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Lonely TTRPG EP 50 - O Captain by Leon Barillaro
Episode 50 • 30th July 2023 • Lonely TTRPG • Black Dragon Dungeon Company
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Transcripts

SteelStash:

Greetings weary wander.

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And welcome back to Lonely, T T R P G, the Solo Actual Play and Review podcast.

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And this week we are celebrating episode 50.

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Of lonely.

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T T R P G.

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That's right.

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We've been coming at you for over a year and now 50 episodes.

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So before we get started, I wanna give a huge shout out and thank

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you to everybody who's been on this solo journey with us so far.

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Really bringing home the point that, you know, just because you're playing

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alone doesn't mean you need to be alone.

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And of course, I wanna give a huge shout out to my patrons, Katherine and Max,

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who have been with me for quite a while now, you guys have been superstars.

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Thank you so much for your support and making this just a little less on

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me as far as everything is concerned.

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So a huge thank you to all of that.

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But this week we are playing O Captain by Leon Barillaro

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in o captain.

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You play a captain wandering the sea with nothing but the stars that guide you.

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The dice you roll represent those stars as well as your resources,

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obstacles, and hard won experience.

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This game is about adventure, survival, longing, and resource management.

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The object is to accomplish as much as you can and tell a good story.

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What you're accomplishing and what story you're telling, however,

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is up to you and the stars.

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The only setting rule is that you're at sea.

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You can establish the setting beforehand or build it as you go.

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You can have magic god's, supernatural beings and otherworldly forces or nothing

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but the harsh mistress of the waves.

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This game is inspired by stories such as Sunless Sea, the Odyssey,

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and the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.

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Consider drawing inspiration from your favorite sea stories

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that help you chart your story.

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And of course, immediately looking at this book, one thing that I noticed

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besides how beautiful it is, is just how many names I'm starting to

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recognize after being in this space as long as I have doing this work.

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Like the editor being Sadie Lowry.

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They are good people.

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And definitely if you're making a game and you can afford

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an editor, give them a look.

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Also going all the way to the back at some of these backers.

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An impressive list of backers, which has given a lot of good feelings for how

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this game is actually gonna be like Jeff Stormer from Party of One another great

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podcast highlighting some wonderful games.

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But without further ado, let's go ahead and dive on in.

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This is a story focused journaling game.

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Traditionally, these are played solo.

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However, the designers, Scott and Leon did find some joy playing together,

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bouncing ideas off of each other.

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So by all means, if you do wanna play this with a friend, play with a friend, as

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they say multiple times in this rule book.

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This is a game, not a cop.

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Do what you want.

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In, oh, captain, your character is the captain of a ship and everything

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that happens to them, how they respond and how it shakes out.

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You control your character, the ship friends and enemies.

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Every part of the story.

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The rules are gonna tell you what parts you're responsible for

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and what parts the dice are responsible for.

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You're gonna go through this answering prompts determined

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by the dice that you roll.

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There's gonna initiate events and provide questions to help you flesh it out.

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And remember, even if something bad happens, it is up to you to find meaning

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in that and fit it into your story.

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So beginning the game, every captain's gonna need three things.

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A name, a ship, and a reason.

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The name is gonna be what your name is, who is your captain.

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Then you're gonna choose one of the types of ships, which will help determine some

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of the things you have to start out.

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And you have standard downsized, massive nefarious or prestige.

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And of course, because I cannot resist one of these standard

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ship types is a schooner.

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Some of you might see a sailboat, but it's okay because a schooner is a sailboat.

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And if you do recognize that reference, please go ahead and let me know.

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You do have your Captain's log, which is gonna be that journal you're

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keeping, so everything that happens, make sure you note it in your log

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now, the way this game is gonna play.

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All right.

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You are gonna have a pool of dice.

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This is how many stars you have, and you're gonna roll that pool

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of dice and try to build either a cluster or a constellation with it.

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You're going to interpret your constellation or cluster, respond to the

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prompts, and mark the resulting effects.

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And then you are going to continue until you either complete your journey, your

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captain dies, or you've decide that.

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You've had enough of this seafaring life.

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Now clusters are gonna be your smaller events.

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Your larger story events are gonna be your constellations.

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You do not need to declare what you were looking for before you roll.

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However, when you roll, you do need to make one of those, so you don't

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need to decide, Hey, for this role, I'm trying for a constellation.

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You just roll your pool of dice, but you do have to make a cluster or constellation

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for your dice pool.

