Night Shift Noir

 Progress continues on SPILT MILK, the phone book setting for MoSh. I’ve got half the numbers locked in and about a third fully detailed so far. That’s the setting, which is essentially standalone and player facing - cases slot in modularly. I’m working on a couple from scratch to try and take full advantage of all the new frameworking. Got one close to playtest levels which should be fun.

Anyway, thinking about failstates and procedures. I wanted a more obvious way of tracking how things were going on an investigation. Each will have consequences for not being solved which are generally pretty easy to think up - don’t catch the killer, now there’s a killer on the loose. But what do the specifics look like in practice, and how long before they kill again?

Clocks are an option, the WOM suggests them for enemy schemes, but I wanted something universal, more player facing and tied to the style and tone of this specific setting. STRICT TIME RECORDS are an option too but, frankly, dull. And MoSh doesn’t delineate time all that specifically, I wasn’t about to graft on a whole system just to give players even more to worry about. Dungeoncrawls do turns, hexcrawls do watches and travel times, so whence the phonecrawl?

The solution I’ve settled on is a function of the world more than a rule or procedure. Every* entry in the phone book, meaning every number/location combo, has a day and night shift. No more specific than that, just two options for what’s going on depending on the general time. Many are only open by night or during the day depending on the kind of business. Some are more unique, with different people working there or entirely different services offered.

*some are 24 hour, automated, etc

Time will pass because the players will find they want to do X during the day but wait til night for Y. They might not be able to follow up on a lead until tomorrow, which could lead them to discovering a new favourite hangout or even a whole other lead as they find somewhere to while the night away. It gives them a new way to engage with the world that’s less about bookkeeping and more about player driven actions and consequences. Now I can say the killer will strike again in three days, say, and have that mean something.

Also, since these slow burn mystery investigations don't have as much in the way of spooks and scares as a "traditional" mothership module (mosh modj), I have a new easy fix to keep the tension simmering that fits the new dynamic. +1d5 Stress per full day that passes while working a case. Players can rush to solve the mystery quick (risking botching it) or wash their hands of it entirely to avoid the repercussions of taking too long, but now that's on them.

I’m also happy with this because noir and other mysteries are all about those neon lit nights and grey days, and now those aesthetic choices actually mean something to play. Next stop is more work on the bloody massive phonebook. Excited to see how this all falls apart in play

King of the Mountain

 an adventure for GoGoGolf!

Mount Teemeeoff is one of the smallest in the Driving Range, covered top to bottom in soft green grass. Recently, a boss monster called Big King Pachinko has moved in to the mountaintop, knocked over the pointy bit, and started causing trouble.

Calling himself king of the mountain, he spends his days hitting enormous wrecking balls with his magic golf club. These fly everywhere, causing rockslides and careening down the slopes of the mountain itself.

The locals have had to hide or flee, and live in fear of the new king. They've sent word for brave heroes willing to climb the mountain and knock him down to size.

- Every time the players move between a location, roll a die. If the number rolled matches that location's number, a small round shadow appears above the players, which slowly gets bigger. If they don't move, they are squished by a person-sized wrecking ball and each take 1 Heart in damage.

1. Fairway Field. Rolling green grass at the base of Mount Teemeeoff. There is a huge rocky cliff ahead that would take days to climb. On either side, two gentle slopes circle up the left and right of the mountain. A couple of Slimes approach anyone who tries to climb either slope, attacking on the orders of Big King Pachinko.

 The slope to the left looks gentle and leads to longer, unkempt grass and a few tall trees (area 2). Sounds of bleating can be heard on the wind from this direction.

The slope to the right is steeper and it is more difficult to see where it leads (area 3). Walking all the way around the base of the mountain to the other side leads to the very bottom of area 4.

There are a few trees here in the field, and one has a large bird's nest at the top. Disturbing the nest wakes a sleeping owl, who is sick of the King making such a racket and will help any way he can. He can carry one person at a time, and cannot fly higher than the bottom of the stairs at the top of area 4. If a wrecking ball comes anywhere near him, he will get scared and fly away.

2. Mountainside Meadow. A sloping stretch of long grass on the mountain's left side. There is a sheep grazing the grass, but it is spooked easily and will run if it notices anyone approach.

Another sheep has found its way to the top of a tall tree, where it sits in a bird's nest, afraid to come down. At the bottom of the tree, a Spike Goose is honking loudly at the sheep, harassing it. The nest belongs to the Spike Goose, and its large egg is in there with the sheep.

Beyond the meadow, the slop continues round to the back of the mountain (area 4).

3. Abandoned Canyon. Up the slope to the right of the mountain, the terrain is steep and quickly gets rocky and difficult. After a while, the path is split by a wide canyon, with only one stone spire standing up in the very centre of it that comes up to the level of the path.

