1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:04,360 Hello and welcome to the Liminal Horror Writing Seminar here on 2 00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:08,280 the Weekly Scroll podcast. My name is Ryan and with me we 3 00:00:08,280 --> 00:00:11,240 have the fellows from Liminal Horror, we have Goblin Archives 4 00:00:11,240 --> 00:00:13,600 and Josh Demansky. How are you both doing today 5 00:00:13,600 --> 00:00:15,280 live? And breathe. 6 00:00:15,280 --> 00:00:17,080 And I'm. Doing pretty well. 7 00:00:18,320 --> 00:00:20,080 Good, good. That's pretty much how you can 8 00:00:20,080 --> 00:00:24,280 ask for now. So Liminal Horror Writing 9 00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:26,440 Seminar, I know Liminal horror's got a lot of stuff coming out. 10 00:00:26,440 --> 00:00:29,240 A lot of people are very excited for me for for this stuff coming 11 00:00:29,240 --> 00:00:31,120 out and when they can see the bottom corners of the 12 00:00:31,120 --> 00:00:33,400 presentation right now, know some things that are happening, 13 00:00:33,400 --> 00:00:37,440 The Twisted Classics Jam and Hungry Hollow is coming up. 14 00:00:38,040 --> 00:00:41,600 So as far as what we're doing here today with the Liminal 15 00:00:41,600 --> 00:00:45,000 Horror Writing seminar, kind of what, what are we doing? 16 00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:50,600 So we got a little bit of a a presentation sort of planned 17 00:00:50,600 --> 00:00:53,000 here, a bunch of stuff that we kind of want to talk through, 18 00:00:54,480 --> 00:00:59,800 more or less explaining how we go about writing and adapting 19 00:00:59,800 --> 00:01:04,519 Luminal Horror adventures. This is primarily in support of 20 00:01:04,519 --> 00:01:07,080 the Twisted Classics game Jam, and we'll talk a little bit 21 00:01:07,080 --> 00:01:10,840 about that later. But the general idea is that 22 00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:14,160 Luminal Horror kind of has its own Ultra play around it. 23 00:01:14,320 --> 00:01:15,920 You know, this isn't Cole Cthulhu. 24 00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:18,520 There's some things that we do a little bit differently here. 25 00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:23,960 And there is this breadth of like really great adventurers 26 00:01:23,960 --> 00:01:27,000 out there, and you can't really run them in the middle of 27 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:28,600 horror. You know, if you want to take 28 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:33,000 two more horrors from D&D or something of that sort, you got 29 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:35,920 to change quite a lot. You can't just like plug that 30 00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:37,480 in. I mean, you can, but you know 31 00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:42,680 what I mean? So we want to break down that 32 00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:45,720 process a little bit. You know, talk about how you go 33 00:01:45,720 --> 00:01:48,920 from the conception, pulling one of these original stories and 34 00:01:48,920 --> 00:01:50,640 then bringing it into Liminal Horror. 35 00:01:51,640 --> 00:01:54,560 One, again, because we're starting at this jam, we know 36 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:56,120 that people are going to have these questions. 37 00:01:56,120 --> 00:02:01,120 And two, because we have been codifying this process as we 38 00:02:01,120 --> 00:02:04,600 write the Liminal Horror Deluxe Edition, which should be hitting 39 00:02:04,600 --> 00:02:06,080 crowd fighting sometime this fall. 40 00:02:09,400 --> 00:02:13,800 So my, my, what I'm doing today is pretty much just moderating 41 00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:16,320 while you while you guys do the presentation. 42 00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:18,440 We'll be bouncing the presentation in just a second, 43 00:02:19,240 --> 00:02:21,640 but I know there was some questions that were asked prior 44 00:02:21,640 --> 00:02:25,440 to us starting this today. I have all of those. 45 00:02:25,440 --> 00:02:28,280 We'll do those towards the end, but during the presentation, if 46 00:02:28,280 --> 00:02:31,920 anyone in chat would like to ask anything, feel free. 47 00:02:31,920 --> 00:02:38,880 If it's something that is that would be nice to jump in and get 48 00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:40,120 some clarification on right away. 49 00:02:40,120 --> 00:02:43,360 I'll hop into the presentation and ask these guys a question. 50 00:02:43,360 --> 00:02:45,400 We can talk about that during and if it's something that can 51 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:48,000 probably wait till after, I will gather up all those questions 52 00:02:48,200 --> 00:02:51,680 and then you guys can be with us here at the end and I will ask 53 00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:53,960 Josh and Galvin Archives all those questions. 54 00:02:53,960 --> 00:02:57,760 So chat, feel free to ask anything that you want, say 55 00:02:57,760 --> 00:03:00,760 anything that you want, and I'll be talking with you guys and 56 00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:03,120 gathering up all that information while these gent's 57 00:03:03,160 --> 00:03:07,680 are doing the presentation for the 1st, which implies maybe 58 00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:11,560 others Leminal horror writing seminar adapting a mystery here 59 00:03:11,560 --> 00:03:14,720 on the weekly show podcast. You guys ready to there you go. 60 00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:17,240 What's? Better. 61 00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:24,360 All right. We good we show on screen. 62 00:03:24,640 --> 00:03:27,440 We're good, we're good. We are on adapting a mystery. 63 00:03:28,280 --> 00:03:32,960 All right, so look at this here. This is Limited Horror Writing 64 00:03:32,960 --> 00:03:38,720 Seminar 1, Adapting a mystery. Now, as we talked about, got a 65 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:42,800 couple of things going on here. Just sort of reiterate that the 66 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:46,080 primary impetus for this seminar doing it right now specifically 67 00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:50,680 is because of the Twisted Classics game jam running when 68 00:03:50,680 --> 00:03:54,520 it started five days ago and will continue until the end of 69 00:03:54,520 --> 00:03:57,640 summer. Maybe that's August 15th, like 70 00:03:57,640 --> 00:03:59,640 we have it set. Maybe we'll extend it, who 71 00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:03,880 knows. If you are coming to this video 72 00:04:03,880 --> 00:04:07,600 and you don't know what the Twisted Classics Game Jam is for 73 00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:11,920 some reason, don't hold the little horror is come find us on 74 00:04:11,920 --> 00:04:14,720 the social medias because we can link you to the Liminal Horror 75 00:04:14,720 --> 00:04:17,399 Discord server. This is where folks can have the 76 00:04:17,399 --> 00:04:20,560 opportunity to sort of collaborate with their specific 77 00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:23,880 entry to the jam or learn a little bit more about the 78 00:04:23,880 --> 00:04:27,720 system. That being said, we have done 79 00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:31,080 the Twisted Classics game jam because of the next Luminal 80 00:04:31,080 --> 00:04:34,560 horror adventure, what we're referring to as our Twisted 81 00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:36,960 Classics line, which currently only has one entry in it. 82 00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:41,080 But this is number 2. It is the parthenogenesis of 83 00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:45,840 Hungry Hollow. This will hit backer kit in I 84 00:04:45,960 --> 00:04:48,560 think it's 15 days. Yep. 85 00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:50,600 June 3rd. June 3rd. 86 00:04:52,360 --> 00:04:54,920 Oh, I have listed as June 1st. It is not June 1st, it is June 87 00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:59,480 3rd. This is going to be a new look 88 00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:03,080 at Luminal Horror going forward in the future where we've been 89 00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:06,480 working on getting a new like layout, format and design, 90 00:05:07,080 --> 00:05:09,520 primarily because we have been given the opportunity to do a 91 00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:13,680 hardcover book with this one. So everything is kind of being 92 00:05:13,680 --> 00:05:15,520 custom built to the ground up for the hardcover. 93 00:05:15,880 --> 00:05:18,560 It's going to be we're looking at like 100 pages right now. 94 00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:22,480 Art by Amanda Lee Frank and we've seen it and it's fucking 95 00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:27,400 amazing. So that's gonna hit backer kit 96 00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:31,000 in just a couple of weeks here. So keep an eye out on the link 97 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:40,080 for that moving forward. This this presentation here is 98 00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:42,840 talking about adapting a mystery, but we want to talk 99 00:05:42,840 --> 00:05:45,880 about what a twisted classic is and what that means for liminal 100 00:05:45,880 --> 00:05:49,280 horror because this, this really applies to what we mean by 101 00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:55,120 adapting. So a twisted classic is taking 102 00:05:55,360 --> 00:06:00,040 an old adventure, an old story, something that you love, that 103 00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:04,240 you're passionate about, ripping it down to its roots and 104 00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:08,200 twisting the ideas so that it could fit into the era of modern 105 00:06:08,200 --> 00:06:12,200 horror. The key idea here is that these 106 00:06:12,200 --> 00:06:14,520 aren't really direct conversions. 107 00:06:14,520 --> 00:06:16,840 You know, we're not taking Kolkathulu, flipping the stats 108 00:06:16,840 --> 00:06:19,240 or Luminal horror and running it as is. 109 00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:21,520 Anybody can do that. You know, we have a little bit 110 00:06:21,520 --> 00:06:24,200 of support in the the upcoming deluxe edition that's going to 111 00:06:24,200 --> 00:06:26,000 talk about stuff like that specifically. 112 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:30,320 But this is really like you want to run your medieval horror 113 00:06:30,320 --> 00:06:33,080 adventure in the middle horror. How do you twist that and change 114 00:06:33,080 --> 00:06:35,360 it so that it works for modern horror? 115 00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:37,520 So that's that's sort of the impetus for the Twisted Classics 116 00:06:37,520 --> 00:06:41,560 line and also what you should be considering when choosing to 117 00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:44,200 adapt a mystery rather than convert a mystery. 118 00:06:47,520 --> 00:06:50,160 We talk a lot about this about them being sort of old and 119 00:06:50,160 --> 00:06:53,000 classic RPG adventures. One of the ideas that we're kind 120 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:54,880 of working through here is that's not always going to be 121 00:06:54,880 --> 00:06:57,280 the case. You might have this old movie, 122 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:01,640 modern movie, ATV show, a comic book, anything like that, where 123 00:07:01,880 --> 00:07:05,160 the core story looks like it would work really well for them 124 00:07:05,160 --> 00:07:07,600 in a horror. So we want to promote those 125 00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:11,040 ideas, find out how to rip out the core and bring it to the 126 00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:13,720 table so that you can, you know, have your own version of that 127 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:20,720 story. The first of the line, the 128 00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:23,440 official little horror Twisted Classics line, is One Night at 129 00:07:23,440 --> 00:07:25,960 the Shelterwood Inn. This is a little funky Zine here 130 00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:29,160 because it's dual purpose. We'll talk a little bit about 131 00:07:29,360 --> 00:07:34,320 the impetus behind us at first, but this takes an older 132 00:07:34,320 --> 00:07:36,160 Warhammer adventure and kind of like converts it. 133 00:07:36,160 --> 00:07:39,040 And then we smashed it together with Triangle Agency. 134 00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:43,720 Might recall that a day. And as we talked about before, 135 00:07:43,720 --> 00:07:46,600 our next entry in this line, the official version at least, is 136 00:07:46,600 --> 00:07:49,560 the parthenogenesis of Hungry Hollow, which again, we'll talk 137 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:57,480 about in a little bit. Now, how do you choose what you 138 00:07:57,480 --> 00:08:02,520 want to adapt? There are all of these like 139 00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:07,800 fantasy and sci-fi stories that all make really great horror 140 00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:10,000 scenarios. Just a little bit of a shift of 141 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:14,600 tone, maybe a new coat of paint and there you go bring it into 142 00:08:14,600 --> 00:08:18,480 modern horror. One way of looking at it, I've 143 00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:21,000 been watching this recently, so it's on the mind, is the 144 00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:24,160 television show The Expanse, which it was on sci-fi and then 145 00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:27,280 Amazon. That's this, you know, sort of 146 00:08:27,560 --> 00:08:30,760 realistic modern science fiction adventure. 147 00:08:31,640 --> 00:08:33,840 But when you start to break down some of the elements there, 148 00:08:34,400 --> 00:08:37,280 change the tone a little bit. And that story is is horror. 149 00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:41,960 There's the protomolecule, which is this unknowable alien life 150 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:45,000 form that is suddenly manifesting and changing Earth 151 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:50,520 and its relationships. So that story changed its own a 152 00:08:50,520 --> 00:08:53,720 little bit and you've got like a Horror Story at its core there. 153 00:08:55,800 --> 00:08:59,200 But like I said, the key thing here is when we when we choose 154 00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:03,320 adventures to adapt, we don't necessarily even need to pick 155 00:09:03,320 --> 00:09:08,280 things that are overtly horror. If you like the framework or 156 00:09:08,280 --> 00:09:11,720 some of the core tension at play in the adventure, you can take 157 00:09:11,720 --> 00:09:14,680 those still rip them apart, and then add the horror later. 158 00:09:14,680 --> 00:09:16,920 That's sort of a tangential element, something that can 159 00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:19,400 always be interjected into these scenarios. 160 00:09:20,480 --> 00:09:24,560 So when you're choosing what to adapt, there's a few things to 161 00:09:24,560 --> 00:09:28,040 look for. Liminal horror and all horror 162 00:09:28,120 --> 00:09:32,280 works upon tension. Being able to sort of establish 163 00:09:32,280 --> 00:09:35,640 that at the table and during play, having a framework and 164 00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:38,080 adventure that's already set up to do that and you're golden. 165 00:09:39,320 --> 00:09:42,480 So if you have an adventure that has this naturally escalating 166 00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:44,520 sense of tension, it's a good place to start. 167 00:09:45,120 --> 00:09:47,360 It's already doing most of the work for you, as long as you can 168 00:09:47,360 --> 00:09:49,040 sort of adapt that into modern horror. 169 00:09:50,800 --> 00:09:56,040 Now, these are mysteries that we are sort of investigating here. 170 00:09:56,040 --> 00:09:58,600 He might not always solve the mystery, but that is sort of the 171 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:02,720 core at it. If the characters know what's 172 00:10:02,720 --> 00:10:05,800 going on at all times in the module, you're losing a little 173 00:10:05,800 --> 00:10:09,840 bit of that tension there. So look for something that is 174 00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:12,160 inherently a mystery. That's usually some kind of 175 00:10:12,160 --> 00:10:15,640 secret hidden by a facade, something for your investigators 176 00:10:15,640 --> 00:10:21,520 to go investigate. Now, furthermore, liminal horror 177 00:10:21,840 --> 00:10:25,080 is liminality. It's all about the precipice of 178 00:10:25,080 --> 00:10:29,040 change transferring from what was to what will be. 179 00:10:30,120 --> 00:10:33,800 So if you already have an agent of change that you can adapt, 180 00:10:34,840 --> 00:10:36,080 it's another good place to start. 181 00:10:36,640 --> 00:10:39,840 That could be, you know, more directly is the setting. 182 00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:42,760 You know, something I'm working on the background right now, 183 00:10:42,760 --> 00:10:45,240 There's this pollution that's spreading outward and causing 184 00:10:45,240 --> 00:10:48,400 untold horrors. That is an agent of change 185 00:10:48,400 --> 00:10:49,800 that's happening in the background that's already 186 00:10:49,800 --> 00:10:53,360 natural we could build off of. Or you can look at that change 187 00:10:53,360 --> 00:10:56,320 as something more direct, something happening to the 188 00:10:56,320 --> 00:11:00,160 characters, be that your player characters or the characters in 189 00:11:00,160 --> 00:11:04,120 the environment themselves. There's a good one. 190 00:11:04,120 --> 00:11:06,200 This is a Horror Story. It's it's a book called the 191 00:11:06,200 --> 00:11:10,800 Troupe, which has been sort of passing around, I think book 192 00:11:10,800 --> 00:11:12,440 talk recently if we want to go down that route. 193 00:11:12,440 --> 00:11:18,040 But the troupe, a bit of a spoiler here as the main premise 194 00:11:18,040 --> 00:11:21,440 of the story is that there are tapeworms that are sort of 195 00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:26,120 infecting the, you know, subjects of the story there. 196 00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:30,640 And so over time, that's sort of like changing the characters and 197 00:11:30,640 --> 00:11:32,560 how it affects them. So that's something that's a 198 00:11:32,560 --> 00:11:34,440 little more personal. The environment isn't really 199 00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:35,960 changing. It is the people within the 200 00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:38,840 environment that's changing. So again, you already have that 201 00:11:38,840 --> 00:11:39,760 framework. Great. 202 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:42,200 Use it. We can, you know, twist it and 203 00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:46,480 that changes later. And then the most sort of basic 204 00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:53,240 of all of these is what would feel right home in a normal 205 00:11:53,240 --> 00:11:56,360 life. You know, I can relate to a 206 00:11:56,360 --> 00:11:59,840 small town. I never could grow up in a small 207 00:11:59,840 --> 00:12:04,840 town, but I've been to them. If you have a small fantasy town 208 00:12:05,400 --> 00:12:08,680 that is still a relatable location, you know, you'll still 209 00:12:08,680 --> 00:12:11,840 have your central hubs. You can make a fantasy town a 210 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:14,200 one stop light town in the middle of, you know, the Pacific 211 00:12:14,200 --> 00:12:16,280 Northwest. That's not super difficult, all 212 00:12:16,280 --> 00:12:19,800 things considered. A lot of these type of settings 213 00:12:19,960 --> 00:12:22,760 have human nature in it, something that characters can 214 00:12:22,760 --> 00:12:26,720 relate to both in their native fiction and, you know, adapting 215 00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:30,080 it to modern horror. So if it is easy to make it feel 216 00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:33,200 right at home, it's pretty easy to make it feel home. 217 00:12:33,200 --> 00:12:37,360 And aluminum horror adventure, you know, we, we can have those, 218 00:12:37,360 --> 00:12:40,400 you know, the back rooms or the parallel worlds that the 219 00:12:40,400 --> 00:12:43,720 characters fall into and they'll make really great adventures in 220 00:12:43,720 --> 00:12:46,560 and of themselves. They're not always the easiest 221 00:12:46,560 --> 00:12:48,120 to adapt. Most of the time you're just 222 00:12:48,160 --> 00:12:50,240 throwing your characters out into those locations. 223 00:12:50,240 --> 00:12:52,080 But if you want to take something and change it and 224 00:12:52,080 --> 00:12:55,720 build tension slowly, another thing to look out for again is 225 00:12:55,720 --> 00:12:58,440 that that ability to make it feel human. 226 00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:04,680 Now to talk a little bit about what we have chosen to adapt. 227 00:13:05,640 --> 00:13:09,040 I'll start with the first of the Twisted Classics and then I'll 228 00:13:09,040 --> 00:13:11,080 pass it over to Goblin Archives for the next one. 229 00:13:13,760 --> 00:13:15,920 Like you said, the the first one we did was One Night at the 230 00:13:15,920 --> 00:13:19,800 Shelter Within. What this does is take, there's 231 00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:22,200 this old Warhammer adventure, it's called Night of Blood, 232 00:13:22,760 --> 00:13:29,680 where the the adventure takes place at it in on the side of 233 00:13:29,680 --> 00:13:35,680 the road and characters go there and something weird is happening 234 00:13:36,080 --> 00:13:38,920 and it kind of spirals out of control as you attempt to, you 235 00:13:38,920 --> 00:13:41,840 know, navigate the night there. It all takes place in one 236 00:13:41,840 --> 00:13:44,120 location of the course of a single night, yadda, yadda, 237 00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:45,960 yadda. It had all of these really great 238 00:13:45,960 --> 00:13:48,560 pieces. Where do we find the 239 00:13:48,560 --> 00:13:52,280 inspiration? This came directly from 240 00:13:52,280 --> 00:13:56,520 listening to a podcast, Fever Black Dragon, where they discuss 241 00:13:56,520 --> 00:13:59,880 modules and review them as they are reading through and 242 00:13:59,880 --> 00:14:02,320 listening to Night of Blood. This is something I'd never 243 00:14:02,320 --> 00:14:05,160 heard of beforehand. At that rate, as they're 244 00:14:05,160 --> 00:14:07,880 describing the adventure, I'm thinking, oh, this sounds like a 245 00:14:07,880 --> 00:14:10,920 really good luminal horror adventure, but it's for 246 00:14:10,920 --> 00:14:14,400 Warhammer. The idea originally came from 247 00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:18,040 trying to take that core, do a little bit of conversion on my 248 00:14:18,040 --> 00:14:22,240 end because I wanted something to have in my back pocket to run 249 00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:23,840 on like a live stream in the future. 250 00:14:25,520 --> 00:14:29,680 As I started down the process, the folks at Haunted Table who 251 00:14:29,680 --> 00:14:33,520 make Triangle Agency were doing a little bit of outreach to talk 252 00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:35,800 to other designers and see about people, what they're doing in 253 00:14:35,800 --> 00:14:39,080 the space there. So they reached out and 254 00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:41,160 coordinated and I was like, I got this thing I'm already 255 00:14:41,160 --> 00:14:45,040 working on, why don't we mesh them together and we'll do a 256 00:14:45,040 --> 00:14:49,080 whole thing with it. I took that original adventure. 257 00:14:49,080 --> 00:14:52,880 I ran it for a few folk in the the area here at a little bit of 258 00:14:52,880 --> 00:14:55,840 a play test. The result was a lot different 259 00:14:55,840 --> 00:14:58,120 than where we ended up, at least in terms of like the core 260 00:14:58,120 --> 00:15:00,760 horror, but it was a really good application of it. 261 00:15:00,760 --> 00:15:06,400 But so the basic premise was taking that old roadside in from 262 00:15:06,400 --> 00:15:09,800 the Warhammer adventure and then spinning it up so that it's this 263 00:15:09,800 --> 00:15:15,080 motel at a gas station somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, with 264 00:15:15,080 --> 00:15:17,840 the idea being that this could be a gas station literally 265 00:15:17,840 --> 00:15:20,160 anywhere as long as it's on an abandoned stretch of Rd. 266 00:15:21,600 --> 00:15:26,040 So source of inspiration could be come from anywhere. 267 00:15:26,040 --> 00:15:28,680 You know, it's not that I knew. Night of Blood. 268 00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:30,480 Let's go. Yeah. 269 00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:33,040 Night of Blood beforehand and really loved it. 270 00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:36,040 It was just hearing other people talk about it and then find the 271 00:15:36,040 --> 00:15:38,560 pieces and then, you know, kind of configure them into my brain. 272 00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:43,400 So keep an open mind. You don't know where your 273 00:15:43,400 --> 00:15:46,160 inspiration can come from when choosing what to adapt. 274 00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:49,160 And again, the idea is to twist these things so we can always 275 00:15:49,160 --> 00:15:51,400 add elements that their originals don't have. 276 00:15:52,960 --> 00:15:57,840 But what about Hungry Hollow? So funnily enough, Hungry Hollow 277 00:15:57,840 --> 00:16:02,800 also started from listening to a podcast between two Cairns. 278 00:16:02,800 --> 00:16:05,840 They did a gamer blast from the past where they talked about the 279 00:16:05,840 --> 00:16:09,960 classic module and one against the Cult of the Reptile God and 280 00:16:09,960 --> 00:16:12,720 hearing them talk about it, especially talk about what works 281 00:16:12,720 --> 00:16:16,720 really well for that module. I had that similar feeling that 282 00:16:16,720 --> 00:16:18,480 Josh had. I even messaged Josh. 283 00:16:18,480 --> 00:16:20,960 Josh messaged me back saying, well, I was listening to the 284 00:16:20,960 --> 00:16:24,200 same thing and had the similar thoughts in terms of how it was 285 00:16:24,200 --> 00:16:26,680 talking about the tension within the town itself. 286 00:16:27,360 --> 00:16:32,640 Spoilers for a very old module. About half of the town's folks 287 00:16:32,640 --> 00:16:39,200 have been kidnapped and controlled by this not a. 288 00:16:39,520 --> 00:16:44,040 And so there's this, like, sense of some people in the town are 289 00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:46,320 different and there's something going on. 290 00:16:46,600 --> 00:16:49,280 And then there are other people in the town that are having this 291 00:16:49,280 --> 00:16:51,680 tension between not understanding why things are 292 00:16:51,680 --> 00:16:54,240 changing and people are disappearing or coming back 293 00:16:54,240 --> 00:16:58,280 different, and sort of how that comes into play between the two. 294 00:16:58,280 --> 00:17:01,280 And then you have adventurers going in to try to either figure 295 00:17:01,280 --> 00:17:05,480 out what's happening, can they save the people? 296 00:17:05,480 --> 00:17:08,359 Can they stop the problem? And sort of that sort of tension 297 00:17:08,359 --> 00:17:11,440 between can you uncover the truth? 298 00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:14,040 But can you save people? Can you stay whole? 299 00:17:14,040 --> 00:17:17,240 Which is that really the core of a really good liminal horror 300 00:17:17,240 --> 00:17:19,240 adventure? And I was like, OK, this, this 301 00:17:19,240 --> 00:17:23,599 would be great. And so Josh and I, what we did 302 00:17:23,599 --> 00:17:28,160 was I read through and we'll talk more about how you go 303 00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:31,120 through and adapting. But like, looking at the pieces 304 00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:36,680 of what I wanted to bring into like this modern small town, it 305 00:17:36,680 --> 00:17:39,920 just worked really well. And I found it really opened my 306 00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:45,640 eyes too, until like, oh, you can really look at something, an 307 00:17:45,640 --> 00:17:48,240 older adventure or an adventure that's not set for modern 308 00:17:48,240 --> 00:17:51,120 horror, and you can sort of harvest it for parts. 309 00:17:56,800 --> 00:18:01,680 So keep taking the time. You've chosen what you want to 310 00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:05,400 adapt. So how do we do that? 311 00:18:06,520 --> 00:18:08,720 How do you determine what to save? 312 00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:14,320 Again, some of these things you might find that you can just do 313 00:18:14,320 --> 00:18:17,240 a direct conversion. You don't need to properly adapt 314 00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:18,440 it like we're talking about here. 315 00:18:18,640 --> 00:18:20,400 Easy enough. Read through the module, read 316 00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:23,320 through the adventure, watch the movie, read the story, 317 00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:25,480 immediately translate it to your table. 318 00:18:25,560 --> 00:18:28,880 Piece of cake. But then you have to ask 319 00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:32,720 yourself, how deep of an overhaul does your chosen 320 00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:35,120 scenario need to be to be usable? 321 00:18:37,920 --> 00:18:40,280 A lot of this is easy. You read through, you look at 322 00:18:40,280 --> 00:18:44,160 the locations and say, what can we save here? 323 00:18:44,440 --> 00:18:49,760 What makes sense in modern times, and what needs to go? 324 00:18:50,760 --> 00:18:55,760 A lot of sort of incongruous elements already have modern 325 00:18:55,760 --> 00:18:59,240 analogs as well, so you don't have to do a ton of work to kind 326 00:18:59,240 --> 00:19:02,240 of overhaul those. The examples we have here, and 327 00:19:02,240 --> 00:19:05,000 we talked about this already, the roadside in in a fantasy 328 00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:09,560 setting can easily be a motel. If you have a blacksmith, you 329 00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:12,920 know, someone clanging away at irons, that could just be a 330 00:19:12,920 --> 00:19:15,160 hardware store. These are things that are sort 331 00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:18,440 of conceptually in the same realm but don't require like 332 00:19:18,440 --> 00:19:21,280 completely reworking the idea entirely. 333 00:19:22,360 --> 00:19:25,400 Let's say you have a sci-fi adventure and the reactor core 334 00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:27,560 of your ship is sitting in there, and that's like a big 335 00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:30,040 part of the adventure. Maybe that's just a boiler room 336 00:19:30,120 --> 00:19:33,240 or someplace where the utilities are something that serves a 337 00:19:33,240 --> 00:19:36,960 similar general purpose without completely rewriting its themes 338 00:19:36,960 --> 00:19:41,000 and elements. So start there, figure out what 339 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:45,880 you can save, what's easy to flip, and then start kind of 340 00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:50,840 diving a little deeper. Once you've established your the 341 00:19:50,840 --> 00:19:53,760 locations that you can save, you sort of the map, the places the 342 00:19:53,760 --> 00:19:57,080 players are gonna interact with, then look at your central 343 00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:59,000 tension. Again, this is something that we 344 00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:04,120 talked about a slide or two ago where good little horror 345 00:20:04,120 --> 00:20:06,720 adventures already have this nice central tension that's kind 346 00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:13,080 of set up there. But sometimes that's not going 347 00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:17,760 to necessarily work the The Night of Blood adventure. 348 00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:20,920 The central tension is that there are these. 349 00:20:21,800 --> 00:20:22,920 It's been a little bit since I've read it. 350 00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:25,160 I think they're like in mutants or Bandits or something of the 351 00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:28,000 sort that have taken over this inn and are masquerading for 352 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:30,920 some hidden purpose That could work. 353 00:20:31,120 --> 00:20:33,440 We could have done that again for the horror. 354 00:20:33,680 --> 00:20:37,080 But when we made One Night at the Shelterwood Inn, it was 355 00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:41,320 taking that core idea that there are these people masquerading 356 00:20:41,320 --> 00:20:45,560 as, you know, keepers of this inn, and then spin it to work 357 00:20:45,560 --> 00:20:48,680 for something a little more modern in the original form. 358 00:20:49,120 --> 00:20:51,600 When I did the play test for one night, a shelter went in. 359 00:20:52,120 --> 00:20:54,800 These people who had taken over the inn were agents of the 360 00:20:54,800 --> 00:21:00,400 Bureau where they were invested in keeping their cover while 361 00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:05,520 also trying to stop a creeping horror beneath the hotel. 362 00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:09,280 At that time, it was linked to the Bloom because I had set the 363 00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:13,760 hotel on the road to get into cold water and we were actively 364 00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:14,680 working at the Bloom at that point. 365 00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:16,960 So it made a lot of sense to, you know, sort of narratively 366 00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:19,320 connect the two. But as we teamed up with the 367 00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:22,960 Triangle Agency folks, it's very easy to just take that, spin it 368 00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:27,120 a little bit, cut out the bloom references just to keep these 369 00:21:27,120 --> 00:21:31,120 sort of conceptually separate, but then keep that core central 370 00:21:31,120 --> 00:21:33,320 tension. Instead of agents of the Bureau, 371 00:21:33,320 --> 00:21:37,200 they are agents of the Triangle Agency now trying to contain an 372 00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:41,160 anomaly. And again, we preserve the 373 00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:44,080 central tension. Somebody is controlling the in 374 00:21:44,360 --> 00:21:48,120 and they are not the in owners. So when the players go in and 375 00:21:48,120 --> 00:21:53,160 investigate, they meet that central tension immediately and 376 00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:55,000 that's how it sort of spins outward. 