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You have your stars, which are gonna be D sixes.

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Setbacks will be D fours.

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Assets will be D eights, and titles will be D 10.

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Stars are your standard dice.

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Those are gonna be your most common dice.

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Setbacks are going to be things that you acquire throughout the game.

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Now, setbacks have two functions.

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One, you subtract it from your total, which is going to affect your prompt two.

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You do have a setback threshold that starts at eight, so at any time

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you can roll some setbacks, but.

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If you decide not to roll setbacks and your setback threshold ever goes above

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eight or above, whatever your threshold is at that time, because your threshold

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can go down, then you become lost At sea.

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Assets are additions you can make to your dice roll.

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And these are gonna be things you gain along the way as well.

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So setbacks, you subtract assets, you add titles you get

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for completing constellations.

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And again, you can roll those at any time that you want as well, but.

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You can only do those once per voyage, so setbacks and assets.

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Once you roll those, they're gone until you earn new ones.

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Titles, you keep your title, however, you can only use it once per voyage.

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Now once per voyage means anytime you complete a constellation.

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So I, anytime you have finished all four parts of a constellation, then

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you may reuse any titles that you've gained in addition to the new title you

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get for completing that constellation.

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Now building those constellations and clusters again, you're gonna roll

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your dice and you're gonna look at your stars and you're going to see

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if they line up to be generally the shape of a cluster or constellation.

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Now, if not, if they do not line up perfectly, you are allowed to move.

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A dice into position.

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So when you move a star, you shift the value of that die down the number.

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You shift down increases by one each time you move a star within

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the pool to a minimum value of one.

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So for example, you roll four stars, you do not.

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Get a good cluster with them, but you can shift one star into position,

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then that star's value will go down by one for the total.

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So let's say that was a five, you would shift it into the correct

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spot and it now becomes a four.

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Now you do wanna be careful when doing this.

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You don't wanna do this all willy-nilly because this does make the value of that

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constellation or cluster fall, which is going to affect what prompts you get.

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Generally, the lower the value, the worse it is for you.

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The more likely you are to pick up setbacks and issues that you're

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gonna have to solve along the way.

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Now for your totals, you're gonna take all the stars in your

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cluster or constellation, and you're going to add 'em together.

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You're going to subtract the value of any setbacks you rolled, and you're

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gonna add the value of any assets you rolled, and that will determine your

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total, at which point you will refer to the tables and see what value you got.

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Now for your constellations.

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Your constellations, like I said, are gonna come in multiple parts.

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There're in four parts.

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And act one, and act two and act three and a finale.

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For Acts one through three, it's gonna work just like

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any other aspect of the game.

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For the finale, once you're ready to roll that finale, you're going to.

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Make your finale roll and your finale roll pool is made up of any setbacks.

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You still have any assets or titles you choose to use, and you

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may roll a star, but you're gonna lose that star in the process.

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Then you're gonna check against the finale table and respond to the prompt.

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But that's about it for the.

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Explanation.

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The rest of the book has some very lovely star charts,

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descriptions of all the stuff.

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Stuff that we will see as we get into the gameplay, which

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we're gonna get into right now.

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So first and foremost, we need to decide what type of ship that we have.

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And as there are five ships,

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Actually, we're only gonna roll a D four.

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We will say that we cannot have a prestige class ship.

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Just yet.

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After all, this is our first time, so rolling A one D four,

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and we got three massive.

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We got ourselves a massive ship, which is nice.

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That gives us eight stars to start out with, but we are starting out

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with three setbacks, but two assets.

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Now, the one thing that the rules were not quite clear about was

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if once you get a constellation, you're kinda locked into it or not.

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So we are gonna just say that we are.

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So we're just gonna roll until we find a constellation, and then that

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will be the voyage that we're on as we try to close out that constellation.

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That seems like it would make the most sense for a narrative journey.

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So right up front we get to roll ourselves eight D six,

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and as this is our first role, we're really just kind of

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setting our journey and whatnot.

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You know what, we'll go ahead and we'll go ahead and toss in

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one setback just to clear it out.

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So we're gonna roll eight D six and one D four just to get rid of

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a, just to get rid of a setback.

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Now this is where it gets fun because I'm worried that the moment I touch something

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on my screen, my dice are gonna go away.

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So now we need to figure out what we might have.

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All right, and right up front.

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Right up front, I can either,

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I can either do a cluster, because clusters are fairly easy to get.

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I, or we can have our first constellation.

