First things first, hello you there my dear reader! Hope you're having a good day.

You'll have to excuse me, but I'm not an english-native speaker so please ignore my inevitable spelling mistakes.

Introduction

In some narrative tabletop roleplaying games, there are procedures at the table to help players get in the mood and understand the setting of the game easily. Usually, when those are in place, the players are asked to read out loud together short sentences and ideally, players may sit down with or without an elevator pitch of the game (making it ideal for convention play) and they should be able to make their own tone-appropriate characters right after the players have used this read-out ritual as an icebreaker.

I'm a game designer, but not an english-native speaker.

Read-out

This is the first step of character creation I've written.

1. Read out loud together

Go around the group, skipping the GM. On your turn, read out loud a paragraph from the italicized text below. Afterwards, make space to see if there is anything the group would like to clarify, ask or discuss.

“We’ve been sent to St. Rita’s Residential School, the catholic asylum for at-risk children. It’s not… It’s not really great here, but we slowly got used to it and now it’s better than being home. I've made new friends here, I like them.”

“Tomorrow is our last day here. They’ll come to pick us up… so we came up with a plan. We broke the school’s code and the principal got angry, very very angry, and we got grounded.”

“ We’ve been sent to the dark closet and got locked up there. It’s quite… It’s quite scary here, but we will slowly get used to the darkness and tomorrow it’ll be better than going back home. I’ve got my friends here, I will feel safe.”

“Tomorrow won’t be our last day here. They won’t come to pick us up, we got grounded in the room on purpose. We chatter giggling as hours go by and, one by one, we’re drifting off to sleep.”

“We dream of a Land Made of Wonder, with vast oceans of hot chocolate inside a single teaspoon, winged and speaking beasts never once seen before, a big bright keyhole radiating light on the lands, even bigger than the sun. It’s… it’s strange here, we can’t get used to it. At least, I’ve got my friends here, I wouldn’t be safe without them.”

"The next one will be our first day here. We won’t wake up in the closet, but we’ll be stuck in the Land Made of Wonder. Together, we’ll embark in a Journey through these strange unplaces in a magical realm. Will we find our way home or will we choose to stay here?”

What I've written afterwards are pretty regular steps involved with picking an archetype for the character, making their memories, traits and belongings and then writing bonds together, but this isn't required to be nearly as evocative as this short read-out should be.

Considerations & Questions

• Just by reading this introduction, what do you think the sources of inspiration this project drew from? What kind of character would you like (if you really were interested to) to make?
• How would you write or fix the text above to make it sounds better, while keeping the overall meaning?

Again, thanks for reading and for any incoming suggestions!