377 00:21:55,120 --> 00:21:57,400 You know, the core of Night of Blood was that the players 378 00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:00,800 slowly realizing that these people that control the in 379 00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:03,320 aren't really the people that they say they are. 380 00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:09,040 That kind of leads us to the next point here, breaking down 381 00:22:09,040 --> 00:22:15,440 NPC motivations. Regardless of what time period 382 00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:18,560 you're setting your adventures, and a lot of your NPCS are going 383 00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:20,040 to have the same basic motivations. 384 00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:24,520 That might be wealth, your money, power that comes with it. 385 00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:28,080 They might have some religious order or doctrine that they, you 386 00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:31,840 know, pay fealty to that sort of drives their core beliefs. 387 00:22:32,240 --> 00:22:35,160 Or they could believe in like the general order of things. 388 00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:41,040 So taking those NPCS, breaking down their core motivations into 389 00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:43,640 their basics, a lot of that doesn't need a lot of work. 390 00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:46,960 You know, the, the cleric that lives in a fantasy town can be a 391 00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:49,000 priest, you know, so on and so forth. 392 00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:55,440 Any politician or sort of corporate mogul, their 393 00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:57,640 motivations are going to remain relatively the same regardless 394 00:22:57,640 --> 00:22:59,280 of setting. They want that power or they 395 00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:03,760 want that money. So it should be an easy flip. 396 00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:06,680 You know, look at these NPCS, look at their motivations. 397 00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,720 The most part, preserve them. You don't need a whole ton of 398 00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:13,040 work when you're adapting there. Just keep things as quick as 399 00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:15,400 possible and be ready to adapt in the moment if you need to. 400 00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:23,320 From there, the key part is figuring out why your 401 00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:26,720 investigators would stay in these horrid locations. 402 00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:32,280 This is the biggest challenge for literally any tabletop RPG 403 00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:35,160 adventure. Why do your characters care? 404 00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:39,760 You'll have to kind of figure this out on your own, but that 405 00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:41,960 is the one of the most important questions you need to ask 406 00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:43,600 yourself. What is the reason they are 407 00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:45,840 there? We'll talk a little bit about 408 00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:47,840 this later because I know there's a question coming up, 409 00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,160 but this is part of the reason why some of our locations are so 410 00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:53,800 contained is because the motivation is the containment 411 00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:57,520 you're trying to escape. That's not always going to work. 412 00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:02,440 And especially when you're in a horror situation, you take any 413 00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:06,400 even like mothership, which is sci-fi, or you look at any of 414 00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:09,800 the OSR dungeon crawlers, a lot of your motivation there is 415 00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:11,960 going to be money. You know the dungeon crawler, 416 00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:13,880 you're going into the dungeon to find gold. 417 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:17,560 Your motivation to stay is to enrich yourself for some defined 418 00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:20,440 purpose later in the future. Or mothership, it might be 419 00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:22,720 something very similar. You're on this vessel because 420 00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:24,480 you're in a contract with the corporation. 421 00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:28,360 If you break your contract, you're blacklisted and then you 422 00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:32,760 retired to destitution or find some other laborers job that 423 00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:34,040 will eventually lead to your death. 424 00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:37,320 So there's that very much that monetary concern to kind of keep 425 00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:39,320 characters aligned in some of these systems. 426 00:24:40,120 --> 00:24:45,040 But when you change things to horror specifically, those 427 00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:46,520 motivations might change as well. 428 00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:51,240 Why are these characters continuing to dive into these 429 00:24:51,360 --> 00:24:56,920 horrid, awful places, assuming they're horrid, awful places? 430 00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:00,840 Like, what would you stay? The most rational thing that 431 00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:04,240 anyone can do in a horror scenario is to run away. 432 00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:06,920 Sometimes that's not going to work. 433 00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:10,360 How does that impact your adventure? 434 00:25:10,360 --> 00:25:13,480 That is a key part here, as you were defining your mystery. 435 00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:20,520 What is keeping people there? There is the player component. 436 00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,160 The players know that they're there to play a horror scenario, 437 00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:27,560 that they are there to play a game, but you don't want there 438 00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:32,560 to be such incongruities between player motivation and character 439 00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:35,320 motivation that it pulls your players out of the story. 440 00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:38,880 You know, we already have this level of suspension of disbelief 441 00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,600 that goes into any of these tabletop RPGs. 442 00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:45,680 But horror is especially important because horror is 443 00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:50,160 built upon player buy in. As soon as you lose player buy 444 00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:52,640 in, you lose the tension, you'll lose the horror. 445 00:25:56,320 --> 00:26:00,360 And then the final part, at least for this slide here, how 446 00:26:00,360 --> 00:26:04,080 will modern conveniences affect or change the setting? 447 00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,640 They didn't have cell phones in the medieval times. 448 00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:10,480 That is sort of the biggest concern when it comes to horror 449 00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:14,800 as well. Doing horror in, you know, 2024, 450 00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,720 everybody has a little computer sitting directly in their 451 00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,640 pocket. How does that change how these 452 00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:22,040 characters are going to approach the story? 453 00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:26,480 If I could look up what's a vampire look like on my phone 454 00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:31,040 and like, line up all these classic Horror Story tropes to 455 00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:36,720 the very spooky person who just moved into town, that kind of 456 00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:42,440 kills some of the tension there. You take what could be Dracula 457 00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:48,840 and turn it into Twilight. So keep that in mind as we're 458 00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:52,600 going about. Your phone has the potential to 459 00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:56,200 completely upset any of the tension and horror within the 460 00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:58,440 setting. So how do you change things to 461 00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,240 make sure that doesn't happen? Easiest way? 462 00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:03,200 Oh, there's no cell service here. 463 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,600 This location is in the middle of the country, you know, far 464 00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:10,600 from the near cell tower. You get intermittent service, so 465 00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:18,680 you can't use your phone. Maybe something is disrupting 466 00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:21,440 it. That's one of the the things 467 00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:25,960 that we use in the in the bloom is there are, damn, it's a 468 00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:29,800 little bit of a spoiler. There are forces at work that do 469 00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:31,640 not want you to communicate in the bloom. 470 00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:35,480 That's part of the horror. You call out, you can connect to 471 00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:37,560 people on your cell phone. You can look up whatever you 472 00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:43,280 want, but those connections are being blocked intentionally. 473 00:27:44,360 --> 00:27:46,560 Your calls are being rerouted to a new source. 474 00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:48,600 Somebody doesn't want you to communicate. 475 00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:52,400 And that that's, you know, a key part of the tension there 476 00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:54,480 because you can easily just call the police, call the National 477 00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,280 Guard, call the Army. Is it going to work? 478 00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:00,320 Nine times out of 10, probably not. 479 00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:05,280 You spewing some strange horror to the cop, trying to get them 480 00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:08,000 to believe you. We've seen enough fiction to 481 00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:09,960 know that that's usually not going to work out. 482 00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:14,440 And maybe in real life too. So keep that in mind. 483 00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,560 How do these modern conveniences change this setting? 484 00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,480 Be on the phone, getting in a car, being able to drive away, 485 00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:23,760 being able to leave the horror behind. 486 00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:27,960 Something that you just you, these are just, you know, keep 487 00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,840 in mind as you are adapting your adventure, there are a lot of 488 00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:35,080 easy fixes, but there are things you need to be aware of because 489 00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:37,680 you know players are going to come in and break whatever you 490 00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:42,960 have prepared. So before I move on, Governor, 491 00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:45,000 can see you have anything else to add to this one. 492 00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:49,600 No, I think one of the largest parts that Josh really 493 00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:53,040 reiterated was thinking about the why. 494 00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:56,280 The why they're there and the why they stay tends to be one of 495 00:28:56,280 --> 00:29:00,160 the things that when we are adapting something or writing 496 00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:02,640 something, we spend the most time on discussing. 497 00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:07,440 Really trying to get a few different ways to approach that 498 00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:11,480 and thinking through it. It's definitely a lens we always 499 00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:14,360 try to take to the work because it is. 500 00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:17,000 It's helpful to, if you're writing for other people to run, 501 00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,240 it's helpful to be able to on board them in that way. 502 00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:24,440 And it does change how we set certain things up. 503 00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:29,160 There are things added or removed that specifically are in 504 00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:33,920 relation to that question around why are they there? 505 00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:36,520 Why are they staying? Why are they delving deeper? 506 00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:38,520 And part of that is understanding your characters 507 00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,160 and the players. But then some of it too is just 508 00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:46,040 the setup all. Right. 509 00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:51,360 I think we have a question. Yeah. 510 00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:54,840 I wanted to hop in here. We had a question from chat, 511 00:29:55,600 --> 00:30:01,400 kind of going with more of the last slide, but let me lower my 512 00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:05,560 hand. Lumina Arc 485 asked what? 513 00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:08,440 What's an adventure you believe is begging to be adapted that 514 00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:10,720 has a core problem that makes it difficult? 515 00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:21,880 Hold on, this is something we should have prepared. 516 00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:36,280 One, one thing, I don't know if it has a core problem, why it 517 00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:39,520 shouldn't be adapted, but like I know Josh had said Tomb of 518 00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:42,280 Horrors earlier and how you could port it through and all of 519 00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:45,880 that. There's something about not the 520 00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:49,520 fact that it's a dungeon, but sort of like the key bits and 521 00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:53,240 bobs of that, that I think could be turned into such a fun 522 00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:55,720 liminal horror thing. But I think you would have to 523 00:30:55,720 --> 00:31:00,080 frame it really right. You could have it just be a 524 00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:03,960 dungeon, but I don't think that would that would get at what's 525 00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:08,000 exciting about it. So just off the top of my head, 526 00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,400 I feel like that would be one that with the proper thought and 527 00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:15,280 framing could just be really cool as a way to burn and turn 528 00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:18,440 through a session in an exciting, fun way. 529 00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:22,720 That would be less about the frustrations I think the classic 530 00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:26,760 module had, because when you frame it as a horror movie or 531 00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:30,240 horror session, you get a little bit more leeway in terms of 532 00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:33,920 being OK with people being turned into bits and bobs. 533 00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:46,000 Yeah, the one that I've got in mind here is TCC, the Chain 534 00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:49,720 Coffin. So this this adventure here is 535 00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:51,040 something I've had sort of bookmarked. 536 00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:54,520 I don't think anybody could do this for the jam. 537 00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:57,640 It is, you know, some 100 and something pages. 538 00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:03,400 It's a big boy. But the whole core premise of 539 00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:07,520 this adventure is that it takes place in what is essentially the 540 00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:09,240 fantasy version of the Appalachian Mountains. 541 00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:10,680 Oh, that's a good version right there. 542 00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:17,600 Yeah. So that is already you got your, 543 00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:22,080 your framework, your characters or transporting this chained 544 00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:24,880 coffin across this environment that's gonna try and kill them. 545 00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:28,240 And there there's some like religious aspects to it. 546 00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:29,520 There's like cults and stuff like that. 547 00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:32,960 You've got these really cool core elements that are like just 548 00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:34,880 a little bit of a change. And you got that the middle 549 00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:40,920 horror dealing with stuff like cars and cell phones and things 550 00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:42,160 that we have already talked about. 551 00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:44,840 That's sort of your your goal there. 552 00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:46,840 If you're trying to, you know, convert the chained coffin. 553 00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:52,040 There are some other ones in mind. 554 00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:56,960 I think wet grandpa is not really even begging for a 555 00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,040 liminal horror conversion. This is just a really good one 556 00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:02,920 to adapt for a liminal horror because it's it's I don't even 557 00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,360 know what the time period is supposed to be, to be honest. 558 00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:07,920 I think it's supposed to be sort of pseudo pseudo medieval 559 00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:14,840 fantasy, but it's all about this patriarch of a family having 560 00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:18,880 died and then rising back from the dead and how that sort of 561 00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:22,840 spins out into familial issues and affects the town. 562 00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:25,160 That affects eventually the sort of the larger setting there. 563 00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:29,840 It would be very easy to take this and to spin it to put a 564 00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:32,640 little more modern convenience on it and bring it up into 565 00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:41,720 modern horror. The other one I had in mind is 566 00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:44,200 Fever Swamp. This is the original edition 567 00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:47,880 that I have right here. There is like a remaster that 568 00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:53,680 Masonia did that has been on Kickstarter. 569 00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,680 The PDF is delivered to backers. I do not remember what the state 570 00:33:56,680 --> 00:34:01,000 of the book is at the moment, but I have run Fever Swamp as a 571 00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,520 modern adventure. I used Agents of the Odd, which 572 00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:08,000 is sort of like very similar to Liminal Horror or just more of 573 00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,840 like a X-Files type of spin on it. 574 00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:15,239 I suppose Fever Swamp is another one. 575 00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:19,920 You don't really need a whole lot to sort of twist it to run 576 00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:24,719 the centre table. I even wrote a adaptation for 577 00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:28,480 liminal horror that you can find on Hitch dot IO that's talking 578 00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:30,400 about ways to spin it. If you want an example of 579 00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:35,000 something that isn't going quite as far as, let's say, Hungry 580 00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,880 Hollow, but still takes the original fantasy ideas, because 581 00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:43,239 this was Fever Swamp, I think was Lamentations Flame Princess 582 00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:46,440 Adventure originally or written for that, or at least, you know, 583 00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:48,960 BXD and D, if it wasn't Lamentations directly, but this 584 00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:50,880 was some years ago. They did this. 585 00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:55,880 Yeah, 2017. But to take that core fantasy 586 00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:59,920 presence, you know, going into this horrid wretched swamp and 587 00:34:59,920 --> 00:35:02,600 then just like putting that in the Southern United States and 588 00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:06,520 some of the swamps down there, a lot of elements really worked 589 00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:08,800 nicely there. And for those who don't know, 590 00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:14,240 fever swamp is full of strange crypted creatures and primarily 591 00:35:14,240 --> 00:35:16,960 undead. There is this is gonna spoil it 592 00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:19,040 a little bit. The the central tension since 593 00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:23,400 this was sort of talked about is that there is a it's called a 594 00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:26,640 pile, I think. Let me see how they say that. 595 00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:32,320 Actually, it's like the corpse pile, I believe, but it's like 596 00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:38,120 miles long horde of undead creatures that roam the swamp 597 00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:44,600 that at some point in time they're going to make it to the 598 00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:48,320 central setting that sits on the edge of the swamp there and 599 00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:49,640 destroy and kill everybody who's in it. 600 00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:56,720 So your character might not be going there for that particular 601 00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:01,560 purpose. You know, when I ran it, the I, 602 00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:04,800 like I said, I adapted it to modern horror and used agents of 603 00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:08,440 the odd. So the player characters were 604 00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:11,440 going into the swamp to find an old survey crew that had gone 605 00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:14,120 missing after, you know, a storm had swept through. 606 00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:17,720 So their central tension was unrelated to the central tension 607 00:36:17,720 --> 00:36:20,280 of the module, but intersecting in very interesting ways. 608 00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:22,920 You know, they ran into the corpse pile over the course of 609 00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:26,920 their their play there and eventually they learned that 610 00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:29,240 they needed to deal with it. So they went and found out the 611 00:36:29,240 --> 00:36:31,040 original place where it came from and, you know, did 612 00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:32,880 something about it. Whether or not they were 613 00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:34,600 successful was sort of left ambiguous. 614 00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:39,880 But so those are a few that I had in mind. 615 00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:45,480 This is something that we can continue to diverge into on the 616 00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:48,120 Discord server once we have a little more time to kind of like 617 00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:52,320 think about it. But do you have any more? 618 00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:55,920 Oh yeah, you, you know, pretty much ideal Luke Gearing, if 619 00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:00,400 we're gonna be really honest, I thought I always have felt like 620 00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:02,840 the aisle would be a really great. 621 00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:05,840 And that's all about how you frame why the characters are 622 00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:08,560 there and frame why the characters would go down. 623 00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:11,240 And there's enough hooks in there that's already all within 624 00:37:11,240 --> 00:37:14,880 the text itself. Because then I think it would be 625 00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:21,600 a really great if you if you did it sort of like found footage 626 00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:27,280 academic, kind of like framing in terms of touchstones of like 627 00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:29,200 why they're down there and how it just gets worse and worse and 628 00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:32,800 worse. But like I said, any Lou Gearing 629 00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,920 I think would be phenomenal. Yeah, I honestly can't believe I 630 00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:37,760 forgot this one. I'm literally running the Isle 631 00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:43,280 right now in modern horror, so not to spoil it because you got 632 00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:45,280 to read this book looking fantastic. 633 00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:46,920 Super easy to make modern horror. 634 00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:54,680 Am I wrong Josh, or did you mention already while I was like 635 00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:58,320 digging books behind me? Don't you have like a guide to 636 00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:01,680 Fever Swamp in Lemoore? Yep, that's one of the things 637 00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:03,720 that we wrote. I think was was for the last 638 00:38:03,720 --> 00:38:05,320 game jam we did. I was like a year and a half 639 00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:09,680 ago, I think I called it the Field Guide to Fever Swamp. 640 00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:14,080 It's really just, it's not rewriting Fever Swamp in any 641 00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:16,960 conceivable manner. It is about a dozen pages of 642 00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:19,240 tips to convert it to modern horror. 643 00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:23,880 So again, a super easy thing. It's not quite like a twisted 644 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:26,960 classic like we would officially call it, but it was sort of the 645 00:38:27,720 --> 00:38:32,240 genesis of the idea. But well, we're tricking out. 646 00:38:32,240 --> 00:38:35,800 If you have a minute, it's on the unenthuser it's page, but it 647 00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:38,360 can be found through the links of the old Game Jam, if those 648 00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:41,040 are somewhere. Actually, it should be in the 649 00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:44,440 Limited horror library, right? Yes it should and yes it is. 650 00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:49,240 It's like, all right, so let's let's keep moving on here. 651 00:38:49,240 --> 00:38:52,040 We can do more questions later. Save. 652 00:38:53,560 --> 00:38:58,440 OK, so you have found your inspiration. 653 00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:01,680 You've ripped it down to its skeleton and you're rebuilding 654 00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:05,400 it from modern horror. How do you add the horror? 655 00:39:07,720 --> 00:39:10,160 This is going to be subjective. You know, people are scared 656 00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:13,320 about different things. And realistically, as AGM, 657 00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:17,080 you're just going to do what you think is exciting, or at least 658 00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:21,400 what will excite your players in a scary way. 659 00:39:22,720 --> 00:39:26,440 However, when you're looking at modern settings, specifically 660 00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:29,960 something that's grounded in reality, your horror is often 661 00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:32,560 going to come from the juxtaposition of the main 662 00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,280 mundane against the weird and uncanny. 663 00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:38,760 You know, zombies are scary because people usually, you 664 00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:40,480 know, remain in the ground when they die. 665 00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:44,240 What? This is going to be really 666 00:39:44,240 --> 00:39:47,560 specific to your adventure. The easiest thing is terrifying 667 00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:49,680 creatures. You know, like some horrid beast 668 00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:54,680 he is stalking the forest, or even like a Freddy or Jason. 669 00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:58,360 It is just some man going out there and is going to kill you. 670 00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:01,400 Again, that is sort of inherently terrifying in its own 671 00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:06,520 nature, but your horror can also be otherworldly entities. 672 00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:10,280 The big thing in the Bureau is there are. 673 00:40:10,720 --> 00:40:15,720 Creatures and well, specifically one entity that is attempting to 674 00:40:15,720 --> 00:40:21,000 break the bind between the prime material plane and whatever 675 00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:25,920 other plane that holds its home and it's working its way into 676 00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:28,000 our world. And that is spreading this 677 00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:30,680 inherent corruption throughout the building that is changing 678 00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:33,480 people to be more like the entity itself. 679 00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:36,760 So that's something from another world that's interjecting its 680 00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:40,680 way into ours. But beyond that, you've got the 681 00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:43,200 classics like the ghosts and the demons. 682 00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:45,920 Real easy to go into, especially if you want to do like the 683 00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,000 demonic thing. You can always add the religious 684 00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:51,000 angle to it, and religious horror as its own subcategory 685 00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:55,760 that people seem to enjoy. And above all, your horror can 686 00:40:55,760 --> 00:41:02,000 just be other humans. This is part of the core tension 687 00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,360 in a lot of the modules. It's how the other people you 688 00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:11,960 are with react to the horror in how your characters then respond 689 00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:15,480 to their acting. A lot of let's talk about the 690 00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:19,000 bloom for a second here. There are a bunch of NPCS in the 691 00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:20,720 bloom. We've identified some of the key 692 00:41:20,720 --> 00:41:22,760 ones, and those are the ones that have the most ability to 693 00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:24,080 affect change within the setting. 