Holy fucking shit I was one of the people that "made" the original Jovian Sleighride! I'm not the person who posted on Reddit and made the notes, such as they were. Rather, I was the other person on a short lived-podcast where we got together every few weeks, got a bit drunk, and sketched out a setting from a few prompts. One of them was "whales" and "space" and the setting just kind of tumbled out of that, name and all.
The game came from the other person. We had a section after we made the setting where we talked about what we might run it in. I don't remember who thought of Dread, the game where every move is made by pulling a block from a Jenga tower and if the tower collapses your character dies, but it was a good fit. Other person decided to run a game of it, which I sadly couldn't attend. IIRC the system was FATE Core, but every action also involved a pull from the Jenga tower, and if the tower fell something important on the ship broke (death was chosen to be too nasty in a game that would have a lot of rolls). A good time was reportedly had by all.
The notes that you got from the Redditor must have been the original notes from that game. Part of the reason they were so sparse is that the game was just a mashup of two existing systems that worked for the premise, and part of it was that the setting already existed in the podcast, so there was no need to write it down just to run a quick game for friends.
The original podcast doesn't appear to exist on the internet any more and might not exist anywhere, which is a shame because I remember it being the best episode. Then again, it was made in 2013, a full decade ago, so maybe it's better that it lives in my memories.
I'm so happy to find out that someone did something with the idea! It is, as you said, too good of an idea lay unused. It's going to take me a while, but I'm going to try and read all of the game jam submission. I can't find the actual game jam, though I found the Youtube rundown by NotepadAnon which has enough to find anything published.
(This above is my recollection of it - other person probably remembers a bit better but the above is the broad strokes. Amazingly, I found this page because a mutual friend, who I believe was in the playtest, found this by chance when trolling for interesting looking games).
Hell yeah dude, that's awesome. It's a shame that the podcast doesn't exist anymore, but as you said, a lot of things are better left as memories. It's a very cool concept for a setting.
If you're looking for the games themselves, you can find them in the #jovian-sleighride channel at discord.gg/mMKVPM5VeF
Success is indeed bad. I liked the concept of succeeding in a miserable situation that you can't escape to be inherently maladaptive. It's intended that you use the Major Arcana.
Each card is meant to represent one month, so you would run The End after twelve months. Obviously if your ship blows up then that's the end of your story, but the whales don't stand much of a chance.
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Holy fucking shit I was one of the people that "made" the original Jovian Sleighride! I'm not the person who posted on Reddit and made the notes, such as they were. Rather, I was the other person on a short lived-podcast where we got together every few weeks, got a bit drunk, and sketched out a setting from a few prompts. One of them was "whales" and "space" and the setting just kind of tumbled out of that, name and all.
The game came from the other person. We had a section after we made the setting where we talked about what we might run it in. I don't remember who thought of Dread, the game where every move is made by pulling a block from a Jenga tower and if the tower collapses your character dies, but it was a good fit. Other person decided to run a game of it, which I sadly couldn't attend. IIRC the system was FATE Core, but every action also involved a pull from the Jenga tower, and if the tower fell something important on the ship broke (death was chosen to be too nasty in a game that would have a lot of rolls). A good time was reportedly had by all.
The notes that you got from the Redditor must have been the original notes from that game. Part of the reason they were so sparse is that the game was just a mashup of two existing systems that worked for the premise, and part of it was that the setting already existed in the podcast, so there was no need to write it down just to run a quick game for friends.
The original podcast doesn't appear to exist on the internet any more and might not exist anywhere, which is a shame because I remember it being the best episode. Then again, it was made in 2013, a full decade ago, so maybe it's better that it lives in my memories.
I'm so happy to find out that someone did something with the idea! It is, as you said, too good of an idea lay unused. It's going to take me a while, but I'm going to try and read all of the game jam submission. I can't find the actual game jam, though I found the Youtube rundown by NotepadAnon which has enough to find anything published.
(This above is my recollection of it - other person probably remembers a bit better but the above is the broad strokes. Amazingly, I found this page because a mutual friend, who I believe was in the playtest, found this by chance when trolling for interesting looking games).Hell yeah dude, that's awesome. It's a shame that the podcast doesn't exist anymore, but as you said, a lot of things are better left as memories. It's a very cool concept for a setting.
If you're looking for the games themselves, you can find them in the #jovian-sleighride channel at discord.gg/mMKVPM5VeF
I have questions:
So … “success” in tests is the bad result, because the stats are all negative, and a success is the bad stat winning? Is that correct?
“22-Card Tarot Deck” I assume this just means the Major Arcana?
When do you run “The End”? Is it after capturing a whale successfully, or when the ship blows up, or at some other time?
Success is indeed bad. I liked the concept of succeeding in a miserable situation that you can't escape to be inherently maladaptive. It's intended that you use the Major Arcana.
Each card is meant to represent one month, so you would run The End after twelve months. Obviously if your ship blows up then that's the end of your story, but the whales don't stand much of a chance.