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D20ragon
2018-10-02, 05:53 PM
The next campaign that I'm running for my group is one heavily rooted in the surrealism movements of the 1920s, and to a lesser extent, the magical realism traditions that emerged and continued throughout the 1900's. Think Kafka and Bruno Schulz, with a bit of Marquez and Borges thrown in.
To this end, their characters will all be ostensibly normal individuals whose lives have all recently had a element of the surreal introduced into them. I'm constructing a character creation questionnaire for them to answer, and I'm curious what the minds of the playground have to offer in this regard. They'll be answering 5 or so mundane establishing questions (What job do you work, who is your closest friend, what does your room look like, etc), and a single surreal question. I'm focusing mainly on the surreal elements right now, and this is what I'm working with so far:


What have you done with your immortal soul?
What follows you through the streets, waits outside your threshold?
What color do you loathe, and what about it drives you to such hatred?
What food did you find yourself craving at first only at nights, and when did morning cease to ease the hunger?
What rare medicine must you regularly procure, and what affliction does it ease?
Why do you find yourself sleeping more and later?
Who died recently, and why do you find yourself doubting their passing more and more?
What law have you broken that you didn't know existed?
What strange fashion have you adopted, and why?
Who seems to suddenly frequent all your usual haunts?
Why can’t you sleep?
What have you recently found on your doorstep?
What did your acquaintance drop, and why haven’t you returned it?
What emotion haven’t you been able to feel, and what has replaced it?
What sound have you been unable to escape?
Why have you refused to go home at the end of the day?
What part of your body is missing, and what has it been replaced with?


If anyone is so moved to contribute additional questions, I'd be very grateful! :smallbiggrin:

Anonymouswizard
2018-10-02, 06:08 PM
Why is the bathtub full of brightly coloured machine tools?

Being serious now, I wish I'd fine something like this for my Unknown Armies game that just started. We built our characters around their encounter with the weird, which included not only 'I stumbled across a strange being' but also 'I saw stuff in the war that I'll never forget' (that character has a lot of hardened notches already, but one of the party members dispenses therapy with his bartending), 'man, university parties are crazy', and 'drugs let you see what's really going on' (turns out he'd unknowingly snapped into being an Adept, now I need to update Narco-Alchemy), which are all great but left a couple of players entirely uncertain as to how their characters fit in the world (all sorted by drilling down into their day jobs and primary hobbies).

Actually, I do recommend also making a relationship map of the setting with your players. Important faces and places, some normal and some surreal, and the links between them. My payers don't yet know exactly why Dave is on the map, but they will one it makes the game more fun or strange. Do this with any game, including letting the players place some contacts and enemies they might have (one of my players decided to have a police contact who points her towards weird stuff, I'm going to get a bunch of plot hooks out of that even if The Old Nick never becomes important).

Back to questions.

Why did your sky change colour?

D20ragon
2018-10-03, 10:42 AM
A relationship map is a good idea, I'm a fan. I'll have to make use of that. And of course if you see anything worthwhile in this, feel free to use it!

Nifft
2018-10-03, 01:17 PM
It's well known that green ideas sleep furiously. What's got them so mad, and why do they blame you?

What is the moon lying about? How did you discover this?

D20ragon
2018-10-03, 01:32 PM
Which rooms is your house missing now, and where might they have gone?

What has been living in your bathtub, and why can't you make it leave?

Why do your clothes hate you, and what demands do they make?

ShedShadow
2018-10-03, 03:23 PM
What happened that made you encounter an infinity pocket for the first time?

Why does does salt suddenly taste sweet?

How come you knew that thing was going to happen before it did?

Why do the lights start to flicker when you look right at them?

Why is your skin suddenly lumpy?

D20ragon
2018-10-04, 11:18 AM
Ooh, these are good, I'm liking where we're headed.