Let's Read the ALIEN RPG

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So the new supplement's basic theme is colonial life, but especially colonies at the limit of human expansion. In the RPGs current year of 2185/2186 human expansion has been limited to 20 parsecs from Earth for around 75 years. Previously there were colonies beyond this limit, but the Network beyond it suddenly collapsed and all contact was lost with these colonies. Intense stellar activity prevented rescue missions and eventually the major political powers of the setting declare a halt on expansion beyond 20 parsecs. The lost colonies are known as the Far Spinward Colonies.

In terms of the book:
  • Chapters 1-3 are lore, history and background information about the history of human expansion and the government bodies that currently deal with settlement.

  • Chapters 4-5 are basically the Player section. New character careers, equipment, vehicles and so on.

  • Chapter 6 is a mix of player and GM advice for a colonial campaign

  • Chapter 7 is a list of sample solar systems. These consist of the Weyland Isles and the Far Spinward Colonies. The Weyland Isles are a set of worlds at the edge of the twenty parsec limit owned by Weyland-Yutani and a source of hyperdrive fuel. They've featured in many recent comics and novels as they were an engineer stronghold thousands of years ago and various factions are fighting to control them. The Far Spinward colonies are depicted as they were at their financial height in 2071, forty years before contact was lost.

  • Chapter 8 is a list of alien critters. This section actually gathers stats from a few supplements and tie-in novels, as well as some new aliens. Including the official stats for the Empress I statted earlier in the thread. I thought I was going overboard, but she's actually even more extreme than I thought!

  • Chapter 9-10 are a sandbox campaign set in the Far Spinward colonies, depicting them in the current year of 2185 after decades of isolation. The overall plot ties in with the Heart of Darkness scenario.

  • The appendix is the solar system generator and colony history and management system mentioned by Baulderstone Baulderstone .

I'm actually going to cover the meat in chapters 4-8 and the appendix first, since that's how the supplement can be mined for your own games. I'll talk about the campaign after that, and finally a bit about the lore.
 
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So Chapter 4 is all the new character generation material for those living on remote colonies.

This consists of a few new talents, a set of colonial variants of the core careers, two new careers and a "Why am I out here?" table for character background ideas.

When generating a character you follow the basic steps from the core, except the core careers get two new talents to choose from and an explanation of why they might be out on the frontier. There's a set of generic reasons why the might be there, such as their family moved out, and career specific ones. They also get extra possible starting gear selected from the Frontier equipment in Chapter 5.

For example the Company Agent career gets the new talents Authority (roll to Manipulate somebody if you fail a roll to Command them) and Watchful (+2 to Observation rolls for sneak attacks) and a bit of flavour text about how you may be an elite contractor to the company out in the sticks and given free reign, or just regular management sent out simply because somebody has to do the job, but essentially giving you an unsupervised little fiefdom. Frontier equipment is just appropriate clothing or a laptop.

After managing to get a long enough game in yesterday with a few players I would say the talents provide a slight shift in the focus of the careers. Having Authority and Watchful for example gives the effect of a Company Agent less secure in their position. The company is not all powerful out on the frontier and the new Talents reflect that.

Every core career gets the same treatment and as above the differences are concentrated in the talents, the over all effect being each career represents a more isolated and extreme version of that career. The Scientist is an isolated obsessive with the Intense Focus talent (+2 to rolls representing hours long efforts), the Pilot has EVA training (+2 to space walking rolls) and ice cool (lowers panic by D6 not just 1 in appropriate situations), the Medic has talents for talking to large groups and the ability to read crowds with Group Psychology, taking the form of the GM providing your character's insight into the near future actions of some colonists.

The new careers are Wildcatter (space version of an 1800s prospector dagnabbit) and Entertainer. Entertainer means mainly bar tender, casino or club owner or performer.

