The Estate is maybe Belfast in the early 70s or perhaps Manchester in the late 80s, or it could be Glasgow in the mid 90s. It is streets and tips and cornershops and cellars. It is Sectarian Pubs, brothels, Catholic bedrooms. It is warehouse raves and rusty parks and canal bridges. It is disused cotton factories, family kitchens,yards backing onto alleys and empty football pitches.
People keep pretending they can leave, but they can't. They collect and hoard hearts. They don't know why. Monsters live in places, but there's no acknowledgement. It's always night.Nobody ever remembers the monsters. They are unrecognisable, psych, horrors.
The TV always has something to watch.
If you try to leave, somebody appears in a car and begins chasing you.
There are hidden ways out. Voivodja is a good bet. The gatekeepers, if such exist, probably want hearts. Yeah, they're a bit like hearts in Zelda.
You have grown up here. Or maybe you haven't (there's nothing stopping this being an awful kind of demi plane...like Ravenloft meets Trainspotting). Somebody told you you can leave with enough hearts. Everyone thinks you're mad and that there's no problem.
For now, we can use LotFP as our basis.You could definitely have published LotFP adventures happen here, but you'd obviously modify them to fit. Everything is re-skinned, in British neuroses (for the purposes of this idea, neuroses is skin). Everything is twisted by the worst fears of the British middle classes....the nightmares they imagine are perpetrated by the 'lower orders'.
Clerics are drag queens (you already know what these are America)
Fighters are local hard men
Rogues are scallies
Wizards are crusties .
XP is gained on a £ for £ basis. However, XP will not get you off the estate.
The police arrive when the estate stress meter reaches a certain point (let's say 10). Different actions, cause more stress. Certain actions decrease stress. The police are obviously Pigs in Uniforms. They beat and maim wantonly. Those they arrest, are never seen again.
The Estate is randomly generated.
Potions and such, are rendered as local alternatives eg: special brew super strength lager. Interesting because the players are relying upon the DMs interpretation of local myths.
...which is precisely the the point.
But this is my game haze, so the laws of my experience (?) prevail.
Biscuit factories, rat infested tow paths, super market closes at 9.
Serial killer's attics, defaced mosques, Chinese chip shops.
Shite fairgrounds, guard dogs in car parks, stalled developments.
Steps to Play
1. Generate estate. Use a die drop method on the chart below if you like. It will probably work. Connect wth lines. Make those lines streets.
2. Generate characters
3. Stress level at zero
4. Take characters out into the streets, played as a crawl.
Yes, there's some grim stuff on here. Rape, for instance. I'm not sure how one could approach the idea of urban monstrosity without considering that (to use another example) paedophiles are a part of British, urban myth/nightmare (and awful truth).
I don't know if it's playable yet. I'll give it a go and maybe write about it.
