Character creation and the rules
Below is a summary of the rules for the Slasher Flick system, written by Cynthia Celeste Miller. While the summary suits our purposes for running the Steingart Slaughter, I highly recommend you buying the actual gamebook- it is pretty good! Also note that the rules below are just the bare minimum of what we need to play- there's a lot more information and details in the actual book!

Characters
Warning; not all of your characters will survive. No slasher horror story is complete without a few grisly murders, after all...

In this game, you control a primary character (one of Holger Altbreit's nephews), as well as several secondary characters, who are your friends and acquaintances travelling with you from Unkerdorf to Steingart. Think of primaries as the main characters of the story, the ones who will survive (or at least die last... survival is not guaranteed!), while secondaries are the ones who will die first.

The way this works is that you each create your own primary character, and then all players work together to create a pool of secondaries. These secondary characters are shared among the players- whenever your primary character is not present during a scene, you may play a secondary, and you will not always play the same secondary character. In fact, another player may take the role of the same secondary you've just played in a previous scene.

Per scene, I'll simply post which primary characters are present (who need to be played by their owners), which secondaries the remaining players can choose from, and then the players can decide among themselves which secondary they'd like during that scene.

Character creation is very simple. Follow the steps below and you've got yourself a character!

1) Get ready
Ok, this should really be step zero, since it is mostly me handing out some basic info.

As I said before, your primary characters are all sons of Lorenz Altbreit, whoms brother Holger is a farmer who lives in Steingart, a village several days south of your own. Other than that, make up as much backstory as you like !

Your secondaries can tag along with the Altbreit children for whatever reason- they don't need to be related if you don't want them to be, they just have to have a reason to travel to Steingart.

Other than that, a few genre-specific things apply to all characters;
- They are about 20 years old, simply because that's the common age for the genre's protagonists.
- They are not powerful in any way- this is a slasher story, which are always about a bunch of young adults trying to survive against an apparently unkillable killer (and getting brutally chopped up when failing). Leave your inquisitors, soldiers, wizards and politicians at home for this game- bring your peasants, fishermen, lumberjacks and herbalists instead!

Keep in mind that these are just guidelines, to ensure all characters are genre-appropriate. If you have an idea for a character you really want to play, just contact me and we'll make it work somehow!

Finally, we'll need to establish an order- who is player 1, who is player 2, and so on. This will matter only for generating secondary characters.

2) Stereotype
Choose a stereotype for your primary, and for two secondaries. This can be anything, and describes what your character is. For example, "rebellious musician", "cheerful airhead", "callous fisherman", whatever you can come up with. The rulebook suggests picking two words, one for your attitude, the other for your role/occupation.

After you've picked out the stereotypes, hand your secondary characters to the next player- he will determine their stats.

3) Stats
Every character has four stats; Brawns, Finesse, Brain, and Spirit (which is leadership/bravery/charisma). Each of these start out at Poor, but you can upgrade them by spending points (primaries may spend four points, secondaries three).

Upgrading from Poor to Normal costs one point. Upgrading from Poor to Good costs two points.

After you've assigned stats, hand your secondary characters to the next player.

4) Positive quality
Select four positive qualities for your primary characters, and three for each of the secondaries. A positive quality is anything your character is good at, and should be tied to one stat. For example, Fast Runner (Finesse), Street Fighter (Brawn), Perceptive (Brains), and Courageous (Spirit) are good examples of positive qualities. Basically, come up with anything the character would be good at.

After you've assigned positive qualities, hand your secondary characters to the next player.

5) Negative qualitiy
Same as step four, but pick something your character is bad at instead. Be sure to choose something that actually hinders your character ("has lots of bad hair days" is unlikely to come up in the game)! Pick one for your primary character, and divide three more among your secondaries.

After you've assigned negative qualities, hand your secondary characters to the next player.

6) Alterations
Right, so we're nearly done! Each primary character receives two points, while one of your secondary characters receives one point (the other gets zero points!). You can use these to tweak your characters;

- Increase a stat from Poor to Normal, or from Normal to Good
- Gain an additional positive quality
- Gain two genre points (more on this later)
- Gain a special ability

The special abilities are;
- Adrenaline boost (2 genre points per use); one-time bonus to a skill check.
- Back for More (8 genre points per use, one use only); brings a character back to life after being killed
- Dumb luck (2 Genre points per use); one-time re-roll (of one die) on a skill check.
- Let's end this (8 Genre points per use); doubles survival points from a single check while facing the killer (basically, while facing the killer, each skill check allows you to gain or lose Survival Points. When you reach eight points, you escape (for now); when you drop below 0, you die).
- Steel yourself (3 Genre points); automatically succeed on a Freak-Out check (whenever you see something horrible, you need to pass a Freak-Out check (a Spirit test) or be forced to act irrationally for a while)
- Scream queen (females only, once per game, no Genre point cost); let out a bloodcurdling scream when you see something horrible. By doing so, you gain four genre points!
- Stupid Action (zero Genre points, twice per game); Let me control your character momentarily- be assured that you'll do something very, very stupid...

