About the Game

Scenario

There's always been something creepy about Whately Manor--people have said for years that it was haunted. But Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby Doo have been contacted by tonight's Special Guest Star(s) to meet there: the gang's got a mystery to solve!

Logistics

Previous Whately games have been for twelve players, with a planned running time of four hours. This year, due to the source material :), the game has only about six characters [see the Characters page for details] and we anticipate a running time of about three hours. In order to accommodate roughly as many players as last year, without having our house in Whately mode all the way to Thanksgiving, for most evenings we have scheduled two runs with staggered starting times.

Here's how it will work:

	7pm: The players for the first run arrive and the first run starts.
	9pm: The players for the second run need to be at our house as closely as possible to this time. [We've planned the game to keep the runs from interfering with each other.]
	~10pm: The first run finishes. We won't have a formal game wrap for the first run, but we encourage those players to stick around--being cryptic here, we're planning ways for them to "participate".
	~Midnight: The second run finishes, and we have game wrap for both runs. Oh, and ice cream.

Because we need to worry about timing for the runs, we are asking players to try to get to our house as closely as possible to your starting time. Meeting together somewhere close by--such as the Oberweiss on Palatine Rd (awesome ice cream, for those not from Chicago)--so the entire run can arrive at once is strongly encouraged. The Oberweiss on Palatine has in fact donated ten coupons for free single-scope cones as inducement--we haven't figured out how to give those out yet, but we'll come up with something.

Game Elements

Live-action roleplaying games, or LARPs, come in many shapes and sizes. This particular game was conceived as a cross between a "haunted house" environment and a murder mystery style of game; it is designed to:

	*Focus on interaction with the environment.* As in a “typical" LARP, each player will receive a specific character to play, with a character sheet detailing the character's pertinent knowledge and their relationships with the other characters. However, players will probably not spend much time resolving character inter-relationships: 1) this is Scooby Doo, and there's not that much to the character inter-relationships and 2) the focus of the game will be exploring the locale and solving the various "puzzles" within it, using the characters' combined abilities.
	*Have a theatrical, "horror movie" feel.* At least, a "cheesy horror movie" feel. We won't know until the game runs whether the "scary parts" come across as frightening or humorous. However, since Hammer Horror is one of our inspirations, we'll be faithful to our source either way!
	*Be immersive.* Players will actually be exploring several different types of (simulated) areas during the game and will discover the extent of the gamespace as they explore. There will be secret doorways to open, and tunnels and passages to traverse. While we aren't planning as much crawling as there was in The Curse of Whately's Mesa, there'll certainly be more than there was in Monster.
	*"Continuity, Schmontinuity"* Have you ever seen the show? Jeepers, Freddie--most of the time the solution is just plain silly. During game wrap, we don't want any questions that start with "Why....?" :-)
	*Resolve combat with "GM-Sanctioned Mayhem Only (TM)."* There will be no actual combat in this game. This is a non-contact sport! And this is Scooby Doo, after all: the characters never confront the monsters--they run away! With the exception of possible Special Guest Stars (the Three Stooges come to mind), player characters should never have a reason to duke it out in fun, much less seriously. [P.S. The gamemasters (GMs) aren't going to approve any inter-character homicide.]
	*Be mechanics-light.* Every effort has been made to keep the game as "real" as possible--for a cartoon universe. There will be no item cards, there will be no dice, there will be no hit-points. The GMs would like to be as unobtrusive as possible. Of course, there will be some effects that we will have to fudge because we don't have either the budget or the technology to pull something off. We will inform players of the conventions that we've devised beforehand. As an example, we might ask players to treat hanging canvas walls as if they were actually stone. Please note the genre conventions below.

Axioms of the Whately/Scooby Doo Universe

The Whately/Doo Universe is based on the first couple seasons and the early movies. (I.e., those episodes that were being produced while Hammer Horror was being produced.)

But this is the WHATELY/Doo universe--there will be puzzles to solve and physical actions required. Most things that we think of as "Whately elements" will be there.

Whatever spooky thing you encounter, it must be a ghost.

If it looks like a vampire, it must be the ghost of a vampire.

If it looks like a mummy or a yeti or a robot, it must be the ghost of a mummy or a yeti or a robot.

If it looks like a flying saucer, it must be a flying ghost saucer.

If it looks like a ship in the fog, it must be a ghost ship.

This is despite that fact that week after week, you've been proving that everything you suspect is a ghost can actually be explained by projectors, mirrors, masks, and dastardly authority figures.

If (ha--when) Velma loses her glasses, she not only loses 50 IQ points, she becomes incredibly trusting and thinks that every monster is Shaggy.

"Danger Prone" is Fred's nickname for Daphne: she seems to have an uncanny ability to find traps.

Scooby (and frequently Shaggy) can be induced to overcome his naturally chicken nature with bribes of Scooby Snacks. [GM note: the group is encouraged to provide their own SS.]

Whenever you see a monster, you must run away.

Once you're "off camera" (i.e., out of sight of the monster, ducked around a wall or through a door), you may do a quick costume change (even if you don't have the costume) and the monster won't recognize you but will be confused.

Hypnosis works. Someone swinging something shiny on a chain, while saying "you're getting sleepy" can give you directions which you must follow. You can follow the directions even if it involves skills you don't actually possess (i.e., tightrope walking, etc.).

Rules will be updated as we formulate them!