Replacing the Sanity system in Mothership

The Sanity (Stress and Panic) system in Mothership doesn't appeal to me, and my friends playing the game have commented on it as well. What could we do instead?

Hack Publishing

I published a couple of game hacks for the Acoustic Cover Jam this week, both of which started out on this blog. You can find my conversion notes for Numenera using Into the Odd as well as World of Ultraviolet Grasslands there.

Assorted Mothership D10 Lists

Inspired by the Mothership RPG Discord, here are some random tables of android malfunctions, undead astronauts, and mysterious alien devices.

Indoctrination and Sanity in Mothership

For "Gates of Despair", I designed a simple mechanic to represent the influence of the Unseeable God on the minds of the folks there. So as to keep things extremely straightforward, the mechanic is just a track of conditions as you go down it. After discussing it in the Mothership Discord, somebody pointed out that … Continue reading Indoctrination and Sanity in Mothership →

Gates of Despair: Session 7 Recap

Putting this right out there: this turns out to be the last main session of the campaign. I'll say a little more about what's next in the wrap-up section, but I think I'm mostly pleased with how this went, with a few caveats. Narrative ((For ease of reading, I'm separating out a few different story … Continue reading Gates of Despair: Session 7 Recap →

Mothership NPC Generation

For the Enceladus Research Facility in Gates of Despair Session 6, I didn't want to pre-populate with NPCs. One of the players had already established that their character knew several people there, and I wanted them to have some creative control over that. Additionally, the facility had lots of places and it made more sense … Continue reading Mothership NPC Generation →

The Gates of Despair: Session 6 Recap

After an extended break due to real life, we finally got back to some science fiction horror! I also wrote up some new random tables and a new mechanic, but those will get fully detailed in separate future posts. No spoilers this time - everything is original material. The map is my own creation, using … Continue reading The Gates of Despair: Session 6 Recap →

Gates of Despair: Session 5 Recap

Time to wrap up business on the station and get back out into the black! Narrative After strategizing briefly, the crew heads down to meet Isaac McCormack, the corporation "fixer" who might be able to provide some additional intelligence on the Society of the Outer Realms. They walk into a fairly typical office area, with … Continue reading Gates of Despair: Session 5 Recap →

1d10 Realistic Space Hazards

I originally wrote this while preparing for a Mothership game, but it has no game statistics whatsoever. Feel free to use it in whatever science fiction game you're playing! Photo by Matt Benson on Unsplash Micrometeoroids. Think like particles of dust or smaller, not large objects that could destroy the ship. These may cause oxygen … Continue reading 1d10 Realistic Space Hazards →

Gates of Despair: Session 4 recap

This session mostly consisted of shopping and role play. I don't believe we rolled any dice at all, other than some random NPCs I generated (mostly using the SciFi Random Generator at Donjon). But they deserved a bit of shore leave, as it were, and in any case this second stretch of sessions (4-6 or … Continue reading Gates of Despair: Session 4 recap →