2019.07.29 Mothership

WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.599 Hey everybody, and welcome to just played. This is the podcast where I 2 00:00:04.679 --> 00:00:09.679 recap RPG sessions that I've played in as player or game master. Today I 3 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:14.679 am very excited to be talking about mother ship now. Mother ship is a 4 00:00:14.759 --> 00:00:20.199 horror SCI FI game that has a real osr flavor to it. It's produced 5 00:00:20.199 --> 00:00:24.440 by company called Tuesday night games, who mostly do board games, but this 6 00:00:24.519 --> 00:00:28.800 is their urpg offering and it is a whole lot of fun. I've been 7 00:00:28.839 --> 00:00:32.640 looking forward to playing it for quite a while and today I was lucky enough 8 00:00:32.679 --> 00:00:37.759 to attend an event called RPG roulette, which is an RPG game day that 9 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:41.399 is hosted by a Gamer friend of mine in New York City. It typically 10 00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:45.119 is part of RPG roulette. Will play a couple of RPG's or story games 11 00:00:45.159 --> 00:00:48.840 during the day. Usually we get together on a Saturday, maybe every ten 12 00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:53.479 twelve weeks or so, something like that, and the host then randomly selects 13 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:56.560 one of us to present a game to the rest of the group. This 14 00:00:56.600 --> 00:00:59.320 time around, my Gamer repelled David, got selected to run one of the 15 00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:03.799 Games, so he chose to run mothership and I facilitated a session of companions 16 00:01:03.799 --> 00:01:10.120 tale, which is a gmless fantasy story game that involves a map drawing component. 17 00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:14.359 But I really wanted to talk today about mother ship because I've really been 18 00:01:14.439 --> 00:01:17.120 looking forward to checking it out. Of course, like I said, this 19 00:01:17.159 --> 00:01:22.159 was David that facilitated this game for us and there were three players, including 20 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:27.319 myself. Eric was Oro lamb, the TEAMSTER, Steve was Corporal Paul Plover, 21 00:01:27.599 --> 00:01:33.480 the Marine and I was Dr Blair Harris, the scientist. Now we 22 00:01:33.519 --> 00:01:37.200 did not have an Android, which is the fourth available character class in mother 23 00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:40.400 ship, and I suspect that's in part because David warned us that if one 24 00:01:40.439 --> 00:01:42.239 of us took an Android, we were going to have some knowledge of what 25 00:01:42.280 --> 00:01:46.599 was going on that wouldn't be available to the other players, and I think 26 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:49.760 we all kind of wanted to steer clear a little bit of that secret knowledge 27 00:01:49.799 --> 00:01:53.000 thing, especially because it was the first time we're playing. Our session starting 28 00:01:53.079 --> 00:01:59.200 state was making characters. It is a very kind of traditional Os our style. 29 00:01:59.319 --> 00:02:02.239 Roll stats right down in a row, choose a class which gives you 30 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:06.959 some skill points and you can then pick some skills from a fairly modest but 31 00:02:07.079 --> 00:02:10.680 very reasonable and sci fi flavored group of skills. They could gear load out, 32 00:02:10.759 --> 00:02:15.319 roll a random trinket and the patch that is on your uniform. I 33 00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:17.599 love these cool tables that are in the book. And then you are ready 34 00:02:17.639 --> 00:02:21.400 to go. And because the basic premise of mothership is that we are all 35 00:02:21.400 --> 00:02:24.560 working for corporations trying to earn our next meal, we were assigned a mission 36 00:02:24.639 --> 00:02:30.680 to investigate an asteroid mining facility where they had lost contact with the miners and 37 00:02:30.719 --> 00:02:36.280 they had previously sent a team that they had also lost contact with. So 38 00:02:36.319 --> 00:02:38.280 we were the second team going in and we were prepared that things might have 39 00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:43.840 been ugly or weird down there. But they had to drop us and then 40 00:02:43.879 --> 00:02:46.680 we're going to come back forty