DRYH: The Bad Man: GenCon 2015 After Hours

2 August 2015: 7 pm: Embassy Suites After Hours Sunday Gaming: Don't Rest Your Head -- The Bad Man

CONTENT WARNING: Disturbing violence, mostly aimed at children. All of the PCs are children, and due to pre-arrangement because a player needed to leave early, there is a very disturbing PC death.

GM: Scott Acker

Starting Players:

• Joshua Kronengold: Mary Anne, 7
• Me: Benji, 7
• ???: Elijah, 9
• ???: Shawn, 12

I had already played The Bad Man, years ago at DexCon or Dreamation, but, as Scott noted, it's not as if that's a spoiler. The game is made by the players.

The mechanics involve rolling a lot of d6s of various types, generally color coded. Dice which came up 1, 2, or 3 were successes. But, the highest die determined which type dictated the way things went.

At minimum, one always rolls three Discipline dice. These are neutral / good (insert alignment jokes here). Of course, over the course of the game, some of these dice might be replaced by Madness dice.

If you want to use your PC's Madness talent, you must add one or more Madness dice to the roll, up to six dice. If Madness prevails, choose Fight or Flight for your PC, and then mark off one of the three slots for these reactions. Once all three are marked off, your PC has snapped. Uncheck the boxes, but replace one of the three Discipline dice with a Madness die that you will be using on all rolls from this point forward. If all of your Discipline dice are replaced with Madness dice, your PC becomes one of the monsters.

Thus, while normally, you can roll anywhere from zero to 6 Madness die on a roll, once a Discipline die is replaced by a Madness die, that die is "sticky" -- it is rolled ever afterwards in this game.

In contrast, Exhaustion dice are always sticky. Once you use one on a roll, you must roll it from then on in this game. The number of Exhaustion dice you _must_ roll is your Exhaustion. If this number reaches 7, your character Crashes and falls asleep. This is the worst thing that can happen, and it is like character death.

As this was a convention one shot, rather than starting with 0 Exhaustion dice, we started with 2.

The GM rolls Pain dice, choosing how many. If Pain dominates, one pays a greater price. Additionally, the GM puts a Coin of Despair into a pool and can take it to add or remove a six from any type of die on a subsequent roll, likely changing what dominates. Once the Coin of Despair is spent, it becomes a Coin of Hope. Any player can uses these to remove one Exhaustion die or restore a Fight or Flight box. Multiple Coins can restore a permanent Madness die to a Discipline die.

In case of a tie for what dominates, Discipline beats Madness beats Exhaustion beats Pain.

We decided that the game took place in the 1990s, during which all of us were alive out of character. All of the PCs knew each other and were friends. Our character sheets had a few questions.

What are you bestest at? ( Exhaustion talent.)

• Mary Anne: Throwing Things
• Elijah: Bestest at running
• Benji: Drawing pictures
• Shawn: Walking a tightrope -- perfect balance. I think this turned into a pair of magic sneakers which allowed him to do things like run on walls.

What magical power do you have? (Madness talent.) I only have some of these.

Mary Anne: My stuffed dragon, Puff. It lets me fly on its back. (1-2 dice: have Puff become big; 3-4 dice: go somewhere impossible; 5-6 dice: have Puff breathe fire) Benji: String, yarn, ball of. It lets me build things. (1-2 dice: tightrope, ties everything up; 3-4 dice: bridge; 5-6 dice: connect things that shouldn't be connected (dimensional, etc.)) I think Shawn had Theodore, a magical velveteen teddy bear, but I'm not sure about this.

Why can't you sleep?

Elijah: The Face Within. Elijah had night terrors of a woman sitting on his face and on his chest. She hid under his bed when the sun rose, like when it gets dark, except in reverse.

Shawn: Has to catch the bird.

Benji: Clowns. They break things.

GM: What's the worst thing they broke?

Benji: The rocking chair my mom rocked me in.

GM (with absolute and evil sympathy): That's terrible!

Mary Anne: Darkness -- _anything_ could be in it!

And she heard things. Like, maybe grinding.

There are grinding things with claws? (GM -- Sorry -- I don't want to scare you -- just want to know what we're dealing with.)

One of them touched her on the feet and pulled the blankets off and it hurt.

What do other kids think of you?

