My current weekly drop-in game of Mothership: Gradient Descent is now twelve sessions and thirteen characters deep. The extant four (or six, if you count my custom classes) Trauma Responses are starting to get old, so here are two more for each of the four core classes. I've roughly balanced these around the classes' default response, so the Teamster's is a bonus while all the others are various degrees of penalty.
Android
UNHANDLED EXCEPTION. The first time in a session you make a Panic Check, you automatically fail. Determine the result from valid entries at random.
ENFORCED EMPATHY. Whenever a human in Close range fails a save, gain 1 Stress.
UNCANNY VALLEY. Default trauma response.
Marine
NO KILL LIKE OVERKILL. If you’ve failed a Panic Check this session, you both deal and take damage with advantage for the rest of the session.
MAMA BEAR. If a crewmate is in immediate danger, you have disadvantage on Sanity saves and cannot reduce your Stress in any way (including with stimpaks).
IT'S GAME OVER, MAN. IT'S GAME OVER! Default Trauma Response.
Scientist
PARADIGM SHIFT. When you fail your first Panic Check of a session, get disadvantage on Intellect tests for the rest of the session.
I’M SURROUNDED BY IMBECILES! Whenever another character in Close range fails an Intellect or Sanity roll, gain 1 Stress.
INCONCEIVABLE! Default Trauma Response.
Teamster
TOOLS DOWN. When you fail your first Panic Check of a session, get advantage on Speed tests for the rest of the session.
SHAKE HANDS WITH DANGER. After you succeed on a Fear or Sanity save, lose 1 Stress.
Mothership is a wonder of concise and evocative design, but I most appreciate its brevity when it leaves me holes to fill with homebrew. Here's two more classes that fit the milieu.
SUIT
The Suit represents the Company. Demand results. Accept no excuses. Promotion or extinction. KPI your deliverables. Put the eye in team. Synthesize dynamic processes. Embrace gestalthacking. Act local, think Local Group.
+10 Intellect +10 Fear Save; +10 Body Save +1 Minimum Stress TRAUMA RESPONSE Whenever a Close friendly player makes a Panic test, lose 1 Stress.
CLASS SKILLS Business, Linguistics. Bonus: 1 Trained OR 1 Expert skill. All characters have access to two new skills: Business and Administration. Business is a
Trained (+10) skill that leads to Administration and Psychology;
Administration is an Expert (+15) skill that leads to Command.
LOADOUTS
Corporate attire (AP 1), VIP corporate keycard, shielded briefcase
Corporate attire (AP 1), HUD, satchel, small pet (synthetic)
Corporate attire (AP 1), revolver (6 rounds), recreational stims (as stimpak but restores no health, 2 doses)
Corporate attire (AP 1), combat shotgun (2 rounds), flag pin
Lounge wear (AP 1), portable computer, satchel, personal locator implant
Formal wear (AP 1), signature jewelry, corporate bank card
Armored suit (AP 3), bodyguard (see Contractors pg. 41)
Standard crew attire (AP 1), bioscanner, tranq pistol (6 shots)
Tracksuit (AP 2), water filtration thermos, PDA, stimpak
Club wear (AP 1), sunglasses, 2d10kcr
CRIMINAL (inspired by the Criminal class from the excellent Rimward Classes)
The Criminal survives where other crewmembers won’t, often at their expense. When the Company lies, cheats, steals, and kills, that’s just Business. Why is it that when you do the same, it’s called crime?
+5 Combat; +5 to 1 stat +10 Fear Save; +5 to 1 save
TRAUMA RESPONSE Once per session, when you Panic, you may force a Close friendly player to Panic instead.
CLASS SKILLS Rimwise. Bonus: 1 Trained and 1 Expert skill.
LOADOUTS
Standard crew attire (AP 1), lockpick set, crowbar, rucksack
Standard crew attire (AP 1), nail gun, explosives & detonator
Standard crew attire (AP 1), playing cards, cigarettes
Lab coat (AP 1), scalpel, recreational stims (6 doses)
Vaccsuit (AP 3), hand welder, vaccsuit patch kit (x3)
Lounge wear (AP 1), portable computer, radio jammer, electronic tool set
Corporate attire (AP 1), revolver (5 rounds), pet (synthetic)
Heavy duty work clothes (AP 2), bioscanner, vibechete
Travel between star systems is achieved through the jump drive, a technology that lets a ship translate itself into the higher-dimensional parallel realm of gate-space and back into real space at specific naturally-occuring "jump points" or through artificially induced jump gates. Distances in gate-space are sufficiently different to realspace to permit travel between star systems on the order of weeks or months. Gate-space and realspace only coincide at jump points and gates; objects in gatespace cannot otherwise interact with realspace and vice versa (as far as modern science is aware). Jump points can be calculated at long distance given sufficient information about the gravitational bodies in a star system.
