Response to Patrick Stuart's Post About Flow Control

This was originally intended as a comment on Patrick Stuart's blog post WHAT IS FLOW CONTROL?? (AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?) but my comment was too long so I'm just making it it's own post in response. You should definitely read that post first or this response won't make sense.

I appreciate the self awareness you demonstrate in questioning the extent to which you actually prefer a greater sense of freedom even if it's made a lesser experience, and likewise differentiating between actual freedom and the sense of freedom. These are both critical, I think, to any kind of discussion on this topic.

While I dislike the extreme linearity or narrative constraints of Paizo/modern WotC design and a lot of PbtA/FitD/storygames respectively, it's also an easy straw man/false binary that I can already kind of sense people will fall into, so while I don't think that's what you're doing, I just want to get that statement out of the way.

I'm inclined to think that flow control is underrated in the OSR scene, in part as an overreaction/overcorrection to the bad and/or very extreme examples above (I don't mean to say they are as a rule bad, but when leaning into an extreme it's easier to go bad).

In this particular example with the house, in the absence of more specifics, I might be inclined to agree with you to some extent that it's better suited to an open-ended design. That said, a few key flow control gates could have a profound effect, especially in what is otherwise an open-ended design, and so if used conscientiously, both of these tools can and should be utilized together.

People tend to conflate this idea of flow control with linearity, but I actually think that's a mistake. When done poorly this is true, but when done well, it can actually create more possibilities, or rather, even to the extent that it is constraining, it provides a sense of greater possibility by making the possibilities more salient (getting back to that idea of actual freedom vs. a sense of freedom).

Frankly, what I've often found with OSR design, is that it is so open-ended, that most people aren't clever enough (or at least not clever enough on the spot) to actually think through the possibilities and do something interesting with them, so they all kind of play out the same way, not unlike sub-par RNG Dungeons in some videogames. That actually probably comes off more insulting and provocative than I intend, it is genuinely difficult for to work without constraints, and some people perform better under those conditions than others, and I don't mean to suggest that they aren't at all clever, but anyway...

By having some carefully considered flow control gates, where in the first case the Designer, and then the GM, and then finally the Players, know that there is some kind of limits in place (or have some sense of them), more possibilities unfold or become salient. I've heard it said in the context of videogames, sports, and children's games, but I think also applies to TTRPGs, that games aren't defined by what you can do, but by what you can't.

If the designer knows that no matter what X has to happen before Y, they can design more interesting leads for how X gets to Y, or things to encounter between X and Y, or in how Y branches out into Z or A (but absolutely not B! But that's ok, because X precludes B; in other words, the branches on Y are a function of X). It goes much deeper than that, I would argue this same principle of flow control vs. open-endedness in scenario design also applies to mechanics design and many other facets of a game, and not just games but also literally systems in the abstract, but that's also all an aside...

But back on the topic of flow control in scenario design, the GM can better prepare for the kinds of actions the Players may make, and can more easily improvise if  Players do all the whacky stuff that Players tend to do. It might be that the Players do something which invalidates X, but if the GM knows that it all needs to lead to Y, they can improvise towards those ends, and do so more easily than if there were no framework or no constraints whatsoever (circumstantially, I don't necessarily mean this as an absolute).

And the Players too, if they're given these various leads by the Designer or GM, they can still choose any number of ways to approach the situation, or choose to come up with their own approach, but at least they have some leads to go off of, because there is some end in mind.

And nothing says, despite all this, that Players can't totally upend the whole thing, because that's just TTRPG, but having some degree of flow control and intentionality with that is only mutually exclusive with freedom if Players aren't clever enough to find their own way or GMs aren't clever enough to deviate, and good Design should lower the bar for both regardless.

Anyway, I realize some people get really heated with this stuff, so I welcome thoughtful discussion to this response not unlike Patrick's post in the first place, but please I'm not looking for throat cutting argumentation here.

BONUS: Maximum Recursion Depth Exalted Funeral Printing!

Maximum Recursion Depth is now available on Exalted Funeral! It should be available print+pdf later today (as of posting). I've been vocal about the fact that I'm a very digitally-oriented person, but I'm still looking forward to having a copy of MRD physically in my hands, and I know many other people do prefer print so I'm glad to have an offering for them. Also, Exalted Funeral is an awesome publisher and it's a real honor to be a part of their catalog. I hope that this exposes more people to MRD and my blog who I would not otherwise have crossed paths with.

Maximum Recursion Depth on Exalted Funeral!

MRD2 Mecha Gear Thematic Spark Tables

In moving forward with the idea of using Tarsos Theorem's Concept Crafting for the basis of my Mecha Gear system in Maximum Recursion Depth 2, I have run a series of "Mock Session 0 Playtests", discussing the setting, game mechanics, and character creation with people as if we were going to run a game (and in one case, it actually is going to be an ongoing IRL Campaign!).

I've been pleasantly surprised the extent to which people have responded really positively to the Playtests- it feels like I have demonstrably learned from MRD1 and have gotten better at conveying information and setting expectations, and also in game design itself. One of the playtests was with the first group I ran the earliest version of MRD1, and they said they liked the idea of MRD2 even better and were interested in playing it with me for real some time! Granted there's a sampling bias here obviously- the people who participate in the playtests are necessarily people who are at least somewhat interested in the first place, but even so.

That all said, one consistent issue I've run into, which I knew would be an issue, is that Players felt like it was difficult to come up with a Golem (the MRD2 version of Mecha) Core and three pieces of Gear, without any word lists or spark tables or whatever to jumpstart things.

I had avoided doing it, because at least for me, putting together the tables themselves seemed more difficult and daunting than just free associating on the spot, but I realize that's not viable for the game. But, of all the words in the English language and however many more outside it, how can I create a finite and manageable table? If I make not one table but several tables based on different themes, how do I decide the themes?

After discussing with the Players in my upcoming Campaign during the for-real Session 0, an idea we had was that I should create a set of tables that are Weird, and meant to evoke the kinds of Golem one might not normally consider, the kind of stuff that I most enjoy and that best reflects my own sensibilities, with maybe one or two general tables for comparison, and then point people to other sources for inspiration (such as the many spark tables in Between the Skies).

