Do Not Read This Journal, and Chain Letters

Do Not Read This Journal is a horror journaling RPG, but I hesitate to call it a Solo experience. Certainly, the process of journaling in the game is akin to other Solo RPGs, along with its cards and oracles. The significant difference is, once you have finished your journaling — your “turn,” as it were — you tuck the rules into the first page of the journal and pass it on to someone else. Ideally a friend, of course; someone who is interested in these kinds of games and delights at the idea of a non-solo journaling experience.

But do they have to be?

Are you old enough to remember chain letters? They were a product of the late 1900s, encouraging random recipients to “copy this letter” and send it to five of their friends. If you did, you would receive good luck. Otherwise, you would be cursed. A silly game at best. Then, of course, financial scams got involved, and then came e-mails, and the idea morphed into the familiar phishing scenes we can’t seem to get rid of.

But what if we brought them back in RPG form? Because you don’t have to hand the journal to someone you know. What if, after filling out your entry, you left the journal on a park bench?

Imagine taking your daily walk, or sitting down on the bus to go to work, and seeing this journal sitting calmly, innocently, left behind by some vanished soul. You pick it up, you find the rules, and you realize you’ve been drafted into a macabre journaling game.

Can you play a game with people you’ll never meet?

I don’t mean meet in-person. There’s play-by-mail games, of course, but even these games require some form of interaction. An introduction, perhaps. If nothing else, an explicit agreement to play the game.

What about a game where you never even know if there are other people playing?

Do Not Read This Journal is a horror game. It has to be. It had to involve the uncertain and crushing fear connected to involving people you may not know in your own salvation.

There is something terrifying about sending yourself into the nothingness that is the outside world. Even now, as I write these very words, I have no idea who will read them. Friends promise they read, but did they? I can ask directly, but will they tell the truth if it implies something unpleasant?

Thousands, perhaps millions of people shout into the void every day. They write blogs, they make youtube channels, they post on social media, and most will be ignored, passed by without a second thought. It will happen many times. It may take years for someone to notice, if anyone does. That is the horror that is our bystander culture.

And then one day you see a journal, left behind by someone on a park bench, and you wonder if you can get it back to its owner. You touch it. You pick it up. You bring it in to your life, and now you are stained. Marked by a person you never even met. Who was this person?

What do they think of you?

Because they knew you would come. They planned on it. That was why they left the journal here, where anyone could touch it…but you found it first. What did they think as they let the journal fall from their fingers? Did they laugh at the idea of your hand brushing the cover? Did they sigh wistfully? Enviously? Cruelly? Did they worry that you might hate them for putting this burden on your shoulders? Did they hope against hope that you would delight at being invited to play a game by a stranger?

Did they not think about you at all?

What did they think of the people who came before? Did they ask the questions you’re asking now? Did they laugh in childish glee at the novelty of it? How many people picked up the journal, read the rules, and then set the book down again, not willing to play? Will you do the same?

If you do, is the game over?

What if the next person throws it into the trash?

What responsibility do we have to the game, as players?

One of the biggest questions a player must answer before even sitting their cushion down at the table, is “what do I have more responsibility to?” The GM, and their creative intent in the adventure they created? The other players, and their desire to have a fun experience? Your own character, and their personal (if imagined) experience and worldview? The game itself, and the rules and systems that make it?

“Open Table” is a term used to explain the freedom of a player to leave the game at any time. They may walk in and walk out as they need to, without any pushback or influence from the other players. If you need an emotional break, a moment to collect yourself, then you are always free to do so. If the game stops being fun, you can always just walk away.

But it can be hard to give yourself that freedom. You are not alone in the game, the others want to play too. It is hard to not feel a responsibility to them, as well as yourself — and it’s important to say that you do have responsibilities to them, their enjoyment, their experience.

It can be very hard to accept that your responsibilities to yourself are just as important. How much easier to tell yourself that “you can take it,” or “they didn’t mean it,” or “they weren’t paying attention.”

The rules say that when you’ve touched the journal, you are bound to it by the curse. I say a far more powerful bond ties players together than mere rules, and it behooves us all to pay attention to those bonds lest we accidentally wrap them around our throats.