The Other OSR: Another Bug Hunt

It is curious to note that since its original publication in 2018, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG from Tuesday Knight Games has been reliant upon the single rulebook, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide. First as a ‘Zero Edition’ and then as an actual ‘First Edition’. Curious, because despite the horror roleplaying rules detailing no alien threats and giving no advice for the Warden—as the Game Master is known in Mothership—the has proved to be success, with numerous authors writing and publishing scenarios of their own as well as titles from the publisher. What the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG offered was a stripped down, fast playing Science Fiction system that supported a number of sub-genres. Most obviously Blue Collar Science Fiction with horror and Military Science Science Fiction, the most obvious inspirations being the films Alien and Aliens, as well as Outland, Dark Star, Silent Running, and Event Horizon. Yet the authors of third-party content for the roleplaying game have also offered sandboxes such as Desert Moon of Karth and Cosmic Horror like What We Give To Alien Gods, showing how the simplicity of Mothership could be adjusted to handle other types of Science Fiction. This combination of flexibility and simplicity has made it attractive to the Old School Renaissance segment of the hobby, despite Mothership not actually sharing roots with the family of Old School Renaissance roleplaying games derived from the different editions of Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, at best, Old School Renaissance adjacent.

With the publication of the Mothership Core Box and the Mothership Deluxe Box following a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2024, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG has a complete set of rules for what is its first edition. The includes rules the construction and option of spaceships with Shipbreaker’s Toolkit, monstrous threats with Unconfirmed Contact Reports, and a guide for refereeing the roleplaying game in the form of the Warden’s Operations Manual.

—oOo—

Contact has been lost with Samsa IV. A survey detected signs of biochemistry on the planet and the Company assigned a team of researchers, engineers, and marines to establish a base of operations, a terraforming station, and investigate the signs. Doctor Edem, the team xenobiologist reported finding a species of arthropods on the planet, nicknaming them ‘carcinids’ or ‘carcs’. A subsequent report informed the Company that one had been captured for further study and examination. That was nine months ago. Six months ago, communication ceased with Gretna Base on Samsa IV. Three months ago, the crew was hired to investigate the loss of communication and reestablish contact. Specifically, they are to rendezvous with the marine commander, Second Lieutenant Kaplan, re-establish satellite communication and restore the terraforming machinery to full operation, and if that fails, evacuate Doctor Edem and the colony’s synthetic science officer, Hinton, or at his logic core. After several weeks in cyrosleep and following a briefing by Company representative, Maas, the Crew finds itself dropped at the landing zone for Gretna Base, surrounded by jungle and in the pouring rain, the rusty, scarred, base ahead along the muddy path.

This is the set-up for Another Bug Hunt, which describes itself as ‘The Introductory Adventure for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG’. As an introductory scenario to the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, what Another Bug Hunt does is almost exactly not what you want it to be doing, but the good news is that it does it well. In fact, very well. What Another Bug Hunt does is take direct inspiration from the most obvious of influences over the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, which are the films Alien and Aliens. That would seem too obvious, too easy, too derivative. Whereas what you would expect the scenario to do is show how Blue Collar Science Fiction horror can be done without any reference to either film. Especially since the Warden’s Operations Manual was about running the game and creating your own content and Unconfirmed Contact Reports contained numerous examples of threats that the Player Characters might contend with in Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. Instead, what Another Bug Hunt does is take that inspiration and show how it can presented as playable content without being derivative and does so as an extension of the Warden’s Operations Manual.

The Warden’s Operations Manual is the best of the core books for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. It takes the reader and prospective Warden through the first steps of getting started the roleplaying game, helping her think about the sort of scenario and horror she might want to run, decide what obstacles to present, what she wants each of the roleplaying game’s four roles to do, and so on. It is obvious advice, but that does not mean that it is not helpful. It is, because the scenario is an introductory scenario, written to be run and played by those new to the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG at the least. If the Warden’s Operations Manual tells the Warden how to run the roleplaying game, then Another Bug Hunt extends that advice by showing her. It goes beyond simply telling the Warden what she needs to run the scenario, but also calls out rules as needed, such as how to handle Fear Saves, how to describe locations, handle pacing and tensions, how to handle searches in locations, and asking something as basic as when should the players roll dice? At every stage of Another Bug Hunt, there is useful, helpful advice on how to handle the different aspects of the scenario, from set-up to the climax and then into the aftermath. This does include advice on running the individual parts of the scenario as one-shots, but doing so does mean that the players and their characters will not get the full story or the plot to the scenario.

The Warden’s Operations Manual is the best of the core books for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. It takes the reader and prospective Warden through the first steps of getting started the roleplaying game, helping her think about the sort of scenario and horror she might want to run, decide what obstacles to present, what she wants each of the roleplaying game’s four roles to do, and so on. It is obvious advice, but that does not mean that it is not helpful. It is, because the scenario is an introductory scenario, written to be run and played by those new to the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG at the least. If the Warden’s Operations Manual tells the Warden how to run the roleplaying game, then Another Bug Hunt extends that advice by showing her. It goes beyond simply telling the Warden what she needs to run the scenario, but also calls out rules as needed, such as how to handle Fear Saves, how to describe locations, handle pacing and tensions, how to handle searches in locations, and asking something as basic as when should the players roll dice? At every stage of Another Bug Hunt, there is advice on how to handle the different aspects of the scenario, from set-up to the climax and then into the aftermath.

In terms of that story, Another Bug Hunt is just another bug hunt. There is an isolated planet, contact has been lost with the team sent there, the Player Characters will find signs of chaos and discover a desperate situation on the planet, and the primary threat they face does consist of bugs, the aforementioned carcanids. Much like the Xenomorph of the Alien universe, the carcanids have a lifecycle which involves infecting victims—which it does with a shriek—and transforming them physically and mentally. The process gives a player with an infected character some interesting symptoms to roleplay before they completely transform and become an NPC for the Warden to control. If the parts of Another Bug Hunt are run as a one-shot, the Warden will need to speed the process up as it is more suited to the length of the whole scenario. Fortunately, there is scope for replacement Player Characters.

In terms of structure, Another Bug Hunt is divided into four parts. These start out simple and get increasingly more complex as the story progresses. The first part, ‘Distress Call’, is an exploration of the battered and chaotic ruins of Gretna Base, a mini-room crawl containing hints of the horrors to come. It ends with the first encounter with the carcanids, a surprisingly tough encounter that unnerve the players, let alone their characters. The Player Characters are free to move around wherever they want, so it is possible for them to encounter the carcanids very quickly. In ‘Hive Mind’, the Player Characters make contact with the survivors of the team sent by the company to investigate the biochemistry signals on Samsa IV. Here, the Warden has several NPCs to keep track off, three of whom give the Player Characters sub-missions to try and complete. These take place in and around the terraforming station, effectively a dam and pumping station, and they include attempting to call the dropship for evacuation, recover the team’s research from the laboratory, and rescue a squad sent to prepare the reactor against the oncoming storm. The latter, combined with the rising waters, is a growing threat in the scenario, especially when the Player Characters discover that the carcanids can swim! The Player Characters can tackle the three in any order, but the flooding makes them increasingly difficult to do. In addition, they have to deal with the tensions between the survivors and their clashing demands.

