This past weekend was my local convention, U-Con, and I thought that I'd offer some post-con analysis.
First off, here was the schedule of games I ran:
Friday, 900-1300: [redacted] - Terror in D.C.
Friday, 1400-1800: NGR - A Thousand Dead Babies
Saturday, 900-1300: NGR - Gnomes of Levnec
Saturday, 1400-1800: Mothership - Dead Planet
I also played in a Scooby-Doo LotFP game on Friday night, wherein we had to uncover the secrets of Velma's family during her sister's wedding preparations. That was an immensely enjoyable game, even if the ending had to be a bit rushed due to time. I did meet a cool group of people who are local to the area, so if they're reading this, they should get in touch so we can maybe try to get some local gaming going.
Anyway, more on the games I ran:
Terror in D.C. [redacted]:
[redacted] is Z's upcoming modern-day horror game. The rules are currently available to backers in a barely readable Word document (which is where the awesome Shawn Cheng comes in.) Using this, I devised a simple scenario involving a member of the House of Representatives. Perhaps the highlight of this session was the party hiding out in a Starbucks while staking out the Dunkin' Donuts across the street.
I absolutely love the mechanics, which are dirt-simple. Instead of everyone using their own dice, having the community tarot cards with their pictorial implications led to a greater degree of player buy-in, I feel. My main self-criticism is that I didn't call for many Calm checks (read: sanity rolls), especially when things got especially stressful for the characters.
What I loved about this game was that I made nearly everything about it up on the fly. I had a starting scene and an underlying horror, and the rest developed at the table. Not only does this mean that I'm more confident in improvising entire game sessions, but also that it is possible to improvise a majority of an investigative scenario. This is immensely satisfying.
A Thousand Dead Babies (Neoclassical Geek Revival):
The ultimate in introductory adventures for NGR (see previous blog post), as well as Zzarchov's adventure design style. I was fresh off a playtest of this adventure from earlier in the week, thanks to a group of friends in Lansing who run games every other Monday. I live just far enough away from Lansing that getting up there to see them is rarity, but fortunately they let me run the adventure through once.
This second incarnation of the game absolutely followed none of the path that the first game did. But it was just as awesome. They went the full murderhobo route, and it was a blast nonetheless.
The game introduces the NGR system fairly well. I had already put together a 4-panel GM screen, although I would probably also put together a one-page player handout to explain the basics and refer back to periodically during the session. Despite the system's elegance, there's a lot of things to teach yourself over and over again until it all "clicks." I may work on this project before running future games of NGR for newbies.
The Gnomes of Levnec (Neoclassical Geek Revival):
This is a game I ran last year, although I was using LotFP rules then. This time, I had a bit more experience under my belt, and I was able to take advantage of the NGR system, which lends itself pretty well to this scenario. Last year, there was basically a PCs-vs-the-Mob situation, and I felt like things were going to get out of hand quickly. I did one of the worst things imaginable and basically asked the players not to go off the rails with it. If the same scenario had arisen this time around, I would have been better equipped because of NGR's clear support of social conflict situations.
Like the A Thousand Dead Babies game, this second time through the adventure resulted in almost no overlap between what the two groups of players did. Both were violent, although this one did not end in a TPK. Instead, it was the party that inflicted mass violence on many NPCs
One thing I should note about both of these Zzarchov games is that each group expressed worry that they weren't following the narrative path of the adventure correctly. I then gleefully relayed the fact that the scenario in question was a miniature sandbox full of gunpowder.
Lastly, I only found out after the fact that I had run a game for an occasional online contact, Paul Gorman. Hi, Paul!
Dead Planet (Mothership):
OK, so oddly enough, this one was originally scheduled for 8PM-Midnight. That wasn't gonna happen for a guy who normally wakes up at 5:30AM on weekdays. So, I got this slot moved to 2PM-6PM. But that probably threw some people off, and I didn't get the requested minimum of players. Rather than just dissolve it, though, I was fortunately able to add my players to Bardaree's table in the ConTessa room thanks to her generosity. Likewise, I joined some of my former players from the Gnomes game at Stacy Dellorfano's table to playtest their city crawl project...
The Incompetent Watchmaker (LotFP):
This was my final game and I'm glad that Stacy let me sit in at their table. I will keep the appraisal very brief, but I can tell you that this is shaping up to be a fantastic supplement. Stacy added a number of real-world references from the city of Bern, Switzerland, which gave a good sense of grounding in reality. Meanwhile, the final encounters actually creeped/grossed me out in a way that no one else in RPGs has managed to do. I also really liked the tick-box customization of pregenerated characters (e.g., choose three starting weapons from this list, and so forth.) One of the smoother LotFP games I've played in.
Other Stuff
While I had a blast at the con while I wasn't at the gaming table, I will say that one of the highlights was getting to re-meet Chris Spivey (author of Harlem Unbound) at the bar. (We had met briefly at the ENnies earlier this year). This time we had a bit of a conversation about our U-Con experiences and we got to discuss a few aspects of running and writing RPG material. 10/10 would chat with again.
