Night Shift - a short horror RP

[Excession]

Nightshift.
Shouldn’t technically be legal, this almost-twelve-hour-shift. But the pay is alright. This is a busy stretch of highway, even late at night (comparatively), and people need gas. Or a sandwich, or whatever. There’s enough of a gap that if one person stays up, the other guy gets a nap. It’s kinda peaceful, really; little island of light, way out in the dark desert. Sometimes it’s almost like there isn’t another living, waking thing for miles. Like you’re all alone in the world, or between worlds. Not a line of thought you want to pursue – hopefully another customer comes by soon…

=======================

I don't ordinarily do non-tabletop but let's give something free-ish in form a try.
I'm looking for three characters; two young staff for the gas station convenience store, and an older security guard who doesn't take the job too seriously. Story is set in Nevada, on a stretch of highway north out of Vegas, around October 2013.
Here's the deal: I set you circumstances, and when you cannot reasonably predict what will happen next if your character does something, you announce intent and I tell you what happens.
This may be more guided than you're used to, I know, but you'll have room to develop your character's interiority, make choices, live (or die) with the consequences, and interact with the rest of the cast.

I have some example characters written up; an 18 year old guy who dreams of becoming a card sharp, a 19 year old woman who wants to save up and study journalism, and a stoner security guard in his mid twenties who believes in alien abductions. That might give you an idea of where to aim with ideas.

Content notes for: violence, body horror, theological horror, general mature themes, probably some stuff to which I am personally inured and can't recall as a consequence.

If you're curious, feel free to ask questions.

[Draku69]

I could be your stoner.

[Excession]

Nice. D'you want the sample writeup or to just run with the gist?

[Aisling]

I could be the 19 year old woman who wants to save up and study journalism and photography.
What kind of a CS are you thinking about?

[Excession]

I could be the 19 year old woman who wants to save up and study journalism and photography.
What kind of a CS are you thinking about?

@Aisling

Mostly I just want a physical description, background, and a strong personal motivation that someone could potentially exploit to make your character do something questionable.
I also like to use these questions for guiding character creation:

1. What is the worst thing that happened to you?
2. What is the worst thing you've done to someone else?
3. What is the worst thing you can imagine happening to anyone?
4. What is the worst thing you know you could do, in the right circumstances?
5. What strange experience have you forgotten?

Here's the basic write-up for the character concept as it was executed for a convention a few years back minus some details that aren't useable in this context.

Sample

Lottie Grover

One more year, and you can pay for college, and get the fuck out of here. Hell, six months if you can keep up this nightshift thing – it pays extra for the weird hours. You were born, raised, and graduated highschool here in Midway. You're currently studying journalism and blogging through a free internet course until you can save up enough to travel to an actual city, and enroll in college.
Everyone here makes you feel sick; they're not bad people, just small and apathetic. Maybe Jerry could've made something of himself, once, but now he's on a slippery slope to turning into Pete or worse, his dad. Pete… ugh, nearly thirty and still working here, getting high.
You don't live at home right now, because your dad's the local pastor and he doesn't approve of your Liberal attitudes - you stopped going to church last year and think gay people deserve equal rights; your dad strenuously disagrees. You smoke pot with Pete sometimes just to spite dad, but never too much.
Still, it's harder to save with rent to pay, so you're gonna have to think of some way to make money short of taking out one of those bullshit student loans. At least dad taught you to shoot before kicking you out.

Virtue: Prudence
Vice: Spite

[Aisling]

Name: Hannah Ann Miller
Age: 21
Physical Description and Background:
Slightly plump female being 25 pounds overweight for this 5 foot female who weighed in 145 pounds. All due to being in school so long for a simple career of journalism. After all, you just write up a story about your subject then turn it in. Anyone can do that job. Particularly for a small-time newspaper in the middle of no where Kansas. But no way was she going to go back to Kansas where her family lived. Nothing to write up but how well the crops were growing, who was doing what to whom and why. The town thrived on gossip since there was nothing else to do.
The family has been trying to get her to give up and come home. She can pay off her useless college and get married then have children. Someone had to take care of mom and dad especially now that mom was ill. Home care was expensive and there was no way that she was going to ‘chip in’ $1000 dollars a month when Donald could easily pay for it himself with his doctor’s pay and Dorothy who married a farmer that struck it rich when he was drilling a new water well and hit a gusher. She could easily pay her fair share but no. She had to keep up her style and ect. Why didn’t Hannah keep her mousey brown hair shorter and maybe put a few highlights or something in it. Hair to the waist went out with the hippies after all.
She was given a very expensive camera (which Donald won at a raffle and had no use for) and a very expensive laptop (Dorothy had won it at the same raffle, again had no use for). She was very excited about both last Christmas then she overheard her parents talking about giving her such expensive gifts when she was not going to make anything out of her life. Her siblings told mom and dad that they didn’t pay a penny for them. She found Dad the next day kissing the next-door lady in such a way that was not a neighborly kiss.
When she told her boyfriend, he told her that he had got married and his wife was going to give him twins in the spring. Her whole Christmas was spoiled before it even had started. She pulled out all of her savings to buy a ‘useless’ mini-RV and left home for good. Hannah became Anna who enjoyed taking pictures everywhere she went.
Now back at college, she literally worked night and day to pay her college tuition. A few hours of sleep, photography classes in the morning, library during the afternoon and the gas station at night. She was even able to take a nap while working! Not too bad of a set up actually. She took the first break so she could snap a few pictures while there was no one at the station or barely anyone- the station was robbed a couple times while she was the only one inside. Now the boss thinks that she was in on the robberies. She is on the verge of being fired. To top it all off, she is getting these weird prank calls which leads her to begin swearing and getting uptight. A good drink always helped her ease pain of her troubles.
Motivation:
Pay off college by the time she graduates. Something that her brother is still paying off.
Her sister who was always in the right places at the right time and always came out on top of everything.
Pay her ‘fair’ share of her mother’s home care since her siblings are on her butt all the time.
Payback her boyfriend who started dating a new girl when she left for college.
She has captured a few pictures of the robberies at the station but doesn’t know which can be brought up in the RP.
The prank calls are from the robbers who saw the camera and wanted to make sure that she didn’t have their pictures putting on their masks. Again, unknown to her but can be brought up in the RP.

