TEXT: - 1 - 
   
  
  - 2 - 
  Left Coast 
  a game about science fiction writers (January 2013 draft) 
   
  by Steve Hickey 
   
  INTRODUCTION 
   
  THE LEFT COAST VIBE 
  The Pitch......................................................................................................................... 6 
  Who’s This Game For?................................................................................................... 6 
  Why Is This Fun?............................................................................................................ 7 
  Some Of My Inspirations For Left Coast ....................................................................... 8 
  Overview Of This Book................................................................................................ 10 
  A LEFT COAST LIFE................................................................................................... 11 
  FOR PLAYTESTERS .................................................................................................... 12 
  What should you do in this playtest?............................................................................ 13 
  Questions For Playtesters.............................................................................................. 14 
  From Here … (If You Want To Give Me Feedback) ................................................... 17 
   
  PART ONE: CREATING LEFT COAST 
   
  AS A GROUP.................................................................................................................. 21 
  AUTHORS....................................................................................................................... 23 
  Create Your Authors..................................................................................................... 23 
  Create The Setting Chart............................................................................................... 24 
  Create Each Author’s ‘Most Significant Person’.......................................................... 24 
  Create Other Supporting Characters ............................................................................. 25 
  Example Authors .......................................................................................................... 26 
  Advice About Creating Authors ................................................................................... 29 
  CREATORS .................................................................................................................... 31 
  Assign A Creator To Each Author................................................................................ 31 
  Create Your First-Draft Plan For The Weird................................................................ 32 
  Create Weird Supporting Characters ............................................................................ 33 
  Advice For Creators...................................................................................................... 33 
  OWNERS......................................................................................................................... 37 
  Name The Supporting Characters................................................................................. 37 
  Assign Ownership......................................................................................................... 37 
  Flesh Out The Supporting Characters........................................................................... 38 
  The Secrets Cards ......................................................................................................... 39 
  Advice For Owners....................................................................................................... 40 
  
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  PART  TWO: THE RULES OF LEFT COAST 
   
  THE STRUCTURE OF THE GAME........................................................................... 46 
  What Do We Do In A Session? .................................................................................... 48 
  What Do We Do In A Chapter?.................................................................................... 48 
  Chapter Goals........................................................................................................... 49 
  Ending A Chapter ..................................................................................................... 49 
  What Do We Do During A Scene?............................................................................... 50 
  Conflicts.................................................................................................................... 50 
  Special Types Of Scenes............................................................................................ 51 
  Ending A Scene ......................................................................................................... 51 
  Advice About The Structure Of The Game .................................................................. 53 
  FINAL PREPARATIONS.............................................................................................. 54 
  Distribute Handouts ...................................................................................................... 54 
  Set The Number Of Story Dice To ‘One’..................................................................... 54 
  Choose The Author To Focus On First......................................................................... 54 
  Advice Before Starting The Game................................................................................ 55 
  SELECT A SCENE......................................................................................................... 56 
  Advice For Starting Scenes........................................................................................... 59 
  EXPLORE THE SCENE ............................................................................................... 61 
  Portray The Current Author.......................................................................................... 61 
  Introduce The Weird..................................................................................................... 61 
  Introduce The Supporting Character’s Secret............................................................... 62 
  Contribute To The Conversation .................................................................................. 62 
  Advice For Exploring The Scene.................................................................................. 65 
  CONFLICTS ................................................................................................................... 67 
  Initiate A Conflict ......................................................................................................... 67 
  Define The Conflict ...................................................................................................... 68 
  Determine The Outcome Of The Conflict .................................................................... 69 
  Resolve The Conflict .................................................................................................... 70 
  Resolving Conflicts About Money ............................................................................... 71 
  Narrate The Outcome Of The Conflict ......................................................................... 73 
  Advice About Conflicts ................................................................................................ 77 
  ENDING SCENES; ENDING A TURN ....................................................................... 79 
  Advice For Ending Scenes And Turns.......................................................................... 80 
  REVIEW THE TURN.................................................................................................... 81 
  RESET SCENES............................................................................................................. 84 
  Trouble Reset............................................................................................................ 85 
  Weird Reset............................................................................................................... 86 
  Family Reset ............................................................................................................. 87 
  Money Reset ............................................................................................................. 89 
  STORY SCENES ............................................................................................................ 91 
  ENDING THE CHAPTER............................................................................................. 99 
  BETWEEN CHAPTERS ............................................................................................. 101 
  
  - 4 - 
  BETWEEN SESSIONS ................................................................................................ 103 
  Understand The Weird................................................................................................ 103 
  Understand The Supporting Characters...................................................................... 107 
  Advice For Between Sessions..................................................................................... 110 
   
  ENDING THE GAME.................................................................................................. 113 
  Retirement................................................................................................................... 113 
  You’ve Resolved The Key Questions......................................................................... 113 
  Running Out Of Time................................................................................................. 115 
  Advice About Ending The Game................................................................................ 116 
   
  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... 117 
  Art ............................................................................................................................... 117 
  Playtesters ................................................................................................................... 117 
  Supporters ................................................................................................................... 118 
  Anti-Procrastination.................................................................................................... 118 
  Game Design Inspiration ............................................................................................ 118 
  Invaluable Help And Ideas.......................................................................................... 118 
   
  RULES SUMMARY..................................................................................................... 120 
  OWNERS & AUDIENCE WORKSHEET................................................................. 124 
  SUPPORTING CHARACTER CARDS..................................................................... 125 
  AUTHOR WORKSHEET............................................................................................ 126 
  CREATOR WORKSHEET......................................................................................... 127 
  CONFLICT SHEET..................................................................................................... 128 
   
  
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         By then Hubbard had lived so long in a  
  world of phantasmagoria he was unable to 
  distinguish between fact and fiction. 
   
  He believed he was the swashbuckling hero 
  his biographies said he was.  
   
  It was perhaps too late for him to 
  comprehend that his life, in reality, far 
  outstripped the fabricated version. He 
  made the leap from penniless science-
  fiction writer to millionaire prophet in a 
  single, effortless bound; he led a private 
  navy across the oceans of the world for 
  nearly a decade; he came close to taking 
  over control of several countries.  
   
  He was a story-spinning maverick whose 
  singular life eclipsed even his own far-
  fetched stories. Yet he clung tenaciously to 
  the fiction … 
   
   
  Russell Miller 
  ‘Bare-Faced Messiah’ 
  
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  the left coast vibe 
   
  It’s California ... 
   
  ... and time is slippery here, filled with endless summer evenings in verging-on-seedy 
  suburbs and cities.  
   
  Your neighbors are off-kilter: some wild, some loose, some going quietly crazy in their 
  own private ways; all living in the vapor trails of the beatnik, hippy and Me revolutions.  
   
  This is the California of idealized memory - a time that combines the best creative 
  influences of the 1950s, 60s, & 70s, and the early 1980s. 
   
  THE PITCH 
   
  Left Coast is a game about science fiction authors like Philip K. Dick and L. Ron 
  Hubbard living in California at a blurry point between the Summer of Love and 
  Reaganomics. 
   
  In the game, some of you will play the Authors, some of you play the friends and slackers 
  surrounding them, demanding their attention, … and some of you play the weird alien 
  forces conspiring to invade the Author’s lives. Together you’ll create a short story about 
  Authors who struggle to control their lives so they can focus on doing the thing they love. 
   
  Each author scrabbles for their big break, while dealing with their own financial 
  incompetence, the screw-ups of their friends, and with their extremely creative minds 
  slowly unspooling. 
   
  And each author is also trapped inside a novel that’s being written by one of their friends 
  - who is making weird things invade their life. 
   
  WHO’S THIS GAME FOR? 
   
  To play Left Coast, you’ll need two to five players (including yourself) who have 
  enthusiastic creativity for (at least) a couple of the following topics: 
  • writers and their everyday lives 
  • the 1960s and 1970s 
  • California 
  • science fiction 
  • weird phenomena/alien invasions/conspiracies 
  • wanting to understand people, and how their secrets and flaws make them act 
  • stories where an author’s fictional creations intrude into their real-world.  
   
   
  
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  WHY IS THIS FUN? 
   
  You get to hang out with these authors and their friends and enemies, discovering what 
  makes them tick (which helps bring the world of Left Coast to life). A big part of the 
  appeal of a game of Left Coast comes from just exploring the setting and the characters 
  who live in it. 
   
  One of the joys of the game is getting insights into characters or into what’s really going 
  on behind the scenes. You’ll discover that some characters are working against the 
  authors, and that some of them have wild desires of their own. If you’re not playing an 
  Author, you play these supporting characters truthfully, discovering things about them 
  and acting on those discoveries. You get to have these insights and then share them with 
  the group.  
   
  You’ll also get to create snippets of weird characters and events. As an Author player, 
  you’ll take part in a plot involving your Author as a central character, where you try to 
  figure out what’s going wrong with your life. As a ‘Creator’ (the person writing the novel 
  the Author is trapped inside of), you’ll take these weird characters and events, and figure 
  out what their ‘master plan’ is. Then you’ll try and execute it. 
   
  You get to play writers, talk about the creative process, and have fun playing around in 
  the literary science fiction sub-culture of Philip K. Dick, and the world of publishing and 
  fans. You’ll also get to create some science fiction short stories of your own. 
   
  Left Coast is set in late 1960s and early 1970s, which is a fun era to play around. Yoga, 
  LSD, Scientology, Nixon, the faked moon landings, Vietnam and the Doors can all play a 
  part in your game. 
   
  Together you’ll collaborate to create a world full of very human and flawed people, who 
  all need something from the Authors – things that will stop the Authors from writing. 
   
  You should play Left Coast if you want to tell stories about people who start cults for 
  money, who take drugs and make poor life decisions, and who end up meeting the 
  characters from their novels out in the real world. 
   
  
  - 8 - 
   
  SOME OF MY INSPIRATIONS FOR LEFT COAST 
   
  • The second half of VALIS and the first half of Radio Free Albemuth, by Philip K. 
  Dick are near-perfect examples of Left Coast stories. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly (and 
  the film adaptation by Richard Linklater) are also good. For extra credit, check out 
  the final section of Linklater’s film Waking Life (where Linklater discusses Dick’s 
  theory that the Roman Empire never ended). 
   
  • The films Adaptation and A Beautiful Mind give the feel of the inner lives of the 
  authors in Left Coast. The Shining by Stephen King shows how a writer goes crazy.  
   
  • The films In The Mouth of Madness and Stranger than Fiction show people 
  confronting a growing awareness that their lives are controlled by people writing 
  novels about them. In a similar fashion, The Truman Show shows how a protagonist 
  confronts the growing weirdness in their life, pushing to their absolute mental, 
  emotional, and physical limits to discover the truth. Ruby Sparks examines what 
  happens when a fictional character from a writer’s novel crosses over into the real 
  world. 
   
   
  
  - 9 - 
  • Four biographies particularly fed into this game: 
  o Bare-faced Messiah, by Russell Miller is an unauthorized and (as it goes on) 
  increasingly riveting biography of L. Ron Hubbard that shows the boom-bust 
  cycle of a Left Coast protagonist.  
  o i am alive and you are dead, by Emmanuel Carrère is a thinly-fictionalized 
  biography of Philip K. Dick that shows how the people in Dick’s life became 
  characters in his novels.  
  o The Dreams our Stuff is made of, by Thomas M. Disch, is a great, gossipy 
  insider’s history of sci-fi writers. 
  o Grumbles from the Grave is a collection of Robert A. Heinlein’s letters 
   
  • The Doors by Oliver Stone and Randall Johnson, captures multiple versions of late 
  60s and early 70s California. The Long Goodbye, directed by Robert Altman, based 
  on Raymond Chandler’s novel, and adapted by Leigh Brackett, is a perfect look at the 
  oddness of early 70s California. The Big Lebowski, by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, is 
  filled with great examples of ensemble scenes and a collection of characters very 
  similar to the people who surround a Left Coast author. 
   
  • The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson is a fun 
  examination of both conspiracies and the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s.
  
  - 10 - 
   
  OVERVIEW OF THIS BOOK 
   
  The rules for Left Coast are divided into two parts. 
   
  Part One: Creating Left Coast describes how to: 
  • create the Authors 
  • give the supporting characters in the Authors’ lives secrets and goals 
  • begin creating the weird conspiracies that affect the Authors’ lives. 
   
  If you want to see what a character looks like in Left Coast, take a look at the example 
  Authors on pages 27 and 28. 
   
  Part Two: The Rules of Left Coast describes procedures for collaboratively creating a 
  story. Part Two covers the following: 
  • How to build a story, and the basic structure of the game (see the chart on page 52 for 
  more) 
  • How to decide which scene to play next, establish how it starts, and explore what 
  happens in it 
  • How to resolve conflicts if the Author is being opposed by a supporting character, the 
  general crap that the world dishes out, or something weird and inexplicable 
  • When to switch the story between Authors 
  • What happens when an author’s life crashes and burns 
  • How to create the short stories and novels that the Authors write 
  • When to bring a chapter of the Authors’ stories to a close. 
  • What to do between chapters and between sessions 
  • How to end the game 
   
  At the end of most of these sections, you’ll find advice and flowcharts illustrating how 
  that particular aspect of the game works. 
   
  I’ve made the rules for playing Left Coast very procedural – to try and help people who 
  haven’t played before. Here’s how to identify the rules: 
   
  1. Rules and procedures you have to follow to play the game are indicated by 
  [Numbered Paragraphs], like this one, and have a thick black bar on the left 
  margin so that you can easily see them as you’re skim reading.. 
   
  If you want to get a sense of how the game works, skim the rules summary and player 
  handouts on pages 120 to 128. 
   
   
  
  - 11 - 
  A Left Coast Life 
   
   
  6 am. Can't sleep. 
  6.07 am. Baby wakes up screaming. 
  6.30 am. Wash baby poo off hands. 
   
   
  7.34 am. Score. 
   
   
  8.40am. Sit down to write. 
  8.43am. Breakfast. 
  9.04am. Sit down to write. 
  9.11am. Tidy room. 
  9.15 am. Blink. 
   
   
   
  Sometime. Sit down to write. 
  Afternoon. Blank. 
   
   
   
  2.14pm. Realize I’ve been staring at a 
  wall for a long time. 
  2.15pm. Wash unidentified brown 
  substance off own hands. 
  2.something. Blank. 
   
   
  4pm. Driving north. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  4.23pm. Coffee with the gang. 
   
   
  5.05pm. Steal TV back from Eddie. 
   
   
   
  6.10pm. Pick up more diapers. For baby. 
  6.11pm. Score. 
  6.13pm. Phone dealer. 
  6.15pm. Phone dealer. 
  6.16pm. Phone dealer. 
   
   
  7.48pm. Party with dealer & the gang. 
   
  8.09pm. Replace smashed painting with 
  vase of flowers picked from front lawn. 
   
   
  1am. Where am I? 
  1.02am. Call wife. 
  2am. Walk 5 miles back to home. 
  2.50am. Scribble short story idea on 
  borrowed napkin from diner. 
   
  4am. Write on front porch while 
  drinking beer and ignoring screams of 
  baby. 
   
  
  - 12 - 
   
  for playtesters 
   
   
  LEFT COAST IS A WORK IN PROGRESS 
   
  Thanks for thinking about playtesting Left Coast. 
   
  This is an unfinished game: it’s been playtested by nine separate groups, and now I need 
  your help to find out if I’m clearly communicating the rules (and the style of play I want 
  the rules to create). 
   
  If you decide to take the game for a spin, I recommend you start the game by letting your 
  players know the following: 
   
  “This is a playtest, which means that everyone needs to be prepared for the 
  game to experience breakdowns and for us to need to re-assess the rules as we 
  play. In normal play, these would be deal-breakers, but for playtesting an 
  unfinished game, that’s part of what we’re here for .” 
   
   
  TO PLAY THIS GAME, YOU’LL NEED 
   
   
  PRINT-OUTS OF THE REFERENCE SHEETS 
  Copies for everyone of the Inspirational Material for Left Coast handout (p22)  
   
  Copies for everyone of the 4-page rules summary from pages 120 to 123.1  
  Copies for everyone of the ‘Owners and Audience Worksheet’ (p124)  
  Copies for everyone of the Supporting Character cards (p125) 
   
  Two copies of the Author worksheet (p126) 
  Two copies of the Creator worksheet (p127) 
  Two copies of the Conflict worksheet (p128)  
   
  One copy of the ‘Secrets’ cards (p39). 
   
  SPACE 
  A comfortable space to play where you can all chat, make stuff up, and write notes. 
                                                   
  1 You can print out a booklet version of this if you (a) have a printer with a ‘booklet’ option, or (b) print 2 
  pages onto one side of paper, print on both sides of the paper, and print out the pages in this order: 
  123,120,121,122. 
  
  - 13 - 
  DICE & STATIONERY 
  At least five (but preferably 10-15) ordinary six-sided dice.2 Ideally, five of the six-sided 
  dice will be easy to distinguish from the other dice. 
   
  A few items to use as tokens (items like counters, poker chips, or beads would be good), 
  and a unique token that you can use to identify the Current Author (see page 54). 
   
  A large sheet of paper (to use as the ‘Setting Chart’, where you’ll write down all the 
  characters in the Authors’ lives). 
   
  At least two pens of different colours. And enough pens for everyone. 
   
  TIME 
  Expect to take about 30 to 50 minutes at the start of the game to create Authors and the 
  people in their lives. 
   
  Expect to take 2 ½  to 4 hours to play the game (including creating the Authors, as above) 
  and to hang out afterwards. 
   
   
  WHAT SHOULD YOU DO IN THIS PLAYTEST? 
   
  In general, just follow the rules: play the game and see what happens. 
   
  If you use the character creation rules (rather than the pre-generated characters), could 
  you time how long it takes to create Authors and supporting characters? 
   
  Please play with just two players being Authors. This is a rules-change I need to test. 
   
  Ask the players to refer to their handouts while playing. I want to test whether it’s 
  possible to keep the game flowing using only these sheets rather than the main rules. 
   
  In play, if you're ever unclear what to do, use the main rules to try to identify what to do. 
  If you can’t (or if it’s unclear), flag this for me, and then make up your own solution and 
  keep playing. This is a potential-breakdown-while-playtesting as mentioned above. 
   
  It would be great if you could aim to try out a couple of the different types of Reset 
  scenes. It would also be great if you could see if you assemble enough Story Dice to end 
  a chapter (and tell me what happens when you do: how did the end of chapter procedures 
  change the events in the game?) 
   
   
  NB: 
  This is a playtest draft and hasn’t been professionally edited yet. Please  
  point out anything that doesn’t make sense or seems in the wrong place. 
                                                   
  2 It would be great if every player portraying an author has five dice of their own. 
  
  - 14 - 
  QUESTIONS FOR PLAYTESTERS 
   
  Here’s what I’m particularly interested in: 
   
  1. Are Left Coast’s rules and procedures a good match for the laid-back vibe I want 
  the game to have? 
  2. Were there any points of confusion about who was responsible for doing what, or 
  any points where the game broke completely? 
   
  I’ve created a list of questions (below) to expand on those points. These questions are 
  divided into sections and each section is listed in priority (from vital-to-talk-about to 
  great-if-you-could-discuss-it-but-not-essential).  
   
  If you don’t have time to talk through everything then dealing with just the first few 
  sections would be great. 
   
  Alternatively, you can read out the section headings to your group, and stop when you hit 
  an area one or more of you want to talk about. Get their thoughts, and then ask my 
  questions. 
   
  The questions in each section are marked out with bullet-points (and, again, these bullet-
  points are arranged from most important to least important, so you can move on easily): 
   
   
  • Bullet-points like this are the main questions I’m interested 
   
  o Bullet-points like these are less essential. 
   
   
  Here are the questions for after you’ve played the game. 
   
   
  DEMOGRAPHIC DATA 
  • How large was your group? 
  • For each player: why did you play this game? 
  • How many of you read the rules before playing? 
   
  SIMPLICITY 
  I want Left Coast to have a ‘laid back’ vibe – so I want the rules to be simple (while still 
  giving adequate guidance). 
   
  • While playing, did you ever find the game overly-complex?  
  o Where and how? 
  o Did you ever feel like you needed to make too many decisions? 
  o Did any of the lists annoy you? Why? 
  
  - 15 - 
   
  • What are the essential elements of the game? 
  o Were any procedures or rules unhelpful? Why? 
  o What handouts did you need? Were any of them unhelpful? 
   
  • On a first read, were the rules simple enough to understand? Did they make you want 
  to play the game? 
   
  CLARITY 
  • Were there any points where you didn’t know what to do, or who was responsible for 
  doing what? 
  o Was it always clear what to do next? 
  o Was it always clear how to start, play and end scenes? 
  o Did you feel it was clear where you could deviate from the rules? Any 
  ideas how to clarify this? 
   
  SYSTEM 
  • At what point did you become interested in the problems in each Author’s life and 
  wanted to see how they got resolved? How many scenes or turns did it take? 
  o How the rules help create those situations? 
  o How did the system promote (a) the setting and characters coming to life, 
  and (b) weird stuff happening to the Authors? In what ways could this be 
  strengthened? 
   
  SECRETS 
  • Did you find secrets to be problematic? 
  o If so, why? And how did you deal with it? 
  o How did ‘showing a supporting character’s secret to everyone except the 
  Author’s player’ work for your group? 
   
  FLOW 
  • Was there ever a point where the rules made the game drag?  
  o Did you ever a struggle to choose supporting characters for a scene? Can 
  you identify why? 
  o How did you find the ‘Review the Author’s Turn’ section? 
   
  GROUP INVOLVEMENT 
  • For players who weren’t Authors or Creators: 
  o How did you find character generation and setting creation?  
  o At what point did you feel fully involved in the game? Did this feeling of 
  involvement vary throughout the session? If so, why? 
  o Did you ever use the Audience suggestions on the Owner and Audience 
  Worksheet? 
   
  
  - 16 - 
  INITIATING CONFLICTS 
  • How did you find the process for initiating conflicts? 
   
  PREPARATION TIME 
  • How long did character creation and setting creation take? 
  o Did this feel too short? Too long? About right? 
  o How easy or complicated did you find it? Why? 
   
  • Was there a specific point (in character and setting creation) at which you felt like 
  you had ‘enough’ information to start playing?  
   
  • Do you have any suggestions for improving the character and setting generation 
  procedure? 
   
  RESET SCENES 
  • Which Reset scenes did you use? 
  o Did they create interesting situations? 
  o Was it clear how to create them? 
   
  STORY SCENES 
  • How clear were the procedures for Story scenes? Were there any points of confusion? 
   
  FUN 
  • What did you enjoy? Why would you suggest to others they should play it? 
  o Did you find the events of the story satisfying? 
   
  MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS 
  • Did you have any problems with ‘slacker’ characters (these types of characters 
  include drifters, easy-going people, The Dude from the Big Lebowski, and writers 
  with no motivations)? 
  • Did you find supporting characters felt passive? 
  • Was it clear what the different pools of dice represent? Was it clear what having more 
  dice in a pool meant? 
  • Is it clear what the different quadrants covered? Where there any characters you 
  found it difficult to place in a quadrant? Why? 
  • How long did it take you to get to 5 Story Dice in each chapter? How many Author 
  turns (and conflicts in those turns) did you have? 
  • Can you see any optimal strategies? 
  • Did any terms feel like jargon? Do you have a plain English alternative?  
  • If you were to describe in one word how it felt to play Left Coast, what would that 
  word be? Why? 
   
   
  
  - 17 - 
  FROM HERE … (IF YOU WANT TO GIVE ME FEEDBACK) 
   
  I want this game to be fun to play. And I need it to work when I’m not in the room to 
  introduce it to people.  
   
  So I’m keen to hear about any issues or problems your group had. (And I’m also keen to 
  hear about when it really worked and was firing on all cylinders.) If things didn’t work or 
  just plain sucked, let me know what it was and – if possible - why you think it happened. 
  Every issue or problem you identify is an opportunity for me to learn something. 
   
  (Feel free to talk about it publicly, too.) 
   
