PRE-GAME PREPARATION

Players taking the roles of pupils and staff are not expected to do any kind of intense preparation before the game. In fact, it is highly recommended just to read your diary (which will be purposefully distributed days before the game), perhaps watch some of the recommended television series and movies and maybe one of the books, and finally arrive and play right away. No preplay or pregame negotiation is involved.

The roles of therapists are a bit more complex concerning game materials: Therapists will receive the diaries of all pupils 14 days before the game. There is no need for extensive research of the historical problematics; you will get a basic overview from your game materials and the basic idea from the recommended films. Each participant will receive an already complete character with a sophisticated past, personality, and his or her own plots, the description of which will be provided in advance shortly before the game. The costumes are also provided by us. The players will only need to bring their own shoes and warm/functional undergarments to put on under the costume. The pupils will also need simple gym attire.

Game mechanics

The stories of the characters take place within the walls of the fictional rehabilitation institute, which is represented by the military hospital in Theresienstadt. A significant element of the game is the strict discipline of pupils and the consistent adherence to their regular daily routine. The game time is divided into several units that have a clearly defined schedule for blocks of activities, rest, therapies, and sleep. The pupils attend regular sessions with the therapists and undergo drama therapy and other, more drastic therapeutic procedures if necessary. Within the game, the element of repetition is essential; the stories of characters move forward and develop by repeating the seemingly identical activities that are in fact gradually moving somewhere or being put into new frames. The possible blurring or distorting of the players’ orientation in time as well as light sleep deprivation are recognized elements of the game. You will be familiarized with the entire game schedule from the beginning, and as players you will also know the approximate moments when the most important decisions should be made so that you can adjust the story of your character accordingly. The game environment is often bizarre and visually disturbing and uses various musical and light effects.

The game is of the touching type, which means that lighter forms of intimacy and violence are role-played in quite a realistic way, 1:1, game to reality—an embrace is an embrace, a kiss is a kiss, a brawl is a brawl. At the same time, during the introductory workshops before the game, all players can state and set their limits—the violence and intimacy borderlines they are not willing to cross within the game—and others must respect that limit. We also use a variety of other means to create a safe enough environment (see the design document for details).

GAME SCHEDULE

The game takes approximately 30 real-life hours and is divided into three time blocks, each representing one game day. Each game day is then precisely divided into smaller units with clearly set content. For easier orientation, each character gets a personal chart with a schedule that is similar to a school timetable, which precisely defines the activities the character is supposed to dedicate his or her time to. These timetables have a precise purpose, and they are fine-tuned to serve the game as much as possible. The personal timetables are not in the game to oppress the players; on the contrary, they serve them by improving the options of the game layout, creating interesting situations, and revealing in advance when some of the breakthroughs in their stories will occur. The pupils are also always provided with a certain amount of free time, in which they can walk freely through the Institute and handle their own agendas.

The regular changing of activities and blocks allows us to put enough incentives into a time-constrained game and to prepare all necessary procedures and effects technically. At the same time, we believe that it will provide you with a frame that you can fill with your acting.

THERAPEUTIC THEATRE

Drama therapy, or therapeutic theatre, is a mechanism by which players can portray their characters’ attitudes towards traumatic events in their past. At the same time, drama therapies serve as a tool that helps them express their relationships, shift their past experiences and look for re-interpretations, and lead them along desired paths toward damnation or reconciliation. Each player belongs to one theatrical play that covers some fundamentally traumatic scene from all the characters’ common past. Drama therapy within a specified group of pupils takes place repeatedly and differs depending on how the interpretation of events changes and evolves. It is one of the games’ key mechanisms, which allows the players to act out the development of their characters in relation to the outer world.

At the same time, it provides the chance to create fundamental twists in characters’ relations with one another, to create new conflicts and moments of forgiveness, and to build their desired paths to reconciliation or damnation at their own hands.

Because everything that happens in every new iteration of the drama therapy becomes the actual past—what really happened—and after the drama therapy ends, everybody has to work with the new past.

SPECIAL FRIENDS

Apart from visitors from the outside such as parents or government officials, the characters can encounter more peculiar kinds of visitors. These visitors are on the edge of reality and fantasy, they are surrounded by secrets, and they can bring both hopeful and horrific moments to the characters’ lives. They can represent revived memories, materialized ideas, secret friends, or nightmares.

