Episode 50

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Published on:

30th Jul 2023

Lonely TTRPG EP 50 - O Captain by Leon Barillaro

Find O Capatin at https://barilleon.itch.io/o-captain?ac=pEV55vHqdvG

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Transcript
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

SteelStash:

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.

SteelStash:

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

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About the Podcast

Lonely TTRPG
A Solo Play Podcast
Lonely TTRPG is a show where I play and review solo TTRPGs.

Every other week, we play another solo TTRPG from across the indie community.

So join us as we roll, draw, and journal our way through some fantastic games.

About your host

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John Stum

Black Dragon Dungeon Company is a TTRPG podcast. We do weekly actual play podcasts and bi-weekly discussion podcasts where we talk about certain things about the TTRPG world.

You can reach us at blackdragondungeoncompany@gmail.com or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bddc_pod