Category: Intermission Page 1 of 2

A lone explored stands dwarfed at the watery edge of a cave with the light of day glinting off frozen trees behind him.

Finally Returning to The Bleak + The Pearl

The last time I posted The Bleak + The Pearl content was December 29, 2024. The last time I played The Bleak + The Pearl was actually early January. It is mentioned in Fourth Wall Break #7. At the time, I thought there was going to be “a week or two” before I tried playing it again [around three weeks after the last posting]. In reality, it has been six months.

Why?

The simplest answer is that the “one campaign arc at a time” — replacing the old system of playing through two-to-four campaigns at the same time and posting once from each around weekly — ended up working well. And all the other stuff I have talked about impacting my solo play time schedule this year. Those things combined and I just got busy (in general) and specifically got busy having fun doing other things.

Had The GLOW 1996 not taken five-plus months, we probably would have seen Bleak + Pearl back in March. All things considered.

The more complex answer is that three additional things — beyond the one-at-a-time mental shift — happened at the same time while I was playing the session that was not and will not be posted.

Thing the First: There is an encounter where characters might fall for a mental compulsion/illusion where they think a room is full of food and are compelled to keep eating it. It is pretty open when it comes to solutions as to how to break someone out of the spell. I came up with a rather odd solution, but I was trying to play the whole campaign as a series of fast bullet points. So the solution was kind of weird and felt rushed. I did not like it. This was a time to be learning new characters and it felt like I was shortcutting stuff. Which brings me to…

Thing the Second: About once every three months I sit down and say, “Hey, I need a break from my longer, more drawn out stuff and the best solution would be a fairly quick to play, quick to record campaign!,” and every three months plus a couple of sessions I end up not really liking it. Partially, maybe mostly, because it leads to me quickly trying to shortcut around stuff. The second campaign session felt very rushed. Notekeeping was getting sloppier. Solutions were getting sloppier. I was starting to pre-plan some encounter solutions to keep it going faster. It was feeling less and less like something I would play and more like something I was trying to speedrun.

Thing the Third: The fast-play-then-recap nature — and associated shortcuts — meant that I was using increasing amount of stuff directly from the modules and the maps and the icons and taking less time to make sure everything was properly credited. I’d like to play more pre-existing content but I don’t want to just copy-and-paste someone else’s intellectual property. I needed to take a bit of a break and think about ways to avoid doing such a thing.

I needed a way to rectify those things when I felt it was time to do so. Now seems like a fair time — assuming I have time to get this done before moving to another country and having to put the whole blog on hiatus. I will do my utmost.

Complex Problems Require Simple Solutions

The general answer is stop trying to force myself into a rapid-fire “bullet-point then recap” style. I like things where characters and settings are felt. Described. Discussed.

Besides that, a few compromises will be made.

I am going to reduce some elements in the general formatting of the blog. The hiding of mechanics, notes, and “gamemaster” [i.e., “planning”] sections will be done away with for now. My style of play has increasingly become about shifting around those and even when they intefere somewhat with readability they are kind of vital to understanding exactly what happens. They might return after we settle down and get this up and going, but for now I’m not going to worry about it. There will still be a “table of contents” type element. I like being able to link to specific scenes, lore, and such. There will not be a previous/next episode. Simply because it might be a minute before I can update the “playlist.” For the time being, tags and campaign pages will have to suffice and even the latter might go un-updated for weeks or a couple of months until I have time to catch up.

All these things will greatly help me in being able to play the game largely offline and then import it directly into the blog when I have time.

Though I am reducing elements, I will be adding a time tracking element. Some games that did not feel a good fit for the “Doug Style” of playing were partially because they had a more precise time tracking element — especially OSR and NSR type games — so I’ll add a simple element to fix that in place. It should look a bit like this:

Day 3. Round 7. Torchlight remaining: 5.

Not every segment of time will get its own bubble. If we wait for five rounds, then the next one will be five rounds later. It’s just a tool, not a requirement. For those games that take place in a real world or real-world-analog where I keep track of days and locations, that element will take over that place.

Generally I will also be trying to reduce (but not 100% avoid) intellectual property issues. It’s hard to avoid it, completely. Any let’s play of a published adventure is going to spoil some elements. Use some names. Possibly show some graphics. Some let’s plays just show snippets of the module directly on screen. Effectively all let’s plays discuss anywhere from a moderate to a major portion of the content [NPC stats, locations, twists]. That being said, I’ll try and keep it well balanced. Refer to module pages and names. Post only quick summaries of room/area content. Try and avoid showing completed maps and such. Credit everything. With the current adventure, I won’t go back and undo stuff I posted — instead, I’ll focus on moving forward — but as the overall campaign continues it will shift a bit to being more in Doug-voice and in-world voice rather than than in-module voice.

Finally, I will just gladly return fully to Doug-style playing. Characters will get scenes. Scenes will get details. There will be inner dialogue. Drips of lore. All that. The Shadowdark sessions tend to fairly quick play — the balance between mechanical and planning sections vs writing/playing sections closer to 50/50 or even 60/40 rather than stuff where it is more like 20/80.

When Is It Returning?

I don’t know. The plan is to start playing this week (the week of June 16th, 2025). I will write it directly into the blog as my play diary, etc. If I get through the caves and get to a spot where I feel the story is complete without there being a cliff-hanger, I’ll start scheduling the posts to go out either on a weekly or semi-weekly or even…um, whatever 1/3-weekly schedule would be. If I do not get finished, I’ll leave a note to that effect and then I’ll have a few sessions in the bag to help kickstart the re-awakening of the blog circa-August/September 2025.

Along the way I’ll work on some solo advice and solo musing stuff. And maybe some simple one-shot type things.

CREDITS

“Re-entering the Sea Caves” is photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash.

Happy First Birthday, The Doug Alone

By Doug Bolden

On June 21, 2025

In Fourth Wall Break, Intermission

Happy birthday, Doug Alone, you are now one year old [officially].

A bit over a year ago (maybe 1 year + 1 week) I had come up with the idea to play a solo campaign that could be entirely played on my oldish smart phone. I didn’t need a lot of apps, per se. A PDF viewer to view a Tricube Tales micro-setting (I chose Guardians of the Shadow Frontier) and the Tricube Solo PDF. A dice app. Then Google Keep to track the short scenes.

Here is what the original playthroughs looked like:

As you can see, I misunderstood how scenes worked with Tricube Solo and thought you had to draw an Ace/Joker to move on to the next. It made a fairly action oriented episode played out over a few set-pieces.

After playing out a “session” over a few short bursts, I would recap it to this blog. It was nice and relaxing. For the blog version, I would type as many or more words than my initial notes. Sometimes I would add in dialogue and side scenes. A simple piece of stock art (pulled from Pixabay) would be used. At the time, it was never meant to illustrate the scene but instead to simply act as kind of a symbolic mood piece.

A little over a week later, on June 30, I posted the third session of my Bleak + Peal campaign. Initially, it was pretty much exactly like The Bloody Hands. I would play it out with external tools and then post a summary after the fact.

The next day after that (July 1), I posted the first piece of advice: about treating death in solo play as more of a narrative opportunity rather than a reduction of narrative options. Then, that same week (July 4), I posted the initial draft my “extended Tricube framework” which wasn’t just for solo play but actually for co-op play. Over time I have changed a good deal of concepts for it and probably, soon, should write out the changes.

Finally, in that same week (or so) I posted the recap that was meant to bring my main solo play campaign, an Advanced Fighting Fantasy campaign about Barston Bakersfield and a city called Humb, to the blog. As of eleven months later, that plan has never worked out. Soon, maybe.

So, see you next year, right?

July 2024, the first true month of the blog, had 31 posts. An average of one-per-day. Which is crazy talk.

Arguably, the most important change in the early days of the blog was the Gareth Hendrix and the Bunker Bigfoot campaign. It was the first “actual play” campaign where I used the blog itself as a play journal. It used the footnotes concept I had introduced for part 5 of the The Bloody Hands campaign to display mechanical aspects of the play “in line” (but without the mark-up meaning readers had to scroll down to see them). It used a short-story format to represent a higher depth of solo play for myself (where characters had actual dialogue and scenes had setting details). It brought the Alabama Weird to the blog. It basically took the blog from an idea dump and recap collection to a central tool in my solo play journey. It also introduced using stock art – including photos I had taken myself of a real world equivalent of the setting – to actually illustrate scenes rather than just hint towards them thematically.

By the end of the month, The Bleak + The Pearl had transitioned to an “actual play” campaign and more art was being used. Then the first draft of Eustace + Hitomi was created as a spiritual successor (though set nearly 30 years earlier) to Gareth Hendrix. The use of multiple campaigns in multiple settings meant I was increasing AI art to try and fill in the void. A decision that I ended up retconning and regretting but posts from that time still have pieces here or there.

Prior to the more advanced formatting tricks to bring up posts, I was using custom “section breaks” for each campaign. Small PNGs to split up sections to help reduce eye strain. Which ended up being a bit of a problem when I would swap up colors on the blog.

After the next month, I started introducing gamemaster/prep phases where I would set up elements and figure out scenes. I started adding in intermission elements for campaigns that needed check ins and extended musings. And then, on August 25, I introduced the term “Fourth Wall Break” to describe more meta-posts. I had already had a “check-in” but the FWBs were conceived as a way to talk about the personal elements around the blog but also some thoughts about the blog and solo-play that did not fit a particular post. This one is technically a Fourth Wall Break but also is not.

So it goes…

By October 2024, I was playing around with what would become the standard Doug Alone format with different sections have different distinct colors and formatting. Around the middle of November 2024, I had started using even more complex formatting and hyperlink elements to make mechanical notes pop-up on hover.

I kept struggling with the [likely wrong for me, personally] belief that what I really needed was to return to fast-play recap-style posting. Every time I tried, I ended up frustrated. Also, copy-and-pasting my actual play notes into the blog’s HTML (possibly) led to the blog being flagged as some sort of scam site.

In December 2024, I put the blog on a hiatus to go and work out some formatting (meaning that some posts linked above probably look different than they initially did, which means some of my above links are likely wrong on timing). The GLOW 1996: Agent Johnny Blue represented the first full version of the standard formatting (which changes, but sticks to the overall elements).

January 2024, I went through and did something completely different. I rewrote essentially every Eustace + Hitomi post up to that point. Sometimes, a little, sometimes a lot. Fixing some heavy glitches and concepts. I also decided to focus on one primary solo play campaign at a time [generally a shorter arc/chapter of a campaign].

Anyhow, one year and 154 published posts later, I’m still here. Still playing solo games. Badly. But enjoying myself, mostly.

What surprises me the most going back and looking at all these posts is just how much recrimination and self-doubt shines through. Like, really, honestly: who cares? This is a fun experiment that allows me to play games and do some creative writing. Why have I so consistently worried about it?

I have no idea.

What have I learned over this year? Absolutely nothing. Anything I type here I will end up going back on and forgetting within a week [month at most].

