Chronicling my Glow campaign

[Tubal]

So in january I tried starting a Glow in the Dark campaign, but due to players dropping and other bumps that ended after a few weeks. Ancient history now though!

I had session 0 this evening. Three players, 2 experienced and one new, exciting times.

I’m thinking I would chronicle the season as it goes on, for my own purposes (it forces me to do a good job collecting my notes and thoughts) and maybe it will be of interest to others. This is the only forum on here that seems to fit something like this so here it is

We are playing over Discord for voice and general chatting between games, and Roll20 for the gameboard, character sheets and dice rolling.

For session 0 we got together for a few hours this sunday evening to do charaacter/tribe generation. I and two of the players are european, and the fourth is american, but with a freelance job so she can join on our usual time on fridays (evening for us, day for her).

Everything went as well as can be expected really, some things were agreed on with consensus, some things were voted on, and nobody got upset as far as I could tell. Fortunately one of the players took it upon himself to read all the text that needed it so I could relax and listen most of the session, and only interject when I felt someone was quiet for too long or I thought something needed a little more fleshing out.

What came out of the session was a tribe of Relics, interested in Reclaiming old technology to restore the giant crawler they’re based out of to a functioning state. They will approach their problems with a reputation for Daring action and a mix of tactics, since they have a naive Shark with a past in an advanced enclave, a Reaper with poor self-esteem and a drunk Driver with enemies in his past (and a stolen car).
Having gotten the crawler to run temporarily, the AI SIRI awoke inside it, and sometimes communicates to them. Leaving with it greatly upset the violent cult Thunder’s Children, who had claimed it for their own but didn’t have the expertise needed to make use of it.
When it broke down for the final time they were near the fortress-prison of the bodytank-wearing group of elite mercenaries the Iron Maidens. They managed to trade and negotiate for supplies the maidens didn’t need, enough for a Farm on the deck of the crawler, and aided them in a raid that netted them tools for a Workshop. The target of the raid, the apocalyptically religious raider group the Free Radicals were less amused by this.

SIRI, the AI, has helped the maidens as well with information, and because of all these factors the Iron Maidens are now the DD’s close allies. Not everyone in the wasteland are happy about artificial life, however, and the Ape Empire has taken notice of the tribe…

The Dashing Delvers (none of them is a writer) (or have great judgement), or Double D’s, are ready(?) for their first real run next week!

I always spend way more time on the gameboard than I probably should, as people in the Blades discord might remember, and ofc this campaign isn’t going to be any different.

The right part of the board is probably going to be replaced by a large computer screen, now that I know that they’re based out of a crawler, and I should change the background from a concrete bunker to metal bulkeads or something.
The screen will have character/tribe sheet elements linked to the sheets with an API script (thanks to deceptive.duality), slightly modded by me (also thanks to deceptive.duality).
Basically I envision it as what SIRI would use to communicate, and to have an excuse for UI elements on the board. In our Blades games I used books and paper for the same functions.

… That’s probably enough for tonight…

Gotta figure out some good sites to go reclaim, some requests from the Maidens, some ways for their many and varied rivals to interfere etc…

[admiralducksauce (Adam Schwaninger)]

That’s amazing. I’m excited to read how your upcoming sessions go!

On a related note, seeing things like this makes it all worth it.

[Tubal]

Thanks Admiral

Reworked the gameboard to fit the season better. Still beta ofc, but the major elements are all there.
I still have room to put more stuff on the screen, might do tribe information, we’ll see.
NPC portraits are probably going to be polaroids, because I like having paper lying around

[Tubal]

Got the most likely NPC’s done… The head for their allies and some medium npc’s among their rivals.

If anyone asks I might write up a tutorial for these. Spoiler: it involves a lot of pinterest browsing…

[admiralducksauce (Adam Schwaninger)]

Great! I see you’ve got a skully face thing going on, either via warpaint or literally.

What power armor is that? The “hatch” style looks familar.

