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Mothership
Mothership: Player's Survival Guide
Mothership is a sci-fi horror roleplaying game where you and your crew try to survive in the most inhospitable environment in the universe: outer space! You'll excavate dangerous derelict spacecraft, explore strange unknown worlds, exterminate hostile alien life, and examine the horrors that encroach upon your every move. Choose from one of four classes:
Teamsters, the rough and tumble workers. More versatile at first level, Teamsters can be anything from engineers, to pilots, to asteroid miners. If Ripley from Aliens is your hero, then you'll want to play a Teamster.
Scientists, doctors, researches or anyone who wants to slice open aliens (or infected crew members) with a scalpel. Become an expert in genetics or xenobiology - or protect your crew from deadly viruses.
Androids are an exciting and terrifying addition to any crew. Powerful due to their supreme intellect, speed, and near-immunity to fear, they tend to unnerve other crew members with their cold inhumanity.
Marines are here to shoot bugs and chew bubblegum. They're handy in a fight, and better when grouped together, but be wary when a marine panics because it could spell doom for the rest of your crew.
Teamsters, the rough and tumble workers. More versatile at first level, Teamsters can be anything from engineers, to pilots, to asteroid miners. If Ripley from Aliens is your hero, then you'll want to play a Teamster.
Scientists, doctors, researches or anyone who wants to slice open aliens (or infected crew members) with a scalpel. Become an expert in genetics or xenobiology - or protect your crew from deadly viruses.
Androids are an exciting and terrifying addition to any crew. Powerful due to their supreme intellect, speed, and near-immunity to fear, they tend to unnerve other crew members with their cold inhumanity.
Marines are here to shoot bugs and chew bubblegum. They're handy in a fight, and better when grouped together, but be wary when a marine panics because it could spell doom for the rest of your crew.
44 pages, Paperback
First published June 19, 2018
6 people are currently reading
127 people want to read
About the author
Sean McCoy
11 books30 followersSean is a board game designer living in Dallas, Texas with his girlfriend and their two dogs. Most recently, his work was featured in "The Year's Best Body Horror Anthology," (2017).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
September 29, 2022
A sturdy little system, with exactly as much as you'll probably need to run a game.
November 17, 2025
Basically a perfect little sci-fi horror RPG. The rules are light and do a great job bolstering the game's themes/atmosphere. Characters are quick to roll up and inherently add enough flavor to get you ready to roleplay your little doomed dude. It's super easy to get to the table and drag people in to play without a ton of previous knowledge or preparation. Plus, the Warden's Manual has a ton of great wisdom for game masters.
Do you like Alien? Do you like The Thing? Do you want to experience the horrifying fates that may await us in the vast and unknowable emptiness of space? Pick up Mothership.
Do you like Alien? Do you like The Thing? Do you want to experience the horrifying fates that may await us in the vast and unknowable emptiness of space? Pick up Mothership.
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October 10, 2024How? After hearing people rave about the box set they got from the Kickstarter -- mostly about the Deluxe set -- I bought the standard box. I also bought a sale copy of Gradient Descent; and a full-price copy of This Ship is a Tomb (by a friend-on-Discord).
What? I'm gonna go backwards: adventures first. I previously reviewed the adventure Mothership: A Pound Of Flesh for this game, and Gradient Descent and This Ship is a Tomb are also more of the same, which is to say: they are great and heavily interested in OSR-style randomness.
Gradient Descent involves the PCs entering an enormous android factory, worrying that they themselves might be androids, and dealing with the massive AI, as well as all the creepiness. (Illustrated by Nick Tofani, who specializes in creepiness.) This Ship is a Tomb is inspired by Event Horizon and other cursed ships; it is also inspired by the Emmy "Cavegirl" Allen's depth+randomness idea from Stygian Library. (That is: usually in a random hexcrawl, you are as likely to get any result; Allen's innovation is to say "the deeper you go, the more likely you are to encounter the truly weird/dangerous stuff.") The ship has become home to some ENTITY (always written that way), and there's various monsters.
