Twilight Hotel 
	Twilight Hotel is a collaborative storytelling game where the players take on the roles of characters in a hotel the group creates together. The characters are all wrapped up in a larger story that reveals itself as the game progresses. Some things that may be helpful:
-A few friends (3-5 players)
-Note cards or scrap paper for taking notes
-Some normal six-sided dice (2 per person, but these can be shared tokens used in their place)
CHECKING IN
	To start with, the players should discuss the hotel they wish for their story to unfold in. Here are some questions that might help guide your discussion. You don’t have to answer all or even any of these questions, as long as everyone is on board with a similar idea.
-When and how long has/did the hotel exist? 
-Where is the hotel located? (This does not need to be a specific geographic location, for example “in the mountains” might be an acceptable answer.)
-What sort of hotel is it? Upper-class? A lodge? A seedy motel? 
-Does the hotel have any defining characteristics, such as an odd piece of furniture in the lobby or a giant roaring fire place?
-What is the hotel called?
	In addition to questions about the hotel, you should also discuss the tone you want for your story. Do you want something spooky? Surreal? Up-beat? Action-packed? Your story will go much smoother if everyone is aiming for the same tone. Your hotel and the tone of the story should serve as jumping off points to help you generate ideas for the story of your hotel. Once the group has come to an agreement, you can hand your bags to the bell boy and let the game begin. If this is your first time playing, it might be helpful to consult the notes on forming consensus and setting limits at the end of the rules. Many examples are given throughout the rules. These are far from the only choices and players should freely come up with their own ideas.  
TAKING IT IN TURN
	 Part of making your Twilight Hotel game work is sharing the spotlight. This is particularly the fact when it comes to the later parts of the game where the characters are all interacting. When the rules say to take something in turn, each player should roll and the highest roll should start, then the second and so on. Ties should be rerolled. When taking things in turn, each player should limit themselves to establishing two things before passing to the next player. Players can go through the order as many times as they feel is necessary and should signal that they feel there is enough information by placing their dice in the center of the table. If you have placed your dice in the center you can pass your turn to add more information.
	If no one feels that the next scene is obvious or people are hesitant to start new scenes, you can roll to determine who will be in it. The player with the highest roll should start and the second highest roll should join the scene with their character when they feel it is appropriate. Remember that rolling dice in this way should help keep things flowing and is not required.
RESOLVING AN ACTION
	Throughout the game, you may reach points where you are uncertain if your character can succeed at something you want them to do. If you reach such a point, roll two dice. If your roll exceeds 7, then you succeed. If it is less than 7, then you fail. If you roll 7, you succeed, but another player should provide a complication that resulted from your success. 
	Example:  Tommy Two-Tones, a professional musician, does not need to roll to successfully play the piano during the masquerade. But if Franky the Fig, a professional gambler who took some piano lessons when he was a kid, tries to cover as Tommy slips away, he’ll need to roll. Franky rolls and gets a 7, he succeeds in playing the piano well enough that the dancers don’t notice but he has drawn the attention of one of the waiters. Franky gets knocked out by the villain disguised as a waiter. Another character, Betty Boyde, who has never touched a piano in her life, can’t play the piano and there is no need to roll to determine this. She will have to think of another way to keep the dancers busy. 
	In general, a player should decide for themselves when it is appropriate to roll for something. If a player is hogging the spot light or just deciding their character can do anything, other players should talk with them about it out of character. Don’t try to force them to roll. If you are uncertain if you should roll for something, you can ask another player. Err on the side of less rolling, as rolling regularly will stop the flow of the game and can take players out of the fiction in a disruptive way.
DO YOU REQUIRE ROOM SERVICE?
	The assumption is that all players will participate equally in creating the fiction of the hotel and take the role of individual characters while collectively narrating the other characters in the world. However, for some groups it can help if one player takes on the permanent roll of Concierge. The Concierge does not have their own character, but rather serves to make sure things go smoothly at the hotel. They take on the roles of non-player characters that the main characters interact with, they can help suggest when you should roll to resolve actions, they can suggest complications, and otherwise fill in when the other players need it. The Concierge can also take on the role of the UNPLEASANTNESS later in the game and help reveal information about it when the players are STAYING INN to deal with it. 
SEARCHING YOUR BAGS
	If your group finds that it has a hard time coming up with ideas while playing Twilight Hotel, you can set up a pile of ideas to draw from. To start, tear off a few small strips of paper. While you’re UNPACKING your character, other players can write ideas for your character that come to mind. These should be single words that the player associates with the character. At the end of UNPACKING the other players give you these strips and you place them in a pile next to you. If you’re having trouble coming up with ideas you can draw a strip for inspiration. You do not have to use the word directly or at all, but it might help get you unstuck. If you find yourself freezing up thinking up ideas you can try focusing on the thing you’ve drawn and force yourself to think of a way to work it into the game.  
PHASES OF PLAY
	Play is broken down into the phases described below. These are designed to help the story progress and keep everyone involved. 
