Last night I fell asleep to the latest Roll for Crit live play that they uploaded, which this time was for the RPG Mothership. A game they decided to play in honour of Mother’s Day. Which I assume is this weekend for the Americans. The real Mothers Day was earlier in the year.
I must stress before I go any further I haven’t played this game yet. I only came across it last night. But wanted to share what I found out about the game with the world.
Mothership is a sci-fi horror RPG, that uses d10. It’s obvious by the look of the game that it has been influenced by the Alien movies.
So if for whatever reason the official Alien RPG doesn’t appeal to you, but you want that Sci-fi horror feel. Then Mothership just might be worth a look.
It is possible to play Mothership for free. The rules are available on DriveThruRPG on a pay what you feel basis. So if funds are tight at the moment then you can pay nothing for them.
The rules are short. Only 44 pages and that includes character sheets etc. So it’s not a heavy system.
What is missing that other RPG publishers normally include in their rules (along with more rules) is an introductory scenario. Plus advice on creating adventures for the system. Although there is plenty of advice out there on that subject. Some tips on creating a horror inspired adventure would have been welcome.
So if you want to play for completely free then you will have to prep an adventure yourself. However there are four modules plus two pamphlet modules from the publisher. The pamphlet modules are “double sided tri-fold brochure and contains all the information you need to play an excellent one-shot.” I like this idea and hope it gets picked up more by publishers/creators (although there is the one page dungeon). Including a pamphlet module in the rules would have been a great addition that would not have increased the page count drastically. Having said all this the actual cost of the modules isn’t a great amount (under $10 for the main ones, and $2 for the pamphlets).
I love that on the official website (and in the rules) are player cheat sheets (something that WOIN and the Judge Dredd RPG could do with), and all the other usual stuff you’d expect for an RPG like character sheets etc.
This looks like a cool alternative to the more costly official Alien RPG (which itself looks pretty cool) that would be ideal for running one shots, where there are not a lot of rules to remember.