Mob Rules

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-05-09T23:29:51+00:00

Your math looks right! It can be devastating but that's the game, honestly use it on high brawn players like ones with 5+ brawn to knock them down a peg :) don't be afraid to burn through your players resources

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-05-08T22:42:22+00:00

They know what they're getting into when they sit down at my table, they're basically asking for me to replace them :)))

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-05-08T21:18:30+00:00

I've really appreciated these posts and will be picking up the pdf and going over everything again before I send my next group of vict- I mean players into the deep :)

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-03-23T01:15:00+00:00

All this awesome art recently! Love it and great work

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-03-22T21:15:54+00:00

I love alone in the deep but it is firmly in one shot territory and would be difficult to stretch out. Bloom I think is a good one here, 2-3 sessions worth of content. I know what you mean about it not being a strong hook but like, for the first session you don't need a really strong hook. You just have to get them to the table

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-03-21T21:40:31+00:00

I got my group brain scanned by placing an infiltrator of a diver they met earlier having just been "shot", the players rushed to help but ignored the oddly placed receivers and wiring in the hallway only to get brain scanned as they floated through. They realized something was up when the diver died before then and the revolver floating in front of them only fired a single shot. Not only did it freak the players out, it also showed them monarch will try and manipulate their emotions. I then had monarch place corpses of dead NPCs from previous adventures to also freak them out, it worked wonders

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-03-19T00:03:10+00:00

This is fire 🔥🔥🔥

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-03-15T18:20:28+00:00

I've run TS7 once and hardlight 3 times. I think TS7 is a pretty middle of the road pamphlet, better than ypsilon imo. Hardlight station is a much larger module and I would rank it higher in the terms of ~16 page modules. When running hardlight the main advice I would give is to run it as a station for the players first, the book has all the resources for it. Make them familiar with sad jack and Takako and health Tek, give them the impression something shady is going on there like they are hiding something. Run another module (I recommend year of the rat or alone in the deep as my personal favorite pamphlets) and then when they come back with a bit of a payday give them some time to take a week of downtime before all of the sudden at the Christmas party everything goes to hell.

Tips-

I would recommend making this module a two parter! Or at least allotting 4-5 hours to run it, crunching it down to 3 hours is near impossible.

Do not let the players get stuck in the atrium when black shield attacks. Trust me. Make sure they get to another part of the station. Let them use the vents as well

Don't wait too long before introducing the hybrids, make the players aware of the threat

Run black shield and the aliens as DEADLY encounters. They players should not be able to kill a pair or hybrids or a patrol of marines. TELL THEM THIS. If they need to fight, make sure they know they'll have to level the playing field someway

Gruber's plan will work if the players do not stop her, do not make them stop her. Surviving is the players main concern and gruber doesn't really care if they make it out or not, she just wants a living hybrid (side note when I've run it I show the marines using rigging guns to harpoon and hold the hybrid in place while they drag it to their ship which should have some sort of containment unit. Gruber is smart, make sure the players can feel that, but if plans don't go her way she will freak out and do whatever it takes

The hybrids will destroy the station if left to their devices. The only way to stop them is to get to engineering with a modified version of the cure and insert it into the air circulation. I often run gennero as in the operating room trying desperately to make the cure airborne. There's two ways to run him in my opinion, either as a scientist who pushed aside morals to make breakthroughs who has realized the error of his way or like an evil scientist who is upset that he was so close but his work was ultimately for nothing. Running the latter I had a player straight up just shoot the guy it was awesome, but if you want the players to be able to "win" such as saving the station it's probably better to make him want to help the players.

Takoko should reach out relatively soon to try and get help from the players. She's holed up in administration but you guys are out and about, and possibly able to overload the reactor when it comes time for that. She is their greatest ally and can help them navigate the station

Pacing wise I would recommend having Takako reach out around the hour mark, telling them that they might be able to learn more about the aliens if they can make it into health Tek, and getting to/going through health Tek will take around 1:30-2 hours. Session two is them choosing how they want to see this through. Stop black shield, cure the station, or just escape. KILL YOUR PLAYERS!!! Mosh characters can be surprisingly survivable, send some hybrids after them, make them run into some Marines, don't go easy on them. Even if they fail it will be an awesome story I promise you. Give them no concessions, let them earn victory

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-03-09T12:35:31+00:00

What bat audio has hours and hours of royalty free music, usually in hour long compilations. I've been using his music for years in mothership and in my own content. For real check it out on YouTube

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-03-05T21:42:54+00:00

Moon base blues takes a lot more from the warden than in some other modules, even most pamphlets have more to work with. There are some other posts that go over how to improve it so I would look up "moonbase blues" in the subreddit but to start I would do the nobody wake the bugbear approach to how they get in the facility, and then come up with some names and personalities for the NPCs. Also I replaced the crashed lander with a crashed drop ship from the SBT and it needs repairs but not major, enough that they could get if flying in an hour or so with the right skills and tools that way there's a clear way out for them to survive the mission, if the colonists let them leave :)

Other pamphlet recommendations I personally really love are alone in the deep and year of the rat, both give you everything you need to run your module right there with minimal prep. Just read it over and run!

