#glass cannon haunted city blades in the dark

[svampirebait]

[woahcoolbear]

requiem for the remnant

[graciedart]

seljak kahn from haunted city 

[queenjulia11]

[the following was originally posted as a twitter thread on 1/15/2023. Also I fully acknowledge that the Haunted City fandom is like maybe 10 people, but if this gets at least one person interested I did my job].

Ok. Spoilers up to ep 13.

I need to talk about this show because I feel like no one else is and that's a crime. This is unlike any actual play l've seen in that EVERYTHING is improvised, including character backstories and relationships. This only makes it more impressive when the theme reveals itself:

Haunted City (if you ask me) is about what happens to people when their addictions are no longer available to them/no longer able to help them, and how that hurts both the addicted and those surrounding them.

Juliette is addicted to the idea of Ophelia, but when she finally has her back, she realizes that the person she loved and wanted more than anything is gone. Life can never be normal again. The Ophelia she knew can't be the thing that keeps her moving forward anymore.

But she still goes to her. She can't just go back to life without Ophelia again. She knows this devotion is bad, she sees how it's hurting Ekeprag, but she can't stop it. She doesn't want to.

Valkos is addicted to giving himself to the spirits of Duskvol because it makes him feel alive. He knows it's bad for him, and he does manage to turn it down a few times. He refuses to be Ophelia's vessel not only because it won't help Juliet in her grief, but also because it'll continue to tear him apart. He thinks The Path of Echoes will help him to control and manage this, but they turn him away. He isn't ready. They can't help him feel alive.

So he falls down the hole of The Builder — a being who won't refuse anyone who is willing.

Seljak doesn't start the series with an addiction. If anything, he's the one warning Valkos against it. He doesn't recognize that summoning Ophelia is feeding Juliette’s addiction; he wants to help his friend and a lost ghost. To Seljak, being a servant to the spirits is the greatest thing he could possibly do with his life. He wants to help. In doing so, his faith becomes an addiction and he doesn't even notice.

The Builder is his dream come true: a god who needs him. It doesn't matter that serving The Builder makes all the other ghosts fear him -- this is bigger than all of that. *This* is what he was put on this earth to do.

But when Valkos compares Seljak's devotion to Juliette's, he doesn't deny it. He knows. But it'll lead to freedom eventually, right?

They're trying to make each other understand their perspectives, because they all genuinely care about each other and seek to protect the family they've built, but they've just barely begun to realize that they're going in circles. And Ekeprag suffers as a result.

I can't help but remember how this crew started. Vowing to make towers fall.

And what are they doing now?

Building a tower.

Sorry for the longer one, but I have to thank @JCVIM, @rossbryant, and @Abzybabzy for their brilliant storytelling and performances. I can't wait to see where this all goes. (Hopefully somewhere where Ekeprag's okay? Poor guy…)

[I did add to this thread later, but I think I’m gonna post that as a reblog because this is already a longer one]

[wheelie-butch]

it's so fun that the haunted city PCs and players are used as examples in deep cuts btw.... im like oh yeah i know these guys awesome

[apollowithapen]

i absolutely love Time for Chaos and the Glass Cannon Network. there's so many interesting people who play all sorts of roles. they bring in all sorts of people in as well, there's not enough even just people from the network, they bring in so many friends of the network!! like Ross Bryant!

he's in two separate shows on the network ! time for chaos (call of Cthulhu) and haunted city! (blades in the dark)

while i haven't watched much of haunted city they're both such high quality shows with such interesting characters,, honestly just the whole network is so cool !!

time for chaos is an amazing show following the story of Masks of Nyarlathotep scenario from Chaosium and it's been my favorite scenario for so long,,,

[hartbreakkid]

That's because John Harper wrote one of the best rulebooks out there. Blades is a wonderful system that also incorporates a "flashback" mechanic which means at any point you can have a flashback to describe why you would have a piece of equipment or have created a situation that will help your crew along in the heist (i.e. paid off or poisoned a guard so he doesn't make his typical route).

The Glass Cannon Network just did a wonderful run of Blades in a show they called Haunted City that started Abu Salim (Father from Raised by Wolves) and he is fantastic in it.

A piece of advice that I THINK comes from the Blades in the Dark rulebook (but I'm not sure because I've read so many TTRPG rulebooks in the last year or so) but that I think could be applied to a lot of other TTRPGs is that a roll shouldn't make a competent character look incompetent.

Like, I think most players and GMs (especially those of us that come from the D&D paradigm) tend to think of the dice roll as representing how well the character does the thing. This seems intuitive, but it tends to make a character's perceived level of competency at the things they're supposed to be good at weirdly swingy, which might be undesirable unless you're aiming for a slapstick tone.

Like, your stats/skills/modifyiers/whatever the hell the game you're playing has/ already represent how good/bad your character is at doing certain stuff. So the die roll, being a luck-based number unrelated to these skills, probably shouldn't ALSO represent how well your character does the thing, but instead represent outside factors that influence the outcome of your action, such as something distravting your hero, the enemy jumping away to avoid the swing, or the lock you're trying to pick having a bit of rust that's giving you trouble.

In practical terms, what I'm saying is that if your thief with a decent sneak skill is trying to stealthily follow a guard, but you get a disastrous dice roll that causes you to be discovered, that dice roll probably shouldn't represent your thief suddenly stumbling over and making a lot of noise, but the guard suddenly remembering he left something in his quarters and turning around at the worst possible moment. Mechanically both get you the same result, but one of them doesn't have the unintended of effect of making it seem like your thief suddenly forgot how to sneak.

[queenjulia11]

I have another thread I can transfer from Twitter, but it's from a WAY more underrated actual play. Can't seem to find any other Haunted City fans on here. So, if you're as obsessed with this show as I am, and wanna see some media analysis, let me know you're here?

Hey so I’ve done a few fandom media analysis threads on Twitter (all about actual-play shows) and I was wondering if people would be interested if I transferred them here? I would love to have some deeper discussion about them.

I have one about Zerxus from ExU Calamity, Andhera and Rue about ACoFaF, and most recently one about Brawn from NY by Night.

All three have been approved by the creators of the characters in some way! Idk I think they’re pretty good. ;)