Countdown to Mothership

This isn't a review. It's more a collection of random thoughts.

I knew that I'd be running Mothership as soon as I finished reading it. The boxed set took the trip to Florida with me this summer. The Nostalgia Tour was on hiatus until schedules could come back into alignment. I should've used the time to prepare the next module, but I needed a change of pace. Alternating between fantasy and any other genre usually works for me. I intended to read and run FATE Core and Tachyon Squadron for our next game, but there's something about Mothership that appeals to me more.

Tuesday Night Games stuffed a decent amount of stuff in the Mothership boxed set. Photo doesn't include the patch, dice, and other doodads.

Opening Move

I'll be running Another Bug Hunt - the introductory adventure in the boxed set - as a one shot. It's written to present a taste of everything Mothership has to offer. I figure it's the best way to get a feel for the game.

Another Bug Hunt avoids most of my issues with published adventures. It gets high marks from me for organization, layout, and not wasting my time. I'll knock off a few points for the pages that use white or orange text on a dark background. Most of the book is fine, but those specific pages are hard on the eyes.

I am a little concerned with the bulletproof critters of this scenario. I know that Mothership isn't intended to be fair or balanced, but there's a gap between "life is tough, deal with it" and "dick move" which this might sail across. Then again, "bullets won't stop them" is a trope of sci-fi horror.


Down the Road

I've amassed a modest collection of Mothership adventures that we can play as one shots or as an episodic campaign of unconnected adventures. Once I feel I have a good grasp of the game, I'll try my hand at creating some adventures of my own. There's plenty of inspiration out there.


Launching a Campaign?

I have thoughts about a possible campaign. However, I have no plans to run one until that nebulous time known as later. Best to let my ideas cook while I get some experience with the game.

A Traveller-style, murder hobos for hire campaign can be run using Mothership with little or no modification. Just replace the nobles with corporate executives to make the setting more of a late stage capitalist interstellar hellscape. It would also be fairly straightforward to adapt Traveller adventures like Death Station to Mothership.

Other games that can be mined for inspiration include Star Frontiers and Ashen Stars. Something would need to be done with the playable aliens, but there are setting elements and adventures that could be adapted without too much effort.

That said, I'd likely go with a campaign of my own design. Salvagers who sometimes run cargo as space truckers to make ends meet sounds exciting. The Warden's Operation Manual discusses salvagers and space truckers as separate ideas for campaigns, but I have ideas for a mashup.

Screenshot from The Cycle Fronter by Yager Development. Image from The Cycle Frontier press kit.

Salvaging supposedly abandoned settlements might resemble the now dead Escape From Tarkov clone The Cycle Frontier. Going to distant worlds to explore overgrown structures hosting native critters while dealing with trigger happy competitors. Salvaging derelicts in space might look like Hardspace Shipbreaker. Cutting valuable bits out of obsolete ships while dealing with the dangers of depressurization, radiation, temperate extremes, substandard equipment, and the occasional ghost ship haunted by rogue AI. I'd add things like cultists who like privacy and a little cosmic horror for spice.

Cargo hauling would be blue collar space horror with a system that could fake a functioning economy so moving freight across interstellar distances makes some kind of sense. Of course, that cargo might not be what the manifest says it is. Or the temptation to increase profits by smuggling contraband might attract the wrong kind of attention.

Combining the two allows switching between the two modes of play. Salvaging doesn't always cover the bills, so the crew has to find some cargoes to haul. Which has its own challenges. At least, until rumors of more salvage reach their ears.

An economic system would be handy for finding markets to sell salvage or contraband. The Warden's Operation Manual has a basic economic system, but I'd to look to sources like Far Trader and Starports for GURPS Traveller for more details. Upward mobility is still impossible in Mothership, but the player characters might not live long enough to see their hopes for it crushed.

Fantasy Foods - Tacos Exist in the Forgotten Realms, Learn to Deal With It

This is an opinion piece. I have opinions. This should not come as a surprise.

I believe this is a cropped depiction of the spell "Hero's Feast" for the 2024 version of D&D 5e. I'm not sure because I couldn't care less about that game.

Last week, divorced dude @osgamer74 saw the image above and lost his damn mind. Unable to contain his boundless outrage, he took to X/Twitter and made it everybody else's problem.

This is not a cool, measured response.

Getting this worked up about a halfling eating a taco and sushi existing in a TTRPG fantasy setting is just sad. @osgamer74 wasn't alone in his sad outburst. He also wasn't alone in getting roasted on X/Twitter for it.

In the Bearded Halfling's defense, he wasn't the one who came out swinging.

I have mixed feelings about social media in general and X/Twitter specifically. Still, the post by @osgamer74 is like putting chum in the water. Somebody is gonna smell blood and show up looking to sink their teeth into something fishy. He could have been less emotional and typed out something like: "I don't feel that tacos and sushi fit the vibe in my game, but others are welcome to do whatever they want at their tables." Unfortunately, @osgamer74 posted what he posted and the result was something called engagement.

Many of first wave of responses pointed out that there were many foods and other items pictured along with the "nonsense" that @osgamer74 choose to rant about. Here's a partial list since I'm sure I missed something:

• A pumpkin
• Potatoes
• Peppers
• Tomatoes
• A tea pot
• Samosas
• A paper cocktail umbrella in a drinking glass

The pattern here is that none of these fit into a TTRPG campaign themed around medieval Europe. Most of the foods are native to the Americas. Tea was first recorded as existing in China. And the samosa originated from the Middle East and India. I don't know when paper cocktail umbrellas came into being, but I'm pretty sure they are a modern invention. So - the counterargument went - why single out tacos and sushi given all the things foreign to medieval Europe in the image?