694 00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:26,560 But there are also people just all sort of scattered around. 695 00:41:27,720 --> 00:41:31,280 The big thing about the plume is that a lot of your NPCS aren't 696 00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:33,880 going to do anything about the horror. 697 00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:37,960 They are intentionally trying to ignore it, forsake of keeping 698 00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,920 the pleasant nature of their town intact. 699 00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:45,240 So you will come to them with claims and beg for help and 700 00:41:45,240 --> 00:41:47,160 they're like, no, nothing is happening here. 701 00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:51,120 It's all fine up until the point where it slams them into the 702 00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:55,360 face and everybody freaks out. So again, that's, that's part of 703 00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:59,080 your, your central tension, that that's all human driven tension 704 00:41:59,720 --> 00:42:02,600 only tangentially related to the monsters themselves. 705 00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:09,480 Now for Luminal Horror specifically, we use the horrors 706 00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:15,040 as agents of change at a very minimal level. 707 00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:19,680 Change could simply be making your character go from alive to 708 00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:24,040 dead. But that change could also be 709 00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:26,080 something more profound. You know, we talked about 710 00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:29,520 previously about how the environment can be changed. 711 00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:32,240 You know, talking about the bloom again, there is this 712 00:42:32,240 --> 00:42:38,040 spreading fungal mass that is terraforming the town, you know, 713 00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:40,480 to make it more covered in this, this fungal agent. 714 00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:45,920 So the horror itself is based in nature, but it is horrifying 715 00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:49,520 because of what it is doing. It is changing the environment, 716 00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:53,000 but the horror more specifically, more mechanically 717 00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:55,400 in the middle horror will change your character. 718 00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:59,640 You know, we see that through Fallout, which is one of the 719 00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:01,400 most important parts of the system. 720 00:43:01,720 --> 00:43:05,360 That is how your characters are directly changed by these 721 00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:07,840 horrors. We'll talk a little bit about 722 00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:10,600 that later, but that's worth keeping in mind that that is the 723 00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:15,080 goal is to create a change through horror that is liminal 724 00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:19,880 horror. Now, I've already sort of cover 725 00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:23,200 this a little bit. Horrors should both be 726 00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:28,160 environmental and personal, threaten the setting, and 727 00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:33,640 threaten the investigator. I've been playing Silent Hill 728 00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:37,520 recently, you know, the original 3, just to kind of check that 729 00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:39,640 off because I've never had a chance to until recently. 730 00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:46,280 Silent Hill works really well because the town of Silent Hill 731 00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:49,720 changes over the course of play. The entire place is sort of 732 00:43:49,720 --> 00:43:52,920 this, you know, nightmare escape to begin with, but your 733 00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:54,480 character will walk through a door. 734 00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:58,240 When they walk back out, it's another world entirely, you 735 00:43:58,240 --> 00:44:00,920 know, based upon the real one. But things have changed. 736 00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:05,200 They use all those now. It's dark, shitty hallways and 737 00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:07,400 fences to represent what the other world is there. 738 00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:12,880 But either way, the environment in that game is also a 739 00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,360 reflection of the person. So that's a different aspect 740 00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:19,480 there too. But so the environment, they 741 00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:22,080 don't always need to change. It is just a good touch. 742 00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:27,480 It makes you're sort of setting the themes of your horror and 743 00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:29,760 your adventure, and you're making it apparent by changing 744 00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:34,000 the setting in and of itself. Sometimes it is horrifying that 745 00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:36,200 the setting does not change as well. 746 00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:39,040 So keep that in mind. And then, like I already talked 747 00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:43,760 about it, whores are personal. You know, it's threatening 748 00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,760 someone's life, your own as your character, the ones that you 749 00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:48,920 love. You know, your family and 750 00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:53,720 friends or even just the people in your town, you know you have 751 00:44:53,720 --> 00:44:56,080 some degree of care for them, otherwise you wouldn't be living 752 00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:58,840 there. So the horror is threatening. 753 00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:05,360 Through that, what you do is you begin to create clear 754 00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:09,840 consequences of an action. If the horror is slowly changing 755 00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:13,760 the environment, if you do not stop it, the environment will be 756 00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:16,480 changed. You know, in the bloom, again, 757 00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:20,640 if you do not stop the bloom, cold water will be overrun by 758 00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:23,520 the end of the the adventure. And based on some of the 759 00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:26,960 potential consequences there, cold water may no longer exist 760 00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:29,920 at the end of the adventure if the horror is allowed to 761 00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:32,800 proceed. And again, when it comes to the 762 00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:36,440 personal level, if you do nothing as your character you 763 00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:39,200 will be changed through fallout or death. 764 00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:44,720 But also, that seems redness to all of the, you know, people you 765 00:45:44,720 --> 00:45:50,040 have connections with. Now, beyond that, your horror 766 00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:53,880 should have a goal. What does it want? 767 00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:57,600 What happens when it gets what it wants? 768 00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:04,840 Horror should rarely be random, and I mean truly random. 769 00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:10,320 When it comes to something like the Bloom, The horror at the 770 00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:13,840 heart of the adventure doesn't really want anything tangible in 771 00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:17,520 terms of material goods. The horror wants to do what all 772 00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:22,480 fungus does, grow and propagate. It has a goal, and that goal is 773 00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:26,760 to spread and to consume. It may seem random because it is 774 00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:29,080 nature. It's not a person or being, but 775 00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,560 that is its core premise. That goal informs how we built 776 00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:35,560 the adventure. You know, because the fungus 777 00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:38,800 wants to do what fungus does. It's going to consume the town, 778 00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:41,160 you know? You can see the easy points of 779 00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:45,240 connection here. Beyond that, again, your horror 780 00:46:45,240 --> 00:46:49,600 could be specifically focused. You know, scientists were 781 00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:54,280 looking to find ways to revive the dead or, you know, something 782 00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:58,480 of the sort, preserve the brain after somebody has passed away 783 00:46:58,480 --> 00:46:59,920 in order to pass it on to a new body. 784 00:46:59,920 --> 00:47:03,880 And that creates zombies. The zombies themselves may have 785 00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:07,160 been goalless. You know, they are, they do a 786 00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:09,520 basic goal and that's, you know, eat brains or eat human flash, 787 00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:12,000 yadda, yadda, yadda. But it is the source of the 788 00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:15,280 horror that had the goal to begin with, you know, find ways 789 00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:19,760 to, you know, revive life and solve the problem of death, 790 00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:22,600 something of that sort. That is the goal that drives the 791 00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:24,280 horror at the core of your adventure. 792 00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:29,720 So, and my favorite, find a theme. 793 00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:36,440 This, what it does is it gives you this really easy element to 794 00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:39,880 return to when you're running low on ideas and you want to add 795 00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:41,880 additional horror to your adventure. 796 00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:49,280 In Hungry Hollow, for example, one of our key themes is spring 797 00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:52,560 sort of broadly and generally, and what that comes with his, 798 00:47:52,560 --> 00:47:56,920 you know, bees and fertility. We can take those two core 799 00:47:56,920 --> 00:47:59,400 concepts, those themes and ideas, and then just add them 800 00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:01,040 everywhere. You know, it's things that are 801 00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:04,000 calling back to the horror of the adventure without even 802 00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:09,040 overtly being horrifying. You know, the central tension of 803 00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:10,920 Hungry Hollow. And this isn't even much of A 804 00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:12,560 spoiler. And what's to come is that 805 00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:16,680 there's a baby shower that's going to happen in some days 806 00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:20,840 from when you arrive at your or at the town itself. 807 00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:23,480 So this event is sort of looming in the background. 808 00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:26,720 But because we have that core theme of fertility, we can kind 809 00:48:26,720 --> 00:48:29,320 of expound upon that. There are Flyers all over town 810 00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:31,880 talking about this baby shower. People are excited about this 811 00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:35,640 event. We can add in the motifs of 812 00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:38,920 spring of flowers and bees and all those things, make it 813 00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:41,280 decorate banners that sit in the town. 814 00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:44,840 Again, these things are aren't overtly horrifying, but they are 815 00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:48,600 starting to key your players into what might be going on 816 00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:52,640 beneath the surface. Another one of the big ones is 817 00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:55,360 in all of like, you know, called Cthulhu horror. 818 00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:58,080 There's always some cult that has a symbol on their book. 819 00:48:58,080 --> 00:49:00,480 You know, the Necronomicon, It's got that little seal on it. 820 00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:04,080 That can be your theme. You put that symbol somewhere in 821 00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:06,240 the environment and then the players automatically see, 822 00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:09,160 there's a cult presence here. Let's go find a cult. 823 00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:14,480 Another one is Robert Chambers, the King in Yellow, the sort of 824 00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:18,160 impetus for a lot of, you know, Lovecraft's early work inspiring 825 00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:22,400 the very Lovecraftian genre. The King in Yellow is a very 826 00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:26,680 easy theme that is yellow. So you can introduce that, you 827 00:49:26,680 --> 00:49:28,320 know, a character with a yellow cloak. 828 00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:31,040 It immediately stands out as being sort of different because 829 00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:34,920 of its color nature. But also you can start making 830 00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:39,120 yellow things in your adventure, one, because you're trying to 831 00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:41,760 direct attention and two, because you were trying to screw 832 00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:46,480 with your players a little bit, You know, like you can put a, a 833 00:49:46,720 --> 00:49:49,520 a yellow post it note on a door or something like that. 834 00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:51,360 They see the color yellow go, blah, blah, blah, Let's go 835 00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:52,520 investigate. And there's nothing really 836 00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:55,720 there. So that helps build tension. 837 00:49:55,720 --> 00:49:57,800 It helps kind of like, you know, the ebb and flow. 838 00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:01,320 All clues aren't created equal in that sense. 839 00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:06,720 I think that's all I have to say in this one. 840 00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:11,520 Anything to add? No, I think the choosing of 841 00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:16,280 themes and choosing of goals are to not only for writing, but for 842 00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:20,880 running them to horror games. And sometimes the themes come in 843 00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:25,440 play and you start to realize what your players start to glom 844 00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:27,520 onto and you can weave them through. 845 00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:32,880 But it definitely helps create a cohesive vision throughout, and 846 00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:36,840 it's definitely worth paying really close attention to early 847 00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:40,560 on in your writing. So what is their goals? 848 00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:43,200 What are they trying to achieve? And then how can I weave some 849 00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:46,920 sort of aesthetic or thematic elements throughout? 850 00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:56,760 All right, let's move on. Writing clues. 851 00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:02,600 One of the hardest problems in all of tabletop RPG writing 852 00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:04,920 mysteries and the clues to go along with it. 853 00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:08,400 You'll see this kind of handled a bunch of different ways. 854 00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:11,440 The little horror takes a little more traditional structure. 855 00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:13,200 I'll talk about that in a second, where you find the clues 856 00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:15,920 in the solved mystery. But this is a problem that has 857 00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:20,080 spawned discourse. It's so sort of inherently 858 00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:23,000 difficult to nail down. You'll look at stuff like 859 00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:26,680 Gumshoe. Gumshoe is a system just kind of 860 00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:28,040 gives you the clues if you look for them. 861 00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:31,880 Call or Cthulhu Dark, that's another one where if you're 862 00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:33,560 looking for clues, you will find them. 863 00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:36,000 It's just sort of like how you find them that affects what you 864 00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:39,280 do next. And then you even have the 865 00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:42,240 Brindlewood bays and you know the car from Brindlewood Systems 866 00:51:42,240 --> 00:51:45,360 where you can find a clue at any of these key locations. 867 00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:47,400 And the very nature of the mystery is fluid. 868 00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:50,120 So you're looking for clues and then you decide what the mystery 869 00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:51,000 is. At the very end. 870 00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:54,840 All these things are tempting to find the same goal. 871 00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:58,560 That's to make this process easier because it's not easy. 872 00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:05,040 Now, the key part that makes them a horror fun, it's not 873 00:52:05,040 --> 00:52:06,600 really a game about solving mysteries. 874 00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:09,760 It's about surviving those mysteries. 875 00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:15,960 Clues are one of your tools that the players will have at their 876 00:52:15,960 --> 00:52:19,240 disposal and that's how they inform their choices on what to 877 00:52:19,240 --> 00:52:23,440 do next. One of the key, you know, pieces 878 00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:26,640 of designed influence that you know, book Goblin Archives and I 879 00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:32,880 have used is this blog post from Sean McCoy of Mothership fame. 880 00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:37,160 It's called Survive, Solve, Save, where the general premise, 881 00:52:37,160 --> 00:52:40,280 and this has changed a little bit since the original blog post 882 00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:42,560 because I think it's back in like 2017 or something like 883 00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:44,240 that. So it's been a few years, but 884 00:52:44,240 --> 00:52:49,080 the core premise is that your characters in a mothership 885 00:52:49,080 --> 00:52:52,680 adventure will be able to do one of these things. 886 00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:57,440 They will survive the encounter, they'll solve the mystery, or 887 00:52:57,440 --> 00:53:00,880 they'll save themselves or the people affected by the horror. 888 00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:06,200 Maybe you'll be able to do 1 1/2 of those things. 889 00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:09,080 It'll get some of the answers to the mystery while also living to 890 00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:13,040 see it yourself. Or you could survive all the way 891 00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:15,000 up into the end. You get the answers. 892 00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:18,640 Maybe you see people, but you set off that nuke that blows up 893 00:53:18,640 --> 00:53:21,640 the power plant, taking you and the xenomorph queen away with 894 00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:25,080 it. But things are going to be 895 00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:31,360 messy, and horror is rarely, I'm, like I said, good, because 896 00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:35,040 that's subjective. Things should rarely be clean 897 00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:38,000 and cut and dry by the end of your adventure. 898 00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:44,400 So you don't really need to worry about setting up this big 899 00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:48,960 expansive trail of bread crumbs with all of these clues so that 900 00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:52,680 the players themselves put on their Sherlock Holmes cap and 901 00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:56,560 solve the mystery themselves and save everybody that's clean. 902 00:53:56,840 --> 00:54:00,320 We don't want clean. We want things to be messy, so 903 00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:08,160 use clues as tools. With that in mind, when you are 904 00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:11,200 writing your clues, do not hide them. 905 00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:16,120 Players should be given adequate information order in order to 906 00:54:16,120 --> 00:54:20,280 make informed choices, and those choices should be impactful. 907 00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:27,520 If you are hiding clues behind roles in a general sense, you 908 00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:29,720 know, like liberal horror doesn't even have to find the 909 00:54:29,720 --> 00:54:31,840 clue role. We have saves, not even like 910 00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:33,240 skill checks or anything like that. 911 00:54:33,240 --> 00:54:39,440 So if the players act in a manner that would find one of 912 00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:42,320 the clues you have prepared, they find that clue. 913 00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:45,840 You know, if they search the desk and find the letter of the 914 00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:51,480 mayor who is secretly funding a, you know, religious cult or 915 00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:54,360 something like that, they've searched the desk, they found 916 00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:56,360 the clue. We don't need to make a strike 917 00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:59,120 save, open the desk to find the clue or anything like that. 918 00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:02,800 They can simply do so. So your clues, you want them to 919 00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:05,760 be findable. The goal is not to obscure it. 920 00:55:07,560 --> 00:55:11,240 With that in mind, your progress in the adventure should never be 921 00:55:11,240 --> 00:55:16,000 halted by not finding a clue. The player should always have 922 00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:18,840 choices ahead of them, things that they could be doing. 923 00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:23,360 If they need to find one specific clue to progress, then 924 00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:27,080 the adventurous sort of failed. You or your characters are 925 00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:28,680 locked in the sense of indecision. 926 00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:31,600 They don't know what they're missing even if you as AGM do. 927 00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:36,520 So finding ways to ensure that they can continue to move 928 00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:40,520 forward and to act without having a specific clue is only 929 00:55:40,520 --> 00:55:43,240 going to be beneficial. We'll talk about the Doom clock 930 00:55:43,240 --> 00:55:45,120 later. That is sort of liminal horrors 931 00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:48,280 mechanical solution to the problem where something is 932 00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:51,920 always going to happen next for the players to react to. 933 00:55:52,680 --> 00:55:54,360 But that's one possible solution. 934 00:55:54,360 --> 00:55:56,320 There are, you know, plenty of others that you can kind of look 935 00:55:56,320 --> 00:56:05,040 into an experiment with writing clues, as we talked about, that 936 00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:09,000 can only be found in those specific sequences that largely 937 00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:12,840 won't be found by player groups when you're writing these 938 00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:15,200 adventures for other GMs, Like, if you're going to release it, 939 00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:17,120 that's not really going to be helpful. 940 00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:21,480 You know, the obscure things that 1% of the player group are 941 00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:23,800 going to find. Having some of that stuff is 942 00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:28,480 fun, sure, but all you're doing is creating this flow of 943 00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:31,040 information that the GM needs to keep in mind and need to 944 00:56:31,040 --> 00:56:35,080 consider when you're writing something that doesn't really 945 00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:37,440 need to be considered because virtually no one's going to find 946 00:56:37,440 --> 00:56:40,280 it. So keep that in mind, you know, 947 00:56:40,280 --> 00:56:43,040 having your Easter eggs, having your, you know, fun little 948 00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:44,480 puzzles and stuff like that is good. 949 00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:49,160 Keep those in there, but don't obscure it so much that it 950 00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:54,080 becomes useless information. You know, your modules and your 951 00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:57,160 adventure should reflect what's going to happen during play 952 00:56:57,760 --> 00:57:00,480 under most normal circumstances. So don't don't worry about 953 00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:03,240 getting too clever with all things considered. 954 00:57:04,720 --> 00:57:12,040 And keep in mind some of your clues might be best as fluid in 955 00:57:12,040 --> 00:57:17,880 nature this is, you can pick them up and drop them down 956 00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:22,480 wherever you might need them. Some clues are so important that 957 00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:25,840 they're linked to a specific location and good great, keep 958 00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:27,760 those. But also keep in mind that you 959 00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:32,640 can add flavor and change the adventure as it's written while 960 00:57:32,640 --> 00:57:36,320 you are playing it. We do this more formally and 961 00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:37,720 mechanically through the Void Crawl. 962 00:57:38,160 --> 00:57:39,680 We'll talk about that later again. 963 00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:45,320 But the general idea is like you're trying to link the mayor 964 00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:49,440 to that cult again, and you need the players to start making that 965 00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:52,640 connection so they can continue to move forward before the town 966 00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:54,280 is destroyed by the call. Something of the sort. 967 00:57:55,360 --> 00:57:58,760 Clues that link the mayor to the cult don't need to be directly 968 00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:00,640 in the mayor's office. They could be at the 969 00:58:00,640 --> 00:58:04,960 receptionist desk or at the church or something of the sort. 970 00:58:05,160 --> 00:58:06,840 These are things that you want your players to find. 971 00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:10,800 You want them to progress. So the clues don't need to be 972 00:58:10,840 --> 00:58:16,480 specific locations to be viable, and it helps keep things sort of 973 00:58:16,480 --> 00:58:19,400 moving at the table. You're not playing a story, you 974 00:58:19,400 --> 00:58:25,720 are running a horror scenario. So even the GM, you want to be a 975 00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:27,600 little surprised by how things are going. 976 00:58:28,040 --> 00:58:32,080 The Void Crawl keeps that as a random nature, but again, you 977 00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:34,880 don't need to rely on that. You can just have a nice list of 978 00:58:34,880 --> 00:58:38,000 things at your disposal, ready to drop in as you see it fit. 979 00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:41,880 And again, we want players to have the information so that 980 00:58:41,880 --> 00:58:43,960 they can act. We want them to have things in 981 00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:47,040 their toolbox, so we don't need to be so strict with where they 982 00:58:47,040 --> 00:58:51,040 end up. Before we continue, anything 983 00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:55,200 else to add here? I usually frame it, you know, in 984 00:58:55,200 --> 00:58:58,560 while we are writing it and then towards the end as well. 985 00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:02,480 How can you draw those red strings between locations and 986 00:59:02,480 --> 00:59:05,080 things? And so when you look and look 987 00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:07,800 through your manuscript or whatever you're writing in, in 988 00:59:07,800 --> 00:59:11,080 whatever format, making sure there are ways to connect 989 00:59:11,680 --> 00:59:16,880 players and characters and things around that sort of 990 00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:20,080 redundant nature. That is how life is anyways, 991 00:59:20,080 --> 00:59:21,280 right? There's a lot of ways that 992 00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:22,800 things are connected to each other. 993 00:59:23,600 --> 00:59:26,440 So a lot of times we'll go through and we'll read through 994 00:59:26,440 --> 00:59:29,240 locations and characters and things and see where we need to 995 00:59:29,240 --> 00:59:34,440 seed more connections or clues in a way to make sure that 996 00:59:34,440 --> 00:59:40,040 there's an ample opportunity for players to pull on those threads 997 00:59:40,040 --> 00:59:43,200 and then put them together and make meaning in them, in them, 998 00:59:43,200 --> 00:59:46,680 in their own way. And often times it's in unique 999 00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:49,880 ways that you were surprised by. As someone who runs everything 1000 00:59:49,880 --> 00:59:52,560 I've written in terms of the horror adventures, I'm 1001 00:59:52,680 --> 00:59:55,560 constantly surprised by the connections and the twists and 1002 00:59:55,560 --> 01:00:00,240 turns that the characters pick up or clue into and then takes 1003 01:00:00,240 --> 01:00:01,680 them down a different rabbit hole. 1004 01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:13,640 All right, press on. Now, talking about the system 1005 01:00:13,640 --> 01:00:18,600 aspects of it, everything we talked about so far is mostly 1006 01:00:18,840 --> 01:00:20,920 narrative. You know, it's the pros you're 1007 01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:23,080 writing is how you're setting up the settings. 1008 01:00:23,520 --> 01:00:25,400 So let's interact with Luminar Horror system. 1009 01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:31,040 Two of the most important parts of play are stress and Fallout. 1010 01:00:31,480 --> 01:00:34,120 We'll talk more about Fallout specifically, but Fallout is 1011 01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:36,360 linked to stress, so it is worth bringing up here. 1012 01:00:37,840 --> 01:00:40,520 Stress itself is a representation of the horrors 1013 01:00:40,520 --> 01:00:43,200 having a tangible effect on the characters. 1014 01:00:44,000 --> 01:00:47,080 We know that stress is an agent of change. 1015 01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:49,960 It will eventually lead to fallout if your characters are 1016 01:00:49,960 --> 01:00:54,800 not careful. So keep that in mind as you are 1017 01:00:54,800 --> 01:00:58,200 writing down or figuring out how to dole out stress. 1018 01:00:59,680 --> 01:01:04,240 In basic sense, one stress is easy to hand out. 1019 01:01:05,240 --> 01:01:07,280 You're witnessing something horrid. 1020 01:01:08,280 --> 01:01:13,240 One stress on its own is rarely going to create fallout, 1021 01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:16,240 especially if you are in an environment. 