Elijah: That he's weird, nerd, funny. They sneak up behind him and scare him and he jumps and they laugh.

Shawn: That I'm a big chicken baby who brings a stuffed bear in his back pack.

Mary Anne: They think she is shy. They like that I can throw things but say I can throw really well -- for a _girl_. I like playing -- when they let me -- cuz I'm a girl. I broke a window once -- I _said_ it was me, but they didn't believe me. They got mad.

Benji: That I'm weird cuz I play with string and hide my sketch book.

Benji and Mary Anne lived across the street from each other and had play dates. Their parents were friends. Elijah was probably not responsible enough to babysit for them.

What is home really like?

Elijah: Dad is gone. Hank comes over because Mommy is lonely. They have sleepovers a lot. Hank wants me to visit a psycho-they're-a-pissed. I don't know what they're a-pissed about -- they won't tell me.

Mary Anne: All right. They're nice, but sometimes argue about money.

Sean: Lonely. Parents work all the time, They're doctors.

Do they take you to the hospital to sleep?

The birds are there too.

Sean was a latchkey kid, and he watched television and played video games.

Benji: Neat. Very neat. Dad in real estate. Mom a pharmacist.

Why do you deserve to be punished?

Benji: I let the clowns in -- they were knocking on door and asked to come in. They said it would be fun.

Sean: I left footprints on neighbor's roof -- chasing birds around.

Elijah: I make Mommy real sad . I wet the bed and Hank yells at her, and the teacher calls her. If I hadn't been crying -- Hank wouldn't have come into my room.

Mary Anne: Because I make Mommy and Daddy poor. Daddy says I shouldn't keep lights on all the time -- but it's because of the darkness.

Do they turn them off so that you can't turn them on?

No, but they say I can't and must stay in bed till the sun comes up -- sometimes I do it anyway and turn them off when the sun comes up.

What do you wish upon a star for?

• Sean: Wants birds to go away.
• Benji: Everything to be fixed back to what it should be.
• Mary Anne: Daddy and Mommy to win the lottery so I can keep the lights on.
• Elijah: To stop making Mommy sad.

There was a new family on street that arrived about a week ago. They had some kids there (whom we knew would be played by Scott's wife and son when they joined us). There's a privacy fence, not a chain link fence. The kids seemed to be nice and wanting to play.

The new kids started telling the others about the Bad Man, and after, this started happening to them. This was not, the GM stressed, a you vs them thing -- the new kids didn't cause this.

Last night, the new kids' parents freaked out. Lights went on, and the parents went looking for a missing kid, or perhaps kids. Hank joined them, with _guns_ out (and someone said something about Hank suddenly being from Austin originally. I have no idea if that's at all fair to Austin).

Shawn's parents freaked out. They were at the hospital, and they couldn't get away to glue themselves to their kid.

Elijah's Mommy was helping the new parents look. She told Hank to be with Elijah. Hank told Elijah to go to bed. I think Shawn came over, but I'm not really clear on where in the house he was.

It wasn't in Elijah's room. There, the Night Hag was under the bed whispering. Elijah had never talked to her before. She said that as soon as the lights went off, she'd get him. No messing around with the face for hours. Nope, she'd pull his face off to give it to the Bad Man to wear so that everyone would think it's Elijah.

By now, Shawn was in the living, I think, on the den futon, switching through tv stations with the sound off. He heard tapping beaks on the window. It was creepy because the den was an internal room without a window.

Shawn turned off the tv and they went away. But, my notes indicate that whispering (under the bed) and tapping (at a non-existent window) continued.

Mary Anne's father had gotten her a nightlight, but it only kept some of the darkness away. She heard a lot of feet moving and running and pulling something and heard someone yelling "help" and it was the neighbor kids.

She turned on the light and the sounds went away. She took a flashlight and Puff and a blanket, because the other kids might need help and Mommy and Daddy said to be Brave even if it's hard.

[At this point, I drew a tiny picture of Mary Anne wrapped in her blanket in my notes]

Mary Anne went outside to look for the missing children. Her parents had even said she could stay on the couch with the lights on -- but the Bad Man took them!

Benji: Mom and Dad are out, and I see a light outside the window. It's a flashlight and Mary Anne is holding it which is really strange because she never goes out at night.

And he saw the clowns outside.

Benji: Mary Anne?