You can forego asking a question to reduce the number of complications you suffer by 1.
Interstellar Travel
Travel through gate-space costs fuel just like through realspace. While relative distances don't proportionately translate, most para-astrogation charts measure stars' distances in "jumps". 1 fuel gets you 1 jump of travel. Make the Exploration roll each time you enter into realspace from a jump point.
Questions Who do I know here? Where in this system is safest to rest and restock? What threats can we expect in this system? What's the most dangerous threat to us in this system? What's being hidden from the wider galaxy? Where are we?
Complications 1. Deplete fuel by 1 level. 2. Deplete rations by 1 level. 3. Gain 1 level of Stress. 4. System failure aboard ship, will require repairs. 5. Contact inbound, hailing your ship. 6. Someone in the system is immediately hostile to you - and they know you're here.
Interplanetary Travel
The fuel cost to travel between two bodies in one star system is the
number of orbits they are apart. This can be reduced by 1 for each
planet you get a gravity assist from on the way, though common assist
trajectories are often policed, taxed, or raided. Make the Exploration roll each time you enter the orbit of a planet or sensor range of a station (if it's your destination, or you're getting a gravity assist from it).
Questions
Who do I know on this planet (or station or moon or whatever)?
Where can we safely land?
What's the greatest danger to us here?
What is the hardest threat to notice here?
What's out of place here?
What's recently happened here?
Complications
1. Deplete fuel by 1 level. 2. Deplete rations by 1 level. 3. Gain 1 level of Stress. 4. System failure aboard ship, will require repairs. 5. Contact inbound, hailing your ship. 6. Someone near this planet is hostile to you - and they know you're here.
Stress, among other things, provides -1 to future Exploration rolls. It can be reduced by getting proper R&R in port, or with a variety of medications that have interesting side effects.
System Generation
Systems have 3d4 orbits, each filled on the following d20 table. If the resulting system lacks jump points or stations with jump gates, add one in so the players can actually get there.
The galaxy is a stranger place than we could ever have imagined. If some
of these results don't make sense at first glance, justify them
yourself (that's half the fun). Write new tables for habitation, for plot
hooks, for factions inhabiting these systems - Deep Space Bitches might
end up using this for setting generation. The implied setting below is
vaguely similar to Mothership, a corporatist spacefuture with lots of
ill-fated ventures that go horribly wrong but manage to hang on in new
and fascinating dystopian conditions.
What's in this orbit? (d20) 1. Terrestrial planet, class Red. Desert, no surface liquid water. Reference Sol IV "Mars", Luyten's Star III "Arrakis". 2. Terrestrial planet, class Orange. Inhospitably hot, typically due to proximity to star and/or tectonic activity. Reference Proxima Centauri I, Delta Pavonis V "Haven" (and accompanying 23XX Haven Goldrush Crisis documentation). 3. Terrestrial planet, class Yellow. Dense, toxic atmosphere. Reference Sol II "Venus". 4. Terrestrial planet, class Green. Lush, extensive biosphere. Highly valuable, most often product of terraforming. Reference Sol III "Earth" and Epsilon Indi IV "Chen's World" for naturally occurring class Green worlds; Procyon VIa "Novaterra" for successful induction and maintenance of class Green conditions on a gas giant moon. 5. Terrestrial planet, class Blue. Primarily liquid surface; not necessarily liquid water. Reference Alpha Centauri II "Cetacea". 6. Terrestrial planet, class Purple. Inhospitably cold, due to distance from primary or atmospheric composition. Reference 61 Cygni V "Billiard", Sol IX "Pluto" (EDITOR'S NOTE: Planetary status irrelevant to example. Whether it's a dwarf planet or a planet-planet, it's still cold. Discussion locked). 7. Terrestrial planet, class Grey. Barren, deemed unfit for human settlement. Covers a myriad range of conditions - high/low gravity, radiation, hostile presence, absence of profitable resources. Reference Sol I "Mercury", Gliese 876 VII "K'thhz". 8. Roll twice and combine (on an 8, roll an extra d8, keep going).
