Mothership Campaign Framework: The Anti-Carousing Table
I have many pamphlets but I must campaign: A Mothership table story
Problem Statement
Mothership one-shots are a lot of fun! (enough to make me write a blog post about running them)
…but certain game mechanics (stress, conditions, skill improvements) only play out over multiple modules.
…and people want their characters (including some new classes I’m playtesting) to have arcs that emerge and develop over multiple evenings and a range of scenarios.
…but Mothership doesn’t fit with a typical zero to hero journey. It is a downward curve (or some sort of… Gradient Descent) that may very well end in death.
Most Mothership modules cover one or two sessions and are framed as a job taken on by the PCs. There are of course exceptions — if your campaign is based around larger works like Desert Moon of Karth, Gradient Descent etc then you don’t need this blogpost. Likewise, if you’re carefully building a world of custom content and letting your player’s choices take you in interesting directions then you won’t benefit from any shortcuts.
But if, like me, you have a drawer stuffed full of tri-folds and don’t have the time to write a module every week then you’ll have noticed that the crew are typically either:
a) working a mundane job when something unexpected occurs
b) employed to perform a task telegraphed as dangerous
We can list some example modules for these categories:
a) Ypsilon 14, Screaming on the Alexis, Decagone, Dead Weight, Terminal Delays
b) Another Bug Hunt, Year of the Rat, Iron Tomb, Piece by Piece, Brackish
This is in no way a dig at the system — these two categories are
after all the premise of Alien and Aliens respectively! But it does
present difficulties for constructing a campaign; surviving characters
may struggle to find a motivation to take on another dangerous job,
while a string of unfortunate encounters starts to feel
implausible.
User Requirement Specification
We want a structure that allows characters the chance to improve and even win but more often leaves them desperate.
Characters should have in-game time to lick their wounds, buy equipment and at least slightly improve their skills/saves.
Trends towards keeping/leaving them in poverty, rather than letting them accumulate capital.
Has a chance to cause them more problems. Or at least spark some narrative discussion at the table.
A movie poster with a group of men AI-generated content may be incorrect.
What do the Rules say?
Tucked away on P.53 of the Warden’s Operation Manual, is a suggestion to take 1d10 months between modules, something I missed on my first campaign. This matches well with the rules for skill advancement (2-6 years), especially if we give players the option to go longer until their next module if they’re flush with cash and not (yet) desperate. The section on shore leave (P.39 of the PSG) also includes a handy example of play wherein the Warden is free to offer it at a range of price points in a single location if they think it’s reasonable.
In other words, there’s already a gameplay loop in the published material. Module > Spend Money Recovering/Improving > Module. Everything in between modules could reasonably be considered a Downtime Action and hence narratively flexible. So let’s see what we can add to this:
Addition 1 — Retirement Goal
Drawing from the tables on P.39 of the PSG and P.51 of the WOM we add the downtime action:
Bank Credits. Any port of B-Class or greater typically allows you to upload your credits to a retirement fund. This makes them safe from most forms of theft, taxation, loss etc but also makes them less efficient to liquidate — take a 50% cut on any credits you remove from the bank.
If you reach your retirement goal (minimum of 1mcr) you have the option to leave the freelancer life behind and start a new character. Congratulations! You have won Mothership™, at least until another player beats your high score/retirement lifestyle…
This gives the players a simple end goal, but one that is very hard to reach. And it’s made more difficult by the next new element.
Addition 2 — The Anti-Carousing Table
In the typical OSR gameplay loop, a carousing table represents the characters spending/wasting the vast sums of gold they’ve appropriated in their latest delve. Tasteless statues, drinking binges, donations to temples… d4caltrops has a good one here.
But that doesn’t quite fit with Mothership. This is setting that is about the grind, the corporate dystopia and the random events that can leave our once prosperous freelancer in a perilous situation.
