucking soul, not even my ex. And either I'm imagining things, or I don't know. I admit I smoked earlier this morning, but it shouldn't matter.
>>19424737We're gonna need details if you want any input from us. Take a seat and tell your tale.
so my character is going to join GTS, not because he's a rich bastard or anything, but like I said, he has very useful skills and GTS can employ him. Tonight was the third session, so the GTS were going to give me Hyerogamy if I could find "La Voce de la Morte" for them. Cool, let's do it, etc.The other characters are a bounty hunter who wants to work for Fujin, and a ghetto poet who is sensitive to paranormal shit and precognitive and doesn't know where he'll end up but I think it'll be either Somosa or Big Sis. Anyway, I offered them a cut if they helped me, and boom we have a party.I decide to do some research about La Voce, and I get some clues about the Borgias and shit, none of that is relevant. Tonight was going to be the session where I was going to break into some mausoleum in Rome and open a certain coffin and get the book, if it was in any state to be obtained.
>>19424762yeah, thanks. I just want to chat for a while with anyone. I'd call someone on the phone, but I'm afraid I would sound like a pussy so yeah, being anon is best for now.
Is there a market for rare satanic bibles? I thought they were sold as curiosity-items to angsty teenagers and Barnes & Noble.
so we break into this tomb and of course its not just a tomb but somehow connected to a larger cave underground, okay. I saw that in Indiana Jones, no big deal, I expected it. We power on. Then the big surprise the SH had was that there was another party of raiders from Somosa coming in from another point of entry, also looking for the book, yadda yadda. Standard conflict, to his credit, the SH made the other guys feel like real people instead of "baddies" (well he said that's the point of the game, I haven't read it other than character creation and organizations) and suddenly someone casts fen wa bo and we enter the shadowside. So here's the thing:When I was 7 (this is real life, not my character) my dad has a house in florida that was near a lake (this is very frequent in florida, being swamp land). And this house was in the center, so the lake was like a horse-shoe shape thing, and you could sit in the deck behind and be surrounded by water from all sides, very nice.So, when the SH starts describing the shadowside, he says that suddenly the ground gives way around us and we're left standing in the center of the cavern, but surrounded by an abyss in the shape of a horse shoe.Okay, I'm still cool with this.
>>19424784I don't know in real life, who knows. Ebay.in the game though, these GTS were offering 30k for La Voce.
so the player who is a precog asks to roll to see what's going on, who's around us, etc. The other Somosa party was composed of their manbo (a real bossy bitch) and a bunch of newbies who weren't even ridden yet, so they're just as scared as us, it is everyone's first time in the shadowside. The manbo is nowhere to be seen. So the player rolls and gets a 13 and the storyhost says he can hear the meowing of a cat coming from the abyss. So, real life me, when I was 7, I lost my cat in the lake. I didn't see him drown or anything, it just dissapeared one day, but I was sure he had drowned. Still, nothing shit-bricking yet. I tell the party to stay togetehr, try not to think of anything too shitty and start trying to find a way back (none of the somosa newbies had cementery dust anymore so we had to find our way scavenger style)
so we start walking through these caverns and the storyhost says we suddenly hear whispers. they're in italian. this makes sense in the story given the background of the borgias and everything, but my aunt on my mother side grew up in italy. She was the one who gave me that cat.I ask the storyhost to tell me what the italian voices are saying and he says (in english) that they say "you're not here to steal from us. we're here to give you back what is yours".
so I say "what do I have to do?" and the voices all become silent and a single door of light opens in front of us.one of the somosa guys asks me if I know what La Voce de la Morte does. I say I don't give a fuck, I'm just paid to find it. He says his manbo wants it because it can reconnect the living with the spirits of the readers who died in a "life that wasnt". I don't understand and the somosa have a fame for being druggies so I pay no mind.we go through the door in the light. the storyhost says we're now in a dining room, inside a cabin, and the way he describes it, it's just like the one in florida. And in the center of the cabin, in a reclining chair, is the cat, yellow with white tips on the ears and tails, just like sparky. So at this point, i'm starting to suspect it's a joke or something is going on.
someone post something please. so i'm approaching the cat and I realize he's sitting on top of the book. the bounty hunter goes for it but I tell him to stop. I don't know why. I ask the SH for more details on the cat, but of course the SH can only describe what my character sees, so I ask the precog. The precog rolls, and the SH tells him to just say whatever comes to mind since it's the shadowside anyway. So the precog says that this cat was once my pet. The player doesn't know me, he's my roommate, he's the guy who's supposed to arrive at 10. I've never told him about sparky, or anything related.the bounty hunter says fuck it, and goes for the book. the somosa npcs try to stop him. the SH declares the start of turns, and we have a nice combat for a while because we decided to take the side of the bounty hunter since, you know, he's not an npc.
