Play Test: Stuck in Another World as a Reality TV Contestant

Stories

### Chapter 1: Prologue

Prologue

It was game night. A cat side-eyed us from the door, upset as it was every week to have its nap time so rudely interrupted. The familiar smell of pizza and dry-erase cleaner filled the room. And for once, everyone was freshly showered and dressed up for the occasion.

I tried to keep my voice as level and polite as possible. I didn't want to come across as ungrateful. "I have some immediate critiques. The system is needlessly complex. It took me four hours to make a character and that was only because I discovered you had sample characters in the second of seven appendices at hour three."

The prim and proper businesswoman smiled understandingly and nodded. She was the odd one out around the table, which otherwise consisted of my RPG table, a motley collection of nerds. The others were nervous and watched her reactions to my criticisms carefully.

"We completely understand." She had an odd way of speaking, this sort of sing-song cadence that bordered on the uncanny valley. "Eventually the character building process will be AI-assisted, but we thought that your group with its many years of experience would feel comfortable using the text to do so."

With the exception of Nasim, who got paid to DM at his restaurant job once a month, for the first time in the rest of our lives, there was money riding on our gaming sessions. The others were nervous, likely feeling out of their depths. They had all waited for me and Nasim to boil down character creation for them. Evidently, it was impossible to get most players to read the rules, even when they were literally being paid to do so.

Paid playtesting, and at great rates too – who would have thought it was possible? I was certainly suspicious when I found the application online. And yet here we were, seated at the usual table except with the addition of an overdressed Asian woman wearing a tie and a too-nice skirt and jacket combo.

"There's sixty skills," said Nasim slowly, "twelve attributes – thirteen if you include the optional horny one – thousands of feats, and dozens of romantic archetypes, magical traditions, and martial arts which all confer different bonuses and restrictions. It's total choice paralysis. It'll take hours of going through the book every time we want to spend Experience. Not to mention the difficulty of GMing this game. Who is GMing anyway? I'm still unclear about that."

The woman from the publishing company waved it off. She had a generic attractiveness to her that made her simultaneously approachable and deeply unremarkable at once. I'd already forgotten her name, although that wasn't saying much; I was famously bad with remembering them. Luckily, she didn't seem offended by our criticism, which put the others at ease. We were all counting on this money.

She said with the same easy smile, "We want Arcane Rhapsodies: Legends of Love and Battle, Echoes of Fate, where Legends Converge and Destiny Resonates to be the sort of game that captures the mind for life – a forever game, if you will."

"Are you taking notes on the name?" asked Cat sarcastically. "We've all been calling it Love Fight in our group chat." Her girlfriend Mars elbowed her lightly.

Cici raised her hand like we were back in school. "I have some questions about the setting. It came across as a Supernatural-Horror-Martial Arts-Fighting Game-Romance-Anime World. Is that, is that right?"

"Yes. But though I appreciate all of your feedback, I would ask that you reserve it for later. Today we are finishing your character creation, after which you'll be ready to start testing out the game properly." Spotting my skepticism, she added, "And you will of course be receiving your first, substantial, payment once you're finished."

I looked around the table. We shared an unspoken, mental shrug emoji between us. "Sure, no problem. We've done dice pool systems before, so it'll probably click in place when we start playing."

"Excellent!" She clapped her hands. "Well, how about you share a little about your characters with me and then we can get into where in the world you want to start your stories."

We went around the table. I was playing James Li, a stunt actor who was raised by a martial artist and a professional thief. Since I'd been the first to make a character, I hadn't been sure what would be needed so had made him a bit of an all-rounder. Cat and Mars had made twin sisters, but that was where the similarities stopped. Cat was playing a doctor/traditional medicine practitioner, and Mars a shaman in a bike gang. Nasim, ever the combat-minded, had built an ex-military powerhouse. Our resident mega-weeb, Cici, had built a ninja, and her husband Ted a cybernetics specialist. Davis was playing a girl as usual, a ballet artist/model, and Victor had ignored all the martial arts stuff the best he could to make a straight-up wizard, again, as usual.

It was a large table, and this was just the people that came every week. There had been some long breaks, but we'd somehow managed to preserve our routine, all the way from back when we were shit-heads in our early twenties to fairly responsible adults in our thirties. According to SD Publishing, it was the primary reason we were selected to be a part of the playtest.

