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I ran this for a group of four as an intense two day game. Ten hours the first day and probably ten the second day.
We hadn’t played Aeon Throne so have only compared it to Dead Suns... and we super enjoyed it.
In session zero we discussed the type of horror we wanted and agreed that we wanted less Saw and more psychological horror and the adventure paid in spades. As the judge I was able to amp up the psychological stuff and the first day my players were incredibly creeped out. Personally, I couldn’t get over how well it was designed in that we spent hours without any big combat scenes and everyone had a blast. It was crazy good.
So kudos to the author. Literally some of the most fun I have had running a game in ages.
Only two things I would have liked to see.
1. More horror in the last bit that could be spun by the judge into situations that didn’t involve combat.
2. My players continually asked if there was a list at the back of the book of things that inspired the author. They wanted a list of fiction the could then go and consume.
Seriously though, well done. I owe the author a beer.
There are some horror media references at the back of the Starfinder Core Rulebook, though it is mixed in with your regular Scifi/Fantasy stuff.
Horror Adventures for Pathfinder has a super comprehensive list of horror inspiration, I'm pretty sure there's a lot of crossover between the two.
For influence, I might guess Videodrome and Existenz (Cronenberg), and the Hellraiser series (Clive Barker). Perhaps also the movie Event Horizon (one of my favorite sci-fi/horror films).
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I ran this for a group of four as an intense two day game. Ten hours the first day and probably ten the second day.
We hadn’t played Aeon Throne so have only compared it to Dead Suns... and we super enjoyed it.
In session zero we discussed the type of horror we wanted and agreed that we wanted less Saw and more psychological horror and the adventure paid in spades. As the judge I was able to amp up the psychological stuff and the first day my players were incredibly creeped out. Personally, I couldn’t get over how well it was designed in that we spent hours without any big combat scenes and everyone had a blast. It was crazy good.
So kudos to the author. Literally some of the most fun I have had running a game in ages.
Only two things I would have liked to see.
1. More horror in the last bit that could be spun by the judge into situations that didn’t involve combat.
2. My players continually asked if there was a list at the back of the book of things that inspired the author. They wanted a list of fiction the could then go and consume.Seriously though, well done. I owe the author a beer.
I just saw this thread and will pass the kudos along to author Chris Sims. Since he sits right next to me, we had a good talk about what kind of horror "The Diaspora Strain" would emulate. In addition to all the other movies noted above, I would recommend the movie Oculus. While it isn't a perfect movie, it does give you some idea what we were thinking about when it comes to the effects of the signal on New Elysium's guests (and the PCs!)
Oh, and also Poltergeist for some of that.
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I have a quick question I hope someone can help me with - I'm a relatively new GM, getting ready to run my 3rd session of Diaspora Strain tomorrow.
I'm a bit confused about the tortured apparitions that appear in area G of the mines. I understand the sequence of events around their appearance: the concealing fog, screams, doors lock, the Will save against being shaken and the Fort save against negative energy damage. I'm just not sure how exactly it's supposed to play out after that. What does the trap do in subsequent rounds of combat? I know it has a combined HP pool of 120, Mysticism checks can harm it as well as other attacks. But after the first round, what "actions", if any, does the trap take? The flavour text says the apparitions claw at the PCs but there's no info on melee attacks or anything in the stat block.
Am I missing something?
The secondary effect of the fog of ghosts (which deals 4d12 negative energy each round to everyone in the room; Fort for half) happens every round until the apparitions have been destroyed.
Anyone else nearly get a TPK from Paranoia? Man that was a beautiful spell to include!
So I have a question on the tortured apparitions trap so I’ll add it here. I have a player who is an SRO, does the negative energy and fort save effect them differently due to their robotic immunity? I know they are typically immune to most things that cause fort saves and get half healing from magic healing, which would typically be considered positive energy(?), so would they also take half damage from negative energy? Or would they take full damage and get the +4 to their fort save?
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SROs are immune to several things that call for Fort saves, but it's a specific list: bleed, disease, death effects, poison, nonlethal damage, and sleep effects, although the immunity is ignored if the effect specifically works on constructs.
Tortured Apparitions does not fall under any of those categories.
The also are specifically vulnerable to spells and effects that normally only work on humanoids (like charm person) but they get a save bonus so at least such spells don't work on them especially well. That's a specific weakness of those particular spells and a more specific weakness that SROs have.
Tortured Apparitions is not limited to humanoids.
SROs are constructs, which means they're not living creatures. Some abilities only work on certain creature types or only on living creatures and they have a few traits that specify they can be targeted by some of those, but those traits aren't relevant because the trap works on constructs anyway. It just says "creatures".