What am I looking forward to the most in the second year? Based on this historical look back, probably starting 2-3 “recap only” campaigns and then complaining about it. Making a big deal about adding a couple of formatting elements. And still not bringing back my OG boy, Barston Bakersfield.

Poor guy.

Thanks for reading, Space Pilgrims. I love you all.

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont – Recap and Trivia

By Doug Bolden

On June 14, 2025

In Intermission, Outgunned, Recap, Solo Campaigns, The Glow

Going Back Over the Posts

As I sort through the brain space to sum up this quite long campaign — the longest by word count and episode count, though Bleak + Pearl will quite soon over take both titles since it is maybe half finished at best — I figured I’d go back some episodes and discuss some notes and ideas that occur to me. And while doing that, I’ll fix a few minor errors while leaving the larger ones in place. It’s a living, fairly organic game. Stuff shifts. Let’s blame the Witches Three.

Also, this won’t be a complete list of every episode and interlude. More just a few highlights as things come to mind.

Then, after this I’ll do a general debrief. With the more philosophical and technical stuff.

The First Five Episodes, the Story That Was

Looking at episodes 1 (Psychic Boy Meets Hacker Girl) and 2 (Gathering Supplies), the very first thing that comes to mind is just how much it breaks my heart at how fast I could play and write these things. Pre-Wegovy, I mean. Don’t get me wrong. Weight loss is bigly important (pun intended) and likely will save my life, but the brain drain I get from consuming roughly 1200-1400 calories a day is most obvious from how I could write out episodes of that length in roughly a day where I’d play for an hour or two and then spend another hour or two cleaning it up and tweaking it.

When I started the series, I had roughly a two-week gap between playing and the post showing up. Meaning I played so much and so quickly that I could generate enough content to extend that far into the future. A few episodes in, I had less than a week. Eventually, I swapped to one episode per week (as opposed to three). And I still was “falling behind.”

Not a complaint. I play these games because I like them. I don’t advertise them. Don’t get paid. Don’t get endorsements. Nothing like that. It just amazes me how much 2500-3000+ calorie a day Doug could absolutely explode words and content into the screen without trying that hard.

BACK TO THE FIRST TWO EPISODES: The first ep has some really fun world building because at the time I didn’t have to focus at all on lore building. We have deadly exo-suit game shows, legalized pot smoking, semi-self-driving rental bikes. Soulburn sickness. We have the whole Citadel infrastructure. There could be an entire The GLOW arc that takes place in the mall. Eustace’s voice got killed somewhere around the half-way mark in the series as he was being consumed by the Witches, but a few jabs here or there were fun. Also just his hyper-awareness of other people. “I appreciate the severity of this question, but are you ok?” Asked right after slaughtering a group of people nearby.

Hitomi’s personality also felt a bit stronger. It’s a bit weird in that I have a pretty clear vision of her mindset but sometimes its hard to keep it really clear when writing it out for myself and others to read. Lines like, “Please. I used the magic word you will note. Please. Explain,” did a lot of work.

At the end of “Carving Out a Plan” we get a glance at the original plan for the plot: nearly immediately going to get Amy Patel. That got seriously sidetracked by the “real plot” showing up. Which feels appropriate for the genre.

The second scene of episode 2 (which was basically two scenes in one because, again, I used to write with gusto) is the first time I recall actively going back and redoing something. The original version of the scene had Eustace killing Hitomi’s landlords for betraying her. I changed it to him just reasoning with them to help protect her. That went a long way with saving his character, really. He is not necessarily the person who kills. He is the person who reasons but is willing to kill.

The character of Mischa (from “Holy Revenge”) was potentially a side story that never happened. Before Dave Akari became a major part of the bad-guy plot, making Mischa’s rebellion a lot more reasonable, I had the idea of doing something like a short, violent Cy_Borg one-shot with her.

Episode 2 also introduced the GLOW random chart/map that got a lot of use throughout the series.

EPISODE 4 (“Against Ouroboros”) helped to clench Juan Uno as a major anchor of the series, something that continued up to nearly the end. A funny “glitch” here is that we see a holographic vision of Magnus Odinson. Later it a bit of a “twist” that a person with a very Nordic name is actually a black businessman play-acting as a folksy cult leader. However, they would have already seen him. I made it more obvious there and noted his appearance right off in a later edit.

There were quite a few aspects that didn’t quite get carried over. The Brainwaves as a body-morphed gang could have been useful later. The fact that some of the Fallen Knives were working with Oro. The fact that Marius’s people wear rooster masks.

EPISODE 5 (Terminal Issues) introduces Genny who quickly becomes a major character and pretty equal to Hitomi and Eustace in the series. At first, he was just an asshole getting in their way. One missed chance from here is the biker gang that playfully challenges Eustace to a race. I had plans to bring them back at some point to actually help out — back when I figured Eustace on the bike would be a major element — but kind of forgot them in the gathering of allies. Ah, well.

Around this time I remember feeling increased brain fog because making the the fight scenes actually started to feel stressful instead of joyful.

Magnus Odinson and the Story That Would Become

The biggest shift in the story happened right after.

EPISODE 6 (“Knives Out”): Genny gets kidnapped and we meet the “Siblings”. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember if they were intended to be siblings — adopted or otherwise — but it remained funny to me to skip over a lack of remembering my own lore by always putting it in quotes and having people ask. They ended up becoming, essentially, the boss fight so it’s nice to see them grow with the player characters.

Generally, Episode 6 is the pivot in the way that Johnny Blue becoming a werecat was the pivot for his story. Even more so in this case. By establishing the Cabal as a group of businessmen trying to create their own GLOW it enabled me to deal with the chief problem with both stories in general: the GLOW is terrible. It consumes people and their misery to self-sustain and grow itself and some folks are getting absolutely rich from it. Most are left behind. Tourists flock in and film it like funny home videos. It can be fun to engage in a sort of jokesy-Dystopian-nightmare but I either need to deal up the surreality or find a way to break from it. The break in this case is that the GLOW could be fixed if the people who pushed hardest to keep it a terrible place were more neutralized. By adding in the whole meta-plot of Cthulhu and his allies being resurrected by alien infestations in the GLOW, it helped to keep the story more Doug but also make it grander, more fantasy-grounded, and a more hard-scrabble-vs-the-world.

On the more negative side, by EPISODE 8 (“Odin’s Favorite Son”), the brain fog was in full effect. It took me 5 days to play that one episode across three sessions. Sure, it’s long, but it’s only about the same length as the first episode of the series. I think the fact that the fight with Odinson ended up just being a kind of quick “yeet” over the bridge and it ends abruptly without me working out a lot of details on how to handle it says a lot.

Sometimes adapting to your own situation can open some freedom, though. Because mentally it was becoming harder to rely on the full stack of random tables I had been using, and harder to really balance fights, I came up with some unique situations and combats that broke or tweaked the Outgunned standards. Like the camo guards who had a stronger defense than attack. I had started using the “chase mechanics” to create some unique timing on encounters.

I just also kind of wish that I could see an alternate world where Doug wasn’t running at half-steam while writing. Where the rest of the campaign might have taken a month instead of three.

The Death of Eustace Delmont and the Third Pivot

I’ll talk about this more in the full debrief (which should be next) so won’t really go much into these episodes here, but here’s some behind the scenes for you. As I’m playing, I have a rough scaffold. Very rough. Not very “scaffold.” In gamemaster terms, it would be like having a rough area map with a few keywords. More than that, and your players will wonder off and you’ll never get to use it. Less than that, and you are stuck coming up with a bunch of random content as the female barbarian’s player asks what color the flowers are in the field. You can cheese it and just have five encounters that you make happen no matter what the players do, but it’s good to have a lot of player agency in traditional games. In solo games, though, player agency gets tricky. There’s nothing wrong with just writing five or six set encounters and playing them out. It’s a fair way to do it. However, I like there to be shocks that I have to try to absorb.

Still, it’s nice to have a kind of gravity that the story can be pulled towards if I get stuck. “There is a bomb that will explode.” That way, if nothing else, if I get stuck coming up with a scene, I can return to that bomb. If I come up with something better, the bomb can be handled offstage and no harm, no foul.

The rough scaffolding for this entire campaign arc was (1) Eustace Delmont was secretly a witch [not even he really knew but it was obvious from the beginning] and (2) at some point in time he was going to have to use his witch powers and (3) he would end up having to fight against the Order/GLOW itself, possibly at great personal sacrifice.

As I was ramping up the “Eustace the Witch” portion, something occurred. I rolled a few terrible rolls in a row and Eustace died. I decided to go with it. Ramp it up a bit. A whole new scaffolding slammed down — the battle of Yuggoth, the real driver behind the cabal, the death of humanity in less than a century — and I had a lot of fun with that.

Around here is where Roman, not Roger, fully became the bad seed. Prior posts still talk about Roger being the main villain even in the “gamemaster” sections and commentary, but oh well. People (including me) just had it wrong, see.

And the Rest of It

EPISODE 11 (“Gathering New Allies”) is clearly a strong-spark episode for me. Re-reading it was a pleasure. The slight shifts to make Genny’s grumpy-asshole nature into more of an uber-team-player who is used to seeing people dying — quite a few at his own hands — and wanting to protect people worked so well. Jones was made out of nowhere and the first scene with him — along with his 1990’s era racism of claiming the two Japanese characters looks like father and daughter — just fit the vibe of the series. Varvara got a bit left behind, story wise, but I tried making up for that at the end.

There is a humor in that Jones was brought on to fly a helicopter to the Moonblink and then to the Rambler and essentially struggled to handle the first because of a mechanical failure and couldn’t handle the second because stuff kept going wrong with the helicopter.

I think it would have been fun to have a Jones, Genny, and Varvara crew from the get-go even though five-people crews tend to be a bit rough for me to solo.

“Scrap in the Scrapyard” (EPISODE 12) was another strong spark for me even though length wise it was pretty tiny. It was a good, meaty scene. The fight was fun. Going from a junkyard brawl to a legit fight. I like it when people punching each other start working together. I liked how Varvara was shaping up. Jones was becoming a bit too much comic-relief but it was fun.

Eustace’s return to Antioch was one of those scenes I had to carefully craft. I had imagined, for some time — more of that scaffolding/gravity — that such a scene would occur. I had even thought about making Bel a potential side character, but I eventually just got elements established. The healing of the punished psychics was one of those moments where I was trying to fix some of the inherent cruelness in my own creation. The “Witch-King” moment was definitely of the same vibe of Arden Ulet becoming The Storm Crow in The Bloody Hands. Only Eustace himself severed that connection to retain some part of himself. A fact that did not play out into the final episode when he was able to escape the choices the Witches were laying out for him.

