Bonus - Worldbuilding with James D'Amato

This week the GoaT gang are joined by James D'Amato, host of Campaign and One Shot as well as the author of The Ultimate RPG Game Master's Worldbuilding Guide! We're all fans of his work, and are so happy that he took us through not one but two exercises from this excellent book- and you can expect to find these worldbuilding details as part of an upcoming Ghost Job.

Find James on Twitter @OneShotRPG and find the The Ultimate RPG Game Master's Worldbuilding Guide here or wherever books are sold!

For the full transcript, go to https://ghosts-on-a-train.captivate.fm/episode/bonus-worldbuilding-with-james-damato

Ghost Lines by John Harper. Music by Sebastian Black. Art by Yoshiko Agresta.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Greg 0:20

Hello, welcome back to Ghosts on a Train, the podcast where we play Ghost Lines, an RPG by John Harper. But this time we're not playing it. And I'm your conductor Greg, who normally facilitates the game, but I'm not gonna be doing that this time.

Hannah 0:32

I'm Hannah, I usually play Andrel Anderson, certified rascal, but I am also not doing that this time. This is a special episode.

Guy 0:42

I'm Guy. The only certifications I have are IT-based. I usually play, play Pip. He's not going to be present for this.

Stefen 0:51

I'm Stefen and I usually play Drix, railyard cowboy. And, yeah, he's also not going to be here.

Greg 0:58

And we have with us a guest.

Guy 1:01

A very special guest.

Greg 1:02

If you have not heard, if you are not familiar with James D'Amato's work in the RPG space, he's got great podcasts, like the Oneshot podcast that I've enjoyed listening to for, like, games that I've wanted to try, Campaign podcasts, there's, like, Star Wars and Skyjacks right now. All the Oneshot network shows as well, in general, he has a hand in, and specifically, what he's here for today, another book in - would you call it, like, a series? Like, an Ultimate RPG series? That's what you seem to be framing it as, like, as far as books.

James D'Amato 1:33

Yeah, yeah, I'd say this is a line of books, for sure. Hello, heroes! Thank you all so much for having me. And they're all right. You know, we come here with different qualifications. And we usually do different things. I'm usually the host of Oneshot, and usually the host of Campaign Skyjacks. But today, I am here to join this crew to build a new part of their world, using an exercise from my newest book, the Ultimate RPG Game Master's Worldbuilding Guide, which is a collection of prompts, exercises and mini-games that break down the process of developing parts of an RPG setting to make it easier and more fun to do. So we're just going to show off how the book works by taking one of the exercises from it and showing you how it works by playing it together.

Greg 2:27

And we're doing worldbuilding, like, this is going to be in the actual show. Like, this is, this is present. This is GoaT canon, Ghosts on a Train canon.

James 2:36

Yeah, this baby is going to be able to fit so many ghosts. Y'all are going to be able to see how it got put together, and even more fun, you're gonna be able to see how it gets implemented. I'm really, really excited about this, and so grateful for the opportunity to show off, like, how this stuff works in a very real, practical sense.

Greg 2:58

Oh my god. We're so grateful you're here. Again, big, big fan. I'm a big fan. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have an energy this entire time.

Stefen 3:04

Yeah.

Hannah 3:06

Greg is, Greg is audibly nervous.

James 3:07

Hey, we love energy. We love nerves. As long as it makes you blurt out creative ideas, it's helpful and useful.

Stefen 3:15

That's valid.

Hannah 3:16

It's also always fun to hear you talk twice your normal speed.

Stefen 3:20

Hey, look, that's the thing that's great about not being visual right now. James didn't see what I did the same thing Greg did when he said "hello, heroes".

Greg 3:34

Alright, James. So we talked a little bit before we recorded about, like, the, the exercise. Does this exercise have, have a name?

James 3:41

Yes, this exercise is called Boom and Bust. This is one of the exercises that I developed for the horror genre. Essentially, it is a celebrated trope in horror fiction, but, you know, really lots of different kinds of fiction, to have a setpiece that is a abandoned business. Something that used to exist, but has, like, kind of degraded from its prime to be a spooky shell of its former self. And what we're going to do is develop this setpiece by kind of walking ourselves through the history of a business and how it came together, what problems it faced while it was in its prime, and what happened to it after it shut down so that we have a cool environment for you to, you know, have adventures in.

Greg 4:37

Excellent.

Guy 4:38

Love that.

