A Few Rambling Words
First, a life update of sorts: the fever that warped and delayed finishing Chapter 11 — on my end, I had time to get it finished and scheduled on time for the blog's end — turned out to be Covid. Still is Covid, as of writing this on January 14. Not sure which flavor or collector's edition I have but I am calling it COVID-'25. Year's off to a great start.
This was the first campaign arc to benefit from from the plan to spend at least two months only playing a single arc at a time and I would generally say that my overall enjoyment and my sense of completion has definitely improved due to it. This also means that it is the first time since Gareth Hendrix and the Bunker Bigfoot that I have had a chance to write up one of these recaps and debriefs. A kind of test case if you will.
A big change to Eustace & Hitomi is that since the one-arc-at-a-time means that I am also thinking of campaigns-as-a-series-of-arcs rather than open ended campaigns that early plans to have a kind of free roaming series of mysteries is dead and replaced by a more solid attempt to close the gates. I think this is for the best because it brought "...and the Case of the Rambler's Inn" to a much better close than had it been buried under potential weeks of rapidly increasing plotlines. It does mean that the campaign/series is more fully closed and to be put aside for at least a minute and maybe longer.
There is a secondary aspect that is kind of funny. I played through the last four or so E+H sessions but that ended up only being about a week and half's worth of posts. In the older once-per-week variation, we would be looking at a whole month. A month wtih bigger breaks in between and probably more false leads as I tried to bring the relatively massive weight of the Maidenstead universe back under wraps.
In that, I will start with the future of the campaign and then work through some other notes.
The Future of Eustace & Hitomi
This is a little tricky to answer because I think the current answer is maybe nothing. Around a 50/50 chance of nothing. Which is technically wrong. Eustace and Hitomi are both going to have a new version — both of them fairly different and based on the Outgunned ruleset — as the second arc of The GLOW very soonish, possibly within the month. And Eustace and Hitomi are going to have at least minor cameos in the planned Alex the Dumbass series that will most likely be right after The GLOW's second arc. I resonate so much with the characters that they are going to be one of the backbones of The Alabama Weird for a while. In fact, in my headcanon (which is like God saying "In My Design"), Eustace is going to be the person who coins the term, "The Alabama Weird." The one thing we know about future Eustace is that he has spent a lot of time combating the horrors in his home state. There will be a good deal of references.
But as for this version, the "Slice of Life first with Romance Second and Mystery Third" version, I am satisfied with a kind of one-and-done. I am glad that I did it, just don't know if I can do it convincingly or over a longer period of time. At the core of this was the joke that the two mains — Eustace and Hitomi — fall in love improbably fast despite everything. Everything was just flavoring.
The sense of needing to think twice before I go again is increased by the sense that I think I did tell the story. Eustace and Hitomi each found their own voice, especially Eustace. Elly and Milly found their voice. Daphne and Jenny somewhat found theirs. Raymond somewhat found his. Morgan got a bit left behind. Generally, though, the story as told, combined with splashes of "future sight" gives us a good picture of the ups and downs that people face, even if they are RPG superstars.
I can come up with Southern Noir meets Bama-Cozy-Mystery plotlines and hooks all day long, so there are lots of possibilities. I just need a slightly different approach next time. Definitely fewer focus characters (E+H+1 is the goal), a more active mystery matrix, that kind of thing.
If I do bring back Eustace and Hitomi into their own campaign in the next year, they will likely be GURPS Lite+ with GURPS Mysteries as the main expansion.
You know what, I convinced myself. I will dive back in at least once. 4 years later. Right at the cusp of their wedding. Hitomi is pregnant (but Eustace doesn't know, yet). Eustace is becoming a well-known amateur detective while Hitomi is becoming more known as the very practical one handling parts of Maidenstead's growth. Amy is in the middle of both of those things causing some strife. A ship washes up in the bay with everyone missing. That should have some hijinx. Eustace & Hitomi and the Case of the Empty Promises. Just, I'll give myself a slight break. And the slice of life will be toned down a notch, more as flavoring scenes to the other.
Some Fun Notes from BEFORE ...and the Case of the Rambler's Inn
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| Technically, this page comes before the one above. Never mind the "Maidenhead." (that's what she said!) |
You can see some differences in the photo of my original handwritten notes (including the top of this post). The basic idea was the same: Eustace Delmont was a bit washed up after college. There was a weird inn and a missing person's case. Several other details were changed quite a bit.
I eventually stopped accidentally writing "Maidenhead Mysteries," which is a much different story in potential. One that is a lot sassier and involving more frolicking and petticoats.