Ent.jpg

The Wildcatter's key skills are Piloting, Survival and Observation. Pretty expected, somebody who can fly out to remote locations on a planet's surface, survive on their own and find rare metals and Eitr (hyperdrive fuel). Their starting equipment is all remote survival and mining material, i.e. Safari Pack, 3D cave mapping drones from the recent novels, mining charges, tractor. Overall this career is clearly taken from the characters of the Inferno's Fall novel I discussed in a previous post.
Most Wildcatter talents are unique to them. A nose for geography with the Right Path talent (+2 Piloting for ground vehicles or submersibles), they can roll twice under the new prospecting system (covered in chapter 6), and have a talent for not just repairing machines, but semi-miraculously getting old wrecks to work temporarily.

The Entertainer focuses on the Manipulation, Command and Observation. Combining this with starting items like a futuristic wire tape, a P-Dat tablet to connect to colony networks and a maintenance jack and electronic tools to access normally sealed off corridors and passageways and you basically get the casino owner/bar tender who "knows everything in this town". Talents focus on enhancing manipulation, observation of others or distracting with a performance.

I will say the Wildcatter is probably the only career who can truly survive outdoors in the barely terraformed, constantly raining, rocky hellscapes that are ALIEN colonies and so are the rare character who can truly run away from the colony or infected area. Worth noting for horror scenarios.
Thus far my experience is that the Entertainer comes into its own as a character in the setting as a sandbox, away from a horror scenario, i.e. when you play ALIEN as a near future setting like (though not as near as) the Expanse, having contacts with trade rackets and dirt on the companies combined with being too remote to remove. For this reason they work really well as NPCs.

The chapter closes off with a random background table of 18 entries. They're all fairly standard "wanted to see the stars", "Frontier is full of oppurtunity" stuff.
 
I won't write much about Chapter 5, even a setting nut like me can only write so much about in-world trucks.

It's basically a few new guns, fluff and stats about some vehicles and equipment for the harsh environment of the mining colonies. Note mining in the ALIEN setting includes undersea mining of volcanic vents.

Guns are slight variants on stuff seen before in the core. The only real call out is the Weyland-Yutani Flammenmacher, since it is much more of a threat to the Xenomorphs than the core book flamethrower. Longer range and more damage. It's use is originally in clearing hostile jungles and plague outbreaks. There's the odd spaceship, but they're flavour ships focused on getting a small group out to the colonies in short times. They're not PC campaign ships, since they don't have deck plans and are not really suited to space combat.

Ground Vehicles are simply standard mining colony fair. Trucks, ships to carry ore to orbit, efficient small helicopters for exploring a planet outside its main colony. All are statted with armour, hull and speed. Most being fairly resilient and maneuverable hiding spaces compared to the core vehicles, but without the heavy weaponry of the Colonial Marine book's APCs. Perfect for ramming xenos.

The equipment is extreme environment survival suits and mining gear. A typical suit would be the "All Weather Shelter" suit that comes with a week's food, in built motion detector, medkit and sedatives that mechanically reduce a PC's Panic rating. Also worth noting is the Pressure Suit used for deep sea mining, which has one of the RPG's highest armour ratings at 8, comparable to the higher xenos.

Mining gear is just things like spades, ropes, heavy mining drills, soil testing kit, shoulder lamp etc. Mechanically they give moderate bonuses to appropriate rolls.

Anyway here's the hardcore truck nudity you came to see:

truck.jpg
 
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Hey Séadna Séadna - any change to the panic results? My main gripe with the core game is that almost all the panic results assume combat is taking place. I wish they had some alternate results for non-combat scenarios.
 
There are summaries of three other rejected scripts for Alien 3 (apart from the Gibson one) at AvP fandom. Apparently there were 10 versions in total (I think they mean 9 rejected and one used, but I'm not sure). Some of them make the final movie seem quite a relief. Er, wooden space station of monks, anyone? Nah, me neither.

