SUPER HARD SCI-FI

[Mothership] Making Panicking More Fun: Part 2

A crack. A door buckles. A looming figure ducks into the corridor ahead of you obscured by steam and flickering emergency lights. It roars and begins to charge. You instinctively step back. Pull up your weapon to take a shot. The Warden asks for a Fear save, you fail. Give me a Panic roll! Your stress is high. Too high. This is bad. You roll 12! Shit! You're... HAUNTED: you will be visited by something in your dreams tonight? Don't worry about it, a space monster has just cut your head off instead.

TLDR: Scroll to the bottom for a new, alternative Mothership Panic table.

The stress and panic system in Mothership is fantastic, but as someone who almost exclusively plays one-shots with fresh characters every game the Panic table is not exactly ideal. It seems great for campaigns, and making a list of 20 interesting things with increasing severity is a hell of a challenge! (So, please don't hate me Mothership lords Sean McCoy and Alan Gerding!).

In my previous post I talked about one solution: Individualised panic tables for each player. Let me tell you now, after some testing this does not work (at least not for one-shots!). So, in the interest of science, today I shall propose a new, brilliantly novel idea: Create a different panic table (in fact, more than one). If you are interested in this I also highly recommending taking a look at this blog post too: review of every entry in the Mothership panic table.

A New Panic Table

My issue with the Panic Table in 1e is that there are very few immediate effects that occur that impact the game straight away in interesting ways. The issue being that although players feel scared of stress ticking up, the pay off when you do panic is usually a minor or irrelevant penalty. The thing is, making a panic table that has options that are relevant to every situation is pretty much impossible. If you are facing down a monster you don't want to suddenly become scared of enclosed spaces, or when you are exploring a quiet derelict spaceship you don't want to find you can't reload your gun for 1d10 minutes.

My solution to this would be that we have several tailored panic tables. Sort of how the wound tables work currently. We could have one for combat, one for when we are being hunted by a monster, one for general exploration, and even one that adds some unexpected spice into a scenario (i.e., that wetware nano-sword implant that has never worked suddenly pierces your skin and demands blood.).

Okay, so thats cool, but also a lot of work. To give you an idea of what I mean though here is an entirely untested Panic Table I've put together with more "immediate" effects. I'll be testing this out in my upcoming games but I'd be interested to hear what others make of it. I've added some new mechanics:

Panic Table: Any conditions can be removed with a successful Psychology or Pharmacology roll.

  1. Adrenaline Rush. [+] for 1d10 minutes.
  2. Panic Attack. Tear off any armour. Refuse to put on anything but loose civilian clothes.
  3. Safe Space. Add your current location as a Master skill, add this to any rolls in this location. All other locations make Fear Save / +2 stress.
  4. Obsession. Add another PC as a Trained skill. If your roll involves helping them in any way, add this skill. If they are not near, Fear Save / +2 stress. If they die or get annoyed at you, Sanity Save / +2 & Panic.
  5. Blame. Choose a PC. Blame them for everything going wrong. Every opportunity tell them how they are screwing up. If they or someone else fight back, Sanity save / +2 and Panic.
  6. Phobia. The Warden picks an item that you are afraid of. Any time you encounter it do whatever you can to get away or destroy it or Sanity save / +2 stress and Panic.
  7. Deflection. Choose an NPC. Blame them for everything going wrong. Attack them or Sanity Save / +2 & Panic.
  8. Divine Intervention. Tell everyone how your god will save you. If anyone disagrees, Fear Save / +2 and Panic. Add God as a trained skill. If you do not use this skill for a roll, Sanity Save / +2.
  9. Weakened. Your body drains of strength. Half maximum HP.
  10. Unhinged. [-] on all Sanity saves.
  11. Headaches. [-] on Intellect rolls.
  12. Hero Complex. Add the Master skill ‘Heroic Act’. When used take 2d10 DMG and remove this skill.
  13. Safety Item. Add a Trained skill associated with an item. Any time you don’t use this item during a skill check, Sanity Save / +2 stress.
  14. Uncertainty. Decisions become hard to make. [-] on Speed rolls.
  15. Shock. Your body shakes. [-] on strength tests.
  16. Panicked. [-] on next roll.
  17. Nervous. [-] on combat rolls.
  18. Vindictive. Gain [+] on all rolls for 1d10 minutes if your actions result in another player getting a wound.
  19. Hateful. Whenever someone succeeds at a roll, put them down. Gain +1 to Fear. If anyone challenges you Sanity Save / +2 stress, Panic, -20 from Fear.
  20. Broken. Try to attack yourself in any way you can. If someone stops you from hurting yourself you collapse to the ground crying. [-] on all future rolls.