Gregory 0:00
Now, when you cut and rearrange words on a page, new words emerge, and words change meaning. For example, the word “draft” as into the army moved into a context of blueprints and contracts gives an altered meaning. When you experiment with cut ups over a period of time, you find that some of the cut ups and rearranged text seem to refer to future events. We had no explanation for this at the time just suggesting perhaps that when you cut into the present, the future leaks out. William S. Burroughs 1976

Gregory 1:20
Welcome to Tabletop Garden, an actual play podcast where we collaborate on short, self contained stories about interesting characters and we do it with an agenda. With us today is Jim

Jim 1:30
Hello, I’m Jim. I use he him pronouns. I am a writer streamer and podcaster and I can be found at: twitch.tv/otherdoc

Gregory 1:39
Lucy.

Lucy 1:40
Hi, I’m Lucy. My pronouns are she her. I’m a writer and a professor. And you can find me online on twitter @lucyreadsevery1, the number one.

Gregory 1:55
and Melissa.

Melissa 1:56
Hi, I’m Melissa. I am a video game developer for Future Proof Games. My pronouns are they them and you can find me on mastodon at: irrsinn.life

Gregory 2:07
And I’m Gregory Avery-Weir. I’m a game developer and your host. My pronouns are they them theirs and you can find me on Twitter @gregoryweir or via email at: gregory@tabletop.garden You can support the work I do patreon.com/GregoryAveryWeir.

Gregory 2:23
Today we’ll be playing the system Rosette Diceless, which is a consent based improvisational GM light role playing system that Melissa and I developed and you can get at rosetterpg.com. As always, our agenda will be to honestly portray diverse characters, pursue healthy play practices and craft story with social responsibility. Additionally, for this campaign, we’ll be following an agenda that’s based on the principles of Rosette Diceless kind of condensed down a bit, where play should be:

Gregory 2:57
Consensus Based. There should be no Game Master, we’re all shaping the story, and nothing happens to a character without their players consent.

Gregory 3:05
Story-focused. The rules exist to enable story and simulate interesting conflict and even if you fail at a task, the story should continue.

Gregory 3:12
And improvisational. We should support each other to create the story in the moment and set other players up for interesting story.

Gregory 3:18
So the campaign that we’re going to be playing is The Great Molasses Flood. And because we’re going to be… so this is this is going to be a weird historical fiction game where it’s based on a real historical event that I think y’all are only passingly familiar with. I’m going… I’ve injected some weird fiction stuff into it that that will become increasingly apparent as we play.

Gregory 3:47
Because we’re dealing with a disaster that’s occurring in a city. I want to be especially careful about chatting about stuff. So kind of our out of character chat for this episode will be sort of mini session zero if you’re familiar with that practice, where we chat about how we want to handle some stuff.

Gregory 4:14
Rosette Diceless, by default, uses the X Card. If it’s okay with y’all, I’d like to go a little more aggressive on that on safety tools and use Script Change by Beau Jágr Sheldon. So the way this works is anytime you can say pause, if you just want to take a break to chat if you just need to get up if you want to just think for a second just be like pause and we’ll we’ll hold on.

Gregory 4:42
At anytime you can say rewind, and we’ll back up and do that scene again. So the the X card equivalent would be you’d say rewind and you’d be like okay, for whatever reason, either, you know, say you think you messed up, say you don’t like how something works. Say you you something happened that you’re like, I don’t want that. In my game, you can just say, let’s rewind, and we’ll back up and do it again. And we don’t you don’t, you can explain as much or as little as you want.

Gregory 5:08
You can say fast forward, if you just want to skip what’s going on. You can say, let’s fast forward past this part. It’s the equivalent of, you know, pulling a curtain pulling a veil, cutting to black, those those all work.

Gregory 5:19
And then frame by frame is, if you want to go through a scene carefully. So if you want to be like, this is feeling heavy. Let’s go frame by frame. Let’s check in and be like, Hey, is this cool? Is this how we want to go? just kind of go through it slow motion. So I’ll I will post a link to reference for that. But the the important words are pause, rewind, fast forward, frame by frame. Does that sound like it would work for y’all?

Melissa 5:48
Sounds good. I’ll have to practice it. But yeah.

Jim 5:51
It’ll probably take me a little bit to get it as I’m used to other safety tools, then. So this will be the first time I’ve ever interacted with them. So I’m interested, I just need to kind of get into the rhythm of it.

Lucy 6:01
I think it sounds good. I’m excited to try it.

Gregory 6:04
Cool. And it’s fine if you don’t remember the words for them or anything like that. But I want to I want to use something that has a few more options than just, “Oh, no, this is a problem.” Are we cool with using Script Change as sort of our moment to moment safety tool?

Melissa 6:20
Yeah, looks cool.

Gregory 6:22
Okay, now I want to talk about some specific little items that I know will probably come up. And I want to make sure that we’re on the same page about that stuff and sort of establish a social contract for how we want to handle it. So first of all is, I totally want to, in this campaign, present the past as a bit of a foreign country. As people do things differently there. People have different practices. But one thing first I want to propose is: how about we all use modern terminology, especially referring to like groups of people?

Gregory 6:59
So let’s you know, when we talk about race, when we talk about gender, queerness, all of that. If y’all are cool with it, let’s just let’s, let’s say black when we’re talking about black people, let’s say queer, or gay, or lesbian or whatever is appropriate when talking about queer people. And just skip the whole thing… we don’t need to we don’t need to be historically accurate for when it comes to that sort of stuff. And feel free to use modern slang and all that you can use period slang if if it’s cool in areas that are not relating to like, identity, and that sort of thing.

Melissa 7:35
So I can say jive turkey at some point in the here?

Gregory 7:38
You can, if you really want to use “jive turkey”, you can… that’s not appropriate to either…

Melissa 7:43
No, it’s not.

Gregory 7:43
…of the eras that we’re discussing.

Gregory 7:49
So next, in once, uh, once I go through my list, y’all are welcome to bring up things that I didn’t mention. So this is going to be about a disaster. It’s going to be about a a historical event in which something went wrong in a city and people got hurt, people died. And just in general, concerning the the scenery, and and the general stuff, and I’ll get into a few more specifics, does anyone have any particular concerns or requests for the relation to like, how we talk about the fact that like, there are going to be some homes destroyed and things like that.

Gregory 8:30
I think that I’m inclined in general for all this stuff, to not go into any sort of gruesome detail. I’m not inclined to, you know, talk about like, people, you know, specific injuries that happened to people or or like, like, dwell too much on misery. But there are questions like, should we have people begging to be helped? Should we, are we feeling up to that? Or do we want to, like, put some of that stuff in, in more kind of narratively described and not roleplayed?

Lucy 9:11
Right now, I feel okay. With it potentially. I mean, I may respond emotionally and I’m okay with that, too. So…

Melissa 9:29
Yeah, I think this I feel like this probably doesn’t need to be said with the specific people on this call, maybe. But remembering the human like something that I think can happen, like when I think about playing D&D, you’re someone passing through town, and the the destruction happening doesn’t feel real. And instead, like, we all came from houses, we all came from homes and families right like and just like remembering that we are individual people in this game instead of mythical figures.

Gregory 10:05
Focus on people and not on the spectacle?

Melissa 10:07
Right. So, I mean, you know, time and place for that, but I don’t think this is it.

Jim 10:14
I feel like I’m fine with it. I think that, you know, it’s if, if the description gets too graphic, I’ll probably want to want to make use of make use of the safety tools.

Gregory 10:26
Yeah.

Jim 10:26
But I think that just from what I understand, and also part of the just sort of the conceit of my character will kind of require me to give people aid. So I feel as though to be helpful for that to be in play.