Here is my first pass at doing exactly that. Some of them might seem mundane but have unusual associated words, there will likely be some repeats across them, also I'm fairly inconsistent about part of speech- so it goes (and actually I don't think these inconsistencies are necessarily a bad thing anyway). Generators were created in part using Slight Adjustment's List to HTML Generator.

Element: Words based on traditional elements or words more unique than that but reflecting the fundamental nature of things in some way.

 

Distribution: Words relating to a Mecha that is not one thing but rather a distribution of things. Can be literal like a collection of smaller Mecha, gear like Gundam-style Funnels or autonomous missiles, multiple AI systems, or things weirder or more abstract like a business or organization or some kind of superorganism.

Weird: Words that are weird, abstract, psychedelic, pareidolic, dadaic, uncomfortable, grotesque, sexy, unexpected, euphoric...

Using these tables, I'll create a handful of MRD2-appropriate Golem. Players will not be expected to be limited to these tables, and can combine them freely, but for the sake of example I'll only use the words in these tables (but still combine them freely). Other than rejecting repeats, these were otherwise entirely random.

Golem 1 (Element + Weird tables)

CORE: (HEAT + LOSS)

Entropy Elancer

Ballerina Golem, bands of heat and dissolution stream behind its steps. A component of a yet to be written opera of the story of the universe from beginning to end in the form of a dream or psychotic break like one's life passing before their eyes in their final spark of awareness before death.

GEAR1: (LIGHT + DREAM)

Phosphene Slippers

Entropy Elancer darts between physical spacetime and Tehom like a myoclonic jerk in the moment between consciousness and sleep, creating its liminal stage. The phosphenes it produces are like spotlights, and so long as the show goes on, that which is not in the spotlights fades out of conscious awareness.

GEAR2: (MUSIC + DEATH)

Discordant Curtain

When Entropy Elancer or its Nazarite near their destruction, the Discordant Curtain falls for Curtain Call, veiling them momentarily behind death in the form of an eerie tone. But fret not! They will return for a final bow, and perhaps even an encore. Of course, by then much of the audience will have already filed out.

GEAR3: (TIME + PSYCHEDELIA)

Tessellating Zoetrope

Entropy Elancer pirouettes counterclockwise, like a gear, turning the Tessellating Zoetrope existing just outside of time. The animatics of the Zoetrope are profound, but only to the extent they are catered to their audience.

Golem 2 (Distribution + Weird tables)

CORE: (WOLF + BLOOD)

Lycaon Strain

Disembodied circulatory system of a mutant wolf pack of Tehom like an elastic wire mesh network of monstrous beasts sliding and undulating and spurting.

GEAR1: (PACK + CYBORG)

Coagulant Gland

Injects a hormone into the Lycaon Strain, creating steel-hard Lycaon Skins of coagulated blood. The Lycaon Skins are genetically encoded with simple instructions, but otherwise act autonomously from the Lycaon Strain, and have a finite lifespan before drying out entirely.

GEAR2: (COMBINATION + SEX)

Eldritch Incubator

A sub-strain nested inside the Lycaon Strain, where sexual materials are injected to rapidly incubate a litter of Lycaon Spawn. The Lycaon Spawn are more powerful than the Lycaon Skins of the Coagulant Gland and can survive independently. However, they are more prone to unintended mutation, require more time and energy to produce, and will turn hostile before inevitably running off.

GEAR3: (COMPANY + SURREAL)

Lycaon LLC Certificate of Status

Encoded in the Lycaon Strain is a sub-organism that is both the legal document certifying the existence of the Lycaon LLC (an otherwise undocumented and unknown corporation), and the mechanism of a howl-like fear response propagation system that serves to propagate the will of the corporation in others as a memetic thought virus.

Golem 3 (Element + Distribution tables)

CORE: (COLD + GOVERNMENT)

Hibernating Hyberia

Cold-storage encryption superorganism of the prehistoric civilization Hyberia, preserved at its peak just before stagnation and eventual societal ego-death (ascension?). Hibernating Hyberia takes the form of anomalous market trends, commodities futures, and doomsday cults. Although some astute observers may perceive around its edges, only its Nazarite (or more accurately, their Shamir) can effectively conceive of it and compel it, serving like a Head of State.

GEAR1: (NULL + TRADE)

Knights of Solomon Nuclear Football

A Nuclear Football that can be used to activate the collection of sleeper agents; bureaucrats, spies, soldiers, mecha pilots, and all sorts across the world and Tehom who unwittingly serve Hibernating Hyberia. They sabotage trade routes and information networks, perpetrate insider trading, engage in piracy, or whatever else, to disrupt the supply chain of a given commodity as assigned by the Nazarite in short order.

GEAR2: (NEUTRAL + ECONOMY)

Shofar of the Invisible Fuchsia Fist

A shofar used to summon the Invisible Fuchsia Fist, a mythical kaiju of Tehom seeking to stamp out all economic inequality. For the short duration that the Invisible Fuchsia Fist is summoned, all laws in any society that empower the rich or suppress the poor are invalidated, and this is consciously understood by all in its presence, and so ensues the market purge.

GEAR3: (UNHOLY + MULTIPLICATION)

Twilight Talmud

A mistranslation or lossy decryption of the holy book of Hibernating Hyberia. The doomsday cult of the Twilight Talmud maintain the necromantic rituals and preparations necessary to raise corporate brands from the dead. The clever new slogans and focus tested logo redesigns can bring the brand to rapid ubiquity, but can only mask the utter lack of product or profit for so long before once again going defunct.

Weird & Wonderful Wavelengths (Variety Show s1e2)

We interrupt this broadcast of the normally scheduled Weird & Wonderful Worlds blog to traverse the other WWW (the Weird Wonderful Wavelength decomposed like an overzealous cockroach in an empty kitchen from the spectrum of nutrient deficient fluorescent white light that is the World Wide Web). Let us begin with an interactive spacetime courtesy of Leenalchi, from the past, present, future, and sidetime of Korea. But watch out... TIGER IS COMING!

Link here if you don't see the embed on mobile

That sure was something folks. Reminds me of my conversation with Gearoong. Horrific psychedelic Scooby-Don't and the Gang hunting Poltergeists in Maximum Recursion Depth (poor Frieda is already an Ashura).

