I'm running my parents (70's) through Mothership RPG: Another Bug Hunt!
My folks have been very supportive as I rant to them for the past 6 months about how hard I've been working on my Mothership Month 2025 project All On Red. It's going very well, but they don't understand WHAT it is. They keep asking me if I'm going to write another game after this one, I patiently explain that it's not a game it's a MODULE. Finally they demanded to play Mothership to understand what the deal is.
I decided since ABH was the first thing I ever ran in person, it would be fun to toss them into part 1 as a one-shot and see what happens. They don't have the attention span to do this all in one go so every few nights when we have dinner we've been chipping away at it. They have never played a TTRPG before. Another Bug Hunt spoilers follow
Session 0:
I walk them through character creation. My dad makes an android named Quinkafon, mom makes a scientist named Dr. K. (alludes to it being short for Kevorkian... she works with hospice, it's a whole thing). I said it would take 10 minutes but it took 20 as I try and explain using the d10s as a d100.
Session 1:
I give them the quick intro/context for what they're up to. I like to start this one shot still on the shuttle as they descend toward the planet instead of after being dropped off. They have two marine npcs along with them, Nova and Elvis. Immediately they are upset about how The Company is treating them.
Despite being an android, Quinkafon keeps saying unnerving things about being hungry or needing to use the restroom.
We get down on the planet where the dropship bails because of the storm. Check out the airlock and find it locked, decide to go around the base and look on the garage side. Immediately it's interesting cause I describe stuff they could potentially interact with but they don't seem inclined to explore things in detail, there is a relentless sort of momentum to find the fucking samples and Lt. Kaplan so they can call the dropship back.
At the garage, they fail to lift the barricaded garage door. In retrospect I maybe should have had them fail forward here I think, but they were going at such a blistering pace I wanted to give them a little bit of buildup first by having them lift the door a tiny bit and hear the thudding noise from the inside. Its cadence isn't mechanical. They conclude someone's probably in there and shout for a while but there's no response from the infested marine digging away in his hole. They leave.
After circling the whole base and me giving them some hints about bullet holes in the walls, they debate boosting marines up onto the roof, but ultimately mess with the airlock once again. Quinkafon successfully hacks the door's keycard scanner and gets them into the airlock. They push in deeper to the commissary and see the remains of the b-day party and woman's head.
Nothing is examined closely, they're pushing straight to command center. They find Kaplan but don't look at the org chart at all, snatch his gun, and head to the garage.
Inside the garage I can't even get through a sentence of description before they're peppering me with questions. I patiently explain to let me describe what they see and they should then ask questions, I answer, then they describe what they would like to do (this seems to be particularly difficult for them to adapt to as a gameplay loop).
They shout at the marine in the hole (unresponsive) and eventually throw a rock at him. I run through the whole horrific reveal of the carc climbing out of his neck, then proceeded to roll the weakest variant off the back cover. They both light up the carc along with the marines and wound it before it can even get out of the pit. It shreds a hole through the garage door and flees (I plan on having it ambush them later).
Session 2:
We spend way too long going over the tools in the toolbench. They are oddly preoccupied with tracking how much shit they can carry, always making the marines carry everything as their pack mules.
When trying to figure out what to do next: Dr. K. "You're an android, you figure it out." Quinkafon "I don't feel like an android."
deep stuff
Quinkafon checks the APC, sees the marine with the frag nade pin pulled and just nopes the fuck out, quietly shuts the hatch and they leave.
We hit the other rooms, puzzled by the armory, on to the hab quarters. I'm still getting asked questions like "HOW MANY BUNKS ARE THERE?" mom is doing mental math trying to figure out how many people live here. I explain the different rooms and explain that they have to tell me where they want to search or what they want to do. They don't like this, and direct me to treat it like they just go down the line tossing the place. I go straight down the line to move things along.
There's an interesting discussion about what "COMMS OFF" graffiti means. Dr. K. insists it's a directive to not use the comms instead of just informing people that comms are off.
They are puzzled by Hinton's position on the tracking device, whenever I run this as a one shot I emphasize Hinton's mystery and value to the company because ABH one shots USUALLY turn into continuing adventures in my experience.
Next up is medbay, Quinkafon doesn't wanna fuck with the acid cause it's dangerous. Dr. K. grabs the samples. I describe distant claws on metal scrabbling on the roof, building that stress a bit more.
They are concerned about being trapped on the surface of the planet for a while cause of the storm, and ponder checking out the pantry. When they get to the starved marine they actually spend some time checking him out (Dr. K. is a surgeon after all). They don't know what to make of the strange paper cuts or starvation death but everyone's passing a LOT of sanity saves.
In the freezer they leave the dangerous acid be again (lol), as well as the anti-radiation poisoning meds. Speaking of poison, I forgot to mention that Dr. K.'s loadout came with a fountain pen with poison injector.
When they re-enter the commissary, I give them a glimpse of movement and noise as something clambers down the makeshift barricade and scurries toward the hab module (the wounded carc). They CHARGE AFTER IT.
Entering the hallway, it charges them back, running along the wall and leaping at the marines who Quinkafon insisted take the lead. Everyone opens fire at once but the carc tackles Elvis and eviscerates him. In this moment, dad smartly asks if they have the acid and I remind him that it was left in the medbay and freezer respectively. It wouldn't have mattered much since this carc doesn't have armor.
Elvis is dead, but so is the carc, riddled with bullets and a poison-injector fountain pen stuck in its neck where it lies in a heap over the marine.
Quinkafon: "It's alright, that's what the marines are for, expendable."
I make Dr. K. gain stress for hearing the android say this.
We break to continue another night.