Play Mothership 1E module
What Reflects From Within - Mothership 1E Adventure's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Polish - How is the overall look/vibes/writing & design? | #1 | 4.647 | 4.647 |
| Favorability - how much do you personally like the submission? | #1 | 4.353 | 4.353 |
| Overall | #1 | 4.294 | 4.294 |
| Theme - How well does it match the Jam's Theme? | #3 | 4.412 | 4.412 |
| Usability - How "pick up & play" is this for a Warden? | #7 | 3.765 | 3.765 |
Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Lots of cool stuff packed into an awesome package. This is probably my favorite submission visually - your art, layout, design, and map are all spot on.
It's an excellent module that I loved reading! It requires a bit of preparation due to the complexity of managing the two worlds, as well as the characters and objects that inhabit them. I think it requires at least three players to reach its full potential.
However, I don't understand the secret objective, "Lure the others into the Mirror World." If a player is in the Mirror World, he can't communicate or be seen by his peers. If he leaves the Mirror World, is he still under the entity's control? Would his illusion disappear? I don't understand how he could get his teammates to join him in the Mirror World.
I can't wait to play it with my friends! Great work!
Thank you for your kind thoughts! We hear ya that this module can be challenging to run with the prep needed and the various aspects to manage. As mentioned to others, we are working on a FAQ pamplet for Wardens to reference to aleviate work and answer such questions. So, thank you for those questions! We'll be sure to answer them, but here is a draft to respond to your questions:
If you have any further questions, feel free to ask here or PM me! And you've just reminded me that I still need to share my feedback for your work haha.
Using a pen to write a message is a great idea. It's reminiscent of Stranger Things when the characters try to communicate from one world to another. I imagine that was more or less the inspiration. You've answered my question!
Really strong submission, without much in the way of weak points. The art's nice, the layout is both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Maaaaaybe I'd like it to have an accent colour, not everything in the greeny-blue spectrum? But I'm stretching for things to pick at there.
You're taking on a very complex topic for a trifold. I think you did a good job of it but it's one that maybe wants to be a zine, as that would leave more room for e.g. lists of stuff found at each location, more fleshed out NPCs, etc.
Still picking at nits for the sake of having constructive criticism: the guy getting meowed at by his cat seems a bit twee for a horror story. The guy working to pay the bills to save his wife who is already dead in real life is more the kind of vibe I'd expect.
It isn't clear why the reactor can't be reached in the Mirror World.
Anyway, as you can see, my criticisms are pretty minor. I'm not done reviewing everything yet but this is another one that'll probably make my Top 5.
Thank you for your kind review!
As mentioned by others, we do recognize this module can be challenging to run, especially to newer Wardens. Although we believe there is enough to still run a fun game, we are in the middle of creating a FAQ handout for Wardens to give the tools to help elevate their games or make running it feel more easier at the very least. So if you have any further questions, do let us know!
In regards to your questions:
Aha, that makes sense. I figured it was something to do with the radiation. So the mirror world only exists where it could be seen through the mirror from the real world? That's a concept that could be developed further in some cool ways. It would mean, for instance, that a pillar or other large object might cast a sort of "shadow" of impassable "un-space" behind it, if there's no angle from which you could see behind it in the mirror. There could be puzzles involving shifting a large movable piece of machinery or cart in the real world to place the un-space such that it removes a particular hazard from existence in the mirror world.
Or maybe the un-space isn't impassible but anything that enters it fades out of existence. If you stick your hand in, it disappears, but you can pull it back out and it's there again, but if anything entirely enters the region of un-space, it's gone forever, or gets booted back to the real world or something.
Precisely, there is plenty of Mirrors to move around and the doors to the Reactor technically exist per those rules. So, players can figure out a way to get a Mirror into the Reactor, should they wish to access it from the Mirror World. I like your interpretation of what exists in spaces without Mirrors, it feels like a wall of "void flame" that slowly consumes anything caught in it. But yes, we can look to detail more mechanics of the Mirror World boundaries. This all the more showcases how the module would better serve as a small zine to cover all bases.
This is also the implied reason why the Mirror Entity is asking players to ship out a shipment of Mirrors, as it is using said Mirrors to expand their domain outside of the Mining facility.
It'll be funny when the players are experimenting with the mirrors and one of them moves one and accidentally vaporizes a friend in the mirror-verse by moving them "out of frame."
I'm looking forward to running this module with my group! I was curious about the Reactor as well. Is there something specific that's supposed to happen if the PCs increase/decrease the power usage despite the warning on the panel? I didn't see any info on this in the play materials.
Hi there. The increased power demand is from the staff working double time to make tons of Mirrors. At the moment, nothing is wrong with the reactor. If players decrease the power load through, nothing will happen. Though, you could say the machines will be less effective or even shut down, making the staff angry and try to get to the players.
