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I was one of the players KingDunnad ran this for, and it was a blast!

I am usually concerned when stories reveal the central threat is benign, but it worked for me and my fellow player. The reserved threat, the disparate clues, the random interludes/events, and the starting amnesia successfully pull double-duty at letting our minds fill in the horror while also justifying the twist when it’s eventually revealed.

With the right playgroup, this is an excellent paranoia-fueled horror-comedy scenario (with the players as the butt of the joke). Great job!

I had the opportunity to experience this adventure as a player, and it was a blast!

It’s a creative usage of both the stellar phenomena chosen and the “mystery” theme. And the pamphlet format keeps it incredibly tight.

With the right players, this is an excellent paranoia-fueled horror-comedy scenario (with the players the butt of the joke).

Perfect way to celebrate Canada Day.

If anyone else wants to see the other cool images from the MESSENGER probe to Mercury: https://messenger.jhuapl.edu/Explore/Science-Images-Database/By-Topic/topic-67.html

I’m really enjoying this game! Are there any physical copies available for this (and Long in the Tooth)?

Just FYI: the first entry in the Table of Contents for v1.2 and the Lulu version is “_Toc157355697Table of Contents.” Might want to trim the “_Toc157355697.”

I’ve been running this game for about a year now, and I absolutely love it. I’ve brought it to multiple groups, and it’s a hit every time.

Would it be possible to reorder the equipment alphabetically? It feels impossible to find equipment in a timely manner, especially physically without the benefit of Ctrl+F.

I’m certainly interested!

Hey there,

Will you be running this jam again for this year?

Individual links to each Fari.App sheet:

• Medic: https://fari.app/characters/new/nightjar-games/crash-cart-medic-playbook

• Pilot: https://fari.app/characters/new/nightjar-games/crash-cart-pilot-playbook

• Orderly: https://fari.app/characters/new/nightjar-games/crash-cart-orderly-playbook

• Mechanic: https://fari.app/characters/new/nightjar-games/crash-cart-mechanic-playbook

• The EMV: https://fari.app/characters/new/nightjar-games/crash-cart-emergency-medical-vehicle-sheet

If you want all your players to collaborate on the EMV sheet, you need to make sure to add the EMV sheet to a campaign and share the campaign with your players.

For anyone looking to play this online, I just added the standard CRASH//CART playbooks and the EMV sheet to Fari.App. Just go to “My Binder -> Characters -> New”, then on the character sheet click the Templates dropdown and search for “CRASH CART.” These sheets are also printable, so you can treat them like form-fillable character sheets in addition to digital-only sheets.

For VTTs, I found PlayingCards.io to work well enough.

Thanks for asking! Unfortunately, it has to be an adventure. If you want to make a system, I recommend the One Page RPG Jam that’s staring soon.

Good question! You’re free to use any assets you have legal access to. I personally like to use Unsplash, Wikimedia Commons, Game Icons, Kevin Crawford’s art pack for SWN, and all the images NASA publishes.

Hey Ben,

Thanks for the offer! I don’t know how many people here will take you up on your offer (since most TTRPG adventures lack bespoke sound effects and music), but there’s a chance someone would be interested in your offer.

You might want to look at the My First Game Jam. They have a thread for people looking for teams,which might provide more opportunities for you to provide sound-based services. There’s also an entirely music-focused jam called the Town Music Jam. That might be worth checking out.

Thanks again for the offer. Hopefully someone takes you up on it!

Glad to hear. Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Looking at SW5e, I noticed they didn’t have any licensing or disclaimers - not even an OGL declaration. I am not a lawyer, but I recommend you use a simple disclaimer. That, combined with the price of “free,” should keep the House of Mouse off your back.

I do recommend you avoid Creative Commons license for this one, since that grants powers to derivative works you likely don’t have the authority to.

Good question! “Originality” merely applies to the scenario’s content, not the universe/setting. You’re free to set it in a pre-existing universe. For last year’s contest, we had people use the settings for The Expanse and two published Traveller settings.

Unrelated to the contest, but do be careful when writing adventures for other people’s IP (especially if money is involved). Star Wars 5e is constantly in danger of litigation from Lucasfilm/Disney. While I think the actual risk is low, you should still be careful.

Useful map resources:

• Newt Blueprint Builder (free). Make Alien/Aliens-style maps easily.
• Dungeon Scrawl (free). Old-school maps with multiple themes.
• HexTML (free). Online hex-map maker.
• Starship Geomorphs (free). A bunch of maps for spaceships, especially Traveller/Cepheus ships.
• Station Blueprint Designer (free). A webapp to design simple hard(ish) sci-fi space stations and deep space vehicles.
• Role Generator Spaceship Generator. Uses the Starship Geomorphs to randomly generate complete spaceship deckplans.

Feel free to share any helpful resources (advice, artwork, random generators, InDesign/Publisher templates) here.

Whoops, sorry about that. It should be accessible now.

I’ve brought back the section for Motivations/Disorders.

That’s a good observation. I totally forgot to add the Motivations Disorder section when I posted the sheet. There’s enough room in the PERSONAL DETAILS section, but I’ll bring back the dedicated box for Motivations and Disorders.

This is probably one of the more unique concepts, in my opinion. While a spaceship crawl is fairly generic, the new perspective and the multi-faction context breathe life into it. There are lots of different sides with their own goals, which contextualized as a mystery for the players, turns this into a powder keg. In addition, the ship is keyed fairly well, which should make running it easier.

