In 2019, the primary iteration of Mothership, now often called 0e, received a number of awards on the Ennies, one of many greatest awards within the tabletop RPG house. A pair years later, they ran a massively profitable Kickstarter marketing campaign for a print run, incomes over $1.4 million. Not solely did this embrace up to date 1e guidelines, but additionally a core set that comprises 4 extra books together with some enjoyable items to liven up your desk. While the sport was clearly nicely acclaimed in its authentic incarnation, it’s clear that every thing within the new Mothership 1e Core Set has improved upon it, making it a complete package deal for any RPG fan.
Mothership permits gamers to play out sci-fi horror tales in regards to the terrifying belongings you’ll encounter whereas exploring the reaches of outer house. While this isn’t precisely new (I’ve beforehand reviewed each Alien RPG and You’re in Space and Everything’s Fucked for this website to call a number of), however it stakes out an area for itself within the style by a algorithm which might be straightforward sufficient to be taught, however have a character-focused degree of complexity to them.
The Player’s Survival Guide is your core e book on this set, with all the foundations you’ll must each play and run Mothership. It’s a reasonably slight e book, clocking in at nearly 40 pages, however it packs quite a bit into its small web page depend. The cube decision is finished by rolling two ten sided cube, with one representing the tens and one representing those, providing you with a quantity between zero and ninety-nine. You have scores for each Stats, that are used to do actions, and Saves, that are used when your character is reacting, and also you’ll be trying to roll underneath your quantity anytime you do a Stat or Save verify. These Stats may also be boosted by particular expertise that come out of your class, however these expertise solely come into impact if they’re related to the roll. For instance, when you have the Botany Skill, that offers you a +10 to investigating a horrible plant development that’s infecting your ship, however to not all intelligence rolls on the whole.
Should you fail, not solely does the state of affairs worsen, however your character additionally earns stress, which can come into play when making Panic Checks. These Panic Checks use a twenty sided die, and must you roll lower than or equal to your present stress worth, there’s an impact that’s chosen from a panic desk that may completely have an effect on your character going ahead. This might be so simple as gaining one other stress level or as impactful as being haunted by visions of one thing visiting them of their desires. Since the sport is about throwing gamers headfirst into high-pressure conditions, including in these psychological results will assist gamers roleplay them extra complexly, making a extra attention-grabbing journey for his or her characters.
And that character’s journey will possible be a brief one. Mothership is supposed to be a extremely deadly sport, so characters usually don’t survive very lengthy. There’s even a excessive rating that you just’re meant to maintain observe of on the prime of your character sheet which retains observe of the variety of periods this character has survived as you proceed to rotate in new characters for the gamers to inhabit. The core of the character survival system is a mixture of well being and wounds. Characters will begin a certain amount of hit factors and a most variety of wounds. Should their hit factors attain zero, they reset their HP to max and roll on the wound desk. There’s a D10 desk with columns for the die end result in addition to the kind of injury you acquired to assist work out what occurs to your character. This might be something from a snapped collarbone that offers you drawback on energy checks or a gunshot wound that can require surgical procedure to outlive.
If you attain your most variety of wounds, you’ll be compelled to make a loss of life save. The sport encourages you to roll the die and preserve it hid underneath a cup, solely permitting gamers to seek out out the end result if one other participant spends a flip checking their vitals. Like the panic system, the wound system does a superb job of tying the well being mechanics of the sport to your character’s growth, making for a determined narrative as you proceed to get increasingly beat up as you go. The sport intends so that you can heart an journey on a single, very highly effective risk, and it’s thrilling to see how rapidly you possibly can go from in management to fully in your again foot.
In addition to the essential guidelines about stats and cube decision, the Player’s Survival Guide additionally consists of numerous supplemental guidelines to make it extra of a totally rounded expertise. There’s an extended listing of kit, together with firearms, armor, and trinkets, that may all be bought with the intention to help your character of their adventures. If you wish to lean extra into the survival facets of the sport, there are guidelines for coping with meals, water, radiation, cryosickness, and the like so you possibly can absolutely painting the hazards of outer house journey. You’re additionally supplied with guidelines for shore depart, the place gamers can cut back their stress ranges and convert that stress into enhancements of their Save scores, which is a great solution to reward gamers who embrace the hazard and let their stress ranges enhance by play.
