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Alien RPG - Chariot of the Gods first contact (Spoilers)
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<blockquote data-quote="Stormonu" data-source="post: 7898617" data-attributes="member: 52734"><p>Yeah, I'd venture to say it perfectly helps to build the tension in that game. Probably it's best mechanic.</p><p></p><p>Okay, now that I have dinner in, a little more about our game and my thoughts on how things played out. For reference, we played through the scenario "Chariot of the Gods". Up front, I'll say this adventure has the potential for a lot going on it - so much so that for the four-hour game we played I ignored or cut out some of the happenings to focus on what was working for our group.</p><p></p><p>Now, I'm a big, BIG fan of the Alien franchise, and it's one of the few properties that not only have I seen the movies, read various novels & comics but I've also watched the commentaries and making-of the various movies (something I'm normally loathe to do). I've also written several novel-length fanfics related to Aliens, and as I mentioned above, even made my own Alien RPG back in the 80's. So, I really feel like I have an in-depth understanding of what makes the movies tick.</p><p></p><p>I write all of that because a big part of the fun we had was the atmosphere under which we played the game. Lights were dimmed. I had access to big screen TV to project ship maps, images and a couple youtube videos. Also, not only was I playing mood music from the Alien & Aliens movie as we played, I set up a soundboard - <a href="https://tabletopaudio.com/starship_sp.html" target="_blank">Tabletop Audio - Starship</a> and <a href="https://tabletopaudio.com/alien_starship_sp.html" target="_blank">Tabletop Audio - Alien Starship</a>.</p><p></p><p>The Game Opening</p><p>[spoiler]</p><p>The adventure starts as the crew of the <em>Montero</em>, a Nostromo-like ship, awakening from hyperspace at supposedly their journey's end to deliver a cargo of voliatile gas to their destination. As can be guessed, the ship has been redirected to recover a derelict ship lost 75 years ago - the <em>Cronus</em>, a ship very much the twin of the <em>Prometheus</em> from the movie of the same name. Two notable characters among the crew include a Company Agent who is aware of the true goal - recovery of biological agents (ala the "black goo" of Prometheus) and one of the characters is supposed to actually be a secret android working against Weyland-Yutani (sort of an anti-Ash). The latter I held off from revealing at the outset, wanting to have the "reveal" only come into play during Act II, but because how things started to roll in the game, I ended up leaving it out.[/spoiler]</p><p></p><p>With the soundboard quietly creating an undertone of the awakening ship and the rising tones of the Alien theme, the characters woke up one by one. On the big screen, I had up an image of the galley of the Nostromo to give the impression they were sitting around, shooting the breeze after waking up from hypersleep. For the first scene, I tried to let the players do a little RPing as the crew awakened, got in a quick meal and then started their duties. The hope was they would introduce their characters, make a quick roll or two to get used to the system and set up a little bit of background and "normal feel" to life aboard their ship. At this point, it didn't go quite as well as I hoped as it had been several years since some of my players had seen the movies and I had to spend some time re familiarizing them with the world. However, it did do the job in the end, and the players somewhat settled into a feeling that this was just another day on a typical cargo run among the stars.</p><p></p><p>The Arrival</p><p>[spoiler]</p><p>We secretly RPed out the Company Agent, Wilson, getting the missive about the ship's true goal and the secretive "special order 966" that effectively made "crew expendable" from MU/TH/UR (Mother). As that was finished up, I (publicly) ran a montage with the roughneck character securing the ship's cargo, including moving some of the volatile canisters of cargo onto the ship's cargo sled "Daisy" in prep for off-load (this was to foreshadow events later on).</p><p></p><p>On the bridge, it was time for the first planned encounter of the adventure - avoiding running into the derelict ship <em>Cronus</em>. The player playing the pilot thought he had easy roll until I reminded him that in the cargo hold below the Roughneck was in the midst of moving a few tons of explosive cargo and that he was about to try a sharp peel away from a ship onrushing at .4c. The comment "my hands are sweaty" told me I'd done my job well.</p><p></p><p>The pilot was successful - with enough successes that not only did he not collide with the tumbling derelict, but was able to gracefully bring the ship about AND slide the last cargo container onto Daisy with a satisfying "thump". <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p>[/spoiler]</p><p></p><p>Though the first few minutes of the game started a little rough, once the first major event came into play my players were instantly drawn into the game and we could already start feeling the tension mount. Already every character had at least one stress dice as we closed the first scene and the atmosphere of my players quickly turned from a casual "how is this game going to scare me" to "oh, what have we gotten ourselves into" concern.