Gregory 10:41
So yeah, we can if if things start getting, if any of us start feeling like things are getting rough, or like, we’re not quite sure, we can pause, we can go frame by frame, we can rewind, we can just, like, use non-coded human language and be like, Okay, hold on, let’s, let’s talk about this.

Gregory 11:02
So specific stuff. Injury, my inclination is to be willing to talk about, say, someone breaking their leg or someone being trapped. But not, I’m not inclined to talk about, like, what does that specifically look like? So that’s… regarding injury to people in general? Is that kind of where everyone’s sitting is everyone want to be more circumspect than that?

Melissa 11:29
I think there are certain specific kinds of injuries that I might hit some sort of VCR button on. But those are those are rather specific.

Gregory 11:46
Okay. I’ll I I know a little bit about each of y’all’s health and, and specific injuries come to mind. It’s things that I’m not going to introduce.

Lucy 12:00
Sounds like you’re describing using a sort of softer camera and not like an ultra focused lens.

Gregory 12:12
Yeah, if this was a film, or if I were if I were doing film or TV, I would be thinking, you know, PG, PG 13. Network drama, maybe, but not like, I wouldn’t even go to the level of like the the shot of the victim in the police procedural. I’m not inclined to like to be even that graphic.

Melissa 12:37
Yeah, neither should neither should police procedurals, to be honest,

Lucy 12:40
Sometimes The Mentalist is too much.

Melissa 12:43
Yeah, yeah.

Gregory 12:44
Yeah. Okay. And I can, I can see y’all on webcam. So if it seems like I’m breezing past I’m, I’m, I’m looking for nods, and so on. But feel free to speak up or raise your hand or something. If If you are still thinking over one of these.

Gregory 12:59
So specific injury stuff. There historically, were kids in this scene, I don’t think that I want to, at least not right now… Right now, I’m not feeling like I want to like, go into any amount of detail with regard to that. But I think I I’m personally okay with mentioning that kids were around in the kind of the opening scenes, and maybe describing them being rescued. But I could also see us going like, let’s just ignore whether or not kids were present and just talk about adult humans. How are y’all feeling on that kind of going back and forth with that? Or is anyone like, does anyone feel like it’s dishonest? Or, or doesn’t like that level of abstraction?

Jim 13:54
I feel like I’m pretty much on the same page.

Gregory 13:57
Okay, so kids might get mentioned, but not in the context of like, bad stuff happening to them?

Melissa 14:03
Yeah, I think so. I think it’s, it’s part of, like, you know, I wouldn’t call it dishonest to not do it, but right, it’s part of the, the tapestry of, you know, the story in a, in a way that, you know, there are humans involved. And hopefully, they got helped.

Gregory 14:23
And the last thing that I have on injury stuff is animals. There were historically some animals on the scene. Horses specifically get mentioned a lot in in discussions of this event. Do we want to treat animals like adult humans, like children, or do we want to have them not not be discussed?

Melissa 14:45
I have a preference here and I’m gonna I think I’m gonna say, No, no, there’s, yeah, no, there’s… particularly horses. It fits into the whole specific injury thing. It’s just…

Gregory 14:56
So so we’ll we’ll you know… People can use their imagination, listeners can use their imagination if they want, but we won’t mention.

Melissa 15:05
Yeah.

Gregory 15:05
Whether or not they’re animals on the scene. We’ll just give it alright everyone cool with that specific specific injury stuff, anything else you want to bring up with that? Okay.

Gregory 15:15
Next, we talked about terminology, but let’s talk about historical oppression. So I think it’s important to me as the narrator of this, to depict elements of historical oppression of certain ethnic groups. And I think that given that I know that we have some queer characters, some of the elements in which that limited their lives. I’m willing to compromise on that. But I personally would like to kind of explore that a little bit. But they’re definitely kind of different degrees, we could go to that. I certainly don’t want to play an NPC that’s going to be like actively hurting anyone for… like physically hurting someone for marginalization. I’m not inclined to roleplay a racist cop.

Gregory 16:09
But But I can imagine, like, what I’m envisioning is that, that I might frame things as certain limitations to your characters, which… Rosette has a system called except or unless, where you could say, I could say, “Well, you won’t be able to get in here, because you’re a member of x group.” And you could go well, “except”, or you could say, “unless”, and then I could, I would then qualify that limitation.

Gregory 16:37
But I could also go as far as to say that, like, we will recognize that this oppression exists. And that’s part of the context of this world, but just not have it come up in play. So How are y’all feeling about those options? Or do you do want to just be like, let’s be ahistorical, let’s not engage in that stuff?

Lucy 16:57
I will say, I am feeling a little torn about it. Because it’s obviously not a historical issue. It’s a very, like, present issue.

Gregory 17:16
Right, definitely.

Lucy 17:17
But I also do think that there’s a lot of potential things that will be interesting to, you know, talk about and potentially RP. So I feel a lot of complicated things about it.

Gregory 17:40
Alright. Do we want to kind of assume that we will go real slow when it comes to that, those issues? And, and like, if something comes up, be like, “Okay, so this is an area where we know, in the actual 1910s, this stuff was happening? How do we want to handle that and immediately go meta?”

Melissa 18:06
Well, so I have some stuff on my sheet that hook into some of these things. So I don’t think it’s, it’s not spoiling anything to say that I have like code switching as a skill. How would that interact with going meta? If I need to come up with a skill for a situation, then? If the situation is not there in detail? Is it… Do we still make it work? Or should I tweak the character? You know what I mean?

Gregory 18:33
Yeah, I think I think we can still have it sounds like what I’m hearing is that we could still have situations in which kind of narratively the oppression affects things. And we might decide that we’re comfortable going into, like, actual narrative discussion of it. But even if we go, like, even if we just have an OOC chat, and sort of, I guess in in Script Change, we would say, fast forward past that scene, that that that skill could still be used, right?

Melissa 19:00
Okay.

Gregory 19:00
We could just say, you know, we maybe say like, well, you might have trouble getting past this bouncer to get into this club, if you’re this group. And you can be like, “Okay, then I’ll use I can use this skill, I can use my, my code switching skill and I’ll say, okay, cool. You’ll go in.

Melissa 19:15
Okay, cool. That…

Gregory 19:16
If, if, in that circumstance, we decided that we want to skip that scene.

Melissa 19:22
That, I mean, that all seems fine with me, I am happy to avoid, and this, you know, this fits with the injury stuff. I’m happy to avoid the specifics like drilling in on the specific miseries of being a marginalized entity in 1919, because it sounds like it’s probably pretty bad.

Gregory 19:42
Yeah.

Melissa 19:42
In a lot of ways, so. Yeah, that that suits me.

Gregory 19:46
And is it cool if I kind of as part of my describing scenes and establishing circumstances if I discuss, like, “Here’s generally, the experience that’s…” that, you know, to say like, “In this time, Italians specifically, it’s going to be relevant, are kind of considered other and not white and and distrusted by general society.” Is that sort of background stuff cool to kind of establish?

Melissa 20:17
I think so.

Gregory 20:17
And we can certainly if I say something, you can certainly be like, okay, pause, let’s, let’s not have that be in our game if we want.

Melissa 20:26
And class related stuff too, hopefully?

Gregory 20:28
Yeah.

Melissa 20:29
And yeah, I figured you can’t, you can’t do this without talking about that. But…

Jim 20:37
I feel like the good idea is to just approach it cautiously. Just sort of as a default, slowly and cautiously in that, you know, leap immediately to the expletives, things of that nature.

Gregory 20:53
Oh, yeah. And I’m definitely I think I’m gonna say like, in case it wasn’t clear, as part of the terminology discussion, let’s not do any expletives. Let’s not do any slurs, nothing, even even any soft ones. Because especially because things that we consider soft now might not have been soft, then. Things that were soft then won’t be now. I’m going to specifically say, certain reclaimed words like “queer”. I think I’m cool with it. Everyone else is. I think that reclaiming is a constant complicated discussion, but but as folks are comfortable with using those words, I am down for it. I think, specifically the N word let’s not, let’s not do.

