Space Acid, the Mothership Mod

No need to write up a Space Opera retro-clone, just use Mothership as the basic rules chassis and modify from there. Then you are just creating a setting book instead of this comprehensive rule book. And it is really simple to do. Just add the 2 new character class options I have outlined at the end of this blog post!

Psychedelic Science-Fantasy

Space Acid is a science-fantasy roleplaying game. Science-fantasy stories often feature scientifically logical worlds with hard science-like explanations for supernatural elements. They may also include alternate or imaginary science and technology that is not possible based on known scientific laws.

A hybrid genre within speculative fiction, science fantasy simultaneously draws upon or combines tropes and elements from both science fiction and fantasy. In a conventional science fiction story, the world is presented as being scientifically logical, while a conventional fantasy story contains mostly supernatural and artistic elements that disregard the scientific laws of the real world. The world of science fantasy, however, is laid out to be scientifically logical and often supplied with hard science-like explanations of any supernatural elements. For this author Heavy Metal magazine typifies the best elements of the diverse world of science fantasy. For yourself it could be much different.

No matter, this kitchen-sink rule kit should provide more than enough tools to capture the spirit of your campaign. If you ever need inspiration for your next Space Acid adventure, thumb the catalogue of movies, comics, music, books, and magazines which brought this genre to life in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. There is literally a bottomless reservoir of material to draw from.

1.2 New Character Classes

Character creation follows the standard one-page procedure outlined in the Mothership core rules. There are two new character Classes to choose from. They are the Clone, and the Fixer. The Clone uses the Android Class but may freely choose the 3 Trained Skills they begin with. The Fixer uses the Teamster Class, but with Max Health being 3x Strength (not the normal 2x).

 

How to be a Professional Game Master

 Like many things in this hobby, you just need to get up and go at it! I'm "in-between" jobs right now so I decided I needed to generate some income via my life long passion, TTRPGs. You are going to need, want, and should set up a profile on startplaying dot games.

And a thumbnail. A really good thumbnail. Since people have only one way to see choices and make selections your front end pitch has to beat thousands of others vying for the same euro and dollar.

Move to a foreign country. Unless you already live somewhere that doesn't use the euro or dollar as their currency. Then stay right where you are and rise to the top 20% of income earners! Living in a third world country with their own currency will make the money you make from players exponentially "more";

Constantly churn options. If an offering isn't getting any hits you need to toss it and put up something new. The internet is a loop, continually spewing content like a news ticker at the bottom of your television screen. You need to be constantly feeding this loop with intriguing and flashy offerings. 

5E and Curse of Strahd. Be prepared to run a whole lot of this. Whatever WotC/Hasbro is doing you need to be right in their back pocket mimicking. In fact it is best to consider yourself a Mimic. An alluring trap which can change faces instantly. Then hang on with all you got and never let these people go. You need to shadow their life constantly and..... no, no, no, none of that. 

But marketing, marketing, marketing is the nit to crack to get steady money from the gig. I have been up and posting just this last week and have had one gig. This is from doing it all wrong and just winging it, like I do any game session. Hopefully I can turn this into some regular cash money so I never have to leave the house! Or where pants for that matter.

II Corp Continues to Struggle

 As this shot of Turn 28 shows, I have still not got a foothold any where along the Allied line. 

Looking at the start of turn 31 and it appears I have not made much of a dent in the Allied lines, because I haven't!

 The Allied troops have moved to the right of Wellington's line. His center is getting thin, and the fight for the highest point of the battlefield has seen several cavalry charges, intense artillery barrages, and infantry getting into sharp firefights. We both call this area the "Valley of Death!". I did take Hougomont, and received the Morale boost (20+ points), but it is because my opponent "gave" it to me instead of making me fight for it. There was some engagement with the skirmishers, but I foresee this location staying French.

Now it is turn 35, about 5:45 in the afternoon. The Prussians are on the board, and I have yet to puncture Wellington's lines. I'm poised to get elements of both I and II Corp into the Allied formations, but I think I will have complete army morale collapse before I can get the Imperial Guard into the fight.

Classic Traveller Skill System for NPCs

 I am not thrilled by the rule in Book 3 which states "Weapon skill is generally considered to be 1 for all encountered persons." The reason is it contradicts, if not by the letter, but spirit of the game, are the rules for Untrained Weapon Usage. Basically any character untrained in a weapons use is at a -5 penalty. But who are these untrained individuals? Yes, there are the rules surrounding Routine Encounters, but they merely suggest these NPCs need no statistics. They perform a function in the course of play and are usually ignored by the PCs. The amount of words used indicate it is an important distinction, trained/untrained use, seems out of place if all PCs have level zero in weapon skills, and unknown, unimportant NPCs have a skill of 1 with a weapon (if they have one). I ask again, who is this untrained penalty for?

Here is what I have decided to do. Refer to the Additional Weapons Table in the Encounter chapter of Book 3 to randomly determine skill, if any, an NPC has with the weapons in their hand. You use the Additional Weapons Table to determine if one of the NPCs in a group is "armed extraordinarily." Which I interpret as having more than one weapon. Kind of an involved table for such a simple decision. Instead, I will use the table to find out if any of the NPCs are untrained, have zero level, or skill level 1 in their weapon, or more! 

The way you use the table is to roll on the first column. If you get a result you stop. If no result you make another roll. Again, the same happens. Get a result you are done. If not make a final roll on the  third and final column. Instead of weapons I will interpret results as indicated skill level with weapon. On the first roll there is a 1-2 chance of the NPC (or group, for that matter) being untrained. Therefore incurring the -5 untrained penalty. Second roll there is a 1-3 chance the NPC is zero skill level, no minus or bonus. Third roll there is a 1-5 chance the NPC has the usual skill level 1. Still no result? Well than I guess the PCs have run into a stranger with a skill level 2 in their weapon!