I am a huge fan of good tables, and this is awash in them. I like that your hooks have payment attached, the random encounters are flavorful, and god that Decoherence table goes HARD. A very clever (if somewhat tedious) mechanic. And you do a great job of rewarding all sorts of skills with specific boons. I also love the geometry of the layout: the sharp angles are very evocative. I found this a little hard to read however; critical information is very spread out, and I would appreciate a summary. This adventure has a lot of great mechanical ideas, but I feel like you don't give them enough room to breathe, and I think a summary could also provide the Warden with really concrete and juicy implications of Decoherence, a quasi-teleported ship, and an extradimensional superpredator.
Lucan1
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This is such a treat to read. Very tongue-in-cheek hypercommercialization satire; evocative of Futurama to temper a game which typically calls to mind Alien and Event Horizon. Definitely a fan of this interpretation of the jam theme. Great thinking with the arcade games; the names alone invite players to flex their skills. I could see this fitting into any number of story arcs, sort of a lotophagic digression. My only note is that I found the text to be a little dense, both in formatting and syntax, making quick information retrieval a little difficult. Maybe break up some paragraphs and pare down a few of the windier sentences? All in all, fantastic work.
The color palette is sublime: evocative, draws the eye to detail, a striking balance of warm and cold. Cover art reminds of a 60s pulp magazine in the best way. Insectoid art is restrained; invites the viewer to form theories, but is not plainly protagonistic or antagonistic. I love using the chamber effect dice to build the obelisk; that creates very cool and clear mounting tension at the table level which could be represented in-fiction in a number of different ways. The premise is clear and invites a great variety of roleplaying opportunities.
Some notes, though all of them are picking nits off of an overall solid adventure:
CLARITY:
I was a little confused by the term “excav team” because it seems to be used for both the now-cultists as well as the human team of scientists.
It’s possible I missed it, but the connection between opening the chambers and powering up the obelisk seems arbitrary. Perhaps this was the best way to ensure a slow-burning fuse on the obelisk, but I think the adventure would benefit from some more connective tissue between this pivotal player action and the dire consequence.
The layout is a touch rough; I had to backtrack a few times for important context, and the font is smaller than it could be given how much white space you have left over.
MECHANICS:
The “gadget” should have a little more scaffolding around it, otherwise it feels like accidentally stumbling into a silver bullet without much strategy behind it.
I’m not sure what the “Oubliette” is there to do other than give the PCs nightmares. I’d suggest thinking about its function for the aliens and translating that to a few knobs and dials for the players to interact with.
I'm really taken with the design of this game. I'm very invested in divination as a system of uncovering things about myself. The core engine of this game being the result of combining various components is I think very in touch with the type of divining I do, and I get a similar introspective pleasure in playing this. I'm really looking forward to your future work!