With EPISODE 14 (Crow Boy Meets Hacker Girl (Again)), it is probably the most obvious that I was struggling to play and write. I did a very smart thing, I changed up the formatting of the blog to make it easier to just stream stuff out without having to insert foot notes or break stuff down so much. That helped. We got one episode (Moonblink) split into 2 with the second half being pretty short. I also was unsure how to handle this new Eustace. I eventually reshaped him into a plot point and made Hitomi (and Genny) the main focus. At this point, I was trying to think of how to handle his and Hitomi’s relationship. I also set up a plot-line — the breakdown of Dave Akari — and kind of forgot it. It would have been nice to look a little more at it, I think. I do kind of explain it in a few episodes but that’s the kind of thing that might have been good to actually dwell on.

One of the best and one of the worst decisions for the campaign arc both exist in EPISODE 15 (Meetings). The best decision was to go and bring back plotlines from the Johnny Blue series and help this feel like the second two-thirds of a single novel instead of two completely separate stories. Taking my rough draft of an opening scene for “Neon Foster and the Spaceman” storyline and bringing it back to life worked super well to add some weight and narrative to the whole The GLOW. It felt like a proper arc and foreshadowed twist rather than a simple odd oracle result. Giving Detective Aurora Hernandez more screentime was a great idea, especially since it was becoming harder and harder to explain why MUNI wasn’t more present. Luca and Sofia are good characters and Sofia was one of the few to be able to see Eustace as he really was. Luca was one of the few that trusted Eustace entirely just because of his friendship with Jani.

Unfortunately, I violated the central rule of this entire campaign arc: Hitomi became a prop in her own story. She just tags along, there. Hitomi should have had a much bigger role in those scenes. She did manage a few things, here or there, but her voice should have been better heard.

The “Outfoxed” scene of EPISODE 18 was a bit more of the scaffolding left over from original plans. I was hoping we could have at least one scene of Eustace vs the Order and this is the closest we got. It was also maybe the roughest fight in the game. Eustace tossing the dude from a good height was fun. It was a little sad that Amy — intended to be the third character — essentially got only a scene or two and that her mantis was left behind [and the Green Lady]. Still, it was nice to have that.

My favorite three scenes from the last three episodes were “The Battle of the Rambler” (Episode 19), “The Past Is a Foreign Country” (Episode 20), “NOT the GLOW 1999: Transporter Jani Blum” (Episode 21). Partially because each of the three represented me just putting down the Outgunned rulebook and doing my own thing. The first was a Chase scene that was also a fight. The second was a fight scene where the fight was something else (ala Gareth Hendrix). The third was just a lore scene that both implies a happy ending but also a possibly scary one: Eustace has transcended and is willing to change reality to fit his version of truth and justice. We know he is a good man, but he is also a violent man at times and not always in control of where the latter meets the former.

The final fight was…ok. I think it worked out. One thing I still lack is knowing if I am hitting the right difficulty until stuff happens. But, that and more thoughts about the ending will need to wait for the debrief. Next time, Space Pilgrims. I’m back to moving boxes around.

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont, Special Intermission – The New Outgunned Book Is Now on Backerkit

By Doug Bolden

On May 16, 2025

In Intermission, Outgunned, The Glow

← Previous Arc Session |[ ↑ Arc/Campaign Page ]| Next Arc Session →

The New Outgunned Book Is Now on Backerkit

The current The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont is based on Two Little Mice’s Outgunned RPG. Combining the base game with the first Action Flicks‘ “Neon Noir” and “With Great Powers” flicks, it plays a bit loose with rules here or there but the system as written is amazing at playing these larger than life type characters and moments.

In what is a pleasant coincidence, the next “chapter” in the Outgunned series – Outgunned Superheroes – is now crowdfunding on Backerkit. Besides the new game, there will be a third Action Flicks, a new Mission Dossier, and a variety of bits and bobs (including a new dice set).

For those that have missed any of the previous stuff, it is pretty much all there. There’s a pretty massive €449 “Mightiest Hero” tier that is essentially “get it all in one click.” And a few others that allow you to pick up the previous books, dice, coins, and so forth. For people like me who have the books but not the dice, I’m partially going in early just to get those.

Also, one of the flicks in Action Flicks 3 is something very, very near and dear to my heart:

I am stupidly excited for that one.

The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Intermission #4 – Finishing Checking in with Rules and Such

By Doug Bolden

On March 5, 2025

In Campaign Design, Intermission, The Glow

← Previous Arc Session |[ ↑ Arc/Campaign Page ]| Next Arc Session →

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Intermission #4 – Finishing Checking in with Rules and Such

Credits

The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Intermission #4 – Finishing Checking in with Rules and Such

Finishing Up the Check In

A week or so ago — in blog time, more like 2 weeks ago in real time — I got through the first 147 pages of the Outgunned book to tighten up the rules, figure out stuff that I might need to change, and generally plot out ways to make the story feel a bit more Outgunned. Since then, Episodes 5, 6, and 7 have been played and I’m getting ready for Episode 8 which will definitely increase some pressure. Assuming Eustace doesn’t score a Jackpot and take down a boss in a single roll. Which might happen.

At any rate, it’s a good time for me to finish out the re-read. Especially since my general understanding of those first five chapters was already pretty close to correct but the last chapter is where I only have the vaguest notion of things. I also need to finish out the last bit of Chapter 5. Then, getting that done, I’ll move on to Action Flicks and just touch base a little there. Come up with some ideas for opponents that better use the Cyber/Super vibe.

Rereading “Need for Speed” (from Chapter 5)

We had a very short chase/race that was almost for comical effect. I’m not 100% sure there will be much chance for another but I can always force one in if I want.

The basics I get. You have two general numbers: “Need” and “Speed.” The Need has a story-element — where you are trying to get or what you are trying to achieve — and a numerical element — a number of Grit-esque boxes ranging from 6 to 18 [page 154] with the note that Need 6 chase might be a bit too short while Need 13+ chases are likely to be too difficult. The recommended rage on page 154 is 8 to 12. In multiplayer games, the Need can be kept a secret.

Speed is the other quality. It is more straightforwardly mechanical in that it is established by known equipment. Rides have a starting speed — Eustace’s bike is up 2 as a starting speed since he rewrote it during his Soulburn berserker-y. The story element of speed is a bit abstract and is more about your ability to get out of the chase successfully. No matter where the ride starts it eventually gets up to Speed 5 or Speed 6. On page 154 (again), it notes that at Speed 5 the chase’s Action Rolls become a Gamble. Presumably the Reaction Rolls remain merely dangerous [if that]. Then at Speed 6 you start taking -1 to all rolls because you are at Top Speed. There is at least one Feat to counter this but none of my characters have that Feat and it does not seem likely they will get it during this Campaign.

[page 152] At the end of the ACTION Turn, before you check Reaction, you fill a number of Need equal to your current Speed. This is after you calculate changes to your speed. If — and only if — your action would increase your Speed then you get +1 Speed for Critical successes, +2 for Extreme, and +3 for Impossible. A Jackpot means the chase is over. Characters can do other actions instead of trying to focus on increasing their Speed, or just essentially skip their Action turn. If you fail to get any successes, Speed drops by 1. If you have a 0 Speed and this happens, you actually lose a filled box on your Need.

You can choose to skip increasing your Speed [to avoid getting faster than 4, for instance].

The jazz of the chase sequences is the Reaction Turns. This is where the characters — the driver and the passengers — tend to have to do various things to avoid getting hit or tossed around or losing control. It tends to be Dangerous + Critical but can be +/- based on circumstance. On page 153 it points out that you get -1 Speed per person who fails (passengers and driver) but if the driver fails, you also lose one armor.

There are several examples given for types of roll. Here’s one: You need to make a sudden turn. The driver rolls Nerves+Dexterity, the others roll Brawn+Force. I like that sort of vibe, truly.

If the ride blows up — runs out of armor and takes more damage — you lose the chase. Makes sense. On page 155 it also has other loss conditions like a minimum speed, a countdown, or having to bail out of the chase. Of course, if everyone loses Grit [possibly just the driver depending on the ride] then the chase is over.

There is the option to having hot boxes on the Need track similar to how they are in combat [page 160]. Then, for Adrenaline, you get a few fun things like “old woman cross the road” or “rush hour traffic…” I like the theme of those.

There are rules for chases on foot [page 159] — similar mechanics but no ride, no driver, and starting speed is 0. Presumably the main loss condition for that would be running out of Grit [with the countdown, minimum speed, and giving up possibly taking place in some situations]. Rules for multple rides on page 158 — if destination is the same, treat it as one chase while if not then treat it as separate chases.

With the comment that there is likely enough data and rules here for this to have likely deserved its own chapter, I think I got the general idea of how to keep chases fun.

Rereading “Mission Start”

When you’re playing Outgunned, you always have a mission to carry out. + Every mission comes with very high stakes. If you and your fellow Heroes don’t get to work, the bad guys will win, and many innocents will pay the price. Both on page 164. Early on, this was definitely a bit of a problem for the campaign. I think with the introduction of the most recent twists in the game, the campaign/arc more re-aligns with the vibe at the core of Outgunned. There is a definite badness that is a core badness. Magnus Odinson — real name not yet released —, Dave Akari, and Roger Patel are all part of an attempt to try and destabilize the Order. Does it make sense? I mean, yeah. It makes enough sense for me to have a good time.

At the beginning of a Turning Point, Heat rises and the Heroes Advance. From then on, you can set Goons aside and start bringing in Bad Guys and Bosses. [page 166] Oooooopsies. Looks like Heat went up. That won’t impact too much but it is up to 6, now. Actually, no, there are seom conditions to up Heat [Page 181]: A point of no return (Showdown or Turning Point), when someone is left for dead which the characters have not done, a major defeat, a major failure, or taking too long. The latter is up for debate but since the storyline as a whole has been going for around two days and only the last twenty-four hours has really been a major impact I’d say it’s ok. The initial rise was due to the attack in the mall but frankly that’s the establishing shot that explains why the heat would be at 4. The Turning Point of stuff going down at the compound would be what gets it to 5.

One thing I am still slightly struggling with is the Villain. Roger Patel is a likely choice but I think more and more it will be Doctor Roman Patel. Roger is kind of a right-hand man to his dad. Roman will be the core of the secret sects and crime family power. By focusing on Roman it makes it less about a one-on-one and taking down a villain that is an older man, though still fit, who deals with everything through layers of subordinates. His daughter somewhat turned on the family — less here than in the Alabama Weird — and the plot line to rescue her is still on the books. Maybe right after the compound. Eustace has slightly forgotten about the disk but that can be soon.

Going with Roman, we get Roger as the main subordinate, and Amy is Roman’s weakness. His strong spots will be Organized Crime, Cutting Edge Tech, and Secret Organization. In fact, the fight with the compound is slightly biting into Roman’s control of hidden psychics.

I’ll save going into the rest of the Villain stuff until we are closer to the Showdown, but the important thing for me to remember is that rolls against the Villain are at -1 until the Showdown and basically stuff like Spotlights can’t be used to beat the Villain until the end.