And now I'm back to my regular gaming routine once again, with my usual dose of post-convention gaming enthusiasm. I think my goals for the near future will be to continue familiarization with all the various aspects of the NGR system, and eventually writing an actual adventure for it. I may start by writing system-specific content on this blog, so keep your eyes peeled.
Showing posts with label Mothership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mothership. Show all posts
Friday, November 16, 2018
Friday, June 29, 2018
Mothership: A Review
There has been a post going around Google+ this week that has discovered one of the main things the OSR needs is more reviewers. I doubt I will ever become a regular reviewer because honestly, I don't have the time to read that much RPG material. God help me if I ever became an ENnies judge.
(Dear ENnies selection committee, call me maybe and let's do lunch)
With that in mind, I decided to review something for the first time. It's a good excuse for me not only to stay active with the blog, but also to stay on top of things within the OSR community. So that's why I decided to buy and review Sean McCoy's Mothership, a Science Fiction Horror RPG.
So I will start this review with a very important declaration: Broadly speaking, I hate science fiction. I have certain exceptions, however. For example, I greatly enjoy Dune (at least the original novel) and Star Wars, although I see them more as science fantasy and adventure, respectively. The only other sci-fi I genuinely and regularly enjoy falls into the subgenre that overlaps with horror. The original Alien (1979) film is superb, and one of my guilty pleasures is the 90's cult classic, Event Horizon (1997). Both are set in space and deal with horror themes.
Note that I could also include the films The Thing (1982) and The Fly (1986) but those are slightly less relevant. The point is, couple space sci-fi with a horror of the unknown and I'm way more likely to be emotionally invested when compared to an episode of Star Trek.
Enter Mothership. I purchased this at my local game store for $15 although it's also available as a pay-what-you-want PDF (link). My version came printed on very nice paper with a cardstock cover along with four collectible monster cards, with stats and descriptions for each monster pictured. More on this below.
First off, I love a lot of the presentation here. The typeface is a clean Helvetica (or similar), with good use of bold emphasis. After many sections is a note telling you where more relevant content can be found (e.g., "For more on combat, see p. XX"). With a lack of an index, this is quite helpful if something is left unanswered by the end of the paragraph. However, I've noticed that the PDF has no document links if you try to click on these. Hopefully that's something that will get worked into a future revision.
But probably the best bit of design is the character sheet. Holy shit, do I love the character sheet for this game. It literally walks you through the entire process of creating a character by effectively making it a flow chart. You can see it on mothershiprpg.com so you know what I'm talking about. The concept is brilliant - just follow the arrows and you will cover all of your character creation basics. This minimizes time spent looking through rules. I have played some RPGs where entire sessions were wasted on character creation. For a game that isn't simply a variation of D&D, Mothership is efficient even by OSR standards.
The artwork is also quite good, although the style seems a touch inconsistent at times. I do have to give Sean a big kudos as he also did all the artwork, according to the credits.
As for the system, the game only uses d10's and the d10's which increase in multiples of ten. The latter is denoted by an underline, i.e., d10. This sometimes comes in handy for the massive amounts of damage some weapons can do, for example. The four stats are determined via a roll of 6d10. (expected value = 33.) This gives you a stat you often must roll under. So statistically speaking, you should succeed at things 1/3 of the time. Compared to Traveller's target number of 8+ on 2d6 (41.7%), Mothership seems to lean more difficult. However, there's also a skill system. Each skill you have can raise your stat check depending on what level skill it is.
In a mere 40 pages, there's also a stress/sanity/panic mechanic, rules for mercenaries, a bunch of space guns, and rules for building spaceships.
Let's talk about spaceships. In my experience, they're hard to incorporate into RPGs. There are either not enough options, or as is more often the case, they take forever and a day to design. Instead of the usual hassle, Mothership kind of treats spaceships as big characters, which is a smart move. The ship even has its own worksheet similar to the character sheet. A ship can be statted out fairly quickly, even if you don't immediately know its layout. However, the game provides you rules for drawing your ship's plans using the results of the worksheet. Undoubtedly a fun activity to do between sessions.
But there's one major thing that's missing from this game, in my opinion: what to actually do with all this stuff. I mean, I can appreciate the timeless tactic of simply coming up with things on the fly, but we're left with no ideas on what sorts of things to try with these rules, especially given the fact that it's a horror game. (You don't want to accidentally make things a cakewalk for your players.) There are plenty of examples demonstrating individual mechanics in action, but no sense of the game itself in action. I'm sure that once I came up with a good adventure idea, I could probably run this, but I have to admit it's a bit difficult to get my brain gears turning with the rules as they are. The mosnter cards that came with the print version definitely help, although you don't get these with the PDF.
To put it a different way, I'd hate to set out to run a Mothership campaign only to have it end up feeling like a Traveller campaign.
I'm curious to see the future of this game, especially since it's branded as an Alpha release. I expect that the developers will be refining and further developing the game in the future.
The good stuff:
- Layout and readability.