  I’ve found it takes me a long time to process feedback, and I might respond infrequently 
  or not at all while I’m figuring out what to say, but I promise you that all your comments 
  will be thoroughly considered. 
   
  The feedback from everyone’s playtests will help me identify patterns. After those 
  patterns seem pretty consistent, I’ll be re-working the game. 
   
  If you want to give me feedback or if you’d like to talk about what happened in your 
  game (even a short anecdote about something that happened), you can: 
   
  • send a message on twitter to @leftcoastRPG 
  • comment on twitter with #leftcoastrpg and link to a post about the game 
  • start a thread (or post in the ‘Bite Sized Play’ thread) at www.story-games.com 
  • comment on the facebook page for Left Coast RPG: 
  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Left-Coast/221915894504829 
  • join the Left Coast community on Google Plus: 
  https://plus.google.com/communities/112975895817554154576 
  • post on your local forum. 
   
  Thank you for any help or insights you can give me! 
    
  
  - 18 - 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
  - 19 - 
   
   
  Robert Heinlein is a fine-looking man, very 
  impressive and very military in stance...  
   
  He knows I'm a flipped-out freak and still 
  he helped me and my wife when we were in 
  trouble. That is the best in humanity, 
  there; that is who and what I love. 
   
  Philip K. Dick 
   
   
  A game of Left Coast begins with the group creating the Authors and the community of 
  problematic characters they’re part of. 
   
  First, the group discusses their favourite source material to develop a collective 
  agreement about what this game of Left Coast’s vibe will be. 
   
  Then two players decide who the Authors are and outline who the supporting characters 
  are in each Author’s life (and the problems those characters bring). 
   
  Each Author is (unknowingly) the main character in a novel: a novel about the Weird 
  forces invading the Author’s life. Each Author is assigned a player to portray the person 
  writing this novel about them: these players are called ‘Creators’. 
   
  Creators are responsible for all of the weird events that happen in the Authors’ lives. 
  Creators spend a little bit of time before the game begins creating a plan for what the 
  weird forces in the Author’s life are trying to accomplish. 
   
  Each supporting character in the Authors’ lives is assigned an ‘Owner’, who is 
  responsible for portraying the supporting characters. Owners decide what’s true about 
  their character, how they react to events, and what secrets their character is keeping from 
  the Author. 
   
   
   
  
  - 20 - 
  Here’s an overview of how this character and setting creation phase of the game works: 
   
   
  
  - 21 - 
  Throughout all the rules that follow, you’ll see three types of formatting 
   
  1. [Numbered paragraphs] indicate rules and procedures you have to follow. 
   
  • [Bullet-points] indicate suggestions or options 
   
  [Standard paragraphs] (like this one) indicate my commentary on the rules. 
   
   
   
  as a group 
   
   
  To begin the game, you have a conversation to get comfortable sharing your creative 
  influences with each other. You’ll also start to sense what your Left Coast might be like. 
   
  This is a conversation that will continue throughout the game. 
   
  1. Hand out the ‘Inspirational Material for Left Coast’ sheet (page 22). 
   
  2. As a group, discuss your influences and favourite books and movies about this 
  subject matter and time period. 
   
  • Take a look at the ‘Some of My Inspirations’ section of ‘The Left Coast 
  Vibe’, if you want some examples to discuss. 
   
  3. Once everyone feels they’ve made a good start at developing a shared 
  understanding of what they like about the areas this game covers and wants to 
  continue playing, decide who will play the two Authors.  
   
  These Author players should be enthusiastic about portraying writers who: (a) 
  don’t quite fit in with society, and (b) are under pressure from both everyday 
  problems and weird forces. 
   
  Give each Author player a different-coloured pen (to easily distinguish the stuff 
  they’ll write down in later steps). 
   
   
   
   
   
  
  - 22 - 
  INSPIRATIONS 
  FOR LEFT COAST 
   
   
   
  Author Names 
  G. John Eldritch, Iona F Sexton, Theodore 
  T. McKenzie, V Michael Purview, K 
  Pierce Dolland, S (Sally) Philip Richards 
   
   
   
  Supporting Character Names 
  Spartan Wordes, Bernard Goldberg, Rachel 
  Haine, Ross Carter, Gaia Unity, Alan 
  Williams, Andre Malcolm, Kin, Mark 
  Shakespeare, “Trip” Spector, Leonie 
  Vimes, Severus Rothschild, Raincloud 
  Amber  
   
   
  Weirdness 
  Someone you know from a past life. 
  A dead friend 
  A voice from another dimension 
  A neighbor whose behaviour has changed 
  Your duplicate. 
  http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comm
  ents/oeo0h/reddit_tell_me_your_glitch_in_
  the_matrix_stories/ ) 
  http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?2793
  79-Occult-Modern-Settings-The-
  Wikipedia-Supplement 
   
   
  Presidents 
  Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, 
  Gerald Ford 
   
  Places to stay 
  The canals of Venice Beach 
  Tree shaded houses in Laurel Canyon 
  The cafes and bars on the Sunset Strip 
  Ocean Beach, San Diego (good surf!) 
   
   
  Places to go 
  The Freeway, The Whiskey a Go Go, The 
  Cheetah Club, Parking lots, Car parks, 
  Malls,  
   
   
  Drugs 
  Marijuana, LSD, heroin, bourbon. 
   
   
  People 
  Professor Timothy Leary (Harvard), Frank 
  Zappa, Roger Corman (New Horizon 
  Studios), Patty Hearst (heiress, member 
  Symbionese Liberation Army), Robert 
  Crumb 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Bands 
  The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Joni 
  Mitchell, Neil Young, The Who, The 
  Byrds, the psychedelic garage band scene 
  (Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the 
  Holding Company with Janis Joplin), The 
  Electric Prunes, The Strawberry Alarm 
  Clock.    
   
   
  Events  
  Civil rights, Vietnam (draft dodging and 
  protest movements), Feminism, The Sexual 
  revolution, Environmentalism, Nuclear 
  tests, Woodstock and Altamont. 
   
   
  Science Fiction Stories Titles 
  The Rainbow Sword ● Agent Orange 
  County ● Ceres Renewed ● Novelty Act ● 
  Goldfish Bowl ● The Unpleasant 
  Profession ● Sky Lift ● An Unsatisfactory 
  Solution ● Big Universe ● Diminished 
  Possibilities ● Children of the Moon ● The 
  Hidden Menace 
   
   
  This needs more work and 
  more specificity.  
   
  Suggestions welcome!
  
  - 23 - 
  authors 
   
   
  CREATE YOUR AUTHORS 
   
  If you only have a short time available to play (perhaps you’re introducing the game to 
  friends or playing during a scheduled timeslot at a gaming convention), I’ve included two 
  pre-generated authors at the end of this section (after Step 12) to help speed up the 
  process of creating an Author. 
   
   
  2. What type of author are you? If you have a concept for your author, describe it. 
  Otherwise, choose a type: 
   
  ● Hack ● Visionary ● True Believer ● Objectivist ● Radical ● Danger to 
  Society ● Self-destructive ● Real Man ● Woman Pretending to be a Man (or 
  vice versa) [choose another type for your public persona] 
   
  ... or Create Your Own Type. 
   
  Once you’ve chosen your type, flesh your author out by briefly describing her and 
  answering any questions about her the group has. 
   
  3. What’s your Author’s name?  After choosing a name, choose a single letter as 
  their first or middle initial. 
   
   
  Examples 
   
  Robert M. Curtis, a former convict who is a danger to 
  society 
   
  T. Alfred Gosling, a visionary struggling with his 
  writing and his demons. 
   
  Iona P. Sexton, who lives in a commune ruled over by 
  a tyrannical hippie earth-mother, and who is trying 
  to maintain the secrecy of her pseudonym as Richard 
  H. Long 
   
   
  
  - 24 - 
   
  CREATE THE SETTING CHART 
   
  4. Create the Group Setting Chart by taking a large piece of paper and dividing it 
  into four quadrants: 
   
  i)  Social: family, friends, people your writing affects, people you care about or 
  have social obligations to 
  ii) Trouble: people in the real-world that stop you from writing. These include 
  people associated with issues like the Author’s drug use, delusions, and 
  psychiatric or emotional flaws, and generally problematic people such as 
  stalkers, probation officers, vengeful critics, and crazy-ass best friends who get 
  into fights while you’re around.  
  iii) Money: people your money comes from or goes to. If there’s someone 
  problematic who’s asking for money, and saying no will cause trouble, use your 
  best judgment about whether they belong here or in the Trouble quadrant. 
  iv) Weird: the super-natural or alien plot that is intruding into the Author’s 
  otherwise normal life. Think inexplicable forces, supernatural mysteries, sinister 
  conspiracies, paranormal phenomena, and subtle changes to the Author’s life 
  that could be paranoid delusions but are more likely to be the tip of an 
  antagonistic iceberg of the uncanny that’s intent on disrupting the Author’s life 
   
   
  CREATE EACH AUTHOR’S ‘MOST SIGNIFICANT PERSON’ 
   
  5. The player of each Author says who the most significant person in the Author’s 
  life is. What type of relationship does your Author have with them? What 
  problem do they bring to the Author’s life?  
   
  Once you’ve chosen your ‘most significant person’, describe her to the group and 
  answer any questions about her the group has. 
    
  6. The player of the Author chooses a first name for this supporting character. It 
  should be the first name of someone the player knows, or a name that conveys the 
  emotions the player associates with the supporting character. Don’t choose the 
  supporting character’s last name yet: that will happen later. 
   
  7. Write the first name of this supporting character in the appropriate quadrant of the 
  Setting Chart. Use your Author’s coloured pen. 
   
  
  - 25 - 
   
  CREATE OTHER SUPPORTING CHARACTERS 
   
  Taking turns, the player of each Author creates one supporting character for each of the 
  other three quadrants in the Group Setting chart.  
   
  Here’s an example of what a setting chart looks like after one player has finished adding 
  to it: 
   
  RELATIONSHIPS 
  A relationship, in Left Coast, is a simple description of what the history between the two 
  supporting characters appears to be. It’s likely you’ve already described this history while 
  creating supporting characters, but you can invent this connection at any time. 
   
  To define a relationship, create a short phrase that specifies what this history between the 
  two characters appears to be. ‘Former lovers’, ‘Professional rivals’, or ‘Employs her as a 
  bodyguard’ are all good, simple definitions. You then draw a line between the two 
  supporting characters (see the relationship between Penelope and BB, above). 
   
  NB: 
  You can’t start the game with a relationships between supporting  
  characters belonging to two different Authors. These relationships have to  
  be formed in play.  
  
  - 26 - 
   
   
  8. The players of each Author takes four dice from the general supply of dice on the 
  table. 
   
  NB: These dice are called Author Dice.  
   
   
  9. Taking turns, the player of each Author spends one of their Author Dice (from 
  Step 10) to create a supporting character (in any quadrant) or define a relationship 
  between two of her supporting characters.  
   
  Use the Author’s coloured pen to write all the supporting characters’ first names 
  and draw relationships between two supporting characters.  
   
  NB: 
  Discard each Author die as you spend it. You don’t have to spend all your  
  dice. You can spend up to a maximum of three Author Dice; you must  
  have one left in your hand at the end of this. 
   
   
  Use the same formula for creating supporting characters as above: say who are they, what 
  type of relationship the Author has with them, and what problem they bring to the 
  Author’s life (all of this costs one Author die). Answer any questions the group has about 
  the supporting character.  
   
   
   
  EXAMPLE AUTHORS 
   
  The following two pages contain pre-generated Authors for you to use. Follow the 
  instructions on the page to customize them.  
  
  - 27 - 
  Follow the four steps on this sheet to create a cast of problematic characters 
  (friends and enemies) who surround your author. Your author is … 
   
  K. Joshua Fresnel. His right-wing political beliefs affect his writing and his life. 
   
    Choose one of the following to be your most significant relationship. Write it into the appropriate quadrant     
    (Family, Trouble, Money, or Weird) on the Setting Chart                                                                              .                                          
   
  • 
  (Family) Valda Delmont, a drug addled groupie & Californian campaign manager for Richard Nixon 
  • 
  (Trouble) Benito the Talking Dog 
  • 
  (Money) Karl Hickenlooper, perfectionist editor of ‘Stories from Beyond’ 
  • 
  (Weird) The homeless man with a ruined face who haunts your dreams 
   
    For each of the quadrants you did not select in Step 1, choose one item from each box (Quadrant, Problem,  ,  
    Name). Write these three items into the appropriate quadrant on the Setting Chart. By the end of this you      .  
    should have a character in each quadrant. 
   
         Quadrant  
   
   
     Problem  
   
         First name 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
    Take 4 dice from the general supply: these are your Author Dice                                                                      .. 
   
   
    You can spend 1 of your Author Dice to either:                                                                                                   : 
    ●  buy an additional character (either an unused one from Step 1, or create one from Step 2)                          . 
    ●  define a relationship between 2 characters you’ve just created (which gives you a bonus in the game)        .                                    
    
  . You can spend up to 3 Author Dice to buy extra characters or relationships (leaving 1 in your hand)               . 
  Family 
  • 
  a blue-collar 
  mechanic 
  • 
  separated wife 
   
   
  Trouble 
  • 
  war veteran 
  • 
  former companion 
  at psych ward 
   
   
  Money 
  • 
  bank loan officer  
  • 
  divorce lawyer 
   
   
  Weird 
  • 
  urban shaman 
  • 
  psycho-therapist 
   
  • 
  worries you will 
  go off the 'deep 
  end'  
  • 
  obsessed fan 
  • 
  suspects you’ve 
  committed a crime 
  • 
  over-controlling 
  your life 
  • 
  neurotic 
  • 
  doesn’t like your 
  friends 
  • 
  weakness for get-
  rich-quick 
  schemes 
  • 
  irresponsible 
  • 
  mentally 
  disordered 
  • 
  a Communist 
   
  -- OR -- 
   
  Create your own 
  reason this character is 
  problematic for your 
  Author. 
   
  • 
  Oberon  
  • 
  Eldritch 
  • 
  Patty 
  • 
  Joe 
  • 
  Aloyisus  
  • 
  Croon 
  • 
  Linda 
  • 
  Aurora 
  • 
  George 
   
   
  -- OR -- 
   
  Create a first name 
  yourself, choosing 
  from this list 
  • 
  someone you 
  know 
  • 
  a resonant or 
  symbolic name 
  • 
  a conventional or 
  unusual name 
  • 
  a name the story 
  demands  
   
  + 
  1
  . 
  2 
  3
  . 
  4 
  + 
  + 
  + 
  
  - 28 - 
  Follow the four steps on this sheet to create a cast of problematic characters 
  (friends and enemies) who surround your author. Your author is … 
   
  Sally P. Richards, a scientist in the sexist world of academia. Writes as S. Philip Richards. 
   
    Choose one of the following to be your most significant relationship. Write it into the appropriate quadrant     
    (Family, Trouble, Money, or Weird) on the Setting Chart                                                                              .                                          
   
  • 
  (Family) Alison Richards, your mother. Constantly undermining you but also desperate for attention.  
  • 
  (Trouble) Professor Lionel Pennington, who takes credit for your academic work. 
  • 
  (Money) B.B. Richards, perpetual screw-up of a brother who constantly needs you to bail him out. 
  • 
  (Weird) An anonymous phone caller who knows everything about you 
   
    For each of the quadrants you did not select in Step 1, choose one item from each box (Quadrant, Problem,  ,  
    Name). Write these three items into the appropriate quadrant on the Setting Chart. By the end of this you      .  
    should have a character in each quadrant. 
   
         Quadrant  
   
   
     Problem  
   
         First name 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
    Take 4 dice from the general supply: these are your Author Dice                                                                      .. 
   
   
    You can spend 1 of your Author Dice to either:                                                                                                   : 
    ●  buy an additional character (either an unused one from Step 1, or create one from Step 2)                          . 
    ●  define a relationship between 2 characters you’ve just created (which gives you a bonus in the game)        .  
   
  You can spend up to 3 Author Dice to buy extra characters or relationships (leaving 1 in your hand)                 . 
   
  Family 
  • 
  pot dealer 
  • 
  grad student 
   
   
  Trouble 
  • 
  biological 
  weapons expert 
  • 
  investigative 
  fanzine publisher 
   
   
  Money 
  • 
  agent willing to 
  sacrifice art for 
  money 
  • 
  best friend in debt 
   
   
  Weird 
  • 
  your new 
  neighbor 
  • 
  someone you 
  know is dead 
   
  • 
  pro-Vietnam War 
  • 
  practicing Satanist 
  • 
  suing you 
  • 
  won’t leave your 
  house 
  • 
  status-driven 
  • 
  facing obscenity 
  charges 
  • 
  charismatic cult 
  leader 
  • 
  repo officer 
  • 
  close to a 
  breakdown 
  • 
  crippling 
  mortgage 
  • 
  Type A 
  personality 
   
   
  -- OR -- 
   
  Create your own 
  reason this character is 
  problematic for your 
  Author. 
   
  • 
  Herbert  
  • 
  Steffan 
  • 
  Penelope 
  • 
  Wesley 
  • 
  Crake 
  • 
  Robin 
  • 
  Ganymede 
  • 
  Dante 
  • 
  Claire 
  • 
  Sky 
   
   
  -- OR -- 
   
  Create a first name 
  yourself, choosing 
  from this list 
  • 
  someone you 
  know 
  • 
  a resonant or 
  symbolic name 
  • 
  a conventional or 
  unusual name 
  • 
  a name the story 
  demands  
   
  1
  . 
  2 
  3
  . 
  4 
  + 
  + 
  + 
  + 
  
  - 29 - 
  ADVICE ABOUT CREATING AUTHORS 
   
   
  This section contains suggestions and commentary. It’s not essential, but can add to 
  playing the game. 
   
   
  NB: 
  Nearly all of the chapters in Left Coast contain these ‘Advice’ sections.  
   
  They’re identified with a grey banner. 
   
  On your first read, if you want to just read the rules and build up an  
  understanding of how to play the game, you can skip these sections. 
   
   
  NUMBER OF AUTHORS 
  In normal Left Coast play, there are two Authors. If you’ve played before, or if you don’t 
  mind the game taking longer to play and producing less focused results, feel free to add 
  Authors – perhaps everyone at the table can play one! 
   
  WHAT ARE AUTHOR DICE? 
  Author Dice represent the amount of control an Author has over her career and everyday 
  life. You gain Author Dice through engaging in conflicts, and with more dice, an Author 
  is more likely to be in control and maintain momentum in her life.  
   
  An Author with more dice is more likely to be successful in conflicts. The more she 
  succeeds, the more the Author’s player will be able to add ‘stuff’ into the setting: 
  introducing characters, forming relationships, and setting the direction of the story. 
   
  However, one of the underlying dynamics in Left Coast is a boom-bust cycle for the 
  authors: massive successes are often followed big crashes. Perhaps the crash comes from 
  ignoring all of the problems in your life while you work on finishing your novel. Perhaps 
  it comes from other people resenting your success and trying to sabotage you. Perhaps 
  you overdose while celebrating or perhaps it’s just karma. 
    
  Authors gain Author Dice throughout the game, and whenever they reach five dice, their 
  life will come crashing down. This is explained in more detail in the ‘Reset Scene’ 
  section.  
  
  - 30 - 
   
  ‘GROUPS’ AS SUPPORTING CHARACTERS 
  Players will sometimes create a supporting character that isn’t really a character (like a 
  symptom, an inexplicable phenomenon, or a group). For instance, an Author might be 
  involved with the Hell’s Angels or live with a commune of hippies, or occasionally slip 
  into a slightly-alternate dimension.  
   
  This is fine. However, you should expect the first scene between the Author and that 
  group to start introducing specific supporting characters that represent that group or 
  phenomenon (an enforcer from the Hell’s Angels; the commune’s drug dealer; a real 
  estate agent from the other universe). 
   
  WHEN DO YOU ADD CHARACTERS OR RELATIONSHIPS? 
  You don’t fill in all the supporting characters or relationships you know about at the start 
  of the game – just fill in the ones you have enough dice to purchase.  
   
  As you play there will be plenty of opportunities to add these supporting characters (and 
  any relationships between them). These opportunities come through having conflicts and 
  as the group regularly reviews what’s happening in the story. 
   
  TWO USES FOR RELATIONSHIPS 
  Relationships can increase the Author’s chance of succeeding in a conflict: if the conflict 
  involves or affects the relationship, the Author gets a bonus to their attempt to succeed. 
   
  Relationships also allow you to deepen the story you’re creating, by establishing the links 
  between characters and allowing you (the players) to keep track of every supporting 
  character’s motivations. 
   
   
   
   
  
  - 31 - 
  creators 
   
   
  Each Author is assigned a player who has the creative responsibility for deciding what 
  the supporting characters in the Weird quadrant do (and what their secret plan is). These 
  players are called Creators.  
   
   
  ASSIGN A CREATOR TO EACH AUTHOR 
   
  Decide who will play the Creator for each Author (i.e. if there are two Authors, there will 
  need to be two Creators; for three Authors, three Creators. A person can be the Creator 
  for more than one Author): 
   
  1. Everyone in the group examines the material in the Weird quadrant. 
   
  2. Individually, decide which Author’s Weird stuff you feel most interested, excited, 
  inspired, or curious about. 
   
  The Creator should be the player who is most fascinated by the implications of a 
  particular Author’s Weird quadrant, and curious about what’s really going on with the 
  Weird in an Author’s life.  
   
  The Creator should also be interested in, effectively, playing an antagonist to the Author. 
  (I’m using ‘antagonist’, here, in the sense of something that forces a character to change.) 
   
   
  3. Discuss who is most interested in playing the Creator for which Author, and 
  allocate these roles. 
   
  4. Give the Creator players the ‘Creator handout’ on page 127 
   
  5. The Creators go to the ‘Create Your First-Draft Plan for the Weird’ section. 
  Everyone else goes to the ‘Flesh Out Supporting Characters’ section. 
   
  
  - 32 - 
   
  CREATE YOUR FIRST-DRAFT PLAN FOR THE WEIRD  
   
  Each Creator will, through playing the game, create a concrete plan for what the Weird 
  actually wants to achieve.  
   
   
   
   
  You don’t need definitive answers to this before you start playing: here’s what each 
  Creator need to do to quickly prepare for this before the game: 
   
   
  6. Think about what your player added to their Weird quadrant, and anything weird 
  that might come out of their Trouble quadrant. 
   
  7. Secretly come up with the first three things you think the Weird might do during 
  this session that might affect the Author. Just take the first three things that come 
  to your mind (there’s no need to take a long time here).  
   
  Add these to the Weird worksheet (below). 
   
  Alternatively, think of a general ‘goal’ for the Weird: a goal that will change the 
  Author’s life (in ways the Author won’t like). Make sure this is a goal you feel 
  comfortable improvising what happens as a result of the Weird trying to achieve 
  this goal: you’ll need to inventing obstacles, creating events, and describe unusual 
  incidents and symptoms. 
   
  8. If you need further inspiration, refer to the ‘Between Sessions’ section on page 
  103. 
  
  - 33 - 
   
   
  When you’re the Creator for a scene, you’ll be asked to add a hint of Weirdness to what 
  happens. You’re completely free (and encouraged) to invent additional Weird hints and 
  events during the game, but your three things can serve as back-up ideas. 
   
   
  CREATE WEIRD SUPPORTING CHARACTERS 
   
  9. You’ll also need to flesh out supporting characters that belong in the Weird 
  quadrant (or other non-Weird supporting characters that you own). Go to the 
  ‘Flesh out Supporting Characters’ section, below. 
   
  You can give a Weird supporting character a ‘true’ first name, if you desire. (The  
  first name the Author’s Player has given a Weird supporting character can be  
  ‘just’ what the Author knows the supporting character as.) 
   
   
   
   
   
  You’ll have an opportunity to develop your plan for the Weird at specific phases during 
  the game (during the ‘Between Chapters’ and ‘Between Sessions’ sections). 
   
   
   
  ADVICE FOR CREATORS 
   
   
  CREATORS AS NOVELISTS 
  I mentioned that each Author is (unknowingly) the main character in a novel about the 
  Weird forces invading the Author’s life. The degree to which this is important to the story 
  your group creates depends on (a) how much each Creator embraces this fictional conceit 
  and (b) how much each Author player responds to it. 
   
