#glowinthedarkrpg Last night I ran a one-shot of Adam Schwaninger’s Glow in the Dark at an open RPG event here in…
#glowinthedarkrpg Last night I ran a one-shot of Adam Schwaninger’s Glow in the Dark at an open RPG event here in pre-apocalyptic Portland OR. It was a hit!
We ended up with a very small crowd, so I only had two PCs. After an accelerated character creation (where, since we were short-staffed, I let them make pretty souped-up characters) we had Sheila, a shotgun-toting, leather-clad Reaper, and Blue Ring, a Mutant who was some sort of horrible hybrid of a human and a blue-ringed octopus.
We introduced the wasteland town of Bigwater, a section of the Boneyards on the coast of the rad-ocean, partially submerged. It turned out that, although humans lived there, the main population were Blue Ring’s fellow horrible cephalopod-people, who held themselves as quite superior to the simians. Unfortunately for Bigwater, they had just suffered a terrible raid by the Ape Empire, who sacked the town of their technological supplies and burned the rest.
Sheila and Blue Ring set out into the wastes to track the apes, and found a shack in the middle of nowhere. Just as they arrived, a flying saucer bearing the symbol of the Conclave (basically the Brotherhood of Steel; I figured with their advanced tech they just had flying saucers) dropped off a heavily-armored Knight to scan the area. Luckily, Blue Ring made short work of him using her feral-mutant special abilities to vanish into thin air, then ambush the Knight with her tentacles and venomous beak.
They ventured into the shack and found an abandoned elevator shaft leading down into the utter darkness. After jury-rigging the elevator, they defeated a few ape guards, took a keycard off an ape scientist, and unlocked the main chamber of the complex, where a bunch of ape technicians were trying to repair… a nuclear warhead!?
They intimidated the ape techs into fleeing, then Sheila made short work of the remaining ape guards (even an ape sergeant, who was wearing a Roman-style helmet with a human skull mounted on top. We also established the apes wore Roman-style robes in colors appropriate to their job function.) Just then, one remaining ape scientist held up a beeping device, pledging that the weapon would never fall into the primitives’ hands, but Blue Ring threw a knife at him and they hacked the device into turning off the warhead.
The duo lugged the warhead out of the complex and strapped it to a stolen ape-dune-buggy. In the epilogue, we saw Blue Ring deliver the bomb to her cephalopod brethren, and Sheila lead the mighty human-cephalopod army that nuked the Ape Empire and conquered the wastes.
Adam Schwaninger Hey I just picked up Glow in the Dark, and one of the first things I do after reading through a…
Adam Schwaninger Hey I just picked up Glow in the Dark, and one of the first things I do after reading through a book is head over to roll20 to set up a game and play around with character sheets and all that jazz. I saw in the back of the book that it mentions the sheets are available, but I don’t see Glow in the Dark anywhere in the listed games? Is that a known problem?
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for this community, everyone who provided feedback, my playtesters, all of you gamers out there streaming actual plays, John & co. for being available and engaged with the fans. I’m excited to finally send my little hack out there into the world!
If you end up running Glow in the Dark, I’d love to hear about it!
This is the white-line nightmare of the Cold War brought to half-life, a mythical doomsday that never was. Twisted metal rusts away under shifting dunes. Maniacs kill for food, for fuel, or for fun. You will create a tribe of survivors – a gang of post-apocalyptic scavengers and warriors desperate to survive. We will play to find out if your tribe can flourish despite other hungry gangs, forgotten pre-war threats, the unforgiving elements, and their own dark impulses.
Ordered the first print proof of Glow in the Dark!
Ordered the first print proof of Glow in the Dark! I’m excited, although I know that there’ll be a need for at least three proofs. This first one I already know isn’t correct, plus who knows what mechanical printing errors are waiting for me (bleeds and so on). Just because I got the file format correct doesn’t meant the book is right. The second proof will probably be invalidated after I’ve ordered it and while I’m waiting for it to ship. I’ll find some typo somewhere or a wrong page number reference (if I’m lucky). That leaves the third proof as the earliest “final” version. Not that I really know what I’m talking about; I’ve never done this before.