Melissa 21:37
Let’s not, please.

Gregory 21:38
As a reclaimed word. Let’s not.

Jim 21:40
Yeah, no.

Melissa 21:40
There’s only one… I’m not gonna say it to myself.

Gregory 21:42
I’m cool with…

Melissa 21:42
There’s only one other person, there’s only one person on this call who…

Gregory 21:49
So…

Melissa 21:49
If we can drill in a bit, use the term expletive, which to me means a cuss word at all.

Gregory 21:55
Oh, I’m cool with cussing if y’all are.

Melissa 21:57
Okay, just checking. If we’re going PG…

Gregory 21:59
Epithet is, I think is what I meant.

Melissa 22:00
Okay.

Jim 22:02
That was my fault. I was searching I was reaching for a word. That was the first “E” word that my brain grabbed.

Melissa 22:07
Oh, no, I have to like…

Lucy 22:08
I know I was. I was like, Oh, God, never say “fuck,” never say “fuck”.

Gregory 22:13
No, I’m totally fine with swearing.

Melissa 22:16
Glad I’m playing a sailor because…

Gregory 22:23
um, so the last item on my list of kind of social contract stuff is PTSD. I have done a tiny amount of initial prep research on this, because I know that we have… two of our characters are veterans, and that we are dealing with a disaster situation. I’m not inclined to bring it in unless y’all do for your characters. But is there anything… Are there any… Is there anything we want to set up on sort of trauma, bringing up panic, or anything like that? I think that that people on this call may have may experience it in real life or might not. But if y’all… Do y’all have any feelings on how that enters in? This is the historical time when shell shock was first getting discussed. And, and so that’s certainly a thing that could be relevant to the story.

Jim 23:13
I mean, there may be some minuscule things that I ended up doing a little bit in RP. But I’m not planning to have it to do anything that should become the focus of a scene. If that makes sense. It’s most there may be a few minor RP things… I haven’t done anything, like put it in as a as a character Quirk or anything like that. This is mostly just things that sort of helped formulate the experiences that my character had. And it’s not something that I see as necessarily being anything we need to focus on as, like plot or anything like that. If that makes sense.

Gregory 24:04
As a specific thing that I think that could potentially come up. Rosette Diceless is a concept called Afflictions. We’ll we’ll go into this when it comes to, to when we get into play, but should people do we want people to avoid, say taking the affliction “Triggered” or something like that? Where like, there, there is a mechanical weight to the concept of someone suffering from past trauma.

Jim 24:33
I feel like that would be a good idea.

Gregory 24:36
Good idea to avoid?

Jim 24:37
Yeah.

Melissa 24:38
Yeah. Okay, that word is a lot.

Jim 24:42
Yeah, that word in and of itself is loaded.

Melissa 24:45
Yeah.

Gregory 24:45
Right.

Melissa 24:46
Even though…

Jim 24:46
But even…

Gregory 24:47
Connected things, you know, “Activated Trauma” or something like that still avoid?

Jim 24:51
Yeah.

Gregory 24:53
Okay, so we’re not going to look into PTSD mechanically at all. We might roleplay stuff related to trauma. But we’re gonna try and avoid, like, getting into it or focusing on it.

Melissa 25:06
So I will say, and I hadn’t really framed this under the label of PTSD. But I took the the negative trait “Plagued by Nightmares”, which specifically allows my Secret to be used against me in Conflict, which would very much tie into this sort of thing. I also have extra… always composed, you know, like, I have, like, a couple of things to kind of tie around past experiences of trauma. So while I don’t know that it’s, and it does tie into the narrative a little bit, but I don’t think it’s going to be, I’m not going to play this in any sort of, like stereotyping way, like, I I’m not here for that. So I agree with like, certainly the word “trigger” being a whole thing, but also like, I think, and we can reassess it when it happens, that we can engage with the plagued by nightmares, we can engage with stuff like this, and I think I can… I think we can navigate that space. If not, I’ll switch it and take something else. And it’s like, no harm, no foul, right. Hopefully no harm, no foul. So, yeah, it is on my sheet, I guess I should say in a in an indirect way. It’s not as something as simple as a Quirk, but it is sort of embedded in the character.

Gregory 26:35
Okay. Are we cool with that staying in play, in that case, for Lissa’s character?

Jim 26:41
Yeah.

Melissa 26:42
Okay, because like, I can’t switch it. Just, you know, we’ll see how it goes, I guess.

Jim 26:46
Yeah. Yeah. I, I… A, I trust you.

Melissa 26:51
Welp…

Jim 26:51
B, what you’re talking about is not I don’t think is something that is as likely to lead to the sort of things we’re trying to not have going on.

Melissa 27:02
Oh, and you know my damn Secret. So, yeah.

Jim 27:04
Well, yes, that too, so…

Melissa 27:09
I’ll tread lightly, you know, but yeah, that’s definitely not something to focus in on with a with a tight lens. So…

Lucy 27:18
Did we form a perfect Secret circle, then?

Melissa 27:20
We did.

Gregory 27:24
Very excited to get to introducing this, these things. That’s all that I’ve got for like, pre session discussion, social contract stuff. Does anyone have anything that came up? Or that they? I guess, one little thing that just came up is, I’m going to mention this in a sec, but historical accuracy is not. Not something that I’m inclined to get into. I’ve done a decent amount of research, but I’m taking certain liberties. And also, there’s certain narrative reasons why we can just kind of hand wave historical accuracy. As long as we don’t get to, you know, we’re not going to be pulling out modern technology. The player characters aren’t, at least, so if everyone’s cool with it, let’s… We can chill on if you’re like, “I don’t know, when when exactly was this device invented? Oh, it turns out, it wasn’t until 1927? Well…” Don’t worry about it.

Melissa 28:20
I guess we can put aside my 45 minutes of research on Swiss Army knives, on when Americans would have them, which is, I think this is too early.

Gregory 28:29
If it positively, if it positively influences your character and informs your character, cool, but we don’t need to be too strict on it.

Jim 28:37
My character will not be posting anything to Instagram.

Melissa 28:40
Aww.

Gregory 28:41
Excellent. Any, any other items that we want to chat about on social contract stuff, topics to avoid or that you especially want to highlight? Stuff that you might think of? That could be an issue that you’re super interested in doing?

Jim 28:57
Nothing specific? For me, I will say that just as a general rule, I always hope that any you know, when when we’re looking into portraying certain things, or well portraying all those, you know, anything that those portrayals are done respectfully, but I you know, I trust this group to do that. So I’m, I’m good.

Melissa 29:18
Yeah, I agree.

Gregory 29:19
Cool. Then we will proceed. I want to give credit to a book: Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 by Steven Puleo. It’s my kind of major main source for like, the sequence of events and, and major inspiration for a lot of the characters you’re going to run into. Kind of it’s it’s the the central, like work of historical, like popular historical authorship on this event. And I will note that I’ve taken historical liberties. There are characters that you’re you might meet that were not there, for sure. But I thought it was more interesting to have them there. So with that, let’s begin this campaign of Tabletop Garden: The Great Molasses Flood.

Gregory 30:15
It is January 15 1919. We’re in the very north end of Boston. It’s a very warm Wednesday for January, you’re used to going around in like heavy coats because it’s Boston. But this is aa day where you’re, you’re having to strip down to just your long sleeves or like coats. It’s been sort of a rough 1919 and 1918. There was a big epidemic in October of last year. That was bad enough that like they were having trouble finding places to bury the bodies. It’s been a World War on. Things or things are kind of politically very chaotic. At the moment, the headlines on the newspapers are generally about two things. First, World War One is… over? You’ve had victory but armistice hasn’t… armistice has been signed, but the the end of the war has not actually legally happened. And Prohibition is on the cusp of passing. Massachusetts has already approved prohibition. But essentially, if one more state signs on, that’s it, it’s set, there will be an amendment and you’ll have one more year of alcohol before prohibition starts properly. Sam, where are you at around noon? on a Wednesday?