Each of the three missions has a cinematic feel to them, whether it is the drive and flight along the top of the dam; the creepiness of the laboratory which is completely in black; and descending down the chimney to cooling room of the reactor. If the first two parts take their cue from industrial spaces of Aliens, then the third part, ‘Mothership’, draws from Alien and Prometheus as the Player Characters ascend into the mountains and discover the carcanid mothership and clamber inside. The inside of the mothership is the setting for the scenario’s grand finale and showdown with its actual villain. It is great scene that the Warden should play for all its worth, terrifying and awe-inspiring, that should with a tense finale as the Player Characters flee for their lives! As the storm breaks and the carcanids swarm towards them in the fourth and final part, ‘Metamorphosis’, the survivors and the Player Characters race to evacuate the planet. This should be narratively exciting encounter as the Player Characters hold off wave after wave of the carcanids, now better equipped to deal with them—at least temporarily—as they make a run for it. This can end in a bang and a total party kill, but the subsequent scene has a sting in the tail and the final scene is a bit of an anticlimax as it purports to be a scene in which the spaceship combat rules for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG can be taught. As the scenario makes clear, the spaceship that the Player Characters are aboard is not capable of defeating the alien spaceship, so the best option is for them is to flee.

There are elements of the scenario that could have been better handled. For example, the flooding element lacks mechanical support, forcing the Warden to make up something to cover the omission. Which is pity since the scenario is designed to teach the Warden. The aforementioned spaceship encounter is a disappointment.

Physically, Another Bug Hunt is a busy affair. The layout is clean and tidy, accessible, but a little tight in places, but there is a lot going on. The artwork is decent and the cartography serviceable. It is well written and the use of the ‘Warden Educational Support’ to give out the advice is an entertaining touch.

Another Bug Hunt is not just ‘another bug hunt’. It is more than that. It is essentially a tutorial scenario for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG that draws from its primary inspirations and combines our familiarity with those inspirations with the unfamiliarity of its own story in a pleasing balancing act. Another Bug Hunt is well designed, it does a good job of showing where the rules come into play and where they do not, and it is a great introduction to both the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG and its genre.

The Other OSR: Unconfirmed Contact Reports

It is curious to note that since its original publication in 2018, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG from Tuesday Knight Games has been reliant upon the single rulebook, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide. First as a ‘Zero Edition’ and then as an actual ‘First Edition’. Curious, because despite the horror roleplaying rules detailing no alien threats and giving no advice for the Warden—as the Game Master is known in Mothership—the has proved to be success, with numerous authors writing and publishing scenarios of their own as well as titles from the publisher. What the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG offered was a stripped down, fast playing Science Fiction system that supported a number of sub-genres. Most obviously Blue Collar Science Fiction with horror and Military Science Science Fiction, the most obvious inspirations being the films Alien and Aliens, as well as Outland, Dark Star, Silent Running, and Event Horizon. Yet the authors of third-party content for the roleplaying game have also offered sandboxes such as Desert Moon of Karth and Cosmic Horror like What We Give To Alien Gods, showing how the simplicity of Mothership could be adjusted to handle other types of Science Fiction. This combination of flexibility and simplicity has made it attractive to the Old School Renaissance segment of the hobby, despite Mothership not actually sharing roots with the family of Old School Renaissance roleplaying games derived from the different editions of Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, at best, Old School Renaissance adjacent.

With the publication of the Mothership Core Box and the Mothership Deluxe Box following a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2024, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG has a complete set of rules for what is its first edition. The includes rules the construction and option of spaceships with Shipbreaker’s Toolkit, monstrous threats with Unconfirmed Contact Reports, and a guide for refereeing the roleplaying game in the form of the Warden’s Operations Manual.

—oOo—

Unconfirmed Contact Reports is the monster book for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. It contains descriptions of fifty strange entities and horrendous abominations with which to scare the Player Characters, stalk them, and bleed them, infect them, feed on them, or worse… It is designed to do several things. Obviously, it is intended to provide a range of threats that will strike fear into the Player Characters, but the authors also want to spur the Warden’s imagination. The entries—where appropriate—have the minimum of stats, so mechanically they are all easy to use. The collection begins with ‘The 4youreyez Algorithm’ which infects electronics and completely wipes, but seems to affect androids in some way, and continues with ‘Angels’, those who have communed with the great eye-like portals that have opened up in space, and ‘The Body Politic’, an invasive colonial organism which forms parliamentary voting body in all of the host’s cells rather than a single collective. ‘Cabin 102-B’ is a locked cabin that appears aboard one spaceship after another, ‘The Engineer’ is an itinerant ship’s engineer who high on stimulants sabotages the spaceships he is hired to work whilst the crew are asleep, and ‘Good’ is an alien ‘subtle, psychotropic “oversight and ethics committee.” that makes people good and so corporations and governments fear it.

There are a lot of entries Unconfirmed Contact Reports and some of are less interesting than others. For example, ‘Granny’ describes a hole in the ground from which an old woman’s voice emanates, begging to be fed. Whatever is thrown in is not enough, and on the colonies where this hole appears, the colonists begin feeding her everything they can—supplies, pets, children, and ultimately themselves. It is enough and soon Granny will leave the hole to hunt. Similarly, ‘The Sea of Silence’ is a viscous and vicious protoplasmic organism that absorbs any body of water it can and immerses its victims, scouring away any sense of self and awareness. In too many cases, the entries consist of nothing more than this description and some colour fiction accompanying the illustration. To which the response amounts to no more than, “Yes, and…?” There is no obvious way in which to bring these monsters, memes, mutterings, mutations, and more into play and so make them threats that arouse more than a similar, “Yes, and…?”. The book states that it aims to spark the Warden’s imagination and that, “Importantly, much about these entities, from their history to their reasoning, and even how they may be defeated (if they can be at all) has been left absent.” The Warden is the encouraged to these descriptions in Unconfirmed Contact Reports as a starting point for creating a scenario.

What this means that the entries in Unconfirmed Contact Reports are as just much prompts as they are descriptions of monsters. In fairness, there is advice on running scenarios and using monsters in the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. It is in the excellent Warden’s Operations Manual and it is called the ‘TOMBS Cycle’, which stands for ‘Transgression, Omens, Manifestation, Banishment, Slumber’ Cycle. This is neat little summary of how a horror scenario typically plays. So, in ‘Transgression’, the horror disturbs the horror and awakens; in ‘Omens’, signs of its activities appear; it begins to move openly in ‘Manifestation’; ‘Banishment’ can only be attempted once a means of destroying or stopping the horror has been found; and finally, under ‘Slumber’, it can be banished or subdued, at least temporarily, until someone else triggers the ‘TOMBS Cycle’ once again.

The ‘TOMBS Cycle’ is brilliantly succinct and not only a great way to outline a scenario, but to categorise a horror. Imagine if the ‘TOMBS Cycle’ had been applied to each and every one of the entries in Unconfirmed Contact Reports? Imagine how quick and easy it would have made each and every one of the entries in Unconfirmed Contact Reports to use? Imagine how quick and easy it would have made making a change to each and every one of the entries in Unconfirmed Contact Reports rather than think up any way to use them in a scenario from scratch? Imagine how not how much better Unconfirmed Contact Reports would have been if the ‘TOMBS Cycle’ had been applied, but simply just how useful?

It begs the simple question. Why was the ‘TOMBS Cycle’ not applied to Unconfirmed Contact Reports?

Physically, Unconfirmed Contact Reports is okay. The writing is okay. The artwork varies widely in quality and that is okay too.

If you have the Mothership Deluxe Box then you already own Unconfirmed Contact Reports. If you own neither, and perhaps want a good bestiary or book of threats to run with the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, the sad news is that Unconfirmed Contact Reports is a poor choice. It lowers the quality of the Mothership Deluxe Box because it more a work of fiction than a game book and more a book of prompts than something that the Warden can readily use in her game. Unconfirmed Contact Reports could have been very, very good, but as it is, it is just not good enough. One for the completionist rather than either essential or actually useful.

