Lovecraftesque: Can Mr. Giggles Come to Dinner?

18 Feb 2016: 8pm: Can Mr. Giggles Come to Dinner?

Players:

• Misha Bushyager: Facilitator
• Me
• Whitney Delaglio
• Sean Levanthal

I own, but have not read this game. The idea is to generate a story that could be described as "Lovecraftesque", without some of the less admirable characteristics of Lovecraft's fiction. A scenario is created, and the protagonist is The Witness.

Misha explained that, normally, we come up with elements together, but we'd be using a playset for today, an excellent choice for a 4 hour convention slot. The Facilitator also plays.

It was a Modern Day setting in a town called Morton's Rock. The roles were:

• The Witness (1)
• The Narrator (1)
• Watchers (as many as there were players left)

The roles rotated around the table. The characters' names were all gender neutral.

The Witness:

• Alex
• Devoted Single Parent
• Works in Chemical Plant

Other characters, played by the Watchers, iirc:

Sam

• 5 year old child of Alex
• Shy, Bookish

Robin

• Friend of Sam
• Leader, more aggressive

Mr. Giggles

Taylor

• Neighbor, Adult

Morgan

• Kindergarten teacher

My notes are hard to read here, saying either that the first scene or each scene must contain a Clue that hints at the horror to come. The game was divided into 3 parts.

• Part 1: 5 scenes
• Part 2: 3 scenes (up to)
• Part 3: up to 16 very short scenes

Part 1

Starting with

• Misha: Narrator
• Lisa: Witness
• Whitney, William, and Sean: Watchers

Alex's Bedroom, Sam's Room

We decided Alex was a woman because normally, some of us would go for a man because it's unusual, but given how much else would be unusual, we wanted a grounding in the ordinary everyday. We also decided Sam was a girl.

We could add traits to Alex, one per scene, iirc.

• Alex's added trait = Hot
• Taylor = male, going through a bitter divorce, has a crush on Alex. In the second scene (I think, but I know I was no longer the Witness), Taylor invited Alex to carpool with him. Everyone wants to save on gas.

Alex: You can let yourself in, but if you mess the carpet, this carpool won't work out because you're going to be in the trunk.

Something clearly messed up something.

Alex: That better be washable!

Some time later:

Alex: Okay, we can go.

Clearly, another of Alex's traits = Fastidious

If memory serves, in a later scene, there was a picture drawn either on the wall of Sam's bedroom or in the school. Sam had a 12 pack of crayons -- but there were clearly more than 12 colors in the drawing.

Morgan talked with Alex about Sam, I think, and about what Sam was supposedly doing to disrupt class. I think by now, Alex's traits were:

• Protective
• Hot
• Fastidious
• Skeptical
• Not MY Child

Taylor carpooled home with Alex and, I think, Sam, and all of them were inside Alex's house. Sam was talking about Mr. Giggles, whom she had mentioned frequently before.

Taylor: There is no Mr. Giggles.

Alex: Taylor, we don't say that.

Taylor: Have you considered a spanking?

Alex: Get out of my house.

At this point, we dubbed Taylor "Mr. Not Getting Any".

Meanwhile, in Sam's room, a voice spoke to her.

Voice: Are they gone?

Sam confirmed that this was the case.

Voice: Close the door. We have more drawing to do.

Alex returned.

Alex: Did I hear voices?

Sam: It was Mr. Giggles.

Alex: Is Mr. Giggles here?

Sam: Sorta -- he was talking in the Raspberry Pi.

We next had a classroom scene. Morgan had the class doing finger painting. With Raspberry Pi touchscreens, apparently. And, Alex got the call to come in from work. Morgan showed her a picture that Robin drew.

Robin: This is who was talking to us.

The picture was of a creature with three eyes and seven claws.

Alex (to Morgan): First, talk to the other parents.

After all, Robin drew the picture, not Sam.

Alex: Second, you probably shouldn't have the touch screens and the finger paints at the same time.

Morgan: Tell that to the school budget! I wanted paper and pencil!

It had been established earlier that Sam had a strange mark on the back of her neck, and wasn't sure how long she'd had it for. Maybe a couple of weeks? We now said that Robin had the same mark on the back of her neck as Sam does.

We cut to evening, dinner time. Robin was with an old porcelain clown in Sam's room. I think someone asked whether the clown had three eyes or a smudge, and someone else said that it had a circle on the back of its neck.

Alex asked Robin where Sam was.

Robin: Sam is underneath the bed.

Alex checked. No Sam.

Robin: Sam was supposed to be underneath the bed.

There was a knock on the door. Alex went to the door and found Sam, standing outside. Alex was a little freaked out, understandably so. Robin joined the others, without the doll.

Sam: Hi, Robin.

Robin: Hi!

Sam: Is my mom being weird again?

Alex wanted to know where Mr. Giggles was and where Sam had been.

Robin: Mr. Giggles went home.

Sam: I was underneath the bed -- I was never outside.

IIRC, Sam truly believed this. We had certain things we were introducing as clues, and one of those apparently was spatio-temporal distortions.

We were now down with part 1. Part two could be up to three scenes.

The first scene took place about a week later. Morgan called Alex into the classroom to take a look at a picture of Sam's locker. It seemed stuff had gone missing, but turned up again from time to time, and a lot of it had turned up in the locker.

