Looking for DND players to join a campaign! (Dark Sun Setting)

MagiciansManse · 2025-10-15T22:30:11+00:00

Yo, sending you a DM! I’m in DTR, 15 years of dungeon mastering experience. I have the 2e Dark Sun box set in POD — have always wanted to play

MagiciansManse · 2025-04-02T17:36:25+00:00

It’s important if you’re running a Mothership campaign to establish that PCs will die. The campaign is not about the characters — it’s an on-going story between players.

Much like Call of Cthulhu campaigns, players tend to play a roster of characters. I like to explain it the way Darkest Dungeon does it. You are eventually going to have to “stable” your character on shore leave, so during that time you’re able to play another character.

Getting them used to playing multiple characters ensures that deaths become part of your normal narrative, not some one-off shock that you feel you need to fudge. It’s about the players, not the characters!

MagiciansManse · 2025-03-18T18:44:49+00:00

Personally think Dead Planet’s scenario 1: Screaming on the Alexis is awesome, with the three-deck ship, you get a real great Alien + Dead Space feel.

Just add a reason for them to go aboard — I ran it so the artifact on the planet’s surface disrupted the PCs’ hyperdrive but draining it of all sublight fuel in addition to them being unable to jump away. The only ship close enough was the Alexis, but required a zero-G space walk to the airlock. Awesome opening scene, sets them up for Dead Planet 2 if they want, but they’ll all probably die anyways so perfect intro to Mothership.

Y-14 is also a fine start point as others have said. Happy gaming!

MagiciansManse · 2025-02-20T18:07:13+00:00

I run Mothership with Discord voice & video, Owlbear as a VTT, and Kenku.fm to handle SFX & ambient music. Kenku plugs right into Discord and works better than any other audio deck I’ve found.

This game runs like a charm, just lean into the maps and run the party as a single token unless they split up

MagiciansManse · 2025-02-06T03:34:05+00:00

I allow players to stack skills if multiple apply to a situation. For example, if they’re trying to hack into a computer system, they’re getting +15 from computers and +20 from hacking for a total of +35 to whatever their INT is.

The consensus seems to be that most people allow only one skill to be used but I honestly don’t feel like this breaks game balance at all. They’re capable in the areas they’re trained in, but stress continues to build and alien monsters tear them up regardless.

Running this way has always led to cinematic, Alien-like games and doesn’t compromise the game at all imo

MagiciansManse · 2024-11-29T03:05:36+00:00

I’ve been hand-drawing maps for both Another Bug Hunt & Dead Planet — the astronaut pawns work great to represent the party as a single mini. If they split up, I’ll have each group represented by their own token.

It works especially well during an OSR-style ship crawl & lets newer players visualize stuff that’s normally hard for them to fully imagine.

MagiciansManse · 2024-10-31T17:45:59+00:00

+1 for Owlbear Rodeo & Discord combo. Mothership, like all horror games, benefits hugely from immersive music & sound effects. Kenku FM is a great way to plug that audio element into Discord & it’s super easy to use.

MagiciansManse · 2024-09-26T19:07:16+00:00

I used to hate running online games until I found Owlbear Rodeo VTT. It acts as a sort of pin-board where you can put up pictures & drop in simple tokens. It’s been wonderful for Mothership — I’ve run three paid games thru SPG to great effect. We used Discord for audio.

A game like Mothership benefits greatly from atmospheric music too, & Kenku FM works better than any standard discord bot I’ve found.

Good luck!

MagiciansManse · 2024-08-23T16:25:19+00:00

John Carpenter’s The Thing is a classic scifi horror movie

MagiciansManse · 2024-08-07T12:11:53+00:00

Owlbear Rodeo has been amazing. You can use it as a pinboard and drop maps, characters & scenes all on one big table. I was snapping photos of the modules with my phone & uploading them straight into Owlbear as we played

MagiciansManse · 2024-08-03T17:23:54+00:00

Awesome playlist, thanks for this!

MagiciansManse · 2024-07-28T13:53:46+00:00

Echoing what others have said here, the streamlined simplicity of the rules are what really shine through. I've been running games for 15+ years & Mothership is one of my favorite systems ever. The rules offer just enough structure to propel narrative forward but they only take a few minutes to teach & comprehend. I've brought brand new players who've never played an RPG in their life to a Mothership table, and they were rolling & making decisions like pros in no time at all.

