These are some snapshots of how I might adapt the Microbloggers of the Lost Island chassis for use with Texts From The Bubbles, a scenario in which you are playing long-dead ghosts in the Dreambubbles of Homestuck.
The landscape of the Bubbles is fundamentally a social landscape. The substance of the world is moldable by emotion and memory. Actions that would require physical skill in other worlds are entirely social/mental here. Looking for information requires looking for people, and looking for people requires crawling the social-network graph. This is what today’s first XP action is for.
And then there’s another XP action, for coaxing someone to tell you what’s really going on. There is a definite ideological undertone to the construction of that XP action, but while I was building it I realized that it would feel odder to not have that ideological undertone. So here it is.
XP Action: Searching
Sometimes you want to find a specific person - or even a specific version of a specific person. This is hard! Most of the time, you can only meet such a person as the result of an Issue resolution. But looking for them is often productive, even if you don’t find them immediately.
The way to find people in the Bubbles isn’t by tracking physical space, but by following links in a web of acquaintance. After all, the Furthest Ring’s physical space doesn’t make sense.
At such a time, you may roll Calling, Awareness, or Bubble-Experience (as appropriate).
A matchless “critical failure” means that not only did you fail to find someone, the eldritch nature of the Bubbles leaks into and unsettles you. You can open an Alienation issue.
On failure, you wander into something interesting but distracting, such as a party or an attractive person.
On success, you can earn an XP if you talk about a memory you and the search-ee shared together.
On a triple, you get a lead - you find someone who also knew the person you’re looking for. Earn an XP by talking about a memory you and the search-ee shared together, and you can open a Calling issue - you will ultimately find them when you complete some sort of work in your own life.
Quadruples and quintuples work like a triple, except that something of the Real is involved - for example, you find a Bubbleghost that’s using something Real to anchor long-term plans such as mapping, or you’re being pointed towards the real, living self of the person you’re looking for.
XP Action: Finding the Truth
There is little to be afraid of in the Ring. The only hazards are the Horrorterrors, and social censure. The Horrorterrors follow rules. Social censure does not. Out here, where nothing changes and a grudge can last for millenia, social censure is often considered the more dangerous of the two.
Many dream-ghosts are afraid of being judged for their actions, and this is why few will tell you the whole truth out of hand. Often, they prepare canned recited backstories that gloss over the details. The only way to get past this is to show them that you accept them as they are.
At this point, you may roll Communication or Something to Deal With.
On a matchless/crit failure, you alienate the person that you were trying to get answers from, somehow - either you’ve been pushing too hard, or you judged what they said too harshly. You don’t quite know what you did wrong, so you withdraw for fear of making things worse. You may open an Isolation issue.
On a failure, they clam up: you can’t get anything more out of them for now, at least not with an action like this. You are forced to pursue other matters for the time being. Perhaps you could try revisiting a relevant dreambubble memory...
On a success, they feel a distinct impulse to tell you at least some of the truth. (A PC may resist this, because it is only an impulse and not a decree. But it would be really good to.) Earn an XP by acknowledging what they are saying, and not judging the prudence or morality of their actions - at least, not before considering the context and knowledge that they had at the time.
On a triple, they feel a distinct impulse to tell you some of the truth, and you can earn an XP by not judging what they did (as with a regular success). But you also have an opportunity to show them your own heart. You may open a Something to Deal With issue.
On a quadruple or quintuple, in addition to the benefits of a triple, this person is likely to be deeply involved in something big - or, if they aren’t already, they will be soon. The trails that the Real stirs up in its wake lead to great things.
These are some snapshots of how I might adapt the Microbloggers of the Lost Island chassis for use with Texts From The Bubbles, a scenario in which you are playing long-dead ghosts in the Dreambubbles of Homestuck.
I’m going to post some MOTLI/Diced Chuubo’s-variant XP actions today, and either more actions or an Issue tomorrow (depending on how things work out).
