@@wacomatrixo Running Decagone this Sunday, your version of Screaming on the Alexis the following week and I threw a timer into "So you've been chump dumped" last night. Putting that time pressure on players is fuuuuun!
I'd love to hear about your game went. There's a popular 'after-action-reports' channel for Decagone on the Mothership discord: discord.com/channels/461670627468771329/1210333092057710644
I played this last night, we're normally a very chaotic and fractured team when we play other campaigns; The players naturally choosing behaviours you would only see/hear about at the Hague but none the less we have a great time and always enjoy ourselves... until this game. This game was like pushing broken glass in to my eyes. The game took 6 hours, and it was one of the most stressful 6 hours I will ever live through. The team had to work efficiently, and work together, which, was a new experience for our party but managable. What got us was that f***king timer resetting. Very 10 minutes. Nothing we did mattered, our most sensible players were screaming in frustration and in a blind sensless rage. Not even the sweet relief of character death was enough to get us out of this waking hell. We did eventually do it on a speed run and finish the campaign but not without several player break downs and more than a few arguments with the DM. All in all, good game, not a beginners game. My one bit of feedback is if someone has pain pills, you can share them all out at the start of each reset and cancel out the stress that's constantly stacking.
Was this Decagone!? If so, how did your final loop end? Great idea about the Pain Pills. In 1st edition they nerfed them so that only stimpaks relieve stress now.
@@wacomatrixo Yeah it was decagone, our final loop ended with us hacking all the doors (we crit hacked the unhackable door). Storming in to the room like stroppy teenagers hacking the computers, deactivating the crystal, screaming at and then beating the scientist with crowbars; not killing them; and saving the random NPC.
Your advice at the end about the candle - have you ever heard of Ten Candles? Nevertheless, great video! In fact, I am going to run Aurora for my DnD group (our DM takes a break after we finished our mini campaign). This will actually be my third time running a game in general (2 evenings of Ypsilon 14, now Aurora). If you have any advice for me as a newbie, just go ahead. ;-) Greetings from Germany!
@@wacomatrixo Hey! All in all, it went quite well, but it really was a challenge for me as a beginner. In fact, the problem was not your module, it was the "tec" I used for playing online. I used the Roll20 version. First, everything went very well, but suddenly, one of the players stated that the whole map was revealed from the beginning, and that he could see the enemy tokens. And two others had the same, the fourth didn't have these issues. "His" Dynamic Lighting worked, he could (resp. could not) see what he was (not) supposed to see. So I decided I switch off Dynamic Lighting and use the normal fog. But guess what, the fog didn't work. And all that after the 2 hour countdown had started. So I tried to run theatre of mind while setting up the game from scratch in Owlbear Rodeo, and managed handouts in discord while the timer was shared using a RUclips 2h timer and synctube. And the players rolled in Roll20. A lot to manage for a beginner, and I was overwhelmed. Finally I asked the other players what they want to do, if we should stop here, because - from my point of view - it didn't work very well. Then silence for several seconds. Then my DnD-GM said that no one would have noticed my desperation if I had not asked this question. And that these technical issues were not my fault. It took me a few minutes to calm down, then I continued GMing. And we finished the game. During the playthrough, we used: - Roll20 for music, character sheets and rolls - Owlbear for the maps and tokens - Discord for talking - synctube and youtube for the timer Quite overwhelming, especially when you try to keep track of the players' panic status, and when you notice that three of your four players haven't read the rules. 😅 At the end, I did one other mistake - I helped them (they stopped the timer, but the Varcolac tossed their characters around as if they were toys, and the dice bot in Roll20 for players is an a....hole), and one of my players noticed that. He told me after the game that in that moment he realized I wanted to help them, his tension went down. I had wanted them to think about a little backstory why they were stowaways on that freighter, and two of them put so much love and effort into it that I didn't want to waste the characters for a one shot and wanted to use "Aurora" as an intro for a little campaign. I ended up being too much of a fan of the characters. But nevertheless, during the session, I learned A LOT about running a game, tracking info (e.g. panic conditions), improvizing and so on. And especially two rules: - most of the time, less is more - kill them! 😁 Unfortunately, after playing Y-14 and Aurora, my group really likes Mothership, but they cannot imagine that this system can hold a whole (mini) campaign (e.g. Dead Planet). One of the reasons is that for example character creation is way too random (too much luck with rolls involved). We played using 0e since I haven't looked in the 1e beta rules. But it's not "on ice", Mothership will return! I on the other hand LOVE Mothership, and it's quite a shame that there is only ONE Mothership session in German on YT. And moreover, I am planning to run Aurora again for another group during the next weeks or months, let's see. Then I will use Discord, Owlbear (has a built-in timer functionality) and Tabletop Audio. Maybe with beta 1e...? What would you recommend - 0e or 1e? Maybe I will try out the calm system and the android panic table from traaa.sh...? But I have to remind myself - less is more. 😉 Btw, in the pdf of the module I found a small mistake. In the description of B.U.L.A, the freighter's name is (wrongly) given as "The Aurora", but it's Carpathia. In the end, I really enjoyed your module, and - what is also important - your module helped me a lot to learn and improve - hopefully. 😇 Wow, a lot of text... Edit: I just thougt that it would be a fun idea if you run Aurora for "Into the Darkness" (a channel here on YT about CoC, but it also has other systems included, e.g. KULT, but only one Mothership module).