1022 01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:19,640 Let's say you're searching a location and you see a spooky 1023 01:01:19,640 --> 01:01:21,800 body and you're like, Oh no, a spooky body. 1024 01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:26,800 You take one stress. This is sort of a key part of 1025 01:01:26,800 --> 01:01:29,840 maintaining tension. Mechanically, this means 1026 01:01:29,840 --> 01:01:32,520 nothing. You know, taking one stress when 1027 01:01:32,520 --> 01:01:35,520 you're in a relatively safe location with no adversary 1028 01:01:35,520 --> 01:01:38,640 coming at you. You take a few minutes to rest 1029 01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:40,440 and your hip protection returns to full. 1030 01:01:42,040 --> 01:01:47,520 So it might seem a little superfluous to hand out stress 1031 01:01:47,520 --> 01:01:50,840 in this increment at those type of times, but keep in mind that 1032 01:01:50,840 --> 01:01:54,040 this is how we help pacing and tension at the table. 1033 01:01:54,760 --> 01:01:58,760 It is the ritual of the player barking down their hip 1034 01:01:58,760 --> 01:02:01,720 protection to know that they aren't safe, that things are 1035 01:02:01,720 --> 01:02:05,920 starting to get a little creepy. So keep that in mind. 1036 01:02:07,120 --> 01:02:11,120 Even if the players can heal one stress very quickly with only a 1037 01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:14,760 few moments of rest, it is still useful to have these moments 1038 01:02:14,760 --> 01:02:18,120 baked in, in opening the dumpster and smelling the 1039 01:02:18,760 --> 01:02:20,880 wretched trash that lies in there. 1040 01:02:21,280 --> 01:02:22,760 That's going to cause stress to anyone. 1041 01:02:22,760 --> 01:02:28,280 So keep those moments in. But also, like I said, stress is 1042 01:02:28,280 --> 01:02:33,440 an agent of change. Horrors can dole out the stress 1043 01:02:33,440 --> 01:02:36,600 directly. This is through typically 1044 01:02:36,600 --> 01:02:40,840 through their their abilities that the horrors have 1045 01:02:40,840 --> 01:02:43,120 themselves. You know, like a zombie bites 1046 01:02:43,120 --> 01:02:44,640 you and you're infected with the virus. 1047 01:02:44,640 --> 01:02:48,640 So we mechanically represent that by stress sort of coursing 1048 01:02:48,640 --> 01:02:52,800 through your veins as you are slowly being turned into a 1049 01:02:52,800 --> 01:02:55,520 zombie, or at least at risk of being turned into a zombie 1050 01:02:55,520 --> 01:03:00,400 through their bites. In the Bureau. 1051 01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:06,080 Stress is more of a representation of the corruption 1052 01:03:06,080 --> 01:03:09,280 that is inherently a play within the model with they're sort of 1053 01:03:09,440 --> 01:03:12,640 slowly infecting our characters, trying to warm its way in and 1054 01:03:12,640 --> 01:03:17,360 corrupt them as well. We get to the bloom, stress is 1055 01:03:17,360 --> 01:03:23,360 the bungal infection warming its way and trying to take control 1056 01:03:23,360 --> 01:03:26,600 of your system by being in cold water. 1057 01:03:26,720 --> 01:03:30,120 You're already exposed to the spores that kind of are 1058 01:03:30,120 --> 01:03:33,400 pervasive in the area. The more stress you take, the 1059 01:03:33,400 --> 01:03:39,360 more your body is helping through and distributing those 1060 01:03:39,360 --> 01:03:45,120 spores and more like protection you're losing against it because 1061 01:03:45,120 --> 01:03:47,000 you're spending all this time there and you're getting worked 1062 01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:49,920 up. And so as the stress builds up, 1063 01:03:50,240 --> 01:03:53,000 the fungal infection is going to start to build as well. 1064 01:03:54,680 --> 01:03:56,600 So stress can mean a lot of different things to your 1065 01:03:56,600 --> 01:04:01,080 adventure other than how we view it as being, you know, like an 1066 01:04:01,080 --> 01:04:09,520 anxiety response. SO1D4 stress easy baseline for 1067 01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:13,920 monsters. If you have major, you know, 1068 01:04:13,920 --> 01:04:17,160 like the big brutes that you might have or anything that has 1069 01:04:17,200 --> 01:04:21,000 like a particularly weird or gross ability, give it one D6 1070 01:04:21,000 --> 01:04:22,240 stress. Easy enough. 1071 01:04:23,160 --> 01:04:28,720 And then when you go to one D81D10, one T12 stress, make 1072 01:04:28,720 --> 01:04:32,240 sure that those things are particularly monstrous entities 1073 01:04:32,800 --> 01:04:35,760 or you're sort of witnessing these events not meant for human 1074 01:04:35,760 --> 01:04:38,400 eyes. When you get into the levels of 1075 01:04:38,400 --> 01:04:41,360 1D8 stress, those have the ability to cause fallout in a 1076 01:04:41,360 --> 01:04:45,960 single role. So again, keep your design 1077 01:04:45,960 --> 01:04:49,600 intentions in mind when you're doling out stress in that high 1078 01:04:49,600 --> 01:04:53,680 of quantities. You know, seeing, you know, 1079 01:04:53,680 --> 01:04:55,600 Cthulhu himself is probably something that's very 1080 01:04:55,600 --> 01:04:58,520 frightening to human eyes and might force inherent change 1081 01:04:58,520 --> 01:05:01,280 within you as you are frightened by its very sight. 1082 01:05:01,960 --> 01:05:06,880 That's probably worth AD 10 or D12 or opening the tome of a 1083 01:05:06,880 --> 01:05:12,040 necromancer and having a spell seared into your very brain and 1084 01:05:12,040 --> 01:05:16,280 something not meant for you, not meant for you to witness. 1085 01:05:16,600 --> 01:05:19,320 So it is going to change you as a result because of your 1086 01:05:19,320 --> 01:05:27,600 carelessness, I think, Dad. No, it just really stress is how 1087 01:05:27,720 --> 01:05:31,960 we mechanically show how the horrors change your character, 1088 01:05:31,960 --> 01:05:35,360 leading straight into fallout, which is the other mechanical 1089 01:05:35,360 --> 01:05:40,040 way on your character sheet that your character shifts and change 1090 01:05:40,040 --> 01:05:43,440 and becomes less like a normal person and more like what 1091 01:05:43,440 --> 01:05:45,040 they're investigating and fighting. 1092 01:05:49,680 --> 01:05:54,680 All right, let's keep going. All right, get more in deeper 1093 01:05:54,680 --> 01:05:57,480 into the stat blocks here. I'll be pretty quick about this 1094 01:05:57,480 --> 01:05:58,520 one. I don't think we need to spend a 1095 01:05:58,520 --> 01:06:04,440 whole ton of time here, but stat blocks are a minor part of most 1096 01:06:04,440 --> 01:06:07,720 of your characters, most of the horrors that you face, a lot of 1097 01:06:07,720 --> 01:06:11,040 the horrors, they are horrifying for their narrative aspects. 1098 01:06:11,640 --> 01:06:14,200 And stat blocks are at their most useful when you're in 1099 01:06:14,200 --> 01:06:17,800 combat, which is something that you generally want to avoid in a 1100 01:06:17,800 --> 01:06:20,120 horror system because it means your characters have a pretty 1101 01:06:20,120 --> 01:06:22,960 good chance to die in or at least being harmed in some 1102 01:06:22,960 --> 01:06:25,520 forms. So when you're looking at stat 1103 01:06:25,520 --> 01:06:27,960 blocks, you don't have to get too deep into the weeds about 1104 01:06:27,960 --> 01:06:31,760 it. You know, most creatures if, if 1105 01:06:31,760 --> 01:06:35,560 the only thing they're going to be doing is fighting, give them 1106 01:06:35,560 --> 01:06:37,080 a strength score, give them hip protection. 1107 01:06:37,200 --> 01:06:38,880 You know, strength is their meet points. 1108 01:06:38,880 --> 01:06:44,240 Hip protection is their ability to avoid serious harm. 90% of 1109 01:06:44,240 --> 01:06:46,760 your interactions with these creatures are going to be with 1110 01:06:46,760 --> 01:06:49,960 those two stats. If you end up needing dexterity 1111 01:06:49,960 --> 01:06:53,200 or control for anything of these these creatures you didn't have 1112 01:06:53,200 --> 01:06:55,280 stated already, I assume it's 10. 1113 01:06:55,760 --> 01:06:57,600 You know it's easy enough. You don't even need to write it 1114 01:06:57,600 --> 01:06:59,400 down. Just think, anytime it's not 1115 01:06:59,400 --> 01:07:02,080 listed as ten, there you go, There's your creature, you know 1116 01:07:02,080 --> 01:07:04,520 a zombie. Give them four HP, 12 strength, 1117 01:07:05,480 --> 01:07:07,240 That's a zombie. You know they try and bite you, 1118 01:07:07,400 --> 01:07:09,280 they cause stress. Easy. 1119 01:07:10,920 --> 01:07:13,880 When looking at general mobility scores, 10 is going to be your 1120 01:07:13,880 --> 01:07:17,440 average point. A normal human has 10s across 1121 01:07:17,440 --> 01:07:21,240 the board, which is variable based on the specific human, but 1122 01:07:21,240 --> 01:07:25,080 so 10/10 is your average, about a 50% chance of success at any 1123 01:07:25,080 --> 01:07:28,920 given save, and then we adjust upwards from there. 1124 01:07:29,800 --> 01:07:33,480 Three is truly deficient, you know, Might be reserved for 1125 01:07:34,280 --> 01:07:38,000 creatures or particularly untalented individuals. 6 is a 1126 01:07:38,000 --> 01:07:40,920 bit of a weaker score, but somewhere kind of in the middle. 1127 01:07:40,920 --> 01:07:44,200 It's not strange to see like a standard investigator with a 1128 01:07:44,200 --> 01:07:48,120 score of 6 or so. Then we get into Beyond 10. 1129 01:07:48,200 --> 01:07:51,600 When you look at 1414 in any of your ability scores are starting 1130 01:07:51,600 --> 01:07:53,400 to get into the sort of the noteworthy point. 1131 01:07:53,440 --> 01:07:56,760 You are exceptional at that one particular ability. 1132 01:07:57,440 --> 01:08:03,000 And then 1818 is the maximum that any character can have any 1133 01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:06,520 investigator, regardless of all that you receive or what have 1134 01:08:06,520 --> 01:08:08,520 you, 18 is your maximum that you can have. 1135 01:08:08,920 --> 01:08:12,240 That is sort of like you are extraordinarily gifted in that. 1136 01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:15,680 And that goes to four creatures as well. 1137 01:08:15,680 --> 01:08:19,279 Considering the stat blocks here. 18 is a like a truly 1138 01:08:19,279 --> 01:08:21,760 legendary monster. It is a horrid thing. 1139 01:08:23,000 --> 01:08:29,680 But then there are the higher If you have some eldritch God, 1140 01:08:30,600 --> 01:08:33,000 don't give them stats at all. You know, they're at Eldridge 1141 01:08:33,000 --> 01:08:34,560 God. You're not gonna fight your way 1142 01:08:34,560 --> 01:08:37,760 out of, you know, doing that without something else happening 1143 01:08:37,760 --> 01:08:39,840 in the narrative. You can't shoot Cthulhu with a 1144 01:08:39,840 --> 01:08:45,840 gun and expect him to die. So these horrid Eldridge 1145 01:08:45,920 --> 01:08:49,399 monstrosities might have a scores of 20 or higher, 1146 01:08:49,399 --> 01:08:51,960 depending on whether you want to represent that mechanically. 1147 01:08:53,640 --> 01:08:55,240 Well, getting into hit protection, again, hit 1148 01:08:55,240 --> 01:08:58,160 protection is your ability to avoid serious harm. 1149 01:08:59,160 --> 01:09:01,399 Most creatures, you know, your average person could have about 1150 01:09:01,399 --> 01:09:04,240 three or four hit protection. When you get into the higher 1151 01:09:04,240 --> 01:09:09,200 ones, like 6 or so, it's, you know, more sturdy creature. 1152 01:09:09,439 --> 01:09:12,680 When you have a ten hit protection creature that is a 1153 01:09:12,680 --> 01:09:17,640 serious threat, your basic weapon is doing D6 damage under 1154 01:09:17,640 --> 01:09:20,080 most circumstances. So that's gonna take a few hits 1155 01:09:20,080 --> 01:09:23,240 to go down or at least a couple of rounds of combat. 1156 01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:27,359 So ten hit protection is gonna be a hard thing that's gonna hit 1157 01:09:27,359 --> 01:09:32,359 a character at least once. So it is worth mentioning, hip 1158 01:09:32,359 --> 01:09:34,720 protection is not your meat points. 1159 01:09:35,040 --> 01:09:36,680 That is more or less your strength. 1160 01:09:37,399 --> 01:09:41,000 It is skills, your ability to dodge. 1161 01:09:41,000 --> 01:09:43,399 It is your luck. When a character's hip 1162 01:09:43,399 --> 01:09:46,080 protection is depleted, they have avoided serious harm. 1163 01:09:46,479 --> 01:09:51,240 So if you're being shot with a bullet and it doesn't exceed 1164 01:09:51,240 --> 01:09:54,200 your hip protection, you dodge out of the Bay a little bit. 1165 01:09:54,200 --> 01:09:57,240 Maybe it grazed you, or you could bruise, or it hits a 1166 01:09:57,240 --> 01:09:59,680 bulletproof vest and leaves a nice, you know, bruise there. 1167 01:10:01,040 --> 01:10:03,680 Things that haven't done serious harm to you but are wearing you 1168 01:10:03,680 --> 01:10:06,320 down over the course of the encounter. 1169 01:10:06,320 --> 01:10:11,000 Now, when it comes to damage, D6 is a baseline. 1170 01:10:11,080 --> 01:10:13,760 That is a weapon. A standard weapon is AD 6. 1171 01:10:14,840 --> 01:10:18,480 If your character is unarmed, especially in the like of like a 1172 01:10:18,480 --> 01:10:21,120 zombie, a zombie's going to be unarmed with its little hands. 1173 01:10:22,360 --> 01:10:24,360 Those might be AD four. That's sort of the lowest we 1174 01:10:24,360 --> 01:10:27,560 deal for damage there. So zombie kind of running and 1175 01:10:27,560 --> 01:10:32,280 scratching at you without Dexterity, Dexterous movement, 1176 01:10:32,600 --> 01:10:35,960 use AD four for the hands. But if they try and bite you, 1177 01:10:36,000 --> 01:10:38,880 that is a serious threat. That might be AD 6 or AD 8. 1178 01:10:41,320 --> 01:10:45,680 So again, D6 is the baseline, D4 is the unarmed, and then 1179 01:10:45,680 --> 01:10:50,240 anything higher sort of special. AD 8 weapon is something that is 1180 01:10:50,240 --> 01:10:52,160 particularly noteworthy. That might be like an assault 1181 01:10:52,160 --> 01:10:56,120 rifle, like a military weapon. It's a little bit better on even 1182 01:10:56,120 --> 01:10:58,080 if it shoots the same bullet as your hunting rifle. 1183 01:10:59,400 --> 01:11:05,640 V10 is sort of reserved for weapons that are of particular 1184 01:11:05,640 --> 01:11:06,960 note. That might be an artifact that 1185 01:11:06,960 --> 01:11:10,280 you find. You pull the Excalibur out of 1186 01:11:10,280 --> 01:11:12,760 some cave in, you know, the Pacific Northwest for some 1187 01:11:12,760 --> 01:11:15,880 reason. That is a legendary weapon, and 1188 01:11:15,880 --> 01:11:18,560 there's AD 10 as you wield it against the coming horde. 1189 01:11:18,560 --> 01:11:24,360 And then D12, largely speaking, in terms of straight damage, D12 1190 01:11:24,360 --> 01:11:27,280 should be avoided. That is typically when you have 1191 01:11:27,280 --> 01:11:31,480 an enhanced attack. Enhanced is when you have 1192 01:11:31,480 --> 01:11:34,560 everything in your favor. You know you're using fire 1193 01:11:34,560 --> 01:11:37,240 against an ice creature, something like that that that is 1194 01:11:37,240 --> 01:11:41,080 your enhanced attacks and that is that is about monumentous 1195 01:11:41,080 --> 01:11:43,600 thing that is the characters using their tools and ingenuity 1196 01:11:43,600 --> 01:11:45,480 to attack creatures in a special manner. 1197 01:11:45,760 --> 01:11:49,120 So D12 is sort of the the reward they get for doing so. 1198 01:11:49,960 --> 01:11:53,280 Not that your NPCS and your creatures can't have that. 1199 01:11:53,320 --> 01:11:56,600 Just keep that in mind. That sort of mechanical call 1200 01:11:56,600 --> 01:12:00,960 back there. You can do like D20 damage if 1201 01:12:00,960 --> 01:12:03,040 you feel the need for it. Just know that that is going to 1202 01:12:03,040 --> 01:12:05,880 take out a character and almost guarantee it a single roles. 1203 01:12:07,040 --> 01:12:08,640 At least there's a 50% chance of doing so. 1204 01:12:10,240 --> 01:12:11,960 So truly horrid and altered creatures. 1205 01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:15,120 Keep that for the D20 if you need to use it at all. 1206 01:12:15,120 --> 01:12:20,760 Just a couple other things here with stat blocks. 1207 01:12:23,480 --> 01:12:26,920 Make sure you're using stress. We talked about how stress is an 1208 01:12:26,920 --> 01:12:30,480 agent of change and that is sort of the core tension of the 1209 01:12:30,480 --> 01:12:32,920 characters as they face these horrors there and how they could 1210 01:12:32,920 --> 01:12:34,600 fall out. So don't have all of your 1211 01:12:34,600 --> 01:12:37,200 zombies do, you know, just straight damage. 1212 01:12:38,600 --> 01:12:42,960 Add some stress in there, make them fearful of the change. 1213 01:12:44,160 --> 01:12:47,080 Make them fearful that they will become like that zombie if they 1214 01:12:47,080 --> 01:12:50,760 are not careful. A good way to start a baseline 1215 01:12:50,760 --> 01:12:54,720 for stress is D4. These aren't really things that 1216 01:12:54,720 --> 01:12:56,400 are happening from weapons per SE. 1217 01:12:56,400 --> 01:12:58,960 They're happening from things intrinsic to the the entities 1218 01:12:58,960 --> 01:13:01,360 that you're facing. They are the horrors, you know, 1219 01:13:01,360 --> 01:13:02,920 tangibly affecting the characters. 1220 01:13:03,800 --> 01:13:05,920 So D4 usually works as a good baseline and then kind of 1221 01:13:05,920 --> 01:13:08,120 increase from there under the same guidance as the previous 1222 01:13:08,120 --> 01:13:16,360 stats. Now we've been changing this 1223 01:13:16,360 --> 01:13:22,000 just ever so slightly in the Investigator edition of Liminal 1224 01:13:22,000 --> 01:13:27,680 Horror in the coming deluxe edition, where players when they 1225 01:13:27,680 --> 01:13:30,360 take damage, they have to make a strength save. 1226 01:13:30,440 --> 01:13:33,280 If they fail that strength save, this is when they take strength 1227 01:13:33,280 --> 01:13:36,080 damage. To be clear, they gain a wound, 1228 01:13:36,120 --> 01:13:38,400 and the wound is based on severity of the damage. 1229 01:13:39,120 --> 01:13:44,920 When NPCS take critical damage, when they fail their strength 1230 01:13:44,920 --> 01:13:48,480 save, they don't necessarily take wounds. 1231 01:13:48,640 --> 01:13:54,080 You can do so if you want as AGM, but for simplicity, the 1232 01:13:54,080 --> 01:13:56,200 RMPCS or staff blocks that you're writing, they take 1233 01:13:56,200 --> 01:13:58,840 critical damage and something happens. 1234 01:13:59,320 --> 01:14:02,760 You know most circumstances they fall out of combat, whatever 1235 01:14:02,760 --> 01:14:04,600 that may mean for a creature, you know. 1236 01:14:04,600 --> 01:14:07,160 You shoot the leg off a zombie and it collapses to the ground 1237 01:14:07,160 --> 01:14:10,560 and pauses for a moment, and then it wakes back up and starts 1238 01:14:10,560 --> 01:14:13,440 crawling its way towards you. It's taking critical damage, it 1239 01:14:13,440 --> 01:14:16,160 has fallen out of combat, but because it is a zombie, it wakes 1240 01:14:16,160 --> 01:14:19,880 back up and continues forward under most circumstances. 1241 01:14:19,880 --> 01:14:21,960 That's your basic guideline. They take critical damage. 1242 01:14:21,960 --> 01:14:25,200 They fall out of combat for specific creatures. 1243 01:14:26,040 --> 01:14:27,440 You can get a little fun with that. 1244 01:14:27,480 --> 01:14:31,760 You can increase the threat to spoil the balloon a little bit 1245 01:14:31,760 --> 01:14:34,040 here. The big old flesh Hydra, the 1246 01:14:34,040 --> 01:14:39,080 anthromycin that we wrote in when it takes critical damage. 1247 01:14:39,240 --> 01:14:41,080 Let me back up and explain what that thing is. 1248 01:14:41,400 --> 01:14:44,760 So that is there's Nope, Nope, there we go. 1249 01:14:44,760 --> 01:14:48,520 That guy right there. I'm learning a camera. 1250 01:14:49,120 --> 01:14:51,960 So the under writes in is a conglomeration of multiple 1251 01:14:51,960 --> 01:14:53,760 different people bound together by fungus. 1252 01:14:54,920 --> 01:14:58,960 When it takes critical damage, it rips apart, splitting into 1253 01:14:58,960 --> 01:15:01,840 its individual hosts. And then you have five people to 1254 01:15:01,840 --> 01:15:04,880 deal with instead of 1 hulking creature that are coming at you. 1255 01:15:06,120 --> 01:15:09,480 So be creative with your critical damage, especially for 1256 01:15:09,480 --> 01:15:12,160 your your boss creatures or anything that's meant to be 1257 01:15:12,160 --> 01:15:17,240 super impactful. And then just real quick, we got 1258 01:15:17,240 --> 01:15:19,120 a bunch of cheats that you can use here. 1259 01:15:20,080 --> 01:15:25,680 If the creature can avoid being hit or void being harmed, bump 1260 01:15:25,680 --> 01:15:28,880 up its HP. If it can soak up damage, give 1261 01:15:28,880 --> 01:15:32,600 it a little bit of armor. We typically run in ranges of 1262 01:15:32,600 --> 01:15:34,920 zero to three for most creatures. 1263 01:15:35,680 --> 01:15:39,880 But the truly, you know, damaged Stokes, the true tanks might 1264 01:15:39,960 --> 01:15:41,720 have a little bit more armor than that. 1265 01:15:42,080 --> 01:15:44,400 But again, keep that for special circumstances that we usually 1266 01:15:44,400 --> 01:15:45,760 want to keep in that zero to three range. 1267 01:15:47,320 --> 01:15:53,640 If a character or an NPC is physically powerful, gives them 1268 01:15:53,640 --> 01:15:57,920 more strength, or if they have the ability to avoid or to 1269 01:15:57,920 --> 01:16:01,000 continue to fight after taking serious harm. 1270 01:16:01,280 --> 01:16:06,800 You know, what's that Jason in the horror movie? 1271 01:16:06,840 --> 01:16:09,560 You can shoot that fucker as many times as you want, but he's 1272 01:16:09,560 --> 01:16:11,800 going to keep going. That is a character with high 1273 01:16:11,800 --> 01:16:14,160 strength. He is taking that harm. 1274 01:16:14,440 --> 01:16:16,560 You can see it. You're blowing poles in them 1275 01:16:16,560 --> 01:16:18,520 with your guns, but he's going to keep moving. 1276 01:16:18,520 --> 01:16:21,160 That is a physically powerful character with high strength. 1277 01:16:22,520 --> 01:16:25,680 Now, these characters might also have a higher damage dying 1278 01:16:25,680 --> 01:16:27,920 response. You know, Jason can cleave 1279 01:16:27,920 --> 01:16:30,000 through people with a machete in one swing. 1280 01:16:30,000 --> 01:16:33,120 He might be doing D10 damage with that machete. 1281 01:16:35,320 --> 01:16:38,600 So basically powerful character or high strength or high damage 1282 01:16:39,640 --> 01:16:42,320 if they're quick again gives them either higher hit 1283 01:16:42,320 --> 01:16:44,560 protection or just bum it up to dexterity. 1284 01:16:45,640 --> 01:16:50,480 Dex is something that's rarely used compared to the control and 1285 01:16:50,480 --> 01:16:53,520 strength. It's mostly for attempts to sort 1286 01:16:53,520 --> 01:16:56,560 of bind a character down. If you have a Taser, that's 1287 01:16:56,560 --> 01:16:59,880 going to target stress directly or about stress dexterity 1288 01:16:59,880 --> 01:17:02,320 directly. So keep that in mind as you're 1289 01:17:02,320 --> 01:17:04,680 building your creature. It's a little less needed than 1290 01:17:04,680 --> 01:17:07,200 some of the other ones, but if they are quick, give them high 1291 01:17:07,200 --> 01:17:09,320 decks. And more importantly, if the 1292 01:17:09,320 --> 01:17:13,640 creatures are weird or have a better understanding of the 1293 01:17:13,640 --> 01:17:19,280 weird, give them high control. If they are ones that can do 1294 01:17:19,280 --> 01:17:22,640 things that are weird instead of standard damage, give them a 1295 01:17:22,640 --> 01:17:25,440 stress damage to deal out to your players. 1296 01:17:28,080 --> 01:17:29,640 I think we got a question here. It's a. 1297 01:17:32,800 --> 01:17:36,640 Good question. In chat from a grass cower he 1298 01:17:36,680 --> 01:17:39,920 says I often don't see stability on stat blocks. 1299 01:17:39,920 --> 01:17:42,400 I imagine this could be because PCs don't have many ways of 1300 01:17:42,400 --> 01:17:45,440 dealing stress. Are there any other reasons for 1301 01:17:45,440 --> 01:17:47,880 this, or is it just omitted or considered redundant? 1302 01:17:50,320 --> 01:17:53,120 Stability is an interesting thing in the system here. 1303 01:17:53,200 --> 01:17:55,880 So for those who don't immediately know what we refer 1304 01:17:55,880 --> 01:17:57,520 to, we're talking about stability. 1305 01:17:57,520 --> 01:17:59,480 Stability is like your mental armor. 1306 01:18:00,000 --> 01:18:02,680 It is the thing that protects your character from stress. 1307 01:18:02,680 --> 01:18:07,280 The reason we don't really see this primarily is because it's 1308 01:18:07,280 --> 01:18:09,640 kind of rare. You know, most of the time 1309 01:18:09,640 --> 01:18:14,080 stability is coming either from getting fallout or finding like 1310 01:18:14,080 --> 01:18:16,400 an artifact that gives you a little bit more stability. 1311 01:18:16,400 --> 01:18:20,600 It helps you fight against the horrors in a more mental way. 1312 01:18:20,600 --> 01:18:23,680 We want to consider it that rather than the physical way. 1313 01:18:24,680 --> 01:18:28,800 So we've also got this mechanic in there that comes from Evelyn 1314 01:18:28,800 --> 01:18:36,720 Monroe Morayuba about using cell phones to gain stability. 1315 01:18:36,720 --> 01:18:40,360 You're viewing the horrors through a lens and that protects 1316 01:18:40,360 --> 01:18:42,080 you from things being as horrifying. 1317 01:18:42,880 --> 01:18:44,720 So every character carries a cell phones. 1318 01:18:44,720 --> 01:18:46,880 Every character has the potential to gain stability if 1319 01:18:46,880 --> 01:18:50,320 they're using that phone to kind of view the horror rather than 1320 01:18:50,440 --> 01:18:51,800 staring at it with their own eyes. 1321 01:18:52,640 --> 01:18:57,200 So when we're talking about stat blocks, one stability is rare. 1322 01:18:58,640 --> 01:19:02,520 If you're writing in PCs it's only really going to be like 1323 01:19:02,560 --> 01:19:06,000 seasoned investigators that are part of your missions that have 1324 01:19:06,080 --> 01:19:09,680 stability or cultists that are already exposed to the horrors. 1325 01:19:10,000 --> 01:19:15,320 But realistically players dealing stress damage is almost 1326 01:19:15,320 --> 01:19:16,720 non existent. I don't think we have a single 1327 01:19:16,720 --> 01:19:20,760 example of a time where player characters like the 1328 01:19:20,760 --> 01:19:23,960 investigators can deal, unless I'm forgetting something. 1329 01:19:25,360 --> 01:19:29,000 Sometimes a fallout or a resident artifact might cause 1330 01:19:29,000 --> 01:19:32,920 stress, but typically that is in framing how it would cause 1331 01:19:32,920 --> 01:19:39,040 stress to your teammates. Yeah, fair enough. 1332 01:19:39,720 --> 01:19:44,320 So that that's pretty much it. If you can also use the your 1333 01:19:44,320 --> 01:19:46,960 stats as a way to inform narrative. 1334 01:19:47,400 --> 01:19:49,480 Even if you don't think stability is going to be used by 1335 01:19:49,480 --> 01:19:53,000 the player characters in any tangible way, giving a character 1336 01:19:53,000 --> 01:19:55,400 stability is already telling us something about them. 1337 01:19:55,560 --> 01:19:58,520 You know, they have already seen the weird and are protected 1338 01:19:58,520 --> 01:20:00,040 against it. Or maybe they're just sort of 1339 01:20:00,040 --> 01:20:03,080 naturally protected against it, but it might not come up at the 1340 01:20:03,080 --> 01:20:04,760 table. But it tells you that at the 1341 01:20:04,760 --> 01:20:09,840 very least. Well, that mind. 1342 01:20:09,840 --> 01:20:11,640 Do we have anything else to add here before we move on? 1343 01:20:11,640 --> 01:20:18,400 All right, let's keep going. We're getting close to finishing 1344 01:20:18,400 --> 01:20:20,440 up here. Only hour and a half. 1345 01:20:20,440 --> 01:20:22,880 Nice. All right. 1346 01:20:24,520 --> 01:20:31,000 Sanity, this is something that might come up in the adventures 1347 01:20:31,000 --> 01:20:33,400 that you're trying to adapt, but it's not something we really 1348 01:20:33,400 --> 01:20:37,880 deal with with liminal horror. Liminal horror as a system has 1349 01:20:38,480 --> 01:20:42,120 taken the intentional step to diverge away from the concept of 1350 01:20:42,120 --> 01:20:46,480 sanity in an attempt to avoid any of the problematic aspects 1351 01:20:46,480 --> 01:20:49,040 that are sort of associated with what is inevitably the 1352 01:20:49,040 --> 01:20:50,800 stigmatization of mental health struggles. 1353 01:20:52,640 --> 01:20:56,000 If you are converting from an adventure or rewriting from an 1354 01:20:56,000 --> 01:20:59,360 adventure or story that deals heavily with these concepts, 1355 01:21:00,360 --> 01:21:02,480 you're going to have a little bit of hard time because there 1356 01:21:02,480 --> 01:21:07,680 isn't really A1 for one, you know, the the closest analogue 1357 01:21:07,680 --> 01:21:09,480 in the world. Horror is going to be stress and 1358 01:21:09,480 --> 01:21:13,000 fallout. So instead of like you lose D10 1359 01:21:13,000 --> 01:21:17,600 sanity, it's like you can take some stress that's going to 1360 01:21:17,600 --> 01:21:20,360 solve your problem probably 9 times out of 10 or 1361 01:21:20,360 --> 01:21:24,040 realistically, but you have the opportunity to be a little more 1362 01:21:24,040 --> 01:21:29,640 clever with it. So again, when you're, when 1363 01:21:29,640 --> 01:21:32,640 you're dealing with this, you don't really, you don't really 1364 01:21:32,640 --> 01:21:35,080 want to do the descended to madness through fallout. 1365 01:21:35,160 --> 01:21:38,480 You know, like you, you could create a series of fallout that 1366 01:21:38,480 --> 01:21:40,960 represent, you know, various mental health disorders. 1367 01:21:40,960 --> 01:21:43,240 And as the characters take stress, they start to be 1368 01:21:43,240 --> 01:21:45,520 affected by this. But that's not, it's not really 1369 01:21:45,520 --> 01:21:47,120 a good thing to do, all things considered. 1370 01:21:47,120 --> 01:21:48,960 You're still, you're still dealing with the stigmatization 1371 01:21:48,960 --> 01:21:51,760 of mental health. You are gamifying, you know, 1372 01:21:51,760 --> 01:21:54,720 mental health struggles. And there's a there's a fine 1373 01:21:54,720 --> 01:21:56,920 line that you can kind of skate here. 1374 01:21:58,440 --> 01:22:01,240 It's perfectly OK if you like these sanity mechanics. 1375 01:22:01,240 --> 01:22:03,120 And we're not going to tell you how to play your games. 1376 01:22:03,200 --> 01:22:06,680 But little horror as it's set up isn't really meant to support 1377 01:22:06,680 --> 01:22:09,200 that type of play. So just keep that in mind as 1378 01:22:09,200 --> 01:22:11,680 you're you're sort of writing your adventures and doing your 1379 01:22:11,680 --> 01:22:14,000 fallout of your own, especially if you plan on releasing this as 1380 01:22:14,000 --> 01:22:18,800 some third party adventure. What we recommend though, is to 1381 01:22:19,160 --> 01:22:23,720 consider what sanity is meant to elicit in the source material. 1382 01:22:24,520 --> 01:22:29,400 You know, one of the common themes in the Cthulhu stories is 1383 01:22:29,400 --> 01:22:32,760 obsession. Your character is diverging into 1384 01:22:32,760 --> 01:22:34,800 madness through means of obsession. 1385 01:22:35,640 --> 01:22:39,080 We can play with that. We don't necessarily need to do 1386 01:22:39,080 --> 01:22:41,560 with madness part where we can play with the obsession aspect 1387 01:22:41,560 --> 01:22:44,640 of it. Maybe you gain this, this sort 1388 01:22:44,640 --> 01:22:50,560 of hankering to read illicit text or find the source of this 1389 01:22:50,560 --> 01:22:54,000 otherworldly incursion. It is something that is caught 1390 01:22:54,000 --> 01:22:56,960 in your mind and you feel compelled to do so. 1391 01:22:57,480 --> 01:23:01,120 That could be a Fallout might work well because it is sort of 1392 01:23:01,120 --> 01:23:05,240 pulling your characters in a particular direction and putting 1393 01:23:05,240 --> 01:23:09,480 them in danger as they sort of act upon this source of new 1394 01:23:09,480 --> 01:23:12,480 obsession there. But it is not really the 1395 01:23:12,480 --> 01:23:15,240 characters losing their mind in a tangible manner. 1396 01:23:15,240 --> 01:23:19,120 It is the horror drawing them in through means of some inherent 1397 01:23:19,120 --> 01:23:24,520 connection. You think it's to add to this 1398 01:23:24,520 --> 01:23:25,040 one? I think I'm. 1399 01:23:25,720 --> 01:23:29,520 No, I think it's just really important, you know, to make 1400 01:23:29,520 --> 01:23:34,000 sure that you are really cognizant of how you're 1401 01:23:34,000 --> 01:23:36,520 approaching this when you're adapting, especially adapting 1402 01:23:36,520 --> 01:23:40,160 stuff with sanity mechanics, because it is really easy to 1403 01:23:40,160 --> 01:23:44,000 fall into a way that we've been trying to intentionally avoid. 1404 01:23:45,000 --> 01:23:50,120 And that I think I found not only avoiding it as feeling 1405 01:23:50,120 --> 01:23:53,680 good, but it is much more rewarding. 1406 01:23:53,680 --> 01:23:56,520 I think when when we're going to talk about how Fallout comes 1407 01:23:56,520 --> 01:24:00,000 into play, I think it is much more interesting at the table as 1408 01:24:00,000 --> 01:24:00,800 well. I. 1409 01:24:03,280 --> 01:24:04,560 Think it's coming up. Let's see. 1410 01:24:07,600 --> 01:24:09,080 Oh, whoops. And I think Vault's next to all 1411 01:24:09,080 --> 01:24:13,840 right. So the Doom clock, this is 1412 01:24:13,920 --> 01:24:18,760 something that was in the original, what we're calling the 1413 01:24:18,760 --> 01:24:20,560 legacy edition of Liminal Horror. 1414 01:24:20,680 --> 01:24:22,320 It was sort of this this sort of tangent. 1415 01:24:22,520 --> 01:24:26,080 It was included in the back, but a couple lines of text. 1416 01:24:26,080 --> 01:24:29,680 It wasn't like super detailed and explained at the time. 1417 01:24:29,960 --> 01:24:33,080 And we're trying to make this a little bit more robust because 1418 01:24:33,080 --> 01:24:36,480 it's a key part of two of the three modules going forward. 1419 01:24:36,480 --> 01:24:42,560 Well, more than that actually. But you the point the Doom clock 1420 01:24:43,520 --> 01:24:47,160 is an escalating series of events that will come to pass if 1421 01:24:47,160 --> 01:24:53,000 the investigators do not act. This is not something that we've 1422 01:24:53,000 --> 01:24:57,840 invented the the original Doom clock was it from Monster of the 1423 01:24:57,840 --> 01:25:02,880 Week that you pulled it from? Doom Clock I think is if I had 1424 01:25:02,880 --> 01:25:07,160 to trace its lineage, it's very specifically Monster of the 1425 01:25:07,160 --> 01:25:13,440 Week, and then faction fronts from Dungeon World were probably 1426 01:25:13,440 --> 01:25:16,800 the two largest inspirations in terms of what happens when you 1427 01:25:16,800 --> 01:25:23,040 don't do anything, and giving the central tension of the story 1428 01:25:23,480 --> 01:25:28,240 a drive that then adapts as well as players do things. 1429 01:25:30,400 --> 01:25:34,360 Yeah, it's clocks are Forgera design. 1430 01:25:34,560 --> 01:25:36,360 I think it was Ron Edwards himself that came up with the 1431 01:25:36,360 --> 01:25:38,560 original concept, at least as far as we can kind of trace it 1432 01:25:38,560 --> 01:25:42,440 back. For whatever folk might think of 1433 01:25:42,440 --> 01:25:45,920 Ron Edwards, this is probably a single greatest contribution to 1434 01:25:46,160 --> 01:25:53,480 tabletop RPGs is this concept. It was later polled and adapted 1435 01:25:53,480 --> 01:25:57,680 for Apocalypse World. And then these, they're all cold 1436 01:25:57,680 --> 01:25:59,840 different things too, but they're they're progress clocks. 1437 01:25:59,840 --> 01:26:03,120 That's really all it is. And then that concept has been 1438 01:26:03,120 --> 01:26:04,840 brought forward in a number of ways. 1439 01:26:04,960 --> 01:26:08,680 Blaze in the Dark deals with it more directly as like actual 1440 01:26:08,680 --> 01:26:10,400 clocks. They'll call it out as such. 1441 01:26:10,800 --> 01:26:16,760 A Monster of the Week has a funny name for it that I'm 1442 01:26:16,760 --> 01:26:18,360 forgetting. What did you get the point? 