Thoughts from the Twilight Zone I

So this year, I’m watching the Twilight Zone for the run up to Halloween. Netflix has seasons 1 through 3 as well as 5 so I hope I’ll fill in the gaps in my previous viewings. I plan to share my thoughts on my favorite episodes as I go as well as how the ideas within the series might translate to gaming.

The Twilight Zone: the Dimensioning

"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space, and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone."

So let’s start with the Twilight Zone itself, a nebulous realm of oddities, strange situations, and morality plays. Almost more of a phenomena than a classic alternate world, I find the idea more compelling than the common urban fantasy realms like the Shadow, the Upside Down, or any of the thousand worlds next door. The lack of concreteness helps. It is not a realm that works along obvious laws. As such it comes across as far more alien and intriguing. In a way it is like the God-Machine from Chronicles of Darkness but lacking even that horror’s purpose. I might try to model something like this in my next game.

Season 1: Episodes 1-2

I don’t intend to review every episode but for this first entry I will.

"Where Is Everybody?"

The premise for this episode is good: a man finds himself alone in a deserted town with no memory of who he is and how he got there. Where it falls flat is the ending, with him learning that he was a hallucinating astronaut.

Remember that nothing ruins a story more than learning it was just a dream. Not that you can’t use dreams in your game, you just need to make sure that they matter. Have them convey useful information. Make wounds linger after waking up. Or have death in a dream leave consequences when (or if!) they wake up. Don't use a dream to remove or negate player character agency.

This episode reminds me of so many amnesia convention games that I’ve played or heard about. Amnesia works well as an opener for one-shots because it immediately grabs the players’ attention while not requiring them to read their character sheet. It also maps well to the player’s own lack of knowledge of the setting.

Still it helps to give the players some motivation beyond the search for their own identity. An interesting setting can help. “Where is Everyone?” is a good example of this. Where is everybody? Why is the tea kettle still on? Why does the theater begin showing a film? Is the town real? Is it outside of time? Is it reacting the players?

An alternate and less surreal example is the science fiction series Dark Matter. There we have a mysterious vault, the question of who is the traitor(s), what their mission is, and even more.

"One for the Angels"

In this episode a pitch man makes a deal with death, first for a longer life and then for a young girl’s survival. This classic tale of attempting to cheating fate (only for it to come to pass anyway) has a nice ending. I like that the protagonist comes to terms with his demise (and technically he does earn an extra minute of life).

I can’t help but see this episode in terms of the God-Machine with Mr. Death as an Angel collecting specific lives or perhaps a Demon scaring people into giving up something precious. As a tactic to get people to sign away part of their life, threatening them with death seems like a reasonable option.

A second idea I get from this episode is that Mr. Death is acquiring people with a very particular set of skills: a pitch man (our social munchkin), an expert tactician (who of course played a game of chess with him), and so on. These agents of Death will then be pit against some cosmic threat that even Death cannot handle on his own. I may need to write a one-shot based on this idea.