It's too far to jump to the spire, and twice as far to the other side, but someone has left a long plank to use as a bridge. There is a sheep standing in the very centre of the plank atop the spire, unaware of how it got there.

The plank is balanced precariously on the point of the spire, and will unbalance if unequal weight is put on either side. The plank reaches almost the whole way across the gap, but not quite - it's still a short jump to either side from the ends.

On the far side of the gap, the path continues round the back of the mountain to area 4.

4. Stone Stairway. Both paths, 2 and 3, lead round to the back of the mountain, and the base of a stone staircase that leads up to area 6. The King is watching this area, and will send down an extra wrecking ball at anyone who tries to climb the stairs.

Below the stone steps is a sheer drop over perilous, rocky cliffs. At the very bottom of the cliffs, at the mountain's base, is the entrance a small cave (area 5), but it can't be seen from the top except for the faint, multicoloured light it emits.

5. Glittering Caves. Strange colours emit from the mouth of this secret cave, round the back of the mountain's base. Inside, the walls are covered in thousands of softly glowing crystals in all the colours of the rainbow. They are beautiful, but ultimately worthless, made of natural rock candy.

The local people who used to live on this mountain are hiding in here. They offer food and a place to rest, as well as one health potion per player (each restores 2 Hearts). They want the King gone, but are all too scared of the wrecking balls to leave.

One of the locals, a shepherd, asks the players to return his three sheep to him, after they all got lost wandering the mountain. He will reward the players with a magic club from his bag for each sheep returned.

6. Teemeeoff Peak. The pointed summit of the mountain has been levelled off to create a lawn for Big King Pachinko. The boss monster is a huge round ball, nearly as tall as a person, with hands and feet and an enormous moustache. He is able to create wrecking balls to attack with, which he hits with his golf club.

He wears a little gold crown, which he is very vain about and references constantly, believing that its shine makes him the most important person on the mountain.

Big King Pachinko. Level 10, 6 Hearts, 1dmg. Can create wrecking balls which deal 1 Heart damage when sent flying. Wields the Big Big Club, which has the power to hit anything round and send it flying as easily as if it were a little golf ball, up to the size of the person using it.

GoGoGolf! is available in print ($5USD) and pdf ($3USD) from Possible Worlds Games, itch, DriveThruRPG and Indie Press Revolution.

Theft and bloggery

It's things what I read and liked and remembered recently here we go:

Firstly I'd be remiss not to mention the motherfuckin BLOGGIES are on right now, you can catch up and still vote on some I think, sachagoat hosting this year, click here. I was a finalist last year and I got a little rabbit

Dungeon doll does OSR character creation bloodborne style, really nice design

Gorgon Bones on why RPGs are wargames, I think we all know this here but it's nice to read it written out so clearly

Cool little dungeon by a swamp in space, you can get it as a pocketfold too

Columbary ttrpg interviews Jettila Lewis who did the art for one of the coolest looking Mothership month zines, some other good interviews on the feed too

under-stars making paper minis hell yeah

Excerpt of some cool as hell upcoming non-european sword and sorcery if you just feel like reading a story

One of the most OSR bands out there Castle Rat just crowdfunded their next album and you can still get in on a late pledge

Interview with one of my fave game designers Suda51

see you space cowblog...

GRAVEROBBERS 2025

 (once again!) RETURN OF THE MACK (top of the world!)

Took a break for much of 2024. Creative burnout, but mostly the realities of trying to make this hobby work as a career were proving untenable. I'm not saying it can't be done, I know plenty of folks who make it happen and kick ass, but my approach wasn't working and I needed to rethink and regroup.

So here it is - all major personal projects still on indefinite hold. I can fiddle with stuff in my free time or work for hire, but the middle ground of self publishing just doesn't do it for me. Sales from my personal online store have hit pretty much absolute zero

I'm proud of what I did with GoGoGolf! on my own for instance, but since PWG has taken up publishing that game I've had a much better time of it. I love partnering with folks on stuff, the great reception to the Mothership box last year was further proof that this is the way forwards, even if I only had a small role in that one.

Anyway, time to get back to work.

2025:

- New stuff releasing. Bits I worked on last year, some even longer ago. If you like it when I write weird Mothership adventures you will be well fed.

- New new stuff. As in not RPG, early days on this one but your boy's got big plans, stay tuned

- The blog. Gonna try and get back into the swing of posting notes and other bits, no kind of regular schedule but all the sort of stuff I used to post fairly often. If there's anything specific you want to see on here just ask and I'll probably do it at some point

and a couple of other important bits

1. The big project. I've been calling it Odai 57 (and before that it was Odai 47, idk why I changed it, what do you like better?) But it's at the stage now where giving it a name is going to help, so allow me to announce

SPILT MILK
[and other mysteries]

A hardboiled mystery campaign setting for the Mothership RPG.

