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Mothership (Sci Fi Horror RPG): Player's Survival Guide
http://www.tuesdayknightgames.com/mot...
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 1, 2019
There's a lot of stuff packed into this compact digest of a Tabletop RPG. If you're looking to play something like "Alien," "Event Horizon," "Dead Space," or some other Horror/Sci-Fi type game, this system should work just fine. I could actually see it working well for something a bit more 'Traveller'-like, too, if you wanted to focus a bit more on the harshness of space. This is setting agnostic, so you could plug it into whatever world you wanted. It's a about as mechanics heavy as 'Call of Cthulhu.' Nothing too terrible, but not really 'rules light,' either. It kinda makes me want to do a troupe-style Sci-Fi game, with various people taking up the GM (here called Warden) role, while building the story of a ship and its crew.
August 31, 2020
I read a lot of indie RPGs and this is among the best.
As a game player and game designer, I typically look for a certain mutual reinforcement between rules, theme and design/aesthetics--the way the rules are presented and the medium upon which they are presented are as important at setting the tone as the words themselves.
Mothership is a game about failing to survive in space, and having a progressively worse time as you do so. The rules are tightly packed, the artwork is just expressionist enough to create tension without cohering into a slick, "look how well we thought this out" brochure, (and let me tell you, the art in most indie RPGs comes from the depths of 7th grade spiral notebooks), and the rules are mathy and a touch finicky, but the character sheets and quick-reference material make the whole thing look like it'll run hella fast. Also I respect any system that levels you up at the end of the first session for simply surviving 3-4 hours of gameplay.
Characters are quick to roll up, quick to level up, and remain human-scale in power--ergo quick to blow up. Also secondary characters/mercenaries are run well. The rare misstep occurs in the charts in this section, a little too much 4th-wall breaking for the overall vibe of the game. No bigs.
Perfect for creating the claustrophobic terror of Alien, the blood-soaked hallucinatory nightmare of Event Horizon, or the grimier/less heroic plotlines of The Expanse series. I have been reading a lot of space-themed RPG material lately and this might be the best system for using it all.
As a game player and game designer, I typically look for a certain mutual reinforcement between rules, theme and design/aesthetics--the way the rules are presented and the medium upon which they are presented are as important at setting the tone as the words themselves.
Mothership is a game about failing to survive in space, and having a progressively worse time as you do so. The rules are tightly packed, the artwork is just expressionist enough to create tension without cohering into a slick, "look how well we thought this out" brochure, (and let me tell you, the art in most indie RPGs comes from the depths of 7th grade spiral notebooks), and the rules are mathy and a touch finicky, but the character sheets and quick-reference material make the whole thing look like it'll run hella fast. Also I respect any system that levels you up at the end of the first session for simply surviving 3-4 hours of gameplay.
Characters are quick to roll up, quick to level up, and remain human-scale in power--ergo quick to blow up. Also secondary characters/mercenaries are run well. The rare misstep occurs in the charts in this section, a little too much 4th-wall breaking for the overall vibe of the game. No bigs.
Perfect for creating the claustrophobic terror of Alien, the blood-soaked hallucinatory nightmare of Event Horizon, or the grimier/less heroic plotlines of The Expanse series. I have been reading a lot of space-themed RPG material lately and this might be the best system for using it all.
August 26, 2019
Un JDR à l'ancienne (D100) avec une vraie réflexion sur la création de personnage et l'ergonomie de la feuille de perso. Une claque de de côté-là.
Niveau système, ça doit rouler facilement, et on reste dans du très classique. On sent l'influence OSR, et c'est ras-la-gueule d'inspiration.
Maintenant, c'est fait pour du gritty en exploration de vaisseau / planète cheloues. Parfait pour ce genre. Moins pour partir sur autre chose plus spacey.
La mise en page est claire, les illustrations moyennes (sauf la couverture qui déchire). Pour son prix, imbattable.
Niveau système, ça doit rouler facilement, et on reste dans du très classique. On sent l'influence OSR, et c'est ras-la-gueule d'inspiration.