[Tubal]

I actually switched out Boost’s face for another lady with red warpaint because I realized having two factions with skullfaces was repeating myself

The armour is a SAFS from Ma.k, Maschinen Krieger, a model series from Japan. It’s retrofuture stuff. Not sure about the entire story of it, but they have a lot of WW2 influences. I figured I’d pick something unusual for the bodytanks instead of just ripping off Fallout like I’m doing for everything else
The face is a ghoul art piece, I think it’s the artist’s self-portrait: https://www.deviantart.com/qu-ross/art/Fallout-Ghoul-Ross-596001574
I just jammed it into the armour

Gonna have to make some ape cards after today’s session… but first I gotta unwind enough to sleep

edit: I have a gallery with all the NPC cards I’ve used, that I’m gonna maintain, so if anyone needs post-apocalyptic polaroids feel free
https://imgur.com/a/IwUJ4K1

[Tubal]

Ok, so, first session down. We had a bit of an action-packed start…

The Shark’s trader contact came over and looked over their new digs, the broken-down crawler they’re hoping to fix up, and offered them a safe paying job to help escort a delivery of fuel between Blacksand and Hightower. A group of vehicles from the Free Radicals overtook them, and politely (not really) offered them a chance to leave the convoy before things got hot. Her driver was keeping their vehicle dangerously close so she could stand up in a cut-out part of the car’s roof and talk. Showy.
The Shark proceeded to lecture Boost about not giving people the finger, while the Reaper casually leaned over and dumped an explosive charge into the hole she was standing in… Some devil’s bargains and position and effect trading later and Boost was rolling around on the pavement, alive and definitively not forgetting the Shark’s face, while her companions went up in a cloud of fire.
The Driver hit the brakes, falling behind another of the radical cars, and rammed it off the road, while knocking the Reaper off the back of the truck and hanging off the tow-cable.
Etc Etc, the Reaper dropped onto the convoy’s support motorcycle, backwards, and fired his guns into the last car, disabling it, while the driver plowed through a roadblock made up of another two stationary cars.
Easy peasy win, some money in the bank, and Blacksand is impressed with them. (The Free Radicals are less enthusiastic).

When they got home they arranged some races to ease tensions, and did some other personal stuff, before noticing the Driver’s doctor buddy (and speed drug source) was missing, having been kidnapped by an Ape Empire scouting party to be interrogated. Since they’re Daring they called up the Maidens who could tell them the apes have been scouting more in the area recently, and pointed them to a nearby camp.

Driving there took a while, and when they arrived, night had fallen. They dropped off the Reaper to take potshots and lure the apes out of the tent camp they had and took a long circle around. The Driver killed the engines and they rolled silently into the middle of camp as most of the apes were trying to figure out where the Reaper was firing from.
They had seen their contact be led into a tent and the Shark proceeded to try and get him out of there while the Driver (sober for once) decided to loot the place for whatever he could find. The Shark discovered a guard in the tent, but before she could act the Driver accidentally dragged the tent-cloth off while using his winch to steal supply-crates. The guard was shot by the Reaper at long range, the Shark and Driver alerted the boss ape who came out to deal with them, the Reaper almost got mobbed by apes who finally found him in the darkness, more explosive devices and pedals to the metal and they got away safe with their contact unharmed. And some more angry rivals…

I think the Shark spent most of the session with her hands over her eyes, sometimes screaming, so I’m thinking I should try and offer them some diplomatic jobs for next week
Some in the Ape Empire are interested in a more peacful expansion, so maybe they’ll reach out to a new group that doesn’t have as much baggage as the other older groups

I keep pretty simple notes:

#Blacksand/Hightower Fuel Convoy

• Type: Convoy Escort
• Target: Free Radicals
• Location: The Roads
• Payoff (supply/rep): 5/3
• Heat: 5

Entanglements, faction status changes:
+1 Blacksand
-1 Free Radicals
Probing, Ape Empire kidnapped Nails the Organic Mechanic.

