The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont - Debrief and Final Thoughts

 

 

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• The Recap Section Was Its Own Post
• The Two Campaigns that Were Not
• The Future of The GLOW
• Things I Liked
• Things I Did Not Like So Much
• Lessons Learned
• Things That Might Be Fun to Do Different
• Up Next for the Doug Alone is...

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The Recap Section Was Its Own Post

Usually when I do these debrief interludes, I tend to include recaps/trivia and such all rolled together (e.g., The Bloody Hands REBIRTH: Stone Crack'd recap. It gives me a sort of all in one sandbox to kick around a few hefty footfulls of sand as I muse over the game I had just played.

However, the extended nature of this one meant I did the The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont recap [with trivia, sort of...] as a separate post. Essentially, it was a long enough time difference from the start that I knew I would forget things.

I will write this with the assumption that whoever is reading this has a rough understanding of the campaign arc OR of the recap.

The Two Campaigns that Were Not

The original (shorter) arc of this campaign, featuring Johnny Blue, was inspired by three rough things: (1) I was in a bit of a slow down and saw a Youtube video about using Tricube Tales and got the itch to play some more; (2) I liked the challenge of figuring out characters for the Dean Spencer artwork used in the Arcane Agents one-sheet; and (3) I wanted something a bit unrelated to any other on-going campaign so I could futz around with the formatting. I had previous played Arcane Agents with Kazumi — my spouse and primary IRL RPG partner — and liked it. The concept of The Harrowing occurred to me surprisingly quickly. How it might be tied into bring magic into a world that was highly accelerated in technology. A few things were stranger choices: that the smoking — and clearly east Asian woman — was Amy Patel, that the base was a Rambler that floated above the ground, and that Eustace Delmont was in the background.

These strange choices, on a whim, ended up having an impact on a lot of the Eustace + Hitomi campaign. Amy Patel — initially conceived as a young woman of purely Indian descent — changed to Dr. Roman "The Doctor" Patel's "adopted" daughter, essentially, one he doted on. She became less a victim in the original and less a villain in The GLOW. Concepts like destroying the Rambler started in The GLOW but then happened in the Alabama Weird, first. Eustace became less of a sad sack nerd and more a hero-in-the-rough. His GLOW version became older.

The Johnny Blue campaign that never was: Early on, I was playing a bit loose with storylines but I was always expecting Johnny (aka Jani) to team up with Amy to fight her family. It was a bit unclear what was on the mini-disk [as it was unclear whether I felt like spelling it like mini-disc or mini-disk]. Essentially, his story became too much about the mythic history of The GLOW to deal with petty thugs.

Thus, Eustace Delmont the Psychic was born. Aged up. Bigger. Rougher. No real history of fighting but designed to be a new type of Field Psychic who was as capable in physical fights as psychic battles. Also considered a flight risk by the Order (originally the Arcane Order but since that was a bit of Richard Woolcook's creation, altered to be just The Lamarkian Order or The Order in later references).

The Eustace Delmont campaign that never was: In fact, that flight risk was originally going to be a big deal. When it first started, I was still using Dean Spencer artwork and had picked up a couple of graphics that had a post-apocalyptic vibe. I had this idea that once Amy Patel was settled — or at least rescued — I might have some twist that the mini-disk was related to the "truth of The GLOW" and that were areas that had been completely consumed by the Soulburn. The Order was going to oppose Eustace finding it and were going to try to stop him, possibly ending with him turning out to be a witch.

Only, we ended up creating a whole host of characters — including Patel's associates, the Cabal — and there was the whole plan the Cabal had to shop out new GLOWs. A plan that would end up rebirthing the Yuggothians and allow them to help spawn Cthulhu back into existence while wiping out the human race. The scant remnants forced to flee into space and live as Soulburn creations.

I do not regret the fact that both campaigns ignored my original "scaffolding," especially since both tended to be bigger and more interesting stories, but I do slightly wish Amy had been around for more of it. By the time she showed back up for Johnny, he was going in a completely different direction. By the time she showed up for Eustace, he had a full crew.

Maybe next time, eh? Speaking of...

