Passing: Ashcan Edition

Description

The year is 1956. A decade ago, Earth received its first confirmation of extraterrestrial life when the spaceship Ocean-Seeker crashed to the ground. Since then, two more ships came from the planet Sun-Lost, trying to rescue those who were stranded. You were on one of those ships. All rescue missions have failed. Now, all you can do is try to survive. Welcome to Walnut Hills, a quiet suburb near DC where you and the other members of your alien Cell live in human form, trying to avoid suspicion. You look like an upstanding member of the community: you go to work, you chat with your neighbors, maybe go to the Sunday potluck and talk about the government’s new alien eradication policies (wouldn’t want those scary aliens taking over our planet, who knows what they’ll do?). But when no one’s looking, you’re sneaking through the alien testing facility to release your captured family, or maybe you’re trying to infiltrate the Alien Eradication Unit in what the humans would call “covert ops”. Every day the world becomes more dangerous. How far are you willing to go to stay alive? Passing is a PbtA tabletop role-playing game where you play shapeshifting aliens in the suburbs of 1950’s American. In Passing, you play out stories of alien fiction: desperately trying to keep a balance in your double life while you undertake dangerous undercover missions in the midst of a world that would rather have you dead. 3-5 players | 3-4 hour sessions | Powered By the Apocalypse | Ages 14+ | Introduction Alien Fiction The Ashcan Edition What You Need to Play A Brief Human-Alien History Sun-Lost Our History The First Wave The Second Wave The Third Wave Walnut Hills The Others Creating Characters Cell Sheet Choosing a Playbook Human vs Alien Look Stats Backstory Playbook Moves Introductions and Relationships Driving Desires Playbook Extras Cool Alien Superpowers Shapeshifting Intuition Distress Signalling Gameplay Dice The Question and Stats System Basic Moves Peripheral Moves Trauma Human and Alien Tracks Human Adaptations Alien Adaptations The Playbooks List of Playbooks The Intermingler The Poster Child The Outsider The Halfling The Hidden The Game Master Agendas Make their lives tense Give Walnut Hills a secret underbelly Play to find out what happens Principles Invoke the community Flesh out their alien and human lives Be a fan of the players’ characters Make your move but misdirect Treat all humans as possible threats Treat all alien NPCs as possible allies Remind the aliens of their decisions Address yourself to the aliens, not the players Ground the story in a neighborhood divided by politics and identity Give everyone secrets and underlying motivations Define alienness through beauty and strangeness GM Moves About the Aliens The Intermingler The Poster Child The Halfling The Outsider The Hidden Long Example Cell Sheet