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But to get our constellation, we are gonna have to modify this a little bit.

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I can pull the siren constellation by moving two of my dice.

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So that's what I'm gonna do.

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I'm gonna move two of my dice.

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I'm gonna so that's going to take three points away from my total,

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but we are gonna get the siren.

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And the siren.

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Seven stars.

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They figure rising from the water and singing to a downturned

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face in a haze of hate.

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I sailed for countless nights and narrated wisdom ever guide my sights until it last.

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I looked and shook to see it was the devil taking hold of me.

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The siren is cthonic Deity in many cultures said to be responsible for

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a wide range of natural disasters, disappearances, and possessions.

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Her song heard bubbling up from the deepest parts of Unplumbed oceans is story

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to be simultaneously beautiful, horrible, and hypnotic to those who encounter it.

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Those who may find themselves influenced by a constellation or be

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set by other worldly temptations, terrifying enchantments and

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nefarious tricks that only the stalwart and clever can withstand.

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What sort of ensorcelment falls upon our ship?

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Who is doing this and why have they targeted us?

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And were you able to resist it more than the rest of the crew?

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So act one, fascination.

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And we need to see what we rolled in order to determine what our prompt is.

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So we have to add up everything that was in our constellation

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and subtract our setback.

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So our constellation had one plus two plus three.

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Plus two plus four.

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Plus four plus three.

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So one and two is three, plus three is six,

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plus four is 10, 14, 16, 19 minus three is 16.

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All right, so for a 16, the spell en raptures, the crew, and only your

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sharpest orders are given a single care.

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What is the focus of their fascination?

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Why do you wonder if they are happier this way?

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Lose one star and gain a setback.

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And lose a setback, or gain a resistance?

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Okay.

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Alright, so.

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I'm gonna gain a setback, so my setbacks are gonna stay at three.

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My stars are gonna go down to seven because I lost a star.

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Now I have the option of losing a setback or gaining a resistance.

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I'm gonna take the resistance.

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Reason being the resistance is gonna help out in my finale.

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As for why we are ensorcled,

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it seems to be the damnedest thing.

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I don't even know what this accident, so I apologize for that.

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We're not gonna go with that tonight.

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I'm sorry, I'm just getting over something you might've

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been able to tell by my voice.

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Apparently my accents went with it.

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Which is a joke.

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Apparently I was never good at accents.

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You can ask my players in my home group, all I could do was Southern,

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but I am on a massive ship.

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I'm, I did not have this ship.

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This is not my ship.

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We found this.

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Don't ask me where we found it, apparently, where we found it.

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Whoever left it there was expecting it to be there when they came back.

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They don't seem to be all too pleased that their ship was not there.

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This is the only thing that I can think of that would make my crew

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want to ignore me so well,

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and.

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So there must be, there must be something in the water.

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There must be something on the waves.

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There must be something in the wind.

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It might even be within the very boards itself,

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but something about this ship where it's at, it making my crew want to turn around.

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Which is an expert anti-theft device.

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If you ask me like I tip my hat to 'em, if I wasn't so annoyed about the fact

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that it's really making my job harder,

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you know, so I respect what they did, but at the same time, I am anger that they've

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done it to me, and this cannot stand.

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So now we must embark on some type of mission in order to

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find our way out of this.

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And hopefully we find the siren again.

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Which is not looking good for the home team because we are down to seven stars.

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So we're probably gonna be bouncing around some clusters as we figure this out.

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It's a rough looking cluster, and I'm gonna go ahead and use one of my setbacks.

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Let's just go ahead and burn these up early.

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Okay, so let's see what we rolled here.

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This is a bit of a rough roll, but it does look like we have the knife.

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We can make the knife out of three fives, which is great for us.

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We don't have to move anything.

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That gives us three fives for 15 minus one for 14.

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So the knife is always visible in the sky, a three-sided constellation that reminds

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those at sea of ever present conflict.

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While trouble cannot always be avoided, what truly matters

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is how one responds to it.

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And again, we got a 14.

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So your crew unites over a bit of good natured mischief.

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What was it and how does it affect your crew going forward?

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Gain two stars and an asset.

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So, I think,

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but a good natured mischief, huh?

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I think what we're gonna do is we're gonna have my first mate

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who was one of the first ones I was able to shake out of

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this and mint run around and.

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Run around and start pretending that the ship is haunted.

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And it's not really to try and scare anybody, but show everybody

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how silly they're acting.

