I get together with a group of friends twice a month for some pen and paper role playing. We use the fate core system in a science fiction world of our own devising. I had recently come to notice that some of my friends seem to have lost their enthusiasm for their characters. Unfortunately this can be a side effect of the Fate Core system, there isn't any traditonal RPG way to level your character in the system as it is built for people that like the role playing aspects of pen and paper rather than the min/maxing numbers game of d&d and pathfinder. This leads to the superman problem, the more perfect you make your hero, the more boring he will be.
So I wrote some of short scenarios for their characters to give them something to think about and possibly help them find and/or create a flaw within that character to reignite their enthusiasm. These were presented in the context of nightmares put into their head by a reoccurring villain who has the psychic ability to cause nightmares.
It was only after I finished writing these out that I realized I had written something almost like a short story, but they were in a very unusual form, the 2nd person narrative. It was something I had never done before and I found it to be a really fun form for me to write in.
I'll post two of the "nightmares" for now, it will be hard convert some of the others into short stories as they had multiple ways the player could affect the scenario. Each short story will be in a new post to help seperate them and also keep this first introductory post from becoming a huge wall of text. This is because I feel like the knee-jerk reaction that TL;DR ("Too long; didn't read.") is all to prevalent online and I want to avoid that in this thread.
Has anyone else here written a story using 2nd person narrative before?
The Reaper is a spy/assassin that was forced into an army supersoldier program that implanted some chips in his head. These computer chips turned him into something like Johnny Mnemonic, except they came prepackaged with artificial intelligences that he talks to. These AIs help him hack into networks and do the calculations that make him an expert sniper with his laser rifle. He wants revenge on the army that forced him into the torture-like process that implanted the chips and also stole away the memory of who he was. In a recent game he found out the name of the Doctor that ran the supersoldier program.
NOTE: This one has some swearing in it because that is how this friend plays his character, however there isn't anything in it that is more than PG beyond the language.
The Reaper's Nightmare
You feel the wind ruffle your hair. It brings scents in the air you haven't smelled for a long time. They say the sense of smell is so hardwired into the human memory that even reprogramming can't make those memories completely go away.
This place smells familiar and you feel the warmth of the sun's rays falling on the back of your neck. You are on earth. A gray concrete building looms on the horizon. The light from the sun setting behind you glints off its windows and makes it seem like it's the last ember of a fire about to die out. Despite the warmth of the sun, a feeling of pure ice trickles down from the back of your neck and into your veins as recognition dawns. The building in front of you is the facility that stole your humanity, piece by agonizing piece.
Dr. Monroe is in there, somewhere...
You feel the weight of your rifle's strap on your shoulder. Your trigger finger begins to itch and you think you can recall your first meeting with the "good" Doctor in his office. You remember that when you first met the Doctor the light from the damned sun setting behind him through that giant f*cking window in his office kept Monroe in silhouette. You couldn't get a good look at the Doctor's face no matter how hard you squinted in that meeting. You also remember that the window had no blinds, no curtains, no shutters, nothing. Anyone could look into the office from outside, so long as they were far enough away and had a halfway decent scope.
The scope on your rifle is more than halfway decent, it's one of the best that's ever been made and you are far enough away to take a peek through that window.
You hoist up your rifle, unfold it's spiked feet and lie down on your stomach. Then you calm your breathing to steady your hands and peek through the scope . Let's see... Two windows up and four over... You find the window. The light of the sunset is so strong that it's damn near impossible to see inside. Its like trying to look through a mirror. However you think you can make out a figure behind the window.
You pull out a polarized filter and screw it to the end of your scope.
The filter cuts through the reflection and you can see unmistakable silhouette of Dr Monroe inside. He's sitting at a his desk with his back to you. There is another person sitting across from him. The other guy looks kinda stupid because he's squinting so hard.
With a jolt of adrenaline you realize the other person in that office is you.
But.
