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MOTHERSHIP is exactly the kind of system you want if you desire to play gritty and/or weird sci-fi/horror, with characters and events like you'd find in...
- Alien
- Galaxy of Terror
- Event Horizon
- Dead Space
- Outland
- Sunshine
- Planet Of The Vampires
- Prometheus
...and more. It'll make you wish the folks behind this game were the ones in charge of Alien: Covenant, that's certain. Sean McCoy is an incredible talent and he's put together a team for this and the supplement "Dead Planet" that taps into this particular genre better than any other game I've seen.
Whether you want to use the Mothership system as-is, or usethe material as inspiration for other systems like Traveller, SWN, Cold & Dark and so on, you can't go wrong by adding this to your library and at least looking it over. I think you'll find that the system is so compelling and easily accessible that you won't be able to resist creating some characters and designing a ship.
The game feels old school and lends itself extremely well to "sandbox" style play (best illustrated in the fantastic 5-star "Dead Planet" supplement, get it!), but the system itself feels modern and straightforward. D10s are used for everything, but in three different ways based on the task; usually a % roll under system. Characters have 4 stats, 4 "saves", and a skill system covering most everything you'd want for characters from the 4 classes: Teamsters, Scientists, Androids and Marines. Again, everything you'd want (for now!) focused on this particular genre. Rules for crisis checks, stress, panic, sanity and fear help capture and enable the atmosphere for SF/horror better than a generic system could. A comprehensive collection of gear, weapons and "trinkets" are provided, as is an impressive starship design system and rules for beefing up your team with mercenaries.
In fact, one of the most impressive things about Mothership is how much material is squeezed into its 44 pages (including sheets), and how well it's presented. Both the print and PDF version are very readable, and the design/layout work is beautiful and the tables are easy to find and reference. Big kudos to all of the talents behind the look, feel and utility of this book.
I think it says a lot when a set of rules are so well-written and presented that they inspire you to play something you weren't necessarily expecting to delve into. As I write this, I'm very much in an old-school fantasy game mindset. But I've found it nearly impossible to resist the urge to make time at my FLGS and put together an evening or two of "Prometheus done right", or to let players explore the extremely disturbing vistas of "Dead Planet" (which itself feels wholly original).
Although you could play this genre with another system, I've yet to see any other system that could do it better or so elegantly. I can't wait to see what comes next from Tuesday Knight Games for Mothership.
- Review by Robert Saint John
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This has got to be one of the most unique SFRPG supplements I've ever bought. It is LOADED with really inspiring world-building material, and none of it reads like any other SF game I've got. The "Madness" table on page 9 is awesome, and the alien/creature builder material is so much more imaginative than similar books for other SF games. In fact, very little of this is so specific to Stars Without Number itself that I would highly recommend it to GMs of other games such as Traveller, Thousand Suns and so on. When your players make an unexpected stop on some world you weren't prepared for, you'll be so happy you had this handy. There are so many hooks per page, and they are written so far outside of what we've seen in SF time and again, that you'll want to start injecting it into your campaigns and adventures immediately. Your players will think you the most clever GM on the planet, but I won't tell.
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I can’t decide if this is a great companion to Mongoose Book 1 Mercenary, or a better version of it. It just reads like a more complete look at day-to-day life for Mercs. Also includes an entire subsector (in Foreven), a new alien race and an adventure. Layout and typography are really slick, very well organized, and a must for anyone incorporating the military into Traveller (not just Mongoose, but looks tot be useful for Classic as well).
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Really great collection of NPCs, many of them collected as crews (traders, survey team, mercs) and, in one case, an entire marine platoon. I really like the look of the Psionic Tactical (PsiTac) Team. Enhanced by the exceptional typography and layout work I see in almost all Spica products.
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Although it's for Mongoose Traveller, Traveller - ROBOTS (125 pages) by 13Mann is not Mongoose's Book 9: Robot (100 pages), which primarily focused on robots as Player Characters and had (IMO) a disappointing and flawed design system that still needs errata. ROBOTS is a completely different book with a different approach. The best way to illustrate this is to detail the contents:
Full Table of Contents (and the PDF is fully bookmarked!)
- INTRODUCTION
- GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT ROBOTS (Robots in the 3I, outside of the 3I, Zhodani, Ancients, Solomani, Corporations, Hiver, 2000 Worlds, etc.)