>>19424959That's kind of freaky, probably a few strange coincidences that made you start looking for similarities and not pay much attention to anything that they got wrong.
>>19424959Sounds like either your GM was some sort of fucking detective, or he's a telepathy who's been invading your mind looking for ways to fuck with you.Who else knows about the cat. Call them, ask them if they've talked to anyone.
so after like 5 rounds of fighting (the bounty hunter managed to summon his favorite rifle) the manbo's spirit who is still in the real world, uses montado on one of her own guys and possesses him. through him, she warns us that we have fucked up, and that one of us will not return anymore. we ask her how does she knows, and she replies "because I read it in La Voce already".So it turns out that while we were all playing with our dicks in the shadowside, the manbo, in the real world, had broken into the right coffin and actually got the book. The version of the book we saw here was just... a shadow, like everything else, a representation. then the cat suddenly jumps off the chair and dashes for the door. I grab the book and follow.
Interesting, please continue.Also I totally think you should bring up the comparison to the others in your group, at least ones your closer with or the "story host".If anything, it would add a layer of mystique to a game that seems to thrive off of it and give everybody the heebie jeebies for a minute. Good stuff.
>>19424959Your DM is possessed by the cat. An exorcism may be required.
so when we come outside, the sh describes we're back at the beginning, the horse-shaped abyss, but now it's full of water. I ask him what's in the water and he says "evens-male odds-female". Rolls an 8. Then he says "this roll plus 5 determines age" and rolls a 2. So it's a 7-year old boy. Then "this rolls determines the health of the boy" and rolls a 1. So it's a bloated corpse of a small child floating there. The cat starts going to it, meowing all the way. The bounty hunter doesn't want to give up the fight, since he's a sort of psycho anyway, but we convince him to let the remaining somosa guy remain. btw, if you haven't figured it out I'm shitting fucking bricks inside my head and trying not to show it at the table. I even went to the bathroom and washed my face.I came back to the table and I don't know what happened, but now the manbo has somehow opened a passage way back to the real world that goes through a hole in the lake, a hole where water is pouring in. she says, someone needs to die for the gate to open, and it's up to us to choose who.
>>19425011>>19425009>>19424982>>19424979thank you. The storyhost is a good guy btw, he's one of the best DMs I've seen, not that I've seen any, but he never railroads, never. Or if he does, I don't feel it. And before we started playing Shadowside, he said this game was different, that for this game, he had no plans, no designs, no campaign, nothing. 100% sandbox. Totally up to us, the players, to do whatever the fuck we wanted, and that he wouldn't even care, he would just follow us and make us roll for things but otherwise has no more visibility than we do. that was three sessions ago.
>>19425040Dear god the tension
anyway, instead of choosing, I ask the precog guy to just tell us who's it gonna be, since he can see the future and all. Why bother, right? it's meant to be what's meant to be.So the SH gives each of us a section of the dice, 1-5 for the precog, 6 to 10 for the bounty hunter, 11 to 15 for me and 16 to 20 for the somosa npc.Then tells the precog to roll INT against whatever difficulty (I wasn't even paying attention at that point) and he rolls a 20. Cool, so he succeeds. the SH tells him to roll again to see who will die. It's a 13.The precog tells me, it's me. Then the SH rolls out of nowhere cuz he "felt something" (at this point I'm about to ask him seriously if he's fucking with me) and then describes the cat goes swimming (yeah.. cat swimming) to the floating dead body of the 7 year old boy and sort of perches there.Then the gate opens and light comes off it. the manbo says "the price has been paid... by a life you didn't live" or some shit like that. nobody cares we just swim for the hole in the water. No rolls required, we all make it. we go through it, we fall, we fall through the light, then we fall upwards out of an open coffin, bonk on the ceiling then on the crypt's floor. we're back in the real world and the manbo has the book.so I ask her to explain what the fuck she meant.
