offseason

Tips & Tricks For Sleepaway Online

by Jay Dragon
Cover Art by Sunny Worsey
Rabbit by Cam Cherry
Fireflies by Ruby Lavin
A supplement for Sleepaway,
which is available here.
Published in Quarantine 2020
by Possum Creek Games.
 counselor!

heyy yall, i know we’re in

introduction
quarantine rn & i figured since It’s pretty obvious from reading Sleepaway that it was designed
yall are suffering hardcore we with real life play in mind. The game includes instructions to eat
might wanna do a video call or paper, burn stuff, pin things to a corkboard, burn incense, and
something? dip character sheets in water. While these were all written to be
able to be adapted for online play (and in fact, the majority of the
1 swimmy boi
playtesting for Sleepaway happened online), that doesn’t change
Uuuuuh sure, skype? the fact that the game isn’t, by default, especially friendly for that
tree babe sort of play.
lmao
In times like these, it’s vitally important that we are able to stay
counselor! connected to each other. Even as Sleepaway grapples with fear
i’ve been using Zoom for my and pain, it also imagines a world separate from the corporate
classes and that’s been pretty nice! and capitalistic influences that are rapidly becoming even more
omnipresent in our digital communities. There is a profound
crafter 🌸
relevance to the Lindworm right now, as we grapple with communal
babe ilu but my feelings NEED trauma on a scale unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
more than 40 minutes
So let’s play games in whatever way we can, and enter a world
Songleader where butterflies dance in meadows, campfires cackle and roar, and
Discord?
something Strange is lurking in the shadows...

1 swimmy boi Tools & Such

Id sooner be caught dead than be
mistaken for a nerd
only good jock
folks this chat HAS video
calling???
chuggin some dumb bitch juice
ASDFGHJKLL;’ OOPS LMAO
I used Roll20 for the majority of my playtesting with Sleepaway,
2 🤣 1 👍 but I also at various points experimented with Google Drawings,
Trello, and basically any other way to create shared screens people
can draw on. This guide is written with Roll20 roughly in mind, but
it is incredibly easy to adapt to basically any other shared screen
setup.
counselor! This guide also focuses on voice/video calls, not play-by-post or text-
based roleplay. I haven’t playtested this game in that environment,
so I’m unsure as to what steps would need to be taken.
 1 swimmy boi
setting up for play
Yall i think my nightmares
The first thing you’re going to want to do, in order to set up, is open are coming back. i was fine all
up a blank screen that everyone can draw on. Designate a chunk of winter but this quarantine is just
the edge of the screen to each player playing. If there’s four or fewer triggering the fuck out of me. how
players, it’s easy to make this the four corners, but it’s easy to fit 5💖 tf am i supposed to deal w this?
people along the sides as well. Label each of those spots with that crafter 🌸
person’s name, and that’s where they’re going to be sitting.
jesus babe im so sorry, i know how
Once everyone reviews their Character Sheets, everyone writes u feel and thats horgible
down their answers for their sheets and places the text in their
corner, so that everyone can see it. They can also copy and paste 1 swimmy boi
their Lure. Horgible
Choose an image from online to represent each Setting Element. As only good jock
people pick up and put down Setting Elements, drag around those horgible
tokens and put them in the holding player’s corner.
crafter 🌸
Tip: I find that Setting Elements hop from person to person much more
*horrible
freely in online play of Belonging-Outside-Belonging games. I will often,
instead of saying I’m holding the Lake for a scene, instead ask “Is anyone ffs
holding the Lake? Can someone hold the Lake right now?”
counselor!
Draw the Summer Camp in the big blank space left in the middle.
Don’t worry about artistic skill—it’s going to be even harder than horgible asdfghjk
usual to get things to look the way you want. This will also even tree babe
more freely intermingle with text, and feel free to insert little bits
HORGIBLE
of writing into the map itself. If you run out of room, tangle the
map around people’s Character Sheets. Have fun! crafter 🌸