Well...

Open mouth, insert foot.

@osgamer74 makes it clear that historical accuracy wasn't his issue. It's the presence of food that's not "normal" to him. Never mind that a hard shelled taco is about as gringo as a food can get. And that sushi is available in American supermarkets these days.

Having clarified his views, @osgamer74 employed tactics that never fail when one finds their mouth full of their own foot. Personal attacks. Doubling down. And playing the victim. Arguments that make it obvious who has the stronger position.

Playing the victim.

Note that he's gone from the food in question being not "normal" to what "you'd see in the local mall" and I'm sure it'll keep changing to whatever @osgamer74 thinks he needs to win. It also will be everybody else's fault for not understanding his poorly articulated position. And I'm certain that whatever engagement that @osgamer74 was looking for on X/Twitter was not what he ended up receiving.

This is not the first time that anachronisms and other out of place elements have appeared in Dungeons and Dragons. Weapons, armor, and gear from a vast geographic area and ranging from the Bronze Age to the Renaissance have been part of the game for decades. The Monk class was introduced in the 1975 Blackmoor supplement when somebody wanted to emulate martial arts action. More crossing genres date back to 1976, when Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was first played at Origins II. (It was published in 1980 as part of the "S" series of adventure modules.) And people complained back then as well. It's just that it used to be confined to the letters in Dragon Magazine's "Out on a Limb" feature, fanzines, and grumblings in the local hobby store. Frankly, it was narrow minded then and its no better now that it's amplified by social media and the internet.

On the other hand, social media and the internet can spread new ideas, even about established settings. No less than Ed Greenwood used Twitter to answer questions and offer up new lore about the Forgotten Realms. Back in 2020, he responded to an inquiry about the existence of tacos in the setting he created.

Here is a link to Ed Greenwood's post on X/Twitter.

For those unable to access X/Twitter or can't see the thread in its entirety because Elon Musk broke the thing he bought, the whole thing is archived here.

Finally, here is a copy/paste of the thread:

From @LeslieCourtne14:

Dear Ed, are there tacos in Faerun, or something like them at least? If so, where would someone find them and what culture would they be in? Asking for my taco loving players.

Reply from @TheEdVerse, edited for this format:

“Taco” is not a name known on Toril, but fried hardcrust roundbreads (what some real-worlders might call pitas, but fried crispy-hard) that have been stuffed with a hot cooked mix of minced-meat, spices, vegetables (diced and fried onions and/or potatoes, and/or Brussels sprouts, and/or asparagus, and/or leeks, and/or artichoke hearts, and/or radishes, and/or mushrooms) and sauces ARE known and devoured eagerly in many eateries, especially in the Vilhon, the lands south of there to the Shaar and beyond (so, places like Innarlith and south to include Luiren and Var the Golden), and are slowly spreading along the trade routes in all directions, to Chessenta and eastern Tethyr and Amn, to Calimshan and the Lake of Steam cities, and to Scornubel. You can even order them in some inns and taverns (yes, they’re becoming “the new thing” in tavern fare) in Secomber.

The meat tends to be whatever’s plentiful and cheap locally, from lamb to rabbit and all manner of small scurrying things, from “tree-cats” [squirrels] to rats, and the flavor profile varies from merely savory to hot-spiced; most establishments will ask “hot” or “warming” (= fiery or mild) when you order.

So, a folded-over, exposed-spilling-edge taco is a rare thing indeed, and cheese-drenched tacos are a special variant version anywhere they can be had, but the same sort of ingredients in essentially the same combination (so, a flat, closed taco, which varies from a “handpie” in that it was never full of gravy, and its outer pastry is thin and fried crispy-hard) can now be had in many places.

What it’s called varies from place to place; along the Sword Coast it tends to be called a “fryhard,” in the Vilhon, a “crunchtart,” in the South, a “hotbite,” and along the trade-routes, any of these three or even something else.

Elminster and the Seven all like “handfry pies” made with six or seven sorts of mushrooms, parsnips, leeks or spring onions (all diced), and strong cheeses (no meat).

The shell of a Torilian taco, whatever it’s called, is often rather like cornbread in its composition. Or a crisp naan (and is sometimes made by “gluing” two round-tortilla-like discs together with cheese).

- Ed Greenwood, November 13 2020

So what we have here is something not called a taco, but is totally a taco. And it exists in a published Dungeons and Dragons setting. Of course, all we have is Ed Greenwood's word for it, but that's good enough for me.

I've found these matters are ultimately a matter of taste. Take pizza toppings, for example. I enjoy certain ingredients and I don't enjoy others. There is a temptation to label disliked toppings as "bad" or "nonsense" or worse. And to take offense when others push back against those terms. Rather than escalate, it's best to use such misunderstandings as an opportunity for growth. Learn what others like and why they like those things. Even if it's not to my taste, there's no reason to waste time and energy fighting about it. If I'm sharing a pizza, I'm happy to order the toppings everybody can agree on. It might turn out to be a cheese pizza, but that tastes better than a bitter fight and a spoiled time with friends. If we're all ordering for ourselves, they can do whatever they want with their pizzas and I can get a proper pizza with the correct toppings.

And now I'm craving pizza, tacos, sushi, samosas, and a drink with a cocktail umbrella in it. Not all in one sitting, though. But certainly all in one setting.