Maintenant, c'est fait pour du gritty en exploration de vaisseau / planète cheloues. Parfait pour ce genre. Moins pour partir sur autre chose plus spacey.
La mise en page est claire, les illustrations moyennes (sauf la couverture qui déchire). Pour son prix, imbattable.
November 16, 2021
I picked up Mothership moved entirely by the hype surrounding it. I’m a big fan of the inspirational source material behind the game, and the entry cost is eminently reasonable, even for a printed copy of the zine-sized text.
But alas, the game is not for me. As a game coming out of the OSR movement, it’s not badly designed. The rules for skill checks, advantages and disadvantages, panicking and combat all appear to be serviceable. At the same time, they don’t have anything particularly unique to say. Combat has the standard elements: determining surprise, rolling for initiative, having limited actions you can make on your turn, making an opposed roll to hit. It adds on stress and panic, like bringing Call of Cthulhu and D&D together, and the two features are yoked together pretty well, but that’s about the only part of the game that involves horror. There is no particular vision about what horror in space is about, what it is in the larger genre that makes it compelling. There is no reading or interpreting of the genre, just the standard game parts bolted onto one chassis. To me, the most compelling part of the text is the art, which does a wonderful job of setting a tone and presenting a vision more unique than the mechanics of the game illustrate.
This version of the game is only half complete, I know that. In fact, the full game is being Kickstarted even now. But where the designer is comfortable leaving holes indicates what the designer feels can be handwaved without affecting the central concerns of the game. If the elements were essential, they would be integrated with the rest of the design. Take money, for example. We are told that “everything in Mothership from fuel to food to weapons and ammunition costs Credits.” This makes it sound like Credits is a central driver and economy of the game. But then the rest is handwaved. You get a list of jobs you can do, adventure seeds, but nothing else is developed, presumably because the eternal hunt for more Credits is an excuse for getting the PCs into trouble and then making them return to trouble session after session. The game borrows the aesthetics of truckers and blue-collar workers in space, but that’s as deep as it goes. It’s window dressing. It happens to be loveable and groovy window dressing, but window dressing all the same.
Horror and Sci-Fi genres, individually, are each rich and roomy genres, with space to make observations and declarations about our world and our humanity. Mothership is a missed opportunity.
But alas, the game is not for me. As a game coming out of the OSR movement, it’s not badly designed. The rules for skill checks, advantages and disadvantages, panicking and combat all appear to be serviceable. At the same time, they don’t have anything particularly unique to say. Combat has the standard elements: determining surprise, rolling for initiative, having limited actions you can make on your turn, making an opposed roll to hit. It adds on stress and panic, like bringing Call of Cthulhu and D&D together, and the two features are yoked together pretty well, but that’s about the only part of the game that involves horror. There is no particular vision about what horror in space is about, what it is in the larger genre that makes it compelling. There is no reading or interpreting of the genre, just the standard game parts bolted onto one chassis. To me, the most compelling part of the text is the art, which does a wonderful job of setting a tone and presenting a vision more unique than the mechanics of the game illustrate.
This version of the game is only half complete, I know that. In fact, the full game is being Kickstarted even now. But where the designer is comfortable leaving holes indicates what the designer feels can be handwaved without affecting the central concerns of the game. If the elements were essential, they would be integrated with the rest of the design. Take money, for example. We are told that “everything in Mothership from fuel to food to weapons and ammunition costs Credits.” This makes it sound like Credits is a central driver and economy of the game. But then the rest is handwaved. You get a list of jobs you can do, adventure seeds, but nothing else is developed, presumably because the eternal hunt for more Credits is an excuse for getting the PCs into trouble and then making them return to trouble session after session. The game borrows the aesthetics of truckers and blue-collar workers in space, but that’s as deep as it goes. It’s window dressing. It happens to be loveable and groovy window dressing, but window dressing all the same.
Horror and Sci-Fi genres, individually, are each rich and roomy genres, with space to make observations and declarations about our world and our humanity. Mothership is a missed opportunity.
