Waco just makes it to the door. He turns just in time to see the Albino-synth Croc grasp Sarah into its jaws and swim away. All that is left in its wake is a cloud of Sarah’s blood, which is slowly dissipating in the coolant. John hits the button for the airlock and the coolant drains out the room they are in. They are both on the precipice of total mental breakdown. Caught so deep into the coolant filled abyss while being stalked by some kind of monster.

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Overview

Mothership is a rules light science fiction horror game in the same vein as Alien, Event Horizon, and other such movies. I’m often reminded of episodes of Dr. Who when I play mixed with various Cthulhu elements with a dash of Bladerunner. Character creation is simple and outlined right on the character sheet. It takes less than 10 minutes to create a character and that is good because the game is lethal. The base rules of the game are free and they are really all you need to play. There are a few other books which I picked up after playing for a while Warden’s Operation Manual, Unconfirmed Contact Reports, and Shipbreaker’s Toolkit. Finally, there are TONS of modules and short adventures for the game, which has been both great for inspiration but also a tad bit overwhelming. I should highlight this isn’t a solo game, but it is light enough that I run with 3 characters no problem.

Gameplay Summary

As a solo player I found this game to be fairly narrative in nature, which makes it great for solo play. Especially if you are the kind of player I am who likes to write out the stories and is a bit more focused on the story than the mechanics. There are four stats and three saves to resolve an action or save. You roll a d100 and if you are under your stat or save you are successful. If you are above it you fail. Your stats start fairly low between 30-45, but you do get a few skills which help to boost certain actions. In addition, there is a stress mechanic and a panic mechanic which add to the tension of the game. I roll when there is a chance for failure, if I think there is an interesting outcome, or if I’m not sure who to resolve an action.     

 I ran the game, as a solo player, with three characters. It was super easy to jot down some personality notes for them and then start playing. I started with Larrissa’s Tears. This is a depth crawl set in an abandoned space station which was once a glorified mall. It was super fun and a good introduction to the system. Then I got Thousand Empty Light. I started by breaking the codes that are hidden in the game book. Next I took a single character through it. He didn’t get too far before he died. This module is designed for solo players in mind and is well done and like Larrissa’s Tears a lot of fun. Finally, I’ve been running my three characters through a bounty hunt which turned into a corrupted mine/temple delve. They are looking for their bounty but having to deal with eldritch horrors. I used Mythic for most of it, keeping a tracker for how close they are to capturing their bounty. And using the Adventure Journal to roll up scenes and any changes. Finally, I used the delve mechanics from Ironsworn: Delve for exploring the mine/temple.

I have not done much with ships. I got Shipbreaker’s Toolkit which has some ships and their stats and I created a ship for my characters to use to move around and as their homebase. But outside of that I haven’t done much with it. I haven’t tried any kind of ship combat or what happens when there are major problems with the ship.

Pros and Cons

Pros. This system is lite and fast. You can run a lot of different games in it even if horror was its main focus. It is very solo friendly. Character creation is a blast. I also like that when a new character dies I feel like who cares, but as characters survive and make it through more and more missions, I really start to worry about their lives. Building a connection with the characters as I play them also helps to add to the tension of the game. Finally, the basic rules to play are free.

Cons. It is a fairly lite system. There is a bit of decision making about when to roll what stats and saves. Further, because it isn’t a solo system per say you need to find your own GM emulator to run it and you will need to be ready to fill in the blanks as needed. Character progression seems slow. Or even not existent. I mean there is character progression but it costs a lot of time and money. It is a gritty world. Your characters aren’t larger than life. This won’t be a good system to play Star Trek or even a Star Wars game in. Not that you couldn’t but there are better systems for those types of science fiction games.

Who It’s For

If you are a fan of Alien and you aren’t looking for the crunch of the new Alien game, check out Mothership. If you are looking for a lite science fiction/horror game, where your characters are just people and the universe is vast and unknowable then check it out. If you want to be able to create characters quickly and have all of the character creation rules on the character sheet then check it out.

Closing Thoughts

All in all, I really like this game. It is tight enough to not waste my time but also loose enough that it is easy to bolt on other mechanics, as needed. I would strongly recommend that you grab the free copy and give the game a play through. If anything, just so you can get a taste of it and decide for yourself if it is your jam.