Free League's Alien RPG - My Experience

[MGibster]

But equally, I don't even think most of this is even that complex. I think underneath all of this, people are just upset I don't like Aliens as a setting and they do.

Personal tastes are subjective, and if you don't like the setting that's perfectly okay. I have a coworker who loves the latest Star Wars triology and I hated it, but it doesn't upset me in the least that he enjoys it. And I do think you have valid criticisms of the setting. The kinds of games you can run using Alien are fairly narrow in my opinion, and because it's so bleak, it's not a game I'd want to play too frequently anyway. It's best in small doses.

It’s a straight lift of the plot from the (very good) Alien: Isolation video game. I figured that would be a pretty cool idea for a campaign. My concern is that agendas would be a bit tricky, at least for the surviving PCs from the earlier game. They’d be getting hired by Amanda based on their experience with xenomorphs… so it’s a job for them. That may make it hard to have any kind of other agenda for those characters.

So the game has two play modes: Cinematic and Campaign. Cinematic mode is supposed to emulate the tension of a movie and be played in a single session. Which is laughable because you almost certainly can't play Destroyer of Worlds or Chariot of the Gods in a single session unless it's a long, long session. You use pre-generated characters and each PC is given an Agenda card at the beginning of Acts I, II, and III. For a campaign, players generate their own characters and you don't use Agenda cards (although if you're the Mother you can do whatever you want of course).

 

[Haiku Elvis]

There is only one story ever that qualifies as true science fiction. All other candidates belong to other genres.

However, to avoid starting an argument I won’t say which one it is.

(I am kidding. Just trying to inject some much-needed levity. You can call me Hudson.)

You secure that s#!t Hudson!

 

[Retreater]

Was he crapping in his own thread to reject the way Alien introductory modules are written (it's not just the one he played, I played a different one with similar results)? It's not like the OP wrote a wholly positive review.

I don't think my goal was to crap on Alien. The RPG wasn't to my taste due to the PvP nature, but I did have some positive things to say about it - for example, I did like the system and mechanics. I wouldn't be averse to playing the occasional cinematic game, so long as it's actually a one-shot and not a 14-hour event.
For me, I don't like competitive games that stretch that long.
Of course, I was not the GM of the session, so I don't know how closely we followed the adventure and rules. I know only enough that the setting and its expectations aren't for me.
Concerning the severity of PvP conflict depending on the progression of the Acts...
Act 1 - presentation of secrets and keeping information away from your fellow players; manipulating them into doing what you want
Act 2 - setting yourself up to be the one calling the shots - remove those who stand in your way
Act 3 - just kill the rest of them

 

[Celebrim]

I don't think my goal was to crap on Alien.

Mine wasn't really either. Like you, I spoke positively of system and mechanics, especially the stress mechanics.

Unlike you, I'm not as interested in using the system to fight xenomorphs even in a one shot. That just didn't prove to be all that interesting to me. At some level, it just kind of hammered home they slasher flick vibe where the monster is the real protagonist of the movie. Like for me, it was annoying when despite Ripley appearing to 'win' the scenario in 'Aliens' they had to pull the, "Oh no, you didn't really." in Alien 3. And ultimately for me, I would want a setting where aliens aren't the focus of the setting, just one of many things you do in the setting, and Aliens didn't feel like a GM pet NPC that couldn't be allowed to lose. And that's not really the fault of the GM or even the game designers in a sense. That's being true to the material. It's just that I'm not sure that's going to be a game universe I'd really want to be in or to run a game in.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I would consider that wholly a positive and not a negative. Most of the time you don't want to have PC's with sharply conflicting agendas in a story you want to go on for a long time. You very much ideally want to have the party working together in a gameable story because in a gameable story you don't have the power of plot to make it all work out. Whenever you have conflicting agendas in a party regardless of the RPG, you often need OOC agreements and negotiation between players to work those agendas in a way that doesn't derail everyone's fun. Keeping agendas secret and running PvP rarely is going to work out for a longer game.

No, I think that it makes the game interesting and different from other "team-based" games like D&D. I think forgetting that pure team mentality is one of the keys to enjoying a game like this. The characters should have reasons to not get along at all times. They should struggle to work together at times.

And as I said in my last post, not every conflicting agenda needs to be in direct opposition to another.

As for the length of the game, I don't think it would be a problem there. I don't expect a campaign of Alien to be as long as a campaign in other games. Multiple sessions for sure, much more than a one shot (or the three sessions it took us to play through Chariot of the Gods), but nothing like what many consider standard D&D campaigns.

Agendas can also change over time, so that may be an interesting element.

Aside from that, the conflicting agendas common to Alien stories are part of the power of plot protection given to the aliens, as a way to derail the protagonists when they otherwise should succeed. Pulling back, they are ways for the author of the story to screw over his protagonists and make sure they never have a way out, and shocking his audience. That's fine in the medium of a horror movie. But in an RPG, the protagonists are the audience, and that's just bad GMing.

I don't share that view. I share the view more that it's the removal of the plot protection given to the PCs.

The other use in story of the conflicting agendas is a way to explain why the characters in an Alien story are frequently jumping through the stupid hoops to advance the plot. Disbelief is less suspended if it turns out that they really weren't just that dumb, they were evil and malicious.

I agree that the agendas (conflicting or not) can help drive things forward. I don't think that's "stupid". I'd argue that some group of hyper-competent people who work in total unison is far more contrived than characters who may behave in ways that are not ideal.

Your overall take on this is way too negative, and doesn't come anything close to my experience running the game... so I can't attribute it to the game nor the setting.