The Future of The GLOW

At one point I considered The GLOW to be a major meta-series. 1996 was going to be for Johnny and Eustace. 1992 was going to be for Neon Foster. 1997 was going to be for Aurora Hernandez. 1999 was to be for Luca and Sofia's oldest daughter. Other characters might return. Each year, things were to be worse and worse. Some might be more cyber [or, in this world, aether]. Some might be more mystical. Others might be more slice of life.

At this time, who knows? Eustace has somewhat solved The GLOW both in real life and in game world. I assume that (in world) the Yuggothian influence is fading more and more everywhere. Hedge magicians are finding their craft to be less effective. Psychics are weaker and weaker. In exchange, some of the inherent cruelty is fading. People are still bastards, but the Witches Three are gone and The Order is being led by a person who has become one with the Soulburn [or pulled a trick to hide himself from view, I still don't know which one I prefer].

That being said, there are still so many stories I could tell. Something silly like food truck wars in The Citadel. Something horror. Something action. Something fantasy. I doubt I am done with The GLOW unless I just get very distracted, but it's less a story that needs to be told, now, and more one just waiting in the background for me to recall.

Things I Liked

There was a lot I really enjoyed.

Speaking purely for the Eustace Delmont and Hitomi Meyer stretch, I liked most of it. It was a fun story that was a fairly Doug-type narrative. People at the bottom of the pecking order manage to overcome by punching up hard and fast. I adored the way it became an existential fight for the human race. I liked how Eustace became a crow with antlers. It feels very Doug.

Thinking to a few scenes in particular that stand out...

• The initial scene in the mall (aka, The Citadel). It was pure aesthetics and then quickly shifted to the first fight. I didn't know how strong enemies had to be so I went for fairly weak enemies — if I could do anything over, I might have made them tougher and more recurring — and Eustace killing them in a single roll went a long way to establish his personal legend. In fact, removing Patel's goons from being the recurring bad-guy did a lot of work to making the story even bigger.
• The hotel scene where Eustace and Hitomi — have only just met but tangled together by the threads matrix — try to make their relationship make sense. It was a fun sexy scene that still stayed relatively pure.
• The scene in the safe house where Eustace just figures out the plot and it suddenly is very Lovecraftian.
• The scene where Eustace drops a fool from a great height, a trick I only allowed myself to use once.
• The scrapyard scene and the motorbike scene as two non-consquential scenes that show how people in The GLOW still see the shared humanity.
• Virtually any scene where I abused chase mechanics to make something new — such as the Battle of the Rambler or the various hacking mechanics — were also a lot of fun because they felt pretty me.

Even though it was meant to be a maybe two-months-long story, it ended up becoming the core of my solo play for five-plus-months and it makes it feel more like a piece of me than some others that go more smoothly. These have been my characters for a fairly long time now, all things considered.

Things I Did Not Like So Much

I think the only thing I did not like so much was the mental struggles of playing and writing the campaign while going through five tiers of brain fog. I've talked about it before and don't want to keep hashing on about it, but it was like lifting a sofa while exhausted. The brain fog meant it was hard to keep everything in memory. I should have taken better notes, made myself cheat sheets. I've done that for shorter campaigns.

I think I would have liked more oracles in the end.

I also know that the meta-game elements of Outgunned got completely left behind. Heat, the Boss Villain, Plans B, and so forth. It was there and influenced things but while the mechanics was 90% Outgunned, there were gaps in the glue holding together. I think this is most felt in the final fight. On one hand, it was precisely an action movie fight. Two of the characters going off to do things to bring the plans together. Hitomi diving behind some non-descript structures to help manage the fight. Genny having a broken jaw and diving down to shoot the main-big-bad off the roof. Eustace flying down into a collapsing building to save a friend. On the other, it sort of missed some elements of Outgunned. I think. I would like to play another, shorter, more rules-and-meta-as-written campaign arc just to get a better feel for the complete rules.

Lessons Learned

When I was first building up towards the campaign, I had the idea of using Mythic 2nd Edition. It had worked well enough for me in the past and during Eustace + Hitomi, I had generated a fairly useful series of sub-tables to help the game progress nicely. Essentially, as places showed they might get added to a list that starts with a lot of blanks. As that table fills up, places show up more and more. Places that show up more often might take up additional slots. Same for people, objects, and even concepts. By the end, that campaign had its own meaning table of sorts. It was a nice way of starting with a kind of blank sheet that eventually became its own table.