Next significant element in this chapter is Support Characters. Right now there is basically two: Libby and Genny. Libby is help with Hacking. Genny is help with shooting. A few other people might make good ones. One of the goofier street gang members like the ShaoDra or Fractals. Julian. I like the idea of the silly little bike racers to show back up and help since Eustace deeply impressed them. We’ll start with the two and I’ll build them up as characters with actual stats when it is time.

There are three Plans B per campaign/arc: Bluff, Bullet, and Backup. We can say for sure that Hitomi has used up the Backup by calling in folks to help take the compound once I made the compound more complicated than initially intended. On page 183 it goes into details on the others. Bullet and Bluff are basically what they say on the tin.

And then with rest of the chapter it’s a mixture of stuff that seems perfectly fine — like Advancements — and stuff that is mostly ok — like Experiences. Though the attack on the Rambler which may or may not occur is a lot like a Heist, it’s not exactly how I’m playing it so I can skip it.

This wraps up the core book which takes us to Action Flicks.

Rereading “Great Powers” and “Neon Noir”

I think most of it is just flavor and feats and such. But starting with “Great Powers” the main thing I see, on page 71, is “Plan B: Blast.” In most ways it is just like the Bullet — where a single bullet rewrites the scene to be more positive — only it involves your super powers. Eustace has kind of already ued this trick a couple of times but I’m not counting it because both times it was kind of just of flavor.

Then there are a few important things with “Neon Noir.” Use Streetwise in the Sprawl, Style in the Top. This is on page 178. You also have a new rule about using a Gamble. You get +2 to your roll instead of +1, but you take 3 Grit per Snake Eyes. Yowza.

When you lose on the Death Roulette [page 179] you can’t use a Spotlight but also can be revived for $3 at a cyberdoc. Makes sense.

There are also some specific rules for cyberwear that I am partially ignoring because Eustace has something slightly different. As the story progresses, we might think more about that.

Switching to One Per Week

At this point I also want to try switching the let’s play to a slightly different format where I play throughout the week (a scene or two per mini-session) and then hit post just once a week for the actual plays [with things like intermissions being on a second day, etc]. The overhead for the Outgunned THE GLOW posts is enough that any time saved will be helpful to getting to actually play more. The idea is that I spend the same amount of time working on the playthroughs and the blog, essentially, but rather than 3-5 scenes aim for more like 5-10 scenes per week with a bit more time spent building up and actually playing each scene.

It’s not necessarily a guaranteed thing that will stay. For one, it does screw up my “episode format” where there will be more shifts in the middle of each post. When I was doing 3/week then I could run a little long or cut a little short. Only stuff in real life — I have largely lost a lot of mental capacity to play on the weekends so it is much more like an hour here or there throughout the week — kept me cutting stuff shorter and shorter to get the three out. Not all game systems or campaigns require as much overhead so it can vary per campaign.

CREDITS

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont is played using Two Little Mouse’s Outgunned and Outgunned: Action Flicks (especially, but not limited to “Neon Noir” and “Great Powers”). It uses Larcenous Designs’ Gamemaster Apprentice Deck: Cyberpunk 2E as its main oracle.

Other sources used include:

Zach Best’s Universal NPC Emulator.
Cesar Capacle’s Random Realities
Kevin Crawford’s Cities Without Number
Matt Davis’ Book of Random Tables: Cyberpunk 1, 2 and 3.
Geist Hack Games and Paul D. Gallagher’s Augmented Realities.

The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Intermission #3 – Checking in with Rules and Such

By Doug Bolden

On February 23, 2025

In Campaign Design, Intermission, Outgunned, The Glow

← Previous Arc Session |[ ↑ Arc/Campaign Page ]| Next Arc Session →

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Intermission #3 – Checking in with Rules and Such

Credits

The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Intermission #3 – Checking in with Rules and Such

Why Am I Checking In?

In game terms, we have just wrapped up what would be roughly equivalent to our second shot. Solo makes it a bit odder. The first shot being getting out of the mall and dealing with the Apostates + Holy Rollers. The second shot being shutting down Ouroboros and getting a job. The third shot will be dealing with the Knives and their allies. Then we should be at a turning point.

I would say generally the story is going about 70% correctly. We are introducing a few wheels within wheels. We are getting some good — but not locked down in stone — character moments. We have a few allies. A few enemies. Some intrigues but not so many the story is self-burying. Remind me to tell you the time I spent sessions trying to get back to the central intrigue in my first ever solo game. I think we have a good start. A fairly solid start.

But not really a great one. The action is a bit too Tricube Tales — and I say that with love. At this point, most of the action feels like it might have come from Cities Without Number, Cyberpunk 2020, or most other games. It has fights. It has dodges. It just does not quite have the explosive, silly oomph I was wanting.

There are some good moments. Eustace slaughtering the Patel goons before they had a chance to move was campaign establishing. Dodging over the collapsing church floor after taking several hits from the security drones worked well for me. The fight with Weird Arms. Hitomi “hacking” a sentient computer by being friendly to a relatively abused system is the kind of lore that moves worldbuilding forward. Also a lot of simple checks just to find stuff that does not really have any danger associated. Moments where simple talking is plenty. Some of that, maybe a lot of that, was the pneumonia. It is hard to think of exciting things when a set of stairs can wind you for several minutes.

The time has come though to ramp this up a bit. The fight with the Knives is a good start, partially because it challenges a central thesis of the arc: Eustace gets his powers from Soulburn. What does he do against enemies that stop it?

Before I do that, though, I want to take a moment to get a bit into a deeper dive with the rules. Go over the chapters and sections, talk about things I could do better or focus on more.

Rereading “A Time For Action”

“If something can go wrong, roll the dice.” [page 60].

I think this is the primary thing I would like to tweak. Each time the dice come out I want a general break down of what actually fails when they fail.

Partially this is on me to focus on the scenes and set-pieces that have more action. Gun turrets. Three groups of smaller goons rather than just a single fight with a single big bad. Timers and explosions.

“Most rolls worthy of a Hero are Critical rolls.” [page 64].

This is how I have been playing it but it is good to know. Basic should be largely just be used to do more minor rolls where some failure would be fun. Extreme should be more or less the top tier rolls. I think I got this part down ok.

“When Re-rolling, you take all dice that weren’t part of a combination and roll them again.” [Emphasis mine, page 68].

This I have been doing incorrectly. I even talked about, somewhere, there being an odd mini-game where sometimes you get two Basics and I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to risk one of the Basics but picking up those dice and rerolling, especially in cases where you have Snake Eyes. I will, instead, consider a Basic success as “locked” even if it interferes with rerolls.

“If after making a Re-roll or Free Re-roll you got a better result, you can still choose to go All In.” [page 69]

I have not used this but probably should. Eustace is very much an “all in” type of guy.

The next little bit is about extra actions from additional successes. I need to work on this a bit. Partially this, especially: “If you passed a roll with flying colors and one of your friends has failed, you can use any of your extra successes to lend them a hand.” [page 73] I think I have generally treated extra successes as extra effect, not extra actions. I should tweak that.

Another tweak I need to figure out more about is Help. I think I have doing that wrong. For instance, a gun does not grant Help. It just allows you to enter into a gun fight. A laptop might grant Help to hacking since it brings your tools to the table. Eustace’s blades grant help becuause a fist fight doesn’t require blades. I’ll pull that in a bit.

Rereading “Impending Danger”

I have a bad feeling this is the one where I am going to be handling stuff a bit wrong. For instance…

“The difference between a normal roll and a dangerous roll is that if you fail a dangerous roll, you don’t face the usual consequences for a failure. Instead, you lose a set amount of Grit depending on the difficulty of the failed roll.” [page 81] Then it goes on to list the amount of grit. Basic = 1. Critical = 3. Extreme = 9! Impossible = 12. That’s a huge jump from Crit to Extreme but ok. The problem is…

“A Gamble is an extremely risky action or reaction, a wager against all odds that runs the risk of backfiring on the Hero. Gamble rolls can be either Dangerous or normal, but in either case, they carry a threat for you to lose additional Grit.” [page 86] And then, on the next page [page 89], “Afterwards, look at the dice: for every Snake Eye you rolled, you lose 1 Grit. When doing this, you only count the left on the table after you decided whether to Re-Roll or go All In, regardless of if they are part of a success or not.”

The reason this is wrong is you have Gamble Rolls and you have Dangerous rolls and sometimes Gamble Rolls are dangerous but not always. I have pretty much played every combat as a Gamble when sometimes it would not be. It also clarifies that you do count “snake eyes” [aka, 1s] as a hit even if they are part of a success. I thought so, but wanted to double check.

Gambles broadly come from two sources: very dangerous rolls — it lists two variations of this, playing with fire and taking things too far — and going all in which is a +1 and different from the other “All In”.

Healing I have been slighly overcomplicating. You essentially heal all Grit when the character (1) sleeps, (2) catches a break, or (3) the end of a shot. It’s a bit more automatic and regular, once again re-inforcing the need for higher amounts of action.

Generally conditions I have been playing correctly, just haven’t had much use for them overall. One thing to keep in mind is that several conditions have a kind of mini-game aspect that grants an alternate solution. For instance, “You Look Scared” can be removed by facing your fear. That can be fun to play with.

Rereading “Gear Up”

Don’t think it really requires a lot that wasn’t already discussed above. Equipment is in four categories: Common [just for flavor], Tools [+1 Help or “grants permission”], Guns [obvious], and Rides [also obvious].

Combat is very focused on guns which makes the Eustace vs Hitomi, Sword vs Gun divide a bit odd. Eustace get +1 Help from his swords. Hitomi does not for her gun. I think I might be slightly running combats wrong but we’ll get to it.

One thing I missed was “You can lose gear…when you choose to sacrifice it to gain +1 to a roll that you think is extremely important.” [page 99] That’s a mechanic, like the “All In” that I haven’t used. I sort of have in the storyline with Eustace giving up his jacket to steady Bee’s nerves, but not really in a way that would impact the mechanics. I’ll keep an eye out for opportunities.

A lot of the other bits about Rides and Cash are slightly not necessary. It looks like the stay in the motel should cost $1 [again, in Outgunned terms, it is more a logarithmic scale than anything]. I covered that by saying “there were credits” but good to know in the future. There’s stuff for Black Market [page 111] where everything is $1 cheaper and a Gear Up Scene where you can have a shopping spree montage to replicate the moment in a movie where people get a lot of equipment.

On page 110: “Anyway, it’s hard for a Hero to get their hands on more than 1$ at a time, unless they are robbing a bank or some such thing.” That slightly changes how I think of some economy. Probably get $1 for the information snagged from Ouroboros. The other two missions will be $2 and $1 respectively.

That being said, Eustace and Hitomi have a large crate of guns that they can borrow from, but they will have the tag of “easily traceable” which means using them will up the Heat.