Mary Anne: <nod> (Picture Josh doing a great job of being a small child wrapped in a blanket nodding earnestly)

Benji: You're outside?

Mary Anne: <nod>

Benji: But it's dark.

Mary Anne: <shows flashlight>

And the clowns loomed menacingly.

Benji: Look out! I'm coming.

He warned her about the clowns.

Mary Anne swung the light to the clowns -- what clowns? They were gone!

Meanwhile, Hank, after much protesting, went to look under Elijah's bed.

Hank: This is super dumb. There is nothing underneath --

And the Face Witch got him. Poor Hank. And she got his face, which she'd give to the Bad Man, which meant everyone would think that the Bad Man was Hank. Poor Hank.

Benji opened the door for Mary Anne. And, they heard "Hank", who was actually the Bad Man at this point.

Not-Hank: Elijah? Get back in here! (Ka-Chunk of guns)

And there was a shadowy figure in the bushes where the sound was coming from. At this point, I think everyone -- Benji, Mary Anne, Elijah, and Shawn -- all dove into Benji's house.

I think Elijah left the door of his house open, because my notes say that Mary Anne likely left her door open too.

At this point, we reiterated the forces the Bad Man had at his disposal:

• Birds
• Face Witch
• Darkness
• Clowns

And Not-Hank was pounding on the door for Elijah.

Mary Anne: The kids are with the Bad Man in the darkness.

Benji (still having trouble reconciling this with the Mary Anne he knows): You want to go into the darkness?

Mary Anne: No! But I think I have to.

Benji: I know where Mom and Dad keep flashlights.

As he collected them, he knocked down a bowl of fruit and the bowl broke.

Mary Anne: It's the clowns.

Benji: No, it's me -- but it was the clowns' fault.

(Josh liked this, as we all knew that, on some level, Benji, not the clowns, did the breaking things.)

Everyone ran out the back while Not-Hank was being distracted. My notes say that someone or ones were 3/4 of the way there, and that there was a flock of crows and clowns.

Benji made a lasso, using 2 Madness dice. Elijah grabbed Mary Anne and ran as fast as he could, using his Exhaustion talent. Shawn jumped high into the air and swatted at the birds with a twig he grabbed.

Mary Anne had 4 successes the GM got 552 on Pain for a single success, but Pain dominated.

Benji got 2 successes. My notes about Elijah are hard to read. I think he got 4 successes.

Shawn got 3 Successes, but Pain dominated.

So, there was a greater price paid by Shawn and Mary Anne. Shawn leapt 20 feet up and skinned himself. My notes indicate that Puff jumped, or perhaps Mary Anne jumped atop him, but she skinned her knees, and that really _hurt_.

Folks were in the dark.

GM (I think): But you can still _see_.

And then, everyone was falling down the hole, "just us". Not-Hank was at the top trying to shoot down at everyone, and one of the last things the kids _thought_ they saw was Not-Hank jumping down after them.

When everyone landed and began to reorient themselves, they were apparently under a bad, smelly mat. It was dark. They could see each other if they were close, but not other things.

Elijah clambered and came across a really big column. Eventually, he realized that he'd found a giant table, and the column was the table leg.

My notes say that there was a <BOOM> and that something was stuck into place, something about a ladder -- and about Madness dominating.

There were also crows to deal with, little ones and a BIG ONE. And battle was joined. Shawn was on the column / table leg at one point. The crows were unusually bold. The mat was not on a solid surface but on cloth.

My notes say something about Elijah having a guaranteed success, but I'm not sure why, and about Shawn running up walls. Then, there was a 3 vs 1 with Pain dominating for Mary Anne, and the GM asked why Pain was dominating.

Mary Anne: My knees are hurting and I'm really small. So I don't think I can climb up fast enough.

So, instead of climbing up the table leg, she looked for rocks and dirt to throw in the mess under the table. I think Elijah had another guaranteed success or three. My notes say "2 + 3 for Maj = 5 -) 6 4". Whatever that meant, Exhaustion dominated.

GM: Why?

Mary Anne: I have little arms. I was throwing things at the bird, and then the Momma bird came, and I had to use a _BIG_ rock and spin around and around to throw it. The bird was scared off. But I was _really tired_ -- and I still had to climb.