First, though, some groundwork:
The Physical Action skill from Microbloggers has been replaced by a skill called Bubble-Experience. This measures how much you know about the workings of the Bubbles, and how well you use this knowledge - for example, dropping a lock of your hair in a Bubble to mark its location for finding later, or knowing how to “surf” a bubble for long-distance travel. In general, the older a bubble-ghost is, the higher their Bubble-Experience score, but there are high and low outliers.
All other skills (Awareness, Communication, Self-Care, and Introspection) remain unchanged. They are still all rated from 0-5 with eight skill points to distribute between them.
XP actions for Communication, Distress, and Other Reactions remain unchanged. (I might swap out some of the failures for “the Bubble reflects your fears and you freak out” later, but for now, it’ll do.)
XP Action: Dream-Awareness
Often, you start out replaying a memory, not realizing that it is in a dreambubble. But if you look carefully for contradictions, you can tell whether something’s actually happening or not.
In such a case, you can roll against your Awareness, Something To Deal With, or Mystery.
A critical failure means that whatever jars you into realizing that you’re in a bubble is terrifying (see: Jade: Wake Up). You can open a Complex or Alienation issue, depending on which fits better. (Only one of them, though.)
A failure means that you get increasingly strong waves of deja vu until you finally snap out of it. You remain in the mindset that you had during the original memory (angry, confused, turned on, etc.) for long enough that it colors your next few interactions.
On a success, you can earn an XP by having this retreading of the memory give you a new perspective on why you acted the way you did.
On a triple, you can earn an XP by having the retreading of the memory not only give you a new perspective, but show you something that you hadn’t noticed the first time around. Depending on the tenor of the scene, you can open a Something To Deal With or Mystery issue.
On a quadruple or quintuple, not only have you relived the memory and taken something from it (earning the benefits of a triple), you may well have roped in the bubbleghosts of other people who were participating in the memory, and they will also be changed.
XP Action: Dream-Manipulation
The scenery, NPCs, and even starting positions of you and any Bubble companions are manipulable: you can dream things into or out of existence at will. This means that if you are faced with a challenge in your physical environment, you can dream up a way to solve it.
In this case, you can roll against your Bubble-Experience or Calling.
On a matchless/critical failure, you forget that the dreambubble is even a dream, or that you were even dead... at least, until your phone buzzes. You can open an Alienation issue.
On failure, you forget that you can manipulate your environment and try to solve the problem from inside the dream.
On success, you dream the problem into solvability and earn an XP. The lower the successful double numbers rolled, the more spectacular the manipulations tend to be - a scant success might lead to finding conveniently appropriate gear lying around nearby, whereas better successes may result in a bridge and success by a margin of 4+ could dream rivers or mountains out of existence. (This is not required. If you can’t think of enough shades of variation, you can just treat it as a normal success and move on.)
On a triple, you don’t just dream up a solution (and get XP) - you get a flash of insight about why the environment of the bubble existed the way it did, and a sense that you should help with that (whether it came from your own mind or someone else’s). You can open a Calling issue.
On a quadruple or quintuple, in addition to the effects of a triple, the obstruction is not fully of a dream - there’s something of it that seems to be Real. Perhaps you have found the dreamscape of a living Dreamer rather than the usual dead (the dreamscapes of the living tend to be harder to change, due to their more rigid grip on reality)...
XP Action; Dream-Projection
One of the unique features of a dreambubble is that you can do more than manipulate it - you can remember an event and shift your entire surroundings to match. If you’re doing this on purpose, it’s often to make a point. But this is about feelings, so: if you’re projecting a memory, you’re not just making an argument. You’re showing someone a piece of your heart.
If you’re in that kind of situation, roll Introspection or Hero. (It’s possible that you could also roll Bubble-Experience at a penalty, but I’m hesitant to set that precedent in the rules, because I’m not about to fill out a full skill-defaults matrix. Too many dimensions.)
On a matchless/critical failure, you project something you really didn’t want to remember, or something you really didn’t want to show off, instead of your intended scene. You can open a Complex issue (the memory is now in the front of your mind and could insert itself into your life at inconvenient times) or a Something To Deal With issue (the memory is stirring up unpleasant feelings that you can’t ignore forever).
