CATS is an acronyme for Concept/Aim/Tone/Subject, a way to describe a game designed by Patrick O’Leary, tha I learned about the first time in Brindlewood Bay. This is an excellent way to explain what a game is about.
Since a few weeks now, I started writing stuff around a game concept, and I think CATS is a good way to introduce this game. So, here’s my CATS for a game currently named Two-Peaks Island. No planning has been set right now, it will progress as my motivation dictates it. But I already have good foundations : it will be a Carved from Brindlewood game, with emergent mysteries and an unique playbook for the characters.
Concept
Two-Peaks Island is a roleplaying game about survivors of an airplane crash. Stranded on a unidentified, unknown and mysterious island, they will be hooked by the Threats and Mysteries of the island, and they will soon learn they are not alone here, and that crashing here maybe wasn’t an accident. Powerful mystic forces, portrayed by a duo of strange witches, are at work on this island since the dawn of time, and characters will meet and confront them.
Exploring the island and discovering strange places in the core of the proposition, as well as disconcerting encounters and difficult choices.
Through the sessions, the past of the characters will be revealed via flashbacks vignettes, and both the players and the keeper will learn the reasons that made them (truly) take this flight. What they were maybe fleeing. What they are hiding to others, to themselves. A bout between two camps, lead by the two witches, will be the focus of the campaign, which will end on a choice between those two camps, between leaving or staying.
The game is heavily inspired by the TV show Lost, and it doesn’t really focus on the Survival that would occur after such an accident.
Aim
The aim of the characters is firstmost to escape and survive from the island. They will quickly find out how strange this place is, and that their presence here may not be fortuitous. They’ll have to learn how to cohabit with the master entities of the island, how to survive to the dangers posed by the island, and finally will have to choose a side.
The aim of the players is to find out about those characters through play, to learn about their past and to live the choices they will make as survivors. The island secrets and the reasons that brought the characters here is core to the game proposition. Those elements are emergent, and neither the players nor the Keeper know the answers at the start of the game. They will make them through play.
Tone
The tone of the game alternates between personal drama and mysterious adventure.
The characters are not heroes, but rather normal people with flaws, that looked to escape something from their life, to change something. They were lost. Their past will come back during game through flashbacks. Difficult choices will be forced upon them.
On the island, they will reveal themselves as leaders in the survivors community. People will look at them to fix issues. They’ll go on journeys to explore the island, resolve mysteries and face threats they couldn’t imagine exist some weeks before.
The island is a character by itself. Its mysteries will be resolved by the players themselves. Some mysteries will lean on a mystic, fantastic tone, while others will show strange sciences and constructions. The island is set out of the standard time and place, be it by its size, its geography, its fauna and flora, that could look not realistic under such latitudes. Realism will be overruled by weird and fiction needs.
Subject
Survival, Community life, Lies, Grief, Death, Physical and mental harm, Trauma exploration, Illusions, Irruption of the fantastic, Jungle expeditions, Strange ruines, Strange sciences, Magic rituals, Time travel, Miracles, Hope, Territory and religion war, Lethal dangers will all be subjects portrayed in the game.
This CATS is vowed to change, to evolve. But it’s currently my roadmap. I already got some game mechanics written down, and I’ll show them soon. Any questions, feedbacks ? Ask here in the comment section or elsewhere where you can find me.
Note that I write this game first in french, so sorry for any strange words/formulations that could occur.
To end this first post :
On September 22, 2004, Oceanic flight 453 from Los Angeles to Sydney disappeared in the middle of the ocean. No wreckage was found, and there were no survivors. For several weeks, the story made the headlines, but no real progress was made in the search.
For the passengers and crew of this flight, the story is different. In the middle of their flight, their plane mysteriously suffered a malfunction, losing altitude and breaking in two in mid-air. The rear of the plane crashed on an island beach. Many people are missing and dead. There were also many injured, more or less seriously, but despite everything, and against all appearances, around fifty people survived this terrible accident. But the island on which they now find themselves is not like any other.
Photo Credits : Thiago Matos, Oleksandr Canary Islands, Max Ravier
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