BURNING OPERA

WRITTENBY

GIACOMO VICENZI

“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it

is to be a human being.”- Oscar Wilde

Burning Operaby Vicenzi Giacomo

art by Jessica Menegoli

from 3 to 6 players

You’re all members of a drama group in Venice. All of you are rehearsing a play you’re going to perform in the next days in “La Fenice” theater. All of a sudden a fire breaks out; due to the current renovation of the play house, alarm systems are out of service, so you’re not aware of what’s happening. The flames enclose the structure, and for you it’s too late: doors won’t budge anymore, and every fire exit is shut. You try to concretize: “someone will help us” you think. But as time pass-es, nothing happens but the flames de-vouring the structure more and more. The stage, the only perfectly intact area, is the place you choose to shelter yourself. Hope starts to fade away, so you decide to do a last, crazy thing: you act. You decide to play what you’d like to do right now, knowing you probably will die.

INTRODUCTION – Read carefully!

Burning Opera is not an usual RPG (role playing game); probably it’s not even a game. In fact, it’s aimed to give players strong feelings, and not to entertain them. Don’t play Burning Opera if you don’t want to experience very negative feelings maybe bounded to a personal trau-ma. Burning Opera isn’t a ‘group psychotherapy’ and it hasn’t been written by a psychologist.

Moreover Burning Opera pushes a physical interaction between play-ers, using every mean of the impro-vised LARP (Live Action Role Play). If you can, stand up and act as you were in the fiction for real. For this reason, play it live (no videoconfer-ence or similar).

GETTING STARTED

To play you need:

- a copy of this game;

- some pencils (although one is enough);

- paper sheets;

- a candle and a lighter (or some matchsticks).

Moreover, you probably also need to have a copy of the Plot and/or a copy of the Stock Characters (that you will find in the text). The game lasts circa 15 – 20 minutes per per-son (rules’ reading included).

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GAME’S DICTIONARY

Actors = you, the people playing Burning Opera.

Protagonist = a special player, who’s in the spotlight during the Perfor-mance. Every Actor will be in turn the Protagonist of her own Perfor-mance.

The Act = inherited by the theater terminology, it’s the single gaming instance in which the Actors with Roles will stage the fictional situa-tion set by the Protagonist.

Performance = the whole of ev-ery Act and of the Epilogue during which every Actor has been the Pro-tagonist.

Role = characters that the Actors have to perform in a specific Act led by a Protagonist.

Stock Character = acting model which is chosen by single Actors with or without a Role.

Lantern = in the Performance, it represents the temporary put aside of the Actors critical situation in the theatre.

LET’S START ACTING

Below, every example will be written in italic.

You, players in the flesh are the people in the theatre. From now on you’ll be called Actors.

Write your name on a piece of pa-per; the paper sheet doesn’t need to be large, 2 - 2½ inches (5-6 cm) in width and 1½ - 2 inches (3-4 cm) in height it’s fine.

Choose the Actor who will be the Protagonist for the first Act. If you can’t choose who, go straws. Playing first (or last) has no importance on the final result of the game.

Now, the Protagonist says what she would like to act. Ask her this (or ask yourself the question if you are the Protagonist):

“What would you do if you would be given a last chance to do some-thing before dying, in the real life?”

The answer has to set a situation where there’s at least one more person (other than the Protagonist itself). Situations where the Protag-onist is alone aren’t accepted. My advice is to be honest and serious while answering this question. Playing video games before dying is not exactly the last thing that a per-son would normally do.

To answer this question the Pro-tagonists can make use of the Plot (that you can find at the bottom of the rulebook), where there’s a fair-

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ly generic set of popular questions which normally come up while play-ing Burning Opera. Make use of the Plot only if nothing comes to your mind.

The Protagonist declares the char-acters that are necessary to play her Act, the so called Roles; then ev-ery other Actor is free to take any Role for herself (if two or more Ac-tors compete for a single role, make agreements). Vacant roles will be assigned by the Protagonist. If there are more Roles than Actors, proba-bly the Protagonist has gone too far; in fact, she should consider only the most important ones.

The Protagonist decides to act the last goodbye to her son and her daughter. Mary and John volunteer to play the roles of the two child.

Now the Protagonist refers to the Stock Characters’ list and choos-es only two out of all of them. The choice is quite simple: how should the Act be played like, according to her? How the Roles? I suggest you to choose Stock Characters accord-ing to the Roles themselves. Others Actors can give some advices at any time, but the final choice concerns only the Protagonist.

Now, the Actors (not the Protago-nist) have to divide the Stock Char-acters chosen by the Protagonist among themselves: starting from

the Actors without a Role (if any), every Actor decides if she want or not a Stock Character. Every Actor can only have a Stock Character, Actors with Roles included. She also can’t choose an already chosen Stock Character. However, it’s not necessary to choose one.

