The House Rules!

The House Beta version 0.2 – By Orion Canning and Robert Bruce

(The Deal)

You’re a character in a reality TV show (think The Real World or Big Brother). You live in public with a bunch of other narcissists, sharing a house and daily rituals together. Nothing that actually happens in the house happens on-screen. Everything’s told through daily videojournals or candid interviews, all posted online for the enjoyment (or mortification) of all.

(Characters)

Think of a name. Try picking one out of your high school yearbook. Maybe “Most Likely to be Famous.”
Each character has 2 prides, someone they love, and someone they hate.

Prides are a statement of part of a character’s self image, something they feel defines themselves. Prides always begin with either, “I will always” or “I will never”.  For example, “I will never cheat on my partner.”, “I will never have sex on TV.”, “I will always be the best cook I know.”, “I will always be the smartest in the house.” Play true to your prides without ever explicitly saying what they are.

Now it’s time to deliver your Character Pitch. This is done in the form of an audition tape, sent to the producers of the show. The tape should be focused on you, and should really be a pitch about why you would be the most interesting person to see on TV. Why would people enjoy watching you? Are you hot? Do you always speak your mind? Are you trendy and hip? Maybe you have a fun and high-paying job. Or you could just have the unshakeable, unbreakable belief that you WILL BE FAMOUS!!!

Show us.  In 5 minutes or less.

Make a youtube page for your character, and feel free to add as much information about your character as you want, just don’t explicitly tell your prides on your page. Post your pitch video with your character’s account.
After watching the other player’s pitches, pick one other character you love and one you hate. Reveal one of your prides to the character you love through a private message, and the character you hate reveals one of theirs to you. If you have to reveal more than one pride, reveal each one before revealing the same one twice. You’ll want to write down the prides you’ve discovered so you can try to threaten them later.


(Gameplay)

Your daily schedule for living in The House will generally look something like this:

10am:  House-mates share a communal breakfast

11am:  Head to your job or fake, trendy internship

1pm:  Boss gets frustrated with your useless ass and you take a lunch.

2pm:  Do your daily videojournal at home. You don’t have a lot of time, so spill yer guts.  Also: Take care of personal business, call your partner, and maybe make a rant video or participate in an interview.

5pm: Communal dinner or dinner date.

7pm: Gettin ready to partay.

10pm: Roll into the club, GET WASTED!!!!!!

Later: Your friends will tell you all about it.

(Turn order)

Players take turns posting videos to the internet during a round. A round represents one week of game time. Each round starts with a character initiating a conflict with another character.  The player initiating the conflict goes first, the players not involved in the conflict go in turn order afterwards, and the target of the conflict goes last.  If the target of the conflict continues the conflict, turn order reverses, ending with the character who initiated the conflict. Note that the target of the conflict only gets one turn.

Players take turns initiating the conflict in turn order, which is decided by the player who has the most Facebook friends.

(Making a videojournal)

In character, make a video where you talk about the most important things that happened in your day. Conflicts in the house, romantic developments, whatever your character thinks matters. Again, you have five minutes or less, so focus. Build the drama. On your turn you get to tell your character’s version of events. Watch the other character’s videos first, then feel free to respond to their statements or introduce your own events. Anything any character says can be a lie, so it’s perfectly fine to have characters disagree over how things actually happened and contradict one another. Which side was telling the truth gets  mostly determined at the end of the round, but there might still be some loose ends. That’s okay, it’s fine to leave some ambiguity about what really happened.



(Conflict)

When it’s your turn to start a round, you initiate a conflict by picking a player, called the Mark, then at some point in your video journal describing an event that threatens one of their prides. If your Mark revealed their prides to you, this is easy, but otherwise you have to guess. The player starting the conflict is called the Initiator. Anyone can choose to Escalate the conflict in a subsequent video. Escalating allows you to decide whether the Mark’s Pride continues to be threatened or the conflict gets turned around and the Initiator’s pride get’s threatened instead. The threatened player is called the Target. If you target the Mark with an escalation, describe an event that backs up the Initator’s claims or version of events. If you target the Initiator, you can describe an event that defends the Mark or otherwise contradicts the Initiator’s story, or simply attempt to threaten one of the Initiator’s prides. The most recent Escalation over-rides all previous ones and determines the Target. 