Change of topic but why is there so little discussion of a crossover between the AvP and Terminator-verses? United Americas could be the future state that gets rebuilt after Judgement Day. Earth being nuked explains why people want to emigrate to these dreadful colonies, and why there is a need to ship basic resources across interstellar distances. The pressing need to rebuild explains why so much latitude is given to corporations. Hyperdrive is recovered Skynet tech. If you like, some human survivors in the ex-Communist bloc not unreasonably decide that Skynet was an American attack gone wrong, and found the UPP after Skynet's defeat because they don't trust the UA. Plus... Aliens versus Terminators.
 
Triumvir said:
Change of topic but why is there so little discussion of a crossover between the AvP and Terminator-verses? United Americas could be the future state that gets rebuilt after Judgement Day. Earth being nuked explains why people want to emigrate to these dreadful colonies, and why there is a need to ship basic resources across interstellar distances. The pressing need to rebuild explains why so much latitude is given to corporations. Hyperdrive is recovered Skynet tech. If you like, some human survivors in the ex-Communist bloc not unreasonably decide that Skynet was an American attack gone wrong, and found the UPP after Skynet's defeat because they don't trust the UA. Plus... Aliens versus Terminators.
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I've never got that either. I've legit seen more discussion about Terminator being the past of Earth in Star Trek than integrating it with Alien and Predator where it has a more natural fit.

I think it's mainly that people into Alien have tended to view Blade Runner as the history of that universe for a long time. So it kind of excludes Judgement Day fitting in there.
 
Chapter 6 is a general overview of Colonial Campaigns. It's directed to both GMs and Players (though it's in the Player Section). This chapter exhibits what I consider the biggest flaw in the ALIEN books. I'll get to it in the Colony Types section.

It's basic layout is:
  • Types of Colonies
  • Campaign Styles
  • Mission/Expedition archetypes
  • The Mining Mechanical subsystem

Colony Types:

These are paragraph length descriptions of each of the major colony types in the setting. Colonies in ALIEN are small single settlements, very few planets have cities, more than one settlement, or a population above a million.

Just to reiterate 99% of humanity lives in the Sol System, specifically Earth. For example Earth has a population of 8 billion, Mars 20 million, Saturn and Jupiter's moons 7 million. The largest colonies outside of Sol are Alexandria and Thedus (the planet the Nostromo was returning from in the first film), with 30 and 2 million people respectively. Being hot and cold desert worlds respectively, they're effectively like Mars.

Earth has been restored to being a garden world by the use of terraforming.

Settlement Types given are:
  1. Terraforming. Familiar from the second film, a small group of around 1,000-10,000 live in a base that runs a Terraforming station. One day the world will be one of the types below.

  2. Research. These colonies are intended to study either local flora and fauna for medical application or stellar phenomena in local space, perhaps the world has an unusually active sun.

  3. Prospecting. Small colonies of Prospector's drawn here because orbital surveys indicate valuable resources. Note "Mining" in ALIEN has a far broader meaning than in real life. These prospectors could be in deep sea diving suits drilling into volcanic vents, or climbing mountains to find locations optimal for collecting solar energy. Should they find something we transition to....

  4. Mining. These are larger colonies built around discoveries of previous prospectors. Although the book doesn't say it directly here, if you read the novels the original Prospectors are often folded into being company managers. This is a massive incentive, since being a Weyland-Yutani manager is a very high status position in the setting. UPP prospectors just get a pat on the back as their Communist superiors bring in "socially indebted" labourers.

  5. Giffy-Popped. A more extreme type of mining colony where the planet is cracked open to get at resources.

  6. Prison. Obvious

  7. New Frontier. A garden world, very little mining resources but a fantastic place to live.

  8. Comms Relay. A small but crucial settlement intended as a Network node.

  9. Military. Tend to be large shipyards and troop deployment centers, but also simply small "watch and alert command" forward bases.

  10. Farming. Obvious.

  11. Corporate/Government HQ. Colonies that give directives to others in this region of space.

Okay so my biggest problem with this book, and something repeated throughout the line, is that there is virtually nothing in these paragraphs that isn't an immediate implication of the word "Prison" or "Mining".

