zoydraft  / Pink Sleeves

Gradient Descent, Part 4: Takeaways & Appendices

See my other Gradient Descent posts here

Takeaways

Gradient Descent was my first taste of a longer campaign, and procedure-driven dungeon crawling. At times the structure felt liberating, at other times tedious, but at the end of the campaign, more than anything, it felt monotonous.

The Deep supports a single kind of exploration very well, and our table leaned hard into interacting with factions. It doesn’t naturally zoom in or out, and the pseudoflesh body horror was repetitive. The floors each have their own theming, but often that felt limited to diegetic function, rather than atmosphere or play feel.

I would have loved some procedure or narrative around what happens if the crew doesn’t intervene, but I understand that’s not what the module’s going for: without intervention, The Deep continues its routine. However, the module made me realize that’s what I want more of. It also demystified faction play for me. We didn’t have antagonistic factions, but it made me less intimidated to run faction-heavy adventures and settings in the future.

If I get another opportunity to run something this long, I will put a lot of value on diverse play and atmosphere throughout the campaign.

Gradient Descent feels like an important touch point, and went from feeling impossibly deep to intimately approachable. Writing this retrospective filled me with an extra round of affection for the material even with all the nitpicking and negativity. The module created a story that felt like all the pieces fit together, through a mix of material as written, my own connective tissue, and good fortune. There are times it felt like more work than I wanted, like I was tired of its bullshit (more tongues?), but wrapping it up, it felt like a rite of passage that will stay with me. I'm excited to see where else Mothership and Luke Gearing go.

Appendix I: Soundtrack

I iterated on a few playlists throughout the campaign. Here’s some records I used a lot:

Appendix II: Prompts

I wrote prompts (heavily inspired by Kids with Bikes) for most sessions to push characterization and expand the world. As we got further on I started making them more specific to characters, and tried to ask them during the game instead of front-loading them. More generic questions are below:

  1. You heard something bad about someone that you can’t believe is true
  2. There’s someone you’re uncomfortable with. How far are you willing to go to avoid being alone with them?
  3. You had a brief interaction with someone that made you feel positive about them
  4. Someone is doing something that you believe is putting everyone at risk
  5. There has already been a moment where you felt like coming here wasn’t worth it
  6. You have a really bad feeling about somewhere you’ve been
  7. You feel like you’re being drawn somewhere
  8. Who do you feel most safe with?
  9. You heard something about The Deep you now know isn’t true.
  10. You tried to do something discreetly, but realized part way through that someone saw you
  11. Somewhere you’ve been reminds you of where you picked up one of your skills
  12. You worry that it would be worse for you than the others if you upset Monarch
  13. There’s something you wish you knew about the Bell’s inhabitants
  14. Something has changed your willingness to use violence
  15. If you had to sleep in The Deep, where would you feel most comfortable?
  16. If you became a ghost, what would your idle animation be?
  17. One mission has taken on more importance to you than any other. Who do you trust most to try to complete it?
  18. There’s someone you have a special hope for, if they can escape alive
  19. In the back of your mind, you’ve thought about how you would make a life here if you couldn’t get back through the blockade
  20. You made a comment to a crew member that you later realized was hurtful

See my other Gradient Descent posts here

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