(To summarize them: Pound of Flesh feels most like a toolkit; Gradient Descent feels most like a narrative adventure; and Ship feels most like a crawl.)
Now, the box set: the box set includes (besides a bunch of standees and dice):
Player’s Survival Guide (1e)
Warden’s Operation Manual
Unconfirmed Contact Reports
Shipbreaker’s Toolkit
Another Bug Hunt Introductory Module
"Unconfirmed Contact Reports" is the monster manual, and probably the most uninteresting book in the box: of course in a game heavily indebted to Alien, there's gonna be some Alien-type stuff; and of course, in a modern game, there's gonna be some "parasitic meme" monsters. It felt a little repetitive and unoriginal -- or maybe it just didn't spark interest.
Shipbreaker's Toolkit is about ships -- ship combat, a few standard ships -- fine and focused.
The Player's Survival Guide is all about the rules, which seem fine: you have your class, you have some skills, you have saves against things scaring you, etc.
Another Bug Hunt is a nice set of linked adventures, heavily leaning into the Alien vibe: you go to an planetary outpost that the company has lost contact with -- of course because of terrible monsters and a traitor in the original crew. As an introductory adventure/adventures, it seems very smart in how it sets digestible chunks: the first part is mostly wandering around the nearly abandoned station, learning clues, and eventually fighting one monster. Then you go to the terraforming station, where you learn about the issue at the power plant, etc.
As much as I like just about everything above, the Warden's Operation Manual is really worth the price of admission all by itself. It's a step-by-step guide to building and running a horror/exploration scenario. What really makes it good, I think, is not just how step-by-step it is, but also how it considers the actual logistics of running a game: not just only preparing what you use (as some books say), but preparing it in a way to make it immediately usable. To put it a completely different way: I just finished writing a horror scenario, and while I was reading this, I thought, "damn, I wish I'd read this before I wrote my adventure."
Yeah, so? I think I've pretty well explained my feelings on this game: the adventures are all solid and the box set makes me want to play in this world, even if it is horrible. The real question for me as a writer is: is there something that I could uniquely bring to this game?
What? I'm gonna go backwards: adventures first. I previously reviewed the adventure Mothership: A Pound Of Flesh for this game, and Gradient Descent and This Ship is a Tomb are also more of the same, which is to say: they are great and heavily interested in OSR-style randomness.
Gradient Descent involves the PCs entering an enormous android factory, worrying that they themselves might be androids, and dealing with the massive AI, as well as all the creepiness. (Illustrated by Nick Tofani, who specializes in creepiness.) This Ship is a Tomb is inspired by Event Horizon and other cursed ships; it is also inspired by the Emmy "Cavegirl" Allen's depth+randomness idea from Stygian Library. (That is: usually in a random hexcrawl, you are as likely to get any result; Allen's innovation is to say "the deeper you go, the more likely you are to encounter the truly weird/dangerous stuff.") The ship has become home to some ENTITY (always written that way), and there's various monsters.
(To summarize them: Pound of Flesh feels most like a toolkit; Gradient Descent feels most like a narrative adventure; and Ship feels most like a crawl.)
Now, the box set: the box set includes (besides a bunch of standees and dice):
Player’s Survival Guide (1e)
Warden’s Operation Manual
Unconfirmed Contact Reports
Shipbreaker’s Toolkit
Another Bug Hunt Introductory Module
"Unconfirmed Contact Reports" is the monster manual, and probably the most uninteresting book in the box: of course in a game heavily indebted to Alien, there's gonna be some Alien-type stuff; and of course, in a modern game, there's gonna be some "parasitic meme" monsters. It felt a little repetitive and unoriginal -- or maybe it just didn't spark interest.
Shipbreaker's Toolkit is about ships -- ship combat, a few standard ships -- fine and focused.
The Player's Survival Guide is all about the rules, which seem fine: you have your class, you have some skills, you have saves against things scaring you, etc.
Another Bug Hunt is a nice set of linked adventures, heavily leaning into the Alien vibe: you go to an planetary outpost that the company has lost contact with -- of course because of terrible monsters and a traitor in the original crew. As an introductory adventure/adventures, it seems very smart in how it sets digestible chunks: the first part is mostly wandering around the nearly abandoned station, learning clues, and eventually fighting one monster. Then you go to the terraforming station, where you learn about the issue at the power plant, etc.