EUSTACE DELMONT was originally 6'1" and 350lbs. This would have made a much more overweight character. He got taller and thinner, though still fat. He originally had a masters degree in cybersecurity. He collected tokusatsu figures, especially from a fictional toku series called Cyano Rangers Mystery Force. There were going to be deep nods to plot points in that series and possibly side-scenes related to it. One day I might run episodes of that series as a funky sort of campaign. The fandom was changed to Doctor Who after the start of the current series because of the time shift (it would have nearly impossible to collect much toku stuff in the 90s in lower Alabama) and because I didn't like the implication that Eustace jumped at the first Japanese girl he saw possibly due to his fandom.
HITOMI MEYER almost definitely would not have existed. The "Mystery Machine" tie-in was going to be the production crew behind a Youtube series called Dawson's Detectives where Dawson was a psychic dog. Dawson was potentially to be Eustace's help in this version. Maybe there would have some flirtation with Dawson's owner but the investigation team was going to be largely antagonists who consider Eustace as a bother and kept getting in his way. Dawson and crew might show up in Alex the Dumbass.
THE RAMBLER'S INN was initially The Ramble Inn and it was built on top of a double spring called "The Twin Springs" which contributed to its weird design. It was owned by Elmont Properties intead of the Reeds (Elmont likely got dropped because it was too close to Delmont). There was a big deal about the missing person case interfering with the sale. Originally it was designed by Alphonse Balph (a name that maybe meant something to me but I'm not sure what wordplay I was going for) and it going to have some strong tie-ins to actual arcane forces, at least according to rumor. The initial mental model, before I made it much weirder, was The Grand Hotel in Point Clear, Alabama (including a small and quite pleasant stretch of beach that I recommend, it's nice!). In fact, most of Maidenstead is a direct reference to the Spanish Fort | Point Clear | Daphne part of Alabama (so much so that it can be understood to be what might happen if all those communities were merged into one). Despite the coincidence of Daphne as a name, she is not a reference to the town.
AMY PATEL was originally Michelle Jones. Why it became Amy Patel, I do not know. She, by the way, did not originally have a mother from Hong Kong until The GLOW when I used such to figure out why the stock art used there was not an Indian-American woman. Hong Kong got used just because of its heavy use in cyberpunk and Shadowrun. It wasn't until I trying to find stock art to match my more "real world" visual of Amy (post The GLOW's stock art) that I found a Vietnamese woman who hit the exact right notes. Since there is a Vietnamese community near where this takes place, it would have made sense to have her mom be from that but it was too late to exactly take it back. Since she takes after her mom much more than her dad, there was an idea that maybe she wasn't really Roman Patel's child. I left that at guesswork at best but in my head-canon this is an explanation. We know the Patels were aggressively open in their relationship.
1996 was not the original year. It was set in 2024 to start. I still have no good idea why it was changed to 1995 in the first post and then 1996 in all subsequent ones. The change meant the Youtube series became a somewhat silly device of a VHS-by-mail-subscription service and the tokusatsu figures made less sense. It ended up being a boon since I got to work in more music and tech from the time period.
Things I Liked
I really liked making artifacts for the game world. If anything, I wish had made more. More photos and blueprints and notes and drawings.
I liked trying my hand at a "mystery-first" game that was really more of a "romance-first" game. I think I did the former quite well and the latter quite mediocrely but ah well.
There were several character developments — Milly finally admitting she wanted Elly to be her bigger sister and that was part of Milly's hangups with Eustace screwing up his life, Morgan's speech about Eustace as a mirror, Hitomi dealing with not being able to know someone you meet later in life fully — that were basically therapy for me. Moments like Jenny talking about how her jealousy was sense of distrust that anyone could love Elly like she did hit hard, especially as I realized that the two of them were probably moving towards splitting up. Elly talking about how she had always considered Eustace to be "hers" was sort of based in some issues I've had with fairly co-dependent relationships where people clung very hard despite us not being compatible with me putting up with it because I was also a mirror for many years. All of that was fascinating, like coming to understand why Eustace and Hitomi — neither of which were intended to be precisely virginal — were having such a hard time figuring out what it meant when someone else clicked for them. Prior to my actual real world relationship with Kazumi, I was essentially asexual in real life. Even early on in that relationship, I had a hard time expressing myself physically. Then, when it worked, it worked. Kazumi remains the only person it has ever actually worked for me, though. Eustace is maybe a bit more comfortable in his nerdy sexuality.