Melissa 31:40
Hmm, what does one do when they are ashore for the first time in a little while? So they’re on leave…

Gregory 31:50
Let’s see. Yeah, you’ve been on leave for a week or two now.

Melissa 31:54
So done all the fun stuff. Done all the exciting stuff.

Gregory 31:57
Yeah, your ship… what what.. so you’re a sailor. What ship are you from?

Melissa 32:01
I’m from the S.S. Cotapaxi, which is a cargo ship that was just launched last year, 1918. And I’m a, I’m a quote unquote Junior utility man, I’m a I’m a person who will never be allowed to rise particularly high in the ranks, despite having quite a lot of experience. And so the ship has done an initial journey and is back in port to kind of like, you know, have the screws re tightened. And we’ve got some leave while that happens. And so probably been to Boston a few times. There’s a fair amount of reason to be here just as a sailor and as as someone who’s been in the military, but there’s probably a little bit of like sort of casual shopping a little bit of like, find a park to like post up even though it’s cold and just like be on land for a little while, you know. Feels weird, because it’s not home anymore, but it’s still an interesting experience. So.

Gregory 33:05
All right. Well, if you maybe grabbed a slightly early lunch there’s a there’s a graveyard, Cobb’s Hill Burial Ground is is this graveyard set on a hill. It sort of overlooks the neighborhood would have a view of where your your ship is, is moored…

Melissa 33:22
Excellent.

Gregory 33:23
…getting repaired. Or getting maintained.

Melissa 33:26
Yeah. Getting its first tune up.

Gregory 33:29
So you’re eating and maybe sitting what, leaning against a tree, sitting on a gravestone, what’s what’s your style?

Melissa 33:37
Hmm… I’ll lean against the tree. Let’s, we’ll keep it chill.

Gregory 33:43
What does your character look like?

Melissa 33:44
Oh, they are… he is… Woof, that… As someone who uses “they” pronouns, it is sometimes difficult for me to play characters that do not use “they” pronouns. He is is a, sort of a haggard, middle aged black man, who sort of is not is not a pretty person. He’s got scars, nothing like dramatic, he’s just like, lived in the sun and on the sea, you know, for a lot of his life. Not a resting smiling face. And just sort of like broad shouldered kind of hunkers in his in his coat and, and keeps his head down. While he’s, while he’s in town, but, um, facial hair, I guess. A beard. Not a particularly like not an unkempt person by any means. But also like is not interested in, in dolling up or or sort of dressing up or anything like that.

Gregory 34:48
And so in Rosette Diceless, your character has Traits that are different qualities about them. One… you have one Superlative Trait that’s sort of an especial strength that your character has. What’s what’s Sam’s Superlative Trait?

Melissa 35:04
His superlative trait is Uncanny Insights, which is an ability where once per session, I am able to narrate a piece of information like basically add information to the scene. And I in doing so I might be able to gain a resource that I can use to gain an Edge or block, depending on kind of what the conflict is about and what information I have. So I have I have the ability to… or I’m just a very observant person, or I’ve seen a lot of stuff, right. It’s kind of experience-based and I can, I can spot things and interject them into the scene.

Gregory 35:41
And you also have a Secret, which is a question that I don’t know the answer to. But one other person here does, what’s that Secret?

Melissa 35:50
The question is, “Why does Sam stay at sea, despite the difficulties and limitations?”

Gregory 35:56
Awesome. So I posted a map if you want to check it out in the in the discord channel, this is just sort of a general overview, you’re sort of currently at the southeast of this map. This neighborhood, your… has a an elevated train track running through it, I’ll post a photo from ground level in a sec. It’s got this elevated train track that you’re sort of looking underneath. You’re, you’re… it’s a little higher than you and you’re looking down onto this spread.

Gregory 36:24
It’s, there’s a lot of industrial buildings and industrial yards down there. There’s a… there’s some some sheds that have like city trolley and city transit stuff in them. You can see the harbor below. And you can see a fire station. There’s a little… there’s a house that’s that’s sort of built underneath the elevated train tracks that sort of clearly like was there and they just kind of stayed there and got built on top of.

Gregory 36:55
And then you’re kind of up above that all and to your left you’re, you’ve got a bunch of, of apartment buildings that are lining this street, and then kind of down looking down to your right, you can see a big playground that’s basically just an open dirt field, where there’s bunch of kids running around.

Gregory 37:14
But the one thing that’s dominating this whole landscape is the molasses tank. There’s a big sign on the building next to it that says Purity Distilling. It’s clearly some sort of chemical plant or chemical company that that is storing something here. And there’s a huge brown tank, that’s just enormous. It dwarfs everything else in the neighborhood. It’s taller than any of the buildings. It’s taller than the… than the the elevated train track. And it just sort of looms over everything here. And you can see like, you can see like a couple of kids have snuck into the into the yard where that where the tank is. And they are like holding up pails it looks like and like collecting some some stuff that’s coming out of the tank into them. And then they run off, like holding the the bucket over their head as if it’s a big prize.

Melissa 38:07
So is this bigger than like a water tower?

Gregory 38:10
Think of it like it’s a water tower that goes all the way to the ground.

Melissa 38:13
Okay. Okay.

Gregory 38:15
So if you see… this is a picture, kind of next to the playground looking towards a lot of those industrial buildings. And you can see just that enormous tank that’s just just this big, huge cylinder painted a dark brown color.

Melissa 38:32
Oof.

Gregory 38:32
And off to your right, there’s another person in the graveyard. Also kind of be… you get the impression that they’re, they’re also sort of having a break, a lunch break. But they’re weird. They look weird. They’re a white person, you can’t really get a grasp on gender. They’re they’re wearing odd clothes. They’ve got blue trousers that look kind of like the the blue waist overalls that you’ll see like factory workers wear, except they’re just trousers. And they’re wearing some sort of like sweater jacket with a hood. That’s like, bright red, like circus color red. And like over the jacket, they’ve got a vest on top of it. That’s like a bright orange. And there are these like stripes on it that almost seem to glow. You’re not sure how that’s done. And they’re, they’re, they seem to be using a an adding machine like a like a little handheld calculator. That would be like you tap on it and like, you know, do multiplication stuff, but they don’t have any papers or anything that they’re working with. So that’s weird. And they’re smoking a cigarette, and you sort of noticed that the cigarette that they’re smoking is burning blue instead of red.

Melissa 39:40
So does this person look like they are wearing all their clothes? Like all the clothes that they own? Is this is this that sort of…

Gregory 39:46
Maybe. I mean, it’s it’s not bulky but like they’re wearing things in the wrong order, right? It’s an orange vest on top of a red sweater. It’s it’s very strange.

Melissa 39:57
Okay.

Gregory 40:00
And I think we will move to the next person.

Melissa 40:03
Okay.

Gregory 40:03
Jim, Lucy, which of you wants to go next?

Jim 40:06
I’ll go if you like.

Lucy 40:07
Sure, go ahead!

Gregory 40:08
All right. So Jim, where are you around lunchtime? Are you at the… at your place of work?

Jim 40:15
Yep.

Gregory 40:16
And and your place of residence?

Jim 40:18
Yeah, pretty much! I’m at the fire station, which I see is very close. Uh, is very close by.

Gregory 40:23
Yes!

Jim 40:25
So we are probably in that my understanding of such things is that those those in our profession have two states that they’re generally in. At rest, or or running. Those are like the, the two states So currently, we are in the at rest state.