Today was the first time I’ve ever run Blades (or in this case, a hack thereof) face to face. I got to introduce the rest of my game group to the system and it went great. We got through 2 runs and 2 downtimes – by comparison, my Hangouts games can take a month to do that.
My 3 players made a tribe of Raiders – straightforward mostly-reskinned Bravos who take what they want and burn the rest.
The Red Rocs are:
Howler the Driver, a former Last Cavalry gyro-pilot left for dead after a bungled assault, forced to survive in the wilderness.
BB the Feral, beastmaster and tracker, a teenager who never knew civilization.
Krondar the Reaper, amnesiac psycho. He’d be a Faceless in Apocalypse World. He’s the conductor of the poop train. He has the shiniest meat bicycle.
This was a one-shot, so we started off at Tier 1 with some extra tribe abilities, action dots, and special abilities. Nothing broke, and we were able to playtest a little more broadly than going through the same old new tribe starting situation. The players went full Beastmaster, taking the Gyros and Cars upgrades but reskinning them as mutant riding beasts. This didn’t present any problems either, and it really solidified the tribe’s aesthetic. The Red Rocs all rode beasts – the Driver had a custom flying beast instead of a car, and the BB the Feral took the “Good Dog” ability and granted his pet massive size, so he could ride Stabhawk into battle.
Taboos worked better here than in any prior playtest. Krondar took a taboo against all ranged attacks, forcing himself to literally dive into close combat. BB always took risks to scavenge everything, even as pursuers or encroaching storms drew nearer. Howler took a taboo against slavery and refused to accept medical help from a Monarch doctor because their faction took slaves.
Raiders pretty much work as advertised. The two runs were essentially smash and grab ambushes against a hostile faction, the Knight Riders. They were at war by their second downtime.
For the two players new to the Blades system, I think the main impressions I got from them were:
1. It’s fast. We did a lot of combat. Things were generally decided by the third time around the table.
2. Hard choices – and I’m really happy that this came through. What ability do you take? Do you push yourself? Do you roll to resist? How much stress do you have? Do you have enough supplies to indulge vice and do something else? Do you do a team action to maximize safety (better chance of 6) or roll separately so each person can tick clocks?
It would be cool to see this hammer of a tribe continue, and find out if they can make literally everything a nail.
The Dead Setters leave their mark on Duskwall in The Retirement Caper.
The Dead Setters leave their mark on Duskwall in The Retirement Caper.
After the Brightstone Riots leave their ugly scars on the homes and safety taken for granted by the nobility, the Dead Setters use their rising influence to infiltrate the largest gangs of all: government.
Trains
Rook the Cutter can’t beat them, so he joins them. Unable to simply tear down Imperial authority, he uses his folk hero status and leads Ulf Ironborn, the Reconciled, and the Skovs (still galvanized after the riots) to reclaim the Lost District. With protections supplied from Teatime the Whisper and grudging help from the Silver Nails, the Skovs take back the District and claim it as their own. Rook becomes something of a robber baron, going straight for railroad construction and expansion into the Deathlands. The Dead Setters’ Ghost Market ability and their alliance with the Reconciled, plus ample supply of leviathan essence allow them to make more headway into the wastelands than any expedition in decades. Rook retires into rail tycoon-hood, sort of a combination of Daniel Day-Lewis’ roles from Gangs of New York plus There Will Be Blood.
Birds
Raven the Hound murders Magistrate Rolan Wott and then shoots herself on Bowmore bridge. Her spirit is torn between her Reconciled friend Nyryx, who was possessing her at the time, her spirit-linked ghost-form raven Zeramore, her Tycherosi blood, and her rituals from the Path of Echoes that should have returned her to the crew’s spirit well.
Weeks later, rumors abound of a spectral raven that plucks the life from those who would harm the Dead Setters. Months and years after that, a small cult following of assassins springs up, taking the storied name of the then-defunct gang the Crows. Raven becomes the spectral and enigmatic leader of the new Crows, styled after the Assassin’s Creed brotherhood.
Gears
Deemo the Leech, now a Hull, disappears after the Brightstone Riots. Left with only the desires to discover, acquire, and destroy, she continues her sparkcraft, refining her automatons, and seeding them into Duskwall’s various vital industries. Deemo becomes an information broker, as her clockwork spies are everywhere. Those who cross her are seldom seen again, but rumor has it her hull spies are often powered by the spirits of her former enemies.