Stock Characters are modus operan-di that help Actors to play their role in a specific way, promoting their theatrical abilities and adding a dra-matic touch to the whole scene.

Consequently:

- The Actors with both a Role and a Stock Character should play the Role according to the Stock Charac-ter’s philosophy;

- The Actors with only a Stock Char-acter should suggest what to tell and/or to do to Actors with a Role (and nothing more; so they can’t tell them what to think and what to feel). If an Actor with a Role is simultaneously given more sugges-tions by more Actors with Stock Characters, she will decide which one to take (she also can accept all of them, if they are consistent with each other). In the end, an Actor with a Stock Character can’t sug-gest another Actor with a Role and a Stock Character.

The Actors without a Role during an entire Act will have the prece-dence over other Actors in choos-ing a Role for the next Act.

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“All the world’s a stage.” -William Shakespeare

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DRIFT INTO THE FICTION: get-ting ready for the Act

Now that every Role has been cast, it’s time for the Actors to act. First-ly, the Protagonist lights the candle, then gives it to the Actor on her left.

The Actor with the candle in her hand formulates a sentence where a perceptible part into the burning theatre becomes a perceptible part (based on the five senses) which will form the Act, using this ritual phrase:

(real part in the theatre) becomes (Act’s part)

The smell of the burning wood be-comes the scent of the daughter.

Or:

The sound of the flakes of plaster which are falling down from the ceil-ing becomes the music which resounds in the living room.

When the Actor with the candle has her say, she passes the candle to the Actor on her left (clockwise). When the candle comes back to the Pro-tagonist, she can decide to add an-other last part herself, then she can put the lit candle in the middle of the table. It’s possible to choose the same part of another Actor, but you can’t describe the same thing.

Now you have to abstract yourself from the reality, metaphorically enclosing the whole fire into the Lantern. The Lantern is a part of the fictional situation (of the Act)

which can represent fairly well the same fire, but ‘under control’. This means that you will have to define the Lantern like something that es-pecially produces heat and/or light. The Lantern should be done by common consent.

The lighting fixture hung in the mid-dle of the living room.

Or:

The sun which rises on the horizon.

Or even:

The fire which burns in the fireplace.

THE ACT ITSELF

In this phase every Actor acts her own Role (if she has one), and ev-ery Actor with a Stock Character prompts any other Actor with a Role as to what to say/do (or she does in by herself, if she has both one and the other). The Protagonist is here to pursue her Last Chance, and in-terprets the role of herself. Her goal is succeeding to talk with her loved ones about the fact that she will die, possibly specifying that her death will happen in a burn-ing theatre. She doesn’t need to get immediately to the point, but she should not even shilly-shally. If an Actor wants to describe something that appears in the Performance (like another person, or an object, or something else), she can do it, but only the Protagonist can decide if it appears or not de facto. If a person introduced this way seems to be a

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potential Role (to the Protagonist), then de facto will be the Protagonist who’ll assigns that Role to an Actor who doesn’t have one (if everybody has it, then probably it isn’t an im-portant Role to introduce).

Be natural in your interpretation: act as you’ll behave in that situation if you’ll be in that person shoe. The Protagonist has to be only herself.

Why the candle?

The candle is an important tool, al-most essential for the game. In ad-dition to its role of reminding the turn to the Actors, the candle is also necessary for the interruption of the Act’s narration, if the first should become too emotionally heavy. Whoever feels bad (a stab in the stomach, crying, lamp in the troath, etc.) has to blow the candle out. The blow out is irrevocable and unquestionable.

“RE-EMERGE” FROM THE FIC-TION: the end of the Act

The Performance ends when an Ac-tor blows the candle out or when there aren’t more topics in the con-versation (when the Protagonist has succeed in satisfying the question which she asked herself and when she had talked about her death).

Now, an Actor (it doesn’t matter who) has do describe how the Lan-tern goes out of control.

The sun begins to be more bright than before, and everything becomes light.

Or:

Suddenly the fire flares up from the fireplace, out of control.

This puts an end to the Act, sudden-ly bringing back the Actors to their real situation, which has worsen. Did the Protagonist get injured? Or did she get psychologically hurt? Let the Actors and/or the Protago-nist herself describe.

The important thing is that she doesn’t die (at least not yet). To rep-resent this ‘damages’, the Protago-nist takes the lighter and scorches the paper where her name is writ-ten., without burning it completely. This puts an end to the Act. Now another Actor takes the turn becom-ing the new Protagonist and, follow-ing the previous rules, she puts up another Act. It isn’t necessary to fol-low a specific order, but you haven’t to repeat yourselves.