Rereading “Face the Enemy”

With the “Impending Danger” reread, I’d say most of how I ran fights “wrongly” might be somewhat fixed (in that I treated Reaction Turns as both Gambles and Dangerous). There are a few other things that I need to note, though, to add some spice. The quick run down would look like…

[page 115] Quick Action + Full Action per Action Turn. Frankly, I’ll probably keep this pretty loose since it’s solo play but it’s the metric.
[same page] Instead of Brawn + Fight or Nerves + Shoot you can use other combos to fight back if they make sense. These would still wear down the Grit of the enemy as long as they might “might hurt, tire, discourage, or chase away your enemies…”
[page 116] Likewise, other skill combos can be used for Reactions as long as they make sense.
[page 117] Fights can start either Action or Reaction, depending on circumstances. This can make surprise and awareness rolls more useful in some cases.
[same page] If I get additional successes on Reaction, those can be used to counter attack, to do extra actions, or to block damage from others. Blocking damage requires a full additional success.

One thing I was unsure about was the Brawl vs the Fire Fight. Seems like Brawl is more than a simple “fist fight” metric though it is meant to be for less lethal fights [like bar fights or quick punch ups]. Only roll Action Turns but Actions become Dangerous. I’m not sure if that would fit a lot of fights in “Neon Noir” but stuff like the fight in the cafe could have been a nice place to use them.

For gun fights [which would also include Eustace going blade-heavy] the main two things I need to note are [page 124] if the guns fail they use up a mag and [page 125] firing at an enemy in melee — which happens a lot — it’s treated as Gamble against the allies in melee. Hitomi is 100% going to end up shooting Eustace at some point.

When Enemies have a Hot Box as their last Grit then they get one last chance to spend their Adrenaline. I’m not sure if that has come up yet but just to remember.

Finally, for the final part of this re-read: Weakspots are more complicated than I have been playing them. On page 147, there are a list of possible ones on a table. Presumably I could also come up with others in a similar vein. An example of one on the table is “The Enemies aren’t really sharp. You can attack with Focus+Know +1.”

That’s Enough for Now

That re-read gets me up to page 147 out of roughly 190 pages of rules so most of the way. The remaining bits are stuff like Chases (which I haven’t ran even once so re-reading wouldn’t make much sense), some more technical campaign development, Plans B, and other elements that will likely become more prominent as we get into the Turning Point and then the main campaign arc kicks up. At the Turning Point I’ll probably work a shorter version of this post and go ahead and fill out the Villain and Supporting Character info — Libby is going to get some stats!.

The next re-read I’ll go over “Neon Noir” as well just to make sure I am getting that down.

CREDITS

Other sources used include:

Zach Best’s Universal NPC Emulator.
Cesar Capacle’s Random Realities
Kevin Crawford’s Cities Without Number
Matt Davis’ Book of Random Tables: Cyberpunk 1, 2 and 3.
Geist Hack Games and Paul D. Gallagher’s Augmented Realities.

The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Intermission #2 – Creating The “Soulburn” Art

By Doug Bolden

On February 16, 2025

In Campaign Design, Intermission, The Glow

← Previous Arc Session |[ ↑ Arc/Campaign Page ]| Next Arc Session →

“Previously…” and Campaign/Arc Summary
The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Intermission #2 – Creating The “Soulburn” Art

Credits

Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

Eustace and Hitomi have started gathering up gear and resources to make their way in The GLOW. While they have a short breather, they plan to pick up a job or two. But first, let’s take a look at the art I am working on to show Eustace’s “Soulburn” vision.

About The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

Eustace Delmont is a psychic on the cusp of “graduating” into a full-blow Field Psychic. He requests his right to Walk, a brief period of freedom to encourage psychics to see the other side of The GLOW. He tries to finish his long-time partner Jani Blum’s final unfinished mission: to find a mini-disc and crack open the Patel crime family. He meets Hitomi Meyer, a criminal hacker. The two are now on the run between a powerful crime family and an even more powerful adversary: The Order and its plans for Eustace.

Content Warning: Occasionally very foul language, lots of smoking, quite intense violence, drinking, gambling, non-graphic sex, drugs, criminal behavior, and black magic. The GLOW is a world of spiritual torture and weird horror.

This post is in the standard Doug Alone post style. See Anatomy of a Post for more details.

Attribution for the tools and materials used—including the splash art—can be found in the Credits below along with some details.

The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Intermission #2 – Creating The “Soulburn” Art

Creating a New Art Style

I try and give many of my arcs their own vibe when it comes to visual elements. The Bleak + The Pearl gets the harsh two-tone graphics with high contrast. The Bloody Hands got 18th and 19th century oil paintings. Eustace & Hitomi got photos [sometimes actually of the 90s] rendered in such a way to look like bad print offs of news articles. To begin with, The GLOW had a fairly unique aspect for this blog: paid stock art. It was technically the second time I bought paid stock art for the blog. There was meant to be an Ick & Humb arc kicked off last in 2024 that had Dean Spencer’s art to represent some of the characters. That got cut off, though, when I was a bit overwhelmed trying to figure out how to bring the 3.5 active campaigns on the blog to a close. It will show up, maybe in an arc or two, but this means The GLOW “1996 Agent Johnny Blue” got through the gate first.

As much as 100% love and recommend Dean Spencer’s artwork, and will continue to use it every few posts, I did want to come up with a method for an extended The GLOW “1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont” arc that did not end up having to reuse much art or force the campaign to change gears too much.

Playing around last week, I came up with a method I liked. And, partially to encourage myself to do more experiments, I thought I would share it more generally. It is not an advanced technique. It is just a simple way to take photos that match roughly what I see when I imagine The GLOW.

This will also help me sort one of the missing New Year’s Resolutions where I had plans to try and come up with some easy links to free art and such. A step one, if you will.

Step One: First, a Photo

The first step is to find a photo that I think would work. What am I looking for? That kind of changes but generally a city scene. One with few people or where the people will fade a bit in the background. I usually have a few “keywords” in mind like warehouse or dock or nightclub. The technique I am working with seems to go better when the picture is a bit dark, with distinct lines, and has some definite splashes of light or color. I would like it to be a human-generated photo rather than one touched up heavily by either Generative AI or by extensive photo manipulation.

Good sources of open-reuse art that I use include:

There are others. A lot of these are simply user-generated content and so quality is variable. Some allow Generative AI and so I try to filter around it. A few times it can be hard to tell. I check things like the re-use. The fact that these pictures will be used to tell some fairly violent and potentially disturbing stories means that I try and not step on too many toes. This makes it weird if I am using photos of people.

If I am not sure what photo I want to use, sometimes it helps to just browse those pages and see what leaps out to me. There are several scenes where finding the photo first helps me to frame some details.

For this particular case, I want a cafe. Juan’s Cafe. Near Pensacola, FL. Something a bit quirky that could be used as kind of an info spot for Hitomi but which isn’t the standard cyber-punk-club style set-up. A place where lower-level operatives her might gather that has a veneer of friendliness.

Since I tend to default to Pixabay, I’ll grab this off of WordPress. It has a good light source. The red poster should pop out a bit. The lines might be a bit fuzzy but we’ll play with it. The first step will be trim it down to 1:1 in aspect. I like things to be either landscape or square since it tends to work best with the blog format.

A Nepalese (?) cafe with a garden courtyard and seating.

A real world cafe with a nice courtyard garden.

Step Two: Second, Setting Up Layers

The hard part is picking a photo, really. GIMP (the free-open-source image processing program I like to use though there are others) will do a lot of the work. Once I figured out the technique I liked, it is pretty easy to work through the steps in just a few minutes for me.

At this point, I will name the file to whatever it is in my game — for now Juan’s Cafe — and then I will name the default/base image as that + [BASE Version] and I will keep it in the background as a fail safe if I get to a point where I need to start over.

I need at least three more layers. I make two copies of the BASE layer: LINES and MODIFIED. LINES is on top. MODIFIED is below LINES. BASE is at the bottom.

I think make a blank/transparent layer in between LINES and MODIFIED and call it SOULBURN.

This would look something like this:

A screenshot of the GIMP screen showing 4 layers as described.

Step Three: Making the Outline

The next is to use the FILTERS → ARTISTIC → PHOTOCOPY on the LINES layer. I’m looking for a good number of outlines that roughly tell the same story as the original photo but also lose some of the finer details. If the outline doesn’t quite look right, I can undo it and then go and tweak some of the contrasts/curves of the LINES version of the photo [under the COLOR menu].

There’s no one good set of options to choose from. Sometimes I play with some settings to bring up some details or to some some. Just keep “Preview” on and move some sliders and values around until you get something you like. For this demo, I will leave it at GIMP’s default settings.

Once I get a a good blend, I think go to COLORS → POSTERIZE → and reduce it to just two colors.

A black-and-white outline of the cafe which loses a lot of the more minor details.

At this point, I go to COLORS — COLOR TO ALPHA and I turn the white portions transparent which will make the lines largely disappear into the layers below but they are still there doing their job.

A screen showing the GIMP color-to-alpha option.

Step Four: Adding the “Soulburn”

The next step is to add the weird color splotches that represent the Soulburn. Click on the currently blank SOULBURN layer and look for FILTERS → RENDER → NOISE → PLASMA. The first seed option is fine but I usually click the “NEW SEED” button a few times to find a color that “speaks” to the mood I want the scene to have.

At this point all you will be able to see would be the PLASMA layer and the outlines we generated above.

Playing around with "plasma" which makes weird fogs of different colors.

Once you have a good color combination, we need to figure out how much Soulburn we want. The way this is achieved is basically by going back to the layer window and changing the opacity around.

For example, putting it around 2/3s (give or take a slight bit) makes it look something like this:

Dragging the opacity of the plasma layer around to allow more or fewer details to come through.

This is where the darker, more night-time photos can work better because the background tends to fade out a bit while the light in the foreground kicks off a bit harder. With a lot of these photos I go between 50% and 100% depending on how intense I want the Soulburn vibe to be. Around 50% it is very nearly a suggestion. At 100%, reality is just a few outlines. 2/3s to 3/4s is a good blend for a lot of photos.

Step Five: Manipulating the Image

One benefit of this technique is that I can blend and modify lines together as I need. I can cut out text, bring in outlines from other pictures for strange effects, etc.

In this case, I am just going to do two quick modifications using other GIMP filters. I pick the MODIFIED layer. First, FILTERS → ARTISTIC → CARTOON. Play with those settings a bit until I get something that feels a lot like the original picture, just a bit less real. For the demo, I’ll keep it mostly the default.

Then, still on the modified layer, FILTERS → ARTISTIC → OILIFY. I often reduce the mask radius on this but for now I’ll keep it default.

The overall impact of this step can be pretty minor — especially with an image as evenly lit as this one — but it helps to reinforce this vibe of the Soulburn being just a bit more real than the things it is surrounding. The overall effect is to be something a bit aesthetically pleasing at a glance but kind of off-putting if you try and bring details out of it. As the story goes on, and Eustace is more and more absorbed into the Soulburn, the manipulations will get more pronounced.

The same cafe as earlier but it looks a bit less real and is now saturated with strange colors.