Archaeology & Appreciation

The world of Spume is hellhole and you definitely would not want to live there. Most of the few hundred that do live on the planet reside in the single dome settlement of Dryavis, where they conduct mining operations via remote drones and vehicles. Outside of the dome, the planet, with its thin, tainted atmosphere, is subject to near constant seismic activity, widespread volcanic activity, and a near constant rain of ash and rocks, all at extremes of temperature and intermittent radioactivity. Located within the Darrian Confederation in the Darrian Subsector of the Spinward Marches, just two parsecs away from the capital and one parsec away from the homeworld, nobody would willing want to visit Spume. Except that the planetary population has risen by a handful with the arrival of a team of scientists from the departments of geophysical sciences and engineering at Idikelin University to conduct field research. Unfortunately, the site designated for the expedition’s base was highly prone to seismic activity and a sudden landslip upended the base and made it uninhabitable, forcing the surviving members of team to flee across the highly inhospitable surface of Spume. This is the set-up for and plot of Ashfall, the first part of a trilogy of scenarios published by March Harrier Publishing for use with Traveller, Second Edition from Mongoose Publishing. Having reach the safety of Dryavis, the mining base that is the only settlement on the planet, the Player Characters are given a chance to recover and recuperate, perhaps go over the the scientific data they have gathered so far, and even get involved in the daily lives and culture of the people that make the base their home. This and the discovery of a corporate conspiracy to replace the current crew with cheaper, genetically modified miners played out in Ashfall II: Under the Dome, the sequel to Ashfall.

The third final part of the trilogy, Ashfall III: Into the Crust, takes place barely a day after the events of Ashfall II: Under the Dome have been investigated and settled. Although they are neither miners nor technical staff at the base, the Player Characters have become accepted as part of the community. Especially if they helped undercover the conspiracy. As the Player Characters await the arrival of a vessel to return them home to their university life, they are contacted directly by an old ex-miner, recently retired. Ldok asks them to join him on the slopes of a volcano some five-hundred-and-fifty miles from Dryavis as he wants their help in analysing the sensor readings he has taken, checking the immediate area to determine if it is safe to explore further, and then investigate what he thinks he is found. What Ldok thinks he has found is a Maghiz-related base. The Maghiz was a catastrophic event that occurred two millennia ago when scientists triggered stellar flares that devastated the Darrian Confederation and significantly reduced both its Tech Level and population base. Exact details of the event that triggered the Maghiz are subject of much conjecture and secrecy as the government wants to understand how it was done so that it cannot occur again. There are rumours of Maghiz-related sites throughout Darrian space—and beyond, and all manner of conspiracy theories and absurd ideas have grown up about the so-called ‘Star Trigger’, and for the most part, anyone obsessed with anything Maghiz-related is dismissed as being at best harmless, at worst as a crank. Ldok falls into the former category rather than the latter, but is still respected for his knowledge and experience from working on Spume for decades.

Also respected are the Player Characters. This is due to both their survival trek across the surface of Spume and their involvement in the undercovering of the conspiracy, and it means that the administration will equip the Player Characters with a Survey/Repair G-Carrier and survival gear. This time, unlike their previous isolation on their own original research basis, they are told to get in contact if they have any problems. Ldok will be pleased to see the Player Characters and together they can confirm that he has detected a dense object hundreds of meters below the surface. They will need to blast their way down, but it is relatively safe (though of course, Ldok will break a leg because that is always what happens in this kind of adventure), and after manoeuvring their way down several shafts and through often tight crevasses, the Player Characters will make a discovery. Potentially, an astounding discover—and one that is not at all related to the Maghiz.

The fact that the secret in Ashfall III: Into the Crust is not at all Maghiz-related is refreshing in a scenario set within or connected to the Darrian Confederation. However, the discovery is ultimately underwhelming because once made, there really is no more story to tell beyond a possible incursion by the genetically modified miners making a protest. The Player Characters can report the site and once done, that really is it. The scenario is over and the Player Characters are likely to become famous because of the discovery. However, to offset that, the scenario offers other ways in which to continue the story, potentially to a more satisfying conclusion. They include the possibility that an ancient A.I. or robots start stalking the Player Characters; the Darrian navy could intervene with a squad of marines; and even the discovering of pre-Maghiz scientists still alive in low berths. In the case of the marines, full stats and background for the squad are given so that they can be used as NPCs or roleplayed as Player Characters, the squad being sent down to rescue a group of scientists and take control of their discovery, whilst for the pre-Maghiz scientists, there is list of adventure ideas which the Game Master use for inspiration when it comes to portraying the pre-Maghiz scientists and what they were doing or even develop into separate adventures.

No matter which the Game Master decides to run Ashfall III: Into the Crust, there is plenty of support. Besides the stats and descriptions for the aforementioned Survey/Repair G-Carrier and Darrian Navy marines, there are details for the Tech Level 16 Darrian robot, robot technology details beyond Tech Level 15 for Book 9: Robot, and of course, library data.

Unfortunately, none of the possible endings to Ashfall III: Into the Crust are very interesting. Having an A.I. or robot go rogue and start hunting the Player Characters is a cliché, but perhaps if the Player Characters are truly concerned about getting the information out and in the process, making themselves famous, the scenario could shift to one of survival horror. Yet it does not feel like a natural shift in terms of the storytelling, either for the scenario itself or the trilogy as a whole. Perhaps the ancient Darrian scientists waking up after two thousand years asleep in Low Berths and reacting poorly to the presence of the Player Characters might have been a more interesting alternative. It does not help that the final discovery that the Player Characters is given a very poor map as it does nothing to help the Game Master visual the discovery and relate its wonder to her players and their characters, or being usable for when a very advanced robot goes on the prowl.

Physically, Ashfall III: Into the Crust is decently presented and well written. The only poor aspect about the scenario is the quality of some of the maps.

Ashfall III: Into the Crust brings the Ashfall trilogy to a close. Not so much with a classic three-act story, but with two acts, the first one of anticipation as what the discovery might be and the second one of the fantastic sense of having made an amazing discovery. As to the third act, the climax of Ashfall III: Into the Crust, there is not one given that is really going to satisfy the players and their characters. Instead, the Game Master is expected to come up with something and for the finale of a trilogy, that just seems to ask too much. There are some interesting elements to Ashfall III: Into the Crust, but for an end to the scenario and an end to the trilogy, there should have been an ending, not a toolkit.

The Other OSR: Shipbreaker’s Toolkit

It is curious to note that since its original publication in 2018, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG from Tuesday Knight Games has been reliant upon the single rulebook, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide. First as a ‘Zero Edition’ and then as an actual ‘First Edition’. Curious, because despite the horror roleplaying rules detailing no alien threats and giving no advice for the Warden—as the Game Master is known in Mothership—the has proved to be success, with numerous authors writing and publishing scenarios of their own as well as titles from the publisher. What the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG offered was a stripped down, fast playing Science Fiction system that supported a number of sub-genres. Most obviously Blue Collar Science Fiction with horror and Military Science Science Fiction, the most obvious inspirations being the films Alien and Aliens, as well as Outland, Dark Star, Silent Running, and Event Horizon. Yet the authors of third-party content for the roleplaying game have also offered sandboxes such as Desert Moon of Karth and Cosmic Horror like What We Give To Alien Gods, showing how the simplicity of Mothership could be adjusted to handle other types of Science Fiction. This combination of flexibility and simplicity has made it attractive to the Old School Renaissance segment of the hobby, despite Mothership not actually sharing roots with the family of Old School Renaissance roleplaying games derived from the different editions of Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, at best, Old School Renaissance adjacent.

