thebackstage | It's Curtains Act 3 Test Drive

1) CURTAINS UP

You’ve just woken up in some kind of dorm room, which is certainly not where you went to bed last night. Actually, do you even remember going to sleep…? Regardless, this isn't where you last were, and worse still - there's other people waking up in the same room with you, in the same state.

Talk to your roommates! Go out and meet everyone from the other rooms! Most of these people may be strangers, but you’re gonna all have to get used to one another. And who knows? There may actually be a familiar face in the crowd.

2) THIS PETTY PACE

By now, you're acquainted with everybody here and you're slowly growing bored. Bored enough to kill? Hopefully not. You'd better try to find something else to do. You can always go hang out with your castmates, or maybe try and whip something up in the kitchen! There’s even a band room to keep you busy! I sure hope you like music.

3) BREAK A LEG

Comedies are fun and all, but that’s not quite what we’re about here. You’ve all just been handed this week’s motive. What do you make of it? Is it one that might actually tempt you to kill, or did you get off lightly this time? Either way, maybe you’d better look around the room and see who else is having a rough time.

4) I LOVE PLAY REHEARSAL

It's Club Day! What's Club Day, you ask? Come to the classroom on the poster to find out! It looks like this week's club is Bread Club. Be wary, when you enter the classroom you'll face a shower of various bread slices but be rewarded with a surprisingly fancy layout of spreads and jams to go with them. Don't mind the oddly threatening poster on the far wall. He's just here to supervise.

5) CURTAIN

It was bound to happen eventually. Someone is dead, and now it's time to go off and investigate. Were they close to you? Are you, perhaps, feeling guilty? Either way, it's probably best not to leave anyone alone right now.

6) CUE MUSIC

Feelings in a murder-school can get pretty gosh darn intense. Sometimes you’ve just got to let it out. And hey, if you sing a song about whatever’s going on in your head, maybe someone will hear and come help you? Either way, this is a musical – there’s not really any reason not to sing.

[Mod Note: The song mechanic is meant to be fluid and simple. You do not have to produce your own song lyrics, nor are you required to use show tunes (although we do encourage it!). If you want to rewrite existing lyrics to fit the situation, go for it! Anything goes - if Mumford and Sons expresses your character’s current emotions, then break out the banjos. We want to keep the musical mechanic as fun and simple as we can to encourage our players to use it as much as they like.]

6) WILDCARD

Make up your own prompt!

--

Questions, comments, concerned? Reach the mods on plurk at

slothbless (Lynny) and

lluosogrwydd (Lu) and at our public mod plurk

stagemanagers. Our official Act 3 FAQ can also be found here!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He snorts without quite meaning to.]

They are very proud murderers. No, it's...I'm not an actor playing the narrator, so why should they be actors?

[Of course, taken at another level, of course they're actors. But that's not really very relevant to him.]

[ Orpheus thinks about that for a long moment, before shaking his head. Nope! Still not getting it. ]

I don't understand, [ he says, frowning and looking more than a little concerned. What does it all mean? Why bring up the chorus if this isn't about a play? Or maybe it is, but there are no actors? He's having a really difficult time with this. ]

[Yeah, he sort of expected that. The Balladeer just shrugs a little.]

Well, don't worry about it. It isn't that important.

[It's just like his entire existence and stuff, nbd! He pauses, glancing into the kitchen as they come up on it. Well, the murder weapon probably did come from here...]

Why don't we check in here?

[ Orpheus thinks it sounds kind of important, if only because it seems like the Balladeer cares about it, but he drops it for now. ]

Oh, good idea. Maybe we can find out what kind of knife they used, by looking for the one that's missing?

[ It doesn't quite occur to Orpheus that they could've just... washed it off and put it back, or that he doesn't have the full kitchen inventory memorized and won't be able to tell if a knife is missing from the set unless it's obvious, but he's trying. ]

I'm not sure I'd notice.

[The Balladeer, on the other hand, has been made Very Aware in the past few weeks that he has no idea how to cook anything! He has not been using the kitchen much, really just sticking to pre-prepared items.]

But it must've been from in here, right? Or maybe they came in here to wash the blood off.

This would be the closest place to do that, I think? [ says Orpheus, who's pretty sure the nearest set of bathrooms is further away from the classroom where they found the body than this. He heads over to examine the sinks. ]

One of these is still wet? It's clean, though. I don't see any blood on it.

[ Could be it's just been washed down after being used to wash away the blood, or it could be that someone popped in here to do something completely unrelated to murder! He has no idea. ]

Guess they washed it off pretty well, then.

[Seems like a logical assumption to him? The Balladeer wanders over to look at it over Orpheus's shoulder, though he doesn't go to grab it or anything. He's not that used to being a real part of the action.]

Not a lot of blood anywhere else in here...maybe they wiped it off beforehand? [He'll check the trash?]

Maybe.

[ Orpheus wanders off to go look at the knife rack. Sure enough there is a conspicuous gap in it, though again Orpheus doesn't exactly have the kitchen's inventory memorized. It looks like it's one of the bigger ones that's gone, though? ]

What do we do when we find something? [ he asks, glancing back over at the Balladeer. ] We should tell everyone else about it, right? So everyone knows as much about what's going on as possible.

Of course.

[He says it off-handedly: like, what else would they do? Isn't that the whole reason he's here, to tell everyone else about...what happened in the story? He's just a little too stuck inside it to do it right.

The Balladeer stares at the knife in his hands for a moment, abstracted. But he pulls himself out of it.]

They must be looking around too, right? And then we'll have a whole scene where - we'll put everything together.

And then whoever did this will have to die, too, [ says Orpheus, solemnly. It's kind of only just now sinking in that a bare minimum of two deaths are going to come from this, and Orpheus is clearly not enjoying the realization. ]

What do you think the point of all of this is? Making us do this. It just seems cruel.

It's a tragedy, that's all. People like them.

[Does he have to tell Orpheus that? But then, it seems like he really does.]

But isn't there usually more to a tragedy than terrible things happening for the sake of it? [ he asks, looking over at the Balladeer and frowning thoughtfully. ] People usually like them because there's the, um.

[ He gestures vaguely, searching for the words. ]

The tragedy isn't that bad things happen, but in that it could have been avoided, if not for some fault of the hero or heroine's character. That's what gives it meaning, instead of just being about the random cruelty of the Fates.

[ Look, Orpheus may not be smart, but he is a storyteller in his own right. He spends a lot of time thinking about these things. ]

Do you think this was inevitable? That's why they give out the motives - they're always targeted, they just act like they aren't.

Well, no, but...

[ Orpheus thinks, trying to articulate just what he's trying to say. ]

I feel like - it doesn't work if the thing that caused the tragedy is you pushing someone else into it? Why do that? Why give motives, why bring us here, why do any of that? Just to see what we'll do?

It's Curtains Act 3 Test Drive

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