I adored the humor a lot. A lot a lot. I often toss in little jokes in my gameplay notes but there was a specific intent to make myself laugh. The scene where Daphne announces that Hitomi was thinking about marrying Eustace made me actually laugh while writing it. A lot of scenes with Daphne were good for my soul.
Things I Did Not Like So Much
One of the potentially odd first things that comes to mind is in Chapter 7 when the dressed up Hitomi is described as "fucking hot." It's a stale trope, at best, that the alt-girl becomes more traditionally attractive with a few new clothes but in this case it also kind of went against the idea behind the love story. While neither Eustace or Hitomi were meant to be unattractive, part of their romance was that they were the kind of person who might be a bit overlooked in the usual romance game. Eustace was overweight and dressed like a nerd. Hitomi was underweight, chainsmoked, and dressed like a stoner (a kind of real life take on female Shaggy, as it were). Though their first meeting led to a very rapid mutual attraction, it was meant to be more of a soul-mate, fated encounter thing. I later explained after the fact that Daphne is just the kind of woman who finds all of her friends and family to be the hottest, smartest, best people around. Other people, like Morgan and Elly, would have been bigging-up Hitomi in encouragement. Still...kind of wish I had played off the unconventionalness a good bit more.
I didn't really like that I just ran out of stuff for Morgan and Jenny to do. Morgan was supposed to be the first-secondary character, as it were. She ended up just standing behind Hitomi and going "oh" and giggling. As fun as some of that was, I kind of wish I had centered her and fleshed her out before adding four other characters that I had an easier time playing.
I liked bringing in the real world artifacts but one thing that mostly got left behind was the heat. Junes in lower Alabama are hot. If I did it again, the heat would be a bigger deal for sure. There would also be more summer rain and a better sense of Alabama as a place.
Another potentially odd one is the way that some genre fiction fetishizes the smoking-female trope as a sign of independence (only tending to be topped by sexual liberation). Even though nearly everyone in the series smokes — even Raymond and Milly, though they are all about pot — the fact that two-thirds of the cast was female felt pretty close to that line. Hitomi smokes in part because of Merrily Watkins (Phil Rickman's series of weird/folk-mysteries) and for several others it made sense for their character (the southern party belle Daphne and the more anxious Elly), it just felt a bit odd at times.
Speaking of fetishes that sneak into genre fiction, the fact that nearly all the queerness is lesbian is a problem (Elly and Jenny, Morgan joining in with Hitomi). There was an idea that Raymond (and Vern) were gay but I kind of just liked the idea in the end that Raymond was very pretty but didn't really care much about sex and relationships. Vern is definitely meant to be queer but he was locked in a room until the very end.
I kind of wish I had worked more stuff into the story about the impact Amy going missing would have had. It became a kind of running joke that the central mystery kept being avoided but still it should have been more before Daphne had to remind everyone about it.
Finally, the biggest regret is just how much the series got shuffled around until it finally took hold in Chapter 6 and grew fairly fast and strong from there.
Lessons Learned
I learned that I am not the best at writing romances. I can toss a few nods in but actually making them make sense and work is a bit beyond me. It is most obvious after Eustace and Hitomi actually admit their feelings for each other but essentially have no real scene together until the end. As we potentially move through marriage and parenthood and how it clashes with the mystery-solving life I think I can do better. I've been married for 20-years and have a nearly 8-year-old daughter. I have thought like a husband a father for a long time.
I learned that for this kind of game play, I need to focus more.
I also have learned that this kind of "play" where a lot of it is writing a bunch of dialogue and such is maybe a bit too much for me for anything like a longer series. Each chapter would easily take four or five hours of work once you factor in going back to edit it. A lot of the dialogue would be written directly in response to the dice and other factors and then it would take two or three passes to make sure stuff was in voice. It did wonders to help me anchor folks like Daphne into people I can imagine but it meant that while in "Eustace" mode I was spending a good chunk of every day just to keep the output to where I needed it.
I have been trying to find a way to codify it for myself. I think it might look something like this (this is an early pass):
- Tier 1 {5%-20% journaling} - short bullet points, a few maybe longer, or notes mostly kept directly on the character sheet and maps.
- Tier 2 {20%-35% journaling} - short paragraphs with most things summoned up in a single sentence and a few dialogue prompts. Majority of gameplay is through dice and game mechanics up to this point though roleplay is there on the backend.
- Tier 3 {35%-50% journaling} - some scenes get more details but scenes, especially those with combat or more repetitive delving, might be more summed up. Ebbs and flows from short to long and back again based on personal need. Starts moving towards roleplay/writing as being a major contributor but gameplay is still very relevant, often majorly so. [Essentially the standard level to my recap games]
- Tier 4 {50%-70% journaling} - longer written scene but still with the idea that not every bit of dialogue or every bit of action is written with some bits still getting more summed up as expedient. Still ebbs and flows but sticks a bit more to the longer side. A relatively complete world glance but with a focus on using the expanded glimpses to flavor the world without having to be accurate down to the precise detail. Effectively balances gameplay between dice/etc and writing since writing and roleplay just naturally takes longer. See an example later post from The Bleak + The Pearl to get a vibe of this.
- Tier 5 {70%-100% journaling} - the game world is realized in fairly in-world complete fiction writing with most dialogue and descriptions considered as written. Very few summations and a lot of gameplay is discovered in the act of writing with dice rolls adding in flavors and twists. This is where Eustace & Hitomi is, at the upper end, while something like The GLOW is a bit more at the lower end but still pretty high.
I am not great at Tier 1. I would go so far as to say I am bad at Tier 1. I do ok at Tier 2 and much better at Tier 3. As I am hitting Tier 4, I am getting a chance to roleplay while also having a good amount of dice rolls. Tier 5 sparks a lot of joy in my heart but quickly drains me because it is the absolute hardest to break off. I think ultimately I am the absolute best at something like 50% to 60% range because it gives me enough chances to build some dialogue and scene setting but also the freedom to break out if I need. Something where I feel beholden to keep up a heavy pace, especially when I am trying to give multiple characters a voice, adds stress that should likely best be avoided except in certain more dedicated "lore"-type scenes.
Speaking of, I learned once again that my general upper limit of focus characters is around three to four with more than that quickly getted shunted aside.
Things That Might Be Fun to Do Different
I think it might be fun to toss out the whole hometown thing and have an older detective actually staying at the strange inn and have other people be guests.
If I told this story again, Daphne would probably show up earlier. Elly might be there but Jenny and Morgan would probably not besides as background characters. Raymond might make it, maybe combined with a Jani type as a cop undercover at the hotel.
I think some of the scenes with Elly and Eustace would have been better between Eustace and Hitomi instead. That being said, it almost hard to not write this as Elly and Eustace's love story once I started putting them together. It could be nice to have two old friends who have been there for each other for years finally realizing what that meant.
A Few Final Pieces of Trivia
- Before Eustace, the plan was to work out a series called Alex the Dumbass which I described as "John Dies at the End but with a very Alabama-vibe." While the still-planned Alex series will now be a bit less JDatE — Alex Dumas being Eustace's younger cousin and one of his biggest fans — there is a scene near the beginning of JDatE where the schlubby Dave character almost immediately falls for Amy and ends up saving her dog and later they just kind of fall in together without any proper plot support. This was not intended as a reference in Eustace but man does it feel like a weird coincidence in hindsight. A few of them.
- There is a line in Chapter 7 where Jenny says that Elly will get out of bed to call Eustace to bring her medicine despite Jenny being right there. While this was building up to the issues Elly was facing — and causing — it is actually a semi-humorous actual anecdote between Kazumi and myself from before we were dating. I got called to bring medicine. While Kaz was not in bed with anyone at the time, it kind of had that same vibe amongst certain people about why I was the person being called.
- Aunt Elvis got their name due to a family in-joke. I am a pretty big dude. I have a cousin Elvis who, at least as of the last time I saw him, was bigger. He would jokingly call me "Runt." When I ran into the problem of needing there to be an oversized-to-Eustace sweater, that was the first thought that came to mind. There had to be someone who would consider a 6'4", 250lb Eustace a runt. I figured someone called Aunt Elvis who was 6'9" and dressed fabulously probably filled in any and all mental images you would ever need. My cousin Elvis is much more a traditional big redneck boy, but lovely enough.
- One of the biggest running jokes is where people hear a name or reference and assume the person meant something else. By a coincidence, mostly, nearly ever case of this occurs to Eustace. You have the "Eu" = "you" that showed up around once per chapter. But you also Jani mishearing "the Doctor" and Daphne misusing the reference to "kinky shit" and "absolutely not a guy" which I set myself up for and had to take the opportunity. The "Eu sounds like you" showed up in Chapter 2 and made me giggle so I kept bringing it up.
- The Johnson Pharmacy and Feed Store was very nearly called the Johnson Farmacy but I figured that might confuse the southern silliness even further.
- I had a potential idea for bringing in the Cyclopes to broadcast some information as a way to get around Chief Raylon's meddling. I also had an idea that the "Jan-Z-Moo-V" chain might be involved with the illicit tape distribution. Neither ended up being needed at the end.
- Chapter 5 was meant to have a librarian, Mrs. Maisie Zable. However, an altered scene changed that. This likely shifted the entire storyline away from the potential of "ancient folklore" and proper Alabama Weird to keeping it a bit more real world grounded.
- The Absolute Winner for Missed Characters was Patrick Yost. Chapter 5 had an interrupt scene. Chapter 7 had a random event that changed the whole scene. Chapter 10 had an interrupt scene. In each case, every attempt to play out a Patrick Yost encounter failed. I don't really mind that but it was kind of meant to be the Morgan Carter break out scene. The bit where Morgan explains Eustace ended up being essentially the last Morgan-centric scene in the entire arc and was effectively the last time Morgan drove any plot until the unexpected threesome. After that, it was really hard to figure out how to center any plot around her at all without slowing things back down so she spent most of the rest of the arc off-screen despite being intended as the equivalent of Eustace's Elly to start. Sorry, Morgan.
- The idea of bringing in Special Agent Jani Blum to break a potential deadlock of how to have a bunch of 20-year-olds go up against a crime syndicate of sorts not only did that but the interrupt scenes related to Jani likely trimmed at least two whole chapters from the story. Jani, being the only character not designed in the Maidenstead Mysteries rule-set was also the only character that did not have any Death-Armor. Had the gunfight gone differently, Jani could have been killed.
- The story about Jani helping Luca is from Chapter Two of The GLOW 1996. Presumably it went down differently, here, without The GLOW's elevating presence. Jani has "cat-like eyes" here in reference to his alternate version. I had the idea of working in a reference to him being friends with a werewolf with healing abilities but Alabama Weird Tad did not get a chance to show up.
- Because Jani never interacted with Daphne or Hitomi, there was a potential line I was workshopping that never got a chance to be used. Daphne was going to talk about how Eustace attracts a large number of sexy men and ask Hitomi to borrow Eu for a romp through Italy. This is partially retained with Eustace leaping into a Venetian canal and Hitomi's line about how Eustace has several gorgeous friends. Way back in the Prologue it was said that Eustace nearly died (in an August 3 newspaper, so over a month after the start of the Rambler-arc) taking down a corrupt banker — who was always meant to be Roman Patel — so I had some confusion trying to figure out how that came about. The original idea had the missing person's case taking place over a much longer time frame instead of essentially being over in a single week, but Vern going missing was part of why it sped up. Amy wasn't really missing. Vern was. A month would be a long time to be held captive.
- Eustace did not smoke a pipe because I am an ex-cigarette-and-pipe-smoker who quit after nearly twenty years of smoking just this last year. So my main-focus characters tend to not be smokers (despite Hitomi being very much so a chainsmoker, partially in reference to Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins series, one of my favorite weird mysteries, which is also part of why she is British). Once I worked out that basically everyone but Eustace and Jenny were smokers — including Morgan by the end — I had Eustace hold an empty pipe in a single scene. I was done after that.
- This series is by far the most sexual content I have ever had in an RPG (solo or otherwise). Had it not ran into the months' long semi-break, it probably would have just ended with Hitomi and Eustace kissing. During that break, I played around and pushing a few boundaries in other series, so I went with it. There were a few additional details across multiple scenes that were cut for a variety of reasons, generally because they were two much. This is fun, scary, sexy-romp but — outside of the porn scene — isn't really meant to be about the sex in any way (neither was that, truly).
- That being said, Eustace and Amy most definitely did not have sex despite Hitomi's worries. The fact that he grew back a beard — something that Hitomi would like but Amy would not — was the only real clue (that and the gifts). As I was picturing it, Amy is the kind of person who had grown used to using people (or at least being expected to). Eustace was the kind of person used to being used. On that trip, they instead learn to act like equals. Amy became kinder. Eustace became more self-expressive and boundary-setting. They basically just took a tour of Europe getting into adventures and solving mysteries on Amy's dime.
- While never explained what Hitomi's tattoo is mentioned briefly in Chapter 1, the idea has become over time that it's a fox. The very slight hint to that is Jenny giving Hitomi fox ears near the end. The reason of this is nothing to do with the Eustace & Hitomi and all because in The GLOW, the field psychics hide their identities by wearing fox/kitsune masks and Eustace + Hitomi are about to have to contend with several field psychics interested in tracking down Eustace as his powers start to manifest even more.
Up Next for the Doug Alone is...
I will post a preview/teaser for "...and the Case of the Empty Promises" but after that will be diving back into "The Stone Crack'd" which still has some hefty moments to go.
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