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Deadnought

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A member registered Mar 26, 2015 · View creator page →

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That's very true. I felt like a d5 (d10/2) was too few. I then thought about doing 1-8 for each of 8 myths and then 1-2 for reroll or something else, but it felt inelegant. Maybe I should just do 5 myths and really flesh them out and make them multifaceted.

I appreciate that you really leaned into A Sol of Our Own. Lots of good background info included. The breadth of the module is impressive, as well. A setting, NPCs, a statted ship, a plague, weapons, and a player class all in a tiny package! My only criticism is that I would like to see the more interesting concepts fleshed out. I want to know more about how Our Quantum Lady works, if the fungus is related or what its origin is, etc. 

Very cool stuff!

Oh, and I was curious if you had any suggestions for making the resets less frustrating for players, if that's even possible given the nature of them.

Thank you! Someone else mentioned that as well. Do you have any suggestions for how to make groundhog day scenarios less frustrating for players?

This is great feedback. Thank you so much. I agree that S4vant may be doing too much work. I originally had a Warden note that his lines can be given to any other characters, but I decided to cut it for space. Sounds like I should re-add it. 

Interesting point about the health. In my playtest, players killed the Bulgasari after it ate the lava tube door away, but killing it caused a reset, putting the door back, so maybe I shouldn't have reality reset if a myth is destroyed. Or I could just simplify it, get rid of stats, and make it clear to players that they're not going to kill any of them. 

The myths do take up too much space! This is honestly due to d10s being the standard die lol. I really didn't want to remove the flavor text for the myths, but maybe that is necessary to free up some space for the actual adventure. 

Thank you for taking the time and providing thoughtful criticism!

Thank you! This is exactly what I'm looking for. I really appreciate it.

Regarding the deaths, I was thinking that it would be better to have a delay so that the resets occur just after a death, and in fact that's how I ran it when I playtested it, but this creates a problem where I need to have a content warning for child death, which i think would turn off a lot of people. I would remove children from the module, but the youngest being the only remaining conscious colonists is important for the explanation of the "illness," that it's caused by forming too many memories and that children have more space to form them. 

I think my wording for Baba Yaga might be confusing. It just means that of the PCs and colonists that remain conscious, she goes after the youngest. Most likely that will be the 12-year-old, but you never know who people will play as. 

I don't know if I've prevented the groundhog day scenario frustration, but I've tried to put in multiple ways to solve problems. For example to get into the lava tube, you can disable the power (it's a power-locked door), have the Bulgasari eat its way in, (it's metal), or convince Kwame to let you in. I was going to also give Jedda a key to the door, that she presumably got from the mayor, her dad, but didn't have room. 

For getting up to the greenhouse, I did a worse job. You can use the fabrication machines to build something, which is what my players did. I also thought you may be able to have the Sluagh pick you up and drop you there, but they're going the wrong way. You couldn't just get the repair tech to fix it, since I described the cabling as snapped and coiled on the ground and they'd have to climb up to replace it. And because the polyhedron is in the greenhouse, you can't yet combine myths to have the rain cool the lava flow enough to climb it, say. 

Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time! Lots to work on and tweak after the jam.

Thank you! Yes, I used up a lot of room on the myths, which was really because the standard die is a d10 lol. Previous drafts had hooks and more guidance. It makes me think I should expand it after the jam.

I mean, this is a professional work, by three of the biggest names in the Mothership/TTRPG scene. I wouldn’t be surprised if this one won. It’s unsurprisingly excellent. No notes. 

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This module has solid setups for fun gameplay and explosive combat. I like that you could have two or three distinct phases, getting the TCU from the mine, hiding in the asteroid field, and ship-to-ship combat. Very cool. I also like the mechanics for powering and moving the TCU.

Some questions and feedback I had:

  • The "Thermal Containment Unit" panel and "Why Are We Here?" panels could be swapped, since the former will be read before the latter and it's an entire panel about a device that the front panel doesn't mention, but then you'd need to explain what "TCU" meant in the Why Are We Here panel.
  • The screen effect over the text made it hard for me to read. I had to zoom in.
  • #20 on the fault table may be too extreme. You could lose the whole module with one die roll, which may be frustrating for some.
  • I don't know if you need to note that the captain of the Promethean Flight is unknown. I also found the layout for the last two panels to be confusing. The Promethean Flight panel says the captain is unknown, but then Cpt. Faust is listed under its description. I'm also not sure which ship would have the corp marines vs merc marines. I'm guessing that because Cpt Faust doesn't like pirates, the Eagle Gallant is the corp ship, right? 