James 4:39

All right. Now, normally one of the things that we'll have, we have to do is choose the business itself. But we actually already happen to know what business this is going to be. We know this is a zoo.

Greg 4:52

Yes.

Hannah 4:53

Yeah!

Greg 4:54

Somebody bought a zoo. It did not go well.

James 4:56

Somebody bought a zoo. The, the Blades in the Dark, the Duskvall version of Matt Damon and his family purchased the zoo, but in this movie, Rachel McAdams is more of a villainous figure and it doesn't quite work out. So we're going to go through the history of that. The fun thing about this, though, is this is somebody's dream. The reason this zoo exists is because somebody needed this zoo to exist somewhere deep in their soul. And they were willing to do anything to see that dream happen. Which means the land, the, the real estate on which this business is built, was purchased, you know, out of desperation, at a deal so that they could make this happen. So the first thing I will need is someone to roll an eight-sided die, and we're going to determine what this zoo was built on top of.

Hannah 5:57

I have a dice. Do you want me to roll the dice? Or Guy, do you -

James 5:59

Yeah. Anyone, anyone who's got it, roll it up.

Greg 6:01

Go for it, Hannah.

Hannah 6:02

All right. Ah, that's a one.

James 6:05

A one? This zoo is built on top of a former mine.

Greg 6:11

Ooh.

Hannah 6:11

Ooh.

Guy 6:12

Oh, boy.

Stefen 6:13

Very fun.

Greg 6:14

Lot of terrifying possibilities there.

James 6:16

Yeah.

Hannah 6:17

That's bad for a lot of reasons.

Stefen 6:18

Oh, yeah it is.

James 6:20

I'm thinking of the general Blades in the Dark setting, and, like, the things they mine. So that calls a lot into question already. And...

Hannah 6:31

It's also a capitalist hellscape, so there are definitely so many labor violations and dead people in that mine.

Greg 6:35

Oh, yeah.

James 6:37

Yeah. This, this is, like, we have a lot of exciting opportunities that we wouldn't have, you know, in another world where their mines. But right now we are concerned with some of the physical details of the mine. In the structure of the place that was purchased, there are a few things that just couldn't be removed. It might be due to the people who bought it, like, not having them budget, it might be, you know, how could you ever remove this particular feature? So we're going to talk through some of those. These are things that are left over from the mine that the zoo kind of has to deal with. The first is something that needed to be built around. This is an artifact of this place's darker history that was too large or unmanageable to be removed. Instead, it was awkwardly incorporated into the new space. It is a badly concealed reminder of what this place used to be.

Stefen 7:35

I've got an idea if no one else does.

James 7:38

Yeah.

Guy 7:38

I have an, an image

James 7:40

Yeah. Let's hear those pitches. Let's hear those pitches and see if we can marry them together.

Stefen 7:45

Okay. Okay. Um, so, so, minecart track, that originally, like, was extremely dangerous and led to a lot of people being tossed over, like, deep, into deep chasms. They've kind of and tried desperately to shut off all of those paths that lead to poor places, and instead build cages in places where you can take the minecart to different exhibits.

James 8:08

Ah, yeah, so it's just, like, they had these, these minecart railways all over the place, and instead of ripping them all up, they're like, "Well, we're gonna just leave some of them around, maybe we'll even make it a photo op or something. And we'll actually try to build our own little rail system here to take advantage of it." I can, I can see that.

Greg 8:31

Guy, you had an image.

James 8:32

What was our other image?

Guy 8:33

So the image I have in my mind is just, like, right in the middle of the big top, there's, like, a collapsed, I guess elevator? And that's sort of, like, what they use sort of, like, as the riser. So there is just kind of this pit in just, like, the center of the big top. And you've got basically, like, it's covered up a little bit.

Hannah 8:57

Okay, so, question, are we, is this zoo above ground or below ground? Because I would think that the minecarts, if we were going with that, would be... that I don't know that much about mines.

Stefen 9:09

That's a good point.

James 9:13

This is, this is a really, really good question. I mean, there, there are all kinds of different mines that we could be working with. Like, there are strip mines, like, quarries that we could be doing, there, there are the traditional subterranean mines. But the thing is, there are resources in the world of Blades in the Dark that, you know, we don't have. We could take advantage of that. Like, aren't there, like, big monsters that they, like, use resources from the bodies of those monsters?

Greg 9:42

Oh, yeah, yes. Leviathans. They just sort of cut parts off of them and then grind them up into ghost juice.