However, the elaboration and organization of some of the individual components needs more polish. While everything is technically logically organized, some ideas feel like they’re introduced too late. For example: the list of factions comes after the section where their abbreviations are used, which is odd considering some abbreviations are spelled out earlier in the adventure. To contrast this, I feel like the starting situation for the PCs is re-explained a few too many times. To address these issues, I think spelling out faction abbreviations earlier in the scenario and streamlining the players’ introduction would help the scenario read better.

A small quibble: “alter” on page 4 should probably be “alert.”

Ultimately, this scenario presents really exciting gameplay opportunities that can play out in a variety of ways, but could use some tightening up in a few awkward spots. I also think that adding the ship’s map as a separate download would be helpful. Great job!

I agree with everyone else: this scenario is broadly well-organized and has an interesting set-up. The non-lethal rivalries provides space for more characterful and interesting interactions with the other crews, which combined with the uniting pressure from the Detective Kent, should make for some interesting emergent play.

However, don’t know how to feel about the twist being discoverable before the mission even begins. I feel that discovery could defeat the purpose of the twist overall, but I appreciate it’s technically not a complete surprise. Although you only had 15 words to spare, I think elaborating on that possibility or cutting it would’ve been best.

I’d like to see the various rivals fleshed out more. Specifically listing and organizing common behaviors/tactics would be helpful. The list of events almost performs that task, but having more explicit and systemic characteristics would help the rival crews feel more defined and present in the scenario.

Overall: I really like this scenario’s premise and organization, and I just wish the early reveal of the twist and the rivals were more fleshed out. Although you’re near the word limit, so fleshing things out might not have been worth cutting other things.

Yeah, the introduction of the second ComSat could’ve been more clear. The second ComSat is mentioned for the first time in the last sentence of the first page. It’s existence is just as an opportunity for the adventure to continue into a third act. If I revise this, I’ll provide more details for ComSat 2 and better explain how it fits into the larger situation.

As for lore, the basic political situation (cold war between Earth and Luna), the factions, and the ship designations (“DMV” and “Rock Hopper”) are from the Orbital 2100 setting. The only original lore I wrote are the names of the ships and NPCs, the details of ComSats, and the details of Ceres (which oddly was never detailed in the original Orbital 2100 setting, despite being the largest object in the main asteroid belt).

It’s interesting trying to integrate an entire micro-RPG alongside an adventure, and it’s amazing you were able to do it at half the Jam’s word limit. Clarity of writing, instruction, and layout exist on both pages of the submission. You also offer some charming character options, helped by the great pixel art (I’m quite a fan of Chargers). The referee’s page offers a lot of small yet useful tools to flesh out the adventure, and enables solo play (which is pretty cool).

Looking through the ideas, I’d love to have seen some more details (especially since you had the room to spare). Entities like Morok, the various law enforcement factions (Pavarti-Patriachat’s Pogo-Police, the Zavron Empire Guards, and the Dumb Cowboy Sheriff), and Poppa-Nobi merely inspire. If you ever revise this adventure or use similar ideas, consider expanding on those.

Overall, I’m impressed with the entire submission’s quality, utility, and versatility, and I am left wanting more.

I second the praise for the graphic design. It, along with the straightforward writing, clear procedures, and familiar concepts, helps to make this adventure incredibly runable from the perspective of the GM. I also like the three timers that represent the Jam’s them. While I understand and appreciate the minimalism for the Space Beast, I would have liked to see some more specific characteristics to make the Space Beast more memorable. Overall, it’s a well-designed space dungeon.I’d love to see some of these ideas expanded on in a future adventure.

Rogue-Bots, actually. Although I do also admire Tachycardia.

Sounds good, glad I could help. Another submission is waiting for the Mothership third party license, so you’ll be in good company if you don’t get the license before the deadline.

Howdy Chris. Those are good questions.

The “specifically for this jam” clause is meant to prevent pre-existing adventures from being submitted. Submissions that are made for this jam in addition to other jams happening at the same time are allowed. You’re perfectly fine to submit Snag the Suit/Evac the Exec to both jams.

As for the “essential images” clause, it was added as a counter-measure to people trying to circumvent the word limit. However, it has the unintended side-effect of barring any icon-heavy scenarios (such as yours). In response, I’m going to revise that rule so your adventure is allowed.

Ultimately: you’re fine to submit Snag the Suit/Evac the Exec. Thanks for taking the time to make an adventure, and ask me those questions.

Absolutely. Feel free to organize the adventure in whatever way makes the most sense to you.

Nice entry! Just FYI: it still says “An adventure template for the 2022 Hyperspeed Jam” under the title. You might want to fix that.

You’ll also want to probably send it to Tuesday Knight Games so you can get the official Mothership 3rd Party logo. Information about that process can be found on their website.

That’s a good question. Yes, a winner exists only nominally. Judging exists just as a vehicle for submitters to receive semi-formalized feedback on their submissions.

Role Generator Spaceship Generator. Uses the Starship Geomorphs to randomly generate complete spaceship deckplans.

Thanks mtb-za for sharing this with me.

Sure, yeah. Feel free to use a different layout. The template provided is mostly there to help authors get started.

Solo adventures are permitted. Just make sure it’s clear that the submission is a solo adventure.

You can definitely make a system-agnostic adventure. When you go to submit, just type “system-agnostic” in the field where it asks what system the adventure is for.

This is also the same process if you’re writing a Free Kriegsspiel Revolution adventure.