I am finally getting around to compiling the house rules I used for my Gradient Descent campaign in one place for easier reference, starting with how I handled downtime between sessions. My general caveat being that these rules were intended for an open table campaign with a pool of 6-10 players rotating in and out to play every week. I assumed that not everyone would get a chance to play depending on availability and outside of a smaller core group of players, the average person would play for about 3-4 sessions before stopping. So I wanted more bang for your buck out of what players could accomplish in-between dives and went against the typical suggestions for player advancement in the Warden’s Manual to facilitate that. I probably wouldn’t suggest something like this for a newer Warden.

A large basis and credit for these rules comes from the procedures listed in Downtime in Zyan, which when applicable were surprisingly easy to adapt to a Sci-Fi game like Mothership. I was also reading through On Downtime and Demesnes at the time, which is a far more scattered collection of procedures of varying quality that still was pretty helpful in inspiring how I wanted to write out my own rules.

Downtime Activities

Downtime is a phase of play that happens between dives, typically about a week of in-game time, beginning as soon as the party arrives back at the Bell. Characters may engage in simple activities such as buying equipment or talking to NPCs without limit and it’s encouraged to handle these actions in-between sessions when possible. Each player may also perform two significant downtime actions during this period to advance their character, recuperate from wounds and/or stress, or earn additional credits outside of a dive.

General Activity Procedure

For actions not covered by existing procedures the player must state how their character goes about doing the suggested action. If it seems like it has no hope of success the Warden will inform the player of this and make alternative suggestions. The standard resolution of an action will involve rolling 1d100 under the relevant stat to determine success/failure. Some activities may not require rolling and will just require time and/or resources to progress.

(Two actions sometimes felt like a lot to handle per player at times. Maybe it was a bit generous to allow for what was a week of narrative time but I liked giving players plenty of opportunity to get up to something between games as much as during. You could just as easily limit players to one action for less overhead, just expect players to focus on stress relief as it’s easy to stack up during a single dive.)

Procedures

Shore Leave

Between dives a player may attempt to rest and convert stress alleviated this way to improved Save scores.

How to take Shore Leave:

1. Pay the Shore Leave Cost: every port charges a different rate for leave based on the different amenities and activities it has to offer.
2. Make a Sanity Save: In order to process stress into improved Saves, roll under Sanity.
   • Success: Convert Stress into improved Saves. Each port will convert a different amount shown in the examples further below. Whatever Stress not converted is reset back to the character’s minimum.
   • Critical Success: Convert the maximum amount of Stress allowed at that port into improved Saves. Reset stress to minimum.
   • Failure: Do not convert any Stress. Reset stress to minimum then add 1 Stress for failing the Save.
   • Critical Failure: As Failure, but make a Panic Check.
3. Convert Stress into Saves: improvements may be distributed to any desired Save.

(In general if players devoted time and money into relieving stress, I wanted them to be able to do it barring any critical failures. The Deep can be such a dangerous environment to explore and I wanted less of a meat-grinder feel without pulling any punches on the actual threats they faced within.)

Relieve Stress

Players without the credits necessary to take Shore Leave can instead spend an action to try and relieve Stress on their own. Use the same success/failure rules as Shore Leave but reduce stress by 1d5 without converting any Stress to improved Saves.

Work a Side-Gig

Spend time this week assisting with odd-jobs and side-gigs within the blockade and get paid for your effort. Maybe you can learn a thing or two!

• 100cr x 1d10 for Trained (Can be attempted by anyone, just roll under the relevant attribute.)
• 250cr x 1d10 for Expert (Can be attempted by anyone, but roll at [-] Disadvantage without skill.)
• 500cr x 1d10 for Master (Can only be attempted if you are trained in the skill.)
  • Success:Roll [+] for credits gained this week.
  • Crit Success:x2 credits gained for the week. If untrained in the skill gain 1 point of skill progression.
  • Failure: Roll credits gained this week as normal. Gain 1 Stress.
  • Crit Failure:Roll [-] for credits gained this week. Gain 1 Stress and make a Panic Check.

((I was unsure how hard up for cash players would be and wanted to give them smaller income opportunities if they devoted the time. It saw semi-regular use, but mostly when players were out of ideas on what to get up to otherwise. Part of me wanted to merge this procedure with the one for skill training and have players only able to gain skills by pulling side gigs but didn’t go through with it.))

Learn a Skill

Spend time training to gain 1 point of progress towards a new skill. Learning from an experienced tutor or in a station with facilities that’d support your efforts could provide additional points per action spent.

Trained, Expert, and Master skills required 5/10/15 points to learn.

(Slow and steady skill learning. While its pacing is a bit ridiculous compared to Mothership’s usual skill advancement rate, players in my experience were generally hard pressed enough for time it was hard to get consistent training actions in.)

Medical Treatment

Different ports will have access to a variety of medical procedures that can assit players looking to remove the wounds and mental conditions they acqurie during play. See pg. 35 of the Player’s Survival Guide for examples of treatments that may be available.

(A separate handout was given to players detailing the specific medical services available within the blockade. This boiled down to what spartan facilities were available on the Bell and then the good stuff they could bribe to use if they got onto the Zhuangzhi somehow. Throughout my campaign players started building upon what was available in the Bell so they could recover easier.)