Hannah 9:50

Ghost juice.

James 9:50

This could be a Leviathan mine. Or even, like, a fossilized Leviathan mine.

Greg 9:55

I like that, actually.

Stefen 9:55

That's cool.

Hannah 9:56

That's super cool.

Guy 9:57

That's very good.

Greg 9:58

They're, like, famously kind of, like, deathless and unending, so you could probably mine it for a while, as it's just sort of, like, it's so big. Would the zoo be in the mine, though?

Stefen 10:08

I think we can answer that question with a question. Was this zoo illegal?

James 10:13

Oh.

Hannah 10:14

I mean, probably.

Guy 10:15

Illegal to who?

James 10:16

Yeah, illegal to who? Because, like, is this, are we then implying that this is a private zoo? Because that, that is the only thing I could imagine an illegal zoo.

Greg 10:23

Oh no, did we make Joe Exotic?

Hannah 10:27

No!

Stefen 10:27

Oof.

James 10:27

Or, yeah, yeah, it is open to the public. It just does shady stuff.

Greg 10:32

You know, it's, if we make Joe Exotic, you won't feel so bad for...

Hannah 10:36

Ruining his life, that's true. Well, okay, we can, I feel like we can find a middle. Leviathans are very big. And presumably, I feel like the way you would get, like, a quote-unquote fossilized Leviathan mine is, like... because they're also, they're water creatures, yeah?

Greg 10:52

Originally, yeah.

Hannah 10:53

So, like, one dies, and the ocean around it kind of dries up a bit. So I think probably, like, I'm just picturing how the land would look, you know, in a spot where there used to be ocean, I imagine there's, like, a pretty steep depression - you know, like, in the land, not emotionally. So maybe it's not underground, but it's in, like, kind of this pit.

Greg 11:17

Yeah, yeah. And then so there, then, there's parts of it that you would take those minecarts or the elevator to get to.

Hannah 11:23

Yeah.

James 11:24

Yeah, what if this is built into what essentially has become the hollowed out fossilized skeleton of Leviathan? And part of it peeks up over, like, underground, and, like, the rest of it has, like, been dug into and hollowed out below. So the map of the zoo, like, on whatever map that would help you orient where you are, it is just in the shape of a Leviathan's skull.

Greg 11:55

Oh, yes.

Hannah 11:55

That is pretty dope.

Stefen 11:56

That is so cool.

James 11:58

And so, like, part of the skull sticking up over, out of the ground is like, well, we can't get rid of this, so we might as well kind of go, "This is our welcome gate, or whatever!" You know, they just built around that. And yes, there are all of these carts as well that are left over and they've done their best to try and incorporate that. The next thing that we need is something that is hidden away. It's a perfectly preserved piece of the past that is kind of waiting to be unearthed. It was built over, boarded up, or sealed off, so that it wouldn't trouble people while they're having their zoo experience.

Greg 12:41

So it's got to be something that that Leviathan ate, right? That'd be really fun.

Hannah 12:45

Ooh, that makes sense.

Greg 12:47

If it's, like, it, because we built the zoo in the Leviathan, and they are kind of giant, horrible demon whales.

Hannah 12:54

You can't say any variations of I built or bought a zoo. It just makes me think of Matt Damon.

Greg 13:02

Keep that energy up.

James 13:04

What if it had a parasite? What if it had a parasite that, like, could survive being fossilized, so there are, one of the reasons the mine originally had to shut down is, like, if you go the wrong way, you open up a room that's just full of awful monsters. And, like, they'll wipe everyone out.

Greg 13:29

Horrible creatures from who knows when.

Stefen 13:34

That is pretty rad. I do like that a lot.

Guy 13:38

My mind immediately goes to Return of the Living Dead and Brain Dead, because zombie movies, they're just fun. And there's a scene of basically, like, even if they're zombies, like, all of their internal organs are also alive and also want to kill you. So maybe it's less of a parasite and more it's just a part of the Leviathan.

Hannah 14:02

Like a sentient Leviathan kidney?

Guy 14:05

Yeah.

Greg 14:05

Yeah, or maybe not sentient, but at the very least living, and, like, dangerous.

Guy 14:10

Something internal that is not happy about your presence there.

Hannah 14:15

I mean, yeah, they're also, like, Eldritch creatures and whatnot. Like -

Greg 14:19

We can do whatever we want with them. They're unknowable.