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'cause you know, sailors are a notoriously, notoriously

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superstitious lot and.

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You know, they're over here.

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They're.

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They've been in, so they're going in and out.

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They're getting very superstitious about it.

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And we're gonna have the first mate run around and pretend that Woo.

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Ghost over here.

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Oh, ooh.

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Enchantment over there.

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See you're being a bunch of silly pants.

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Alright.

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I need you to take off your silly pants.

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I need you to put on your pirate pants and let's get back to work.

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Alright, we got some seas to sail and everybody's gonna have kind of a laugh

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over over what silly geeses they've been.

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And we will continue on our merry little journey,

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and that'll bring our stars up to nine and take our setbacks down to two, and

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it'll bring our assets up to three,

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which are all very good things.

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But unfortunately it is getting late for me.

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Like I said, I have not been feeling great this weekend which

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means that I'm recording this well.

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As late as I usually do.

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But that wasn't the plan, which means everything got all jacked up.

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So I apologize for that.

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So we're going to cut the gameplay short here

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' cause you've gotten to see the basic gist of everything.

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The rest of the game.

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It's gonna continue on just like that.

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You are going to roll, you are going to check your roles against the table and

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you're going to write down your prompts.

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And this seems like a very fun take on that.

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Doing it all with the sea life is great.

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Giving you a real good chance to do that whole Yoho Pirate's Life,

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whatever you would like for that.

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The prompts are great, the artwork is beautiful.

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I wish there were some more clusters in this.

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However, I do have an early play version.

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The creators actually reached out to me in October to check out this game,

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and because of scheduling conflicts, moves, mental breakdowns and all

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of that, all on my end, of course.

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I had not got around to it.

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And then I was getting ready to I was trying to clear out some

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of my backlog and was like, Hey, you know, is this still going on?

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And they're like, yeah, we just finished crowdsourcing.

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It's up on itch now.

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Or We're getting ready to go up on itch now and please still check it out.

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So again, I am checking out the.

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Earlier versions of this, so.

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The press release and everything said that the crowdfunding was going to

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include more clusters, was going to link clusters to constellations, which is

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something I think would be very nice.

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The rules do kind of allude to the fact that you find clusters for

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the constellations to build it.

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I don't know if that means that like act one, you're actually looking for a

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piece of the constellation or not, but.

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Like I was definitely playing it as I have to find that constellation four times,

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which is also like, can also be a fun way to play it if I'm wrong, by all means.

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I'm willing to admit that, but I also think that is also an

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interesting way to play it as.

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You know that really, that really highlights that searching aspect.

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But if you're only doing one constellation at a time and you have

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to find the whole constellation in order to progress that story arc, you

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need more to do in between that than the four clusters that they have.

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So I would definitely like to see some more clusters.

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I would like to see some more things that you could do within that.

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But otherwise I think that this I think that this is a great game.

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This definitely has a lot of, a lot of seafaring potential if you've

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ever wanted to do some type of sea voyage, some type of thing that

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actually focuses on being at sea.

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'cause a lot of sea games don't necessarily focus

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with the sea aspect of it.

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The sea is just basically a means to an end like Nexalis.

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I love Nexalis.

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Beautiful game.

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Absolutely love it.

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Your time on the ocean there is very much getting from one

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island to the next here year.

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You are on the ocean.

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You are sailing around, you are looking for these stars, you are

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trying to track these constellations, and all of this is happening at sea.

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And I think that's a very strong thing that this game has going, and it does

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make it very unique to a lot of the more pirate games or the lot of the more

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seafaring games that you would run across.

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So definitely go check this out.

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It is up on itch right now.

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You can find it at.

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barilleon.Itch.io/o-captain, or by all means, check out the links down below,

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as is the case now if you're looking for any of my.

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If you're looking for my thoughts written out or you're looking for any other ways

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to find this or support this game or this podcast go check out the website,

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www.blackdragondungeoncompany.com.

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We have links for all of our games.

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You can go check those out.

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I do believe that.

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Buried in there somewhere is our Patreon link.

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You can find us@patreonatpatreon.com slash Black Dragon Dungeon Company.

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If you wanna support us that way.

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Thank you for hanging out for 50 episodes.

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I hope to get another 50 before we really start getting bored of this, but

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as long as I keep getting sent great games like, oh Captain, I may have to

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keep going for a long, long time, and.

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I gotta tell you there are worse problems to have, so I've been steel stash.

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If you get this telling my sent you, and remember, I