With the publication of the Mothership Core Box and the Mothership Deluxe Box following a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2024, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG has a complete set of rules for what is its first edition. The includes rules the construction and option of spaceships with Shipbreaker’s Toolkit, monstrous threats with Unconfirmed Contact Reports, and a guide for refereeing the roleplaying game in the form of the Warden’s Operations Manual.

—oOo—

The Shipbreaker’s Toolkit fulfils a void in the rules for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. For despite the fact that as the title suggests, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG is a Science Fiction roleplaying game and that spaceships play an important role in its primary inspiration, which have been until the publication of the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit, no have been actual rules for spaceships and their use for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. The Shipbreaker’s Toolkit presents all of the rules that a Warden and her players are going to need for handling spaceships in the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. This includes designing them, operating them, running them in combat, repairing them, and so on. If the Player Characters in Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG own or operate a spaceship, it is their collective home from home, their base of operations, and/or their means of making a living. It is, of course, also their means of transport from place to another, one scenario to another. It can be a millstone around their collective necks if they need to make repairs or cannot make the mortgage payments. In the hands of the Warden, a spaceship is a means of travel as well as an opponent (or source of opponents), a potential mystery, and so on.

The good news is that the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit keeps its rules short and simple. A spaceship in the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG has three stats—Thrusters, Battle, and Systems—and just like a Player Character’s attributes, they are expressed as percentiles. In addition, a spaceship is rated for its Hull (the amount of Megadamage it can withstand), how much fuel it carries, the number of Warp Cores its is fitted with indicating how far it can jump in hyperspace, how many cryopods and escape pods it has, how much it carries, the number of crew and what their positions are, how many hardpoints it has and what it is armed with, and so on. All of which is recorded on a ‘Mothership Ship Manifest’ sheet.

Interstellar space travel in the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG is achieved via hyperspace, a typical journey taking between two and twenty days. There is the danger of relativistic time dilation with every space trip, which more likely the longer the distance travelled. Hyperspace can only be entered or exited at Jump Points a safe distance—typically equal to two-weeks’ travel time—outside of a star system. Travel in hyperspace is handled automatically whilst the crew and passengers are in cyropods. Ships are categorised Class 0 to Class V. Class 0 vessels are shuttlecraft, shuttles, fighters, and dropships, whilst Class V vessels are medium military ships, exploration vessels, and troopships. A crew of a merchantman might operate a Class II medium commercial like a freighter, a team of scientists might be assigned to a Class V Exploration Vessel, and a squad of marines might be assigned to a Class V Troopship.

The Shipbreaker’s Toolkit details nine starships as well as various spaceships. They include a Raider for pirates, Executive Transport, Freighter, Patrol Craft, Salvage Cutter, Corvette, Jumpliner, Troopship, and Exploration. Each one has its own stats, a decent illustration, a good idea of the ship’s layout rather than deck plans, and some extra details. All of the vessels are long rather than squat and quite open in their construction. The extra details really do add to the nature of the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG future. For example, the Patrol Craft also includes details of how customs inspections are handled along with possible contraband that might be found; the Salvage Cutter includes the Law of Salvage; and the Jumpliner describes what a typical space journey is like for its passengers. All of which can be brought into play as needed.

There is no means of handling ship construction in the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit. Rather, the Warden and her players are expected to pick a ship off the shelf and modify it, as necessary. There is a large table of Upgrades which can be added to most vessels such as ‘Agar Cushioning’ to help reduce Cyrosickness or an ‘Enhanced A.I.’ to improve a ship’s Systems’ stat. There is space on the ‘Mothership Ship Manifest’ sheet to note these in addition to the standard details as well as draw some simple deck plans.

Mechanically, to have a character operate a ship, his player rolls against the Thrusters, Battle, or Systems stats as appropriate, just as he would for a stat for his character. A player can add an appropriate skill rating as well. For example, the Pilot skill can be added to Thrusters to manoeuvre the spaceship and Systems and Asteroid Mining when scanning for mineral deposits. The rules also cover scanning and sensors, communications, distress signals (with a table to roll on indicating how long before the signal is picked up and someone comes to investigate), and of course, combat. Ship-to-ship combat is designed to be short and deadly. A round can be minutes or hours, and if either ship elects to pursue or evade, it requires the expenditure of fuel. Damage, whether from autocannons, laser cannons, or missiles, is inflicted as Megadamage. The Hull rating protects against Megadamage, but once destroyed, the amount left over is added to a roll on the Megadamage Table. This can result in ‘Navigation Offline’, damaging navigation data and preventing Thruster Checks, a ‘Hull Breach’ which forces all aboard to make a Body Save or suffer a Wound, or simply ‘Abandon Ship! (in less than ten minutes). Overall, fast-playing, and brutal.

Encountering space aliens and engaging in spaceship combat is, of course, stressful. Unfortunately, so is operating a starship. There is constant need for maintenance and the chance that issues will arise. Failing a Maintenance Check can lead to a Stress Check and for Owner-Operator, there is a new Save called a Bankruptcy Save. Rolled every quarter or year, failure and critical failure ends up with the crew and/or owner owing a massive debt to the wrong people. Even successful Bankruptcy Save gives limited options—purchasing one Minor Upgrade for the ship, paying for one Minor Repair for the ship, paying each crewmember several months salary, or investing to improve the Bankruptcy Save for next quarter. A Critical Success provides better options.

Physically, the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit is clearly written and easy to read. The illustrations are decent and the rules are supported by examples of play. The only thing that the book might have benefitted from is clearer and more deckplans.

In terms of the future of the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit makes clear that being an operator-owner is difficult and expensive, and spaceship combat is really dangerous. Operating a vessel for a corporation, institute, or the military means avoiding some of the expense at least, but it does not give the Player Characters the same sense of freedom. In whatever way the Warden and her players want to involve spaceships in their Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG game, the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit has them covered with a solid set of uncomplicated rules that still leaves room for Warden input.

Perfidy & Profitability

The world of Spume is hellhole and you definitely would not want to live there. Most of the few hundred that do live on the planet reside in the single dome settlement of Dryavis, where they conduct mining operations via remote drones and vehicles. Outside of the dome, the planet, with its thin, tainted atmosphere, is subject to near constant seismic activity, widespread volcanic activity, and a near constant rain of ash and rocks, all at extremes of temperature and intermittent radioactivity. Located within the Darrian Confederation in the Darrian Subsector of the Spinward Marches, just two parsecs away from the capital and one parsec away from the homeworld, nobody would willing want to visit Spume. Except that the planetary population has risen by a handful with the arrival of a team of scientists from the departments of geophysical sciences and engineering at Idikelin University to conduct field research. Unfortunately, the site designated for the expedition’s base was highly prone to seismic activity and a sudden landslip upended the base and made it uninhabitable, forcing the surviving members of team to flee across the highly inhospitable surface of Spume. This is the set-up for and plot of Ashfall, the first part of a trilogy of scenarios published by March Harrier Publishing for use with Traveller, Second Edition from Mongoose Publishing. As Ashfall comes to close, the Player Characters have managed to make their way to Dryavis and safety.

Ashfall II: Under the Dome is the sequel to Ashfall and the middle part of the trilogy. In addition to the core rulebook, the Game Master will need access to Alien Module 3: Darrians or Aliens of Charted Space Vol. 3, whilst the Central Supply Catalogue and Book 10: Cosmopolite may also be useful. Similarly, access to various issues of The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society may also be helpful, but are not crucial to running the scenario.

