In this episode, I have an interview with the creator and writer of the sci-fi adventure Junkyard Blues and I talk about adventures on the high seas! Welcome to Mythras Matters Season 1 Episode 32 Junkyard Blues and encounters on ship
Hello and welcome to Mythras Matters, a podcast dedicated to the Mythras ruleset and all its supplements. As always, I’m your host, inwils, and welcome to January!
With the new year chimes still echoing in my ears, I managed to publish this month’s episode just in time. Christmas is always a busy time for everyone. I tend to get out of habits and routines as soon as work finishes for Christmas and the publishing date for this podcast slowly creeps up on me - hence the frantic publishing slightly after midnight.
This year both Christmas and New Year’s Day have fallen on a Saturday so we have not been able to play on our usual days. I’m suffering slightly from withdrawal but my mind is buzzing with new adventure ideas for both the fantasy campaign and M-Space. Junkyard Blues is a new adventure module for M-Space and I was so grateful that Scott managed to take some time to have a chat about it. You can check out the chapter labels for the podcast if you want to jump straight to the chat. A junkyard is a place of derelict ships and that got me thinking about the recent adventure that we are playing in our own fantasy campaign. With the characters currently on a ship, I thought I would share with you how I went about dealing with at-sea adventures.
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At the end of the last playing session before the Christmas break, we left the party on a sailing ship on their way to a new village in pursuit of a rather annoying sorcerer that Cyrus - the character played by Captain Kangaroo - managed to encourage to defect from the blue order into the red order where Cyrus is. However, the red order soon recognised the potential of Melanie, the name of the defecting sorcerer, and she quickly rose through the ranks and now sits ahead of Cyrus.
One thing I really enjoy about writing adventures is the journey to the place that the party needs to arrive at. I always see this time as an opportunity for sub-plots and encounters where the characters can use skills and role-playing. My idea is always that I want the journey to be part of the adventure as much as the destination is.
When preparing for the sailing part of the adventure, I use a very loose approach. I broke the travelling down into four parts. Within each of these parts, the players could say what their character would be doing and then there would be some sort of encounter. I had prepared a series of possible encounters that could happen, although I kept these in no particular order. Within each encounter, I made brief notes of the important aspects of the encounter. These could be the stats and tokens of any antagonists - whether these be monsters, pirates or even nasty merchants, possible opportunities that could allow the characters to interact and any further information that could happen after the encounter.
I have learnt from the past not to be too prescriptive with the narrative and/or ideas within the campaign - my players have the habit of doing their own thing in their own way - something which I have come to really enjoy!
In order to see how this encounter system worked for their sailing adventure, I wanted to give you an example. I’m going to use the storm scenario that they have already completed. You can see the full encounter on the recent actual play video - Tackling Insanity part 3
As the storm approached I wanted to know where the characters would be -this was an easy starting point. I also made a note that all tasks would be hard due to the rough seas and howling winds and that Brawn skills should be used to keep hold of things and successful athletics or acrobatics rolls when moving and/or fighting on the tossing ship. I also detailed some possible character interactions. These were - saving a sailor who was going to be knocked overboard, grabbing the wheel to turn the ship into a wave and finally an opportunity to prevent the main mast from being tackled and destroyed.
I accompanied each of these possible happenings with appropriate rolls or use of luck and ensured that the characters who interacted positively gained some reward. I never saw that Bartleby would help repair the ship after the storm so I quickly allowed him to have a meal with the captain!
There are more encounters to come. The battle with the man and the pregnant woman was another encounter option that I slotted in since it seemed appropriate at that point. With the casters by themselves, it was certainly a surprise encounter. I really like that vomit bucket part!
Remember if you would like to see my adventure notes and campaign background material then you can via the RPG tiers on my Patreon website and I will be talking more about GMing journeys and travelling on ships in my Gibbering GM series on YouTube - links in the show notes!
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I have always been fascinated by graveyards! That might have sounded weird but as a setting I think they provide a multitude of opportunities, least of all hands bursting through the topsoil to grab the ankles of the unsuspecting character!
But where do starships go at the end of their days or where do all those starships that mysteriously disappear go? Well, one possible place could be a junkyard, a graveyard for starships. I was super excited to see that there was an adventure module based on a junkyard of starships so I quickly invited Scott, the creator of the adventure Junkyard Blues, to come and have a chat - over to you Scott.
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I actually did purchase the module straight after the interview. If you want to grab yourself a copy then the links are in the show notes below.
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Remember, if you would like to contribute to the podcast then why not just drop me an email or message and let me know what you would like to cover. I am always looking for reviews or interviews with people. So if you are interested, you can email me at inwils@gmail.com or send me a message on the various forums I frequent.
Also, talking about Junkyards and graveyards there is a series of great books by M.D. Massey features the exploits of a modern-day druid. I have listened to them on audiobook but they are available in paperback as well. I’ll put a link to one of these books and other books I recommend in the show notes!
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And that’s it, another episode of Mythras Matters completed.
Don't forget you can check out all my content by following my YouTube channel and the campaign areas on World Anvil. I really appreciate your support and do check out the TapaTalk forums, there are some great people there sharing their ideas within the discussions.
So, until next time have a great month of gaming and I will chat again to you all in February
Until then I hope that all our opposed rolls succeed and provide you with a well-deserved special.
Thanks for listening cya - Bye!