Android Repair

While androids can spend credits to access most medical treatments available normally, they also benefit from being able to get repaired by someone with proper skills and parts on hand. To heal a wound they must have someone roll Intelligence plus another relevant skill such as Mechanical Repair, Engineering, Robotics, or Jury-Rigging and then use the appropriate resources/creds on hand to make the attempt. Androids can attempt this themselves but do so at [-].

• Success: Remove 1 wound.
• Crit Success: As Success, but also remove a relevant condition or an additional wound.
• Failure: As Success, but android also loses 1d10 of a relevant stat.
• Crit Failure: No wounds removed and lose [-] 1d10 of a relevant stat. Android and character making repairs must make a Panic Check.

Part Cost:

• Scavenged: 5k per repair attempt, repair rolled at [-].
• Normal: 10k per repair attempt. Roll as normal.
• High-Quality: 25k per repair attempt, repair rolled at [+].

(Partially based on the classic traaa.sh android varriant rules.)

Example Stations

The Bell: An old, retrofitted thruster cast off from THE DEEP some time ago. The place is dark and feels like an abandoned lighthouse on the edge of a barren sea. Run by Arkady, a retired Diver, and is largely ignored by The Blockade.

• Shore Leave: 2d10x100 cr. Convert 1d5 Stress into Improved Saves.
• Equipment: scavenged gear from the Deep. x10 markup on any equipment purchased here. Players get a x5 markup on any equipment sold to Arkady.
  • Plenty of: vaccsuits, ammo, SMGs.
  • Very rare: any other weapon/armor (1/week.)
  • Absolutely no: EMP grenades, cybernetic diagnostic scanners.
  • Arkady buys android logic cores for 1k each.
• Medical: No proper medical facilities save for a intercepted shipment of psuedoflesh injections. Noriko may be able to provide basic first-aid but she does not have the proper supplies or facilities to treat the wounded.
• Work Skills:
  • Trained: Botany, Industrial Equipment, Jury-Rigging, Zero-G.
  • Expert: Mechanical Repair, Ecology.
  • Master: Engineering.

JIC-V Troopship Zhuangzi I-V: The command ship of the ragtag fleet of contracted vessels equipped to maintain the blockade around the facility. Working this contract is a shit detail sold to the lowest bidder, resulting in an ineffective cordon riddled with loopholes and corruption. Troubleshooters and Divers don’t usually get along that well, but there was a time when scavengers were able to bribe their way onto their Troopships to barter and get a little bit of R&R. Currently under the leadership of Cmdr. Rachel Kilroy.

• Shore Leave: 3d10x100cr. Converts 1d5 [+] Stress into improved Saves.
• Equipment: top-of-the-line PMC gear from the Troubleshooter armories, occasional odds and ends found during raids. Combat gear can be purchased/sold at 5x markup here. There’s a big black market demand for luxury/amenity items at x10 markup from the mercs on board. Alcohol, drugs, entertainment, etcetera.
  • Plenty of: weapons, ammo, and armor.
  • Very rare: EMP grenades, cybernetic diagnostic scanners, cybernetics.
  • Absolutely no: gear available to assist with diving/scavenging. Only sell off armaments items that can easily be written off in logistics reports.
• Medical: A small medical bay is present on the command ship, staffed with two doctors and a handful of staff to assist. Reasonably stocked with medical supplies and equipment for a combat operation, more advanced operations can be performed here for the right price. Bribe the doctor enough and he might even agree to install cyberware for you.
• Work Skills:
  • Trained: Industrial Equipment, Zero-G, Military Training, Rim-wise.
  • Expert: Psychology, Field Medicine, Explosives, Firearms, Hand-to-Hand Combat.
  • Master: Surgery, Cybernetics, Command.

Prospero’s Dream: A massive space station with a population of over 8 million. Haphazard, disorganized, overcrowded, and teeming with hustlers and criminals of all stripes. The elites only enforce the laws that keep the station running, mostly in the form of regular taxation. The most well-known example being the oxygen tax subtracted each day from the rapidly expanding population of the station. Teeming with crime and otherwise a dangerous sprawl in its own right, it nonetheless serves as the best place in the sector to stock up on equipment, gain information, or sell off scavenged goods to the highest bidder. Run jointly by the powerful Novos crime syndicate and the Tempest Mercenary Company.

• Shore Leave:
  • 2d10x1kcr. Convert 1d10 Stress into improved Saves.
  • 2d10x10kcr. Convert 2d10 Stress into improved Saves.
  • 2d10x100kcr. Convert ALL stress into improved Saves.
• Equipment: All equipment available on the gear list at standard price, along with further exotic and specialty items (cybernetics, slickware, drugs). Instability on the station may adjust price and availability in the future. While you’ll still have to find a buyer, artifacts can also be sold here.
• Medical: Variety of services ranging from cheap chop-docs in alleyways to top-dollar robotic surgery used for the elite. Cyberware and slickware can be installed by a plethora of sources here.
• Work Skills: Being so large, all degrees of odd jobs from manual labor to highly skilled technical work is available here. Bounty hunting/mercenary/criminal work is very easy to find as well.

I’ll probably expand upon my thoughts regarding downtime within the blockade and the “economic horror” style of gameplay that comes with it in a future post if people are interested.

August 5, 2025