1. What is the worst thing that happened to you? Losing my husband last year.
2. What is the worst thing you've done to someone else? Accident or smacking someone
3. What is the worst thing you can imagine happening to anyone? Having a child that was kidnapped, raped then when the child was found, the child was 7 months pregnant.
4. What is the worst thing you know you could do, in the right circumstances? Kill the person who raped my child.
5. What strange experience have you forgotten? I don’t think I have had anything too strange happen to me.

[Excession]

There is certainly a lot to work with there. Now if I can get confirmation two other people are onboard I can start things up.

[Draku69]

Sorry. I wasn't subbed and missed the conversation. I can work with the sample you have, perhaps put a spin on it to make it more my own. Either way.

[Excession]

No worries. It's entirely your preference - if you want to see the sample I can share but feel free to do something entirely different.

If we get one more player, we can get started.

[Draku69]

Let's see what you got.

[Excession]

Let's see what you got.

@Draku69

Petey The Prompt

Pete Holmes

This is a pretty sweet gig. Sure, you have to order everything off Amazon and shit because the town has always been so small, but you just get to chill out by the radio all night, smoking. And serving customers, sometimes. Otherwise you can listen to all the prog you want, smoke all the doob you've got, and carefully chart the extent of Reptilian infiltration in the US government via their Illuminati puppets.
You've got a little grow operation in the storage shed, and Lottie doesn't know. She's kind of a stick in the mud. Anyway, this job doesn't pay so much, so you need that op to pay rent and take care of mom. Jerry is a pretty chill guy, even if his music is a bit heavy. Seems highly strung lately.
You've carefully lined your little service box with tinfoil to keep out any behaviour altering rays and there's a minifridge full of Dr. Pepper & Jack Daniels under your seat – it's all good in here.
When you're officially on break, rather than just technically, you like to go look at the stars – you can see them all so clearly out here. The best thing about living so far out. Your dad was an astronomer before cancer got him. Mom, well… you visit, but she doesn’t hide her disapproval easily. You send her money or buy her necessities every week.

[Draku69]

<Snipped quote by Draku69>

Petey The Prompt

Pete Holmes

This is a pretty sweet gig. Sure, you have to order everything off Amazon and shit because the town has always been so small, but you just get to chill out by the radio all night, smoking. And serving customers, sometimes. Otherwise you can listen to all the prog you want, smoke all the doob you've got, and carefully chart the extent of Reptilian infiltration in the US government via their Illuminati puppets.
You've got a little grow operation in the storage shed, and Lottie doesn't know. She's kind of a stick in the mud. Anyway, this job doesn't pay so much, so you need that op to pay rent and take care of mom. Jerry is a pretty chill guy, even if his music is a bit heavy. Seems highly strung lately.
You've carefully lined your little service box with tinfoil to keep out any behaviour altering rays and there's a minifridge full of Dr. Pepper & Jack Daniels under your seat – it's all good in here.
When you're officially on break, rather than just technically, you like to go look at the stars – you can see them all so clearly out here. The best thing about living so far out. Your dad was an astronomer before cancer got him. Mom, well… you visit, but she doesn’t hide her disapproval easily. You send her money or buy her necessities every week.

@Excession

I can work with this.

[TaintedMushroom]

I hope I'm not too late to the party, I had an idea for a slightly more selfish character with some unsavory goals and motivations, like perhaps a fledgling dealer to go alongside our pothead security guard. Someone a little more self-centered and willing to throw someone else in harms way to secure their own safety.

[Excession]

I hope I'm not too late to the party, I had an idea for a slightly more selfish character with some unsavory goals and motivations, like perhaps a fledgling dealer to go alongside our pothead security guard. Someone a little more self-centered and willing to throw someone else in harms way to secure their own safety.

@TaintedMushroom

As long as they have a reason to be at an isolated gas station for for... three hours, sounds good to me.
If you're in that's the three I need to roll the ball

[Excession]

It seems like we don't have a dedicated space for OOC but at least there's a character gallery.
Or you can PM me sheets, I suppose.
In any case, once everyone has written up sheets they're happy with I'll start the ball rolling.