This strange turn of events doesn't change anything. Hell, it's a blessing you've been taken back here to this point in time. Maybe killing the doctor now can even prevent the surgeries from happening.
"Reaper..." Dr. Monroe's voice whispers in your ear.
WHAT THE F*CK!? You look around, but see nothing. You're alone. Lowering your eye back to your scope you see that Doctor Monroe is still in his office. That bastard managed to embed himself so deeply in your psyche that seeing him now is f*cking up your head. You wrap your finger around the trigger and pull.
-click-
You lift your head and look at your rifle. This moment has rattled you so much that you left the safety on. You switch it off and look back through the scope.
"Reaper" says Dr Monroe in your ear, "Why do you want to kill the person that made you the Reaper?"
You search for the window again. What was it again, two up and four over? No that can't be it, it's empty and that doesn't even look like his office.
"Can't you see how my gifts made you who you are? You're the best damn spy there ever was because of me" Says Dr Monroe.
You methodically scan each window through your scope from top to bottom. Was that it, or is it this one, or the next one?
"If you're not grateful for what I've done to you then maybe I shouldn't have done it at all" says Dr Monroe.
You suddenly feel yourself change. It's a strange sensation, like you lost a hundred pounds you didn't even know you were carrying. You look down at yourself and don't notice anything.
Except you can't shake the feeling something is missing.
It takes a moment, but you realize your mind has been cleared. Every last corner of it. Everything is as if IT never happened. Exhilaration pours through you.
But.
Dr Monroe still is going to hurt a lot of people.
Many will die because of him.
Looking back through the scope, your energy rifle feels a little more loose, but you know you can still handle it.
This time you find the window in under a second. Monroe is still as his desk and to your relief you don't see yourself in the room.
You brace and take the shot.
It goes wide.
"Without my gifts, you are just a soldier. A good one perhaps, but only human." You hear Monroe's voice say, but it sounds far away and slightly robotic, like he's speaking to you through a connection on an old telephone.
You double down your concentration, cut out all other distractions, then listen and search for the sound of your own heartbeat. You find it and you work the beats apart, lengthening the spaces between them. You wait for that moment when the gulf between the pounding thuds gets wide enough, the moment when your heart is perfectly still.
You pull the trigger.
Without the help of your AI's calculations you only... just... hit the window. Then a sharp, SEARING pain erupts in your back. The beam ricocheted off the mirror-like window and carved a groove down your spine.
"The Reaper cannot be the Reaper without Dr Monroe" says the Doctor in an even more distant and robotic voice.
As the pain brings you to the brink of consciousness, you realize that the doctor's voice is the same as Newton's, your AI. The Doctor implanted his own voice within your AI's software down at the root level because he was the one who created you and that f*cker wanted you to be reminded of this every time you hear Newton talk.
I sometimes keep a journal of my dreams, this next short story is based off of an actual nightmare I had. I adapted it for another player in my roleplaying group. This player's character carries a virus in his blood that is deadly to pretty much everyone except himself.
Sathik's Nightmare
You are sitting at one end of a dinner table in an ornate mansion. Every seat at the table is occupied. It reminds you of an old-fashioned dinner party you might have seen in a black and white movie long ago. The people there even appear to be in black and white, as does the furniture and decor of the room, but the feast before you is in vivid technicolor.
There are so many different types and kinds of food. More than you could ever dream of. You see a plate of sushi and your mouth waters. You go to grab it and hesitate. Everyone here is so eerily quite. This whole situation feels strange. Maybe you shouldn't eat.
Then again, everyone else is stuffing their faces with gusto and they seem to be okay. You can't fault their manners for not speaking when they have their mouths full. So you reach out for the plate of sushi and notice another pop of color enter your vision. It's your sleeve. You look down and see that you are wearing a bright red suit.
The woman to your right politely asks for you to pass her the salt and pepper. You oblige and as you grab the pepper shaker to hand it to her, the cap falls off causing black pepper to spill over onto your sleeve.