I like the tone of the module. It would suit a more grounded military man/working class campaign.

First off, I said this before, but I just absolutely love the design. The colors and art are fantastic. Everything about the module is very polished and I could see it being sold. The writing and mechanics are really solid. 

The questions under Implant Insights are a great mechanic for defining the visions, encouraging roleplaying, and keeping things fresh.

I wonder if the room descriptions could be arranged to roughly follow map layout and still have logical numbering. I got confused for a moment because the text blocks seem to line up well with the map, but reactor core and chrysalis are swapped, for example. Wait, I just noticed that the reactor core is 7 on the map and 8 in the description.

I also had some questions about how things worked:

  • How did she or could she change her mind/programming over a prolonged period of idle maintenance? Maybe there was an external factor that was the catalyst?
  •  How does she make the planet wintry? And, if they gave her the ability to change the planet's climate, I wondered why they wouldn't just have her make it warmer.
  • Does being in the cryopod make Raz immune to the visions? If the Cryohalls are immune to her influence like the Wellspring, I missed that.
  • Where do players get the data chip? 
  • How would players know that the terminals in the Wellspring do different things?
  • Why does using a different reactor (power source, right?) power Morana down?

Great job, though! I love it.

I really like the visual design of this, there are great concepts at play, and the enemies and tone are frightening. 

There may be too many quotes and too much descriptive writing though, which feels weird to say, It really works as an evocative, experimental piece, but reading as a warden wanting to be able to quickly get a sense of how to run it, I hit some snags when trying to distill the content into actionable information. 

Some questions I had:

  1. What do you mean when you say the module is a "tragedy witnessed through Unconfirmed Contact Reports?"
  2. Can you describe the Cassette Cache puzzles and how they're used/played?
  3. What do you do with the Astronav Cartography Feed? Do people watch it and report if there are issues with ships approaching the watchtower?
  4. Is the Fort Lot a play place for children? 

I liked the note about cults and faith. TTRPGS too often treat cultists like faceless cannon fodder. I think you could remove the "be respectful" part though. It feels a bit like an admonition, which could rub some people the wrong way.

Ultimately, I think this module is a flavorful and effective artistic statement. Good job!

This has a really fun, funny, and unique tone, especially for a mothership module. The juxtaposition between the goofy professor and what you need to do to him is pretty funny. 

The art is great, but the layout needs more polish. I think the readability suffers a bit because terms are used before being defined. The Sacrifice and Lightning Curse are mentioned before they're explained, for example. Some minor rearrangement of the text would resolve that.

I also think you need to shrink the pyramid so the text doesn't have to go over it. Maybe shrink it to the bottom middle, put some numbers in the rooms and then have room numbered descriptions arching over it. Like this:

 

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!

To be clear, you did a great job. The keying is well thought out and clever,  it’s just dense.

Your art is good. I really like the art for the masked people (I’m not looking at the module right now, so I forget what they’re called). 

I hope you continue making modules. 

I like the minimalist design and layout. Classic look. I think it's easy to read and is a solid adventure. I'm always a fan of memetic hazards/infohazards. I think the psychosis may be too strong though. Losing eyeballs in level 2 is a lot. And if blood and bile are pouring out your ears, that seems immediately terminal.

I like the tables and diagetic hinting. Also I love that you also used the word "organometallic" in your module. 

Having alcohol delay the effects is fun. This could almost be a drinking game.

What do you mean by "Give them a juicy clue from this one," exactly?

Great job!

Thank you so much for your kind words. You've made my day. 

I should have said "the first reset occurs immediately after meeting S4vant." I'll have to fix that. Or, I'll just change it to "while" as you suggested, since I don't have the space.

It was my intention that it wasn't time that's being reset, just how reality is currently structured. In my head, the remaining colonists are just resigned to their fate (except for Phin) and have kind of just shut down. They've all seen hundreds of bizarre and horrifying things happen and they've even been hurt and may have even 'died' before.  But, now that you mention it, I think 3 weeks is probably too long, so I will shorten it. 