Notes, Events, Clocks
Job came from Red Robert the trader.
Boost the Free Radical hates Sara for making a fool out of her, and getting exploded, and she survived.
A few Radical’s vehicles destroyed and damaged.

#Nails Rescue Mission

• Type: Hostage Rescue
• Target: Ape Empire
• Location: Barrens wasteland
• Payoff (supply/rep): 3/5
• Heat: 3

Entanglements, faction status changes:
Ape Empire -1
Sleepwalkers +1
Wastrels

Notes, Events, Clocks:
Menelaus was present, silverback gorilla.
The Reaper was seen to be there, by the scouts.

[admiralducksauce (Adam Schwaninger)]

Awesome. The “stealth car” coasting in sounded like a pretty good idea.

One of my earliest friction points was whether the Shark would have things to do given the way jobs usually go, but I think approaching the gang with a potentially diplomatic Ape Empire faction is a great way to jumpstart activities that aren’t simple hooliganism (saying this as a fan of hooliganism).

[Tubal]

I really should write down stuff sooner than this, I had to wrack my brain more than once about what happened during the session and that’s despite keeping decent notes!

Well I rolled Diplomacy as their fallout after the last score, so that’s working out. I just have to decide which faction, because they have more than one -2 to deal with… Probably with the ones actually interested in talking?

𒐪𒐪𒐪

Session 2

SIRI’s body is malfunctioning, but she is giving them a code via a blinking light.
The Driver asks Screwface, the Fixer extraordinaire about SIRI’s code, clock started. Sceptical about the AI.

#Xanax rescue mission

• Type: Reclamation
• Target: Wasteland
• Location: Ruined Pre-War factory
• Payoff (supply/rep): 10/3
• Friction: 4

Entanglements, faction status changes:

Diplomacy

Notes, Events, Clocks:

Extra Friction from asking around for Xanax, from scrap dealer.

Manufacturing robot ASEM-357 fooled into accepting a found ID card.

Corpse of Lane Hunt’s ID card.

Xanax, Timmy, tall, big, brown hair, green eyes. Takes downers

Xanax saved

Rads added from escaping during a glow storm. The Reaper trauma’d from resisting for everyone by plugging holes in the cab with his body, from the outside.

Xanax is taken home to the crawler settlement.

The loot is a functioning nuclear generator, precariously tied to the bed of the truck.

𒐪𒐪𒐪

They’ve done 2 rescue missions out of 3 possible scores Probably says something about the team?
They suggested a scavenger would be lost and that they could go find him, and we determined he was from a neighbouring settlement, on the border to the Maze. I tried to make it extra hard on them since there wouldn’t be much in the way of faction effects, and one of the characters did trauma out, and all of them got a few ticks on a Rad counter…
They have enough resources to tier up now, and that’s going to put them on the map more I think…

Updated the Gameboard during the session. Put a little work in to make digital clocks for the screen for next session too. And I put together a spash screen to have the players on before the session starts, showcasing some of the important stuff about their tribe.

[Tubal]

Phew, session 3 done, and it was PRODUCTIVE.

𒐪𒐪𒐪

Session 3

Installed the nuclear generator to tier up, providing electricity.

The Radicals show up in force with dirtbikes circling the settlement, while Rad and Boost drives in with a truck to talk.

Clutch places a tracker in Rad’s car, under Boost’s nose, while the Reaper distracts her with gun nerdery, avoids losing his fingers as she slams the hood down.

Rad talks to the crew. the Shark negotiates alone in the kitchen.

The Shark manages to pay them 2 supply and gets +1 standing. Rad gets drunk and satisfied(?), Boost gets even more mad if possible.

#Enslaved Settlement Liberation

• Type: Subjugation
• Target: The Monarchs
• Location: Dew Point, The Boxes
• Payoff (supply/rep): 6/3
• Friction: 3

Entanglements, faction status changes:
-1 Monarchs
+1 The Legion

Thieves or Greed?

Notes, Events, Clocks:

Water condenser farm enslaved by Monarchs is the target.

Edie and Cleo the Iron Maidens are convinced to join the assault.

