This month’s pick is Mothership, the indie darling of sci-fi horror roleplaying from Tuesday Knight Games. After finally sitting down with a group over Discord to play through the Adrift scenario, I can confirm: this game doesn’t just simulate dying alone in space; it makes it poetic.
Mothership is a d100-based RPG where players take on the roles of desperate spacefarers (androids, scientists, marines, and teamsters) trying to survive in the cold, uncaring void. The system is lean, brutal, and stress-inducing by design. Characters are fragile, panic is inevitable, and the horror creeps in like radiation: slow, silent, and irreversible.
The game orchestrates horror. The mechanics are deceptively simple, but they’re tuned like a pressure valve, designed to escalate dread with every roll. At its core is the stress system, a mechanic that tracks mental strain. Every failed save, every eerie discovery, every moment of isolation adds to a character’s stress, which in turn increases the likelihood of panic. And panic isn’t just a mechanical hiccup, it’s a narrative rupture. It’s the moment the marine starts firing wildly, the scientist begins sobbing, the android locks the door behind them.
This feedback loop between stress and panic creates a rhythm of rising tension. It’s a slow, discordant build, like a heartbeat growing louder in a silent room. The game doesn’t need jump scares. It weaponises silence, ambiguity, and the players’ own imaginations. I do think that this game benefits from having a GM who isn’t afraid to let silences hang.
Character creation is fast, randomised, and potentially punishing. You’re sketching silhouettes, rather than drawing heroes. A few stats, a handful of gear, and a job title. But that minimalism is intentional. It invites projection. Players fill in the blanks with fears, flaws, and quiet desperation. And because death is always near, every choice feels like a gamble. Do you split the party to explore the darkened medbay? Do you trust the teamster who’s been acting strangely since the last jump? Do you open the airlock?
The mood is claustrophobic, but not just spatially. It’s emotional. The game thrives on mistrust, on the slow erosion of camaraderie. The ship becomes a crucible; sealed, humming, and indifferent. The scenario we played, Adrift, leans into this beautifully. You wake up alone, or nearly so. Systems are failing. Logs are corrupted. There’s no clear enemy, just the creeping certainty that something is wrong. And that wrongness isn’t external; it’s inside the ship, inside the crew, inside you. The session was short, sharp, and emotionally resonant. It reminded me of the best kind of theatre, where silence, tension, and subtext do the heavy lifting.
As Warden (GM), you’re less a storyteller and more a conductor of dread. You don’t need to push players toward horror; they’ll find it in the shadows, in the static, in each other. The mechanics ensure that even mundane actions like checking a terminal or opening a hatch carry weight. Every roll is a ritual. Every failure is a fracture.
Mothership feels like it shares a pedigree with Call of Cthulhu. That’s a big plus for me! It’s more stripped back, though. I doesn’t ask whether you can survive. Insteat, it asks how you’re going to break. And Adrift, as a scenario, gives you just enough space to answer that question in your own, beautifully doomed way.
No Rerolls 
I finally got to start a Mothership campaign a few weeks ago, it is indeed dope
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