[RPG Play Report] Echoes of Yesterday Mission Log (Part 1 of… ?)
Hi! It’s me, your resident nerd (the boss will fight me if I keep claiming that title, but I think I can probably take him).
[Editorial Note: She totally could. Keep the title, Queen! - Brady]
I’ve been a bit too busy to post here for a while.
And trust that I have been busy! I’ve been working on quite a large project since last year: Echoes of Yesterday, a tabletop roleplaying system and setting of a scope I’ve never come near in my history as a designer.
Echoes of Yesterday is a dark fantasy project heavily inspired by the Great War, with themes of hope, grief, propaganda and belief. It depicts a world where the edges of reality are closing in, steadily eaten away by the violence of an eternal war. As the world becomes smaller, the physical barriers between fact and fiction erode. Here ordinary soldiers are pressed for a reason to keep fighting as they contend with human brutality, corruption, and horrors beyond comprehension.
Since I’ve finally gotten the mechanics (and my own capricious hyperfixation) to a point where I felt I could commit to a longform test campaign (something that has already proved incredibly valuable and which I’ll now ecstatically babble about to anybody who makes the mistake of listening), I thought I might as well start posting the recaps to the internet at large (somebody told me I have to build ‘hype’ or some such, and can’t just jealously hoard the excitement for my goblinoid self).
Each session recap will start with a retelling of the player characters’ experiences in the World Between, followed by some non-diegetic notes on mechanics, roleplay, etc. I can only hope I’ll have a new chapter to post every month for a good long while! So, if you’ll indulge me, I present to you my first two sessions…
12/05/2025. Session 1: The Pillbug Awaits
At a travel checkpoint at Nordbyrinne, a traveller’s town deep in the lawless danger of the Contested Lands, work a motley security team. It comprises Ha’Penny Harry, an armoured dog-lover who turned a failed border crossing into a job opportunity; ’LT’ Foster, a former officer who spoke up for the wrong person; and Sergeant Lloyd Hamilton, a Mystic keen for a cushy posting.
After a few months of begrudging teamwork, an officer approaches the three with a mission: take a package directly to the silver and brass stationed in Du Norveau with critical haste. Led by Foster, they make a beeline for the Pillbug, a veritable fortress on rails fabled as the only vehicle consistently able to survive the wartorn hellscape surrounding them. Despite the throng, the group manage to find two almost-empty booths onboard the train.
An ‘indestructible’ train…? Should we put that to the test?
(Source: Castle in the Sky, 1986)
Settling into their booths, both groups find themselves with a new friend. While LT is approached by Operative Thesealion, a military intelligence officer who claims to know about their mission, Sergeant Hamilton finds himself entertaining Jack Thompson, a Debataille grunt who might be quite handsome if he could afford a tailor. Thesealion ingratiates himself by convincing an enamoured conductor to move them to a plush, if shambolic, sleeper cabin. After the conductor comes by with a round of drinks, they settle down for the night.
He’s a little TOO nice, you know?
(credit: Blue Jean Images)
The pitch-black peace is shattered by explosive gunfire and an announcement from the driver for all able bodies to man a machine gun. The three companions pile into the corridor along with Thesealion, jostling for free firing slits, as Harry climbs to a hatch in the roof. On top of of the speeding train, he spots a motorcycle with a machine-gun-wielding sidecar passenger, and an armoured grenadier on horseback, both keeping pace with the train. Harry glimpses their new friend Thompson atop the next carriage, yelling at him to jump across and man the machine guns. The team manage to take out the raiders, but not before the impossibly tenacious horse and rider inflict heavy damage and take out Thompson with a grenade. The party take a moment to catch their breath. Then, they hear an explosion and the train screeches to a halt. They realise in horror that the locomotive has just been destroyed, hundreds of miles from the nearest semblance of safety.
Damn bandits, always stealing the player characters’ fashion sense.
(credit: Deborah Van Der Beek)
Notes:
I’m happy I got to finally see Corruption in action, a numerical track that I designed to cover everything from peer pressure to divine manifestations of eldritch horror. Actually starting a proper campaign is the first step towards testing mechanics like this, but it will still take a long time to figure out if it’s working or if the players think it’s ‘fair’.
