It's time to write more reviews because that can be diverting for me to do and for you to read (review of Warlock! and Gradient Descent)

I hope you won't mind if I cut right to the chase: this article is going to be a review of two products. Here is product the first:

Yeah, it's Warlock!

If you haunt the front page of DriveThruRPG like I (unfortunately) do, then the Warlock! RPG cannot have escaped your attention during the last year or so. In case you didn't know, it's awesome. I'll rhapsodize below.

Here's the other one:

Gradient Descent for cool-kid Mothership

This one is Gradient Descent, an adventure/setting for the Mothership RPG (which I reviewed earlier along with its first adventure, so check that out). Although it's another hot and sexy RPG that has captured eyeballs and zeitgeist, the situation is a bit different because it's not actually out yet.

Yes, yours truly is an RPG insider. Well, actually, I just backed the Kickstarter and thus got my hands on the early release of the PDF. It's been bouncing around my hard drive for a couple weeks and I just got around to reading it. And you know what? It's a banger, in the parlance of the day.

So if you're just looking for information about what to buy, you can stop there and put there both on your list, especially if you're into old-school British fantasy role-playing (i.e. Warlock!) or space-faring sci-fi horror (i.e. Gradient Descent). They both get my rousing approval, so if that's means anything to you, consider picking them up if you're a tabletop RPG GM.

But if you need to hear more to determine if these are right for you, or you just like to read this sort of thing, then follow beyond the fold.

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.