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by David Morcerf

Ambient soundtracks for your survival / horror, space / scifi RGP sessions with Mothership?

After a dozen sessions, here's what I've used and would suggest:

TabletopAudio.com
I cannot give enough props to Tim (and anyone he might have helping him) running this service. The variety of sounds and music is always increasing. All sorts of tracks, from high fantasy to modern prison to hellish dungeons to Antarctic stations. Tracks that are essentially just ambient sounds to tracks that are just music to mixes in-between. 100 tracks currently with the "scifi" tag, over 100 "horror", and almost 100 "modern".

They are all essentially 10 minutes. And you can create a playlist to go thru during play, or choose to have a track seamlessly loop until you feel it's appropriate to swap. Additionally, they now have SoundPad sound-boards that have a swath of sound effects that can be turned on and mixed or played at specific moments. Want to add in some specific tones, wind sounds, torch noises, or tension beats; or want to trigger sounds of footsteps, animals, droids, doors, lasers, computers, or ominous breathing? There's over 30 SoundPads currently including ones for starship, alien starship, deep underwater, ice/desert planets, etc...

All of this is FREE, and if you support the service financially, then you can download tracks and access additional alternate versions of tracks.

Want some perfect ambience to go along with the building tension and chaos of your "Haunting of Ypsilon-14" session? Start with the track "Star Freighter", "Docking Procedure" or "Cryo Pods". When things start getting mysterious or strange include other tracks like "Lunar Outpost", "Lost Contact", "Generation Ship". When things start getting creepy and tense, there's "Outpost 31" and "Nostromo" inspired by the music from John Carpenter's The Thing and Alien. When you descend into the mine or start fighting, why not switch to the "Red Sky Mine" or "Bug Hunt" tracks.

Want ambience for Prospero's Dream? For the Dry Dock, how about tracks like "Checkpoint Omega", "Starbase Omega", "Dome City Center". For commercial areas like Stellar Burn, "Tech Market", "Cyberpunk City", "Cyberpunk Bar", "Los Vangeles 3030". For The Farm, "The Sisterhood" track. For The Choke and Doptown, "Tinkertown", "Mega City Slums". For Chop Shop and Ice Box, "Alien Night Club". Anyway, point is TabletopAudio is a very solid place to start for sounds to go with your sessions.

Karl Casey / White Bat Audio
Royalty-free music that is available for download or streaming on his person site or YouTube or BandCamp. Not only does he have hundreds of tracks freely available, you can use them in published work royalty/copyright safe by simply crediting him. His music falls under the synthwave, electronic, retrowave, etc type genres. So your personal taste may differ, and while some of his music is more 80s, there is a good amount that works for Mothership vibes. If you've ever watched the stream games from "Nobody Wake the Bugbear Podcast", they often use his music, and it sounds brilliant as they use it.

Inspired by NWTBP, I used Karl's "Taken" track in two of my sessions and both times the climatic moment of the song happened to coincide exactly with a climatic moment in the game (when players rescued an NPC to have him ominously shout "Chamax!", and when players gained entrance into a ruin).

On YouTube, he has a number of compilation (mix) videos that are over an hour long of tracks put together for different vibes, and these are perfect for a quick lazy playlist of electronic-synth music to play quietly during the whole game session.

Honorable Mention: PilotPriest, Deadlife, Doctor Visor, Celldweller
All of whom also have electronic tracks available that can slot nicely into a session depending on the vibe of the scene / scenario. Doctor Visor's music is perfect for any Lovecraftian sessions. Deadlife's Sounds From The Abyss is actually ambient, dark tracks rather than explicit synth music; so it's great for dungeons whether fantasy or scifi.

Original Soundtracks (OSTs)
Don't sleep on the scores to films or shows. You may want to avoid highly popular and very recognizable soundtracks, as that can take players out of the immersion of the game if they start thinking of that specific movie/show, or at minimum it will set them to expect the exact mood and energy from that music's original use. (For example, the Lord of the Rings themes by Howard Shore are so recognizable that it will break immersion and pull your players out of your fantasy game.)

