The Bleak + The Pearl Intermission #7. Re-Entering the Sea Caves (finally)

 

 

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.