January 1, 2024
While I normally have an easy time to just slap on a rating after reading something and call it a day, this book made that a little more complicated, so a written review for once.
First of all, if I understand it right, at the moment of reading this is sorta a beta version of the game, that has been kickstarted with an updated release on the horizon, so some of my nitpicks here will most likely change after that happens.
The rating ended up being 3 stars as a fuse between my conflicting views on the book, which could have been a 2 star review and a 4 star review.
The 2 star review would have said that the book is all over the place in editing and how readable it is. Some rules and how to do things are very clear and written in few words. Some rules and how to use them is written in some of the most messy paragraphs I have seen in rpg books and I need to reread what seems to be simple rules multiple times to grok it. There are things like "Resolve" you can get from leveling up, yet neither the character sheet nor the cheat sheet has an obvious mention of what it does. The book is also light on inspiration. It has some evocative art, but it's somewhat obvious that it's rules meant to emulate inspiration and settings you have from elsewhere.
The 4 star review would have said the book is tight, short and to the point without lots of word count bloat of the bigger rpg book productions. The art is stylish and has a distinct style. The character sheet and ship building are inspired, well done and nice to use. The rules can most likely emulate most genre settings, Alien or Dead Space or whatever without having some rules for other settings getting in the way because they wanted to cram one into the book.
The book/game is thus mostly for people wanting to run something they already know what will be like in a fairly rules light system which it seems good for. And not for people that wants a complete sci package with a bolted on setting that you can get as much joy from reading as playing.
First of all, if I understand it right, at the moment of reading this is sorta a beta version of the game, that has been kickstarted with an updated release on the horizon, so some of my nitpicks here will most likely change after that happens.
The rating ended up being 3 stars as a fuse between my conflicting views on the book, which could have been a 2 star review and a 4 star review.
The 2 star review would have said that the book is all over the place in editing and how readable it is. Some rules and how to do things are very clear and written in few words. Some rules and how to use them is written in some of the most messy paragraphs I have seen in rpg books and I need to reread what seems to be simple rules multiple times to grok it. There are things like "Resolve" you can get from leveling up, yet neither the character sheet nor the cheat sheet has an obvious mention of what it does. The book is also light on inspiration. It has some evocative art, but it's somewhat obvious that it's rules meant to emulate inspiration and settings you have from elsewhere.
The 4 star review would have said the book is tight, short and to the point without lots of word count bloat of the bigger rpg book productions. The art is stylish and has a distinct style. The character sheet and ship building are inspired, well done and nice to use. The rules can most likely emulate most genre settings, Alien or Dead Space or whatever without having some rules for other settings getting in the way because they wanted to cram one into the book.
The book/game is thus mostly for people wanting to run something they already know what will be like in a fairly rules light system which it seems good for. And not for people that wants a complete sci package with a bolted on setting that you can get as much joy from reading as playing.
January 21, 2024
Getting ready to run some Mothership when our current campaign ends. Won't really have a feel for the system until I've run it, but the player guide seems solid and easy to use (though a few things are poorly explained, and I had to reread those several times).
November 9, 2021
I liked the art of the small booklet and the options for ship construction. However, for my tastes it is a too number-based game and I prefer more narrative games as Fate.
March 2, 2022
Great, minimal OSR style game. Very excited to see the mental health possitive changes coming in the new edition.
November 11, 2023
Concise and inspiring d100 based ttrpg for gaming in scenarios Alien/Pitch Black/Predator/Starship Troopers/Event Horizon like.
Read
June 17, 2024Not going to rate until I play it, but honestly it's a book and I've read it like 3 times since getting it as I want my friends to play with me lol
February 23, 2022
(Reseña basada en borrador [WIP].)
Juego de rol de terror, rápidamente jugable e interesante.
Juego de rol de terror, rápidamente jugable e interesante.
March 12, 2021
A game with old school sensibilities bolted onto a simple d100 system. The rules are fine, but nothing new or mind-blowing. I imagine that all of the excitment I have been hearing about this game come from the scenarios or supplements that you can pick up to use with it.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews