Mothership!!! Bug Hunting with RRC Wrap-up

Two Shawns, a John and a Rodney discuss the Mothership system, and veer into other related topics like game design choices, Star Wars games and movies, and other sci-fi and fantasy stories.  In short, run and buy a copy of Mothership for your gaming table!

#mothershipRPG #Mothership1E #OSR #ttrpg #actualplay #rpg #oldschoolrpg #scifi #scifihorror

This episode features Mothership, the fantastic Space Horror RPG from the good folks at Tuesday Night Games!  Visit them at: https://www.tuesdayknightgames.com/pages/mothership-rpg

Visit Lazarus Games' eBay store for retro gaming goodness!  https://www.ebay.com/str/lazarusgames

Episode art features a background image by Robert Clark

Theme Music composed by Shawn G

Logo by Olivia G

Transcript

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SPEAKER_04 0:50

All right. Welcome back to our retro rolecast wrap-up for Mothership, where we discuss things we liked about the system, things we potentially didn't like, and just the adventurer overall. So it's unfortunate that we don't have every single player who played in this mini campaign with us to give their opinions because they are valuable, but they're not here. Nope.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

So we have Sean and John. So John, what do you feel of the uh one hour and 30 minutes that you've played of the of the game? Just thrilling. You made a couple of rolls. I lived. Oh well, you have you've actually listened to us, so you have it from that uh aspect as well. Right. You've been pickup, but it's been pretty good. You were in the story the whole time. You just didn't realize it. It was just waiting for you to do your thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Invite me one time, then put the nail in the coffin.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

Uh yeah. I mean, you got to play somebody else's character, always an awkward situation. Right. Yeah, it was it wasn't one of your of your making. I think he should have played Syllable, because then he could have been an asshole that you didn't like as opposed to some guy who you maybe you're not.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

I mean, yeah, that would have made it easier to roleplay.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Because I would have just treated him like I treat him normally. So right. Well, I mean, that's how I treat all my friends. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 2:14

If you're not insulting us, do you really like it? Right. Yeah. It is a common theme amongst most of my friends. I really liked this system. I enjoyed this adventure a whole lot. I think one of the things that Tuesday Night Games does really well is lay out adventures, at least this one, in a very easy to understand manner. Now it wasn't an introductory adventure, or it's probably played by most people who've played Mothership at this point.

SPEAKER_05 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:40

It's like Winter's Daughter in Dolman Wood. It's like the, hey, here we're going to show you how this game is supposed to work, and we're going to show it to you in a way that makes a lot of sense for the GM and a lot of sense for the players.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Well, yeah, and it hits like all of the beats like that you would get with like a space horror game. So it's alien planet, bugs hatching out of human beings. Right. I mean, that's the like straight down the line. That's what you would come to this for. Yeah. Like, you know, that would be what you would do. I really liked, I mean, we played it briefly, not on the podcast, when we were at Gen Con, and I loved it then. I love I like the system now. It gets out of the way. It has that increasing stress panic thing that I think works. We played Call of Cthulhu, and that's a legend for a reason. But I think this panic system works a bit better than the sanity system does in Call of Cthulhu as well.

SPEAKER_04 3:43

Yeah, the one thing I thought was surprising of we've played how many like five, six sessions of this to get through this adventure. Right. And now we learned that first time we played that it the more you roll dice, the worse things go for you and quickly. Yes. Right. So what you guys did really well at the beginning of this adventure was really spell out ways to do things without rolling dice. Right. Opening doors, how are we doing this? You really, and that's what makes this kind of an old school new game, right? The players can say, I do to do this thing here, this way, and this way. So you don't have to roll dice because there's real consequences every time you pick up these dice in this game.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

I would go even a little bit further than that, which is which is that that should be a thought that you have with any game. With any game, the dice are not your friend. You I mean they're pretty. We love collecting them. I have millions of them. It feels right to roll them in your hand. You get that, you get that tactile fee, you get to throw it in the table. They don't help you. They don't. No. The more random you do, the worse for your character it is. That's a very OSR mindset. It is, but it the rule holds for 5E as well.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