@@scharmuetzelmax8573 Hey, sounds like you did awesome all things considered! RUclips and synctube for the timer is a great idea, I'm going to use that from now on! I've converted to 1e, even the beta rules I prefer much more than 0e. We'll also blast that typo out of the airlock. There's a great playthrough of Aurora here: ruclips.net/video/JIrM3bFEmJk/видео.html
@@wacomatrixo Thank you for your kind words and the link. In fact, I have watched this playthrough 2 or 3 times as a preparation. You can find me there in the comments section. 😉
![[ANIMATION] Why this Mothership player doesn't trust the rest of the crew](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0IvdUs3EHXQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![[ANIMATION] Why this Mothership player doesn't trust the rest of the crew](/img/tr.png)
![[ANIMATION] The Mothership character class other players won't trust](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y-DUdHJKZ3c/mqdefault.jpg)
Having picked up Decagone, I can see you really do have a love of timers in modules :P
If all I'm ever known for is being 'the timer guy', I'll be happy with that 😅
@@wacomatrixo Running Decagone this Sunday, your version of Screaming on the Alexis the following week and I threw a timer into "So you've been chump dumped" last night. Putting that time pressure on players is fuuuuun!
I'd love to hear about your game went. There's a popular 'after-action-reports' channel for Decagone on the Mothership discord: discord.com/channels/461670627468771329/1210333092057710644
SUCH great advice!! Thank you! Can't wait to do a REAL TIME timer!
That's a cool animation. Nice work!
Used a timer in D&D twice and both times it made the game better for the players. Great advice.
I love this, timers really do just automatically cause some part of our lizard brains to panic!
🤣🦎
I played this last night, we're normally a very chaotic and fractured team when we play other campaigns; The players naturally choosing behaviours you would only see/hear about at the Hague but none the less we have a great time and always enjoy ourselves... until this game. This game was like pushing broken glass in to my eyes. The game took 6 hours, and it was one of the most stressful 6 hours I will ever live through. The team had to work efficiently, and work together, which, was a new experience for our party but managable. What got us was that f***king timer resetting. Very 10 minutes. Nothing we did mattered, our most sensible players were screaming in frustration and in a blind sensless rage. Not even the sweet relief of character death was enough to get us out of this waking hell. We did eventually do it on a speed run and finish the campaign but not without several player break downs and more than a few arguments with the DM. All in all, good game, not a beginners game. My one bit of feedback is if someone has pain pills, you can share them all out at the start of each reset and cancel out the stress that's constantly stacking.
Was this Decagone!? If so, how did your final loop end?
Great idea about the Pain Pills. In 1st edition they nerfed them so that only stimpaks relieve stress now.
@@wacomatrixo Yeah it was decagone, our final loop ended with us hacking all the doors (we crit hacked the unhackable door). Storming in to the room like stroppy teenagers hacking the computers, deactivating the crystal, screaming at and then beating the scientist with crowbars; not killing them; and saving the random NPC.
The game sounds really cool and the animated short is awesome!
The candle idea is amazing! 🤯
Hey thanks! Let me know if you try it out.
Awesome to see the finished product on this one!
Best one yet!
Heck yeah, your tips and tricks are useful, the animation is really cool!
Heck this is so well done!
This is useful!
❤! Awesome man!
Amazing! Love it! Great presentation of a great idea!
Love this
Nice work man!
Nice work Waco, killed it with this one. I feel like I didn't see the shot of the waconaut backwards through the screen, it's really good!