"Wow, I'm so excited to watch these characters develop!" She passed out professional-looking brochures to each of us. "These are the locations within our world that we have ready to go for you. Each of you will select a different starting location. You don't need to stay, but the best way to reconvene for most of you will be to raise your status and reputation high enough to become known globally, so choose wisely. Additionally, each starting location is home to incredible adventures and equally incredible rewards, so don't feel overpressured either. "

Nasim rubbed his forehead. "Wait. We're going to be playing in different locations? How is that supposed to work? This also returns us to the question of who is GMing for us anyway?"

"It'll all be made clear as soon as you've selected your starting locations."

I just shook my head, increasingly certain we were never going to be paid more than once, if at all, for whatever the hell was going on. Flipping through the pamphlet, I started choosing for the others. Hopefully the sooner we were through character creation, the sooner we could get to some answers.

"Well, Cici is obviously going with the 'Sakura Shogunate'. Ted, you should probably go with 'Neon Harbor' with your specialization. I'm good with 'The City of Shadows', it seems like the most suited for my character and I like urban fantasy. Which leaves 'The Crossroads of Destiny', 'Arcane Britannia', 'Mystico Maya', 'The City of Eternal Spirituality', 'Realm of Shadows', and 'Zephyr Oasis'. What do you guys think? Realm of Shadows is basically Transylvania, that seems up your alley, Mars."

"Okay." She turned to Cat. "You should do The City of Eternal Spirituality, sweetie. I could ride my bike to you."

"Sure."

"I'm calling Mystico Maya," said Nasir quickly. "I was just listening to a podcast on the Mayan Empire."

Davis stared blankly at the pamphlet before looking at me expectantly. Victor, realizing that was an option did the same.

I rolled my eyes. "Uh, Davis only knows one accent, so he'll do Arcane Britannia. And I don't know, Vic, Crossroads of Destiny? It's a small town in the middle of America. You lived in Illinois, right?"

"That has nothing to do with my character."

"You're free to read through the pamphlet, man."

"Nah, I'm good. I'll do the Crossroads."

The businesswoman's smile grew a bit. "All set? It's a big decision, remember?"

I shrugged. "We'll figure it out."

I came to surrounded by bright lights, a large fist hurtling towards my face. Big block letters hovered in front of the scene blocking most of it from view. My life flashed before me. Then, my other life flashed before my eyes.

Congratulations, you've been selected to star in SkinDimensional Media's pilot season of Arcane Rhapsodies: Legends of Love and Battle, Echoe— ​

​

A fist punched through letters, causing my mind to thankfully shunt them into the corner of my vision, and collided with my face. I stumbled back and fell to the ground.

"CUT!"

"Shit, sorry kid." My attacker stepped forward and offered me his hand. I recognized him instantly as my mentor, veteran stunt actor Kassem Kahn, and let him pull me up.

"You alright?" asked a voice to my side. A tired, middle-aged man on a director's chair looked at me with a bored but polite concern.

I blinked at the scene around me, half alleyway outside on a sunny day, half industrial warehouse – ah, right, I remembered now. We were on a sound stage, filming a commercial for chewing gum. The lights were shockingly bright and much hotter than I'd expected.

The director turned to look at Kas, now with genuine worry. "Is he alright?"

Kas slapped me on the shoulder. "He's good, just knocked for a loop."

I nodded at the director. "Sorry about that, my brain bugged out for a second. We can keep going."

The man slumped into his chair, visibly relieved. "Great, you have no idea how much paperwork an injury adds." He checked his watch. "We're ahead of schedule anyway. You boys have been working hard. Let's take lunch, everyone!"

"Take a seat, James. I'll go make you a plate."

"Thanks, Kas."

Once I had a moment to myself I pulled up the rest of the messages from 'SkinDimensional Media'.

Quests!

Quests are hooks for adventures, romance, and personal development. Not Satisfied by your starting quests? Don't worry! There is an infinite number of 'hidden quests', our way of rewarding you for seeking out entertaining situations on your own.

[Grand Quest: Session 0]

Reconvene with the other members of your test group.

Reward: 1000 XP

Bonus Objective: At least 4 members of your group are alive at completion.

Reward: +2 to your three lowest Attributes.

Bonus Objective: At least 6 members of your group are alive.

Reward: Choose between 2 random Special feats.

Bonus Objective: All 8 members are alive.

Reward: You may return to your home world with your new bodies and abilities.

This was…crushing. My thoughts went back to the pamphlet we'd been given to choose starting locations. I had barely skimmed it, and from what I could remember there were no real names in the descriptions. My new home, Black Harbor, New Jersey had only been referred to as 'The City of Shadows'.