During the middle of The Stone Crack'd arc of The Bloody Hands, I swapped over to Gamemaster Apprentice Decks to handle the oracle for a mixture of reasons. I just wanted to try something new and I was also having a major love-hate relationship with altered/interrupt scenes that was leading to frustration.

With the start of this campaign arc, though, I wanted some interrupts to return. I came up with an idea. Pull a card. Take the Difficulty Generator...that's the number in the top left of the card below...and then roll 2d10. If one die is greater than it, there's a minor twist, alteration, or complication. If both are greater than it, there's a fairly major twist, etc. When there is just one change, use the main card pulled — rather than any particular science, it could be the "Scene Type" (and usually was, which is the text around the center of the card), one of the sensory prompts, the image icons in the upper right, etc — and if it was a major twist then draw a couple additional cards and mix and match.

Note, that card is from the 2.4 version of Larcenous Designs, LLC's GameMaster's Apprentice Deck: Cyberpunk, 2nd Edition. All rights reserved. Used without permission. But also highly recommended for solo play in cyberpunk-type games.

This worked ok but I made a bad assumption at the start. I assumed that the Difficulty Generator was 1-10 equally spaced — out of the one-hundred-and-twenty cards, twelve would be "1", twelve would be "2", and so forth. In fact, it is bell curve centered around 5 & 6. Both systems work out to 5.5 being the average value pulled but rather than being the equivalent of 1d10 vs (lowest of) 2d10 it was 2d5 vs (lowest of) 2d10. That flavors some things. Just re-reading it, both systems would be a bit too apt at generating at least constant minor twists.

I'm a bit mixed about it. On one hand, the nearly constant barrage of minor twists was part of the backbone of the arc. On the other, it is not really the system I was intending. I think maybe 1d10 vs (lowest of) 2d8 would have been closer. Twists lurking but popping up every other scene or so.

I want to give some thought to the system, for sure. As it stands, though, the main lesson learned is always double check your tables and oracles to make sure they are working like you think they are working.

Things That Might Be Fun to Do Differently

There is only one thing that fits, here.

The next time time there is an Amy Patel, she will show up early and be part of the story from near the beginning instead of just a background character.

Up Next for the Doug Alone is...

This gets a bit tricky. As of today there is roughly about ten-plus days before the computer I am currently working on is packed up to be moved. After that, there will be ten-plus days before I board an airplane. Then maybe a month of transition as we navigate turning on utilities, getting internet, and unpacking everything. Twenty days is a fair amount of time work out some stuff (assuming I have some other device with which I can even post something) but also not since over half of that will be spent being fairly busy with shipping our lives overseas.

I would love finishing out the dungeon started in Bleak + Pearl. Poor people have been left on a boat for months, now. I think I could manage that. Though when I return it will be going into "Standard Doug Alone Style" rather than the recap format because that campaign arc ended partially due to a glitch in me trying to play a faster style. I got to a complicated encounter and keeping it quick and "keywords only" lead to a conclusion that I did not like.

Also, after months of building up slightly more and more complicated formatting I think it's time to start playing around with what works and does not by taking bits back out. Some of the elements like the "table of contents" and subsections remain useful to me after the fact. Stuff like hiding elements does not. Next and Previous entries in the arc is super nice and I use it a lot but it adds hassle. I need to reduce hassle. I'll find out a compromise.

Still, there is a chance this will be the last campaign arc posted on this blog until maybe as late as September or so. I want to try and avoid posting anything until a) I am sure I can finish it and b) I know I have a bit of a backlog. How great a chance that is, I don't know. I'll start playing Bleak + Pearl this week. I want to try and move on to one or two short campaign arcs after that. Will I get that done in the ten days?

I haven't a scooby do.

One thing I would like to do would be to post a Fourth Wall Break that talks about all the various campaigns, mini-campaigns, arcs, and one-shots I have mulled over. Something like a record of ideas off which I can bounce. I've been stuck in The GLOW for so long that there are a lot of ideas that never got to see the light of day. That will likely be next. Then I would like to post a Solo Advice column about scaffolding, insights, and seeds. Just to show some tools I use to handle different degrees of "truth" when planning out solo games.

And I have a post I never finished where I worked out something fairly different. A classic gamebook and a way I can share my playthrough.

But, really, we'll see is about the best I can give.