Moving on to RPGs, because that's why you came here... Right? Or maybe not, sound off from the bleachers!

Here's an UNFINISHED Martian Bestiary for TNT which I never posted (Tunnels & Trolls for those of you folk not in the know ;)):

Martian Bestiary

If more than one MR is listed, it is intended as Trivial, Serious, and Deadly, similar to the TNT deluxe book. These are relative, of course. Even a "trivial" dragon is a tough monster.

Psychomancer (Acolyte):

Psychomancer (Vancelord):

Thark (Brute): Often slaves or gladiators, fighting for the chance at freedom, or just for the sake of fighting. Usually they fight with their bare fists or gauntlets, although some ride lizard-horses and other beasts and wield spears and shields. MR 30 / 50 / 75 

Thark (Myrmeleodon): Gladiator champions, warlords, and berserkers. They utilize traps like a huntsman, preferring to create pit traps to shock and separate enemy forces and overpower them by brute force (like an ant-lion). MR 35 / 75 / 110

Radium Legionnaire (Shocktrooper):

Radium Legionnaire (Zeta-Force):

Orange Agent: These martians manipulate Hyperbolic Orange Light to change their appearance, making them excellent spies. The illusion holds along all senses, and their true form may only be revealed in presence of magic fire. MR 15 / 30 / 50

WotW-style Cephalopod Martian:

DC White Martian / Xenomorph:

Tripod: (see Martian Gear) MR 135 / 160 / 185

Flying Saucer (Fighter Class): (See Martian Gear) MR 45 / 135 / 235

Flying Saucer (Destroyer Class): (See Martian Gear) MR 98 / 185 / 400

And now, here's a 5 Minute Challenge I did forever ago and never posted!

The Danger

Tachyons: Particles moving backwards in time. The tachyons were weaponized. Their presence creates butterfly effects, culminating in chaos fields, paradox-like masses of entropy, spacetime violently correcting for itself in a recursive loop that outpaces itself.

Psychofields: Electromagnetic wave transmission, specifically engineered to tamper with human consciousness. The signal is not subtle, but when cognition itself is altered, it doesn't matter one way or another. It is a collective madness, one which cannot be falsified. It may as well be real.

Antiwaves: Inverse frequency waves. The mathematical imaginary plane actualized in physical spacetime. Like realizing you've been seeing in two dimensions your whole life, discovering the third, only to realize you can't perceive the second dimension anymore.

I only came up with three of them, and I feel like they dip into themes I've explored before, and the writing is mediocre at best, but I guess it's something. What can you expect in 5 minutes?

Alright Alright let's wrap this up, the children need to be put to bed and the babysitter's getting antsy. Let's end with an open-mic poem and a song for the road.

so much to think about and do and see

an itch to scratch and tear until it bleeds

and yet its all so stifling to me

to bring in brief relief to unmet needs

to nonetheless deny the way this feels

it would be nice to rid myself of this

to win is not to spin again my wheels

instead of hell to dwell in love and bliss

What utter beauty, I am moved to tears, TO TEARS! Well folks, it's been fun as always. Maybe the next Weird & Wonderful Wavelength will be less than a year away. Anyway, just so we can enjoy these final moments together a little longer (and wipe away those tears), how about a coffee break?

Royal Tenenbaums meets Children of the Atom: Help me make a storygame!

I had a dream last night (as of when this was drafted, not posted) that got rudely interrupted by construction just as it was wrapping up. It would make a great story that I will likely never write, but could also be a storygame TTRPG. I don't normally play or run storygames, I used to listen to a bunch of Actual Plays of them but honestly at this point don't know much about them, and don't have sufficient time to invest in it, but I would love it if somebody with more knowledge and interest in storygames could help me carry this idea into some small side project. I'm somewhat less gung-ho on this now that it's been several days since I had the dream and this would admittedly be a lot of work, but I do still love this idea and I suspect one way or another this will eventually influence something else I do, even if nobody takes me up on this for now...

Children of the Atom (1953), not to be confused with X-Men

The high concept is Children of the Atom (1953 novel not X-men) meets Royal Tenenbaums / Wes Anderson, with maybe a smidge of Life is Strange.

I should also say it's been a very long time since I've seen Royal Tenenbaums or read Children of the Atom; at one point I considered both to be some of my favorite stories, but I don't know if they actually hold up as well as I remember.

A rogue superscientist has a profuse number of children over a short span of time (or they're artificially inseminated, or genetically modified by him, or whatever). He raises them as part of a gifted school largely in seclusion from the rest of society.

One of the children, the "PoV" character we'll call them, for whatever reason was removed from the school at a very young age, but as a favor to the other parent for reasons that may or may not matter, they stay at the school for one summer during high school, so this would be the beginning of the story/game.

It would be tempting to make the initial source of conflict about animosity between the PoV character and the other siblings, but I don't think that's the direction I'd go, other than maybe one sibling or a small clique if it would spice things up, but the main struggle should be the extent to which, despite being generally accepted by the siblings, the PoV character feels like an outsider and fails to connect with their siblings, and also struggles to keep up with the rigorous demands of the school. An exploration of things like imposter syndrome, or feelings of being an outsider.

The other siblings would have their own personal struggles and the PoV character would develop relationships with them and begin to feel almost like they belong, but of course in the end, they have to return to the "real world".

The rogue superscientist is mostly a background figure or when present is present as a teacher and not a parent or relatable figure, but at the end they drive the PoV character to the airport. The PoV character finally asks the rogue superscientist why they were excluded from the school, only to learn that it was actually for a really petty and incidental reason that had nothing to do with them or their aptitudes. Yet even knowing this fact can't erase years of internalized self doubt, so it's all still very bittersweet.

From a storygame perspective, I think it is ok for the PCs to know that this is how it ends, to be keeping this in mind the whole time; it might affect how they think of the whole setting and the various relationships and dynamics.

