The party splitting was a little unexpected, but thinking about it, it's probably because it feels strange to have Ryan and Aldo disagree, which speaks to the need to make them actual people, so you know, good thinking! I'm curious now about what Ryan's going to end up doing, if anything.
I'm not one for too much gruesome stuff, that's why BiTD never really appealed to me even though the play-loop is actually very interesting, that said the worldbuilding about the horrors beneath Dalmore house was exquisite.
I'm wondering, how much about this kind of thing do you decide in advance?
(I'm one for emergent stories in solo play, but sometimes having something at least a bit planned in advance helps me, but then I end up feeling like I'm cheating)
For this particular bit of worldbuilding, I knew that I wanted to have some supernatural threats beneath Dalmore House, but I didn't have the specifics of the Grey Plague or the house's past as a hospital figured out. Once the reader polls shook out as they did, and I knew we were headed under there, I started thinking about how to flesh it out. I knew I wanted to have one threat that needed to be snuck by, and one (still upcoming) that could potentially be fought. I started fooling around in Midjourney, trying to find something that felt big and scary, and the big beast that featured in this episode was the result. Once I had that, I did some thinking about how such a monster might have emerged in the tunnels beneath the house, and I came up with the details around it. Once I had those details, it gave me a nice jumping off point to envision the next threat that you'll see in in this Monday's episode.
Re: Emergent stories, for me the emergence for this project comes from two big places: First is miss results in high-stakes situations and second is the reader votes. Blades in the Dark is a little more controllable by the player than your standard PbtA games, so a major miss result that alters the course of the story hasn't really happened (though I will say, when Aldo failed to hide from Mr. Seek in Session 1, that probably stopped us from reuniting with Emma for some time). The reader votes create emergent story in a slightly more managable way, since the polls come at the end of an episode and I have a good amount of time to think in response to whatever the result is.
If I were doing a solo play without an audience to poll, I might consider trying to set up interesting character dilemmas and then using the oracle to resolve them, allowing myself to be surprised as a GM (by the player-oracle's action) rather than the usual mode, which is to be surprised as the player by the GM-oracle's action.
The party splitting was a little unexpected, but thinking about it, it's probably because it feels strange to have Ryan and Aldo disagree, which speaks to the need to make them actual people, so you know, good thinking! I'm curious now about what Ryan's going to end up doing, if anything.
I'm not one for too much gruesome stuff, that's why BiTD never really appealed to me even though the play-loop is actually very interesting, that said the worldbuilding about the horrors beneath Dalmore house was exquisite.
I'm wondering, how much about this kind of thing do you decide in advance?
(I'm one for emergent stories in solo play, but sometimes having something at least a bit planned in advance helps me, but then I end up feeling like I'm cheating)
For this particular bit of worldbuilding, I knew that I wanted to have some supernatural threats beneath Dalmore House, but I didn't have the specifics of the Grey Plague or the house's past as a hospital figured out. Once the reader polls shook out as they did, and I knew we were headed under there, I started thinking about how to flesh it out. I knew I wanted to have one threat that needed to be snuck by, and one (still upcoming) that could potentially be fought. I started fooling around in Midjourney, trying to find something that felt big and scary, and the big beast that featured in this episode was the result. Once I had that, I did some thinking about how such a monster might have emerged in the tunnels beneath the house, and I came up with the details around it. Once I had those details, it gave me a nice jumping off point to envision the next threat that you'll see in in this Monday's episode.
Re: Emergent stories, for me the emergence for this project comes from two big places: First is miss results in high-stakes situations and second is the reader votes. Blades in the Dark is a little more controllable by the player than your standard PbtA games, so a major miss result that alters the course of the story hasn't really happened (though I will say, when Aldo failed to hide from Mr. Seek in Session 1, that probably stopped us from reuniting with Emma for some time). The reader votes create emergent story in a slightly more managable way, since the polls come at the end of an episode and I have a good amount of time to think in response to whatever the result is.
If I were doing a solo play without an audience to poll, I might consider trying to set up interesting character dilemmas and then using the oracle to resolve them, allowing myself to be surprised as a GM (by the player-oracle's action) rather than the usual mode, which is to be surprised as the player by the GM-oracle's action.
They just encountered a Bloodborne boss.
Ha! I've never played, but of course I've seen video, art and concept from it. Is there a specific boss it's reminiscent of, or is it just the vibes?
Just the vibes