The Golden Jungle - Slugblaster

Cover art for Slugblaster by Sex on a Pizza.

The Stat Sheet

The Snapshot

• Kiddos zip zoomed through a portal to the Golden Jungle
• Crossed a river full of crocodiles in style
• Met up with a bunch kids partying around a gundamn arm
• Woke up said arm and got chased through the jungle
• Made it back home, safe and sound

The System

Slugblaster is an augmented version of Blades in the Dark (BitD) where spaces called Thin-Zones allow teens to travel to other worlds. These kids are known as Slugblasters and do cool stuff instead of living in the small, boring town of Hillview. The rulebook has a comment box in the back the next to the index, explaining to people familiar with BitD what the changes are. I've only played BitD once, so it took me a bit to figure out the action economy. Once it clicked, play became a lot smoother.

Much like other BitD systems, a Session 0 is necessary before you get into the adventuring. I tried to do this in advance through chat. Everyone had their character ready to go, and after giving an overview of rules and character introductions, the group created their Crew of Courier Underdogs. This took about an hour, allowing for 2 hours of adventuring.

The Party

For this one-shot, we had the Chill (Soapy Carla), the Guts (Mort), the Smarts (Scooter Edison), and Maddie (the Heart). A good mix of characters, and a table very willing to check rules alongside me. Every player had their own copy of Slugblaster!

Another resource that made this very nice was that since we were all learning the rules, I made a copy of the google sheets character keeper that Willie's Candy Lab provides. This let us all share playsheets, crew sheet, and make sure we were using them correctly as we played.

The Module

I didn't have time to prepare something, so I used the listed Slugblaster Turbo-X scenario that's provided by Wilkie's Candy Lab. It was a single sheet with very little to go off of, but it all worked out! You have to be comfortable with a decent level of improv and collaborative storytelling in games like these. As long as the major beats of the one-shot exist and some rough ideas for progress clocks/obstacles, you're good to go.

The Takeaways

This year, I'm expanding the Takeaways section to include a bit more depth into my interaction with the system played.

Rulebook

Reading the rulebook in advance is pretty sublime, but when using it as a refrence, it's a bit difficult to find exactly what I need. I kept having to ctrl+f the document and cycle through terms to confirm the listing of a rule. Some things are only listed on example images such as the icons for Boost and Kicks which are only mentioned in the example character. Inclusion of this in the text as well would go a long way to making things more clear.

I bought the Pizza Box version of the game at PAX Unplugged and hoped the pizza box turned GM screen would have more GM references such as the definitions of Boosts, Kicks, Slams, Snags, Noping, and how Style is earned to help onboard players as well as the GM.

The overview of a run on page 13 of the rulebook was super nice although the Disaster part was a bit confusing. I initially thought that anytime a player maxed out their Trouble, the Disaster phase immediately triggered and the run ended, but a player at the table pointed out this was not the case. I think there are a handful of these moments throughout the book that assumes a significant level of knowledge for the reader which makes it unclear at times.

Slams

I realized after the one-shot that on mixed successes, I should have had players take Slams. Slams are physical/emotional setbacks for characters. My party rolled so well and utilized their Boosts and Kicks well enough to where I wasn't sure if I should apply them or not. This may extend from my inexperience with the system more than anything else.

Progress Clocks

This was my first time using progress clocks. I created one for the gundam arm to wake up (5 steps) and another for the chase scene that ensued afterwards (5 steps). I enjoy the concept of progress clocks and can see how useful they are, no matter what system you're using. They are perfect for keeping the pace and tension.

Pros

• Lots of free resources provided to get games going quickly
• Worldbuilding is strong and lots of it is provided in the rulebook on start
• Once the action economy clicks, it's easy to run/resolve

Cons

• Learning curve is a little steep if you're unfamiliar with BitD but manageable with a good table
• Clarity on rules could be made into a single GM reference sheet

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