Co-Location

Session Notes (04/23/22)

Game: Mothership

Homebrew Module: Co-Location

Players: 3

I had a chance to play online with some friends and run a homebrewed Mothership module

Characters:

Lee, Scientist, “Biohazard” patch and flint hatchet trinket

Minami, Teamster, “Drink, Fight, F**k” patch and golf club trinket

Sizix, Android, “Do You Sign My Paychecks?” patch and Shiv carved from butter knife trinket

Session:

We started by reviewing the safety notes in the WIP rulebook for Mothership, and I pre-emptively “X’ed out” my usual suspects (sexual situations & torture).  We rolled up characters following the 1st edition rules right after, and began playing within about 15-20 minutes of starting.

The mission brief:

The Yoyodyne* Conglomeration has hired you to retrieve a valuable experimental technological prototype stored on one of their ships, The Anubis.  Unfortunately the ship has suffered an accident, and the prototype is still on board.  The Anubis is in the San Narciso system.  Travel there, enter the ship, and retrieve “Prototype H” from the command deck.

I described the players’ ship moving out of hyperspace, and approaching the Anubis.  I asked for a few character notes on what this process looked like from them, and went straight to the description of the ship:

• Visuals - the ship was oddly shaped, bulging in the center.

• Scans - showed life aboard the ship, power was operational, and all systems were functioning.  Anomalous hyperspace readings from the drive and from a location in the center of the ship.  These signs were similar to those of a ship in hyperspace.

• Comms - no responses to any messages, but “Hello, World” was returned in response to every message.

The players surveyed the map and decided to enter the ship through the airlock farthest away from the anomalous readings.  I always insist that in Mothership the airlocks are decorated with personal belongings, photos, and little superstitious accouterments that spacers use to prepare themselves for leaving their ships.  Once inside they discovered some horrible signs of things gone astray: all the photos were oddly shaped, and all the images on them were oddly jumbled: people with too many limbs or facial features, and words were jumbled or confusing.

After exiting the airlock, they split up: Sizix headed to the computer module to find out relevant info on the ship, while Lee and Minami went looking around in the Galley.

Both rooms had the same strange phenomena: furniture was oddly angled or shaped.  Tables were longer, bolts were doubled, and computer towers had computer towers coming out at right angles from them.  All the mind bending strangeness triggered SANITY SAVES.

After successfully getting into the computer, Sizix discovered that there were two ship AIs simultaneously running: one for the Anubis and one for another ship called the Trystero.  Lee and Minami entered the science lab and discovered that it was not a jumbled mess, but contained three humanoids, all of whom had the wrong numbers of limbs, eyes, etc.  They couldn’t move very well, but were angered by the intruders and moved towards them.  Minami and Lee fled to a door that shouldn’t have been there, and exited into a space between an identical lab unit, from another ship.  This lab was empty, but the prototype was running in it at the center.

At this point, the crew began to suspect there were two ships in the same space, or two ships had fused, or something similar.

In the computer room, a four armed, four legged, android with perfectly doubled facial features entered and demanded Sizix join their “collective”.  He refused, escaping the room.  He ran through another module, the command, where the fused captains of the ship fired at him.  Sizix failed to struggle for the gun but started to get away.

Lee and Minami, meanwhile, started reading research logs, and discovered some relevant information (handout):

Yoyodyne Instruction Log

/Receiving Prototype H Signal

Experimental Control of Variables is Critical to Company Profits

Disable all non-jump drives

Initiate jump drive but do not jump

Run program h/receive in ships computer!roll

Monitor local hyperspace and examine computer messaging

Do Not Disable Prototype H until program has also been deactivated

They decided to turn off the program and to disable the prototype.

Sizix escaped into the shaft to take him back down to level one, and opted to let himself fall (in order to go much faster), rather than be caught up to by the fused android. This was catastrophic, as he failed to catch himself and broke his back.  Minami heard him on the comms and went to save him, right as the fused android was arriving.  She pulled Sizix’s logic core out of his head but was grabbed by the fused android, who was angered by her presence.

At this moment, Lee removed the prototype, and the two fused ships began to “unzip”.  Lee fled, and when given the option of saving her comrades, chose to flee to her ship!  Everyone on board was slowly separated, except poor Minami and Sizix, who were not originally onboard.  The unzipping of two co-located spaces ripped them apart.

Survive: 1 out of 3 lived (partial credit)

Solve: They figured out how to remove the prototype, but did not solve what went wrong (partial credit)

Save: the people were unfused and brought back to their respective ships (full credit!)

Warden Notes:

This was a homebrew module, so I was keen to hear the player’s feedback.  The feedback was really positive: they really enjoyed the “physics disaster” as the central plot, rather than a weird alien trying to eat them.  They felt like they were slowly introduced to the problem, and that they started to get a better grip on the situation as they moved through the fused ship.  They felt “clues” were sprinkled neatly throughout and that splitting up, exploring, etc. was rewarded.  Minami’s player remarked that it was awesome that her character died!  And Sizix’s player thought the final moments of the fused android crawling down a shaft towards Sizix’s broken body was suitably terrifying.  Lastly, I was pleased to hear that my text only handouts were useful.  I feel like writing a little bit more about Mothership and handouts later on.

The 1e rules and character creation really worked smoothly, and they “got out of the way” for good playing.  Lee and Sizix’s players were both new to the game, and they agreed that they thought they had the game picked up by the end of it.

There wasn’t much fighting, but when there was, I found the idea of “health” was not necessary.  I used combat rolls to see if something would succeed with or without complication, and used the wound tables depending on the weapon/source of trauma.  I really preferred this, and might in the future just simplify all health to “2 wounds or 3 wounds” and not even bother rolling damage for weapons.  I’ll have to think more about that.

Nobody ended up Panicking, so I can’t comment on that.  Stress accumulation was slow, as they were very successful on most rolls, and only had a few failed saves here and there.  I think the highest stress at the end was 6.  But this is fine!  I don’t think a tense session of Mothership actually requires someone panicking to be successful or fun.  I think the game shines when the players are put in a tight spot, or have a terrible dilemma to face, which falls more heavily on the scenario than on the ruleset.

With the 0e rules, I ran two separate campaigns.  I’d like to try running a new campaign with the WIP 1e rules.  I think this new ruleset will be much easier to run campaigns with, as the stress accumulation is much more manageable.

*so named after the fictional company in The Crying of Lot 49.  Turns out there are now real companies with that name!