In my opinion they should have been fleshed out by actual details, such as how UPP mining worlds are often populated by mining specialists or other expert workers forced into semi-indentured labour so that they and their families can prove their loyalty to the state, descendants will be true UPP citizens. There's no real information on how a Giffy-Popped planet is really run day to day. What do you actually do from orbit with a planet whose mantle is spilling out into space. That Corporate HQ worlds contain massive Blade Runner style pyramids or towers impregnable to nuclear weapons, such as seen in the recent Dark Descent game:

office.jpg

Campaign Styles:

Basically some details based on whether the PCs are Explorers or Colonists. There's not really much to say here, most of it is obvious stuff such as you'll need a ship for the former, perhaps paying monthly rent to provide some pressure on the PCs, or that a colony game will focus on the single location of the colony.

A side bar does discuss how for a small colony the PCs could stat up a good few PCs to populate the colony and rotate among them from session to session, allowing them to see the colony from several angles.

My own experience is that the Entertainer career is the hub of a Colony game, since they're so well connected.

Expeditions:

These are basically archetypes for scenarios:

  1. Supply Runs. The basic framework is bringing goods, but perhaps the cargo is dangerous, or on arrival the colony is a Mary Celeste.

  2. Salvage Ops. Strip Mining abandoned old space hulks for the corporations.

  3. Exploration. Fairly open ended, you've been sent to survey a world by the company. Could be for an archaeological survey or early stages of prospecting.

  4. Search & Rescue. Either contact is lost with a whole colony or somebody goes missing outside of a colony. Patrons can be the rich parents of some idealist who headed out to the Frontier or a company running the colony without the manpower to spare for a search in remote space.

  5. Prospecting. Here it mentions having a race against a competing team of miners or the company leaking false information so that the "potential mining site" is really something else. In-setting the most obvious case being an ancient Engineer base.

  6. Scientific Field Trips. Both helping scientists survey native fauna, but also helping them protect native life when the company arrives to strip mine the planet.

  7. Breakdown/Sabotage. This is where the PCs own base of operations, either their ship or colony, has a sudden cascade of system failures, possibly due to a hidden saboteur. The book doesn't mention it, but a pretty decent world for this is Shānmén since if the fences fail the world's Dinosaur-esque life will break in. Jurassic Park in ALIEN. I think this has to be done more carefully with a ship since ship's in ALIEN are not robust. Failures are either minor (busted lighting) or catastrophic (hyperdrive failure can lead to a catastrophic explosion).

  8. Civil Unrest. Colonists rebel and you're hired to either help them or suppress them. The company hiring the PCs to crush a colonial rebellion, or the rebels hiring you to push the company back are workable, but the book's example of being UPP soldiers sent to punish managers mistreating the workers would be more difficult since it ties you pretty strongly to the UPP who aren't really given enough information in the books.

  9. Political Infighting. Hired by one side in a colonial dispute.

  10. Family Squabbles. PC's family call them for aid.

  11. Raiders. Kill pirates attacking the colony.

  12. Criminal Investigation. Help the local law enforcement.

  13. Go Hunting. Native fauna is too big or lethal for the colonists to handle. Go in to blow up some critters.

Mining Systems:

harvester.jpg

So this section is the mechanical support for prospecting and mining.

Prospecting Roll:

The core of the section is the prospecting roll for the Wildcatter career. A roll represents three weeks of work surveying 1000 square km and then do an Observation Roll. If successful they roll on the Prospecting Table, with each success on the Observation roll beyond the first adding +10 to the Prospecting Table roll:

Screenshot 2023-10-07 at 11-53-02 ALIEN_RPG_Building_Better_Worlds.pdf.png

The find itself nets
D6 x (tens digit of prospecting roll) x 10
Weyland-Yutani dollars.

The Wildcatter career has a Talent allowing it to reroll on this table.