Jim 40:48
Yeah.

Jim 40:48
So I think that if it is just coming up on lunchtime, then I am probably probably helping out with that a little bit because my character has a fairly big family and so he kind of knows a little bit about how to you know, how to help with you know, make sandwiches and what have you. We probably had someone run go on a run to grab some some some lunch meats or whatever. And so I’m probably near a near a counter helping assemble said lunch meats and various other vegetables onto these onto these slices of bread as and sort of chatting with my fellow firefighters.

Gregory 41:32
So you’re you’re in the in the bottom floor, the first floor of this of this firehouse, there’s a pool table. Folks are hanging out there, you don’t have a like a fire truck. This is before fire trucks are really a thing. So you’ve got you’ve got transportation and stuff that you can… the horses and so on outside but it’s not like you’re over a garage. You’re you’re putting food together. And what does your character look like?

Jim 42:02
My character is… he’s a he him. He is in his late 20s. And Lorenzo is Italian, his his family when he was a kid moved to Boston from from New York. And he’s been here for a considerable amount of time, when he was not overseas fighting. He came out mostly… his face was intact, which was nice. It coming out coming out of the war, he might have one or two minor scars. But not not necessarily going to be immediately visible. He’s kinda, he’s about six feet, six feet in height. He has very dark, close cropped hair, he is clean shaven, he’s not bad to look at. He’s decently handsome as one moves slightly more toward the rugged end of the of the, the spectrum on that. Fairly well muscled, as, as someone who does his job would be. He pretty much as he is sort of working on, you know, he working on the sandwiches sort of chatting back and forth. He’s very, he tends to be very glib with such things. And just sort of trading, you know, joking insults and what have you with the rest of the the firefighters as as this whole thing is going on. He’s currently in probably, I’m guessing about, what would it be 75% of his uniform?

Gregory 43:34
Yeah, yeah, probably like…

Jim 43:36
He’s got the pants, the suspenders, sort of a… off white shirt. His coat is probably hanging somewhere nearby. I believe the uniforms were sort of I think they were either a black or a darkish blue. I can’t really tell because the pictures are in black and white.

Gregory 43:53
Yes. Something dark.

Jim 43:57
So it probably… probably like a darkish blue to black would normally… so on the rack probably which we’ll, we may see later is sort of the long coat and then sort of a flat kind of build cap. Some of them have insignia on them. I don’t know if his would or not, because I’m not sure what his rank is per se. He’s not necess… He’s not in charge of these people, per se, but they…

Gregory 44:25
You’re just like a rank and file, experienced firefighter.

Jim 44:29
Yes.

Gregory 44:29
What’s your superlative trait?

Jim 44:32
My chara… so Lorenzo’s superlative trait is boundless endurance, which means I have an extra condition level so that I can I can mark off for stress before becoming incapacitated.

Gregory 44:44
Excellent. And what is your secret?

Jim 44:47
My secret? The the the the question.

Gregory 44:51
The question.

Jim 44:51
The open question about my secret is why doesn’t Lorenzo talk about his older brother Salvator?

Gregory 44:58
Excellent. This neighborhood I think I’ll mention is, is heavily Italian. Most of the Italians that live in this neighborhood are first generation. They’ve they’ve moved over in the last 20 years or so. And so you’re… you’re second generation, right? Do you talk much with these people? Do you speak Italian?

Jim 45:19
Yeah, I think so. I think so. I didn’t take anything on my sheet. But he has…

Gregory 45:24
Yeah.

Jim 45:25
He’s… He speaks Italian. He’s He’s fairly, fairly fluent in it.

Gregory 45:30
Okay.

Jim 45:31
His parents, I think insisted they’re fairly traditional. Aside from his older brother, of whom he does not speak, I am imagining he has two or three sisters.

Gregory 45:41
Okay.

Jim 45:41
And so this is part of the, you know, why he had to kind of learn how to help take care of things for various reasons. And so there’s a lot of participation in the culture going on.

Gregory 45:53
Now, some places would give you a hard time for being Italian at this time, because because Italians are sort of seen… they’re immigrants. They’re, they’re, they’re seen as as, as weirdly ethnic. How is How are things with that the firehouses. Is everyone cool with it? Do you get teased?

Jim 46:09
I think that there is, at this point, there might still be the occasional tease. But I think he’s no longer what I know, in more modern parlance would be referred to as a probie he’s so it’s been some time it’s been a few years, since he’s, you know, dealt with the hazing. So there might be the occasional casual thing that comes up, but then he’s expected to be able to just give it right back.

Gregory 46:40
Yeah.

Jim 46:40
And so… I… not all of the banter would necessarily, I think, be appropriate, I feel it would be fine for us to just sort of pass over that in this context.

Gregory 46:52
That sounds good.

Jim 46:54
But to say perhaps it is a thing that exists in the world, but we need not, we need not dwell upon it.

Gregory 46:59
Okay. So you’ve… as you’re as you’re cooking, you see that one of one of your co workers, George Lahey, has… he’s one of the people that went out for for supplies, and he came in and like dropped off the the lunch meats that that you you wanted, but he kind of like, ducked in and set it down and ducked back out again. Because you can see through the the windows that there seems to be somebody talking to you out on the street. And this is a weird looking guy. He’s… his skin is like, almost looks kind of he he looks old, in a weird way. Like his skin is almost… is kind of yellowish and papery. Like he’s like, got mild jaundice or something. And his suit is like this weird like, white and gray patterned outfit. Like he’s dressed like a reporter or something. Like like a very, like professional suit, but not one that looks too expensive. But it’s got this weird like pattern of of, like black lines on gray. And it’s just strikes you just as… catches the eye as him looking odd and out of place. But he chats to George for just just a little bit. It’s it’s kind of on the on the order of like, maybe he’s asking for directions or something. George doesn’t point or anything, but, but they they talk briefly. And George kind of nods and trugs and, and kind of gives a, you know, “have a nice walk” sort of gesture and heads back in. Seems… doesn’t really, really mention much about what that was about.

Gregory 48:35
Lucy.

Lucy 48:37
Hi.

Gregory 48:38
What is Harmony up to around lunchtime, on this Wednesday?

Lucy 48:44
Harmony is sort of, um, what do you… what would be a slow scurry? Whatever a slow scurry would look like. That’s what Harmony’s doing. She’s headed… I’m guessing probably toward the wharf to… maybe there are a few folks who are hanging out on a street corner or maybe near the wharf trying to talk to some of the workers there and can… maybe foist a couple of tracts on them detailing the Socialist Party of Boston and Harmony is carrying a sheaf of these tracts that she is… You smell the mimeograph fluid. You know that… that kind of purple smell? Pretty tasty.

Melissa 49:43
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Former teacher. Oh, yeah.

Lucy 49:49
So she’s got this sheaf of fresh freshly mimeographed tracts for the Socialist Party of Boston that she’s getting to the folks who are trying to recruit and get new members here. Workers in the area.

Gregory 50:10
This is a this is a place with a lot of potential folks you’d be talking to. There’s there’s a rail yard, there’s, there’s the wharf, like this is a place where there’s a lot of distribution going on. And there’s also like masonry and paving places and a lot of other industrial things. It’s, you know, the political situation is kind of rough for the Socialist Party at the moment. They’re very much associated with being anti war and being just generally like, have been painted with a broad brushe as all kind of anti anti patriotic, but, but there’s still a bunch of workers who are totally into hearing what you’re saying, especially as the war is coming to an end and they’re realizing that like, “Oh, hey, things are gonna be less, you know, total working for the government anymore.” So what does she look like?