Heirs
Teatime the Whisper, aka Habel Tinriver, aka Heir of Scurlock. He travels outside the lightning barriers to claim Lord Scurlock’s ancient castle for his own. Accompanied only by Mr. Clicks, Scurlock’s former hull manservant, Teatime explores forbidden knowledge.
He rejects vampiric immortality in favor of taking on apprentices, passing his accumulated lore to better and brighter (and saner) minds. He is of course murdered by one of these apprentices years later.
Badges
Richter the Spider weasels his way into the vacancy left by Bluecoats commander Bowmore, tragically killed in the riots in an “accident” involving a sack of hand grenades. He uses his cohort of loyal “yellowcoats”, a sort of internal affairs Stasi, to keep one step ahead of regular Bluecoats corruption and assassination attempts. Richter eventually manages to use his connections to the Imperial Navy to get a seat on the Council, and from there he institutes a sort of anonymous “criminal court”, where underworld disputes can be settled with minimal violence. Less violence means more business, which means more graft for the people in charge. Hardly anyone argues with the new way of doing things… for now.
Richter dies of old age, a miracle for someone as divisive and ambitious as he was. His children are not up the task of holding Duskwall’s criminal elements in sync with its corrupt government. Things start to fall apart, a perfect starting situation for a theoretical continuation of our campaign.
~~~
We really shook the pillars of heaven with this campaign. We played weekly since ~March 2016, going from v4 quickstart all the way to 8.1 release. Huuuge thanks to all of you who read these APs and everyone who streamed/APed Blades during that time – I probably watched some if not all your stuff in my attempts to be a better Blades GM.
I’m still running playtests for my #glowinthedarkrpg post-apocalypse hack and I’m playing in a #copperheadcounty crime hack. Blades in the Dark has insinuated itself into my gaming thoughts like nothing since, well, probably the idea of Fate aspects. I’m just so appreciative of this community and John, Sean, and everyone being transparent and available.
For the final time, and for reals this time, #heestcomplete
I have Roll20 survivor and tribe sheets working for my #glowinthedarkrpg hack.
I have Roll20 survivor and tribe sheets working for my #glowinthedarkrpg hack. Many thanks to Tim Denee and Jakob Oesinghaus for their BitD sheet work, and Chris McDonald for adapting that to Scum & Villainy. I learned vastly more from comparing the two than trying to decipher just the one.
When It’s Time to Party We Will Party Hard, a Glow in the Dark story
When It’s Time to Party We Will Party Hard, a Glow in the Dark story
A reverse assault! Our first instance of social harm! Teenage love! Indoor bonfires! Burning to death! Read on!
The Big Game Approaches
Last downtime, Johnny Tabernacle the Leftover was trying to patch things up with the Boneyard Bulldogs, a sports-themed raider tribe. Coach Boss’ playbooks prophesied of the apocalyptic Big Game, the second Ragnarok promised by the Bulldogs’ god Mad’n. Johnny’s first trauma came about at the hands of the Bulldogs, and the moonbase survivor was obsessed with football. He’d been using his downtimes building this opportunity to basically do wasteland Blood Bowl. The Bulldogs were willing to call this truce, but they had a condition.
The Bulldogs needed time to train, and their sometimes-allies, the Free Radicals, needed another place to crash. The Third Rails said they were okay with visitors, and went to prepare their settlement, Prism City, for the new arrivals.
This was part of the Diplomacy fallout/entanglement we’d rolled previously. The tribe accepted the favor, and during the deal we agreed that if they did this for the Bulldogs, their faction status would raise back up to neutral.
House Guests
The Free Radicals are a Tier I nomadic raider tribe, and my default “it’s okay to whoop these people” group. They believe the wasteland is the afterlife, and when they die they go back to fight alongside the Atomic Prophet in the Last War. This makes them fearless, hedonistic, and wasteful. They’re locusts – a mix between the Wee Free Men, the dirtbike gang from Fury Road, and extreme sports/energy drink bros (think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO2Abp0FbA0). Inspired the most by King Radical from Dr. McNinja.
