Sessions 35 & 36 - The Weird One
Like WW said, this one was the weird one. This was also not the adventure I was planning on running, I actually had another one called The Hunt for the Storm Calf (stealing the name out of a recent RuneQuest adventure) lined up but just didn't have any energy to muster up and make the adventure. It's as if, after I decided this would be the last one, the wind went immediately out of my sails and I had nothing.
This one came out of me going "wouldn't it be funny if two guys pined after Giovanna like she was Scarlett O'Hara?" But I knew that, if they were just normal dudes, she wouldn't be interested, so I made them hunky wolf men instead. Then I invented an Addams Family situation for Halloween, stealing the entire thing from Titanium Court, and went "idk I'll wing it on the spot".
In hindsight, it would have gone more smoothly if I had cared to prep more in-depth. I could have given each NPC a 'thing' that happens if the players hung out effectively with them, make a little schedule, etc, but every time I sat down to do it I just had no energy or ideas for it and kept leaving it for later.
Ultimately I am glad it went fine and that it didn't seem too insane from the POV of the players. After all, the intention really was to finally have a beach episode where nothing external happened to make their lives worse, so I figured that, if things started going bad, I'd just cut them short. And I did, Session 36 started with me going "alright let's wrap up the Elfland thing, anyone want to do anything in there?"
Truthfully, I already knew this was coming. It's a feeling similar to the one I had around the end of Delta Green, where it feels like the game has already wrapped up in my mind but not at the table, so new ideas just don't happen. It's why I decided months ago that the game would only go until graduation, I predicted that after a while this stamina drain would set in and I would want to coast on the established procedure. That is the main difference between Hearts Aglow and Delta Green: Hearts Aglow has a fixed time to end, Delta Green didn't. I know roughly how long I still need to stick with it (about 12 sessions, maybe 10 depending on our speed; so until early February or so - we could get it down to 6 sessions but that might be too fast) and I am quite confident on the procedure, so my prep goes by quite fast.
This isn't to say I'm not having fun with Hearts Aglow anymore, today's session was very fun, but making new stuff for it is hard. It's a completed game as far as I'm concerned, I have nothing else to experiment with and little desire to explore more of the setting. I ultimately should have been less ambitious and gone with 4 years in-game rather than 7, but no changing that now. I think the current cut-off point should ensure we stop after I get very tired of it but before I grow to resent and dislike the game.
