THE COVEN A game of bargains. #What this game is about: The Coven is a role-playing game about some outside, Other force that is trying to enter and destroy the world through its interactions with occultists who, against their better judgment, interact and bargain with the Other for their own benefit. In the game, one player will take on the role of an outside Other force, be that the forces of hell, an alien incursion, Mythos gods, etc. as they attempt to enter and destroy the town that the coven have unwittingly invited them into. The rest of the players will make up members of the Coven, people who on the surface are normal townsfolk, but all of whom have a secret desire for power that gets them into trouble. # Getting Started ## Inspirations Puella Magi Madoka Magica Welcome to Night Vale Any number of witchcraft movies. ## You Will Need * 2+ people, including you. One of you will take on the role of the Others -- a supernatural force incompatible with humanity -- the rest will play practitioners, members of the coven in a small town. * Pens or pencils for everyone. * Scratch paper. * Note cards * A deck of cards. ## Create Characters ### The Others The player playing the Others should describe them in broad terms (the forces of Hell, Mythos gods, alien invaders, etc.) **Goals** The Others goal is always the same, achieve dominance of the town by corrupting it or destroying it. He will achieve this by keeping the coven practitioners dependent on his power until it is too late. The goal of the practitioners is to achieve whatever they had initially set up for themselves as the reason they started to dabble with the other in the first place, and to have no reason to go back to the other ever again. ### The Practitioners Each player playing a Practitioner should answer the following questions: 1. What is your name? 2. Where do you work, if you do? 3. Do you have family in town? 4. Who are you closest to in town? 5. Why did you throw in with the Others? 6. What are you trying to achieve? (If not covered by 5.) Then take 5 note cards and write on them what they represent. These cards are humanity cards. Each of note cards is something you have by virtue of being human. Write one of each: *What is your darkest fear? *What do you hope the other will not ask you to sacrifice?(think possessions, body part, memories, hopes) *What do you hope the other will do for you? *a fond memory *an abstract quality like your name, your reflection, or your voice. Realize that anything written on humanity cards are what the other is trying to corrupt, or trying to bargain for. #### Becoming Other If you lose all of your humanity cards then you become Other. You retain your free will, but you now win if the Others win the game. Once lost, humanity cannot be regained. Even if you recover a humanity card from the Others it won't be quite the same. ## Create Your Town Write every Practitioner's name on a piece of paper. If they have a workplace, write that on the paper too and link them with a line. If they have a family, write that on the paper and link them with a line. Write the name of the person they're closest too on the paper and link them with a line. If the players have created any contacts, organizations, or places in town by writing them on their white cards, add those as well. The Others player can add one more element to the town for every player, choosing anything they think will be important or that will help them achieve their goal. Now go through and draw more lines linking things that feel like they ought to be linked. Everyone can participate in this part. If you feel like adding some more elements because they'd be a good fit, go ahead and throw those in as well. Each element should be categorized as a person, a place, or an organization. Name your town, and you're ready to start. ##Game play Game play takes place in a series of phases that represent a week in the fiction. the week has 3 distinct rounds to it: 1. Corruption round 2. The Coven daily lives round 3. The Coven summoning ritual round ### Corruption round: In the corruption round, the Other player takes the deck of cards reveals a number of cards following these rules: *One card for each humanity the practitioner player possesses *two cards per bargain card the practitioner player possesses *two cards per humanity the other player possesses Each red face card revealed allows the Other to add one seed of corruption to a written story element (a place in the town, NPCs in the town, etc.) The Other player should describe this in the fiction. Each ace of any suit revealed allows him to add one seed of corruption to a player’s humanity card. The Other should describe this in the fiction. Remember you are either corruption something or destroying something. No more than one seed of corruption may be placed on an element or humanity card in this way per round. Any story element or humanity with three corruption makers now becomes the property of the Other player fictionally and mechanically. It is corrupted, and cannot become uncorrupted without the Other’s explicit consent. *seeds of corruption* Whenever a practitioner’s humanity is corrupted by placing 3 seeds of corruption on it, it has become an additional goal that that player must deal with before they can “win” and they will likely need your help or consent to get it back. Since the practitioner’s need to cut all ties with you to “win,” it is in the others best interest to corrupt humanity, and in the practitioner’s best interest to keep their humanity intact. *All elements are corrupted* Whenever all story elements are corrupted, including the humanity of the practitioners, the game ends with the Other’s winning. ###The Coven daily lives round: Each practitioner will frame a scene the scene should be trying to accomplish their goal, but doesn’t have to be. Each practitioner scene will have a conflict if they are using it to accomplish their goal. Explicitly say what the success result is for the conflict and what the fail result is for the conflict. Conflict resolution is a mixture of bargaining and Texas hold’em. It