im quitting
1 swimmy boi

Oh my god no don’t quit,

that would suck so bad

3 🤣 1 👎 That would be...horgible

a digital corkboard
One of the most enjoyable features of online Sleepaway that you
can’t easily capture in IRL play is the way the corkboard can overlap
and integrate with the map. Place additional bits of text indicating
characters, motifs, items, and locations onto the map as you play,
and connect them together with colored lines. This can, should,
and will overlay with the map you’ve made, and feel free to have
them work together.
As you do this, you might need more room. Feel empowered to
move things around, open new blank pages, and all of that as you
go.
handling the lindworm
The Lindworm is an especially thorny bit of gamestuff here. Roll20
is especially invaluable here, because it has a deck of cards it comes
with.
When inviting the Lindworm, someone can just ask the space
they’re in and wait.
When choosing who is channeling the Lindworm, you can still
shuffle up the cards on the blank map, and everyone can add one
to their hand, check it, then return it to the deck.
When the Lindworm;s channeler is choosing a card, have everyone
else close their eyes in real life. The Lindworm’s channeler can put
the card from the top three down onto the Corkboard.
Tip: For some reason, it feels way easier to forget to take cards out of
the deck during specific Acts/oneshots in an online game. Don’t forget to
take out the Spades or the Hearts or whatever!
ending the game
Ultimately, one of the most important rules in Sleepaway is found
as you approach the Second and Third Acts. “You are the architects
of the game” is a recurring theme throughout the book, and can
come up in all sorts of ways, but it is nearly required for interpreting
the later Acts into online play.
The Third Act, with its mechanics for closing out the game, might
seem a bit strange. And it’s a shame you can’t burn up the pieces
online. But you are absolutely able to go through and delete assets
from your map. Similarly, some Rituals (such as Spellcrafting) tell
you to draw a picture on a piece of paper. You can always pull up
another blank slide and go to town there.
Perhaps some of these suggestions don’t work for your group. In
my own group, one of my dear friends doesn’t have easy access to a
laptop, and therefore cannot easily use Roll20. This means we need
to restructure a lot of games around that accessibility concern.
Whenever someone says “The Players Are More Important Than The
Game”, they are explicitly referring to times like these. Prioritize
the needs of your group over any advice in this document.
counselor!
sorry i missed the call, everyone!
i slept in until 3 because i’m a
disaster.
tree babe
same
only good jock
oh shit
there was supposed to
be a call
my b
 Pick up when:
• Everyone is lost.
• Someone is very profoundly alone.
• There is the smell of panic in the air and it just feels right.
put down when:
• You are alone and need company.
• A mysterious Gift arrives at your feet.
choose 2 desires:
O Listen
O Misdirect
strangeness element O Help
O Be comforted
the paper–thin hares O Be saved
White flashes, choose 2 gifts:
The paper–thin Isolation, Panic sharp eyes, small
hares gifts. O Bundles of bird bones
O Flower crowns
Also known as: The Kind Folk, The Wanderers, Dust-Bunnies, The
Lost Kids, Prey. O Children’s teeth
O Bowls filled with rabbit blood
There are little creatures that live in the gaps between the trees.
O Torn-up weathered clothes
They are forever-silent, ghostly creatures, who seem to live and die
in quiet instances—the moment between sounds, the gutter on O Keys with no locks
the side of the road, the creek that no one notices. Some say they O A path out of here
are the ghosts of the victims of the Lindworm, scared and alone. moves:
They are said to be paper-thin and made of nothing but dust and
wind, and will fall apart when caught. • Give a Gift that helps
• Give a Gift that hurts
Tips:
• Watch with terrified eyes
• Remind people of their loneliness through the act of leading
• Run away to safety
them together.
• Give gifts with every action, even if the gifts hurt. • Isolate someone from everyone else
• Ask compelling questions and build on the answers others give. After every Move, ask “What do you do?”
a ritual
many little gifts
Sometimes at camp, as with sometimes in life, you feel horribly and
deeply alone. It can happen in many places. You might have taken a
nap and woken up to realize that no one is around. It might be late
at night, and there is not a soul wandering the lonely campground.
Maybe it’s just cold and quiet, and you could really use a friend.
Soon the camp will find you, and there will be many people here to
help you. Until then, there are only the Paper-Thin Hares.
This ritual is played in silence over text, with one Character as the
focal point (the only one allowed to speak out loud) and everyone
else playing as the Paper-Thin Hares.
starting the ritual:
The question, “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Moves for the focal point:
• Say “thank you.”
• Ask any question you please, to which you’ll get no reply.
• Walk somewhere else.
moves for the paper–thin hares:
• Send a text describing your Gift, and add it as an Item to the
Corkboard.
• Send a text describing your little bunny nose.
• Send a text describing how the dust that was once you looks in
the wind.
• Send a text saying where you go next.
• Send a text that paints a picture of the world around the Focal
Point.
ending the ritual:
Another player’s character, who is not in the scene, says, “Hey there
you are! We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
a ritual
movie night
Watching movies together is a beautiful experience. This often
happens at camp on quiet nights, where someone stretches out
a sheet over some benches and sets up a projector and everyone
huddles together in the Field with sleeping bags and tired eyes and
smiles. Sometimes this happens away from camp, during the many
painful and cold days before summer returns. There are many ways
to stay connected in times like those. But let’s not get distracted.
Right now there is only the film.
This is often a flashforward or flashback, although it doesn’t have
to be. Instead of doing this Ritual, you can absolutely just watch a
movie in-character instead. Frankly, that might be a more accurate
experience.
If you’re doing this Ritual, don’t feel obligated to figure out what
the movie is or what is happening in the movie.
starting the ritual:
The question, “So what movie are we gonna watch?”
moves:
• Ask someone else what’s going on, and then they tell you.
• Complain about something casually problematic.
• Make a joke about something happening in the movie.
• Point out that a character in the movie is queer.
• Say the movie is good.
• Say the movie is bad.
ending the ritual:
The statement, “Wow, well that was it!”

i’m so excited to hug you when
this is all over. i miss u <3
I miss you too
And don’t you forget it 💕👭✨
a thematic respite
firefly
by Pika Whitman
A game we can play when all this is finally over.
What you need:
• sleeping bags, blankets, pillows
• An indoor place (such as a house or cabin)
• An outdoors place (with many fireflies and/or stars)
• At least 3 people
• Gameplay is 15min to as long as you’d like!
Playing:
Players start by sitting inside and talking. One person will initiate
the game by saying “Do y’all wanna go outside and watch fireflies?”
Everyone who’s playing agrees and gathers what they need to sit
outside. As soon as everyone’s outside, let silence take over.
• Soak up what’s around you.
• Feel free to cuddle up to your friends
• or stand up and take a breath of fresh air.
• Look at the fireflies,
• the stars,
• the grass.
• Think and reflect.
• Be present in the moment, with the world, and each other.
Ending the game:
The game starts to conclude when one person breaks the silence,
by saying something along the lines of “‘I’m gonna go inside, love
y’all,” and heading inside, where they can talk. One by one players
stand up and head inside, saying something similar as they leave.
The last two people remaining gather anything left behind and
leave at the same time.
Everything is silent except for the hum of crickets and soft laughter
of friends.