However, as the picture showed, the stuff was arranged very oddly and packed very tightly in such a way that it was unlikely Sam could have done it. Heck, it was unlikely that Alex or Morgan could have done it if they'd tried. Sam, of course, said it had been Mr. Giggles.

At this point, my notes say:

Final Horror Speed(?)

• Dark
• Ancient
• Remote
• Abandoned

I think this may have been an explanation of what we knew about where the final horror would have to be. My notes also say that Sean was Sam at this point and had been Taylor earlier. I think Alex may have asked her about the locker business.

Sam: I Saw Mr. Giggles Do It.

Taylor: Is your kid sick?

Alex: Is _your_ kid sick?

Taylor: They're always sick.

Alex: Why are you here?

Taylor: Because you invited me.

Alex: I wish Mr. Giggles would give me a time machine so I could take back that decision.

Sam: Really, Mommy?

I think Taylor left, and Robin was there. Alex was worrying about the marks on the back of the children's necks.

Sam: Am I gonna die?

Alex: No, honey, you're not going to die.

Sam: Mr. Giggles says it's gonna get better.

Alex asked Robin if she could take a picture of the mark on Robin's neck.

Robin: My Daddy says I shouldn't let people take pictures of me.

Alex: Your daddy is right -- but I'm going to tell him that I took it.

My notes say "Picture -- not photo" which might mean that the photograph came out looking like a drawing rather than a photograph or that something else did.

At this point, Alex, Sam, and Robin went to the basement where they found a tunnel that had not been there before. This began the third part of the game, which my notes call the Journey Into Darkness, and which could last up to 16 turns, I think.

The turns were fast, each one being at most a sentence or so, and it could be a phrase. Here's what I have:

He's inviting us over to his house to play!

Stairs collapsing upward -- like an attic.

Clown doll -- small footprints.

Buzzing -- flies out of doll's wound.

Round room. Doll collapses, shatters. Out pour bugs. Bigger and bigger bugs, bigger than the doll.

I'm so glad you made friends with Mr. Giggles, Mommy -- I don't think Taylor's going to feel very well.

Sam's mark is gone.

Screaming -- above? Behind? Sounds like Taylor.

Bleeding walls of tunnel -- onto heads of Sam, Robin, Alex.

_Roof_ opens like an eye. It shows the inside of Taylor's kitchen.

Someone: The final horror is Taylor's kitchen.

We were now at the Arrival. This was confronting the final horror, and one narrator would weave it all together. I took this one.

Alex heard Mr. Giggles's voice.

Mr. Giggles: Alex -- there is a reason why you weren't marked. I have Other Plans for you. (laughter)

And whoever was playing Alex at the time described her slumping to the ground in shock, tears pouring down her face.

I forget whether this was part of the Arrival or not: "Bug on back of neck of cleaning lady, leaves circular bite..."

After each scene, we could write a phrase or sentence about what we thought was really going on on an index card we kept to ourselves until the end. Mine said:

• Mr. Giggles Marks His Own
• He remakes the environment in his own image.
• It's an invitation / claim.
• We don't say he doesn't exist -- that... annoys him.
• His own don't need to fear him... right? They can intercede for others -- they can try...
• He's having the way prepared to bring him here or us there -- it'll all be his.
• The rules are changing -- to HIS rules.

I found out that other folks were pulling in a different direction, looking at the mark as an infection or infestation. On the one hand, I think I did an effective job of wrapping things, but on the other, if I'd known which way others were pulling things, I could have tried to steer with the group consensus. I think the fact that I didn't know meant I pushed harder for my ending, and while I don't think I did harm to anyone or to the tale, I think it would have been better if we'd been pulling in the same direction.

I might be wrong about that. I know I'm partly influenced by having read today (26 February 2017) a blog where a gamer discusses her realization of how she hadn't paid enough attention to realize that she was That Player, the one no one wants to be, who pulls the game down by being too focused on what she wants and not on what works best for the group. I am fairly sure I'm as likely to fall into that trap as anyone.

And I know part is that I'm ambivalent about rules like the ones I've seen in Microscope where players are explicitly forbidden by the rules for asking for input or advice. On the one hand, this means that the more confident players aren't stepping on anyone, and that's generally a good thing. But on the other, it means that the game sometimes gets pulled in many directions at once, and that makes the timeline less coherent, which may be more realistic, but for a game, can be less fun. Given a choice, we might wish to build together and find out what everyone wants.

Certainly, as a GM, this is one of the things I try to do, and when I don't, I consider myself to be doing a subpar job. But, players are also responsible for checking in with each other, and it's not fair to make the GM the Den Mother. This is especially true when there's no facilitator.

On the third tentacle, if a game is designed so that there is the tension of pulling in different directions, I don't want to challenge that until I understand the game better. In the case of Lovecraftesque, I rather think I should read the book before assuming the structure needs changing. But, at the same time, I think I may have playing sloppily, by which I mean not picking up on what other people were trying to do, and not thinking of asking. That's an area I want to improve in -- without forgetting that I also have desires in a game.

As for the game itself, it feels like something I can enjoy as a one shot, but not like something that will replace games like Call of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu. I enjoy playing in and running campaigns with / as a GM who has a more or less fixed plot / world, even if this includes recalibrating often and changing what is "really" going on to better fit PC actions and player moods. Again, I need to read Lovecraftesque to understand what it's offering. It's fine if that's not the same as what a campaign such as Tatters of the King or Eternal Lies offers or as a sandbox campaign like Dracula Dossier or Armitage Files offers.