Option: Using Masks to Create Focus Points

Another option I can use and will play at with some photos is using ADD A LAYER MASK to the Soulburn layer and the GRADIENT tool to create portions that pop. In this case, I can set the GRADIENT tool options to RADIAL and then either FG-to-TRANSPARENT and use Black (#000000) or have it go from FG-to-BG and set both to various grayscales. Then, use that gradient on the Soulburn’s Mask to have portions that fade away to the background but with other places more consumed by the Soulburn.

The overall effect on Juan’s Cafe might look like this:

I’m not sure if it works out for this photo in particular but I’ll play with it some on others.

CREDITS

Other sources used include:

Zach Best’s Universal NPC Emulator.
Cesar Capacle’s Random Realities
Kevin Crawford’s Cities Without Number
Matt Davis’ Book of Random Tables: Cyberpunk 1, 2 and 3.
Geist Hack Games and Paul D. Gallagher’s Augmented Realities.

ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION

CC0 licensed photo by Anis from the WordPress Photo Directory. Apologies to Anis to turning his lovely photo of a cafe to a hacker hangout.

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont. Intermission #1 – Revisiting Starting Expectations

By Doug Bolden

On February 12, 2025

In Actual Play, Gamemaster Apprentice Deck, Intermission, Outgunned, Solo Campaigns, The Glow

← Previous Arc Session |[ ↑ Arc/Campaign Page ]| Next Arc Session →

A doctored image of Hong Kong showing what the GLOW might look like... a large city covered in a strange fog of many lights and colors.

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont, Intermission 1 — Revisiting Starting Expectations

Credits

Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

Eustace meets Hitomi and then goes on a murder. How did it play? What else do we need to make this arc?

About The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

This post is in the standard Doug Alone post style, Intermission Version. See Anatomy of a Post for more details.

Attribution for the tools and materials used—including the splash art—can be found in the Credits below along with some details.

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont, Intermission 1 — Revisiting Starting Expectations

Revisiting the Arc Early and Often

Since The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont is both a launch of a tightened and more flavorful “The GLOW” but also my first dive into playing Outgunned, I figure it is a good idea to pretty much immediately take a full pause and ask the question: How is it going?

Now that I know more about how rolls work and how to get a feel for a rough stat line, I wanted to do a first check-in to make sure I made the characters I meant to play, that I am following at least the general concept of the rules — with the idea that solo variations will play out a bit differently — and that I am challenging myself and my characters to the right degree.

How I thought it was going to go…

Eustace and Hitomi were going to meet. He was a big, beefy, and smart agent of good caught up in a morally gray organization. Him doing what he thinks is right is going to put stresses on him. She is a smart, sassy, criminal who ultimately keeps using her crimes for the good fight. Cop and hacker are going to hit it off without really knowing each other. A fight is going to break out that forces them to work together and learn about each other as they are generally forced to flee before collateral damage gets too much. Possibly having to abandon the character who ended up becoming Bee. An early hook they would need to resolve.

How it went…

Eustace scored a massive success and murdered the bad guys without taking any snake-eyes and the oracles were really nice in allowing all three to escape undetected, for a time.

What does this mean?

Maybe nothing bad. Eustace and Hitomi were both meant to be quite competent. The fact that they are very competent or very lucky is fine. There is a lot of bad stuff they still have to dig through. I do feel like Eustace needs to be toned down just a tad. He has a bit too much for him. Hitomi, not really a killing machine but still capable, should be more his equal.

How do I feel about the gameplay?

I think it is a lot of fun. There is an odd little mini-game where if you roll, say, six dice and you get a couple of matches then you kind of have to take the gamble of rolling just two dice, or dissolving a match. I will reread to make sure I am doing that correctly but it feels like an interesting narrative choice. The equivalent of kicking open a door while aiming the gun and having to decide if you want to kick the door open better or aim the gun better or try to balance it.

How do I feel about the aesthetics?

Right now I think I am good where they are. While it is meant to be very cyberpunk there does need to be a balance with a 90s-lower-Alabama vibe, as well. Things are bigger, scarier, and harsher but they are also kind of Gulf Coast. At this moment, I think I have fun playing at that sort of small-town-meets-massive-city paradox. I’ll just have to keep my eyes peeled for opportunities to dial that up.

Adding a Villain and Heat

Since this, like a lot of solo play, is very main characters focused over a more traditional GM-campaign-focus then a couple of elements that are pretty core to the Outgunned experience has been a bit downplayed.

The first is the Villain. For right now, I will proceed with the assumption that the main Villain is Roger Patel. Amy’s older brother. The biological son of Roman and Ariel Patel. More ruthless than Amy. Less imaginative. In over his head as a default state of being. Much like in the Alabama Weird version, spent a lot of his life dedicated to his younger sister. Amy remains the child of an affair of Ariel Patel with an unknown other person. Like in the Weird, Roman doted on his daughter with extra-affection to compensate for this fact, making sure the world knows that she is his daughter.

Here, Amy has a similar sort of mindset. A person who wants to destroy the Patel family from the inside while also making sure her fortune and power remains intact. The big difference is that while in the Weird, Roger ended up joining his sister to accomplish this, the GLOW version will have Roger pivot to turn against his sister and try to make the power grab himself.

Mean, dabbling in hedge magic, getting in way over his head.

Amy Patel will be under house arrest and essentially a prisoner of Roger’s.

What exactly his crimes are, the ones recorded on the mini-disc, will be found out later. They involve screaming, torture, and going above and beyond.

I will leave myself the rough room for it to turn out to not be Roger as the true villain if the solo play discovers something better, but let’s just proceed thinking he is the boss. If he turns out to be a minion, he will be a quite high ranking minion.

The other missing aspect is Heat. In the “Neon Noir” Action Flick, Heat starts out as double the number of characters. Meaning 4. I think the murder in the back halls will bump it to 5. I will possibly stall it there until the first turning point — likely whenever they are ready to try and rescue Amy — though it seems like Heat is mostly a rough clock that makes more sense in a full multi-player game. We’ll see. I definitely need to make combats more interesting through a variety of methods

Tweaks to Eustace

The first main tweak will be drop him to just the arms and the blades attachment. Getting rid of the special hands and the aetherjack. I had the latter because something like it shows up in his art. I can just pretend that’s part of his sigil array.

Even though he would have more of a “blank check” I like the idea of him being only on a first or second step on his way towards being turned into a new type of Psychic Weapon instead of already there. He’s a test model. At least will be from episode two and onwards.

In this light, he will lose the “Cyberpunk” Feat — he’s learning, after all — and to bring him back to more his original idea, he’ll get Silver Tongue. He was always the one running damage control for Jani behind the scenes so he will be good with talking. I think that’s more fun than the slightly more game-y Mastermind. It will also making him more active in conversation rather than “just standing still like a mountain stands still.”

His catchphrase will be changed, slightly, to “I’m here to help.” Fits more his character than his Role/Trope and I think that’s ok.

Tweaks to Hitomi

Hitomi is pretty much perfect as she is. She is always smoking — and as a joke always has a lighter and a pack of French cigarettes either on her or nearby — well aware of her own sexual needs, tries to protect her friends even at the loss of her livelihood, and tries to hide the fact that she commits crimes on the reg. Dumped most of her ill-gotten gains into a kiosk as cover for money laundering and a ready alibi and now has lost the kiosk, essentially. Her skills and stats feel better balanced that Eustace’s did. Only tweak will be to make her catchphrase, “No one hurts my friends!,” to better fit her mode of being a protector type but burying it under her more cynical demeanor. I think that will come up, more. Having goons target her just because someone else dropped a mini-disc off will be a bit of a tipping point.

What’s Next?

If we go with the assumption that taking down Roger — and Roman — Patel is the main mission and keep the issues with the Order for a possible later arc, then saving Amy Patel would represent a pretty definite Turning Point. Not far down the road but at first I think the first “shot” will end with the next session despite in a more traditional setting the “shots” are just whatever happens in a session. Solo play makes the traditional session-to-post format a bit odd.

The first shot will involve them getting away from the mall, stashing the car, getting Hitomi’s stuff, and generally getting some slight room to breathe. The second shot will involve them doing some “Hitomi jobs” to try and get the cash to get a ride, get some gear, and will introduce a few good secondary characters.

Then, we might have another shot aimed at them exploring and preparing. Then, the turning point to save Amy. After that, we’ll probably have another intermission and another check in.

On to the second-half of the first “plot point” as it were!

CREDITS

Other sources used include:

Zach Best’s Universal NPC Emulator.
Cesar Capacle’s Random Realities
Kevin Crawford’s Cities Without Number
Matt Davis’ Book of Random Tables: Cyberpunk 1, 2 and 3.
Geist Hack Games and Paul D. Gallagher’s Augmented Realities.

ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION

Image up above started out as by carloyuen from Pixabay. In my mind, the “cyberpunk” aesthetic seems to derive out of pieces of four cities: Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Detroit. I found a nice pic of a cloudy/foggy Hong Kong and used various tweaks to make the clouds/fogs a bit more GLOW-y while increasing the unrealism of the picture. It’s not a bad take on the mental image I am working with, even if a lot of the action takes place in the more gritty, run-down areas of the Sprawl.

Eustace & Hitomi and the Case of the Rambler’s Inn, Intermission #1: A (slightly) New Model for Mythic Threads, Characters, and Features

By Doug Bolden

On January 10, 2025

In Campaign Design, Eustace & Hitomi, Intermission, Mythic, Tricube Tales

Intermission #1: A (slightly) New Model for Mythic Threads, Characters, and Features

Doug Has a Problem

I have a problem, Space Pilgrims.

Specifically, I have a problem with Mythic‘s Characters and Threads lists. I overload the heck out of them. The Threads lists ends up with the actual threads but also character motivations and some events going on, many which do not get resolved in a session or two and so stick like barnacles. Likewise, the Characters list includes the main NPCs but also random folks, some objects, some places, maybe more events if the event feels to me to be more like a person than a happening.

Many characters from the Characters list ends up with their own partial thread.

This is a way to play and it has worked well for me in the past but it means that sometimes things get so overwrought that any attempt to generate a likely character or to figure out a likely thread may or may not generate anything usable since said character or thread might have nothing possible to relate to the current scene.

The first thing I have been trying to change is to keep the Threads list a bit tighter and keep the Characters list a bit more contained. This sometimes causes a few problems where I have to rebuild the lists from scratch semi-often when a thread or character comes up again. It also loses some of the side-story developments I like in my games.

Thus, I am going to use the Eustace & Hitomi series to try out a slightly new model for tracking my Mythic lists. A bit of a guinea pig if you will. The idea is to take advantage of my new taxonomy to generate lists on an arc level while still building the campaign and world levels.

This is not really new in the least and there are several prior versions of this both by Tana Pigeon and other Mythicists. I just wanted a version that fit how I was making my campaign.

First, See The Example

Here is the full list of Threads, Characters, and Features for Eustace & Hitomi and the Case of the Rambler’s Inn as of Chapter 9 [which, by the time this is posted, is still forthcoming].

It has some very minor spoilers about a couple of characters (Milly, the Meyers) but nothing that really should wreck anything. It was easier to show the forward than to try and delete back to the past.