Decompression risks:

EVA and other compression suits from the core get a new system describing when the decompress from faults. This takes the form of performing two armour rolls. The first is the usual roll to see how much damage the suit blocks, then you perform a second Armour roll. This second roll is to check for decompression. A success means nothing happens, but a failure means you must roll on the decompression table. Results are:

  • 1-2. Nothing happens
  • 3-4. Nothing happens, but you've +1 to the next roll on this table representing cumulative damage to the suit.
  • 5. A breach that seal itself quickly. You lose one point of Air Supply and Air supply roll failures now mean a loss of two points, not one.
  • 6. A Nasty breach causing an Air Supply roll every turn. +1 Stress to PC
  • 7. Terrible Breach. Suit losses one point of Air Supply each turn, -1 to Heavy Machinery rolls to repair the suit, +1 Stress and immediate Panic roll
  • 8. Ruined. Air Supply halves at the end of this turn and is lost at the end of the turn after that. -2 to repair rolls. +1 Stress and immediate Panic roll
This system is obviously intended for issues when mining in remote areas and underwater, but can equally be applied to combat during spacewalks.

New Mining Conditions:

We get three new status affects: Hypoxia, Heatstroke, Gravity Dyspraxia

Hypoxia can be mild, severe or extreme and causes a Stamina roll or else a point of health is lost. The extremity represents how frequently this roll must be made: a shift, turn or round.

Heatstroke makes rerolls/pushing cause +2 stress instead of +1. Being in a very hot environment calls for a Stamina roll, a failure results in a heat stroke.

Gravity Dyspraxia is disorientation and confusion caused by being in a gravitational environment different from your native one. It's +1 to Stress and a -2 to Mobility and Close Combat rolls. Every shift you roll mobility to check if you've acclimatised.

Zapper:

The big beasty above is a Harvester. A mammal from the planet Tartarus and famously destroyed the colony there. They're essentially the worms from Tremors with 15 health and 15 armour, just slightly tougher than a Xenomorph Queen. They've been used by humanity as living mining drills for over a century, but to control them you need the zappers seen in the image above. Essentially upgraded cattle prods. They're also fitted with explosive collars in case they get out of control.

The collars simply subdue the Harvester for 2D6 rounds, but the zappers have rules as both a weapon against human beings and part of mini-system for herding Harvesters.

When herding a harvester and equipped with a zapper you make a Close Combat roll. With a success you can direct the target to stay still or move one zone. All walls in the way are eaten, any human or alien in their path suffer an attack randomly generated from the Harvester's combat table on p.90 of the corebook. For reference rolls 5-6 on this table would kill any human or xenos. The lower rolls have a good chance to kill any non-marine career.

You have to make a Stamina roll when equipping the zapper to see if you can carry it and the Close Combat roll is made at -3 unless you have the Husbandry talent available to the Roughneck core career.

When turned on a human being the defender has a +1 to the Mobility roll to dodge, since the weapon is so unwieldy. A success causes a D6 random roll on the zapper's attack table. 1-2 is either no or very little damage, 3-4 are moderate damage blasting the PC into a wall and upping Stress. 5-6 will most likely kill a non-marine and most likely leave a marine on the verge of death.
 
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Triumvir said:
Change of topic but why is there so little discussion of a crossover between the AvP and Terminator-verses? United Americas could be the future state that gets rebuilt after Judgement Day. Earth being nuked explains why people want to emigrate to these dreadful colonies, and why there is a need to ship basic resources across interstellar distances. The pressing need to rebuild explains why so much latitude is given to corporations. Hyperdrive is recovered Skynet tech. If you like, some human survivors in the ex-Communist bloc not unreasonably decide that Skynet was an American attack gone wrong, and found the UPP after Skynet's defeat because they don't trust the UA. Plus... Aliens versus Terminators.
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I wouldn't really guess why people don't discuss it, but from having been on Alien fan sites for a while both it and Blade Runner are not discussed much as the past of the setting, since the setting has detailed its own past for quite a while and it's incompatible with both.
 
