Mothership 1e at a glance. The full rules are in the Player's Survival Guide (Tuesday Knight Games · mothershiprpg.com ↗).
Mothership is survival horror. You are workers, not heroes: stay alive, find out what happened, and get out. Running, hiding and bargaining are good plans.
Rolling
- When the Warden needs a roll, a ROLL REQUIRED box appears. Roll on screen, or roll real dice and type the number in.
- Roll d100 (00–99). Under your number succeeds; equal or over fails.
- Your number is a Stat or Save from your crew file, + a Skill if one fits: Trained +10, Expert +15, Master +20.
- Doubles (00, 11 … 99) are critical: a critical success, or a critical failure.
- [+] Advantage: roll twice, keep the better. [-] Disadvantage: keep the worse.
- Every failed roll adds 1 Stress.
Stats and saves
- Strength
- lifting, pushing, holding on, brute force
- Speed
- getting there first, dodging, reacting
- Intellect
- knowing, fixing, hacking, working it out
- Combat
- hitting what you aim at
- Sanity save
- keeping your grip when things can't be real
- Fear save
- holding your nerve: terror, gore, being hunted
- Body save
- enduring toxins, disease, cold, hunger, being thrown about
Stress and Panic
- Stress starts at 2 and climbs with every failure and every horror.
- When something truly awful happens, the Warden may call a Panic check: roll d20. Above your Stress, you hold it together. Equal or under, you panic, and the Warden tells you what that means.
- Rest somewhere safe to shed Stress.
Getting hurt
- Damage comes off your Health. Armour reduces each hit.
- At 0 Health you take a Wound, then your Health resets. Run out of Wounds and you die.
Staying alive
- Ask the terminal things. Information keeps you alive.
- Say exactly what you do. A good plan may not need a roll at all.
- Use your gear, your skills and each other.
- If something feels wrong, it is.
Your Warden has the final word.