1443 01:26:20,120 --> 01:26:22,640 It's worth looking up some of those original inspirations, 1444 01:26:22,640 --> 01:26:25,360 especially as you're trying to write your own doom clock. 1445 01:26:25,760 --> 01:26:28,120 But it's very much something that comes from the story game 1446 01:26:28,160 --> 01:26:31,360 side of things. As a specific mechanic. 1447 01:26:31,400 --> 01:26:35,880 I think this concept is as old as the media itself at a 1448 01:26:35,880 --> 01:26:38,880 minimum. But regardless, the mechanical 1449 01:26:38,880 --> 01:26:41,200 aspect of it at least has that lineage. 1450 01:26:41,960 --> 01:26:44,720 So like we said, it's an escalating series of events. 1451 01:26:44,960 --> 01:26:49,120 What the doom clock is for is creating tension over periods of 1452 01:26:49,120 --> 01:26:52,400 time. The period of time itself is 1453 01:26:52,400 --> 01:26:56,120 subjective. It will depend on what you want 1454 01:26:56,120 --> 01:26:59,600 your doom clock to accomplish. This could be a single session. 1455 01:26:59,600 --> 01:27:01,320 You can use a clock for a session. 1456 01:27:01,320 --> 01:27:04,760 You realistically you can use a clock for like 1 action if you 1457 01:27:04,760 --> 01:27:06,200 really want to. But I think getting that 1458 01:27:06,200 --> 01:27:12,640 granular kind of lose the plot a little bit, but you know, it's 1459 01:27:13,000 --> 01:27:17,360 or creating that tension. These are the events that happen 1460 01:27:17,480 --> 01:27:20,600 if you do nothing. It is the timeline that happens 1461 01:27:20,600 --> 01:27:23,000 if the PCs don't act. That's another common way it's 1462 01:27:23,000 --> 01:27:24,920 referred to, especially in OSR spaces. 1463 01:27:25,640 --> 01:27:29,960 Not every scenario is really going to benefit from one 1464 01:27:29,960 --> 01:27:31,760 either. So we, we recommend this, 1465 01:27:33,120 --> 01:27:36,200 especially if you were having trouble with naturally creating 1466 01:27:36,200 --> 01:27:38,240 tension, but you know you're not always going to need it. 1467 01:27:38,480 --> 01:27:42,680 You know, if you're in a, you dropped in a horror dungeon and 1468 01:27:42,680 --> 01:27:47,080 your one goal is to escape, you don't really need something 1469 01:27:47,080 --> 01:27:48,680 ticking in the background to create tension. 1470 01:27:48,680 --> 01:27:50,560 The tension is created in the moment you're trying to get the 1471 01:27:50,560 --> 01:27:54,200 fuck out of the building, the things that you encounter or 1472 01:27:54,200 --> 01:27:58,880 where that tension comes from. But this is chasing your players 1473 01:27:58,880 --> 01:28:01,000 up trees. It's the way I've heard it 1474 01:28:01,000 --> 01:28:04,760 referred to. It helps. 1475 01:28:04,760 --> 01:28:08,320 It is what's pushing you deeper into the investigation. 1476 01:28:08,800 --> 01:28:13,400 If you can't find those clues, the horror is going to act and 1477 01:28:13,400 --> 01:28:16,520 it will continue to act until it achieves its goals. 1478 01:28:16,520 --> 01:28:18,120 And that is what the Doom clock represents. 1479 01:28:18,600 --> 01:28:22,000 It's the horror pushing forward, doing what it wishes to achieve 1480 01:28:22,000 --> 01:28:28,400 up until certain doom happens. Now, doom is subjective and 1481 01:28:28,400 --> 01:28:30,440 we'll talk about that later, and I got a slide coming up for 1482 01:28:30,440 --> 01:28:32,600 that. But doom is the the thing the 1483 01:28:32,600 --> 01:28:36,000 horror wants. So the doom clock represents the 1484 01:28:36,000 --> 01:28:38,520 horror acting in service to its goals. 1485 01:28:40,360 --> 01:28:45,560 Now, the key part of this principle is it is designed to 1486 01:28:45,560 --> 01:28:49,560 be interrupted, planned for interference when riding your 1487 01:28:49,560 --> 01:28:52,960 doom clocks don't It's, it's, this is not a railroad. 1488 01:28:52,960 --> 01:28:56,600 This is a representation of the horrors attempting to achieve 1489 01:28:56,600 --> 01:28:58,480 their goals. So if the players do what 1490 01:28:58,480 --> 01:29:01,400 they're supposed to do, you may never tick down the entire doom 1491 01:29:01,400 --> 01:29:05,320 clock. It is just when they do not act, 1492 01:29:05,400 --> 01:29:09,840 or they make a choice that puts them into the wrong place at the 1493 01:29:09,840 --> 01:29:12,880 wrong time, or they're slow in their actions, doom clock ticks 1494 01:29:12,880 --> 01:29:15,080 forward and bad things come to pass. 1495 01:29:15,080 --> 01:29:22,200 So with that in mind, it is worth keeping track of when your 1496 01:29:22,200 --> 01:29:27,680 clock ticks forward. In the most basic sense, the 1497 01:29:27,680 --> 01:29:29,720 best time to tick a doom clock forward is when it's most 1498 01:29:29,720 --> 01:29:33,600 narratively interesting. What that means will change 1499 01:29:33,600 --> 01:29:37,240 depending on your adventure. In the Bloom, the doom clock 1500 01:29:37,240 --> 01:29:40,960 ticks forward once a day. The idea for the bloom was that 1501 01:29:41,240 --> 01:29:44,200 the adventure takes place over the course of about a week, with 1502 01:29:44,200 --> 01:29:46,600 the doom clock ticking forward every night to represent the 1503 01:29:46,600 --> 01:29:49,640 days passing. So we found that to be 1504 01:29:49,640 --> 01:29:52,840 narratively interesting because you have this very clear day and 1505 01:29:52,840 --> 01:29:56,160 night cycle here, linked to the horror itself as it progresses 1506 01:29:56,160 --> 01:29:57,600 over the course of the investigation. 1507 01:29:58,280 --> 01:30:02,240 But your doom clock might have other triggers, you know? 1508 01:30:02,240 --> 01:30:08,160 It might be when the players do something directly, you know, 1509 01:30:08,160 --> 01:30:13,720 like when they find the mayor's letter, they're secretly seen, 1510 01:30:13,720 --> 01:30:16,520 but one of the cultists hiding in the behind a painting staring 1511 01:30:16,520 --> 01:30:18,760 out at them. They will begin to push their 1512 01:30:18,760 --> 01:30:21,200 plans forward quicker. So it takes the clock. 1513 01:30:22,000 --> 01:30:24,400 Those are a little bit more complex to kind of set up there, 1514 01:30:24,400 --> 01:30:27,480 but it is worth exploring if you think you've got a good idea to 1515 01:30:27,480 --> 01:30:30,240 do it. But the easiest way to do it is 1516 01:30:30,400 --> 01:30:34,560 set intervals, you know, phases, days, real world time. 1517 01:30:34,960 --> 01:30:40,440 There is a really good mothership one shot, the 1518 01:30:40,440 --> 01:30:44,040 haunting of Epsilon 14. This doesn't have a doom clock 1519 01:30:44,040 --> 01:30:47,080 per SE, but it does have a escalating sequence of events 1520 01:30:47,080 --> 01:30:51,760 linked to a time structure. It's every 10 minutes of real 1521 01:30:51,760 --> 01:30:54,240 time. If you run it as it's written, 1522 01:30:54,480 --> 01:30:57,000 the monster at the center of the adventure kills someone. 1523 01:30:57,640 --> 01:31:00,000 So you have this thing moving in the background and it is not 1524 01:31:00,000 --> 01:31:03,400 linked to the adventure itself. This is session pacing. 1525 01:31:03,400 --> 01:31:06,760 With Epsilon 14, you know, it's dealing with real time. 1526 01:31:06,760 --> 01:31:10,200 It it keeps the pace moving, it keeps things moving forward. 1527 01:31:10,200 --> 01:31:13,640 The players are never settled. They're always on their back 1528 01:31:13,640 --> 01:31:16,000 feet because they have to keep reacting to this thing going 1529 01:31:16,000 --> 01:31:21,480 around and killing people. And so that's also worth keeping 1530 01:31:21,480 --> 01:31:26,240 in mind that it is inherently attempting to create escalating 1531 01:31:26,240 --> 01:31:28,080 tension. So you can take the clock 1532 01:31:28,080 --> 01:31:30,320 forward when things start to drag. 1533 01:31:31,760 --> 01:31:38,000 If you are stuck on those clues, you take the clock forward. 1534 01:31:38,000 --> 01:31:41,120 That gives your player something to react to, to move forward, to 1535 01:31:41,120 --> 01:31:45,560 continue to push the adventure forward in listing of a tangible 1536 01:31:45,560 --> 01:31:51,480 manner. Now we have a sort of formulized 1537 01:31:51,480 --> 01:31:57,400 this set up as part of the writing that we're doing for the 1538 01:31:57,400 --> 01:31:59,760 deluxe edition. This is all drafts, so some of 1539 01:31:59,760 --> 01:32:02,120 it may change, but we figured it'd be a pretty good idea to 1540 01:32:02,120 --> 01:32:04,400 start talking about this in some more of a formal manner. 1541 01:32:04,400 --> 01:32:08,400 Here we've written a basic setup for a doom clock. 1542 01:32:09,200 --> 01:32:16,080 This is a six step clock, you know, and it represents a rough 1543 01:32:16,080 --> 01:32:19,280 story arc. If you follow this doom clock, 1544 01:32:19,520 --> 01:32:22,160 you got the seeds to a pretty good horror adventure. 1545 01:32:22,920 --> 01:32:26,440 It is inherently set up for a specific type of horror 1546 01:32:26,440 --> 01:32:29,720 adventure, a slow burn. So this might not be useful for 1547 01:32:29,720 --> 01:32:34,240 you specifically, but keep these in mind as you're running 1548 01:32:34,240 --> 01:32:36,040 through, as you're writing your doom clock. 1549 01:32:36,040 --> 01:32:38,160 This is how we're going to be telling people how to do it. 1550 01:32:41,120 --> 01:32:43,520 Like I said, there's six stops steps. 1551 01:32:44,240 --> 01:32:51,800 It's Doom 12345 and Doom itself. The first of these steps is the 1552 01:32:51,800 --> 01:32:55,440 calm before the storm. This is really just a 1553 01:32:55,440 --> 01:32:57,480 representation of where your investigators, and it's with the 1554 01:32:57,480 --> 01:33:02,000 narrative. Things have already started to 1555 01:33:02,000 --> 01:33:04,280 be a little weird. That is what does drawing your 1556 01:33:04,280 --> 01:33:09,040 investigators in to begin with. But we don't really know what's 1557 01:33:09,040 --> 01:33:11,680 going on yet. Nothing has been revealed in any 1558 01:33:11,680 --> 01:33:15,320 substantial manner when we move into Doom 2. 1559 01:33:16,640 --> 01:33:19,560 This is when the omens start to manifest. 1560 01:33:20,440 --> 01:33:25,400 The things appear that hint at the grander horror. 1561 01:33:26,240 --> 01:33:29,320 This might just be, you know, people dying or disappearing. 1562 01:33:29,480 --> 01:33:31,720 Something subtle that's still in the background but enough to 1563 01:33:31,720 --> 01:33:33,720 draw attention for those that are looking. 1564 01:33:35,360 --> 01:33:38,360 When you finally get to Doom 3, that's when things start to get 1565 01:33:38,360 --> 01:33:40,480 a little worse. The plot thickens. 1566 01:33:41,680 --> 01:33:45,000 You have tangible encounters with the weird, or at least they 1567 01:33:45,000 --> 01:33:47,160 begin to happen in more frequency. 1568 01:33:48,000 --> 01:33:52,000 NPCS that you interact with may disappear, or, as we talked 1569 01:33:52,000 --> 01:33:55,080 about earlier, the environment starts to noticeably change, as 1570 01:33:55,280 --> 01:33:58,160 long as they're going to the locations to see the change. 1571 01:33:59,920 --> 01:34:03,440 By the time you reach Doom Four, you're more than halfway through 1572 01:34:03,440 --> 01:34:06,000 this arc here. This is when the threat is made 1573 01:34:06,000 --> 01:34:08,320 apparent. The horror is exposed. 1574 01:34:09,240 --> 01:34:12,720 Maybe the creature is seen in broad daylight, or maybe more 1575 01:34:12,720 --> 01:34:17,200 people are taken away. Either way, it's harder at this 1576 01:34:17,200 --> 01:34:21,080 stage in your horror adventure to ignore that something bad is 1577 01:34:21,080 --> 01:34:23,080 happening. That is sort of the key part 1578 01:34:23,080 --> 01:34:27,000 here. By the time you get to Doom 5, 1579 01:34:27,160 --> 01:34:29,560 this is when the horror comes knocking directly. 1580 01:34:29,560 --> 01:34:32,600 It's either going to be through direct action against you and 1581 01:34:32,600 --> 01:34:36,680 your investigators, or it's going to be indirectly through 1582 01:34:36,680 --> 01:34:41,320 environmental change. Once you've reached this point, 1583 01:34:41,520 --> 01:34:44,000 it is effectively the point of no return. 1584 01:34:44,000 --> 01:34:48,360 The horror has done something tangible, whether it's, you 1585 01:34:48,360 --> 01:34:51,440 know, kidnap people, it's killed in PCs that has taken over the 1586 01:34:51,440 --> 01:34:56,280 environment, is doing something to make it very apparent that 1587 01:34:56,280 --> 01:34:59,360 you as investigators have to act if you're going to prevent 1588 01:34:59,360 --> 01:35:02,800 certain doom. And then certain doom is the 1589 01:35:02,800 --> 01:35:06,480 final step. This is truly the point of no 1590 01:35:06,480 --> 01:35:08,040 return. There was no turning back after 1591 01:35:08,040 --> 01:35:12,040 this point has happened. If you have reached Doom 6, you 1592 01:35:12,040 --> 01:35:15,360 know Doom itself, the investigators have failed to 1593 01:35:15,360 --> 01:35:17,960 prevent the horrors from enacting their plans. 1594 01:35:18,840 --> 01:35:21,600 Those, the goals that we talked about earlier, the horror has 1595 01:35:21,600 --> 01:35:24,040 achieved them in some tangible manner. 1596 01:35:24,800 --> 01:35:28,680 The key here, when you're writing your doom clock is what 1597 01:35:28,680 --> 01:35:34,160 this means is subjective. This could be the world ends. 1598 01:35:34,160 --> 01:35:36,480 That's sort of the extreme end of it, you know? 1599 01:35:36,760 --> 01:35:40,280 The otherworldly creature has found its way into our prime 1600 01:35:40,280 --> 01:35:42,960 material plane and is bringing with it the apocalypse. 1601 01:35:43,960 --> 01:35:46,440 Doom has happened, but this might be smaller, might be more 1602 01:35:46,440 --> 01:35:50,120 personal. In the bloom, Doom simply means 1603 01:35:50,120 --> 01:35:51,920 that cold water has been consumed entirely. 1604 01:35:51,920 --> 01:35:53,920 The town is gone as the you knew it. 1605 01:35:54,320 --> 01:35:57,720 The creatures and the fungus have spread and manifested. 1606 01:36:01,680 --> 01:36:05,880 This also could be something smaller and more personal. 1607 01:36:07,560 --> 01:36:10,560 If your investigation is about discovering the location of a 1608 01:36:10,560 --> 01:36:14,760 kidnapped NPC that you're hired to find certain doom. 1609 01:36:14,760 --> 01:36:18,960 Might be the NPC being killed by whoever has her hostage, or 1610 01:36:18,960 --> 01:36:23,400 maybe injected with whatever serum is being tested out that's 1611 01:36:23,400 --> 01:36:25,200 causing these horrid monstrosities. 1612 01:36:25,640 --> 01:36:27,960 You could no longer save this person. 1613 01:36:28,200 --> 01:36:31,880 They are lost. But above all, the adventure is 1614 01:36:31,880 --> 01:36:34,640 not over. Not always. 1615 01:36:34,640 --> 01:36:40,120 When Doom happens, you can still do something, it's just who 1616 01:36:40,120 --> 01:36:43,080 knows what that something is. If you are chasing after that 1617 01:36:43,080 --> 01:36:46,800 NPC has been transformed, it might be as simple as you're 1618 01:36:46,800 --> 01:36:49,960 putting them down so they no longer suffer as a horror, or 1619 01:36:49,960 --> 01:36:53,320 even going and destroying the lab that has created these 1620 01:36:53,320 --> 01:36:55,840 monstrosities to prevent future monstrosities. 1621 01:36:56,160 --> 01:36:58,680 Even though Doom has occurred, there is still a course of 1622 01:36:58,680 --> 01:37:01,920 action that can go forth. Even when cold water had been 1623 01:37:01,920 --> 01:37:04,440 completely consumed by the fungal horde. 1624 01:37:05,400 --> 01:37:08,680 You're still up and you're still moving around as characters. 1625 01:37:09,680 --> 01:37:11,640 Maybe you burn the whole town to the ground. 1626 01:37:12,520 --> 01:37:13,880 That seems to be pretty confident. 1627 01:37:13,880 --> 01:37:17,920 Thing is to burn it all down, so keep that in mind. 1628 01:37:18,200 --> 01:37:21,640 Doom represents serious, tangible change that has 1629 01:37:21,640 --> 01:37:23,720 happened. The steps of the Doom clock are 1630 01:37:23,760 --> 01:37:26,520 escalating up until that point and the horror has achieved 1631 01:37:26,520 --> 01:37:29,800 their goals, but it does not mean that the end has happened 1632 01:37:30,120 --> 01:37:35,680 necessarily. We've anything else to add to 1633 01:37:35,680 --> 01:37:41,800 this before we move forward? Any questions or anything that 1634 01:37:41,800 --> 01:37:47,680 would be pertinent? All right, let's keep moving. 1635 01:37:47,680 --> 01:37:50,840 We only got AI got four more, well, three more technically. 1636 01:37:50,840 --> 01:37:53,280 The 4th is a question slide. So we're just about coming up 1637 01:37:53,280 --> 01:37:56,560 towards the end here. If you have questions, prop 1638 01:37:56,560 --> 01:37:58,320 those in the chat. We're going to start covering 1639 01:37:58,320 --> 01:38:00,160 them in just a few minutes. Oops. 1640 01:38:03,640 --> 01:38:08,880 OK, so the void crawl, this is something that we've been toying 1641 01:38:08,880 --> 01:38:13,320 with. It exists in multiple forms and 1642 01:38:13,320 --> 01:38:17,360 we're sort of coalescing those into what will come to be the 1643 01:38:17,360 --> 01:38:20,560 deluxe edition. So this this has been fluid 1644 01:38:20,560 --> 01:38:24,240 since it's been introduced. There is a form in the The 1645 01:38:24,240 --> 01:38:25,720 Little Horror Investigator's edition. 1646 01:38:26,040 --> 01:38:28,480 It is useful, but we are making some changes to it. 1647 01:38:28,480 --> 01:38:32,640 Just keep that in mind. But it first appeared in the 1648 01:38:32,640 --> 01:38:38,840 Bloom and it will be in Hungry Hollow as well, just for 1649 01:38:38,840 --> 01:38:41,600 reference. So the Void Crawl is a 1650 01:38:41,600 --> 01:38:44,960 procedure, we call it, you know, procedure for exploring dark 1651 01:38:44,960 --> 01:38:46,880 spaces. But it could be a little more 1652 01:38:46,880 --> 01:38:49,520 useful beyond that. What it is, is it's using an 1653 01:38:49,520 --> 01:38:54,440 overloaded encounter die to create narrative events. 1654 01:38:54,440 --> 01:39:00,120 Effectively, an overloaded encounter die is something 1655 01:39:00,120 --> 01:39:02,840 that's been floating around for, and I think the original blog 1656 01:39:02,840 --> 01:39:05,560 cross like 10 years ago, but it's not necessarily a term that 1657 01:39:05,560 --> 01:39:10,400 everybody knows. So just real quick, your 1658 01:39:10,400 --> 01:39:12,040 standard encounter die is AD six. 1659 01:39:13,280 --> 01:39:15,160 You roll. This is, we're talking OSR play 1660 01:39:15,160 --> 01:39:17,640 that we take, you know, kind of pay homage to with this system 1661 01:39:17,640 --> 01:39:19,680 here. So you roll your D6. 1662 01:39:20,000 --> 01:39:22,360 If it lands on A1, the encounter occurs. 1663 01:39:22,720 --> 01:39:25,480 If it lands on a two or three, some sign of the encounter 1664 01:39:25,480 --> 01:39:29,040 occurs, and if it lands on a four to six, nothing happens. 1665 01:39:29,680 --> 01:39:33,320 You roll your encounter die every, you know, 15 minutes, 1666 01:39:33,320 --> 01:39:35,640 every dungeon Hearn, so on and so forth. 1667 01:39:35,640 --> 01:39:37,600 That's usually the pretty standard procedure there. 1668 01:39:38,240 --> 01:39:42,840 When an overload encounter die does is add other things to the 1669 01:39:42,840 --> 01:39:48,320 die roll in its original form. This was a lot about resource 1670 01:39:48,320 --> 01:39:52,520 tracking, you know, like if you roll A3, the torch that you've 1671 01:39:52,520 --> 01:39:54,440 been carrying this dungeon so far goes out. 1672 01:39:55,120 --> 01:39:58,520 It's it's offloading a lot of tracking onto a sort of random 1673 01:39:58,520 --> 01:40:02,200 encounter mechanic there that you're already rolling to begin 1674 01:40:02,200 --> 01:40:08,120 with. So the original post, I think 1675 01:40:08,120 --> 01:40:11,800 it's by Necro, Necro Praxis is the original blog poster, 1676 01:40:11,880 --> 01:40:14,120 something like that. It's worth reading that, 1677 01:40:14,120 --> 01:40:16,360 especially if you want to learn more about this as we are sort 1678 01:40:16,360 --> 01:40:19,320 of developing it over time. But with that in mind. 1679 01:40:20,680 --> 01:40:23,400 The Over the Void crawl is an overloaded encounter die. 1680 01:40:23,880 --> 01:40:25,800 It is your standard encounter die. 1681 01:40:26,000 --> 01:40:30,960 You're rolling it when something significant happens in terms of 1682 01:40:30,960 --> 01:40:34,040 time investment. You're exploring a new location. 1683 01:40:34,040 --> 01:40:38,040 You are resting for an extended period of time. 1684 01:40:39,280 --> 01:40:41,240 There's a lull, so you want something to occur. 1685 01:40:41,320 --> 01:40:43,480 You roll it and some random event happens. 1686 01:40:46,200 --> 01:40:49,760 This again, just like the Doom Clock, you're not going to need 1687 01:40:49,760 --> 01:40:53,280 a void crawl for every scenario. Sometimes you can just get away 1688 01:40:53,280 --> 01:40:54,520 with that standard encounter roll. 1689 01:40:54,520 --> 01:40:58,880 You know your role at D6 and on A1 an encounter happens that 1690 01:40:58,880 --> 01:41:01,840 might be perfect for your system or for your adventure. 1691 01:41:02,480 --> 01:41:08,440 Void crawls become specifically useful when you need conflict to 1692 01:41:08,440 --> 01:41:13,240 drive play forward. Or you could use some narrative 1693 01:41:13,240 --> 01:41:17,240 engine to help generate events for your players to react to. 1694 01:41:18,440 --> 01:41:23,640 This is especially helpful in sandbox locations. 1695 01:41:23,760 --> 01:41:27,280 You know, the bloom is a big open, you know, like a town and 1696 01:41:27,280 --> 01:41:29,960 its surrounding areas. Hungry Hollow is a similar 1697 01:41:29,960 --> 01:41:31,360 event. You're dealing with one specific 1698 01:41:31,360 --> 01:41:35,400 town there. Things are going to be happening 1699 01:41:36,200 --> 01:41:39,040 as the Horror Story sort of ramps up and the void crawl is a 1700 01:41:39,040 --> 01:41:43,800 representation of that is giving you information in one sense, 1701 01:41:43,800 --> 01:41:45,760 but it's awful giving you something to react to as you 1702 01:41:45,760 --> 01:41:48,760 continue to push forward. So the way we have it set up, 1703 01:41:50,320 --> 01:41:54,920 it's D6 when you rolling this die is really up to you as the 1704 01:41:54,920 --> 01:41:58,080 adventure writer. We say every 20 minutes or every 1705 01:41:58,080 --> 01:42:01,440 time something you know you're exploring a new location or 1706 01:42:01,440 --> 01:42:02,760 something interesting is happening. 1707 01:42:02,760 --> 01:42:05,200 If you whatever you want the complications that's sort of 1708 01:42:05,200 --> 01:42:11,800 like the long short of it. We roll it, you consult the 1709 01:42:11,800 --> 01:42:15,520 results and you look at the table and you can kind of break 1710 01:42:15,520 --> 01:42:17,960 it down further from there. What we've done is we split the 1711 01:42:17,960 --> 01:42:21,920 void crawl into phases. It's typically two phases, you 1712 01:42:21,920 --> 01:42:26,440 know, day and night is what we've been working with, but you 1713 01:42:26,440 --> 01:42:29,120 can break it down in any sort of granular manner you think is 1714 01:42:29,120 --> 01:42:33,000 useful. The day night cycle, splitting 1715 01:42:33,000 --> 01:42:38,040 it into two phases with the void crawl helps establish an 1716 01:42:38,040 --> 01:42:42,440 escalating sequence of tension where in the day things are a 1717 01:42:42,440 --> 01:42:46,560 little less scary, but as night happens or night falls, 1718 01:42:48,120 --> 01:42:50,720 everything gets inherently more dangerous because you're using 1719 01:42:50,720 --> 01:42:54,920 more options on the void crawl. So in the bloom, which the one 1720 01:42:54,920 --> 01:42:58,920 we have up on the screen here is based off of, during the day 1721 01:42:59,600 --> 01:43:03,000 when you roll a void crawl, if it is a four to six, you just 1722 01:43:03,000 --> 01:43:06,120 ignore it. Your only concern during the day 1723 01:43:06,120 --> 01:43:10,040 is if you land on a one to three and you use the results that are 1724 01:43:10,040 --> 01:43:14,800 present there. When you are exploring during 1725 01:43:14,800 --> 01:43:18,960 the night, like literal night, that is when you roll or when 1726 01:43:18,960 --> 01:43:22,160 you're in a location that is inherently dangerous in and of 1727 01:43:22,160 --> 01:43:24,400 itself. Say the investigators have 1728 01:43:24,400 --> 01:43:28,000 broken into a factory owned by some, you know, executive that 1729 01:43:28,320 --> 01:43:32,360 the GM knows is doing something shady but the players might not. 1730 01:43:32,920 --> 01:43:36,440 You can use that void crawl. Consider it night terms of the 1731 01:43:36,440 --> 01:43:39,120 phases and how dangerous it might be, even if it's broad 1732 01:43:39,120 --> 01:43:42,000 daylight outside. So day and night and the phases 1733 01:43:42,000 --> 01:43:45,440 being more like narrative constraints rather than literal 1734 01:43:45,440 --> 01:43:48,720 in some spots here. But do I wear the void crawl 1735 01:43:48,720 --> 01:43:52,320 itself? If you roll one, that's an 1736 01:43:52,320 --> 01:43:54,120 encounter. We're calling these the day 1737 01:43:54,120 --> 01:43:58,040 encounters, typically because you're only rolling or only 1738 01:43:58,040 --> 01:43:59,440 concerned with the 1:00 to 3:00 during the day. 1739 01:44:00,640 --> 01:44:06,120 But a day encounter is something strange or uncanny. 1740 01:44:06,840 --> 01:44:09,840 It's not inherently dangerous. You're not being attacked by a 1741 01:44:09,840 --> 01:44:11,600 creature when you're rolling a day encounter. 1742 01:44:11,800 --> 01:44:15,080 But based on what the characters and the players choose to do 1743 01:44:15,080 --> 01:44:17,160 next, that situation might turn deadly. 1744 01:44:18,920 --> 01:44:22,520 When you roll A2, it's a clue. There's a hint of the greater 1745 01:44:22,520 --> 01:44:25,120 mystery at play and warning of danger. 1746 01:44:25,760 --> 01:44:29,800 The key difference here? You will have clues written into 1747 01:44:29,800 --> 01:44:31,920 your environment that the players can explore. 1748 01:44:32,400 --> 01:44:36,640 When a clue is rolled on the Void Crawl and you're exploring 1749 01:44:36,640 --> 01:44:40,760 a location, that clue becomes something immediately obvious to 1750 01:44:40,760 --> 01:44:44,560 the characters. This could be, you know, in the 1751 01:44:44,560 --> 01:44:47,000 bloom. It could just be glowing fungus. 1752 01:44:47,160 --> 01:44:51,200 You know, that might be a clue. And you're seeing this in some 1753 01:44:51,200 --> 01:44:53,280 building in the middle of nowhere as you're kind of 1754 01:44:53,280 --> 01:44:56,400 pulling it out and you look at it and then it is just a small 1755 01:44:56,400 --> 01:44:58,520 little hint something weird is happening. 1756 01:44:58,520 --> 01:45:00,280 This fungus usually doesn't grow here. 1757 01:45:01,840 --> 01:45:05,080 It's telling you that there is a danger happening in the 1758 01:45:05,080 --> 01:45:08,160 background. Maybe you find someone's ID 1759 01:45:08,560 --> 01:45:13,240 dropped upon the ground, or, you know, hammered to the wall, 1760 01:45:13,360 --> 01:45:16,320 tacked into place. Something small, something 1761 01:45:16,320 --> 01:45:17,680 obvious. You'd see it as you entered the 1762 01:45:17,680 --> 01:45:23,320 room, but it's not so large that it solves the mystery for you. 1763 01:45:25,520 --> 01:45:27,960 What we do for the modules is write a list of clues out we got 1764 01:45:27,960 --> 01:45:31,520 like I think we do D10 lists if I remember correctly, and this 1765 01:45:31,520 --> 01:45:33,720 is what I was talking about earlier about having variable 1766 01:45:33,720 --> 01:45:36,120 clues. If you're using a void crawl, 1767 01:45:36,160 --> 01:45:39,120 having that list of things that aren't specific to locations is 1768 01:45:39,120 --> 01:45:42,320 real good and let's that random chance happen during play. 1769 01:45:42,320 --> 01:45:44,720 And it affects how players are going to approach their next 1770 01:45:44,720 --> 01:45:49,360 situation. If they find that ID somewhere 1771 01:45:49,360 --> 01:45:52,520 random in the woods and they know that that character it 1772 01:45:52,520 --> 01:45:56,040 belongs to is safe in town waiting, that gives them a step. 1773 01:45:56,600 --> 01:45:58,440 You can take this and go question the person, why were 1774 01:45:58,440 --> 01:46:02,640 you here during this day? Maybe they dropped the ID by 1775 01:46:02,640 --> 01:46:04,880 accident when they were searching for clues themselves. 1776 01:46:05,240 --> 01:46:07,560 So they get this sorted. Just you're giving the players 1777 01:46:07,640 --> 01:46:10,680 tangible information that they could then choose to act on if 1778 01:46:10,680 --> 01:46:16,200 they so desire. Yeah, if you roll a three, that 1779 01:46:16,200 --> 01:46:19,400 is an omen important of things to come. 1780 01:46:20,000 --> 01:46:22,480 The way that we have kind of broken this down is to kind of 1781 01:46:22,480 --> 01:46:24,440 tie it a little bit more directly to the mechanics there. 1782 01:46:26,440 --> 01:46:28,840 You don't have to use this for your own void crawls. 1783 01:46:28,840 --> 01:46:31,200 We just find this sort of the most interesting way to go about 1784 01:46:31,200 --> 01:46:33,520 this. Take one of your investigator on 1785 01:46:33,520 --> 01:46:36,520 your players, take a look at the fallout table or roll on it 1786 01:46:36,520 --> 01:46:42,640 directly and use that fallout result to foreshadow the fallout 1787 01:46:42,640 --> 01:46:45,000 they will receive next when that comes up. 1788 01:46:45,920 --> 01:46:50,040 So the character might not get into danger anytime soon, but 1789 01:46:50,040 --> 01:46:53,960 note what that fallout is. And you're you're relying on 1790 01:46:53,960 --> 01:46:56,520 those themes of the adventure and you're tying it directly to 1791 01:46:56,520 --> 01:46:59,200 the fallout, and you're warning the player character that if 1792 01:46:59,200 --> 01:47:02,000 they're not careful, this thing is going to happen to them. 1793 01:47:03,160 --> 01:47:06,240 What that means in the moment is it's objective. 1794 01:47:06,400 --> 01:47:08,720 It's random, so we won't always know. 1795 01:47:09,280 --> 01:47:13,200 But one of the good examples was there's a fallout in the bloom 1796 01:47:13,320 --> 01:47:17,600 that's about how fungal cords start growing beneath your skin. 1797 01:47:17,600 --> 01:47:20,080 I think they make your character a little bit stronger, something 1798 01:47:20,080 --> 01:47:23,040 of the sort. You can Telegraph that by having 1799 01:47:23,280 --> 01:47:27,240 thick fungal cords growing on a tree outside of this house. 1800 01:47:27,360 --> 01:47:30,960 So you've you've seeded that imagery and when it starts 1801 01:47:30,960 --> 01:47:35,120 happening to them, you're giving the players a clue at something 1802 01:47:35,160 --> 01:47:38,560 else is going on. This horrid fungus thing is 1803 01:47:38,560 --> 01:47:41,520 transforming the environment, but it's also transforming me. 1804 01:47:41,880 --> 01:47:43,880 So you draw parallels to the things that you see in the 1805 01:47:43,880 --> 01:47:46,040 world. And because it's fun to make 1806 01:47:46,040 --> 01:47:48,960 these things random, that's what the Omen does in the Void Crawl. 1807 01:47:50,440 --> 01:47:54,640 Now for the rest, 3-4 or three. 4-5 and six are sort of things 1808 01:47:54,640 --> 01:47:57,160 that are more importantly dangerous and happening tangibly 1809 01:47:57,160 --> 01:48:00,320 to the characters as opposed to being more like narrative 1810 01:48:00,320 --> 01:48:03,800 events. Four, it's a set back, so 1811 01:48:03,800 --> 01:48:06,600 something that impedes progress. A door locks behind the 1812 01:48:06,600 --> 01:48:09,800 characters, swung shut by some unseen character. 1813 01:48:10,040 --> 01:48:12,440 A tree falls the forest blocking the path ahead. 1814 01:48:12,640 --> 01:48:17,480 The road is eroded away in your path as you're trying to drive 1815 01:48:17,480 --> 01:48:20,200 your car away from a horror chasing behind you. 1816 01:48:20,840 --> 01:48:23,400 Something like that. It stops them in their tracks 1817 01:48:23,400 --> 01:48:26,960 and forces them to reconsider and and alternate routes. 1818 01:48:27,160 --> 01:48:30,040 Is a set back, but it doesn't have to be physical or 1819 01:48:30,040 --> 01:48:33,360 environmental. It could be that a piece of 1820 01:48:33,360 --> 01:48:35,600 equipment in their inventory is suddenly missing. 1821 01:48:36,160 --> 01:48:38,520 Was it stolen? Did it just drop out? 1822 01:48:39,480 --> 01:48:43,240 How necessary was it? You need to play around with 1823 01:48:43,240 --> 01:48:46,840 this a little bit is just impedes progress or potential 1824 01:48:46,840 --> 01:48:52,240 progress. Five is a horror Something 1825 01:48:52,240 --> 01:48:55,480 overtly terrifying or uncanny occurs. 1826 01:48:55,760 --> 01:49:00,040 This isn't an encounter per SE. This is maybe you find a dead 1827 01:49:00,040 --> 01:49:01,360 body. You know that's sort of like the 1828 01:49:01,360 --> 01:49:05,520 the most simplest one there. Maybe it's somebody you know, 1829 01:49:06,960 --> 01:49:12,600 maybe the horror at play in the adventure has infected somebody 1830 01:49:12,600 --> 01:49:15,920 you know, and they are slowly turning into a monster before 1831 01:49:15,920 --> 01:49:18,280 your eyes. Something of the sort. 1832 01:49:19,800 --> 01:49:22,080 Again, it's another one of those situations that could turn into 1833 01:49:22,080 --> 01:49:26,160 an encounter if things progress, but it is meant to sort of 1834 01:49:26,160 --> 01:49:28,600 terrify an, you know, sense of horror there. 1835 01:49:28,800 --> 01:49:32,080 This is again where your themes are going to be essential as 1836 01:49:32,080 --> 01:49:34,360 you're building your lists for this Void Crawl. 1837 01:49:35,280 --> 01:49:37,080 And then finally is the night encounter. 1838 01:49:37,080 --> 01:49:38,840 This is probably the most straightforward. 1839 01:49:39,400 --> 01:49:42,720 One of your creatures appears and it is inherently threatening 1840 01:49:42,720 --> 01:49:46,680 or dangerous. This is a most under most cases 1841 01:49:46,680 --> 01:49:47,920 is gonna be a surprise encounter. 1842 01:49:48,000 --> 01:49:51,080 You know, zombie runs out of the woods, Jason appears with his 1843 01:49:51,080 --> 01:49:54,440 knife, so on and so forth. Deal with that as you see fit. 1844 01:49:57,880 --> 01:49:58,920 All right, That's all I got on that. 1845 01:49:58,920 --> 01:50:05,480 Do we have anything to add? All right, we are gonna keep on 1846 01:50:05,480 --> 01:50:07,160 trucking here. We're getting close to the end, 1847 01:50:08,800 --> 01:50:11,320 all right, Fallout. This is one of the parts you 1848 01:50:11,320 --> 01:50:13,040 need to have a lot of fun, but it's also one of the trickiest 1849 01:50:13,040 --> 01:50:18,760 parts of the system. You are going to want to have 1850 01:50:18,760 --> 01:50:22,760 Fallout for your adventure. You know, we have bunch of ones 1851 01:50:22,760 --> 01:50:24,800 in the Investigator's edition. We're going to have a ton of 1852 01:50:24,800 --> 01:50:28,400 them in the Deluxe edition. Those aren't always going to be 1853 01:50:28,400 --> 01:50:32,080 appropriate for your adventure or mystery or scenario, whatever 1854 01:50:32,080 --> 01:50:34,720 you want to call it. So fallout are representations 1855 01:50:34,720 --> 01:50:36,800 of horrors having a tangible effects on your character. 