Apologizing, you pick up the cap to the pepper shaker and screw it back on. She take it from you with a slight smile. You smile back to try to casually play off your clumsiness and wipe the pepper off of your sleeve. Unfortunately this kicks the pepper grounds into the air and you get a whiff of them. A tickle builds up in the back of your nose. As the tickle builds to a crescendo you try your best to hide the fact you're about to sneeze. You don't want her to see that stupid about-to-sneeze cross-eyed expression to come over your face. Slowly, the tickle fades to nothing, but after you let out a small sigh of relief it sneaks up on you and is impossible to hold back. You manage cover your face just in time. The volume of the sneeze makes the woman jump in surprise.
Something warm and wet hits your palms, it sounds like broken glass. Looking down you see that your hands are covered in blood. There's something else in your hands too, they look like... cut rubies and diamonds?
The woman to your right looks horrified at the sight of the blood for a brief moment, but then fixates on the jewels and grabs them from you. She wipes them clean and shows them to everyone else at the table with a exclamation of delight.
All the guests examine them as she passed the jewels around and they get really excited. Then every eye at the table turns toward you, as if every person there had the same unspoken idea. Before you can react, each person sitting at your side pins your arms to your chair and every person at the table stands to surround you. The woman to your right grabs the pepper shaker and brings it closer. She pours a little into her hand and throws it into your face. You try to hold your breath, but it's impossible. You feel as though the wind had been knocked out of you and can't stop from reflexively breathing in. The itch inside your nose begins to build again.
They see you go cross-eyed and reach toward your face as you sneeze for a second time. This time it HURTS!
Their hands come away covered in blood and clutching a number of cut diamonds and pearls. That woman to your right is looking at you as if you were an object she was valuing. She unscrews the lid off of the pepper shaker. You try to get up, but the people at the table push you into your chair and force your head back. That woman lifts the pepper container above you and tips it. The stream of falling grounds enters your nostrils and like before you can't stop yourself from breathing in. You feel the hot searing pain of the pepper and then the tickle.
You sneeze again and again spilling out more blood and jewels. Each sneeze gets more violent and painful and you can't stop as you feel the jewels shred the inside of your nose to ribbons. You're hemorrhaging blood and diamonds by the third sneeze.
There is a young boy sitting at the other end of the table, looking shocked. You didn't notice him sitting there before. He looks familiar. Every time you sneeze it forces you to reflexively close your eyes, so you don't see this boy get up or move toward you. He just is suddenly by your side; begging, pleading and crying for the people around you to stop. They don't even notice him and continue to force pepper into your nose to keep up the flow of jewels.
The edges of the room get dark as your vision begins to tunnel. You're loosing too much blood. The world is slipping away and the darkness at the edge your sight constricts everything down; smaller and smaller, until all you can see is a single mote of light. The last thing you hear is the boy voice calling out to you.
Writing in the 2nd is tough. It can be done, but I feel too many people for it where it shouldn't be. I am a big believer in writing in whatever way that the story needs to be told. If the story needs a 3rd person, you write in the third person. Although, it us a great way to exercise your writing muscles.
As for the stories themselves, they are peculiar. What I would like to see is a little more painting/colo. I would like it to be more vivd; these are nightmares after all.
What I would like to see is a little more painting/colo. I would like it to be more vivd; these are nightmares after all.
Thanks for the feedback. I was trying to find that balance between enough detail and achieving a dream-like feeling. For me dreams, especially nightmares, have an extremely narrow focus to them that can feel almost claustrophobic. I was trying to establish the scene of the nightmare in the first two or three paragraphs so I could shrink down the focus as the nightmare gets worse and make it feel claustrophobic by withholding all but the minimum description necessary, but I agree that the beginning of the stories need even more description and detail to make this effect work.
Another reason why I kept the detail to a minimum in the second half of the dreams was because I wrote these intending to read them aloud to a specific person. I wanted to overwhelm them a bit by making things go south so quickly that they would have as little time to react to what was happening as their characters do in their respective nightmares.
