itch.io

Love this one! Great use of the theme, great art, great writing. It's short, simple, and sweet -- all virtues in a pamphlet module. I just wish there was more! You could 100% run this after a five-minute read, but I want to prep a ton of stuff around it, just to make it bigger! Like the Windigo, I hunger for more. Great stuff.

This is a fun adventure with great fundamentals: strong hooks, varied and interesting enemies, puzzles, multiple entrances, jacquaysing, and a ticking clock. I like the twist too; awakening the mech by violently saving the kid is a great climax, and the option of seeing the villain get his comeuppance from the mech is a solid alternate.

In terms of feedback, I did struggle a bit with the map. I didn't really understand how it extruded from the cliff wall, and I found the Roman numerals a little difficult to scan at a glance. They definitely give some great vibes, but (for me anyways) it felt hard to parse. In Temple Exterior, there's a reference to IV. Atrium rather than V. Atrium, and in III. Hallway and VII. Control Room there are cases of VII. Ritual Chamber that should be VIII. Ritual Chamber. I'm also not sure I understood the placement of C, but that's probably a me thing.

Congratulations on creating two pamphlets for the jam, that's awesome. This is a great entry, and I can tell lots of people will enjoy running it.

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.

Great use of the theme. It's a great concept, evil lurking just outside the lander. You've given the Siren some great hiding options to help the encounter from resolving too early. I do wish there was a little more Warden-facing strategy, some hints on when to use which abilities. Since the Siren Song only triggers on a failed Panic Check, it might be nice if there were a few more places for those to happen in the module as well.

Otherwise, great stuff. You've really nailed the heart of horror, I think: a doorway and something mysterious and frightening on the other side. Well done.

Some really great layout and design choices here. I love the flow-chart map. The texturing and art is great; where did the faceless portraits come from? I really like them.

I may have been tempted to swap the NPC information with the 'Matron Destroyed' and 'Random Encounters' type blocks, but that's likely a matter of personal taste. My only other feedback is that I wish the Ancient-Myth of it all was a little more front and centre. All in all, this is a solid entry, strong on Mothership vibes and with great presentation.

Great entry. Nails the theme, and the layout is great. I love the Jinni manifestation table.

Some feedback:  I think throwing some capital letters on things like 'Sanity Save' and 'Panic Check' might help this read a bit better.

This is wild. Casually dropping a 1980s fantasy hack in two columns -- what do I even say? I'm stunned.

I'm afraid I don't have much feedback for you. I don't see this taking 2-3 sessions, but I guess Warden-styles and session lengths will vary. In the miscasts, is it intended that miscasts can reduce stress? Gaining stress seems like it might be more on theme. There are a few places I'd add capitals in the Loadout lists, and I think Ammit and Horus could both have been fleshed out just a bit more. But then again, it's a pamphlet, and it's already jam packed with great stuff.

Very neat! I'm excited to see what you do next.

An interesting entry! Great utility and layout. This is definitely usable at a moment's notice. I think you nailed the art, too; you've managed to create a huge amount of visual interest out of only a few elements. The coffee ring and the red notes are just *chef's kiss*.

I'll second the notes you got about things like 'pampered' being skills. It might have been nice to lean more into the theme as well. That being said, I think this is a great addition to a Warden's toolkit, especially as the campaign goes on and the base four classes begin to feel a little used up.

Great visual design here, great concept. I'll echo what you've been hearing about the ticket numbers, but I expect most Wardens will just adjust up or down depending on how sinister they want the park to be. Some more ways to earn tickets might be fun too, especially if they're a little dodgy. I do also find myself wishing for a little more horror here. It'd be fun to let PCs rest here a few times before they uncover some big horrors. You mention that Nutri-Paste is an ingredient in making the Stanley's, but it might be better the other way around.

Yet another module I wish had five more pages! All in all, a very fun tool to use for those recovery sessions.

Really fantastic! I'm not sure if this is my #1 or #2, to be honest, but either way, I think it deserves a spot in the winner's circle.

Some quibbles:

- I think there are a few places where, mechanically, this could be stronger. Some of the damage figures given don't gel with the equipment stats in the PSG; for example, Liam's Wrench is 2d10 vs 1d5 for Assorted Tools. Likewise, the health per wounds in the stats are a bit high. 

- I thought the theme could have been a little stronger.

Why I think this really works:

- It's very different than most Mothership modules. Given the amounts of money involved, this seems like a great way to allow a crew on the raggedy edge to reset and replenish.

- The art is really fantastic. Even on the relatively art-free first spread, you use a few strong colours and some very light illustration to generate a huge amount of visual interest. The choice to make it feel like a cult pamphlet is really great, just really well considered and executed. The second spread is even better. I love the way you've centred the artifact in the red and black. The sketch drawings of the characters have a ton of personality. It's real 'worth-a-thousand-words' stuff. 

- The social aspects seem well considered. I like how you've used PC morality (not wanting to indulge Z's violence) to goad them towards danger (Harriet and her poisons).

- Selfish cultists as the monsters and aliens as a distant hypothetical is great.

- Conversion relic is awesome. It could easily be detached for fun, modular use in a home campaign.

I think you should expand this one. I'd love to see more of the cult and the Light Fathers.

Some cool ideas here! There are a couple of places where you could opt into some Mothership-isms, to look a little slicker. For example, the Flesh Stitcher could be -5 Speed, rather than 'dex', or the Strength Check to escape the curator's pin could be a 'STR Check [-]' denoting disadvantage, rather than being at -10. I also caught that the Foundational Relic table has a d10 column, but only six entries. Perhaps two could be merged, and it could come down to a d5 table? The unspoken rules of Mothership Modules seem to be resistant to rolls other than d5s, d10s, and d20s. 

