I'm Doing My Part!
Talking with Hammer City Games about military campaigns in Mothership
Hammer City Games is back with Starships & Soldiers, their new Mothership module packed with high-stakes military sci-fi action. With just 48 hours left on BackerKit, I sat down with the team to talk about the project, their inspirations, and what players can expect. It was a blast diving into their design process and the gritty, military gameplay they’re bringing to the table—check out the interview below and don’t miss your chance to back it before time runs out!
Sean: I gotta start off by saying, I just love the cover art for Starships & Soldiers. I’ve really wanted us to dive more into the marine side of Mothership for a long time, but we haven’t been able to make that happen. What’s the history of this book? How did you get here?
Hammer City Games: I think my creative process for the supplement came when I wanted to make a standalone TTRPG called Starships & Soldiers, and got to work trying to make a new-ish system, battlefield content, airstrikes, etc. etc., everything you’ve seen in Helldivers 2. It wasn’t until a few months ago I realized that it would be easy to slot into the Mothership system, especially after reading through MeatCastle Games’s Ultimate Badass rules (which I asked his permission to add to the supplement barring his reading of the content to ensure it felt appropriate).
One of the biggest things that made me want to make it as well was the lack of a dedicated Planetary System Generator in any of the MoSh supplements I’ve read. As much as people love to make their own planets and stars and systems and weird space anomalies, no one has really gone the Traveller route of making a bunch of tables to interlock and do all the hard work FOR you. As an old Game Master once said: “A good GM creates scenarios. A great GM makes tables”. So hopefully with this, everyone that uses it will be a great GM (in theory)!
Sean: I know what you mean, for awhile we did avoid making that sort of Traveller or SWN style procedural content so I’m glad to see someone is picking up the baton. Have you run any campaigns like this before? Military style campaigns? What have you found worked? What didn’t work?
Hammer City Games: I have run a few, though more in the style of Wargame campaigns that had an overarching narrative connected to them. When it comes to TTRPGs with more military-style theming and structure, I think the best way to go about it is how Arneson and Gyax did it back in the day: as much as they had their wargame battles with their Napoleonic-era figures, they also had roleplay sections with troop morale, after battle reports, etc.
Another way I see it is sort of having “away from the action” vignettes like Delta Green, how the case never really leaves the players and even as they interact with the normal world in more mundane sessions, the haunting nature of their works always follows them. For S&S, as much as it can be easy to build a battlefield and throw players into the blender, the use of the battlefield should be sparing. A frequent cycle of battlefield grit, espionage, even politicking would go a long way to make it feel more than just a wargame with a d100 system. As much as there is horror in war…well, eventually almost getting killed can be repetitive. Which is exactly why the zine is built as a toolkit, NOT an adventure.
Sean: That sounds awesome. Do you have any tools or guidance for these away from the action style vigniettes in S&S? Speaking of horror in war, is this more on the sci fi side of things or do you get into any horror in the book?
Hammer City Games: With the way funding is going, I may have to add “post-battle vignettes” as another stretch goal…though I don’t wanna say that TOO quickly, lest I can’t stuff everything into 60 pages or less!
While my specialty when it comes to RPGs is in horror, this is far and above a more combat and militaristically-themed Zine, probably my least horror-themed RPG project to date. But, though there’s no DIRECT horror, I will say that there are bits of implied horror in the planetary system generator. Hopefully enough to spur some ideas and get GMs chewing the scenery - in a good way.
Sean: What are the big influences you had going into this book? What’s the Appendix N of S&S?
Hammer City Games: Centrally Starship Troopers (I do make sure both the book AND the movie are referenced, as the book is a militaristic utopia, and the movie is a fascist satire, both equally important to consider) Helldivers 2, Killzone 2 (huge inspiration honestly), Halo, Stellaris, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (say what you will, but the game was A E S T H E T I C), and for the implied horror, All Tomorrows. There are some overlaps between S&S and Graveyard of the Gods which can be found in the text at certain points, so this is technically part of the Star Gods Series I’m making.