You could give each student academic specializations, or go full X-Men / Doom Patrol with it. In fact, it seems highly likely that Stan Lee and/or Jack Kirby were directly inspired by the 1953 Children of the Atom novel- they literally refer to the X-Men as "Children of the Atom" in many cases. That said, an inversion of Doom Patrol (weird powered outsiders but who are exceptional and conventionally successful or perceived as such or held to such a standard), or something like Venture Bros (basically what I described as an inverse Doom Patrol...), or The Royal Tenenbaums themselves, are probably a better point of reference than X-Men.

Mike of Sheep & Sorcery suggested Umbrella Academy as a comparison, which I do like but always thought of as more like just a lesser Doom Patrol with the serial numbers filed off, but actually that is an important conceptual distinction between the two and in that regard Umbrella Academy is more like Venture Bros. and what I'm going for with this storygame premise, so that's a cool observation.

Where it gets more Royal Tenenbaums-y specifically, besides just the intended aesthetics, would be the extent to which it's about exceptional people who are detached from "regular society" and struggle to match the expectations set for them, and perhaps also what it's like to be in such an insular world lacking diversity of experience and broader perspectives.

But there's also this element of randomness, or the extent to which "randomness" plays a more outsized role in our identities and lived experiences than we may want to believe or be capable of understanding without outside context. The PoV character has practically defined themselves by the fact that they were excluded from this school, thinking they must not be as smart, or have ADHD/focus problems, or laziness, or mental illness, or anything like that. When in fact, it was basically just a careless decision by a self-involved agent and had nothing to do with them.

But now, despite that fact, the damage has been done, and they are forever changed as a result. They learn that they are capable of doing what their siblings do and have developed relationships with them, but they will forever be different, in difficult to define but meaningful ways.

Life is Strange is very much its own thing, more so inspired by Twin Peaks, but if the premise or scope for this game needed to be expanded, I would probably look to Life is Strange for reference.

From an RPG perspective, you could make the PCs be some of the siblings, and the narrative "PoV" character would be an NPC, a framing device for the mechanics of the game. If the PCs are the siblings, that would give them room to develop their own "narrative arc" in that Royal Tenenbaums vein.

Alternatively, you could have just one of the PCs be the "PoV" character and the others be the siblings. Or it might work best as a 1-1 game.

I say storygame because it should be more so linearly defined than like OSR/NSR/FKR type stuff, and you'd probably want some kind of game construction to evoke a Wes Anderson feel, although I don't know if or what that would entail.

But again, that's all very outside my experience or frame of reference, so to actually make a storygame out of this, I'd really need help and/or somebody to just take this idea and run with it with minimal involvement from me, but it would be cool to see this idea taken to completion and to be able to experience it in some capacity, even if I'm not super into storygames.

That all said, maybe I'm being too precious about the specific way I experienced it in the dream. I like the simplicity of the premise, of it being mostly not supernatural, but I could easily imagine this as like a different kind of module / setup for a game set in the broader MRD universe, like an "MRD 1.5 / Side Story" kind of thing. That would certainly be easier for me, but would that be as interesting?

MRD2 Introduction and Campaign Setup Proof of Concept

MRD2 is underway, as I've alluded to in previous blog posts. Similar to how much changed between the earliest MRD1 blog posts and the final book, treat this as Proof of Concept, but below is a working draft of the Introduction to the world of MRD2, how it relates to MRD1, and the basic Campaign Setup (an idea I've much appreciated from Anne Hunter). Also, I will definitely clean up the writing significantly- this is not publishing-grade ;).

Previous Posts:

Mecha Gear with Tarsos Theorem Crafting: The basis of the Golem mechanics in MRD2, and also hyperlinks to basically all the previous posts, including the one below.

Jewish American Identity and Jewish Philosophy in Maximum Recursion Depth 2: A discussion on the Jewish subtext of MRD2. Also contains additional relevant links at the end.

Solomon's Shamir, the basis for The Wyrm Shamir Symbionts

INTRODUCTION

In the very near future, a paradigm shift of new technological advancements has come about nigh-miraculously by a handful of Corporations. These advancements include austere space colonies and giant robots known as Golem, piloted by special agents of the Corporations— the Nazarites.

Nazarite Contracts and consumption of The Wyrm Shamir Symbionts bind Nazarites to their Corporation. In addition to piloting Golem, Nazarites gain supernatural powers, not the least of which is Gilgul, the ability to transmigrate to and from the material world.

The Cosmic Ocean Tehom, an ethereal (meta)physical space, presses against the brane of the material world. Alien beings known as The Cyblessed have secretly recruited the Corporations of Earth, using them as proxies to enact Tikkun Olam, The Mending of the World. Or so it would seem, though one may question the veracity of empowering Corporations to solve the world’s problems.

The work of the Nazarites includes protecting Earth and the space colonies from the mysterious invaders known as the Amelikites, exploring Tehom and carrying out tasks assigned by the Corporations or their masters The Cyblessed, fighting Kaiju and Dybbuk, putting out fires (literally and figuratively), and whatever else yields profit for the Corporations.

Each Nazarite has their own reasons for taking their Nazarite Vows. Wealth and power, privilege; a steady paycheck, security; a noble cause. Regardless, this is not a game about resistance, but about recognizing one's privilege and complicity in a broken system and coming to terms with it, or the enormity of defying it if one deems they must.

But remember, your true goal is still Tikkun Olam; to mend the world. Enjoy the benefits of your Corporate position, you deserve it, but don’t get too caught up in the comfort and convenience, or else your Nazarite Vows will attach you to the material world, burying you deeper and deeper until you reach Maximum Recursion Depth.

 

Venus Figurines, the basis for the Asherah Golems

And as for how MRD1 and MRD2 relate (From the very WIP FAQ...)

How do the settings of MRD1 and MRD2 relate?

MRD1 and MRD2 are intended to take place in the same setting and can be combined mostly as-is, but can also each be played separately. To recapitulate MRD1:

The Monkey King overthrew Buddha 1000 years ago, and The Karmic Cycle has been in decay ever since. Rogue Poltergeists escape their sentencing before their reincarnations, barely reined in by Devils of The Numberless Courts of Hell and Poltergeist Investigators, those with Karmic Recurser powers, acting subversively in the face of the failings of the Celestial Bureaucracy.