On failure, the memory is stronger than you and kicks you into an unconscious replay until you realize you’re inside a dreambubble again. This can lead directly into a Dream-Awareness action if you’d like (remember, failures don’t count towards your XP action allotment).
On success, the shift in your surroundings opens your heart - if you tell someone about why you need them to see it your way, you can earn an XP. (How they react to this is up to them.)
On a triple, if you confess what emotional need you’re trying to fill with this demonstration, not only do you earn an XP, but any observer will get a glimpse of empathy - they will know what it feels like to be you at the moment. (This still does not dictate their reactions, but it would take a lot of bullheadedness to continue to argue after that.) You can open a Hero issue.
On a quadruple or quintuple, you claim the benefits of a triple, but the moment also sticks - there’s something about the moment that has a tinge of the Real to it, and you can treat it as a Real memory (not just a transient bubble-memory) thereafter.
This implies that I’m going to need to figure out a system to keep track of the relative Realness status of memories. Conveniently, though, such a system would double as an abridged version that an observer could skim to get up-to-date on your character’s stories and developments. (The other posts you make, the ones that aren’t Real-tinged, are still there - but their influence is more diffuse.)
I’ve got about a month of matches left. Would any of you happen to have any ideas for getting fire after they run out? Like, that drill thing they used to make in Saracen, or somewhere with flint so I could strike sparks with my pocketknife?
Cooking school to the rescue! You can do amazing things with bark. I mean, cinnamon is bark. And there’s mushrooms. And these giant squash flowers. And sunflower seeds. You can do a lot with all that, even make a feast. Yum.
[Let’s see if the XP actions will give me a nudge. Definitive. Physical Action 4. 2 4 4 5 3. Success. No XP but guidance accepted.]
At first I thought they needed to be united. Peter Pan and his shadow, right? But without the shadow, the horse shines. It asked me why I was hanging onto mine, told me to come back when I could answer that.
STORY: So I’m poking around for interesting things near the clubhouse, and I remember -
We buried a time capsule here a long time ago.
I remember where we put it into the ground, and so it’s quick enough work to dig the thing up. It’s a box, about a cubit on each side - we got it from Witchric Ferros a long time ago, and then filled it with little tokens and such of our adventures...
So I open it up, and marvel at what we have in here. Little figurines and tokens, yes, but also a preserved egg still in the mud and straw the village of Tsaima used, and rolled up messages on paper that we’d written to our future selves, and -
I had forgotten that I also left my future self a few other things... but they weren’t in the box. There was a clue here, yes, to where one or two of them might’ve been - but I’ve honestly forgotten what the clue meant when I first wrote it...
OOC: I’ll make a post about the actual clue in a moment! For now, what did your character put in the time capsule?
STORY: This afternoon clouds blew in, from the lake, and then it began to rain.
I’ve managed to pitch enough of a tarp above the old clubhouse that it’s not entirely a bad place to stay when it’s raining. Well, except for the fact that literally all the ground turns to mud.
I mean, the mud never did anything to me but I still don’t like it. I mean, it gets everywhere and it’s hard to wash off and then it cracks when it dries, and really it’s something I don’t like dealing with. High wind I can deal with, but not this.
[STRESS - 1 3 2 4 6, crit failure.]
It’s the mud. The mud’s the only thing wrong. The mud’s definitely the only thing wrong. There’s nothing else to it.
Probably all of you hate me. Probably I shouldn’t’ve tried.
Well, fuck you. I mean, if I’m on this island anyway, I may as well go find the goddamn jewel myself.
Pink, hundreds of petals, low to the ground. Smells--and tastes--like those white gumdrops. Putting those near the hive, too. Or maybe a different hive.
Deep brown, with a yellow center. Waist high on me, big big blossoms. When I sniffed it, I remembered-- I shouldn’t have remembered. I left it alone.
[xp action. pleasant work. physical action 4. 3 5 6 2 5. Failure. The work continues. It isn’t as fun as I thought.]
