[Read It/Play It Review] Mothership // BLACKOUT
This series is for all the Wardens with no free time. The plan: Buy a module, read it once, run it at the table, and report back here with how confused I was during this process.
My Guarantee: I have always run the scenario at least once in front of real human peoples.
Read time: 5 minutes
TLDR: BLACKOUT is an excellent little Mothership dungeon crawl that is very well laid out, has a very fun monster, and was an absolute breeze to run at the table. Highly recommended.
Overview
Last night I took 5 players down into the fecal-matter-filled tunnels beneath the colony of "Firstdust" to fix a problem with the colony's power. It probably wasn't a bad sign that the previous folks, Gamma Team, that headed down into the tunnels never came back. What's that? There is a picture of a monster frog on the module's cover? That my friend is just a cutie patootie space-pug. Anyway, this is my read it/play it review of...
BLACKOUT is the first Mothership module from the Bristol based designer Martin Orchard of Pointless Monument with art by Zach Hazard Vaupen (very cool middle name). The scenario is a "dungeon crawl" style adventure for Mothership, with multiple paths, some great NPCs, and some great writing.
I should also mention that Pointless Monument also has a blog (with more Mothership reviews!) and they run a weekly RPG club in Bristol that, if I wasn't hundreds of miles away, would most definitely be attending. A weekly meet-up of indie/OSR one-shots? Yes please!
The Reading
For a time-pressured Warden the most important thing is: can I read the scenario in 30 minutes and understand what is going on? First up, the module is a 16 page zine (including front and back covers, so really just 14 pages), which at first made me feel a little bit intimidated. However, the zine dedicates one full page to most rooms in the scenario and utilises lots of white space to make reading the room descriptions a breeze. There are also two pages at the start dedicated to setting up what is going on (or has gone on), the job the players will be carrying out, and also the NPCs you are likely to encounter.
I should say that really the only part of the module I had to read before bringing the module to the table was the "What's Really Going On" section, and the description of the Monster on the back page. Everything else was set up nicely so that I could just read it at the table. This included the brief history of events building up to the start of the scenario, the job itself, and the evocative one-line descriptions of each room.
The description of each room was very useful. Usually made up of just a few bullet points, with OSR-style formatting such bold text for key terms and terse descriptions. What I really appreciated was each room had a sensory description to give, be it a smell of bleach, or the sound of flowing sewage. There was also always a player skill that was tied to additional information in each room, which is always good for making players feel powerful. Most rooms also include some art that linked with the text, which was extremely helpful.
Random thought: It would be good if modules included a list of useful skills somewhere to help during one-shot character creation.
One thing that could have been helpful though is to include in the list of NPCs on page 4 the status of the NPC and where they are. Basically, I didn't want to have to read the introduction text to find out who from Gamma Team was alive or dead at a glance.
Finally, there were some great tables included in the scenario for useful and not-so-useful items scattered around the subterranean sump station.
The Playing
Matt, playing as Dr Ron Laing (Scientist), said: "I loved Blackout. I was a bit worried it might be overly simplistic given I could see a monstrous toad on the cover of the Zine, but it didn't detract at all. I spent most of the playtime scuttling around in ventilation shafts listening to the other PCs being thrown about by the beast. That's what you want from an excellent sci fi horror experience."
How did the scenario feel at the table? As I said, the layout of the module made exploring the tunnels very easy. There is also a player facing, unannotated map provided by "a retired worker's best recollection of the underground layout". One nice touch that I've not seen in another module is a recommendation for when the Monster first attacks. This made setting up the pacing of the scenario much simpler.
The monster itself came with plenty of details of interesting abilities and tactics it uses to hunt the players. Particularly cool was the fact that the lights began to flicker whenever it was nearby, which made for a very straightforward environmental warning to players that something was coming for them. One issue I had though was figuring out when the monster should attack outside of the initial strike. This isn't really a criticism of the module since this is a problem that I find with most modules (a skill issue? Probably.) but it would have been useful to have more "triggers" for when the monster attacks.
Random Thought: Some parts of the scenario have the players "make noise" as a consequence of an action. It made me think maybe a 1d6 "noise roll" could be useful? I.e., if you make a noise, roll 1d6 and if it exceeds a threshold the monster is coming. Adds to notes
The only issue I had with running the scenario was knowing when the players had succeeded. Obviously one success is to "kill the monster" or at least chase it off. The other requirement is to fix the power. The "Job" description tells you the problem is either at the nuclear battery or at the fuseboard, but the descriptions of these rooms aren't completely clear on quick read which needs fixing. In the end I went with the Fuseboard was the problem. The players fixed this and the power came back on and they escaped. However, because they never chased off or killed the creature the power went out again a week later. This was fine, but a little bit of guidance on what success looks like would have been helpful.
Final Thoughts
Overall, BLACKOUT is a great little zine. It works very well in a single session, though I think it might outstay its welcome if run over two sessions. For me that is completely fine, but people who can run longer games might want to keep that in mind. Also, the scenario does have some handy ways of linking the module into a larger campaign, which I'm sure some Wardens will find very helpful.