I would argue that is exactly the opposite of the way 5e was designed. Because it literally, Watsi had focus groups that determined people like to roll dice and they like to win, and they built the game specifically with what is it, bounded accuracy. Right. To encourage people to roll dice and win. Like that was their entire impetus when designing the rule set.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

But even in the 5E rules, it says explicitly you don't need to roll for everything.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

The community has not adopted the community has definitely not adopted the community likes to roll for everything. And to honestly, to the detriment of role play. Yeah. Because social checks are supposed to be role-playing. I when we're playing the game and we're role-playing, we're avoiding dice. Right. Whereas And that's the idea. Right. There's a whole generation that tends to bypass role-playing in favor of a social check.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Right. I want to persuade this guy to do this thing. Here's my D20. I got a 14. Now what did I do?

SPEAKER_04 6:23

Yes, I get it. But as like certainly as a player and a GM, I would like to have my players do a little of that role playing. And if you can maybe make your life easier or harder, right? We might say, well, that was a really good job role-playing. Now using 5e as an example, your difficulty to persuade this man or this whoever might be a 10 now versus a 15 or a 17 because you had good role play. It's really a way to encourage that. If you just want to say, walk into a room and say, I make a check to see if people like me or whatever it is, that's like nonsensical to me. And now I don't know if that's how 5e players work. That's one of the reasons I think this game of that in this game.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

I I think there's a difference between the way 5e was written up and the way that the world at large plays it.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

Yeah, I agree. Right. But I would also argue that the whole you get this bonus to this role for good role play has simply replaced what we did back in the day, where the GM would just make things happen based on that role play.

SPEAKER_04 7:36

Oh, I get it. Yeah, that's how I like to play.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

That's my way. That's what I like. And like the one thing that we love and we've it has found its way into every game, which is the advantage and disadvantage mechanic. It's good for that. Okay, you made a good argument that gives you advantage on your check or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 7:50

Yeah, and this game does take that into account. There's advantage and disadvantage. There's just no sh social aspect to this game where you there's no social skill.

SPEAKER_03 7:59

Which is ironic because in a horror game, it's almost all about human interaction.

SPEAKER_04 8:05

Right, which is why you don't need dice. Yeah. Right? We don't need dice because we are just humans interacting with each other. Except for John. Look at John.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Actually, both of them.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

Yeah, there you go. The only one here. Albin this John was a good replacement. Right? Reasonably quiet Johns. They he plays in a similar fashion.

SPEAKER_04 8:26

You know what's funny is like after we listen to this, and you hear Doc isn't doesn't just jump in. Doc is like he'll just have these comments where you're like, he just nails it.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

He's definitely a sniper. Yeah, he's a sniper.

SPEAKER_04 8:41

He picks his spots and he nails it every time. Right. There's no way Doc wouldn't have shot him coming across that dam. I agree. No hesitation. I wouldn't have made him roll though, because for me to run somebody else's character, like that's why I was like, all right, I can't just say, yeah, I think Frank would do this, right? Right. I think he would. Exactly. But I if he was an NPC, no problem. But Frank wasn't an NPC. He was Doc's PC. And I know Doc would have had zero problems opening up with a machine gun upon McTavish.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

I mean, I didn't have the I didn't have the I was going to shoot McDuff with a rocket launcher on my bingo card for this week. I think you did. But I'm fairly certain this was pre meditative.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

So I feel like I'd just like to say, and I haven't listened to this episode, but the amount of shit I got for accurately role-playing the scenario and the stress and reacting as the character would react in the situation is disproportionate to I mean, just hitting you with the butt of a rifle.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

That was pretty that was definitely an aggressive maneuver.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

And well there's probably three episodes that they beat on you about it. Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

I mean that's I was already panicked.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

That is nowhere near the number of episodes that we've beat on you about the whole missing your die roll and melting the gold thing. Yeah, no, that's it was copper dust, thank you. I mean, that was in like episode three. Yeah, it was a while. And here we are talking about it still. Yeah. It's all good. That was good stuff.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

But that was that was fun because that was game mechanics.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

That was well, horror games are tough. I we've played two in the last, they're our most recent ones, and I've I've really enjoyed both of them.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

I have never played horror games before this.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

Well, we've talked about horror games back in the middle of our original adventure. Where we figured that we wouldn't be very good at it because we have a hard time taking anything seriously with seriousness, yes. Right. Fair. Right. So we have to be much more serious when we play games like this so that everybody knows that we're really scared. So that's just on us.