Well done, and fun to watch! I enjoyed seeing you working on those key frames during your streams, too! Looking forward to more!
Your advice at the end about the candle - have you ever heard of Ten Candles? Nevertheless, great video! In fact, I am going to run Aurora for my DnD group (our DM takes a break after we finished our mini campaign). This will actually be my third time running a game in general (2 evenings of Ypsilon 14, now Aurora). If you have any advice for me as a newbie, just go ahead. ;-) Greetings from Germany!
Hey, how did it go?
@@wacomatrixo Hey! All in all, it went quite well, but it really was a challenge for me as a beginner. In fact, the problem was not your module, it was the "tec" I used for playing online. I used the Roll20 version. First, everything went very well, but suddenly, one of the players stated that the whole map was revealed from the beginning, and that he could see the enemy tokens. And two others had the same, the fourth didn't have these issues. "His" Dynamic Lighting worked, he could (resp. could not) see what he was (not) supposed to see. So I decided I switch off Dynamic Lighting and use the normal fog. But guess what, the fog didn't work. And all that after the 2 hour countdown had started. So I tried to run theatre of mind while setting up the game from scratch in Owlbear Rodeo, and managed handouts in discord while the timer was shared using a RUclips 2h timer and synctube. And the players rolled in Roll20. A lot to manage for a beginner, and I was overwhelmed. Finally I asked the other players what they want to do, if we should stop here, because - from my point of view - it didn't work very well. Then silence for several seconds. Then my DnD-GM said that no one would have noticed my desperation if I had not asked this question. And that these technical issues were not my fault. It took me a few minutes to calm down, then I continued GMing. And we finished the game.
During the playthrough, we used:
- Roll20 for music, character sheets and rolls
- Owlbear for the maps and tokens
- Discord for talking
- synctube and youtube for the timer
Quite overwhelming, especially when you try to keep track of the players' panic status, and when you notice that three of your four players haven't read the rules. 😅
At the end, I did one other mistake - I helped them (they stopped the timer, but the Varcolac tossed their characters around as if they were toys, and the dice bot in Roll20 for players is an a....hole), and one of my players noticed that. He told me after the game that in that moment he realized I wanted to help them, his tension went down. I had wanted them to think about a little backstory why they were stowaways on that freighter, and two of them put so much love and effort into it that I didn't want to waste the characters for a one shot and wanted to use "Aurora" as an intro for a little campaign. I ended up being too much of a fan of the characters. But nevertheless, during the session, I learned A LOT about running a game, tracking info (e.g. panic conditions), improvizing and so on. And especially two rules:
- most of the time, less is more
- kill them! 😁
Unfortunately, after playing Y-14 and Aurora, my group really likes Mothership, but they cannot imagine that this system can hold a whole (mini) campaign (e.g. Dead Planet). One of the reasons is that for example character creation is way too random (too much luck with rolls involved). We played using 0e since I haven't looked in the 1e beta rules. But it's not "on ice", Mothership will return! I on the other hand LOVE Mothership, and it's quite a shame that there is only ONE Mothership session in German on YT.
And moreover, I am planning to run Aurora again for another group during the next weeks or months, let's see. Then I will use Discord, Owlbear (has a built-in timer functionality) and Tabletop Audio. Maybe with beta 1e...? What would you recommend - 0e or 1e? Maybe I will try out the calm system and the android panic table from traaa.sh...? But I have to remind myself - less is more. 😉
Btw, in the pdf of the module I found a small mistake. In the description of B.U.L.A, the freighter's name is (wrongly) given as "The Aurora", but it's Carpathia.
In the end, I really enjoyed your module, and - what is also important - your module helped me a lot to learn and improve - hopefully. 😇
Wow, a lot of text...
Edit: I just thougt that it would be a fun idea if you run Aurora for "Into the Darkness" (a channel here on YT about CoC, but it also has other systems included, e.g. KULT, but only one Mothership module).
@@scharmuetzelmax8573 Hey, sounds like you did awesome all things considered! RUclips and synctube for the timer is a great idea, I'm going to use that from now on! I've converted to 1e, even the beta rules I prefer much more than 0e. We'll also blast that typo out of the airlock.
There's a great playthrough of Aurora here: ruclips.net/video/JIrM3bFEmJk/видео.html
@@wacomatrixo Thank you for your kind words and the link. In fact, I have watched this playthrough 2 or 3 times as a preparation. You can find me there in the comments section. 😉
your new videos are a little quiet