PTFOOO: Excuses, Excuses

Plus: Something completely different

No new fiction today, I’m sorry to say — last week was a bit blown up by a very close friend having a major health episode. They’re doing well, all things considered, but they’re not out of the woods yet, and last week and this week, I’m playing a small role in supporting them through what comes next. That’s all very vague, but it’s not my story to tell, so vagueness strikes me as a virtue here.

Today, a pair of Stonetop children play on the banks of the stream, unaware of the terrible danger our heroes face in the depths beneath Gordin’s Delve // Source: Midjourney

My apologies for the somewhat inconsistent publishing schedule of late — as my work is ramping up and my boys grow ever more capable of complex mischief, it’s tricky to carve out the writing hours, and forces majeure like last week’s scare are that much tougher to deal with. PTFO:Stonetop will return next week — I hope you’ll return too!

Interlude: And now for something completely different

More than a year ago, back in June 2022, I talked a bit about what the future of PTFO might hold. It’s always been my intention to explore other game systems and worlds than Stonetop, but this story has been going on for almost two years! Part of that is my fault — in envisioning the world and its threats, I probably envisioned 1-2 too many threats: Owain, Brennan, and Cirl-of-the-Storms aren’t so much a season arc as a series arc. Looking back at the run of PTFO:Stonetop, I think we’ve done three ‘seasons’ of play:

1. Season 1 is Session 1 through Session 5: The PCs coming into their own within the village of Stonetop. Anwen passes her initiation rite, Padrig confesses his bloody past and earns a place in the village with his crew, and Vahid discovers the Stormbinder hidden under the cistern and embarks on his journey in Indrasduthir’s footsteps.

2. Season 2 is Session 6 through Session 9: The PCs emerge as leaders of the village. They sojourn with the Hillfolk, and Padrig restores their ancient bonds of friendship. Vahid becomes the Seeker and unlocks the true power of the Azure Hand. Anwen defeats Owain in ritual combat and exiles him, becoming the new Marshal of Stonetop.

3. Season 3 is Session 10 and on: The PCs move against Cirl-of-the-Storms. They travel to Gordin’s Delve to bring his plans to ruin before he can muster an army of storm-marked zealots to march on Stonetop.

I remain excited to play to find out how the story ends, but I’m also excited by the possibility of playing with other characters in another story. For the remainder of today’s installment, I thought I’d talk about how I’d approach that and what one of those stories might look like.

Series Break & Pilot Season

My (very!) tentative plan as of today is to take a break from PTFO:Stonetop after the current session, or perhaps the following session — assuming Odo is defeated, the next big story beat coming is the hdour’s coming attack on Gordin’s Delve, and whether the PCs win or lose, that represents an outstanding act break.

Then, after a short hiatus, PTFO would return for what I’m calling ‘pilot season’ — a series of short posts, modeled after the original Stonetop Session Zero, that each explores a different game and story premise¹.

Here on PTFO, we like to vote on important decisions, and the choice of our next story and setting is no different: After going through 3ish of those Sessions Zero, a reader poll would choose what world we visit next. Using what I’ve learned from PTFO:Stonetop, I’d endeavor to make the setup for this game a bit more manageable, a 1-2 season arc instead of a 3-4 season arc, and after we’ve spent some time with those characters, we’ll kick off another pilot season, this time with a return to Stonetop in the mix!

What do you folks think about this approach? Are you here just for the adventures of Anwen, Vahid, and Padrig, or are you curious about who else could be out there in the PTFOverse? Let me know in the comments!

With all that said, here’s a little teaser of one of the Session Zero pilots I intend to put in front of y’all for a vote after we wrap up our time with Anwen, Vahid, and Padrig, for now.

Pilot Preview: That Devil, Sam Crow

That Devil, Sam Crow is the story of a posse of bounty hunters on the trail of a ruthless outlaw through a dark, fantastical reimagining of the American West.

We’ll use Monster of the Week for the core system, an awesome PbtA game by Michael Sands, published by Evil Hat. For my money, it is one of the best PbtA games out there, particularly for beginners, and, true to its title, it follows a ‘monster of the week’-style framing device where each adventure focuses on hunting down and defeating a specific monster, hopefully after learning its weaknesses. For the setting, I’ll be tapping into an awesome Ironsworn setting hack called Badlands, which you can find on Itch.io right here. Like core Ironsworn, Badlands has a map with some evocative regions and a setting-building questionnaire that I’d use to create the western territory through which our heroes will pursue their quarry. The premise for the game is drawn from another very cool indie game called The Devil John Moulton by Nick Wedig.