Note, I did add some emojis to threads and characters to try and show which are related. It helps me to see which characters are at the center of the most threads when making some decisions.

Now, The Breakdown

Now to explain what is different about it.

Focus Threads & Focus Characters

The first page of that document has what I am calling the Arc lists. Arc Threads are basically the threads important to the given arc. Arc Characters are likewise characters important to the given arc. These are threads and characters that have some impact on the story not including the main or supporting characters that I play.

These two lists are, for all intents and purposes, identical to your core lists for most Mythic games.

The idea (for me) is try and get my thread count down. Character count is boom big. It’s how I literally roll.

Campaign Features Lists

Following that, there are three pages of six Campaign Features lists.

Features: People has the various characters, factions, and so forth that add to the world and might show up in a scene or so but which are not directly related to the plot. If the characters become part of the main plot, they might shift into Arc Characters (and vice versa).
Features: Places is for locations where the story tends to take place, both during the arc and previously established in the campaign world.
Features: Events is for ongoing events in the world that are changing the world over time.
Features: Artifacts is for objects (some maybe not so tangible and possibly like boons or agreements) that exist in the world and can have some impact or act as background information.
Features: Themes is a little bit fuzzy but is effectively a list of semi-threads that are impacting the game world and the characters but are not of the level of Arc Threads. At various times, some might shift between Arc Threads and Feature Themes.
Features: Sparks is a collection of words related to common ideas, frequent oracle results, and likewise. These can be rolled on to generate an idea or element of a scene.

Some Campaign Features might be empty (especially at the start) or have very few entries. That is ok. It is an organic approach.

Much like the Arc lists, the Campaign Features lists are limited to 25 elements each. If a 26th+ element shows up, it should be swapped out with a previous one.

Much like with Threads in Mythic, you can diversify any of these elements if it suits your gameplay style. Elements can also appear on multiple lists in various ways. A game in which there is a search for a magic orb going on in the background might include “Hunting for the orb” and “The Orb” and “Orbhunters” all on their respective lists.

Using These in Play

Each of the Campaign Features list is numbered between 1 and 6. If inspiration is needed for content of a scene, session, or otherwise a 1d6 roll can be made 2-3 times and then the appropriate table rolled upon.

If you have very few items (less than 5 or less than 10 depending on how much background flavor you like, I like a lot) then perhaps roll as if you had 5 or 10 and getting an empty blank is a prompt to add something new. I am going to use this approach.

Arc Threads vs Campaign Features: Themes

There is some degree of choice whenever you get any kind of Random Event or otherwise want to test against a thread. You can just choose outright which list to roll on.

If you prefer some degree of randomness, you can roll 1d10 and take it as { 1-7 = Arc Thread | 8-10 = Feature Theme }. That should be good for most tests where you are maintaining focus on the arc. However, if you want something a bit more background or more personal, you can invert the odds: { 1-3 = Arc Thread | 4-10 = Feature Theme }. It’s a completely sliding gradient so you can adjust however you need (1:6, 17+:20, etc).

Arc Characters vs Campaign Features: Persons

Identical to above, essentially.

Sparks

Sparks are a little bit different in that they are added in a similar way but can be used to flavor just about anything. The prime use of them is take certain keywords and key one-word concepts — a mix of actions, descriptions, nouns, and whatever — and use them like seasoning. Need a concept for a scene? Roll 2! Need a reason why a character might have done something? Roll 1 or 2! Since they are focused on what the arc and campaign focuses on, this means most should fit somehow to expectations.

If you have a two or three word phrase, try to split it up into single words. For instance, Family Troubles would be Family and Troubles. Secret Doors would be Secrets and Doors. That kind of thing.

This is an informal list, so sometimes you get words that are very close together: for instance, something like Hidden, Secret, Stealth, etc. That is ok. That means that clusster of sparks is a big part of your campaign.

Speaking of…When to Add One

That is a little tricky. There is a kind of irony here. The Campaign Features are meant to be “less” impactful on the current arc but also have a potentially larger chance to stick around after the arc and be absorbed into the campaign.

My golden rule on this was if something showed up two or three times to keep it for a bit at least and re-evaluate later. If it showed up just once but was something fun to me, go ahead and keep it. If it shows up a bunch of times (for right now we’ll define bunch as more than five times), then lock it down. Otherwise, maybe it fades off when something else shows up to replace it.

Now to Try It Out

I already had the Sparks in place when I started the test and those worked well enough I wanted to expand it out some.

I’ll figure out if this really works for me or if I need to just scrap it and let my lists grow a bit overloaded.

The Bleak + The Pearl, Intermission #6 – New Icons, Learning Rolls, and Meet the Lighthouse 6

By Doug Bolden

On December 22, 2024

In Campaign Design, Intermission, ShadowDark, Solo Campaigns, SoloDark, The Bleak and the Pearl

Intermission #6 Contents

The Results of the Learning Checks

Trying Out a New Token Paradigm

In previous The Bleak + The Pearl Intermission (#5) I talked about taking the main storyline and putting it on a semi-hiatus as a way to focus on some new characters, get back to a purer dungeon delving experience, and just slightly rest up from what had been a kind of intense story building learning experience. This week’s post will combine some of the progress on that as I plan to (next week) launch into the first of these new delves.

A slightly minor aspect to this hiatus and soft- | hard- relaunch is that I wanted to go back to the days where I was using a homebrew virtual table top setup to explore the dungeon mixed with hand-rolled dice and both virtual and handwritten notes. While looking over my assets for this, I found a stack of tokens I had made using John Kapsalis art originally designed for or around Advanced Fighting Fantasy and while I love JK’s art and look forward to using it again in any AFF endeavors into which I might dive, I also wanted to give a good strong think about the aesthetics of this new era.

To remind you, this is what my original set up looked like.

Four heroes on a fantasy map face off versus 3 zombies and a berserk cultist.

The Blue Delve Boys face off against a berserker cultist and three zombies.
(Art by John Kapsalis, Dyson Logos, and Crypto Cartographer – arranged by Doug Bolden – used here for personal use but all rights are reserved by original creators).

Dyson Logos (or other) map, JK art, a GIMP template using some token borders I found (after digging through my files, I am 98% sure I was using “Character Token Portrait Frames for VTT” by Crypto Cartographer at least as base), and then a few other pieces here or there. Monsters were freqently “close enough” selections. Characters were “close enough” with some matching more than others. I would use text boxes to mark changes on the map and would often use a fog layer to update the map as I went to show explored areas and such. Over time, it made a nice digital artifact. You can see an example at the top of my recap for the “The Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur” dungeon.

There are a couple of problems with the set-up that are not quite actual problem. The two biggest (outside of a potential rights thing and tracking down credits for multiple sources every screenshot I might share) are that the characters/monsters never quite fit my mental vision and each token tended to involve a multistep process. I had to dig through my dozens of JK token packs, find the one I wanted. Snip it out from the whole. Import it into GIMP. Possibly trim or mask out portions of it to make it pop out better. Pick a frame fitting whatever mood or need I felt worked best. Export that out into a PNG. Upload that into my VTT. Then, when another encounter would show up, either reuse a “close enough” token or start back over.

As I have explored more and more with tools and aids that I like, one thing I have come to use a lot for some of my element is the CC-BY 3.0 tokens/icons at games-icons.net. It takes a little bit of practice to get used to what tokens are or are not there. As you get used to their selection, though, you start to get generate some ideas about how you could creatively add them in. At least I do.

This lead me to a new sort of idea. Find some broad “iconic representations” of the characters—Grusk can be represented by his axe, Bloodlust, while Tom might be lockpicks—and then use the icon customize option to add in a few colors, cut a few pieces out, and generally make icons not really meant to be precise tokens to the characters but stand-in elements that allow me to keep up my own mental map of the characters while also being clear enough that I am not confused about who is who. For monsters, a few basic icons can do heavy lifting: basic corporeal undead types, insect types, cultist types, spirit types, demon types, etc. Then when I come across a gnoll I do not have to find a gnoll token that is roughly the right shape and equipment but instead I use the mid-level humanoid beastman generic token. Save the tokens in such a way that I keep the symbol name, the artist, and the rough representation in the file type.

Here is what the above scene would look like using these more generic tokens. I’ll add in a “web spell” effect and a few more enemies to demonstrate.

Tokens on a fantasy map. Undead icons are attacking axe icons while some more like cultists are pushing up from the south.

Three zombies attack Grusk while an enraged berserker cultist attacks Inar. Three other cultists are being trapped in Rance’s Web spell. Two dead cultists are in the previous room.
(Map by Dyson Logos. Icons by Delapouite, Lorc, and GamerAce135 from games-icon.net [CC-BY 3.0])

While the old art definitely had its charm, I really like the “board-game aesthetic” of the new art. I also like how it frees me from trying to describe a scene with my token choices and instead gives me more freedom to represent a scene and encourages a bit of creativity with colors and themes. I also like adding the spell effects and such to better track the status of things, backed up by some text.

Re-Introducing the Blue Delve Boys and Learning Rolls

In that light, here are the Blue Delve Boys and their current tokens. These might change over time depending on factors but for now, here’s what they look like.

An axe with blood red blade, a hand with fingers crossed, a set of lockpicks, and a hand casting a spell.

As I was making up icons and working on the “Lighthouse 8” (see below) I came across a line in the Kelsey-made Bard write-up: “Add 1d6 to your learning rolls.” I realized I did not know what that meant. I found out that I had been missing a whole mechanic that is exactly the sort of reason why I like to play Shadowdark. As I said in a recent post, Shadowdark tends to allow characters to have more fiction than other OSR and OSR-adjacent games. “Learning” is precisely what I am talking about. While the Carousing rules got a fair amount of discussion during the build up to SD‘s release, I found that I had overlooked it’s first cousin. Instead, you can have your character attempt to learn a new skill or general knowledge during downtime instead. It is described as such on Page 91: “Learning enables you to do new actions or gives you advantage on certain checks.” You work out what you want to learn and can learn with the GM, then start out making a INT DC18 check. The next time you try to learn it, you reduce that by one step—i.e., DC15, DC12, DC9, etc—until you learn it or give up trying.

Over the course of these months of adventure, there have been a fair amount of downtimes. If I was playing a more traditional campaign, maybe four-ish. With the more story-heavy style campaign, maybe eight-ish. I will cut that into the middle and say six downtimes for six months of playing. Maybe high, maybe low. I don’t know. It’s complicated.

There were two carousing checks. This leaves four attempts to learn.

Grusk and Tom are going to want to learn Bleak navigation for sure. Then, if they pass that, then Grusk would want to learn more about delving while Tom would learn hunting. Inar will first try for first aid. After that, he will try for sneaking around. It is not really allowed for him to learn the full thief ability kit but since halflings have a natural sneak and he is prone to trying to stay a bit back to help once people get injured, I figure this is kind of a extending of what he can already do [and I have never really used his halfing invisibility properly except maybe once]. Finally, Rance will definitely start out learning the Ancient language. After that, he will work on improving his “monster lore” abilities since he seems to have that inherent based on how I play. Finally, he will being working on learning how to operate and repair automatons based on Jonias’s notes.