Thank you again!

This is such a huge work in a small package. I think the effect of that however is that it's very dense. A single area has many symbols and text formats that need to be kept in mind. Some small tweaks could be made to improve the readability, but overall I think it's excellent. If you had room, one tweak I might make is to just say "to B2" after the "Type" symbol. That way you don't even need to mention "To" in the key. 

Everything has had so much thought put into it. It's really an impressive accomplishment. I could easily see this being published and sold. One thing that is more of a personal preference, but I think it could use different cover/main art. Everything else is so polished, it just doesn't feel like it's up to the level of the rest of it. Not that it's bad, the rest of the package is just so good.

I said this in the discord, but I love this concept and execution I hope you can expand it more after the jam. This could be something really special that I don't think we've seen much before, if at all. If you drew the sketches, I hope you really go all out with art. I'll be following you to see how this develops.

Old-school essentials is a system that uses a specific style for presenting information for their modules. They use bolded words and then explanations in parentheses for example. I just noticed that and was curious. 

Oh, that is all great! Maybe expand it to a zine after the jam so you can include it.

Great design and very cool mechanics. I like the ticking clock and effects of heat. I'm assuming the ancient myth is gremlins, right? They're a fun way to raise the stakes. 

Presentation is good but it's dense and I was lost a couple of times. Since the module conditions key and map is on a different page than the descriptions, I was having to flip back and forth to try to piece things together. I also forgot that the numbers in diamonds were for module conditions and not for the map locations. Maybe it would help if they were a different color?

Does the blue Special Rules header mean that the rest of the headers on that panel are part of it? Maybe Module Conditions and Installing Cables etc could be smaller subheaders to make that clearer. 

It's jam-packed with gameplay. I think this would be a blast to run.

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Very imaginative! It feels like a sci fi Backrooms with elements of Annihilation with creative additions and evocative writing. 

Are the mundane office items in Cubespace the infection from outside vectors you were referring to? 

Some of the descriptions were a little too obscure or esoteric for me. I don't know who Louis Quail or Steven Ahlgren are, and it took me a moment to understand what you meant by "hypnogogic transference," for example. I think some of the description of the cube from the front panel could be moved inside as well, and that space could be used for a broader overview of the module. 

Would only someone with six fingers on one hand be able to initiate the transference outside of slickware, or does it just mean six fingers total?

Very refreshing, light-hearted and even a bit whimsical! Great art and design. I love how videogame-y it is with the colored keycards and puzzles. A fun investigation with lots of opportunities for combat and action.

I did think the color key was a little hard to see on the map though, but that would probably be an easy problem to fix. 

Is it based on an existing real-world myth, or is the myth just that this prison has been around for hundreds of years?

Dang, quantum vampire is a cool idea. Evocative descriptions and exciting concepts.

Good integration of mechanics. I liked how different skills conferred bonuses or provided clues. 

I really like how you incorporated scientific concepts into gameplay. Decoherence is great. Being forced to essentially reroll your character as you play is really clever.   

I also liked how you used quantum superpositionality for multiple gameplay mechanics! But for defeating the immortal, I though that the clue may be a little too vague. Maybe instead of "Bullet through the head," it could be "Bullet through its head," since when I first read it, I immediately though it meant bullet through your own head.

You even specced out the ship so players can use it. This is just so good and well thought out. 

Good module with fun concepts, descriptions, and interactivity. Information is well-presented and I liked the diegetic hints for players. Good job providing multiple ways to resolve the situation. 

I had some questions: Was the brass theme to evoke the lamp from the original myth, or was there something else to it?

Is there an in-game reason for Qays to decouple the PC's ship from Galland after Solomon dies?

Good job!

This was excellent! I liked the art and your layout and design were great. It really feels like you've read a lot of modules and know how to convey information. 

I only had a couple small issues with the content where I was confused, but I think that was mostly on me. It took me a moment to realize that "mainline solarian mole" meant that he was a spy from the other branch of the religion and was caught somehow. 

I also wasn't quite sure why the pilgrims needed to be ground up. I get that the cycle isn't perfect and they burn more than they produce. Are resources so tight that they can only survive here by producing more energy/calories than they take in? Maybe I missed something.

While reading this, I just kept coming back to how well-executed the information presentation was. I think you're using the OSE house style, or a variant of it?