is played in 3 rounds: the cards dealt plus flop then bargain, turn then bargain, and then river and bargain. Cards dealt plus flop: all Practitioners involved indicate which of their Humanity and Bargain cards they can bring to bear to solve it and describe in the fiction how it's useful. Humanity are worth 1 card, and bargain cards are worth 2 playing cards. All humanity cards used in this way are considered Wagered. Any wagered humanity cards can potentially gain a seed of corruption. Remember, 3 seeds of corruption makes something corrupted. The Others get a number of cards based on how brutal the challenge is. Challenge Cards Routine 1 + 1 per player involved Challenging 2 + 1 per player involved Ridiculous 3 + 1 per player involved Deal out the correct number of cards to all parties involved, one at a time, then deal 3 cards onto the table face up. Now the practitioners and the other can bargain. The other is pulling the strings behind the scenes, and can give the practitioners the edge in the conflict, or outright let them win. The other will propose a deal, and the practitioners can counter offer once. If this doesn’t lead to conflict resolution then poker play continues to the turn. Things the Other can offer: He can write bargain cards: that will likely help the player for this or another conflict, but the clever Other will make these cards have some kind of caveat that make them harder to use. If the other player gives them a card relevant to the current situation, then the practitioner can describe how it is used in the fiction and immediately gets 2 more cards. This is not explicitly letting the practitioners succeed at the current conflict and poker play would continue. Others can write bargain cards at any time. These can be things like: * Knowledge about the supernatural. * A supernatural quality or ability. * A particular spell. * A corrupt artifact. * Contacts among the Others, or other people you know with supernatural abilities. He can let the practitioners succeed: This should be used to demand something from the practitioners. This is explicitly letting the practitioners succeed and poker play would end. Examples of things the other can demand: an entire humanity card, to put more seeds of corruption on cards, to demand all the wagered cards, etc. be creative. The turn: one more card is placed face up on the table, then there is another round of bargaining. This time the bargain starts with the practitioners, then the Other gets one counter offer. If this does not lead to the conflict resolution play continues to the river. The River: turn a fifth card face up onto the table. There is one final round of bargain starting with the other, then going to the practitioners for counter offer. If this doesn’t lead to conflict resolution, all players involved turn their cards over and make the best poker hand they can. If they succeed, their humanity is safe and they resolve the scene to the success condition that was agreed on earlier, with the practitioner player describing it. If they fail, all humanity wagered takes a seed of corruption, and the fail condition is resolved in the fiction by the Other player describing it. ### A Hint For The Practitioners It's okay to set the stakes for your conflicts as things like "If I win, the corruption vanishes from this person." This is a tool against the creeping influence of the Others. ### A Hint For The Others During your scenes, you should push complications and difficulties in the Practitioners' lives. You can't force conflict -- that's not your style -- but you want them to choose between using their weekly action to solve personal problems, or to confront the corruption in town. And don't forget that the pressure of this choice makes great leverage for you to get some more bargain cards into play. Also, make sure you are always writing a “catch” into a bargain card: every time you use this, I get a corruption seed to place in the town; you can only use this if you also do this ritual, etc. Bargain cards can be ANYTHING the practitioner will agree to. ### The coven summoning ritual round: Each time you have this round, each practitioner will describe a detail of the summoning ritual, or the place that they do it, etc. and then the Other will say: and then I appear: and describes some detail of the Other approaching In this round, the practitioners get a chance to bargain with no stakes of conflict on the table. This is a good chance for them to get some needed bargain card for a conflict yet to come, or to try and clear some of the corruption off of their humanity. In order to propose deals, the players must make a speech in character as if they were trying to convince their dark lord to grant them these boons. Each practitioner may make one bargain speech, and the other will get one counter offer if he wishes. After that, the practitioners describe how they finish the ritual in the fiction and the round ends. Note: the Other will likely not take seeds of corruption back, but he may be willing to transfer them to one of your companions. Whenever this type of deal is offered by the practitioner to the Other, a majority of players at the table have to agree for it to happen. Feel free to screw your friends over to save yourself in this round of the game! # Winning Every Practitioner has a personal goal, plus any additional goals that were added from their humanity being corrupted. If they achieve that they can be said to 'win' even if the town is consumed by the Others and their soul sent howling into whatever abyss awaits. But it's natural for people to want to win on a larger scale: to drive out the evil forces that threaten their home and loved ones, and make sure they can never return. To do that all they have to do is meet these criteria: 1. None of the human coven members have any red cards. 2. There are no corrupt entities in town. With that, the Others lose their foothold in town and cannot regain it. The game ends and the Practitioners win! Except coven members who lost their humanity: they are destroyed when their connection to the Others is severed.