Play Mothership RPG Trifold
ECHOES OF MNEMOSYNE's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| ART — How good is the art/graphic design? | #12 | 4.243 | 4.450 |
| LAYOUT — How well does the module get across information? | #18 | 3.862 | 4.050 |
| FAVORABILITY — how much do you personally like the submission? | #27 | 3.289 | 3.450 |
| Overall | #29 | 3.412 | 3.579 |
| UTILITY — Does complexity inspire game prep? Or Is it very "Pick-up-n-Play"? | #32 | 3.242 | 3.400 |
| GAME DESIGN — How good is the game balance or concepts there in? | #33 | 3.146 | 3.300 |
| WRITING — How does this read? does it emanate with horror, humor, drama...? | #36 | 3.337 | 3.500 |
| THEME — How well is the jam theme used? | #43 | 2.765 | 2.900 |
Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Very good looking module, with an appropriate eerie atmosphere. This is the kind of ship exploration I like, not wading through enemies.
Minor point that caught my eye is that being a massive (experimental?) jump 8 ship it seems way too cheap compared to the other entries in the shipbreakers manual.
Yea, I make increas ie by 200M but I tried to balance it out with the fact travel takes 3d10s and not 2, and the ship has zero ability for battle or any hard points anymore. If you have a “reasonable” value you’d suggest for the post jam version please do say.
and thank you for the comments on its look!
Extrapolating the cost of jump engines in the shipbreakers manual I would estimate the cost of just the engine to at least 640mcr, being class V seems to be another 500mcr or so. Perhaps the low battle score does warrant more of a discount than I was thinking. I went with 1bcr for the J2C-IV jumpliner in my submission due to its massive cryopod capacity, but perhaps I went a little overboard. My thinking was that there would not be much point in building the regular ships if you for just a little more could construct a ship with vastly superior capabilities.
Also I just noticed that the Mnemosyne is missing hardpoints and upgrade capacity. I am guessing no hard points? but no upgrade capacity seems like an oversight.
I’ll edit it to be 1bcr.
And yes, no upgrades or hard points in any capacity, also to reflect the discount of the ship against the jump range and size of the vessel. I plan to shorten the the design lore of the ship below the stats and add a note explaining that as it’s a non combat vessel and more of a “base” ship no hard points or upgrade spots are to be available. All to be edited in the post jam version.
A bit too much text, but I love the simple color palette and the blueprint aesthetic.
It's definitely missing an "oh, fuck" moment, and "mysterious object makes people go crazy by being nearby" is a bit of an overdone trope.
Interesting haunted house in space concept!
Great submission. Design and layout are clean. Typography being a little hard to read is only a small quibble, and likely could be improved by using a slightly heavier weight. I like this a lot.
Very cool aesthetic. I love the drawing of the ship! I found the font a little hard on the eyes, but that's a pretty minor concern. I look forward to the zine! This idea could definitely flourish in some extra space. I'd love a little more guidance on KAL's agenda and methods, maybe even another threat or two aboard the ship.
I loooove the title panel! Such clean design and layout!
Art: Gorgeous! Love the ship and the overall look of everything.
Writing: Technically solid. It's a bit of a Mothership cliché at this point that the person you're going to meet/rescue turns out to be bad, as is the "found alien artifact, everyone died" setup. But I like the digitally uploaded consciousness twist. I would have liked to see some explanation of what the artifact is, or at least what it looks like.
Game Design: I like the fact that we're not just going room to room fighting monsters, and the two-stage structure of establishing ambiance on the way in and threat on the way out is effective. That said, I find it disappointing that the threat always consists of rolling on a table that tells you what other rolls to make and... that's basically it. Although a good group of players will find room to play their characters regardless, the scenario doesn't really ask many choices of them, except for the one binary decision at the end. Even the die-rolling is relatively low-stakes as Mothership die-rolling goes, with the worst cases being a 30% chance of taking a fairly trivial amount of damage that is preventable by a saving throw. I'd rather see players given a potentially life-threatening problem to roleplay their way out of.
Theme: The artifact is "tied to an ancient myth" but there's zero explanation of what that myth is. I can't say you didn't do the jam theme, but it feels like you did the minimum.
