Alien RPG Pre-order Starter Set & Colonial Marines Adventure

Many of us have heard of the super cool Alien RPG by Free League using their Year Zero Engine. Now is your chance to get the starter bundle, which includes both the Starter Set (plus dice inside) and a new adventure "Destroyer of Worlds".

Or if you already own the earlier Alien RPG products, you can just opt for the Colonial Marines only boxset cinematic scenario.

ALIEN The Roleplaying Game - Free League Publishing

Space is vast, dark, and not your friend. Gamma rays and neutrino bursts erupt from dying stars to cook you alive, black holes tear you apart, and the void itself boils your blood and seizes your brain. Try to scream and no one can hear you – hold your breath and you rupture your lungs. […]

alien-rpg.com

ALIEN STARTER SET

• A 104-page rulebook with a fast and effective ruleset designed specifically to support the core themes of ALIEN: horror and action in the cold darkness of space.
• The 48-page complete Cinematic scenario Chariot of the Gods by sci-fi novelist Andrew E.C. Gaska.
• Five pre-generated characters to play.
• A huge full-color, double-sided map (format 864x558mm), with one side depicting chartered space in the year 2183 and the other floor plans for the Chariot of the Gods scenario.
• 84 game markers for keeping track of characters, motion tracker pings, and more.
• 56 high quality custom cards for weapons, personal agendas, and initiative in combat.
• A set each of ten engraved Base Dice and ten Stress Dice, designed specifically for the ALIEN RPG.

ALIEN DESTROYER OF WORLDS (CINEMATIC SCENARIO)

• The main Destroyer of Worlds scenario book.
• A huge double-sided map (format 864x558mm) of Ariaricus colony on one side and the Fort Nebraska space elevator ground base on the other.
• Five pre-generated characters to play.
• Custom cards for weapons, vehicles, and personal agendas.
• Player maps and handouts.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is a great game, I highly suggest it to anyone who has an interest in "Cthululu in space" and/or is a fan of the movie series.

It's a shame Event Horizon isn't part of the Alien universe, since that would be a pretty direct way in for people who wanted that style of play.

Of course, if it was up to me, we'd also have Predators, Blade Runner and a Starship Troopers analogue in the mix.

 

[Stormonu]

It's a shame Event Horizon isn't part of the Alien universe, since that would be a pretty direct way in for people who wanted that style of play.

Of course, if it was up to me, we'd also have Predators, Blade Runner and a Starship Troopers analogue in the mix.

I should note that Pandora, the planet from Avatar, is on the space map(!). Incorporating Predators into the game wouldn’t be difficult (and I myself would be down for some AVP action) at all and you could do blade runner out of the box - replicants would just be a different series of android. Play style for the two wouldn’t be out of the scope the game can handle either.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Focusing on the facehugger in a jar in Sigourney Weaver's lab was the only way I could make it through Avatar, so that makes me happy.

Looking through the AVP wiki, it looks like Earth eventually becomes a real mess in the comics, but playing on Earth and the Solar System before that seems like a great setting. You could probably do Total Recall there pretty easily and even the plot (yes, there's a plot) of Doom above Mars -- I think the Stress mechanic would work great for it.

 

[Stormonu]

Event Horizon, Saturn V, Total Recall, Predator, Ghosts of Mars, 5th Element - to me all of these could fit in the Aliens universe with little to no adjustment.

Starship troopers might be a little more difficult, but Hudson does ask at one point “is this going to be another bug hunt?” Which might indicate some sort of space bugs exist.

As for Earth, Alien Ressurection (as much as that movie is an abomination to the franchise) does has a deleted scene with Ripley squatting on crumbling ruins in Paris, so at some point Earth does become a wasteland, though the mass infestation of Earth by xenomorphs from the comics got retconned years ago (and I’m actually glad of that).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Starship troopers might be a little more difficult, but Hudson does ask at one point “is this going to be another bug hunt?” Which might indicate some sort of space bugs exist.

Out of morbid curiosity, I looked in the AVP wiki and found that, amazingly, no one had added a reference to the aliens that the marines in Aliens talked about having sex with. Some things are better not detailed.

As for Earth, Alien Ressurection (as much as that movie is an abomination to the franchise) does has a deleted scene with Ripley squatting on crumbling ruins in Paris, so at some point Earth does become a wasteland, though the mass infestation of Earth by xenomorphs from the comics got retconned years ago (and I’m actually glad of that).

Oh, cool. All the articles I've read made it look like it was still in continuity. I had found that to be a big bummer, because protecting Earth from infestation should always be on the table as a motivation, IMO.

 

[Stormonu]

Out of morbid curiosity, I looked in the AVP wiki and found that, amazingly, no one had added a reference to the aliens that the marines in Aliens talked about having sex with. Some things are better not detailed.

I think you're misremembering a quote, or I missed something in Aliens. I think you're actually referring to Apone's "We need to rescue some colonists daughter's from their virginity." As I remember from the board of inquiry review, one of the board ladies seems to indicate that Earth had never had a recorded encounter with an intelligent alien life form (i.e., just space animals) up to the point of Ripley's report. Not counting the prequels Prometheus & Covenant (or Alien Isolation). BTW, it was Prometheus that effectively retconned the Earth Wars with its own spin on the Engineers.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Marines talking about having sex with an alien:

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And it turns out they are in the wiki, I just missed them somehow the first time around: Arcturian

 

[aramis erak]

As an FYI, ne can pre-order either box separately.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Free League just sent out an email this morning, saying they've reopened their UK warehouse with a "skeleton crew." (Probably not literally.) Stuff is shipping again, although slowly and there's obviously a backlog, including Kickstarter fulfillment for some of their other projects.

Still, that's a hopeful sign for these two items being ready to go in August.