Séadna Séadna as a setting nut, do you know what had happened to Earth in the end of Alien: Resurrection? I'm talking about the Paris wasteland thing.
I know that AR takes place far in the future of the Alien verse, but that ending has never made sense to me. I mean, if they have terraforming tech they can just use that on good old Earth as well. Which they have in the rpg.
Probably why it was cut from the theatrical version, which I did watch in a movie theater back when.
 
The Mad Hatter said:
Séadna Séadna as a setting nut, do you know what had happened to Earth in the end of Alien: Resurrection? I'm talking about the Paris wasteland thing.
I know that AR takes place far in the future of the Alien verse, but that ending has never made sense to me. I mean, if they have terraforming tech they can just use that on good old Earth as well. Which they have in the rpg.
Probably why it was cut from the theatrical version, which I did watch in a movie theater back when.
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It makes no sense. The intent when making the films was the "shocking" revelation that centuries of over population and pollution had ruined Earth, possibly in conjunction with the Lacerta Plague mentioned in the film, but as you said terraforming can literally turn volcanic death worlds into livable planets. They just forgot about the Terraforming tech.

Currently everything else in the franchise and the RPG ignores it and Andrew Gaska who is in charge of lore for the RPG has stated he references the film as little as possible.
 
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Fenris-77 said:
I just pretend that Alien: Resurrection doesn't exist. It's a huge quality of life boost.
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When it comes to the lore and rpg I agree. But I like the movie overall, but I also liked the Alien vs. Predator movies so my opinion can probably not be trusted on this.
I also like the various Dark Horse comics with these things.
 
All this talk of Blade Runner and Terminator being part of the Alien franchise got me thinking.
What about Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri being part of the franchise?
Think about it,
Alpha Centauri's ship leaves right before Skynet instigates a nuclear war
Terminator is the immediate aftermath of the nuclear war.
Blade Runner is in the post collapse of Skynet, but before the earth is terraformed.
And Alien is after the earth is terraformed.

The factions from Alpha Centauri disappear (either via ascension with Planet or getting wiped out by another of Planets failed awakening) before the people on earth regain spaceflight capabilities.
 
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Acmegamer said:
Some day I need to get around to snagging a copy of Mothership, so I can compare it to Aliens Rpg.
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Give it a few months when the boxed set is available for order.

There are some similarities, but they go about them in different ways.
 
Acmegamer said:
Some day I need to get around to snagging a copy of Mothership, so I can compare it to Aliens Rpg.
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I have both. I prefer Aliens rules wise even though I haven't played Aliens. I'll highly recommend the modules for Mothership. They are written in a way that makes them very easy to run. I have them all, but have only run Dead Planet and A Pound of Flesh.
I think it could be interesting and easy to convert them over to Aliens.

Another sci-fi game I own that's inspired by the Alien verse, is Cold & Dark. That game has an interesting thing called Void Psychosis Syndrome. Travelling long distances in the setting, is done through something called the Void. Humans have to be cryosleeping through the journey though, otherwise they'll get the above syndrome.
Cold & Dark
 
Acmegamer said:
Some day I need to get around to snagging a copy of Mothership, so I can compare it to Aliens Rpg.
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I've played Mothership, but I haven't played Aliens. Mothership is good, but it I think it really only works for one-shots. It's very easy to max out your skills. In a single session, that works okay as it can be seen as people rising to the dangerous situation they are in, but I can't see using it for a campaign. It's not a big problem as it is the kind of genre well-suited for one-shots anyway.

I agree with The Mad Hatter The Mad Hatter that it has some great adventures that are certainly worth converting to other systems.
 
Chapter 7 is a collection of Solar Systems with a bit of detail on them. The section is divided between worlds within the 20 parsec limit in the current year 2185/2186 and the Spinward Colonies as they were in the 2070s.

The section mentions how in-setting nobody knows why Weyland-Yuntani puts so much money into funding prospectors and ships to survey out of the way moons and planets with no resources.

