Review - Mothership: Player's Survival Guide and Mothership: Dead Planet

Space Horror is a rather obvious setting, but that's because it's ripe with possibility. Movies like Alien(s), Bladerunner, Event Horizon, Solaris - and many more - lend themselves to easy inspiration for role-playing. 

You can't tell precisely what you're seeing,
but you can tell what this game is about.

But with many games of this sort, the question is very much when you've said enough. In other words, the game must decide how seriously it will take its science fiction, how detailed the world-building will be, and a ton of other questions that threaten to bog down a good old-fashioned game about being chased into an airlock.

Along comes Mothership (DriveThruRPG) to the rescue! Motherfucking Mothership knows when to say when! And that's almost immediately. Mothership is a very light game designed to get you up and going as quickly as possible in your own terrifying vision of tomorrow.

Let me back up for a second. Mothership: Player's Survival Guide is the core rulebook of Sean McCoy's space horror game. The words, art and layout are all him. Mothership: Dead Planet, however, is an adventure for the Mothership RPG, written by Donn Stroud, Fiona Maeve Geist, and Sean McCoy with art from Sean McCoy and Stephen Wilson.

You'll notice that I mention the game and its first adventure together; that's because the Player's Survival Guide alone doesn't feel like a complete game so much as a game-making tool. This is a strength, but there are some drawbacks. Let's discuss.