Game Design
The passage is a content LARP. Content LARP means that all the characters and many story elements are prewritten. Some of these elements will be brought into play by the Orga through diegetic means, others are brought into play by prompts that the player will receive.
Storyworld
The diegetic world is a steampunk setting with cosmic horror elements. About two years before the game, the sky darkened and two years without summer passed. Nobody knows exactly what led to the darkening of the sky and there are many rumors on why this happened. Many people are superstitious and think that it is some sort of wrath of the gods.
Over the last couple of months a tale was spread of a passage into a promissed land, a lush, warm and beautiful country. With that story making it's rounds many expeditions were sent out to find that passage.
The game focuses on one particular outpost of these expeditions. Due to the nature of this outpost, people of multiple different expeditions ended up at this place.
History vs.Fiction
The Passage is a fictional game. It is aesthetically inspired by the late 19th century and also draws some inspiration from actual events during this time. We would like to point out a few historical elements and how we handle them.
Gender: We ignore the historical aspect of gender. Any role can be taken on by a character of any gender and every player can take on any gender representation no matter their gender. That said, you will have to decide on the gender representation on the costume form.
Class and social groups: Clashes and segregation between classes are part of the game design. The following social groups will be present at the game: Scholars, Officers, Workers and Fugitives. There is no class that is a direct servant of another one, but there are dependencies.
Faith
Playing on this element is core to the gamedesign.
The religion of the game takes loose inspiration from different faiths, and does not represent any real life religion. Most characters follow the same religion that worships “the Gods” and “the Saints”, both entities that shape the world and that can be consulted for guidance, and there are stories of them answering.
Details on how to worship “the Gods” and ask “the Saints” for guidance will be elaborated during the pregame workshops.
There are a few characters that follow a special rule about faith, but this is a secret that people can uncover ingame.
Characters
Each player will receive a prewritten character and a costume fitting for the role. Each character is a member of an expedition set out to find the passage.
The character sheet will contain all necessary information, like background, goals, reasoning, allegiance, connections and some secrets.
The costume will be a basic outfit with two to three layers to accommodate switching between the indoor and outdoor game. The players will have to bring their own thermal wear, boots and probably some basic things like a white shirt, knitted sweater and woolen socks.
Casting
The players will receive a questionnaire about what type of character they want to play, what their preferences are and whether they want to play certain types of character.
According to the first questionnaire the player will then receive 3 or 4 characters and they have to place their priorities. The character descriptions in the second round are anonymised because they might contain spoilers.
After the second round, the players will receive the final casting and they will get the form to submit their costume preferences and other practical information.
Secrets
This game drives on in character and out of character secrets and is not transparent by design. We try to be as transparent as possible without giving away any spoilers and we ask the players not to share anything about their character that is not marked as public knowledge.