- Available as a pay-what-you-want PDF.
- Uses only d10's (I love d10's )
- most mechanics seem simple yet intuitive
The bad stuff:
- Typos and errors in the print version
- Not much guidance for the GM (or "Warden")
4/5 stars because that's what everyone does for everything.
More information to come if I actually playtest something using the game.
(Dear ENnies selection committee, call me maybe and let's do lunch)
With that in mind, I decided to review something for the first time. It's a good excuse for me not only to stay active with the blog, but also to stay on top of things within the OSR community. So that's why I decided to buy and review Sean McCoy's Mothership, a Science Fiction Horror RPG.
Don't let the disco logo fool you.
So I will start this review with a very important declaration: Broadly speaking, I hate science fiction. I have certain exceptions, however. For example, I greatly enjoy Dune (at least the original novel) and Star Wars, although I see them more as science fantasy and adventure, respectively. The only other sci-fi I genuinely and regularly enjoy falls into the subgenre that overlaps with horror. The original Alien (1979) film is superb, and one of my guilty pleasures is the 90's cult classic, Event Horizon (1997). Both are set in space and deal with horror themes.
Note that I could also include the films The Thing (1982) and The Fly (1986) but those are slightly less relevant. The point is, couple space sci-fi with a horror of the unknown and I'm way more likely to be emotionally invested when compared to an episode of Star Trek.
Enter Mothership. I purchased this at my local game store for $15 although it's also available as a pay-what-you-want PDF (link). My version came printed on very nice paper with a cardstock cover along with four collectible monster cards, with stats and descriptions for each monster pictured. More on this below.
First off, I love a lot of the presentation here. The typeface is a clean Helvetica (or similar), with good use of bold emphasis. After many sections is a note telling you where more relevant content can be found (e.g., "For more on combat, see p. XX"). With a lack of an index, this is quite helpful if something is left unanswered by the end of the paragraph. However, I've noticed that the PDF has no document links if you try to click on these. Hopefully that's something that will get worked into a future revision.
But probably the best bit of design is the character sheet. Holy shit, do I love the character sheet for this game. It literally walks you through the entire process of creating a character by effectively making it a flow chart. You can see it on mothershiprpg.com so you know what I'm talking about. The concept is brilliant - just follow the arrows and you will cover all of your character creation basics. This minimizes time spent looking through rules. I have played some RPGs where entire sessions were wasted on character creation. For a game that isn't simply a variation of D&D, Mothership is efficient even by OSR standards.
The artwork is also quite good, although the style seems a touch inconsistent at times. I do have to give Sean a big kudos as he also did all the artwork, according to the credits.
As for the system, the game only uses d10's and the d10's which increase in multiples of ten. The latter is denoted by an underline, i.e., d10. This sometimes comes in handy for the massive amounts of damage some weapons can do, for example. The four stats are determined via a roll of 6d10. (expected value = 33.) This gives you a stat you often must roll under. So statistically speaking, you should succeed at things 1/3 of the time. Compared to Traveller's target number of 8+ on 2d6 (41.7%), Mothership seems to lean more difficult. However, there's also a skill system. Each skill you have can raise your stat check depending on what level skill it is.
In a mere 40 pages, there's also a stress/sanity/panic mechanic, rules for mercenaries, a bunch of space guns, and rules for building spaceships.
Let's talk about spaceships. In my experience, they're hard to incorporate into RPGs. There are either not enough options, or as is more often the case, they take forever and a day to design. Instead of the usual hassle, Mothership kind of treats spaceships as big characters, which is a smart move. The ship even has its own worksheet similar to the character sheet. A ship can be statted out fairly quickly, even if you don't immediately know its layout. However, the game provides you rules for drawing your ship's plans using the results of the worksheet. Undoubtedly a fun activity to do between sessions.
But there's one major thing that's missing from this game, in my opinion: what to actually do with all this stuff. I mean, I can appreciate the timeless tactic of simply coming up with things on the fly, but we're left with no ideas on what sorts of things to try with these rules, especially given the fact that it's a horror game. (You don't want to accidentally make things a cakewalk for your players.) There are plenty of examples demonstrating individual mechanics in action, but no sense of the game itself in action. I'm sure that once I came up with a good adventure idea, I could probably run this, but I have to admit it's a bit difficult to get my brain gears turning with the rules as they are. The mosnter cards that came with the print version definitely help, although you don't get these with the PDF.
To put it a different way, I'd hate to set out to run a Mothership campaign only to have it end up feeling like a Traveller campaign.
I'm curious to see the future of this game, especially since it's branded as an Alpha release. I expect that the developers will be refining and further developing the game in the future.
The good stuff:
- Layout and readability.
- Available as a pay-what-you-want PDF.
- Uses only d10's (I love d10's )
- most mechanics seem simple yet intuitive
The bad stuff:
- Typos and errors in the print version
- Not much guidance for the GM (or "Warden")
4/5 stars because that's what everyone does for everything.
More information to come if I actually playtest something using the game.
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