Sean: I hadn’t heard of All Tomorrows, that looks absolutely incredible. So about your book, who would you perfect customer be? How would S&S slot into an ongoing Mothership campaign? Would it be better for first-time Wardens? Are there any books that would pare well with S&S?
Hammer City Games: All my books are for intermediate or experienced Wardens, or for people who want to dive headfirst into the more freeform and toolkit-style of supplements. While you can certainly run very basic militaristic campaigns using the rules as is, it’s better to take bits and pieces for use in certain scenarios. The battlefield generator can be easily used for things such as settlement revolts to planet glassing to any sort of large-scale chaos or operation the players are thrust into. As well, the many types of airstrikes and enemies can be taken piecemeal and inserted into certain scenarios, and the planet generator is itself a wealth of tools for fleshing out the current sector the crew finds themselves stuck in.
All in all, I try to ensure my supplements are mainly resources rather than corridors or sandboxes to play in, allowing whatever Warden is running to take an idea they like and change it as they see fit beyond just adjusting the descriptions given.
Sean: Very cool. Any cool stretch goals or achievements coming down the pipeline?
Hammer City Games: The only stretch goal now happens to be the post-war vignettes you have inspired me to (read: strong armed me into) adding, haha. The others were easily stampeded through during the first 24 hours, which are an expanded air strikes list and tables for vehicles and possible assets, as well as expansions to the planetary system generator, and getting our Deluxe Edition poster to be double sided and laminated. Violet (from RV Games) and I are very excited for the latter, since then it can accommodate dry-erase markers for player and Warden ease of building a battlefield!
And in all honesty, I finished writing this supplement MONTHS ago. The main focus now is layout, getting the art, and having it edited. As soon as it's in the editing stage, I’m on to writing the next project.
Sean: That’s great to hear. And what’s the next project? Any ideas in mind?
Hammer City Games: Oh tons. For Mothership, I want to do a remaster of Graveyard of the Gods with my new logo, some tips and tricks I learned about layouting from my first foray into RPGs. I also want to do a continuation of the Star Gods series which is somewhere between the original Dead Space and the original Prey, called Children of the Gods. But that’s still in early stages.
Outside of Mothership, I’ve been playtesting my darling rules-heavy, Shadowdark-like post-apocalyptic game Earth: After Death, and I think it's about ready for some serious marketing come summer. I already tried to get it to KS once, but maybe this time on BK it’ll actually hit its goal now that me and Violet have a better grasp of workflow and manufacturing challenges. I also wanted to do a second edition of my first ever game, Into the Zone, which is very much STALKER meets Escape from Tarkov: the TTRPG.
And finally, it's in nascent stages now, but I’m working on an American Gods-like RPG, heavily inspired by storytelling games from Onyx Path and White Wolf. So we’re trying to be very multi-faceted, we don’t wanna be one-trick ponies!
Hammer City Games: Speaking of next steps, what about you and TKG, Sean? Is there a MoSh 2e in the future? Other games using the Panic Engine? Or are you wanting to ride-or-die MoSh like Hasbro with D&D, or Steve Jackson with GURPS?
Sean: That’s awesome. I can’t wait to check out Into the Zone, that’s right up my alley. As for me and TKG Mothership Month 25 is in the works right now, we’ve got a theme we’re workshopping right now that I think 3PP’s will flip for. We’re talking about opening up Prospero’s Dream as a setting, which I think will be a ton of fun. We’re working on finishing Wages of Sin now and then we’ll be focusing on Fatherfog, Alan Gerdin’s fairytale horror RPG. After that we’ve got Null.hack our cyberpunk stand-alone game/setting for Mothership. Then there’s more down the line after that: SPIRAL, our paranormal investigation game, and HEIST, our modern day crime/robbery RPG. Mothership is my priority right now, but there’s a lot to look forward to in the future as well.
Alright, that’s all for today. Starships & Soldiers is shaping up to be an intense addition to Mothership, and it was great hearing Hammer City Games break down their vision for it. With only 48 hours left on BackerKit, now’s the time to jump in if you want to get in on the action. We’ve got some more creators to highlight in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!