If we assume that a PC who has survived a typical Mothership module is, at best, calculating the risk/reward of another one (and more likely avoiding it as long as possible) then there is no question of “wasting” credits. They will be easily spent on shore leave, retirement (see addition 1 above) and skills. We need to add some flavour to downtime and generate a risk of losing more money, but not a guarantee. Remember that not everything has to be strictly financial — stress, wounds and loss of equipment still have cost. Thus, I’ve written a d100 table where most of the results are credit loss or gaining stress. Example entries are given below.
Your typical week to week employment is enough to cover daily expenses, but will not add anything towards retirement or provide any savings. Whenever time (1d10 months) passes, roll d100 to determine what Life Event has happened to your character in this period of time.
04 — If you have a wound, it has healed naturally on its own. You assume this is just good luck and the passage of time, and choose not to check your rations.
16 — You help out a Contractor in a tight spot. Randomly generate them (P.41 PSG) and gain their services for free on the next module.
25 — Your last five packets of Astroids™ are all chocolate and have no crunchy caramel centres. This is the most interesting thing that has happened to you in this time.
33 — You are offered 1d10 x 10kcr for the data and rights to your complete genome.
42 — A random item in your possession is declared contraband and confiscated by the authorities.
57 — You are harassed by reporters and private investigators about a previous job. Increase minimum stress by 1.
61 — You find yourself at a high stakes’ poker game. Too high if you’re honest. Pass a Fear Save or lose 2d10kcr.
78 — Inevitable, unavoidable taxation. Lose 3d10kcr.
80 - The isolation and loneliness cause you to crack. Double your stress then gain 1 additional stress for each wound and/or condition you have.
99 — Following a crash landing, you are trapped for several days before being found. Gain 1 wound and 1d10 stress.
Note that if the crew has the resources, they can choose to let time pass multiple times to advance their skill training (or simply to push their luck on the above table).
But what happens if random costs like shore leave or those in the table above take characters into the red?
Addition 3 — Debt: The Ultimate Motivation
Mothership already has rules for debt (P.50 WOM) and plenty of people have worked on fleshing this out already (like this blogpost from Jack Shirai). This is just a simple adjustment to keep things moving in an interesting direction while minimising bookkeeping.
Debt is a constant, lurking fear in the world of Mothership. Unlike the other horrors of the rim, it cannot be contained by a steel bulkhead or decontamination protocol. Freelancers talk in whispers of the methods of payment — simple violence is one thing, but then there are the VR customer service roles where every shift lasts a year, live memory extraction for android personality construction, or hosting a portable research bio-reactor between your stomach and kidneys.
If your character ever drops below zero credits, do not record the negative balance. Instead, your character is now filled with purpose to clear the debt and avoid gaining more of it. The Warden will tell you whether a job offers enough to do either of those things, and whether there are any additional objectives that will earn more.
This may lead to situations where characters have secret objectives, benefit from the deaths of other player characters or generally take more extreme risks. As such, it should be discussed out of character via any safety tools/Session 0 being used at the table.
Wardens — remember you can always hand a player a blank scrap of paper with “Secret Objective” written on it if you don’t have any specific ideas. Suspicion from the other players will likely produce something interesting.
The Full Downtime Procedure
After a module has concluded, and assuming the crew can reach a place of relative safety, perform the following steps:
Restore HP to maximum and pay surviving crew members. The Warden may call for rolls and/or make rulings to cover unusual payouts. For example, an alien artifact may need an Intellect check to determine the time to sell and sale price achieved.
Perform any number of the following; Shore Leave (Warden determines what classes of Port are available), Buy/sell equipment (Warden determines if anything is hard to obtain), Medical Treatment (Warden can rule on procedures not covered by the PSG), Skill training (all costs are paid upfront).
Advance in-game time by 1d10 months. Each player rolls on the Life Event table.
Start a new module* or return to step 3 unless a character is in Debt. At the Warden’s discretion, some or all of the opportunities in step 2 may also be available.