1856 01:50:37,040 --> 01:50:40,880 This is your character being changed by the horrors that they 1857 01:50:40,880 --> 01:50:44,920 face. Fallout is both. 1858 01:50:45,360 --> 01:50:47,600 Body horror is something happening against your 1859 01:50:47,600 --> 01:50:51,440 character's wills, having two of them directly, but it's also a 1860 01:50:51,440 --> 01:50:56,320 path to power. Fallout is the only source of 1861 01:50:56,320 --> 01:50:59,080 tangible mechanical character progression in the middle 1862 01:50:59,080 --> 01:51:01,880 horror. If you want your stats to 1863 01:51:01,920 --> 01:51:06,400 increase, you have to interface with the horrors directly and 1864 01:51:06,400 --> 01:51:09,880 gain the fallout, but you risk death by doing so, by 1865 01:51:09,880 --> 01:51:12,200 interacting with these horrors. So it's not really something 1866 01:51:12,200 --> 01:51:16,360 that you were seeking unless you are particularly driven by 1867 01:51:16,360 --> 01:51:20,800 certain motivations, but it is a way for your characters to get a 1868 01:51:20,800 --> 01:51:25,240 little stronger. The key is with that strength, 1869 01:51:26,320 --> 01:51:29,880 they also get a little weirder. The one I talked about earlier, 1870 01:51:29,880 --> 01:51:33,000 the fallout were fungal cords start, you know, racing through 1871 01:51:33,000 --> 01:51:36,040 your skin. If your shirt is rolled down, 1872 01:51:36,040 --> 01:51:39,840 somebody's gonna notice that, like big, thick, veiny lines 1873 01:51:39,840 --> 01:51:43,480 beneath your skin that might pulse and convulse and whatnot. 1874 01:51:44,440 --> 01:51:46,000 That is gonna have a narrative implication. 1875 01:51:46,400 --> 01:51:48,920 But it did make your character a little stronger, a little more 1876 01:51:48,920 --> 01:51:51,160 able to take on the horrors that they face. 1877 01:51:52,280 --> 01:51:55,560 Not every Fallout is gonna be like this, but keep that in mind 1878 01:51:55,560 --> 01:51:58,720 that this is where any of the mechanical character progression 1879 01:51:58,720 --> 01:52:01,920 happens. It is taken from the scars from 1880 01:52:01,920 --> 01:52:05,440 the Electric Bastion land and Cairn and sort of blown out 1881 01:52:05,440 --> 01:52:11,120 words to be horror. Now, like I talked about 1882 01:52:11,120 --> 01:52:13,720 earlier, best practices just to directly connect Fallout to the 1883 01:52:13,720 --> 01:52:16,040 scenario. Sometimes the ones we've written 1884 01:52:16,240 --> 01:52:18,400 gonna be perfect for you. Just use those if you're running 1885 01:52:18,400 --> 01:52:21,960 them for your Home group. But if you are doing something a 1886 01:52:21,960 --> 01:52:24,280 little more out there in terms of adapting the mystery or 1887 01:52:24,280 --> 01:52:26,760 writing it for 3rd party publication, you're going to 1888 01:52:26,760 --> 01:52:28,200 want to create your own custom fallout. 1889 01:52:29,680 --> 01:52:32,160 You want to use them to reinforce the underlying themes 1890 01:52:32,160 --> 01:52:34,040 and central tension of your scenario. 1891 01:52:35,240 --> 01:52:44,080 And the key here, it's the sign that you tell your players and 1892 01:52:44,080 --> 01:52:47,120 their characters that they're not just fighting the monsters, 1893 01:52:47,640 --> 01:52:51,240 it's that those monsters could be them under different 1894 01:52:51,240 --> 01:52:54,600 circumstances. Your characters, through 1895 01:52:54,600 --> 01:52:58,440 Fallout, are slowly turning into the creatures that they face, 1896 01:52:59,400 --> 01:53:01,400 even if it does make them a little stronger. 1897 01:53:01,600 --> 01:53:04,000 They're looking at dark reflections of themselves for 1898 01:53:04,000 --> 01:53:05,440 every creature that they take down. 1899 01:53:05,440 --> 01:53:07,320 That has the potential to cause fallout. 1900 01:53:09,840 --> 01:53:12,720 So use that to reinforce your central themes and the central 1901 01:53:12,720 --> 01:53:14,840 horror at the core of your adventure. 1902 01:53:18,560 --> 01:53:23,560 Beyond that, Fallout is subjective. 1903 01:53:24,800 --> 01:53:29,720 You know, we tend to use plus one armor D4 and add it to a 1904 01:53:29,720 --> 01:53:33,920 stat plus one stability or giving people some strange 1905 01:53:33,920 --> 01:53:37,240 ability. You know, I believe it's in the 1906 01:53:37,240 --> 01:53:41,320 Bureau where? Let me read it specifically 1907 01:53:41,320 --> 01:53:47,720 because I like this one. One of the fallout in the Bureau 1908 01:53:47,720 --> 01:53:51,360 is Halo of black flame. It forms over your head that 1909 01:53:51,360 --> 01:53:54,560 Fink at first, but the longer you spend in this place, the 1910 01:53:54,560 --> 01:53:57,640 more pronounced it becomes. Worldly, foreign, added to your 1911 01:53:57,640 --> 01:54:00,240 control. So your characters are getting a 1912 01:54:00,240 --> 01:54:03,480 little better at hindering the horrors, but they have the slow 1913 01:54:03,480 --> 01:54:07,360 spreading flaming Halo forming above their head that is clear 1914 01:54:07,360 --> 01:54:10,040 representation of the corruption that has started to infect their 1915 01:54:10,040 --> 01:54:16,200 system. Again, hard not to notice that 1916 01:54:16,200 --> 01:54:20,200 Fallout it's going to affect how they interact with players and 1917 01:54:20,200 --> 01:54:23,280 other the player characters and the NPCS as they go forward. 1918 01:54:25,560 --> 01:54:28,480 So it has narrative implication and mechanical implication. 1919 01:54:28,480 --> 01:54:31,880 It gives you a little bit of strength but also fucks you up. 1920 01:54:33,640 --> 01:54:35,880 But keep in mind we there's no real hard and fast rule for 1921 01:54:35,880 --> 01:54:41,640 writing Fallout because it is so specific to your chosen 1922 01:54:41,640 --> 01:54:44,000 scenario. If you're doing stat boosts, 1923 01:54:44,320 --> 01:54:46,000 keep it at D4. You don't really want to go 1924 01:54:46,000 --> 01:54:51,280 crazy, but keep in mind that character can only get to 18 and 1925 01:54:51,280 --> 01:54:53,640 you can even naturally roll that during character creation if you 1926 01:54:53,640 --> 01:54:57,440 are exceptionally lucky. You know, giving them armor is a 1927 01:54:57,440 --> 01:54:59,800 good one too. Stability is a nice one because 1928 01:54:59,800 --> 01:55:02,840 it protects them, but it's the weird abilities that I think are 1929 01:55:02,840 --> 01:55:06,720 sort of the more fun. Let me go back to the Bureau 1930 01:55:06,720 --> 01:55:08,560 again because I know we did a couple of ones that are weird 1931 01:55:08,560 --> 01:55:12,280 abilities here, but dude that's an artifact. 1932 01:55:16,560 --> 01:55:19,240 OK so this one is entropic forces. 1933 01:55:19,520 --> 01:55:21,840 Chaos flows through you like a conduit. 1934 01:55:22,080 --> 01:55:26,120 Once procession you can re roll any save or damage die. 1935 01:55:28,440 --> 01:55:31,440 This is playing with a little bit of metatextual aspects of 1936 01:55:31,440 --> 01:55:34,120 it, acknowledging that we are playing a game here, but that is 1937 01:55:34,120 --> 01:55:36,720 a little bit of fun where your character through this 1938 01:55:36,720 --> 01:55:38,920 corruption has a little bit of control over feet. 1939 01:55:40,680 --> 01:55:44,520 Then there's Arm of the Knight. The flesh from your right arm 1940 01:55:44,520 --> 01:55:48,760 slots off and is replaced by sharp angles made of shadows. 1941 01:55:49,960 --> 01:55:53,520 That sharp bit of your arm is now acting as AD 8 weapon. 1942 01:55:54,160 --> 01:55:57,920 So horrifying. You've now lost your arm and 1943 01:55:57,920 --> 01:56:01,200 you've got this construct of shadow that replaces it. 1944 01:56:01,800 --> 01:56:04,440 Well it's pretty cool that it deals D8 damage as you stab the 1945 01:56:04,440 --> 01:56:06,720 rest of the shadow creatures going forward. 1946 01:56:07,240 --> 01:56:09,280 So stuff like that. You don't always have to keep it 1947 01:56:09,280 --> 01:56:12,280 to stat boosts. It is fun if it is also 1948 01:56:12,280 --> 01:56:15,520 terrifying if it just changing your characters in interesting 1949 01:56:15,520 --> 01:56:19,960 ways in ways that push them into more dangerous situations. 1950 01:56:20,480 --> 01:56:24,840 The characters missing an arm is now a shaft of shadow that ends 1951 01:56:24,840 --> 01:56:27,240 at a point they don't really have a hand anymore. 1952 01:56:27,800 --> 01:56:29,360 They can fire their gun with their left hand. 1953 01:56:29,360 --> 01:56:31,920 Not going to be super accurate if they were righty. 1954 01:56:32,520 --> 01:56:35,680 So let's get push them directly into conflict with the creatures 1955 01:56:35,680 --> 01:56:37,960 that they face. Now if you wanna go hit that 1956 01:56:37,960 --> 01:56:40,200 shade, you gotta take your thing and go stab them. 1957 01:56:40,200 --> 01:56:42,240 You gotta get close. You can't rely on that gun like 1958 01:56:42,240 --> 01:56:46,040 you did before. I think we got a question. 1959 01:56:46,040 --> 01:56:49,440 What's up? I lost the presentation. 1960 01:56:49,440 --> 01:56:51,880 It's all Gray. No. 1961 01:56:52,120 --> 01:56:56,320 Is that me? Cuz I still see me and I still 1962 01:56:56,320 --> 01:56:59,400 see this stuff at the bottom. We're stopping. 1963 01:56:59,560 --> 01:57:11,440 We're going to bring you to me. You should be following me. 1964 01:57:11,440 --> 01:57:14,600 I'm going to hit present again. How's that work? 1965 01:57:15,520 --> 01:57:17,400 Boom. Boom, perfect, all fixed. 1966 01:57:17,960 --> 01:57:21,600 May have just turned out. Can you go to another page and 1967 01:57:21,600 --> 01:57:29,320 come back part of it's black one more time? 1968 01:57:29,320 --> 01:57:32,680 I go 2 pages. There we go. 1969 01:57:32,680 --> 01:57:34,120 Now you can go back. Go back. 1970 01:57:34,120 --> 01:57:35,520 OK all. Right, we're good. 1971 01:57:36,120 --> 01:57:37,240 Sick. All right, I was just about done 1972 01:57:37,240 --> 01:57:39,120 with Fallout. Do we have anything to add to 1973 01:57:39,120 --> 01:57:41,320 this one? No. 1974 01:57:41,320 --> 01:57:44,400 And when it says create custom fallout for your adventure, 1975 01:57:44,520 --> 01:57:47,440 sometimes it's just as many as like four to six. 1976 01:57:48,440 --> 01:57:53,080 It communicates to the your the facilitators who if you're 1977 01:57:53,080 --> 01:57:57,320 writing as a third party publishing sort of like it helps 1978 01:57:57,320 --> 01:58:01,320 reinforce the tone. And like I said, like Josh said, 1979 01:58:01,560 --> 01:58:03,600 you can pull from the ones that we've used. 1980 01:58:03,600 --> 01:58:06,800 You can adapt the ones we've used to and change them to be a 1981 01:58:06,800 --> 01:58:08,760 little bit more specific to the monster. 1982 01:58:08,760 --> 01:58:12,360 This is where that theming for the horror comes really into 1983 01:58:12,360 --> 01:58:18,800 play, because it will really, if I have if of teleporting through 1984 01:58:18,800 --> 01:58:20,800 shadows, right? If it's very shadow basically 1985 01:58:20,800 --> 01:58:24,440 did that for the Bureau. There might be a different 1986 01:58:24,440 --> 01:58:27,920 aesthetic theme to the the horror and that might just 1987 01:58:28,200 --> 01:58:33,560 reskin it a little bit. But yeah, it's it's one of the 1988 01:58:33,560 --> 01:58:35,480 harder things to do. It's one of the more fun things 1989 01:58:35,480 --> 01:58:37,560 to do too. And this is one of the more 1990 01:58:37,560 --> 01:58:40,360 memorable things for your players when they get the 1991 01:58:40,360 --> 01:58:42,280 fallout. And it feels really good when 1992 01:58:42,280 --> 01:58:44,480 you've tried a cool one. And then they love that ability 1993 01:58:44,480 --> 01:58:54,480 that you gave them. Now I think we're coming up to 1994 01:58:54,480 --> 01:58:57,880 our last main slide here. If I can get the thing to work. 1995 01:58:59,760 --> 01:59:02,040 Here we go. All right, so we've been talking 1996 01:59:02,040 --> 01:59:09,120 a lot about adapting some mysteries scenarios. 1997 01:59:09,440 --> 01:59:10,920 So we thought it'd be kind of cool to give you guys some 1998 01:59:10,920 --> 01:59:12,760 practical examples of what what that would look like. 1999 01:59:13,440 --> 01:59:20,000 This is just gonna be sorry Frost for a second. 2000 01:59:20,000 --> 01:59:22,640 This is going to be high level stuff. 2001 01:59:22,640 --> 01:59:25,160 For now, we'll just shout out some ideas. 2002 01:59:25,800 --> 01:59:27,840 I've got three up here. I think Albinarch has had a few 2003 01:59:27,840 --> 01:59:31,600 more worth shouting out too. But the idea is, is that we are 2004 01:59:31,640 --> 01:59:33,840 we're taking these original story ideas and then finally a 2005 01:59:33,840 --> 01:59:35,280 little twist and how to adapt them. 2006 01:59:36,640 --> 01:59:39,080 And so we wanted to kind of highlight here that adapt 2007 01:59:39,080 --> 01:59:42,920 adaptations can come from any source of inspiration that has 2008 01:59:42,920 --> 01:59:46,640 merit if you think it would work in modern horror. 2009 01:59:46,960 --> 01:59:49,600 And what we wanted to reiterate here, it's not just old 2010 01:59:49,600 --> 01:59:51,880 adventures that could be anything. 2011 01:59:51,880 --> 01:59:54,360 So I got three, like I said, I think we got a few more that we 2012 01:59:54,360 --> 01:59:58,960 can kind of screw around with. But the first, the picture of 2013 01:59:58,960 --> 02:00:02,160 Doreen Gray, it's this Oscar Wilde book from I think the late 2014 02:00:02,160 --> 02:00:04,120 1800s, if I had to remember the date. 2015 02:00:05,440 --> 02:00:09,080 For those who don't know, Doreen Gray is about an artist who. 2016 02:00:11,160 --> 02:00:15,720 Has very homoerotic tension with the title character Dorian Gray, 2017 02:00:16,160 --> 02:00:20,400 and puts their like heart and soul into painting this portrait 2018 02:00:20,400 --> 02:00:25,440 of the young man. And Dorian Gray himself. 2019 02:00:25,440 --> 02:00:28,880 Has the sort of existential crisis upon looking at this 2020 02:00:28,880 --> 02:00:33,120 picture and realizing that this is captured a moment in time and 2021 02:00:33,120 --> 02:00:37,560 he will never be as youthful looking as this one picture, so 2022 02:00:37,560 --> 02:00:39,520 it's only going to be a source of sadness. 2023 02:00:40,160 --> 02:00:45,520 And it's through that sort of act that he creates this bind to 2024 02:00:45,520 --> 02:00:52,400 the painting. Where as Dorian ages, his 2025 02:00:52,400 --> 02:00:55,520 physical body remains as pristine as it was within that 2026 02:00:55,520 --> 02:00:58,760 painting when it was painted, But the painting itself changes 2027 02:00:58,760 --> 02:01:00,920 to reflect the changes to Dorian. 2028 02:01:02,360 --> 02:01:04,400 It is. Dorian avoids harm, but his 2029 02:01:04,400 --> 02:01:10,880 painting takes fall out. Now, this is a story that was at 2030 02:01:10,880 --> 02:01:19,040 its heart, sort of kind of playing with criticisms of class 2031 02:01:19,040 --> 02:01:24,800 and wealth and just kind of like how evil people can be at heart 2032 02:01:25,160 --> 02:01:27,040 because Dorian Gray is not a good man. 2033 02:01:27,240 --> 02:01:29,960 And the story is kind of how that sort of unfurls to the 2034 02:01:29,960 --> 02:01:31,960 point that leads up to Dorian's death. 2035 02:01:34,480 --> 02:01:36,640 But we can take some of those core concepts and make them 2036 02:01:36,640 --> 02:01:39,800 horror. This is a little less specific, 2037 02:01:39,800 --> 02:01:42,560 but the one example we have here is that the artist himself has 2038 02:01:42,560 --> 02:01:46,320 gazed upon another world, a shifting world, and they've 2039 02:01:46,320 --> 02:01:49,320 decided to paint it in canvas and oil. 2040 02:01:50,520 --> 02:01:55,040 But gazing upon that world and depicting it in art has created 2041 02:01:55,040 --> 02:01:57,720 a gateway of sorts from this painting. 2042 02:01:58,000 --> 02:02:02,000 And the other world, The shifting world is bleeding 2043 02:02:02,000 --> 02:02:04,880 outwards into ours from the painting itself. 2044 02:02:05,520 --> 02:02:08,520 So in your adventure, weird shit could happen that surrounds this 2045 02:02:08,520 --> 02:02:10,840 artist's home and eventually you have to go down on track down 2046 02:02:10,840 --> 02:02:12,720 and destroy the painting. There you go. 2047 02:02:12,720 --> 02:02:14,080 You got a pretty solid adventure right there. 2048 02:02:14,360 --> 02:02:17,240 Your doom clock could be, you know, things leaking out of the 2049 02:02:17,240 --> 02:02:20,600 painting into our world and so on and so forth, eventually 2050 02:02:20,600 --> 02:02:24,240 leading up to the climax. Now, the next one we have here 2051 02:02:24,480 --> 02:02:27,200 is the original Max Payne by Remedy Entertainment. 2052 02:02:27,200 --> 02:02:31,760 It's a video game from I think it's 2001 PlayStation Two. 2053 02:02:31,800 --> 02:02:38,440 Either way, Max Payne deals with the titular character waging A1 2054 02:02:38,440 --> 02:02:42,080 man war against the entire mafia of New York after his wife and 2055 02:02:42,080 --> 02:02:46,760 child were killed. Based on this new street drug 2056 02:02:46,760 --> 02:02:49,240 that was introduced. Somebody let junkies into his 2057 02:02:49,240 --> 02:02:52,120 house and they killed his family, so he's on a path of 2058 02:02:52,120 --> 02:02:55,880 revenge. Max Payne takes place at New 2059 02:02:55,880 --> 02:02:59,360 York City primarily, but it's not really New York City. 2060 02:02:59,520 --> 02:03:01,760 It's sort of like this nightmare version of it. 2061 02:03:01,760 --> 02:03:05,840 Even within the world of the fiction, it is a noir. 2062 02:03:05,840 --> 02:03:09,960 It's holding on noir themes where New York is mostly a 2063 02:03:09,960 --> 02:03:12,920 nightmare, has Max runs through it and murders hundreds of 2064 02:03:12,920 --> 02:03:15,760 people. But we can take inspiration from 2065 02:03:15,760 --> 02:03:18,240 that. Your investigators, they might 2066 02:03:18,240 --> 02:03:21,360 find themselves trapped in literal nightmare New York, 2067 02:03:22,240 --> 02:03:26,040 drawn into the city through their own personal traumas to 2068 02:03:26,040 --> 02:03:28,520 escape. This is nightmare, the twisting 2069 02:03:28,520 --> 02:03:30,960 skyscapers and winding streets. They need a battle against the 2070 02:03:30,960 --> 02:03:34,560 city's shadowy denizens and dive deeper into its heart to find 2071 02:03:34,840 --> 02:03:36,800 the source of the thing that keeps them locked in this 2072 02:03:36,800 --> 02:03:39,160 nightmare. There you go, you got a whole 2073 02:03:39,160 --> 02:03:41,720 city. You can set your players loose 2074 02:03:41,720 --> 02:03:45,800 on it and let them battle against mobsters as shadow 2075 02:03:45,800 --> 02:03:50,520 entities. It's a little workshopping, but 2076 02:03:50,520 --> 02:03:54,120 I mean the core ideas there. And then the last one we have 2077 02:03:54,120 --> 02:03:59,000 listed here at the very least is Taken Ravenloft and it up a 2078 02:03:59,000 --> 02:04:01,320 little bit. Now, we've stated that modern 2079 02:04:01,320 --> 02:04:03,280 horror doesn't necessarily mean now. 2080 02:04:03,280 --> 02:04:06,240 Modern horror in terms of liminal horror is roughly the 2081 02:04:06,240 --> 02:04:09,280 1970s until now. So you can play with the time 2082 02:04:09,280 --> 02:04:13,880 frame a little bit. So a Raven loft, it's the 1980s. 2083 02:04:13,920 --> 02:04:16,480 You're trapped in the neon high rise of the eccentric 2084 02:04:16,480 --> 02:04:21,520 billionaire tech giant Steve Tsarevich while you entered into 2085 02:04:21,520 --> 02:04:23,240 the building on your own three will. 2086 02:04:23,240 --> 02:04:27,680 No door window has proven to lead back out and you know that 2087 02:04:27,680 --> 02:04:32,760 finding Zarovich is going to be the key to your escape so Raven 2088 02:04:32,760 --> 02:04:37,000 off as a module at least the original was set in. 2089 02:04:37,520 --> 02:04:40,120 I think it's Borovia, if I remember the place right, but 2090 02:04:40,120 --> 02:04:47,160 it's sort of this this place that's it's Rod von Tsarevich. 2091 02:04:47,160 --> 02:04:49,880 That's his name has pulled out of like the normal dimensional 2092 02:04:49,880 --> 02:04:52,720 space and it's kind of created the Demi Demi plane out of it 2093 02:04:52,720 --> 02:04:54,600 that he controls. And though of course of the 2094 02:04:54,600 --> 02:04:56,880 adventures kind of screwing with the player character. 2095 02:04:56,880 --> 02:04:59,400 But they need to go and find several artifacts and take out 2096 02:04:59,400 --> 02:05:04,080 Strad himself so that they could leave, you know, this this 2097 02:05:04,080 --> 02:05:06,240 realm. So you can take that and instead 2098 02:05:06,240 --> 02:05:09,800 of a town in the mid of a Demi plane, trap them in an 80s neon 2099 02:05:09,800 --> 02:05:14,280 high rise where they need to travel through the the floors. 2100 02:05:14,280 --> 02:05:16,560 Each floor of the part of the town that you can kind of steal 2101 02:05:16,560 --> 02:05:18,280 and build up your skyscraper with. 2102 02:05:18,600 --> 02:05:21,800 Finally leading up to the executive suite where you find 2103 02:05:21,800 --> 02:05:23,520 Sarvesh himself and have a goal battle. 2104 02:05:24,840 --> 02:05:27,200 Something of the sort. Again, these ideas need a lot of 2105 02:05:27,200 --> 02:05:30,240 work, but they are examples of things you can do. 2106 02:05:30,560 --> 02:05:33,920 Take the core of these original adventures rip apart and then 2107 02:05:33,920 --> 02:05:37,000 just add a bunch of fun stuff in there to make a modern horror. 2108 02:05:40,200 --> 02:05:45,400 We got a question. Yeah, grass cower. 2109 02:05:45,400 --> 02:05:48,760 Once again, the accent chat. What would you identify as the 2110 02:05:48,880 --> 02:05:52,080 horrors as the horrors of motivation in the case of Dorian 2111 02:05:52,080 --> 02:05:57,200 Gray? So the one that I was talking 2112 02:05:57,200 --> 02:05:59,720 about for for Dorian Gray, this is this is a little bit of a 2113 02:05:59,720 --> 02:06:02,600 spin on the adventure there there. 2114 02:06:03,080 --> 02:06:05,680 The example I gave doesn't have a Dorian Gray. 2115 02:06:05,960 --> 02:06:08,720 It is using the fact that the painting itself is sort of 2116 02:06:08,720 --> 02:06:13,080 inherently magical for all intents and purposes, one we're 2117 02:06:13,080 --> 02:06:17,960 talking about in this case, the horrors motivation it is to 2118 02:06:17,960 --> 02:06:20,920 spread. You know, it is leaking out of 2119 02:06:20,920 --> 02:06:24,640 the painting. The oral wants to continue to do 2120 02:06:24,640 --> 02:06:26,600 so. That Demi plane, you know, the 2121 02:06:26,600 --> 02:06:30,360 shifting world as I've called it, is now having an incursion 2122 02:06:30,360 --> 02:06:32,880 on to ours. It is consuming the prime 2123 02:06:32,880 --> 02:06:36,440 material plane in a sense, You know, it's leaving the frame of 2124 02:06:36,440 --> 02:06:40,320 the painting, is spreading outward to consume everything. 2125 02:06:40,320 --> 02:06:43,880 So the idea would be to find the painting itself and destroy it 2126 02:06:43,880 --> 02:06:48,240 before it can consume. And again, this is a very, very 2127 02:06:48,240 --> 02:06:51,000 simplistic idea. Maybe there is a creature that 2128 02:06:51,000 --> 02:06:54,440 lives beyond the plane but can't quite cross over until a certain 2129 02:06:54,440 --> 02:06:57,440 circumstance has been met. You know, the artist depicts 2130 02:06:57,440 --> 02:07:00,920 this creature that's out there, but it is bound by the shifting 2131 02:07:00,920 --> 02:07:04,040 role in the painting until our world is like the shifting 2132 02:07:04,040 --> 02:07:06,360 world. So the more our world becomes 2133 02:07:06,360 --> 02:07:10,080 that world, the more it has the ability to leave the frame and 2134 02:07:10,080 --> 02:07:13,080 enter our existence. So you you got some options to 2135 02:07:13,080 --> 02:07:15,960 play with it. It can either be environmental 2136 02:07:15,960 --> 02:07:20,360 or a literal bad guy that can kind of like enact these 2137 02:07:20,360 --> 02:07:23,600 changes. But I mean, that example doesn't 2138 02:07:23,600 --> 02:07:24,840 really deal with during angry himself. 2139 02:07:24,840 --> 02:07:28,600 It's just taking the basic pieces of inspiration and then 2140 02:07:28,600 --> 02:07:36,180 running with them. Do we have any more examples we 2141 02:07:36,180 --> 02:07:42,100 want to discuss? Muted. 2142 02:07:42,620 --> 02:07:45,380 OK, I had two that just popped in my head and we were trying to 2143 02:07:45,420 --> 02:07:49,300 think about this. I tend to really like pulling 2144 02:07:49,300 --> 02:07:54,780 from like the Rave of Loftones pulling from an A module, but 2145 02:07:54,780 --> 02:07:56,580 sometimes pulling from film. Right. 2146 02:07:57,680 --> 02:08:03,320 One being I love time loops and I think Groundhog Day is a great 2147 02:08:03,360 --> 02:08:06,600 time loop that would be a great adventure and not that hard to 2148 02:08:06,600 --> 02:08:10,280 make into a horror adventure pulling through And so sort of 2149 02:08:10,280 --> 02:08:13,480 like a time loop slasher. And how do you break that time 2150 02:08:13,480 --> 02:08:15,160 loop? How do you how many ways can one 2151 02:08:15,160 --> 02:08:18,680 person be killed or a party be killed as you loop through 2152 02:08:18,680 --> 02:08:22,280 trying to figure out how to get out another one? 2153 02:08:22,280 --> 02:08:27,920 I think another, and this is more a genre that would be right 2154 02:08:27,920 --> 02:08:31,400 for doing it for modern horror, is heist gone wrong. 2155 02:08:32,320 --> 02:08:35,920 I think that heist gone wrong in and of themselves often have 2156 02:08:35,920 --> 02:08:37,800 their own horror aspects to them. 2157 02:08:37,800 --> 02:08:40,960 And you could play that up pretty highly in a way that is 2158 02:08:40,960 --> 02:08:44,360 very interesting. You know, pulling from Reservoir 2159 02:08:44,360 --> 02:08:49,200 Dogs, you know, thematically to it aligns a little bit with like 2160 02:08:49,200 --> 02:08:53,080 It Follows or Miracle Mile, that sort of that sort of like being 2161 02:08:53,080 --> 02:09:00,200 chased by and escaping as a means of tension. 2162 02:09:00,720 --> 02:09:04,280 And so there's a lot there. There's a lot everywhere to pull 2163 02:09:04,280 --> 02:09:05,840 from. I'm really excited to see what 2164 02:09:05,840 --> 02:09:08,160 people do in terms of Twisted Classics. 2165 02:09:08,160 --> 02:09:11,280 We tried to keep it open enough that it didn't have to just be 2166 02:09:11,800 --> 02:09:14,240 classic modules. It's really like, how can you 2167 02:09:14,240 --> 02:09:18,880 take a concept that you find very passionate about and then 2168 02:09:19,280 --> 02:09:25,120 apply it to the sort of modern horror tabletop context? 2169 02:09:28,400 --> 02:09:29,600 Yeah, make some weird stuff please. 2170 02:09:30,160 --> 02:09:34,480 Please do a time loop someone. Please figure it out so bad. 2171 02:09:34,680 --> 02:09:38,240 Do 10 of them just only time loop adventures, please. 2172 02:09:38,240 --> 02:09:41,960 I just, I think when done right, they're so exciting and I think 2173 02:09:41,960 --> 02:09:45,720 that they're just so ripe for the, the concept of repeating 2174 02:09:45,720 --> 02:09:48,920 over and over is, is in and of itself horrifying. 2175 02:09:48,920 --> 02:09:54,080 And so I think you have such ripe already built in things 2176 02:09:54,080 --> 02:09:56,040 there that I just, I wanna play it. 2177 02:09:56,040 --> 02:09:59,080 I wanna run it. Yeah, the time time loop is, I 2178 02:09:59,080 --> 02:10:00,200 think. I think I've tried three 2179 02:10:00,200 --> 02:10:03,160 separate times to find a compelling way to do it, and I 2180 02:10:03,160 --> 02:10:05,400 have proven incapable of making a time loop. 2181 02:10:05,560 --> 02:10:07,880 So somebody please do it. Unlock the secret. 2182 02:10:11,160 --> 02:10:14,000 All right, so that is it for what we've got prepared on the 2183 02:10:14,000 --> 02:10:15,920 slides here. We would do and open the floor 2184 02:10:15,920 --> 02:10:17,960 to questions. We have a bunch that were 2185 02:10:17,960 --> 02:10:20,000 gathered ahead of time. I think there have been a few 2186 02:10:20,000 --> 02:10:21,240 that have been popping up in chat. 2187 02:10:21,600 --> 02:10:24,000 We'll start there. If you guys have any any more 2188 02:10:24,000 --> 02:10:27,200 questions you want to ask, please dump them into chat as 2189 02:10:27,200 --> 02:10:29,320 we're kind of discussing that and we'll round out at the end 2190 02:10:29,320 --> 02:10:31,920 to grab those. We're not going to do this 2191 02:10:31,920 --> 02:10:36,360 forever, so we may have to cut it off at some point, but either 2192 02:10:36,400 --> 02:10:39,600 way, the floor is open. In theory. 2193 02:10:39,760 --> 02:10:41,800 Let's keep the questions kind of specific to what we've been 2194 02:10:41,800 --> 02:10:45,520 talking about here, but anything greater for the clarity of 2195 02:10:45,520 --> 02:10:48,000 Liminal horror itself. You can either stick to the 2196 02:10:48,000 --> 02:10:50,320 Discord, but if we got a little tired maybe we'll cover it so 2197 02:10:50,320 --> 02:10:51,960 whenever I just lost the question and then we'll figure 2198 02:10:52,080 --> 02:10:56,160 it. Out all right, we'll just stay 2199 02:10:56,160 --> 02:10:58,000 on this window because I like this on transparency. 2200 02:10:58,000 --> 02:11:01,280 So I will keep that in mind and go through some questions that 2201 02:11:01,280 --> 02:11:04,400 were asked on the Discord prior and then someones that were also 2202 02:11:04,400 --> 02:11:09,680 asked during chat. So some specifics. 2203 02:11:10,040 --> 02:11:12,400 Chris, are you asked? From my experience, lots of 2204 02:11:12,400 --> 02:11:15,480 horror trends towards slow burn the mystery, investigating 2205 02:11:15,480 --> 02:11:18,160 clues, getting mixed up into trouble, then a climactic scene. 2206 02:11:18,880 --> 02:11:21,560 What tips can you give designers on providing pacing tools or 2207 02:11:21,560 --> 02:11:24,120 mechanics for adventures that take place over the course of a 2208 02:11:24,120 --> 02:11:27,200 few days? Yeah. 2209 02:11:27,200 --> 02:11:30,560 So this one, I'm not going to say we answered that already, 2210 02:11:30,560 --> 02:11:33,440 but I think in terms of how liminal horror handles that, 2211 02:11:33,440 --> 02:11:35,080 that's going to be your doom clock. 2212 02:11:35,080 --> 02:11:38,800 Let me go back that slide. Do we still see the slides or 2213 02:11:38,800 --> 02:11:40,880 are you covering that? Yeah, no, I'd love to see you 2214 02:11:40,880 --> 02:11:42,400 could go back a few all. Right. 2215 02:11:45,920 --> 02:11:47,720 Yeah. So the doom clock is how we do 2216 02:11:47,720 --> 02:11:49,440 this. It's not the only way to do 2217 02:11:49,440 --> 02:11:50,960 that. That's sort of the big, big key 2218 02:11:50,960 --> 02:11:55,320 distinction here is it's sort of naturally building your sense of 2219 02:11:55,320 --> 02:11:59,280 pace and tension over time just by its very nature of being set 2220 02:11:59,280 --> 02:12:04,920 up. So you want the slow burn. 2221 02:12:07,120 --> 02:12:09,280 The players can do that by their own tension. 2222 02:12:09,440 --> 02:12:12,680 Maybe you'll lead the trail of bread crumbs to create the sense 2223 02:12:12,680 --> 02:12:15,440 of pacing and tension. That's a little harder to do. 2224 02:12:16,440 --> 02:12:20,200 That's being a very skilled writer is to sort of like create 2225 02:12:20,200 --> 02:12:23,360 that tension without the external mechanical aspect of 2226 02:12:23,360 --> 02:12:28,520 it. And that might be through, like 2227 02:12:28,520 --> 02:12:30,440 I said, very clever writing and design. 2228 02:12:31,560 --> 02:12:34,640 This is going to be a little bit of a tangent, but I think it's 2229 02:12:34,640 --> 02:12:38,080 kind of pertinent here on. The Weekly Scroll podcast. 2230 02:12:39,200 --> 02:12:40,200 Never. Never Once. 2231 02:12:41,400 --> 02:12:44,160 Yeah, so this is this is about the intentionality of design and 2232 02:12:44,160 --> 02:12:47,800 how that can affect play and direct play and especially the 2233 02:12:47,800 --> 02:12:51,080 building of tension. Now, Dungeon Crawl Classics, 2234 02:12:51,080 --> 02:12:52,240 we've already talked about it here. 2235 02:12:52,840 --> 02:12:54,720 One of the things that popularized, it's a concept 2236 02:12:54,720 --> 02:12:58,200 called the character fall. DCC isn't the only one to have 2237 02:12:58,200 --> 02:13:00,240 done this. I think it came technically from 2238 02:13:00,240 --> 02:13:02,800 forums that they adapted, but they they sort of formalized the 2239 02:13:02,800 --> 02:13:09,160 process and have popularized it. So what the funnel does is it he 2240 02:13:09,160 --> 02:13:12,280 gives each player a group of characters. 2241 02:13:12,400 --> 02:13:15,120 They're level 0 characters. They're nobodies. 2242 02:13:15,640 --> 02:13:17,840 You put them through effectively a meat grinder. 2243 02:13:17,880 --> 02:13:22,840 And at the end of the funnel you have the character that you're 2244 02:13:22,840 --> 02:13:25,400 taking on to level one will be your adventurer. 2245 02:13:25,400 --> 02:13:28,560 So you play the back story. The moment that your character 2246 02:13:28,560 --> 02:13:31,160 has sort of given away their prior life and turns to 2247 02:13:31,160 --> 02:13:34,520 adventure and how they gain their class and what not is sort 2248 02:13:34,520 --> 02:13:36,120 of linked to this character funnel here. 2249 02:13:36,640 --> 02:13:38,720 That's all pretty well understood by most people here, 2250 02:13:38,840 --> 02:13:41,840 but the the fun part of the aspect of the funnel design 2251 02:13:42,520 --> 02:13:45,080 funnels literally funnel characters. 2252 02:13:45,840 --> 02:13:50,080 You start with sort of a broad arrangement, usually dropped off 2253 02:13:50,080 --> 02:13:53,200 at the face of some dungeon. By the end of it, you're hitting 2254 02:13:53,200 --> 02:13:56,520 the same point you were being literally pushed towards the end 2255 02:13:56,640 --> 02:13:57,960 over the course of the adventure. 2256 02:13:59,040 --> 02:14:00,800 That is intentionality and design. 2257 02:14:01,760 --> 02:14:04,200 That is naturally building pacing and tension. 2258 02:14:04,360 --> 02:14:07,360 Where you've got your mundane start. 2259 02:14:07,360 --> 02:14:10,720 Your first room is the calm before the storm, and your final 2260 02:14:10,720 --> 02:14:13,280 room is the doom, the thing you're trying to escape from. 2261 02:14:13,400 --> 02:14:15,680 That might be an eldrich creature that lies at the end of 2262 02:14:15,680 --> 02:14:18,040 this dungeon or something of the sort. 2263 02:14:18,040 --> 02:14:21,120 Maybe a rocks fall and you're trying to escape and that's the 2264 02:14:21,120 --> 02:14:23,120 final sequence as you were kind of leaving there. 2265 02:14:23,120 --> 02:14:27,800 So even if you're only using the doom clock as a way to set up 2266 02:14:27,800 --> 02:14:30,920 there, you can use that to create your narrative beats and 2267 02:14:30,920 --> 02:14:37,840 to help funnel play naturally by literally pushing characters 2268 02:14:37,840 --> 02:14:41,240 towards the direction. That's a little crude in terms 2269 02:14:41,240 --> 02:14:44,600 of like mysteries, but that's sort of another way to do it. 2270 02:14:44,600 --> 02:14:47,920 Like I said, intentionality and design and how you are setting 2271 02:14:47,920 --> 02:14:51,280 up your locations, setting up your central tensions in order 2272 02:14:51,280 --> 02:14:55,360 to push players towards a certain .1 of the other ways to 2273 02:14:55,360 --> 02:15:01,040 do it is, you know, Trophy Dark, something we've played on the 2274 02:15:01,040 --> 02:15:03,280 weekly scroll here fairly recently. 2275 02:15:03,720 --> 02:15:10,120 Where Trophy Dark constrains play in such a way that you're 2276 02:15:10,120 --> 02:15:14,840 always moving forward on a path. Trophy Dark is effectively a 2277 02:15:14,840 --> 02:15:17,080 point crawl. You have five rings. 2278 02:15:17,720 --> 02:15:22,240 Each of these represents a certain aspect that the ring is 2279 02:15:22,240 --> 02:15:25,960 meant to highlight, and each presents a challenge. 2280 02:15:26,120 --> 02:15:28,800 Your players will start and they go through the sequence of 2281 02:15:28,800 --> 02:15:31,880 challenges before certain doom comes at the end. 2282 02:15:34,240 --> 02:15:37,720 The Trophy Dark incursions are written in such a way to 2283 02:15:37,720 --> 02:15:39,800 represent the five acts of a story. 2284 02:15:40,760 --> 02:15:43,840 That whole concept is partially what has inspired this Doom 2285 02:15:43,840 --> 02:15:48,000 clock set up that we have here. So keep in mind if you need 2286 02:15:48,000 --> 02:15:50,760 additional resource, go look up how Trophy Gold sets up their 2287 02:15:50,760 --> 02:15:52,320 incursions. But that's another way to do it. 2288 02:15:52,680 --> 02:15:55,440 Again, it's not necessarily the best way or anything better than 2289 02:15:55,440 --> 02:15:58,600 what we have here. But that is, you know, you've 2290 02:15:58,600 --> 02:16:00,640 got your funnel literally pushing characters. 