- CAREERS (Three related careers for PCs: Robot Specialist, Cyberdoc, and Programmer)
- HOW TO BUILD A COMPUTER/ROBOT (one page outlining the steps of the Computer and Robot Design Sequences)
- COMPUTERS (everything related to designing your hardware and software, networks, digital personalities, AI, Hacking etc.)
- ROBOTS AND DRONES (Difference between Robots and Drones, and the descriptions, TLs, prices, functions, etc. of all the components)
- SAMPLE ROBOTS (37 sample robots over 30 pages, everything from Hiver Translator, Zhodani Combat Robot, Construction Robot, Survey Drones, etc.)
- NANOBOTS (Construction, Abilities, etc.)
- CYBORGS (Creating, Complications, Aging, etc.)
- CYBERNETIC AND BIOLOGICAL AUGMENTS
- DESIGNING ROBOTS & COMPUTERS (Suggestions for types of robots and considerations)
- ROBOTS AS CHARACTERS
- INTERESTING NPCs related to robot-oriented storylines, including a Hiver!
APPENDIX (Equipment/component reference tables organized by TL for Computers, Robots and Augments)
Full 2 Page Index
A few points:
I have only been reading through it, I have not tested the mechanics or the construction system, so I can't say "Unlike Book 9, this works." But based on a read-through, it does appear to be solid.
There's a lot more content here than in CT Book 8, MegaTraveller Robots, or Mongoose Book 9: Robots. And as you can see, by dealing with nanobots, cyborgs, computers, augments, etc., it's covering a lot more territory.
Yes, it has been translated from German to English and chances are, if no one had told you that, you wouldn't even know. The translation is impeccable and eloquent.
It is packed with references to the place of robots throughout the Third Imperium, and not so much a generic approach. I do not commit 3I minutiae to memory so I have no idea if it is all based on pre-established canon, or fits with canon. It reads well, though, and I doubt the writers (Rouven Weinbach and Tobias Freund) were making much, if anything, up. Based on the Introduction, the authors know their Traveller.
At the same time, as someone who does not play in the 3I, I would not hesitate to use these rules as my guidance for robots in any period.
Art is minimal but serviceable, as is the layout. Choice of fonts and the overall two-column layout is readable, but a bit boring. Fortunately, this is really the only bad thing I can say about it so far. It was money very well-spent, and I wouldn't be at all disappointed if Mongoose scrapped their previous release and replaced it with this (if for no other reason than to have it in print!)
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Another 5-star, extremely well-written and useful supplement for the exemplary Stars Without Number.
The adventure seeds and naval campaign guidelines will be useful for any GM running SWN or even other SF RPGs such as Traveller, Thousand Suns and so on. The new "Battle Stations" rules provide a great approach allowing each PC to take part in space combat. SNP continues to flesh out the rich (but optional) background of SWN post-Scream and Silence in Skyward Steel. The sample starships, fleet and construction rules (including expanded design elements) are a great balance between lightweight and custom crunch.
Well bookmarked, but note that the PDF is secured, disabling GM's ability to add their own notes.
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For me, one of the wonderful benefits of the OSR has been some great efforts in extending it to the sci-fi genre. "Exonauts!", "Terminal Space", and the rebirth of "Starships & Spacemen" have all been welcome additions to my library and game sessions. At the same time, however, none have really been enough to take a substantial share of my time from my favorite SF RPGs such as "Thousand Suns", "Diaspora" and "Traveller".
And then, seemingly out of nowhere, comes "Stars Without Number", and it appears I will have to make room for one more. In fact, I could see how SWN may very well supplant one or two of my favorites entirely.
With no disrespect intended towards other works and authors, I have to say that through SWN, Kevin Crawford has created an absolutely epic work here. In the same way that "Lamentations of the Flame Princess" turned OD&D up to 11, SWN does the same with the idea of an OSR SFRPG. SWN is a well executed labor of love that, in 210 pages, gives a GM and Players everything (and more!) they would need to build a fascinating, long running sandbox-style campaign that could run for ages. And because of its OD&D simplicity, it could just as easily be used to run a quick and dirty adventure (including character generation) in a single evening. SWN is truly simple, but has the capability to be deep. If you're an old-school group who ever wanted to give something like Traveller a try, but preferred to stick with the system that you know and love, this game is for you.