and she explains (I can't paraphrase it for the love of god) that Voce de la Morte lets you talk to versions of yourself that died in ways you did not die. In their .. universes, they died. For example, that time when you were late and missed the bus and later on the bus crashed? Yeah, another version of you, in another universe, did take that bus and did die. And you can talk to that person via Voce. so, look, I don't know how to make it sound suspensful so I'll just come out and say it: the manbo says the boy was me, in another universe, and I drowned in that universe. But in this universe, somehow, the cat drowned instead, and I lived. The cat saved me. So I don't know what I said, I just went to the batrhoom again, and then the girlfriend of the bounty hunter player called him on his cellphone, and then my roommate had to go, etc, so the session ended there.then they all left me alone and I came here.that's it. That's all. I don't know if I feel better typing it though.
but yeah. sparky dissapeared when I was 7. I don't remember if I was ever in danger, or if I could have drowned, I have no idea how would a cat even begin to do anything that resulted in saving me and drowning itself. but I can't get the thought off my head ever since. this fucking game, guys. It messes with your head. I just typed something and then deleted it cuz it sounded too fucking insane even for me.
Wow, 10/10, would read again, dude you have an awesome SM. That is some really weird coincidence, but you should cherish this moment, you won't get many like it. Oh, stay off of /x/ and keep your mind off of creepy shit, you'll be fine.
>>19425009I will tell my roommate when he comes back. I'll ask him if he knew (maybe he talked to my parents or something) and if he told the SH anything. It would be extremely weird though, since Sparky is not exactly an every day topic for me.
>>19425185yeah, the guy is good. He's always winging it though. Or, if he plans stuff, I can never tell. And for this game he told us that the rules specifically recommend that he doesn't plan, and that he has to make everything up sandbox style.I guess it was kinda cool and maybe tomorrow I'll laugh about it but right now I'll be honest I'm looking over my shoulder every now and then.
Wow, that's some crazy shit OP.Clearly one of your friends is a wizard.In all honesty though, I would bring it up to your group. If they like games like that they'll probably appreciate this story as much as I did reading it.
>>19425224yeah. they're gonna laugh at me, though. Or worse, the SH will incorporate me in the story even more. I came here to /tg/ to kind of stop thinking crazy things. because you know, if voce de la morte lets you speak to other versions of you... isnt' your character somehow another version of you? or, if he was real, aren't you another version of him, and thus wouldn't voce let him access another version of you?okay. I probably need a smoke,
from what I understand the shadowside makes real everything you believe to be real as long as you are feeling it. It doesn't matter how you feel it, it could be a nightmare, or daydreaming. Or a tabletop session.
>>19425244You're missing a crucial part: the book lets you talk to DEAD versions. Since neither you nor your character are currently dead, the book doesn't apply.Unless...Unless you've managed to post this from the afterlife?
It could be that you dm knows a bit of cold reading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading
>>19425271>>19425280
>>19425280so character > real life person > dead 7 year old version of real life person.
>>19425280>>19425285Yeah, that has to be it.Sorry I'm afk btw, I'm calling my roomate and he's not answering. He was supposed to be here half and hour ago.If he answers I'm gonna tell him about sparky.
>>19425145You really must keep us up to date on this campaign.When can we expect more?
OP how in the seven circles of hell I had never heard of Enter The Shadowside before? That game sounds fucking awesome.
Can someone throw up this rulebook as a pdf somewhere? It sounds... charming.
>>19425390we play every saturday. the other two sessions were really cool too, but had none of the mindfuck of this one.btw, my roommate is letting me go to voicemail after 2 rings. this had never happened before. >>19425418yeah, I like it a lot. So far it reminds me of how VtM used to feel when it was still new.
>>19425418The guy who made it showed off some of the ideas here while he was building it, then came back once the PDF was done and posted most of the pages.It's $5 at DriveThruRPG. If you want to pirate it, I'm sure someone here has a screencap of his "Why you shouldn't" page.
If someone really wanted to be an asshole they would spam this thread with creepypasta and pictures. Also, nifty story op.
>>19425450Shall we expect you back around the same time next Saturday?
>>19425438It costs $5 and if you email the creator saying you are from /tg/ and don't have enough money for his game, he'll send you it for free.Have a little respect for indie games, huh?