But at lower volumes with less recognizable music, it can be great to lean on professional composers and the music they produced for specific tones, emotions, and moments.

For example, have an eerie abandoned station? Odds are your Mothership players will recognize the Alien soundtrack, but if your players are not familiar with John Carpenter's The Thing, then use that OST.
For my sessions of "Welcome to Pontus Station" and "Mother Sleeps Beneath", I switched between the soundtracks for "The Abyss", "The Sphere", "Jaws", and "Deep Blue Sea". The work has already been done by professionals to craft music for deep-water tension, underwater-alien encounters, and aquatic beast combats.
For my sessions of "The House Always Wins" (a deadly, satirical gameshow zine module), of course I used the extended Harold Faltermeyer score for "The Running Man" during play -- and Masafumi Takada's "Class Trial [CHAOS]" track for an introductory tone-set. (One of the player's suggested using the "Logan's Run" soundtrack.)

Worried players will recognize soundtracks from famous movies like those I've mentioned and concerned it might distract them from the immersion? Well, it's much less likely that they will recognize soundtracks to video-games! More people have seen well-received films and shows than played a particular game, and even if they played the game because there was not accompanying well choreographed scenes set to perfectly echo the music (and because many people turn off game music to listen to other things or to avoid the repetition during lengthy play) they are unlikely to recall it during a session. So go to YouTube and look up soundtracks to scifi games like IXION and Stellaris.

Music from the Module Designers
Yes, sometimes RPG designers will contract or self-compose sounds for their module. For example, the Mothership module "Dead Weight" has an accompanying soundtrack by Jam2go on BandCamp. The modules "Bone Farm", "Dying Hard on Hardlight Station", "Abilities Considered Unnatural", "Desert Moon of Karth" all also have tracks with sound-effects and/or ambient music that come with purchase. The recent Kickstarter for a "Mad Max"/"Dune" inspired book "Scorched Basin" contracted the artist "Autumn Orange" to make music for the project, and he's also got a short album called "Cosmic Crawler" on BandCamp that is inspired by Mothership.

Last Honorable Mention: Michael Ghelfi Studios
I've used a number of ambience tracks and sound-effects from Ghelfi Studios. These are sounds like electrical sparking, grenades, lasers, crashes, explosions, monster growls, etc. Most of their music, ambience, and sound-effects are more slanted to fantasy style games, but they have released a number that also work for scifi games. You can layer their ambient tracks (like "Derelict Ship" or "Alien spaceship") with other music from another source at the same time to create a soundscape.
Most of their hour-long ambience tracks and shorter music can be found on YouTube. Other tracks and all their sound-effects need to be purchased or gained from their Patreon.

If you are one of the minute number of person(s) to see this blog and have other great suggestions, please let me know!

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by bryce0lynch

By Nicholas Lemler
Self Published
OSR
Levels 4-5

Hubert the Halfling was a successful adventurer before settling down and beginning a Shire of his own. After building a home to humble many among even the big folk, Hubert invited his clan to live with him in the hopes of starting a vineyard. Little has been heard in the last week or so, however, and passersby say the place looks ransacked. A group of Expert adventurers could potentially find answers, as well as loot from Hubert’s many adventures within.

This 26 page adventure uses ten pages to describe about sixty rooms over about three levels in a hobbit hole complex now overrun. It’s got some interesting specificity here and there that really grounds it as a halfling adventure, but in general it comes off as a hack with a few traps in a bland environment.

How do you have an elf adventure FEEL like an elf adventure? How do you make a dwarf adventure FEEL like a dwarf adventure? Well, the designer here managed, in spots to really make this adventure FEEL like a halfling home. At least in places. I don’t think that’s a small feat. The number of generic elf tree forts and dour and bland drawf homes that I’ve seen is seemingly beyond number. We have resorted, a great to edal, to treating them like humans with points ears or short humans with beards and calling it a day. Oh, and stick in a few trees or a rock or two, depending. They have never felt alien, or even that different than humans. Even, accepting that they don’t really need to, they’ve never felt that interesting to me in tha vast. Vast majority of adventures. This adventure, however, does a decent job, in some laces, or really bringing in that halfling vibe.

