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Mothership RulesPrimer

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42 views

Mothership RulesPrimer

Uploaded by

Emilio
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Mothership – Rules Primer

Taking actions

Your characters are very competent people at what they do. Most of the time you don’t need
to roll to see if an action succeeds, it just happens. The exceptions are when your characters
are acting under stressful conditions or without the appropriate equipment (these conditions
will usually be determined by the Warden). When this happens, the Warden will ask you to
make an attribute check.

Attributes and checks.

There are four attributes in Mothership: Strength, Speed, Intelligence and Combat, and each
one has a number usually between 25 – 99. These numbers represent how capable your
characters are of acting under pressure.

To make an attribute check, roll a D100, generating a result between 0-99:

• If you roll Under the number of the attribute, you Succeed at the task.
• If you roll Over the number of the attribute, you Fail at the task.
• If you roll doubles (33,66,44, etc.) the result is Critical (if over the attribute, a critical
failure; if under it, a critical success).
• A roll of 90-99 is Always a Failure (critical if the roll is 99).
• A roll of 00 is Always a Critical Success.

Saves

There are three saves: Body, Fear and Sanity. These are made when a character is trying to
resist physical or mental effects, like defending against an attack or staying calm(ish) when
facing a deadly, alien creature. Saves are made when the Warden asks for it and work just like
making a check (roll under the number to succeed!).

Skills

You are trained in some specialized tasks, represented by your skills. The skills have three
ratings: Trained (+10), Expert (+15) and Master (+20). Whenever you make a Check or Save and
you can come up with a reasonable explanation to use one of your skills, you can add the
bonus between parenthesis to your relevant attribute or save, and make the check using the
new number.

Note that skills don’t limit what you can do, they only give you better odds at certain tasks. If
you want to try anything that would sound like it needs a skill that you don’t have You Can Do
It! Only drawback is the chances of succeeding would be lower than if you had the skill…

Example: You are trying to fix a damaged space suit’s cooling system, and you tell the Warden
that your character is a mechanic and have plenty of experience repairing suits, so you want
to add the mechanical repair (+15) skill to your check. The Warden accepts, and tells you to
make an Intellect Check and add your skill bonus. Your Intellect is 38, and adding the skill
bonus it becomes 53. To succeed in repairing the suit, you must roll under 53 instead of under
38!

Taking Stress

Stress is a metrical attribute to measure how overwhelmed your characters are by the
situations they face. It starts at 2 and can never be reduced below 2, or increase beyond 20.
Every time you fail a check or save, you gain stress (as indicated by the Warden), raising your
Current stress as appropriate. If you critically fail a check or save, in addition to gaining stress,
you must make a Panic Check.

Panic Check

To make a Panic Check you roll the Panic Die (a D20) and try to roll Over your current Stress to
keep your temper. Any other result triggers a Panic Effect (the Warden tells you what happens
based on the number rolled on the D20).

You must make a Panic Check when…

• Watching another crewmember die.


• Witnessing more than 1 crewmember Panic at the same time.
• Whenever your Ship rolls a Critical Failure, everyone on board makes a Panic Check.
• Encountering a strange and horrifying entity for the first time.
• When all hope is lost and death feels certain.
• Whenever you, the player, want.

Health and Wounds

Your characters have a number of Health Points between 2 and 20, and 2 Maximum Wounds
(Marines have 3). Whenever your character takes damage, reduce the number of HP
accordingly. If the Damage reduces you to 0 Health, you raise your Current Wounds by 1, roll
on the Wounds Table (Warden tells you the effect) and reset your Health to its maximum.
Whenever your Current Wounds equals your Maximum Wounds (usually 2) you die. Don’t let
the numbers on your character sheet fool you, combat can be pretty deadly. Use common
sense to drive your character’s actions.

This is all you need to play, plus some dice and lots of imagination and creativity!

Have fun and good luck!

-The Warden.

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