Happy to help and honored that Echoes will be y’all’s first foray into MoSH.
Each Hour has a specific location on the Graveyard where the PCs begin. These locations are all over the ship, which means they’ll be suddenly changing locations upon exiting their ship. This is supposed to be abrupt and confusing. Definitely should be like “how the hell did I get here?!”
When I’ve run it I make it very sudden. You exit your airlock and you are immediately in a different place. It should be strange, disorienting and hard to understand. It doesn’t need to make sense. The fact that it doesn’t make sense should clue the PCs into realizing that something very strange is happening.
I do the same thing when the loop repeats and the PCs return to Starting Positions. Bang, regardless of what was happening they are back in the exact spot they started, doing the same thing, holding the same stuff, etc. This is intentionally playing on time loop tropes (like in Groundhogs Day where the day always starts with the same song). These hard cuts to repeated elements are there to hopefully clue players in to the fact they are trapped in a time loop.
Regarding the duration, I’ve ran it twice and both times we played for 2 sessions with each session between 3 - 4 hours long. I’ve heard of groups taking longer and shorter to escape. Because this is a mystery and a puzzle, it will vary based on how quickly players realize their in a loop and how quickly they understand the events of the loop. Don’t be afraid to reveal that they are trapped in a loop if they are having trouble realizing it. That isn’t the important part. The real challenge is figuring out why the loop is happening and altering the events in the loop to change the outcome.
Yes!!! Be super brutal and kill the PCs often. Once they realize they come back when the loop repeats, they’ll get really crazy and try stupid stuff, which is another key element of a good time loop story. Kill them and then watch kill themselves doing wild schemes. 😈
Wow, again so stoked this will be your first Mothership adventure. I’d love to hear how it goes!