Aliens RPG One-shot

[Marc_C]

It's a d6 die pool much like their Mutant Year Zero game. The twist is that you have a stress level that goes up when faced with alien stuff. Stress is GOOD. It gives you more dice to roll because you want to kill the bug or get away. Stress is BAD because rolling more dice means possibly rolling the "Facehugger" icons (1 on the d6). Facehugger icons mean negative outcomes like dropping your weapon instead of firing.

My pre-gen scientist had a secret mission. Each character has one. His mission was to get a living sample of the alien and get it back to Weyland. We found a captured living sample in the med bay of the infested based we were exploring. I grabbed it.

My character died late in the game. I ordered the android to deliver the sample to Weyland before dying. I made it sound like it was a direct order from the top brass (when it was only self serving goal).

Badly damaged the android met a survivor (npc) played by a player who lost his character much earlier. They managed to find the shuttle and flee the planet.

My character was considered the 'winner' of the mission since he managed to complete his mission despite dying.

Overall I enjoyed the game. It's lethal and scary. Aliens have1 on 6 chances of outright killing you when they hit. My PC died because the alien severed his spinal cord and he could not run any more. I shot the bugger in the face before dying!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My pre-gen scientist had a secret mission. Each character has one. His mission was to get a living sample of the alien and get it back to Weyland.

The least surprising mission in the Alien universe!

 

[Marc_C]

The least surprising mission in the Alien universe!

LOL!

Another character had a kill list of three specific people.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Which adventure was this? A pre-published one, or a homebrew?

 

[schneeland]

Things escalate a bit too fast in the Alien version of Year Zero for my taste. But then I haven't read the campaign part and the (freshly arrived) Colonial Marines Operations Manual, so maybe that can be toned down a bit.

 

[Marc_C]

Which adventure was this? A pre-published one, or a homebrew?

It's published one. I wasn't the GM. Hadley's Hope I think.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Things escalate a bit too fast in the Alien version of Year Zero for my taste. But then I haven't read the campaign part and the (freshly arrived) Colonial Marines Operations Manual, so maybe that can be toned down a bit.

The campaign advice I keep seeing is that you need to incorporate downtime for everyone to destress periodically, as opposed to the pressure cooker of cinematic play, which is designed to have player characters snapping by the end.

 

[dbm]

Sounds like the intro adventure in the main book. We played that to get to grips with the system, and we’re currently playing the Destroyer of Worlds adventure.

It’s a nice change of pace game. It is probably as viable for a longer term campaign as Call of Cthulhu is. The existential threat is xenos rather than mythos but otherwise the campaign has a similar set of arcs.

We‘re enjoying it (and Colonial Marines are bad-ass).

 

[Larnievc]

My group played the Hadley's Hope senario- brilliant fun, super tense right up until the end game when they were trying to get to the shuttle. By that time I was super drunk so I chucked in some Royal Marines Commandos and a Predator to make things end with a bang.

 

[aramis erak]

The least surprising mission in the Alien universe!

It can be real fun when the Engineer is the one who draws it. (Some of the scenarios suggest randomization of secrets...)

It is probably as viable for a longer term campaign as Call of Cthulhu is. The existential threat is xenos rather than mythos but otherwise the campaign has a similar set of arcs.

Having run two roughly 6-month campaigns, yes. It certainly is. I'm looking forward to the Merchant/Navy expansion