Electric Bastionland Solo with CRGE: Starting Scenes

Commencing with Starting Scenes of Electric Bastionland and some town building with Pendulum Following on from the RPG Intro and Char Gen.

Electric Bastionland solo - intro | start | partway | finish | all rolling solo

Disclosure - I'm a DriveThru RPG affiliate

Starting with Electric Bastionland

electric bastionland thoughts | solo tools | starting scenes | characters

Adding to initial introduction of Electric Bastionland.

Electric Bastionland (EB) has a certain look and feel. Of a city old and unsettling, odd and quirky and uncaring. This is reinforced by the distinct art and snippets of lore in careers, encounters and supporting resources.

Part of it is to say that there is no one Bastionland. Your Bastionland will be your own.

Mine is slowly forming.

The rules for Bastionland are brief, with no skill checks. There are saves (Str/Dex/Cha) but these are to avoid risky actions and situations. I got into one fight and the combat was swift and brutal.

So your characters are defined by ex-careers, 3 stats, what you want to make of them and their experiences in game. There's also no advancement in game except for becoming tougher from suffering on the Scars Table Damage Caused.

But it does have a central loop which is useful for solo. Your character(s) are in debt and get leads on risky treasures to help pay that off. There are sections detailing the City, Underground and Deep Country with example encounter tables and inspiration. These can be used if you don't yet have your own tables.

I've made use of the sections and tables in the Underground and the Deep Country so far, and there's a good amount of other tables I plan on introducing too.

Part of the guidelines are about making maps of your Bastionland / Deep Country / Underground. I've not done this yet but seems like fun part of a solo game.

One recommendation is to make an encounter table for each treasure adventure. As I'm a fan of Encounters Tables, this was an early step. Lazily using a mix of ideas tables and careers from EB. Most of these will have to be interpreted in context, which is fine for a solo game.

The Companion Lizard Underground Encounters (d6)

• 1) Harvest + Beast (as prompts, to interpret depending on situation)
• 2) Newspaper Intern. Assistant, Sabre
• 3) Mystery!
• 4) --> Roll on Shallow Encounter from Underground in EB
• 5) (Very Dangerous) Belief into reality, Grinding, Devouring
• 6) Disinherited Socialite - old hunting hound (4 hp, d6 bite)

Solo Tools - CRGE Emulator and Extras

electric bastionland thoughts | solo tools | starting scenes | characters

Following on from Solo Tools notes. I didn't get to use UNE (NPCs Tool) this time, but will for next part.

Conjecture is CRGE (Conjectural Roleplaying GM Emulator), a pay-what-you-want emulator that's lightweight but doesn't have the full support tools of something like Mythic 2e or Plot Unfolding Machine.

The scenes of CRGE revolve around threads. These Threads are meatier than some of the ones from other rpgs, representing a significant challenge or mystery for the group. Each scene in CRGE has a "main thread", which the action should centre around or have in mind at least.

The main yes/no oracle has three columns, depending on where the Main Thread is plotwise. It can be in a state of "to Knowledge", where the themes and details of the thread are being established. It can be "to Conflict", where the play revolves around action, combat, negotiating or another conflict. And "to Resolution", where the thread will be resolved for good or for ill.

The yes/no oracle roll is d100, with a column each for To..knowledge/conflict/resolution. Six results are "Yes / Yes, but / Yes, and / No / No, but / No, and" The last two are Yes/No plus "unexpectedly...".

The Unexpectedly results in a roll on a d20 table, with results ranging from new NPCs entering the scene, a new main thread and change of environment. It's like an interrupt event. A chaos machine!

There's also a section covering threads and scenes. Plus a mechanic called Surges, which makes plain Yes/No results less likely to happen in succession.

What CRGE lacks are any tables or tools for creating ideas. This is easy to compensate for using other tables, tarot cards or story dice, but is a rarity now. More recent GM Emulators have their own ideas tools and tables, even if very simple.

I used the tables of Electric Bastionland and also Knave 2e tables to fill in the gaps.

My last tools this time was a names list. I went to British Fantasy Names at Chaos Gen (my own tool) and wrote down the first 10 names I liked for names of any NPCs that might need one.

As I like to play offline it's good to have a list to hand of names that fit your setting / style.

Extra Loom of Fate Tables

CRGE has no inbuilt system of different likelihoods. Everything is 50/50, on the premise that if if it's more likely you shouldn't roll for it.

I like my likely (75%) and unlikely (25%) options, so I made two versions of the CRGE tables reflecting these odds.

Loom of Fate 75% Yes

Loom of Fate 25% Yes

Adventures of Gears, Stones and Lamp

electric bastionland thoughts | solo tools | starting scenes | characters

The viewpoint character is starting with "Gears" Jannifer.

