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I see the vision here and I am stoked about it. Art and map are excellent and the central idea is dope.
From what is here, I think you might be treading some ground already covered by the Shipbreaker’s Tool Kit. Could be worth looking at what is there and expanding on it for the ship systems than making GMs learn a whole new set of mechanics.
On the whole, this is headed in a really cool direction and I can’t wait to see the full 1.0 version.
Ambitious!
My immediate instinct is that the mechanics of shunting power around and repairing stuff doesn't have a lot of design space to it for crew counts above 2 or so. There's some optimization and choices to be made, but it's hard to keep it interesting for everyone. The maintenance guy is just going to be making the same rolls all game. I think the successful board games in this space remove any possibility of backseating, giving each player their own little mini-game in which they have to make the best decisions, given exclusive knowledge that they can't share.
This is a really tough nut to crack and risks getting way more crunchy than the Mothership baseline. I've yet to be convinced by any implementation of either the 0E or 1E ship rules, and I don't think I'm alone in that.
Ship design and graphics are great, as is the cover art.
Thanks for your thoughts! the intention is that as there isn’t enough power to go around it forces all of the players to move through the ship. they might have things their characters are better at but there are times where you need that system and times where you don’t. Additionally the second set of Crew means that every 30ish minutes the PCs are changing up what they are good at.
i do agree that ship rules, fairly across the whole of the TTRPG space, are a mixed bag and typically lacking, figured i’d try my hand at it.
Art: Beautiful map and cover illustration. Too bad the treatment of the text pages is basically just a Word doc, but I get the sense you were probably under time pressure.
Writing: I think I mostly understand how to play, but it's not the most organized set of rules I've ever read. Some sections read more like personal notes for testing a prototype than finished game rules, which I again imagine to be due to a deadline crunch.
Game Design: I'm kind of torn here. You're basically creating a board game within Mothership and I'm usually of the philosophy that we should let board games be board games and RPGs be RPGs, because each medium has distinct advantages, and trying to use one as the other is a bit like hammering nails with a screwdriver. On the other hand, you get a lot of marks for creativity. I'd say maybe just forego the character sheets and Mothership mechanics entirely (except for the mechanics established for this game) and just call it a Mothership-themed board game.
Theme: Full marks. Great idea to use John Henry as the myth and good ideas for adapting it to sci-fi. I guess I could complain that there's nothing that feels very horrifying here, but you know what, it's fine.
Layout: Adequate to the task. I imagine that it'll be improved after the jam along with throwing some graphical style on the text-heavy pages.
Utility: As someone who has had a few board games published, I know you can't possibly have playtested this thoroughly enough in the time available, as that's just not possible for an even moderately-complex game. Plus the rules are cursory enough in places I know I'd find ambiguities when trying to run it. So I'd want to do a full run-through on my own before bringing it to the table with players. I suspect some might decide they can just dive in and then have awkward pauses mid-session as they're scouring the rules trying to figure out how something works.
Favorability: If you explained your plan to me at the start of the jam I would have said the board game-like mechanics were a bad idea and to do something more narrative-driven with the same theme. But you know what, I like it. I worry that it might be a bit of a mess trying to play it, but I'm happy to have read it and that you did this, so full marks.
Thank you!
Yes was certainly rushing towards the end (hence the only 95% of a first draft haha) i’ve now got the graphic design in a much nicer state so as to not just look like a block of text.
Also the post jam version I plan to include downloadable handouts which would help the Players visualize what each System can do, and to keep track of moving power around the ship.
The intention was sort of like “This one shot is mostly a big combat encounter” but instead “this one shot is a big cooperative puzzle” Also i wanted to tackle the constant problem i see with “Ship” based missions which is the lack of moving around and mostly boiling down to “i’m gonna take the guns while you pilot” and instead i wanted to make something where you yes have to shoot, but also the things that come up force you towards different places all over the ship and different solutions as to how to properly attack the problems.
Regardless thanks for your review! I genuinely appreciate your feedback!
That's kind of the intent of Project Sisyphus as well, or at least the second act.
