[Resources] The Lottery

The Lottery was a short story written by Shirley Jackson. Published in The New Yorker on June 26, 1948, it concerns a ritual that a fictional small American town performs each June 27th. Basically, through use of a lottery system, one inhabitant is chosen to be stoned to death (the text is here).

The story was shocking to the sensibilities of the time. Between the cancelled subscriptions and the hate mail, the story struck a nerve.

What do you think would happen if some player characters came into a town with the same tradition? And if the town, seemingly rational enough, where the PCs had developed relationships (including romantic ones), suddenly went nuts. Would the PCs stop it? Would they participate?