Had a good #glowinthedarkrpg playtest session last night (thank you Mark Cleveland Massengale, Steve Moore, and Evan Saft) where we explored the “free play” part of the game and I got to really put some setting elements to the test and lay some worries to rest; namely, the feeling I’ve had that Glow in the Dark would fall too easily into “let’s just shoot them”.
I was pleased to see that it wasn’t the case – we had some barter, some sway, some interrogations, and some sabotage, but no overt violence. I’m also the middle of fleshing out the setting some and realized it’s super important that the factions can’t all be these walled-off themed communities. The setting needs those, and IMO it’s a big part of the post-apocalyptic settlement vibe, but there needs to be ways to get rumors, news, and meetings out there and available to the characters. Convoys and explorers and traders and mobile gangs that aren’t simply reavers are going to play a huge role in providing opportunities for the PC tribe.
We also talked about adding more factions, which I’m in agreement with, but not as many as Duskvol. It’s supposed to be a sparse, scarce kind of place, but I think with the Shepherds especially (the cargo cult tribes) the game would benefit from a few more examples of weird post-nuclear religions and beliefs that can conflict with the PC’s tribe.
So back to what happened. Big Red, a sentient AI-driven cargo truck from Before, arrived close to the Razorbacks’ settlement and an impromptu swap meet sprang up around the large robot truck. There were your typical array of scavengers with jalopies and rickshaws, plus a robotic envoy from Noah (the remnants of the NOAA mainframe) as well as a few Knight Riders (unfriendly to the Razorbacks). The players got some rumors from the passersby and sold a Sleepwalker prisoner to the Noah envoy for a fair amount of supplies (after flashing back to the Sleepwalker’s interrogation). They bartered for more information about the Sleepwalkers’ lair and decided to raid it for supplies.
Pretty straightforward – the PCs stuck with their current line of enmity with the Sleepwalkers, which was perfectly fine. Noah’s presence provided a way for them to dispose of their prisoner and get some more information, plus they seemed receptive to cultivating a friendlier relationship with the rogue AI. Looloo (the Driver) couldn’t help starting some shit with the Knight Riders, and sabotaged their truck. They gave chase but weren’t able to influence the engagement roll thanks to Noah helping to hold them back.
We had a lot of catchup, but once we got going I felt it went well. I got some good immediate feedback and work continues!
Thanks for the mention. I agree with most of this as well.
There is just one thing; there is no actual mystical or religious power in your setting. The Shephards wont feel right until there are things like this to Actually argue about.
And, of note is that with our recent missions we would have been better rewarded to have been Shadows or Bravos instead. I have no ideas about this except to keep a mystical action in the game (or give the playbook some kind of mystical seeming power) but that doesn’t seem to fit with the fiction.
The Shepherds tribe type is fairly open as to how you go about the task of growing your tribe and accumulating supplies, as long as you can phrase it in terms of your cult. You guys aren’t doing that too much yet. This tribe type is perhaps my most deeply cynical, most apocalyptic crew sheet precisely because there is no supernatural presence in the setting. You are running on a web of lies, worshiping old Buffy DVDs and passing that on as holy writ to your small settlement of peasants.
We’ve also got the seeds for some juicy XP from intratribal conflict, with Tooth and Looloo as true believer and convert respectively, and then Dawn and Spark as pragmatist and skeptic.
Raiding the Sleepwalkers’ lair is tactically sound – you have the element of surprise, you’ve already got a beef with them, and you got good info – but you’re right, it is exactly something suited to Bravos or Shadows. Unless you frame it in terms of your cult. Then it’s XP city, dude. Declare holy war on the Sleepwalkers. Call them out as vampire sympathizers – they’re secretive and stay underground, out of the sun. You don’t even need to justify it – you guys are leaders of your own religion. Shepherds are about doing whatever you want as long as you delude yourselves about why you’re doing it.
yea, just the benefits of doing that seem a bit lackluster comparatively. Perhaps the loss of magical oomph I perceive is just the price of being a setting grounded in reality
re: XP city. That’s just it, the XP is not helping me feel like a Shephard of a “deity” – playbook’s words not mine. In fact, since there is no magical action, just call it a “movement” or “belief” and that will help clear this up to players who hope to be healing the sick or whatever (That was actually me)
I figured the Shepherds would have a freshwater spring, healing fountain, or something like that in their book – for example
Yeah, I see that and I’m sorry you misconstrued the point of Shepherds. That’s why we playtest! I had no idea there was this miscommunication. Shepherds aren’t magic! 🙂
The “Communion” and “Conviction” abilities are gonna be changed/swapped, though. I think that as reskins of BitD Cult abilities, they’re muddying the issue that Shepherds are in no way actually supernatural. Also swapping the starting ability from “Secure” to granting a starting cohort of Rooks so you have a “congregation” that can be true believers or complicit in pulling the wool over others’ eyes.
WRT healing fountains, though – you got me thinking. You could have a cache of pre-war handwavey medi-gel or bacta-with-serial-numbers-filed-off and claim your “god” (whatever it is) gives you the power of miracle healing. Another related idea is the Glow: maybe sometimes exposure to it heals people. I mean, it’s a risk, right? It could just kill them or make them a freak, but maybe if you could “capture” some somehow that’d be something to build a cult around too.