SPEAKER_03 11:07

The question is, did we?

SPEAKER_04 11:10

Well, I think I actually think character-wise, you did a really good job showing that a way that a character may respond to the stresses of a situation. I actually thought you were really good at it. Yeah, yeah. Because you love this genre so much.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

I do. This is alien was always my thing, like from day one.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

And at the end of the game, there, I was with Metavish, I was like, he wouldn't react to that like DD murder hobo. I mean, I just waxed a member of my crew that I knew before.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

You didn't really like anybody in your crew to start with. Yeah, from episode one.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

Pretty much that was my character that see I kept waiting for the android to like snap. Yeah. I don't know if snap betray is a better word. I felt like there was going to be a point where the company directive was in direct conflict with our survival.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

So Hinton was on the alien mothership. Okay. Which was not what the ship took off, by the way. All right. For future reference. There was another ship. So they had a fleet. No, there was a ship, like a ship within a ship deal. Okay. It doesn't really explain it at the adventure. It just says after X, the a ship leaves the mothership. But Hinton was in the mothership doing Hinton things in an attempt to essentially let's call it a take over the mothership. And I could have seen, easily seen a situation where Doc's character turns into like the helper of Hinton as the Android assimilation person. So anybody who listens to this or spoiler alert, Hinton was trying to essentially take over some carcinoded nobles and become a essentially have the equivalent power of a carcinded noble in the hive. And the hive is more of a hive mind, not a place. Right. Not a place, the hive mind itself. And he was on the mothership, which was a separate portion of this adventure that you could have completed. And that's where I said, Well, I don't know if we'll finish today, because if you went to the mothership, it could have gotten a little dicey on finishing. Well, it probably wouldn't have because we would have just died. And there's always that, right? The mothership part of it seemed like extraordinarily dangerous.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Right. Yeah, there's nothing but carcinids everywhere. Yes. Although definitely was there, was there definitely a switch that went off when that comma ray got? Yes.

SPEAKER_04 13:46

When well, when once the thing was removed from the comma ray, it it instilled confusion in into the the carcinids themselves. Okay. And you were right, Hinton did. Why? Well, because they weren't sure who was in control anymore. It's like they were getting conflicting information. Why was it connected to the comma ray to start with? Because that's a way to make sure that anybody who listens gets infected. And was Hinton the one that strapped the thing because it was pretty much all Hinton.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

So Hinton found them, but these are really neat.

SPEAKER_04 14:19

Well, it was they obviously adeem knew as well, right? She was working on research. Company directive. Well, Hinton seemed to be operating upon his own Right. On his own deal. But if you think about it, if Hinton takes over, then he can make sure that the carcinids are not a threat to humanity. So maybe there was some good out of this. But I don't know if Hinton succeeded. And neither do you. All you know is an alien ship sped off somewhere into the great unknown.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

I'm still wrestling with the fact that they had a ship. Like my view of these was primitive. Like, for example, these morphs in the alien franchise, they didn't have no ships, right? They were a hive, they were predatory.

SPEAKER_04 15:06

But remember the nobles? Wasn't there some big giant guys strapped into a ship at one point?

SPEAKER_03 15:10

Those were not aliens. Well, whatever they were. Those were the engineers. Well, yeah, I'm not really up on my aliens. That's a separate species. You see, this is this Nerdlart. Nerdlart. Absolutely. They were basically a race that tried to modify everything. Okay. Genetically.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

In in this particular adventure, there were three nobles in the mothership, we'll call it. The giant ship that Hinton was in. And he was trying to interface with them to take over the control, essentially. So vent the nobles from waking, and he would have control.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

Tyranids.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

It could be. I mean, yeah, I mean, we the ones we were interacting with could have been like worker things, and then there's a whole separate cast of different beings that might have been more.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

So we didn't we probably didn't even see the warriors.