Special friends are a means of confronting the pupils with their pasts or with the darker sides of their minds. Their bizarreness is consistent with the overall shifted vision. One thing is for sure: not everyone sees them, and it is impossible to interact with them unless they address the characters themselves.

THERAPEUTIC PROCEDURES

The therapeutic procedures include several kinds of procedures that the pupils have to go through in regular blocks. The therapists determine the application of a very diverse set of procedures. There are some that bring significant discomfort and some that are basically pleasing, depending on whether a therapist is trying to break or to motivate a pupil.

The 15-minute procedures also provide space for the characters to meet and act, to experience special moments together, or to share suffering. The procedures are also the moments in which (given that we know exactly where they are and what they do) the characters will be often visited by their…special friends.

If you want to learn more about some of the procedures in advance to make sure that the game is suitable for you, please contact us. Each player has the right to mark one procedure as unacceptable for him or her right before the game after seeing the room personally. This procedure will then not be applicable to the player within the game.

The types of procedures are as follows:

Relaxation procedure

The pupils will spend the duration of the procedure in a comfortable room, where they have cozy toys available that they can cuddle with, and where relaxing music is playing. The procedure is always attended by several pupils at the same time, and it its used to recharge both body and mind. The pupils must spend the whole time in the room and avoid aggression, but otherwise they are not restricted in any way.

Memotechnic procedure

Sometimes it is necessary to instill some essential texts, values, or songs to the pupils. The pupils are strapped down and sensorially deprived so that they can only focus on the given text and fully comprehend its meaning. During the procedure, the pupils can also be examined; that is up to the educators. If the pupils cannot memorize or interpret the pieces correctly, they can be handed over for further disciplinary measures.

Self-awareness procedure

Sometimes, all a pupil needs is just a few moments truly alone, so that he or she can organize his or her thoughts. This is enabled to the fullest within the self-awareness procedure. The duration of the procedure is spent in a room full of mirrors, where one’s only companions are a pencil, a diary, and other materials that can be written on. Here the pupils can, for example, recall some important moments from their pasts or confront themselves with their own natures and consciences.

Photo procedure

Some experiences and memories are explicitly harmful to the pupils. The photo procedure works with a strong shock caused by intense exposure to both sound and light stimuli in the form of very special short movie. These change quickly and evoke strong feelings of uncertainty in the pupils that can lead to the loss of problematic memories.

The procedure is always attended by several pupils at the same time, who are, to a certain extent, restricted in movement. The key elements of the procedure are the intentional evocation of problematic memories and their subsequent extermination. The procedure is very experimental and does not have reliable results.

Cooperative procedure

The pupils often have problems with cooperation and mutual trust. That is why the cooperative procedure was invented. The pupils’ task is to solve a jigsaw puzzle together. One of the pupils sits on a chair and gives instruction to another pupil, who is blindfolded and operates with the jigsaw pieces. This kind of therapy is often prescribed to pupils whose mutual relations are not the best and thus gives them an opportunity to improve them.

SHIFTED REALITY

At some moments, the game deliberately blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction, the supernatural or the psychotropic states of some characters.

At the same time, it does not define one official truth: what is in fact reality and what is just a dream, what happened in the real world and what happened only in someone’s mind. The game’s environment is often bizarre and visually disturbing and uses various musical, sound, and light effects. All these are nevertheless just a backdrop for the game. There is no sense in dealing with technicalities during the game, such as “Where is this scary music coming from?” or “Why has the light colour suddenly changed?” It is better to use these elements for more interesting scenes. We work with recorded music as background or theme music. Most of the rooms in the Institute are sound-equipped, and many have their own musical themes that are constantly playing in them. Likewise, music has its role in particular significant scenes, and some characters may have their own tunes which herald their approach.

Also, the game can be interpreted in at least four different ways we know of and that we learned of in the last Czech run.

PERSONAL DOCUMENTATION

There is a personal file administrated by the therapists on every single pupil. It is strictly forbidden for pupils to even see their own files. The staff may be allowed to have a look under certain exceptional circumstances.

From the very beginning, the file will contain information about the pupils, including such information that the pupils have no idea of or are not willing to admit even to themselves. It also serves as a record for the staff and therapists, who can lead the rehabilitation accordingly and push the stories forward.

All the characters in the game, including the staff and psychotherapists, will have their own diaries. It is mandatory for the pupils to keep their diaries on daily basis; the staff can do so on voluntary basis.