As much as I like just about everything above, the Warden's Operation Manual is really worth the price of admission all by itself. It's a step-by-step guide to building and running a horror/exploration scenario. What really makes it good, I think, is not just how step-by-step it is, but also how it considers the actual logistics of running a game: not just only preparing what you use (as some books say), but preparing it in a way to make it immediately usable. To put it a completely different way: I just finished writing a horror scenario, and while I was reading this, I thought, "damn, I wish I'd read this before I wrote my adventure."
Yeah, so? I think I've pretty well explained my feelings on this game: the adventures are all solid and the box set makes me want to play in this world, even if it is horrible. The real question for me as a writer is: is there something that I could uniquely bring to this game?
February 17, 2021
Mothership is a neat little Zine with a TON of content packed into it's relatively low page count. It's got a pretty complete tradgame sci-fi OSR package. There's all the tables and fleshed out mechanics one expects from an OSR game, but this has a sci-fi horror skin on it.
It works pretty well. Tons of options to kit a character out, though they are unlikely to have much of a life expectancy. There is no bestiary and while there is a sample ship, there is no sample adventure to go with it. That's not great but given how much else it packs between its covers, I'm willing to let it slide.
The art is sparse and overall not great to middling. The cover art is nice and there are a couple of neat evocative pieces within but, again, they're packing a LOT of content here and they do slip in a decent amount of art with everything else you get.
I don't know if I'll run it. I think it would be difficult to do chargen with completely new players. That being said, after the first time it should be pretty easy. The character sheet is a lovely piece of visual design with it being a flowchart that deftly directs the player's attention from area to area as needed for character creation. I just think it's so different from what players are used to that it might be difficult to do without being in the same room.
It works pretty well. Tons of options to kit a character out, though they are unlikely to have much of a life expectancy. There is no bestiary and while there is a sample ship, there is no sample adventure to go with it. That's not great but given how much else it packs between its covers, I'm willing to let it slide.
The art is sparse and overall not great to middling. The cover art is nice and there are a couple of neat evocative pieces within but, again, they're packing a LOT of content here and they do slip in a decent amount of art with everything else you get.
I don't know if I'll run it. I think it would be difficult to do chargen with completely new players. That being said, after the first time it should be pretty easy. The character sheet is a lovely piece of visual design with it being a flowchart that deftly directs the player's attention from area to area as needed for character creation. I just think it's so different from what players are used to that it might be difficult to do without being in the same room.
April 29, 2025
One of my favourite RPGs. Firstly, I adore the presentation. I have the deluxe edition and it's truly a treat to own. It feels like a real throwback, being a boxed set with a collection of zines, and the zines themselves are really well formatted and nicely written, with each of zine having its own distinct visual style. My favourite by far is the "Unseen Contact Reports" (basically the monster zine), which takes the form of essentially a collection of sci-fi horror flash fiction with a small section at the top for stats.
I really like the "there is no canon" approach that the game has, it's an approach that lets you take Mothership's core tone and themes and go in whatever direction you want with it. I also love the core capitalist horror theme, you have things like bankruptcy charts and the characters are forced to deal with these cosmic horrors because they don't have a choice. You need the money from this next job, so you can’t afford to say no when people on the asteroid mining platform start to disappear. One of the modules, A Pound of Flesh, literally has “oxygen tax” as a major plotpoint, and it made me rub my GM hands in glee because of the horrors I could inflict upon my players while also making me really depressed.
Mechanically it's also very smooth. It's so simple that I could teach it in less than ten minutes, and character creation likewise takes another ten so you can really easily jump right in. All in all this is an RPG I really love. I think it lacks the focus on character arcs that I love in RPGs like Masks: A New Generation and Slugblaster and that keeps me from truly calling it my favourite, but still as someone who loves sci-fi this is one of my favourite sci-fi RPGs.