Let’s see how this goes…

Making the Rolls and the Outcomes

Grusk, learning Bleak Survival (at -1 to INT): 7 vs DC18, 6 vs DC15, 13 vs DC12. Grusk (on the third attempt) gets Bleak Survival and advantages to rolls related to navigating and surviving the Bleak, including a broad sense of what level of Bleak they at.

Grusk, learning “Delving” (at -1 to INT): 9 vs DC18. Not yet, but he will continue.

Tom, learning Bleak Survival (at -2 to INT): 13 vs DC18, 3 vs DC 15, 3 vs DC 12, 10 vs DC9. Tom (on fourth attempt) gets Bleak Survival with the same as Grusk. No time to learn Hunting just yet, but that’ll be next.

Inar, learning First Aid (at +1 to INT): 19 vs DC18. He gets it on first attempt. He will get ADV to first aid rolls while trying to stabilize others. I’ll also say this can be used to generally do things like identify wounds, give a rough prognosis, identify poisons/diseases he might have some experience with. Generally the kind of stuff that might be helpful in a non-magical, non-specialized way.

Inar, learning Sneaking (at +1 to INT): 13 vs DC18, 9 vs DC15, 11 vs DC12. Next time he will be against DC9.

Rance, learning Ancient Language (at +3 to INT): 15 vs DC18. 20(!) vs DC15. Rance not only learns Ancient on his second attempt but we’ll say he is good at it and gets ADV to reading Ancient Text.

Rance, improving Monster Lore (at +3 to INT): 14 vs DC18. 19 vs DC15. His final learning attempt nets him ADV to identifying monsters and will allow him to make deductions about Bleak altered creatures. He will next turn to using his Ancient Language skills to translating Jonias’s notes about the automatons.

Background for the Lighthouse 6

Behind the scenes, I created the initial four heroes while learning Shadowdark and only spent a somewhat short while making them. I gave them only a thin backstory—they were in The Pearl, they were orphans raised at a monastery (which got the name “The Blue Delve” from somewhere, probably some random table), and one of them had nightmarish dreams of something going on in the Bleak—that picked up elements like a snowball rolling downhill. They quickly became the reason for the campaign and so had developed a kind of necessary plot armor. If one of them died, it would sort of be weird to continue the campaign as it was going. Part of the reason for the reset is to build up some other characters, personalities, explore some extended materials, and effectively remove the plot armor a bit. Things can get more tense as it goes.

In terms of The Bleak + The Pearl’s world: 300-years ago, Jonias Grunkheart enlisted the lords and ladies of the four other Grunce leading families to enact an incomplete version of a great plan. This is the Lighthouse, a rebuilt Ancient technology that takes the energy of The Bleak and uses it against itself to push it back (while generating both visible light and also The Light, the neutral energy power source of all Ancient technology).

The Grunkhearts provided the technology and planning. The Mariuses provided materials and wealth from their shipping. The Bittermolds provided magical assistance and expertise on darker truths. The Harcurams provided legal and administrative support. The Mistameres provided physical strength to build the Lighthouse and protection for the workers constructing it.

After the Lighthouse was completed, and the Monolith carved underneath (more a monolith symbolically, implying all the people of Barthus were one), the families continued to rule Grunce (the Grunkheart family estate, semantically decayed from “The Grunkhearts’ Land”). Other people from all over Grunce filled the city to the brim and other great houses from other cities were not content to be left out. Various power struggles occurred while the Lighthouse went from being well known technology to something increasingly forgotten, a background artifact shining light into the distance. The Grunkhearts remain with some power but other families have virtually pushed them out. Cal Grunkheart, nephew to the current ruler of the House, has taken on the goal of fixing and expanding the Lighthouse. The Mariuses have done marginally better but have given up their seafaring ways, focusing entirely on money trading. The Mistameres lost their family land and combined as a family with the Harcurams for form House Mysturam. And the strange, weird Bittermold House retreated into the Bleak and have largely vanished besides various small manors and estates all laying claim to the name.

[Doug’s Note: Mistamere is a reference to the Frank Mentzer created dungeon found in the red box Basic Dungeons & Dragons because running that adventure was the first time I ever played a tabletop RPG and I thought it might be fun to convert to Shadowdark. The name remains Mentzer’s though this family is quite different. Bittermold as a family name is a reference to Cursed Scroll #1 and was created by Kelsey Dionne. Unlike Mistamere which is 99% an original creation with a naming-shout-out, the Bittermolds are more directly influenced by their source and will soon show up when that module is run.]

Meet the Lighthouse 6

As our heroes have been risking it all to support Cal Grunkheart and the Lighthouse Keepers, Cal has come up with the plan of tasking his cousin Gryffin Grunkheart (possible future Lord Grunkheart) with gathering up members of each of the other five families to begin reclaiming Grunce and protecting the future of Barthus. Possibly even pushing The Bleak back and retaking the land.

A lighthouse, a lyre, and a dragon skull in gold and blue.

The leader of the Lighthouse 6 is Gryffin Grunkheart, the middle son of Lady Moreena Grunkheart (and technically third in line of succession, including his mother). His family protests him entering The Bleak since this precludes him from fathering heirs but he considers Cal to be the true Grunkheart lineage. Served for time as a minor captain of the city guard before aggreeing to help the Blue Delve Boys to deliver an anti-magic cloak to The Pearl. Here he met Boris Loo and decided to dedicate his life to adventure. He is a Human Ranger. His shares the Grunkheart symbol of a Lighthouse as his personal crest with Cal. He is a loyal leader and often will risk his own safety to protect his crew.

[Doug’s Note: Rangers were developed by Kelsey Dionne and released along with the Bard as a special supplement. Speaking of…]

Louis Harcuram is one of the few “true Harcurams” left. His branch of the family is much poorer and he was raised a fisherman before taking up performing and traveling as a minstrel. In the Sofron Desert, he met Ronick Mistamere and enjoyed the irony of partnering with a Mistamere due to the long family association. When he and Ronick received the call to join with Gryffin, they both took the chance and headed to Grunce. He is a Human Bard and his symbol is a lyre.

Ronick Mistamere is a Dragonborn Pit Fighter. Not all Mistameres agreed with the plan to merge and settle down running warehouses and stores. Those went west into the desert where they took any chance they could to reclaim the militant might of the Mistameres of old. Ronick’s branch combined themselves with desert dragons and attempted to lay claim to the desert. Beaten, they instead settled for being mercenaries and pit fighters. Ronick’s great strength and fearsome appearance (with bronze and lapis lazuli scales) earned him a fierce reputation, which was enhanced by Louis acting as hype man. The two are great friends and both look forward to working with Gryffin. His symbol is the skull of one of his desert dragon kin.

[Doug’s Note: “Dragonborn ancestry” in this case is derived from Unatural Selection with breath (and electricity immunity) from the desert dragon as given in Shadowdark, itself. Pit Fighters are from Cursed Scrolls #2.]

A crossbow, a deer head with multi-color antlers, and a velociraptor head crossed with a ninja turtle.

Dhelia “Del” Marius is the maybe-mad descendent of infamous Mad Del Marius. While the Marius family has officially given up the family tradition of sailing the high seas, this new Del has reclaimed it in style. Sort of. She mostly just swept up a lot of other, better, sailors’ vomit and trash. Once the chance came to prove herself, she requested a boat from her distant cousin, Lady Varren Marius, who granted it because Lady Varen had already pledged to support Cal after the return of the family spear by the Blue Delve Boys. Del is a Human Swashbuckler and has her own ship thanks to her reluctant cousin. Del’s symbol, and the name of her ship, are both “The Crossbow.”

[Doug’s Note: The Swashbuckler class being used here is from Letters from the Dark VI: Scallywags.]

Ada Bittermold is probably an actual Bittermold. The lost family had a complicated family tree involving humans, halflings, and less savory entries. Ada looks more human than most of the current members except for the fact that she has deer antlers and deer hooves and lower legs. Whether demonic or Bleak-touched is unknown by her at this time. She tries to offset this by dressing in bright colors to show she is friendly, but the overall effect combined with her odd sense of humor and weird moods makes her look more like a poisonous tree frog than anything else. She is a ??? Witch and her symbol is a deer’s head with multicolor horns and eyes.

[Doug’s Note: Originaly, she was going to be a Tiefling as outlined in Unnatural Selection but after I was working out how to make Boris (below) I decided to make her a bit more unique instead. 3/day she can talk to plants or fungus (though plants are not great conservationalists and mushrooms are worse). The Witch class being from Cursed Scrolls #1.]

Boris Loo is a Teen-aged, Bleak-Touched, Ninja Chelonian. He comes from a long line of gentle chelonian fisherfolk but his parent’s vessel was swept off course and shipwrecked off the shores of Barthus. Forced to travel through The Bleak to reach safety, his mother gave birth to Boris only to find her son was different. Rather than the soft curve of the sea turtle’s head, he had the head of a snapping turtle. What’s more, he was less concerned with gentle fishing and self-taught himself the ways of “the ninja” even as his Bleak-induced mutations made themselves more and more evident. The family tried to hide him belowdecks to act as the ship’s cook. Once the Loos helped Gryffin get to The Pearl, Boris met the young Grunkheart and immediately adopted himself as Gryffin’s hyperactive younger brother. His symbol is his own face, wearing his traditional green mask which match’s Gryffin’s cloak.

[Doug’s Note: Boris started out as gentle, turtle monk NPC meant to be additional backstory to the Blue Delve but I realized the potential TMNT joke and sought to figure out how to accomplish it with Shadowdark. He is the Chelonian ancestry from Unnatural Selection and then a reskinned version of the Ras-Godai class from Cursed Scroll #2. In his case, it is not the Black Lotus that gives him his powers, but being exposed The Bleak while still an unlaid egg. There has always been the potential for more Bleak-touched characters but I have not really worked on figuring that out until now with him and Ada.]

Gryffin and Louis have already showed up, albeit somewhat briefly, in the game. Technically, Gryffin was the start of the whole Grunkheart clan and the drama with the Lighthouse and is the one who introduced everyone to Cal, but the basic structure of the Lighthouse was already created before Cal and Gryffin were created.

The Potential Others

There are already four potential other characters to fill in gaps in any of the ten existing folks die, retire, etc. I won’t delve too much into them (pun!) until it’s a better time to bring them up but effectively:

A Garfolk Thief who was found by Cal in the Monolith
A Mycellan Priest who befriended the thief and joined him on his adventures
A Forest Elf Ovate who met and formed a relationship with Rance after a night of carousing (currently spending some time working with the city guard)
A Salamander Slayer who has dedicated his time after meeting Grusk to learning how to fight devils and demons.

Each of these are a shout out to a previous adventure or two and are mostly a thin sketch which can be built up if the need arises.