This is important for understanding the existence of Karma and Karmic Attachments in MRD2, but is otherwise not necessary for playing the game.

Tehom represents something outside the Karmic Cycle, and so while Nazarites still have Karma and Karmic Attachments, the effect of The Wyrm Shamir Symbionts are that rather than engaging in the cycle of reincarnation, they instead engage in Gilgul, the cycle of Tikkun Olam, to correct the dysfunctions created by The Monkey King. Somewhere in Tehom lies The Unfinished Corner of Creation in which the new world will be built.

So in that regard, MRD2 can be used as an extension of the themes of MRD1, reconciling rather than opposing Judaism and Buddhism as each is conceived in MRD.

Can MRD1 and MRD2 be combined in play?

Absolutely! There are a small number of mechanical differences between Poltergeist Forms and Nazarite Contracts, but they can mostly be converted between each other, and one could easily give Recursers from MRD1 a Golem from MRD2, or a Nazarite and their Golem can be brought to one of the Numberless Courts of Hell from MRD1.

One of the inspirations for the Amalekites are the Mycenaeans and Mechanical Beasts from Mazinger

As for the Factions and Campaign Setup:

FACTIONS

Cyblessed: Cyborg aliens from Tehom with technology far exceeding humanity, who, after discovering The Wyrm Shamir Symbionts and developing the practice of Gilgul, have empowered the world’s greatest technology Corporations in recent years to bind Nazarites and enact Tikkun Olam (or so they claim). A beam of light emits in place of a head, containing information like a holographic book. The longer and more sophisticated the words in the book, the more ornate the “cover”, but the text is mostly nonsense. The lowest of their kind are merely single letters who must act in sequence to form words and meaning, yet through such form is greater profundity. Their holy book is the Phosphenomicon and their rose gold god the Phosphenom-Panopticon.

Asherah: A superorganism formed from decompositional microbes from an atmospheric sulfur ocean merging with the consciousness of an ancient human who was lost in Tehom. Every member of this hybrid species looks like a slight variation of her, with ochre skin and copper markings. Their Golem look like extrapolations of Venus Figurines. They serve as powerful mediators among the factions in Tehom, and while they do not seek domination, few would dare to cross them.

Amalekites and The Cherubim: Society of ancient humans forced into exile, lost in Tehom, who have since developed a technologically advanced, thriving civilization. Their culture and technology is reminiscent of retrofuturistic fascistic evil empires from old scifi anime with elements of occult biblical magitechnological weirdness. They have a beneficial arrangement with The Cherubim, mysterious cyborg Kaiju, some of which are piloted like Golem, or serve as the basis for mass-produced Golem. The Cherubim reveal little, but claim to exist in service of Tikkun Olam. After stealing the secrets of Gilgul from The Cyblessed, the Amalekites seek to reclaim their lost home— Earth, seeing this as crucial to enacting Tikkun Olam.

CAMPAIGN SETUP

I'm very loosely using the Cold War as the Campaign Setup, not because I see MRD2 as actually being an exploration of the Cold War in any meaningful sense, but because it's just a good framing device and can be used to explore issues that are still relevant today. Also, these conceptual mappings are very loose; again, should not be taken too literally.

• The major Tech Corporations are the ruling power of a Banana Republic (human civilization on Earth), too small-minded and greedy to understand or care that they’re merely the lapdogs of a much greater force, and willing to let their people be exploited for personal gain. Yet despite this, the Faustian deal also brings new technologies and a genuine opportunity to exist as part of the greater cosmopolitic.

• The Cyblessed are Americans or Western Corporations empowering whichever dictator (CEO) is most pliant, but there is also much diversity and inequality among them, and not all seek to exploit.

• The Amalekites are the Soviet Union— powerful, aggressive, and holding a grudge. Doomed to fail, having allowed themselves to succumb to populist demagogues and other bad actors, but there is still nobility to be found in their ideals.

• The Asherah are a non-governmental and nominally neutral power like The Church; not directly involved in the politics and feign weakness when it suits them, but everyone knows they're not to be trifled with.

MRD Campaign PENULTIMATE Play Reports

After >1yr, we've decided to wrap up our MRD campaign. I was developing the MRD core book simultaneously, so this campaign informed a lot of the tone, setting, and content that went into the final book. While we very early on deviated from the core structure of Poltergeist Investigation -> Court Crawl, I'm happy that we got to do some of that, while also demonstrating how this system and setting can support much more than just that. There's a lot of stuff I've written on my blog that isn't in the core book, but it's become a rich and interesting setting, and I'm very grateful for it.

One of my players will be starting a new campaign with this group using his own modified version of MRD, so we're not done! And additionally, I'm hoping to start an in-person game soon for MRD2 as I continue to develop that.

Here is the previous PR, including links to all previous PRs before that. There's a lot here and even as I'm writing this penultimate PR, I'm realizing how many things were not accounted for or under-accounted for. I am doubtful anyone could read these PRs and coherently understand the campaign, but if at least they find the ideas interesting and evocative, then I will consider these PRs moderately successful.

Also, rereading the previous PR, in retrospect I can see how I was already starting to think about ideas of Jewish Identity and Philosophy which are making their way into MRD2.

There is I think one or two more sessions currently that are not included in this PR, and there will likely only be one or at most two more sessions for the campaign, but I decided to just post this now because it's already running long...

Session 17: The Court of the Rose-Tinted Looking Glass

The beginning of a new arc bringing The Team to a Court which has partially manifested in the material world, and has effectively become a new borough of New York City. Loosely inspired by Folding Beijing, the borough has a Day Cycle and Night Cycle, one for the Poltergeists to serve their industrialized sentences, and the other for the new class of human gentrifiers who have moved to the neighborhood. 

Day Cycle

Hipsters and Yuppies in a gentrified neighborhood. Displaced rogue Poltergeists begging, haunting, being aggressively hounded by Devils. Conflict may ensue. Although nestled tightly in the East River under Roosevelt State Park, because it is only partially in the material world, its area is larger than its perimeter.

Night Cycle

An endless labyrinth of factories belching toxic fumes, ironically producing the cough syrup Serenight. The Poltergeists must do grueling labor as part of their sentencing. Since the incursion, environmentalists have lambasted The Court, as have the gentrifiers who find the leftover fumes irritating and dangerous for their health.