I really like the "there is no canon" approach that the game has, it's an approach that lets you take Mothership's core tone and themes and go in whatever direction you want with it. I also love the core capitalist horror theme, you have things like bankruptcy charts and the characters are forced to deal with these cosmic horrors because they don't have a choice. You need the money from this next job, so you can’t afford to say no when people on the asteroid mining platform start to disappear. One of the modules, A Pound of Flesh, literally has “oxygen tax” as a major plotpoint, and it made me rub my GM hands in glee because of the horrors I could inflict upon my players while also making me really depressed.
Mechanically it's also very smooth. It's so simple that I could teach it in less than ten minutes, and character creation likewise takes another ten so you can really easily jump right in. All in all this is an RPG I really love. I think it lacks the focus on character arcs that I love in RPGs like Masks: A New Generation and Slugblaster and that keeps me from truly calling it my favourite, but still as someone who loves sci-fi this is one of my favourite sci-fi RPGs.
August 24, 2019
Un excelente ejercicio de síntesis; Mothership incluye un sistema con reminiscencias old-school y montones de subsistemas en apenas 44 páginas, capturando perfectamente ese espíritu de "terror en el espacio" al estilo de Alien, Dead Space o Horizonte Final.
June 3, 2025
Excited to run this sci-fi RPG!
October 30, 2019
I haven't had a chance to play this yet (only read through the book today) but I feel like this is a fairly tight system that does a good job of walking the line between narrative and crunch. It is streamlined, more or less, to do sci-fi horror, or at the very least pulp sci-fi, and it seems to be done REALLY well. The ruleset seems very evocative of the genre. I honestly can't wait to run it.
July 5, 2025
De mis juegos de rol preferidos. Fácil de implementar, tiene aplicación de celular para llevar estadísticas del personaje. Y da muchas ideas para implementar campañas de terror.
November 1, 2022
This is a review of the 0e version of the Player's Survival Guide. It's a pretty solid, neat system for space adventures. Had a lot of fun playing in a homebrewed "one shot" that stretched into two sessions. Things get rough for the PCs once the panic kicks in, that's for sure!
It was pretty good for a d% system; I definitely liked it more than Call of Cthulhu. The simplified skill tree and combat being one of your big four stats go a long way in that regard, though. I do think the stats could use more balancing, or splitting up, though. As it is, Strength hardly ever gets used for anything unless you're in a scenario that involves a lot of lifting/climbing/holding open or blockading doors, so it feels like a safe dump stat. There isn't enough to do with it, especially compared to Intellect which gets used for damn near everything outside of combat. Combat is rough if you aren't a Marine, but you can up your odds pretty quickly by taking a stimpak or two. Combat itself is pretty fast and the two-actions-inclusive-of-movement turn system is elegant. The opposed rolls could get confusing if you're GMing, but apparently that gets fixed in 1e.
We didn't get into the ship rules much in the game we played, and that was fine for a one-shot. They're there if you want to get into the nitty gritty of being spacefaring gig economy workers. I wouldn't mind seeing how ship-to-ship combat runs, though.
All in all, I would say my main criticism of the book itself is where the information is laid out. There are lots of bits and pieces that are hidden in random sections and it's not structured as logically as I'd like. I ended up doing a lot of flipping back and forth through the copy on my tablet as we played, to reference various things. But that doesn't detract too much from how fun the main system is, and the flow-chart character sheet is honestly one of the best pieces of TTRPG game design I've ever seen. Interested to see how 1e differs from it at some point.
It was pretty good for a d% system; I definitely liked it more than Call of Cthulhu. The simplified skill tree and combat being one of your big four stats go a long way in that regard, though. I do think the stats could use more balancing, or splitting up, though. As it is, Strength hardly ever gets used for anything unless you're in a scenario that involves a lot of lifting/climbing/holding open or blockading doors, so it feels like a safe dump stat. There isn't enough to do with it, especially compared to Intellect which gets used for damn near everything outside of combat. Combat is rough if you aren't a Marine, but you can up your odds pretty quickly by taking a stimpak or two. Combat itself is pretty fast and the two-actions-inclusive-of-movement turn system is elegant. The opposed rolls could get confusing if you're GMing, but apparently that gets fixed in 1e.