>>19425438It's five dollars at DTRPG. The author of that game has been here in /tg/ and has said anyone who can't afford the five dollars should just email him and he'll send a free copy. I didn't save his email though.
>>19425456>>19425493>>19425496OP here, actually I didn't know that. The SH bought it, printed our sheets and brought his laptop. If it's five bucks I might as well buy it too.>>19425462Yeah, sure. I can do this. A while ago I was considering stop playing the game for a while, since it's a little intense (I never thought I would say that) but now I'm thinking that was a pussy thing to think. Of course I'll keep playing.
>>19425458Nah, it's cool. I feel a lot better right now. Right after the session ended though, I was mildly freaked out, but right now I'm cool. I even went to /x/ to see what was up, but it's just the usual crap. They totally don't deserve scavenger (one of the factions in the game is somehow related to them).
Medical students' disease. Called it.
>>19425583What is that? I'm not studying medicine btw.
>I'm freaking out!>I'm high but that really has nothing to do with it.Wow, I'm going to be up all night solving this mystery.
>>19425700yeah, I can see why you would think that. It was this morning, I was feeling perfectly normal when the session started. Anyway, I'm going to bed. I really feel much better. As soon as that asshole of my roommate comes back, we'll have a chat and it's going to be a cool thing to share with the other two. I bet you the SH won't take any of the credit.Thank you, elegan/tg/entlemen for your company, and for helping me chill and everything. See you next saturday, I guess!OP out.
>>19425657Basically, humans are crazy suggestible. What happens to a lot of medical students and psychology students is that when they study these diseases they start to convince themselves they've got any number of them, often quite honestly believing it.In a lot of old false-memory cases the same thing would happen. A detective or social asks a leading question (did X happen?) and the child answers yes, because they're conditioned to answer in the affirmative to almost every question their whole tiny life (Did you brush your teeth?) After they say yes, quite often they more or less create the memory of whatever event they were asked about. In their mind they're not lying, they start to honestly convince themselves.This is a joyless topic, so have Godzilla getting busy.
>>19425767This makes sense except that it requires op to not have had a cat named sparky who died in a horse shoe lake when he was 7, and instead have conjured all of that as a false memory starting hours ago at most.
>>19425811Like others have said, I want to believe it's a case of cold reading.
>>19425811I agree that it's not quite the same, but I see a similar principle at work here. OP receives information that is not *identical* to reality, but his mind latches on to the matching parts and discards any details that don't fit. You know, how you remember rolling a string of the same # on a d20 - especially if it's 1s or 20s - but don't pay attention to the string of "random" numbers which was definitely much longer.
As the tale of Boxcar Joe illustrate the gods of dice and statistics are not so random as we would feel comfortable believing.Lose 1d10 Sanity Points and Cthulhu the fhtagn
>>19425062Generally speaking if your DM lets you do whatever you want and it feels like a sandbox but the story is still good, it means he's one of those DMs who hides his railroading but does it nonetheless (which is the right way to DM).
>>19426019Something like this would be perfect for my own game. Not the character Boxcar Joe himself, but the idea of a story-hopping character. Consider it stolen.
>>19425991This makes sense. A lot. Still, I have to admire a game that sucks you in so much that this phenomenon kicks in.
>>19426063My opinion only: I always prefer the sandbox. I've never had a really bad GM that railroads you hard, but if it's the sandbox, the game feels more "real" if you know what I mean.An analogy: if it was a videogame and you know a cutscene is going to save you in the last minute... then you have nothing to be really afraid of. Just make it to the cutscene and you'll be fine. But if it's 100% sandbox, then you're on your own, completely. Life and death is in your hands as opposed to the GM. Like I said, just my two cents, and I know Enter the Shadowside advocates the sandbox (the author calls it "Seeing").
>>19426238Well, the good DM makes it feel like a sandbox. Let's say, for example, there is an event planned.A bad DM tries to get the players to go to the place where the event will take place. A good DM just lets the players go wherever they want to, moves the event there and adjusts it if needed. The players are not made aware that this has happened; they think the DM improvised completely.An NPC is tied into the story somehow. The players try to kill that NPC. A bad DM has that NPC escape somehow, or be more powerful than them, or overpower them by DM fiat. A good DM simply shifts the story to use a different NPC for the particular part, who he will work into the players' path later.