  The default assumption is that the way the Creator describes the world and the Weird’s 
  interactions with the Author is the same as the way the Creator is writing their novel. 
  Beyond that, though, Creators have a range of options. They can simply speak as 
  themselves and avoid any mention of ‘being inside a novel’ at all. They can use different 
  vocabulary and phrasing when they narrate as Creator, making it clear that this is how 
  they are writing their novel. Creators can even overtly present information as if the 
  Author is in a novel and that this fact totally affects the plot. 
   
  
  - 34 - 
  A Creator who decides to speak ‘as the novel’, and who takes firm grip of establishing 
  where scenes are set, who is present in them, and what the Weird is doing, can forcefully 
  push the plot in a particular direction. 
   
  But what matters just as much is how the Author’s player responds to the way the Creator 
  presents information. The Author’s player may be interested in the idea of her character 
  being trapped in a novel or she might be indifferent to it. 
   
  The Creator needs to respect whether the Author engages with this ‘trapped in a novel’ 
  material or not. If the Author does engage, the Creator can feel free to emphasize it; if the 
  Author doesn’t, the Creator should accept that. 
   
  You don’t force any of this: just do what seems right for each Creator and Author, and 
  see what emerges out of the interaction between them. 
   
  ASSIGNING PLAYERS TO ROLES 
  There is flexibility about who can be an Author, Creator, or Owner of the supporting 
  characters (see below). Roles can overlap between players. Roles can swap between 
  players. Consider this to be a fuzzy area of the game, and if there are difficulties then do 
  what seems best at the time. 
   
  As one example: in smaller groups, players may double-up on these roles. Let’s look at 
  some different ways this could work: 
   
  • In a two-player game of Left Coast, each player will: (a) play an Author, (b) be the 
  Creator for the other player’s Author, and (c) be the Owner for all of the other 
  player’s Author’s supporting characters. 
   
  • If you added a third player to that game, they could simply be an supporting character 
  Owner and not take on any Author or Creator responsibilities at all. 
   
  • In an alternative three-player game, you could have two people who only play 
  Authors, while the third player is the Creator for both Authors and owns all the 
  supporting characters. 
   
  • In a group of six, you could have two players play the Authors and two players play 
  their Creators, leaving two people to primarily focus on playing supporting 
  characters.  
   
  • In an alternative six-player game, you could decide to have two people play the 
  Authors and each other’s Creators, leaving four people to play supporting characters. 
   
  You can see that ‘assigning roles’ is flexible: I recommend simply assigning them in a 
  way that works for your group 
   
   
  
  - 35 - 
  NB: 
  There is quite a bit of creative work involved in a Creator also being an  
  Author player. 
   
  Assigning roles is also flexible while you’re playing: for instance, the Creator can also be 
  the Owner of a supporting character if the scene focuses on one of her Weird characters. 
   
   
  CREATING PLANS FOR THE WEIRD 
  If you’ve played Left Coast before, or you’re experienced and comfortable with games 
  that require you to rely on your intuition to make things up as you go, you can follow 
  your gut instinct about what inspired you about the Author’s Weird quadrant. Make up 
  some supporting characters (in the next section), then go to the ‘Choose which Author to 
  focus on first’ section and start playing. You can then improvise the details of the 
  Weird’s plan as you play. 
   
  As a Creator you don’t need to have definitive answers to ‘what the Weird is up to’ 
  before you start playing: your plan for what the Weird is up to can evolve, and you can 
  ‘detect’ the truth about what it’s up to through playing the game. 
   
  But you will be the ultimately responsible for defining what the Weird is trying to 
  achieve and why. This includes: 
   
  • deciding how the invasion of Weird forces occurs 
  • deciding what the Author’s Weird supporting characters do 
  • keeping all of these motivations and events internally consistent. 
   
   
   
  
  - 36 - 
   
   
   
   
   
  What he had not thought out clearly was 
  the ominous fact that Los Angeles is the 
  nut capital of the world: that every 
  religious, paranormal, and occult group 
  originates there and draws its followers 
  there; that Nicholas, were he to resettle in 
  the southland, would be exposed to other 
  people like himself and hence would 
  probably worsen rather than mend.  
   
  Nicholas would be moving to an area 
  which ill defined the quality of sanity. 
   
  Radio Free Albemuth 
  Philip K. Dick 
  
  - 37 - 
   
  owners  
   
   
  Every supporting character on the Setting Chart needs an ‘Owner’: someone who’s 
  responsible for playing and portraying that supporting character in scenes in the story. A 
  supporting character’s Owner decides what their character does and then describes it to 
  the rest of the group.  
   
  While the Creators work on the Weird, everyone else establishes some facts about a few 
  of the supporting characters that the Author players created.  
   
   
  DISTRIBUTE WORKSHEET 
   
  1. Give everyone a copy of the Owners and Audience Worksheet on page 40. 
   
   
  NAME THE SUPPORTING CHARACTERS 
   
  2. As a group, take turns choosing a last name for the supporting characters that 
  interest you. The names can be: 
  • someone you know in real-life (eg. Towlson, Sands) 
  • a resonant, unusual, or symbolic name (Eldritch, Nixon) 
  • a conventional name (Richards, Smith) 
  • a name demanded by the internal logic of the fiction (for instance, a child or 
  spouse sharing the Author’s last name, if you think that’s reasonable). 
   
   
  ASSIGN OWNERSHIP 
   
  The group now assigns each player ownership of one supporting character. (Ownership  
  of the other supporting characters will be determined as you play.) 
   
  3. The Creator owns all supporting characters associated with their Author’s Weird 
  quadrant. 
   
  4. Each player chooses to own one supporting character from the Trouble, Money, 
  or Family quadrants of either Author. Assign ownership of these supporting 
  characters based on which player most wants to play them or is most curious 
  about them (and make sure ownership is roughly evenly split between both 
  Authors’ supporting characters).  
   
   
  
  - 38 - 
  NB:  
  Author players can’t own supporting characters they created for their  
  Author. 
   
    
  FLESH OUT THE SUPPORTING CHARACTERS 
   
  Each Owner works through the following list for their supporting character: 
   
  5. If you think the supporting character is going to be significant, give them a first or 
  middle initial. 
   
  6. Give the supporting character a secret that she wants to keep from the Author. If 
  you can’t come up with a secret for the supporting character, use one of the 
  ‘Secret’ cards on the next page.  
   
  Don’t tell anyone this secret yet! 
   
  7. Secretly provide an answer to at least one of the two following items: 
    
  • Enemy or Ally? Decide if the supporting character is trying to help the 
  Author achieve her goals or if they oppose the Author. Keep this a complete 
  secret. You may want to also think about how the supporting character wants 
  to change the Author. 
  • Select a temperament. The supporting character is either Up (which can 
  range from happy, to supportive and encouraging, to manic), or Down 
  (sad/glum/cynical, a life-suck, depressed, or self-destructive). 
   
  8. Fill out the Supporting Character Worksheet with the items you can immediately 
  and easily think of answers to. If you can’t come up with an idea for an item, 
  leave it and move on to the next. If an answer comes to you later, fill it in then. 
   
   
  
  - 39 - 
   
  THE SECRETS CARDS 
   
  Cut these out and draw them at random, as needed. 
   
  In love with best 
  friend 
   
  Addicted to 
  medically 
  prescribed drugs 
   
  You believe you’re 
  from the future 
   
  Pretending to have 
  cancer 
   
  Steals from work 
   
  Searching for birth 
  parents 
   
  Cries every day 
   
  Member of a 
  satanic church 
   
  Is planning a 
  kidnapping  
   
  Slept with the last 
  person in the world 
  the Author would 
  want them to 
  Committed a 
  terrible crime 
  somewhere far 
  away 
   
  Owes money to a 
  dangerous gang 
   
  Has stopped eating 
   
  Forged a mortgage 
  loan using the 
  Author’s name. 
  Hates the Author  
   
  Secretly in love 
  with … [you 
  decide] 
  Laundered money 
  for an election 
  campaign and is 
  under investigation 
  from the IRS. 
  Secretly sold one 
  of the Author’s 
  novels and is 
  trying to rip them 
  off. 
  Needs to obtain the 
  blood of her family 
  members for her 
  cult's ritual. 
   
  Doesn't remember 
  any of their past 
  with the Author & 
  desperately tries to 
  play along. 
   
  A government 
  informant 
  In the witness 
  protection 
  programme 
  Is being 
  blackmailed 
  Is founding a cult 
  Is building a 
  powerful bomb 
  Sleeping with 
  secretary  
   
  Inserting codes 
  into published 
  stories for 
  communists   
  Has a split 
  personality   
  Dating several 
  people at once   
  Being bullied   
  Married to an 
  abuser 
  Actually a dirt 
  poor con artist   
  Escaped from a 
  cult 
  Is planning on 
  faking their own 
  death 
  Writing under a 
  pseudonym, you 
  are a powerful and 
  hateful critic of the 
  Author’s work 
  Wants to be the 
  Author 
  Expects to inherit a 
  vast amount of 
  money from a trust 
  fund 
  Undercover cop 
  Is hiding their 
  unusual sexuality 
  Has a love child 
  
  - 40 - 
   
  ADVICE FOR OWNERS 
   
   
  WHO SHOULD BE THE OWNER? 
  If no-one has strong feelings yet about a supporting character, don’t give them an owner. 
  Ownership can be assigned if and when it’s needed, during the game. 
   
  Any player (including the Creator or another Author player) can own these supporting 
  characters. However, ownership sometimes depends on logistics. For instance, if two 
  supporting characters are going to appear together often, the same person probably 
  shouldn’t own them (to avoid one player having to talk to herself as the two supporting 
  characters interact). 
   
  You can exchange ownership of a supporting character with another player at any time, if 
  necessary. 
   
  CREATING SUPPORTING CHARACTERS IN THE GAME 
  The Owners of all supporting characters created during the game should complete the 
  ‘Flesh Out The Supporting Characters’ checklist (above). 
   
  New supporting characters will naturally emerge as you play – feel free to introduce 
  them, but you can’t add them to the Setting Chart except as the result of a conflict or 
  during the review of the Author’s turn. 
   
  SPEAKING IN CHARACTER / AS YOUR CHARACTER 
  If your supporting character is part of a conversation with an Author (or with another 
  supporting character) then you’ll have the opportunity to describe what your supporting 
  character says or (if you prefer) to speak the words that they say, as if you’re an actor 
  improvising a conversation. 
   
  HOW DO YOU INVENT A SECRET? 
  The secret can be anything (big, little, earth-shattering, or mundane) as long as it’s 
  something the supporting character doesn’t want the Author to know. 
   
  The secret can involve the Author directly (“I’m having sex with your wife”), or be about 
  a relationship the supporting character doesn’t want the Author to know about (“I know 
  your wife’s cheating on you”).  
   
  However, the secret also doesn’t need to involve the Author at all (“I’m passing military 
  data on to my Communist Party handler,” or “I’m saving for my sex-change operation in 
  Mexico.”) 
  
  - 41 - 
   
  HOW TO USE SECRETS 
  The purpose of a secret isn’t to keep it hidden: it’s to reveal it. A revealed secret changes 
  the Author’s life and creates new situations for them to deal with. 
   
  This revelation can happen at whatever pace the supporting character’s Owner feels is 
  right. It could come after layering subtle hints throughout multiple scenes with the 
  supporting character over multiple sessions, or by playing the implications of the secret 
  so obviously that the Author figures it out at the end of her first scene with the supporting 
  character. 
   
  Secrets are (before this revelation) kept from the Author’s Player. The player should be 
  aware there is stuff going on with the supporting character that they don’t know about. 
  This subtext creates a sense of inner life in the supporting characters, and (hopefully) 
  provokes or excites the Author’s player into finding out the secrets of the supporting 
  characters she’s interested in. 
    
  Secrets also help the Owner portray her supporting characters. 
   
   
   
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/george_eastman_house/2987738602/sizes/m/in/photostream/ 
   
   
  
  - 42 - 
  DO SECRETS HAVE TO COME OUT? 
  Secrets are a tool that you can use it or not as you play. There are lots of reasons a secret 
  might not be revealed: perhaps the Author’s player isn’t interested in the secret or 
  perhaps the time might never be right to reveal it. 
   
  An unrevealed secret can still help you create a fun or moving characterization of the 
  supporting character. Secrets create subtext, provoke seemly inexplicable behaviour, and 
  (potentially) generate interest in the supporting character. 
   
  WHAT HAPPENS AFTER A SECRET IS REVEALED? 
  Revealing a secret focuses attention on how will the supporting character’s life change: 
  • What will they do now? 
  • How will the Author will treat the supporting character deal with the ramifications of 
  the secret? 
  • What will the new relationship between the Author and the supporting character look 
  like? 
   
  THE PROBLEM WITH SECRETS 
  However, there’s a significant potential problem with secrets: they have the potential to 
  create incoherence in the fiction and frustration between players. 
   
  For instance, imagine a scene in the story where the Author has her own objectives, and 
  is also dealing with two supporting characters who have secret agendas. In addition, the 
  Creator has their secret three-point plan for where they want the Weird to go and is busy 
  hinting at it throughout the scene.  
   
  With all these people keeping secrets from each other, someone can easily do something 
  totally consistent with their secret that simultaneously negates what another player 
  believes is true about their secret.  
   
  With everyone pushing in slightly different directions, the result can be an underlying 
  lack of coherence in the story you’re creating. In previous playtests, this has led to 
  players feeling frustrated because there’s something that’s happened in the fiction that 
  doesn’t suit them. 
    
  So, there’s a conflict between keeping things secret (creating subtext and a thrill of 
  discovery) versus having all the information known to everyone at the table (helps the 
  story flow smoothly) 
   
  
  - 43 - 
  The solutions I’m using are a compromise between these two things. During play, 
  supporting characters’ Owners do all of the following:  
  • The Owner shows her supporting character’s secret to everyone (except for 
  the Author’s player) who is in a scene with them. This includes the Creator 
  and the owners of any supporting character who’s affected by the secret.  
  • Owners need to subtly introduce an element of their supporting character’s 
  secret in every scene  
  • The Owner can veto adding a relationship that involves their supporting 
  character to the Setting Chart (if that relationship is inconsistent with the 
  supporting character’s secret). 
  • After an Author fails a conflict, the Owner can introduce a relationship that 
  hints at the supporting character’s secret. 
   
  All of these rules (and when to use them) are listed on the Owner and Audience 
  Worksheet (page 124), and in the ‘Review What Happened in the Author’s Turn’ section. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
  - 44 - 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/george_eastman_house/2986882105/sizes/o/in/photostream/ 
  
  - 45 - 
  San Francisco in the middle of the sixties 
  was a very special time and place to be part 
  of. There was madness in any direction, at 
  any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the 
  Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La 
  Honda … 
   
  There was a fantastic universal sense that 
  whatever we were doing was right, that we 
  were winning an inevitable victory over the 
  forces of Old and Evil.  
   
  There was no sense in fighting – on our 
  side or theirs. Our energy would simply 
  prevail. We had all the momentum; we 
  were riding on the crest of a high and 
  beautiful wave … 
   
  So now, less than five years later, you can 
  go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look 
  West, and with the right kind of eyes you 
  can almost see the high-water mark – that 
  place where the wave finally broke and 
  rolled back. 
   
  Hunter S. Thompson 
  ‘Fear and Loathing in 
  Las Vegas’ 
   
  
  - 46 - 
  the structure of 
  the game 
  (how to build a story) 
   
   
  The story you create in Left Coast is divided into the following units: 
   
  • Sessions (times when we get together to play) 
  • Chapters (significant blocks of the story where we’ve focused our attention on both 
  Authors) 
  • Turns (a period of time focusing on just one Author’s story) 
  • Scenes (where we focus on a particular conversation between the Author and her 
  friends, or a moment of decision and insight in her life). 
   
  Here’s how all of these units of time fit together: 
   
   
  
  - 47 - 
  When playing Left Coast, the group aims to find a resolution to each Author’s life that 
  feels ‘right’: not necessarily happy, and not necessarily with every answer solved. The 
  game can end when the players responsible for portraying the Authors announce that 
  they’ll retire, or when the group has addressed all the questions about the Authors’ lives 
  they think are important, or when you run out of time to play.  
   
  The whole game can involve playing one or more sessions. Ambiguous or anti-climactic 
  endings to a game of Left Coast are OK: the Authors’ stories don’t have to be finished to 
  be meaningful. For instance, if you only play one session, think of it as having created a 
  short story with a lack of closure. That’s fine. 
   
  So just relax, take your time, and don’t worry about wrapping the story up with some 
  artificial and spectacular climax. 
   
  During a chapter, the group alternates the attention of the story between each Author, 
  taking turns. A chapter will probably contain one or two turns for each Author. That’s 
  enough time to learn a few things about the people in the Author’s life, make a few 
  discoveries (or notice a few things) about the Weird, and entangle the Author in a 
  difficult situation or two. 
   
  (If you want to, you can play through multiple chapters in a session.) 
   
  A turn contains one or more scenes: moments where the Author interacts with other 
  supporting characters. A turn lasts until we feel this Author’s story can be left for a while 
  and we want to now pay attention to another Author. 
   
  The group’s creative goals while playing the game are: 
  • to learn about the Author’s life and the Author’s relationship with their supporting 
  characters 
  • to gain insights into the supporting characters and get a sense of their inner lives, 
  and to help the supporting characters develop motivations that are separate from 
  theirs relationships with the Author.  
  • to encounter the Weird  
   
  It’s useful to think about how to play the game at three levels: 
   
  • What do we do over the course of a session? 
  • What do we do in a chapter? 
  • What do we do right now? 
   
  
  - 48 - 
   
  WHAT DO WE DO IN A SESSION?  
   
  The group’s aim, during a session, is to try to change the situation in an Author’s life: 
  creating problems she must address and decisions she must make. You do this by playing 
  supporting characters and Weird forces who want things from the Authors. As these 
  scenes with these characters accumulate, it will gradually put more pressure on the 
  Authors. The consequences of the Authors’ decisions and attempts to solve their 
  problems will create new situations. 
   
  During a session, you’ll move from introductory scenes (where we first meet the 
  supporting characters) to scenes where supporting characters and elements in the Weird 
  quadrant develop ‘agency’: this means they begin taking independent actions that drive 
  the story. Supporting characters with agency have strong and consistent motivations that 
  compete with the Authors’ desires and goals. 
   
   
  NB: 
  This sense of agency naturally develops in some supporting characters and  
   
  not in others. Don’t sweat it if it doesn’t happen. Just keep an eye out for  
  the supporting characters who interest you and who seem to have an inner  
  life. 
   
   
  By the end of a session, I’d expect each Author’s life to have been seriously destabilized 
  in some way. At least one aspect of her social life will have been radically changed, and 
  the Author will be starting to have to juggle her own ambitions with the needs of the 
  supporting characters around her. In addition, the Weird forces surrounding the Author 
  will almost certainly have taken at least one concrete and perceptible step to disrupt her 
  life.  
   
  After a session of play, the group should be able to identify who the principal supporting 
  characters are: the ones whose stories are important to resolve, or who need closure with 
  the Author, or who are working against the Author. 
   
   
  WHAT DO WE DO IN A CHAPTER? 
   
  Chapters are extended chunks of story that give you the opportunity to (a) figure out what 
  the Authors, supporting characters and the Weird want and (b) let them try to get it. 
   
  During the chapter, you’ll follow the Authors around as they meet the various supporting 
  characters in their lives, become immersed in their real-life web of problems and social 
  obligations, and play out scenes about the Weird forces invading the Author’s life. These 
  conversations and scenes will almost certainly reveal things you couldn’t tell just from 
  looking at the Setting Chart. Most importantly, you’ll discover which characters interest 
  you and which conflicts come to life  
  
  - 49 - 
   
  CHAPTER GOALS 
  The group’s creative goals during a chapter are to: 
  • learn about the Author’s life and the Author’s relationship with the supporting 
  characters in her life ( and why those relationships are problematic for the Author) 
  • gain insights into the supporting characters and get a sense of their inner life 
  • start feeling that the setting has a life of its own (as a result of the above two bullet-
  points) 
  • encounter the Weird and understand it better 
   
  The goal for Author players during a chapter are: 
  • find out what sort of life the Author has 
  • start to decide which relationships and situations are interesting 
   
  The goals for Owners of supporting characters during a chapter are: 
  • to help their supporting characters develop motivations that are separate from their 
  relationships with the Author 
  • to describe the supporting characters acting in ways that are consistent with those 
  motivations but also make the Authors’ lives problematic 
   
  The Creator’s goals during a chapter are: 
  • to advance the Weird’s plan, making sure the invasion of Weird forces in the 
  Author’s life antagonizes, provokes, or unsettles the Author 
  • to decide what the supporting characters in the Weird quadrant do 
  • to describe how the world reacts to the Author, supporting characters and the Weird 
  (which can involve initiating a conflict against the Author) 
  • to decide when to introduce new events or supporting characters into the scene, 
  change its location, and when to end the scene. 
   
  ENDING A CHAPTER 
  The chapter ends when the group accumulates five Story Dice. There are several ways to 
  gain Story Dice: 
  • at the end of a round of scenes (once all Authors have had a turn as the focus of the 
  story) 
  • when an Author fails a conflict 
  • when the Author has to roll Story Dice to resolve a conflict 
  • whenever a ‘retired’ Author has a scene 
  • (optionally) you can choose to gain a Story Die whenever an Author succeeds in a 
  conflict, or as the result of success or failure in a Story scene. 
   
  The player who adds the fifth story die gets to choose two benefits (from a list of options) 
  that improve either her Author’s life or her player’s understanding of her situation. Every 
  Author also experiences increased opposition from the Weird at this point.  
   
   
  
  - 50 - 
  WHAT DO WE DO DURING A SCENE? 
   
  A scene shows the Author dealing with the demands of one or more people in her life, 
  and coping with the weirdness emerging in her world. Scenes are also useful 
  opportunities to seeing how the Authors actually live their lives and what’s important to 
  them. 
   
  Scenes have this structure:  
  • Start the scene by bringing the Author and one or more supporting characters 
  together 
  • Play out the conversations and interactions between the Author and the supporting 
  character(s).  
  • The Creator subtly inserts information about the Weird  
  • The Owners of the supporting characters subtly insert information about their 
  secrets, support or oppose the Author, and explore what’s really going on in the 
  supporting characters’ relationships with the Author. 
  • Whenever the Author is being opposed, play out a conflict. 
  • At any point, anyone can ask questions if they need to establish the scene more 
  vividly in their minds or clarify what’s going on. 
  • End the scene when the group agrees that (a) the scene’s creative potential has been 
  fulfilled, and (b) the story should spend some time focusing on the other Author. 
  • Review the scene’s implications. 
   
  CONFLICTS 
  Conflicts are initiated when the Author is being genuinely opposed by the Weird, a 
  supporting character, or part of the world during a scene.  
   
  For example, there may be an argument, or an attempt to escape from the Men in Black, 
  or an investigation into the strange gaps in the Author’s memory. Everyone needs to keep 
  a look-out for these moments and identify them to the group. 
   
  There are four stages to resolving a conflict. First, agree on one thing the Author wants to 
  achieve from the conflict (the focus of the conflict). Secondly, decide which characters 
  and relationships from the Setting Chart are involved: these give you bonuses in the next 
  step.  
   
  Third, roll the Author’s dice. The outcome of that dice roll determines whether the 
  Author gets: 
   
  • a positive result about the focus of the conflict (and how positive the result is).  
  • a chance to be pro-active in her next turn (rather than react to the demands of the 
  supporting characters and Weird forces in her life) 
  • to gain Author Dice and/or Story Dice (gaining five Author Dice triggers a Reset 
  scene for the Author; gaining five Story Dice ends the chapter.) 
  • to create supporting characters. 
  
  - 51 - 
   
  Finally, after determining whether or not the Author achieved what she wanted from the 
  conflict, continue playing the scene. By exploring the aftermath of the conflict you’ll get 
  to the emotional truth or quirky details that develop the Author’s story.  
   