eight hours later with a ship that could actually 41 00:02:46.759 --> 00:02:51.520 land on the asteroid to pick us up, along with any survivors that we 42 00:02:51.599 --> 00:02:53.759 might have found. So, as far as plot snobs this goes, we 43 00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:59.120 did our dropoff of the ship and things started to go south right away because 44 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:04.599 our supply drop onto the mining asteroid that we're supposed to be investigating. That 45 00:03:04.639 --> 00:03:07.719 goes wrong and it ends up several miles away and slightly off course of our 46 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:13.759 route to the actual mining facility. So we trudge over there and by the 47 00:03:13.800 --> 00:03:17.520 time we get there we find out that it's been ransacked, batteries have been 48 00:03:17.639 --> 00:03:22.919 ripped out of anything that had batteries in them. Are Munitions are all stolen 49 00:03:22.960 --> 00:03:25.599 and of course there's no answer from the base that we're supposed to go check 50 00:03:25.599 --> 00:03:30.479 out. We see some tracks from what looks like a sledge or sled or 51 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:34.680 something of some kind in the dust, but we decide we're probably better off 52 00:03:34.759 --> 00:03:38.719 heading straight to the base because our supplies have been stolen, including all of 53 00:03:38.719 --> 00:03:40.319 our extra oxygen, and we don't want to be caught out on the source 54 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:44.879 of the asteroid as we're running out of air. So we decide to head 55 00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:47.319 straight forward base. Of course, there's no answer from the base on any 56 00:03:47.360 --> 00:03:51.400 of our calms. So we trudge over there and we discover that there's a 57 00:03:51.439 --> 00:03:54.400 security lockout which we are able to hack and get our way into the base. 58 00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:59.599 Once we get in there, we discovered that the upper levels are deserted 59 00:03:59.599 --> 00:04:02.879 and there are the strange alien egg sacts all over the place, or at 60 00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:08.680 least we speculate that their exacts. By scientist character presumes that there are some 61 00:04:08.759 --> 00:04:15.480 kind of exacts through these round rubbery biological formations ranging in size from no larger 62 00:04:15.519 --> 00:04:20.040 than like a bed to around the diameter of a Ping Pong Ball. They 63 00:04:20.079 --> 00:04:25.519 don't seem to be bothered by either extreme heat or extreme cold, and when 64 00:04:25.560 --> 00:04:29.879 we put them out through the airlock into the vacuum there's no discernible reaction from 65 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:33.439 them or anything like that. So we take a few as samples and proceed 66 00:04:33.519 --> 00:04:36.759 to start to explore the base because we need to figure out where everybody is, 67 00:04:38.079 --> 00:04:42.079 but we do elect to keep all of our VAC suits on. Despite 68 00:04:42.079 --> 00:04:46.160 the fact that life support seems to be working fine, every single battery in 69 00:04:46.199 --> 00:04:49.839 the place has been ripped from whatever it was powering and either stolen or smashed 70 00:04:49.879 --> 00:04:54.519 up. That's the first super weird thing that we encounter as we start exploring 71 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:58.079 the upper level and we check out the garage. We make our way from 72 00:04:58.079 --> 00:05:01.319 the garage to the barracks, and in the barracks that is where we find 73 00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:08.360 a bunch of bloody mess but no bodies. There was clearly some kind of 74 00:05:08.360 --> 00:05:12.680 serious carnage, but it's not really clear what caused it, just that there's 75 00:05:12.680 --> 00:05:15.800 a lot of blood, including on a couple of the beds, more than 76 00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:18.639 enough blood to indicate that whoever it came from, they are certainly dead now. 77 00:05:18.759 --> 00:05:24.360 So as we're making these discoveries, the stress is starting to accumulate on 78 00:05:24.360 --> 00:05:28.519 our character sheets. That's a marker of running into things that we are having 79 00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:30.800 trouble processing, that are causing US stress, and that's