It was the Bulldogs’ hope that dealing with the Radicals would lead to both the Third Rails and the Radicals being weakened or even wiped out. What happened instead was Johnny suggested they throw a party. Zeke the Junker suggested they spike the booze, and Dan Halen the Reaper threw in his supply of drugs to help. This was essentially their plan for the “score” – a Deception plan via spiking the drinks. The engagement roll was Risky, which made sense given the Radicals’ volatile nature.
Young Love
Billy the Feral (a tween vault survivor gone feral) decided he was in love with Princess Yolo Jones, one of the Radicals. We started a clock and Billy managed to make some meager progress by bringing the young Yolo some fresh kills, as if he were a cat or something. It was a mixed success, however, so while Princess Yolo was moved by Billy’s ability as a provider, the meager attention she returned just fueled Billy’s aspirations. He took level 2 harm “Smitten” and didn’t even consider resisting it.
What’s Yours is Mine
The party started around dark, down in the Prism City underground. A decrepit corpse of a mall dinner theater was ground zero for an indoor bonfire and bacchanalia. While the party raged, Zeke went topside to loot the Free Radicals’ bikes. He went with the tribe’s robot butler/driver/muscle, Mr. Clanky. This proved to be wise as two of the Radicals, too wounded or exhausted to join the party, spotted Zeke picking through the vehicles (2 supplies looted, but mixed success). I rolled fortune to see if the Radicals had anything loud or especially dangerous on them. I rolled a 1. The hand crossbow pinged off Zeke’s armor and then Mr. Clanky brutalized both nomads in the style of an Elysium drone. Now it was a party.
Burning Man
Billy saw Boost, one of the Radicals, sidle up to Princess Yolo and start dancing with her. Obviously, the young boy’s mind went directly to murder. Dan Halen noticed Billy angling through the dancing crowd towards Boost and started a wasteland mosh pit to cover what he figured was about to happen. Because of Dan’s setup action, Billy got increased effect when he Prowled up and shoved Boost away from Yolo – right into the bonfire. Some of the Radicals spun on Billy. Some gestured in some kind of religious observance as Boost died (and presumably respawned to fight alongside the Prophet). It was clear the scene was turning ugly, so Johnny triggered the ancient sprinklers, which had been hacked via flashback to spray sedatives sourced from the Third Rails’ drug-dealing mutant allies the Monarchs. Johnny critted and the Free Radicals were pacified – for now.
XP for the XP God!
We wrapped there. I’m not sure if this was a cliffhanger or just the end of the score. It was a fun and different kind of session, though. “Surviving house guests” doesn’t seem very post-apocalyptic, but with the characters being who they were, I think it wasn’t too off-brand, so to speak.
I felt that having such a simple premise allowed everyone to shine RP-wise – this was borne out by the fairly high XP rewards. It was nice to push the boundaries of things you can do in the wasteland too. Not everything’s fighting (and tbh not everything has been fighting so far), and it’s good that Glow in the Dark can support variety like that.
This was also interesting to run because it was essentially a social attack on the PCs’ settlement. The engagement roll was about how prepared they would be when something could go wrong. The worst outcomes I had in mind were pretty bad – I mean, this is the tribe’s home – but the dice stayed out of that 1-3 range this time.
Mechanics-wise, I feel Blades is at its best at Tier I and II. Players are more confident, characters have more special abilities to play with, and the tribes/crews aren’t always outclassed. We’re here now with the Third Rails and coming back to this level of play after our crazy Tier IV vanilla Blades game and our beginning Tier 0 crime family in Jason Eley’s Copperhead County game really hit a sweet spot for me.
Design Update
I’ve been working on v7 of the Glow in the Dark rules. I’ve moved to InDesign (hoo boy what a change), incorporated all the art, and have been doing a ton of reading and re-reading and tweaking. I want to have some random tables in the game. They’re fun and I think very appropriate for this setting. I also have made enough progress on roll20 character sheets that we could use them for last night’s game. The faction and tribe sheets aren’t started yet, but the character sheet works pretty well. When I release this version, I’d like to make it as easy as possible for people to get into it and that means roll20 support.
Taking your Google Docs Blades hack blather and trying to format it properly (and I use “properly” extremely…
Taking your Google Docs Blades hack blather and trying to format it properly (and I use “properly” extremely loosely) is daunting. It’s illuminating, but daunting.