For the most part, Ashfall II: Under the Dome is a locked room, or rather ‘locked dome’ affair. The inhabitants of Dryavis, consisting of miners, technicians, and administrators readily welcome the arrival of the Player Characters and even celebrate their survival with a banquet. After that, the Player Characters are free to wait out the period between their arrival and their eventual collection and departure off world as they wish, although they are encouraged to take part in the community life of the mining base. There are mechanical issues to fix, a tournament to participate in, and other events to get involved in. As they go about their daily lives in the mining base, perhaps even spending time preparing their research notes and data (gathered in the previous scenario, Ashfall) for publication, it becomes clear to the Player Characters that all is not well in Dryavis. There is some friction between the old timers and new commers in the settlement, and some between the employees of the five companies that make up the conglomerate, the Pihrund Corporation, that controls the settlement, but most friction is between the Pihrund Corporation and the miners as they suspect that the Pihrund Corporation is operating a ‘fire and rehire’ programme to bring in a new workforce that will accept cheaper wages. The Player Characters will learn of this right at the start of the scenario when a miner approaches them and voices her concern about the state of the Pihrund Corporation’s accounts.

Ashfall II: Under the Dome is not only a radical change of pace from Ashfall, but also a difficult change of pace. The hook is simply not as strong in Ashfall II: Under the Dome as it is in Ashfall, shifting from, ‘To survive, I must march to safety across this dangerous landscape’ to ‘I have reached safety, but someone is telling me her worries about some accounts’. The players and their characters are not motivated to get involved unless they decide they want to. It is entirely possible that the scenario could play out with the Player Characters involving themselves in the community and life of the mining base and nothing more. The conspiracy, as small scale as it is and as nasty as it is, could simply pass them by and remain uncovered and unnoticed. Depending upon how the scenario is being run, this can present the Game Master with a challenge because the hook relies too on player and character curiousity. As a one-shot and on its on rather than as part of the trilogy, Ashfall II: Under the Dome needs the conspiracy hook to keep the players and their characters interested because they have not been through the crucible of Ashfall, whereas as part of the trilogy, Ashfall II: Under the Dome is such a contrast of tone to Ashfall, that the conspiracy almost seem superfluous.

Whether or not the Player Characters decide to investigate the rumours and the accounts of the Pihrund Corporation, the scenario is solidly supported. Besides the description of Dryavis and its facilities, including the mining equipment, there are full write-ups of various NPCs, a detailed explanation of the politics of the mining base, a description of the rules to Pamboyra, or Darrian chess (this is the game for the tournament), lots and lots of rumours to drive any plot or distract from it, and even Occupation tables for the Miner/ROVer (remotely operated vehicle operators) and Technicians working on Spume. The latter allows for possible replacement Player Characters as there is the possibility of their being killed in the scenario. It also allows for the scenario to be run as one-shot with the Player Characters as Miners/ROVers and Technicians rather than as scientists seeking the safety of the mining base after a disaster. In many ways, this set-up makes better use of the scenario’s plot, because as Miners/ROVers and Technicians, the Player Characters would have a greater sense of investment in the future of the mining operation.

Physically, Ashfall II: Under the Dome is a tidy affair. The plan of the mining base is serviceable, but the illustrations of the animals on the base are sort of cute.

Ashfall II: Under the Dome is a scenario with two plot strands, one an amiable slice of mining base life, the other a corporate conspiracy. Getting the players and their characters interested and involved in the first is straightforward, but getting them interested in the other is much more of a challenge. So much of rests on the curiosity of the players and their characters, and for some players that will be enough to get involved, but for others, the Game Master may need to work harder to trigger that involvement.

Secrecy & Survivability

The world of Spume is hellhole and you definitely would not want to live there. Most of the few hundred that do live on the planet reside in the single dome settlement of Dryavis, where they conduct mining operations via remote drones and vehicles. Outside of the dome, the planet, with its thin, tainted atmosphere, is subject to near constant seismic activity, widespread volcanic activity, and a near constant rain of ash and rocks, all at extremes of temperature and intermittent radioactivity. Located within the Darrian Confederation in the Darrian Subsector of the Spinward Marches, just two parsecs away from the capital and one parsec away from the homeworld, nobody would willing want to visit Spume. Except that researchers in the departments of geophysical sciences and engineering at Idikelin University have discovered new properties of certain materials when exposed to the magma of an active volcano and want them further investigated. To that end, it has mounted an expedition to Spume consisting of a planetologist, vulcanologist, seismologist, two materials specialists, and a technician to conduct in the field experiments. The fully equipped expedition will establish a base and conduct field experiments on Spume and report back with its findings within a few months.

This is the set-up for Ashfall, the first part of a trilogy of scenarios published by March Harrier Publishing for use with Traveller, Second Edition from Mongoose Publishing. Together, they form a mini-campaign for six players who will roleplay the six pre-generated scientist or technician characters. In addition to the core rulebook, the Game Master will need access to Alien Module 3: Darrians or Aliens of Charted Space Vol. 3, whilst the Central Supply Catalogue will also be useful. Access to various issues of The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society may be helpful, but are not crucial to running the scenario.

The plot to Ashfall sees the Player Characters arrive on Spume and set up their camp with three possible choices given as to the site. Contact with Dryavis is possible, but limited, and for the most part, the Player Characters will be alone. That is, until they receive a most unexpected knock on the door to the survival dome which has been constructed over the Advanced Base (Pressurised) they have set up. Until the scenario plot kicks in, the Player Characters spend their time conducting field research and analysing the results, having spent some time constructing and setting up the camp. This plays out over several days using the rules given to handle the results of the research. This is fairly dry, and although there are some minor rivalries between the expedition members, as the scenario notes, Darrian community ethic means that means there is much less likely to be inter-departmental or inter-faculty rivalry than there might be within an expedition from a university from the Third Imperium. This is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a trio of Special Arm agents, who want to investigate the activities of the various academics. Each of them does have a secret, which a player is free to reveal or not during his character’s interrogation, but none of them are truly terrible or shocking. In fact, they are minor at best and reflect the Darrian cultural conservatism at worst. For the most part, the Player Characters will find the presence of the Special Arm agents a distraction from their ongoing work.

The other role that the Special Arm agents can play in the scenario is as a source of replacement Placement Characters. This is because the scenario takes another, sudden swerve which sets up the last, much more challenging third act. This occurs after the expedition’s base suffers a sudden catastrophe in the form of a landslip! The Player Characters have only minutes to get into their vacuum suits and grab what equipment they can before fleeing. Unfortunately, the expedition’s ATV is also destroyed in the accident. This leaves the Player Characters with little choice, but to make their way across Spume on foot. It possible to ask the miners at Dryavis to help rescue them, but contact is limited due to the environment and the equipment at the mining base not being entirely suited to such a role. The last third of the scenario is a gruelling trek across Spume’s barren, cracked, and often venting landscape. Multiple encounters are suggested, through problematically, one of the encounters does require access to Ashfall III: Into the Crust.

In terms of support for the players, Ashfall not only includes the six pre-generated scientists and technicians, but also six sets of roleplaying notes. These have been created using Myers-Briggs type indicators and are intended to be handed out randomly, meaning any time the Game Master runs Ashfall, the Player Characters remain the same, but the personalities are random. That said, not everyone is going to want to use these personality indicators, though if they were, it is a pity that they are not presented as handouts. Otherwise, Ashfall is a technical scenario. There are maps of the planet, a list of equipment assigned to the expedition, rules for handling research, and details of the vehicles used by the miners at Dryavis. There is a list of the personnel at Dryavis, though the Game Master will need access to Ashfall II: Under the Dome for the full details.

