"I hope you like nightmare worlds!"
After Sundown is a cooperative storytelling game that tells stories in the realm of horror. Players take on the roles of monsters out of horror movies or the humans who oppose them, while one of the players takes on the role of the MC - a combination referee, narrator, and roleplayer of last resort for antagonists and minor characters in the story.
Cooperative storytelling can be done without any products at all, as with collaborative writing or Cops and Robbers. After Sundown provides structure and conflict resolution in the form of an established world and story, as well as with a set of mechanics to determine the results of actions with the help of six sided dice. In this way, players of After Sundown can bypass many of the hangups of both collaborative fiction and Cops and Robbers: most notably the "I shot you/ No you did not" problem. It is hoped that the backstory and established characters of After Sundown will be sufficiently evocative as to give players of protagonists and MCs ample launching points for stories of their own.
The materials in this book are Public Domain. You can print copies, trade electronic copies with friends, modify the files, or produce derivative work. If you like After Sundown enough, go ahead and "buy" a pdf. But if you'd rather trade it around as a torrent, that is fine too.
(Author: Frank Trollman; Editor: Lokathor; Original Posting: The Gaming Den; Markdown source available on Github)
Compared to the forum post version:
- This version has some minor organizational changes, with sections being re-ordered a bit within the chapters. There are typographical cleanups as well where necessary.
- The "Wound Table", in the Danger chapter, which gives the number of boxes to fill in for various levels of net damage, has been given a blanket +1 threhold per level. This "errata" made it into Frank's PDF, but the forum post wasn't ever updated. Some (but not all) weapon damage codes have also been bumped up by 1 to match Frank's PDF.
- The magical abilities have been renamed to simply being "abilities" or "powers", and the groups of abilities are called "disciplines". The original version was inconsistent with the naming of things.
- Indomitability has some additional text to make it entirely clear that the ability makes you immune to the Incapicated status and such.