Don't Rest Your Head: Dark Harbour
The midnight game of Don't Rest Your Head was run by John Farish. The players were me, Julian, David Berg, and a man whose name I am blanking on. John warned me that this was very different from "Crossroad Blues" which he'd run last year, but that was fine. He seems to be going down a path similar to the one Todd Furler walks, where he runs games that might perhaps be considered the rpg equivalent of Pre-Raphaelite. There's a strong gm presence, but one that knows to let the players choose their PCs' fates, and a tight scenario that may be very typical of the game or very experimental, but which is both self contained and satisfying.
All of the PCs somehow found themselves in a town called Dark Harbour. It was on an island. The entire population seemed to be nasty zombies. The PCs weren't quite sure how they'd gotten onto the island in the first place, as their memories were hazy. As they ran from the zombies -- both human zombies and canine zombies -- and eventually wound up on a ferry trying to sail away, they gradually pieced together what had recently happened.
My character, William Boothe, worked for the mob as a "cleaner", disposing of bodies. He didn't know how he'd ended up doing something so distasteful, and cutting off their fingers first was even worse. But, when the cut up bodies in the back of the trunk started moving, well, he ditched them and burned them quickly, hooking up with another PC in the process. He'd have been quite happy to be thrown into jail at that point, if the sheriff hadn't also been a zombie.
A second PC, a detective on the take, played by David Berg, had actually killed the two people before they'd been put into my PC's trunk. A third, a junkie named Johnny, had been responsible for all of this happening, having led the corrupt detective to his best friend to save his own skin. None of these PCs were very nice.
The fourth and final PC, Megan, played by Julian Lighton, was a spoiled senator's daughter. She, well, she was one of the corpses in my PC's trunk. Well, except, of course, she wasn't. She was alive and being menaced like the rest of us, at least until we got onto the ferry. At that point, she locked herself in the control shack of the ferry, as everyone's memories returned.
And the night never seemed to end, nor the ferry to find land.
The sheriff called Megan on the radio and told her that all she had to do was land the ferry and let the zombies take the guys responsible for her death, and she could go home. Megan turned the ferry around.
Meanwhile, on the ferry:
Johnny: Raise your hand if you killed Megan. (The other two raise their hands.) Well, I haven't, so I guess it's my turn.
He and the detective tried, but did not succeed. Boothe? Well, he didn't see the point to it. He checked his gun, to make sure that if either of the guys attacked him, he could defend himself, but also to make sure he had a bullet for himself.
Earlier, there had been this exchange:
Boothe: We could be in Hell.
Jimmy: Hm. Let me check. No, I've still got two joints left. We're not in Hell yet.
Other musings on Hell and how it could be worse:
Boothe: It could be just like this.
Jimmy: Technically, that's not worse.
Jimmy now handed Boothe his lit joint to hold, as Boothe wasn't about to attack Megan. Boothe held it and waited.
The ferry moved back to the island, arriving far faster than it should have. The PCs were all herded off onto the island. The sheriff explained that they had a lot of questions. Boothe handed Johnny back his joint and pulled his gun, pointing it at his own head.
Boothe: What happens if I pull the trigger?
Sheriff: Well, it's going to hurt a lot. And then, we'll still have questions.
Disgusted, Boothe put the gun away.
Dark Harbor wasn't Hell, more like a nasty purgatory for nasty people. They could be reassembled. If they were really bad, they could be turned into zombie dogs or worse.
Now, the male PCs were alive, not dead. Dark Harbor was just being a little proactive. Megan was dead, of course, but the PC who thought she was Megan wasn't. She was one of the inhabitants of Dark Harbor, remade to look like Megan.
Sheriff: Fact is, when you were alive, you used to kill girls her age.
"Megan" had a choice: go on to non-existence or be reborn. The others did not have this choice.
Sheriff: Non-existence has to be earned.
Boothe: Who'd have thought the Buddhists were right?
Johnny: Deep philosophy from a mob cleaner?
Boothe: What? I read a book on it once.
Johnny: Yeah, I believe you read a book oace.
The living men had a choice: Stay in Dark Harbor to be punished or go back and make what restitution they could.
Boothe had made this choice early, when he thought the sheriff was human and that he'd rather be in jail than chased by zombies. On his return, he turned himself in and received immunity for his information. His former employer managed to have Boothe shot at before he entered the witness protection program. He survived, but with a badly damaged lung.
Johnny lost an eye from having been tossed against a dumpster before the scenario began. I think the detective had tossed him there.
Megan decided to tell everyone to fuck off, opting for non-existence. Or, as Julian put it, she acted like a spoiled senator's daughter, throwing a tantrum.
The detective decided to lie and said he'd reform. As soon as he backslid, he found himself back in Dark Harbor, driving down the same road as before. At this point, he was willing to surrender to the inhabitants, but he no longer had that option. Instead, he kept reliving the night over and over and over...
Miscellaneous Game Quotes:
GM: Fortunately, he doesn't have a gun.
Either Jimmy or the Detective: Good, I can shoot it -- except I lost my gun.
From when Megan and Jimmy went to a diner, before they realized that there were zombies there, too.
Jimmy: They don't card you for chicken tenders.
Megan: Hey, they didn't card me for the coffee, and that's probably a controlled substance.
I do wonder what would have happened if the PCs had not fought against their initial situation. I'm not sure if this is at all likely, but I wonder.