We didn't get into the ship rules much in the game we played, and that was fine for a one-shot. They're there if you want to get into the nitty gritty of being spacefaring gig economy workers. I wouldn't mind seeing how ship-to-ship combat runs, though.
All in all, I would say my main criticism of the book itself is where the information is laid out. There are lots of bits and pieces that are hidden in random sections and it's not structured as logically as I'd like. I ended up doing a lot of flipping back and forth through the copy on my tablet as we played, to reference various things. But that doesn't detract too much from how fun the main system is, and the flow-chart character sheet is honestly one of the best pieces of TTRPG game design I've ever seen. Interested to see how 1e differs from it at some point.
January 30, 2025
A short and to the point sci-fi horror game that manages to cram in a neat ruleset in a small book.
The 1e version has some rules adjustments from 0e that seems ok, but it's nothing like reinventing the wheel here. d100 roll under OSR like stuff and has a mesh of Alien and other sci fi horror movie vibes as the theme.
I really enjoyed what they did with the text, the layout, design and all those things with this book compared to the 0e version. Clear text, good examples and neat art. After reading the 0e version I was a fair bit confused and using the book could be annoying, but they sorted all of that out here.
Still need to both have some genre ideas (and interest in playing it) and most likely have some rpg experience to get anything out of it however, as it's light on inspiration and "how to" stuff. But since it now has companion material in the box set for example, this is a non-issue for the Warden especially.
Great book/rpg.
The 1e version has some rules adjustments from 0e that seems ok, but it's nothing like reinventing the wheel here. d100 roll under OSR like stuff and has a mesh of Alien and other sci fi horror movie vibes as the theme.
I really enjoyed what they did with the text, the layout, design and all those things with this book compared to the 0e version. Clear text, good examples and neat art. After reading the 0e version I was a fair bit confused and using the book could be annoying, but they sorted all of that out here.
Still need to both have some genre ideas (and interest in playing it) and most likely have some rpg experience to get anything out of it however, as it's light on inspiration and "how to" stuff. But since it now has companion material in the box set for example, this is a non-issue for the Warden especially.
Great book/rpg.
November 24, 2019
I really love this system. It's light enough that you can do a lot of things with it: android horror like Bladerunner, body horror creatures like Dead Space, or even something more intense like Event Horizon.
The zine-like layout and length is perfect for someone with little time on their hands. 48 pages covers everything from basic equipment, rules for combat, stress/panic mechanics, and spaceship construction. It's dense but flexible to the point I feel very comfortable modifying it or adding new ideas to it to help it better fit my game.
The character sheets are a little intense for new players, so I recommend you walk people through them. But after that it's very simple and straightforward.
The zine-like layout and length is perfect for someone with little time on their hands. 48 pages covers everything from basic equipment, rules for combat, stress/panic mechanics, and spaceship construction. It's dense but flexible to the point I feel very comfortable modifying it or adding new ideas to it to help it better fit my game.
The character sheets are a little intense for new players, so I recommend you walk people through them. But after that it's very simple and straightforward.
December 31, 2022
THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE 1E KICKSTARTER RELEASE
I have played DnD for 10 years. No other system has been able to pull me away in that time, despite lots of experimenting. Mothership converted me, and it's now pretty much the only thing I play.
The rules are simple and intuitive, the explanations in the book are extremely easy to follow. Thematically, fantastic. Mothership is a sci-fi horror RPG, based loosely around the vibe of the Alien franchise (Think cassette futurism). Sean McCoy is a true genius. If you're looking for a new rpg system to pick up, you can't get better than this.
5/5
I have played DnD for 10 years. No other system has been able to pull me away in that time, despite lots of experimenting. Mothership converted me, and it's now pretty much the only thing I play.
The rules are simple and intuitive, the explanations in the book are extremely easy to follow. Thematically, fantastic. Mothership is a sci-fi horror RPG, based loosely around the vibe of the Alien franchise (Think cassette futurism). Sean McCoy is a true genius. If you're looking for a new rpg system to pick up, you can't get better than this.
