I like to run a variety of games at the same time: something in the OSR/NSR vien and something more focused on narrative, typically from the Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark families.

So while my Mythic Bastionland campaign moves along quiet nicely, I want to scratch that other itch so I went through my shelf and hunted for something not ran yet. After mulling over my options, I settled on Public Access. While found footage and creepypasta isn't generally my bread and butter, I was curious to give it a shot. Also with the kickstarter launching around the same time I hoped to drum up some extra players with the buzz going around. More on that later.

I've run multiple one shots of Brindlewood Bay, and even ran one session of an early alpha of a cyberpunk variant I made called Neonwood Nights. I also played as the American in a campaign of The Between that sadly died on the cusp of the fourth layer.

What is Public Access?

Honestly, I don't think I'll do a better job than the Gauntlet itself, so let me quote them:

Public Access is a tabletop roleplaying game about a group of people in 2004—the Deep Lake Latchkeys—who find themselves investigating strange mysteries in and around the town of Deep Lake, New Mexico. In the ‘80s and early ‘90s, Deep Lake was the home of a notorious public access television station called TV Odyssey, the history and fate of which—the station literally disappeared—is the source of much speculation in certain corners of the internet. As the Latchkeys conduct their investigations in Deep Lake, they will become increasingly aware of the central role TV Odyssey plays in everything that’s going on, and will have to face whatever terrible truth lies at the heart of the infamous station...

Public Access is a Carved from Brindlewood game which means it is focused upon resolving mysteries without canonical answers via a list of clues that the players will find as they get involved in the world. It isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I do think anyone interested in mysteries or the supernatural should give one of the games an honest shot.

SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for The House on Escondido Street lie ahead. If you're a player make a Day Move to proceed or you can back down now. Just don't whine to me about needing to turn a key to unsee what you should not have seen.

Prep

I've read my copies of Public Access and its supplement Skinny Jeans and Summer Screams months ago, but I reread them in preparation for the campaign. I decided to go with a Skinny Jeans approach to my campaign primarily in hopes of finishing a campaign in twelve or so 3 hour sessions. Another key factor was the forced turning of the keys by the players after a new layer of the TV Odyssey mystery was reached. As I mentioned earlier, I played in nearly a dozen games of OG version of The Between and I believe I only had 4 Masks checked off, with two to avoid turning into the Cursed. And I'm quite certain I was leading the pack. Which meant that even though we were getting ready to defend Hargrave House, a lot of juicy backstory was still locked away. I want to avoid that potential loss of story in my campaign, so the forced turning of the keys, even though it may result in a premature Pure-White Signal, was an added bonus.

I also scoured reddit and the Gauntlet's discord hoping to gleam recommended mysteries for the first campaign. There are many suggestions, but much like the mysteries there is no canonical answer to that question. The only firm stance taken seems to be The House on Escondido Street is the best starter for new players, particularily those new to Carved from Brindlewood games. Other frequent suggestions for first mystery were Slumber Party Summoning Circle and Deep Lake Lurker. In the end I settled on Escondido Street, but slotted *Deep Lake Lurker as the next mystery.

As I am going with the Skinny Jeans ruleset, I updated the reference sheet to reflect the changes. I also did a little bit of an overhaul on the TV Odyssey sheet. I dislike the Keeper advice and Big Man quotes being in the rulebook while the Big Man stingers and work to be done in prep for the TV Odyssey mystery were on a separate sheet of paper. Therefore I combined the two into one document, doing necessary trimming where needed. Now when I'm in a layer I can easily see the stinger I ran, and quotes available on the same page.

Next, I went through the Odyssey tapes and selected a few to be the first to offer during the campaign. The general advice seems to be that for the first tapes, select tapes that allow everyone to narrate a prompt. After much waffling, I had settled on four players for my table which limited my options a fair bit. I chose Gone to Fur and I Want My Video Beat to be the first two if all four players showed, and Astral 09 Pyramid Passage Pure-White Contact and BLAM! 03 Everybody BLAM! if only three showed.

Then I read through the free and totally aweseome Sprigs and Kindling fan-zine. In particular Volume 4, Issue #1 which is mostly devoted to Public Access, which contains among other things a handy 3d6 table for what the Latchkeys might find at the Deep Lake Library.

Then I reread The House on Escondido Street, and taking a page out of the Quinns Quest review I decided to highlight the clues I felt I wanted to get out to the table the most. During my one shots of Brindlewood Bay, I have occassionally run into the issue of not being able to choose a good clue. Coupled with some good old anxiety this results in the clues merging into a giant wall of impenetrable text.

Lastly, I watched a few episodes of the Bad Spot actual play ran by the game creator himself, Jason Cordova. This was useful to see how the new introductions worked, and getting a feel for the flow of the game. I also loved how Jason weaved in hints at future mysteries during the current ones.

The Game Itself

I had four players arrive for game night at one of our local meetup groups. All four had previously played a Carved from Brindlewood game with me before: two co-players in The Between, the Keeper from the Between, and one as a player in a Brindlewood Bay one shot. Character creation and the first flashback as introduction went smoothly. The first four Latchkeys being:

• Sarah
• TJ
• Kelsey
• Stephanie

The arrival at 26 Rodenbecker street went less smooth. I stated my desires, and tried to lead the players into a short roleplay scene where they would learn about each other. It mostly resulted in them stating who their characters were, and little interest in learning about the others.