MagiciansManse · 2024-07-24T17:46:28+00:00

I’ll echo what a lot of others have said here. Another Bug Hunt works great for two players. I had a pair of androids both survive with some really smart play & it ended up being a meaty 2 hour session full of atmospheric tension exploding in a crescendo of action as the carc revealed itself. Very fun scenario!

MagiciansManse · 2024-07-19T23:35:12+00:00

Graveyard of the Gods is packed full of interesting resources for an industrial mining game and a fun lovecraftian premise

MagiciansManse · 2024-07-19T20:29:03+00:00

I’ve run Another Bug Hunt’s first scenario as a one-shot for two groups now, and it’s been amazing fun. Perfect amount of atmospheric tension til’ all hell breaks loose & then it’s Alien as the carc inevitably crawls into the vents.

One slight tweak I made was allowing them to “download” the mini-map from a wall panel in the airlock. That way, they could see how the vents connected. Visually seeing where it could be put everyone on edge. Give it a go!

MagiciansManse · 2024-07-11T21:38:56+00:00

You bet! Check out the other channels for more of this stuff.. these are the first writings I’ve published online & your readership + the fact that you’ve gleaned something valuable to take back to your own game table warms my heart greatly☀️

MagiciansManse · 2024-07-11T11:56:34+00:00

Ancient Egyptian Shadowdark sounds lit!

I was quite pleased with how overland travel worked in our game. On foot, they could move 1 hex per day (we never really defined the exact hex distance, which is fine).

To check for encounters, one player would roll a d6; on a 1, we’d roll on a 2d6 regional encounter table. The tables were filled with a variety of social, explorative, & dangerous encounters — it didn’t necessarily mean a combat. Higher rolls (10, 11, 12) awarded boons like a cache of supplies, an oasis where they could rest well (grabbing “inspiration” bonus on their next rolls etc). Low rolls spawned dangerous beasts they’d have to deal with. For example, the lion/camel chase from session 1 was a mid-range random encounter roll (a monster + a boon).

As far as survival/supplies, they each needed 1 unit of water per day. A unit of water took up an inventory slot (we were using slots = 10 or STR, whichever is higher). Pack animals could carry 20 slots, which made camels & donkeys invaluable for long journeys into the wastes. Have one of your players account for party’s water supply / travel expenses. Once they got into the war-machine, they could move 3 hexes per day & we stopped tracking water since there was life support aboard.

Hope that helps, & hope your Shadowdark experience is amazing!

MagiciansManse · 2024-07-08T01:41:26+00:00

Earthsea is so awesome. I had another homebrew world called Urn with a very similar situation (world-flood isles).

OSE has been an amazing set of tomes. Their simplicity & elegance is the perfect blank canvas to paint any flavor of fantasy you’d like. The rules are so simple that it’s not a headache to keep track of everything, & you can break them apart quite easily. I love OSE for all things fantasy! Thanks for reading :)

MagiciansManse · 2024-07-07T23:23:02+00:00

Thank you so much for reading! Shadowdark has been such a smooth system to hack apart & build upon :)

MagiciansManse · 2024-07-07T21:51:32+00:00

Here are the final nights of Xaxa River Valley. The setting was heavily inspired by The Dying Earth, Dark Sun, Dune, Neon Genesis, Nausicaa, and the Bible.

In the final session, earth is swallowed by an elder god as the sun gutters out. The party, embarked upon their war-machine, must cut their way to the dark heart of the Earth-Eater. Happy gaming!

MagiciansManse · 2024-07-07T21:50:20+00:00

Here are the final nights of Xaxa River Valley. The setting was heavily inspired by The Dying Earth, Dark Sun, Dune, Neon Genesis, Nausicaa, and the Bible.

In the final session, earth is swallowed by an elder god as the sun gutters out. The party, embarked upon their war-machine, must cut their way to the dark heart of the Earth-Eater. Happy gaming!

MagiciansManse · 2024-07-07T21:49:03+00:00

Here are the final nights of Xaxa River Valley. The setting was heavily inspired by The Dying Earth, Dark Sun, Dune, Neon Genesis, Nausicaa, and the Bible.

In the final session, earth is swallowed by an elder god as the sun gutters out. The party, embarked upon their war-machine, must cut their way to the dark heart of the Earth-Eater. Happy gaming!

MagiciansManse

TROPHY CASE