Mothership

[Linden]

Sci-Fi horror rpg with an Event Horizon/Aliens feel perhaps geared towards transitioning D&D playing types to something a little different.

http://www.tuesdayknightgames.com/mothership

Not that sold on a lot of the mechanics (you have to beat your opponents armour saving throw to hit and do damage) and some of the supplementary material is poor: Very much of the bolt-on-a-random-table variety. That said there have been some good adventures for it and I enjoyed the one off session where I was a player. I'd certainly consider running a Lovecraftian game of this in the Cthulhu Rising universe or using Paul Elliot's free Traveller settings. Reasonably priced as well.

[ReHerakhte]

Thanks for the heads-up, I wasn't aware of this one.
Interesting to see all the praise being heaped onto it (by the truckload it feels like), specifically by "names" in the industry. I haven't seen many reviews yet and most of those I have seen agree with your critique so I get the feel that a lot of that praise is hype rather than genuine review of its flaws and strengths.

[Linden]

I get the feel that a lot of that praise is hype rather than genuine review of its flaws and strengths.

I think you're right there mate, I was mystified by the amount of people who were foaming all over it. Undeniably the game has some interesting ideas but a lot of the mechanics belong back in the 1980s if not earlier.

[ReHerakhte]

It seemed that the reviews from industry insiders were all gushing over how wonderful Mothership was and that sort of thing activates my cynic gene
The reviews from non-industry types were more balanced and happy to praise the strengths while pointing out its flaws.
This whole nostalgia kick bothers me more often than not. Some of those rules from the 1980s were as stodgy as a bag of wet rice so just adopting any old set because "nostalgia", isn't automatically going to give you a good product. Some of these Gen-Y game producers desperately need to learn that.

[Linden]

Some of those rules from the 1980s were as stodgy as a bag of wet rice

I'm amazed that a modern game would feature a rule where body armour makes you more difficult to hit. Having tried on a Vietnam era flak jacket and a present day police issue stab vest I don't think either of them would do much to reduce my target profile in a scrap as I waddled around trying not to get clouted.

It's actually worse than that though because a good armour roll negates all the damage from a hit. Consequently combats have the potential to drag on for ages. Or be over in a few seconds. Not much nuance to it.

Only having four character types strikes me as a clanger too, especially the lack of Corporate/Suit No Vickers or Burke types which surely must count as a major omission?

[ReHerakhte]

Having done a little bit of work on late 20th/early 21st century body armour for a few games (a tiny number of games admittedly) I have come to really dislike the notion that armour makes you harder to hit. It would be very different if we were talking about say, medieval era armour that was designed to deflect sword blows or something of that nature but armour designed to counter firearms doesn't have that luxury.
Overall though, there's something I like even less than that notion, level-up game rules (e.g. D&D) for any modern based game setting, especially when it comes to modern firearms. I simply cannot suspend my disbelief enough to live with the idea that a high level warrior can shrug off a couple of rounds from a shotgun and be fine.

As for the combat in Mothership, I'll base my response on how I've found combat in the latest edition of D&D - dull & uninspired, and it either drags on for ages or is all over in a few seconds... sounds familiar...
At least with earlier editions of D&D they took account of weapon type versus armour type, weapon speeds and so on and if you really wanted to get into some nitty-gritty, there were some optional rules for materials that weapons & armour were made from, making a difference to combat e,g, steel versus copper weapons.

Mother ship sounds interesting enough but I'd be using the word setting and a better set of rules if I was going to run it.
However, I reckon the Cepheus engine games emulate those 1980s-90s sci-fi movies better than Mothership so I'd probably just use them instead!

[Linden]

Mother ship sounds interesting enough but I'd be using the word setting and a better set of rules if I was going to run it.
However, I reckon the Cepheus engine games emulate those 1980s-90s sci-fi movies better than Mothership so I'd probably just use them instead!

That's interesting - my feeling was that it was a bit sketchy on setting. I might consider using Mothership in the Cthulhu Rising universe, if I was trying to get some D&D heads to play a sci-fi game. I do think it's retro-mechanics hark back to Dungeons and Dragons and thus it might be ideal for getting fantasy types interested in something a bit different to their usual fare. Maybe that's what's intended?

If using Cepheus I'd go with Hostile or Paul Elliot's free Outworld Authority/Kosmos 68 sector write ups.

Thought Cepheus Light wasn't a bad set of rules. In dire need of a decent editor but still a fine distillation of the parent game.