At this point, I think the GM used a Pain Token to add or to remove a 6. He noted that, iirc, if he spent a token and Pain then dominated, an extra coin was not generated. However, the Token of Despair he spent became a Token of Hope.

There was a flat platform, which the kids realized was actually a giant bed, iirc. And Exhaustion dominated. One of more of the kids dove across the bed. A giant door to the room opened. There was a huge light.

At this point, the two remaining players arrived. They were, of course, playing the missing kids that the others had gone searching for.

• Margaret Acker: Katherine, 12, good at fencing. She had a silver bracelet that let her run really fast.
• Chris Acker: Seth, 12, good at sneaking. He had Cords of Destruction, which was a friendship bracelet that destroyed things.

The now 6 kids realized that they were in a giant's room and that what had seemed a cavern was actually a folded over sheet. The crows were still menacing them, and there was a big man, though he may have been offstage or asleep.

The kids tapped on the walls until they realized the walls were made of cloth.

Someone (the GM? Benji?): You've got a flashlight. Someone (Mary Anne? Benji?) Oh, yes, I do.

Katherine attacked the crow. This was a success, but Pain dominated, and my notes said that the pain was not physical, but psychological. Apparently, this had to do with crow eyes.

Katherine: Kill it!

Seth: I will go out and challenge it!

Katherine: I will help you!

Seth Is it stabbing me yet? Cuz I'm unwrapping my friendship bracelet to stab it with.

6 successes, but Pain dominated -- until the GM used a Coin of Despair to make Exhaustion dominate instead. Somehow, fighting the crow was harder than expected and Seth was tireder. He'd managed with help from Katherine, but had hurt his wrist.

The kids were now in a jungle and Mary Anne's flashlight revealed a paw print in the mud.

Margaret: How did the bedsheets turn into jungle with mud?

GM: The bedsheets had tropical plants, so as they dug in their madness...

You know. These things happen. My notes also say:

Giant Paw Print too many
Skittering claws in the darkness

Was something moving behind them as they moved to the river? Puff?

Mary Anne rode on Puff, but Pain dominated.

Mary Anne: I realize -- I lost the flashlight! It fell out of my hands when I held onto Puff! And it's getting dark!

Shawn was wearing shoes, and Mary Anne was wearing footy pajamas when they saw the prints.

The paw prints were made by a grey and black catlike creature with 8 legs. Its tail split into two, and it had a Cheshire oval mouth to bite things with and faceted spider eyes.

Someone threw an apple at the thing. Exhaustion dominated.

Josh: Unless you make Madness dominates

Scott: Why would I do that?

Josh and Lisa: I just want to point out I checked off my only Flight, so I'd _have_ to fight it.

Scott: You just sweetened the pot!

Chris (comparing Seth's and Benji's powers): So, 2 magical strings?

GM: Yours destroys; his creates. They're opposites, and probably in personality too.

Me: I thinking could we use someone crazy like that. What those cool kids next door would do!

At which point, my notes say:

GM: Like Jenny's smarmy face.

Katherine: Best icicle ever!

I have no idea what that meant. But, the kids were getting perhaps a bit overly ambitious with the strings.

Me: And I just want to point out that it's the _same_ string that's being Ariadne's Thread

<WHOOSH!>

Whatever the kids had been doing, it involved one string attached to Elijah.

WHOOSH!

---Elijah---------) Yanked!

Katherine tried to reach and untie Elijah before he went off the cliff. She succeeded, and Pain dominated.

Josh: And sometimes, it's worth going to sleep to save the day. Chris: It's better than going mad and becoming a monster.

The creature was dubbed an Octokitty by the group. Whoever was trying to do something got 7 successes to the GM's 3, but Pain dominated, if barely:

It reared up, then <BOOM> -- someone or something's head exploded, possibly Octokitty's.

And I think Not-Hank fired his shotgun. I'm not sure whether he hit the Octokitty or a PC or what. My notes mention "shoulder and leg".

Not-Hank reloaded, and Elijah, as stated above, almost went over the cliff, but was saved at the last minute by Katherine.

I think Elijah, Benji, Katherine, and Seth were clustered together. Not-Hank came striding out of the jungle with a pith helmet which I suspect the actual Hank did not own.

The camera did a close up on the shotgun, in movie terms. It was a really big shotgun.

GM: It looks like it could get all of you...

