Sleepaway

Description

Sleepaway gives us long hazy days, chilled summer nights, kids screaming and chasing fireflies, crackling campfires, and a gaunt, cruel monstrosity forever hiding just out of sight, always asking, “What do you do next?” In Sleepaway, you play as a camp counselor at a not-so-ordinary summer camp besieged by a Strange and ominous cryptid. In the outside world, people grow increasingly alienated from their own identities, trapped in a miasma of advertising and corporate branding. Isolated from civilization, this summer camp is a beacon of safety, a refuge for misfit kids defined by their marginalization. As time pushes past and the world grows older, this camp also shelters the survivors of the Lindworm. The Lindworm is a shapeshifter, or so the stories go; a creature that flays the skin of humans and hides within. As counselors of this summer camp, you’ve each been traumatized by the Lindworm, in your own ways. You remember little of that time. Just that you don’t want anyone else to experience it either, and you’ll keep this camp safe no matter what. Sleepaway is a breathtaking piece of design. At its core it is the straightforward give-and-take economy of Avery Alder's Belonging Outside Belonging system. Around that core, Jay has built an elegant and unsettling scaffold of poetic prompts, relatable archetypes, and bogey-monster horror that facilitate a truly terrifying experience. — Eric Mersmann Sleepaway uses the Belonging Outside Belonging system, popularized by games like Dream Askew by Avery Alder and Dream Apart by Benjamin Rosenbaum. It is a diceless game where tokens are received for making Weak Moves (actions that make your life harder), and these tokens are spent on Strong Moves (actions that passionately succeed). In Belonging Outside Belonging games, everyone shares the role of facilitator, and each person can pick up Setting Elements to bounce off of and provide narrative impetus for the other players. In Sleepaway, Setting Elements also contain Rituals, in which gameplay becomes more abstracted, to highlight unique moments of play by combining them with real-world actions and activities. Rituals might invite you to draw, to gesticulate, to play music, or even to destroy elements of the game itself in very unique ways. The story continues on this way, with characters interacting and setting elements providing a world to interact within, until it is time for the Lindworm to act. While everyone has their eyes closed, one player responsible for channeling the Lindworm during play draws from a deck of cards and causes an unsettling event to occur. These can range from a new scar in a place you didn't remember having one, to a brutally dismembered animal appearing at your cabin door, or potentially even the death or dismemberment of player characters as the game continue. Characters, scenes, locations, items, and the Lindworm's cards are all kept track of on a conspiracy-style corkboard, which slowly becomes more entangled and more mechanically relevant over time. The game is divided into three acts, each one with unique rules that subtly change the game by adding new setting elements, permanently changing setting elements and character sheets, and introducing new ways to play. Sleepaway was a simultaneous nostalgia trip and horrifying art project. From designing our land (inevitably just like land we’d all been to) to interacting with fellow staff and campers, the whole experience deeply evoked my days at camp and the feeling of magic that came with them. These memories were like a canvas; on top of them we painted an atmospheric set of horrors, weaving scenes together out of remembrances and collective narrative understanding. At each point there was a sense that we all knew where the story should go - it was just a matter of following it there, of letting the Lindworm manifest it. It was satisfying and unique to layer dread on nostalgia, and I highly recommend it for anyone who remembers the magic of summer camp! — Maya Ziv The Sleepaway book is 130 pages long, and features gorgeous black and white illustrations by our talented team of artists and graphic designers, based on the natural flora and fauna of the Hudson Valley, where the author grew up and where the summer camp Sleepaway is based on is located. The book has ten unique character sheets, a dozen setting elements for multiple stages of play, rules for both oneshots and campaign play, an enormous pile of rituals, and so much more! Follow the link down below to purchase a physical copy of the Sleepaway book. We each have fallen in love with the characters we build so fast, they feel like lovely little facets of ourselves; and the emphasis on struggle, of working through things, of making yourself vulnerable in order to be strong, has been so much fun and surprisingly healing. — Vocea With Sleepaway, Dragon takes the social mechanics of setting elements from Belonging outside Belonging games, and eases them deftly into the setting - and into the ald itself. It's a syncretic wedding between the natural world, the people who tend it, and the supernatural forces that inhabit it. — Caro A beautiful PDF that's possibly the best game in the Belonging Outside Belonging system. It does exactly what it says it does, excellently. Protect the campers. Cause drama. Get flayed by the Lindworm. — Donny ENnies 2020 Judge's Spotlight Award. Nominated for the Indie Groundbreaker Awards in two categories: Most Innovative Game and Game of the Year. Beau and John Sheldon on Thoughty — Rusted Sword and Nice Boys: Gender in Sleepaway Beau Sheldon on Thoughty — Five Or So Questions on Sleepaway Andrew Girwood on GeekNative — Beware The Monstrous Lindworm: Sleepaway RPG on Kickstarter Seamus Conneely on Cannibal Halfling Gaming - Bundle For Racial Equality And Justice - Spotlight 2 The Gauntlet AP Podcast streamed Sleepaway. Session one can be found here. Chromatic Chimera streamed Sleepaway in Adventure At Camp Hideaway to raise funds for the Trevor Project. It can be watched here. Many Realms Podcast played Sleepaway in the summer camp of Toad's Hollow. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here. <a href="https://jdragsky.itch.io/offseason-sleepaway">Offseason: A Sleepaway Supplement by Jay Dragon</a> Offseason is a supplement for Sleepaway with rules for online play. It also features a new Strangeness setting element (the Paper-Skin Hares), two new rituals, and a new thematic respite. &lt;a href=&quot;<a href="https://possumcreekgames.itch.io/uncanny-sleepaway">Uncanny&quot; class=&quot;redactor-linkify-object&quot;&gt;https://possumcreekgames.itch.io/uncanny-sleepaway&quot;&gt;Uncanny</a> by Jay Dragon @ Possum Creek Games&lt;/a&gt;Uncanny is an expansion for Sleepaway that explores the more mystical and magical elements of summer camp. New strangenesses, playbooks, rituals and more fill the pages of this PDF that's almost as long as the base game itself. Sleepaway was launched on Kickstarter in June 2019, and raised more than 400% of its original goal and obliterated every single stretch goal.

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