A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Wet Work

Wet Work by Joseph 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 from DriveThruRPG as a 16 page Pay What You Want PDF. Two pages are the front and rear covers, three pages are the front matter and three pages are the Open Game License.

The opening paragraphs explain that a scout ship was lost on a water world in the Sonora Sector. The world is known for its severe storms. The ship has an alien artefact aboard that was taken from a comet that visits the Sonora Sector every 200 years (that makes little sense). The artefact was recovered on behalf of the Rysnian Confederation of Worlds and the characters are hired to recover it; they will need scuba diving gear or a vacc suit.

Game Master Information explains that the lost ship is a standard scout ship. There is a storm coming that will make the area impossible to explore, a rival team has been hired by the Olonsean Empire and a security robot is loose on the ship.

Storms on Onankasus has a chart for storms and what problems they cause.

A Rival Diving Team has stats for the opposing team.

The Trail Blazer has a map of the scout ship.

Finding the Trail Blazer Wreck has instructions for running this.

Key to the Trail Blazer Wreck details the locations on the ship.

Game Master Note About the Wreck essentially states that the ship is a total write-off, presumably in case players think of salvaging it.

Onankasus has a map of the world.

Under Water Fighting has some details on running combat.

Underwater Gear has some new items.

Conditions for Success gives what is needed for the mission to be a success.

Wet Work in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and has enough different sections that these would have been useful. The text maintains a single column format and some minor errors were noticed. Apart from the maps, and unfortunately the scout ship map doesn’t come in a player-friendly version, there are only some stock illustrations. Presentation is okay.

Though it isn’t explicitly stated in the adventure, this is set in the Frontiers of Space setting. It should be easy enough to drop it into other settings, as all that are really needed are a system to drop the water world in and a couple of polities competing for the item. The item itself doesn’t even need to be an alien artefact, as it’s essentially a MacGuffin. The adventure is pretty simple in nature; travel to a planet, find the wreck without getting wiped out by a storm and stop a competing team from getting it. Wet Work is a decent little adventure and it can be found by clicking here.