The Team are incentivized to explore the new borough as the malware Karmic Attachments they acquired from the Karmabot in the previous session led them here. They also learned that QlippothNet, the dark web they manage as part of Anti-Sphinx, has been critically compromised, and the only known safe backup of the compromised portion of code is with a contract worker in the neighborhood.

Having recently come into the spotlight inadvertently as superheroes given the events of the previous sessions, they do an impromptu interview with the superhero Moon Marine (who is secretly part of the internet hate group The Deseret Avengers) and Momma Tastemaker the foodie tiktok phenomenon, which goes awry when their Poltergeist companion The Bear is triggered.

Towards the end of the session the investigate the apartment of Stacy Reagan from Dori's malware Karmic Attachment, who is also the contract worker with the clean QlippothNet code, only to be ambushed...

Session 18: Mobius Hustler Trapped in Squaretime

This session is one of my favorites, but it got VERY dark and intense, in a way that probably won't come through in this play report. Much of the art I share for this session comes from c_o_n_a_r_t on reddit.

The ambusher is Jerome Candle, the Recurser Mobius Hustler. Jerome has been led to believe by The Team's enemies that The Team are responsible for the death of his kitten and they've hired him, as a professional assassin, to take them out and also acquire or destroy the clean QlippothNet code.

What starts out as a seemingly generic Conflict ends up being much more, as first it becomes apparent that he can create micro-timeloops, but also they use found objects around the apartment to cut through Lineartime and enter a higher dimension of time, Squaretime.

Lineartime is like a wave in an ocean that smells of blood, the lymphatic fluid of a cockroach, and sweet wine on a starry moonlit night. Peeking beneath the water refracts starlight through time into six perceivable temporal bands of space averaged over one second each. The bands are distorted in the murky water, obscured by strange and repulsive things, and the perceived causality between bands changes from different perspectives.

The PCs are asked to identify six key moments from the preceding conflict, and these correspond to the refracted temporal bands as time shards.

The stars in Squaretime are like shards of linear spacetime projected onto a two-dimensional plane. In one of the shards, Alco senses an incarnation of Ghost in the Mirror (The Homicidal Maniac*). It has Keene Eyes and a broken zipper for a mouth, trilling uncannily. 

*Shows up later 

The full moon is twisted, two crescents connected at the center like an apple core. A beam of light shines on Jack, decoded inside him like nails on a chalkboard and the intermittent pounding of an MRI, ghostly things leaking out of him.

The wave of Lineartime rises and crashes underneath Dori, pushing and pulling like a tsunami trampoline.

Jerome Candle takes on a new form

In addition to facing against The Mobius Hustler, they encounter other strangeness within Squaretime (chopping a lot of the game-y stuff out):

Time Worms: Skimming the liminal space between temporal dimensions are the Time Worms, like Rorschach inkblots; fractal-shaped creatures of living light- or rather, radiation- existing in non-integer time. Oscillating at frequencies only conceivable in > 1.0-dimensional time, they hijack the immune system and circadian rhythm, inducing dysphoria, dissociation, waking nightmares, and a complete detachment from space and time.

King Kevorkian: A god like a biblical angel by way of the radiation symbol will chase after those infested to exterminate the Time Worms. It has limited ability to convey that it is trying to help or to convey the above information, and what it does hurts. King Kevorkian is the third god that The Monkey King could not defeat.

Psyr Psymon Pstilton: Humanoid Platypus abomination that sounds like Lemongrab. In extreme pain/frustration, not entirely coherent. Psyr Psymon Pstilton is also Moon Marine's Familiar.

A booming psychic voice hijacks Psyr Psymon Pstilton (a slightly modified version of the Danger Message):

This place is a message… and part of a system of messages… pay attention to it!

Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.

This place is not a place of honor… no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.

What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.

The danger is in a particular location… it increases towards a center… the center of danger is here… of a particular size and shape, and below us.

The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.

The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.

The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

Also, Eleanor and her Pet.

In order to defeat Mobius Hustler, they have to cut through temporal dimensions again, creating an interlocking chain wherein the Mobius Hustler's mobius loop is inextricably linked with the Squaretime dimension (as can be seen here, where the first step was cutting the Mobius Hustler's timeloop in Lineartime to enter Squaretime). They do this by making modifications to any of the six time shards they chose at the beginning of entering Squaretime.

After they do this, they see a psychic vision of the true form of the Homicidal Maniac, massacring everyone at the Umami Milk Club in The Court of the Rose-Tinted Looking Glass.

They learn the truth, that the kitten died due to some kind of health-related issue that the vets could not identify, and that he blames himself and suspects it is somehow his own fault, and was merely allowing himself to believe The Team was responsible because he was not ready to handle his grief. He is left, trapped in a timeloop in Squaretime, with The Team vowing to rescue him some day. But first, they need to stop The Homicidal Maniac.

Session 19: Massacre at Umami Milk Club

There's a lot of setup in this session since at the time we had not yet decided we wanted to start wrapping up, so I'll cut to the relevant part where they're at Umami Milk Club and dealing with the Homicidal Maniac.

However, I will first include the roll table for when PCs drink the eponymous Umami Milk (regular milk spiked with Dharmafinil aka "Cheddar"):

A cartoon version of Psymon follows you from the corner of your vision, and so your eyes constantly dart side to side. Only you can see or interact with him. Psymon is helpful but will encourage you to join the Dada-DA social network (basically the Deseret Avengers equivalent of 4Chan / QAnon) and plant intrusive thoughts of alt-right extremist ideology into your head. KAO: Fighting these thoughts only entrenches them further- they aren’t rational, he’s just overstimulating your prefrontal cortex’s inhibition network. Instead, find a way to come to terms with them (without succumbing to them!).

Mr. Smiley appears before you, and you must constantly crane your neck in different directions to see around him. Mr. Smiley allows you to use your Reincarnation Ritual once without consequence; in fact, it insists… KAO: Orchestrate a scenario necessitating the use of your reincarnation ritual.

You hallucinate something relating to one of your Karmic Attachments. It will present complications for you but move you closer towards resolving the Karmic Attachment (or evolving its nature).

