There’s a second side to Woebegon Inbetween. These kids, the player characters, are just kids, and homeless ones at that. No matter how much fun and laughter you cover it with, they’re just one misstep from tragedy.
First there must be joy. The game must allow a large measure of fun, to be able to sneak around and accomplish whatever tasks of kindness they set their minds to. There can be no hit points, no constant threat of death, the possibility of tragedy must be hidden, and there should be a possibility that it may never arise.
Should it be a choice made by the gamemaster? If the rise and fall of emotional struggle was all that mattered, I would do that, but there seems to be something wrong about choosing when to bring tragedy down upon an innocent. Personally, I’d have a hard time choosing who and when.
There’s something more. Tragedy, particularly death, has a curious character. It is both the most fair thing, for everyone suffers it eventually, and yet feels the most unfair, for we usually have no say in when it happens. So I am thinking of going with a semi-random method, something that will take the decisions of who and when away.
There is, of course, the second tragedy, that the characters may find people who will help them, but that they never have parents, they are never taken in, and therefore never have that protection, that support. It raises the question of apathy, even amongst those who care. I have no answer to it and will not expect one to be found within the game, but it sits there as a subtext, nonetheless.