SPEAKER_04 16:07

They're all very tough. And I probably, I don't know if I took it too easy on you guys or not. I mean, you caused a lot of your own trouble.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Well, I think possibly this might have ended after one session if he hadn't had the vibers yet.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

Well, yeah. I mean, it is possible. I mean, you did wound that one severely, and it was one of those things where you didn't have any of the tools maybe required to damage it. I really didn't have any thought of how you may or may not damage it. The situation was what it was. Yeah, you don't come up with solutions for the players, you take them up with situations, right? So yeah. But for me, this is nine out of ten. Oh, yeah. On the fun level. So are you saying the adventure was nine out of ten system? The system, I love the system too. I mean, I don't ever rate things, so just saying nine out of ten means I enjoyed it very much. That's fair. The adventure, the system, and I'd love to play it someday.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

So if we ever do a revisit, I'd be interested to see if this works at all for like a longer campaign general sci-fi thing. Because it's so simple. Because it's yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

I mean the problem is to I think in this genre to have a long-term game, the system has to be more swingy. What do you mean? Well, this system is deadly. So as you play, it's going to be attrition, right? Like we played this adventure, one person survived. Would the next adventure be that one person in a new group doing something? And you're just following that one guy. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I see what you're saying. But in a system that is more swingy, like the D6 system, etc., there's always that opportunity for some sort of cinematic success. The Ripley factor is there. Right. Right? Yeah, yeah. It's not guaranteed, it's not always gonna happen, but you might get that lucky roll that lets you save the day.

SPEAKER_04 18:17

Or maybe do 180 points of damage to something. Right. Right. Right, because I'm like 180 points of damage. I don't know about you, but that matters.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

It's bizarre. But the way like for this example adventure, it would have taken out one of the nobles. There is no way, because of the way the infection works, and because of the scenario, there's no way infection's not gonna happen. There's no way infection's not gonna get to the ship. Right.

SPEAKER_04 18:46

So, and it's funny that you mentioned that, right? So this is I bet when you were exposed to the screen. Now, when Frank was exposed the very first time on his long-range cons, I made him roll, right? Now I assumed it was a headset where it's not just blasting around, right? Like, what point is that in a long round? You want to have something headset or something. I described it to him. He made his role, and I don't know that an android could be infected anyway. I'm guessing no. Because Hinton wasn't, and there's nothing to grow through, right? But then you were exposed, and Stillwater was exposed, and he made his role, and I didn't realize that you didn't make your role until, well, right before you got on the goddamn I didn't roll.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

There wasn't a roll.

SPEAKER_04 19:31

There's a role, there's a sanity save. And I when I was listening to that episode, you know. Oh, it was the sanity save. It was the sanity save, but you failed it, and I didn't realize that. I never put it together. So, but there is a lag time. Right. Two to ten hours between that. And I was like, it was just close enough where I could justify you not airing. Did Eric's character make the role? Yes, he did make the role. For twice. No, he only had to make it once. Because he was screamed twice. As far as I remember, it was once.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Well, there was one right in his face. Yes. Right. And then there was the one I was exposed to.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

Right. Everybody was exposed to that, but I made it a little like everybody would have died right then and there. Right there. Right. So it was because it was right in your face. Because otherwise, it's one of those if just hearing it in the same room, I mean, everybody could have died right then and there. Right. Or at least had their death sentence written. Right. And it seems uh it seemed a little slightly unfair. And now not the not- What is this fair stuff? Well, I get it. I get it. But we want to fair? But you know what I mean, right?

SPEAKER_03 20:35

A rocket launcher to the face isn't fair either. Just saying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

But that wasn't a random thing that was.

SPEAKER_04 20:43

I did that with intention.

SPEAKER_03 20:45

I could have been in Contenda. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:47

But the one thing I will say about this adventure, and you guys pointed out like, why did they have vents in the freezer? Why was this freeze one freezer running and the other? Like, there were a couple of these weird little things in there that like one logic gaps. When it stood alone, it was fine. But after reading this a bunch, I'm like, well, wait a minute. If this then that, and there were just these like little things inside the how can you have vents in a freezer that go into the HVA system?