Crew drives in with the truck, over a guard. Slaves convinced to join the fight and are supplied guns.

Other guards defeated over a few desperate actions led by the Reaper and the Driver. (with guns and car respectively)

The last two are convinced to lay down their weapons, but an unnoticed third shoots the Shark before being gunned down.

Cleo catches the Shark before she falls to the ground, clearly more concerned with her safety than the mission.

Guards de-armed and released.

Slaves led by Hattie gives allegiance to the tribe, provides 1 supply in water per downtime.

3 Supplies left with the settlers to help them grow.

𒐪𒐪𒐪

I tried some more roleplaying than I usually do in the meeting with Rad, portraying him as an inflated egomaniac, that deflated significantly once the Shark got him alone for negotiations and tea and booze. Then we did some roleplaying with the Maidens too!

Since downtime took so long I sped up the score by using clocks more than I usually do, and since I had made new digital ones for the CRT screen.

NPC acting and scene setting are my two weakest points, so I really made an effort this time. And I’ve been listening to Adam Koebel’s vods for like two weeks straight which has also helped
I’ve mostly taken his advice to keep NPC’s motivations simple, and I’ve been trying to put myself into their shoes properly.
For scene setting I mostly try to actually remember to do it since I’m sorta decent at it but forget in the heat of things.

Gameboard after the session, the Harm markers finally got used

[admiralducksauce (Adam Schwaninger)]

Sounds like you had a real nice mix of things going on that session!

[Tubal]

Session 4!

I said last week that I wasn’t going to wait so long to write up the sessions. I LIED! At least I’m getting better at keeping notes during the session.

𒐪𒐪𒐪

Session 4

Vegas, nomadic bounty hunter. the Reaper asks him for stress relief and disappears looking for outlaws for a few days. (temporary Vice)

Dallas the Deathracer is a cannibal and has mad-person disease.

Refugees come up from the south, driven by the Ape Empire expansion.

Some new refugees go to Dew Point, the water farm, some stay, and some become guards (secure uppgrade)

The Driver holds more races to lower friction.

Nails is the doctor, his “office” has some basic necessities.

The Shark’s parents had a doctor of their own, probably in Hightower.

The Driver finds the manuals to turn the Crawler on, and does so. (Convoy upgrade)

Thrice, one of the original scavengers when the settlement started, gathers some friends and stow supplies for their own use, away from the new refugees. Justifies this with having to look out for their own to the Shark.

The Shark explains to Trice and his friends that he shouldn’t feel entitled just because he was here when the settlement started. The supplies they have are for everyone, even the newcomers. They grudgingly accept her orders.

The group holds a town-hall meeting and explains to the settlers that they are a democracy, the settlers accept what their leaders say. No elections yet.

#Looting the Everlast Mall

• Type: Reclaim
• Target: Wasteland
• Location: the dunes
• Payoff: 6/5
• Friction: 2

Entanglements, faction status changes:

2x Wastrels

Notes, Events, Clocks:

Turr-rat security is triggered inside the mall, shoots the Reaper a few times. the Shark hacks them and takes one as a pet. Talks like Portal turrets.

Devil’s bargain to get an extra Entanglement for the Hack roll.

They take a long time to search a book-store, and end up spending the night. They prioritize medical text-books. the Shark sneaks in romance novels for herself.

They tow a showroom car back to the Crawler.

BOOST and her friends welcome them out with a rocket to the face, mostly avoided. the Shark remotely convinces the remaining Turr.rats to come out of the mall as a distraction and they drive home.

𒐪𒐪𒐪

From our discussions it seems like the main goal for the tribe is to build up a democracy… so naturally they’re going to be challenged there
I had already made up Thrice as a disruptive element, but I think he’s going to get a more important role than I had planned.

[Tubal]

Foreshadowing…

[Tubal]

I got a question a the end, so skip there if you don’t want to read all of this stuff.