Also it's mention that older Terraforming tech from a century ago could transform planets in years instead of decades. The tech is still there, but modern terraforming plants are cheaper models as the expected space colonisation boom never happened. Colonisation has actually been on the decline for decades and is mostly spurned on by those already on colonies looking for nicer worlds to live on, or new opportunities as old mining worlds run dry.

Note when I say a system is new to the RPG, I'm ignoring that four of these new ones previously had their planet codes (LV-etc) appear on an old promo site for Prometheus with no information.

Within 20 Parsecs:

This is a set of 18 worlds, sometimes with other bodies in their solar systems mentioned. 10 are new to the RPG, the others having appeared in novels and comics.

Quite a few of these worlds are simply described as unexplored or "a survey showed mining potential". Others have a short story of how they were abandoned, either from a plague or an obvious "It was the Xenomorphs" classified incident. One was a small outpost looking for a Black Goo cure. Another is nothing more than a UPP munitions factory, but is a rare Resurrection reference as it's where Johner got his scar and Vriess was paralysed.

alien4_perlman.jpg

Only four worlds have a bit more meat.

Shānmén is a UPP Jurassic Park planet with Sauropod, Raptor and Pterodactyl analogues and contains a massive Eitr (FTL fuel) mine. All the dinosaurs have since mutated due to the world being bombed with black goo. This planet is great fun from some one shots I've run, but unfortunately the stats for the xeno-dinos are not included here :sad:, you need to buy the Inferno fall novel I discussed in #601.

shanmen.jpg

New Albion is from the daft novel "Colony War". It's basically a theme park colony based on London in the 90s, using shillings for currency and the people literally walk around saying "Alright, Guv!", have re-evolved Cockney slang :crossed: and reference Dr Who and other 70s British TV shows. The novel is incredibly dumb, but this is probably the most "unusual" world to drop on players :clown:

Pylos is a gas giant with a refueling space station orbiting it. About a hundred years in the future from the RPG's current year the Space Station is attacked. If you can get the comic Dead Orbit detailing it, it's an interesting junk filled warren. Again though the RPG has little info on it.

30286p5.jpg

Meri Ceti IV is from the joking short comic "Elder Gods" where a bunch of cultists head to the colony since they believe beneath it lies the ancient city of R'lek, home of the god Tulitu as prophecised by the 20th century horror writer Horace Payne Loveless. This turns out to be a dormant xeno hive and everybody dies. The RPG mentions that what happened there is now the subject of conspiracy theories.

Spinward Colonies:

These are all new to the RPG and in this chapter just get generic information like "is a mining colony" or "researchers are there to seek medical applications for algae". For one it is mentioned that a mysterious broadcast was sent before contact was lost saying something of importance for all of humanity had been discovered.

All receive far more detail in the campaign covered in chapters 9-10.
 
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Baulderstone said:
I've played Mothership, but I haven't played Aliens. Mothership is good, but it I think it really only works for one-shots. It's very easy to max out your skills. In a single session, that works okay as it can be seen as people rising to the dangerous situation they are in, but I can't see using it for a campaign. It's not a big problem as it is the kind of genre well-suited for one-shots anyway.

I agree with The Mad Hatter The Mad Hatter that it has some great adventures that are certainly worth converting to other systems.
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I ran a one shot of Alien, I found the dark books with the shine on them a real pain in the ass to read. Plus I really don't like the small 10 card initiative decks. They're a pain to shuffle and feel really limited. I'm still mentally pondering if I should replace the 10 card initiative deck with a D10 initiative system of some sort. I do think Alien as potential for some fun long term campaign play, it is a solid system over all in my opinion.

Thanks for all the replies everyone about Mothership and about the adventures. Good stuff.
 