SPEAKER_03 21:10

Like I could have justified it. Right. I guarantee you I could have. How was the freezer still running when power was out on the base? Like it had its own power source for the freezer. But why would a freezer have its own power source? Well, that's the question.

SPEAKER_04 21:21

Because it was holding alien samples and you don't want to escape. Right. So there's like those weird little things, just like a few things like that. But I get it when you have when you finally and I had to read this adventure a lot and parts to come up with the big picture and see those little gaps. But while you're playing, it's harder to see that kind of stuff. And it took me out staring at this thing for a while.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

See, I feel like as a player, that stuff is more obvious. Like, as soon as you said there's a an H like a ventilation shaft in the freezer, I'm like, what?

SPEAKER_04 21:54

Yeah, and that's one of the more simple versions of one of the things that you know we catch on to. We're like, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Why did they reading the adventure? I could completely see myself as the game master reading the adventure, just glossing over that.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

Yeah. Right. It's running. I don't need to know why. It is, right? I don't need to make up a reason either. To be honest, I don't need to explain it to the players. It is.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

But as a player, anomalies like that stick out. Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Like, hey, what are you trying to do here? Yeah. Yeah. What is this running? What's important about this? Yeah, we're way more suspicious on this side of the table than it is on that one.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

That's a river ogre level item. Like that could derail your entire adventure. Because we idiots. Yeah, we're gonna key. Well, absolutely focus on that.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Well, that's right. We are going to be a good one. But when you just make a comment about river ogres, and then it just becomes a whole thing. Right.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Right.

SPEAKER_04 22:47

And you know that's our next Shadow Dark adventure. When he's running. Yeah, if I'm running it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Yeah. Son of Miro.

SPEAKER_04 22:56

So overall, I enjoyed this. I would recommend it to anybody who likes any RPG, even if you don't like space RPGs, that's I mean, it's near near future. This is not some kind of out there super sci-fi, right? It's like crazy over-the-top magic kind of sci-fi. It's very grounded.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

I feel like this system could work in any genre. Like it is simple enough, it is basic enough. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

I think you could easily strip the they're definitely third parties making different mothership games. Yeah. There's one called Cloud Empire, Empress, Cloud Empress, Cloud Empire, something. Is this OGL? Or it's more like science fantasy sort of thing. Is I mean, is it open source?

SPEAKER_03 23:42

I think it is. Because if that's true, I got some ideas. Yeah, what are you doing? I'm not telling. Come on, there's nobody listening. Some sadly true.

SPEAKER_05 23:56

I mean, I will be.

SPEAKER_03 23:58

I was gonna say, not not right now. There's not. I mean, that they'll be listening in a week. But when we get famous, that's funny. Is I can't imagine it's OGL. Or what's the new one called? There was a new Creative Commons. Yeah, Creative Commons. What's the other one that Kobold Press came up with?

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Orc, the Orc license?

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Yeah. Let me see. Mothership. No, Mothership does not use the OGL. Standalone original IPG. Well, I don't think anybody uses the OGL anymore, other than Wizards.

SPEAKER_04 24:36

I think what you're saying is who else is using this licensed from Tuesday Night Games. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

You would have to like actually get licensing.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Publishing third party content from Mothership is easy. First download and fill out the license agreement attached to this article, then send us your manuscript. We'll review it. Okay, so it's not open. No, they have to approve it. They have a license and you can send them stuff and they can approve it.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

And I'm sure there's a check involved.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Or they get revenue. Or they just need to make sure that you're not gonna make a shit game. Nazis are fun sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Or whatever. No comment.

SPEAKER_04 25:18

Well, I mean, just play. There's g games out there where Nazis are the antagonists. Hex, for one.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Right, but there are people who would make the 1940s. It was 33. There are people who would make the Nazis are the protagonists games.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Too many of them these days, it seems. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Anyway. Like fatal. Oh god. Is that a game?