This is technically just for me so it doesn't count as self publishing, shut up. But I will be posting it in one form or another eventually. if you haven't seen me talk about it before it's basically:

a) a self-contained MoSh setting presented as the phonebook of a remote space station truck stop and the attached retail park. d100 working phone numbers, each attached to places, people, hundreds of new items and things to spend credits on. A hub world or rest stop for your campaign, or a just big load of scraps for you to scavenge from.

plus

b) a neo-noir mystery campaign taking place entirely within that setting. Players are adjusters, corpo detectives for an agency that insures androids. Say one goes missing, or shows up dead. Is it malfunction, or malfeasance? Get to the bottom of each case so that your company can pay out as little as possible.

That's enough on that for now but I'll be posting more about it as I continue tinkering. Call it the Odaiaries. I want to get this out in one form or another this year

and

2. Work. I fucking love doing this job folks, and I'm good at it. If you want to hire me, now's the time.

I've worked on huge projects with established companies and little zines from first time solo publishers. I write games and adventures, I edit and proofread and everything in between.

Get in touch, graverobbersguide[at]gmail[dot]com

Happy new year x

Rough Terrain Cards

I posted on bsky a little while ago about the Trench Crusade kickstarter, I’d followed the project for a while and was happy for their success but mentioned it wasn’t really my vibe

Well for something that’s not my vibe I’ve been doing a whole lot of hobbying around it already lmao

A lot of games have a rule for rough terrain, moving over particular surfaces affects speed and can incur penalties or damage. I think in TC it’s called difficult terrain, and then there’s also dangerous terrain

I thought an easy way to create some scatter pieces that could be used to implement this rule would be with old plastic cards. I used an expired cinema membership and train card. Idk if there’s a standard size for these for legal reasons or if every company uses the same manufacturer but they’re the exact same size, I reckon most cards will be. Not that it matters but it ends up looking nice and uniform whatever you use, and it’ll be easy to make more later

Anyway I just slapped some texture paste and paint on one side of each card and stuck down some bits, cardboard and lolly sticks from the recycling plus some citadel skulls. The idea was to make them still basically flat so that I can store them easily and models can stand on and move through them. But using these as bases for terrain with more height to provide cover would also work ofc

 also ended up using some resin which I hadn’t before, got mixed results but I’m p happy with how it all turned out. Idk how well they show up on camera but these look great in person. I was going to add more colour and pick out the details but I kinda like the monochrome effect of base coat/drybrush/wash. These are background after all. And I can always go over them later with more detail if I want

girl, same

It was a fun little project that didn’t take long at all and should be useful in games, I’d recommend giving these a go. You can even slip them back into your wallet to transport them

Oh and I ended up backing the ks after all, the rulebook’s a mess but the basics look fun and I expect they’ll clean it up before release, plus those Sultanate minis were too good to pass up. But it’s all free online and you can use kitbashed models anyway if you want to get stuck in

Mothership Month!

A load of zines from 3rd party creators are all crowdfunding at the same time right now over on backerkit, along with the big new MoSh book and magazine. I'm involved with two of them:

Awaiting the Burning Gods is about tomb raiding on an alien world. It includes a faction of smugglers and a whole sub module for them with generators and loot, plus a one shot I wrote to induct PCs into the criminal underworld. This is a social investigation adventure, a Coen brothers style clusterfuck waiting to happen on a remote space station. Some really good NPCs in this one, not to mention all the other stuff you get

The Dose Makes the Poison is an investigation behind the facade of big pharma. I did some developmental editing on this one and it's a lot of fun, hits all the notes you want from a Mothership game but with a more Bioshock esque art deco aesthetic than usual MoSh stuff. Comes with in world audio which is always a good time in play

Check them out and support some independent creators! There's over 20 projects to look through, I personally love the look of PK49 with its Y2K punk vibes, and The Interloper looks great, Joel's stuff is always good. Every project is already successfully funded too, so you can just browse and pick up the ones you want

So many new ways to die in space. Have fun x

GoGoGolf! is out now!

Head over to the Possible Worlds store and pick up a physical copy of my OSR style adventure game that’s about golf for some reason for just $5USD! Click right here

Still working on the Mothership mystery setting - phonebook is about 90% mapped out and 1/3 filled in, and I’ve revised and reiterated the cases yet again, think I’ve got a solid starting adventure down now. Will try to playtest soon, hopefully can get the whole phonebook working by then too! Man, it’s tough writing something that needs so much prep work before you can even start testing it

Conversely, I’m back at work on the miniatures game, which I’m constantly testing and iterating on. It’s pretty good you guys. Very cool to have a game I made that I can just play a bit of for fun whenever I want?? Hope to have more to share on that before too long.

Busy busy! Feels good to be back in the saddle