Lucy 51:00
And for the record, Harmony’s probably not talking to anyone. She’s more like, providing the copies for the people, other people who are doing their recruiting. She’s very thin, headed toward the gaunt side of thin. Pale with pale hair that’s pulled back in a ponytail. She’s dressed… not very femme. So she’s wearing pants. And you know, one of those jackets kind of rolled up on the sleeves. And she’s generally a bit scruffy. A bit scruffy looking.

Gregory 51:45
Alright, what’s her superlative trait?

Lucy 51:47
Her superlative trait is Inner Peace. Which means that she doesn’t have any trouble keeping composure in chaotic surroundings. We don’t take Wear on Nerve. And we block Edges on Nerve attacks. Once per session can boost defense against chaotic surroundings or chaotic circumstance.

Gregory 52:14
Excellent. I wonder if that will come in handy. And what’s your secret?

Lucy 52:19
My secret is “Why did Harmony come to Boston?”

Gregory 52:24
Excellent. So you’re you’re kind of hustling along the along the wharf and you’re like, you can see the fire station from here. This this tank is looming above you. You can basically see from where you are, you’re looking… If you look at the the tank, you’re looking over the fire station at the tank. And you can see as you’re as you’re… you’ve passed out the the flyers that you’ve got and are presumably heading back for more. You see this weird man in a suit, walking past the… like, away from the fire station, past the tank and kind of west toward toward where the elevated train is and kind of back into town. And he’s definitely just… he catches your eye weirdly. Like he’s… looks a little out of place. Again, his skin is this weird yellow cast to it. It’s not like it’s not like he’s ethnically got a weird skin tone. It’s like there’s something odd about his face. But there are a lot of weird looking people in this area decently often just because of… it’s kind of a locus of a lot of stuff.

Lucy 53:28
I’m not one to judge. Maybe they’ll be interested in universal basic income though.

Gregory 53:35
And so you’re probably in the best place, Harmony, to to hear the noises that the tank is making. All of you have been in this neighborhood for a bit. You’re familiar with things so this is not at all out of place but sometimes that huge molasses tank makes noises and today is one of those days as you’re as you’re probably feeling weirdly warm because you’ve been been hustling around. You can hear from inside the tank this, like, dull burbling and creaking as if it almost as if this tank is breathing, rumbling within it. And then you hear in the distance, and Sam you can hear this clearly, this the the squeal of just the wheels and brakes of the elevated train approaching from the south. You can hear it coming up and it’s braking to approach the curve of the tracks. And Lorenzo, you’re just hearing the chatter of the people in the in the firehouse.

Melissa 54:42
Sam is definitely a little tense as this as these two noisy things are coming into intersection with each other. Hopefully not intersection with each other but there’s just a little bit of tension. Just, like, you know. Trying to keep aware of what’s going on.

Gregory 55:02
And as this, this train is, is approaching the curve, there is a very sudden noise. You all hear a sound like machine gun fire, just like chunk chunk chunk chunk chunk. And then this weird grinding, scraping noise, like, like a monster is, is suddenly gotten hurt and is roaring in pain. So Sam’s looking at the tank. Harmony, are you?

Lucy 55:36
Yes, I’ve stopped.

Gregory 55:38
Okay, so you both see that the walls of the tank suddenly burst. This enormous, building-sized structure has suddenly broken, and you have just an instant to register that this has happened before you see this just wave of dark liquid pour out of the tank. This is 25 feet tall. Stories tall. It’s it’s… you’rs level with the top of it, Sam. Lorenzo, you have no clue that this is happening beyond the sound that you just heard, as this wave of molasses pours out into the neighborhood around.

Melissa 56:24
So I don’t know if my view is obscured by the train that is probably between me and the tank. But is that there’s the tank, bulge out from the sides and rupture? Like what’s the structural integrity situation happening here?

Gregory 56:41
Let’s see. So you were paying close attention. So it’s, you saw like, you can see kind of like steam or smoke rising from some sort of vent on the top of it. And then… and then there is… yeah, it sort of bulges and tears open.

Melissa 56:57
Okay.

Gregory 56:58
As if like some pressure for the inside is opening it up?

Melissa 57:01
Okay. Interesting.

Lucy 57:04
Because I’m kind of below it, right? So what what am I seeing?

Gregory 57:11
You see… so you heard it bubbling. And you see this, this, you see it kind of tear open up above you and pieces of it are flying out and it was stunning speed.

Gregory 57:23
So I think this is a good time to start the Conflict. In Rosette Diceless, conflict scenes have a Goal and a Consequence. So there’s something that you are all trying to accomplish. And there is a Consequence that is is the thing that that I’m, as the Narrator, am having my my characters try and advance. So I have some goals in mind that that you could be trying for.

Gregory 57:53
I could see that your Goal could be to escape this situation, mostly unharmed, or not too badly injured. Or I could see a Goal being for you to save as many people as you can. Those those seem like the big things that come to mind. And then you are all going to, going to try and figure out a Consequence that that you’re interested in undertaking. And I will say this is going to be a hard Conflict with a very, rather overpowering Adversary. And I would encourage you, even more so than usual, to feel free to go super, super hard on consequences.

Melissa 58:39
Oh…

Gregory 58:40
This this is a story that we’ll be able to support really, really dire consequences for you. If If you want your consequence to be character death, it won’t end the campaign.

Lucy 58:57
I would be interested in trying to save people who are around.

Melissa 59:04
Yeah, yeah, I like saving lives.

Jim 59:08
Yep.

Melissa 59:08
I don’t… do we do we want to be more specific than as many as possible? Do we feel like we have enough information to be more specific?

Lucy 59:17
Like the working class?

Melissa 59:20
Fair. So maybe no, maybe it doesn’t matter.

Gregory 59:23
I’ll say you won’t be able to save everyone. And you certainly will be able to save a decent number.

Melissa 59:31
Okay.

Jim 59:31
I think get… to get as many to safety as we can.

Melissa 59:35
Yeah, that seems fair. Oh, no. Consequences.

Gregory 59:40
So in in Rosette Diceless, the Consequence shouldn’t just be not getting the Goal. There needs to be kind of another thing that’s being pushed for so you’ve got a Consequence that is a is a an additional thing that’s that you’re trying to prevent.

Melissa 59:54
So I think I’ll mention that we are… in addition to the base book, we’re pulling from a supplemental book that is, as of recording, not yet published. And there are a couple of new Rare Setbacks that might be relevant. One of them is being trapped, physically or metaphorically. Another one is being despised, which is being disliked by the general public, terrible reputation, et cetera.

Gregory 1:00:21
I think with my Narrator knowledge, neither of those work.

Melissa 1:00:25
Okay, cool.

Gregory 1:00:26
Let’s stick with, if you want, if you’re interested in a Setback, which would be something that could be used as an Edge against you later on, that would work, but it should be something internal, if so. It should be be something to do with your own self image or your own feelings about yourself. And not about not about physical or social consequences.

Lucy 1:00:42
So definitely something that will stick with us.

Gregory 1:00:45
…yes. We’re, we’re… first… They’ve begun. The first of the sticky jokes.

Melissa 1:00:58
Oh, wow. Well…

Jim 1:01:00
Oh, dear.

Melissa 1:01:01
That’s happening. Yeah.

Jim 1:01:03
I think I’m sorry, I have to I have to. I have to bow out, now. I, unfortunately…

Lucy 1:01:15
I understand. Not for the faint of heart.

Melissa 1:01:20
I have a feeling about how this is gonna go.

Gregory 1:01:24
So are you interested in the Consequences being kind of physical consequences for you? Even if you don’t end up with a physical setback at the end of that, or…?

Lucy 1:01:32
I’m what I’m willing to put my character’s life in the Consequence… bucket.

Melissa 1:01:38
Yeah. Same, I think.

Jim 1:01:40
I think it’s… Yeah, it’s pretty much part of my character’s job description. So I think putting, putting death on the line is.. my character’s death on the line is fine by me.