𒐪𒐪𒐪

Session 5

The crew lets the tribe have a harvest festival. (Wastrels Fallout)

The crew don’t partake in the party, minding their own business. Clearly outsiders…

Screwface completes the decoding, gives them coordinates, and warns them. He keeps the code though.

Hydra helps with the engagement roll for supplies and rep and a favour(?). They supply intel on the Ape Empire so they can be avoided while travelling

#NASA Vehicle Assembly Building

• Type: Reclaim
• Target: Wasteland
• Location: Maze
• Payoff 3/5:
• Friction: 2

Entanglements, faction status changes:

Wastrels

Notes, Events, Clocks:

The Reaper climbs down the bottomless hole in what is actually the roof of the VAB entirely covered in sand. He doesn’t reach the bottom with the truck winch cable, but swings to the sides and grabs the scaffolding that goes all the way up to the roof. They open a previously buried hatch and climb to the bottom.

At the bottom there is a liquid oxygen leak and an intense chill. The group covers themselves with blankets (except the Reaper) and explore.

They find the doors to Engineering and Assembly, as well as many warning signs, and explore Engineering.

Through engineering they gain access to Experimental Research where there are several bodies of primitive Apes, as well as SIRI’s mainframe and primary Remote Interaction body.

They jury-rig the truck’s battery to SIRI and manage to get her talking, and find out that she needs permanent power and an antenna that isn’t buried in 160m of sand.

SIRI tells them about protective (space) suits in an adjacent room, and they use those to go into Assembly, where the oxygen leak originates, and activates the dormant reactor there.

They salvage an antennae from the rubble in the VAB and sets it up at the top, and return home.

𒐪𒐪𒐪

Aight, they got their AI pal up and running properly, the Apes are gonna come knocking and demand taxes and a bit of token loyalty. They already took over one of their NPC friends villages down south, and they know the empire is the real deal, but… PC pride…

So the players cleared out a deep hole filled with oxygen gas, with tanks of liquid oxygen and hydrogen just waiting to be tapped.
You could use it as fuel, explosives, just burn it to make H2O etc, valuable stuff! EXPLOSIVE STUFF.

I’m going to give it to them as a claim, and to hightlight the danger a clock will fill alongside their earnings. Here’s the rules I came up with brainstorming on the Discord:

Oxyhydrogen Mine
In downtime, roll any number of d6 as a fortune roll. Collect Supplies equal to the result of the roll (1,2,3 or 5). Also increase a 4-clock called Mine Disaster an equal amount. Reduce the clock to 0 by spending a downtime action to maintain equipment and discipline in the work crews.
If the clock is filled, the mine generates income as normal, but is unavailable until the clock is emptied with Hack rolls to repair and replace equipment.
Any people working the mine will likely be dead or seriously injured, which may affect the fiction additionally.

It might seem like the mine would be destroyed entirely in the disaster, but I figure it wouldn’t be worth pushing it then, and maybe the tanks are sturdy enough to survive a little bit of fire. Makes sense kinda.
The reward seems low for regular Blades, but Glow is stingier with the “coins” in general.

Thoughts?

[admiralducksauce (Adam Schwaninger)]

I like the push your luck mechanic with the mine, although I feel like letting them get their reward even when the clock fills seems very generous (but that’s me!). The other thing is they’re getting these Supplies from within now, and it reduces the need to come into contact with other factions. Don’t let them turtle up.

[Tubal]

I was also thinking of having them roll at the end of downtime, and adding heat. Overall it’s an ok trade, since 1-for-1 a heat point is worth maybe half a Supply to work off, but it would tend to push their post-run heat up for the purposes of fallout. It would symbolize jealousy in other factions, but I like that it’s explosive tbh…

Maybe I’ll remove the money from a crit… but in the economy they actually only get 0-2 supplies since they will more than likely reduce the clock every downtime, and that action has a value of 1. On a crit they’d get 4 but have to work it off a little harder, so about 2 net gain there too.
If they really wanted to be ruthless they could run it hard, roll infinite d6’s to ensure a crit, and repair which would cost about 2 supplies, for a net profit of 3 supplies each downtime. At the cost of a LOT OF CIVILIANS of course
That’s where the last bit about “the fiction” comes in
Ofc my crew are goody-goodies and would never do that. Probably.