I want to highlight just three halfling related phrases from the adventure; “Lobelia Tumbleberry”, “A breathless halfling named Fredegar Hardbuckle (second cousin, once removed to Hubert)”, and “Jar O’ Pennies sits forgotten in a southeast corner.”

I frequently talk about the power of language and its ability to reference more than the written word say. The very best in evocative language lets you learn things about the world by implication. More than the written word, the implication of what was written has meaning and lets you springboard off of it. It summons up from the dark recesses everything you have ever known about halflings, large families, and that pseudo-english small village vibes that Tolkien channeled. Sackville-Banningeses! If you can’t channel the personality of each and every one of thirty halflings from that one throw-away-like “second cousin, once removed to Hubert” then I don’t know man, I can’t help you. Anyway, there are some very nice little halfling vibes, at places, in this. Not a lot, and generally in to the preamble rather than the adventure keys proper, but there are some good examples here.

It does a few other things well. “The stench of trolls in room 11 is strong”, tells us one room. I love a good light/smell/sound warning, or, at least, and adventure that thinks about the environment as a whole to assist the DM. The descriptions are … let us politely say. Focused. “Mess of long-since pillaged crates and boxes. Gnawed animal bones spread about floor, primarily near hall east. Old Jewelry Box lies in a broken crate. 30’ x 65’” I like the GNAWED animal bones, and the east hall gives us a hint of what’s to come. Both are nice touches. But, also, let’s look at a general layout/description:


There’s a room name. That’s good. I might stick in an adjective, but, we’re starting off well with a framing of the information to come. I’m not the biggest fan of room dimensions in a description. I think that most cases it’s repetition from information on a map, but, also, I know some people, the salt of the earth, like it. But, then there’s the Occupants and Loot section. I am less than thrilled at these. We can generally intuit if there’s no loot in a room by the description not mentioning loot. The same for creatures, if none is listed in the main textual description then there must not be one present, eh? I get, perhaps, that the Occupants section might just be another way of listing creatures, instead of say, bolding or some such. But I think it’s a poorer choice. The creatures come late in the description and, in most cases, they should probably be up front, or at least near the top,of a description when they are obvious. No sticking in a “oh, yeah, ancient read dragon” after a five minute room description. They also, I believe, fit in a little better. They feel more at home when they are in the room description rather than listed at the bottom of the description like this. A little more, naturalism? They generally feel more like they belong and are doing something there.

The actual descriptions tend to be quite light. There’s nothing wrong wit being short, but they also feel more than a little hollow. An almost minimalism element present. That description of the backdoor is great. Narrow hallway, dirty shoes, clothes piled haphazardly. And the weasel nest fits PERFECTLY in to that. I’m reminded of an adventure centered around three singing witches. Which actually turned out to be harpies, not withes. Doh! Oh course! I love it when the party is told exactly what something else and then doesn’t see it. Masterful stroke, doing that. The room one guest room is a little meh, but, also, it could be the entrance (and, to the adventures credit, windows are listed on the rooms, and their state, so you can break in. Yeah!) I think the descriptions are a little too workmanlike for me, a little too fact based to really communicate the vibe of the room. Taking that room five description, the wide table is a nice nod, as is the bones and rotting flesh, a clue as to whats nearby. But its just a little too … staid? And the room numbers could stand out just a little more.

The encounters feel a little … plain? The doppelgangers in the barn from the screenshot are a good example. There’s a little note elsewhere about them, but the encounter is just a little off. It needs a little vignette, or situation. The weasels are a high point, I guess and the others feel a little like “also, there’s a monster in this room.” Not integrated in, or lacking activity. There’s also little in the way of alerts, for monsters reacting to things or to intrusions. It feels like everyone is just in their room, as a kind of afterthought. There are a few “survivors” hiding in rooms, and those feel a little more integrated, but not as much as I would like either. As if the room occupants were divorced from their surrounding and/or environment. There’s just a little too much DM sauce needed. I think I’m looking for something to springboard a more dynamic environment, as a DM. I don’t need to be spoon fed but just a little more to get the a more dynamic play style going.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is the first eight pages, with no rooms shown. Traditional room/key adventures should show you at least a few of the rooms in a preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/532723/hubert-s-hole

by bryce0lynch

Joshua Bassler
Jitur Games
Generic/Universal
Level: Ha!