Wrote an entire elegant response and the darn computer locked up on me. Darn computers.
I don't think a writer can get away with futzing around getting to a point. Readers just have a gluttony of information nowadays. At one time, you could simply get people to read your stuff simply by writing an article. Players were once starved for content. Today, there are just so many sites and articles. I can't keep up. I'm not saying it is right or wrong, but there is a huge problem with getting people's attention. It is also a problem keeping their attention. People just have so many entertainment options to choose from nowadays. If they get an inkling of boredom, they go somewhere else. Starting a written piece slowly is dangerous if you want a lot of people to read it. You might get away with it at artsy or higher uppity environments where some may appreciate what you are doing. However, it is just not world we live in today.
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So I wrote some of short scenarios for their characters to give them something to think about and possibly help them find and/or create a flaw within that character to reignite their enthusiasm. These were presented in the context of nightmares put into their head by a reoccurring villain who has the psychic ability to cause nightmares.
It was only after I finished writing these out that I realized I had written something almost like a short story, but they were in a very unusual form, the 2nd person narrative. It was something I had never done before and I found it to be a really fun form for me to write in.
I'll post two of the "nightmares" for now, it will be hard convert some of the others into short stories as they had multiple ways the player could affect the scenario. Each short story will be in a new post to help seperate them and also keep this first introductory post from becoming a huge wall of text. This is because I feel like the knee-jerk reaction that TL;DR ("Too long; didn't read.") is all to prevalent online and I want to avoid that in this thread.
Has anyone else here written a story using 2nd person narrative before?
NOTE: This one has some swearing in it because that is how this friend plays his character, however there isn't anything in it that is more than PG beyond the language.
The Reaper's Nightmare
You feel the wind ruffle your hair. It brings scents in the air you haven't smelled for a long time. They say the sense of smell is so hardwired into the human memory that even reprogramming can't make those memories completely go away.
This place smells familiar and you feel the warmth of the sun's rays falling on the back of your neck. You are on earth. A gray concrete building looms on the horizon. The light from the sun setting behind you glints off its windows and makes it seem like it's the last ember of a fire about to die out. Despite the warmth of the sun, a feeling of pure ice trickles down from the back of your neck and into your veins as recognition dawns. The building in front of you is the facility that stole your humanity, piece by agonizing piece.
Dr. Monroe is in there, somewhere...
You feel the weight of your rifle's strap on your shoulder. Your trigger finger begins to itch and you think you can recall your first meeting with the "good" Doctor in his office. You remember that when you first met the Doctor the light from the damned sun setting behind him through that giant f*cking window in his office kept Monroe in silhouette. You couldn't get a good look at the Doctor's face no matter how hard you squinted in that meeting. You also remember that the window had no blinds, no curtains, no shutters, nothing. Anyone could look into the office from outside, so long as they were far enough away and had a halfway decent scope.
The scope on your rifle is more than halfway decent, it's one of the best that's ever been made and you are far enough away to take a peek through that window.
You hoist up your rifle, unfold it's spiked feet and lie down on your stomach. Then you calm your breathing to steady your hands and peek through the scope . Let's see... Two windows up and four over... You find the window. The light of the sunset is so strong that it's damn near impossible to see inside. Its like trying to look through a mirror. However you think you can make out a figure behind the window.
You pull out a polarized filter and screw it to the end of your scope.
The filter cuts through the reflection and you can see unmistakable silhouette of Dr Monroe inside. He's sitting at a his desk with his back to you. There is another person sitting across from him. The other guy looks kinda stupid because he's squinting so hard.
With a jolt of adrenaline you realize the other person in that office is you.
But.
This strange turn of events doesn't change anything. Hell, it's a blessing you've been taken back here to this point in time. Maybe killing the doctor now can even prevent the surgeries from happening.
"Reaper..." Dr. Monroe's voice whispers in your ear.