9. Gas giant, class Magenta. Faint ring, d4 major moons (roll up as terrestrial planets). Reference Sol V "Jupiter".
10. Gas giant, class Coral. Major ring, d2 major moons. Reference Sol VI "Saturn". 11. Superjovian sub-brown-dwarf, class Maroon. Reference DT Virginis c. 12. Ice giant, class Navy. d2 major moons. Reference Sol VIII "Neptune", inner-system hot-Neptune Gliese 687 II. 13. Ice giant, class Cyan. Ringed, d2 major moons. Reference Sol VII "Uranus". 14. Asteroid field. 15. Asteroid field, d3 dwarf planets (treat as moons). 16. Debris field (d3: 1. hulled stations, 2. starship junkyard, 3. battlefield debris). 17. Station. 18. Station and jump gate. 19. Jump point (natural). 20. Anomaly. Roll for 3 keywords that describe it on the following d20 table. 1. RELIC 2. CONSCIOUS 3. VAST 4. GATE 5. GROWING 6. VALUABLE 7. ARTIFICIAL 8. ONE-OF-MANY 9. SHROUDED 10. TRAVELLING 11. ORGANIC 12. HOLY 13. SWARM 14. WORLD 15. DEAD 16. CLOUD 17. SIGNALLING 18. INHABITED 19. HOSTILE 20. PARACAUSAL
Terrestrial planets (results 1-10) have d4-1 moons. Just because a terrestrial planet isn't class Green doesn't imply there's no life, just that it's orders of magnitude less prevalent than Earth - extremophiles develop and thrive in a wondrous range of environments.
Often, a planet cannot be described with a single class designation; standard Agency recording process is to mark down two primary classes and put further clarification in addenda. Examples follow, planet designations referenced from deep-storage archive THRONE-OF-SALT.
Gliese 687 I "Han Xiangzhi", Red-Orange. Hyperactive tectonics cause constant lava flows, surface comprised of shifting plains of igneous rock. Surface changes on scale of decades, rather than millennia, exposing valuable minerals that require rapid extraction for maximized rate of return.
Wolf 1061 IV "St. Severian", Red-Yellow. Global dust storms of micronized silicates abrade unshielded survey equipment and environment suits within hours. Inhalation through standard suit filters causes permanent lung damage.
Luyten's Star III "Arrakis", Red-Green. Dunes conceal vast ecosystem mirroring sea life, but under sand. Source of "sandwurm" pest species and apex predator (Harenaevurmis shaihulud) now endemic to most deserts on life-bearing class Red planets.
61 Cygni I "Mirror Mirror", Red-Blue. Planet's surface covered in thin film of mercury (average recorded depth, excluding outliers: 0.3 meters).
61 Cygni V "Billiard", Red-Purple. Frozen wasteland. Nevertheless, prevalent helium-3 deposits make mining a profitable enterprise.
Epsilon Eridani IV "Dead Heat", Red-Grey. Plans to bombard planet with ice comets from outer system lost economic traction after crash of 'XX. Stellar radiation stripped away what little atmosphere the project had created. Remaining colonists and support workers evacuated (survival rate 85% immediate, 25% ten-year projection). Grey status appended.
Sol II "Venus", Orange-Yellow. High-pressure sulfuric atmosphere, theorized to be the result of a runaway greenhouse effect. Aerostats can be floated on the upper atmosphere with little difficulty, where temperatures are comfortable compared to the blistering surface.
Delta Pavonis III "Lathe",Orange-Green. Organisms that would be considered extremophiles in Earth-based biospheres can independently flourish in vastly different conditions. Undersea vents on Earth play host to sulfur-metabolizing archaeobacteria, and hothouse worlds have been found to play host to entire ecosystems of sessile or free-floating colony-creatures that evolved in an environment where those conditions are common.
Epsilon Indi A I "Whiskey-on-the-Rocks", Orange-Blue. Oceans perpetually boiling, storming. Only source of liquid water in system.
YZ Ceti II "Chimera", Orange-Purple. Tidally locked; one side burning, one side freezing. Efforts to classify tidally locked planets in their own color, due to their prevalence, are ongoing.
Barnard's Star I "Hellmouth", Orange-Grey. Small, close to its parent star. Metal deposits are relatively poor, but proximity has led to disputes between rival hypercorporate celebrity-executives over who gets to dismantle it to build a Dyson swarm (a concept which still remains outside their capabilities, according to Agency analysts).
