Within these pages you will find the rules for creating and playing Emo Kids in the School Hard setting.
Relive your glory days as a sixth form poet struggling to find something to rhyme with 'tears of blood'. Better yet, create a much better set of glory days as a sixth form poet who actually can think of something to rhyme with 'tears of blood'.
In depth characterization is important to the mature consumer of 'I'm Not OK'
Don't worry! It's not really. I was just being ironic. 'I'm Not Ok' is basically an excuse to be insensitive about teenagers and trivialise serious emotional problems.
Still, it might be useful to have some sort of idea of the sort of Emo Kid you want to inflict on the world. Here are some basic Emo sub-divisions to help you start your Emo-Kid off,. At some point there may even be some questions for you to consider in order to flesh them out.
Emo Sub-Divisions
The Inferior Musician can often be spotted playing the same few bars of Street Spirit and Under the Bridge around campfires whilst their friends feign interest. They often belong in bands with long names who compose derivative emo songs.
Goths are easy to spot by their black livery; which they wear as a result of their unique realisation of the fundamental meaningless of life. Most Goths respond by becoming bleak and macabre, though a small few become bubbly and chirpy. Perhaps they are trying to create meaning? Perhaps they have been driven mad by the black chasm of despair into which they gazed? Perhaps they once read The Sandman and though Death was cool.
The Randoms are crazy, quirky, wacky and zany in one horrific little package. They break a carefully selected set of social norms, after careful planning. Part of the planning involves the illusion that the trangression is spontaneous and a result of the youthful spirit within them. They can be seen rolling down the hills that they checked for dogshit before their friends arrived, before starting a food fight with the jelly they just happened to have with them.
The Snobs are the people who are telling you that they used to like your favourite band/TV show but only before they sold out last year. Everything you do and like will be compared, unfavourably, to an alternative that you have never heard of and never will. Because it's almost certainly fictional.
This is where you begin to flesh out your concept. In a skinny, skeletal, emo kind of way.
Attributes
There are four attributes in I'm Not OK, which come in two pairs. Brains and Brawn, and then Style and Substance. You have 10 points to allocate to each pairing. So if you decide you want a genius character, you might give her Brains 8, which means you have 2 points lefts over for Brawn. There may be people out there who are both very strong and very clever, but they'd make me feel inadequate, so I've made their existence in my game mechanically impossible.
But be careful! Emo kids are puny, so they start off with -2 brawn. This means you need to spend 3 points just to raise an emo kid up to kittenish levels of strength.
Skills
You have 10 points to allocate to your skills. The first level you take in a skill costs one point, the second costs 2 points, the third costs 3 points, and so on.
For more information on attributes and skills check out the pages on the School Hard setting.
Every Emo-kid knows that inside of them lies an untapped fountain of energy which, if unleashed, would overwhelm the world.
They are of course all wrong. But by playing I'm Not OK they -and you- can pretend for just a little while that this is the case.
Every Emo-Kid starts off with at least one Emo-Power. These powers allow young men and women to wield their teen-angst like a horrible, horrible tool. Although these powers allow Emo-kids to do (relatively) cool stuff, due to the intrinsic nature of Emo there is always a downside. This can range from points on the Emo Track, to looking like even more of a fool than normal.
Here are some sample Emo-Powers, but feel free to make up your own.
Sample Emo Powers
I Bet That You Look Good on the Dance Floor
You are a leaf on the sea of music. The rhythm pours into you submersing you in a universe of basslines and wailing guitars. You are the music, and you can no more ignore the call to dance than you can ask your heart to stop beating.
As long as you can hear music and you don't mind looking like a fool, you can use your Style instead of your Brawn when calculating your results in a fight or an act of destruction as you mosh and dance hopelessly around the room. As long as the music plays, you must successfully make a intelligence check to stop dancing.
When I Weep, my Guitar Weeps with me
Your mind throbs and aches and pulses. Infinite stars kiss your soul, each one healing a wound or a scar. And as your soul bleeds your pain away, right down through your fingers and into your guitar you know that in this one moment, and only in this one moment, you are open like the night sky, and for a split second, they will understand.
When you play music, recite your poetry or make any kind of performance you may cause your audience to feel any emotion that you fee, as long as you take a point of Emo. You may affect a number of people up to your current Emo Rating.
Would Anybody Even Notice, Would Anybody Even Care?
Who are you? Your difference is a mask which hides you from them but also from yourself. You are just like them but in your arrogance you thought to find a speck of individuality but you failed and that failure is now all you have left to mask. You're beneath them. It's for the best that they don't see you, for there is nothing worth seeing.
By gaining a point of Emo you may be invisible for a minute. To remain invisble for a second minute you must gain 2 points, and so on...
