In just under two weeks I'll be running my first game of Mothership.
I'll be running it as a convention-style one-shot. In my case, I have five players for six hours, including a lunch break. So, I'm doing a lot of prep to help maximise our time playing the game.
Part of this preparation has been to speed up character creation without completely taking all the "creation" part away from the players. Mothership character creation is not onerous as it is, but look, I'm keen to get boots on the ground (and spinning listlessly in zero-G). I also think this will be a fun warmup activity for the players that doesn't encourage them to get too fixated on their stats.
What I'll provide
A large collection of name tags, each name with a unique font for a bit of personality.
Character sheets with stats and saves pre-rolled, class pre-assigned, loadout assigned.
Secret objectives, one assigned to each character sheet (which players cannot read until they have locked-in their character sheet choice). I'll write more about these in another post; I've tailored the secret objectives to match specific character classes.
What players need to do
Choose a name from the stack of cards (I have provided a few blank nametags in case they really, really can't connect with any of them).
Choose a character sheet (I think picking one at random from the pile will be the most fun, but will let people sift a little if they want).
Roll for their patch, trinket and a few other aesthetic/backstory d100 tables I have up my sleeve.
What I'm hoping to achieve here is a good balance of player involvement with their characters, and speedy creation that focuses the player on flavour, not stats.
Given Mothership can be a very deadly game, this approach will also mean players can quickly switch to a backup character if their starter winds up on the wrong side of an airlock. But again, with a little chance to personalise and connect to the human (or android) they're now inhabiting.
Given Mothership is already so streamlined, this might seem like overkill. But, look. It was fun to do. We'll see if the players enjoy this approach once the game is done!
The nametags
I've created cards for 46 names in total. Each name gets a unique font, to give it a little zazz. Maybe hint at a potential personality.
Download the name tags to use in your own games
I created all of these name tags in Canva (with a paid account; many of these fonts are not available to free users) using this template, but if you'd like to use the ones I've already created, you can!
Download options:
The .zip file contains all name tags (along with one for the Warden and 4x blank name tag) as PNG files.
The .pdf file contains all name tags, mirrored, so you can cut them out, fold them in half and stand them up on your game table if you wish.
The .docx file is the same thing as the PDF, but will let you tinker with my table layout (I could not get the margins for the first two rows to match the subsequent table rows, even though I basically just duplicated the first rows over and over to create this doc's layout... if you can do better, please go ahead.)
I'm planning to share some more resources I've created for this adventure over the next month or so - though I'll need to save anything with spoilers until after my players have had a go!