Lacaille 9352 III "Sekhmet", Yellow-Green. Atmosphere filled with fungal blooms; corrode most metals, all organics not native to the planet. Ecosystem fascinating, diverse, and hyper-competitive on microscopic level, atmosphere ensures nothing larger survives.
Teegarden's Star II "Circe", Yellow-Blue. Ammonia oceans and atmosphere. Avoids class Grey status because of ease of harvesting by properly shielded craft, necessity for farming and terraforming operations in-system and across sector.
Struve 2398 B IV "Menelik", Yellow-Purple. Cold, dense atmosphere where semi-solid cloudbergs drift across the sky. Construction of sky-palaces for tourist ventures and megarich getaways currently underway, highly promising.
Groombridge 34 A VII "Bad News", Yellow-Grey. Atmosphere of volatile fluorides. Miraculous that it hasn't exploded yet.
Sol III "Earth", Green-Blue. Class maintained through artificial reterraforming/radiation-scrubbing techniques and legacy status due to cultural importance to off-world population.
Sirius V "Nessus", Green-Purple. Highly elliptical orbit has led to ecosystem that hibernates in near-cryostasis conditions for centuries, waking for a decade on close approach to its star. First waking cycle since initial discovery will occur in X years.
Wolf 359 II !!QUARANTINE ZONE DO NOT APPROACH!!, Green-Grey. BREACH OF QUARANTINE VOIDS HUMAN-SPACE RIGHTS TO LANDING, RESUPPLY, TRIAL BY JURY.
Tau Ceti IV "Ram Setu", Blue-Purple. Water oceans beneath ice crust, kept liquid by tidal forces. Green status rejected due to corporate request despite recent megafauna discoveries to protect sub-crustal hotels from environmentalist interference.
GJ 1061 VI "So I Get to Name This Planet Anything I Want?", Blue-Grey. Ocean of hydrochloric acid makes mining operations economically unfeasible.
Interstellar Object 9b2193r.3X12 "Polyphemus", Purple-Grey. Rogue planet. Location discovered in course of establishing trade route through third-expansion antispinward worlds. Subject of various baseless conspiracy theories, equidistant position from twelve different ICARUS AXIOM anomalies deemed coincidental.
Each terrestrial planet, gas giant, asteroid field, anomaly, or jump point may have d3-1 notable stations.
Roll again for each planet, moons, or station to see if it's inhabited. Based on how developed you want the system to be, it can be anything from 1-in-6 to a 5-in-6 chance. Then, roll for the nature of the habitation (d20) 1. Metropolitan hub, administrative/luxury. 2. Metropolitan hub, manufacturing. 3. Metropolitan hub, independent. 4. Waystation port, refueling/resupply. 5. Extractive operation (1. precious metals, 2. food, 3. water, 4. helium-3 fuel, 5. plastics, 6. unique). 6. Research installation. 7. Outlaws. Left alone by authorities, for now. 8. Wildlife preserve. 9. Refugee camps fleeing recent disaster in-system. 10. Luxury production (1. medical, 2. entertainment, 3. technology, 4. vacation destination, 5. fashion, 6. food) 11. Frontier goldrush, started d20 years ago. The higher the number, the closer it is to fizzling out. 12. Subsistence farming, mostly self-sufficient. Have adapted to environment in novel ways. 13. First-wave colony, from pre-FTL era. Diverged for centuries without outside contact. 14. Trillionaire's private world. Playground for their whims. 15. Fortification, tactically vital for system/sector defense. Fleet in parking orbit, armed to the teeth. 16. Starship drydock and construction facility (1. military, 2. corporate, 3. local planetary gov't, 4. independent, 5. criminal, 6. contested between 2+ factions). 17. Archeological dig 18. Experimentalist colony (1. anarcho-capitalist, 2. doomsday cult, 3. fascist ethnonationalist, 4. leftist splinter, 5. singularitarian transhumanist, 6. historical reconstructionist). 19. Roll twice, both are present. 20. Roll three times, all three are present.
Some stations will be uninhabited. No station is built and just left there - there's a reason it was abandoned. 1. Plague. 2. War. 3. Famine. 4. Necropolitics. 5. Cult ideology. 6. Economic incentives. 7. Lost funding before completion. 8. Failed uprising. 9. Mechanical failure, 5d20% evacuated. 10. [CLASSIFIED]
For baseline humans, even the fastest interstellar travel is boring. You're trapped in a metal box with people you'll swiftly grow to resent even if you're close friends, recycling all your air and water and biomass in an endless cycle that only gets more nervewracking as the walls close in and the stars grow coldly menacing. You tread the same corridors day after day, weathering a dull routine into your mind as you watch your instruments for danger that will never come (but if it does, you will all die, quickly, cold and impossibly alone).
