Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique well-regarded modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited harsh critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

A Pound of Flesh is a 52 page module for Mothership, by Donn Stroud, Sean McCoy and Luke Gearing. It is a setting primer for a space station that is effectively a city, Prospero’s Dream.

I enjoy the space stations name, a reference to the Tempest, where Prospero’s dream (in my understanding) refers to the illusions that he weaves around himself; here the illusion is the illusion that it’s possible to survive or get ahead in this criminal, hyper-capitalistic city; I also love that it gives the impression of a place where you can achieve your dreams for those (likely the inhabitants) that do not know the reference.

In typical Mothership fashion front papers are maps (the station in two and three dimensions); cybernetic mutations and loot tables in the end papers. I’d have preferred the random encounter table referred to on the map be part of the endpapers over the mutations table, but they’re great mutations like “Arms grow until your hands touch the floor and drag.”

First page is law and boarding, effectively setting the scene for the people landing here with a bucketload of debt and laws made to be broken. The next three are how to run the module, including hooks, the three main plots and their events and phases (which is a lot, and limiting it to three plots is a smart idea for usability), phase alterations (ways to personalise locations), and finally infections (one of the plots is related to a disease). We then have a list of criminals looking for suckers to take jobs for them. The jobs are how you’d determine what phase of the plot you are in. When it comes to onboarding a GM to a complex scenario, this does a great job, but I don’t love how wordy it is, nor do I love the layout decisions that separate the plots from their phases; I’m not sure what the best way to provide this information would be, but it really needs to be on one spread instead of five pages.

The we have locations. Usually in a two page spread, except for a few exceptions for various valid reasons (including cybernetics rules in the chop shop, for example). Individual entries aren’t too much, although more than I’d like. Inconsistently but often excellently written: “A jungle of gnarled veins and cables […] the Avatar of Caliban sits on a twisted, oily throne”.

The last section is six pages of generators for managing the entire station: Deadly encounter rules, the encounters, NPCs and establishments. There is a lot of well-written stuff here, but I’m not sure I’d generate a lot of the NPCs and establishments, and it would probably be a neater, easier experience if these were tied together. These are excellent one-line NPCs and encounters: “Aug screaming “Help! It’s not me, it’s Caliban!” Can’t stop attacking.”, although the establishments are not so engaging.

The last section of the book is a space station generator, which, while cool, just doesn’t belong here. At all. I have no more to add. They could have used the extra space, which I’ll discuss later.

Mothership layout is famous for being busy and functional. To be honest, there’s plenty of white space in A Pound of Flesh, and it’s clear and easy to read at a page level, but it lacks consistency. In an attempt to bring across the personality of the individual locations, for example, the layout, font choices, heading positioning is inconsistent, making information locating more difficult at the table (for me) which is contrary to the intent. The same criticism goes for font choices on some of the maps, although some maps are stellar.

Overall, I think A Pound Of Flesh lives up to its reputation as an exceptional city–type module, but I think it could have been more user friendly with some reorganisation and utilising the wasted six pages to facilitate this. The city generators should have been easy access at the back, random encounters should be back cover or backpapers. The section on running the plots and timelines needed more space to breath in terms of layout, or to be compressed and simplified (the matter might have been contrary to the goals and certainly would make Prospero’s Dream feel less alive).

That said, I’m surprised I haven’t seen more modules in the past four years mimic or improve on A Pound of Flesh’s structure. It’s pretty exceptional, and I can’t imagine a better way of developing a plot-driven city setting than some variation on this. It’s a very solid Mothership module with some exceptional room to play. It kindles the imagination too: I can see this as a primary base for a campaign, particularly if you centre it around a particular criminal enterprise and have a rotating roster of characters that go out and do other Mothership adventures. Exciting stuff.

2nd July, 2023

Idle Cartulary