Sam Crow, our quarry

Samuel Crow, true name unknown. Wanted dead or alive in two dozen states and five territories. Some say he is merely the deadliest outlaw ever to wear a shooting iron — a peerless gunslinger and duelist, a robber of banks and trains, a fomenter of revolts, and a dealer in all manner of sin. Others whisper darker secrets about the man: That he is a sorcerer, that he deals with the ancient spirits of the world, that he calls up devils from the pits of hell, and that he sold his soul to Lucifer for power in this life. And a few even claim that he is the Adversary himself, broken free from perdition to raise an army of the wicked and the damned to burn down all creation so that the smoke might reach up to heaven and sting the eyes of the Almighty.

Whatever the truth, our hunters are sworn to bring him to justice, though hell may bar the way.

The Badlands, our hunting grounds

Hop a train in one of the great cities back east and ride west. You’ll pass by the Robber Barons’ opulent mansions and spires of industry, grand courthouses, and august capitols where senators and judges play their games with the lives of ordinary folk and the hallowed cathedrals where holy men preach god’s judgment of the wicked and sinful. Once those mighty places are far behind you, you’ll cross the Big Muddy River, slow as honey and wide as the open sky, and finally, you’ll reach a broad, free country: The Badlands.

From the banks of the Big Muddy to the golden shores of Costa Dorada, the Badlands are a place where the great and the good and the wicked and the cruel can make their fortunes by their own hands, free from the Robber Baron’s exploitation, the priest’s condemnation, and the government man’s boot.

The Hunters

Many seek Sam Crow. There’s an enormous bounty on his head, courtesy of the Robber Barons from whom he has stolen piles of gold. Any man who brings him in will be hailed as a national hero by the President himself. And for those who believe, the priests say the path to heaven will be easy and quick for the one who puts the noose around the neck of the Devil’s own. Here are a couple of the characters we might follow on the hunt for that Devil, Sam Crow:

Daniel Ross, the Professional: Daniel Ross has been a soldier all his life, but the day he became a hunter was at the Battle of Devil’s Rock, the bloodiest fight in the great war between the states twenty years past. There, his entire regiment was wiped out by a monster in grey — a wolf wearing the skin of a man who shrugged off musket balls like they were spring rain. After recovering from his injuries and shock, he was ushered into a particular branch of government service, dedicated to the eradication of the unnatural by any means necessary.

The Professional playbook ties Daniel to the powers-that-be Back East — the iron triangle of church, state and industry are eager to see Sam Crow brought to justice and Ross is their top man on the case. But as he closes in on his quarry, what will he discover about the men and women pulling his strings?

Rose, the Spooky: Rose was a frontier wife, carving out a ranch claim in the Sea of Grasses at the very eastern edge of the Badlands with her husband and sons, until darkness touched them. A coven of blood-drinkers descended on their homestead, and by a trick of fate, only Rose was spared. In her blood-soaked grief, Sam Crow came to Rose and offered her a deal: The power to exact revenge on those who wronged her in exchange for her soul when the deed was done.

On and off, Rose has run with the Sam Crow gang, sinking deeper and deeper into the bloody and free life of a Badlands outlaw. Along the way, six of the seven monsters who slew her family have been burnt to ash. Now, with her revenge almost complete, she has begun to dream of the fires of perdition: The fate that awaits her when she must fulfill her end of the bargain.

The Spooky playbook grants Rose mystical powers that make her both a force to be reckoned with in a fight and a cunning hunter of monsters. But it also saddles her with a dark urge — her time with the Sam Crow Gang has put in her a powerful cruelty that can sometimes slip loose and wreak havoc.

Next week: Back to Stonetop!

I hope this interlude into the Weird West has been an interesting one! When the time comes, this will be built out with a ton more detail to give you a real taste of what our adventures in the Badlands might be like, and it’ll be joined by 2-3 more pilots like it to give us a nice menu of options to decide where we adventure next.

Next Monday, 8/21, will (hopefully!) see PTFO:Stonetop return, absent any additional life/work craziness. Thanks, as always, for reading, and I’ll see you in your inbox next week!

1. Back in June, when I first mused a bit about what the future of PTFO might look like, I threw out a few ideas of what those other games might look like; you can see that list here.