One eye sees only color, the other sees only black/white contrast. Seeing only out of the color eye allows one to see that which cannot otherwise be perceived, but makes it harder to find any specific thing. Seeing only out of contrast eye allows one to find specific things more easily, but fail to find that which is not already expected. One or both of these possibilities will lead to a KAO.


Mr. Smiley

Also, The Team were beginning to befriend Stacy Reagan, partially under false pretenses, and there's a sort of rom-com or friend-com relationship burgeoning between Stacy and Alco, which also ends up getting somewhat truncated due to wrapping up the campaign in only a handful more sessions.

When the Homicidal Maniac arrives, it murders several NPCs; The Bear, Psyr Psymon Pstilton, and Olivia Loeb, for which I wrote some... they mostly don't follow any particular poetic structure, but I'm still calling them poems.

PSYR PSYMON PSTILTON WHEN THE END PRECEDES THE BEGINNING

Adrenaline-glazed Homicidal Maniac gnaws on the skull of an absurd creature, beady dead eyes stare in non-Euclidean directions and Null, brain fluid and matter hit the ground in grotesque and comical thud. A dead mouth quivers empty words of hate and ignorance, limp body curls in on itself in paradoxical rigor mortis hoping one last time for warmth and shelter where none will be found.

RUSTING GLITTER FRACTAL IN TERMINAL IMAGINATION

From cracked chrysalis spills a ball of limbs and eyes and wings the color of a migraine phosphene flashing with each spasm of scraping rusted metal and synesthetic stink of iron. The Imago stumbles forward pathetically in fits. A giant hand bathed in fluorescent light pierces perception, slowly and deliberately crushes and smears the Imago with a kinesthetic expression somewhere between apathy and glee. Jazz hand exit stage left.

THE BEAR IS SUFFERING

Foaming mouth fractal dimension diseased lungs yell

Unclear consequences too big to failing organs many orphaned

Careless recreation roiling mutation rotten Eden unwell

Kill me please give me release malnourished dreams dwarfened !

After defeating The Homicidal Maniac, they come to learn that it was actually the Rogue Poltergeist of Jerome Candle's kitten. They have a somber moment, where Moon Marine shows great empathy towards them (having suffered a loss of her own), complicating their preconceived notions about her as part of the Deseret Avengers.

Session 20: The Council of the Lamp

The beginning of the end. An intentional pastiche of The Fellowship of the Rings, wherein all of the Factions up to this point meet up to discuss an imminent threat to the Karmic Cycle.

Emil McGinley, the Recurser also known as Glass Maiden Pixie, who also set Dori up to take the fall for their crimes in Denver, has acquired a Magic Lamp and is formulating a Wish to break the world.

The members of the various Factions are grouped up into different teams, with the PCs and three NPCs from across the Factions forming the Assault Team to stop Emil from completing the Wish, chosen for this job given their personal relationship and previous encounter with Emil. The Players were given a list of NPCs to choose from across different Faction brackets, and chose Doctor Loves-Me-Not, Moon Marine, and Soft Mother.

In order to find The Court of the Unasked Question, the intel team informs them they must conceive a means of reincarnating an abstract concept, and then act on it. The abstract concepts include The Economy, Technology, Culture, or Psychosocial Identity. Instead, they decide they want to intercept the Wish entirely and still break the Karmic Cycle, but without breaking the world entirely.

DANGER DOX

Dori had previously made a deal with Oxtail Ouroboros, a Digital Spirit, who said as payment for services rendered it would one day dox Dori. Oxtail Ouroboros leaks Dori’s failure to protect Olivia to the Celestial Bureaucracy, shedding a light on it that cannot be denied. A powerful devil, Charging Bull, is now coming after her ceaselessly, and the Team cannot stay in one place for long. However, a mysterious Corporate Spirit known as Fearless Girl gives her Cold Iron Zixie Cell in order to defend herself.

Cold Iron Zixie Cell: Replace any electronic’s battery with the Cold Iron Zixie Cell to supercharge its physical or metaphysical abilities (WIS-based). Or, if placed under the tongue, provides wisdom, centeredness, and energy to oneself.

Charging Bull: Preceded by a shocking ball lightning followed by a pulse of energy with the force to knock over a midsize car. Grotesque cyborg minotaur. Doors cannot be used in its presence and streets and alleys become labyrinthine.

INCOGITATION

Ghost in the Mirror uses a time shard Alco kept from Squaretime to trap Alco’s Karma; it can only be accessed when she enters the mirror, only through the distorted world of her perceptions through time. Can access Squaretime and use Subjective Objective to make alterations to a limited extent in the past or future. Alco can also temporarily trade places with The Ghost in the Mirror, but to do so is to acknowledge the worst in oneself.

VIMALA METATRON

While not fully healed from The Monkey King’s neglect and trauma, Jack can channel the Metro Thing’s urban elementalism through the Sword of Manjushri, or more destructively, summon the Metro Thing.

Session 21: Traverse the Multiverse pt.1

With a metaphysical goal in mind, they follow leads across the city, leading them to Time Worm portals across a multiverse of dimensions. In each dimension there is an Elemental Beast, whose favor they may curry in the form of receiving a Credit, which they can use towards their abstract Karmic task.

For each of the dimensions I include the basic sandbox notes, although in most cases the PCs only saw a small slice of it as we blew through most of them pretty quickly.

The first dimension:

Seneca City

Nature and architecture intermingle across dewdrop arcologies, high-pressure aerial rivers, and cosmic energy harvesting obelisks. The people have a contentedness about them that the curious find overbearing, and although civil and ecologically sustainable, there is an epidemic of suicide and other mental health issues.

Steppes of Plenty / Praxis Magpie

Farmer-scientist leader of Seneca City, most often found in the multi-level, multicolored rice paddy Steppes of Plenty.

Rain Forest

The city is surrounded by a wall that is invisible from a distance, but up close, is a massive curtain of rain. A crowd has gathered as a teenage boy threatens to cross the barrier. It would appear that one does not simply cross the Rain Forest. Aside from any dangers within, the wisdom of the elders is that in crossing the Rain Forest, one loses the ability to identify with their people, they become in spirit, a part of something else.