The diaries contain all the important information that will be needed during the game and give the players a chance to remind themselves of their key relationships and character goals whenever necessary. It also enables you to easily find the schedule and is complemented by the acknowledged “breakthrough choices” for your character.

The breakthrough choices are key decisions that you have to make within the game.

You are told about them in advance, and it is a great part of the experience to make these decisions. Not only have we put many arguments in the game to provide for all possibilities, but you will also get time and space to dramatize your choice and improve your story yourself.

At the same time, you will also write in the diaries yourselves within the compulsory therapy. The diary is thus a tool to help you clarify your thoughts or to leave a message: in case your character dies or leaves the game in another way, the diary becomes open to other characters and players and can tell them a lot about what you went through and provide them with an explanation, for example, for why your character was found hanging by the neck in their cell. The style of your writing, the pictures that you draw, the topics you cover, whom you mention—all that will reveal a lot about your character.

CONFLICTS AND ENVIRONMENT

Requiem: Reichskinder is not a simulation of an involuntary stay in a rehabilitative institute. It is neither our goal nor within our powers to prevent you from running from our Institute or to keep the pupils disciplined against their will. If you decide to run, you will succeed in leaving the building. But this is not what the game is about. Neither is it about fights with the staff, pupils’ mutinies, or sabotage of the building. The game focuses on psychology, and the previously mentioned actions can only disrupt it.

In spite of this, conflicts will occur in the game and they will occur a lot. The pupils handle their disputes their own way: they can brawl, fight for the lead position—even small wars of opposing “gangs” can take place. The conflicts can break out on several levels:

A brawl is an outcome of a sudden outburst of emotions, a sudden tussle. Its aim is not to really beat somebody up, but several people will come up against one another, some physical discomfort takes place, and after a while everything is okay again. There are only very limited consequences of losing in a brawl.

The second level is a real fight. The fight is much more serious; pupils can use improvised weapons or their own physical strength to the fullest extent. In the game, we use simple stylized batons to demonstrate this: Some pupils are so powerful that they carry a baton with them at all times; some have to take an improvised baton from the environment.

(For clarity: There are various foam batons distributed throughout the Institute, and everyday objects can be used as improvised weapons, eg. part of a table, part of a water pipe. Pupils can grab these and use them. No one will ever be short on improvised weapons.)

The third level denotes improvised or variously obtained knives.

The fourth level denotes various…peculiar weapons. Swords, axes, maces: all of these things can be carried by the special friends of the pupils.

The fifth level denotes firearms. Pistols, revolvers, rifles. For obvious reasons, these hardly ever fall into the hands of the pupils.

The fight itself then works in a very simple way. If there is somebody on the scene with a higher-level weapon, he or she shall prevail. That does not mean that such a person automatically kills everyone else in an instant, but that he or she rules the scene and wins potential conflicts, no matter how many enemies there are. One pupil with a rifle simply always overpowers 29 other characters with whatever weapons from the lower levels. In fact, you do not even have to wave your weapon around: Just showing off your holstered revolver to everybody clearly states that you are in control.

If the weapons are of the same kind (knives against knives, batons against batons), the situation is solved by a duel, which has no clearly given winner and depends on how much effort the two enemies put in. We will show you before the game starts how to fight with the given tools in a safe and interesting way.

In the building of the Institute, there will be places that cannot be reached (locked doors, boarded up windows, etc.). There is no point in trying to get in such places by force. If these places do belong to the story, you will get into them when the time is right.

CONSULTATIONS

The game runs non-stop from the very start to the very end, and there is no space for leaving your roles. The only exception is in “Chamber no. 5” in the Institute’s washrooms (nowhere near the real bathroom). Here it is possible to take a rest, abandon your character for a little while, read through your materials, etc. It is also possible to consult anything with us here without disrupting the game. You just have to use the Institute’s internal telephone and call the “janitor,” and one of the organizers will look you up and have an out-of-game talk with you. We will be here to ensure both your physical and mental safety, for consultations regarding your next steps in the game, and to resolve any other sort of issues, questions, or uncertainties. It is very important to note, though, that Chamber no. 5 is a very solitary place where no conversations with other players are to be taken.

SAFETY

The game is based on the principles of consensual playing and shared responsibility. You can find more details in the respective parts of the design document.