UNPACKING YOUR BAGS
	Now that everyone has some image of the hotel in their mind, TAKE IT IN TURN to pick different times in the hotel’s history. Now imagine a character that inhabits that time and why they would be at the hotel. This will be your character for the game. You will tell a story of something that happened to the character at the hotel or in the area around the hotel. You can do this in either third person or first person, though in the next phase you will have to adopt first person for conversation. The point of this story is to help flesh out the character for the other players so that they know who they are. This scene ends when you think it has gone on long enough, but be considerate of other players. 
	Somethings that might help in developing this character is to develop a sense of their: voice, personality, belongings, physicality (not just what they look like, but how they move), social status, and goals. You don’t have to state these things directly, but should convey them through your narrative. It may help to look at the note on details at the end of the rules for this section. 
	To assist in unpacking your character you can designate another player to be your Concierge for just this scene. The Concierge is there to help provide you the tools to make your character more. They take on the role of characters that your character interacts with and can help supply details on the hotel that your character is not aware of. The Concierge does not define who your character is or what they are capable of. 
	As other players are unpacking their characters take notes on things that stand out. Look for things you can branch off of when developing your own character or ways in which your characters will interact. Keep these in mind and you can use them to link back when dealing with the UNPLEASANTNESS. If a side-character comes up while another player is UNPACKING is interesting to you, you can choose to make that your character. This can help develop shared history for later. 
MEETING FOR DINNER
	The hotel has a public place or event where each of the characters developed in the previous phase are in attendance. This could be before or after your previous scene in the character’s life. Your character may be a different age than in the original scene or there could be some temporal shenanigans that bring them together out of time or your character could be a ghost manifesting or a relative of the original character who is remarkably similar to their descendant/ancestor. Don’t think too much about the actual mechanics of everyone being present at the same time, what’s important is that these characters have been brought together in this place. The players should TAKE IT IN TURN to describe the event until they have a clear image of what is going on and how their characters fit in. 
Once the event is established, you should begin play at the event with each player controlling their character. The characters can participate in the event, interact with side-characters, or with each other during this phase. Character conversations should be in character and other players should take the part of side-characters. A signal to indicate when you are taking the part of a side character can help prevent confusion. Conversations should be held in character. The characters do not have to interact with every other character, but positive character-to-character interactions will help make teamwork easier during the UNPLEASANTNESS. Once you believe that you have a good understanding of everyone, the event, and how it all fits together, place your two dice in the center of the table (or an equivalent marker). When everyone has placed their dice in the center, you can move on to the next phase. 
SOME UNPLEASANTNESS
At this point something happens that bumps up the weirdness on the DINNER a little and becomes the driving conflict of the story. The UNPLEASANTNESS could be any number of things and is developed by the players together. Whatever the players decide the event is; it should be something that draws everyone’s attention and which the characters would feel compelled to sort out.
Examples:  A mysterious guest appears, someone is murdered, the characters find that the exits send you back into the room on the other side, a diamond necklace has been stolen, terrorists or monsters break up the event, a high stakes game of poker starts for the souls of everyone in the room, a door appears in what had been a wall. 
	Everyone TAKES IT IN TURN to describe a single aspect of the event. These descriptions should be how the players might interact with the event or tell something about its nature or they could give things that the event relates to specifically. Examples of possible descriptors include: dangerous, a mystery, supernatural, criminal, odd, horrifying, treasure, beautiful, alluring, conspiracy, outside the hotel, in the kitchen, poor Mr. Jenkins, related to the bottle brandy. Once everyone feels they have enough descriptors, they should write down a detailed description of what the UNPLEASANTNESS could be. Place each of these in the center and draw one at random or vote on the one that the group finds most interesting.
	Example: There are three players, they have supplied the following descriptors for the UNPLEASANTNESS: supernatural, underneath the hotel, conspiracy, and things are not what they seem. 
Player 1 writes down: There is a cult that worships in the basement of the hotel, many of the members of the hotel staff are members of the cult. They want to lure us to the basement to use as sacrifices in an evil ritual.
Player 2 writes down: The hotel was built on a graveyard and each year ghosts rise to haunt the guests. The owner of the hotel is trying to keep this all covered up long enough to sell the hotel and make it someone else’s problem.
Player 3 writes down: A banshee cries outside signaling an imminent death in the hotel. The guests and staff gather to speculate on who it could be or laugh at the silly superstition. But a few guests know that someone must die this evening and they know there’s one way to make sure it’s not them (i.e. kill someone else).
STAYING INN 
	Once the UNPLEASANTNESS has been drawn, read it out loud. Discuss what it means to make sure everyone understands and agrees what the group is dealing with. Also discuss why your character is invested in resolving the issue, as motivation will help you in deciding how your character reacts going forward.  At this point, the characters do not know everything about the UNPLEASANTNESS and may not anything at all other than a sense of foreboding. 