When every Actor has been the Pro-tagonist once, the game is over. One by one burn the papers, describing how you die (it isn’t necessary dy-ing burned; there are several ways to die in a building which is falling down!) If you can’t do it, or if it’s unsafe where you’re playing right now, tear your papers up and throw them away ( anyway, I decline any responsibility for damage to people or thing). This phase is important and you can’t ignore it.

The game is over.

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“The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.”

- Denis Diderot

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APPENDIX 1: acknowledgements

This is officially the final version of the game. No alpha, no beta. Burn-ing Opera passed all the playtests people did in these months, achiev-ing what I call a final product. I hope you really enjoyed this game as much as I did by writing it. If you want to thank someone, I’m just the tip of the iceberg; here’s a complete list of the people that helped me out with that project, name by name:

Stefania Dorigatti, which has be-come my personal translator. She did a great work (at least to me), helping me out with Burning Opera in every matter. She also made me believe again in this game. I love you honey.

Jessica Menegoli for the wonderful illustrations, the layout and the for-matting of this manual, all for free. She’s amazing, she’s my best friend and I really couldn’t finish this game decently without her precious help.

Daniele di Rubbo, for being a very good friend, and my 1st fan ever!

Giovanni Micolucci and the guys and girls of Vas Quas for the play-tests, the moral and technical sup-port. Thank you guys!

Matteo Turini, Ezio Melega, Sebas-tian Hickey and Jason Morningstar for their help divulging this game all over Italy and all over the world;

Alan Miarelli, Gaia “Marishka Vla-dislau”, Roberto Giugno, Enrico

Ambrosi and Davide Falzani, for being the first beta-testers of Burn-ing Opera. Your precious suggestion made this game really better than I expected; Also thanks to Daniele Di Rubbo (again), Vincenzo Caurio and Agnese Sgarbi for being import-ant playtester of the new version of Burning Opera.

Everyone out there who has talked about this game and to you, reader

THANKS!

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APPENDIX 2: contacts

The official Burning Opera site link is:

http://burningoperarpg.wordpress.com/ . You’ll find every important info there.

You can contact me at g.vicenzi91@gmail.com. The previous email (vice.jack@yahoo.it) is no more in use!

You’ll find me on www.genteche-gioca.it. My nickname over there is “jackvice”. I’m also on http://www.creatoridisogni.net/ with my real name as username.

If you want to contact the illustrator Jessica Menegoli, send an email to: lightdragon@hotmail.it.

Or on Google + in the Burning Op-era RPG’s group.

APPENDIX 3: font & copyright

The font used is Averia Copyright © 2011 Dan Sayers (http://iotic.com/averia/)

Burning Opera is Copyright © 2012-2013 Vicenzi Giacomo

art is Copyright © 2013 Jessica Menegoli

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommer-cial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://cre-ativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

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THE PLOT

This list has the only purpose to help the Protagonist if she can’t find an appropriate question to ask herself. So, you haven’t to take the examples of Roles in a categorical way, but in an approximate way.

A goodbye to a loved one: a friend, a kin, a mentor.

A last day with: your family, your boyfriend/girlfriend, your best friends.

Reliving a good recollection: your childhood frends, your first love, an important goal in your life.

Reliving a missed chance: the death of a relative you used to love.

What you’ve never been able to say: a love that you’ve never confessed, a friendship that you’ve never cul-tivated, the truth about the people who surround you, acknowledging your faults with someone, begging forgiveness.

What you couldn’t have never done before: a dream that you’d have wanted to live with someone but that you’ve never fulfilled before, a demonstration of something for someone, a thing that you’ve under-stood too late and that you would solve.

STOCK CHARACTERS

The Doctor: acts in a pragmatic and rational way, like a logician. He tries to justify everything with science or with facts. He represents the mind which dominates the instinct.

The Child: mostly the ‘little boy of the situation’, who can’t understand the reason why but only the fact that the Protagonist is going to die. He expresses instinctively every feeling which comes to his mind (crying, getting angry, etc.).

The Wiseman: he’s the person who speaks in a pondered way. He doesn’t excuse the things in a logical way (like the Doctor), but he speaks by experience, and he gives advices like a skilled person.

The Mother: the typical protective role. She won’t easily accept the goodbye of the Protagonist. She’s in-clined to protect and defend.

The Skeptic: he’ll never believe to what the Protagonist will say about her own death; according to her, it’s practically not possible.

NOTE: try to remember that the Stock Characters aren’t the actual Roles! If you’ve the Wiseman’s Stock Character you aren’t necessarily old; if you have the Mother’s Stock Char-acter you aren’t necessarily women … they are ways of acting, and not professions/roles per se.

Copyright © 2012-2013 Vicenzi Giacomo – contacts: g.vicenzi91@gmail.com

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