SPEAKER_04 25:41

Don't look it up. Don't I wouldn't even I don't know that I would call it. I mean, I don't understand what that is.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

It feels like it should be a parody. The person who made it completely intentionally to be a game. But it we don't like stray away from topics of dubious merit. But this goes well beyond what we would consider good taste. Like your character, among many things, your character definitely has a penis size as a numerical value on your character sheet. Okay. I already know I do not want to play this game. Is there also a girth? I don't think anybody's ever really played this game. Okay. But it's just pointed at as a oh my god, look at this thing. I'm rolling. I mean, yeah. Which means as a podcast, we should try to play it. No, no. Oh my god. I feel like you're not wrong, though. That's not a serious thing, but hey, can you imagine the views? I I I agree.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

I feel like an actual play podcast of Fatal may be our claim to fame. That's a dubious claim if ever there was one. Well, it would be completely dubious, like intentionally dubious. I don't think we could, I don't think we could pull it together. You would have to have all kinds of warnings. Right. Would we be very serious though? That's how we got to play it. You cannot be very serious.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

We could not be serious. Well that that's not true. Like literally, I'm not even talking about some of the things that this game has in it, just because I don't even think it would be good for our level, which is not good to start with. Oh, we're to even talk about. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Anyway, moving on. Moving on. So what are we doing next? Well, I think we should go back and play some Shadow Dark. I'm fine with that. Yeah. I guess the real question is who's running it?

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Not it? Are you volunteering? Something else in that same vein of discussion. Somebody mentioned the D6 system and playing a game of that.

SPEAKER_04 27:54

That was me. I mentioned the D6. West Star Wars, yeah. Oh, we are going to do that? Well, that we had talked about it.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

That'd be super cool. See, I definitely want to try the D6 system. I'm not sure I want to do Star Wars, though.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Well, that gets on the George Lucas going to be suing somebody. Right. George Lucas ain't he ain't suing anybody. You don't own it anymore.

SPEAKER_04 28:15

We don't need Disney on it. Disney gonna sue somebody. We'll be putting out better Star Wars content than them, that's why. That's not hard to do.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

Woo!

SPEAKER_04 28:23

Shots fired! Shots fired!

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Incoming! I find it very odd that the only good Star Wars content lately has been animated, but that's a whole other discussion.

SPEAKER_04 28:32

Well, Andor's been very good. Well, that's true. I and I agree. Excellent. Andor was very good. You know why it was very good? Because it wasn't for children. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:42

You're not wrong.

SPEAKER_04 28:44

Star Wars isn't for kids. Well, it's if you make it not for kids, guess what? You can make it really good. Yeah. It doesn't have to be childish.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Right, but the reason why we're in it is because they made it for kids in 1978.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

Well, no, that's not true either.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

I never felt like it was really for kids.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

No, when they made it in 1978, they made science fiction. Well, so space opposite.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

The original Star Wars was not dark and gritty the way we like it now.

SPEAKER_03 29:14

Well, the nothing in the media was dark and gritty then like we like it now.

SPEAKER_04 29:19

Well, that's not true. There's some of those 70s movies. I mean, Alien did come out in the 70s.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

Well, the definition of dark and gritty was much different then.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Yeah, I guess so. Right. Alien came out of the same basic time, right?

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Yeah. A couple years later, I think.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Two years maybe. 79, yeah, two years old. Classic for all time, there. Absolutely. But Alien was intended to be a horror movie, not a general audience. It was also rated harder than Star Wars.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

Right. Sure. Yeah, it was probably rated R, right? I mean, I'm guessing. I don't really cursing, etc. And yeah, Star Wars, yes, because just because it's PG doesn't mean it's necessarily only for children, right? I mean, you can enjoy a PG show as an adult or a movie like Star Wars as an adult. It doesn't have to have cursing or anything like that. Would I love to see some maybe well-done rated R Star Wars? I think it could be done. No, and I think I'd really enjoy it, but it would have to be done correctly.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

I would love to see. I mean, there's a lot of military things in the Star Wars universe. I would love to see a dare I say, saving Private Ryan level Star Wars movie. Like that could be real. That could be a thing. Rogue One was pretty good. I enjoyed it. It was. They were supposed to do a Rogue Squadron series. Yeah. That would be amazing if done like a real war movie. Right. No, exactly. Like you do Rogue Squadron like a real war movie. You just won the universe.