However, if the players increase the power usage further, then the Reactor will go into a nuclear meltdown due to overloading, which can be a catastrophic way for the players to defeat the horror of the facility, if they can get out in time. This is indicitive by the overloading instructions found on Luzia's dead body. How long they have to escape is up to the Warden.
Let us know if that helps and how your playthrough of it goes!
This is wildly creative and really awesome. Only substantial criticism is it requires a bit of a heavy lift on the DM to create and embody all of these characters from potentially limited notes. It also creates a bit of a PC/player rift as players have to pretend that they can't understand PCs on the other side of the mirror, which could create a metagaming challenge or break immersion. But overall it's beautiful, it has all of the information in it to run it well and I appreciate that it even spells out the kind of prep that the warden will have to do so there's no surprises. Awesome job!
Thank your for your kind thoughts!
We do understand this module can be a challenge to run, especially for new wardens, with all the points you have mentioned. We believe that any warden can create a fun game with the paranormal nature of the game, but recognize there can be better pay off with experienced wardens.
In regards to the disconnect of pretending to not understand PCs separated by the world, we had tried to see how players can still communicate with each other without it feeling like they are just "in another room". We had ideas like, PCs can experience communication, but all audio comes off as reversed. However it was proving to be difficult to detail on the limited real estate. We certainly need to dwell into better practices to implement when splitting a party.
Given this has been a repeating point of feedback, we'd love to create a FAQ resource of sorts for Wardens to reference for more guidance. Perhaps we can go into a bit more detail about being separated in the FAQ section and encourage wardens to threat it as splitting the party with no communication. But, please leave any further questions you may have!
I think there’s a lot of praise to be given to this module !
First of all, I’m in love with the Dead Space like intro. What’s supposed to be a simple repair job turns quickly into surviving a nightmare.
Dead space seems to be overall a reference through out the adventure actually, with the desolation and emptiness, the madness, the illusions from the past conjured by something (no spoilers).
Small editing feedbacks :
One last editing note : “Anyone in the real world appears as monsters” is efficient, but I think there’s untapped thematic potential there. It would make sense for all to see something related to them, either a phobia, or more likely coming from the entity, a “monster” from their past.
Overall, amazing layout, design, illustrations and writing. This adventure sounds a little challenging to run for newer wardens, asking them to find the right emotional pressure points. A good challenge with an amazing potential pay off, however ! I will most certainly run it at some point. I would recommend others to run it as a second adventure, to make sure people are already attached to their characters, though a one shot would certainly work as well !
Thank you so much for your detailed comment! I'm glad there is plenty of inspiration from other media to pull from here.
To address your points of feedback in order:
Overall, we understand this module has minor points that work as run, but don't provide an explanation as to why, and that this module can be difficult to run for new wardens. We believe that any warden can still create a fun game with the poltergeist nature of the game, but recognize the potential of the inner personal threats and horror is a lot higher for those with experience.
If there is enough interest, we'd look to create a FAQ resource of sorts for Wardens to reference for more guidance. So, please leave any further questions you may have!
Forgot to say well done for the handouts ! Really nice touch, especially since each have a printer friendly version :0
Inject this shit into my VEINS! Love the front panel art and overall aesthetic. This module introduces a classic premise, contains excellent art, gives great PC/Warden guidance, and gives some concise content warnings.
I really love the formatting on enemy statblocks. Great information organization while keeping real estate down. The Mirror World has a fantastic set of open-ended ground rules that allow Wardens to judge edge cases and for players to create unique situations. Having NPCs already in the mirror world keeps the pace up and creates an easy hook to ramp up the horror/tension.
The “managing coercion” section is such a great inclusion, tons of well-meaning Wardens can still screw this up with D&D brain!
Only question in my mind is whether there would be directional issues in the mirror world since wouldn't left be right, etc. which could get confusing with the one map? Perhaps this works out fine in playtesting, it just occurred as a potential point of confusion.
All in all, THIS HAS THE SAUCE. Amazing work!
Thank you so much for your kind feedback! We're especially happy to hear the content warnings and coercion sections are being received well, as the portrayal of individuality and one's struggles are important to us.
In regards to the directionality, you are correct that everything in the Mirror World is reversed or flipped, including the layout of the facility. Though it is admittedly confusing to know which axis to mirror the world on.
After the jam, I can release a second player handout of a horizontally flipped map for when players discover the Mirror World. That way, it becomes a lot easier to track of PC and NPC locations in both the Mirror and real world.
Player handout is a great solution. Looking forward to it. Please do a print run!
This is the kind of thing we wanted to do but didn’t have time / hadn’t considered carefully enough. This is a fantastic idea, well executed, well designed, and reading it was making us want to run it!
Appreciate your kind words! We checked out your module and awesome to see how converged on various ideas, but had them executed differently to offer unique experiences.
Commenting here to say, although we are not looking to revise this module, we are happy to receive any feedback that we could learn from and implement for future modules.