	This phase of play consists of a series of scenes in which the characters interact and explore. They should come to grips with the UNPLEASANTNESS and coalesce into a group working together. They can plot together, gather resources, plan diversions, enlist allies, uncover truths, and generally continue to unfold their story at the hotel. Not every character needs to be present for every scene and in many cases it might be better if only two or three are so that more attention can be given to what’s being learned than on interaction. All the dice should start this phase in the center of the table, to indicate that your character enters a scene pull your dice towards yourself. If you are the first character in a scene state where it’s taking place and what non-player characters are present. Other characters can join a scene by pulling their dice towards themselves and leave by placing them back into the center of the table. If everyone places their dice in the center of the table, someone can start a new scene by drawing their dice towards them. You can hold out of character discussions between scenes and during these discussions the group can decide if they are ready to start a HOSTEL CHARGE!
Example: The previously described UNPLEASANTNESSES are revealed and the group agrees that fighting a cult seems like the most interesting UNPLEASANTNESS. They decide that the senior members of the staff have been running the hotel since it opened (over 200 years ago) and that they stay young and successful by performing this ritual. The newer staff members might be oblivious or even on their side. One of the character’s is going to catch a glimpse of the demonic symbols in the basement and set off the investigation. The group starts this scene with Tommy Two-Tone spotting the symbols and asking the manager only to be met by lots of suspicious behavior and evasiveness.  
HOSTEL CHARGE!
	The story reaches the climax as the characters confront the UNPLEASANTNESS head on. They put their plans into action and deal with the consequences. Your players may give their lives selflessly to save the world, unveil that the murderer was old man Jenkins the whole time, or otherwise confront the UNPLEASANTNESS.  When formulating this scene, it is best if it takes place in a single location or two locations simultaneously with all of the players involved. 
	Example: Franky the Fig is tied up in the basement destine to be the first sacrifice, having been drag down there by the waiter. Betty Boyde has stolen one of the cult robes and with the help of the dishwasher enters the basement through the dumb waiter. She’s in position. Tommy Two-Tone has repaired the phone lines and called the fire department for the fire in the basement that he’s going to start as soon as Franky and Betty are clear. 
CHECKING OUT
	Having escaped from the peril, the characters go on their separate ways. Maybe this changes their life for the better and they now have the insight to resolve an issue that troubled them when they were being UNPACKED or maybe they’ve become the grizzled veteran that we saw in their first scene. The hotel remains as it always was, waiting for the next set of unlikely travelers to darken its doors. 
A NOTE ON FORMING CONSENSUS
	Much of Twilight Hotel depends on players agreeing both in and out of character on the reality of the hotel world. All the players are likely going to be forming ideas about what the hotel is and how things are going to go. Sometimes those ideas will be in conflict. Part of being a good player is realizing that your idea does not always need to be the one true way for the story. Other players are giving you a gift with new ideas that you may not have thought of before. Accept those ideas and build on them. Say yes! when someone else suggests something and try to think of how this new idea helps develop the world. You will find that you have a much better story together than by yourselves. 
Part of accepting what other players have given you to work with is paying attention to their parts of the story. Once the game play starts, if something is established about the hotel, a character, or the world, then accept that it’s true. You can scribble down some notes to help you remember important elements. Don’t spend time arguing about facts, if someone slips up just justify it as best you can and move on. Even professional authors have plot holes now and then. Save debate for out of character discussions. If the group can’t decide which idea is better, you can roll dice for each one and go with the higher of the two (or six if that’s how many ideas you’re debating on).
A NOTE ON SETTING LIMITS
	While successful role-play involves a lot of acceptance and agreement, there may be things that you find disturbing, inappropriate or that otherwise ruin the game for you. As part of the initial discussion, you should be free to put certain topics off-limits. IF you feel comfortable, state these limits explicitly and feel free to voice new ones if a topic comes up in play. IF you are NOT comfortable voicing these limits, a time should be put aside for players to be allowed to write anything that makes them uncomfortable on some scrap paper and place them into a hat. If you don’t have any limits write the names of different types of cereal you enjoy on a scrap of paper (breakfast is always taboo at the Twilight Hotel) and put it into the hat. This will make other players more comfortable. An environment of trust and acceptance is important for fostering a fun experience for everyone.  All players should respect these limits and the topics should be avoided in play. If a player cannot respect these boundaries they should excuse themselves from the game. 
A NOTE ON DETAILS
	When you introduce something into the hotel, be as descriptive as possible. Descriptions add fun to the world, help everyone stay on the same page, and spark ideas in your fellow players. Drawing a revolver says something about your character, but drawing a Weathered Colt .45 Peacemaker says a whole lot more and it says something different than drawing a Black Snub-Nosed .38 Special. When possible, give characters names and histories together. A story filled with people meeting for the first time and asking each other where they work and other basic biographical details can get very boring very fast. If you assume that your characters already know each other in some way, much of this can be skipped.