Distress by Jospeh Mohr is a role playing game supplement published by Old School Role Playing for use with Cepheus Engine. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The supplement is available as a 17 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, three the front matter and three the Open Game License.
The opening paragraphs explain that the characters are travelling through space when they receive a distress call. Sonoran interstellar law – though not stated, the adventure is set in the Frontiers of Space – requires all such calls to be answered and assistance provided, but this is a law that is unenforceable.
GM Notes explains that pirates have set up a trap outside the space lanes, one that dampens a ship’s power plant and prevents manoeuvring and jumping. If the characters fall for the trap, they will need to disable this. If they don’t, the adventure doesn’t happen.
Complications isn’t really such in this case, but details of the trap and what will happen.
GM Note Two explains that the GM should decide how many pirates there are.
The Station details the space station where the dampening field originates.
The Graveyard of Ships are the previous targets that have been caught in the trap.
The Dead Bodies Floating in Space are victims of the pirates and details as to whether a reward is offered for knowledge of what happened to them.
The Dampening Field is how the field works and how it could be disabled.
The Pirates lists various pirates to encounter.
Boarding Party Members are pirates who will board the characters’ ship.
Mission Completion Objectives is basically escape alive, though there are potential opportunities for gaining various rewards.
The final page of content is a colour map of the station.
Distress in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and has enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a single column format and some minor errors were noticed. Bar the map and covers, there are no illustrations. Presentation is adequate.
The supplement has a common issue in that the pirates are detailed more thoroughly than needed; rather than individual stats for them all, just a couple of stat blocks or so could have been used. Perhaps a major issue is the dampening field itself; there’s a very good chance that players will want to take such valuable technology away with them, and the only way this is considered is having the characters take over the station themselves, rather than stripping the tech from it. Distress is a potentially nasty adventure and it can be found by clicking here.
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