I think, when doing that kind of thing, if you want it to remain a role-playing game and not accidentally turn into a board game, you probably need to resist the urge to have explicit mechanics for everything. Here, you definitely want to have rules for some things, like powering systems and how long it takes to get around the ship. But if you don't want it to play like a board game, I would suggest leaving more room for the Warden to interact with the players, instead of both parties interacting with the game mechanics.
a very fair point. Not quite sure how i would adjust that but I’ll give it some consideration.
In this case, having done all this work, you could also just lean into it and be like this is a board game you can play as a standalone or as an interlude in a more conventional campaign. Maybe even rejig the rules so it doesn't need a Warden. (Or, conversely, if you want to keep a Warden, give the Warden more direct control over the threats and make it a competitive one-versus-many game where the Warden is actually trying to defeat the players.)
The advice was more for if this isn't how you meant it to go, how to avoid that next time.
Thanks for your feedback! Not every scenario is going to hit for everyone, sorry this wasn’t to your taste.
One small note, in your rating of favorability you mention playing online and the issues this might cause, The only person pulling cards from decks is the Warden. It is a means of having “Custom Dice” essentially where results can be more tailored for slowly elevating tensions as the ship is falling apart. But yeah if you want to play this online the warden would need a simple battlemap app with tokens to show what was moving one range closer, but adjusting to online that is a normal problem that is already solved.
Again, thanks for your feedback, hope you find things more to your taste in other entries!
Fair enough. I deleted the original post and will re-write it accordingly.
oh also i should make a note for you that Toolkits and Setting Guides are both completely acceptable module styles for the Jam, not all need to be Adventures. I’m making this comment so that if you come across other modules this jam that are more aligned with this that you will judge them accordingly and not hold them to not being adventures. (i don’t mind being judged harshly myself, but I want you to know that others should be understood to have followed the rules even if they didn’t make an adventure.)
Fair enough. I deleted the original post and will re-write it accordingly.
wasn’t trying to have you delete your post, was just trying to point out that others might have done toolkits/setting guides and to be weary haha.
Grading this with the fact that it's a WIP and assuming it will be completed with similar quality. This looks great! Visually nice, clean, intelligently laid out. I love the flavor and it's very mechanical which I also love. I think what I want to see as you finish this is maybe early on a paragraph that can quickly pitch me on how to mechanically engage with the scenario and how that relates to the "object of the game," so to speak. Other than that I would focus mostly on some minor editing for clarity and other proofreading.
thank you!
how does something like this sound for Mechanically engaging relating to the win-con:
“It’s a war of attrition to keep the old boat afloat long enough to get the job done. A race against time, crew members spend rounds running through the ship from System to System, using System Abilities to remove Obstacles from their path. Keep it up long enough and they’ll save the star system.”
That's great, touches quickly on the main mechanics while giving the GM a reason to care about them!
Despite being a touch unfinished, I think the concept is so good that I don't care. It's like a port of FTL into mosh, which imo could use improved rules for spaceship stuff in general. Very much want to see this filled out, it could easily be a full zine.
oh thank you so much! yes it wears its FTL influence on its sleeve! (love that game)
This is so ambitious and it's a shame that you didn't have time to finish it. The gameplay seems really fun but it's a bit hard for me to wrap my head around without actually playing it. I am a visual/kinetic learner.
I hope this gets expanded into a zine with lots more art. I've already said I love the map and the cover art is great, but more spot art and diagrams would really help me. I also would love more descriptive text and world-building. What is there is very cool and evocative, but so much of the space needs to be devoted to rules.
Or, you could turn this into actual card game!
Thank you kindly Deadnought! hoping to get a little more evocative text in the gaps that are on the file, and some graphic design to at least make the breakdown a little more visually clear!
I love this, it does a great job of invoking the John Henry story, and the mechanic with the cards is really cool. I definitely want to see the finished product.
Thank you so much PlibPlob! The full list of obstacles (as well as a lightly modified Map) is up on the Feedback page for the module on the discord!