2291 02:16:00,920 --> 02:16:03,400 You have the horror adventure that keeps you on a track. 2292 02:16:03,960 --> 02:16:06,040 It's not necessarily like a real world like we would 2293 02:16:06,040 --> 02:16:09,120 traditionally think about it, but it does push you in a 2294 02:16:09,120 --> 02:16:11,280 certain direction. And then you get the doom clock, 2295 02:16:11,400 --> 02:16:14,960 which is just do doom clock is chasing your characters of a 2296 02:16:14,960 --> 02:16:17,080 tree. You're forcing them to make an 2297 02:16:17,080 --> 02:16:20,640 action, but you can use it to set your pace over the course of 2298 02:16:20,640 --> 02:16:25,760 that extended adventure. Again, those are three ways to 2299 02:16:25,760 --> 02:16:27,680 do it. They're countless ways to do it. 2300 02:16:27,680 --> 02:16:29,640 It's really just trying to be clever with the writing. 2301 02:16:30,280 --> 02:16:35,360 But setting up ways for your players to move forward, ways 2302 02:16:35,360 --> 02:16:40,280 for tension to naturally rise over time, and trying to enact 2303 02:16:40,280 --> 02:16:43,080 it within your module. It's not easy. 2304 02:16:43,719 --> 02:16:46,040 This is why we provide this tool set here. 2305 02:16:46,799 --> 02:16:50,400 If you use the Doom clock, try it out. 2306 02:16:50,400 --> 02:16:53,760 See if you can get your own sense of pacing and play here 2307 02:16:53,799 --> 02:16:55,559 and then branch out and come up with something better. 2308 02:16:55,559 --> 02:16:58,000 You know, maybe there is some better way to do these that we 2309 02:16:58,000 --> 02:17:00,559 don't know, you know? But that's how we do it. 2310 02:17:04,879 --> 02:17:07,240 Going through trying to find some more specific questions. 2311 02:17:07,240 --> 02:17:10,440 What we talked about today Luminar Arc 45 here in the chat, 2312 02:17:10,440 --> 02:17:14,520 asked when adapting a scenario, how do you decide between what 2313 02:17:14,520 --> 02:17:18,559 is fallout, an injury or simply a condition when that line feels 2314 02:17:18,559 --> 02:17:23,160 muddy? You can take this one. 2315 02:17:23,799 --> 02:17:24,440 Yeah. OK. 2316 02:17:24,440 --> 02:17:31,639 So I think fallout condition or an injury, I think injuries it's 2317 02:17:31,639 --> 02:17:37,040 about a lot of times aware is the generating source of damage, 2318 02:17:37,040 --> 02:17:39,400 right. If it is like a physical damage 2319 02:17:39,400 --> 02:17:42,879 that would leave a lasting wound that would then be an injury. 2320 02:17:44,040 --> 02:17:47,360 Fallout is, is how something would become more and more 2321 02:17:47,360 --> 02:17:50,480 strange. Sometimes you have abilities of 2322 02:17:50,480 --> 02:17:52,959 a horror that do damage and fallout. 2323 02:17:54,280 --> 02:17:56,440 And so that I also I get where is that? 2324 02:17:56,440 --> 02:17:59,400 That's where it starts to be like a little bit more murky. 2325 02:17:59,400 --> 02:18:02,360 I don't think there's a wrong way to lean in terms of that. 2326 02:18:03,160 --> 02:18:05,559 Sometimes I like to think about it when I'm writing, like when 2327 02:18:05,600 --> 02:18:07,280 we're writing for the deluxe edition. 2328 02:18:07,959 --> 02:18:11,040 When I'm writing a best year, we're called Catalogue of 2329 02:18:11,040 --> 02:18:14,840 Strange. Some horrors tend to lean a 2330 02:18:14,840 --> 02:18:17,879 little bit more physical, whereas others do that in sort 2331 02:18:17,879 --> 02:18:23,680 of that metaphysical style change agents in terms of like 2332 02:18:24,480 --> 02:18:26,680 creating fallout. Therefore they they lean a 2333 02:18:26,680 --> 02:18:33,480 little bit heavier into stress. But there's really not a wrong 2334 02:18:33,480 --> 02:18:35,920 way to go with it. If you're running an adventure 2335 02:18:35,920 --> 02:18:38,879 in terms of like this be an injury, should this be fallout? 2336 02:18:38,879 --> 02:18:41,400 Should it be damaged? Should it be stress like both 2337 02:18:41,400 --> 02:18:44,799 things are going to tangibly change your the characters and 2338 02:18:44,799 --> 02:18:46,120 they're going to have to deal with it. 2339 02:18:46,120 --> 02:18:49,879 And so I don't think there is a wrong answer in terms of how 2340 02:18:49,879 --> 02:18:52,600 your players will interact and react to it. 2341 02:18:53,600 --> 02:18:58,040 A player losing a hand versus a player like becoming changed 2342 02:18:58,879 --> 02:19:02,080 through some grizzly fallout. Like both are going to have this 2343 02:19:02,080 --> 02:19:05,760 end result of like this oh shit moment as the characters are 2344 02:19:05,760 --> 02:19:09,120 trying to like get out of there and get to safety and then like 2345 02:19:09,120 --> 02:19:13,040 trying to move forward from what happened. 2346 02:19:14,840 --> 02:19:18,480 So just leaning into, I think just for myself, it typically is 2347 02:19:18,480 --> 02:19:21,320 around, is this more physical or is this more like metaphysical 2348 02:19:21,360 --> 02:19:27,559 almost? And just to touch real quick on 2349 02:19:27,559 --> 02:19:30,719 conditions specifically conditions arise when your 2350 02:19:30,719 --> 02:19:32,600 characters are the lack of critical need. 2351 02:19:33,440 --> 02:19:41,040 We tend to keep conditions to deprived and fatigue, with 2352 02:19:41,040 --> 02:19:44,480 fatigue consuming inventory and deprived being like the though 2353 02:19:44,480 --> 02:19:46,280 conditioned. This doesn't mean that that's 2354 02:19:46,280 --> 02:19:48,600 the only thing that happens in the middle of horror, but it's 2355 02:19:48,600 --> 02:19:51,480 worth keeping in mind that this is more of an issue that 2356 02:19:51,480 --> 02:19:54,600 represent the characters not taking care of themselves or not 2357 02:19:54,600 --> 02:19:56,720 having the ability to take care of themselves. 2358 02:19:57,160 --> 02:20:01,560 So a little more rare than fallout and wounds, at least in 2359 02:20:01,560 --> 02:20:03,080 terms of like mechanical interaction. 2360 02:20:07,360 --> 02:20:10,000 OK. So the next one, I'm going to 2361 02:20:10,000 --> 02:20:11,280 summarize this question a little bit. 2362 02:20:11,560 --> 02:20:13,920 Basically they said this is from Jack Edward in the Discord. 2363 02:20:14,320 --> 02:20:16,800 They said a lot of classic core scenarios don't really have a 2364 02:20:16,800 --> 02:20:20,560 strong gear component. So do you think that looking at 2365 02:20:20,560 --> 02:20:24,320 gear, equipment, and the role of items in little horror is 2366 02:20:24,320 --> 02:20:30,400 important to redoing these adapted scenarios into Luminal 2367 02:20:30,400 --> 02:20:32,920 horror? And they said basically to sum 2368 02:20:32,920 --> 02:20:35,080 it up, how should someone designing Luminal horror think 2369 02:20:35,080 --> 02:20:37,000 about items and inventory in general? 2370 02:20:40,720 --> 02:20:42,480 I've been thinking a lot about this one so I'll I'll start. 2371 02:20:45,320 --> 02:20:52,080 Limiter Horror has a different culture of play than even some 2372 02:20:52,080 --> 02:20:55,880 other OSR adventures, especially like Neotrad adventures. 2373 02:20:57,640 --> 02:21:04,520 The key difference here, you as a player are only making roles 2374 02:21:05,120 --> 02:21:08,520 when the chance of failure is sort of high. 2375 02:21:09,640 --> 02:21:14,560 What I mean by that, if you have the right tool to address the 2376 02:21:14,560 --> 02:21:17,000 situation, you don't need to roll at all. 2377 02:21:17,440 --> 02:21:21,000 You have come prepared. If you need to get through with 2378 02:21:21,000 --> 02:21:24,120 lock to go through the door and you have to cut through the lock 2379 02:21:24,120 --> 02:21:26,200 or what have you. I don't need a skill roll to do 2380 02:21:26,200 --> 02:21:27,360 that. You have your bolt cutter, just 2381 02:21:27,680 --> 02:21:30,680 snap the lock and go in. That's the key your equipment 2382 02:21:30,680 --> 02:21:32,360 plays. That's the reason we track it. 2383 02:21:32,360 --> 02:21:36,040 That is why you have 10 slots and why equipment matters is 2384 02:21:36,040 --> 02:21:38,880 because you can use your equipment to circumvent having 2385 02:21:38,880 --> 02:21:42,080 to roll at all. And it this is largely dependent 2386 02:21:42,080 --> 02:21:43,640 on the narrative of the situation. 2387 02:21:43,680 --> 02:21:49,160 You can't use your bolt cutters to, you know, like, well, maybe 2388 02:21:49,160 --> 02:21:52,200 you can use it to kill a creature, but bolt cutters 2389 02:21:52,200 --> 02:21:53,560 aren't going to help you with a flat tire. 2390 02:21:53,560 --> 02:21:57,040 There we go. So your equipment and your 2391 02:21:57,040 --> 02:22:01,320 tools, the things you have at your disposal are going to be 2392 02:22:01,320 --> 02:22:05,960 how your characters and how your players use their skill and 2393 02:22:05,960 --> 02:22:09,360 their knowledge to avoid having to rule at all. 2394 02:22:09,640 --> 02:22:13,080 You have what you need, you can do what you need. 2395 02:22:13,440 --> 02:22:15,640 There is no chance of failure. You can simply do it. 2396 02:22:17,000 --> 02:22:20,280 So when you're writing, that equipment's gonna be kind of 2397 02:22:20,280 --> 02:22:24,960 key. You know, what we've done in 2398 02:22:24,960 --> 02:22:29,520 some of our modules here is sort of seed, the ways in which you 2399 02:22:29,520 --> 02:22:32,280 can fight the horrors through the equipment. 2400 02:22:32,920 --> 02:22:34,640 I'm going to spoil the bloom a little bit here. 2401 02:22:36,200 --> 02:22:41,960 There is at the gas station, there is a barrel of fertilizer 2402 02:22:41,960 --> 02:22:44,760 I think it is, or something that could be used as fertilizer 2403 02:22:45,000 --> 02:22:46,280 that's meant for the one of the farmers. 2404 02:22:46,840 --> 02:22:49,560 And you can find out this fertilizer exists. 2405 02:22:49,560 --> 02:22:50,960 It's not hidden or anything like that. 2406 02:22:51,440 --> 02:22:55,280 That stuff is very flammable. If you want to burn the town 2407 02:22:55,280 --> 02:22:58,640 down, you got a source of it right there. 2408 02:22:58,640 --> 02:23:00,400 You can use that fertilizer and keep going. 2409 02:23:01,120 --> 02:23:04,200 I think we also hid fungicide in a couple of locations. 2410 02:23:04,280 --> 02:23:06,600 Then there are the resident artifacts themselves, which help 2411 02:23:06,600 --> 02:23:11,480 you in your fight to do it. But we're giving the players 2412 02:23:11,480 --> 02:23:14,600 options to fight the horrors, at least that we think that makes 2413 02:23:14,600 --> 02:23:16,680 sense. You know, like we're not going 2414 02:23:16,680 --> 02:23:18,640 to put that fertilizer in the middle of a high rise building. 2415 02:23:18,640 --> 02:23:19,720 That doesn't make any sense there. 2416 02:23:19,720 --> 02:23:22,320 But for a farming community, that is one of the ways to 2417 02:23:22,320 --> 02:23:24,760 address the horror is to try and burn the shit down. 2418 02:23:25,080 --> 02:23:26,840 So you've got this outlook, you've got the source. 2419 02:23:26,840 --> 02:23:31,560 So that equipment is important. You're not holding anybody's 2420 02:23:31,560 --> 02:23:33,320 hands. You're just giving them tools in 2421 02:23:33,320 --> 02:23:36,800 which they can use to interact with the environment in the 2422 02:23:36,800 --> 02:23:39,600 future. So it's not something that you 2423 02:23:39,600 --> 02:23:44,440 need to explicitly put forward at the forefront of your design, 2424 02:23:44,440 --> 02:23:46,480 but it's not something you should forget about either. 2425 02:23:47,360 --> 02:23:50,840 Put tools in place for players to grab, you know, Rakes and 2426 02:23:51,320 --> 02:23:54,120 axes and shovels in places that would logically make sense. 2427 02:23:54,560 --> 02:23:57,160 And again, we want to keep this fairly mundane and fairly 2428 02:23:57,160 --> 02:24:02,080 crowded in reality. Maybe some doomsday prepper has 2429 02:24:02,080 --> 02:24:06,160 got like a bunker full of guns, but you know, that's only going 2430 02:24:06,160 --> 02:24:08,240 to get you so far anyway is trying to get those guns. 2431 02:24:08,840 --> 02:24:12,320 But either way, try and keep it grounded in the logic. 2432 02:24:12,440 --> 02:24:14,040 Players are going to be creative. 2433 02:24:14,040 --> 02:24:15,960 They're going to take these tools and do fun things with 2434 02:24:15,960 --> 02:24:17,160 them. But we do want to have them 2435 02:24:17,160 --> 02:24:24,280 there for them to do that. Oh. 2436 02:24:24,720 --> 02:24:29,520 I'm gonna ask Ed to that. No, I think that pretty much 2437 02:24:29,520 --> 02:24:33,440 hits it in terms of like the interesting part about setting 2438 02:24:33,440 --> 02:24:36,680 something in the modern day is that we do have access to most 2439 02:24:36,680 --> 02:24:41,360 things, but we have to have the means to go get them right. 2440 02:24:41,360 --> 02:24:44,440 And so sometimes that creates its own tension within, but like 2441 02:24:44,440 --> 02:24:46,600 Josh said, seeding some things throughout. 2442 02:24:47,960 --> 02:24:49,280 I'm thinking of some cool things. 2443 02:24:49,280 --> 02:24:52,880 People do love to blow stuff up. And so like whenever you can 2444 02:24:52,880 --> 02:24:58,760 provide a logical way that that could happen, your players will 2445 02:24:58,760 --> 02:25:04,120 find it and they'll use it. And sometimes we make that 2446 02:25:04,120 --> 02:25:08,800 intentional and we seed it in or in Hungry Hollow, we have these 2447 02:25:08,800 --> 02:25:12,120 investigator kits because you're not new investigators 2448 02:25:12,120 --> 02:25:14,280 necessarily. Sometimes you're, this is like 2449 02:25:14,400 --> 02:25:15,920 your second, third or fourth thing. 2450 02:25:16,400 --> 02:25:19,800 And so you do sometimes have access to some more interesting 2451 02:25:19,800 --> 02:25:24,720 things in a prep sense. And so just giving your 2452 02:25:24,720 --> 02:25:28,040 characters opportunities to find things that they could then use. 2453 02:25:28,040 --> 02:25:32,760 Or if you're running it and they say, hey, I want to go find this 2454 02:25:32,760 --> 02:25:34,200 tool. If it's a tool that we can 2455 02:25:34,200 --> 02:25:36,640 logically get like with time, yes. 2456 02:25:36,640 --> 02:25:40,920 Like if it's within the vicinity and people will be very creative 2457 02:25:40,920 --> 02:25:44,280 in how they utilize that. Yeah, don't like we talked about 2458 02:25:44,280 --> 02:25:46,920 clues. If it's logical that something 2459 02:25:46,920 --> 02:25:51,640 would exist, your players and investigators can typically find 2460 02:25:51,640 --> 02:25:54,160 it. There is going to be some other 2461 02:25:54,160 --> 02:25:58,440 resource that they pay to do so. They have a limited amount of 2462 02:25:58,440 --> 02:26:00,560 money, so maybe they have to buy it at the store. 2463 02:26:00,560 --> 02:26:03,280 There you go, resource that leaves up less money to do stuff 2464 02:26:03,280 --> 02:26:05,720 later. The most important of them is 2465 02:26:05,720 --> 02:26:09,760 time. If you are going to the store on 2466 02:26:09,760 --> 02:26:14,280 a trip to pick up tools, you are committing yourself that action 2467 02:26:14,280 --> 02:26:17,200 for a couple hours, a phase, an hour, what have you. 2468 02:26:17,200 --> 02:26:20,840 Some time passes that lets the doom clock tick forward. 2469 02:26:21,320 --> 02:26:24,040 It's not getting the tools. Players can get it, but they are 2470 02:26:24,040 --> 02:26:28,320 paying the price by doing so in some little manner that 2471 02:26:28,400 --> 02:26:30,480 eventually becomes important later all. 2472 02:26:36,500 --> 02:26:37,660 Right. I'm going to ask one of my 2473 02:26:37,660 --> 02:26:39,740 questions because you kind of touched on a little bit. 2474 02:26:39,740 --> 02:26:45,260 We talked about Lumen Horror is a modern horror setting, but 2475 02:26:45,520 --> 02:26:48,960 have there been any thoughts about adapting an adventure into 2476 02:26:49,000 --> 02:26:52,240 a non modern setting? Something like Vampire the Dark 2477 02:26:52,240 --> 02:26:59,360 Ages. Do you wanna take this one or 2478 02:26:59,360 --> 02:27:01,240 should I? You can't. 2479 02:27:01,240 --> 02:27:05,640 I can just I have thought once about doing a master hack for 2480 02:27:05,640 --> 02:27:12,000 liminal horror and that's stills in the brain, but personally I 2481 02:27:12,000 --> 02:27:17,360 haven't quite been like oh, I wanna utilize liminal horror for 2482 02:27:17,360 --> 02:27:20,040 this other type setting personally. 2483 02:27:21,200 --> 02:27:23,720 But Josh maybe Josh has 1000 ideas in the brains. 2484 02:27:23,840 --> 02:27:27,920 So Josh probably has some. I'm cursed to never have a 2485 02:27:27,920 --> 02:27:32,040 moment to spare of thought. Something is always happening in 2486 02:27:32,040 --> 02:27:35,480 my brain. So I think the key is, is that 2487 02:27:36,560 --> 02:27:43,680 no, you know, literal horror as a base is very highly adaptable. 2488 02:27:44,720 --> 02:27:47,880 You can you know, it's built off a Cairn, you know which Karen is 2489 02:27:47,880 --> 02:27:49,680 built off into the autumn nave and mouse Raider. 2490 02:27:50,680 --> 02:27:53,760 Realistically, like if you want to go run the Dark ages 2491 02:27:53,760 --> 02:27:55,440 adventure, I'll probably going to put you to Cairn. 2492 02:27:55,560 --> 02:27:57,000 You know, like you can add fallout into that. 2493 02:27:57,000 --> 02:28:02,000 It changes, you know, fallout augments what was already 2494 02:28:02,000 --> 02:28:04,680 present in Cairn to make it more adapted to horror. 2495 02:28:04,680 --> 02:28:07,320 So it's very easy to just take that system and put it right 2496 02:28:07,320 --> 02:28:14,120 back in. So I don't think we as a entity 2497 02:28:14,120 --> 02:28:17,160 making adventures need to necessarily diverge at this 2498 02:28:17,160 --> 02:28:18,800 point. We're just kind of getting into 2499 02:28:18,800 --> 02:28:21,120 the swing of making modern war adventures. 2500 02:28:21,160 --> 02:28:25,280 So going back and then sort of like going into a different 2501 02:28:25,280 --> 02:28:27,720 branching path, you know, it creates a little bit of conflict 2502 02:28:27,720 --> 02:28:29,240 with the amount of time that we have to do. 2503 02:28:29,240 --> 02:28:36,440 So it's a cool idea and somebody should do that, but not not 2504 02:28:36,440 --> 02:28:37,840 immediate plans. That's not to say that it's 2505 02:28:37,840 --> 02:28:40,280 never going to happen in the future, or at least adapting a 2506 02:28:40,360 --> 02:28:43,440 little more. I will say there was a really 2507 02:28:43,440 --> 02:28:47,480 cool idea present in I think Cthulhu Dark does this itself, 2508 02:28:47,480 --> 02:28:51,760 but it's should have forgot the company that makes it. 2509 02:28:51,760 --> 02:28:55,720 But it's the King in Yellow RPG, where it's this horror RPG, but 2510 02:28:55,720 --> 02:28:59,840 the entire premise is about playing characters in three 2511 02:28:59,840 --> 02:29:02,880 separate timelines and how those all intersect and connect. 2512 02:29:03,760 --> 02:29:11,400 Oh, there it is. So this story connects through 2513 02:29:11,400 --> 02:29:13,600 all three of those timelines, and all of them have changed 2514 02:29:13,600 --> 02:29:16,160 based on the framework of the the time setting that they're 2515 02:29:16,160 --> 02:29:17,720 in. So doing something like that, I 2516 02:29:17,720 --> 02:29:20,040 was like, fuck it, cool. Like yeah, maybe we'll do that 2517 02:29:20,040 --> 02:29:24,200 in the future. But it is also worth noting that 2518 02:29:24,200 --> 02:29:26,280 you can make Hacks of Liminal Horror. 2519 02:29:26,760 --> 02:29:30,040 We have one from David Garrett that's this Mortal Coil. 2520 02:29:30,360 --> 02:29:32,600 This is for playing necromancers in space. 2521 02:29:33,360 --> 02:29:36,040 So the framework does work. We have proven that it's 2522 02:29:36,040 --> 02:29:38,440 adaptive by somebody taking it and making our own little system 2523 02:29:38,440 --> 02:29:47,640 out of it. You're muted. 2524 02:29:47,640 --> 02:29:50,840 I don't know if he can hear us. Hello Grain Press. 2525 02:29:50,840 --> 02:29:53,120 By the way, can we just point out how cool it is that like the 2526 02:29:53,120 --> 02:29:57,160 box, is the GM screen just magneted around like all of the 2527 02:29:57,160 --> 02:29:59,440 books? Holy shit, like I don't have the 2528 02:29:59,440 --> 02:30:00,920 physical version, I only have the PDFs. 2529 02:30:01,120 --> 02:30:02,960 That's nuts. That's so cool. 2530 02:30:03,880 --> 02:30:07,720 OK, so next question. Do you have any advice for 2531 02:30:07,720 --> 02:30:11,040 making a personal ending emotionally significant enough? 2532 02:30:11,440 --> 02:30:13,840 And they say, for example, a character is lost because 2533 02:30:13,840 --> 02:30:16,320 sometimes it could feel disproportionate compared to 2534 02:30:16,320 --> 02:30:18,600 previous events where characters died. 2535 02:30:20,520 --> 02:30:25,280 Yeah, I think a lot of that is comes down to, and this is more 2536 02:30:25,280 --> 02:30:28,880 advice on like how to run versus like something you would write. 2537 02:30:31,840 --> 02:30:34,920 There are parts in character generation that talk about how 2538 02:30:34,920 --> 02:30:37,880 like bonds and like how characters are related to each 2539 02:30:37,880 --> 02:30:41,400 other and like from like a friendship standpoint or 2540 02:30:41,400 --> 02:30:43,560 anything like that, how they're entangled together. 2541 02:30:43,920 --> 02:30:47,240 And I think that as you go through play and when you're 2542 02:30:47,240 --> 02:30:50,320 emphasizing not only what's going on, but how the players 2543 02:30:50,320 --> 02:30:54,320 and the characters are interacting and are impacted by 2544 02:30:54,320 --> 02:30:56,840 that, and especially in their relationships towards each 2545 02:30:56,840 --> 02:31:03,200 other, I think it's really leveraging and pushing on those 2546 02:31:03,960 --> 02:31:07,640 sort of connections that can make a very more meaningful 2547 02:31:07,640 --> 02:31:12,240 moment at the table. That can be on par to the 2548 02:31:12,280 --> 02:31:16,560 character death, right? But again, it comes down to how 2549 02:31:16,760 --> 02:31:20,520 how are your players and how are the characters interacting and 2550 02:31:20,520 --> 02:31:22,640 relating to each other? Are they making decisions? 2551 02:31:22,640 --> 02:31:24,840 Are you forcing them to make decisions that put them in 2552 02:31:24,840 --> 02:31:28,120 conflict with each other or ways where they have to make 2553 02:31:28,120 --> 02:31:31,720 sacrifices to help each other? And then just as those bonds 2554 02:31:31,720 --> 02:31:37,480 strengthen, that gives you more meat to play with. 2555 02:31:38,040 --> 02:31:41,760 Playing with me. That's a bad phrasing, but more 2556 02:31:41,760 --> 02:31:47,000 more things in which to leverage and pull on. 2557 02:31:47,440 --> 02:31:53,080 One of the earlier things with the question around how do I 2558 02:31:54,160 --> 02:31:58,360 with with in terms of like slow burn versus like sort of build 2559 02:31:58,360 --> 02:32:01,840 up ways in which you entangle and bring the characters closer 2560 02:32:01,840 --> 02:32:08,880 into the world allows you more options in which to then create 2561 02:32:08,880 --> 02:32:14,120 tension when those things break. Yeah. 2562 02:32:14,120 --> 02:32:20,000 And a lot of this is, like we said, it's, it's how more play 2563 02:32:20,000 --> 02:32:22,400 and how that it's experience at the table than anything you can 2564 02:32:22,400 --> 02:32:26,680 tangibly write. One of the challenges of, you 2565 02:32:26,680 --> 02:32:30,920 know, being a writer is you don't know who your play groups 2566 02:32:30,920 --> 02:32:33,160 are gonna glom on to. You know, they have their 2567 02:32:33,160 --> 02:32:36,680 backgrounds. Again, as as a writer, we don't 2568 02:32:36,680 --> 02:32:41,800 know who your future players are going to create for their 2569 02:32:41,800 --> 02:32:43,960 connections. So it's hard to kind of like 2570 02:32:43,960 --> 02:32:45,760 tangibly write that into an adventure. 2571 02:32:48,040 --> 02:32:51,080 But if you play enough adventures, you can start to get 2572 02:32:51,080 --> 02:32:53,720 an idea of the types of characters that you can 2573 02:32:53,720 --> 02:32:56,200 introduce into your settings that your players are going to 2574 02:32:56,200 --> 02:32:58,440 care about. You know, the Bloom is another 2575 02:32:58,440 --> 02:33:00,160 good one. I'm going to keep talking about 2576 02:33:00,160 --> 02:33:03,800 this. The Bloom has four characters I 2577 02:33:03,800 --> 02:33:06,600 want to talk about just real quick here. 2578 02:33:08,280 --> 02:33:12,400 The first is the Ranger for Camp Cold Water. 2579 02:33:12,960 --> 02:33:18,400 Their name is Sam. We knew writing this that people 2580 02:33:18,400 --> 02:33:21,120 would like Sam, and that has proven true. 2581 02:33:21,360 --> 02:33:25,280 Sam is into cryptids in like an obsessive way. 2582 02:33:25,520 --> 02:33:28,680 It is this character detail that sort of bubbles out in it makes 2583 02:33:28,680 --> 02:33:33,720 up their character. So this is the exact type of NPC 2584 02:33:33,720 --> 02:33:36,840 that we expect players to sort of glom onto because they're a 2585 02:33:36,840 --> 02:33:39,880 little weird, because they're super into this one like very 2586 02:33:39,880 --> 02:33:42,680 specific thing. And it's also a kind of a cool 2587 02:33:42,680 --> 02:33:46,880 thing while being tangentially related to the potential horrors 2588 02:33:46,880 --> 02:33:53,400 that come to pass. So we knew Sam would be a well 2589 02:33:53,400 --> 02:33:56,720 liked character and from what we hear, you know, that has come 2590 02:33:56,720 --> 02:33:58,960 true. So we can play with that. 2591 02:33:59,840 --> 02:34:01,840 Sam is the Ranger of Camp Coldwater. 2592 02:34:02,120 --> 02:34:05,440 Camp Coldwater is one of the early locations that are claimed 2593 02:34:05,440 --> 02:34:09,800 by the bloom. The hint there being that if Sam 2594 02:34:09,800 --> 02:34:13,360 is present, if the players have not done something to remove Sam 2595 02:34:13,360 --> 02:34:16,280 from that environment, they're getting taken over by the bloom. 2596 02:34:17,640 --> 02:34:21,920 Now we've also driven the players towards investigating 2597 02:34:21,920 --> 02:34:25,240 Camp Coldwater first. The very impetus of the 2598 02:34:25,240 --> 02:34:27,800 adventure is that campers have disappeared, and it's something 2599 02:34:27,800 --> 02:34:31,240 that's kind of, it might directly be the reason your 2600 02:34:31,240 --> 02:34:35,960 investigators have entered this scenario, but it is something 2601 02:34:35,960 --> 02:34:39,240 that they're going to hear about upon arrival within that first 2602 02:34:39,440 --> 02:34:42,120 step of the doom clock. So it's only natural. 2603 02:34:42,280 --> 02:34:44,960 You hear about these campers, you go visit the camp to find 2604 02:34:44,960 --> 02:34:46,880 out what something's there, then you meet this eccentric 2605 02:34:46,880 --> 02:34:53,160 character who we have written to be well liked, and then maybe 2606 02:34:53,160 --> 02:34:56,200 they get infected. So you've already, as a writer, 2607 02:34:56,200 --> 02:35:00,360 we have built in this natural character loop here to set up 2608 02:35:00,600 --> 02:35:03,160 that you really like this person, you bond with them for a 2609 02:35:03,160 --> 02:35:07,360 minute and then they're gone. We can't guarantee it. 2610 02:35:08,160 --> 02:35:09,800 You don't have to go to cold water camp. 2611 02:35:11,120 --> 02:35:13,800 So that is one potential way that we can do it as writers. 2612 02:35:14,600 --> 02:35:17,080 And it's something that the GM has to bring to life at the 2613 02:35:17,080 --> 02:35:19,240 table too. We can't just force their hand. 2614 02:35:20,000 --> 02:35:23,960 So we write who we think are likeable characters, hope that 2615 02:35:23,960 --> 02:35:27,280 the players interact with them in a manner that, you know, is 2616 02:35:27,280 --> 02:35:29,360 intended so that they do like the characters, and then you can 2617 02:35:29,360 --> 02:35:33,800 do spooky things with them. Difficult, not the easiest thing 2618 02:35:33,800 --> 02:35:36,640 in the world. But in contrast, we can also 2619 02:35:36,640 --> 02:35:38,880 kind of predict how players are going to respond to other 2620 02:35:38,880 --> 02:35:40,960 sources. Like I said, there are two other 2621 02:35:40,960 --> 02:35:46,920 characters I want to talk about being, excuse me, Gerald and 2622 02:35:46,920 --> 02:35:48,520 Hank. These are the two police 2623 02:35:48,520 --> 02:35:49,760 officers. Once the sheriff, once the 2624 02:35:49,760 --> 02:35:52,240 deputy. They're written to be assholes. 2625 02:35:52,440 --> 02:35:55,240 You know, Gerald specifically sort of incompetent and he is an 2626 02:35:55,240 --> 02:35:58,000 incompetent in a way that is going to interact with your your 2627 02:35:58,000 --> 02:36:00,960 player characters. Hank the sheriff is not 2628 02:36:00,960 --> 02:36:03,040 incompetent. Hank is very capable, but Hank 2629 02:36:03,040 --> 02:36:08,160 is trying to get to retirement and will ignore threats up until 2630 02:36:08,160 --> 02:36:11,800 the last minute. Both of these characters, again, 2631 02:36:11,800 --> 02:36:15,400 we are, have written them in such a way that they will cause 2632 02:36:15,400 --> 02:36:17,360 conflict with the player characters. 2633 02:36:18,000 --> 02:36:20,400 This is not this is a different type of relationship. 2634 02:36:20,440 --> 02:36:24,800 You're you're you're creating antagonists here that will cause 2635 02:36:24,800 --> 02:36:26,440 trouble for your player characters in a way that's going 2636 02:36:26,440 --> 02:36:29,800 to tangibly interact with them. Gerald is present at Camp 2637 02:36:29,800 --> 02:36:31,880 Coldwater. Gerald will try and stop your 2638 02:36:31,880 --> 02:36:34,520 characters from investigating the camp thing that they're 2639 02:36:34,520 --> 02:36:36,560 there to do. So you create this moment of 2640 02:36:36,560 --> 02:36:38,880 tension. So when Gerald is claimed, if he 2641 02:36:38,880 --> 02:36:43,240 becomes claimed by the the OR there is this different sort of 2642 02:36:43,240 --> 02:36:45,800 emotional connection to it. You don't like this guy, so the 2643 02:36:45,800 --> 02:36:48,480 horror happening to him maybe not so bad. 2644 02:36:48,480 --> 02:36:52,040 You know, you don't have to deal with him directly, but again, 2645 02:36:52,040 --> 02:36:54,880 we've established this a relationship and then the course 2646 02:36:54,880 --> 02:36:56,880 of the adventure, the tension that's building is kind of like 2647 02:36:56,880 --> 02:37:00,920 dealing with that directly. Hank as a character, you have a 2648 02:37:00,920 --> 02:37:04,200 very similar arc. Hank is a very useful character. 2649 02:37:04,520 --> 02:37:07,960 He's a good to have as an ally, but he's going to be difficult 2650 02:37:07,960 --> 02:37:11,720 to get through in sort of ever present in Cold water itself as 2651 02:37:11,720 --> 02:37:14,640 an authoritative force. So you're building this up 2652 02:37:14,640 --> 02:37:18,040 relationship up to be inherently adversarial, even if it doesn't 2653 02:37:18,040 --> 02:37:22,680 have to be. But then we have the 4th 2654 02:37:22,680 --> 02:37:23,920 character. I want to talk about just real 2655 02:37:23,920 --> 02:37:25,840 quick how we set them up. It's Cassandra. 2656 02:37:26,080 --> 02:37:29,640 Cassandra is the basically the general manager of the Cold 2657 02:37:29,640 --> 02:37:35,040 Water Cafe, the central location in which we encourage people to 2658 02:37:35,040 --> 02:37:38,480 begin their adventures. Cassandra has a couple of 2659 02:37:38,480 --> 02:37:40,760 interesting things going on with her that's not worth explaining 2660 02:37:40,760 --> 02:37:43,760 here, but just that we are setting up again another really 2661 02:37:43,760 --> 02:37:47,920 likable character in a central role, in a place that the player 2662 02:37:47,920 --> 02:37:50,920 characters will return to because they need to attend to 2663 02:37:50,920 --> 02:37:54,680 their their base needs, namely food and water. 2664 02:37:55,320 --> 02:37:59,120 So we set up a prime location, we set up a character to be 2665 02:37:59,120 --> 02:38:02,440 likable to create this inherent sense of relationship there. 2666 02:38:02,760 --> 02:38:05,680 So they will care about this person that sits in the diner in 2667 02:38:05,680 --> 02:38:08,920 cold water, the very last place to be claimed as of all the 2668 02:38:08,920 --> 02:38:13,960 horrors descend around it. And then we put that character 2669 02:38:13,960 --> 02:38:16,240 in jeopardy by making cold water the potential to be claimed as 2670 02:38:16,240 --> 02:38:19,280 well. So you're you're sort of setting 2671 02:38:19,280 --> 02:38:22,720 up central locations, making characters to be likable, hoping 2672 02:38:22,720 --> 02:38:25,200 that the players will like them, and then putting those 2673 02:38:25,200 --> 02:38:27,280 characters in danger. And you've got like a little bit 2674 02:38:27,280 --> 02:38:29,720 of an arc right there. It's not always going to work. 2675 02:38:30,120 --> 02:38:32,280 We know it's not going to work. People might not climb onto 2676 02:38:32,280 --> 02:38:34,880 these characters in the way that we intend to, but it doesn't 2677 02:38:34,880 --> 02:38:37,280 really matter in the end. They're going to form 2678 02:38:37,280 --> 02:38:42,080 relationships if they interact with the the characters, good or 2679 02:38:42,080 --> 02:38:45,240 bad. And so you do what you can to 2680 02:38:45,240 --> 02:38:46,880 set them up. And then you kind of have to 2681 02:38:46,880 --> 02:38:50,280 discover it through play so that there's only so much hand 2682 02:38:50,280 --> 02:38:54,760 holding you can do as a writer and hope that things happen in a 2683 02:38:54,760 --> 02:38:57,880 certain way, but in the end you don't really control it. 2684 02:38:59,360 --> 02:39:03,240 And I think another thing from the running perspective, and 2685 02:39:03,240 --> 02:39:08,240 since this is a horror game, is that everyone is at risk, every 2686 02:39:08,240 --> 02:39:14,240 character is on the table. And that that also can be sort 2687 02:39:14,240 --> 02:39:17,600 of liberating from the running standpoint, is that as 2688 02:39:17,600 --> 02:39:21,400 characters, as your players build those connections to those 2689 02:39:21,400 --> 02:39:26,880 NPCS or their associates or each other, those are then tools for 2690 02:39:26,880 --> 02:39:31,880 you to create tension with. And some of the best moments are 2691 02:39:31,880 --> 02:39:35,400 tends to be where you put those NPCS at risk or something 2692 02:39:35,400 --> 02:39:38,160 happens to them. Because if you think about what 2693 02:39:38,160 --> 02:39:41,240 drives your players or your characters, the the 2694 02:39:41,240 --> 02:39:45,400 investigators, a lot of times putting the risk of someone they 2695 02:39:45,400 --> 02:39:49,640 care about is a major impetus for why they would go forward. 2696 02:39:56,180 --> 02:39:58,020 Nice. How many? 2697 02:39:58,060 --> 02:39:59,220 How many more questions do we have? 2698 02:39:59,880 --> 02:40:03,120 I mean, so maybe one or two that are like pretty specific and 2699 02:40:03,120 --> 02:40:07,520 then I got a bunch that are kind of more broad one hit the 2700 02:40:07,520 --> 02:40:09,720 specifics. Let's do the specifics and see 2701 02:40:09,720 --> 02:40:11,760 where things end up. Maybe we cut off after then, but 2702 02:40:11,760 --> 02:40:13,240 we'll kind of see how much we ramble. 2703 02:40:14,560 --> 02:40:19,600 All right, so Jack Edward in the Discord asked two questions. 2704 02:40:19,600 --> 02:40:22,320 The first you've addressed already, but I'll just say it to 2705 02:40:22,320 --> 02:40:24,560 get to the second. It says it seems liminal horror 2706 02:40:24,560 --> 02:40:28,000 adventures are largely bounded environments like the Bureau in 2707 02:40:28,000 --> 02:40:30,080 the mall. They use compressors like time 2708 02:40:30,080 --> 02:40:31,800 and space. They ask do you think it's 2709 02:40:31,800 --> 02:40:33,560 important in gradient aluminum horror adventures? 2710 02:40:33,560 --> 02:40:36,240 You specifically addressed that in the presentation. 