Afterschool Activities

"The last thing you want to do is run out into the light, because then...everything."
"Everything?"
"EVERYTHING!"

A game based upon an Anon's spectacularly intense nightmare, set within a boarding school of which the players are students. At a random time (roll a d12 for hour and 3d20 for minute, then flip a coin: heads is PM tails is AM) all lights in the school go THUNK, and the sun itself dims out of the sky. Alternatively, you just bring on the darkness yourself. 1d6 students fall asleep at this point, and do not wake up. It went from conception to playtesting in about 24 hours.

Note: The Darkness doesn't itself have to be Darkness, it could be fog, an abyss or even have the lights stay on for a Daylight horror.

Mechanics

The mechanics of the game are simple. Rolls are made on a d6, with a base chance of success on a 4+. The stats are represented by classes you've taken. They are:

• English - Like diplomacy. How good is your vocabulary, your ability to understand books, your memory and comprehension?
• Maths - Simple intellect. How good are you with spatial relationships and numbers?
• Science - Complicated intellect. Specific knowledge like formula for chemicals, and the like.
• Social Studies - This reflects your knowledge of the supernatural and group psychology. A person with a high Social Studies score is better able to access the mental health of others, perform rituals and hide things from others.
• PE - How strong are you? How fast can you run? How sturdy are you?
• Popularity - Technically this doesn't represent any school subject. Popularity reflects your ability to persuade others to do things or convince people that you're telling the truth.

You then roll a D6 for each one to determine your grade, which will apply bonuses or penalties to your rolls dependent on the grade you have.

• 1 is an F, resulting in a -2 modifier to your roll.
• 2 is a D, conferring a -1 modifier.
• 3-4 is a C, with no modifier.
• 5 is a B, giving a +1 modifier.
• 6 is an A, which is a +2 modifier.

So, to pass a subject you have an F in, you need a 6, and to pass a subject you have a B in you need a 3+. Simple. Teacher's notes are an optional mechanic that works like a traits system, with a list of examples in the 'External links' section.

However, rely on these as little as possible. Try to maintain a roleplaying over rolling standpoint, and have as many objectives be completed as possible (Find out how the other classes are doing, find more flashlights, get coffee, etc) without rolling.

Maintain the atmosphere at all costs! without it, the game is going to quickly lose appeal.

Wakefulness

The core mechanic of the game. It decreases by 1 every 10 minutes of game time (or just use a timer, such as the one from Space Hulk, and decrease it when it runs out), and a Wakefulness test is rolled for every hour of game time (or for every 6 Wakefulness points lost with the timer method of doing things). If you roll under, you stay awake. If you roll over, you fall sleep and will not wake up unless certain actions are taken (determined by the GM). Wakefulness can be restored by drinking tea, coffee, or energy drinks, by splashing cold water upon your face, or by some other means such as being frightened (by the GM's discretion).

The Darkness

The main enemy, of sorts. The Darkness is both the incessant lack of light and the thing from which the horror spills. Sleeping individuals that are left alone for too long in the dark vanish. As time progresses, the same starts to apply to entire rooms and sections of the school. If you feel like a rather mean person, those left alone in the dark are eaten by a Grue. The Darkness itself may not destroy you, but becoming lost is another matter entirely, especially if you end up on the other side of the school and having to find your way back to the others when your Wakefulness is low. It contains...

Horrors

The active malefactors. These could be anything, depending on how you interpret the Darkness event. They could be manifestations of the student's fears, or they could be warped and distorted Rescue Workers, or they could be demons. Whichever they are, try to keep them out of the player's sight for as long as possible, as a horror known is not nearly as frightening as a horror unknown.

Terrors

The passive malefactors. These are just there to be spooky, ranging from the school computers having messages appear on the screens ("ONE GIRL, TWO GIRL, RED GIRL, DEAD GIRL"), to the windows cracking, to whatever your cruel mind can envision to shit up the players.

Scenarios

There are a lot of potential scenarios for this setting. Here are some to give you ideas.