Ashfall can be played as is, but it is written to be the first part of a trilogy. There are discoveries to be made in the scenario, after all, what is a science-themed adventure without discoveries? However, these discoveries are dry at best and it does not help that a hint at a potentially interesting discovery requires access to Ashfall III: Into the Crust.

Physically, Ashfall is a tidy affair. The plan of the expedition base is somewhat threadbare, but the illustrations are serviceable and planetary maps decent enough.

Ashfall is a classic survival scenario for Traveller, the Player Characters forced to trek across hostile territory and make the best of what they have with them. This is going to be challenging since Spume is hostile to life and the Player Characters lack the Vacc Suit skill, whilst only one of them has the Survival skill. Which sets up an interesting dynamic as this is the technician, whose role is seen as less worthy than that of the scientists. Although the Player Characters should have remained in the office, Ashfall should be a bonding experience for them and it will set them up for Ashfall II: Under the Dome. Ultimately, Ashfall is a dry, technical adventure that requires a higher degree of engagement from the players in order to get through what is the first act of a trilogy to get to the potentially more interesting second and third parts.

The Other OSR: Warden’s Operation Guide

It is curious to note that since its original publication in 2018, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG from Tuesday Knight Games has been reliant upon the single rulebook, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide. First as a ‘Zero Edition’ and then as an actual ‘First Edition’. Curious, because despite the horror roleplaying rules detailing no alien threats and giving no advice for the Warden—as the Game Master is known in Mothership—the has proved to be success, with numerous authors writing and publishing scenarios of their own as well as titles from the publisher. What the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG offered was a stripped down, fast playing Science Fiction system that supported a number of sub-genres. Most obviously Blue Collar Science Fiction with horror and Military Science Science Fiction, the most obvious inspirations being the films Alien and Aliens, as well as Outland, Dark Star, Silent Running, and Event Horizon. Yet the authors of third-party content for the roleplaying game have also offered sandboxes such as Desert Moon of Karth and Cosmic Horror like What We Give To Alien Gods, showing how the simplicity of Mothership could be adjusted to handle other types of Science Fiction. This combination of flexibility and simplicity has made it attractive to the Old School Renaissance segment of the hobby, despite Mothership not actually sharing roots with the family of Old School Renaissance roleplaying games derived from the different editions of Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, at best, Old School Renaissance adjacent.

With the publication of the Mothership Core Box and the Mothership Deluxe Box following a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2024, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG has a complete set of rules for what is its first edition. The includes rules the construction and option of spaceships with Shipbreaker’s Toolkit, monstrous threats with Unconfirmed Contact Reports, and a guide for refereeing the roleplaying game in the form of the Warden’s Operations Manual.

—oOo—

The Warden’s Operations Manual is the other of the core rulebooks after the Player’s Survival Guide for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. It is the guidebook for the Warden—as the Game Master is known in the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG—and it takes the Warden, neophyte or not, from the first steps of making the initial preparations for a campaign all the way up to running a campaign. Not just advice, but also suggestions, prompts, and more. In the process, it talks about creating and portraying horror, creating compelling mysteries and investigations, how to be a Warden—and a good at that, how to support player agency, interpreting the rules and making good rulings, handling different aspects of the rules, introducing house rules, and more. And in just sixty pages. It packs a lot into those pages.

The Warden’s Operations Manual is at its heart a book of questions and answers, asking and answering such questions as how do I get started? What should I run? Where do I find the horror in my scenario? What challenges do I give my Player Characters? There are effectively ten questions that it poses and gives answers to in explaining the step-by-step process. More experienced Wardens might want to miss or two, and in the long run, the Warden omit some too as she gets used to the process. It starts with simplest of things. Buying a notebook to serve as the Warden’s ‘Mothership Campaign Notebook’, inviting friends to play, and reading the Player’s Survival Guide, before choosing a scenario and asking what is the horror going to be? As it expands here, it suggests options, such as ‘Explore the Unknown’, ‘Salvage a Derelict Spaceship’, and ‘Survive a Colossal Disaster’, and to find the horror it gives the ‘TOMBS Cycle’, which stands for ‘Transgression, Omens, Manifestation, Banishment, Slumber’ Cycle. This is neat little summary of how a horror scenario typically plays. So, in ‘Transgression’, something has disturbed the Horror and caused it to activate or awaken; signs hinting of its activities or effect are found in ‘Omens’; its ‘Manifestation’ means that the Horror moves into the open and everyone can see what it is, and will now be hunted by it; ‘Banishment’ sees the Player Characters race to find a way to destroy or stop the Horror; and lastly, in ‘Slumber’, the Horror is banished or subdued, at least temporarily, until someone else triggers the ‘TOMBS Cycle’ once again. It is both a superbly succinct summary of just about any horror film—and very obviously of the key film which inspires the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG—and a framework that the Warden can return to again and again to construct further scenarios.

Once the horror is in place, the Warden adds obstacles for the Player Characters to be overcome, which the Warden’s Operations Manual categorises as ‘Survive, Solve, or Save’. These are then broken down, offering choices. For example, for ‘Solve’ it offers questions or mysteries, puzzles or obstacles, and answers or secrets, and further expands upon them. The most common questions are ‘What happened here?’, ‘Who did it?’, and ‘Where are they?’ and some ideas are given as what they could be. For ‘Solve’, there is a really good table for defining NPCs along two axes—‘Helpful versus Unhelpful’ and ‘Powerful versus Powerless’. A helpful, but powerless NPC is a drinking buddy, whereas a powerful, unhelpful NPC is a gatekeeper. Lastly. The supplement takes the Warden through the process of drawing her scenario onto a map and then in tying it all together, providing something for each of the four roles in the roleplaying game. Violence for Marines, something that Humans cannot do, but Androids can, some science or research for the Scientist, and something to build, repair, or pilot for the Teamster.

With the writing and the design out of the way, the middle part of the Warden’s Operations Manual is dedicated to advice on actually running the game. Here we are on more familiar territory, good for running almost any other roleplaying game, but very much focused on the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. There is direct and more immediate advice for the prospective Warden not to worry about the rules, to use common sense, to build up the horror slowly, to treat every violent encounter as if it could be last, and more. The advice on teaching the game is good for a Warden’s first game as much as it is the players as well as if the Warden runs the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG at conventions, and there is advice on that as well for setting the tone and safety limits for strangers (at conventions) in addition to that for friends.

It breaks down the cycle of play, examining each of the stages in turn, from the Warden describing the situation and answering the players’ questions through waiting for them to decide what they want their characters to do, the Warden setting the stakes for any conflict and explaining the consequences, and again waiting for the players to commit, to resolving the action. This is such a usual deconstruction of the game flow from minute to minute and what is so useful is that like a lot of the advice in the Warden’s Operations Manual, it applies to a lot of other roleplaying games and not just the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. And as with the earlier ‘TOMBS Cycle’ and ‘Survive, Solve, or Save’, it examines these aspects of play in further detail, noting how to handle time and tension, what to do about technology (lots of good options here such as offloading the explanation as to how a device or technology works onto the players and having futuristic technology work as badly as our own, alongside simply keeping track of it to make it part of the campaign background and focusing upon what it does rather than how it works), when to not roll dice and when to roll dice as well as resolving the action and the consequences of failure.

