Combat in Mothership rpg really doesn’t have to be complicated

The Alexandrian did a piece a couple of months back about combat in Mothership 1e, and how it’s a little confusing with the rules as written. It seems that there’s some discrepancy between the core books about the exact process.

Specifically, the ‘Player’s Survival Guide’ has a Violent Encounters section which indicates that all rolls are made player facing - that is, the players roll for their check and the monsters automatically succeed if the players fail.

This contrasts against the ‘Unconfirmed Contact Reports’ book, which serves as a kind of Monster Manual, whereby the monsters are given Combat and Instinct stats which imply that the Warden rolls for monster combat.

Having scoured the official Discord for interpretations, I’ve discovered that the author, Sean Mccoy, prefers the player facing method and merely presents the other option (perhaps somewhat confusingly) as a choice.

So how does the player facing method work exactly?

As I understand it, the way it’s supposed to work all combat is simultaneous. Get rid of your D&D baggage about every character having their own turn, in this, the Warden begins by telegraphing the monsters action:

Warden: “The monster starts hurtling down the corridor towards Tommy, it’s going to violently pin you to the ground“

Then the players say what they’re all going to do in response. Now, they aren’t limited to doing actions that would nullify the monsters telegraphed attack, they can do whatever they want within the boundaries of 1 move and 1 action, but for the sake of Tommy, it’s probably a good idea:

Tommy: “Can I dive down the laundry shoot off to my side?“

Then the Warden has to decide if what Tommy is doing automatically succeeds, or if he wants him to roll. For the record, I’d let him auto succeed because Mothership is supposed to reward clever play over last resort dice rolling.

Warden: “Great, Tommy dives down the laundry shaft just as the monster pounces, missing you by inches…“

The key thing to remember with this is that the players can’t do actions that would take an amount of time greater than the amount of time implied by the monsters telegraphed attack. This is one of those things that everyone can police at the table quite easily. After one round like this, the Warden needs to decide if combat continues or not. If so, rinse and repeat!

Doesn’t sound particularly complicated, what’s the fuss?

Bringing me back to the Alexandrian then. Reading between the lines, Justin’s principle issue seems to be with what I refer to as “GM Conflict of Interest“. This is where a GM has that awkward internalised battle between executing the most tactically advantageous move for this allegedly deadly monster, or giving the PC a fighting chance and pulling your punches.

Mothership exaggerates this phenomenon because the monsters don’t have to roll to see if their attacks succeed, which means that the Warden is pretty much directly choosing whether or not to put the PC in a ‘save or die’ position.

Fortunately, I believe there is a solution to this problem. If we look to Free League’s Alien RPG, they have a system whereby the monsters roll against a table to see what their close combat action will be, and these results generally range from nothing, to panic inducing, to trapping, to mild, heavy, and fatal attacks.

We can incorporate this into Mothership. At the point where the Warden telegraphs threat, (unless it seems obvious to them what the monster should do next) they first roll against a table and then interpret the results given the situation. The result will be the threat that is telegraphed.

Sorted, no more GM Conflict of Interest - the dice gods have decided.

Did you whip up a little table for us then Jimmi?

You can bet your sweet potatoes I did! Without further ado, I give you the Monster Action Decision Table:

| d10 | Telegraphed action

| 1 | Monster withdraws

| 2 | Temp withdraw / Setup ambush

| 3 | Force a save

| 4 | Flip the terms of engagement

| 5 | Force a panic check

| 6 | Trap someone

| 7 | Light attack

| 8 | Medium attack

| 9 | Heavy attack

| 10 | Fatal / Signature attack

It’s worth giving a bit of an explanation for some these:

“Temp withdraw / Setup ambush“ as opposed to running away, the monster feigns a retreat, and if pursued it pounces from the shadows!

“Flip the terms of engagement” means to fundamentally alter the nature of the combat scenario to make it more advantageous for the monster, for example, turn out the lights or spray acid blood all over the floor.

“Trap someone” can mean pinning someone down, grappling onto them, or simply cornering them as you slowly advance, mandible jaw dripping with vile intent…

“Fatal / Signature attack“ in the context of a Xenomorph, this would be using it’s wicked little inner mouth to perform a fatal head bite. This result will clearly vary from monster to monster, and environment to environment. Maybe the 3 headed dog shoves you off a cliff?

The “light”, “medium”, and “heavy” attacks respectively will also depend on the monster in question, to calculate their damage I’d reduce each damage potential by a third. So starting with the Heavy attack with the maximum damage potential as written in your module, say 3d10 if that’s what it was, that’d mean I’d make Medium attacks be 2d10, and Light’s would be 1d10

Conclusion

What do you think? Simply take advantage of your dice to remove the headache of GM Conflict of Interest, and fix the biggest problem with Mothership’s combat!

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