Wasn't a huge fan... I think this game gets more credit than it deserves. There are some cool ideas though.

OK so the Art is best described as abstract, however I am with the people who feel clear pictures of unspeakable horrors ruin the mystery of the monster. The derelict ship generator is worth the price of admission, and will serve you well for Alien RPG as mush as for Mothership. I love thr tightness of the module and in particualr the weird heart at the centre of the game.

Sci fi adventures are hard to find, so I'm a bit more generous with this product than I normally would be.

Cons While art is of little importance to me, the art in this product is simply pathetic. Really, really bad.

The formatting is awful. Entire pages are neon pastels, apparently to ensure that you won't print the document.

Several lengthy entries are duplicated, apparently for no other reason than to pad page count. This was not an accident, because they are formatted differently.

The deck plans provided assume starships will be shaped like snowflakes. Why this is, is not explained.

The cannibal colony is equipped with a device that launches a harpoon, trailing 60+ MILES of cable, to hook and drag ships out of a low luna orbit. How they aquired such a device, the power plant required to launch such a load, and then drag the aforementined snowflake-shaped ships out of orbit (again, a minimum of 60 miles up) is not explained. Especially since these same cannibals' next biggest program is raising goats.

The writers apparently think that tables are the way to GM a game. Decisions, apparently, are consdidered to be difficult. This would not nessessarily be bad, except that the table entries range from dumb to farcical. For one moderate example, you can encounter a bulk hauler loaded with ceramic garden gnomes. Because apparently there are planets which desire huge amounts (tens of thousands) of garden gnomes, and have the capacity to build a starport, but do not know how to work clay.

The pdf is not bookmarked.

Nothing is covered in depth. There are some really decent ideas, but they never go beyond a brief statement.

There are a lot of really bad and downright goofy ideas put forth. For one example, if the PCs will not willingly undergo amputation in order to interact with the colonists, the book notes that the cannibals will sneak onto the PCs ship and disable the life support. Because apparently the PCs would never think to lock their hatches, or leave someone aboard.

Pros The authors do a good job of cross-referencing data.

There are some really great ideas included, and a workable outline of a plot, but there is zero depth of explanation or development.

Overall Overall, this is an extremely superfical document with many grossly immature ideas and zero background research. If your group is made up of adults with basic education, you are going to have to put in a lot of work to making this scenario playable.

An excellent (award winning) module for a great RPG system.

The book contains three scenarios set around and on the titular Dead Planet which can be run as one shots or a part of a campaign. The information in the book is concisely written and well presented so that you can run each game with only a couple of pages open at a time. The art is good, giving a feel for the aesthetic of the setting. It has an intentionally indy feel that is a breath of fresh air and adds visual interest without getting in the way of the content; and this is one book which does not stint on the content.

Each scenario is chock full of ideas, with plenty to inspire that play through and leave you thinking of spin off games. Random ship building mechanics are a joy, and something I can see returning to again and again. I found the scenarios have the right amount of detail to run and not over elaborate on the ideas presented, leaving plenty of room for me to interpret them for my table. The setting is "soft" sci fi, but you could wrap it around a hard science setting realitevly easily if thats more your jam.

Picking up on a previous review it is worth pointing out that one or two of the themes are graphic, maybe a 12 rating, but you could easily cut it out. In any RPG it is advisable to know your groups comfort zones before playing, doubly so with a horror setting.

Forcing players to mutilate themselves is what killed my campaign, bad module.

The graphics and layout of this supplement are incredible! The spaceship creation for derelict ships is very clever. It is not quite quick enough to roll the whole ship up in a moment but it can easly be done with 10 minutes of prep to generate an entire side mission! It can also be done virtually room by room after "The Warden" (aka GM) rolls how many rooms there will be. This plus the map of the derelict ship of the Alexis with details of the rooms and items to be found there are easily worth $5 by themselves. Then, you get a number of random lists ranging from names of books in the captains rooms to how to move the monster if you want it moved randomly to tables for generating NPCs on the "Dead Planet". Then, add in the hooks for landing on the planet, the map of the base, and then a third adventure and you have quite the starter supplement!

That said, this is an old-school style game. There is a fair amount of GM Fiat and the game as written can be deadly. No worries there though, you can still have a spaceship full of cryo-sleeping crew to replace their dead mates or slow down the madness as "The Warden".

The monsters in this module are somewhat standard sort of xenomorphs and the plot is a bit of a railroad but again, there is nothing stopping you from spicing it up. Instead of waiting and buying the expensive new Alien rpg, grab this and have fun now!

I also wanted to point out that because success is instantly known in this version of the d00 system used AND high DM fiat, I have been running a very successful game of this by forum.

I can't wait for future supplements for this game!