“A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,

Which is as brief as I have known a play;

But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,

Which makes it tedious; for in all the play

There is not one word apt, one player fitted:

And tragical, my noble lord, it is;

For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.

Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,

Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears

The passion of loud laughter never shed.”

~ Philostrate, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1595)

The Plotholes

(Player Briefing)

 

Each of the plays below has a cast of several playable characters. To cast each play’s starting characters, there should be 5 characters selected from each script; each setting has either 3 or 4 roles that must be part of the core starting cast, and then several options for the other role(s) that could make up the cast of 5 depending on players’ preferences. Some roles have been blended from 2 or more canonical characters’ parts, others have had other details amended from canon, and some script notes leave room for roles to either be blended, played singly or together as a group or double-act.

 

If not selected at initial casting, the roles that are marked as “potentially understudy” can be picked up later, if a character dies or any role is being re-cast for any reason. Some of these characters are also marked as “potentially NPC” - if no one has picked up an understudy role that it becomes plot-crucial to include at a later point in the game, an NPC may take this character sheet and this role will no longer be available to players as a “re-cast”/understudy role.

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If and when a player character dies, or needs to be re-cast for any reason, any remaining “understudy” characters in black or blue from any of the eight playscripts available to the players - namely, Much Ado About Nothing (the Messina callsheet), Romeo & Juliet (the Verona callsheet), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (the Athens callsheet), Macbeth (the Dunsinane callsheet), Twelfth Night (the Illyria callsheet), Hamlet (the Elsinore callsheet), As You Like It (the Arden callsheet) or Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra (the Rome callsheet) - whether the player’s previous character was from that setting or they were previously from an entirely different playscript.

 

Understudy roles written in black are unlikely to enter play unless chosen by a player (these are not designed for NPCs). Characters that are written in blue are not generally intended to be in the starting 5 for each cast - however, they can be picked up as understudy roles if a player character dies and the player re-casts, as long as that character has not been picked up during the course of play by an NPC. Characters that are written in red are specifically intended as NPC roles that will make an appearance at some point or other in the game, for plot áreasons. Players may not play any characters from the Tempest or Othello scripts - these are exclusively for NPCs.

 

Characters that are written in italics denote that that character exists in multiple settings, across worlds. Most notably, this happens with Antonio and Sebastian, who are written in dark purple, to denote their unique, world-crossing character backstories due to character-blending. These characters are NPCs that belong simultaneously to The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night.

 

Characters that are written in light purple, whether in bold or not, represent minor NPCs that may or may not appear across the course of the game - this is either to reference an off-stage NPC that is absent or already dead throughout the course of the game (which does not mark a play as a Tragedy, if the death occurs “offstage”), or to acknowledge the existence of minor NPCs which are mostly a mechanic in place to allow the crew to do things like set scenery, deliver in-game letters, or simply eat their food, without requiring large amounts of complex plot or backstory for their generic soldier, servant, messenger, faery, musician, or similar background character - they may well engage in light-hearted roleplay if they so choose, but these minor “characters” are not there for heavily involved plot or to get involved with/escalate any conflicts that are developing in-game.

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Each character sheet has a starting “archetype”, which gives advantages in certain game mechanic arenas, such as combat, healing or alchemy, as well as the ability to choose additional starting skills to personalise the characters from there.