Two's a Crowd

Six totally normal humans attend a local board game dating night, desperately trying to hide the fact that they all have dramatic, demanding, dangerous eldritch entities in their heads. They're trying so, so hard to seem normal. But when you're possessed by a ghost, a demon, a godling, or a faerie king squabbling loudly for control of your body, well... two's a crowd.

Long Description

Two's a Crowd is a light-mechanics game about six humans, all possessed by magical entities, trying really hard to be polite and normal around each other before swiftly and definitively descending into extreme unpoliteness.

NOTE: although the two games cannot be labelled seperately, the Friday run of Two's a Crowd is mask-optional, and the Saturday run of Two's a Crowd is mask-mandatory.

The Setting

New England, 2023. Fresh out of a global pandemic. Your mortals are crawling back into communal spaces again, blinking and trying to remember what public bathrooms look like. Your supernatural entities are secret, extraplanar, bodiless body-surfers trying to snatch a bit of control where they can. Before the pandemic and isolation, the mortals spent a considerable amount of energy trying not to let on that they have alien things in their heads. Now they have to perform normalcy again.

Tonight, the mortals are all trying out a local board game cafe's speed-dating event. Most of them are complete strangers. The same can't be said for the squabbling things in their heads.

The Mechanics

This is a light-mechanics game with a focus on roleplay. Characters will be given goals, and expected to ignore those goals in favor of a more interesting story when the need arises. The principle mechanic is the control object, which each possessor/mortal duo will fight for possession of. Whoever possesses the control object will have public control over their shared body. This game has the capacity for violence between characters, and has simple rules set in place to accomodate this; however, combat is not anticipated to be common, nor is it a focus. All actual roleplayed violence will be exaggerated, dramatic play-acting with pre-determined results.

The Tone

This is a high-transparency game. You won’t know everything (character sheets will be private), but you’ll know a lot more than your character does. You will be in a space with eleven other people, and for a little while you’ll have to actively pretend you can’t see or hear five of them. You’re expected to know the reveal but still act surprised. It’ll be comedic and silly. Lean into this. This game should sometimes be funny.

This is also a game about intimacy and control. You’ll have to fight for control of your own body, if you’re the mortal; or you’ll have no body at all and must steal another’s, if you’re the possessor. You will be puppetmaster and puppet in turn. There will be workshops and mechanics to help negotiate this fraught relationship between mortal and possessed. You’re expected to stoke the fires of drama, feel things, be helpless, be cruel. Lean into this. This game should sometimes be dark.

Cultural touchstones for this game include Venom/Eddie Brock, Jekyll/Hyde, Murderbot/ART, Terry Pratchett's "Small Gods", Buffy the Vampire Slayer, stupid sexy demonic possessions of all kinds, and of course, the "two bagels" meme.