  Scenes will often (but not always) lead to conflicts. If there’s no conflict, the Author 
  gains a little more power over her life (in the form of gaining an extra Author dice) but 
  she comes closer to having unresolved issues upset her life (in terms of the rules, 
  ‘triggering a Reset scene’). 
   
  SPECIAL TYPES OF SCENES 
  Reset scenes radically change the Author’s life in ways that will, eventually, require the 
  Author to deal with it. Reset scenes allow your group to define exactly how the Author’s 
  life has become more emotionally fraught, or in what way the Weirdness has begun 
  pulling the Author’s life apart more significantly. Reset Scenes occur when an Author has 
  gained five Author dice. 
   
  Story scenes represent what happens when an Author writes a story. The Current Author 
  can choose to have a Story scene on her turn if she completely succeeded at resolving a 
  conflict in her previous turn (meaning that she’s in control of at least one part of her life, 
  and now has time to write). 
   
  ENDING A SCENE 
  Any player can suggest ending the scene. Good moments for suggesting this include 
  ‘after a conflict’ and ‘if there doesn’t appear to be a conflict brewing’. After a group 
  discussion about the group’s interest in continuing to follow the Author, the Creator 
  either ends the Turn, continues the scene, or follows the Author into another scene. 
   
  After the scene has ended, the group quickly discusses the scene’s implications for the 
  story, and then decides whether to end the Author’s turn or not. 
   
  
  - 52 - 
  This flowchart shows how all this fits together (you may find it a useful reference as you play): 
   
   
  
  - 53 - 
   
   
  ADVICE ABOUT THE STRUCTURE OF THE GAME 
   
   
   
  AN INTUITIVE CONTINUITY 
  The Author’s stories will often be happening in parallel with each other. Rather than 
  sharing scenes, Authors will pursue their own goals, and deal with the problems in their 
  lives independently – only occasionally hanging out with each other. This can lead to 
  situations where (for instance) one Author’s plot has been set over a single night while 
  another’s has spanned a couple of months.  
   
  One of the creative responsibilities of the whole group playing Left Coast is to make the 
  chronology make sense.  
   
  My advice is to roll with it.  
   
  There’s an intuitive continuity to this types of stories, and when the time-difference get 
  tricky to explain the whole table can usually figure out a way to explain it – maybe 
  through the use of flashbacks, flash-forwards, or another story-telling device.  
   
  And sometimes your group will decide you don’t need to make the chronology 
  consistent. Sometimes the story will be stronger and more satisfying if you leave things 
  unexplained. 
   
  If none of that works, … just ignore it. Left Coast isn’t a game about water-tight logic; 
  it’s about maladjusted writers with easy access to drugs and alcohol whose worlds are 
  falling apart and being invaded. 
   
   
   
   
   
  
  - 54 - 
  final preparations 
   
   
  There are a few final administrative things to do before starting to play the game: you 
  need to distribute handouts, set up the Story Dice, and choose which Author to focus on 
  at the start the game. 
   
  DISTRIBUTE HANDOUTS 
   
  1. Distribute copies of the 4-page rules summary to everyone (pages 120 to 123) 
   
  2. Distribute copies of all the worksheets  and the conflict resolution sheet to people 
  in the appropriate roles: 
  • The Owner and Audience worksheet on page 124 
  • The Supporting Character Cards on page 125 
  • The Author worksheet on page 126 
  • The Creator worksheet on page 127 
  • The conflict resolution worksheet on page 128 
   
   
  SET THE NUMBER OF STORY DICE TO ‘ONE’ 
   
  Ideally you should have five Story Dice: these are normal six-sided dice that are easy to 
  distinguish from the general supply of Author dice.  
   
  Story dice can be used by any Author player. 
   
   
  1. Put one Story Dice where everyone can reach it. 
   
  2. At the start of each new chapter, reset the number of Story Dice to one. Put this 
  die where everyone can reach it. 
   
   
  CHOOSE THE AUTHOR TO FOCUS ON FIRST 
   
  During the game, the group alternates the attention of the story between each Author, 
  flipping from Author 1 to Author 2 and back to Author 1. 
   
  Each time you flip you’ll play out one or more scenes with an Author.  
   
   
  1. Give the first Turn to the Author whose player has the least Author Dice. 
   
  
  - 55 - 
   
  NB: 
  The player who has the Turn is called the Current Author. 
   
   
  2. If there’s a tie in the number of Author Dice and this will be the first scene of the 
  game, start with the Author player whose birthday is closest to March 2 1982. 
   
  3. If there’s a tie at the beginning of a new chapter, have a group discussion and 
  agree on whose Author is in the worse position in the story. Start with that 
  Author's player 
   
  4. Give the Current Author a distinctive token. This is a visual reminder that it’s 
  their turn, and it will be passed between Authors as they take their turns. 
   
   
  ADVICE BEFORE STARTING THE GAME 
   
   
  WHAT ARE STORY DICE? 
  All Authors can use the Story Dice. This pool of dice represents three things:  
  • the Authors’ ability to control or resist the Weird forces intruding into their lives 
  • their ability to write 
  • their general ability to overcome sources of conflict that aren’t contained in the Weird, 
  Family, Trouble, or Money quadrants. 
   
  The number of Story Dice increases throughout the game. Once there are five Story Dice, 
  a chapter ends. The player who added the fifth die to the pool of Story Dice gains an 
  advantage for her Author, and all the Authors experience a setback or plot development 
  involving the supporting characters in her Weird quadrant. 
   
   
  HOW TO PROCEED 
  My recommendation is to read these next few sections (up to ‘Ending the Chapter’) to the 
  players at the table as you come across each of them for the first time. Reading out the 
  first two or three paragraphs of each section should give you all enough information to 
  play the game.  
   
  (You may also want to have a couple of copies of the flowchart on page 53 for people to 
  refer to.) 
   
  After playing through an Author’s Turn for the first time, you should be able to refer to 
  the Rules Summary (pages 108-111) to run the game, and use the following notes in this 
  section as a back-up to get more details from if you need them. 
   
   
  
  - 56 - 
  select a scene 
   
   
  When starting an Author’s turn with a scene, you’re aiming to create a plausible situation 
  that brings the Author into contact with one or more supporting characters.  
   
  The Current Author reads through the following list to determine what scene to play. If 
  an item in the list applies, follow the instructions; if not, go to the next item. 
   
  1. If this is your Author’s first scene, your Author will encounter the supporting 
  character you said was the most significant person in her life. In this case, go to 
  Step 8. 
   
  2. Did your Author’s Dice increase to 5 in the previous turn? If so, go to the ‘Reset 
  Scenes’ section (page 84). 
   
  3. Did you earn a ‘complete success’ on your previous turn? If so, you can either: 
  o describe the action your Author is taking and go straight to Step 13 (with other 
  players reacting as necessary) 
  o write a story, in which case, go to the ‘Story scenes’ section. 
   
  4. Ask the group if something obviously has to be the next scene. If so: 
  o The group decides where the scene will take place 
  o The group decides which supporting characters have to be in the scene 
  o Go to step 8. 
   
  If none of the above steps apply … 
   
  5. Everyone except the Current Author names one supporting character they’re 
  interested in seeing the Author have a scene with. This supporting character has to 
  either: 
  o belong to the Author  
  o be connected to one of the Author’s supporting characters by a relationship in 
  the Author’s color 
  o be another Author. 
   
  NB: 
  More than one person can name the same supporting character. 
   
  If you have a particularly strong idea of what the supporting character you’ve  
  named wants to do next, you may describe that briefly (in one or two sentences). 
   
  6. The Current Author selects one or two supporting characters she’d like the scene 
  to focus on. 
   
  
  - 57 - 
  7. If the selected supporting characters don’t have owners, assign owners now based 
  on who’s interested, inspired, or curious about them (and if none of those apply, 
  choose the person for whom it’s most convenient if they own the supporting 
  character). The new Owner should flesh out the supporting character, if necessary. 
   
  8. The Creator imagines she’s a novelist writing a scene about the Author. Speaking 
  as the novelist would, the Creator briefly describes the city and the weather.  
   
  9. If the Owner has a strong idea of what the supporting character will do right now, 
  go to Step 11. 
   
  Otherwise, the Owner imagines what her supporting character is doing. If she has 
  an insight about what the supporting character is doing that strikes her as utterly 
  true and authentic, use that. Otherwise, you can imagine the supporting character 
  dealing with her secret, but doing something banal and obvious is equally fine.  
   
  10. The Current Author briefly describes what her Author is doing at the moment. 
   
  11. The Owner describes how the Author’s life is affected by the supporting 
  character. This could be anything that feels creatively right. Some options 
  include: 
  o The Owner interrupts the Author at any point to describe the supporting 
  character arriving where the Author is 
  o The supporting character takes actions away from the Author’s presence (‘off-
  screen’) that have significant and unignorable ramifications for the Author. 
  o The Author arrives where the supporting character is 
  o The Owner alters the location of the scene so the Author is now with the 
  supporting character (this could involve advancing time significantly). 
   
  12. The Current Author describes how her Author interacts with (or unsuccessfully 
  tries to avoid) the supporting character. 
   
  13. The Owner and the Creator respond to the Current Author’s descriptions of what 
  her Author says and does by describing how the supporting character, the world, 
  or the Weird reacts. 
   
  The Current Author describes how her Author responds to the supporting 
  character’s Owner’s and the Creator’s descriptions of what the supporting 
  character(s), world, and the Weird do. 
   
  14. At any point, anyone can ask questions if they need to establish the scene more 
  vividly in their minds. 
   
  At some point, you should feel the characters have settled in to interacting with each 
  other. This means you’ve successfully started the scene; you should now go to the 
  ‘Explore the Scene’ section (on page 62).  
  
  - 58 - 
  Here’s an overview of how to start a scene: 
   
   
  
  - 59 - 
   
  ADVICE FOR STARTING SCENES 
   
   
   
  ADJUSTING HOW TO START A SCENE 
  The ‘Select a Scene’ checklist (above) contains my recommended procedures for starting 
  a scene. Once your group is comfortable with Left Coast scenes, you can be more 
  informal in how you start them. Drop any procedures your group feels they don’t need, 
  and move straight to the ‘Explore the Scene’ section. 
   
  CONTINUITY  
  Take into account what happened in the last scene the Author had, and any successes or 
  failures they had. If they’ve recently been writing, remember they’ve been neglecting 
  their family and friends in order to find the time to write 
   
  DON’T RUSH INTO A CONFLICT 
  Keep the beginning of a scene as realistic or low-key as you think is plausible in the 
  fiction. Scenes should only open with immediate conflicts (such as being right in the 
  thick of an argument or an action sequence) if those conflicts have been previously 
  established in the story. 
   
  THE VIBE 
  Generally, scenes in Left Coast have a laid-back vibe. Think of it as like a scene from a 
  character-centered indie movie: dialogue-driven; revealing character and the Author’s 
  day-to-day life; and comfortable with circling around to a point. Expect to do a fair bit of 
  roleplaying to find out what the scene is really about.  
   
  MULTIPLE AUTHORS IN A SCENE 
  Scenes with two or more Authors in them give you a chance to develop parallels and 
  contrasts between the Authors, and to reflect on what you’ve learned about them so far. 
   
  Bear the advice about an intuitive continuity from the ‘Advice about the Structure of the 
  Game’ section (page 53) in mind: bringing Authors together may mean you have to 
  decide how to synchronise their stories, as their turns may have been covered different 
  amounts of time. 
   
  LOCATIONS FOR SCENES WITH MULTIPLE AUTHORS 
  You can establish a location or event that could bring the Authors together (such as a 
  book launch, a SF convention, or a bar). 
   
   
  
  - 60 - 
  It's an old game. At science-fiction 
  conventions the fans try to get their 
  favorite author washed-out stinking 
  drunk. Then they can go home and tell 
  stories about how he really tied one on and 
  they were right there to see it. They add to 
  the stories until legends are built around 
  what writers do at conventions. It's all in 
  fun. 
    
  But the fans also vote the Hugo awards, 
  and you have to be popular to win.  
   
  I'd been nominated five times for awards 
  and never won one, so instead of hiding in 
  a back booth with other writers that year I 
  was at a fan party, drinking with a 
  roomful of short ugly kids with pimples, 
  tall serious Harvard types, girls with long 
  stringy hair, half-pretty girls half-dressed 
  to show it, and damn few people with good 
  manners. 
   
         Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle 
  ‘Inferno’ 
   
   
   
  
  - 61 - 
  explore the scene 
   
   
  Exploring the scene involves all the players having a conversation where they 
  collectively imagine what is happening to the Author in the fictional events of the story. 
  The purpose of this conversation is to gain insights into the Author’s relationship with the 
  supporting character; the Author’s life; the Author herself; and the Weird forces 
  surrounding the Author. 
   
  In this exploring-the-scene conversation the responsibility for saying something passes 
  back and forward between the players. This is very free-flowing, but it can involve acting 
  in-character (as the Owners and Current Author describe how their characters interact: 
  what they do, what they say, and how they react to what everyone else does). It can also 
  involve everyone offering suggestions about what could happen next and sharing your 
  creative insights with the group. 
   
  There are four things to keep track of while exploring the scene: 
  • The Current Author portrays her Author and describes how she reacts to events 
  • The Creator introduces an element of the Weird 
  • Owners introduce an element of their supporting characters’ secrets 
  • `All players may contribute to the conversation. 
   
   
  PORTRAY THE CURRENT AUTHOR 
   
  1. As the focus of the turn, the Current Author decides what her Author does next 
  and describes this to the rest of the group. 
   
   
  INTRODUCE THE WEIRD 
   
  1. The Creator must describe something tiny the Author could notice about the 
  Weird starting to intrude into the world. It should be one of the following: 
  • the next natural step the Weird would take 
  • the smallest possible escalation from what the Weird has previously done 
  • the ramification of something the Weird has done off-screen that is now 
  affecting the Author’s life 
  • a new aspect of the Weird plan. 
   
  When you introduce and describe this Weird intrusion, narrate it as if you are 
  writing your novel about the Author. 
   
  
  - 62 - 
  I think of this Creator’s description as ‘gradually revealing more of details about the 
  Weird iceberg’. This mandatory element is a key part of the Creator’s process of circling 
  around understanding what’s going on with the Weird: gaining insights into it through 
  playing and describing what it does. By doing this, the ‘right’ answer to what the Weird 
  is up to will emerge naturally. 
   
   
  INTRODUCE THE SUPPORTING CHARACTER’S SECRET 
   
  1. If this is the first time a supporting character has been in a scene, the Owner lets 
  every player except for the Current Author know what the supporting character’s 
  secret is. 
   
  2. Whenever an Owner portrays one of her supporting characters in a scene, she 
  should introduce one aspect of that character’s secret into the scene. Examples 
  include: 
  • a reaction 
  • a moment of the world being affected by the secret 
  • introducing a new supporting character related to the secret 
  • evidence of the secret 
  • adding a relationship to the Setting Chart after a conflict or during the 
  ‘Review what happened in the Author’s Turn’ phase (page 74). 
   
   
  CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION 
   
  As with any conversation, it will usually be obvious whose turn it is to speak and 
  contribute to the exploration of the scene. Perhaps it’s the person with an insight to share, 
  or someone whose character obviously needs to react to the imagined events in the story 
  so that the game can continue. 
   
  If anyone ever feels like it’s their turn to speak, but they’re uncertain what to say, advice 
  for each role is listed on the worksheets (and below). 
   
  CREATOR 
  • Describe things as if you’re writing a novel about the Author. 
  • Orchestrate the off-screen world and make it seem alive. 
  o Ask the owners of off-screen supporting characters how they’d react, as required 
  o Describe the actions or effects of an unowned supporting character who isn’t in this 
  scene. 
  o Hint at events happening off-screen that will destabilize the Author’s life 
  • Follow your instincts about what the Weird does – and say it, even if it seems 
  nonsensical 
   
  
  - 63 - 
  OWNERS OF SUPPORTING CHARACTERS 
  • Play supporting characters you own (or incidental ones), as required 
  • Talk about what your supporting character is focused on. Follow what your supporting 
  character wants. 
  • Let your supporting character subtly express their support or opposition for the Author.  
   
  CURRENT AUTHOR 
  • Trust your instincts and react to the supporting character as you think your Author 
  would. You can either describe what your Author says and does, or speak (like an 
  actor) as if you are the Author. 
  • Ask yourself what your Author really wants, and act on it. 
  • Try to deepen your understanding of your Author’s relationship with the supporting 
  character. 
  • If it feels natural for your Author to shift to a new location or visit a new supporting 
  character, do it. 
  • If you sense an supporting character is resisting your Author, ask to initiate a 
  conflict. This gives you an opportunity to alter the setting or the Author’s 
  circumstances. 
  • Ask questions to clarify where your Author is and what’s going on 
   
  THE AUDIENCE 
  At all times, all players also act as (a) fans of the story, (b) editors who clarify the story, 
  and (c) creative collaborators (offering suggestions about what could happen). 
   
  This generalized role is called ‘The Audience’. As the Audience, if it feels like your turn 
  to speak, but you’re uncertain what to say try the following: 
  • Ask a question to deepen your understanding of the Author, other supporting characters 
  , and the setting. 
  • Look for where the Author doesn’t have control - and point this out to the Creator or 
  make your supporting character do something that puts pressure on that area. 
  • Suggest how to make the Author’s life problematic 
  • Give the Current Author, supporting characters’ Owners, and Creator time to come to 
  their own answers. 
  • If you think people are rushing to solutions, remind them it’s OK to circle around the 
  answer 
  • Encourage the group to focus on the Author 
  • Just relax: listen and enjoy the conversation and story as it unfolds.  
   
  
  - 64 - 
  Here’s an overview of how to explore the scene: 
   
   
  
  - 65 - 
   
  ADVICE FOR EXPLORING THE SCENE 
   
   
  TRUST YOUR INTUITION 
  Left Coast is very insight-driven. The fundamental principle for playing is ‘Trust your 
  intuition’. 
   
  The goal while playing the game is to deepen our understanding of the setting and the 
  supporting characters, to discover stuff about the supporting characters and about the 
  supporting characters/Author relationship.  
   
  I often find when I'm playing an supporting character that I have a moment where I go 
  "Aha! That's what's really going on with them. That's what they really want." In Left 
  Coast, you should be aiming to have that moment of discovery. 
   
  CIRCLE AROUND ANSWERS 
  Part of looking for insights is to wait until the ‘right’ answer occurs to you (rather than 
  rushing to a decision). It’s better to come up with an answer that’s true or internally 
  consistent or that you’re excited about, than to go with the very first idea you have – one 
  which feels a little bit wrong but you go with because you’re afraid of wasting the other 
  players’ time. 
   
  As a group, accept that there may be silences or pauses as players think about an answer 
  or search for the truth. This is cool. 
   
  Respect each player’s ability to find the truth for themselves. Only provide suggestions if 
  you’re asked for them. 
   
  If you’re experiencing any creative resistance to discovering an answer – like your mind 
  is telling you that this isn’t the right moment to decide this - then don’t answer the 
  question in this scene. 
   
  If it’s vital to answer it right now and you don’t have that certainty of insight, tell the 
  other players you’re circling around the answer, and take a short break to reflect on it.  
   
  CIRCLE AROUND GOALS 
  Similarly, don’t expect an Author to aggressively or pro-actively go after her goal at 
  every point. There may be times where she isn’t certain about how to proceed / what to 
  do next. Let players (and their Authors) be uncertain. 
   
  
  - 66 - 
  ACTION SCENES OR SCENES WITHOUT DIALOGUE 
  Even if there’s no conversation in the scene (say you’re dealing with something non-
  verbal, like a chase), keep the creation and narration of details flowing back-and-forth as 
  a conversation between the players. The Current Author describes what the Author does; 
  the Creator describes what the world and the Weird do; Owners of supporting characters 
  can add descriptions as appropriate; and everyone can make suggestions. 
   
  BALANCE 
  Scenes will either head towards conflicts or move to a point where the group decides 
  whether to cut away from the Author. 
   
  • Any  player can initiate a conflict (page 67) if they identify the Author is being 
  resisted 
  • Any player can state they’d like to end the turn (page 79). The Author’s turn can go 
  through multiple scenes. 
   
  While playing the scene, you’ll have to balance keeping an eye out for those two things 
  with ‘being creatively engaged with what’s happening in the story’. 
   
   
  
  - 67 - 
   
   
  conflicts 
   
   
  While exploring the scene, everyone needs to keep a look-out for moments where the 
  Author is being genuinely opposed by the Weird, a supporting character, or part of the 
  world – even if these are just simple or small conflicts of interest or moments of 
  resistance. 
   
  Once a conflict has been initiated, it is resolved through a combination of group 
  agreement and randomness. First, the group agrees on the motivations for the conflict and 
  decides which elements from the Setting Chart might be involved. Then, the Current 
  Author applies these to a dice roll. The outcome of that dice roll determines who has the 
  upper hand and how the group describes the outcome of the conflict. 
   
   
  INITIATE A CONFLICT 
   
  For groups playing Left Coast for the first time, there’s lots of advice and procedures for 
  initiating conflicts on the supporting characters’ Owners and Weird Worksheets, and on 
  the Current Author worksheet. Because it’s good to pull all of that into one place, here’s 
  the process for initiating a conflict. 
   
  1. Any player can initiate a conflict. 
   
  • The Audience Everyone who’s playing watches out for moments of potential 
  conflict and asks the Creator and Owners questions: 
  o Is the supporting character resisting the Author? 
  o Is the world acting against the Author? 
  o Does the Creator think the Weird might do something to oppose the 
  Author? 
   
  • The Current Author senses when her Author is being resisted, and tells the 
  Creator or Owner she’d like to initiate a conflict. 
   
  • The Creator initiates a conflict when she feels the world (either the 
  environment or unowned supporting characters) or the Weird would push 
  back against something the Author wants.  
   
  If the Creator senses the supporting character is resisting the Author, she 
  should check with the Owner (to see if that’s the case). 
   
  
  - 68 - 
  • The Owner of a supporting character in the scene initiates a conflict when 
  she feel it’s natural for her character to genuinely resist the Author’s attempts 
  to get something she wants or to make something happen. 
   
  This resistance can work the other way around, too:  Supporting characters 
  can also try to get the Author to do something she doesn’t want to do – if the 
  supporting character doesn’t let up on her efforts, then initiate a conflict  
   
  2. The group agrees whether this represents a conflict (or not). 
   
  3. If a conflict is initiated, go to the ‘Define the Conflict’ section 
   
  4. If no-one identifies or wants to initiate a conflict, and it doesn’t feel like a 
  potential conflict is brewing in the scene, then either keep playing or go to the 
  ‘Ending the Scene’ section. 
   
   
  DEFINE THE CONFLICT 
   
  The Current Author refers to the Conflict sheet on page 128 and guides the group through 
  the following steps to resolve a conflict: 
   
  1. The group agrees what the conflict’s about on the surface and what it’s really 
  about: emotionally, psychologically, or socially for the Author (the subtext).  
   
  If you need help figuring out this focus, try these three steps: 
   
  • The Current Author can give a monologue about why this is a conflict for her 
  Author, and how the Author wants this moment of conflict to end. (Think of 
  this monologue as like reading about the Author’s train of thought in a novel.) 
  • Everybody else in the group can ask questions of the Current Author during 
  the monologue (to clarify the Author’s motivations). “What do you really 
  want?” is a good question to ask. 
  • The supporting character’s Owner can say what her supporting character 
  doesn’t want the Author to achieve, but she doesn’t have to say WHY (in 
  order to preserve any secrets). 
   
   
  NB:  
  The death of one of the Authors cannot be the surface or subtext level of a  
  conflict 
   
   
  
  - 69 - 
  2. Read out the questions in the following list, and choose the first item that applies: 
  • Does this conflict need to be resolved by the Author spending (or needing) 
  money? If so, go to ‘Resolving Conflicts about Money’ (page 71).  
  • Does this conflict involve opposition from the Weird or general opposition 
  from aspects of the world that aren’t on the Setting Chart. If so, the Current 
  Author picks up the Story Dice. 
  • Otherwise, the Current Author picks up her Author dice  
   
  NB: 
  It’s completely fine if an Author’s turn doesn’t have a conflict. In this  
  case, the Author will gain an Author die during the ‘Review the Author’s  
  Turn’ section, leading her life closer to being destabilized in some way 
  (see ‘Reset Scenes’, below). 
   