kind of starting to 80 00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:35.199 ratch up on all three of our sheets. Exploration of the kitchen shows that 81 00:05:35.279 --> 00:05:40.519 there's still some food left, but that the survival ready stuff has all been 82 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:46.560 grabbed and taken away. THE COOKING GAS is entirely depleted. Forage ahead and 83 00:05:46.639 --> 00:05:50.279 discover maps and other records of the activity there. There's some paper records, 84 00:05:50.319 --> 00:05:55.319 including reports and stuff like that. And of course, in a discovery that 85 00:05:55.360 --> 00:06:00.879 surprises none of us, it turns out there wasn't actually any mercury rebeing mined 86 00:06:00.959 --> 00:06:05.000 here, like our initial reports said there was, but there is a mysterious 87 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:12.439 fault line directly under the station that they recently started exploring. The next room 88 00:06:12.439 --> 00:06:16.160 reveals the mangled carcass of a marine from the previous team that was sent to 89 00:06:16.199 --> 00:06:20.639 figure out what was going on here. He is completely shredded, as if 90 00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:27.120 by some pretty sharp claws, and his weapons are just gone. No grenades, 91 00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:30.120 no sidearm, no machine gun. So we pull his body CAM and 92 00:06:30.160 --> 00:06:33.959 plug it into the armor of our own marine, the corporal, and the 93 00:06:33.959 --> 00:06:38.639 footage shows that he was exploring the level just below the one where we are 94 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:46.000 now when he was attacked by this swarm of Ravenous Batlike xenomorphs, whose claws 95 00:06:46.160 --> 00:06:50.920 just peeled open his combat armor pretty efficiently before he was then ripped shreds himself 96 00:06:50.959 --> 00:06:55.959 as he tried to retreat to safety. So at this point we all agree 97 00:06:56.000 --> 00:07:00.600 that we've seen enough to issue a report and that it is time to leave. 98 00:07:00.720 --> 00:07:05.720 Our teamster start sealing doors behind us with his laser cutter, but someone 99 00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:11.199 behind one of them starts hollering at US and it turns out that there is 100 00:07:11.240 --> 00:07:15.800 a survivor, which we did not know and did not expect. So we 101 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:20.120 frantically unseal the door, free them and they turn out to be director Leblat, 102 00:07:20.120 --> 00:07:25.360 who's the Admin of the original facility, who turns out survived by locking 103 00:07:25.360 --> 00:07:30.639 herself into her office after divesting herself of all combustible material bills, because that 104 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:34.639 is what the zenomorphs eat. We had some suspicion that, but she has 105 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:41.120 confirmed it. She describes the bat things that we saw as offspring of a 106 00:07:41.160 --> 00:07:46.920 massive egg laying queen that she fled from inside the base that seems to be 107 00:07:46.040 --> 00:07:51.120 lurking around in the tunnels beneath the base and actually outside on the surface of 108 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:56.720 the asteroid. She also agrees with us that eat is time to go, 109 00:07:57.040 --> 00:08:01.680 so we all head back to the top level and spend an extremely unpleasant forty 110 00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:07.199 hours all crammed together into an airlock, hopped up on stems to keep us 111 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:16.000 awake and watching for zenos either coming from inside the facility or outside on the 112 00:08:16.040 --> 00:08:20.879 asteroid. Are Pick up finally arrives and we frantically radio them. Don't pick 113 00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:26.480 US up. First make an ordinance and fuel drop about a click away from 114 00:08:26.519 --> 00:08:30.879 the base, then come dust us off. They are confused, but they 115 00:08:30.959 --> 00:08:35.440 do it just like we asked them to, and as we ascend up and 116 00:08:35.480 --> 00:08:39.320 away from the asteroid, we look down to see a nine foot tall leather 117 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:45.759 kite of an alien with a wingspan probably twice that, just ripping into the 118 00:08:45.799 --> 00:08:50.320 supply drop, and we all agree that the two missing text that we might 119 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:54.639 possibly have left behind on the surface there's certainly already dead and so there's no 120 00:08:54.679 --> 00:08:58.279 point in going back for them. As far as ending fictional state on this 121 00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:01.399 one goes, we finished with a mininal scene on the rescue ship kind of 122 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:07.120 looking down at the alien, but with Dr Leblack clearly eyeing the controls waiting 123 00:09:07.200 --> 00:09:11.080 for her chance to turn the ship around and, I don't know, crash 124 00:09:11.080 --> 00:09:15.360 it into the alien go back for her men. We never did find out, 125 00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:18.279 but that was kind of our cliffhanger ending for this session. Favorite other 126 00:09:18.279 --> 00:09:26.840 player moment was Eric Played The teamster as this crotchety work a verse lifer. 127 00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:31.559 The very first words out of his mouth when we hit the asteroid and his 128 00:09:31.639 --> 00:09:37.600 character realized that our supply drop wasn't with us and said okay, so you'll 129 00:09:37.679 --> 00:09:41.240 go get it and I'll just wait here right and it was pretty hilarious. 130 00:09:41.360 --> 00:09:45.039 And then he kind of kept that up through the whole thing. But right 131 00:09:45.080 --> 00:09:50.440 from the jump having the teamster be a kind of stereotypical teamster was pretty funny. 132 00:09:50.440 --> 00:09:54.080 We're all from New York City and so we got a good laugh out 133 00:09:54.080 --> 00:09:56.480 of that. As far as my favorite jamming moment goes, David did some 134 00:09:56.759 --> 00:10:03.720 tweaks to the preprepped adventure that he had brought along in response to our going 135 00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:09.559 a different direction than he had necessarily expected. But I particularly liked that he 136 00:10:09.639 --> 00:10:15.039 didn't stand in the way of our just beating feet and only showing us the 137 00:10:15.039 --> 00:10:18.799 alien as we took off and saw it down there on the surface, rather 138 00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:22.799 than forcing us into a confrontation with it. I liked that he wasn't married 139 00:10:22.879 --> 00:10:26.639 to any preordained outcome and he really did let our decisions drive the climax of 140 00:10:26.679 --> 00:10:31.759 the story, entirely independent of what for ending he might have originally had in 141 00:10:31.799 --> 00:10:35.240 mind. I really like that. As far as missed opportunity on this one, 142 00:10:35.399 --> 00:10:39.080 to paraphrase, it turned out this wasn't a stand up fight but just 143 00:10:39.159 --> 00:10:43.840 another bug hunt. David played totally fair with the scenario, which was cool, 144 00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:50.120 but it did mean that we got a neat ending where we felt smart 145 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:56.120 for having survived and avoiding a confrontation with the alien. But we definitely didn't 146 00:10:56.200 --> 00:11:01.440 engage some of the mechanics, most notably the combat in fear rules, that 147 00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:05.919 are at the heart of longer term play, of mother ship of this game, 148 00:11:05.919 --> 00:11:09.559 of the stuff that makes it feel like an Osr game and in particularly 149 00:11:09.679 --> 00:11:13.120 a horror Os our game. I definitely want to see if I can get 150 00:11:13.159 --> 00:11:20.039 into a session or three that leans more into the Horror Action Angle of the 151 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:26.840 game than the avoiding an alien stalker mode that we had today. The game 152 00:11:26.879 --> 00:11:30.919 that we played today was alien. I'm looking forward to getting into a session 153 00:11:31.039 --> 00:11:35.000 of aliens sometime in the future and I think this system can definitely handle both 154 00:11:35.039 --> 00:11:39.639 of those things. So the thing I noticed today's adventure was a pretty tense 155 00:11:39.679 --> 00:11:46.360 and fun investigation avoid the monster session. It had a very haunted house or 156 00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:50.360 slasher movie feel to it and that was a ton of fun. But it 157 00:11:50.440 --> 00:11:54.399 betrayed one of the major problems that I have run into with those kind of 158 00:11:54.399 --> 00:12:01.000 scenarios, especially in one shots like the one we played today. We were 159 00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:07.759 so focused on the suspense, on uncovering the clues and avoiding the critter and 160 00:12:07.799 --> 00:12:13.000 getting ourselves out safely, that we completely alighted anything that would have connected us 161 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:18.720 to each other personally and even, to some extent, professionally. We had 162 00:12:18.759 --> 00:12:24.440 individual personalities, as evidenced by Eric's Surley teamster and Steve's decision to play his 163 00:12:24.519 --> 00:12:31.480 marines a practicing Christian, and my note to the other players that my scientist 164 00:12:31.600 --> 00:12:37.039 character was a fan of Viking themed Romance Novels. But our engagement once we 165 00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:43.519 hit the ground was largely limited to making suggestions to each other and conveying information 166 00:12:43.559 --> 00:12:48.080 to each other, as transummitted by David as the game master, who's called 167 00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:54.639 the warden in mother ship. It came into just shockingly sharp focus for me 168 00:12:54.039 --> 00:13:01.360 when we finally found and rescued the director Leblat, and the game suddenly opened 169 00:13:01.480 --> 00:13:05.240 up for all of us and we all just were engaged at a totally different 170 00:13:05.320 --> 00:13:09.720 level, like a dimmer switch had gotten suddenly cranked up to maximum. We 171 00:13:09.720 --> 00:13:16.039 were certainly enjoying ourselves, but the injection of that extra character made us realize 172 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:20.240 that we were only enjoying ourselves on one level. We had been having fun 173 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:24.960 play acting at being scared and creeping through this death trap asteroid facility, but 174 00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:31.720 the introduction of just that one MPC just the one gave us all something to 175 00:13:31.759 --> 00:13:35.799 push against and opened up all sorts of possibilities. The three of US had 176 00:13:35.799 --> 00:13:41.600 basically play ourselves into a situation where we were a really good team and we 177 00:13:41.639 --> 00:13:46.240 had no reason to be at logger heads or get into any kind of conflict 178 00:13:46.279 --> 00:13:50.519 with each other. But this new character just upset that dynamic and we all 179 00:13:50.559 --> 00:13:56.080 immediately latched onto it and got some really fun play out of that. Last 180 00:13:56.120 --> 00:13:58.759 little bit of the game. This is a lesson that I relearn all the 181 00:13:58.799 --> 00:14:03.440 time, but it is worth repeating every time I learn it. It's almost 182 00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:09.879 never enough to just have the PC's be the only ones bouncing off of each 183 00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:16.320 other, especially in a stressful situation where cooperation is the best strategy for survival, 184 00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:20.279 as it is in mother ship. Throw your GM characters at them asap 185 00:14:20.639 --> 00:14:26.080 in any situation like this so that you can activate those triangle relationships and make 186 00:14:26.120 --> 00:14:31.480 their plans messy right from the jump. So that's all for this episode. 187 00:14:31.600 --> 00:14:33.960 Thanks very much for listening. If you're enjoying the show, please rate and 188 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:37.480 review it where we have found it. Because I played this is part of 189 00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:39.799 a home game. There's not going to be a video of this session available, 190 00:14:39.840 --> 00:14:43.039 but do please check the show notes to see where you can pick up 191 00:14:43.080 --> 00:14:46.480 your own copy of mother ship. As always, you can follow me on 192 00:14:46.519 --> 00:14:50.120 twitter at him likes games, and by Games from me at my website, 193 00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:54.639 Jim Likes Gamescom or at a convention I attend as a vendor. That is 194 00:14:54.679 --> 00:14:58.639 absolutely the best way to support the show. Now, if you'll excuse me, 195 00:14:58.080 --> 00:15:01.799 I'm going to go to Gen and CON and play another game