Kevin's writing is crisp and direct, layout is clean and the book is well-edited. Presentation is excellent, though I've seen these SF clipart graphics before. This is a game worthy of its own art, someday. The PDF is well-bookmarked (THANK YOU!) and includes a Table of Contents and a complete index. Record sheets for everything from the characters and their starships to sector map, planet record, adventure sheets and alien records are included. The number and quality of resources is mind-boggling and suitable for almost any SF game: adventure seeds, NPCs, random tables for religion, politics and architecture, proper names in 8 languages (!), Designer Notes to guide GM customization, starship creation, world generation, alien creation and the list goes on and on. I would almost say that this is a more complete game than the original Classic Traveller with a lower learning curve.
More than that, this game feels more open (to me) than CT and many other games which seem to have military, trade or Star Trek style adventuring baked into them. I prefer to play adventures in universes that resemble those of Asimov and Poul Anderson, and although "Thousand Suns" has been my goto game for this for years, I find the elegant simplicity and sandbox friendly nature of SWN to be a strong draw for my attention for the foreseeable future.
Also worth noting is the adventure module "Hard Light", released separately, which is well worth the low cost and another great example of this game's old school sensibilities. If these are published in print, I will definitely be purchasing it and I look forward to more from Sine Nomine Publishing.
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Rogue Games' "Thousand Suns" RPG is a game for which I've been waiting a long time, and I didn't even realize it.
Some of my passions as a teenager were the novels of Isaac Asimov, H. Beam Piper and Pournelle/Niven, and; roleplaying games such as "Traveller" (for sci-fi) and Steve Jackson's "The Fantasy Trip" (a very accessible alternative at the time to D&D).
At the time, Traveller seemed like it would be a good way to mix the RPG experience with the grand Imperial Space Navies of the books I loved, but for some reason it never completely clicked for me. Too much number crunching, and the atmosphere of the game didn't feel right unless you were playing in the Imperium setting. SPI's "Universe" could have been a contender, but it was a little too dry with virtually no atmosphere, and SPI died soon after in any case. For me, it seemed that nearly 30 years passed with no real hope of finding the right SF RPG.
"Thousand Suns" has changed all that for me. It's like they got into my head! The rules, using their own 12° game mechanics (as opposed to something like D20) are lightweight and very accessible. It's extremely easy to quickly create some characters with great depth and background. Where "Thousand Suns" really shines, though, is how it handles the setting of the game. In some ways it's very minimal, allowing the GM to superimpose nearly any "Imperial SF" style setting (established or their own) into the game. At the same time, it's not generic. Maliszewski gives the reader just enough structure and resources that the game is definitely geared toward establishing the atmosphere I was looking for. He does define a "Meta Setting" with its own history, organizations, aliens and so on (a good one at that, sort of a "Best of All Worlds" approach), but the reader won't feel compelled to use it word for word. It's simply a great set of resources.
As I said, Character Creation is fast and novel, gameplay is as well. The rules aren't exceptionally crunchy, definitely "role" as opposed to "roll". The only thing that feels a little too light are guidelines and rules for World Creation and Starship Construction. Admittedly, I bring my Traveller expectations to this game, so I was looking for a little more depth in these sections; at least on par with the detail and options made available for Characters. The good news is that some of this should be remedied very soon by Rogue Games' follow-up books, "Pilot's Guide to the Core Worlds" and "Fighting Ships of the Thousand Suns". They should flesh out the details a little deeper. Nevertheless, what's there now is enough, so I don't want to imply that "Thousand Suns" isn't a complete game.
A few small criticisms I must mention. The book really needed better reference sections. The Table of Contents is chapter titles only, and there is no Index. Also, the editing should have been a little tighter. Section and Topic headers are hard to distinguish, and there are a small number of typos and omissions that require an errata. Fortunately, Rogue Games seems to be doing a bang-up job building an online user community around the game, so these things are being addressed as well.
All in all, a great game with even greater potential. I've purchased both the PDF and a hardcopy, and I'm already hard at work building my own Meta Setting. Can't wait to see what comes next!
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Not bad, and a worthy expansion to the original GMR, but I still find that the FireFly "Monster Island" series is easier, moves faster, and better captures the feeling of kaiju eiga. Nevertheless, a real deal for the price!
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Another brilliant addition to the Monster Island series, easily the best in its genre since "The Creature that Ate Sheboygan". Invasion of MI completes the set, allowing you to re-create the feeling and fun of not just hiant monster movies, but any kind of sci-fi B classic, from War of the Worlds to ID4. Now I've finally got my "Mysterians" campaign!
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