Moonbase Blues Session 3 After Action Report
On Wednesday, August 19th, I ran Session 3 of Moonbase Blues for Mothership. It was our first session after a small hiatus, so it was good to get back into the swing of things again. In this session, the PCs explored the Mechanics Bay, and got their first real plan towards escaping the moonbase.
Roster
I’ll be referring to the human beings present by their PC names, which means the following people were present:
- BeiBei, Teamster;
- Camilla “Wakeup Call” Garcia, Marine;
- Karen Whiteford, Scientist;
- Wheeler, Android.
NPCs
- Rublev
- Head of Security
- Kohut
- Scientist
- Aguirre
- Marine
- Android
- Badly damaged android
- Gozu
- Teamster
- Infected with the Blue
What Happened
We started in media res, as our PCs were outside the Mechanics Bay, having just alerted a pack of three Meteor-mad Colonists. The three were circled around Wheeler, getting ready to grab on to him and take him to the main dome. While Camila dispatched one of the MMCs with a burst of her General-Purpose Machine Gun, Wheeler and Karen stumbled down into a dog pile with the remaining MMCs. As Karen wrested a tranq gun from one MMC, the trio decided to run to the airlock door, opened just seconds before by BeiBei.
Unfortunately, while Camila was able to down an MMC in the mad scramble, when Karen tried to trip one, she herself stumbled as well. In the end, they shoved themselves in the airlock, as the last MMC jumped in there with them. While Camila tried to wrestle the MMC out the airlock, so that the PCs could squash it with the door, Karen tried to make a grab for another tranq gun. Unfortunately, her reflexes were not quick enough, as the door crushed her fingers, spraying blood across the airlock.
After a quick medical stop in the Mechanic Bay’s mess, the crew went to explore the entirely-dark building. They found basic tools, and a bay with a rover needing repairs. In the corner of the base, they came across five survivors, huddling in the dark. After taking stock of everybody, the PCs quickly concluded that Gozu was infected with the Blue. Though it put the survivors on edge, they tranq-shot Gozu, and disarmed the engineer.
The next challenge was that the lights were out in the base, and the emergency generator was out back. Sighing with frustration, Camila and BeiBei went back outside, skirting past an MMC who was blinded with prisms jammed in their eyes. Getting the generator up to working order was no problem whatsoever, as it was a simple case of setting up the first switches and cards. After heading back inside, BeiBei set to working on the rover, which needed only minimal repairs. In the meantime, Karen took Wheeler to a computer bay to start a repair cycle on the android, attempting to recover its memory banks.
What Worked
- Negotiating potential outcomes with the players went well. It helped us align our views on the situation.
- Having the MMCs move outside of PC influence made things a bit more interactive.
- Running combat in MoSh style by negotiation expected outcomes made the combat quite creative.
What Didn’t?
- I wanted to randomly determine how many turns it would take to fix the rover. I asked for a 1d12 roll. In retrospect, asking for 3d6 would have made much more sense.
- Fixing the generator was a bit of a flat moment. I could have made it more dangerous or tense. Perhaps putting it in a basement or near a number of MMCs.
- Again, I did not put a lot of timesink into actions. I need to practice with pacing a little more.
Prep for Next Time
- Prepare a quick timeline of events for the crashing shuttle.
- Estimate out how long it’ll take to get to the dropship.
- Figure out the steps to recover the dropship.
Your comments are welcome!