Smoke rises from the hills,
and in the shadow of a colossal skull,
the Gnawbone goblins prepare their blood-soaked feast.

This twenty page adventure uses about eight pages to describe five rooms in a goblin lair. Proving, once again, that Generic/Universal is the kiss of death, it fails to present an adventure and instead presents ‘possabilities.’ Thus in spite of more than few decent ideas it trudges blindly down the failed path of the Five Room Adventure.

What is the ratio of good to shit that you will put up with? Like, if i stick in ONE room in a 150 page adventure will you call it good? Worth playing? If it’s ten percent? Fifty percent? And how torturous can I make those good ideas? Can I surround it with so much bullshit that it makes you roll your eyes and vomit?

Dude can write some read-aloud. “Smoke drifts into the night sky. A rough barricade of sharpened logs blocks the canyon path ahead, its timbers hung with bone charms that clatter in the breeze. Goblins cluster near a fire, their laughter sharp and cruel. A mangy wolf pulls at its chain, teeth bared as it scents the air. Beyond the wall, firelight flickers — and in the distance, looming above the tents, the shadow of a massive skull rises against the night.” It’s drifting heavily towards purple. And it tells us there are goblins instead of describing them. But, also, massive skull, looking above, mangy wolf. Sharp and cruel laughs. Bone charms that clatter. Quick, Robin! To the thesaurus-mobile! A little too much in places but the designer has the right idea and I’ll take this over a thousand other worse examples. It does feel forced, or perhaps a little ‘novelized’ in places, but he’s on the right path for sure in using the power of language to paint a picture.

There’s also some decent foreshadowing going on in places. There’s that hint of a giant skull in the read-aloud above, and that shows up in a couple of the rooms. Then there’s also some pretty explicit foreshadowing: “Foreshadowing: A sickly prisoner mutters about a ritual “in the skull’s brain, ” planting dread for Area 4.” So… uh, ok. Yeah, the foreshadowing is good. I’m not sure we need it hammered in three times, by listing it as Foreshadowing, by doing the foreshadowing proper, and then by explaining what foreshadowing is, but, again, dude tried.

The designed also included some explicit conclusions to the adventure if you fail then then the goblins ravage the and there are rumors of a goblin warband. I’d like a little more specificity in what was mentioned; refugees on the road speaking of atrocities or some such, but, again, at least he tried. The victory conditions are much less interesting or specific than even the loss ones. At best some prisoners (GENERIC unnamed ‘prisoners’ might stay with the party and offer their services. If would be funny if there were, like, a thousand of these, but only like five or so around at any one time for one reason or another. It’s like a wand of five magic missiles; how can be best use these five before they are used up and the wand recharges tomorrow?

So, the designer has tried, more so than most. That read-aloud is from the entrance room and it gives you options for sneaking in through a garbage pit under a barricade. And you can meet a goblin deserter, maybe. The designer has tried to paint a decent picture of an environment, from the read-aloud to the potential for interactivity through stabbing, sneakin, and talking.

But, also, this is a five room dungeon. It looks like the entire series, Delves, are going to be five room dungeons. As is so painstakingly, and repeatedly, explained to us in the introduction pages, that means an entrance, a puzzle/roleplay room. A setback, a climax, and a treasure/reveal. Hark! The enemy at the gates! Five room fucking dungeon. This is one of the worst trends to ever grace the RPG industry. Fucking pay per word blog/magazine crap. Sure, you want to five room up your home game? Have at thee! I still think it sucks but I can at least understand how it might be useful. But, as a paid product? Jesus Christ. It’s absurd. It’s like going to a Michelin starred restaurant and getting a generic brand Kraft Mac & Cheeses from a box. I think you misunderstood the assignment. This is a place for shit you can’t do at home. Something with some depth to it? Something more? Adding value? No? *sigh* Formulaic. That’s what I want to pay for. Formulaic.