I called for a break after that and then went into the Dawn phase, explaining that given our 3 hour time constraint we weren't likely to resolve the mystery tonight. Then I presented the mystery, and the first Odyssey tape. I sort of flubbed it here doing a mix of roleplaying it and reading the Present the Mystery text. In hindsight I should have just read the text then move into roleplay. Then we went into the Day Phase proper. The Latchkeys split into teams of two: one going with Casey to the house, while the other two went to the Public Records office to see if they could find anything on the house. The house-exploring pair did a circle around the house, and ran into the head of the HOA, Patience Head, while looking for a way to get into the house from the backyard. They were able to send Patience off in exchange for a future complication for Kelsey and her family.

Then they went inside and began finding clues in earnest. They didn't take the bait to go to Elliot's room though so I let that part of the mystery lie. After some clues found including everyone's favorite, the weird Candyland game, the pair went home with a new Odyssey tape. This along with Stephanie's The Truth Is Out There meant they had three Odyssey tapes to choose from.

The other two did not fair as well. A series of bad rolls resulted in a couple of turned keys and conditions. TJ, in particular, earned the attention of Sheriff Handsome Hanscom. But all was not lost, the pair discovered a few clues.

So when we entered the Dusk phase they already had seven clues for the first mystery. My concern about not finishing the first mystery due to the extra time taken by the new character introduction procedures seemed to be overblown. That and I need to work on my stalling chatter, and fluff up some descriptions. And inserting a couple more obstacles before they roll. And now I'm doing the debrief before wrapping up the session. ¯(ツ)/¯

During the Dusk Phase, I prompted the group to Answer the Question and it was a hoot. The group settled on the mysterious third child was so enamored by the strange Candyland board game that he wanted to live there. In order to do so he basically attempted to "Jumanji" himself into the game. In doing so he brought along the rest of the Rappaports, but ended up wiping out the memory of his existence in the process. The roll was a mixed success so the Latchkeys turned the mystery's key to bump it up to a 10.

Next they determined that to resolve the mystery they must finish playing the bizarre Candyland with Casey inside the Rappaport's home. They chose to watch Gone to Fur during the Night Phase.

The prompts for Gone to Fur were a blast. A Nazi general reincarnated as a corgi named Elizabark Hurley? Yes, give me more. The best friend of the medium, who happened to sleep with the medium's wife, is reincarnated as a dog? Wasn't on my shopping list, but I wasn't sad about seeing it.

As for the Night Phase proper, the Latchkeys completed the game after much laughter over who would be the Ravenous Sugarpig. They stood strong and rolled well in the face of the House's desparate attempts to stop the game. Then there was the tearful reunion of Casey and ghost Elliot, before Sheriff Hanscom rolled up to see about the disturbance Patience Head called about. Now all the Latchkeys are marked by the Sheriff. We shall see how that goes.

After a quick debrief, I hit them with the first Big Man stinger. Next time we will dive into Xxagreus.

Debrief

My prep for the game was heavy than most folks probably do, but I'm in the stage now that I like a sizeable amount of upfront prep in exchange for 30-60 minutes of prep leading up to the next session. I felt pretty good about the session except the need to rope in more of the Side Characters earlier in the mystery. For example, when the pair visited the Public Records office, I should have had Debbie working there to enable more interaction. Instead I let them search the records, and only brought in Sheriff Hanscom after an exceptionally poor roll.

So for the next session I want to focus on always having a Side Character there to interact with if it can make even the slightest sense. I think I did a good job at remembering to hand out Conditions as complications, though I need to work on the phrasing as I gave one Latchkey "Under Suspicion" and "Being Watched". Other areas I want to work on:

• More vivid descriptions
• Remembering to ask the players what Conditions they had before they roll
• Engendering more crosstalk amongst the players
• Foreshadowing/weaving in hints from future mysteries

As for the highlighting the clues, I think I'll need another session or two to see if it actually helps. I do know that I have to be a little more varied in my selections as my first few choices gave the mystery a very devil worshipy vibe from the start.

I was very happy about how I ran the Night Phase. It was very snappy, and the players only got to roll once each and I timed that to happen after the last prompt was performed.

Lastly, I said I waffled on running with three or four players and I'm going to try three players the next session. Four players was managable, but it also leads to natural pairings. I want to avoid the same two always splitting off, and dropping it down to three Latchkeys means even with two mysteries one Latchkey is likely by themselves. And I like that. It gives me more chance to dive deeper on a single PC, and also easier to make the world feel scarier. Yes, I know a Keeper reaction is to separate the Latchkeys, but that is rarely one I reach for in my previous Brindlewood Bay games.

All and all it was a good session. I am looking forward to Xxagreus (though to be truthful I'm a little scared of its key eating potential, especially in a Skinny Jeans game). After that I'm debating between Deep Lake Lurker or Starlight Kingdoms. The former is more up my alley, while the latter would tie more into Stephanie's alien fixations. From there I'm planning on running the other then Greetings, Traveler and Dog Made Me Do It. By then we should be nearing Layer 4, and I'll see if the group is wanting to do a Lost Transmission.