WHAT THE F*CK!? You look around, but see nothing. You're alone. Lowering your eye back to your scope you see that Doctor Monroe is still in his office. That bastard managed to embed himself so deeply in your psyche that seeing him now is f*cking up your head. You wrap your finger around the trigger and pull.
-click-
You lift your head and look at your rifle. This moment has rattled you so much that you left the safety on. You switch it off and look back through the scope.
"Reaper" says Dr Monroe in your ear, "Why do you want to kill the person that made you the Reaper?"
You search for the window again. What was it again, two up and four over? No that can't be it, it's empty and that doesn't even look like his office.
"Can't you see how my gifts made you who you are? You're the best damn spy there ever was because of me" Says Dr Monroe.
You methodically scan each window through your scope from top to bottom. Was that it, or is it this one, or the next one?
"If you're not grateful for what I've done to you then maybe I shouldn't have done it at all" says Dr Monroe.
You suddenly feel yourself change. It's a strange sensation, like you lost a hundred pounds you didn't even know you were carrying. You look down at yourself and don't notice anything.
Except you can't shake the feeling something is missing.
It takes a moment, but you realize your mind has been cleared. Every last corner of it. Everything is as if IT never happened. Exhilaration pours through you.
But.
Dr Monroe still is going to hurt a lot of people.
Many will die because of him.
Looking back through the scope, your energy rifle feels a little more loose, but you know you can still handle it.
This time you find the window in under a second. Monroe is still as his desk and to your relief you don't see yourself in the room.
You brace and take the shot.
It goes wide.
"Without my gifts, you are just a soldier. A good one perhaps, but only human." You hear Monroe's voice say, but it sounds far away and slightly robotic, like he's speaking to you through a connection on an old telephone.
You double down your concentration, cut out all other distractions, then listen and search for the sound of your own heartbeat. You find it and you work the beats apart, lengthening the spaces between them. You wait for that moment when the gulf between the pounding thuds gets wide enough, the moment when your heart is perfectly still.
You pull the trigger.
Without the help of your AI's calculations you only... just... hit the window. Then a sharp, SEARING pain erupts in your back. The beam ricocheted off the mirror-like window and carved a groove down your spine.
"The Reaper cannot be the Reaper without Dr Monroe" says the Doctor in an even more distant and robotic voice.
As the pain brings you to the brink of consciousness, you realize that the doctor's voice is the same as Newton's, your AI. The Doctor implanted his own voice within your AI's software down at the root level because he was the one who created you and that f*cker wanted you to be reminded of this every time you hear Newton talk.
Sathik's Nightmare
You are sitting at one end of a dinner table in an ornate mansion. Every seat at the table is occupied. It reminds you of an old-fashioned dinner party you might have seen in a black and white movie long ago. The people there even appear to be in black and white, as does the furniture and decor of the room, but the feast before you is in vivid technicolor.
There are so many different types and kinds of food. More than you could ever dream of. You see a plate of sushi and your mouth waters. You go to grab it and hesitate. Everyone here is so eerily quite. This whole situation feels strange. Maybe you shouldn't eat.
Then again, everyone else is stuffing their faces with gusto and they seem to be okay. You can't fault their manners for not speaking when they have their mouths full. So you reach out for the plate of sushi and notice another pop of color enter your vision. It's your sleeve. You look down and see that you are wearing a bright red suit.
The woman to your right politely asks for you to pass her the salt and pepper. You oblige and as you grab the pepper shaker to hand it to her, the cap falls off causing black pepper to spill over onto your sleeve.
Apologizing, you pick up the cap to the pepper shaker and screw it back on. She take it from you with a slight smile. You smile back to try to casually play off your clumsiness and wipe the pepper off of your sleeve. Unfortunately this kicks the pepper grounds into the air and you get a whiff of them. A tickle builds up in the back of your nose. As the tickle builds to a crescendo you try your best to hide the fact you're about to sneeze. You don't want her to see that stupid about-to-sneeze cross-eyed expression to come over your face. Slowly, the tickle fades to nothing, but after you let out a small sigh of relief it sneaks up on you and is impossible to hold back. You manage cover your face just in time. The volume of the sneeze makes the woman jump in surprise.