Unrelatedly, turtling up isn’t really an option for them anymore, people are starting to come to them, and the mine is deep in Ape territory… Travelling down there would give me another place to insert Fallout events and such, as well.

[admiralducksauce (Adam Schwaninger)]

Cool, then that all sounds like a good situation!

[Tubal]

𒐪𒐪𒐪

Session 6

Crew upgrades: Second secure dot and vehicles dot.

Turr-rats from the mall are used for security, reprogrammed with SIRI’s help. The original turr-rat is called Steve.

The settlers now have vehicles for their business in Dew Point and the mine.

The empire sends a messenger (Willie), who informs them the emperor’s daughter will be coming on an official visit. The Shark insists on calling her a princess from now on.

In preparation for the visit Thrice is sent away to be mine foreman, the Shark prepares a feast out of the food they have available.
They call the maidens and Cleo comes as a show of force (and backup), and Robert the trader as a show of connections.

Thrice questions why they’re so careful with the mining when he comes back. There’s more wealth there that they aren’t using.

#Diplomatic dinner with the Apes

• Type: Social
• Target: Ape Empire
• Location: The Crawler
• Payoff (supply/rep): 0/5
• Friction: 4

Entanglements, faction status changes:

Diplomacy

+1 Ape Empire

-1 Conclave

Notes, Events, Clocks:

The apes arrive with soldiers. Most set up camp outside rifle range, and 6 come in with the two dignitaries.

There is a human in the guard camp, and the odd other humanoid animal.

The Reaper with the poor self-esteem, is at the dinner, with his Oni mask under the table, just in case.

Dinner starts up tense. the Shark chatters but doesn’t make a lot of diplomatic work.

The apes eventually come forwards with their demands of taxation and a small amount of loyalty to the empire.

The Reaper puts the Oni mask on and makes some small threats.

The Shark comes in to stave off war and crits on diplomacy with her talk of democracy and freedom.

The apes realize they’re better as friends with a new rising power, than as rivals.

She gets them to back off on both demands, and a point of faction standing in addition.

After dinner, a gunshot is heard on the sand. The Reaper rushes in first to an altercation between Ape soldiers and riled up settlers. Xanax has shot an ape.

The Reaper gets between and stops more violence but is injured.

The Shark and Menelaus argues about it and the ape asks what punishment the human will get.

The Shark shoots Xanax in the leg, though it’s not as serious as it seems. 2 heat bargain.

(Menelaus set this up, but realizes he’s beaten for now)

Nails is allowed to treat the ape, who barely survives.

The Shark apologises profusely to Xanax afterwards.

His reasons were that his village is now in Ape hands, and many of his friends were driven away (and are now living with the crew).

𒐪𒐪𒐪

Phew, tense dinner. At least the food was good.

The roll for diplomacy was Desperate/Limited, and they upped to standard, and critted

I’m going to start a clock to have the empire rise in tier now, since they have expanded with little opposition, and now have friendly neighbours (sorta) and some new openings for trade. Ofc Menelaus is going to throw in wrenches, and I’m not sure what the emperor himself thinks of all this…

I do know that the Conclave isn’t happy that a faction with strong ties to an AI and (somewhat) friendly relations with a bunch of mutants is a rising star…

I rolled up Diplomacy as the Fallout, which is just typical after a duplomacy mission.
I’m thinking the Church of the Aromic Prophet might want to set up a place of worship in the crawler, since the people there are going without spiritual guidance.

I’m sure the Free Radicals will be unhappy about that… And now they have a mine in Ape territory and no actual treaty with them still, and long supply lines up to the water farm… … . . . . … .
Things might start getting complicated.

[Tubal]

The gameboard after Session 6:

It shows the GM layer, so the huge note paper below the screen is my reminders

[Tubal]

Oh god I have three sessions to recap… good thing I’m on vacation