   
  DETERMINE THE OUTCOME OF THE CONFLICT 
   
  1. The Current Author can choose to pick up a bonus die if the conflict involves or 
  affects a Relationship on the Setting Chart that belongs to her Author.  
   
  2. The Current Author can choose to pick up as many bonus dice as she wants from 
  any single story her Author has written (see ‘Story scenes’, below). Delete those 
  bonus dice from the Setting Chart.  
   
  3. The Current Author rolls her dice: any dice that come up ‘5’ or ‘6’ are successes. 
  If she has one or more successes, go to the ‘Resolve the Conflict’ section. 
   
  4. If there were no successes (no 5s or 6s) then the Creator wins. She takes a number 
  of tokens equal to the number of dice that were rolled (the Current Author keeps 
  the actual dice). Rather than spending her successes now, the Creator keeps them 
  for later. Go to the ‘Narrate the Outcome of the Conflict’ section. 
   
   
  NB:  
  If there’s more than one conflict in the Author’s turn, the Creator keeps all  
  the successes from each conflict and spends them all at the end of the  
  Author’s turn. 
   
  
  - 70 - 
   
  RESOLVE THE CONFLICT 
   
  If the Author won the conflict, the Current Author works through these steps: 
   
  1. Distribute your successes between the items on the following list.  
   
   
  NB: You need to choose a second item from the list before re-choosing an item. 
   
  • Your Author succeeds at the surface level of the conflict  
  • Your Author succeeds at what the conflict is really about (the subtext)  
   
  o If you select both the ‘surface success’ and ‘subtext success’ options, your 
  Author completely succeeds –on your next Author’s turn, you can write a 
  story or be pro-active. 
   
  • If your Author feels more in control of her life, add one die to your Author’s 
  Dice. If you now have five Author Dice then your next scene will be a Reset 
  Scene. 
  • If your Author has triumphed over the Weird or feels like she’s made 
  significant progress or resolved something in her life, add one die to the pool 
  of Story dice. If this takes the number of Story Dice to five, go to the ‘Ending 
  the Chapter’ section after narrating the outcome of the conflict (below). 
  • Your Author gets a hint about the secret of a supporting character involved in 
  or affected by the conflict. 
  • Add a supporting character to the Money, Trouble, or Family quadrants of the 
  Setting Chart (in your color). You can add this supporting character at any 
  point during the remainder of your Author’s turn or the review of your 
  Author’s turn  
  • Connect any two of your supporting characters with a relationship 
   
  2. If you rolled Story Dice, add one die to the pool of Story Dice. If this takes the 
  number of Story Dice to five, go to the ‘Ending the Chapter’ section after you’ve 
  narrated the outcome of the conflict (below). 
   
   
  NB:  
  The Creator doesn’t spend her successes until after the Author’s turn is  
  over (during the ‘Review the Author’s Turn’ section). 
   
  
  - 71 - 
   
  RESOLVING CONFLICTS ABOUT MONEY 
   
  Some conflicts need to be resolved by the author spending money (such as paying off a 
  loan shark, living up to your financial obligations as parent, making your rent). These 
  conflicts use a different system to the one above. 
   
  1. Find the story (written by the Author) on the Setting Chart that has the most 
  bonuses associated with it. Delete all the bonuses from that story (this is the 
  money you spend to resolve the problem). 
   
  NB: 
  This only solves the surface level of the conflict, not the subtext. 
   
  If none of the Author’s stories have bonuses next to them, the Author fails. Go to  
  the ‘Narrate the Outcome of the Conflict’ section. 
   
  2. If the Creator thinks the conflict represents a significant financial problem, you 
  need to additionally spend an amount of bonuses equal to Step 1 from your other 
  stories. 
   
  If you can’t afford this, you fail. And even if you fail, you still spend as many 
  bonuses as you could afford. 
   
  3. Go to the ‘Narrate the Outcome of the Conflict’ section. 
   
   
  Any supporting character from any quadrant can trigger a conflict that needs to be 
  resolved using Money:  it doesn’t matter which quadrant a supporting character is 
  in. For example, your husband (from your Family quadrant) can tell you that you're all 
  going to get evicted if you don’t give him the money to make this week's rent. 
   
  The reverse is also true: having a conflict with an supporting character from the Money 
  quadrant doesn't necessarily trigger a Money conflict. For example, your agent could be 
  arguing you need to come to a networking event, when you really need to spend time 
  with your emotionally-distressed son). 
   
  
  - 72 - 
  Here’s an overview of how to initiate and resolve a conflict: 
   
  
  - 73 - 
  NARRATE THE OUTCOME OF THE CONFLICT 
   
  Deciding what happens to the Author after a conflict (whether they’ve succeeded or 
  failed) happens in two stages. 
   
  First, based on the focus of the conflict the group creates a simple statement about what 
  does (or doesn’t) happen as a result of resolving the conflict. 
   
  After creating this statement, you’ll ‘re-enter’ the scene, and continue playing just like in 
  the ‘Explore the Scene’ section. Through exploring the aftermath of the conflict you’ll 
  discover the emotional truth and quirky details of what happens. The simple statement 
  you’ve come up with will be a creative constraint: anything can happen in this aftermath, 
  but you’ll know that that one thing must definitely (or must definitely not) happen. 
   
  For groups playing Left Coast for the first time, the Creator guides you through the 
  following process for narrating the outcome of a conflict: 
   
  CREATE THE STATEMENT OF FACT 
  The following six steps guide you through the process of creating a simple statement 
  about what does (or doesn’t) happen as a result of resolving the conflict 
   
  1. Remind yourselves what the conflict was focused on (the surface and subtext 
  levels). If necessary, remind yourselves why the Author wanted it (according to 
  the Author’s monologue). 
   
  2. If the Author failed or was completely successful (by buying both the subtextual 
  and surface successes), go to Step 6. Otherwise, you’ll need to determine how the 
  Author was only partially successful. 
   
  3. Based on whether the Author succeeded at the subtext or the surface level of the 
  conflict, each player considers whether they can clearly visualize what happens as 
  a result of this partial success (or if they have a strong intuition about it).  
   
  Options include: 
   
  • The Author gets what she wanted, but is completely unsatisfied about the 
  ‘why’ of why she wanted it (For example, the Author borrows money from 
  her brother but doesn’t overcome the years of resentment between them) 
  • The ‘why’ of why she wanted it is satisfied but things go disastrously wrong 
  in the execution, creating new problems for the Author. (The Author gets her 
  brother to care about her but he reveals why he can’t lend her money) 
  • The Author (sort of) achieves success in what the conflict was focused on and 
  is (sort of) fulfilled in terms of why she wanted to achieve it (The Author 
  borrows the cash in her brother’s wallet – it’s not enough, but her brother 
  invites her to dinner tomorrow to discuss the situation with him and his wife) 
  
  - 74 - 
  • The Author gets everything she wanted (at the surface level), but so does the 
  supporting character or thing she was in conflict with (The Author borrows 
  money from her brother but has to promise never to speak to him again) 
  • Something else that seems intuitively right for the particular circumstances of 
  this conflict in this situation with these particular characters. 
   
   
  A partial success should be unsatisfying. 
   
   
  4. Anyone who can clearly visualize (or intuit) what happens as a result of this 
  success should pitch what they see to the group. There can be multiple pitches. 
   
  5. The group then discusses, modifies, and chooses the most creatively satisfying 
  elements between these pitches. 
   
  If there’s any disagreement, the Current Author has final responsibility for 
  determining what’s true about her Author. The Creator and supporting character’s 
  Owner have final responsibility for the world, the Weird, and any supporting 
  characters. 
   
  6. Using the material from Steps 1 to 5, create a simple statement of fact about how 
  the conflict turned out. (The options in Step 3, above, are examples of these.) 
   
   
  USE THE STATEMENT OF FACT 
  You now know one thing about what’s going to happen or (even better) what’s definitely 
  NOT going to happen after the conflict. 
   
  It’s time to take that knowledge and discover what happens to the Author after the 
  conflict. 
   
  7. Re-enter the scene and play out the aftermath of the conflict to see what happens.  
   
  You may need to ‘rewind time’ a little, to re-establish what happened in the 
  moments leading up to the conflict. 
   
  You play out the results of the conflict just like you would in the ‘Explore the Scene’ 
  section. The group collectively imagines and discusses what happens to the Author 
  (which can involve acting in-character and improvising reactions to events). 
   
  Use the statement of fact as a creative constraint. 
   
  There are two things to note about this: 
   
  • Keep the results of the conflict inside the boundaries of what the conflict was about – 
  specifically: 
  
  - 75 - 
  o what was wanted 
  o the scope of the scene (its location and duration) 
  o immediacy – winning or losing the conflict should have an immediate (but 
  perhaps not-immediately obvious) effect on the Author’s life. Dealing 
  with the ramifications of that effect can be the subject of future conflicts. 
   
  • The person who lost the conflict has lots of latitude to decide how her character will 
  give the winner what they want. As a specific example, a supporting character may 
  have to give the Author what she wants, but that doesn’t mean the supporting 
  character has to change their attitude or motivations. 
   
  
  - 76 - 
  Here’s an overview of the process for narrating the outcome of a conflict: 
   
   
  
  - 77 - 
   
  ADVICE ABOUT CONFLICTS 
   
   
  RELUCTANT TO INITIATE A CONFLICT? 
  It’s fine to not have a conflict in a scene. 
   
  Players can be reluctant to identify and trigger conflicts. Part of the appeal of Left Coast 
  comes from hanging out with the characters and watching them respond to pressure, but 
  players can be so involved in the events of the scene that they either don’t want to switch 
  to using the rules for resolving conflicts (below) or they can forget to use the rules for a 
  number of reasons: 
  • wanting to resolve the conflict through acting and speaking in-character 
  • wanting the in-character conversation to go a little bit longer 
  • being so focused on playing their characters or the events of the scene and either 
  ignore the potential conflict. 
   
  However, conflicts provide the group with opportunities to alter the setting and keep the 
  Author’s life unpredictable. They’re also true to the source material that inspires the 
  game, in that an Author’s life never proceeds easily. 
   
  Initiating a conflict can also be a good way to break out of a scene that's getting bogged 
  down. For instance, an argument between the Author and a supporting character may 
  become repetitive, without any sense of progress or moving towards a resolution. This 
  might be a good point to initiate a conflict (or, alternatively, to end the scene and fade out 
  on the argument). 
   
  WHO INITIATES CONFLICTS? 
  While everyone can initiate a conflict, the group may also want to follow the lead of the 
  players who are the most confident about identifying potential conflicts and initiating 
  conflict. 
   
  WHAT IF TWO AUTHORS ARE IN CONFLICT? 
  If the conflict is between Authors, the Current Author rolls their Author dice just like 
  they normally would. 
   
  Use the standard rules to define the surface and subtext levels of what the conflict is 
  about. The permanent removal of an Author from the story (by death, moving away, 
  mental breakdown, etc) cannot be a possible outcome of the conflict. 
   
  If the Current Author loses, her Creator chooses the options. 
   
  
  - 78 - 
  DON’T PRE-DEFINE THE OUTCOME 
  When you have a conflict you agree on what it’s about; you don’t define what will 
  happen if the Authors wins or loses the conflict. Leave that entirely to the ‘Narrate the 
  Outcome’ stage. 
   
  WAYS TO NARRATE THE OUTCOMES OF CONFLICTS  
  If you’re an experienced player (either with Left Coast or with games that share the 
  responsibility for narrating the outcomes of conflicts) you can take your existing 
  understanding of what the conflict was focused around and go straight back into the 
  scene. Play out what happens in the scene with the collective understanding that the 
  Author has either succeeded, failed, or been partially successfully. 
   
  LET IT RIDE 
  If the scene continues, the Author can’t immediately retry the same conflict in the same 
  way. The situation or her methods need to significantly change. 
   
   
  
  - 79 - 
   
  ending scenes; 
  ending a turn 
   
   
  Throughout the game, the group needs to decide when to end a scene and when to switch 
  attention to the other Author. 
   
  Exploring a scene is like a conversation – but alternating your group’s attention between 
  the stories of both Authors is also like a conversation: taking turns is important. An 
  Author’s scene contains at least one conversation or event in the Author’s life, but it can 
  also follow her through numerous incidents after this conversation, conflict, or event.  
   
  Your group needs to make a creative judgment about when the distribution of attention is 
  starting to feel uneven, then bring the scene to a close in a way that creatively satisfies all 
  players and switch attention to the other Author.  
   
  Anyone can suggest ending a scene or a turn. You can decide to switch to the other 
  Author at any point in the turn, but the aftermath of a conflict usually provides a 
  particularly good opportunity.  
   
  Initially, though, for a more collaborative approach you can use the following process 
  (which the Creator guides the group through): 
   
  1. Anyone can say, at any point, that it’s time to end the scene or the Author’s turn. 
   
  2. If there’s been a conflict, or someone suggests ending the scene or turn, ask the 
  group whether any of the following are true: 
  • Does the Current Author feel it’s natural to continue the Author’s story? 
  • Does the Creator need to introduce another aspect of the world or the Weird? 
  • Does the outcome of the conflict leads immediately to another crisis that 
  cannot be ignored, AND it is a crisis that needs to be resolved in order to see 
  where the Author will start the next scene. 
   
  3. Did your answers to the above questions provide a clear answer about whether to 
  end the scene or turn? If not, discuss it further. Questions for discussion include: 
  • Do we feel like we’ve seen enough of the Author? 
  • Does the scene seem like it’s fairly complete? 
  • Does the Author has anything they strongly want to achieve next? 
  • Does the Author feel happy to end the turn? 
  • Do we feel like it’s important to let events in the current Author’s story 
  simmer for a while (by cutting away to the other Author)? 
   
  
  - 80 - 
  4. The Creator makes the final decision about when it’s time to end the scene, by 
  listening to the other players then using her creative judgment. 
   
  The Creator decides whether to: 
  • continue the Author’s turn 
  • continue the Author’s turn in order to resolve a pressing crisis, and then cut to 
  the other Author 
  • continue the Author’s turn but end the current scene and start a new one 
  • show the results of a Reset scene by continuing play with a new scene that 
  starts in the middle of a crisis in the Author’s life (a crisis triggered by the 
  Reset). In this case, I recommend starting the new scene with dialogue (as if 
  you’re coming into a conversation halfway through), or with action. 
  • give the Current Author and supporting character’s Owner a chance to wrap 
  things up and then close the scene 
  • cut away immediately, leaving things at a loose end. 
   
   
   
   
  ADVICE FOR ENDING SCENES AND TURNS 
   
   
  The default assumption is that the Creator has final responsibility for determining when a 
  scene or turn ends. 
   
  As you play Left Coast, your group will develop its own comfort levels and process for 
  rapidly deciding whether to end the scene or not. For instance, the Creator can take 
  creative leadership by assessing the group’s interest in continuing. She looks at the other 
  players’ attention and energy: if they’re losing focus, the Creator can simply say “It’s 
  time to end this turn.” 
   
   
   
  
  - 81 - 
  review the turn 
   
   
  After the Author’s turn has ended, the group quickly discusses the implications that the 
  events of the turn have for the story. This discussion feeds characters, insights, and 
  potential future events back into future Authors’ turns. 
   
  There’s also a little bit of book-keeping, which is designed to keep the story ticking. 
   
  There are three different situations that may have occurred during the Author’s turn, and 
  for each of these three situations there are certain questions to ask and rules to follow. 
   
   
  1. Go to the section below that best describes what happened with conflicts in the 
  Current Author’s turn: 
   
  • There were no conflicts during the turn 
  • The Author succeeded at every conflict during the turn 
  • The Author failed one or more conflicts during the turn 
   
   
  IF THERE WERE NO CONFLICTS DURING THE TURN 
   
  1. Add one die to the Author’s dice. If this increases the number of Author’s Dice to 
  five, her next turn will start with a Reset scene.  
   
  2. If all the Author players have had an equal number of Author’s Turns as the focus 
  of the story, add one die to the pool of Story Dice. 
   
  3. If there are now five (or more) Story Dice, go to Step 2 of the ‘Ending the 
  Chapter’ section. 
   
  4. Otherwise, the Current Author selects the next Author have a turn. Go to the 
  ‘Choose What Type of Scene to Play’ section. 
   
   
  IF THE AUTHOR FAILED ANY CONFLICTS DURING THE TURN 
   
  1. Add one die to the pool of Story Dice.  
   
  2. The group now discusses and allocates all of the dice the Creator accumulated 
  from all of the conflicts the Author failed during her turn to the items in the 
  following list. 
   
  
  - 82 - 
   
  You can’t choose same option twice in a row. If there’s disagreement about which 
  option to pick, go with the option nearest the top of the list. 
   
   
  NB: 
  This is an unplaytested change, and I have no idea, yet, whether it will  
  unbalance the game. An alternative would be to keep the most dice you  
  received from any single conflict. 
   
   
  • (Owners only) Add one supporting character or relationship to the Setting Chart 
  (to help reveal your secret). Owners who were involved in the conflict get first 
  pick. You cannot add a supporting character to the player’s Weird quadrant. 
   
  • (Owners only) Say that you’re choosing this option, and then secretly decide how 
  to implement one of the following:  
  - Add a secret to a supporting character 
  - Swap a supporting character from being Supportive to Destructive. 
  - Decide how a supporting character has taken a step to destroy the Author's  
     life 
   
  • (Creator only) Add one supporting character or relationship to the Setting Chart 
  (to help execute the Weird’s plan) 
   
  • Add a relationship between the supporting characters of two different Authors. 
  Draw this relationship in the other Author’s color. 
   
  • Add one die to the Author’s Dice if you feel the Author’s life has come closer to 
  becoming destabilized. If the Author now has five Author Dice their next scene 
  will be a Reset Scene. 
   
  • Move the Author’s story backwards or forwards in time. The Author chooses the 
  direction, the amount of time we flash back or forward to, and explains why. 
   
  • Reveal two supporting characters are actually the same person 
   
  • A supporting character becomes aware they’ve been turned into a character in one 
  of the Author’s stories 
   
  • (Creator only) Introduce a hint that the Author is a character inside a novel 
   
  • Add one of the players to the Setting Chart as a supporting character 
   
  • Introduce an aspect (not a fictional character) of any story the Author has written 
  in a Story scene into the Author’s life, permanently. 
   
  
  - 83 - 
  Allocating these dice is intended to be a group discussion. The constraints in the options 
  box (for instance, where it says "(Creator only)" refer to the fact that certain player roles 
  have sole responsibility over specific facets of the game. Only the Creator can decide 
  what's true about the Author's Weird quadrant. Only the supporting character’s Owner 
  can decide what's true about her supporting character. 
   
   
  3. If there are now five (or more) Story Dice, go to the ‘Ending the Chapter’ section. 
   
  4. If all the Author players have now had an equal number of Author’s Turn as the 
  focus of the story, add one die to the pool of Story Dice. 
   
  5. If there are now five (or more) Story Dice, go to Step 2 of the ‘Ending the 
  Chapter’ section. 
   
  6. Otherwise, go to the ‘Choose What Type of Scene to Play’ section and pass the 
  turn to the next player (going clockwise around the table) 
   
   
  IF THE AUTHOR SUCCEEDED AT ALL CONFLICTS IN THE TURN 
   
  1. If all the Author players have had an equal number of Author’s Turn as the focus 
  of the story, add one die to the pool of Story Dice. 
   
  2. If there are now five (or more) Story Dice, go to Step 2 of the ‘Ending the 
  Chapter’ section. 
   
  3. Otherwise, go to the ‘Choose What Type of Scene to Play’ section and pass the 
  turn to the next player (going clockwise around the table) 
   
   
   
   
  ADVICE ABOUT REVIEWING THE TURN 
   
   
  CREATIVE JUDGMENT    
  I recommend the group choose options in the ‘If the Author Failed Any Conflicts’ list 
  that add to their vision for the story. Options shouldn’t be selected because they seem 
  cool but because they seem right (for example, don’t make two characters the same 
  person if it doesn’t make sense). 
   
   
  
  - 84 - 
  reset scenes  
   
   
  Reset scenes radically change the Author’s life. Authors in Left Coast regularly go 
  through Boom–Bust cycles, where either massive success or continuous failures lead to 
  their lives falling apart. 
   
  Reset scenes allow your group to define exactly how the Author’s life has become more 
  emotionally fraught, or in what way the Weirdness has begun pulling the Author’s life 
  apart more significantly. Reset scenes change the Author’s life in a way that will, 
  eventually, require the Author to deal with it. 
   
  There’s a different type of Reset scene for each quadrant on the Setting Chart (see below 
  for how to determine which type you’ll play out). Each type of reset scene has a unique 
  feel (and some unique rules to create that feel), but they also share a similar structure: the 
  group brainstorms options for what’s happened to the Author in the story, and then 
  introduces the Author to what’s changed in her life. 
   
   
  NB: 
  In the following instructions, when I say ‘the group’ it refers to everyone  
  except the Current Author. 
   
   
  The Current Author reads the instructions for Reset scenes to the other players: 
   
  1. Reset the number of your Author dice to two. 
   
  2. Select the supporting character that was destabilizing your Author’s life the most 
  in your last scene. What quadrant are they in? 
   
  3. Go to the Reset scene section for that quadrant (Trouble, Weird, Money, or 
  Family) and continue reading the instructions to the group. 
   
   
   
  
  - 85 - 
  TROUBLE RESET 
  A Trouble Reset shows how the Author’s Trouble has gotten the best of her. Perhaps it’s 
  blowback or revenge, or the trouble has simply come to pass. Perhaps the Author thinks 
  she’s sorted out her Trouble but her solution has just created a whole new lot of Trouble  
   
  1. Send the Author’s player out of the room. 
   
  2. Everyone else decides what’s just happened to the Author’s as a result of this 
  Trouble. This should be something that could generate memory loss – such as 
  violence, accident, mental break, substance abuse (see Step 4). 
   
  The group will keep ‘what’s just happened’ a secret from the Author’s player.  
   
  3. The group chooses one of the following two options (and adjusts the Setting Chart 
  and any affected supporting characters accordingly): 
  • Create a new relationship between a Trouble supporting character and a 
  Family supporting character 
  • Create a Trouble supporting character, and either (a) change an existing 
  Trouble supporting character from ‘supportive’ to ‘opposing’, or (b) have an 
  supporting character who opposes the Author take one off-screen action 
  against the Author. 
   
  4. The group decides what sort of memory loss could occur from this Trouble. Some 
  possibilities include 
  • alcohol or drug blackout ● psychotic break ● physical trauma (concussion)  
  • emotional trauma causing amnesia ● other [you define] 
   
  The group decides where the Author will wake up after her memory loss: it could 
  be somewhere she doesn’t expect; somewhere familiar that’s been radically 
  altered; somewhere where she’s in more trouble; or somewhere else completely. 
   
  5. Ask the Author’s player back into the room. 
   
  6. The Creator sets the scene for the Current Author’s Author by describing what it’s 
  like for the Author to regain consciousness and what she sees when she opens her 
  eyes. Don’t tell the Current Author what’s caused the memory loss. Give her a 
  chance to figure that out in Step 7 (below). 
   
  7. The Current Author can ask 20 questions to orient herself to her Author’s new 
  situation.  
   
  This can either be in conversation with a supporting character who’s there when 
  she wakes up, or it can be from the Current Author asking questions to find out 
  where she is and what’s happened. 
   
  8. Go to the ‘Ending a Scene’ section and decide whether to continue play. 
   
  
  - 86 - 
  WEIRD RESET 
  A Weird Reset shows how the Weird is affecting the Author’s life and advancing its plan. 
   