My own scattered brain was my downfall as I forgot my own mechanics, but it did validate my decision to avoid extremely procedure-heavy rules like the Spanish Flu.
I experimented with making Hit Points more brutal and got (in my opinion) a fun moment with the Wounds Table, but the player didn’t seem gracious about being screwed over (having severe tinnitus isn’t much fun apparently). It would probably also get old fast if every second hit was a roll on a d12 table in a combat-heavy campaign…
26/05/2025. Session 2: Seeing Saboteurs Everywhere
The train’s population reels in the wake of the explosion, hundreds of miles from their destination and surrounded on all sides by raiders and Imperial battalions. Once the locomotive’s fire is finally brought under control, the worst is confirmed. A saboteur has seemingly detonated a powerful explosive inside the locomotive, rendering it inoperable and fatally wounding the driver. Thesealion orders Foster to let him check the package’s condition within the privacy of a cubicle, and finds no signs of tampering.
Important business upon the throne
(Credit: David De Lossy)
The conductor shows the military party a heavily defaced and annotated map of the immediate area, pointing out a nearby trench where they might have a hope of getting help. Thompson, who was stationed nearby, scoffs at the map’s age, claiming that the front lines are constantly being redrawn, and offers to lead the party to a trench recently taken by the Debataille. Despite his grievous injuries, nobody objects after seeing his identity papers.
As they set off on a precarious mountain trail under Thompson’s guidance, the fatigue of the night finally gets the better of them and the party is forced to rest for the night in the lee of a craggy outcrop. While Sgt Hamilton keeps watch, the sickly, necrotic and grenade-packed horse from their earlier battle reappears, immediately drawn to Foster’s pack. Hamilton successfully distracts it before being relieved by Thompson. On his watch, Thompson expertly slides the package from Foster’s pack, takes the horse’s reins and rides off with an explosive parting gift.
An ‘explosive’ horseback escape
(source: Hard Target, 1993)
The blast critically wounds Foster, but the party resolves to trek on, now desperate to locate aid, the package, and vengeance.
Sgt Hamilton soon reveals his true abilities, summoning an Echo from the purgatory between this world and the next. The dead man, an Imperialist Martyr, is initially loth to help an enemy, but Hamilton claims he can help it to move on. The echo then tells the party that it was passed by four men on a donkey, at which point a frustrated Hamilton severs the connection and uses a mystic command to force it into the next life. They trudge on through the endless grey mud, dejected, when a woman in a wedding dress appears in their path.
Wedding dresses: the ultimate mud-trekking gear
(credit: Amanda Palmer, Zakas Photography)
Session Notes:
I have to start with a huge shoutout to my girlfriend for stepping in to my insane hyperfixation and taking control of the backstabbing stain on humanity that is Jack Thompson! She made that turd shine better than I could have hoped to.
I couldn’t have imagined a better outcome for the first test of my barebones attempt at a travel subsystem, which essentially boils down to a single roll (remember my utter failure to contend with game procedures?). It threw a spanner in the works, the stars aligned and my players suffered dearly for it. Other instances probably won’t live up to this.
Corruption got a few more uses, and the players seemed to lean into it! Nothing has gone catastrophically wrong just yet, however…
Magic! It was fun to finally see somebody come up with a ‘toolbox’ use for tapping into the veil of purgatory and prodding at the horrors within. It felt appropriately evocative and (thanks to Corruption) tense.
I reworked my injury rules (that’s right! I learn from mistakes!) and got to test them out immediately, which I didn’t see coming (Thanks again, Thompson!). The new rules felt clunky with first use, so I am only cautiously optimistic.
And that’s about it for the first month of my test campaign! I’m so grateful to my players for taking a chance on something I just made up and being patient while I tinker with figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
If you want to take a closer look at the system or campaign, my Discord server is always open:
Into the Weird Blue Yonder Discord server
If you want to read more about my game design journey, you can check out my older design riffs on this site:
Dice Pool versus D20+Modifier: who will steal my heart?
Design Diary: My Experience With Experience