Back with another Designer Diary, this time I want to talk about the development of the new Faction I've promised in the book. I meant to be brief, but this one got a little lengthy... 

As I started designing the Data Heist, it became pretty clear that someone was going to need to actually initiate it. That's RPG design 101, isn't it? You need someone to give the PCs a quest, or else why would they do it?

Because I always do things in a clear and logical order, I started instead with a target: a megacorp. Nobody likes Megacorps (well... actually nevermind). So, what would they have in the DreamScape?

Somewhere along the way to answering that question, I also thought about "the Disney Vault". A concept that creates artificial scarcity by intentionally putting some content out-of-print for a while. (There's probably a production reason that's their excuse, but I remember as a kid hearing people talk about how even second-hand Disney VHS tapes were hard to find and expensive).

(Also, if you don't know what a VHS is, ask a Millennial and watch them crumble to dust)

I've been listening to an audio drama podcast called The Strange Case of the Starship Iris. In it, the crew of the Rumor (the ship where most of the show takes place) are smugglers who specialize in contraband media. The show itself is quite good! It is also one of the most effective examples I've encountered of the "Podcast as a piece of in-universe media" that I've listened to.

If you're seeing where this is going, let me introduce my new faction: The Boilerplate Syndicate. I've been pitching them as "What if Napster was a spaceship that landed in your neighborhood a few times a year and handed out banned books, bootleg DVDs, and anarchist zines until the Government chased them away?"

Yep, it's the Scholastic Book Fair, but make it criminal.

That said, I also didn't want them to be just criminals. Banning media is generally a bad thing, but I couldn't quite picture Mobsters illegally printing copies of 1984. There's no real profit in it. So what if their motive wasn't profit, but faith?

I wanted to be really, really careful not to just reinvent a religion we already have. I've already written some games to work out my religious trauma, and Catholicism in Space is pretty well-trod ground (I've also never been Catholic).

I also think that human thought and the entire literary canon is pretty spectacular. The things we've done with words and images as a species is pretty awe-inspiring. Humanity has created books, films, speeches, poetry, plays, the "Chimera Ant" arc of Hunter x Hunter, paintings and sculpture.

What if that's what they believe in? What if the idea that human thought is potent and powerful and should be free is a core tenet of their faith? It's the future, it's science fiction. Why not?

It also occurred to me that this group probably wouldn't think of themselves as criminals. They're just exercising their faith, they're just trying to keep people educated and keep ideas free. They probably wouldn't call themselves a "syndicate". They'd probably have another name. One WordHippo.com search for "words related to books later" and I landed on the Latin phrase Vade Mecum, which is an old term for a how-to guide, which literally translates to "go with me".

They call themselves the Vade, but they're known to hostile governments as The Boilerplate Syndicate.

I'm genuinely excited about these guys. I think the concept has legs--so much so I've already started jotting ideas down for another module with them as the focus (perhaps for next OB month...?) But for now, they'll be a little mysterious.

Alright, we are cruising past 3x funded, which is bonkers. I did set out with an unambitious goal, but are y'all sure? (To be clear, this is a joke). 

I haven't set any Stretch Goals per se, but I have been trying to think of things I'd do if I had budget for them--and suddenly I've got some budget. I'm currently investigating three options:

Nothing concrete yet, but I'll keep you all posted. I'd love to do all three, and honestly, I think we're in a good place to do them all. 

Let's take a quick behind-the-scenes peek at the Vaporwave Wanderlust dev process, in a way that would be more exciting than watching me write. (I don't know that these diaries will be a regular feature, but this was a lot more fun to write than I expected). 

If you backed the project, you (hopefully) have a clear picture of what Commway Communications built the DreamScape to be: a low-poly VR world that's reminiscent of the early '00s and '10s internet. It's supposed to be like the Metaverse or Second Life but good.

But, what is it supposed to do?

It is an in-universe hub world that players can access from anywhere in the Sector they happen to be. My core idea was letting PCs search for information or meet NPCs on other planets without having to move the entire party. If your game doesn't have an internet analog, then this layers right in. If you do have one, it's just another representation of that.

As written, DreamScape only connects the star system players are in. If you crew is in the core book's Sutler System, you couldn't chat in real time with someone from F-Infiniti's Senna system. Technically, this is a purely fictional boundary (although it eliminates the need to figure out how interstellar communications would work). For that kind of communication, I added a feature called the App Agent (I swear I wrote that before the phrase "Agentic AI"* was everywhere): Programs that you can send to another system and then wait for them to come back with info.

I've written up other useful internet features, like private meeting spaces, cloud storage, and e-commerce sites. They seemed like natural fits, and useful things that Commway could make money from, justifying the DreamScape's existence in the world.

The other big inspiration of this was '90s VR Arcades, where you could go and play (probably not very good) VR games, so naturally, we have to have room for PCs to play games. I've written a couple of small games, but you could also easily slot in a 1-page game for sessions where one or more people can't make it but you don't want to cancel.

That said, it did feel like my book was still missing something, so I skimmed my older books. The other three modules all include a location and an adventure (Actually Station-bound Semitones is 8 locations and 8 mini-adventures, but you see my point), so what was missing became pretty obvious. Then it was a pretty easy question to answer: What would be cool to do in a VR world?

The almost obvious answer: A Data Heist. (More on that later, maybe?)



* This book is human made, I don't use AI in my processes. I just also work in the tech industry, so I spend a lot of time hearing about it at work.

I am not going to tell anyone how many times I refreshed the project page yesterday. But I will say that it was wild and unexpected. My goal was $2000, and we're over $5000 now! That's wild. 

I'll have some more updates and sneak peeks in the coming weeks, but first I want to encourage folks to check out a couple of the other OB Month projects: 

I also want to thank everyone again for believing in my book. I'm also really jazzed to see how many of you all are picking up the whole series so far! I've been endlessly proud making these little zines, so I'm really excited to bring them to you while getting to a nice and even four books. 

Hey all!

So, that went way faster than I expected. I was pretty apprehensive this morning, as this is the first time I've sat on the Creator Dashboard side of the Backerkit equation. 

But, with 69 people (nice) we hit the funding goal of $2,000. I was going to snag a screenshot, but whoever you are #70, you were just a second too fast. (But seriously thanks!). 

Thank you, everyone, for believing in this little project. Now I guess I have to make the dang thing, huh?  (I am honestly very excited to get these books into your hands.) 

If you haven't already, please do check out the rest of the Orbital Blues Month projects. They all look genuinely amazing, and are by some of my favorite creators in the Indie TTRPG scene. We've got 2/6 projects funded, and we couldn't have done it without all of your support.