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Weapons & Tactics of the Metro-12 Uprising's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Polish - How is the overall look/vibes/writing & design? | #7 | 4.056 | 4.056 |
| Favorability - how much do you personally like the submission? | #11 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Usability - How "pick up & play" is this for a Warden? | #15 | 3.444 | 3.444 |
| Overall | #16 | 3.542 | 3.542 |
| Theme - How well does it match the Jam's Theme? | #31 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I loved this module. I was a bit perplexed at first as I thought it was a field guide from the perspective of the insurgents upon first reading the cover, but I actually dig it more in a darkly humorous way being from the corp side. I agree with some comments that it could be a bit more humorous - the self-seriousness of fascism mixed with corporate buzzwords and such is ripe for self-parody, and I think this could do with a little Starship Troopers' style hoo-rah posturing.
Depending on how the use case you intended for this module, a bit more adventure structure could be a boon for wardens. The background and writing is all really tight, but doesn't necessarily include a lot of one-shot or adventure structure. I really dig the ambush map/layout, though some of the text could use a little more polish - there's some margin-bleed on a couple of the words within the convoy boxes.
A very small critique, but I don't think an organization like this would ever admit to "genuinely having no idea" how the rebels got hold of anything (re: the text on the HMG).
Overall, well-written, extremely well designed/organized, and a helluva lot of extremely bleak fun.
I like the way you've presented this as an in-world pamphlet, but I think it could lean more heavily into overt, unintentionally-hilarious propaganda. There are notes of satire here and there but I think there are missed opportunities to simultaneously tell the corporation's (transparently bullshit) of things while heavily implying what's actually going on ("Although we generously extended paid leave for amputations to 48 hours, protests continued, with cowardly terrorists throwing themselves beneath the treads of crawlers to delay essential caviar deliveries for the management gala." That's maybe too much, but you get my meaning.)
I also like that although you present an example scenario, it's not made clear which side the characters are likely to be on.
Obviously, this isn't totally usable off the shelf, as the scenario is more of a single scene, and perhaps more illustrative than prescriptive. But it seems like a useful supplement to weave into a homebrew adventure.
I see that others have bemoaned the lack of Mothershippian "horror" elements, which is true but doesn't bother me because, again, it's not a complete adventure, but material to be woven into one. I think using an insurgency as the backdrop to a more standard monster story would create something more than the sum of its parts. E.g. maybe the twist for a group that's inclined to side with the insurgents is that the shipment they're intercepting turns out not to be space caviar this time, but the MacGuffin the corp needed to stop the threat. Oops. Now what?
Really really enjoy the synergy between the fiction and the visual design. An in-universe pamphlet doubling as a module is brilliant! The timeline is well-presented and compelling - although it swaps between past and present tense. Each of the rebel statblocks are concise, unique, and sound very fun to run. Again, great mix of mechanics and flavour to communicate world-building.
Inside panels are especially excellent. Great thought put into the weapon options and I feel like a lot of them would see a lot of use at most Mothership tables! The ambush map is a clever way to include a one-shot scenario without tipping the hand too much and ruining the in-world idea. I think the text gets a little too small in places and I'd be concerned about how it reads after home printing, but shop printers could probably manage it.
Awesome work all around, very unorthodox approach to a Mothership pamphlet but all the better for it!
Hiya, here are some notes I took while reading this trifold:
My first thought is that this is just so cool. Really engaging presentation.
There is approximately a 100% chance that my table would join the insurgency at the earliest opportunity.
The timeline feels very packed in -- my first instinct was to recommend cutting word count, but having read it, if anything what I want is more of this setting -- which i guess would come at the expense of what the pamphlet is actually about, lol. Now that I know how we got here, I want to know more about here.
The convoy ambush map is simple, diegetic, and inspires me to run something like that at the table (but... my table would absolutely be trying to take the train haha)
Really like the supply drones, prob my fave equipment part!
CIKRO stands in solidarity with our ICM comrades.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I GM for a group who always join any rebel/underdog group at the soonest opportunity and the ICM as a whole are definitely the type of faction I envisioned for those types of players.
The idea for this pamphlet basically came from a mini-setting idea I've been kicking around for a year or so, nothing particularly detailed yet but I might work on more in the future. I wanted it to be a very cramped, claustrophobic setting that lends itself well to the kind of dungeon crawling game-play I usually incorporate into my games. Metro tunnels and sewer systems felt like a good way to encourage that without it feeling terribly out of place in a sci-fi game. The overall focus would be on the factional conflict going on, even from within the groups who make up the ICM, but I want to leave a lot of room for pockets of bizarre alien life or occult shenanigan to reinforce the horror vibes. I think a sandbox setting where half of the challenge comes from navigating these open war-zones controlled by groups with different allegiances would be interesting. Let the player crew decide how they want to influence it and who they want to throw their lot in with.
heck yeah! following to see future updates from METRO-12, I think you're on to something special here!
Happy to hear the diegetic approach is coming off well, it was the biggest thing I wanted to try and pull off for this trifold pamphlet. I agree in retrospect about general usability of the setting as implied, was really meant to just spark ideas but more could have been done to be immediately usable vs. something you just seed into your own game in the background.