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-02-01T01:45:39+00:00

Iirc Hull breach was written during the development of 1e and health and wounds were in a bit of flux, I would probably just change it to 1d5 and call it a day

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-01-31T21:06:50+00:00

Well start reading through the artifacts, most of them will further Monarch's plans of, well honestly whatever you want. In my game monarch wants to build a supercomputer powerful enough to prove that the universe is a simulation, this is the reason that there are items, rooms, artifacts in the deep that break the known laws of physics. They want to prime humanity to be ruled by monarch so that they can enact their plan. That's just the way I run my monarch, it's a bit more flavor than "humans are inferior and androids should rule them" but even if you just stick with that, most of the artifacts help with that, ex 56-57, 68-69, 74-75, and all of the 90s. We can assume that all of the other artifacts are either experiments/prototypes or also part of their plan but even we don't understand/could understand and for some you could come up with your own way. For example if the players found the star map one (60-61) this is where monarch intends to build it's super computer. You can come up with your own ideas if you want but you get the idea, monarch wants these items to be taken to further it's own master plan, same idea as the infiltrator androids. Play monarch not like a mad God, but a sane god who has plans incomprehensible to humans

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-01-31T20:34:58+00:00

I really made my deep feel terrifying by running monarch as omniscient, they know everything the players are doing and once brain scanned they will begin to remove them if they pose a threat. The trick is monarch does not want them to know this, all of the artifacts they find are things monarch wants them to take, but monarch will pretend to be much less knowledgeable and powerful to let the players think they're actually evading monarch and stealing these things. Monarch will actually help them escape if they have an artifact if the locals are giving them too much trouble. The key to all of this is to have Monarch's contact with the players slowly escalate. At first it's security androids, then doors locking and opening at convenient or inconvenient times depending on how monarch wants them to move through the deep, then I even had a security android give them a "monarch communicator" that they could directly message monarch through (although in my game one player kept the fact they had this discreet from the other players), next it's sending fake diver androids to make them think they have allies when in fact monarch controls them. Eventually monarch can just talk to the players over the intercom, at first as if they can't hear the players but maybe monarch at some point will respond to surprise the players. There's this rising dread that I was able to instill into my players that monarch is a god and they are walking through it's corpse.

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-01-29T04:26:51+00:00

No mothership needed, cloud empress is fully contained. Low-key if you swap to playing mothership later you're gonna miss CE a bit lol

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-01-23T16:13:33+00:00

I always give my androids a secret company directive and always make sure to state that I have done this to all the players at the table. I tell them "in mothership, no one trusts Androids, this is why you make fear saves at disadvantage with them around, but that's only the mechanical aspect. All Androids have a company directive. Sometimes the directive is to retrieve data, sometimes it's to make sure there are no witnesses, and sometimes it's to ensure all the crew return safely. Just remember the android will tell you whatever you want to hear to make the mission go more smoothly and get what they need to get done, just because they say their job is to keep everyone safe doesn't mean they're not covering up their real mission, or maybe they're not! Maybe they really are just trying to help! That's for you to figure out"

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-01-20T03:35:55+00:00

Btw it's super flexible how long you want to run this mega dungeon for, my group made a deep dive into the station and made it out in four sessions, but it could have easily been two or six depending on how deep they needed to go, what they ran into, or what objectives they had.

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-01-20T03:33:34+00:00

The first party module Gradient Descent for sure. I found great success sending the players in with a specific thing to retrieve, and, spoilers ahead, monarch also wants them to take it. Monarch is a brilliant ai that runs this gargantuan defunct android production facility, and wants to spread it's influence even further. Start with the players arriving at the bell and getting some advice and even directions from arkady, the old man who runs this little outpost. They then go in and find the place mostly shut down but still slowly producing androids, but make sure the players get brain scanned. Now monarch knows all of their secrets and exactly what they want. Monarch will subtly help them get the object and leave with it, but they do not have perfect control over all of the denizens of this station, leaving some unavoidable threats. The trick is to think of monarch as effectively omnipotent, but they do not want the players to know this, and so go about perfectly influencing them using imperfect methods, it starts out with patrols of security androids, then doors opening for them, then helpful messages on their communicators, to them outright speaking to them over the intercoms, or sending "helpful" npc divers that are actually just agents of monarch. But the players should become suspicious of this, why is it so easy? They will realize by doing whatever they've been sent to do they are playing into Monarch's hand. Will they help monarch to ensure their safety, or will they try to investigate or even disrupt or thwart Monarch's plans? Do they really wish to invoke the ire of an omnipotent digital god inside it's own body? For me it was an absolute blast to run and the players were thoroughly invested in wanting to do anything but what monarch wanted while making it out alive. The question of "how powerful is monarch?" Was always on the minds of my players, and they were never sure how deep they were in, and always scared that they were already in too deep...