One final Mothership-ism: Armour is usually represented as an AP value rather than a percentage. P.28 of the PSG has the details.

The 'magic items' are all really neat; I could see reaching for this module to use the relic table if my players went really off-road one session. My player brain saw the monofilament talons and immediately thought, 'Aha! I can cut my way out of this tomb into the alien past!' If you end up doing a longer version, I'd love to see more about the moon-bird-curator culture.

I love the design and styling on this one; very slick!

You really nailed the theme! Also, I like the monofiber as a macguffin, very nice.

Feedback: I think a dash of colour might help punch this up a bit. Also, because you don't get the monofiber until the fourth story encounter, some of the locations (like 42, 52) might not make sense if you hit them too early. Maybe a depth-crawl structure could help you add more pacing? Something to consider, if you want to revisit this.

Love this one! Really excited to run it. There are a few points of confusion; I'm having trouble parsing the perspective on the ruin map, and I'm unclear how the red immortal attacks. How does she target light sources?

Still, these are pretty minor quibbles. I love the ancient aliens media company hook, love the decoherence wounds, love the phasing. I'm officially seconding the calls for a longer version.

I like the premise. If I could offer some proof-reading:
- I think you could use a space between 'gutter job' and 'because' on the far right column of the first page, under warden's notes.
- Under Routes, Factions, and NPCs you say 'go the corporal way', when I think you mean to say 'corporate'.
- In the monster statblock, you don't need to the % sign next to combat and instinct.
- Capitalizing things like Sanity Save and Panic Check will help things look more standard.
- Under Detention Cells, you say 'While he don't remember the details of his escape'. Perhaps you mean 'doesn't' or 'won't'?

Other than that, my only critique is that I wish there were more mines! Some twisty tunnels and a cave-in could really make this thing pop.

Hey, thank you for the YouTube deep dive. Much appreciated! It's very cool to see someone reading it for the first time, narrating their experience.

You nailed it! Making it look easy.

Great adventure! I was sucked in right from the map; linking the trees through the basement was an especially nice touch. Lots of big ideas and cool stuff. I'd definitely like to run this one. 

Amazing! I really love the way you've used the hex map on each page, very clever. Great concepts, a lot of super fun stuff.

I love a good insect adventure! I wasn't expecting as much NPC interaction as this adventure delivers, which was a cool twist.

I love the premise! We get a lot of sesame street in my house. I'd love to see a bigger version of this; the procedural nature of it seems like it could really have legs.

What a great premise for an adventure! I'd love to pair this one up with Flickering Fortress for a small micro campaign.

I think this is my favourite so far!

Awesome! The writing is a ton of fun, and the layout is bright and enjoyable.

What a cool idea! You should totally do a follow-up detailing the Lands of Twilight. The table/lizardman is a great bit as well. Does he have any hints or anything for the party? Or is he just a mischievous fellow?

Looks fun! I like how you wrote the rooms right on the map. Lots of really great ideas here.

I'm reading Revelers right now! Congratulations to all jammers and knaves; we did it!

Cool idea!

This looks like a ton of fun. Great core concept, great tables.

I like this one a lot! Did you playtest much? Retrieving cards from the discard pile seems like it would be very powerful. After all the tens and nines come out, it seems like the team would be super powerful, and you'd have a good idea of who could pass what type of challenges.

C37DD984

Thank you everyone!

I really love your art style here.

Fair enough. Once you decode it, it's a journaling game / solo RPG. I know those aren't everyone's idea of an RPG anyways, and this one, in particular, is strange. I understand if it feels too weird to be an RPG.

That said, please don't think this game is only for super-smart people. Anyone with patience (and an internet connection) should be able to solve it. Because we've got some prizes for first five solvers, I don't want to give too many hints publically, but I will offer three tips on getting started:
.
.
.
.
.

1. The upper right area is full of hints and keys.

2. Start with the upper left box and work down that column. The right-hand chapter is the last (and the longest).

3. It's a substitution cipher; each of those strange glyphs corresponds to a letter. I'd start by trying to recognize single-letter words, then try to puzzle out vowels and common endings (like -ing or -ed). Once you've got a few letters, the others should fall into place.

I hope that helps! If you get stuck, please email us at dontplaythisgame@watcherdm.com for private hints. Checking Wikipedia's entries on ciphers and codes might help as well. Good luck and remember:

DON'T PLAY THIS GAME!

Wow, thank you for the kind words!

I love all those suggestions! Honestly, one of the big appeals for us during playtesting was how thin the line was between in-character talk and strategy talk, but obviously, each group will find their own style. Gabe Hernandez wrote QuestionCrawl as a sort of Worldbuilding addendum, but perhaps we should circle back and add a more character-centric version.

Thanks so much for the review! Sorry you found the AI art off-putting; obviously, we used as much illustration as we could get done in the Jam period, but we ultimately decided that the AI offerings were a better option than any other low-cost art we could find, such as clip art. We felt that the product looked better with art on each spread than with the text walls we were getting in the first layout. You may be interested to know that Gabe actually retouched each AI image (I believe); they're all human-AI collaborations.

Glad you enjoyed the writing! It's kind of my first effort at a mystery, so I'm grateful for the feedback. If I take another crack at the genre, I'll be sure to include more clue lines. Thanks again for taking the time to leave a review that is both encouraging and thoughtfully constructive.

This is probably my all-time favourite two-page adventure. I wrote a long-form review of it on my blog, but in brief: Five Stars!

Playtest version of Drawn from the Margins is up! We just had the first playtest, but we'd appreciate anyone else who wants to read or run it giving feedback before we move into final versions. :D

We were somewhere outside of Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the Marginalia began to take hold.