SPEAKER_04 30:58

And the thing is, that's I can live with good stories done in a Star Wars skin.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

The kids watch war movies though. I mean Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:07

Yeah. I don't know about the like you can keep going with what you have. Like you they got all the old fans. You can get by on those for now, but if you make good movies, it doesn't matter how old you are, you'll enjoy them.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

I mean, maybe the younger generation doesn't enjoy war movies. The other piece of that puzzle is you cannot expect anything released today to have the same sweeping impact that the Star Wars movies did when they were released. Agreed. Because they were the only one. They were it. They were the thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Well, that there was an expectation that people were going to release original creative works, and people were open-minded enough to accept that. I don't know that we're in the same spot that we were in 1978. I think particularly if you slap Star Wars' name on it, it has an expectation, and people want things from it from you before they even look at the product. So I think you should make uh you should make a space opera that's amazing and not have it be Star Wars, but nobody will green light that they did.

SPEAKER_04 32:11

They called it Foundation. I mean it looked Foundation looks amazing. I just don't care about it. But Foundation wasn't an original creative work by TV.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

It was Asimov.

SPEAKER_04 32:24

Now, look, that's maybe one of the reasons we all love the Expanse so much. I don't play an RPG in that universe.

SPEAKER_03 32:30

Expanse was great.

SPEAKER_04 32:31

And this game itself, it might lur lend itself decently to the Expanse.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Well, yeah, I mean the Expanse, it gets into a lot of political stuff. True. And characters and character arts. It really is. At its heart, it's a space horror game, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:49

The proto-molecule is certainly the first book was is like this stuff. Yeah, for sure. I mean, they had an episode with one of the I don't even know what they called him. Wasn't they didn't call it the Proto Modicle, but the monstrosities on their ship. No, one of the clogg guys. Right? On their ship. Oh shit. That's total space.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

Did you read the books? Yes. So the first book to me felt way more surreal than the show painted it. It was a little it was a little different than that. Like the time when the detective was on the space station seemed very like. You mean when he was there alone later? Yeah. Seemed very Cthulhu, like just you mean space horror. Just all over the place. It was cosmic horror, is a better term. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Cthulhu also is space horror. If you really get down into it. Right.

SPEAKER_04 33:42

Cosmic horror. Cosmic horror, sure. You can call it cosmic horror. There was body horror because the things grew on you. There was the horror of the creations that the body horrors ended up turning into.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

I would almost use the term trippy horror. Like this parts of that book seemed like a bad trip. Right? The way he it was written.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

I'll have to take your word on that. Have you watched this series, John? The Expanse? Okay, you have homework.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

I started it. I got a couple about two, three episodes in, and then I just lost track. I think I deployed.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Dude, I think that You have homework. Yeah. Let's put it this way. I'm working on the boys right now. These guys know how avidly I watch shows. I watched you watch shows. I never watch shows. That's what you're saying. But I watched The Expanse.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

I've been trying to get them to watch certain shows forever.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Yeah. And it's just like I have 15 other things that I and I feel bad about sitting there on a couch and watching a show. Okay. When I should be doing something else that's probably not any better. Alright, final thoughts from anyone? John?

SPEAKER_01 34:47

I thought it was a great listen.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Alright. Well, I'm glad you think that. Did you have fun for an hour playing with us? Oh, you know it. Alright. We'll bring you back. Blue other characters. We'll bring you back. We'll let you be you in another game very short.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

Which the people listening don't really understand what that truly means yet. Right? Even I don't.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

And I think this is like his first episode. He's a little microphone shy. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't play like this, folks. But as an open up. He gets a little bit more comfortable.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

I'm calm the first couple episodes. We need to put a really beer to it.

SPEAKER_03 35:22

Like I feel like when we've played with John in the past, he's usually got a drink. Yeah, but that's a bad it's a bad idea. Just A.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

I have to edit this.

SPEAKER_03 35:32

Well, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

But I feel like this version of John is much more editable.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Since he rode with you, that could be something we do. He doesn't have to drive after.

SPEAKER_04 35:42

True, yeah. Yeah. We'll just have to keep our burping in check. The one time we had a beer on the air, there was so much belting. We all needed kill switches.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

That's right, we all had a process cutter.

