Mayday Plays - Lessons From The Wildsea: A Firefly's Journal | Part 1

Episode Date: April 5, 2025

Lessons From The Wildsea: A Firefly's Journal | Part 1 by Mayday Roleplay

In 2025, I'm launching a project that could be Mayday Roleplay's most ambitious actual play to date. It'll take at least three years to see fully realized, and it's set in one of the weirdest, wildest, most creative RPG worlds out there. The name of the game? The Wild Sea. Wild Sea. Wild see. Hey everyone, I'm Sergio from Mayday Role Play. 2025 is a big year for us here at Mayday. We're wrapping. up our four-year-long Delta Green campaign titled Doomed to Repeat. This summer, I'm steering the crew into uncharted territory. I owe a huge thanks to our patron Sean for putting this

game on my radar, and once I cracked it open, I knew we weren't going to just play this game. We were going to build something lasting with it. And that's why I've decided to document my entire journey with the Wild Sea. I'll take you behind. behind the scenes as I learn the system, craft an original reach of my own, and work with our amazing Patreon community to bring the world of Rivenwake to life. So what is Rivenwake, you might ask? Picture a hot, humid jungle shaped by two colossal iron root rivers, the northern timber flow and the southern green stream. These tree currents flow across the canopy, acting as fast travel highways for wild sailors.

Culture here doesn't just exist. It revolves around these currents. Everything from coming-of-age trials to burying your dead is connected to the currents. And at its heart, Riven Awake is centered around a mystery, something that happened post-verdancy that has helped shape the reach into its present-day form. This mystery will unfold over time as our actual place story. progresses. But for now, Mayday patrons are diving into the reach first, shaping its cultures, unraveling its secrets, and even influencing its canon. And that's the beauty of this project.

Decisions made during playtests are permanent. They become canon. That means your session could shape the very story that we will tell in our mainline show. Now, I've run Forged in the Dark games before. Blades in the dark, Beam Saber, you can actually check out our BeamSaber actual play here. I love how the system frees the storyteller up. I'm not rolling dice

or looking up modifiers. I'm solely focused on storytelling and pacing the two most important parts of an actual play to me. But I'm finding that the Wild Sea has its own unique set of challenges. It's less crunchy

than blades, and I like that. But it's far more demanding of player interactivity, player creativity. The system encourages players to shape the narrative, invent the world around them, and throw twists into the mix. It's great, but not every player is used to this dynamic. And here's the challenge. While I love the demand for player involvement in the world building, the Wild Seat also insists on a lot of out-of-character discussion, dice pool negotiations, twist resolutions, and trading in milestones, all are easiest to discuss out of character. And that's fine for most tables, but when it comes to an actual play, immersion is king. So I'm learning how to thread the needle, encouraging cinematic in-character

descriptions of mechanical actions. For instance, if a player wants to, let's say, trade in three minor milestones for, let's say, another dot in a weapon aspect, I'd encourage them to deliver it a little bit like this. After nearly dying in the claws of the Leviathan, my wild sailor spends the night sharpening their blade till it can cut wood like butter. Isn't that way more interesting and evocative than, oh, you know, Firefly, I forgot I have three milestones. I'll just add a dot to my scimitar. I want to reach a point where the players never break character, where they are so immersed in the world that shaping it feels intuitive. For example, in a recent play-by post, the characters are competing in a two-week regatta,

a both race, using the tree currents like high-speed raceways. At one point, I described buoys dotting the course, dropped by bystanders watching the race, and marked with flags to signal different items that can be found inside of them. Not only did the players narrate how they maneuvered to grab the buoys, they also took the initiative to describe the flag colors and invent what each one represented. It was an incredible moment of collaborative storytelling and player investment. I've now seen players begin to build dice pools proactively, narrate their own twists and outcomes. So far, I've run eight group sessions, three solo sessions, and one surprisingly brisk player. by post. Every crew has added to Rivenwake's culture. Every session brings me closer to mastering the

rules. And I'd say I've got about 70% of the mechanics down cold. Ironically, the narrative rules, the more abstract stuff is really clicking with me right away. But things like journey mechanics, scrutiny and pressure, those are taking me a little bit more time. The good news is that it seems that repetition is the key. I've been running more sessions and it is speeding up understanding of the game. I've structured our Discord a bit like a hex crawl. Players choose jobs and form teams, and I schedule the sessions based on my availability. The missions purposefully lead them to new settlements and unique landmarks or introduce them to important Rivenawake factions. And I've made sure that every settlement has its own bizarre kind of economy,

maybe trading in salt or trading in secrets, maybe even memories. Players so far, have added incredible touches to the world, like manisketos. These are fruit nectar-sipping insects turned into local delicacies. I didn't think to come up with a detective agency working maritime crimes, but my players did because they needed to come up with who was chasing them out of a settlement. I was especially proud when one player came to me to pursue a personal drive in a solo session. They're an ironbound, made a of the ship they sailed once in the past but was lost at sea.

Now they're trying to find the souls of their former crew to lay them to rest. Pretty epic stuff. It even led to the player organizing their own job, forming a team to solve this mission, and we will pursue it in the coming months. My favorite, however, so far has probably been when a player decided to ride the Leviathan Old Ornail, and hurled a cursed chicken into its open eye sock, solving a job in the weirdest way imaginable.

That cursed chicken, by the way, is part of the Arconotic Revolution, my homebrew take on the proliferation of Arconautics in Rivenwick. I'll dive into all that in a future video. Just know that I'm drawing heavy inspiration from sources like On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers. For the next round of patron games, I'm going to focus on being consistent about how the players can interface with me, their firefly. I'm going to avoid answering hypothetical or out-of-character questions. No more stopping to clarify the mechanics. I'll save those kinds of discussions for our breaks.

If you're excited for Riven Awake or like the idea of a Discord playing the Wild Sea, there's still a lot of space at our table. I'll be running sessions almost weekly until the end of June, so consider joining the May Day Patreon, where at any level, you can come play with us. Otherwise, look out for future videos about Riven Awakes cultures, factions, monsters, monsters, and mysteries. If you've got questions or comments, feel free to leave them below or message me directly. You can catch our award-winning shows wherever you harvest your podcasts or on YouTube at Mayday Rollplay. And special thanks to all of the amazing page.

who have helped me so much so far, including Bjorn, who gave me a ton of starting inspiration, Sean, Sammy, Cam, Mel, Lucas, Kenny, and Bergen. I am eternally grateful for all of your participation and help. Thanks for watching, and I hope to catch you on the Ligman Tide.