Creep
-filler-
When you insult somebody you can cause them to gain Emo points equal to your successes on a Substance check, even if they are a non-emo character. Non-emo characters cannot handle having emo points and so will vent them as quickly as possible, normally by cutting the pain out.
The downside is that you gain the exact same number of emo points as them.
Boy Whore
-filler-
By sharing your emo with somebody you can seduce them. For each point of emo you gain, a successful seduction check will guarantee that you get to the equivalent base.
With great power comes great pain
It's true for Spiderman, despite what his uncle said, and it's true for Emo Kids.
Every Emo Kid has an Emo Meter. Certain situations will cause the angsty little things to gain more emo. Other times, they will be able to behave in a way that vents some of these pent up emotions. That's important because if the emo meter ever gets to 10, the character will have an emo freak out, when they lose control of the vast emo powers at their disposal. On the other hand, having a higher rating on the Emo Counter has distinct advantages.
When you create your character, you'll need to select an Emo Freak-Out. You can find some examples of Emo Freak-Outs at the bottom of this page but feel free to invent your own. If you read on, you'll find rules for gaining and losing Emo.
Using the Emo Track
The Emo Track is a way of quanitfying your character's teen angst. There are four main stages:
0-3: Your character is a well-adjusted, normal teenager, undeserving of the name Emo. Most people never leave this area. Whilst your character is so well adjusted, he may not use his Emo Powers, and he suffers a -1 penalty to all social interactions with other Emo Kids (even ones with this level of Emo). On the other hand, he has a +1 bonus to all social interactions with non Emo Kids, who are just happy he's not whining.
4-6: Your character is attuned to the unfairness of life. He mopes, whinges, whines and cries his way through the day. In other words, he is an ordinary Emo Kid.
7-9: Your character bleeds for the world. It would hurt too much to get out of bed, were your character not a huge masochist. At this heightened state of Emo, your character has a +1 bonus to all social interactions with other Emo Kids, and a -1 penalty to interactions with non Emo-Kids.
10: Emo Freak Out!
As well as these permanent advantages, you can also use your Emo Rating in lieu of an attribute where that would be appropiate. For instance, if your character has a Substance of 6, a skill in Poetry worth 2, and a current Emo Rating of 9, he could use his Emo Rating of 9 instead of his substance when writing some particularly angsty poetry, so he would add 11 to his D10 roll instead of 8.
Not all poetry could be written in this way. A beautiful ode to the sunset is not Emo enough, although a poem about how the red of the sunset reminds you of the red that trickles down your arms might just do it. Remember that whatever you create whilst using your Emo Track will be tainted by Emo, so that no well adjusted person can get any long term benefit out of it.
Gaining and losing Emo
Characters gain Emo by:
- Denying their Emo nature
- Using some of the Emo powers
- Emotional rejection and general teen angst
Characters can vent some of their Emo by:
- Self Harm (one lethal health level will get rid of one level of Emo)
- Writing Teen Poetry
- Voluntary social withdrawal.
In general, any one of these things will cause a gain or loss of one level, but rewards should be given for going the extra mile. Walking out of the school dance just after the girl of your dreams has asked you to boogie because you are not worthy of such grace is worth a lot more than leaving a party half an hour early. Being humiliated by the kindly English teacher is going to give you more Emo than the school bully's daily taunts.
As a rule, the character has to be genuinely inconvenienced to lose some Emo, and genuinely bothered to gain some.
Sample Emo Freak-Outs
Vomit-Forth Emotion
The emotion wells up inside of you until you can't keep it in anymore. The world must know how you feel. You begin to vomit forth your emotion, which to the casual observer appears to be the same as regular vomit. You cannot stop vomiting for the rest of the scene, with the force of a fire hydrant.
The Truth Hurts
Lies. They overwhelm us. They become our thoughts and our methods of communication. Each lie is a compromise, and we heap compromise on compromise until we lost what we were trying to protect. Your life is a lie. But no more. From now on, You shall be a beacon of hope in a world made dark by deceit. For one day, you will be honest and candid in your criticisms of other people, no matter what the consequences.
Spread the Pain
Your Emo is contagious! Your life is now so painful that anybody who comes into contact with you for a scene has no choice but to feel the pain of the world. Otherwise happy people burst into tears of pain and shame. Unsurprisingly, when they come to their senses once the scene is over they aren't too impressed with you.
Finally you can min, max, and munchkin to your heart's delight
That's the idea, at least.
You have 12 bonus points to spend on your character to make sure they have all the powers you need them to. Here are the costs:
An extra point in an attribute will cost you three points
An extra dot in a skill will cost you one point for the first three levels, and two points for the next three levels.
An extra emo power will cost you nine points.