[Alien] Colonist sourcebook, Building Better Worlds, announced for October 2023

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm sure that guy will be fine.

“Space is a pitch black room—stick your hand out and you might never get it back. Of course, you also might touch god. It’s a gamble either way. To not try, however, is to wither and die—only those bold and foolish enough to take a chance will change their lives.”

—Captain J.V. Gorham, Far Spinward Colonies, Pioneer, Weyland Corp.

All the wonder and danger of the stars is yours—if you can just wipe the grime off your face and dig the dirt out from under your fingernails first. Airless moons circle swirling gas giants, eager to be transformed into tomorrow’s paradise. Dark ancient mysteries wait to be unearthed beneath a millennium of debris. Searing solar flares boil your flesh and blacken your bones as you harness their power to light a hundred worlds. Long lost mysteries lie entombed in the frozen hearts of icy comets. Unstable tectonic plates shift to drown iridium mines in scalding lava. Even the truth of humanity's origins awaits you out there, orbiting some dying star. And out there amongst it all is something truly horrifying—something that nature never intended.

Something alien.

Building Better Worlds is a complete campaign module for the award-winning official ALIEN roleplaying game, giving you all the tools you need to run a full open-world campaign as a pioneering explorer or colonist. This book includes:

• History of Colonization – the story of humanity’s reach for the stars.
• Creating Explorers & Colonists – expanded character creation rules for life on the frontier.
• Gear & Ships – an extensive chapter with new gear and spaceships, gloriously illustrated.
• Extrasolar Species Catalog – new Xenomorphic creatures to encounter.
• The Lost Worlds – the framework and backstory for a frontier campaign.
• Expeditions – six thrilling expeditions into uncharted space, playable in any order.
• The Endgame – the final showdown with everything at stake.
• The Appendix – create your own frontier and colonize it.

NOTE: The ALIEN RPG core rulebook is required to use this book.

The book is available to preorder now, with the hard copy coming in October, but the PDF apparently coming to DriveThruRPG "in a few weeks."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am mildly surprised they're doing the colonists book before space truckers. We know what the adventure and campaign model for space truckers looks like, and there's an audience for it. I have a harder time imagining players being excited to worry about the pH of their soil and such. It seems like a campaign frame for stuff to happen to the player characters, rather than one where the players can feel empowered to go out and do stuff.

That said, more ships, more xenomorphs and more world creation rules are useful for every campaign.

 

[aramis erak]

Many semi-completionists who wouldn't otherwise buy the colonist book will buy it to keep the line profitable...
I want it, but not as much as space truckers...

 

[aramis erak]

My mother told me to get it for Father's Day...

 

[aramis erak]

And now, the hard part... the waiting.