   
  1. The Creator adjusts the Setting Chart by either: 
  • adding a new supporting character to the Weird quadrant 
  • adding a relationship between one of the supporting characters in the Author’s 
  Weird quadrant and another of the Author’s non-Weird supporting characters. 
  • copying the name of one of the Author’s supporting characters into the Weird 
  quadrant. This represents the secret life of the supporting character: the 
  Creator now secretly briefs the supporting character’s Owner on what the 
  character is trying to achieve as part of the Weird’s plan (and what the 
  character knows about it) 
   
  The Creator then gets a short scene to illustrate this new information. 
   
   
  2. The Creator describes the location and the supporting characters involved in the 
  scene. The supporting characters must include any supporting characters selected 
  in the previous step, but she can add additional supporting characters if desired. 
   
  3. The Creator describes the tiniest hint of the Weird taking action to achieve its 
  goals. 
   
  ‘Tiniest’, in this case, means the description is at the following scale: 
  • a single powerful image  
  • three simple details about how the Weird affects the supporting characters 
  • three lines of dialogue in a conversation between supporting characters  
   
  4. Decide whether to continue this Author’s turn by starting a new scene focusing on 
  the Current Author’s Author. Go to the ‘Ending a Scene’ section if necessary. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
  - 87 - 
  FAMILY RESET 
  Family Resets show how, as a result of the Author being preoccupied with writing, she 
  has difficulties with her family or friends as a result of neglecting her obligations. 
   
  Family Resets create opposition and difficulty in the Author’s life by: 
  • taking away something she cares about 
  • confronting her with the ramifications of her writing lifestyle 
  • upsetting or changing something the Author relies on, or 
  • making her too successful, leading to her neglecting her family and social obligations. 
   
  1. Send the Author’s player out of the room. 
   
  2. The owners of supporting characters in the Author's family quadrant secretly 
  decide how to implement up to two of the following: 
  • Add a secret to a supporting character in the Family quadrant 
  • Swap a Family supporting character from being an Ally to an Enemy. 
  • Decide how one Family supporting character has taken a step to destroy the 
  Author's life 
   
  2. Underneath the selected supporting character’s name, write one word that 
  describes how their relationship with the Author has changed. 
   
  3. Invite the Author’s player back into the room. 
   
  4. The Author’s player chooses one of the following two options: 
   
  • Shift a fictional character from one of the Author’s stories into the real world. 
  Write the fictional character name in the Family quadrant. 
   
  • Choose one of the supporting characters in her Family quadrant to have a 
  relationship with either another player’s Author or another Author’s 
  supporting character. 
   
  If it’s with another Author, circle the supporting character in the other 
  Author’s color. 
   
  If it’s with another Author’s supporting character, draw a relationship between 
  the two supporting character s in the other Author’s color. 
   
  5. One of the Current Author’s Family supporting character Owners introduces a 
  fact about how difficult her Author’s life is now. All the other players (except for 
  the Current Author) introduce an additional fact using the phrase "And". (See the 
  example on the next page.) 
   
  6. Decide whether to continue this Author’s turn, going to the ‘Ending a Scene’ 
  section if necessary. 
   
  
  - 88 - 
   
   
   
  EXAMPLE 
   
  “Your brother’s moved in with you.” 
   
  “And he’s decided to operate the small business he’s 
  trying to start up out of your home.” 
   
  “And your wife is seriously considering moving out for a 
  while if you don’t do something about this whole 
  situation because your house is too small for the three 
  of you and a dog-shampooing salon.” 
   
   
   
  
  - 89 - 
   
  MONEY RESET 
  Money Resets show how the Author’s life has been negatively affected by either going 
  broke or by too much success (over-reaching and having things collapse around her).  
   
  1. The group (except for the Author’s player) puts the Author in a sub-ordinate role 
  to a supporting character in the Money quadrant. 
   
  Use an item from the following list as inspiration for this redefinition: 
  ● Debt ● Sex ● Resentment ● Favor ● Dominance/Subservience ● Bully   
  ● Employment ● Exploitation ● Blackmail ● Fraud ● Con 
   
  2. Underneath the selected supporting character, write a one- or two-word 
  description of this changed relationship. Circle this in the Author’s color. 
   
  3. The Author’s player selects one: 
  • Introduce an organization affected by the Author going bust 
  • Connect an existing affected organization to an supporting character in the 
  Family quadrant 
  • Introduce an Antagonist into the Trouble quadrant: a new supporting character 
  enemy for the Author custom-designed by the group to really affect the 
  Author. Possible Antagonists include: 
  o government officials, tax auditors, or police  
  o creepy fans, from stalkers to The Misery scenario3 
  o a doppelganger or psychic projection of the Author (cf. Stephen 
  King’s Dark Half or Secret Window, Secret Garden). This entity is 
  generated by a psychological disturbance in the Author - such as her 
  fear of being unable to maintain her success or anxiety about the act of 
  writing - and aims to destroy the Author’s life. 
  o a malicious critic 
  o someone who represents the worst of the Author: the aspects of herself 
  she loathes 
  • Introduce a problematic situation connected to the Author’s success, such as: 
  o a job writing a terrible movie (perhaps a wrestling movie?) 
  o her publishers stifle her creativity (perhaps by demanding more of the 
  same) 
  o she is rightfully accused of plagiarism (either accidentally or on 
  purpose), damaging her career 
   
  4. The Current Author introduces a fact about how difficult her Author’s life is now. 
  The other players build on this fact, each player introducing an additional fact 
  using the phrase "And". 
   
  5. Decide whether to continue this Author’s turn, going to the ‘Ending a Scene’ 
  section if necessary. 
   
                                                   
  3 Held captive by someone who loves your work too much. 
  
  - 90 - 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  I started writing 10 years ago. I wrote for a 
  solid year and collected nothing but 
  rejection slips. 
   
  Most beginning writers can’t afford to do 
  that. They take an honest job and write in 
  their spare time, and it takes them five 
  years to make their mistakes, instead of 
  one. Me, I lived off a trust fund. 
   
  The trust fund was there because my 
  great-grandfather once made a lot of 
  money in oil. He left behind him a large 
  family of nice people, and we all owe him. 
   
  Dedication,  
  ‘A Hole In Space’ 
  Larry Niven 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  The first draft of anything is shit. 
   
  Ernest Hemingway 
   
  
  - 91 - 
  story scenes  
   
   
  A Story scene is a set of special rules to represent what happens when an Author writes a 
  story and to determine whether her story sells well enough to be profitable. 
   
  A Story scene begins with the Current Author inventing with a story idea for her Author 
  to write. After giving a synopsis of the story to the group, the Current Author moves from 
  this big picture view of the story into describing the plot and the characters involved. 
  Other players in the group take on the roles of those characters and describe what they 
  do: this is a shift in focus from a ‘description’ level to a more moment-by-moment style 
  of play (that’s like ‘Exploring the Scene’ in an Author’s turn). Finally, the story is 
  resolved by the Current Author rolling the Story Dice and the group allocating any 
  successes or failures. 
   
  To play out a Story scene and write a story, the Current Author works with the rest of the 
  group and guides them through the following steps: 
   
   
  INVENT THE STORY IDEA  
   
  1. The Current Author chooses a story to write. She may: 
  • already have a concept for a story 
  • already have established, in the game, what story her Author is working on 
  • want to continue a story she was working on in a previous Story scene 
  • want to create a story from scratch  
   
  o To create a story from scratch, the Current Author sets the story’s genre:  
   
  Hard SF ● Psycho-drama ● Allegory/Satire ● Comedy ● Thriller ● Horror 
  ● Creation Myth ● Low-brow action fantasy ● [Choose a concept of your 
  own] 
   
  o Then the Current Author chooses an aspect of current society, and 
  imagines a radical change to that aspect. 
   
  Civil rights ● Vietnam (draft dodging, anti-communism, and protest 
  movements) ● Feminism ● The Sexual revolution ● Environmentalism ● 
  Nuclear tests ● Woodstock and Altamont ● LSD ● The Grateful Dead ● 
  The Doors ● Joni Mitchell ● heroin ● Neil Young ● The Who ● The 
  Byrds ● Professor Timothy Leary (Harvard) ● Frank Zappa ● Patty Hearst 
  (heiress ● member Symbionese Liberation Army) ● marijuana ● Lyndon 
  B. Johnson ● Richard M. Nixon ● Gerald Ford ● bourbon ● Cults and the 
  breakdown of organized religion ● Watergate ● [something else] 
   
   
  
  - 92 - 
  SYNOPSISE THE STORY IDEA 
   
  2. The Current Author describes the big picture of what the story is about, aiming 
  for a description that’s about one or two sentences long. 
   
   
   
   
   
  DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENS IN THE STORY 
   
  We now move from the big-picture view of the story into describing the action, the plot, 
  and what the characters do. 
   
  3. The Current Author starts describing what happens in the story. You have a few 
  options for this: 
  • Start from the beginning if you want 
  • Jump straight to the bit you’re most excited about, interested in, or curious about 
  • Start somewhere else that feels right to you. 
   
  If you’re not sure how to proceed, describe your Author’s story like you’re rapidly 
  synopsizing a book you’ve read: feel free to do a half-assed job, skipping around from 
  section to section, back and forward through time. Skip over confusing bits (and 
  acknowledge that you’re confused about them); skip over bits you’re not sure about. 
   
  
  - 93 - 
  Describe what you’re excited by. Describe who’s fighting who, who’s disagreeing with 
  who. 
   
  This is a no-pressure situation. There is no expectation that what you’ll create has to be 
  professional, brilliant, or even coherent! You’ll be creating a first draft. Have fun with it! 
   
   
  INTRODUCE CHARACTERS INTO THE STORY 
   
  4. As the Current Author synopsizes the story, she points out and describes any 
  characters the Author’s story generates. 
   
  This is usually short and simple: as you describe the story, you’ll mention that 
  someone is doing something, and say “Oh, that guy’s probably a character.” Then 
  you’ll continue describing what happens. 
   
  5. Members of the group volunteer play characters.  
   
  6. The Current Author tells the volunteer the answers to two questions about each 
  character:  
   
  •  “Who’s this based on?” (Each character should be inspired by a character from 
  the Author’s real life, even one we haven’t seen yet.) 
   
  If the Current Author thinks that none of the Author’s supporting characters are 
  a good metaphorical representation of (or provide a good subtext for) this new 
  character, then she can create a relationship between her Author and a 
  supporting character from another Author’s life. 
   
  The Current Author explains how she knows the supporting character and draws 
  a circle around them (on the Setting chart) in her Author’s color, to indicate the 
  relationship. 
   
  • “What do they want?” (A ‘Want’ is a strong, life-defining goal the character is 
  trying to achieve in this story.) 
   
  Each new character Want must to be in conflict with an existing character’s. 
   
  
  - 94 - 
   
  EXPLORE THE STORY 
   
  After introducing characters, the group explores the story. As in an Author’s Turn all 
  players contribute to a conversation where they collectively imagine what is happening in 
  the story.  This involves alternating between the following steps: 
   
  8. Players narrate how their characters, describing what they do and how they take 
  action to achieve their Wants. At any point, players can have their characters 
  engage into conversations or confrontations with each other. 
   
  9. The Current Author continues describing what happens in the story (controlling 
  the world, introducing new characters, information, and events).  
   
  She adjusts her descriptions to respond to the characters’ actions. As the 
  characters take action, the Current Author will have less need to describe what 
  happens in the story.  
    
  Instead, the Current Author can: 
   
  • introduce obstacles to obstruct Wants. To do that, ask yourself, “What’s the 
  worst thing that could happen to this character at this moment?” 
   
  • ask how a character overcomes an obstacle. 
   
  • narrate the consequences of a character’s actions (keeping those consequences 
  plausible but generous). 
   
  • decide the outcome of non-verbal conflicts between two (or more) characters. 
   
  • narrate what locations look like when characters move into them. 
   
  • introduce characters. Ask ‘Who is the worst person who could show up now?’  
   
  • if there’s a lull in the story and the other players aren’t sure what to do next, 
  zoom back out to ‘synopsizing the story’ and describe the next few events in 
  broad terms 
   
  • if you or the other players want to focus on a particularly interesting moment 
  between characters or on how a significant action plays out, zoom back in to 
  ‘explore the story’. 
   
  
  - 95 - 
   
  INITIATE THE CONFLICT  
   
  Any player can decide to end the Story scene.  
   
  10. Players ask themselves about whether it’s time to end the scene. 
   
  • Does it feel like we’ve seen enough or does it feel natural to continue the 
  story, or? 
  • Does the story seem fairly complete now? Would this moment make a strong 
  cliff-hanger? 
  • Does you need to describe anything before the story finishes? 
   
  11. If it’s time to end the scene, say so and go to ‘Resolve the Conflict’, below. 
   
   
  RESOLVE THE CONFLICT 
   
  12. The Current Author rolls the Story dice. 
   
  NB: 
  You can add one die for a supporting character who has been used  
  as the inspiration for a character in the story. 
   
  You can’t add bonus dice from any stories you’ve previously written here  
  for bonus dice. Each time an Author sits down at the typewriter, they have  
  to prove themselves all over again. 
   
   
  13. The Current Author keeps any dice that come up ‘5’ or ‘6’: these are successes. If 
  there were no successes go to Step 14. 
   
  14. Her successes describe the quantity of her Author’s work. She chooses from the 
  following list: 
   
  1 = An obscure short story; an average novel4  
  2 = An average short story or popular novel 
  3 = A briefly popular short story  
  4 = A culturally significant short story; a story that’s published nationally 
   
   
  NB: 
  If you chose to ‘continue a story’ when you selected your story, you  
  may get an odd result: a story that turned out to be a ‘novel’ in the  
  previous conflict, is now a short story. In this case, interpret the result as  
  publishing a section of your novel as a self-contained piece of fiction. 
                                                   
  4 Historically, in terms of the financial return on time invested, a novel is just about the worst thing an 
  Author can write. 
   
  
  - 96 - 
   
   
  15. Go to the ‘Narrate the Outcome of the Conflict’ section. 
   
  16. If there were no successes (no 5s or 6s) then the Creator wins. She takes a number 
  of tokens equal to the number of dice that were rolled. Rather than spending her 
  successes now, the Creator keeps them for later. Go to the ‘Narrate the Outcome 
  of the Conflict’ section. 
   
   
  NARRATE THE OUTCOME 
   
  17. The winning player distributes her successes between the items on the following 
  list. You can take each of these options multiple times, but you need to choose a 
  different item from the list before re-choosing an item: 
   
  • (Author only) Write “author of the [type of story], [its title] (# of successes)” 
  in the Money quadrant, and add one point to it.  
  o You add one point each time you choose this option. The points you 
  allocate to a story give you bonuses in future conflicts. 
  o If you chose to continue a story you were previously working on, add to 
  that 
  • Introduce a character from the story into the real-world setting. Put them in 
  the Trouble quadrant. 
  • Add one die to the Author’s Dice. If they now have five Author Dice, it 
  triggers a Reset scene immediately. 
  • Add one die to the Story dice. If this take the number of Story Dice to 5, go to 
  the ‘Ending the Chapter’ section. 
  • Create a new Trouble supporting character 
  • (Creator only) Incorporate an element of the story into the Weird’s plan 
  • Introduce a negative critical or legal response to the story into the Author’s 
  life 
  • (Creator only) Give the owners of supporting characters in the Family 
  quadrant who an enemies of the Author the opportunity to take a step to 
  destroy the Author's life while she’s been writing. 
  • (Author only) Writing the story allows you the opportunity to gain an insight 
  into your real life: ask one yes/no question of the Creator or an Owner.  
  • Add someone who’s been profoundly affected by the story to the Setting 
  Chart 
   
  18. End the scene and pass the turn to the next Author. 
   
  When you have your next Author’s turn, take into account your success or failure 
  in the Money conflict, and the family and friends you’ve had to neglect in order to 
  write. 
   
  
  - 97 - 
  Here’s an overview of the process for playing through Story Scenes: 
   
  
  - 98 - 
   
  ADVICE FOR STORY SCENES 
   
   
  TITLES FOR STORIES 
  The Current Author can choose a title for her Author’s story any point. Here are some 
  example titles: 
   
  Goldfish Bowl ● The Unpleasant Profession ● Sky Lift ● An Unsatisfactory Solution ● 
  Big Universe ● Diminished Possibilities ● Children of the Moon ● The Hidden Menace 
  ● The Impossible Problem ● Transition ● The Rainbow Sword ● Agent Orange County 
  ● Ceres Renewed ● We Stole the Moon ● 
   
  
  - 99 - 
   
  ending the chapter 
   
   
  The chapter ends the number of Story dice increases to five, either because of the Current 
  Author wins a conflict or at the end of a turn. As a group, work your way through the 
  following steps: 
   
  1. The Current Author chooses two of the following: 
  • Narrate one fact about how a problem for her Author changes. 
  • Select a supporting character and have their owner reveal the supporting 
  character’s secret to the player (meaning the player now has the option to push 
  scenes in a direction so that her Author can discover, confront, and address 
  that secret) 
  • Ask the group what her Author should be paying attention to. The group 
  consults and states the minimum information possible about what they think is 
  the biggest threat or so-far unnoticed plot element that will affect the Author’s 
  life 
  • Choose a supporting character and ask either: (a) what are they really feeling? 
  Or (b) what do they wish the Author would do? (The player now has the 
  option to push scenes in a direction where the Author can confront and 
  address those issues) 
  • Ask one Yes/No question of the Creator about the Weird. If the Creator isn’t 
  sure (or hasn’t decided what’s true about that aspect), she can say “Ask 
  another question.” (The player, rather than the Author, has this knowledge; the 
  player now has the option to push scenes towards confronting or discovering 
  this aspect of the Weird) 
    
  2. Every Creator gets to advance one part of their plan for the Weird. Don’t tell the 
  affected Author what this is: let them experience the results of it in their next 
  scene. 
   
  3. If an Author previously announced their retirement (see the ‘Between Chapters’ 
  section, next) and reset their Author’s dice during this chapter, it takes effect now. 
  For each Author die she has at the end of the chapter, the Author’s player chooses 
  one thing from the following list: 
  • You move away from this place and these people 
  • You quit writing 
  • You get a mundane paying job 
  • You get your big break 
  • The Weird triumphs over you 
  • You co-exist with (but don’t defeat) the Weird 
  • You’re on your own 
  • You have a stable personal life 
  • You’re happy 
  
  - 100 - 
  • You’re a moderately well-functioning member of society 
  • You’re committed or arrested 
  • You’re unable to function in society or live on the margins 
  • People speak of you often 
  • You fall victim to one of your troubles 
   
  4. The Author’s player then describes a one-sentence fact about what her Author’s 
  life is like now. 
   
  The other players build on this fact, each player introducing an additional one-
  sentence fact, using the phrase "And".  
   
   
  NB:  
  Retired Authors stay in the game. On their turns, they either pass or  
  choose a scene that focuses on the other Author. The player of a retired  
  Author also continues to play the supporting characters she owns until all  
  the other Authors also retire or the game ends. 
   
  The information you created, above, provides you with context for what 
  the retired Author’s life is like when they appear in these subsequent 
  scenes. 
   
   
  5. The Creator narrates a closing paragraph to her novel about how the Weird affects 
  the remainder of the Author’s life. This narration has to allow the Author to 
  continue to appear in the remainder of the game. The Creator can explain as much 
  or as little as she wants about the Weird has really been up to. 
   
  6. Reset the number of Story Dice to one. 
   
  7. End the chapter with a brief discussion about what happened and what might 
  happen next.  
   
  8. If you want to play another chapter right now, go to the ‘Between Chapters’ 
  section. 
   
  If you want to play again at a later stage, go to the ‘Between Sessions’ section. 
   
  If you don’t want to play again, unwind and hang out with each other. 
   
   
   
   
   
  
  - 101 - 
   
  between chapters 
   
   
  If you’re going to play another chapter of Left Coast, you can do the following: 
   
   
  1. Author players can (if they want) announce that their Author will ‘retire’ at the 
  end of the next chapter in which they earn five Author’s Dice.  
   
  2. Creators can (if they want) come up with a few more steps the Weird could take. 
  Do this by: 
  • taking any moments of insight about the Weird you had while playing the 
  game and asking yourself what the Weird could do to demonstrate that. 
  • listing all the questions you have about the Weird. What you don't you know? 
  What are you curious about? How does the Weird want to change the 
  Author’s life (in ways the Author won’t like)? Why would the Weird want to 
  do that?. Ask yourself what the Weird could do to demonstrate that. 
   
  3. Go to the ‘Choose the Author to Focus On First’ section. 
   
   
  
  - 102 - 
   
   
   
   
   
  I was willing to admit that what Nicholas 
  saw in his dream-vision was an accurate 
  representation of the barrio down in the 
  city of Placentia in Orange County.  
   
  But I saw the vision as more of a 
  paranormal talent on Nicholas’s part rather 
  than a communication from an extra-
  terrestrial entity in another solar system.  
   
  One had to draw the line of common sense 
  somewhere. Using Occam’s Principle of 
  Scientific Parsimony, the simplest theory 
  was mine. 
   
  Radio Free Albemuth 
  Philip K. Dick 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
  - 103 - 
  between sessions 
   
   
  Deciding to play Left Coast again (and continue the story of your Authors) gives Creators 
  and the Owners of supporting characters an opportunity to reflect on what’s happened 
  and think about what’s really going on with the Weird and the supporting characters they 
  control.  
   
  What you’ll want to create for subsequent sessions are: 
  • Supporting characters with hidden motivations 
  • A clear agenda for the Weird that will conflict with and push back against the Author. 
   
   
  Working through the questions in this section is optional. However, you may find 
  yourself thinking about the Weird and your supporting characters between games 
  anyway. If so, I suggest writing your thoughts down, and - if you want – using whichever 
  of the following questions you find helpful to guide your thoughts. 
   
   
  UNDERSTAND THE WEIRD 
   
  The time between sessions gives Creators a chance to come up with an explanation for 
  what’s really going on with the Weird. 
   
  What follows are a variety of techniques to figure out the Weird’s plan, motivations, and 
  ultimate goal. Experienced players can feel free to use these techniques, or follow their 
  own intuition. 
   
   
  1. Ask yourself what you know, for sure, about the Weird. Consider the following: 
  • Any supporting characters and relationships the Author player initially added 
  to the Weird quadrant 
  • The first three steps you decided the Weird would take, and your thoughts 
  about how the Author perceived those 
  • The tiny Weird moments you added to each scene 
  • Any new information and supporting characters that emerged from Weird 
  reset scenes, and any supporting characters and relationships added to the 
  Weird quadrant during the game 
  • The Author’s player speculations and theories from during the session about  
  what the Weird might be up to 
  • If you played more than one chapter, anything you added if you reflected on 
  the Weird. 
   
  
  - 104 - 
  2. Think about what all of that looks like from the Author’s perspective.  
   
  Write these down ‘What’s on the surface?’ impressions. 
   
  3. Did you have any fleeting thoughts or moments of insight about the Weird while 
  playing the game? 
   
  If you didn’t write these down at the time, try and remember them now and write 
  them down. 
   
  The Weird events that happened during the game are just the tip of the iceberg. They 
  have deeper implications for what’s really going on under the surface, and for why the 
  Weird is doing it. 
   
  You’ll want to keep these ‘insights into the deeper motivations of the Weird’ consistent 
  with all of the material you’ve assembled, above. You’ll use the above material to help 
  fine-tune your understanding of the Weird. 
   
  4. Identify what you don't know about the Weird. 
   
  List all the questions you have about the Weird. What you don't you know? What 
  are you curious about? For example, what is the Weird trying to do - and why? 
  How does the Weird want to change the Author’s life (in ways the Author won’t 
  like)? Why would the Weird want to do that? 
   
  Between sessions and while playing the game, you’ll be trying to answer these questions 
  while staying consistent with already established facts. 
   
  5. Keep cycling through these first four steps until either: 
  • a coherent backstory begin to emerge, full of reasons that seem right for why 
  the Weird is targeting the Author, or 
  • you feel some resistance about coming up with a definitive answer (as if your 
  brain is advising you to let things simmer). 
   
  6. Reflect on all of this from time to time before the next session. 
   
  7. Before your next session come up with as vague or specific a plan as you want 
  about the ‘Big Steps’ the Weird needs to take towards victory. 
   