Gregory 1:01:50
All right. So in a Conflict, where it’s decently likely that you will fail, that the Adversary will win, your your Goal is to save as many people as you can, while avoiding the Consequence of dying. And if you lose this, all three of you will die. Cool with that?

Melissa 1:02:07
Yep. I mean, I don’t, I don’t know that you can be a person who gets on a tin can and stays out in the ocean for years and years of your life and not already be ready to step into some situations. So…

Gregory 1:02:23
All right.

Jim 1:02:24
Yeah.

Gregory 1:02:24
So you’ve just heard this, this noise, and some of you seen what’s going on. And I am going to take some cards, some index cards, and put your characters in, put the Adversary of “The Flood” in. And I think that’s it for now. I’m just gonna shuffle on real quick to figure out what our order is. Although, the Flood… is going to go first.

Melissa 1:02:55
Setting question. When this happens, are the… strange… is the strange person still hanging out here on their handheld abacus? I know it’s not a handheld abacus.

Gregory 1:03:08
They are… They are Yeah, they are watching. As of this moment, they’re watching. Depending on what happens next, you may or may not be able to pay attention to what happens. But they are… you are notably like… I think that that Sam, it’s clear to you that you’re kind of safe right now. Almost certainly.

Melissa 1:03:27
Yeah, cuz I’m up and back.

Gregory 1:03:29
Yeah, you’re elevated and back. So they’re, they’re in a safe place. So Conflict scenes proceed in cycles, just like a combat scene in another system. In each turn, someone’s going to make an Attack. And this doesn’t necessarily have to be a physical attack, an attempt damage, it’s just an action that you’re doing to try and inflict Stress on on other people.

Gregory 1:03:51
So in this case, the Adversary is the Flood. And it is, let’s see. So it’s going to be making a Crisis Attack here, I think.

Gregory 1:04:05
So I think the other bit of setup that I’m going to say is that Lorenzo, you’ve sort of been been glancing up as, as George has come in. And you see that like, just outside walking past is, is John Barry. He’s a stone cutter at the local paving yard. And he he often comes in to hang out with y’all. And he has just been, like, clearly kind of sponging lunch off the firefighters. He’s just like, has the door open is about to come in when this noise happens and he looks and you kind of… You hear the noise and of course are probably jumping up with trying to figure out what’s going on, but he looks over his shoulder to what you can’t see and he like, goes pale, and like dives into the building and shouts, “Go, go! Out the back! Out!” As if like something’s coming. The other two of you can definitely see see the immediate threat.

Gregory 1:05:01
So what do you all do? The Flood is attacking. It is using its skill of Sudden, and this is a… it’s using its Body and it’s boosted. This boosted attack is a 10.

Melissa 1:05:17
Ooooh!

Gregory 1:05:18
It’s coming in with a bold attack, which means even if you block it, you will, you will take take Wear, but I’m not sure you can block this. And it’s using an Edge of Explosion. So with a Crisis Attack, each of you will decide how you’re responding to the situation. And you’re using your defenses, depending on your approach with it. But with the 10 I… unless you’ve got some voodoo, I don’t think you can… you can block that.

Melissa 1:05:48
I mean, to metagame a bit, and you can you can cut this if you want to, Greg, but that means you’ve got a 5-1-1. They have a five in Body and a one in the other two stats, so…

Gregory 1:05:58
Yeah. So their Mind and Charm have to be one.

Melissa 1:06:00
Yep.

Gregory 1:06:01
So you now know…

Melissa 1:06:02
We should…

Gregory 1:06:02
You can now calculate out their Defenses roughly. They might have something that tweaks that because they’re an Adversary.

Melissa 1:06:07
Oh, yeah, that’s true.

Gregory 1:06:09
You know that…

Melissa 1:06:09
Wits!

Gregory 1:06:10
It’s going to be very hard to overcome this just by directly direct physical might. Your best bet here is to outwit it, to do to do smart things, or, or quick thinking things to deal with this.

Melissa 1:06:23
Does it have an edge?

Gregory 1:06:24
Yes. Explosion.

Melissa 1:06:25
Ah. Hm. Well, good start.

Lucy 1:06:30
And I’m looking at this tank. And it’s basically like, it goes from the ground to the top, this tank does.

Gregory 1:06:40
Yeah.

Lucy 1:06:41
Is it splitting open like at a scene? Or is this happening at the top? Like, where…?

Gregory 1:06:47
All of its… all of the seams on its walls seem to have split open. It’s as if all its walls are shooting outward.

Lucy 1:06:54
Okay.

Gregory 1:06:55
In the in the split second that this is happening. It’s like the the roof of it is completely motionless. It’s still almost, you know, time is slow. And it’s like it’s hanging in the air and you’re seeing all the walls go out and this liquid pouring. And you can tell that like, it’s it’s coming straight for… for you. It’s coming straight for everyone. And so with these numbers, we know that you’re going to get hit. Each of you. It’s just a question of like, Do you have something that’s going to block this Edge and make you take less Stress? And if, when you take the Stress, what does that mean? Like what happens to your character and you have the option to take Afflictions to reduce the stress you take.

Lucy 1:07:36
You can only take one Affliction, correct?

Gregory 1:07:40
Correct. I’ll say for listeners that that Jim, Lucy and Lissa are all members of our home game of Rosette Diceless. So they’re pretty familiar.

Melissa 1:07:49
So this is definitely gonna land and I’m trying to think through what my Affliction is, especially because I do have the physical distance from the scene. So I think my Affliction is very much sort of psychological stress related rather than, you know, explosion being directly the thing there. So that’s what I’m thinking through at the moment.

Lucy 1:08:09
Yeah, I mean, I’m obviously I’ve already marked off my one stress, and I’m trying to decide what my Affliction is going to be. And I know it’d be bad to take “Sticky” so I’m gonna pick something else.

Melissa 1:08:23
I’m gonna start with just “Shaken”, just like…

Gregory 1:08:26
Okay.

Melissa 1:08:26
Kind of an “Oh, shit.” You know? Yeah.

Gregory 1:08:30
So I think… so Lissa, I guess we’ll, since you’ve got that first. What are you doing…?

Melissa 1:08:36
Ah, yes.

Gregory 1:08:36
…in response to this that causes you to take stress?

Melissa 1:08:40
So um… okay. So I’ve heard this noise heard the crash or the quote unquote “explosion”, and I’ll get up you know, maybe even drop the notebook I’m carrying and haul ass towards the tank. Like, and if the if the person, clown person, is between me and the tank…

Gregory 1:09:03
They’re off to one side.

Melissa 1:09:04
Okay. ‘Cause I was gonna say I’d grab their sleeve and pull them with me. But But yeah, like pell mell, like looking for people to get closer to what’s happening, especially since I’m going to be safe for a while, right? Like I’m elevated until I reach a certain point. So…

Gregory 1:09:17
Yeah, you’re kind of running down a hill, although you can tell as you’re running that you’re running into the kind of into the path of this wave of stuff that is coming very fast. This is moving at…. as fast as a galloping horse. As fast as that train was moving. 35 miles an hour.

Melissa 1:09:37
Okay.

Gregory 1:09:37
Lucy, there’s buildings that are about to get hit by this wave. This sticky mass is heading towards you. Are you… do you get hit by anything? Do you get engulfed in this?

Lucy 1:09:49
Yeah… I think I do. Because I’m right there. Mentally and emotionally, I’m fine. I’m super chill. I have entered a meditative state, and whatever will be will be. But my physical self is in the way of this thing that is happening. And Harmony is not even, particularly trying to, to do anything. So it’s probably only luck that she’s not killed instantly by whatever happens, but… maybe I’m imagining that what happens is she gets sort of sideswiped by a piece of the tank that’s coming off. That hits her. so that I’ll take the Affliction… Bruised or Concussed, maybe?