SPEAKER_04 35:53

It was about a year ago, to be fair. What are your final thoughts, Sean?

SPEAKER_03 35:58

I I knew I was gonna like this going in because I had read the rules and honestly, I waited for this game to come out. I would definitely play it again, I would definitely run it. And now that I know people are developing it for other settings, I'm tempted to give that a shot myself. But yeah, I'll I dig it. I dig it a lot. I've been looking for a fantasy horror game, and I would love to find a way to use this system in conjunction with maybe another system to create that. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 36:37

Having a fantasy horror with a similar to the panic kind of effect. Right.

SPEAKER_03 36:43

Yeah. So I've looked at Shadow Dark. There's somebody that publishes a sanity system for Shadow Dark, which is pretty basic, seems decent. I had considered, before we even touched any of this, using this sanity system with the D6 rule set. Like in conjunction. I feel like that might actually be a decent match. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 37:07

Well, I don't think we need to turn every game we play into a horror.

SPEAKER_03 37:11

Well, I agree. I agree. But uh the genre I've always wanted to create was a sword and sorcery that actually had horror elements. Well, I'll uh Conan.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

I think we we have all played it, and we beat around the bush all the time about that we all love, every single one of us at the table loves the game and we don't play it. I know exactly what game you're playing. But it's Warhammer. Yeah, Warhammer Fantasy Role. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I was picturing the old charts of has that at its core. It has the because it is, it was originally meant to be a DD slash Call of Cthulhu mashup. I think the reason we don't play it is we're scared.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

We're scared of the rules. Of games workshop? No, we're scared of the rules. Like I think every time we talk about playing it, we all go, I don't want to run that.

SPEAKER_04 38:02

Well, I've never played any of the new versions. I've only played the old one.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Well, the if if we played first edition Warhammer Fantasy Book.

SPEAKER_04 38:11

Yeah. Let's do it. Let's finish our wrap-up, Sean.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

It's gonna be very disjointed. No, we could talk about this kind of stuff all day. The mothership was great.

SPEAKER_03 38:21

Yeah. It was much better than cats. I'll see it again and again. All right. Sean, final thoughts from you.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

I loved it. If I did it over again, I would probably have played a Marine rather than a scientist. But I figured we didn't have a scientist when it came time to time to roll it up. I love the game. It's like like we've said before, it gets out of the way. It has that that creeping your sanity is slipping away feel to it. Because you're why because every time you fail a role, you're adding to that, to that stress. And then you're starting to dread doubles and that sort of thing. And I think that that puts you in the proper headspace.

SPEAKER_04 38:58

Right. And not only that, what it does is it makes the player conscious of the decisions they make, and it might actually limit your desire to interact with the system in the world, which is also just one more thing, like I just want to get out of here. I just want to live.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

But then you also, yes, there is that, but then you also get to that point where you can't do anything without tripping all of it. So you're just like, screw it, I gotta do it. I gotta throw it to the wind. And yeah, right. I think it gets there too. And if I assume that there's been games out like this for forever, and assume that both parts of that were an intentional design choice from Tuesday night games, and if so, freaking amazing. Right.

SPEAKER_04 39:44

I think I think they've invented a great mechanic. I mean, that that will work for other games. Somehow you could probably integrate it, but I enjoyed the mechanic of the sanity. That was the most unique part of this system that it actually came up less than I thought, but it was always there, like you mentioned, hanging over your head, like the sword of Damocles. Just at any moment, you could totally snap and cut your friend in half.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

And and it did, and then it gets to the point where you shoot the friend, the other friend, in the face with a rocket launcher. Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Yeah. Killing a dog.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

We'll just say that No, the dog lived. They definitely need to know that the words player and character mean something when they're writing a rule book. Right. But that's my only criticism.

SPEAKER_04 40:31

Oh, I think they'll catch that all throughout the entire episodes that we recorded. Use words have meanings. So please, players, GMs, fans of Retro Rollcast, go out there, find somebody to reduce your stress with, and we'll catch you on the flip side.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

Thank you for listening to this episode of Retro Rollcast. Please check out our social media, and we will see you next week.

SPEAKER_04 41:11

This has been a Retro Rolecast production.