After making alterations, hand your secondary characters to the next player.

7) Equipment
Pick out some equipment. There's no rules for this, so just come up with whatever your character would have. Of all the primary AND secondary characters, only two are allowed to pick a weapon- a hunting bow, blunt axe, fishing knife, stuff like that.

After picking out equipment, hand your secondary characters to the next player.

8) Backstory
Come up with a name for your characters, jot down a few tidbits about them (or write an extensive background story), and figure out how the characters all know each other. We know that the primary characters are all brothers, but what of the secondaries? Are they related? Friends? Rivals? Romantic interests?

Crunching numbers
As director, I'll be rolling all the dice- just tell me what you'd like your character to do, and I'll roll the relevant dice. If you want to I can make the dice results public, but keep in mind that I'll sometimes make hidden roles, which should remain hidden for obvious reasons!

The gist of the system is that you get a number of dice, and whenever you try to do something, you roll them- d6s if you're doing something you're Good at, d8s if the corresponding stat is Normal, and d10s if it's Poor. Good qualities add dice; bad qualities subtract dice. To succeed, two or more dice have to show the same result (with three and more indicating additional success). Up to two players can help another with a task, adding more dice to the roll.

Freaking Out
This bears special mention. Whenever you see something horrible, you may need to make a Spirit check. If you fail, you freak out- this means you'll need to play your character acting irrational and scared.

Also I may require the character to pass additional Spirit checks during the freak out. If the check fails, I get to control your character for a bit, and he'll be doing something very unwise as a result. On the other hand, if you get a matching topper on this test, the character snaps out of the freak out, and can act normally again.

Kill scenes
Whenever you're confronted with the Killer, a Kill scene starts. During each kill scene, your goal is to accumulate 8 Survival Points, which is done by succeeding on skill checks. If you succeed, you escape (for now...). If you fall below zero (by losing enough skill checks), the character's dead. Note that primary characters start each Kill Scene with only one Survival Point, while Secondaries start with zero- this game makes it very easy for characters to die!

And, true to the genre, the killer is nigh unkillable, at least until only two survivors remain...

Genre Points
In the slasher genre, characters tend to make less than ideal choices. Trying to escape the killer by going up the stairs (rather than through the front door), going off by themselves to investigate a noise, or ignoring a suspicious noise ("probably just the wind"). Normally, players avoid these bad decisions like the plague, but in Slasher Flick, these choices are actively encouraged, as they are rewarded with Genre Points.

Whenever one of your characters does something appropriate to the genre, you are awarded a Genre point. Note that the player gets these Genre Points, not the character, so it is entirely possible to rack up some points by taking risks with your secondary characters, then using them on your primary character.

Speaking of which, Genre Points can be used by spending them on special ways to help your character;
- Try it Again (costs 3 pts); Re-roll a failed test
- Temporary Reprieve (costs 3 pts); Whenever you lose Survival Points, you may spend 3 Genre Points to reduce the Survival Point loss by one. Note that you may only use this once per Kill Scene.
- Just What I Needed (costs 3 pts); allows you to make some minor alteration, like finding a lantern in a dark cellar, or the moon shines brightly that night, or there's a sturdy piece of furniture you can use to block a door. Basically you can add anything you can think of to a scene, but keep it within reason!
- What are you doing here? (costs 4 points); Teleport an NPC into the Kill Scene. You will need to come up with a reason as to why they're present ("he was just taking a stroll through town, when he heard a weird noise coming from inside the building, and he decided to investigate")
- Wrong character! (costs 4 genre points); Whenever your primary character loses Survival Points, you may force a secondary character or NPC to lose the points instead. You'll need to come up with a plausible reason for this, though!

Examples of how to earn Genre Points are;
- Investigating strangeness
- Going off on your own
- Neglecting to finish off the killer- once he's at your mercy, walk away and assume he's dead, rather than making sure he's dead, or doing the sensible thing and chopping him into tiny bits just to be sure
- Say genre-appropriate things; "I'll be right back", "It's only the wind," "What's the worst that can happen?", and many, many more lines that just beg the universe to throw the Killer at you
- Roleplaying!
- Having a character die earns you two genre points (remember, the player receives Genre Points and can spend them on any of his characters!)

Tips for playing
Being a slasher horror story rather than an adventure game, the rulebook offers three roleplaying tips...

1) Play dumb! Well, not all the time, but let's be fair; making mistakes is what leaves you vulnerable to the killer, and when you're never vulnerable, well... The story gets boring, quickly. When was the last time the protagonists ever ran out the front door, when there's perfectly good stairs to run up?

2) Accept death! Characters are going to die. Secondary characters are pretty much created to die, but even primaries aren't guaranteed to survive. Death is a possibility in almost every RPG, but in a slasher story, protagonist deaths are basically the point.

3) Contribute to the horror! Many times in RPGs, when faced with horrible monsters, the response is to charge them head on and loot their corpses. Not here! Remember, your characters are all just regular people faced with a terrifying Killer- they're afraid, and they should be played as such.