Gregory 1:10:38
Okay.

Lucy 1:10:39
And then it happens to just spin her in the right direction. So she’s able to sort of get something… I’m not 100% sure exactly where I am on this map, but something like the tool shed or something else around in between her and like other pieces of it that are maybe flying off .

Gregory 1:11:00
Being able to dive between two buildings or something like that and head in the direction of the playground.

Lucy 1:11:06
So I’m gonna take… Bruised.

Gregory 1:11:10
Okay. And Jim, I guess one, one question is you’ve sort of been urged to get out the back, do you make it out the back? Or are you still in the in the firehouse when the wave hits?

Jim 1:11:21
I think that… I think I’m going to probably just barely make it out the back. Because I think the condition I’m going to take, if it’s acceptable, it’s going to be Delayed. Because I maybe had to do something like cut the horses loose, or run… run off to make sure that they they got away or you know, just make… help… I was helping everybody else get out. My first priority.

Gregory 1:11:47
Let’s rewind, because I think we said no animals.

Jim 1:11:52
Oh, did we? Okay. I didn’t I didn’t know if we said no animals at all, or they were okay. All right now, that’s perfectly fine.

Gregory 1:11:58
So let’s, let’s rewind.

Jim 1:11:59
In that case…

Gregory 1:12:01
So you’re Delayed?

Jim 1:12:03
Yeah, I was, I think that I was helping everybody else get out before me, because it’s just sort of in his nature to try to do that. Yeah, I think that i think that that’s the case. Now just do remind me in order to block an Edge, you actually have to have something that specifically says it blocks an Edge, right?

Gregory 1:12:20
If you’ve got, yeah, depending on what Resources you have, if you have a Resource or a Trait that says it blocks things. Resources are a little are a little fuzzier. If you think you have one that would apply, you could use it to block even if it doesn’t explicitly say so. But yeah, the two ways would be Traits and and Resources. There are a couple other ways but I don’t think they apply.

Jim 1:12:39
Yeah, the only way I could think to the only Resource I could think to use here would be Group Status: Firemen as far as who is coordinating and trying to get everybody out.

Gregory 1:12:49
I’d say that’s probably not that’s probably more applicable to use as an as an Edge yourself later on.

Jim 1:12:55
So yes, that in that case, I’ll be I’ll be going ahead and taking the condition and I’ll be Delayed because he kind of he’s also… one of his one of his Negative traits that I’m kind of role playing a little bit here is he’s Overgenerous. So if you feel the need to help others before accepting help yourself, so that’s something that that’s happening so he’ll take the Stress and he’ll take the condition Delayed.

Gregory 1:13:19
Alright, so one of the things in Rosette Diceless is that you get to decide how attacks affects you. So it sounds like, Lorenzo, you make it out the back. You’re you’re helping some of the of the firefighters out but there are still some that are behind you because you know you can you can trust certain firefighters to… You’re a team. You don’t have to make sure you’re the last one out. And just as just as you make it out the back you hear an enormous crash as this wave of of molasses hits the building and you see it pour through the front door. You’re looking from the back door to the front of the building. And we can go frame by frame on this. And there are a bunch of people inside on the on the first floor and you can see the wave bringing debris through, crashing through the the room, the big open first floor of the firehouse, and engulfing people as it goes. And you see the the top of this building just right in front of you falling down. The top, second and third floor of the firehouse drop. And this first floor right in front of you is compressed to to about half its normal height. And you can tell that people have gotten trapped in there. Are you, at the moment, Lorenzo… Are you safe or have you also gotten engulfed by this? This molasses and debris?

Jim 1:14:55
I think I’m like on the edge of the thing.

Gregory 1:14:58
Okay, so you’re kind of in the in the lee of this building and momentarily safe. Okay. So this liquid flows over past the the firehouse and it almost doesn’t slow down. Like, you’re you’re you’re momentarily safe just because of the firehouse being in the way of it. But it flows around the firehouse and continues crashing past and Harmony, do you get… you got swept up in it, right?

Lucy 1:15:28
Not exactly. I think I got… I wedged myself in between something.

Gregory 1:15:35
Okay, yes, you’re also just kind of luckily in a spot where like, enough of the forces absorb that you’re not immediately caught up in this, but it’s flowing all around you. And you can see it just flattening entire buildings. This stuff is heavy. And you can see that like, it’s much heavier than water is. Thick, and, and dense. And as much as you’d expect, like a tidal wave to wash buildings away, this is even more forceful, and entire buildings just vanish as this wave passes them.

Gregory 1:16:10
You can see that that house that’s underneath the tracks, is just swept off of its foundations and away. A huge piece of the tank slams into the elevated train trestle. And the the track itself dips just behind that train, so that train rounds the curve and just behind it, like feet behind it, the track dips down. If it had been a little bit slower, it would have plunged to the ground below. And Sam, you’re rushing towards this wave as it’s sweeping up. Are you… do you stop before the wave gets to you? Or do you get swept up?

Melissa 1:16:52
It depends. My goal is to find people that need help. So I don’t know if that’s that house or the slaughterhouse or… you know what I mean?

Gregory 1:17:03
We’re in the we’re in the first few seconds. So like, is your immediate reaction as you see as you realize that this wave is… that you could end up in this wave… Is it to stop or is it to rush forward?

Melissa 1:17:16
To stop.

Gregory 1:17:18
Okay, so you kind of skid to a halt in this initial few seconds is this wave slams into the apartment buildings up to like the second floor and below you… and probably actually misjudge a little bit so that your feet get sloshed over with this this molasses and it’s like getting hit with a heavy ocean wave times 10. It’s far more forceful than you would expect. And at the end of this initial burst, just this whole neighborhood has been completely scoured by this enormous wave of gunk and just in seconds, it’s almost unrecognizable. And looks like some of the war zones that those of you who have been in war have seen before. I will drop another image in chat. This is an aerial shot of what it looked like after the disaster.

Lucy 1:18:13
Oh my god.

Melissa 1:18:14
Because I mean…. Okay, so we’re talking houses made out of or buildings made out of wood, mostly?

Gregory 1:18:19
Wood and bricks. Yeah.

Melissa 1:18:20
Okay.

Gregory 1:18:21
There’s steel buildings. You know, buildings with steel supports have also been destroyed. That tres… that whole elevated railway is is steel and has been, has been knocked half off its supports. And at the moment, Lorenzo is kind of standing in one lucky spot, seeing that the firehouses is half collapsed right in front of them. Harmony is wedged behind some just fragments of building. And Sam you’re standing sort of at the the edge of this new lake of molasses that has just now formed out of what was once a neighborhood and now is when the smell hits you.

Gregory 1:19:06
This thick, sugary scent. As power lines are sparking and fizzing and falling into the, into the muck and you just start to hear the crumbling of the remaining structures.

Lucy 1:19:21
Oof.

Gregory 1:19:23
Next time on Tabletop Garden: The Great Molasses Flood.

Jim 1:19:28
Come on, Patty. Most of us been shot at and we all run into burning buildings. You’re not going to go out looking like a glazed ham.

Lucy 1:19:34
This seems one of those moments when living in the moment was the best practice.

Melissa 1:19:40
I just take an elbow to it. People matter more than glass. Sorry.

Gregory 1:19:44
You hear one voice coming from the basement just like, “Help, help, help!” And it looks like just the patch of ground you’re on is collapsing. But yeah, there is someone down there.

Gregory 1:19:57
Rosette Diceless was created by Future Proof Games and can be found at rosetterpg.com. Our theme song is “Great Molasses Disaster” by Robin Aigner and Parlor Game, available under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Sharealike 3.0 license. You can find more on Tabletop Garden at tabletop.garden and you can support my work and get episodes early at: patreon.com/GregoryAveryWeir

Transcribed by https://otter.ai