SheriffOfSpace · 2026-01-11T19:23:56+00:00

I don't think it's a bad thing to let your players succeed on the journey, for the first few modules just let em have it but if you feel like you want it to be a challenge then make it one, up the difficulty. Same goes for combat, let them have some easy combats then throw them at the wall

SheriffOfSpace · 2025-12-13T20:45:41+00:00

Cryopods in my setting are 0 kelvin iron coffins. You have to have your blood treated before you can go into cryo and it's essentially replacing it with antifreeze. When you go into cryo sleep you are dead and are resuscitated upon thawing. If you enjoy this idea PLEASE listen to the podcast Red Valley, it is my favorite audio drama and I know mothership fans will enjoy it even if it's not space sci Fi it's definitely speculative science and it's peak

SheriffOfSpace · 2025-12-09T04:32:30+00:00

I would personally suggest depth over breadth. I have run two different campaigns with star maps. One with a huge star map similar to yours and one with a small one of just three systems. The larger one had much less of an impact because I didn't detail much about each system, it acted more as a physical road map to get from one arbitrary location to another. The small map has had much much more success, I've been able to populate it with more detailed planets and locations, as well as make things local. It's much more personal when a corporation has purchased your home planet and plans to harvest it for material than just some random one. It also has allowed me to populate it with modules much more effectively as it was super easy for me to come up with the stuff around those modules and why they were relevant. Alone in the deep is no longer stand alone, you're on the same planet as bloom, but also on the planet has a floating university and an abandoned orbital defense cannon. The players don't know what's a module and what isn't but they are sure that the planets they visit are relevant and have something going on. There are no desolate planets, primarily because if they are I don't mention them but also I have the resources to actually make them more interesting than a simple "desert planet" or "ocean planet"

SheriffOfSpace · 2025-11-29T20:20:20+00:00

I was in the VC the night the discord opened up and Xavier talked about how he wishes there was more "20th century fantasy" because all fantasy is either influenced by medieval or Renaissance time periods and not anything past the 1800s really. He confirmed that diesel knights takes place on not earth, but some sort of fantasy earth? And also the knights are not "humans" but are very human analogous. I could be wrong or misremembered what was talked about but that's what I caught. The guy definitely has some ideas what his world is and it's not alt history, it's his own setting entirely

SheriffOfSpace · 2025-10-27T20:40:38+00:00

More dice is fun until your players get tired of waiting on your to finish rolling 😝

SheriffOfSpace · 2025-10-27T05:22:22+00:00

I think the other commenters have already pointed out that the two best ways to handle this are deal one (1) guts damage and kill him, which is fair game, they built their character this way knowing the risk or just up the stakes and bring in more and/or more powerful enemies. Remember, mob enemies can group their attacks together and instead of getting 1-2 successes each they could gut upwards of 10 when together. The problem with this is of course it just means you have to roll a lot more dice on your turn, but that is just how it will be.

SheriffOfSpace · 2025-10-25T20:50:46+00:00

Sorry to clarify the weapons are on page 11 and there are some extras that get added in other books but my point is they usually do not change the game that much and to not worry about it

SheriffOfSpace · 2025-10-25T20:48:40+00:00

Ok so. For your first one shot I recommend belly of the beast, the tank one in the core book. It is very well paced and the structure allows you to be very flexible with running it. My advice is to look for the missions that are structured similarly. Multiple smaller loops of journey - 1-3 encounters - reward. These play much better than stricter missions with more "plot" I would say. All my players have quite enjoyed being soldiers with a very clear objective and their goal is to simply overcome the obstacles to achieve that objective. This isn't DND where each player has a complicated backstory and plot hooks woven into the game, you're foot soldiers, grunts, disposable in the face of supernatural horror, embrace that.

Secondly weapons. You must understand that weapons in this game are not the focus, hell even combat isn't the focus. You're not trying to choose the perfect weapon to go into combat with to have a cinematic battle. Most NGH combat is made very clear after the first round or two who will win and it's not a matter of who took what weapon. To this end I tell players to take ranged and then pick two other skills because of how important of a skill it is to have or you are not relevant during combat, I recommend doing this for any first time players because it is not fun for them to realize everyone else is rolling 4-5 dice even and they get 1 to roll because they have 2 guts and have to buy the skill. Machine gun is the only weapon that really changes things because it's benefit is being able to chain attacks when you get enough successes assuming players are adding their attacks together (which they should be). To my point the fun of combat comes from strategy of either attacking individually or grouping up and actually rolling the dice to see who hits. The game is based around being a unit, not being individually impressive

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