  Record this plan in a way that gives you space to add new steps or events (as they occur 
  to you) and rearrange existing material as your understanding of what’s happening grows 
  more certain. 
   
  
  - 105 - 
   
  8. Use the material you’ve come up with to determine specific next steps. What are 
  the tiny Weird moments (the incidentals, the changing moods, the glances out of 
  the corner of your eye) that will slowly alert the Author that the Weird is making 
  progress towards taking a Big Step? 
   
  Decide what the Weird forces will do next that the Author will either (a) notice, or 
  (b) must react to? 
   
  What would the Weird’s plan from Step 7 look like from the Author’s POV? 
   
  Try these techniques, if you need further ideas: 
   
  • Ask yourself what’s the worst thing the Weird could do. How would that 
  affect the author and the characters around him? Ask yourself why the Weird 
  would do that. Feel free to modify this down from ‘the worst thing’ to ‘the 
  thing that seems right (for the Weird to do)’. 
   
  • If you’re really stuck, do some ‘reverse brainstorming’: Ask yourself what the 
  Weird could do to remove any tension or possibility of conflict. How could 
  the Weird sabotage itself so it can’t achieve its goals?  
   
  Now take those ideas and decide what the opposite of them would be. 
   
  Using these specific next steps are how the Creator justifies taking a Big Step. To play 
  fair, the Creator has to establish the Weird’s plan is happening off-screen by showing the 
  effects it has on the Author’s life and world. 
   
  
  - 106 - 
   
  LETTING THE WEIRD ‘SIMMER’ 
  Step 6 of the above process talks about reflecting on this material (what you know for 
  sure about the Weird, what it looks like to the Author, your insights, and the things you 
  don’t know) before the next session. This reflection  gives you an opportunity to let the 
  ‘true’ explanation for what’s going on with the Weird simmer in your mind. 
   
  I find this ‘simmering’ process is important. A fully-fledged answer may naturally 
  emerge. Or you may feel one element of it slide into place – in which case, let that lock in 
  as one part of “The Truth” and then try to solve all of the questions that still remain about 
  the Weird. Look for answers that are consistent with that ‘locked-in’ element. 
   
  Once you have enough ‘locked-in’ elements that you feel you understand what the 
  Weird’s plan is, stick with that plan.  
   
  It’s tempting to keep revising what the Weird is up to as new ideas occur to you. It’s 
  tempting because:  
  a) the ideas are newer and therefore seem more interesting, or 
  b) the ideas seem better or ‘truer’ than what you had before. 
   
  In the case of (a), don’t add to the Weird’s plans just for the sake of it. 
   
  As Creator, you have pretty much absolute power. You can screw with your Author’s 
  mind repeatedly by revealing that everything they thought was true is a lie. It’s easy to 
  extend the length of the game artificially by creating additional elements to the Weird or 
  by creating brand new conspiracies to torment the Author with. However, I believe Left 
  Coast will play best with a contained Weird mystery – perhaps it’s global in scope, but 
  it’s a mystery that’s basically only one layer deep. 
   
  (You may also be afraid that your answer to ‘What the Weird is up to’ isn’t interesting 
  enough - in which case I advise you to stick with your idea, and remember that your 
  fellow players can’t read your mind: your plan for the Weird will surprise them and it’ll 
  feel authentic because it comes from you.)  
   
  In the case of (b), double-check if the change contradicts anything you’ve presented 
  already. If it doesn’t, then you can go for it.  
   
  But if the change does contradict already-presented information, then it’s a bit like 
  playing Hangman and changing your word halfway through the game. It’s important for 
  ‘What the Weird is up to’ to have integrity: we want the Author to respond to the Weird 
  consistently, and for the Author’s Player to be able to develop an informed theory about 
  what’s going on. 
   
  Telling the difference between (a) and (b) is up to you. 
   
  You’ll also need to develop a sense of taste about what fits with the Weird and what 
  doesn’t. Only add to the Weird agenda if you think it’s a true and natural outgrowth of 
  what you’ve already invented.  
  
  - 107 - 
   
   
  UNDERSTAND THE SUPPORTING CHARACTERS 
   
  For supporting character Owners, the time between sessions gives them a chance to 
  deepen their understanding about their supporting characters and their goals. 
    
  What follows are a variety of techniques to understand a supporting character. 
  Experienced players can feel free to use these techniques, or follow their own intuition 
  about how to deepen their understanding of the supporting character. 
   
   
  1. What do you know? Here’s the material the supporting character’s Owner should 
  have after a session: 
  • The supporting character’s secret (if any) 
  • What happened in scenes and interactions between the Author and the 
  supporting character 
  • What was fun about the Author- supporting character relationship 
  • Why the supporting character has a relationship with the Author 
  • What the supporting character appears to want from the Author  
  • The central unresolvable problem (if any) between the Author and the 
  supporting character 
  • What the supporting character resisted and initiated a conflict over 
  • The outcomes of conflicts involving the supporting character 
  • The power the supporting character has over the Author and over the world, 
  and the social status of the supporting character 
  • Any thoughts you had about the end of the supporting character’s last scene,  
  • Any thoughts you’ve had since the session ended about next steps the 
  supporting character will take 
  • Odd things the supporting character said or did that you can’t explain yet 
  • An understanding of how the supporting character wants to change the Author 
  (either by supporting or opposing her) 
  • Personality quirks of the supporting character. 
   
  2. Fill in any blanks (that you want to fill in) from the above list or from the 
  checklist for creating supporting characters (Secrets; Enemy/Ally; Up or Down 
  temperament). 
   
  For instance, you can create a secret for the supporting character, if you haven’t got one 
  (and if one springs to mind as being ‘right’ for the supporting character). You can see if 
  an intuition occurs to you about how the supporting character wants to change the Author 
  (acting as either an enemy or an ally). 
   
  
  - 108 - 
   
  3. Did you have any fleeting thoughts or moments of insight about the supporting 
  character while playing the game? 
   
  If you didn’t write these down at the time, try and remember them now and write 
  them down. 
   
  Reflect on these thoughts, and ask yourself if they reveal any deeper underlying 
  truths about the supporting character. 
   
  4. What does the supporting character want to achieve? 
   
  5. How will their secret affect them? The Author? What will the supporting 
  character do to protect their secret? 
   
  6. Ask yourself if you have a clear idea who the supporting character is yet. Do you 
  feel they have an inner life? 
   
  If not, you may have to get a lot more interested in the supporting character. Here 
  are two techniques you can use: 
  • vividly visualize what has been, up until now, the single most important 
  moment of the supporting character’s life (without an Author around) 
  • create a fictional biography – just bullet-points that give an approximate order 
  to the events in her life.  
  o If you’re interested, you can see if any interesting parallels emerge 
  when you compare this short biography with what you know about 
  other supporting character s that you own, other players' supporting 
  characters, the Authors, or the Weird. Perhaps you’ll find that 
  character grew up in the same places, experienced different sides of 
  the same event (eg. the Vietnam war), or have faced similar challenges 
  in life.  
   
  7. Think about what emotional reaction the supporting character provokes in you. 
  Ask yourself why they make you feel that way. 
   
  8. List all the questions you have about the supporting character. What you don't you 
  know? What are you curious about? For example, what is she trying to do? How 
  is she trying to change the Author’s life - and why? 
   
   
  Between sessions and while playing the game, you’ll be trying to answer these questions 
  while staying consistent with already established facts. 
   
   
  9. Keep cycling through those eight steps until either: 
  • you feel you understand the supporting character, or 
  • you feel some resistance about gaining insight into the supporting character 
  (as if your brain is advising you to let things simmer). 
  
  - 109 - 
   
   
  This next step is optional. 
   
  10. Think of one thing the supporting character will do next time you play Left Coast. 
   
  You’re looking for one thing that feels true and correct and that makes you excited to see 
  what happens next. You’re not looking for one thing that makes you think ‘It’d be cool 
  for the story if they did this’ 
   
  Don’t pre-plan what happens after that one thing. You can wonder about the possibilities 
  (of how the Author might react) but don’t pre-decide what the supporting character will 
  do. Simply present your action and let the reactions emerge naturally from you playing 
  the game. That will keep the story authentic and driven by your moment-to-moment 
  insights into the supporting character. 
   
  
  - 110 - 
   
  ADVICE FOR BETWEEN SESSIONS 
   
   
  DOCUMENTING THE WEIRD’S PLAN 
  You may have your own way to record the Weird’s plan so you can easily use it in the 
  game. Here are some ways I’ve found useful: 
   
  • Create a list of the things that the Weird could do, in roughly the order you 
  think the Weird would do it. Whenever it’s time to introduce a Weird element 
  into the scene (and inspiration doesn’t hit), choose the first item from the list 
  that feel right or appropriate for this moment. 
   
  EXAMPLE 
   
  Let’s say the Weird is about a group of pharmacist-
  pagans working on a drug to communicate with dead 
  people. After using the above process, I might create 
  a list like this: 
   
  ● See a well-dressed and respectable person talking to 
  herself on the street 
  ● A rumour that people are dropping a new type of acid  
  ● See someone who’s afraid but there’s nothing around 
  that’s obviously something to be afraid of 
  ● Secretly slip the Author a dose of the drug 
  ● Glimpse something out of the corner of your eye 
  ● Hear a rumour that groups of people have started to 
  go events called ‘dead-ins’ where they drop this new 
  drug and hallucinate together 
  ● A rumour that the drug has been increased in potency 
  ● See a person standing in the middle of traffic. 
  They’re about to get hit by a car and then the car 
  passes straight through them 
  ● See someone you know well who you know is dead 
  ● A dead person tells the Author something secret 
  about a person the Author knows who’s still alive, 
  influential, and dangerous-to-piss-off 
  ● The pharmacists plan to dosing people at a public 
  event 
  ● The dead start demanding things 
  ● Crowded by dead people who are interfering with your 
  ability to live your life 
  ●The secret history of LA starts getting revealed – 
  by people who have lived here for a long time: 
  native Americans, and Spanish and Chinese settlers. 
  
  - 111 - 
  • Draw a mind-map - with all the Big Steps that the Weird can take on it as the 
  main nodes, and ideas related to each of those Big Steps as sub-nodes. 
   
  You can provisionally work out what order the next steps will come in by 
  writing a number next to each of them, counting up in ‘5’s so that you can 
  insert new material between them. See the following mind-map for an 
  example. 
   
   
   
   
   
  
  - 112 - 
   
   
  WHAT HAPPENS IF PLAYERS CAN’T MAKE IT? 
  As a group, you need to decide whether it would be fun to play without them. However, 
  having one or two players missing won’t break the game. 
   
  If a person playing an Author can’t make it, don’t have turns for the missing Author. For 
  this session, for instance, your two-Author game will become a one-Author game. 
   
  If a Creator can’t make it, choose someone who it makes sense to take over and keep 
  playing. The replacement Creator is like someone writing a sick friend’s novel for them 
  when the novel’s on a deadline for delivery. Figure out as much of the Weird’s plan as 
  you can from talking to the Creator (if you can) and reading their notes. Make the best 
  decisions you can. Leave a note for the Creator about your theory about the Weird and 
  about what happened during the game. 
   
  If an Owner can’t make it, assign temporary new Owners for supporting characters. 
   
   
   
  
  - 113 - 
  ending the game 
   
   
  There are three ways to end an Author’s story in Left Coast:  
  • ‘Retirement’, which is an option you choose between chapters and which happens at 
  the end of a chapter 
  • ‘Resolving the Key Questions’, which is an end-point based on group consensus 
  • ‘Running out of time’. 
   
  Once all of the authors’ stories have ended (using any combination of these three 
  methods), your game of Left Coast ends too. 
   
   
  RETIREMENT 
   
  Players can exercise the option described in the ‘Between Chapters’ section to retire their 
  Author at the end of a chapter.  
   
  Retired Authors still stay in the game. On their turns, they can either pass, or they can 
  have an Author’s turn but choose a scene that focuses on the other Author (with the 
  retired Author acting as a supporting character).  
   
  At the end of each turn for a Retired Author (whether they pass or not), add 1 die to the 
  Story dice. 
   
   
  YOU’VE RESOLVED THE KEY QUESTIONS 
   
  This end-point relies on the group’s creative judgment about when you’ve reached the 
  end of an Author’s story 
   
  You can look at the story you’re creating with Left Coast as a process of resolving 
  situations and relationships that are of interest to the players. Each situation or 
  relationship of interest can take the form of an open- or closed-question. These questions 
  can involve supporting characters or the Weird, or they can be more existential (for 
  instance, about the Author’s search for meaning in her life). Here are some examples: 
  • Will Sally get credit for her research? 
  • Why are the Venusians trying to transmit messages through your short stories? 
  • What’s really going on with your brother? 
  • Why do you look like the leader of the Hell’s Angels? 
  • “Do I have a reason to live?” 
   
  You can keep adding questions throughout the game, as long as you’re interested in them. 
  You can have as many or as few ‘active’ questions as you want, at any particular time. 
   
  
  - 114 - 
  At some point, it may become clear that there are really only a few specific questions that 
  need to be resolved in order to create a satisfying ending: 
   
  To end the game, you need to state (as a group) which situations and relationships you’re 
  interested in resolving. You also need to agree that you’re not interested in creating any 
  more questions to resolve (or that if any new questions are created from this point on, you 
  don’t need to answer them fully in order to have a satisfying ending to the story).  
   
  Keep playing the game. Find the answers to the specific questions you’ve identified. 
  Resolve the story of your Left Coast.  
   
   
  TYPES OF RESOLUTION 
  In answering these questions, the Author’s story may reach a definite end or undergo a 
  massive change; relationships may reach new status quos; or the story may end 
  ambiguously (if that feels right).  
   
  The most important thing is that the Author’s Player should feel the Author’s story is 
  resolved. 
   
  Examples of stories reaching definite ends or undergoing massive changes include: 
   
  • the Author obviously winning or losing against the Weird 
  • the Creator announces that the Weird has achieved its plan. 
  • A final confrontation 
  • The Author is assimilated into the supporting characters’ (or the Weird’s) plans 
  • The world is transformed. 
   
   
  Examples of new status quos include: 
   
  • The Author accepts the supporting character 
  • The Author and the supporting character get their relationship to a state of ‘good 
  enough’ 
  • The Author and the supporting character split or otherwise end their relationship 
  • The Author and the supporting character resolve their conflict with a compromise 
  both can live with  
  • The Author and the supporting character dig into what the central unresolvable 
  problem between them is really about and resolve it either through talking or through 
  conflict or through agreeing it can’t be resolved 
  • The Owner feels their the supporting character has changed (or the Author player 
  feels the Author has). 
   
   
  
  - 115 - 
  Examples of more ambiguous endings include: 
   
  • A stand-off: no-one (Author, supporting characters, Weird) can make any progress with their 
  plans or lives 
  • Equilibrium: the Author accepts part of the Weird into her life 
  • ‘And So It Goes’: From now on the Author’s life will not meaningfully change in any way, 
  because she has made enough choices that we know what sort of person she is and what sort 
  of decisions she’ll make from now on. Her path in life has become set. 
   
  Most of the ‘Resolving the Key Questions’ end-point revolves around the group’s 
  creative judgment about what’s of interest. The rules boil down to this:  
   
  1. The Author’s player announces that her Author’s story feels resolved. 
   
  2. If the group agrees that this feels like the right ending, then the Author’s 
  relationships with the Weird and the supporting characters in her life move 
  into the background. Go to Step 3. 
   
  If the group doesn’t agree that this feels like the right ending, identify the 
  other situations or relationships of interest that need to be resolved, and 
  continue playing. 
   
  3. Once the Author’s story is resolved, treat the Author as ‘Retired’: she stays in 
  the game but on her turns she can either pass, or have an Author’s turn but 
  choose a scene that focusing on the other Author.  
   
  At the end of each turn for a Retired Author, add 1 die to the Story dice. 
   
   
  RUNNING OUT OF TIME 
   
  If you run out of time (for instance, if you’re only able to play for one session) you can 
  finish the game at the end of a chapter. This will create the ambiguous endings I 
  mentioned earlier. 
   
  As an alternative to the ambiguous ending, you can apply the ‘retirement’ rules from the 
  ‘Ending the Chapter’ section. 
   
  
  - 116 - 
   
  ADVICE ABOUT ENDING THE GAME 
   
   
  ONCE THE WEIRD IS REVEALED 
  When the Creator feels the Author’s player now has enough information to interpret 
  what’s going on with the Weird, she announces this (but doesn’t explain what the plan is) 
  to the other players 
   
   ‘Enough information’ could involve any or all of the following:  
  • The Creator has shown tiny hints about every aspect of the Weird’s plan 
  • The Weird has taken all of the big steps in its plan 
  • All the supporting characters involved in the Weird’s plan have taken obvious action 
  • The Creator feels she’s dropped enough clues to interpret the Weird’s behaviour 
   
  After this point, the Creator continues adding Weird elements to all the Author’s scenes. 
  
  - 117 - 
  Acknowledgements 
   
  ART 
   
  Thanks to Rachel Woolford for her art on pages 31 and 85. Thanks to Zoey Hogan for her 
  art on pages 7 and 65. 
   
  Photographs were obtained from the Flickr Commons. 
   
   
  PLAYTESTERS 
   
  Thanks to everyone who’s playtested the game so far: 
   
  September 2009 
  A single session in Wellington, NZ. Malcom Craig and Simon Carryer. Run by Steve 
  Hickey. 
   
  August 2011 
  A single session in Wellington, NZ. Mike Sands and Steve Hickey. 
   
  September 2011 
  A single session in Edinburgh, Scotland. Malcolm Craig, Per Fischer, and Gregor Hutton. 
   
  December 2011 
  A single session in Wellington, NZ. Simon Carryer, Steve Hickey, and Mike Sands. 
   
  January 2012 
  A single session at Kapcon in Wellington, NZ. Aaron Caskey, Rohan Smith, Ivan 
  Towlson, Steve Hickey, and Karen Wilson. Special thanks to Aaron for identifying the 
  Fifth Player problem (and thereby making the game fun for more than four players) 
   
  February–March 2012 
  Three sessions in Melbourne, Australia. Richie Cyngler and Team Shieldmonkey. 
   
  May 2012 
  A single session at Day of Games in Wellington, NZ. Paul Cockburn, Nick Green, 
  Eugene Middleton, Ivan Towlson, Karen Wilson, 
   
  May 2012 
  A single session at Day of Games in Wellington, NZ. Simon Carryer, Mike Sands, Ivan 
  Towlson, Karen Wilson. 
   
  September 2012 
  A single session in Wellington, NZ. Ellen Boucher, Stephanie Pegg, Ivan Towlson. 
   
  
  - 118 - 
   
  SUPPORTERS 
   
  I greatly appreciate the support of Mike Sands, Alasdair Sinclair and Ivan Towlson, all of 
  whom contributed a significant amount of time to editing previous drafts of these rules. 
   
  Several people have encouraged me to rewrite Left Coast: Simon Carryer, Malcolm 
  Craig, Jesse Burneko, Ron Edwards, John Laviolette, Joe R. Murphy, Graham Walmsley, 
  Joe McDalno, and Karen Wilson among them. 
   
   
  ANTI-PROCRASTINATION 
   
  Special thanks to Ron Edwards for running the Ronnies awards, and to Jonathan Walton 
  for running the Festival of Flawless Victory, an anti-procrastination competition which 
  got me off my arse and into rewriting this game. 
   
  General anti-procrastination support was provided by Christopher Kubasik who 
  introduced me to The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, and by Seth Godin (especially his 
  post ‘The first thing you do when you sit down at the computer’). 
   
   
  GAME DESIGN INSPIRATION 
   
  Initial inspirations for the game came from Sorcerer, by Ron Edwards, Astral (an 
  unfinished game of mine), The Shadow of Yesterday by Clinton R. Nixon, and My Life 
  with Master by Paul Czege. Other influences include Bliss Stage, Microscope, Spione, 
  Don’t Rest your Head, Murderous Ghosts, Apocalypse World, and the Dungeoncraft 
  article on secrets by Ray Winniger. Ron Edwards’ advice on playtesting also proved 
  invaluable. 
   
   
  INVALUABLE HELP AND IDEAS 
   
  Thanks to Lester Ward, Nathan Orlando Wilson, and John Kim for helping me calculate 
  dice pool probabilities. 
   
  Thanks to @lysergica, @BenedictReid, @devlin1, and @devilmcare for brainstorming 
  ideas, and to Marguerite Hill for on-the-spot playtesting support. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
  - 119 - 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  There’s a secret that real writers know 
  that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret 
  is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard.  
   
  What’s hard is sitting down to write. 
   
   
  Steven Pressfield 
  ‘The War of Art’ 
   
   
   
   
  
  - 120 - 
  Rules 
  Summary 
   
  CHOOSE WHAT TYPE OF SCENE TO 
  PLAY 
  1. If this is your Author’s first scene, your 
  Author will encounter the supporting 
  character you said was the most 
  significant person in her life. In this 
  case, go to ‘Start the Author’s Turn’. 
  2. Did your Author’s Dice increase to 5 in 
  the previous turn? If so, go to the ‘Reset 
  Scene’ section (p84). 
  3. Did you earn a ‘complete success’ on 
  your previous turn? If so, you can either: 
  o Go to Start The Author’s Turn, 
  describe the action your Author is 
  taking and go straight to Step 6 
  (with other players reacting as 
  necessary) 
  o write a story, in which case, go to 
  the ‘Story scenes’ section on the 
  Author’s cheat-sheet.. 
  4. If the group agrees something obviously 
  has to be the next scene: 
  o decide where the scene will occur 
  and who will be there 
  o Go to step 7. 
  5. If none of the above really apply, every 
  player except the Current Author names 
  a supporting character (SC) they want 
  the Author to have a scene with. The SC 
  needs to belong to the Author or be 
  connected to the Author’s SCs by a 
  relationship in the Author’s color. (More 
  than one person can name the same SC.) 
  o If you have a particularly strong 
  idea of what the SC you’ve named 
  wants to do next, describe it briefly. 
  6. The Current Author selects 1 or 2 SCs 
  she’s most interested in. 
  7. If the selected SCs don’t have owners, 
  assign owners (based on interest, 
  curiosity, or convenience). New Owners 
  should flesh out their SCs. 
   
  START THE AUTHOR’S TURN 
  1. The Creator introduces the scene: as a 
  novelist, describe the city and weather.  
  2. If the Owner knows what the SC will do 
  right now, go to Step 4. (Otherwise, she 
  imagines what her SC is doing.)  
  3. The Current Author briefly describes 
  what her Author is doing at the moment. 
  4. The Owner describes how the Author’s 
  life is affected by the SC (SC arrives or 
  takes off-screen action; Author meets 
  SC, or Owner alters the location of the 
  scene so the Author is now with the SC). 
  5. The Current Author describes how her 
  Author interacts with the SC and reacts 
  to events. 
  6. The Owner and Creator respond to the 
  Current Author’s descriptions and 
  describe how the SC, world, or the 
  Weird reacts. 
  7. Audience can ask questions to establish 
  the scene more vividly in their minds. 
  8. Go to ‘Explore the Scene’. 
   
  EXPLORE THE SCENE 
  These must happen in every scene:  
  1. Current Author decides and describe 
  what her Author does. 
  2. Creator introduces one element of the 
  Weird  
  3. Owners introduce one element of their 
  SCs’ secrets  
  While exploring a scene, all players 
  contribute: look at ‘Things to Do in a Scene’ 
  on handouts 
   
  CREATIVE GOALS  
  For the Group: 
  • 
  learn about the Author’s life and 
  relationships  
  • 
  gain insights into SCs 
  • 
  feel the setting has a life of its own  
  • 
  encounter the Weird  
  For Author players: 
  • 
  find out about the Author’s life 
  • 
  decide which relationships and 
  situations are interesting 
  
  - 121 - 
  For Owners: 
  • 
  help SCs develop motivations separate 
  from the Author 
  • 
  describe the SCs acting consistent with 
  those motivations but also making the 
  Author’s life problematic 
  For the Creator: 
  • 
  advance the Weird’s plan, making sure 
  the invasion of Weird forces in the 
  Author’s life antagonizes, provokes, or 
  unsettles the Author 
  • 
  decide what the supporting characters in 
  the Weird quadrant do 
  • 
  describe how the world reacts to the 
  Author, supporting characters and the 
  Weird (which can involve initiating a 
  conflict against the Author) 
  • 
  decide when to introduce new events or 
  supporting characters into the scene, 
  change its location, and when to end the 
  scene. 
   