Jumpspace is worse, as the ship's windows turn to blind-spots that the eye refuses to parse. Vision slips across the opposite of space, and even when all the shutters slide closed, the underlying wrongness of existing in that dimension bites at your bones, twists your skin, and knots your nerves.
And the waiting, the endless interminable waiting, becomes far worse if you know nothing but death may await you at journey's end. Soldiers often travel in cryosleep so they don't have to contemplate their fate for months on end. Mercenaries and adventurers that need a full complement to run their ships rarely have that luxury. Distractions are essential when tensions run high and anxiety floods the corridors like an electrical fire.
Stress
1 baseline. Humans were never meant to ply the void.
+1 per jump.
+1 if ship is overcrowded.
+1 if the ship is going into a dangerous situation.
+1 for each unexpected diversion before the crew arrives at their destination.
+1 if alone
-1 for each unique morale-building event you participate in.
-1 for each amenity (like holosuites, competent cuisine, drugs, etc) on board.
Some metahuman subspecies are better (or worse) adapted to space. This can add or subtract Stress from individual totals. Similarly, if one character indulges in their secret stash of Pandoran writheweed, or two characters have a truly legendary breakup, that might change their totals too.
At the end of the trip, total up the list, each crew rolls to see how much Stress they gain. Crew in cryosleep gain 2 Stress no matter what; cryo is the cheap option for non-essentials who don't need to be carefully maintaining the ship. Long-haul colony ships have low passage berths for cheap travellers who won't (or, usually, can't) pay for the amenities needed to keep them engaged for the trip's duration. Don't mind the cryoburn. Here's the studies that show the chances of neural degradation on newer models are down orders of magnitude from last generation. And hey, if something in jumpspace decides the ship looks tasty, you'll be asleep for it...
The morale-building events are the meat of this system. In space, you're going to have to relax somehow. A poker table has sufficed for many a small crew. A competent chef with a well-stocked kitchen (none of that freeze-dried crap) does wonders. Spacers have made up an esoteric set of holidays to celebrate, just to pass the time. On larger cruisers, there may be computer systems dedicated to running VR sims, and luxury ships might even build in entire terraria for the crew (or more likely, the ship's owner) to pretend they're back planetside.
Others might have ship's bars complete with hired bartenders (though what the bartenders do to keep their stress down is a well-kept secret). Ships too small for bars regularly have stills in the engine room, fermenting a frightening variety of life-support fungi, megayeast cultivars, and the odd jumpspace lichen into potent brews ranging from surprisingly light fruity spritzers to universal solvents. And alcohol is but the most common relaxation incentive, with a whole suite of exciting spacedrugs on offer at the local spaceport. Some are even legal (depending on jurisdiction and corporate sponsor)!
Of course, there's a set of Company-approved morale-building exercises, complete with worksheets and paperwork. Mostly, they boil down to team-building problem sets and unimaginative, sanitized VRscapes. Genetic and psychometric compatibility tests are used to engineer and sometimes mandate relationships between crewers, with universally disastrous results.
Love within the crew tends to be frowned upon by most captains. A breakup can sour the mood until everyone involved's contracts are up, and let's face it: bulkheads between bunkrooms are thin. That said, gossip and rumor spread through ships like wildfire no matter who's sleeping with whom.
Creative endeavors are the go-to for some crews. Collaborative storytelling, songwriting, poetry nights, art, even tabletop role-playing games... anything that gets the crew together and lets them escape their day-to-day drudgery. These get shared around, but often it's far more covert than it would have been in decades past - once the Company caught word, an IP clause became standard in contracts, giving the contracting company exclusive rights to all works created on their ships. What are you gonna do, starve or accept the terms and conditions?
Song is a constant companion. Every crew has that one crusty old spacer with a guitar, a croon, and a head full of old shanties they've learned over their decades spacing. Some stretch back to the first days of spaceflight on Earth, before the first jump breach, before even the disastrous first Mars Landings and the Liar's Flight. Here's a few for table ambience.
Games turn to more dangerous competitions. Undercity fight clubs on space stations often welcome competitors from whichever ships are in port, and so some spacers put their pride in their fists and aim, letting off steam by sparring with their crewmates. The occasional captain turns this into a way to maintain hierarchy, resulting in the tradition of Klingon promotion re-emerging so far from its origins in centuries-old space operas.