Mary Anne and Shawn looked around at the gunshot. They saw Benji, Elijah, Katherine, and Seth at the edge of the cliff. The jungle was too far away to run to quickly, and they saw Not-Hank with the shotgun.

Mary Anne: We have to save them!

Shawn: How?

Mary Anne: Puff can fly us up there and breathe fire on him!

Shawn could run up the cliff.

Shawn: I don't trust this big reptilian [something illegible].

Mary Anne: He's not a reptile! He's a dragon!

GM: Completely different!

Mary Anne: And he's squishy!

66321 -- Madness dice

66322 -- Pain dice

Mary Anne (to Puff): Scour the hillside! Blast it with fire!

GM: When you stop, there's no one standing there.

Mary Anne: We have to get home!

Seth: I am in full concurrence.

It was at this point that Elijah's player left to get some rest.

So, as everyone climbed down the rope, Exhaustion dominated. All the kids made it down -- except for Elijah. A sea of crows engulfed him from the waist up, and barely a moment later, his skeleton fell.

Seth: Elijah nooo!

Mary Anne started to cry. Benji couldn't comfort her -- Elijah was dead!

Josh (after some in character crying, so as not to stall the game): And she cries for a while longer.

The GM noted that Mary Anne could be carried.

My notes say "Giant Crow -- net and perforate". Benji was trying to help Seth, and got 2 successes, I think. Madness dominated, so he fought. Both boys got caught up in string, and covered in icky sticky gore and crow feathers.

There was a trail of dead crows. I think this was caused by Mary Anne, perhaps with help from Puff.

Mary Anne: Can we go home now?

Seth: You killed the crows. That was awesome.

Mary Anne: It was. I want to go home.

Unfortunately, that's when Not-Hank arrived riding a 15-foot-high bear named Theodore. Not-Hank now had _two_ shotguns.

Someone, I think Seth, took a hit, and the GM asked how. My notes say that it was by destroying the bullets as they came.

Mary Anne, and perhaps others, were riding her dragon, but for chrome, not for any mechanical effect. There were 5 successes to the GM's 6, so we used a Token of Hope to make it 6 vs 6, and ties went go to the player.

So, the bear crashed! It howled forlornly, then collapsed into dust, nothingness, and velveteen. Pain dominated.

Katherine crashed into Not-Hank. She killed the Bad Man, and her sword twisted up as it was caught in the Bad Man.

Josh: If I throw in help for [i.e., for using] the dragon, would he [Seth] still take the hit?

GM: Yes.

Josh: Wow.

Just Clowns and the Face Witch were left, at this point, Benji's ability to connect things that don't normally connect came up, though I'm not clear on whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Mary Anne: Here -- take Puff. He'll protect you.

In other words, Mary Anne was taking the hit via Puff. Seth was using his talent (possibly combined with Benji's, but Seth was clearly doing the heavy lifting) to break through to the kids' home land. But, Seth couldn't keep it open on his own.

We had 15 successes to the GM's 8, despite the GM rolling 15 Pain dice. (It was clearly time for that many.) However, Pain dominated.

Puff was damaged holding the opening for the kids. The dragon tore and his stuffing fell out.

Mary Anne: Puff!

So, the kids got home, but with loss. Brave Puff was dead. Elijah's body was found, torn up by animals. Hank was never found.

I think I suggested Hank might be given credit for being a hero. The poor guy really did try to do the right thing, looking under the bed of the kid he was watching to reassure his charge. Sadly, another ending of Hank's tale was more likely.

Someone: I think they're gonna blame Hank -- he murdered his stepson, and hid the body in woods.

Okay, as far as I can tell from my notes, Hank wasn't actually Elijah's stepfather yet, but this is sadly plausible.

And there we ended, with a bit of post-game discussion. Having two replacement characters arrive halfway through the game really upped the kids' odds. We started with 2 Exhaustion, and Scott thought that it could be 3 and still be reasonable.

Scott also pointed out something. Throughout the game, he'd been trying to tempt us to roll more Madness dice and more Exhaustion dice, and he'd been drawing out what the kids feared and what they thought they'd done wrong and their convoluted self justifications for some of that.

The scenario is called The Bad Man, and there is a monstrous Bad Man in it, of course, the primary foe of the kids. But, that's an illusion.

GM: That's not the Bad Man -- I'm the Bad Man.