Something warm and wet hits your palms, it sounds like broken glass. Looking down you see that your hands are covered in blood. There's something else in your hands too, they look like... cut rubies and diamonds?
The woman to your right looks horrified at the sight of the blood for a brief moment, but then fixates on the jewels and grabs them from you. She wipes them clean and shows them to everyone else at the table with a exclamation of delight.
All the guests examine them as she passed the jewels around and they get really excited. Then every eye at the table turns toward you, as if every person there had the same unspoken idea. Before you can react, each person sitting at your side pins your arms to your chair and every person at the table stands to surround you. The woman to your right grabs the pepper shaker and brings it closer. She pours a little into her hand and throws it into your face. You try to hold your breath, but it's impossible. You feel as though the wind had been knocked out of you and can't stop from reflexively breathing in. The itch inside your nose begins to build again.
They see you go cross-eyed and reach toward your face as you sneeze for a second time. This time it HURTS!
Their hands come away covered in blood and clutching a number of cut diamonds and pearls. That woman to your right is looking at you as if you were an object she was valuing. She unscrews the lid off of the pepper shaker. You try to get up, but the people at the table push you into your chair and force your head back. That woman lifts the pepper container above you and tips it. The stream of falling grounds enters your nostrils and like before you can't stop yourself from breathing in. You feel the hot searing pain of the pepper and then the tickle.
You sneeze again and again spilling out more blood and jewels. Each sneeze gets more violent and painful and you can't stop as you feel the jewels shred the inside of your nose to ribbons. You're hemorrhaging blood and diamonds by the third sneeze.
There is a young boy sitting at the other end of the table, looking shocked. You didn't notice him sitting there before. He looks familiar. Every time you sneeze it forces you to reflexively close your eyes, so you don't see this boy get up or move toward you. He just is suddenly by your side; begging, pleading and crying for the people around you to stop. They don't even notice him and continue to force pepper into your nose to keep up the flow of jewels.
The edges of the room get dark as your vision begins to tunnel. You're loosing too much blood. The world is slipping away and the darkness at the edge your sight constricts everything down; smaller and smaller, until all you can see is a single mote of light. The last thing you hear is the boy voice calling out to you.
"Daddy!"
As for the stories themselves, they are peculiar. What I would like to see is a little more painting/colo. I would like it to be more vivd; these are nightmares after all.
Thanks for the feedback. I was trying to find that balance between enough detail and achieving a dream-like feeling. For me dreams, especially nightmares, have an extremely narrow focus to them that can feel almost claustrophobic. I was trying to establish the scene of the nightmare in the first two or three paragraphs so I could shrink down the focus as the nightmare gets worse and make it feel claustrophobic by withholding all but the minimum description necessary, but I agree that the beginning of the stories need even more description and detail to make this effect work.
Another reason why I kept the detail to a minimum in the second half of the dreams was because I wrote these intending to read them aloud to a specific person. I wanted to overwhelm them a bit by making things go south so quickly that they would have as little time to react to what was happening as their characters do in their respective nightmares.
I don't think a writer can get away with futzing around getting to a point. Readers just have a gluttony of information nowadays. At one time, you could simply get people to read your stuff simply by writing an article. Players were once starved for content. Today, there are just so many sites and articles. I can't keep up. I'm not saying it is right or wrong, but there is a huge problem with getting people's attention. It is also a problem keeping their attention. People just have so many entertainment options to choose from nowadays. If they get an inkling of boredom, they go somewhere else. Starting a written piece slowly is dangerous if you want a lot of people to read it. You might get away with it at artsy or higher uppity environments where some may appreciate what you are doing. However, it is just not world we live in today.