Tools of Terror

Alien (1979)

The tools I use to assist my Open Table campaign for Mothership

• Modified Loadout Table

• Taking inspiration from this excellent blog post and my own experiences running Mosh games I created a custom loadout ‘table’. The out-of-the-box loadouts are great but they tend to vary quite widely in terms of useful equipment. Some classes are better than others but in general this prevents loadout 'inequality' between player characters, where some characters have some very good gear and others have next to nothing.
• In general, I prefer not to give the players anything that does more than 2d10 DMG (besides explosives or frag grenades but they're just too much fun). This makes scavenging/upgrading equipment much more attractive. 

• Maps

• Whenever possible, I print two(2) copies of the location map, stick them in a plastic sleeve and distribute them amongst the players. This keeps me sane when the party splits. I also use a tablet when I am unable to (or forget) to print the maps but this is less ideal. The tablet was more useful for the next tool.

• Tracking Tokens

• Some kind of small object to keep track of where the party is/when the party splits. I use the tokens from the Deluxe edition but bottlecaps or coins would serve the same purpose.

• Pictures of NPCs and Monsters

• Sometimes it's better to leave the monsters as indescribable horrors, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Initially, printed out pictures of the monsters and cut out the whitespace. This was time consuming and often made the pictures quite small. Using a tablet saved me time and allowed a 'zoom' functionality to really get the most out of some of Mothership's beautiful(ly horrifying) artwork. 

• Random tables/generators

• This one varies by module/ type of mission the players are on. The at-table use can be somewhat limited but they are invaluable in speeding up prep. For example in Gradient Descent, I would pre-roll encounters and entities such as ghosts or divers. This allowed me to do less flipping/dice rolling at the table to keep the pacing tight. They also have the benefit of creating NPCs/situations I would never have imagined.

• Scheduling/Attendance tool

• Use whatever works best. initially, I used google forms but this left me manually tracking the waitlist and sending reminder messages. I switched over to using the 'Partiful' app to automate this. 

• The 'online-shop'

• To a google drive folder I uploaded: 
• blank character sheets
• equipment/items
• shore leave/medical procedures 
• A Pound of Flesh Cybermods/Slickware
• And more!
• In general, I handle advancement/downtime off table. Which brings me to...

• The follow-up message

• After every session I send a follow-up email thanking the participating players, informing them of how many credits they would be paid and a link to the 'online-shop' as well as a form to vote on the subject of the next session and collect feedback. Additionally, (because I am a crazy person) I include a digital 'patch' in these follow-up emails as a kind of 'collectable'. 

 What I do NOT use

        These are things that I use in other sessions but do not fit my open table playstyle. 

• Secret/conflicting objectives

• The composition of my table changes every session and sometimes that means many of them will be strangers to one another. I LOVE secret and conflicting player objectives when running a game for a tightknit group. Even in this case though I will always ask the players before the session if they are OK with having conflict between the PCs. I enjoy the cooperative nature of TTRPGs and the 'fuzzy' nature of Mothership combat does not lend itself to PVP particularly well. 

• Multi-session missions

• I always keep my sessions limited to one-shots. If the players don't complete the objective before the end of the session, they fail. Harsh, but I have played in far too many 'one-shots' that did not reach a conclusion. I see it as a duty to my players to deliver an evening of fun with a satisfying conclusion. 

• Bonds/Connections between player characters

• I think these can make games much more interesting. However, the changing nature of the open table benefits from a different approach. I do not want to tell my players who their characters are so I leave this aspect up to the individual players. 

Ps: Practically none of this is necessary to actually 'run' a session of Mothership. I ran my first session in a cabin with 8 other people using nothing more than the AnBH booklet, digital dice on my phone and the Mothership companion app for character sheets. This is merely a list of the tools I found useful to help sustain an open table campaign for more than a year (and counting).

Useful Links

Random Generators

• Gradient Descent Random Encounter

• Diver Generator

• Loadout Generator 

• Prospero's Dream Encounter Generator

• Mystery Generator

• Unconfirmed Contact Report Generator

• Thousand Empty Light Encounter Generator

• Interstellar Megamart Depth Crawl Generator

• Gaunt soldier generator

Helpful Videos

    Find out why these players are in a hurry!

    How to condense mothership's first megadungeon into a one-shot

"Inner hatch opened": A Retrospective on my Mothership Open Table Campaign: Part One(1)

 Alien (1979)

How I Run an Open Table for Mothership

The following post is the first in a series on my experiences running an open table campaign using the Mothership RPG for a little over a year. I hope this will help more people have fun running games. I will outline some of the tools/techniques I used, some of the challenges I encountered and how I resolved them (or failed to). 

How do I run an open table for Mothership?

My open table campaign structure is as follows: I (the GM) schedule sessions at regular intervals and times. I invite a pool of players and run the session with whoever can make it. Each session is a self contained one shot, with little connection to the previous sessions. Only one session is planned at a time. A variety of modules and homebrewed 'adventures' are used, though, often chopped into one-shot friendly bites; Another Bug Hunt has some good examples on how you might do this. I allow players to re-use surviving characters and progress/upgrade them off-table. To help me decide what to run for the next sessions, I create a form and have the players vote on one of the available jobs. For a more detailed explanation on open tables, please refer to this excellent post by The Alexandrian Blog. Now, we begin the dissection...

The bones of a one-shot

    Most Mothership modules contain these but sometimes I have to add them. When I create my own, I plan each one-shot session to have the following...

• A clear objective

• The players need to know their objective(s) within a few minutes of the session starting. Most of the objectives should be straight forward and 'mundane'. Retrieve this item, rescue this individual etc. I like to add 'side objectives' as the session progresses. Additional credits, rescuing innocents or a cute pet, to temp the players into making risky decisions. There's a reason Mothership emphasizes "Save, Solve, Survive" as exclusive choices. Force the players to make a real choice about what to prioritize  because they likely won't get to everything.

• A strong start

• I prepare and rehearse a short 'cinematic' intro, no more than two or three paragraphs. This would signal the start of the session and begin building the mood.
• The intro should give the players something to chew on. I rarely use combat, as is more common in other TTRPGs. I prefer to start with a shocking or strange visual that gets the players asking questions. The intro should present the first set of clues that gets the players asking questions. 'What is going on here?' is the most basic but it's popular for a reason. 

• A discrete location

• The game needs a space to take place within. Almost all off the shelf modules have this but it's something you'll have to prep if you're running your own 'adventure'. I typically don't need a highly detailed map, often times just a flowchart or even a list of locations with notes will suffice. You can even re-use existing maps and just re-key them.

• A timer

• I have a hard stop at the end of the session (the FLGS closes) so this is essential. Switch up when the timer is introduced, sometimes introduce the timer halfway through the session. Sometimes the timer is to signal the arrival of Something Worse which arrives with about 30 mins left in the game. 
• Beyond practical necessity, timers add tension and prevents analysis paralysis. Mothership is incredibly deadly and requires players to think carefully. The timer lets them plan as long as their dare

• Secrets and Clues

• I assume most GMs have heard of this (and if not go and read the 8 steps of the lazy DM right now!) but this is particularly important for Mothership. Combat is deadly and the monster is rarely encountered directly. Thus, it is vitally important to telegraph threats and vulnerabilities. Ideally, introduce these clues as part of your strong start. This item, typically, needs to be prepped in advance to avoid confusion/contradiction and retcons mid-play.  

• Escalating tension

• The Mothership gameplay loop is a death spiral, players accumulate stress from failure which makes makes future failures more punishing, leading to more stress. The environment should act in the same way. The underwater base should begin to flood, then break apart. The derelict ship should have life support fail and then drift into an asteroid field. Don't allow the players to get comfortable. The environment itself should get more inhospitable over time. This can tie in excellently with timers. 

• Toys

• Something cool for the players to discover and use. Think Exosuit in 'Aliens' or the acid bullets in Another Bug Hunt. It should level the playing field, if only temporarily. It should be costly to access, again, tempting the players away from the primary objective. It will reduce tension somewhat but the catharsis and payoff is worth it. 
• Of course, there are some monsters you just can't beat. The toys should let them hold it off and go out in a blaze of glory ala Captain Mifune. Bonus points if you are able to tie this into the secrets and clues you have already created.

• A grand finale

• The session should end with a bang, often literally! Players can accomplish their objectives in an infinite number of ways so it's rare to run the finale as planned but it's good to put some thought into this as part of your session prep, if only to get some ideas flowing. If the monster has already been encountered the finale should introduce a new twist or complication to keep things novel. If there are any long term repercussions of the players actions, be sure to inform the players as a kind of epilog. 

This post is long enough. I will discuss the specific tools I use in the next post. Afterwards, I will discuss the challenges I encountered as well as how I resolved them (or failed to)