Helter Skelter: Probable Scenes

“I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s purpose and worth to each and every life.”—Ronald Reagan

Remember that this is a fantasy game. Play up the fantastic elements of San Francisco and Las Vegas, not the technology. Describe the sun rising over a strange land, the colored lights, the alien dress. Anchor it all on the people of those times, who were, each in their own way a bit fantastic.

You can also play with time travel, but be careful. The more definite things you lay out that haven’t happened yet, the more things there are to not happen as they should. Let the players bring the temporal anomalies, such as a photograph from 1969 to 1955. Photographs from 1955 might exist in 1969, but don’t tie them to a specific action or place, at least not immediately. Leave it ambiguous, and wait until the players establish what the action was or the place was.

This is not a dystopian game. The actions of the player characters, when done in good faith, should lead to a better world in the long run. So if they stop the Manson family and come back to this world later, they may be able to watch such movies as “Tess” and “Chinatown” with Sharon Tate-Polanski.