we are not alone

Contact is a cosmic tabletop storytelling game where players communicate with aliens through song and tarot.

First, players create a playlist together, using prompts from the Major Arcana. Once the playlist is complete, players draw question prompts related to their characters and the aliens, and answer these questions using songs from the shuffled playlist.

Themes vary from impending apocalypse, to hopeful first contact, to unavoidable tragedy, based mostly on which songs the group chooses. Most prompts are celestially spooky and aim to determine why the aliens have contacted the group, and what they want from the world.

In the final act, the players respond to the alien communication. By the end of the game, the players are left with a story, and a playlist to listen to anytime, now with new meaning.

 

Gameplay:

 

Using the Major Arcana from a Tarot deck, you and your group will pull cards that will prompt you to add songs to a communal playlist.

Perhaps you draw The Fool, and are prompted to put in a "fast song." You add your favourite punk song to the playlist. 

Perhaps you draw The Hermit, and are prompted to put in a "song without lyrics." You add Holst's Mars, the Bringer of War to the playlist. Buckle up.

Once your playlist is complete, draw Minor Arcana to prompt questions both about your group and about the Messengers. Use the songs to inspire the answers to the questions.

Do this over four acts.

Find out what the Messengers want, and why you're being contacted.

And then, respond.

In the final act of the game, your group will choose between sending songs back to the Messengers, or writing one yourself. 

The choice is yours, and humanity may depend on it.

1-2 hour playtime.

Requires a Tarot deck, a way to compile a playlist, and something to play music from.

 

Created by:

 

 J. Strautman

 

28 pages, saddle-stitched, A5 zine. Includes PDF.