Live at the Table: Dream Askew

Overview

Although when this game was originally aired it was set in Bluff City, Austin has since said that it actually shows and is set in the future of Bluffington Beach.

Episode Links

• Episode video
• Episode audio

Episode Description

Ali, Andrew, Austin, and Jack join together to play the playtest version of Avery Alder's Dream Askew. From the game's about page:

Dream Askew gives us ruined buildings, haunted faces, strange new psychic powers, fierce queer love, and turbulent skies, asking “What do you do next?”

Imagine that the collapse of civilization didn’t happen everywhere at the same time. Instead, it’s happening in waves. Every day, more people fall out of the society intact. We queers were always living in the margins of that society, finding solidarity, love, and meaning in the strangest of places. Apocalypse didn’t come for us first, but it did come for us.

Gangs roam the apocalyptic wasteland, and scarcity is becoming the norm. The world is getting scarier, and just beyond our everyday perception, howling and hungry, there exists a psychic maelstrom.

We banded together to form a queer enclave – a place to live, sleep, and hopefully heal. More than ever before, each of us is responsible for the survival and fate of our community. What lies in the rubble? For this queer enclave, could it be utopia?

Other Episode Information

The character sheets and map for this game can be seen on patreon (requires patreon login to view).

Cast

• The Augur, Providence (Austin Walker)
• Robyn (Andrew Lee Swan)
• Already (Jack de Quidt)
• Samantha (Ali Acampora)

Plot

Samantha and The Augur, Providence meet in the pantry of Samantha’s Bar. The Augur is late to meet with her and The Augur is outside taking a call and speaking with her students. The briefly make small talk about what’s happening in their lives (“more usuals than usual”) and the community generally (“I want us to thrive, I don’t feel like we’re thriving here”). They both agree more can be done in the community, but Samantha believes they should use their connections to the society intact, and The Augur believes they need to isolate themselves from those still untouched by the apocalypse, ending with The Augur breaking up with Samantha (“We each have so much to give to everyone out there. Perhaps we have already given enough to each other”). Samantha says that she wishes The Augur had started the conversation with that (“I know, I think I just wanted [a debate] with you before I left the pantry”).

The power goes out. The Augur says the power outage has come earlier than she thought.