​Crapshoot Monday: This Free Thing I Found On Itch.io…Bumpy Ride At Bore IX

An adventure by Robin Fjarem, leveless
Written for Mothership RPG
   Ah, Ye Olde Mothershipe Trifold. Classic. Ubiquitous. I don’t understand the format’s appeal, personally, but sure, it’s a perfectly cromulent method of conveying adventure information. Since this one is for Mothership, our graphics are unsightly and out formatting is wonky, but everything about the scenario is at least understandable. I’m slightly baffled for why these ugly monochrome adventures are the standard, must have been some kind of terribly-conceived jam.
   Speaking of terribly-conceived plans, our story here is that you and your merry band of victims have arrived on Bore IX, an icy moon with a breathable but toxic atmosphere, to pick up a nice fat shipment of iridium ore. As is inevitable in the Mothership universe, the toxic atmosphere turns people into Ice Zombies and there’s also a serial killer who has summoned pirates to buy the ore instead. Also there’s constant hailstorms, the comms array is down, and worst of all, your maps are all abstracted. Horrifying.
   Dunno what I liked here outside of some basic nice descriptions and the way the moon gets described. It’s Stars Without Number-compatible in that sense, at least. The traitor-killer-guy has a nice diary where he wrote down all his incriminating evidence and hid it beneath the bed of another crewmate, that’s a good move. All d10 mining post NPCs are given enough description to run smoothly, that’s appreciated.
   What can be improved here, really? I guess the first would be to drop the “roll for which NPC is the murderer/victim” but at least they have suggested NPCs “if you don’t want to roll”, so that’s a good head-nod to the fact that nobody wants to roll that crap. Real missed opportunity on the “frost madness” disease thingy, for what’s supposed to be the main threat of the adventure there’s not a lot of detail given. Naturally the biggest room for improvement is to STOP ABSTRACTING YOUR MAPS. I loathe the block-and-line diagram style, particularly in a situation where both exploration and tactical combat at possibilities. Inexcusable.
   That being said, best use case is probably to just use this as a sci-fi horror scenario. Traveller or SWN could support this just as easily as Mothership; unfortunately, that’s not very easy, you have a homework assignment to finish this puppy off. Due to the high level of abstraction and the ugly art/visual design, there are officially zero bits or bobs that you’re going to want to swipe for a different game.
   Final Rating? */***** with a sigh. I saw this and I knew, somehow, exactly what I was in for. Zero surprises here, it’s just an unpleasant experience to read.