YSYP Cottonmouth Ashcan (GLÅUGUST 2026 #5)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2026, challenge #5 is from a list by Doc - "Cottonmouth your pet system so it is synonymous with one of your settings. Here is what Cottonmouth is and here is one way you could do that"

For this I am attempting to crank over the entire system for Your Sector, Your Problem. It gnaws at me but I think the attempt to Cottonmouth it might force it to a useful place. You could probably retool the guts of this to be a minion-running mechanic for any domain level game. The 'cottonmouth' aspect of it is that the gears and gubbins are all just set up for the 'telling of the tale' debriefing which is happening in world (assuming you survive).

Four things happen during a cycle of play
1. You learn what problems you have in your sector, as per the name
2. You throw your assets at the threat, hopefully suitable ones against your various threats
3. Resolve the problems (or fail to)
4. Recover and maintain your assets - and then debrief on how the whole mission cycle played out.

Phase 1 - for this ashcan your problem is going to be selected with three rolls d12+8 off this d20 sector defense assets table to get three problems.

Phase 2 - you have your starter set of assets - three d20 rolls on the table and assign them against whichever problem you like. Each of your players draws two standard playing cards.
Ace, 2 = Exhaustion
3, 4 = Panic & miscommunication
5+ Hearts = Xeno-shock
5+ Diamonds = Inexplicable Physics
5+ Clubs = Bureaucracy & Bad Planning
5+ Spades = Gear Failure

Phase 3 - Decide whether or not to get involved, add a d6 if a player deploys with an asset and risks death. Roll off between problem and asset.
+4 success, no upkeep
+0 success, upkeep (draw 1)
-4 success, high upkeep (draw 2)
-5 or lower, failure, high upkeep (draw 2)

At this point draw cards from a standard deck for each asset as required by the rolls.

Phase 4 - upkeep - each character can get involved with an asset and play one of their cards. Multiple characters can go after one asset. If the total value of their cards (Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13) is greater than card on the asset, take that card of the asset. Then tell the story of how it all played out, framed as your debriefing to the rest of the characters after everything has been resolved. That debrief has to include
What the asset is
The problem (card on the asset being targetted)
What caused the problem (the threat that put the cards there)
The character(s) involved in fixing the problem.

Do this for all assets. With luck, you have cards in hand that total more than the cards on your assets - just tell the tale of how you fixed it.

If the total of the characters cards do not exceed the value of the problems, characters can roll a save for that category (e.g. Inexplicable Physics) modified by the gap between the cards you have and the problem. Fail and take d6 points distributed across your Grit, Guile and Charm stats.Make the save with disadvantage if you play a card of a different type as the problem.

However that plays out, you still must tell the tale as a debriefing as above with the added element of:
How the character got beaten up doing it
Any remaining problems on the asset

Any assets that go into the next round with cards on them, they lose a dice from what they roll per card remaining.

Characters in this conceptualisation have 3d6 stats (Grit, Guile, Charm) and saves that base of those stats, modified by their 'career' tied either to humans, aliens or terrain, affecting people or stuff. Players could eat a few 'I have no cards, I get stuck in' at d6 damage a pop but not over the long haul.

Design notes

Key revelation, thanks to the in-house testing team, is not to frame this as 'grading roleplaying' but more as assembling the elements that have to be incorporated into an 'upkeep vignette' somewhat like a small round of 'Once Upon a Time'. I think it captures the fun of 'minion running' and the chaos involved in explaining why this xenoarchaeologist (holder of the right cards) was able to fix the BOGEYMAN cybertanks Gear Failure problem caused by their scrap with the Dubious Alien Mercenaries.

I like this better as a 'just tell the tale' rather than 'you must 'win' a roleplaying encounter'. Is this properly Cottonmouthed? Barely - I think in making it a 'talk through how you fixed it' it adheres to the in-world concept of your are troubleshooters dealing with wild things and debriefing your fellows at a particularly bizarre set of .

Your Sector, Your Problem - wheres my motivation?

Thinking on "Your Sector, Your Problem" (SHIELD/Stargate Command but responsible for a sector of inhabited alien worlds) in particular in the light of Uncanny Spheres MEGACORP: The Evil Mothership Campaign - why not just use that?

Uncanny Spheres portrays the dark mirror version of Mothership, scheming executives within the iconic megacorporations of that setting - and there is a ton of material there that I think I could wrangle but the 'close, but not quite' sense I get is really helpful to clarify what I am trying to get at with Your Sector, Your Problem.

The high-level pitch in 'DIO - Cosmic Defense Brigade' was "you are responsible for holding down a sector your corporation has newly acquired protectorship of and have a scarce amount of Sector Defense Assets of varying levels of effectiveness and you have to deal with all the problems that come across your desk with those."

The key difference with MEGACORP as I think about it is that even though you are representing a very large entity, an interstellar megacorp, the problems you are dealing with are greater still, so your margin for the kind of back-stabbing and internal politics that MEGACORP foregrounds is less. Not zero, but less. YSYP is like domain management on a dangerous frontier, with potentially hostile residents and unknown buried problems within your realm.

My vision for the setting is a Banksian one or "portal fantasy in spaaaace" - lots of aliens out there, not necessarily all hostile but certainly humans are only small fish in what has turned out to be a very, very big, very inhabited pond.

Space & Subaquatics - Setting for Summer Legojam #2

An entry for the the second Summer LEGO RPG Jam created by DIY & Dragons. If you want to have a go - here are the curated helpful links we were given.

Inspired by the planetary hexmap by Riles we have here an aqua planet with space-factions, deep-sea mines and aquatic residents. This is the 'get it out the door' ashcan, as baked as I can get it with time constraints of travel. List of things I would have improved in the land of infinite time at the bottom.

The Planet
Humans have come to Planet 44E chasing rich metal nodules on the floor of the planet-spanning ocean. The colonists arrived and have been busy, regularly buying in shipments of gear paid in hard galactic currency but only a trickle of export product is leaving - the miners are close-lipped about their route.

White Corp is losing its mind as their investments hemorrhage cash and point the finger at the Black Coalition presence - they must be smuggling! Avoiding export taxes! Blue Navy has been called in but are failing to find any such regular smuggling run despite significant armed and stealthed Black Coalition transport capability. Things appear stale-mated, with a lot of fuel burnt and sensor sweeps. Ripe terrain for some enterprising mercenaries.

The Hex Key