Chapter 8 is the creatures chapter. In brief it gathers in one place the stats and attack tables of the 26 Draconis scenarios, namely Chariot of the Gods, Destroyer of Worlds and Heart of Darkness (these do not involve Xenomorphs) and two new Xenomorphs: the photoluminescent Biomorph and the Empress. I won't repeat the scenario creatures as I've covered them in the posts about those scenarios.

The Biomorphs are basically Drones that have interacted with exotic matter and gained mildly radioactive exoskeletons that glow in the dark at will. Stats are pretty much the same as the Drone except they're worse at Observation (only 4 instead of 8) and weaker armour (6 rather than 8).
Its exoskeleton counts as an Intensity 4 Fire when touched, a very weak threat, most likely 1 damaged to those unarmoured.

However its attack table is much worse than a Drone's, since it can spit acid, twist off your head, set fire to you by grabbing your arms and vampirically suck a human dry. Only a 6 is lethal for a Drone, whereas for a Biomorph results 2-6 will be lethal for non-marines and 4-6 for marines. Mechanically most of these attacks get 10 Base Attack Dice, with a single success being lethal or causing a soon to be lethal effect.

biomorph.jpg

The Empress is a powerhouse. It emerges once an entire planet is taken over by Xenomorphs, one Queen molting to twice the size of the others and evolving psychic abilities that can affect other species:

Screenshot 2023-10-07 at 23-08-17 ALIEN_RPG_Building_Better_Worlds.pdf.png

Even a party of marines will most likely die in a straight fight and she can rip up vehicles. Note also she is protected by several Praetorians, who really require a rocket launcher to safely kill.

Her attack table is interesting though as there is a focus on subduing PCs for implantation or other uses.
Two results are indefensible psychic attacks which bypass any armour or other protection in the setting since humans do not of the existence of psychic abilities. One is a plain blast of psychic power that most likely no PC can survive, the other is a mind wipe that leaves the PC a vegetable, again almost certain to succeed.

One roll is a psychic attack that's opposed by the Empathy attribute, causing you to submit to a Facehugger with filial love.

One of her physical attacks is a Base damage 14 instakill on success. The other is a -2 Mobility check or else she slams into you causing three critical injuries.

The final roll calls in two Praetorians and D6 Warriors to subdue you for implantation.

Interestingly the only character who could really survive confrontation with an Empress is the high empathy Ripley styled Officer class, since they can at least withstand one of the psychic attacks.

Matriarch.jpg

I will say this and details in the campaign I'll cover shortly are pretty blatantly crossing the line into the Xenomorphs not being "just" animals. Psychic abilities beyond current science and strong religious overtones in the campaign continue a trend which has been building throughout the RPG.
 
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Acmegamer said:
I ran a one shot of Alien, I found the dark books with the shine on them a real pain in the ass to read. Plus I really don't like the small 10 card initiative decks. They're a pain to shuffle and feel really limited. I'm still mentally pondering if I should replace the 10 card initiative deck with a D10 initiative system of some sort. I do think Alien as potential for some fun long term campaign play, it is a solid system over all in my opinion.

Thanks for all the replies everyone about Mothership and about the adventures. Good stuff.
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That's the reason I like to do PDF for my books in use. In general, PDFs are easier to read than the artsy stuff they feel they have to do with physical books.
 
Toadmaster said:
Hostile is another "Alien" alternative. It is based on Cepheus so basically a spin off of a spin off of Classic Traveller.
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Yup, a good one. I highly recommend it. Probably my favorite version of Outland err Traveller. :smile:
 
Although…I would love to see a movie where Weyland-Yutani fucks up and Aliens get loose on Earth, so the Predators come for the Battle Royale, the Earth Defense Force (or whatever) activates Skynet and the Terminators get released to take the Earth back.

Of course we’d have to get James Cameron off his meds or back on them and beat the living shit out of him until he realizes no one cares about Avatar to get him to direct.
 
I’ve seen Predator 2 a few times. I don’t find it memorable. I actually think it’s visually ugly compared to the original. Danny Glover is like overly spastic in it and Gary Busey is Gary Busey.
 
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