Wait Out The Rain is a game where a few dozen people shelter from a radiation storm on an alien world gripped by a post-apocalypse where mutants and zed-synths roam the land. It’s a tense game filled with pre-generated characters that players choose from who each have their secrets and their issues that colour their perceptions of the situation.
The game involves Fate Play where each character has a set reaction to being in the bunker that can shift and evolve depending on their interactions with the other player characters. Each hour their set reaction changes, but can still be impacted upon by what came before and after. As a quick and dirty example:
Hour One: It’s so exciting being around so many strangers! I wonder what their lives have been like? What have they seen on their travels?
Hour Two: I’m getting nervous. This rad storm is taking so long and people are getting tense. Will the air filtration system manage with so many people in this bunker?
Hour Three: Oh my god, I swear this will end in bloodshed! I don’t want to die. Surely level heads will prevail. I need to support whoever seems to be able to calm people down.
The game also becomes more potentially fatal as the hours tick by. If you’re shot in the first hour, it’s a flesh wound. In the second hour, it’ll need medical treatment but you’ll survive. Considering in this science fiction world everyone’s been genetically modified to be a little more survivable, it’s easy to justify. In the third hour, you’ll most certainly die (unless the attacker is specifically aiming to wound). This ratchets up the tension but it also ensures that no one is taken out of the game too soon.
This game first ran in 2017 for a group of twenty three players. It ran pretty well all considered but there’s a few modifications that needed to be made to really improve upon it. Firstly, the original set of twenty six characters has been pared down to twenty with a neighbouring family removed as well as an extra junkie, cannibal and merchant guard so now there are only two junkies, two cannibals and one merchant guard. The adult child of that now removed family has been moved into the bunker owner’s family. This allows for a tighter game where each character has more meaning.
The first game ran with very few props other than weapons. This time characters who have stolen merchandise will actually have it on them and there will be an air filtration system that people can mess with in order to increase the drama. Combat will, as before, run on gestures and the word BANG! In other words, if I mime stabbing you with my LARP-safe knife then you are stabbed. If I point my gun at you and loudly say BANG!, you are shot.
There will be thematic snacks as there was in the last game as, let’s face it, who doesn’t want snacks?
So that’s the game and its adjustments. Can’t wait to see how it all plays out! If you’d like to join, it runs on Saturday, November 18th and you can select your characters on the Facebook Event.
Adelaide Roleplaying Community Inc. 