Layout: Like the art, this is really beautiful. I'm giving full marks because it makes a better impression than most other things this jam, however, I do have one small criticism about the typography. There is a lot of space between the words (due to justification across a narrow column and no hyphenation), and the line spacing (leading) is tight. When the words are closer to the words below and above than to the words next to them in their own line, it's hard for the eye to scan a line of text. You keep jumping up and down and losing your place.
Utility: This is pretty usable as long as you're willing to do some ad-libbing to make the journey in and out more interesting. Some work is also required for the Warden to figure out what exactly the artifact is and what the lore is, as the players will want to know that.
Favorability: It's a really cool ship, and scenarios that emphasize mood over combat are up my alley. If I was going to run it I would rejig it to make the escape more interesting and less of an exercise in die-rolling. I'd probably also com up with a challenge even if they vent the Vault, since it'll be disappointing if they're never in any actual danger.
Cheers! Yeah, there was a lot I wanted to do with the project, but by the end I realised I was trying to fit quite a substantial module into a trifold format. Space was definitely the biggest challenge, and most ideas had to be stripped back heavily just to fit.
From the beginning, the intention was for this to be a very bare bones concept that the Warden could build upon themselves. I wanted it to feel more like an ad libbing style trifold that encouraged improvisation at the table, and in hindsight I think I could have pushed that aspect further. That especially applied to the logs, where I tried to leave room for interpretation, although I still somehow ended up writing those sections in more detail than intended!
I do plan to revisit and redevelop this as a zine instead, where I can properly flesh out the ship, expand the systems, and include a stronger subplot. This was only my second time handling the writing side of a trifold, and the first time I have really tried incorporating more structured rules into one, so it has been a valuable learning experience.
With the artefact, my intention from the start was to lean into a “what’s in the briefcase?” style mystery similar to Pulp Fiction. I removed some of the artefact artwork to make more room for text, although looking back I probably did not use that extra space as effectively as I could have.
I also agree that the theme ended up fairly minimal. I had originally hoped the connected system would settle on a stronger shared mythology or legend, but as that never fully developed, I chose to keep my contribution more open so it would not contradict other entries. One of the biggest challenges was also the danger mechanics. I had ideas for a more evolved narrative progression throughout the trifold, but realistically I felt there was only room for either the hazard table or a more complex mechanic, not both. After showing versions to several Wardens, opinion seemed split, so I followed my instincts and kept the hazard table.
Overall, it has definitely been a learning curve. I think a lot of us found ourselves stronger in certain sections and weaker in others, which speaks to how difficult the trifold format can be. If anything, I have realised I am probably more confident with the visual and structural side than the written aspect, though I will absolutely be taking all of your feedback into future projects. Thank you again, I really appreciate the feedback and the time taken to go through it.
What I've noticed some people do effectively in this kind of format is to kind of gesture in a direction where they think the Warden could fill in detail. E.g. instead of just saying it's an artifact with mythology, you could say something like "a decorative warhelm believed by xenotheologians to be the one mentioned in the Rydoshian doomscrolls" which gives the Warden something to riff on rather than a completely blank canvas.
I shall take this as a strong note for when I redevelop this, and I will be certain to mention my "glowing briefcase" mindset and reference Pulp Fiction!
I really, really love the art/design/layout of this! Even just as a ship manual its great, let alone the adventure attached to it. The mechanics and ideas for that portion are also really cool and thought out - love the writing too, engaging and easy to read. (Personal preference, not a criticism - Would love to see the theme/flavour of Mnemosyne leaned into harder in the ways the artefact messes with the minds of the crew/potential players!)
THANK YOU!
Very good all around.
thank you
Also I just realised you’re behind Eternal Ruins, I was broke at the time when the kickstarter happened but sooooooooo coool
Sorry, that's actually someone else.
I based A Wanderer's Journal off the Eternal Ruins setting as a fan game (with the creator's permission), before the official Eternal Ruins RPG was announced. The kickstarter is actually a completely different game, dev team, etc.
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH my bad ahaha
Genuinely looks like some kind of technical document at first glance. Really striking in aesthetic above all else and easily the reason why I read further.
The visual design and layout is so well integrated into both the "space ship industry" aesthetic *and* the established MOTHERSHIP style.