On the Mark’s turn they can choose to resolve the conflict or continue it. If they resolve it, they describe how the Target abandons their Pride. If they continue it they can Escalate, but it doesn’t change the Target. One of the other players still has to do that. Then the Initiator gets to resolve how the Target abandons their Pride.  If the players correctly chose one of the Target’s Prides, the Target crosses it off their character sheet. If the players guessed the Pride wrong, the Target reveals their prides to everyone, proving they aren’t actually bothered by the conflict.

For example:

The turn order is Robert, Orion, Sean, Veles, and then back to Robert.

It’s Robert’s turn to be the Initiator, so Robert says that Orion, whose Pride is “He is the most masculine person in the house,” was heard singing Britney Spears in the shower. And not even “Toxic” either. One of her obscure songs. (Making Orion the Mark.)

Sean Escalates the conflict by saying “It looked like Orion was wearing lip gloss!” (Keeping Orion the Target).
Veles spends his turn talking about himself, keeping Orion the Target.

Orion continues the conflict by saying “So what? My girlfriend likes that song. But how did Robert know that it was Britney Spears? He must be a big fan too.” (This doesn’t change the Target, but Orion hopes someone else will.)

Veles Escalates the conflict by saying “I saw Robert dancing with some raver kids..” (Changing the Target to Robert, threatening his Pride – “I will always be an indie scene-ster.”)

Sean Escalates the conflict by saying “Robert was wearing a neon pacifier around his neck and calling it candy.” (Keeping Robert the Target.)

Robert resolves the conflict by saying “Screw you guys, House is coming back. 4/4/4ever!” (Resolving the conflict, abandoning his Pride on his own terms.)

Note: When narrating a character abandoning their Pride, describe the events which prove to everyone their Pride isn’t true anymore.

(Rants and Interviews)

After each round’s conflict resolves, the Mark gets to choose whether to make a Rant or an Interview.

Rants:

Rants give you a chance to talk shit about someone or something with no consequences. Rants don’t initiate conflicts, and you can’t use them to contradict established events.  You can use your Rant to tell stories about stuff your character did on their own, or use it to express their feelings about events that have already happened and other characters. Use this to define your character and give hints about your prides.

Interviews:

At any time, another character or anyone else on the internet can post interview questions to your comments. If you choose interview, you pick 5 questions and answer them. Your answers cannot contradict established events. Use your Interview to satisfy other Players’ curiosity about your character.
Question guidelines – Questions can define events in that character’s life before the show, or fill in details about past events in the house. Don’t ask what people’s Prides are. Don’t ask leading questions that would force the other player to contradict established events. (For example: Asking why they killed the monkey, when we know the monkey survived.)

(Other stuff)

Since this game is played through making Youtube videos you can feel free to get as elaborate with the videos as you like. Go ahead and make a costume for your character and wear it in your videos or dress the background to make it look like their room. Your character might even record the video somewhere outside their house, maybe while visiting their friends or family, while at work, at a net café, or at a club or party. You can also include other people in your videos as NPCs, or collaborate with other players to have their characters make cameos in your videos. Just be careful not to create contradictions in the setting. As a rule you normally shouldn’t set your scenes in any part of “the house” except your own room, unless the other players agree with the location. That’s so one player doesn’t go setting the rest of the house in a place that’s easy for them to get access to, but difficult or impossible for anyone else to film at. 

The Players should also discuss beforehand whether there are any subjects that would make any players uncomfortable that they don’t want to see in the game. This is called “veiling” those subjects. Players shouldn’t have to explain why they want to “veil” particular subject matter, it’s about making sure everyone is comfortable and having fun with the game.

(Endgame)

When a character abandons both their Prides, they get so upset that they leave the show. They can introduce a new character if they want. They can immediately make a new youtube channel for their new character with a new character pitch. They pick two new prides for their character and choose someone to love and someone to hate, just like before. The new character might enter immediately into the next round, or skip a round or two.
Pick a number of seasons to play at the beginning of the game. A season consists of each Player getting a turn as the Initiator. After the last round of the last season, each player gets to post an epilogue video where they talk about what they have been doing after leaving the house.