5/5
December 31, 2025
- This is the player's guide for character creation and basic game mechanics.
- I have not run or played the system yet.
- It is a roll-low d100 system with some roll-high d20 for 'Panic' checks. A three-skill system of Strength, Speed, and Intellect. It has a high mortality level compared to other systems.
- It is a clever system for sci-fi / horror one-shots or very short campaigns.
- Character creation is nimble, especially with the game's app. The app offers a one-time payment, which is worth the investment if you plan to run more than one character.
- Overall, an ingenious system.
- I have not run or played the system yet.
- It is a roll-low d100 system with some roll-high d20 for 'Panic' checks. A three-skill system of Strength, Speed, and Intellect. It has a high mortality level compared to other systems.
- It is a clever system for sci-fi / horror one-shots or very short campaigns.
- Character creation is nimble, especially with the game's app. The app offers a one-time payment, which is worth the investment if you plan to run more than one character.
- Overall, an ingenious system.
January 15, 2021
First impression review without having run an actual game.
This reads like a tight system that exactly accomplishes what it sets out to do:
Delivering some deadly and scary times in space.
Surprisingly crunchy at times.
I will run "The Haunting of Ypsilon-14" soon and will probably edit this review after that.
This reads like a tight system that exactly accomplishes what it sets out to do:
Delivering some deadly and scary times in space.
Surprisingly crunchy at times.
I will run "The Haunting of Ypsilon-14" soon and will probably edit this review after that.
January 3, 2023
Not only some of the best sci-fi horror rpg rules I have read but actually some of the best rules EVER! And that says quite a lot. Easy to follow and learn with monster and map creation rules that works.
The expansion material adds more rules but there is plenty here that works as stop-gap material for a quick thinking Games Master.
The expansion material adds more rules but there is plenty here that works as stop-gap material for a quick thinking Games Master.
March 28, 2020
Simple, enjoyable and packed to the gills with tools to create a fantastic potential for games. As an artefact, I'm giving it 4-stars -- but, I'm not done yet, as I haven't had the chance to run or play it for real. I'll update the review when I achieve that final step of bringing it to the table.
January 23, 2024
Possibly the best GM guide I've ever read. Practical, useful advice for setting up scenarios and tracking info through a campaign. Looking forward to putting it into practice. Anyone who runs any system of RPG should read this, imo.
June 9, 2024
The core rules for Mothership combine excellent layout, simple systems, and solid gameplay principles into a tight and compelling little RPG full of possibility. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
January 6, 2025
A neat little space horror RPG that does a good job at balancing PC survivability against other means of generating tension. In play, adding stress and calling for saves can sometimes feel a little clumsy, but that seems like a result the inherent lack of familiarity in the first session.
February 23, 2025
A really interesting and kinda minimal tabletop RPG where you can run adventures inspired by 70s space horror works. This is the player's handbook that explains in a good and quick way what the players should know in order to play.
March 16, 2021
Rules for this game seem intricate at a glance. But the storyline seems interesting and. I hope to play this game someday
April 21, 2023
As good as working class sci-fi gets.
August 26, 2023
Old skool. Loving it.
December 27, 2023
Pick it up, read it fast, get ideas stuck in your head as if sent through distant radio waves transversing the cosmos just to make you scream... but in space, no one can hear you scream
January 29, 2024
This makes me feel ready and excited to try out the game itself, which is what a good TTRPG rulebook should do. Looking forward to trying it out!
August 8, 2024
Refreshingly refined, simple, and streamlined in comparison to 0th edition - much more to my tastes.
December 11, 2024
One of, if not THE best RPG player handbooks in the universe. Cool, inspiring, easy to understand, and very, very different from D&D 5E. Pick up the box set. You won't be disappointed.
March 22, 2025
Exactly the amount of rules you need to run a fun sci-fi horror game without any chaff.
May 28, 2025
4.5
For horror fans looking for a story driven RPG, it is a great sandbox.
For horror fans looking for a story driven RPG, it is a great sandbox.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews