Fourth Wall Break #10: Arcs/Games Likely (and less likely) to Appear on The Doug Alone. aka, Doug's Wishlist

As said in my recent debrief from The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont, I want to do a quick-ish list of all the various campaigns, campaign arcs, mini-campaigns, and one-shots that have occurred to me over the past few months but as-of-yet not realized. This is kind of a bookmark of sorts. A place for me to go back and say, "Hey, I was thinking about playing that!" 

Chances are, absolutely nothing from this list will actually make it to the final product (i.e., actually posted to this blog). Better chances are that some of these will make it and others will get added to other stacks. Some things thought to be long will be short. Some things thought to be short will be long or even kick offs into whole meta-campaigns. Quite a bit of stuff will be altered before it begins and then altered even more before it is finished [I'm good at that!]. Any one of these might inspire a half-dozen more things that take the place of the others.

To keep it kind of simple, I'll list things roughly in order form Very Likely to Likely to Less Likely to Who Knows?. 

Very Likely

Lars and the Raven. Every entry in the Larsson the Maudlin D100 Dungeon short campaign ended with more backstory, more lore, and more characters. Since it is set on Phillia (the same island-once-kingdom as the rest of Ick + Humb), I figured I might bring it along into that fold (aka, Advanced Fighting Fantasy). Then the idea of combining it with the redeemed ex-warlock Haig Raven popped in my head. None of that will make sense to anyone but me, but the idea is a somewhat comical adventure focusing on a dour young man with some fighting ability, an older man trying to redeem his past evils, the former man's cute storytelling lover-to-be (an accomplished people person and thief), and a fairly cynical archeologist who came to Phillia to get rich. No clue about the story, just yet. Will likely figure it all at random and then have a couple-three dungeons.

Alice Hunter Investigates. Another adventure growing out of Ick + Humb. Alice Hunter (like Haig Raven) worked with Barston Bakersfield for an adventure or two. The idea for this one is she has teamed up with various outcasts around Humb to solve crimes. Kind of a blatant rip off of Discworld's Night Watch. Comic. Silly. Occasionally epic. An adventure that started but never really got going by me involved angry centaurs, an ancient space ship, and various broken promises. Might restart that one. Might not.

Yevony and Nizel, Right Bastards. The third of the side stories related to the aftermath of Barston Bakersfield's victory in the Warlock War. Yevony the Great and Nizel Torel are the two greatest heroes in the history of Phillia. Both are also conmen. Yevony uses his wizardly adventures to steal artifacts from better, less popular, wizards. Nizel is less a fighter and more a liar who knows how to write his own stories in third person (across a dozen pen names). While they look for new victims, they have been tasked by Barston to solve one last problem of his: a group of people kidnapped and shipped north from Humb. For reasons. 

"All Mimsy Were the Borogoves." I had an idea for a short story (the kind you write, not the kind of you play) about a man who takes it on himself to investigate his missing ex-girlfriend and her missing new husband. They disappeared after moving to Cresthill, Alabama [essentially the nexus of the Alabama Weird]. When he searches their house, he finds a room with a series of mirrors angled to reflect a small wooden box's reflection back at itself over and over. The box is open and the word "mimsy" is found inside. I had no idea where it was going but thought it would be fun to play. Originally going to be Tricube Tales (possibly "unflavored" and just using the base system), I've now been thinking about shifting it to 198x Midnight Misfits. I like the system (based off of 24XX) and I kind of like the idea of having it be a group of kids investigating weird stuff about town but leaning a bit dark at the same time. If it works out, there might be others in the "Jabberwock" series. 

Bleak + Pearl. Bleak + Pearl is the campaign that will likely live as long as this blog in some form or another. Once I play out the plot to get the Lighthouse back online, it can kick off dozens of other stories without issue. As they push back against the Bleak, it opens up a whole world of weird adventures without having to figure out if folks are mutating and I like that.

I also want to do Something Cypher. Like, real bad. Just don't know exactly what yet. There was a vague idea of a tie in to Armitage, Alabama and a group that travels through the various levels of the dreamscape. Maybe that. Maybe something else. 

Likely

Untitled Cultist Story. The idea was pretty simple: a cult leader has activated a spell to hide himself while infiltrating Maidenstead. Essentially just a fairly straightforward playthrough of Richard Woolcock's Eldritch Cultists, it would be a Tricube Tales Solo game where the entire campaign/etc is decided randomly. There would be a mild twist in making it a foe to adult Eustace Delmont (now in his 50s) though Eustace would likely only show up in passing if at all. 

The Whole Damned Dinner. A play off the classic Roadside Picnic, this one would use Troika and Acid Death Fantasy to basically kick off a new campaign world. Rather than just a few random sites of alien incursion, the idea is that a massive alien fleet landed on earth and rewrote all the rules of physics for the planet (well, exposed the truth of physics...but with a Heavy Metal level twist). In the strange otherworldly desert where Alabama used to exist, a group of people do...something. I have no real deep plans for this, but it could be interesting and I really want to play Troika here in some way. Very much so the kind of world where pretty much anything goes.

Oh Captain, My Captain. A straight-forward Outgunned short arc focusing on three or four ex-elite operative types who team up to avenge their old commanding officer who gets taken out by some local tough. The plan is to play a more by-the-book Outgunned story. Genny Yusuda and Nemesio Jones - the more real world/Alabama Weird versions anyhow - are likely to show up but I might change my mind on that. 

The Bitter Taste of Victory. Set almost entirely in The GLOW's Citadel - mega-mall and den of iniquity rolled in one, but what's new about that? - some time after Eustace's influence altered the course of The GLOW (2012 or thereabouts). A group of food cart vendors take place in a Citadel-wide competition for "best street food" and get caught up in various, possibly violent hijinks. Will possibly be played with the third-party Tricube one-sheet Food Fight! and might just be something else. A bit lighter than other The GLOW takes.

Alex The Dumbass vs the Cineplex Demon. One of the longest running "not yet" campaigns for this entire blog, this was the campaign that got completely side-railed by Eustace + Hitomi coming into existence. Then, again, by The GLOW. The idea is that Alex and his friends - not exactly dumbasses but also not not-dumbasses - investigate weird things around Armitage, Alabama. Would be set in essentially current time with Alex and co having a Youtube channel. One of Alex's friends his Eustace and Hitomi's son. Probably played with Bloat Games' Survive This! rules mixing together a few rule books. The initial story will involve a local movie theater where people go missing during showings and occasionally strange movies play without any running the projector booth. Possibly told more as a transcript of the livestreams where the idea that stuff off camera happens but is basically cut. 

Somewhere in this category are thin ideas for a Zombie Apocalypse story and maybe a Pulpy Retro-Sci-Fi story that is basically a zombie story in spaacccceeee....with jetpacks. And ray guns.

Less Likely

Eustace + Hitomi and the Case of the Missing Promises. Technically the prologue of this one is already done. The thing is, I am still not sure if Eustace nor Hitomi Delmont really need another direct story, still. Eventually, though, I'll want something a bit more Slice of Life and then it might show back up. A ship, The World Promises, turns up in Maidenstead with everyone missing except for some futuristic-looking human-sized containers stored below. Starting off with Eustace, Jani, and Ellie investigating a proper slice of the Alabama Weird, it will also have a pregnant Hitomi and still-slightly-pining-for-Hitomi Amy Patel teaming up to handle other things that crop up about town. Queerer, weirder, and more action-y than the first Eustace + Hitomi story.

The Shadow over Leftfield. A Call of Cthulhu game set in the 1920s or 1930s era of Leftfield, Alabama (the setting for the most popular post on this blog by a notch). The original one-shot (the one played before I started this blog, the post involves the second adventure in the town) involved The One Who Devours, an entity represented by a giant mouth. Seemingly connected to the area's zipper factory. I am not sure how well a solo-CoC game can go for me but I have a lot of experience playing the system. It's probably more than "less likely" but it's also something I might need to push myself to start.

Somewhere in this category would be Other Post-Apocalyptic and Other The GLOW stories. I have ideas, but they have a long way to go before anything like running them.

Who Knows?

The Dregs of Light. Somewhere between Red Dwarf and Warhammer 40K, I had a silly idea for a campaign set in a universe where the Chroma Empire has waged a bloody war for a thousand years. A war that has left little of the galaxy left. Different factions, largely known by their color-coded battle armor, have trampled all the "lesser races and planets" under their foot while shooting at each other. Only a few of the True Colors remain. One vessel, The Magenta Ray, has struck disaster as a bio-virus designed to target the battle armor of the soldiers onboard has killed everyone but the support staff. Now a group of janitors, cooks, and other people considered too unworthy to be of notice have freedom to travel the ravaged galaxy.

Eustace and Gareth Team Up. I had an idea of Eustace Delmont (in his 50s) teaming up with Gareth Hendrix a year or two after the events of Bunker to try and figure a solution to Gareth's problem. Gareth's transformation to a near-mythical being that cannot die continues. His wolf-form is now massive and even in human form his regeneration has accelerated to make him practically immune to death. They travel [somewhere] and do [something] trying to untangle what Gareth is, and who the Hendrixes and Marons really are. I have a strong visual of the opening scene but no clue on how to play it or where.

Future Bloody Hands stories. The Bloody Hands started this blog and Arden Ulet was last seen becoming The Storm Crow and leading a war against the Hand that has infiltrated The Order. The thing is, I kind of think the story is just pretty much told. I might set a one-shot or two in that universe in the future but I'll wait and see.

In here not so much because of disinterest but because of time would be stories using Ironsworn/Starforged, Loner, and others. The problem is, well, I have a lot of ideas. And a lot of those ideas can be played in systems I know pretty well [see above]. See also anything by Kevin Crawford. My own take on Dyson Delve (using Basic Fantasy?). Etc, etc.