The Other OSR: Lost in the Fold

All you know is Here. There is no need to know of anywhere that is not Here. Where is Here? You know nobody who knows. It is your Home. It is your community. It gives you a function. It gives you opportunities for recreation. It gives you the chance to contribute to the Community. Everything you need and everything anyone needs, flows through The Chain. You know it works. Its pipes run everywhere and wheeze and pop and whistle and clang, but always deliver what you need when you need it. When the Community needs it. Starting every day with a morning clothing bullet to make sure everyone is dressed in fresh apparel. All of which is overseen by The Authority, the municipal administration which ensures that The Chain continues to operate, to ensure everyone is assigned to the right sleeping quarters, given the correct amount of recreation time, they contribute to the Community, and they keep a record that they do. Yet… There is the Threshold. It might be the edge or the end of Here, but nobody knows. Or at least nobody is saying. And definitely, nobody who has gone beyond the Threshold, whether deliberately or be accident, has returned to tell anyone what the Threshold is or what lies on the other side.

This is what anyone knows—including the Player Characters—of the Here, a habitat occupied by humanity, surviving on limited resources, and living on borrowed and definitely bureaucratic time. What the habitat of the Here is, is unknown. It could be a bunker, buried underground after a nuclear apocalypse, a space station orbiting Jupiter, a long-term social experiment, or at the end of the universe. Wherever and whatever it is, the scarcity of resources means that if anything went wrong, the Here would no longer be viable. It could collapse. It could be shut down. Either way, it would be ‘Lost in the Fold’, in a bureaucratic reshuffle as its last resources are reassigned.

This is the set-up for the Lost in the Fold. Published by Just Crunch Games, this is a ‘Genre Set-Up’ for Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks, which describes itself as a set of “Universal Rules for Challenge-driven Games”. It is a separate ‘Genre Set-Up’ to the two given in the core rulebook—as expanded in .GIF and For A Rainy Day—one inspired by the Post Apocalyptic dystopian Science Fiction of The Silo and Brazil, Yokohama Station and The Trial. It is a roleplaying setting of Science Fiction horror, for there is constant threat of the Habitat in which the Player Characters make their Home or themselves being ‘Lost in the Fold’ or the Player Characters being exposed to the Threshold or perhaps what might be lurking within the Threshold. Lost in the Fold includes some discussion as to that the Habitat might be, but does not decide on any one. What it does do though, is provide the means for the Player Characters to explore the Here and undertake assignments for The Authority as there are issues with The Chain and the Threshold.

A Player Character in Lost in the Fold has three Resources, here called Grit, Rote, and Wile, the equivalent of Physical, Mental, and Willpower, but here also representing the ability of a Player Character to persuade others that he is capable or knowledgeable, rather than necessarily actually being so. He also has a past, represented by a Lifepath. In Sanction, this is a Past, a Diversion, and an Influence. In Lost in the Fold, it is Communal Purpose, representing a Player Character’s place and responsibilities, a Troubling Keepsake which is his unhealthy interest secreted away instead of being returned to The Chain for recycling, and a Downtime Distraction, which is what the Player Character does to reduce stress and contribute towards the sense of community. He also has two items of gear, some base Hits, and a Pressure Track.

Renton
Physical D4 Mental D8 Willpower D6
Communal Purpose: Civil Assistant
Troubling Keepsake: Fencing
Downtime Distraction: Mediating
Abilities: Accounting, Commence, Negotiation
Pressure Track: 0
Equipment: Glow Tube, Stanly Knife
Hits: 3

One key aspect of a Player Character is the degree which he is under Pressure. It is not danger as such, but how a Player Character feels when under the scrutiny of the company he keeps and the situation that he finds himself in. It begins at zero, but when first affected, is set to a twelve-sided die. It increases whenever a non-Pressure check results in Falter or directly due to the nature of a situation, and each time it does, the die size decreases, from a twelve-sided die to a ten-sided, from a ten-sided to an eight-sided, and so on. This step down in pressure die size occurs automatically in these situations rather than a player rolling for it as if Pressure were being treated as a Resource. When something occurs that is so traumatic, such as seeing an unnatural death or an inexplicable situation, a Player Character’s Pressure is Triggered. This requires a Pressure check and when a Player Character rolls a one or two on this roll, a Falter, he will Fold. This does not mean that he disappears, but rather that he shifts in terms of his personality. For example, he may suddenly gain a sense of being Persecuted, be Belligerent, or Rash. These are only temporary, but the lower the Pressure Die, the more often he is affected. Through rest and recreation, a Player Character can improve or increase his Pressure Die.

In terms of running Lost in the Fold, the Game Moderator can use the Mission Triggers table to create assignments, such as ‘Understand/Collect’, ‘Restricted/Uncontrolled’, and ‘Damage/Safety’. In leaving the Habitat she is advised to listen to her players and take cues from their conjecture as to its nature. She is also given advice, including safety advice, on how to create Nightmares, the things that might in the Threshold or even invade the pipes of The Chain. Four sample Nightmares are included for play beyond the scenario given in the book. This is ‘Chain Reaction’. It opens with a problem. The expected and usual Chain Drop and daily arrival of the Clothing Bullet did not take place today or the day before. Dressed in what they can scavenge or have previously hidden away despite it not being socially acceptable, the Player Characters are assigned to investigate. This sends the Player Characters into an industrial space, a space in between, which could be the Threshold, the space between the walls, or even another Habitat, another Here. The scenario does not make this clear, and intentionally so. It is an exploration scenario, with the Player Characters interacting with each other and with the space they discover rather anyone else.

‘Chain Reaction’ is also self-contained in that it only shows the Player Characters on an assignment which takes them out of the Habitat, or at least, their Here. Consequently, there is insufficient contrast between this and what their life is like in the Here. So no interaction with The Authority or with the Community. The scenario is unbalanced and the Game Moderator might want to address this before she runs it.

Physically, Lost in the Fold is short and simple. The layout is clean and tidy, everything is easy to grasp, and it is very lightly illustrated.

Lost in the Fold has the feeling of Paranoia, but without its budget or all of its satire, and with the sensibility of sixties and seventies Science Fiction shot on a budget in industrial zones. It also has the feeling of promise and of having interesting ideas, but which it also does not have the budget to realise. Although a short book, there are some interesting ideas in Lost in the Fold, but the low page count and a scenario that emphasises what lies beyond the experience of the Player Characters, means that those ideas remain unexplored. Lost in the Fold is an interesting ‘Genre Set-Up’ with some intriguing ideas, but no more than that, leaving the Game Moderator wishing that it had gone further in exploring its set-up.