And my thing with human conflict is that it will always seem scarier to me personally than most space horror scenarios, it tends to be at the very least a very pervasive background to a lot of my own personal games. I do wish I sprinkled in some more of that general sci-fi horror though, with either implications about the corporation who made the pamphlet, something crazy the rebels have recently been doing to try and gain the upper hand, something just a bit weirder. Otherwise I agree that the pamphlet comes across as very niche otherwise so it may be hard to include elements of it in your average game.
I read through you jam entry. Here's my written commentary on your adventure content and layout:
---Cool in-universe frame. Lore heavy without being heavy handed
---Genuinely fun to read
---Weapons aren't substantially different than from the core book, missed opportunity to make them more unique
---Cool little ambush scenario, again presented in universe
---Drone modification section is very cool and would likely get used at the table repeatedly
Thank you for the kind words! I'm really glad that the in-world lore presentation didn't come off as too heavy-handed, I wanted to be a bit ambiguous and leave room for people to interpret the fuzzy ideas present for the setting in their own way.
As far as the weapons go there definitely could have been a few more "weird" weapons thrown in for good measure. I really wanted to focus on content available and ended up hitting a bit of a wall with my own personal requirement of wanting art for every single weapon present, so I admittedly didn't get too wild with my ideas because of the time spent editing the photos I was using as bases.
Part of it is also how I just like to stat and run weapons in my games. I don't really like writing special abilities for weapons that are more than one or two lines, like as soon as they involve mechanics more than a Save roll or Skill test, it just seems like too much for me and something a Warden could reasonably infer the weapon could do narratively. A lot of these were written as cheap alternatives for players who are too broke to afford anything else and I didn't want to make them too appealing compared to the alternatives in the PSG, but there definitely needed to be more weapons that stand out more in retrospect.
This is a very fun little trifold with some really good stuff inside. Here is my feedback:
+ Presentation is very thematic and diagetic,
+ formatting and layout are great, it is really well put together!
+ Good variety of weapons, equipment and enemies on display!
- I personally would struggle to immediately put this to use; the weapons and equipment certainly could be used right away, but I feel like to use the implied setting within here I would need to put a bit more work to make something I can run, this isn't a bad thing by the way, just an observation.
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Thank you for the feedback! I had similar thoughts about usability as far as the theme and implied setting went and struggled a bit balancing how much I wanted to explain versus how much immediately usable content I wanted to pack in. I ended up trying to lean more towards the latter in an attempt to make the pamphlet a bit more generally useful versus only useful if you're running an underground metro style setting, but I definitely think a better balance could have been struck in retrospect.
Polish:4/5
Read through the whole thing, concise and succinct on each section. On first glance some things aren't super clear, like whether any on the tables is on the "Approved List" but it can quickly assumed that it's not on here and is simply a part of the narrative being told through everything else. The images used are clean, and the maps for a possible insurgent attack are really clear.
Favorability: 4/5
I will admit, I'm biased on this. I've spent more time as a player than as a Warden, and that colors my experience. That being said: this entire pamphlet is sick as hell. It feels in universe, it offers information like a dossier for a military briefing, and if you wanted to, this pamphlet itself could be a resource and prop for the game. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence but it's reminiscent of pre-Covenant Halo lore, which provides a nice moral dilemma. I'm a little partial to weirder concepts, but this has a very grounded feeling that feels exactly mothership.
Usability: 5/5
In terms of immediate pick up and usability, this feels reliable. If I forgot to prep for the session that week, I could grab this and have a fantastic morally interesting scenario for the night without anyone being the wiser. Plenty of grab & go stuff here, including a scenario where you can almosy literally plug & play in.
Theme:3/5
Right to the point, the theme doesn't feel so much like it was the center of this trifold, but it compliments the rest of the pamphlet very well, detailing the weapons, tactics, and history. Underground fighters, company messages between the lines, everything the pamphlet says to outline what it doesn't say fits Beneath The Surface in an esoteric sense, but the application of it in totality feels overshadowed by the rest of the content. Honestly I'm grading this a 3 because it takes a different ambitious philosophical direction to Beneath The Surface and while it is solid, the landing was a little off center.
Overall, stellar work, this should be an ol' reliable in any Warden's tool belt, and if you're making a low-alien Mothership scenario or campaign, this is a must-download. I know I'm getting out the good paper to print this one out.
Thank you for the detailed feedback! Even if your experience is mostly as a player it still helps a lot to hear feedback like that, I really wanted to make this as fun for someone taking part in a campaign to read as it hopefully is for the Warden to take equipment and ideas from. In regards to the polishing advice you gave, you make a good point about a better line being drawn between some of the in-world pamphlet information and the actual mechanics going on through the gear/weapons could help clarify things a bit and I'll keep that in mind if I make something in a similar style. Happy that the moral ambiguity and how "grey" the situation is came off as I intended, I really wanted to lean on it being corpo-propaganda but didn't want to be too on the nose or tongue-in-cheek about it.
Theme-ing wise you're very on point, I wish I would have focused a bit more on the conditions of the metro itself: a weird monster or two, maybe another map in the vein of the convoy ambush map, some weirder and more fantastical gear/weapons...I really had to stop myself from getting carried away.