• Demonic Incursion - Someone's up to no good and trying to summon an eldritch horror within the school and is using the psychic emanations of the students as power, which also leads to some demons running around.
• The Coven - Witches. They could be doing anything, from being the cause of the above, to trying to cast a spell to resurrect something evil, such as a more powerful witch.
• Gas Leak - It turns out this was all a hallucination. Those who are caught by the monsters are actually being taken to safety by rescue workers, and those who lose consciousness of their own accord have died.
• A Trance - This scenario is generated from the collective psychic emanations from the students, who are in fact locked in a trance. People who fall asleep are those who are either lost in the "hive mind", or are waking up. Take your pick. Monsters can be collective fears or someone trying to wake them up.

Sample "Milestones"

The following are some simple things to go on at certain points in the game.

• Lights go out permanently (including emergency lights), only flash-lights and other "temporary" means of illumination work.
• Sleeping bodies disappear
• Alarm system goes off. This could be anything from just a bell to the sprinklers showering everyone. The alarm does not stop and must be dealt with for the sake of sanity.
• Increasing number of "encounters" or new types of encounters.
• Removing sections of the building - consumed by darkness or just mysteriously locked.
• Recurring "hunter" appears.
• Electronics stop functioning.
• Other students and the teachers just go missing.
• The lights go back on but everything outside is just inky blackness.
• Severe medical situation; allergic shock, injury, mental sickness "activating".
• Etc. Etc.

The Teacher

The Teacher is the GMPC, and due to his or her adult discipline or some other reason, does not lose Wakefulness unless frightened or under some sort of effect. The Teacher has a flashlight, keys to certain areas, is physically stronger than the players, and somewhat smarter. Not to mention they know the school's layout a good deal better than the players. The teacher is the only player that can have the A+ grade where they automatically pass any test in the subject. Teachers shouldn't have always have A+ in everything. A PE teacher may be fit enough to beat any A student but may have mediocre or even low scores for the other subjects.

The Teacher is a crutch character that the GM should kill off or have turn against the PCs at some point. The loss of the Teacher should be a severe and frightening thing, like the loss of the only adult in a crisis situation to a bunch of children SHOULD be. It shouldn't happen too early as you want the PC's to feel somewhat dependent on the adult.. but not too late as you want the children PC's to gain responsibility for their actions for most of the game.

Total Party Sleep

A Total Party Sleep is where every PC has fallen asleep. A TPS doesn't have to be the end of the game. When characters fall asleep, something will happen. They may get trapped in the Nightmare world and have to force themselves awake, crawl out of hell, or other scenarios.

Prodigies and Delinquents

When rolling for grades, it's possible to get an average of -1 or +1 or higher. In either case, the student is granted a Delinquent or a Prodigy template, depending.

Prodigies are overall better than their peers at many tasks, and are in every way a 'model student'. The must obey the Teachers or other authority figures.

However, when the Horrors begin, their teaching and training fails them, and they lose thier wakefulness much faster: 3 to the other normal kid's 1. Also, when they manage to fail a test, they lose another 5. They do not accrue Teacher Notes, and do not carry anything in their bags besides what is needed for classes.

Delinquents are skippers or ne'er do wells who shirk the system for learning to be an adult their own way. They do not commit tests with dice, but instead flip coins. They cannot retry Tests. They also start with a bevy of 'useful' items: knives, lockpicking sets, lighters, porn mags, cellphones. They are unlikely to listen to a teacher, and are often the impetus for leaving the room. ("Damnit, someone go get Janet before she does something stupid!")

Writefaggotry

The circles under Sarah's eyes were definitely noticeable as she glanced at the reflective cabinet over the sink in the teachers' work room in the light from the digital clock on the counter. It was blinking 00:00, which she was pretty sure clocks weren’t meant to do, but at this point she was too tired to care much. She really hoped this instant coffee stuff would do the trick. Steph had said her dad used it to pull long nights when he was working on a contract, but none of the other girls had ever tried the stuff. Since Sarah knew her way around the workroom she had volunteered to go make some cups and bring them back. She had been worried that they might get in trouble for taking the teachers' mugs, but ever since Mr. Stevens had gone to look for the circuit breaker they hadn't seen a single adult, so she figured she'd take the risk.

