Ghostlight Characters

In Ghostlight, you play a student at a small performing arts college. My intention is for the player characters to be humans, with the ghosts, witches, vampires, werewolves, fortune tellers, psychic mediums, and so on being supporting characters or adversaries. That said, there is no reason players can’t choose those types of characters if the gamemaster allows it. I personally think that it’s more fun, and definitely more exciting, to be an ordinary person with no powers or abilities trying to figure out what’s happening, and facing both human and supernatural foes. Roleplaying, however, still attracts people working through adolescent power fantasies or the unimaginative who can’t picture how playing a struggling actor or frustrated theater tech could be more interesting than biting and maiming people.

Backgrounds and needs drive the game more than anything else. The rich kid that needs to prove they can make something of themselves without relying on the family name. The vain actor that craves attention. The troubled guy that needs a healthy outlet for his emotions. Those can be as interesting, and as dark and twisted, as a vampire’s need for blood, a ghost’s need for closure, or a witch’s need for revenge. And because the “monsters” need to hide, while the humans can behave badly right out in the open, ordinary people are probably more dangerous than the paranormal entities.

The reason backgrounds will matter is that they’ll not only differentiate the characters but also bring a range of skills to the group. Theater majors have a pretty homogeneous and overlapping skill set. The kid who grew up on a farm adds knowledge and practical experience that’s nothing like the kid who spent their youth learning to sail, or the kid who came up in a bad neighborhood literally fighting for their life.

So, to sum up, there are no set professions or templates or classes. You’re a theater student, and you’re here because you have talent. Who you were before, who you still are outside of the college, why you’ve worked so hard to get here and what you’re willing to do to remain are more important than special abilities.