But at least Black Harbor stuck out as an obvious set piece, there not being a city of 5 million people between New York and Philadelphia in our old world. The rest of the places were things like a small town in the middle US, a mega city in East to South East Asia, a small university town in the suburbs of London, and a haunted Eastern European valley; in other words, borderline impossible to find from just a map. Then there were the mystically hidden places, which I'd presumably have to go on a 'quest' to even hear about.

I opened a notes app on my phone and immediately set to putting down everything I remembered about my friend's characters and where they'd been sent. After a few minutes, I looked at the dismal list. It consisted of character archetypes with a handful of notes, 'Cici, playing Blackanese Ninja somewhere in Japan', that sort of thing. Nasim's character was called Tor, which was the only name I could recall. We'd talked about the system and game a fair bit together and I remembered a good amount about Tor, which was unfortunate since Nasim had chosen a lost city as his starting zone.

I groaned. This was a nightmare. I had a great group, really, but I knew them well enough to know that if this was all that I could remember, then they knew absolutely fuck all outside of what they'd gained from their characters' memories.

There were other messages as well.

[Character Quest: Honor Among Thieves, part 1]

Determine the truth behind your father's arrest.

Reward: 125 XP, +1 to six different skills of your choice

[Character Quest: Fame, part 1]

Become a local celebrity in Black Harbor, known by the majority of the population .

Reward: 100 XP, +1 to all Social Attributes

Bonus Objective: Become cherished by a significant percentage of people.

Reward: 50 XP, +1 Charisma, Free Major Feat from within your Romantic Archetype

Bonus Objective: Become feared by a significant percentage of people.

Reward: 50 XP, +1 Presence, Free Major Feat from a Predator Romantic Archetype

[Quest: Enter The Shadows]

Encounter the supernatural underbelly of the City of Shadows.

Reward: 25 XP, +1 to Aura, Affinity, OR Attunement

[Quest: Damsel] [Scintillating]

Rescue a young woman from a mugging in your neighborhood.

Reward: 25 XP, Gain a Contact.

Bonus Objective: Successfully leave her wanting more of you.

Reward: Upgrade a social feat. +1 to Sensuality

Scintillating!

Quests marked Scintillating are those more likely to lead to situations that our viewers adore. Here at SkinDimensional, we pride ourselves on producing the multiverse's finest pornography, and we've taken every opportunity to incentivize you to help! You'll receive greater rewards from engaging in steamy romance and smutty scenes. If you do exceptionally well, you can receive random gifts from the Audience! Prove to be a star, and the Producers will grant you incredible boons!

I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. My life was being shown to an audience of perverts from across the multiverse. It was a good thing I happened to make James Li, my character and new half, an actor hoping to become famous, because Alan, the man I'd been before, was currently freaking out about being watched. Alan very much did not want to be the star of a supernatural horror, martial arts rom-com pornography. James didn't love the horror or the pornography part of the deal but was doing backflips over the thought of becoming a star in multiple universes.

I'd have to deal. My friends were counting on me to survive and to somehow find them in this chaotic new world. To do that I'd have to play along with my 'Producers'. At least they proved themselves helpful with the last message.

[Producer Boon: Moving Bonus]

Along with your first promised payment, we've included a small moving bonus to help you get settled.

Black Card: This little metal debit card is a bank in itself. While it works at any ATM and has an account and routing number in ink only you can see on the back, you can deposit money into the card simply by touching the card to cash or other currency. You can withdraw money simply by reaching into a pocket or wallet the card resides in. If lost or destroyed will return to you safely the next day. Money stored in the Card grows at 10% yearly compound interest.

The card fell into my palm as soon as I dismissed the message. I could intuit the contents of my account just by touching it. Five thousand dollars, a good chunk of change, Still, I'd have been more grateful for the money if the people who'd paid me hadn't also trapped me in a reality TV show against my will. But I couldn't deny it was a life-changing amount of money for me, James Li. I was currently living frugal in a basement apartment in the second or third roughest neighborhood in Black Harbor. Living off the wages of a non-guild Stunt Actor was not easy. In fact, it was impossible, which is why I'd been supplementing my income with parcel delivery work.

We wrapped up my scene fairly quickly after lunch. As a non-member of the Stunt Performers Guild, my screen time was forced to be limited. I also wasn't allowed to say any lines or be on set for longer than four days, which severely hampered the type of roles I could take. There was also a serious difference in pay. Kas and I would end up being on set for about the same number of days for this commercial, but he'd be walking away with ten or twelve times what I'd be.

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