ALIEN 2nd Edition Is Coming...

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There's a new edition of Free League's ALIEN roleplaying game coming to Kickstarter soon!

Free League’s Kickstarter this Fall will debut a new wave of 2e releases, including new core rules, starter set, cinematic scenario set, and miniatures line
For five glorious years, Free League Publishing and 20th Century Studios have explored the ultimate reaches of the ALIEN universe. In celebration of the critically acclaimed ALIEN RPG’s 5th anniversary in 2024, Free League proudly announced their plans to unleash a Second Edition of the multiple award-winning game rules across an expansive new line of rulebooks, starter sets, cinematics, and accessories. The stress fest begins with bug hunts aplenty through an epic Kickstarter launching this Fall.

Free League has revealed their core line-up for the upcoming Kickstarter, with more details coming soon:
Based upon feedback from thousands of players over five years of adventures, the Second Edition of the core rules delivers an updated and streamlined version of the ALIEN RPG fans know and love, along with additional new artwork, new content, and a variety of new tools for players and Game Mothers alike, all fully compatible with previous releases and game material.

The new 2e starter set will be redesigned as the perfect starting point for newcomers to roleplaying in the ALIEN universe, containing everything they need for game night including abridged 2e rules, character sheets, custom dice, reference cards, various handouts, and an expanded 2e edition of the fan-favorite Hope’s Last Day scenario set on Hadley’s Hope just prior to the unforgettable events of Aliens.

The new cinematic scenario boxed set, Rapture Protocol, written by Jonathan Hicks and Free League's Tomas Härenstam, returns to the roots of the ALIEN franchise, featuring the crew of a small star freighter on a resupply run to the remote industrial colony, soon embroiled in a deadly conflict.

The miniatures set is designed to bring the events of Rapture Protocol to life, but fully complement other adventures and skirmish battles throughout the ALIEN RPG series.

Sign up today to follow the upcoming Kickstarter, look out for more news across Free League’s social channels, and then get ready for a whole new chapter of sprawling, stress-inducing, blood-curdling ALIEN RPG adventures for years to come. We can’t lie to you about your chances, but you have our sympathies.

 

[Jahydin]

Well, I know I'm certainly going to think twice about going "all in" on their next project, especially if I don't plan to play it right away...

 

[ruemere]

Why does the game need a second edition already? What's wrong with the current rules?

Please take the following with a grain of salt.

1. Latest version of their core engine is superior (see Blade Runner).

2. The panic rules, while cinematic, were underwhelming. Same for standard mechanics. Pile enough rolls in one place and you end up with casualties. My Vaesen players also disliked probabilities and awkward skill spread.

3. They are also refreshing Coriolis. Maybe they are using the same team to score two projects with the same manpower.

 

[schneeland]

This was shared on the Year Zero Worlds Discord (I assume originally Tomas posted on Facebook, but I don't have a direct link right now). Maybe other people here also find it helpful.

 

[Anon Adderlan]

I find the current edition to be poorly laid out and simultaneously too simple (when it comes to combat) and too complicated (when it comes to panic). So unlike most I think a new edition is more than warranted. My concern is changes won't be made where they're needed.

Despite ostensibly having 3 modes of play, ultimately this game is a one trick pony, but it's one hell of a trick.

The panic rules make it a bad plan to be in short range of another player, so it actively encourages weird plays where your colonial marines never want to be in the same room as each other. And firing in full auto mode makes marines feel stressed? EVERY TIME?

The health system is just strange and unintuitive:

• Take one damage; you have not actually even been scratched and so the medic can do nothing for you
• Take two damage; you have not actually even been scratched and so the medic can do nothing for you
• Take three damage; you have not actually even been scratched and so the medic can do nothing for you
• Take four damage; you are incapable of any actions and roll to randomly to see if you are dead.

The 12 skills you have are often hard to map to what you want to do. Given the amount of sneaking in the aliens universe, you'd think distance running and hiding would use different skills. Our GM often has to pause to work out if setting explosives (another super-common event) should use heavy machinery or tech. And, of course, the tech skill is way too useful.

But most of all, the rules are not easy to understand and are poorly organized. We gave up on the paper version and use the searchable PDF now. This may be due to translation issues, but ... it's still an issue.

As an example of the lack of clarity, looking at the panic table and (somewhat contradictory) text about panicking, can you tell which dice rolls make you lose your action when you are shooting a weapon? When it says "your next slow action", is that the one you are doing, or the one in the next round? I did a solid online search and found that no-one had any consensus. We eventually went with 10+ and you lose your action, 9- and you don't as that makes gamist sense, but there's little text support for that.

It's not a terrible system, but cleaning up the rough parts would help a lot.

I concur entirely.

Same here. When I ran my first Vampire 5th edition campaign, I had the player roll to remember a particular bit of trivia. Who sang "Boris the Spider?" After they successfully rolled I had to ask myself why I made them roll in the first place. Was anything bad or interesting going to happen if they failed? No. Was anything good or interesting going to happen if they succeeded? No. I should have just taken into account the character's age and how attuned they were to the modern age and decided on a yes or no for them.

Never roll without setting stakes first.

Personally I handle trivia like this by simply asking the player if their character knows a thing, and then maybe adjusting some kind of metacurrency depending on the answer.

 

[Jd Smith1]

That was really quick. Feels like a cash grab.

 

[The Soloist]

This reminds me of the period when TSR was in love with their FASERIP color-codes system and started applying it to other games without asking the fan base what they wanted. Star Frontiers fans, who liked the d100 system, got a FASERIP overall in Zebulon's Guide when those pages should have been spent on expanding the original game.

 

[orangefruitbat]

You can't judge when a 2nd edition should come out based on when YOU finally pulled the trigger.

Sure I can. I just purchased the whole line-up of 1E products just a week before FL announced the second edition I haven't even gotten the game to the table yet. Also, the exact same thing happened when I ordered a bunch of Pathfinder 2E stuff right before they announced the Core ruleset. So I'm cursed.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Same here. When I ran my first Vampire 5th edition campaign, I had the player roll to remember a particular bit of trivia. Who sang "Boris the Spider?" After they successfully rolled I had to ask myself why I made them roll in the first place. Was anything bad or interesting going to happen if they failed? No. Was anything good or interesting going to happen if they succeeded? No. I should have just taken into account the character's age and how attuned they were to the modern age and decided on a yes or no for them.

I find that my players get a sense of involvement when extra rolls are called for.

But I also run skill-build games, so extra rolls helps justify player choices and builds.

 

[MGibster]

I find that my players get a sense of involvement when extra rolls are called for.

If they're rolling for something important, sure. I'm going to define important as something that will actually matter in the game. A situation where success or failure will have some sort of impact or at least an interesting outcome.

 

[Jahydin]

Okay, if they put out a free PDF that gets me up to speed, I'm not bitter.

That said, they better not just "phone it in" and pour some love into this new edition.