Indigo Cyclops

Elephantine body with a monstrous humanoid face, one giant karmic "third" eye, elephant tusks, a long prehensile tongue, one hundred humanoid arms thrashing outwards from its stomach.

Elemental Beast of Outside, Foreign things and Meat.

Harvesting resources from the levelled remains of the former New York City. Pays no mind to Seneca City, except the occasional longing glance.

Credit: Merge two superorganisms permanently.

The second dimension:

Post-Humanity Ruins

Unstable crumbling buildings giving way to new trees and foliage. Exotic fantastical animals reclaiming the space.

Feral packs of psionic creatures like Psyr Psymon Stilton (Noonoids) appear to be the apex predators. Within their swarms, Poltergeist dreams manifest in ephemeral yet corporeal form. One of the PCs’ dreams or memories is manifested.

From within a large building is reflected an indiscernible but compelling shimmer. If the Team investigates, the building will begin to collapse while they’re still inside.

Karma Specs: Glasses that allow the wearer to see a quantification of anyone’s Karma. Usage Die : Nd8

Orange Mycelium

Mossy, foggy fungal colony the size of a dragon, a flying ecosystem of symbiotically-linked coral, plant, fungal, and arthropod life like a drifting sunset.

Elemental Beast of Internality, Mind, and Fermentation.

Credit: Create a true self in one person. They are incapable of reaching Buddhahood and exist outside the Karmic Cycle. They can be killed, but their immaterial form is still their persistent consciousness.

The third dimension:

Meta York
Fantastical but by no means perfect future New York City built on top of the remains of the contemporary city. A retrofuturist place inspired by the classic New York World’s Fair. The Warrior-Philosophers of the Unisphere and the Isoborgs reluctantly tolerate each other but it is clear that they cannot co-exist forever.

Unisphere: Centered on top of what was once Flushing Meadows Park in Queens is a Plato’s Republic-esque Warrior-Philosopher scholastic community.

Isoborgs: Throughout the city are people who at first appear to be blocky, retrofuturist robots, but are actually unconscious humans in isolation suits, existing halfway between consciousness and dreaming.

Shining Vantablack Sub-Mariner

Paradoxical creature like a dolphin, cephalopod, and spider.
Elemental Beast of Non-Being, Empty Space, Unknown, Paradox, and Sleep.
Can only be accessed via dreams, drugs, delirium, digital devices, and near-death experiences.
Worshipped as a god.
Credit: Nullify the existence of any one thing. The material world will fill the void, proportionally altering all things which have substantially interacted with the nullified thing.

Session 22-23: Traverse the Multiverse pt.2

The fourth dimension, and the one they spend the most time in:

Dystopian Cyberpunk Future New York

Near future corporate-controlled dystopia. The most dominant corporation is The Court of Gyro Hell fast food chain, having defeated The Doppler Potential in a joint Congressional/Boardroom coup. The remaining strength of The Doppler Potential keeps the United States Government alive in a mostly token role. The Deseret Avengers have become the de facto ruling Mafia on the decrepit Earth, while the wealthy have moved to the Moon Colony.

Silken Alleyway: After years or decades of underfunding, disrepair, and uncoordinated city developments, the city has transformed into a jigsaw distortion of winding alleys where the working people make do. Gangsters who self-proclaim to be the Deseret Avengers are the law of the Silken Alleyway, although the top gang leaders are funded and empowered by corporate overlords- the true Deseret Avengers.

The Li & Wong Firm of Legal Fuckery

“Fuck around and find out”

Bright neon lit sign along the Silken Alleyway.

Charlotte Li (Rock Dove) and Arnold Wong (Wild Turkey), in superhero costumes.

Looks shady as fuck but they are actually trying to protect the city. Reluctantly working with the Doppler Potential revolutionaries against the DA and Court of Gyro Hell, but not above working with the DA enforcers when necessary.

Lunar Lift: A massive super-skyscraper that towers over the rest of the city and serves as a space elevator to the moon. A well guarded fortress for the elite. Agents of The Doppler Potential have infiltrated the super-skyscraper, preparing a revolution.

Naked Fox-Hare

Black Sheep Shepherd and Fox-Hare as a post-singularity Elemental Beast of Time, Statistics, Prediction, and the Cosmos.

Was responsible for the early development of the Lunar Lift and moon colonization, but is now a carefree figurehead who just wishes to roam and play across the moon, even as his territory rapidly shrinks due to terraforming development.

Credit: Can make one thing preincarnate upon death.

In one of the earliest sessions, The Team had an encounter with Fox-Hare and his gang. While presenting aggressively, Fox-Hare was actually a computer nerd and prospective scholarship candidate, empowered by his Digital Spirit Black Sheep Shepherd, before the violent encounter which left his arm permanently broken. He was later scouted and hired by Johannes of Anti-Sphinx and became one of the lead QlippothNet software engineers, and also received a Dharmatic prosthetic arm.

The key theme of this recurring character, is that every step of the way, rather than being consumed by vengeance, he chooses to make good out of his circumstances. The culmination of his detachment from anger and vengeance, is that he eventually becomes something like a god.

There was also a whole thing here with a high-tech Lunar Lab that they bypassed entirely before reaching Naked Fox-Hare.

They are informed by Fox-Hare that they can't proceed to Kristalvers Amsterdam (aka The Court of the Unasked Question) until they resolve Charging Bull.

A Union of Seneca City Philosopher-Agriculturalists create an impenetrable Prosperity Circuit which Charging Bull can’t puncture, giving The Team the opportunity to defeat it. They identify collectively as Cyclops of the interlocking Hands. This was the result of earlier actions across the dimensions.

There had been a potential opportunity for The Team to preincarnate The Bear, but even in failing to do so, they still learn that Fearless Girl is the reincarnation of The Bear.

They engage in a very abstract kind of non-violent Conflict with Charging Bull, culminating with them absorbing it into their Positron Pack along with a Hungry Ghost Poltergeist, creating a feedback loop of infinite capitalist energy from Charging Bull and infinite consumption of Hungry Ghost, creating a viable homeostatic pocket universe- creating something beautiful and non-linear out of two dysfunctional concepts.