So the game has two play modes: Cinematic and Campaign. Cinematic mode is supposed to emulate the tension of a movie and be played in a single session. Which is laughable because you almost certainly can't play Destroyer of Worlds or Chariot of the Gods in a single session unless it's a long, long session. You use pre-generated characters and each PC is given an Agenda card at the beginning of Acts I, II, and III. For a campaign, players generate their own characters and you don't use Agenda cards (although if you're the Mother you can do whatever you want of course).

Yeah, I ran Chariot of the Gods, actually! I'm familiar with the cinematic and campaign approaches. Although I didn't recall that campaigns don't use agendas. I'd likely still keep them in there, although would have to give it some thought... as I said, having reasonable agenda for such a "mission" based scenario seems a bit challenging.

 

[Celebrim]

No, I think that it makes the game interesting and different from other "team-based" games like D&D. I think forgetting that pure team mentality is one of the keys to enjoying a game like this. The characters should have reasons to not get along at all times. They should struggle to work together at times.

Personally, I think you are going to achieve that in any RPG. Working together is not easy. You are going to have conflict. You are not going to get perfect coordination. More to the point, if your players have aesthetics of play that involve exploration of character, their going to end up with conflicts anyway because they enjoy having that happen.

I think the agendas are a mistake. I think that players even in a one shot should be encouraged to decide their agenda. I think that the agendas should be written as conflicting goals where the interest of the scenario is the player deciding which of their conflicting goals they are going to choose. Instead of telling the player what the character wants, tell the player what their character is conflicted about and leave it up to the player to decide how that story should go instead of acting like there is one right choice for that character.

As for the length of the game, I don't think it would be a problem there.

And I think that is fair. There are a lot of games that I enjoy as a one shot that I wouldn't enjoy as a longer game, and I can totally see Alien being some other person's cup of tea. It's not a bad game. There are just too many little problems I have with it to make me want to play in or run other one shots with it. One for me tend to be games that i run for new players or groups of players that don't get to game with each other very often - like family in my case. And this just doesn't meet my criteria for a fun one shot even compared to say CoC.

Your overall take on this is way too negative, and doesn't come anything close to my experience running the game... so I can't attribute it to the game nor the setting.

Which sounds like a difference of opinion, which I'm fine with.

 

[Yora]

For players to come up with their own interesting goals for their individual characters, they need to be pretty familiar with the setting and the campaign style to know what kinds of goals are possible and might become relevant during the campaign.
If you play generic D&D Fantasyland, that's possible because most players already know that setting and style well enough to come up with generic goals. If you have a long running campaign where the players have time to become familiar with how things work in that world, that's also not much of a problem.
But when all the players have to work with is that most of them have seen one or two Alien movies 10 years ago, what is there to work with? There are these deadly Aliens and Weyland-Yutani will sacrifice its employees to capture one for study. You first need something to paint the players an evocative picture of what the world is like. And giving the players randomly assigned goals for their characters actually is a good method to do that. These goals are not telling the players to do anything or to find a specific thing located somewhere in the adventure. They give the player's impressions of how people in the setting of the adventure think and what is regarded as appropriate and fitting for the game. And in the end, it's still always up to the players what to do with it. The GM isn't going to check each player's assigned goal during play and penalizing them to not having acted according to it enough. They are suggestions, and if you don't find opportunities to use them in fun ways during the play, then you don't. If you run into something else that you want to pursue with your character, you can do that too.

 

[Retreater]

The GM isn't going to check each player's assigned goal during play and penalizing them to not having acted according to it enough. They are suggestions, and if you don't find opportunities to use them in fun ways during the play, then you don't.

Yeah, for achieving your agenda you get a Story Point, which you can use to add a "success" to any die roll - so it's pretty much a vitally important "auto succeed."
By not doing it, you just kind of get looked down upon for violating the spirit of the game and being a "bad" role-player. By doing it, you likely upset your friends and look like a jerk. Otherwise, there are no penalties.

 

[payn]

Yeah, for achieving your agenda you get a Story Point, which you can use to add a "success" to any die roll - so it's pretty much a vitally important "auto succeed."
By not doing it, you just kind of get looked down upon for violating the spirit of the game and being a "bad" role-player. By doing it, you likely upset your friends and look like a jerk. Otherwise, there are no penalties.

Is that what the rulebook indicates?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Personally, I think you are going to achieve that in any RPG. Working together is not easy. You are going to have conflict. You are not going to get perfect coordination.

Really? Most of my group’s D&D play, as well as some other games, sees the group working incredibly effectively together. Buffs and healing and assisting are all common, and so are abilities that promote teamwork. They’re reluctant to split the party in all but the most extreme cases, and so on.

The agendas help discourage that hyper-competency in favor of a more flawed-human approach, which is suited to the genre.

More to the point, if your players have aesthetics of play that involve exploration of character, their going to end up with conflicts anyway because they enjoy having that happen.

So it’s not conflict that you’re against, it’s just the agendas? I’m not sure I follow. If the players are interested in exploring character and that will cause conflicts, how is that not doing exactly one of the things the agendas help promote?

I think the agendas are a mistake. I think that players even in a one shot should be encouraged to decide their agenda. I think that the agendas should be written as conflicting goals where the interest of the scenario is the player deciding which of their conflicting goals they are going to choose. Instead of telling the player what the character wants, tell the player what their character is conflicted about and leave it up to the player to decide how that story should go instead of acting like there is one right choice for that character.

I don’t recall as it’s been some time, but if you’re playing a cinematic scenario with player made characters, then I think the GM and player will work on agendas together. It makes sense that pre-generated characters would have pre-generated agendas.

I could be wrong though, and perhaps the book says the GM always decides on agendas for PCs. If so, I’d ditch that and work with the players to find something suitable.