Space Truckers - A Mothership: Player's Survival Guide Review

 

Tuesday Knight Games (Sean McCoy)

 

Published by Tuesday Knight Games, Mothership: Player's Survival Guide is one of the better roleplaying games to come out of the Old School Renaissance scene. True to its name, OSR tries to channel the almost mythical origins of the medium, when the game master was the uncontested ruler of their domain, balance wasn't on most players' minds, and rules are closer to suggestions. Most of the OSR content has been Dungeons & Dragons inspired, ensuring the sci-fi horror stylings of Mothership stands out even more.

Despite the title, Mothership: Player's Survival Guide gives everything you need to run harrowing tale of space exploration gone awry as a Warden (GM). The few other OSR publications I've looked into are fairly lightweight, both in terms of page count and rules. Even so, I'm still impressed with what Mothership accomplishes in forty four pages. While it's not the polished, high production value output of major corporations, Mothership has a distinct vision that's competently realized, putting it above most high budget mainstream publications.

Tuesday Knight Games (Sean McCoy)

Part of what gives the game such a coherent identity is how it was mostly done by a single person, Sean McCoy. In addition to doing the bulk of the writing, he also provides the dark illustrations throughout the book. Even other indie titles rarely opt for such raw, unrefined art. At least, if they do, it usually doesn't turn out this well. 

The most visually impressive pieces in the book have visible brush strokes, with a handful being nothing more than almost childish scribbles. That's not a criticism, as these monochrome, dark blue-and-white depictions of hard bitten space travelers and their nightmarish adversaries puts you in the right mood.

Mothership strayed from the norm with such a unique visual style, ensuring that it's one of the more memorable RPGs I've picked up. I wish more games would take the risk of such a nonconventional art style, especially as the medium seems to get more and more homogenous.

Fight For Your Life 

Tuesday Knight Games (Sean McCoy)

With Warhamer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition as my favorite RPG, I was quick to appreciate Mothership opting for a brutal percentile system. Similar to WFRP, Call of Cthulu, and other investigative D100 powered games, there's a clear effort to keep the rules concise. Rules for character creation take up a single page and even the sheets themselves can be used on their own with the built in flow charts. Admittedly those can take some effort to make sense of but the point stands, Mothership tries not to waste any of its short page count.

By the same merit, players will fail frequently at earlier levels, so Warden are incentivized not to get bogged down in mechanics. Not that there's many to keep track of: players have 4 Stats and 4 Saves, the former category being active and the latter reactive.

Appropriately for a horror game, the Saves are an even split between physical resilience (Armor, Body) and mental fortitude (Sanity and Stress). Depending on how a session goes, players might end up rolling against these more than their stats, as they struggle to survive.

Need To Know Basis

Mothership also employs an appropriately "Old School" skill system. Covering the full gamut of spaceship maintenance, bug stomping, and teknobabble science, it represents bonuses for complex activities. For certain specialized skills, it allows players to even attempt complex procedures. There's a notable lack of social skills available, another deliberate omission. Usually I consider those mechanics a must but such a straightforward ruleset gets a pass. 

Tuesday Knight Games (Sean McCoy)

It seems that Wardens are supposed to let conversations play out organically, rather than leave it at the mercy of arbitrary dice rolls. That so much of the game pits players against foes that can't be reasoned with probably has something to do with it.

Combat is a little more detailed but still straightforward. Players get two Significant Actions a turn, which can be attacking, operating machinery, or running away. Conflict is resolved through Opposed checks, with the attacker pitting their Combat stat against their target's Armor save. When you hit 0 Health you roll a Body save or die. NPCs are scaled down to only have Combat and Instinct, the latter a catch all for every other Stat and Save. 

The end result is combat that is as quick and brutal as you would expect from a horror game. There's something to be said for a game where all the combat rules can be easily summarized on the provided cheat sheet.

Keep it Together, Man

Sanity mechanics have been a long time staple of horror RPGs but easily veer into problematic territory. Many (myself included) have argued even the concept of turning mental health into a game mechanic will always be tasteless. I will admit I've decided there might be a place for it, if handled with care.

Luckily that's what Mothership does with its Stress & Panic mechanics, as it preserves the spirit of the sanity check while jettisoning some of the less tasteful elements. Over the course of their ordeals player characters chafe under the strain of their ordeal, represented by Stress. The more Stress you have, the more likely you are to snap when the time comes to test Panic, which is usually when the monster rears its ugly mug or a character takes a critical hit. Panic encompasses a momentary loss of composure, all the way up to a total loss of sanity or a heart attack.

Tuesday Knight Games (Sean McCoy)

While player characters can and will descend into madness, the game doesn't clumsily try to turn real world conditions into game mechanics. The closest they get are permanent Phobias characters pick up from traumatic events like breathing in sentient gas clouds or getting shot out of airlocks.These are small measurses but I'd say they make all the difference.