2711 02:40:36,440 --> 02:40:38,560 The second question for that though, was do you think there 2712 02:40:38,560 --> 02:40:42,760 are new considerations and problems made by more open game 2713 02:40:42,760 --> 02:40:45,520 worlds and less urgent timelines, and how would you 2714 02:40:45,520 --> 02:40:50,600 design for that? Yeah, it's fucking hard. 2715 02:40:53,360 --> 02:40:56,760 So the big problem is, you know, we have to ask that question, 2716 02:40:57,480 --> 02:40:59,280 what is stopping the investigators from leaving? 2717 02:41:01,760 --> 02:41:05,680 It's when will we create these confined bound locations that is 2718 02:41:05,680 --> 02:41:08,600 sort of ever present. We we're doing that because we 2719 02:41:08,600 --> 02:41:11,320 don't have a better answer. You know, to be frank, it's 2720 02:41:11,880 --> 02:41:16,200 keeping the location constrained creates the situation in which 2721 02:41:16,200 --> 02:41:20,640 the investigator has to act. Now we didn't do that really in 2722 02:41:20,640 --> 02:41:24,000 the bloom. The bloom does have its 2723 02:41:24,000 --> 02:41:25,960 constraints. You are playing within this 2724 02:41:25,960 --> 02:41:28,880 town. The road does wash out. 2725 02:41:29,000 --> 02:41:31,840 That does make it a little hard to leave, but that's not the 2726 02:41:31,840 --> 02:41:39,840 only way to leave town. You're sort of, you are able to 2727 02:41:39,840 --> 02:41:42,400 do so by wandering through the forest, which is dangerous, or 2728 02:41:42,400 --> 02:41:44,040 getting out on the lake and leaving through one of the 2729 02:41:44,040 --> 02:41:46,360 tributaries that you know, drains outward from the lake. 2730 02:41:47,040 --> 02:41:49,480 So there are ways to leave this location. 2731 02:41:51,280 --> 02:41:53,440 So this is what we can kind of use as our example for one of 2732 02:41:53,440 --> 02:41:56,200 the open spots players can go at any time. 2733 02:41:56,200 --> 02:41:57,960 There is less of a constraint here. 2734 02:41:57,960 --> 02:41:59,240 You're able to go wherever you want. 2735 02:41:59,800 --> 02:42:02,800 So how do you keep things focused? 2736 02:42:03,440 --> 02:42:05,080 It's through character motivation. 2737 02:42:07,160 --> 02:42:11,720 If your characters aren't motivated to push forward to 2738 02:42:11,720 --> 02:42:16,160 continue to explore the adventure, then you sort of lost 2739 02:42:16,160 --> 02:42:17,840 the plot. I don't know, to be frank about 2740 02:42:17,840 --> 02:42:25,000 that, where being constrained creates makes it easy. 2741 02:42:25,000 --> 02:42:27,240 You don't need to be invested in the horror. 2742 02:42:27,400 --> 02:42:30,600 You can be invested in getting the fuck out of there. 2743 02:42:30,760 --> 02:42:31,880 You know that? That's the thing with the 2744 02:42:31,880 --> 02:42:34,840 Bureau. The Bureau we built in some some 2745 02:42:35,600 --> 02:42:38,120 ways to get characters invested, and I'll talk about that in just 2746 02:42:38,120 --> 02:42:41,520 a second there. But the primary purpose of the 2747 02:42:41,520 --> 02:42:44,400 Bureau is you're trapped in this building, and if you do not 2748 02:42:44,400 --> 02:42:48,160 address the horror, one, you won't get out, and two, the 2749 02:42:48,160 --> 02:42:51,040 horror is going to leave the building and infect the city. 2750 02:42:52,760 --> 02:42:56,520 The mall is pulled into another dimension entirely. 2751 02:42:56,520 --> 02:42:58,800 So there's no leaving that. That is, that is very much bound 2752 02:42:58,800 --> 02:43:05,000 and constrained. But so establishing character 2753 02:43:05,000 --> 02:43:08,000 motivation is key. This is something that happens 2754 02:43:08,000 --> 02:43:09,920 in the module and happens at the table. 2755 02:43:10,760 --> 02:43:14,920 As players, as GMs, you have to have characters that are 2756 02:43:14,920 --> 02:43:17,680 motivated to push forward. That is the social contract for 2757 02:43:17,680 --> 02:43:19,640 horror. They can't just leave. 2758 02:43:19,640 --> 02:43:21,920 They need to have some form of direction, some goal, some 2759 02:43:21,920 --> 02:43:23,440 tangible thing that they're after. 2760 02:43:23,840 --> 02:43:26,760 We've done that on a mechanical level through the archetypes. 2761 02:43:28,120 --> 02:43:33,720 Both the Bureau and the the Bloom have a list of archetypes. 2762 02:43:33,720 --> 02:43:35,280 I'll talk about what that means in a second. 2763 02:43:36,040 --> 02:43:41,920 We've got a different framing for Hungry Hollow that plays 2764 02:43:41,920 --> 02:43:45,400 with a similar space, but that's just note that that's going to 2765 02:43:45,400 --> 02:43:51,840 be changed a little bit. So archetypes are seated 2766 02:43:51,840 --> 02:43:55,360 character backgrounds that we've written into the adventures that 2767 02:43:55,360 --> 02:43:57,640 people can use when they're creating new characters. 2768 02:43:58,120 --> 02:44:01,080 What they do is they give you a little bit of information about 2769 02:44:01,080 --> 02:44:04,160 who your character may have been in the past. 2770 02:44:04,520 --> 02:44:07,080 You get to decide who they are now, and it gives you a few 2771 02:44:07,080 --> 02:44:11,280 items. The key here, those archetypes, 2772 02:44:11,360 --> 02:44:14,200 they build in character motivations right from the 2773 02:44:14,200 --> 02:44:19,120 start. So I will read a few from The 2774 02:44:19,120 --> 02:44:23,960 Bloom where 1 #12 is the horror helmer. 2775 02:44:24,160 --> 02:44:26,560 You sold the script for the next great slasher, but the studio 2776 02:44:26,560 --> 02:44:29,800 wants a filming location locked down before the next meeting or 2777 02:44:29,800 --> 02:44:32,800 the film will be tabled. On paper, cold Water is perfect 2778 02:44:32,800 --> 02:44:34,560 considering your shoestring budget. 2779 02:44:35,080 --> 02:44:40,360 So in 360 camera you get a script, a light meter and a 2780 02:44:40,360 --> 02:44:44,360 bunch of rental agreements. The horror helmer here, just 2781 02:44:44,360 --> 02:44:46,560 that character alone is now motivated. 2782 02:44:46,560 --> 02:44:49,920 Their their core goal is to sell their movie script or they're 2783 02:44:49,920 --> 02:44:51,840 going to go, you know, basically get kicked out of the business 2784 02:44:51,840 --> 02:44:55,360 because they haven't, you know, produced the film. 2785 02:44:56,360 --> 02:44:57,800 They're motivated to now explore. 2786 02:44:58,440 --> 02:45:00,720 You have to go to these locations, you have to get those 2787 02:45:00,720 --> 02:45:04,640 contracts signed so you can film your movie as the horror 2788 02:45:04,640 --> 02:45:07,840 happens. Maybe you start filming that 2789 02:45:07,840 --> 02:45:12,760 horror, maybe that's your movie. Maybe Cold Water was perfect. 2790 02:45:14,120 --> 02:45:17,400 So you have this, this bass thing that starts play. 2791 02:45:17,560 --> 02:45:20,000 I need to go to these locations in order to do this. 2792 02:45:20,000 --> 02:45:23,600 This is my character motivation. And then it spirals outward into 2793 02:45:23,600 --> 02:45:25,280 something that changes over the course of play. 2794 02:45:28,120 --> 02:45:30,040 In another one. I'll, I'll just leave it at the 2795 02:45:30,040 --> 02:45:32,840 second one here for the purpose of representation. 2796 02:45:33,160 --> 02:45:37,040 The 2nd it's going to be #2 on the list, the prodigal child. 2797 02:45:37,800 --> 02:45:40,120 It's as a child you spent your summers here in your family's 2798 02:45:40,120 --> 02:45:42,240 cabin by the lake. It's been 10 years since your 2799 02:45:42,240 --> 02:45:44,800 last visit. This isn't the town you'll 2800 02:45:44,800 --> 02:45:48,160 remember. You gain an outdated guidebook, 2801 02:45:48,160 --> 02:45:50,760 arrested set of keys, and an old fishing rod. 2802 02:45:51,960 --> 02:45:55,280 So this character has an intrinsic connection to cold 2803 02:45:55,280 --> 02:45:56,760 water. This is based in their 2804 02:45:56,760 --> 02:45:58,760 childhood, based in their nostalgia. 2805 02:45:59,000 --> 02:46:02,320 This character does not want cold water to be destroyed 2806 02:46:02,320 --> 02:46:05,160 because it meant something to them, even if the town has 2807 02:46:05,160 --> 02:46:08,280 changed. So they may know some of the 2808 02:46:08,280 --> 02:46:11,280 people there, they might know some of the locations, but the 2809 02:46:11,280 --> 02:46:14,720 key is, is that there is some connection to this location that 2810 02:46:14,720 --> 02:46:17,200 keeps them pushing forward to defeat the horror that lies at 2811 02:46:17,200 --> 02:46:20,360 its heart. And you can extrapolate outward 2812 02:46:20,360 --> 02:46:23,080 from there. You don't need archetypes. 2813 02:46:23,680 --> 02:46:25,480 Archetypes are fun. We like writing that. 2814 02:46:25,480 --> 02:46:27,560 That's probably, that's primarily why we keep doing it. 2815 02:46:28,160 --> 02:46:32,400 But that is a way to build inherent character motivation, 2816 02:46:32,480 --> 02:46:35,360 to keep your character moving even in these massive open 2817 02:46:35,360 --> 02:46:38,160 settings. You build that into play. 2818 02:46:38,160 --> 02:46:40,680 You set the players up so that they have something to work with 2819 02:46:40,680 --> 02:46:43,720 immediately, and then things can be kind of focused from there. 2820 02:46:55,640 --> 02:46:58,440 You're muted. God fucking damn it. 2821 02:46:58,440 --> 02:47:02,520 So Echo Fox and Chat asked the two more horrors. 2822 02:47:02,520 --> 02:47:05,440 Talk about me thinking about funhouse dungeons and whether 2823 02:47:05,440 --> 02:47:08,280 they could be done as horror comedy rather than straight 2824 02:47:08,640 --> 02:47:10,760 straight horror. Do you think it would be 2825 02:47:10,760 --> 02:47:14,080 possible to make the genre work in liminal horror? 2826 02:47:15,320 --> 02:47:18,280 I think so. I often there's a lot of humor 2827 02:47:18,280 --> 02:47:21,080 at the table. I think the humor gives moments 2828 02:47:21,080 --> 02:47:23,600 of respite before things get really gnarly. 2829 02:47:25,440 --> 02:47:29,440 There's a fine line, right, in terms of like writing horror 2830 02:47:29,440 --> 02:47:33,120 comedy, right? And I, I would, I would then 2831 02:47:33,120 --> 02:47:37,400 just say right, the horror scenario and then people tend to 2832 02:47:37,400 --> 02:47:42,240 infuse their style anyways. I think a really good example of 2833 02:47:42,240 --> 02:47:47,080 film that is both funny and horror would be the Evil Dead 2834 02:47:47,080 --> 02:47:50,320 series, right? Evil Dead 1, Evil Dead 2, the 2835 02:47:50,320 --> 02:47:53,360 originals, they're all great. Evil Dead has never missed. 2836 02:47:53,400 --> 02:48:03,360 But that sort of brevity in those moments, I think bring a 2837 02:48:03,360 --> 02:48:05,400 lot to the table. But I would write, I would 2838 02:48:05,400 --> 02:48:10,280 personally tend to write things pretty straight in terms of me 2839 02:48:10,320 --> 02:48:13,560 generating something for others and it gets infused through the 2840 02:48:13,560 --> 02:48:19,000 situation and through the table. Yeah, I mean, I don't care what 2841 02:48:19,000 --> 02:48:21,880 game you're playing, your players will never miss a Dick 2842 02:48:21,880 --> 02:48:22,320 joke. Yeah. 2843 02:48:25,040 --> 02:48:27,080 And you know, humor is inherently part of horror. 2844 02:48:27,480 --> 02:48:31,600 You know, even beyond like the schlock, like the B horror and 2845 02:48:31,600 --> 02:48:33,200 all that stuff that's intentionally trying to be a 2846 02:48:33,200 --> 02:48:37,840 little bit goofy. It's the the juxtaposition 2847 02:48:37,840 --> 02:48:40,280 against the thing that we as a viewer find inherently humorous 2848 02:48:40,280 --> 02:48:43,520 and the things that are actually horrifying that makes for good 2849 02:48:43,520 --> 02:48:46,560 horror. Not every horror scenario is 2850 02:48:46,560 --> 02:48:49,160 going to be humor filled, but I think there's a lot of space for 2851 02:48:49,160 --> 02:48:51,080 it, especially if you're playing with a group that's less 2852 02:48:51,080 --> 02:48:54,560 serious. The one example that that sticks 2853 02:48:54,560 --> 02:48:57,960 in my brain is I think it's one of the Friday the 13th movies. 2854 02:48:58,440 --> 02:49:03,080 But there's the scene where Jason's coming back, or the 2855 02:49:03,080 --> 02:49:06,960 killer, if I'm getting the details wrong, and I think he's 2856 02:49:06,960 --> 02:49:12,480 going to his old home. And there are squatters who have 2857 02:49:12,480 --> 02:49:16,320 taken over and in, you know, in classic horror tropes, they're 2858 02:49:16,320 --> 02:49:23,920 fucking. So Jason goes and kills the 2859 02:49:23,920 --> 02:49:29,960 dude, then walks into the room where the chick is with a sheet 2860 02:49:29,960 --> 02:49:34,280 over his head as a ghost with a pair of glasses on it before 2861 02:49:34,280 --> 02:49:38,680 walking up and killing her. It's like it's such an absurd 2862 02:49:38,680 --> 02:49:41,320 moment where it's, you know, it's inherently terrifying 2863 02:49:41,320 --> 02:49:43,160 because it's murder that's happening there for an 2864 02:49:43,160 --> 02:49:44,760 unstoppable person killing everyone. 2865 02:49:45,120 --> 02:49:49,000 But he's committed to the bit. He's got the joke, he put the 2866 02:49:49,000 --> 02:49:52,000 fucking sheet on with glasses and he's going to kill this 2867 02:49:52,000 --> 02:49:54,440 person. So it's like it's such an absurd 2868 02:49:54,440 --> 02:49:57,040 moment in this otherwise serious movie. 2869 02:49:57,560 --> 02:49:59,520 And it's for the audience. It's it's the wink of the 2870 02:49:59,520 --> 02:50:03,920 audience. So it's, you can have your 2871 02:50:03,920 --> 02:50:06,280 horror and your comedy. It's it's, they're not 2872 02:50:06,280 --> 02:50:08,760 incongruous with each other. It's really just the mood you 2873 02:50:08,760 --> 02:50:11,320 want to set at the table and the experience you're you're looking 2874 02:50:11,320 --> 02:50:18,960 to have. Well, did you did you want to 2875 02:50:18,960 --> 02:50:21,240 wrap with that or do you want me to keep going as far as the 2876 02:50:21,240 --> 02:50:22,840 question? Let's do one more. 2877 02:50:23,240 --> 02:50:24,920 We're we're just at about at our time. 2878 02:50:25,160 --> 02:50:29,640 Favorite one? Oh, my favorite one that's like 2879 02:50:29,640 --> 02:50:32,720 an hour long discussion. Let's see, I have I have a very 2880 02:50:32,720 --> 02:50:37,040 short one, if you if you can give a short answer, but you're 2881 02:50:37,040 --> 02:50:41,960 a member of the podcast, so that's not possible. 2882 02:50:41,960 --> 02:50:44,560 Let's see here. So Aaron King had a lot of 2883 02:50:44,560 --> 02:50:54,760 really, really great questions. I would say two parter and pick 2884 02:50:54,760 --> 02:50:57,640 the part if you want to ask it. They asked what parts of liminal 2885 02:50:57,640 --> 02:51:01,880 horror feel essential to you so that you'd make another system 2886 02:51:01,880 --> 02:51:05,320 been around them, and what parts of other systems or supplements 2887 02:51:05,320 --> 02:51:09,360 might feel essential enough to discard liminal horror structure 2888 02:51:09,360 --> 02:51:16,920 in order to adapt them. The long way there. 2889 02:51:17,480 --> 02:51:20,200 All right. So I'll start a central parts a 2890 02:51:20,200 --> 02:51:22,240 little more. I told you, I told you it was 2891 02:51:22,240 --> 02:51:23,720 going to be. Yeah, you're going to remind me 2892 02:51:23,720 --> 02:51:26,520 what that part too is a central part of a little horse Fallout. 2893 02:51:26,600 --> 02:51:27,880 You know, that's the thing that does unique. 2894 02:51:27,880 --> 02:51:32,320 That is the thing that makes it, you know, click at the table. 2895 02:51:32,760 --> 02:51:35,720 I could have ripped Fallout out. It's in every one of my into the 2896 02:51:35,720 --> 02:51:40,360 odd games now. It's it's such an easy way. 2897 02:51:40,520 --> 02:51:42,520 It just, you know, reinforce your character up. 2898 02:51:42,520 --> 02:51:45,200 You're literally changing us as far as happening to you beyond 2899 02:51:45,200 --> 02:51:46,480 the fact that your character might die. 2900 02:51:47,880 --> 02:51:52,080 So that that that's easy enough. Beyond that, you know, Luminar 2901 02:51:52,080 --> 02:51:54,320 horror does a couple of fun things with the the framework 2902 02:51:54,320 --> 02:51:56,720 there, but we've seen the into the odd and the Karen framework 2903 02:51:56,720 --> 02:51:58,400 apply to a whole bunch of different things. 2904 02:51:58,400 --> 02:52:01,360 It's really just that fall out that makes it like unique at the 2905 02:52:01,360 --> 02:52:03,920 table and how that interacts with the themes of the system 2906 02:52:03,920 --> 02:52:05,200 and the adventures and all that stuff. 2907 02:52:05,200 --> 02:52:07,960 So super easy to take that and carry that through. 2908 02:52:07,960 --> 02:52:10,160 It's just, you know, bad things happen to your character. 2909 02:52:10,800 --> 02:52:12,640 What I always find interesting about Lumina Horror, and I don't 2910 02:52:12,640 --> 02:52:15,200 know if this is a frame that you guys necessarily meant or if 2911 02:52:15,200 --> 02:52:17,680 you've discussed already that Lumina Horror really doesn't 2912 02:52:17,680 --> 02:52:21,120 have a lot of advancement per SE, but except Fallout. 2913 02:52:21,120 --> 02:52:25,320 So it's like it's the only real way to get your characters more 2914 02:52:25,320 --> 02:52:27,480 power and to go forward. But it's also like bad for you 2915 02:52:27,480 --> 02:52:29,200 at the same time. So it's a fun kind of like 2916 02:52:29,200 --> 02:52:32,480 Blackjack where it's like get close to going over the edge 2917 02:52:32,480 --> 02:52:34,560 without going over and maybe you'll get something that'll 2918 02:52:34,560 --> 02:52:36,840 help you a little bit. And I find that incredibly 2919 02:52:36,840 --> 02:52:39,000 interesting. Is like a very brutal kind of 2920 02:52:39,000 --> 02:52:41,600 like lateral character advancement. 2921 02:52:42,360 --> 02:52:47,400 No, I think that is really at its core and I think if you line 2922 02:52:47,400 --> 02:52:51,680 up adventures as not always being the characters first 2923 02:52:51,680 --> 02:52:54,240 adventure, that also makes more sense than why they would 2924 02:52:54,280 --> 02:52:57,560 continue doing it. Is it that they want to be weird 2925 02:52:57,560 --> 02:53:01,240 or is that they want to find a way to undo it is like as you 2926 02:53:01,240 --> 02:53:04,920 start to string them along campaign style, if you did, 2927 02:53:05,880 --> 02:53:08,640 there's that inherent Dr. built into it because they have 2928 02:53:08,640 --> 02:53:13,480 already taken the step in how can I go do my office job and 2929 02:53:13,480 --> 02:53:15,520 have that black Halo hanging over my head? 2930 02:53:15,520 --> 02:53:19,800 Right. Like you have then fully 2931 02:53:19,800 --> 02:53:24,640 committed to whether you chose to or not, sort of going down 2932 02:53:24,640 --> 02:53:26,560 this path. And I think that is very 2933 02:53:26,560 --> 02:53:29,840 interesting. I think it it's fun and then 2934 02:53:29,920 --> 02:53:33,320 tying, you know, it allows you to really pull from such great 2935 02:53:34,040 --> 02:53:39,280 media and genre examples to like explore and play with, which I 2936 02:53:39,280 --> 02:53:42,680 think is fun because a lot of you think of how those movies 2937 02:53:42,680 --> 02:53:45,440 end. You know, often times it ends 2938 02:53:45,440 --> 02:53:49,520 with that moment for the characters, you know, like it 2939 02:53:49,520 --> 02:53:52,200 doesn't go into it, but that reflecting on what happened and 2940 02:53:52,200 --> 02:53:54,240 there's that sort of sense of like they are different, either 2941 02:53:54,240 --> 02:53:56,280 they're covered in blood or like this or that. 2942 02:53:56,280 --> 02:53:59,200 Like they are different than how they started in that first frame 2943 02:53:59,200 --> 02:54:03,080 of the movie, right when she's riding in the back of the the 2944 02:54:03,080 --> 02:54:08,840 truck after escaping in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, right? 2945 02:54:08,840 --> 02:54:12,320 And she's just there covered in blood, like hysterically crank 2946 02:54:12,320 --> 02:54:15,840 slash sort of almost screaming. And you got the sunspots going 2947 02:54:15,840 --> 02:54:19,120 on. And like that character has 2948 02:54:19,120 --> 02:54:22,400 changed because of the events. And like that's what follow up 2949 02:54:22,880 --> 02:54:28,000 in a sense sort of does. So was that second part of the 2950 02:54:28,000 --> 02:54:31,560 question, what would we take from other systems to bring to 2951 02:54:31,560 --> 02:54:33,240 Luminal Horror or something like that? 2952 02:54:33,240 --> 02:54:35,080 Yeah. What parts of other systems or 2953 02:54:35,080 --> 02:54:38,480 supplements might feel essential enough to discard Luminal 2954 02:54:38,480 --> 02:54:40,920 Horrors structure in order to adapt them? 2955 02:54:43,440 --> 02:54:46,040 Like is there a system you could think of that might be an 2956 02:54:46,240 --> 02:54:48,320 adventure? Like DCC for example? 2957 02:54:48,320 --> 02:54:51,360 Is there any part of that system where you might want to adapt an 2958 02:54:51,360 --> 02:54:56,200 adventure and you might tweak Luminal Horrors system in order 2959 02:54:56,200 --> 02:55:00,160 to adapt that adventure? In this very short answer, like 2960 02:55:00,160 --> 02:55:03,360 yes and do it right, like the mall. 2961 02:55:03,360 --> 02:55:06,000 I sort of did that with the whisper cards, whether or not 2962 02:55:06,000 --> 02:55:09,440 like I think that what's nice about the Mahort and that 2963 02:55:09,440 --> 02:55:12,800 structure of the into the odd is like you really can adapt it to 2964 02:55:12,800 --> 02:55:20,000 like you could add new mechanics specifically for to reinforce a 2965 02:55:20,000 --> 02:55:22,440 specific adventure, right. We play around with that a 2966 02:55:22,440 --> 02:55:26,360 little bit with different appendices of like modular roles 2967 02:55:26,360 --> 02:55:29,040 you could add. That's a really nice thing that 2968 02:55:29,040 --> 02:55:31,880 that framework does is it allows you to like adapt it. 2969 02:55:31,880 --> 02:55:34,560 So I think if there was a mechanic that you're like, this 2970 02:55:34,560 --> 02:55:37,000 is really going to work for this adventure, but it's not in the 2971 02:55:37,000 --> 02:55:39,080 core rules. I think you go ahead and you 2972 02:55:39,080 --> 02:55:42,080 just slap that shit on and you just you lead it with the front 2973 02:55:42,080 --> 02:55:45,840 and be like, this is either the you lay it out very specifically 2974 02:55:45,840 --> 02:55:47,720 at the start of the those sessions. 2975 02:55:47,720 --> 02:55:49,840 Like you can play this differently. 2976 02:55:49,840 --> 02:55:51,880 It's almost like playing a different genre of horror, 2977 02:55:51,880 --> 02:55:53,320 right? And different genres of horrors 2978 02:55:53,320 --> 02:55:56,840 have different rules to them, and so sometimes those rules, if 2979 02:55:56,840 --> 02:55:59,920 it's in the TTRPG, is just a mechanical change that you would 2980 02:55:59,920 --> 02:56:07,080 just play slightly differently. Yeah, and, and realistically, 2981 02:56:08,200 --> 02:56:10,400 I've got like 6 billion things that are kind of stewing in the 2982 02:56:10,400 --> 02:56:14,200 background. So I have been toying with this 2983 02:56:14,200 --> 02:56:21,560 very concept while working on it's a potential future, nothing 2984 02:56:21,560 --> 02:56:24,000 that we've committed to, but this idea that I'm calling a 2985 02:56:24,000 --> 02:56:28,600 Southern Gothic horror, which is sort of taking the framework of 2986 02:56:28,600 --> 02:56:31,880 liminal horror and applying it to a very specific genre as 2987 02:56:31,880 --> 02:56:35,040 opposed to sort of like the general, you know, poor just 2988 02:56:35,040 --> 02:56:38,040 that we're trying to hit here. So I've been tinkering with a 2989 02:56:38,040 --> 02:56:39,880 few things. So I've got some specific 2990 02:56:39,880 --> 02:56:42,960 examples of stuff that might creep into the design. 2991 02:56:43,560 --> 02:56:47,480 The 1st is very funny because it's also called Fallout from 2992 02:56:47,480 --> 02:56:50,360 heart. The city beneath it has this 2993 02:56:50,360 --> 02:56:55,760 system where Fallout targets each of your stats. 2994 02:56:56,040 --> 02:56:58,640 So if we were going to exercise this from the middle horror, 2995 02:56:58,640 --> 02:57:01,920 it'd be to take out wounds entirely and add everything 2996 02:57:01,920 --> 02:57:05,480 that's Fallout. Now, I don't think that that 2997 02:57:05,520 --> 02:57:09,200 lends to the genre that we're trying to hit the sort of wider 2998 02:57:09,200 --> 02:57:10,920 net. It's much more appropriate to 2999 02:57:10,920 --> 02:57:13,560 have wounds than Fallout is the way that Heart does that. 3000 02:57:13,560 --> 02:57:16,640 But for something a little more specific, that's something I 3001 02:57:16,680 --> 02:57:20,840 would recommend looking into is, you know, seeing if you can 3002 02:57:20,840 --> 02:57:23,840 unify the system and everything is a fallout now, as opposed to 3003 02:57:23,840 --> 02:57:26,560 like strict, you know, body horror, like your arms getting 3004 02:57:26,560 --> 02:57:28,200 chopped off. Maybe something happens that 3005 02:57:28,560 --> 02:57:32,480 changes even other ways. But the other one I had in mind 3006 02:57:32,560 --> 02:57:38,360 would be to completely cut out archetype and character 3007 02:57:38,360 --> 02:57:41,960 backgrounds in lieu of something like Troubles from Orbital 3008 02:57:41,960 --> 02:57:46,120 Blues. For the uninformed Troubles, 3009 02:57:46,120 --> 02:57:51,800 what they do is Orbital Blues uses this this mechanic called 3010 02:57:51,800 --> 02:57:55,920 Blues, which is your character getting real sad because they're 3011 02:57:55,920 --> 02:58:02,040 a sad space cowboy. But the Troubles are your past 3012 02:58:02,040 --> 02:58:05,240 coming to haunt your character in ways that you didn't 3013 02:58:05,240 --> 02:58:09,120 necessarily expect. Your Trouble will present you a 3014 02:58:09,120 --> 02:58:13,000 series of questions. You answer a couple of them at 3015 02:58:13,000 --> 02:58:17,680 character creation and then the rest during play as you are 3016 02:58:19,040 --> 02:58:22,200 answering your questions and detailing your character, and 3017 02:58:22,200 --> 02:58:24,880 you're learning who this person is, what they, what makes them 3018 02:58:24,920 --> 02:58:28,400 tick, what part of the past haunts them, and how this 3019 02:58:28,400 --> 02:58:32,800 changes of the course of play. You're gaining Blues, and Blues 3020 02:58:32,800 --> 02:58:37,200 feed into the system's mechanical character progression 3021 02:58:37,960 --> 02:58:42,040 up until the point where they address the source of their 3022 02:58:42,040 --> 02:58:45,720 trouble in a direct manner. And then that's how the 3023 02:58:45,720 --> 02:58:52,200 character grows mechanically and as like tangible character 3024 02:58:52,200 --> 02:58:55,560 growth, They address the source of their trouble. 3025 02:58:55,560 --> 02:58:58,960 They figured out a way how to move on, move past it bothering 3026 02:58:58,960 --> 02:59:01,160 them, and then some other trouble crops up and they have 3027 02:59:01,160 --> 02:59:05,600 to deal with that. But finding a way to kind of 3028 02:59:05,600 --> 02:59:09,000 apply that more into liminal horror has been sort of a a 3029 02:59:09,000 --> 02:59:12,760 quest of mine as of late. Or more of like amusing what I'm 3030 02:59:12,760 --> 02:59:14,120 sitting in bed with nothing better to do. 3031 02:59:15,400 --> 02:59:20,440 But it is troubles layout a potential character progression 3032 02:59:20,440 --> 02:59:22,400 path for each of your characters. 3033 02:59:22,400 --> 02:59:26,480 And so finding a way to see that loosely would be very 3034 02:59:26,480 --> 02:59:30,960 interesting and worth dropping parts of liminal horror core for 3035 02:59:31,280 --> 02:59:32,880 depending on your scenario. Maybe you don't want to. 3036 02:59:32,880 --> 02:59:36,000 Maybe you don't care about emotions in your play sessions. 3037 02:59:39,480 --> 02:59:43,080 Who, who needs emotions, You know, discard those. 3038 02:59:43,960 --> 02:59:45,680 It's, it's a fallout of life, actually. 3039 02:59:47,600 --> 02:59:50,480 Did you want to keep going with questions or did you want to? 3040 02:59:51,280 --> 02:59:54,360 No, My bladder's about to explode, so I gotta run to the 3041 02:59:54,360 --> 02:59:57,160 bathroom. OK, One second. 3042 02:59:57,560 --> 03:00:05,720 I'm gonna. Discard this jump to. 3043 03:00:07,560 --> 03:00:10,920 This screen we're back so to kind of wrap up here. 3044 03:00:11,240 --> 03:00:12,960 First of all, thank you so much for coming on and doing this. 3045 03:00:12,960 --> 03:00:15,560 I I, I hope this becomes the series has been extremely 3046 03:00:15,560 --> 03:00:18,160 enlightening and I really, really appreciate you guys. 3047 03:00:18,520 --> 03:00:20,880 You know, I mean friends of the show, member of the show, like 3048 03:00:20,880 --> 03:00:22,520 everything here, really appreciate you guys coming on 3049 03:00:22,520 --> 03:00:24,600 and and doing this with us. So thank you first of all. 3050 03:00:25,800 --> 03:00:28,200 Yeah, thank you for having us. It would have been a giant pain 3051 03:00:28,200 --> 03:00:29,800 in the butt to set this up without yes. 3052 03:00:32,400 --> 03:00:35,560 So back to our three person screen in the corners here we 3053 03:00:35,560 --> 03:00:39,480 have the Twisted Classics luminal horror GM kind of 3054 03:00:39,480 --> 03:00:42,440 graphic there. And then the parthenogenesis of 3055 03:00:42,440 --> 03:00:44,760 Hungary hollow. Google the word parthenogenesis 3056 03:00:44,800 --> 03:00:47,120 if you would like to, if you'd like to. 3057 03:00:47,240 --> 03:00:47,960 That's fun. Weird. 3058 03:00:49,720 --> 03:00:52,720 Do you guys want to just give a little bit of info on those real 3059 03:00:52,720 --> 03:00:53,720 quick? I know we touched on a little 3060 03:00:53,720 --> 03:00:56,880 bit, but how long is the Twisted Classics GM going for when this 3061 03:00:56,880 --> 03:00:59,040 Hungary hollow drop? I know you set a date previously 3062 03:01:00,080 --> 03:01:06,280 and then and then. Yeah, so Twisted Classics is on 3063 03:01:06,280 --> 03:01:08,480 right now. It's for people to create, write 3064 03:01:08,480 --> 03:01:12,720 their own third party at modules, monsters. 3065 03:01:12,760 --> 03:01:15,200 It it's pretty open in terms of like scope too. 3066 03:01:15,200 --> 03:01:17,640 So if you're like I've never done a whole adventure before, 3067 03:01:17,640 --> 03:01:21,800 you could start off small, but it's a way for you to adapt sort 3068 03:01:21,800 --> 03:01:25,000 of classic and classic being something you just really care 3069 03:01:25,000 --> 03:01:28,520 about and put it into sort of a modern horror presentation. 3070 03:01:30,160 --> 03:01:34,520 For Hungry Hollow, The parthenogenesis Parthenogenesis 3071 03:01:34,520 --> 03:01:38,440 of Hungry Hollow that is going to be launching on Backer Kit 3072 03:01:38,800 --> 03:01:40,160 June 3rd. I believe. 3073 03:01:40,720 --> 03:01:42,840 It's going to be our first hardcover. 3074 03:01:42,840 --> 03:01:48,120 It is going to be both in size and sort of style, setting the 3075 03:01:48,120 --> 03:01:52,680 groundwork going forward for the deluxe edition and adventures 3076 03:01:52,680 --> 03:01:55,320 going forward. It has amazing art throughout 3077 03:01:55,320 --> 03:01:58,360 it. It's it's a really cool 3078 03:01:58,360 --> 03:02:00,840 adventure. I've got to run it twice and 3079 03:02:00,840 --> 03:02:04,440 both times were some of my more favorite sessions I've ever had. 3080 03:02:05,280 --> 03:02:07,560 And that's not just patting myself on the own back. 3081 03:02:07,560 --> 03:02:09,920 It's just a lot of fun. It's really gross. 3082 03:02:09,920 --> 03:02:13,280 It's really weird. It takes all the parts that were 3083 03:02:13,280 --> 03:02:19,880 really cool about N1 and then through flesh bees and other 3084 03:02:19,880 --> 03:02:23,280 things too into it. And so just open it and beep, 3085 03:02:23,640 --> 03:02:26,360 you know, I hope you don't have tryptophobia because that's 3086 03:02:26,360 --> 03:02:28,280 definitely a thing that's throughout it. 3087 03:02:29,520 --> 03:02:33,160 Major content wording for that. And there's, if you go on to the 3088 03:02:33,160 --> 03:02:35,480 backer kit too, there's, there's content warnings, 'cause there's 3089 03:02:35,480 --> 03:02:40,520 a lot of different themes and things going on that can be 3090 03:02:40,520 --> 03:02:42,800 pretty gnarly. And so just leaving those at the 3091 03:02:42,800 --> 03:02:44,400 forefront. But it's a lot of fun. 3092 03:02:44,400 --> 03:02:48,760 It's a really social module because you're really 3093 03:02:48,760 --> 03:02:51,560 interacting with this town as you start to realize what's 3094 03:02:51,560 --> 03:02:55,640 going on and realize that some people are acting really strange 3095 03:02:55,640 --> 03:02:59,680 and really, really into the baby shower that's coming up. 3096 03:03:01,560 --> 03:03:03,160 Nothing bad could happen there, I promise. 3097 03:03:03,160 --> 03:03:07,840 Good times, good times. So yeah, so once again, thank 3098 03:03:07,840 --> 03:03:09,400 you. Thank you for coming on. 3099 03:03:09,840 --> 03:03:12,600 Definitely check those out if you're watching or if you're 3100 03:03:12,600 --> 03:03:14,400 watching, you can also check it on podcast. 3101 03:03:14,400 --> 03:03:16,720 If you're listening, you can also watch presentation over on 3102 03:03:16,720 --> 03:03:17,720 YouTube. I'll make sure all the links are 3103 03:03:17,720 --> 03:03:20,640 down in the descriptions, and I'll make sure the links to the 3104 03:03:20,640 --> 03:03:24,960 Twisted Classics Jam and to the backer kit for Parthenogenesis 3105 03:03:24,960 --> 03:03:28,240 of Hungry Hollow are down there as well, as well as any other 3106 03:03:28,240 --> 03:03:31,120 links we think are appropriate based on the presentation and 3107 03:03:31,120 --> 03:03:34,520 stuff. Anything else? 3108 03:03:34,520 --> 03:03:38,200 Or are we we wrapping the first, maybe, maybe first of a series 3109 03:03:38,200 --> 03:03:39,440 for the Lumina Hole Riding seminar? 3110 03:03:41,240 --> 03:03:46,240 That's about it. I do want to shout out that at 3111 03:03:46,240 --> 03:03:49,400 the moment, the current plan to come back for a second of the 3112 03:03:49,400 --> 03:03:51,520 seminars is to focus on play testing. 3113 03:03:52,560 --> 03:03:55,680 Do a little bit of a talk at the start, talk about how to go 3114 03:03:55,680 --> 03:03:58,280 about play testing, and then host a live play test on this 3115 03:03:58,280 --> 03:04:03,960 channel here. But if you want to see further 3116 03:04:03,960 --> 03:04:08,480 writing seminars, please put them in the chat of the YouTube 3117 03:04:08,480 --> 03:04:12,080 video or come to Little Horror Server and shout out what you 3118 03:04:12,080 --> 03:04:14,040 want to see. We have no firm plans for a 3119 03:04:14,040 --> 03:04:16,480 third one. Maybe we will do that before the 3120 03:04:16,480 --> 03:04:18,680 end of the jam. It really depends on the 3121 03:04:18,680 --> 03:04:21,520 interests of the folk and what they have specific questions on 3122 03:04:21,520 --> 03:04:23,960 whether or not we think it's worth dedicating 2 1/2 hours to. 3123 03:04:26,560 --> 03:04:31,640 I'm pushing three now, but you guys are perpetually welcome to 3124 03:04:31,640 --> 03:04:35,120 do anything you want and we will always try to make work here as 3125 03:04:35,120 --> 03:04:38,440 best we can here on the show. We love, love and horror. 3126 03:04:38,440 --> 03:04:41,200 We love both of you guys and it's been a pleasure to be able 3127 03:04:41,200 --> 03:04:43,520 to be a part of this with you. So again, thank you. 3128 03:04:44,480 --> 03:04:48,640 Thank you for hosting us. And that'll be it everyone, 3129 03:04:48,640 --> 03:04:51,360 thank you so much in chat for for participating. 3130 03:04:51,360 --> 03:04:52,600 Drop the questions and everything. 3131 03:04:53,040 --> 03:04:55,240 We'll drop a link to the Discord as well so you can check these 3132 03:04:55,240 --> 03:04:56,680 guys out. And everyone, have a wonderful 3133 03:04:56,680 --> 03:04:56,800 day.