Starting Threads

• A) Find the Companion Lizard (£1k)
• B) Rivalry with Dervish

Starting Extras

• A) Emberfall, elf plant-mage, cousin of Fireborn, tall, strange pets, house in Port Blacksand, one arm is vines.
• B) People of Port Blacksand.

Scene 1 - A Mine Entrance

" I've never liked people really. Machines are so much easier to deal with. They don't mind if I talk to them for hours. Makes no difference to them.

All that's behind me now. Cousin Lamp and his friend Stones 'n me, we're all in the shit. Owe money to some toy outfit, and got our a lead on a pet lizard, should be worth thousands, and stop us getting kneecaps broken. Looking for some fat bodyguard, presumably stole the lizard from our employer..."

(Scene Main Thread - Find the Companion Lizard, to Knowledge)

Get through Deep Country and come to a mine entrance. Chat briefly with a couple of commuters coming from a village underground, heading presumably to Bastion.

Inside find public transport, a rail wagon drawn by horses, which takes them onto an underground village. Lamp has feeling of a shadow following them.

Scene 2 - A Welcoming Village

" This mine is old and grumpy. I can feel the unhappiness deep down. I like it down here where it's all tubes and cables and pipes. And less people. Maybe I should move here when we're out of debt."

(Scene Main Thread - Find the Companion Lizard, to Knowledge)

Welcomed to underground village by a silver-faced robust mechanoids and later Asa, village leader (braids of metal, smooth, artist, detailed metal jewellery). Find out that many villagers are stored in "hibernation" in large bronze vats around cavern. Asa gives them a lead on Modrun, the bodyguard who stole the lizard.

(Unexpected - Pattern Change) Next morning by chance see Asa with the lizard companion they seek and a thuggish miner guard. A silver-faced mechanoid tells them of a bell the "village machines" are keen to get.

Scene 3 - Getting a Lizard

"Now I'm wandering what the vats on the side of the village cavern are. The others aren't so curious. Are they storing villagers there? Growing new workers for the mine? An efficient way of raising children? Some sort of long-term sleep? A grand experiment? Fascinating down here in the Underground..."

(Scene Main Thread - Find the Companion Lizard, to Conflict)

Gears convinces a silver-faced mechanoid to show the brass hubs, as she's a "machine expert". Stones sneaks off and finds lizard in a dark-tiled chamber guarded by a single thug.

Losing their mechanoid, the group attempt to liberate the lizard. The room has strange gravity, and the hammer wielding thug takes down Stones (Str to 11/13) and scars Lamp (Scar 1 on damage table), before taken down by gun-hilt. A klaxon goes off and get to rail wagon at edge of village, Gears carrying unhappy lizard and a confused mechanoid with Stones.

Pursuit comes their way...

Next Expected Scene - Running Away (Thread - Find Companion Lizard - To Resolution)

Character and Notes

aff2e thoughts | solo tools | pendulum | starting scenes | character

"Gears" Jannifer

Ex-Machine Whisperer, doesn't like people so prefers machines, knows next to nothing about machines, rambling

STR 9, DEX 8, CHA 8, HP 6, £6

Equipment - Mallet (d6), set of screwdrivers and spanners, bottle of poison, particularly shiny tool set, bag of marbles

"Stones" Fourley

Ex-Lockholder, was member of The Very-Strong-Group, a lockkeeper's union. Can pull out someone's heart with Crit Damage on an unarmed attack. Urban apes took lock. Detailed. Drive - wealth

STR 13, DEX 9, CHA 4, HP 1, £2

Equipment - Unused pistol (d6), smart uniform, small chimp (5 hp, d6 bite), yo-yo

Group Notes

• Group Debt of £10k, owed to Cracknuggle Marbles and Jacks
• have Lamps and batteries, climbing & camping equipment, food & water
• Accompanied by Lamp, a lackey - STR 7 DEX 8 CHA 6 HP 3, alleygun (d6, bulky), toy jacks, scarred neck

Threads

• A) Find the Companion Lizard (£1k) (stage - To Ending)
• B) Rivalry with Dervish - (stage - To Knowledge)

NPCs

• Rival called Dervish (STR 17, DEX 12, CHA 13, HP 6, Muddled Mixologist, 2 Lackeys - Sian (alternative groomer, alley gun - d6, bulky) and Hunydd (liberal engineer, duck pistol - d6, blast, very short range)
• Madrun, bodyguard, large and flabby, "gentle"
• Asa, mine village leader, metal braids, slick, artist, metal jewellery
• Silver-faced robust mechanoids serving the Mining Village.

Finishing Up

Let's see if they survive their first escapade. And if their rival turns up...