The suggestions for social situations are interesting in that NPCs should be obvious in their manner so that the Player Characters have a greater understanding of who they are and be in a better place to decide how to interact with them and what to do with the information they learn about or from them. The Warden is also told that she should tell players when an NPC is lying. Similarly, the Player Characters can lie to the NPCs. And all this without resort to dice rolls, although the Player Characters will suffer the consequences if found out and knowing that an NPC is lying leads to further investigation (or confrontation) as the Player Characters try to confirm it.

The advice on investigations is kept surprisingly short, boiling down to giving the players clues rather than making them roll for them, except when their characters are in a hurry or when time is short. Monsters and horrors are to be kept that, as ‘boss’ monsters that the Player Characters cannot readily defeat until they have more information about them. When it comes to combat and death, the Warden’s Operations Manual reiterates that the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG is a roleplaying game about people in the worst and most stressful situation possible and that this, in addition to the possibility that their characters might die, should always be made clear to the players.

The latter third of the Warden’s Operations Manual focuses upon building campaigns. Here it talks about style and types of campaign frames, such as space truckers, dogs of war, bounty hunters, and mining and salvage, creating factions, handling money and debt, and more. There is a bibliography too and some advice on telling a good story, like the fact that the game is about what the players do, that story happens in retrospect, and for the Warden to use her best ideas first rather than build up to them, and how to end a campaign. All of which is supported by tables of prompts and ideas that the Warden can pick from or roll on.

Physically, the Warden’s Operations Manual is well produced and very nicely illustrated, with many illustrations actually serving as examples of elements of the game, such as the illustration for tactical considerations or the ‘TOMBS Cycle’. The book is very readable. 

The Warden’s Operations Manual is a very good book of advice, help, and suggestions for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, but there is room for expansion in places. For example, the individual parts of ‘Survive, Solve, or Save’ get more attention than those of the ‘TOMBS Cycle’ and the campaign frames amount to no more than elevator pitches rather than actual frameworks. Despite this, the Warden’s Operations Manual is useful not just for the first time Warden, but worth reading and dipping into for the experienced one too. In going back to basics before giving sound advice that will give the prospective Warden a very good start in setting up and running her first game of the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, the Warden’s Operations Manual is an exceptionally good book.

The Other OSR: Player’s Survival Guide

It is curious to note that since its original publication in 2018, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG from Tuesday Knight Games has been reliant upon the single rulebook, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide. First as a ‘Zero Edition’ and then as an actual ‘First Edition’. Curious, because despite the horror roleplaying rules detailing no alien threats and giving no advice for the Warden—as the Game Master is known in Mothership—the has proved to be success, with numerous authors writing and publishing scenarios of their own as well as titles from the publisher. What the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG offered was a stripped down, fast playing Science Fiction system that supported a number of sub-genres. Most obviously Blue Collar Science Fiction with horror and Military Science Science Fiction, the most obvious inspirations being the films Alien and Aliens, as well as Outland, Dark Star, Silent Running, and Event Horizon. Yet the authors of third-party content for the roleplaying game have also offered sandboxes such as Desert Moon of Karth and Cosmic Horror like What We Give To Alien Gods, showing how the simplicity of Mothership could be adjusted to handle other types of Science Fiction. This combination of flexibility and simplicity has made it attractive to the Old School Renaissance segment of the hobby, despite Mothership not actually sharing roots with the family of Old School Renaissance roleplaying games derived from the different editions of Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, at best, Old School Renaissance adjacent.

With the publication of the Mothership Core Box and the Mothership Deluxe Box following a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2024, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG has a complete set of rules for what is its first edition. The includes rules the construction and option of spaceships with Shipbreaker’s Toolkit, monstrous threats with Unconfirmed Contact Reports, and a guide for refereeing the roleplaying game in the form of The Warden’s Operations Manual.

—oOo—

The Player’s Survival Guide is the core rulebook for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, detailing as it does the the rules for character creation, Stress and Panic, and combat. The book also comes with a content warning giving that Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG is a horror game and best suited for mature players. Plus, there is advice on being a great player, waning them that their characters can die, that the game is stacked against them, that they will be faced with difficult choices, that they should pay attention, and finally, to accompany the content warning, to create a safe play environment. Of course, it is obvious, but is short and to the point, readying the player for his first experience of play in the Mothership universe.

A Player Character in Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG has four Stats—Strength, Speed, Intellect, and Combat—together indicate how well he might perform under trying conditions. He also has three Saves—Sanity, Fear, and Body—which are his capacity to withstand the effects of different kinds of trauma. There are four Classes, which determine what skills he begins play and how he reacts to Stress and Panic. These are Marines, Androids, Scientists, and Teamsters, essentially modelling the type of characters that appear in Alien and Aliens. When a Marine fails a Panic Check, all nearby Player Character must make a Fear Save; Fear Saves made by Player Characters close to an Android at made at a Disadvantage; when a Scientist fails a Sanity Save, all nearby Player Character gain one Stress; and once per session, a Teamster can make a Panic Check at a Disadvantage. Skills are rated as Trained, Expert, or Master, or ‘+10%’, ‘+15%’, or ‘+20%’ respectively. Penultimately, he has a Loadout, Trinket, and Patch, the Loadout being his equipment, the Trinket something that might give him good fortune, and the Patch is the slogan or saying, which may or may not have some meaning, he has sewn onto his clothes or equipment. Lastly, he has a value for ‘High Score’, which starts at zero and may not actually change since it represents the number of missions or assignments or sessions completed (or survived). It has no mechanical effect, being something that the player and Warden can track. The rules suggest that the average High Score is four, so that and better is something for both player and character to aim for.

NAME: Boyd Tófa

CLASS: Teamster

STATS

Strength 42 Speed 45 Intellect 41 Combat 44

SAVES

Sanity 35 Fear 29 Body 24

Health: 5

Stress: 2

SKILLS

Trained (+10%): Zero-G, Industrial Equipment, Rimwise

Expert (+15%): Piloting

Master (+20%):

Credits: 100cr

Trinket: Pamphlet: Android Overlords

Patch: “Powered By Coffee”

Loadout: Standard Crew Attire (AP 1), Nail Gun (32 rounds), Head Lamp, Toolbelt with Assorted Tools, Lunch Box

Player Character creation is an easy process, just as it always was with the Zero Edition of the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. This was because the character sheet was marked with a flow chart that led the player through the process. Here in the new edition of Player’s Survival Guide it not only been retained, but slimmed down and streamlined for ease of use.

Mechanically, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG is percentile game. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls percentile dice, aiming to roll equal to or under the appropriate Stat. To avoid dangers, a player can make a similar roll against a Save. A Save is rolled against Sanity to withstand the illogical nature of the universe and to deal with Stress; Fear for fear itself, isolation, and emotional distress; and Body to resist physical effects such as hunger, disease, and invasion organisms. Rolls can be made with Advantage and Disadvantage, meaning that a player rolls the dice twice, taking the best result if at an Advantage and the worst result if at a Disadvantage. A roll of a double counts as a critical success if the roll is equal to, or under the Stat or Save, a critical failure if over. A critical failure also triggers a Panic Check. If appropriate, a player can add one of his character’s Skills to the roll, whether a Stat Roll or a Save.

However, there is a further penalty to failed rolls. The Player Character gains a point of Stress, up to maximum of twenty. Under certain situations, such as seeing another crewmember die, multiple crewmembers failing a Panic Check at the same time, when encountering something horrific and unearthly for the first time, a Player Character must roll a Panic Check. This is a roll of a twenty-sided die, the aim being to roll above the Player Character’s current Stress. A failure requires a roll on the Panic Table. The result is a random effect such as a ‘Loss of Confidence’, ‘Haunted’, ‘Deathwish’, or ‘Heart Attack/Short Circuit (Android)’.

