zoydraft  / Pink Sleeves

The Haunting of Ypsilon 14 Debrief

I ran the Haunting of Ypsilon-14 for my dad and sister last night, neither of whom had played Mothership before.

I read the pamphlet twice and did some prep:

My only substantial change was saying that they had to drop off their delivery but also pick up cargo from Dr. Giovanni, which Sonya is unaware of, but suggests it could be in the Heracles, or down in the mine.

I sketched the workspace just to make sure I had a mental image of the area incorporating all the provided details

I decided on basic timelines for the NPCs to keep introductions manageable: An oncoming shift filters into the workspace (minus a conspicuous missing Mike), an outgoing shift arrives from the mine, they head to different spots in the living area.

Unlike previous Mothership sessions, I put sticky notes in the Player’s Survival Guide for stuff I knew I was going to need to reference, which reduced friction so much.

I wish I had prepped physical descriptions of the miners, to give them a little more presence, although I think the quick descriptions do give them enough personality to run with.

I had both of them roll up two characters each, with the intention of treating one each as contractors, but they just played them as normal, which was fine.

Rules didn’t feel like an impediment at all. The combination of the character sheet, the “how to be a good player" section, and the back cover of the PSG gives such good, consistent, scripted onboarding.

There was a bit of staring at character sheets for answers (“none of my skills are useful” and “what is the point of my trinket?“ (I took the opening to re-explain spark tables)).

There was a lot of out of character discussion of what they should do, to the point where once or twice I told them they needed to talk to each other in character. I’ve seen the advice of having players only be able to talk to each other in character to build immersion, and I’m liking that more and more. It feels like a must in situations with obvious time pressure and/or NPCs present.

I’ve run the Panic Engine close to a dozen times now, and it felt like the first time I called for saves and panic an appropriate amount: PC’s ended with between 5 and 15 stress, and there were several failed panic checks. I do kind of buy that the Panic Table could be more dramatic, but it works when panic is happening frequently.

I really like how open ended yet constrained the adventure is: because they decided to go down to the mine almost immediately, it was very yellow goo-forward, instead of monster-forward. I’ve seen it progress very differently in actual plays. The story is going to advance naturally, without having any story beats prescribed.

Survive, Solve, or Save?

I’d give them half marks on all three:

#mothership #ttrpg