MOTHERSHIP - Brackish After Action Report (part 1/2)
I started a new series of games within our local TTRPG community, focusing on my modest (but growing) collection of Mothership modules. I am running it as an anthology with separate characters for each module (unless I can find a way to connect a character). I get two benefits from this. First, I can cycle different players in for each module (and they don’t feel like they have to commit to a 20 session campaign) and second, I don’t have to invent a reason for characters to continuously experience the worst days of their lives.
For the first entry in the series, I have chosen to run Brackish by Norgad because it’s relatively short and this is my first time as Warden. I was also drawn to the physical artifact of the “pictures” the PCs have to take and the players have to actually draw. I opened sign-ups, prepped the module and ran through the first of two sessions.
First Impressions
Overall, we are enjoying the module. The setting is very interesting and the players are having fun investigating the facility. As a new Mothership Warden, I am finding it easy to work through the locations and feel OK adjusting the pacing and tension.
SPOILERS BELOW THIS POINT
The players are fully committed to solving the logic puzzle of which name belongs to which body. The process of finding clues, narrowing down potential answers, then deciding on what evidence to record has been great for keeping everyone focused. The monster and “face-mirroring” is a great subversion of their expectations and they are having an easy roleplaying their characters’ fear of it.
During Prep
- The layout of the module flows well and was easy to read. I added notes for where somethings could be found (key cards, where the tomato puree went, etc.) but these were fairly minor additions.
- I took the time to highlight everywhere Flotsam could appear in a reflection. Yellow for reflections and pink/yellow striped for places large enough for Flotsam to enter the space. This made it easy to quickly see nearby ingress/egress points and what features could trigger sanity saves as the deep sea diver appears in the reflection.
- I added margin notes for features that were Fear/Sanity/Panic inducing. This helped me as a new Warden to test the PCs often, something I could easily see me forgetting during play.
- I made the decision to change the reason the reactor was offline from coolant (conveniently located in the same room) to fuel rods (located on the lowest floor). It may draw out the scenario too long going down to Aux Room 2 and back to Engineering but I’ll find out if it was a good change to make.
During Play
- I found the room descriptions to be too wordy to use as read aloud text. I felt my descriptions became a bit video-gamey with the room name and the four glowing objects you can interact with. Going into session two, I’ll be preparing more organic room descriptions.
- The players liked the slow build up and fake-outs like the tomato puree or the pimp cycling. They said it lured them into a false sense of security even knowing that they were still playing a horror game. I think there’s plenty of opportunities to bring more of this in (hairline crack appearing on the observation room glass, false positives, etc.) without distracting them from their main task of accounting for the facility’s personnel.
- On the topic of accounting for personnel, the clues given by the module make it easy to match names from the personnel directory to the bodies they find. I was worried that while it was clear to me reading the module, the players would get lost in the details or fabricate connections but so far they have done a good job, mainly due to the good design choices in the module.
- The minimap on each page is helpful but the problem is the player map uses names while the minimap uses numbers. So when the PCs say they want to go to Engineering, I have to flip back to the first page to see which number room that corresponds to. I have now labeled the mini-maps on each page and can recommend Wardens do that as part of their prep.
- The “heartbeat” of the auto-drain pump is a neat concept but didn’t translate well at the table. Once they descend past the ground floor, there is no indication of how high the water has risen and I often didn’t think about it until it was too late (“Oh wait, sorry let’s go back, water starts leaking out of the door as you begin to open, do you want to continue?”). For session two I have changed the heartbeat to 30 minute cycles and have marked at what two points in the hour (i.e. at :15 and :45) that water is at that level. This allows me to glance at the clock and make a quick assessment of water level.
Session two is this week and when that is done, I’ll draft up another post as well as my overall thoughts.