Combat is designed to be fast and deadly. During each round, a Player Character can move and undertake a single action. Attacks are handled by a Combat Check and armour protects up to a certain limit, but above that is destroyed. Some Armour can have Damage Reduction. Damage is subtracted from the defendant’s Health. When Health is reduced to zero, a roll is made on the Wounds Table. The Wounds Table has options for Blunt Force, Bleeding, Gunshot, Fire & Explosives, and Gore & Massive damage.

In terms of further support, there are options for Player Character training skills, although it will actually take years to do so and apart from military training, has to be paid for. The rules cover the effects of different atmospheres, cryosickness from time spent in the cryopods used for long space journeys or hyperspace jumps, starvation, radiation, and more. When not on a mission or assignment, there are ports that the Player Characters’ ship can dock, where they can engage in rest and recreation, and mechanically, each make a Rest Save to reduce their Stress. This can be made at Advantage if a Player Character participates in consensual sex, recreational drug use, heavy drinking, prayer, or other suitable leisure activity. (This is another why the Player’s Survival Guide makes that consent is required.) Contractors can also be hired at ports and once hired, become NPCs defined by a simple format, but potentially upgradable to full Player Character should one of the existing ones somehow die…

If there is anything missing from the Player’s Survival Guide, it is the omission of the stealth skill. This seems odd given that the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG is a horror roleplaying game and such situations often require the Player Characters to sneak around to avoid alerting whatever threat they are facing. That said, one of the several examples of play does show a Player Character attempting to sneak. Instead of making a Stat Check with a Stealth skill added on as a bonus, the player instead rolls a Stat Check with the outcome being that a successful check indicates that it has been done quietly. So instead of the absence of a Stealth skill, the attempt is rolled into whatever it is that the Player Character is attempting to achieve. This could have been made clearer in the rules rather than an example of play.

Physically, the Player’s Survival Guide is very well presented. The layout is clean and tidy, and the book is easy to read. Learning the rules is eased by the numerous examples of play. The artwork is also good throughout.

The ‘Zero Edition’ of the Player’s Survival Guide has proved to be a Science Fiction workhouse, supporting the creation of numerous scenarios and supplements and fanzines within the Blue Collar Science Fiction, Military Science Fiction, Science Fiction Horror genres. The Player’s Survival Guide for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, First Edition does and will do the same thing. The new edition of the Player’s Survival Guide is really accessible and everything in its pages are easy to learn—helped by the reference guide on the back—and it lays the foundation of the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG.

Burns So Very Very Brightly

It begins with an interview deep in the Rep-Detect Unit headquarters of the LAPD Tower. On one side of the table is a ‘Blade Runner’, an officer belonging to the unit dedicated to apprehending and retiring rogue replicants. On the other is a suspected replicant, a service technician at the headquarters of the Wallace Corporation apprehended after breaking into the company’s Replicant Memory Vault. The suspect lacks a serial number which would indicate that he is a registered Nexus-8 or Nexus-9 model. Surely there cannot be any Nexus-6 models still surviving? Unable to determine if the suspect is a Replicant, the officer has turned to an older method to detecting his status. A Voight-Kampff wheezes between the officer and the suspect. On the table is a list of questions the officer will put to the suspect. Quickly though, the suspect’s brazen refusal to engage with the emotional nature of the questions turns to violence and the interviewee turns on the interviewer. A bruising, bloody fracas ensues. The interviewer is bruised and battered, but his colleagues on the other side of the glass to the interview room were able to come to his help. The suspect is dead, his status is uncertain. Is he an aberration, or there unregistered Replicants on the streets of LA?

This is the set-up to Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels—and it is a great set-up, one that clearly echoes the begin of the film, Blade Runner, itself, when Blade Runner, Dave Holden, is seen conducting a Voight-Kampff test on Leon Kowalski. Dave Holden is, of course, by this time, the head of the Rep-Detect Unit, huffing and puffing through the replacement lungs for the ones that Kowalski shot out of him. Further, this is not the only reference to Blade Runner to be found during the course of the investigation. For example, the officers pay a visit to the Yukon Hotel on Hunterwasser Street where Leon Kowalski stayed, and both Ray McCoy and Runciter’s Live Animals appear from the 1997 Blade Runner video game from Westwood Studios. The Case File is littered with such references which the fan of Blade Runner will appreciate and which will also help to pull the players into the future of 2037. Such refences are not the only immersive elements in the Case File either, for just like ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’ in the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set, the investigation is supported with numerous handouts that give points of reference and clues to the players and their characters. 

Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels is a scenario for Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game, published by Free League Publishing. Although it can be run on its own, it specifically designed as a sequel to ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’ in the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set, being part of ‘The Immortal Game’ campaign arc. Even then, the Game Master may need to make some alterations to this new Case File as some NPCs who appear in ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’ may have died. Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels comes as a boxed set which contains not only the sixty-page book for the case file, but also a set of fourteen Mugshot cards, seven maps depicting locations pertinent to the case, and a sturdy, buff envelope marked ‘RDU – LAPD REP–Detect’. This contains another eleven clues and Esper images that the Player Characters can search for clues. 

The interview and subsequent death of the service technician triggers an investigation into the possibility of there being rogue Replicants at large in LA and if so the possibility that someone else is using technology stolen from the Tyrell Corporation, technology that is now solely owned by the Wallace Corporation. The investigation is against the clock, just four days before the antagonists’ plans come to a fruition, with numerous leads to follow. As in Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game, the investigation is carried out in shifts—four per day, with one required for Downtime—with the Player Characters, not just encouraged, but actually needing to split up to cover everything and everywhere. Information can be shared and updated between the Player Characters via their KIAs, Knowledge Integration Assistant units. The investigation is very well organised by NPCs and locations, clearly listing what the Player Characters might find should they interview the persons there and look at scenes. Some of the locations are not directly linked to the investigation, but may be places that a Player Character might go to speak to a contact.

In terms of structure, there are scenes in Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels where the action and story are quite directed, even forced. This is intentional, designed to ramp up the tension and even set up events in the sequel to the scenario. One Player Character, ideally a Human, will also find himself in the spotlight for much of the scenario, his integrity and humanity much tested. Other than that, there are tables of Downtime Events for the Player Characters, including a special set for the Player Character in the spotlight, plus a list of Promotion and Humanity awards. The Case File is designed to be played by between one and four Player Characters and if played by one, the single player will find his character placed in the spotlight in more ways than one. 

Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels should provide two or three sessions’ worth of grim, grimy, and uncertain play. Although its Case File could be run as a standalone investigation, it works best as a continuation of  ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’ from the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set, and as such, this is an ‘in between’ scenario, which continues the overall plot, but does not finish it. The only difficulty really is making adjustments to take account of the changes between this Case File and ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’, primarily if certain NPCs were killed in ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’.

Physically, Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels is superbly presented. It is a fantastic boxed with great handouts and good maps, many of which could easily be used by the Game Master again for her own scenarios. The scenario is well written and organised and the artwork throughout is stunning, everywhere and everyone seeming to step out of the shadows in Film Noir fashion. 

The unfortunate truth is that there is not great deal of support for Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game, but there can be no doubt that Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels is a brilliant addition to what is a very short line. It explores identity and the nature of what it is to be human from start to finish, really placing one Player Character in the spotlight, and does so in an incredibly good looking package.