This is a five room dungeon. The entire purchase is twenty pages. The five rooms take up about nine of those pages. And how can this be? No worm juice here, just the usual crap. “Grashnak Bone-Eye, Shaman of the Gnawbone Tribe. Grashnak was born small, even for a goblin. His tribe — the Gnawbones — had always been weak and fractured …” and on and on and on the background information goes Irrelevant. Padding. Not useful at the table. “But Bryce, I like …” I don’t care that you like shit. It’s shit. T’s fucking padding. It distracts. It distracts both the DM at the table who is trying to run the fucking adventure, making it harder for them to locate what they need to run the fucking thing. And it distracted the fucking designer. They concentrated on that kind of shit instead of concentrating on making their fucking adventure better. Hey, here’s a fucking idea. How about making the actual five fucking rooms better?

YOU COULD START WITH INCLUDING A FUCKING MAP.

Yeah, yeah. Not everything needs a map. It’s not clear that one is absolutely required here. But, you know, the relationship to the entrance, the garbage pit, the canyon, the crawly hole to bypass the entrance and so on would have been MUCH clearer. It would have added an extra element of play.

You know what we get instead?


Twenty fucking pages and the designer can’t be bothered to put in a battlemap? That kind of shit is how you get twenty pages. That kind of shit is how you get almost two pages per room for the most simple of encounters. What happens is all goes according to plan is a section that tells you … how each room works. In a five room dungeon. Then there’s a “Planned Path” outcomes. Which is kind of like the same thing. Fuck me man. Maybe a good rule of thumb is to consider what you’d put in the adventure if it were fifty or a hundred rooms? Would you describe each and every room to us three times? As is, there’s ALSO an intro to each room for the DM, that’s not read-aloud, that sounds a lot like read-aloud, but THEN the read-aloud follows. It explains the room. “The Gnawbone tribe has thrown up a rough barricade across the canyon path leading to their camp. It’s a ramshackle palisade of sharp- ened logs, lashed together with rope and hide. Bone charms dangle from the gate — crude runes carved into skull fragments and tied with sinew. A watch fire burns in front of the barri- cade, where goblin sentries lounge.” That’s the section for the entrance room, with the read-aloud I threw up in the review earlier. It says the same thing! I think that’s four times now that essentially the same thing has been said? Sometimes you just wonder what the fuck s going on in peoples heads. Work the fucking room!

And it’s Generic/Universal, so you know it sucks. I wish I didn’t have to say that. I wish that a generic/Universal adventure could be good. I believe, deep down in my heart, that they COULD be good. But in practice they never are. Why? Because for some fucking reason when someone writes one up they seem incapable of putting anything concrete down on the page. The fact that something is generic/universal seems to mean that the adventure must be one full of ideas instead of one that puts something in front of a DM to help them. Here’s an optional reward. Here’s something that could happen. Here’s something else that could happen. Come on man, do something concrete with the fucking adventure. And use that concrete thing to springboard to something else. You’re the designer. Design. That’s what the fuck we’re paying you for.


It’s clear, I guess, that they want that sweet sweet lucre from both Pathfinder and 5e. Just do a separate version. People do it all the fucking time. I think it’s a filthy money grab, but, also, that’s why you made it generic/universal in the first place.

Let’s see … goblins are always running to raise the alarm, but there’s no guidance on what happens then. Who comes? How do they react? Nothing. The entire place is in a canyon. Narrow enough, as that battlemap screencap tells us, for the party to feel penned in. Nothing about the top of the canyon though. If the fucking idiots walk straight in then they deserve their deaths. Get on top, divert the river, sort it out later. Who the fuck camps in bottom of a ravine? I’m mystified why, given all of the words, there’s nothing about being on top. Or reactions. Oh, no, I’m not. Because it’s not imagined. Or played. Because, in spite of the page count, word count, etc, not much actual worthwhile effort was put in to it. *sigh*

This is $3 at DriveThru. There’s no preview. Just fork over the money and prais ethe fact you were allowed to consume.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/533699/delves-the-gn...

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