Once she had filled up the mugs from the tap, Sarah grabbed the plastic container and tried to read how long she was supposed to microwave them for. The text on the container swam before her tired eyes. She couldn't tell if that was a 3 or an 8, so she threw them all in the microwave and punched in 5 minutes, hoping it would do the job. The drone of the microwave was practically a lullaby to her weary mind, so she began pacing a circle around the folding table in the center of the room to stay alert.

If it weren't for her circuit taking her near the door, she never would have heard the shuffling from up the hallway. Sarah froze, trying to figure out if her ears had been tricking her or not. Her first instinct was to call out. Maybe one of the other girls had gotten tired of trying the janitor's endless ring of keys on that door and had come to help her. But... that noise didn't sound like the loafers the girls wore. It sounded more like... scratching. Like nails on the tile. The noise moved slowly up the hallway outside the door. In an instant all the fears of the darkness that Sarah had been holding at bay came crashing down onto her, and she frantically searched the room for some escape. Of course, the teachers’ workroom was in the interior of the building, so there were no windows and only the one door in and out. But… there! The closet in the corner was big enough for her to hide in, and she dove for it even as the scratching outside drew even with the door. She wriggled inside and tried to pull the closet doors closed behind her, but there were no handles on the inside so she was forced to leave the small crack for her fingers to squeeze through. The noises outside the door had stopped, and for a minute Sarah thought her tired mind must have imagined it. Then the tapping began.

A slow, rhythmic click upon the door, as though something hard was tapping against it. Then Sarah realized her mistake. The door was closed, but the latch didn’t quite align with the doorframe, and so it hadn’t popped out when she had closed the door. And now, as something on the other side prodded the door, it slowly began to swing open into the room. Sarah held her breath as something shifted in the hallway, her eye glued to the crack in the closet doors. Then the room went black.

For a moment Sarah panicked again, reliving the moment earlier when the world had gone dark. Then she realized what had happened. The 5 minutes she had set the microwave for had run out, and the microwave backlight which she had been unconsciously relying upon had gone with it. Now that the room was plunged into total darkness, she could no longer see the door, or the source of the sounds that had frightened her. But the sounds continued. The tapping had stopped when the door opened, only to be replaced by the slow scratching sound as the source of the noise moved into the teachers’ work room.

Sarah’s heart pounded in her chest as the thing moved towards the now-dark microwave. Once it reached the counter there was a long period of silence, and her imagination filled with images of it slowly turning to scan the room. The sounds began again, and she couldn’t tell if it moved towards the tables in the room’s centre or the couch along the wall. Then a new sound sprung up, a sliding noise, punctuated by clunks. A whimper escaped Sarah’s lips when she realized the source: the thing was dragging an… arm? A hand? It was sliding something along the cabinet doors that lined the wall on her side of the room, the clunks signalling when it hit a gap between doors. If it continued along the wall, it would come to her closet. Each clunk rang louder in her mind as it moved closer to her hiding place.

But the moment never came. Unable to tell precisely how close the thing was, the noises suddenly ceased. Listening hard, Sarah could hear… nothing. She waited, but no noise at all came from the dark room. The sliding noise had stopped, but so had the scratching sounds that she had come to associate with movement. Still… she couldn’t bring herself to open the door and check. The thought that the thing was out there, something was in the darkness… Sarah slumped against the back wall of the closet, quivering from fear.

Twenty minutes later, when she still had not returned with the promised coffee, the other girls came looking for Sarah. Opening the closet, their emergency flashlight beam fell upon her form, curled in the corner, sound asleep. They glanced at each other with grim looks. Just like the others, she wouldn’t be waking up. And from the look of the coffee container upturned in the room’s sink, they would need to find another way to stay awake.

External links

• Original thread
• Teacher's notes