The actual spotlight of the package deal for me was the Warden’s Operation Manual, which is a complete information on recommendation for working Mothership. This is much less in regards to the specifics of the foundations and extra in regards to the philosophy of conceptualizing and organizing your prep for every session, and it’s filled with a ton of nice classes. Since many of the adventures are organized round dealing with off with one horror, as they name it, they lay out a really sensible system they name TOMBS for planning them out. This stands for Transgression, Omens, Manifestation, Banishment, Slumber, the 5 acts they see within the narrative of interacting with the enemy. This system does an awesome job of pacing your story, permitting you to appropriately construct pressure as gamers discover out extra in regards to the nature of what’s occurring.
Since tales on the desk usually come from forcing gamers to make compelling decisions, one other piece of recommendation they offer is making an attempt to drive gamers between three various things within the narrative: survive, remedy, or save. When you must make a significant alternative between serving to the scientist get free, determining the thriller of the sign that’s been broadcasting, and escaping together with your life, it’s assured to make for a memorable session irrespective of how they react. This e book not solely helped me take into consideration working the sport of Mothership, but additionally was superb recommendation about working every other horror tabletop sport, making it a helpful device that I’ll discuss with continuously.
Two of the opposite books included are dietary supplements that can offer you some extra instruments on your GMing arsenal. The first is the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit, which provides you some guidelines for working a ship, from fight to repairs, and an inventory of ship fashions to provide you some base stats and deck plans to work with. The second useful resource e book is a monster handbook of types, evocatively named Unconfirmed Contact Reports. Inside you’ll discover not solely stat blocks, however splendidly artistic descriptions of the monsters. As I flipped by this, I discovered a number of creatures inside that might be straightforward to heart an journey round. Some of them are extra ‘simple’ monsters like zombie or greys, however lots of them are extra on the market than that, starting from a VHS that makes folks into cannibals to a discipline of power that may revive any organic life, irrespective of what number of items it’s been minimize into. The descriptions are well-written, providing you with simply sufficient taste for the entity with out filling in all of the clean areas, permitting you to make use of them nonetheless you see match.
Rounding out the set of books is Another Bug Hunt, an introductory journey for Mothership that’s meant to span 4 periods of play. As the title would point out, it takes plenty of inspiration from the setup of Aliens, however there are some fantastic twists to the method that makes it standout. It’s an awesome storyline with a strong forged of characters and many choices to current to the gamers. Carrying ahead the custom of the Warden’s Operation Manual, Another Bug Hunt has a wealth of recommendation for working the journey, telling you when and the way to current data to the gamers and the way to deal with their actions in particular conditions. It does an awesome job of demonstrating the way to tempo an journey, beginning out with a mission that slowly ramps up the dread and ending with a determined struggle for survival.
The field additionally comprises a bunch of little extras that may give the sport a bit extra punch on the desk. Not solely does it offer you a set of the cube essential to play, however it additionally provides you a set of greater than a dozen standees of individuals, monsters, and ships that may assist convey your situation to life. There’s a double facet map that works for instance for a ship structure and a spot to play out ship fight situations. My private favourite bonus is a tri-fold GM display screen that options all of the tables you’ll want proper at your fingertips. These parts aren’t all solely vital, however they make the overall Mothership package deal really feel extra particular than only a sport handbook.
All these completely different books and extras are unified by a pleasant black-and-white artwork type that feels very darkish and ominous. The photographs all through the assorted books play with a number of sci-fi horror tropes, however add their very own little spin to them to make it their very own. Unconfirmed Contact Reports specifically has drawings that vary from horrific however clear renderings of monsters to extra impressionistic nightmares that seize your complete vibe of the beast in a single picture.
The Mothership 1e Core Set is a good package deal for anybody searching for a sci-fi horror sport to convey to their TTRPG group. At its most simple, its guidelines are easy sufficient that anybody can choose it up rapidly, however there’s additionally sufficient to the sport past the decision mechanics to can help you play both a fast and thrilling one-shot or a long-haul space-faring marketing campaign the place you rotate by a forged of characters as folks proceed to succumb to the horrors of your journey. Not solely is it an awesome package deal for gamers, however the instruments Mothership provides you as a GM will set you up for achievement. There’s a large amount of content material that you just get for the value, and there’s years price of additional dietary supplements on the market that you would be able to choose up for those who’re searching for an exhilarating journey to run on your group.
Mothership is presently obtainable for buy on the Tuesday Knight Games retailer.
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