Work for a Living

Much of the OSR movement is transparent about its influences and Mothership is no exception. The game draws open comparisons to Alien and Firefly as it tells players the four roles available to them; Android, Scientist, Marine, and Teamster. The first three are fairly self explanatory, but the Teamster is the jack of all trades, presented as the archetypical "Ellen Ripley" (Mothership's own words.) The others might fulfill specialized duties but it's usually up to the Teamster to keep the show running.

Tuesday Knight Games (Sean McCoy)

In line with those inspirations, Mothership is clear about what kind of game it is. It's about surviving alien encounters, vicious brigands, and earning a living. It can be about all of that or none of that, as the game leaves it up to the Warden what the players should be encountering in the great unknown. The tone is set fairly early on with the aforementioned grim art. The sense of humor is also injected through crude, amusing patches and souvenirs players generate to round out their characters. 

That's very much in line with the OSR mindset of a game system being a tool or set of guidelines, rather than an ironclad set of restrictions.

Tools for the Job

In contrast with most of the rules, Mothership offers a substantial gear section. The arsenal is well stocked with the expected sci-fi weapons, like submachine guns and plasma rifles. There's also the expected weaponized industrial tools, like foam and harpoon guns. Tracking ammo is a big component of the game, emphasizing the survival focus. While fiddly, it does add to the atmosphere, leading to one of the more flavorful rules, where anyone lacking the proper skills will empty the entire magazine of a fully automatic weapon in one burst.

There's also a large range of non weapon items, though a good number have a combat role. Armor is an important part of combat in Mothership and some impressive defenses are on offer - at a price. The vast majority of items are related to basic survival in hostile environments. Ubiquitous pain pills and stimpaks are present, though punishing addiction rules discourage their usage.

Tuesday Knight Games (Sean McCoy)

There are also comparatively in depth rules for the spacecraft player characters will hurtle around the galaxy in. Profiles are provided for a variety of ship types, though you ultimately have to "construct" them. A fairly complicated sheet shows how to distribute a ship's hull points to individual modules (such as engines and life support.) Once that's done, the ship has to be sketched out in a provided grid. I'll admit this is one of the more daunting aspects of running Mothership and could be better explained.

The rules for ship building mostly emphasize the survival side of things: operating cryosleep, distributing food and having enough oxygen. Ships are expensive to run and even more expensive to acquire. Like most sci-fi RPGs, space combat is a scaled up version of ground combat, with a handful of changes. In one of the more surprising pulls, "Megadamage" from the infamous RIFTS makes a showing. One point of ship MDMG translates to 100 points of regular damage. I'll admit it's amusing to see any connection between the two systems, as I don't think they could be further apart otherwise.

Waiting Under Your Bed

Interestingly, the monetary side of things gets more support than the monsters that haunt the margins of Mothership. I'm sure it sounds confusing for a horror game to decline to even provide a list of pregenerated monsters. Even human adversaries get more support through the mercenary and crewmember profiles.

Tuesday Knight Games (Sean McCoy)

I wouldn't call it a flaw though. Mothership feels too focused and complete for the lack of monsters to be anything but a deliberate omission. After running a few sessions, I've found that absence ended up making for some of the best adversaries in games I've run. With little support from the game aside from scraps of information, cryptic art, and references to mind destroying infections and gruesome ends, there's no choice besides getting creative. It also encourage the Warden to treat the monsters as an active part of the story, rather than just purely mechanical challenges to be rolled away.

The setting is similarly undefined but much like the monsters I'd call it "open ended" rather than "vague." What the world of Mothership lacks in specifics it makes up for in personality. An image quickly emerges of a future that's solved some technological problems but has plenty of human ones leftover. Sex deprived, dark humored spacefarers hurtle into the unknown with less-than-perfect FTL drives. Even if they survive all the horrors of the stars, there are still bills to pay afterwards.

The Adventure Continues

Despite the foreboding atmosphere and harsh rules, Mothership isn't intended to be used solely for gruesome one shots. A characterful experience system is provided, with certain mechanics, namely the horror steeling Resolve, being dependent on leveling up. 

As brief as the actual book might be, Mothership's rules are meant to support an experience rather than be a complete one all on its own. Ideally that's what any game or really any work of art should do but Mothership pulls it off particularly well. 

Tuesday Knight Games (Sean McCoy)

A strong idea and competent presentation counts for a lot, as Mothership sidesteps the choice between style and substance and goes for both. It might not give you as much to work with as other games but what it does provide is great motivation for a space road trip, bug hunt, or scientific expedition.

Or maybe a nightmarish fusion between all three, since Mothership leaves that choice up to you.