Project Updates

Project Hunger

Not much to share on this front since last newsletter. We are putting most of our focus on another project (see next paragraph) but we are still discussing about tweaking some of the mechanics to help make the themes of the game better fit the setting. Meanwhile, we would love to hear any feedback from yall on the quickstart we’ve shared. It’s free to download and try out, plus we have a google form where you can fill out and share feedback with us!

Get Project Hunger quickstart here!

Untitled (ID4 inspired) for Mosh

Xenon and I’ve decided to revive this project recently with the highly anticipated Mothership 1e physical box release at some point next year… hopefully. We decided to revisit two scenarios we’ve created and playtested in the past. My scenario was a point-crawl style in a famous area (not ready to share which yet) and I’ve updated the map using Miro. Miro can be a great tool to use for designing a more of abstract map which works well for point-crawl and it’s great for people like me who suck at art. Plus I’m not sure I’m fully satisfied with the map layout yet, so I don’t want to put my focus on the art yet.

My current task is working on re-writing the description for each location in the point-crawl map. I have a total of six locations and all are based on real landmarks, so I’ve been researching on those landmarks to make sure I have the right details to implement in the descriptions. So far I’ve completed first round of re-write on two locations and four left to go.

Campaign Reflections

The latest session in my Vaults of Vaarn campaign was a powerful experience for me as a GM and for my group. I’ve played with this group of players for several years and we’ve developed strong sense of respect and trust with each other. In one of the previous sessions, they’ve adopted a group of baboons to join them on their travels in exchange for food and they’ve went through some hardships to keep those baboons alive and together. As a group, we’ve decided to explore Night Land (by Vasili Kaliman/Singing Flame) so they encountered a strange NPC who is willing to trade rumors for things they have that may be of an interest. Long story short - one of the PCs decide to trade a baboon youngling without really realizing the consequence and moral issue behind the act. Animal harm happens to be on our list of topics to avoid, so I had to pause and held a brief discussion with the players to make sure we all understand what is happening, feel comfortable with the situation, and discuss how to proceed from that point. We’ve all agreed to keep the scene but leave details vague about what is the NPC’s intention with the baboons. After a brief break, we came back and continue the scene and the players did an amazing job roleplaying their characters’ dilemma with the situation of the group’s survival vs morality. We all continue to check in multiple times to ensure we are all comfortable and supportive. At the end of the session we had a good conversation on our reflection of the session.

Moments like this doesn’t happen often, but when it does and the group has high level trust already built, then it can be a powerful experience. I’m thankful to have a great group and feel honored to be able to provide a safe space for the group to play out a difficult scenario with dignity. Have any of you experienced anything like this before? I would love to hear more stories like this.

Under the Floorboards Play Report

A couple of weekends ago, I ran a one-shot session of Under the Floorboards by Chris Bissette/Loot the Room. I got the zine years ago and have always wanted to run it, but never been able to find right time and/or right group to run this game. The opportunity finally came, so I ran it for a group of beginners new to TTRPG. I’ve ran couple one-shots for this group in the past, so I figured this game will be a great fit due to the whimsical nature of the setting and the rules light mechanics. I decided to use the pregens provided in the zine for convenience and to save time since the session is scheduled to be three hours max. The only prep I did in advance was printing the pregens and read through the zine to become familiar with the three phrases structure plus print out a cheat sheet with the rules for the players.

The session went really smoothly and the players had a blast. We went through the worldbuilding phase pretty quickly to establish the characters’ relationship as a family then decided the family need to go out on a trek to look for food to replenish after a long winter. This game uses a tool called Establishing Questions where the Guiding Voice (aka me) will ask questions about where they live and what items are precious to them and why. This really helped with building their characters’ quirks and reasons why they need to go on this trek. We proceed to discuss about where the family will go to look for the food they need to prepare for the upcoming winter, and they’ve agreed to explore the greenhouse located outside in the backyard. The zine includes great content like locations, hazards, complications, etc. which is great for me as I don’t really need to prep in advance. This phase ended with a roll for scouting to check and see if the PCs can recall what they’ve discovered while scoping the greenhouse, and unfortunately the roll luck wasn’t on their side. I believe this phase only took us maybe half an hour or little more before we felt we were ready to proceed to next phase.

Next phase, the Expedition, is the heart of this game where we play out the expedition to the greenhouse to collect produce. The family faced many wonderful dangers such as grass spider stalking through the yard, getting out of the lawnmower’s warpath, negotiating their way around a rat’s claim for territory in the greenhouse, and coming up with a way to break down the produce and transport their harvest back to their home. The players really enjoyed coming up with creative ways to overcome the obstacles without having to fight, since most of the dangers could literally kill their characters easily. This game doesn’t use any form of health points because combat isn’t the main motivation of the game. We wrapped up the session with the last phase, the Return, where the characters are already back home and the players get to reflect with guided questions like what went well and what didn’t. This phase was brief, maybe ten or fifteen minutes, but give a nice closure for everyone. We’re already planning to do a some kind of sequel session in few weeks, so that make it clear the players really enjoyed this game and I really enjoyed running it too. The game is such a breeze to run because you don’t need to prep much and the zine is organized well enough to make it easy for me to run the game following the phases.

Have you tried this game yet? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

Random Gig Generator by DanteFaustus : This is a random table for generating gigs to use in Death in Space games. I probably shouldn’t complain much about this one because it’s free/PYWY, but I wish the table is expanded a bit more to create more possibilities and they used AI art so that’s automatically a drop in my rating. 2/5

Proxi M.T. USED Android Catalogue by ChrisAir : This is a player-facing zine to be used with Mothership, and the title is self-explanatory. I really enjoyed the DIY feel to it with the collages of drawings and writings. Plus some of the androids are clearly based on known characters in media which is cool to see. 5/5

Black Swan by Vegetable Alien Games : An adventure for Mothership about a settlement on a remote planet being in danger from an incoming disaster. The zine included all the info you need to run the adventure including a map, NPCs, location details, and obstacles. The information is laid out in organized manner and the handouts can be found in the back which is nice. 5/5

Substack Issue

I’m sure everyone have heard of the issue with Substack’s stance on allowing Nazi-related stuff being monetized on Substack and they’ve defended their position with the classic “freedom of speech” defense. I’m not a fan of that and I’ve considered leaving Substack but the issue is there is no great alternative I’ve seen that are free, come with ability for readers to subscribe, and ease of newsletter delivery.

So, for now, I’ll continue to use Substack but I strongly encourage you to not upgrade to paid subscription for my newsletter. If you wish to support me in any way financially then check out the options at the end of the newsletter. I’ll keep my account to free tier only while I explore other options. Hopefully I’ll find a good alternative to switch at some point soon. If you have any good suggestion for me to check out then please suggest away in the comment section.

Cheers,
Root

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