  INITIATE A CONFLICT OR 
                             END THE SCENE 
  Anyone can initiate a conflict (see the 
  worksheets for advice). If so, go to the ‘Play 
  through the Conflict’ cheat-sheet. 
  Afterwards, the Creator uses her cheat-sheet 
  to guide you through ‘Narrating the 
  Outcome’.  
  If a conflict isn’t brewing, continue or go to 
  ‘End the Scene or Turn’. 
   
   
  END THE SCENE OR TURN 
  At any point anyone can say it’s time to end 
  the scene or the Author’s turn. The Author’s 
  turn can go through multiple scenes. If 
  there’s disagreement, the Creator lead the 
  discussion. 
   
  REVIEW THE TURN 
  Go to the section that best describes what 
  happened during the turn. 
  • 
  There were no conflicts ● Author 
  won every conflict ● Author failed 
  one or more conflicts 
   
   
  NO CONFLICTS 
  1. +1 Author die. If there are now five 
  Author’s Dice, start Author’s next turn 
  with Reset scene.  
  2. If all Author players have had an equal 
  amount of turns, add one Story Die.  
  3. If there are now five (or more) Story 
  Dice, go to Step 2 of the ‘Ending the 
  Chapter’ section. 
  4. Next Author player goes to ‘Choose 
  What Type of Scene to Play’  
   
  WON ALL CONFLICTS 
  1. If all Author players have had an equal 
  amount of turns, add one Story Die. 
  2. If there are now five (or more) Story 
  Dice, go to Step 2 of the ‘Ending the 
  Chapter’ section. 
  3. Next Author player goes to ‘Choose 
  What Type of Scene to Play’  
   
  FAILED ANY CONFLICTS 
  1. Add one die to the pool of Story Dice.  
  2. The group allocates all the dice the 
  Creator earned from all conflicts to 
  items in the following list. Dice from in 
  a sidekick scene can be applied to either 
  Author. 
  The group needs to go back to the top of 
  the list after choosing an option (and 
  you can’t choose same option twice in a 
  row). 
   
  • 
  (Owners only) Add 1 supporting 
  character/relationship to Setting 
  Chart (to help reveal your secret). 
  Owners involved in conflict get first 
  pick. You can’t add a supporting 
  character to the Weird quadrant. 
  • 
  (Owners only) Say that you’re 
  choosing this option, and then 
  secretly decide how to implement 
  one of the following:  
  - Add a secret to a supporting  
    
    character 
  - Swap a supporting character from  
    being an Ally to an Enemy. 
  - Decide how a supporting character  
  
  - 122 - 
    has taken a step to destroy the  
    Author's life 
  • 
  (Creator only) Add 1 supporting 
  character/relationship to Setting 
  Chart (to help the Weird’s plan) 
  • 
  Add a relationship between the 
  supporting characters of 2 different 
  Authors. Draw this relationship in 
  the other Author’s color. 
  • 
  Add one die to the Author’s Dice if 
  you feel the Author’s life has come 
  closer to becoming destabilized. If 
  the Author now has five Author 
  Dice their next scene will be a Reset 
  Scene. 
  • 
  Move the Author’s story backwards 
  or forwards in time. The Author 
  chooses the direction, the amount of 
  time we flash back or forward to, 
  and explains why. 
  • 
  Reveal two supporting characters 
  are actually the same person 
  • 
  A supporting character becomes 
  aware they’ve been turned into a 
  character in one of the Author’s 
  stories 
  • 
  (Creator only) Introduce a hint that 
  the Author is a character inside a 
  novel 
  • 
  Add one of the players to the Setting 
  Chart as a supporting character 
  • 
  Introduce an aspect (not a fictional 
  character) of any story the Author 
  has written in a Story scene into the 
  Author’s life, permanently. 
  Failed Any Conflicts (cont.) 
  3. If there are now five (or more) Story 
  Dice, go to Step 1 of ‘Ending the 
  Chapter’. 
  4. If all Author players have had an equal 
  amount of turns, add one Story Die.  
  5. If there are now five (or more) Story 
  Dice, go to Step 2 of the ‘Ending the 
  Chapter’ section.  
  6. Next Author player goes to ‘Choose 
  What Type of Scene to Play’  
   
   
   
  RESET SCENES  
  1. 
  Reset the Author’s Dice to two dice. 
  2. 
  Which supporting character from the 
  last scene most destabilized the Author’s 
  life? Which quadrant are they in? 
  3. 
  Go to the instructions for that quadrant 
  (page 84) and have the Author’s player 
  read the instructions: 
   
  END THE CHAPTER                   
  1. Current Author chooses two: 
  • 
  Narrate one fact about how a 
  problem for her Author changes. 
  • 
  Select an SC and have their 
  Owner reveal the SC’s secret  
  • 
  Ask the group what her Author 
  should be paying attention to. 
  The group consults and briefly 
  hints at the biggest so-far 
  unnoticed thing that will affect 
  the Author’s life 
  • 
  Choose an SC and ask her 
  Owner either: (a) what are they 
  really feeling? Or (b) what does 
  the SC wish the Author would 
  do?  
  • 
  Ask one Yes/No question of the 
  Creator about the Weird. If the 
  Creator isn’t sure (or hasn’t 
  decided what’s true about that 
  aspect), she can say “Ask 
  another question.” 
  2. Every Creator advances one part of their 
  Weird’s plan. State it as one fact or 
  bullet-point. 
  3. If an Author previously announced their 
  retirement and reset their Author’s dice 
  during this chapter, they get a final 
  epilogue (see page 99 for details). 
  4. Reset the number of Story Dice to one. 
  5. Briefly discuss what happened in the 
  chapter and what might happen next.  
  6. If you want to play another chapter, go 
  to ‘Between Chapters’ (p101). 
   
  
  - 123 - 
  
  - 124 - 
  OWNERS & 
  AUDIENCE 
  WORKSHEET  
   
  You are the Owner of your 
  supporting characters 
  (SCs). You decide what is 
  true about your SCs and 
  what they do and say. 
   
  IN EVERY SCENE …  
  … when you’re playing one 
  of  your SCs, subtly 
  introduce an element of her 
  secret: a reaction; a moment 
  of the world being affected 
  by the secret; or putting a 
  relationship on the Setting 
  Chart. 
   
  ADVICE ABOUT 
  SECRETS 
  • Gradually reveal SC’s 
  secrets, so the Author can 
  react to them. 
  • Show your SC’s secret to 
  everyone but the Author’s 
  player. 
  • After an Author fails a 
  conflict, you can 
  introduce a relationship 
  that hints at your SC’s 
  Secret. 
  • If someone adds a 
  relationship that’s 
  inconsistent with your 
  SC’s Secret, you can veto 
  it. 
   
  THINGS YOU CAN 
  ALWAYS DO IN A 
  SCENE 
  • Play SCs you own (or 
  incidental ones), as 
  required 
  • Talk about what your 
  SC is focused on. 
  Follow what your SC 
  wants. 
  • Let your SC subtly 
  express their support 
  or opposition for the 
  Author.  
   
   
  You are also (always) 
  the Audience. Be a fan 
  of the story, an editor 
  (clarifying the story) 
  and a creative 
  collaborator. 
   
  • Listen and enjoy the 
  conversation and 
  story as it unfolds 
  • Ask a question to 
  deepen your 
  understanding of the 
  Author, other SCs, 
  and the setting. 
  • Look for where the 
  Author doesn’t have 
  control - and point 
  this out to the Creator 
  or make your SC do 
  something that puts 
  pressure on that area. 
  • Suggest how to make 
  the Author’s life 
  problematic 
  • Give the Current 
  Author, Owners, and 
  Creator time to come 
  to their own answers. 
  • If you think people 
  are rushing to 
  solutions, remind 
  them it’s OK to circle 
  around the answer 
  • Encourage the group 
  to focus on the 
  Author.  
   
  INITIATE A 
  CONFLICT 
  As the Owner: 
  • If you realize your SC 
  is resisting the Author 
  (or vice versa), push 
  back gently and see if 
  it’s true resistance. If 
  so, initiate a conflict. 
  • Ask the Current 
  Author ‘What’s your 
  motivation?’ to 
  clarify if there’s a 
  genuine conflict of 
  interests  between the 
  Author and your SC. 
  To initiate a conflict 
  when you don’t have a 
  specific role in the 
  scene:  
  • Watch out for 
  potential conflict. 
  Ask the Creator and 
  Owner ‘Is something 
  or someone resisting 
  the Author?’ 
   
  HOW 
  TO 
  FLESH 
  OUT S.C.s 
  1. Decide who owns the 
  newly-introduced SC 
  (remembering that the 
  Creator owns all 
  Weird SCs; all other 
  SCs are distributed 
  according to interest). 
  2. Define their 
  relationship to the 
  Author, and what 
  problem they bring to 
  the Author’s life. 
  3. Current Author can 
  give a monologue 
  from the Author’s 
  perspective about the 
  SC; other players can 
  ask clarifying 
  questions. 
  4. Choose a last name. 
  The names can be: 
  • someone you know 
  • resonant or 
  symbolic  
  • conventional or 
  unusual  
  • a name the story 
  demands  
  • The Creator can 
  give a Weird NPC a 
  ‘true’ (secret) first 
  name. 
   
  5. Give the SC a first or 
  middle initial if you think 
  she’ll be significant. 
  6. Give the SC a Secret 
  they wants to keep from 
  the Author 
  7. Secretly answer at least 
  1:  
  • Is the SC’s 
  Temperament ‘Up’ or 
  ‘Down’? 
  • Is the SC an Enemy or 
  an Ally of the Author’s 
  goals? 
  If you can’t think of an 
  answer fill it in later  
  8. If you’ve created a 
  secret, show it to 
  everyone (except for the 
  Author’s player) during 
  the SC’s first scene. 
   
   
   
  
  - 125 - 
  SUPPORTING CHARACTER CARDS 
   
   
   
  Name: ______________________________ 
   
   
  Temperament [ Up / Down ] 
   
   
  [Enemy / Ally] of the Author 
   
   
  Secret:______________________________ 
   
   
   
  The first time this supporting character appears, let every 
  player except the Current Author know their secret. 
   
   
  Name: ______________________________ 
   
   
  Temperament [ Up / Down ] 
   
   
  [Enemy / Ally] of the Author 
   
   
  Secret:______________________________ 
   
   
   
  The first time this supporting character appears, let every 
  player except the Current Author know their secret. 
   
   
  Name: ______________________________ 
   
   
  Temperament [ Up / Down ] 
   
   
  [Enemy / Ally] of the Author 
   
   
  Secret:______________________________ 
   
   
   
  The first time this supporting character appears, let every 
  player except the Current Author know their secret. 
   
   
  Name: ______________________________ 
   
   
  Temperament [ Up / Down ] 
   
   
  [Enemy / Ally] of the Author 
   
   
  Secret:______________________________ 
   
   
   
   
  The first time this supporting character appears, let every 
  player except the Current Author know their secret. 
   
   
  Name: ______________________________ 
   
   
  Temperament [ Up / Down ] 
   
   
  [Enemy / Ally] of the Author 
   
   
  Secret:______________________________ 
   
   
   
   
  The first time this supporting character appears, let every 
  player except the Current Author know their secret. 
   
   
  Name: ______________________________ 
   
   
  Temperament [ Up / Down ] 
   
   
  [Enemy / Ally] of the Author 
   
   
  Secret:______________________________ 
   
   
   
   
  The first time this supporting character appears, let every 
  player except the Current Author know their secret. 
   
  
  - 126 - 
  AUTHOR 
  WORKSHEET  
   
  You are an Author Player. You 
  control your Author’s actions and 
  feelings. 
  IN EVERY SCENE … 
  … react to supporting characters 
  (SCs) and events as your Author 
  would. Trust your instincts. Either 
  describe what your Author says 
  and does, or pretend to be the 
  Author (as if you’re an actor 
  playing them). 
  DURING SCENES 
  • Ask what your Author really 
  wants, and act on it. 
  • Deepen your understanding of 
  your Author’s relationship with 
  the SC. 
  • Shift to a new location or visit a 
  new SC, if it feels natural. 
  • Ask questions to clarify where 
  your Author is and what’s 
  going on 
  INITIATE CONFLICTS 
  If you sense an SC is resisting 
  your Author, initiate a conflict. 
   
  You can also ask the Creator if it 
  seems the Weird is resisting you, 
  and then initiate a conflict with 
  the Weird. 
  STORY SCENES 
  1. Choose a story to write. You 
  may have established this in the 
  game, or you may need to 
  create it now. To do this, set the 
  story’s genre. e.g: Hard SF ● 
  Allegory ● Action fantasy or ● 
  [Choose your own genre] and 
  then choose an aspect of current 
  society, and imagine how it’s 
  been radically changed. 
  2. Summarise the story in 2 
  sentences. 
  3. Now describe (in more 
  detail) what happens in the 
  story.  
  • Start somewhere that feels 
  right (the beginning; the 
  bit you’re most excited 
  about or curious about). 
  • This is no-pressure: your 
  description doesn’t need to 
  be professional or even 
  coherent! It can be like 
  synopsizing a book: skip 
  over sections or back and 
  forward through time. 
  Skip over confusing bits 
  (and acknowledge you’re 
  confused about them). 
  4. Decide whether to end the 
  story now or continue 
  (which involves inventing 
  characters and seeing what 
  they do). 
  • If you end the story, go 
  to Step 11 
  • If you continue, go to 
  Step 5. 
  5. As you continue 
  describing the story, get 
  other players to volunteer 
  play characters.  
  6. Tell the volunteer:  
  • who the character is 
  based on (each 
  character should be 
  inspired by an SC 
  from the Author’s 
  real life – even one 
  we haven’t seen yet) 
  • what the character 
  ‘Wants’ (a life-
  defining goal they’re 
  trying to achieve in 
  this story). 
  • New characters’ 
  Wants should conflict 
  with existing 
  characters. 
  Alternate between the 
  following 3 steps until it 
  feels right to end the story: 
  7. Volunteers describe how 
  their characters try to 
  achieve their Wants.  
  8. Respond to these actions:  
  • continue describing 
  what happens  
  • introduce characters. 
  Ask, ‘Who’s the worst 
  person who could show 
  up?’  
  • introduce obstacles to 
  Wants. Ask yourself, 
  “What’s the worst thing 
  that could happen to 
  this character now?” 
  • ask how a character 
  overcomes an obstacle 
  • narrate the 
  consequences of a 
  character’s actions 
  (keeping those 
  consequences plausible 
  but generous) 
  • decide the outcome of 
  non-verbal conflicts 
  between characters. 
  • Describe locations 
  when characters enter 
  them.  
  9. 
  At any point, characters 
  can talk with or 
  confront each other. 
  10. Any player can say it 
  feels right to end the 
  story now.   
  11. You roll the Story dice 
  (using no bonus dice).  
  12. Keep any dice that 
  come up ‘5’ or ‘6’: 
  Spend these.in Step 14.  
  The number of successes 
  describes the quantity of 
  your Author’s work: ● 1 = 
  Obscure short story/Average 
  Novel ● 2 = Average Short 
  story/Popular novel ● 3 = 
  Briefly popular short story ● 
  4 = Culturally significant 
  story. 
  13. If there are no 5s or 6s, 
  the Creator spends 
  points equal to all the 
  dice in Step 14.  
   
   
   
  14. Spend successes. 
  Choose a 2nd item from 
  the  list before re-
  choosing an item: 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  •  (Author only) Write 
  “author of [type of story], 
  [title]” in Money 
  quadrant, and add one 
  bonus to it.  
  • +1 Story die. If there are 
  now 5 Story Dice, go to 
  ‘Ending the Chapter’. 
  • Gain an insight: ask one 
  yes/no question of 
  Creator or Owner 
  • Introduce someone 
  affected by the story  
  • +1 Author’s Die. At 5 
  Author Dice, start a Reset 
  scene. 
  • Introduce a character 
  from the story into real 
  world. Put them in the 
  Trouble quadrant. 
  • Create a new Trouble SC 
  • (Creator only) Incorporate 
  an element of the story 
  into the Weird’s plan 
  • Introduce a negative 
  critical or legal response 
  to the story into the 
  Author’s life 
  • (Creator only) Let the 
  owners of Family SCs 
  who are enemies of the 
  Author take one step each 
  to destroy the Author's 
  life while she’s been 
  writing.  
   
  15. On your next Author’s turn, 
  remember you neglected 
  family and friends in order 
  to write. 
  16. Next Author player goes to 
  ‘Choose What Type of 
  Scene to Play’  
  Retired Authors 
  On your turn, either pass or start a scene where you are with the 
  other Author. In either case add 1 to the Story Dice. 
   
  
  - 127 - 
   
  CREATOR 
  WORKSHEET  
   
  You are the Creator. 
  • You’re writing a novel 
  about the Author and all the 
  Weird stuff in her life. 
  • You determine what is true 
  about the Weird: its aim, 
  how it want to affect the 
  Author, and what it does. 
  • You determine what is true 
  about the world. 
  IN EVERY SCENE … 
  … describe (as if you are 
  writing your novel) something 
  the Author could notice about 
  the Weird: 
  • the next natural step the 
  Weird would take 
  • the smallest possible 
  escalation from what the 
  Weird has previously done 
  • the ramifications of 
  something the Weird has 
  done ‘off-screen’ that 
  affects the Author’s life 
  THINGS YOU CAN ALWAYS 
  DO IN A SCENE 
  • Describe things as if you’re 
  writing your novel. 
  • Make the off-screen world 
  seem alive and real. 
  o Ask the owners of off-
  screen characters how 
  they’d react, as required 
  o Describe the actions or 
  effects of an unowned 
  NPC who isn’t in this 
  scene. 
  o Hint at events 
  happening off-screen 
  that will destabilize the 
  Author’s life 
  • Follow your instincts about 
  what the Weird does – and 
  say it, even if it seems 
  nonsensical 
  NARRATING THE OUTCOME 
  Guide the group through the 
  following steps: 
  1. Restate the conflict’s 
  surface and subtext levels. 
  2. If the Author failed or 
  completely succeeded, go 
  to Step 6.  
  3. Anyone can propose what 
  a partial success means.  
  4. There can be multiple 
  pitches. 
  5. The group amalgamates 
  the most satisfying 
  elements of these pitches. 
  • Current Author 
  determines what’s true 
  about her Author.  
  • Creator and Owners 
  determine what’s true 
  about the world, the 
  Weird, and any NPCs. 
  • The person who lost the 
  conflict determines how 
  her character gives the 
  winner what they want.  
  6. Create a simple statement 
  of fact about how the 
  conflict turned out. 
  7. Re-enter the scene: play 
  out the conflict’s 
  aftermath to see what 
  happens. 
  Winning should have an 
  immediate (and perhaps ‘not-
  obvious’) effect. Keep the 
  aftermath of the conflict 
  inside the boundaries of: 
  ● the focus ● what was 
  wanted ● the scene’s 
  location/duration/events. 
  ENDING A SCENE 
  If there’s disagreement about 
  ending the scene, you’ll guide 
  the group to a decision. 
  2. Ask if any of the 
  following are true: 
  • Does the Current 
  Author feel it’s natural 
  to continue? 
  • Does the conflict’s 
  outcome lead on to 
  another crisis that 
  cannot be ignored, 
  AND it is a crisis that 
  needs to be resolved in 
  order to see where the 
  Author will start the 
  next scene. 
  • Should we let events in 
  the Author’s story 
  simmer for a while (by 
  cutting away to the 
  other Author)? 
  3. Do you still need to 
  introduce the Weird? 
  4. Decide whether to: 
  • continue 
  • resolve a pressing crisis, 
  then cut to next Author  
  • give the characters a 
  moment to wrap up  
  • end immediately 
  • (after a Reset scene) 
  continue the Author’s 
  turn by starting a new 
  scene that starts in the 
  middle of a Reset-
  related crisis in the 
  Author’s life  
   
  THE WEIRD’S PLAN: YOUR 
  NOTES 
   
   
  Weird NPCs and 
  Relationships  
   
   
   
  The first three steps for the 
  Weird 
   
   
   
   
   
  Weird moments in scenes? 
  Outcomes from Weird resets? 
  Your insights? Your theories?
  
  - 128 - 
  PLAY 
  THROUGH 
  THE 
  CONFLICT 
  The Current Author (you) 
  guides the group. 
   
  1. The group agrees what the 
  conflict’s about on the surface 
  and what it’s really about: 
  emotionally, psychologically, 
  or socially for the Author 
  (subtext).  
   
  If you need help figuring this 
  out, try these three steps: 
  • 
  Give a monologue about 
  why this is a conflict for 
  your Author, and how 
  your Author wants this 
  moment of conflict to 
  end. 
  • 
  Everybody else can ask 
  questions of you during 
  the monologue (to clarify 
  your Author’s 
  motivations). “What do 
  you really want?” is a 
  good question to ask. 
  • 
  The Owner can say what 
  her supporting character 
  doesn’t want the Author 
  to achieve, but doesn’t 
  have to say WHY (to 
  preserve any secrets). 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  2. Choose the first item that 
  applies: 
  • 
  Is this conflict about the 
  Author needing money? 
  Go to ‘Story scenes’ (on 
  Author worksheet). 
  • 
  Does this conflict 
  involve opposition from 
  the Weird or general 
  opposition from aspects 
  of the world that aren’t 
  on the Setting Chart? 
  Pick up the Story Dice. 
  • 
  Otherwise, pick up your 
  Author dice (even in 
  Sidekick scenes). 
  3. Pick up a bonus die if this 
  conflict involves or affects a 
  Relationship on the Setting 
  Chart that belongs to you.  
  4. Pick up as many bonus 
  dice as you want from one 
  story your Author’s written. 
  5. Roll your dice. If there 
  are any 5s or 6s, keep them 
  and go to ‘Resolve the 
  Conflict’. 
  6. If there were no 5s or 6s, 
  the Creator keeps all the 
  dice and guides you through 
  ‘Narrate the Outcome’. 
  RESOLVE THE CONFLICT 
   
  If your Author won, you work through these steps: 
   
  1. Distribute your successes between the following items. NB: Choose 
  a second item from the list before re-choosing an item: 
   
  Add an Author die if your  
  Author feels more in control. 
  If you now have 5 Author Dice, 
  end your turn ASAP; your next Turn starts with a Reset Scene 
   
  Add a Story die if your Author  
  has triumphed over the Weird  
  or feels like she’s made  
  significant progress or resolved something in her life. If there are now 5 
  Story Dice, go to ‘Ending the Chapter’. 
   
  Choose what aspect of the 
  conflict your Author  
  succeeds at. If you choose  
  both ‘surface’ and ‘subtext’,  
  you get a complete success. 
   
  Add a non-Weird supporting  
  Character to the Setting Chart  
  (in your color).  
   
  Gets a hint about the secret of a supporting  
  character involved in or affected by the conflict.  
   
  Connect any two of your supporting characters  
   
  2. If you rolled Story Dice, add one die to the pool of Story Dice. If this takes the 
  number of Story Dice to five, go to ‘End the Chapter’ after going to ‘Narrate 
  the Outcome’ on the Creator’s cheat-sheet. 
  +1 
  +1 
  +1 
  +1 
  +1 
  +1 
  +1 
  +1 
  Surface Success 
  Subtext Success 
  Add 
  S.C. 
  Add 
  S.C. 
  Add 
  S.C. 
   
  Add 
  S.C. 
   
  If you have ideas 
  about cool stuff to 
  add to this results 
  list, let me know! 
  COMPLETE 
  SUCCESS 
  Hint 
   
  Relationship 
   
  
  - 129 - 
   
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Collections/Collaborative & Peer & Gm-less & Shifting GM/Left Coast/Left-Coast-January-2013-draft.pdf