Death In Space Notes Ep 1 and 2

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the official schematics for “the naughty lass”

hi there!!!

gannon here. thanks for checking out the ol NEOSCUM BLOG. today i got a sweet treat for ya: my NOTES FOR THE FIRST THREE EPS OF DEATH IN SPACE.

This Gaiden has had a few transformations. I came into the game with a goal that I did not follow through on. I was inspired listening to KARTELLIAN CLAMOR, a cool podcast with the guys who made DEATH IN SPACE and MÖRK BÖRG. One of the dudes was talking about how he was a player in a tabletop game that featured vast exploration, courtroom intrigue, and dungeon violence. when they reached the end of the campaign the GM revealed that the extent of his game notes were a piece of paper with the words “goblin skeletons?” (apparently the game didn’t even feature goblin skeletons (also “goblin skeletons” might not have been what was written down - I’m not going back to check, sorry)). I thought “wow, that is so cool. I would love to be a GM who didn’t have to write a fucking novel to before every recording. I would love to hang out with my partner michaela (who is real btw) instead of jujjing up my encounter tables with worm monsters.

Anyway, I ran a few test DEATH IN SPACE games with my H TOWN PALS stew, jack and panda. One of them I attempted to prepare minimally. We got through the game just fine, but in my opinion it solidified that I should NOT do that. The guys landed on an asteroid and were like “what’s around"?” and I think I responded with something like “uuuh there’s a ‘Groobiz Tavern and uuh a Flip n Mac’s Hardware store.”

I absolutely hated the names I came up with and I had to take so many extra notes to remember these shitty names I was coming up with in the fly. I know everyone loves a goofy name, but after a while I become hyper aware of how hard I lean on B and G sounds as a comedy crutch. And you only get so much milage from “Beepus” before your next “Blugdo’s” has absolutely zero comedy gas. Beyond the names, it was just so much work to keep track of all the dumb crap happening all at once. And hard to pace out npc motivation and character actin and background movement blah blah blah blah blah. So I have decided that I am going to stick to writing my pre game novels I guess.

Even still, ep 1 and 2 have much less prep in there than I normally put in. I wanted the players to discover and define their characters and spacecraft on the spot, so they could feel more of a tactile ownership of their space vehicle. (One thing I was excited about for the series was a sense of shared claustrophobic space living a la ALIEN, so having them feel connected to THE NAUGHT LASS was very important.) After defining their guys, I ran them through a brief encounter inspired from some of the details from the quest that comes with DEATH IN SPACE booklet.

My notes are attached below! The notes are mostly the rules I needed to outline before starting the game. (Not as exciting to read as lore stuff but maybe useful if you’re a GM?) I have put in italics where I have added words here to clarify my shorthand.

The next entry will be juicier! For ep 3 I went back to writing novels and came up with a REALLY NASTY HOOK that I know would make a KILLER last ep. Anyway enjoy DEATH IN SPACE EP 1 AND 2 NOTES:

DEATH in SPACE 8/7/22
Note to self: I am not preparing anything

Except what i am preparing

PRE TALK to the players:

Basics

If I ask you for a dice check - the rules are always the same

1D20 + RELEVANT ABILITY 

and you want to beat 12. 

I may ask you to roll advantage or disadvantage

Rules they need to keep track of

Void points

  • anytime you fail an ability check you get 1 void point.

• Gain advantage on an ability check or attack roll - roll 1d6. If equal to or lower than current void points, roll 1d20 for void corruption

• Activate a cosmic mutation.

  • Anytime you use an item (include spacecraft) in a stressful situation, roll 1d6. if 1 condition is reduced by 1

Combat rules are easy

  • Initiative is determined by whoever announces combat initiation first (like real life)

  • 20s are crit, crits do double damage

  • There’s something called a risky move that can get you more damage, but opens up the enemy to counter attack on a fail. details on the cheat sheet.

CHARACTER NOTES
Be united in your objectives

EPISODE NOTES:

Introduce the craft: 4 rooms 

Who are these guys? (how do we dynamically introduce the players?)

Playing the Game

Part 1: players landing on Iron Ring

Space Station name: Auron-17

  • Meeting “a finder” at a dark bar, he knows where Seth is

    • roll for savvy, if pass go to bar, if fail, stumble through one location

  • The finder has located Seth at CON-PM28