</p><p></p><p>The Investigation</p><p>[spoiler]</p><p>As the <em>Montero</em> now turned, and failed to get a response from the tumbling, derelict form of the <em>Cronus</em>, the Captain (with urging from the Company Agent) had the <em>Montero</em> match the tumbling ship and connect to the exterior airlock. Again, it was a task the Pilot quickly and easily succeeded at, gaining a soft lock on the <em>Cronus</em> dorsal airlock. The Captain (being run as an NPC by me), remained on the <em>Montero</em> to look after the ship while the rest prepared to board and salvage the <em>Cronus</em></p><p></p><p>For the last twenty minutes or so at this point, I'd been playing the <em>Montero</em>'s interior sounds in the background. As the group suited up and moved over to the <em>Cronus</em>, I switched the sound board to the single sound of the character's helmeted breath. I could feel the player's apprehension grow as I did this, and their nervousness was further increased when they found the outer airlock bulging out.</p><p></p><p>One cut into the airlock later, and within the remains of the interior airlock the party found within the floating corpse of one of the <em>Cronus</em>'s crew - his helmet interior obscured by the obvious fact he'd blown his brains out with a shotgun. One of the Roughneck players nearly lost his cool when the floating corpse drifted into a "hug" of his character when he turned the floating body around to find out what happened to the poor soul.</p><p></p><p>A little uneasily, the Pilot took the corpse's shotgun and the last remaining shell from the corpse's open breast pocket. With the ship's main power off, the group turned their attention to prying open the interior airlock to get at the ship inside. They were just about to finish manually operating the inner airlock when the ship's power breathed to life.</p><p>[/spoiler]</p><p></p><p>The above portion brought us to about the hour-and-a-half mark in the game. By this time, everyone was both excited and filled with dread at what they would encounter inside. The mood music and soundboard had been a great help in building the tension as things unfolded. Unfortunately, at this point one of my players had to leave for another engagement (my brother, playing the Pilot character), though he wished he could have remained to continue playing. Though it was fortunate he left when he did...</p><p></p><p>I'll be back to post more of the game a little later on.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Stormonu, post: 7898617, member: 52734"] Yeah, I'd venture to say it perfectly helps to build the tension in that game. Probably it's best mechanic. Okay, now that I have dinner in, a little more about our game and my thoughts on how things played out. For reference, we played through the scenario "Chariot of the Gods". Up front, I'll say this adventure has the potential for a lot going on it - so much so that for the four-hour game we played I ignored or cut out some of the happenings to focus on what was working for our group. Now, I'm a big, BIG fan of the Alien franchise, and it's one of the few properties that not only have I seen the movies, read various novels & comics but I've also watched the commentaries and making-of the various movies (something I'm normally loathe to do). I've also written several novel-length fanfics related to Aliens, and as I mentioned above, even made my own Alien RPG back in the 80's. So, I really feel like I have an in-depth understanding of what makes the movies tick. I write all of that because a big part of the fun we had was the atmosphere under which we played the game. Lights were dimmed. I had access to big screen TV to project ship maps, images and a couple youtube videos. Also, not only was I playing mood music from the Alien & Aliens movie as we played, I set up a soundboard - [URL='https://tabletopaudio.com/starship_sp.html']Tabletop Audio - Starship[/URL] and [URL='https://tabletopaudio.com/alien_starship_sp.html']Tabletop Audio - Alien Starship[/URL]. The Game Opening [spoiler] The adventure starts as the crew of the [i]Montero[/i], a Nostromo-like ship, awakening from hyperspace at supposedly their journey's end to deliver a cargo of voliatile gas to their destination. As can be guessed, the ship has been redirected to recover a derelict ship lost 75 years ago - the [i]Cronus[/i], a ship very much the twin of the [i]Prometheus[/i] from the movie of the same name. Two notable characters among the crew include a Company Agent who is aware of the true goal - recovery of biological agents (ala the "black goo" of Prometheus) and one of the characters is supposed to actually be a secret android working against Weyland-Yutani (sort of an anti-Ash). The latter I held off from revealing at the outset, wanting to have the "reveal" only come into play during Act II, but because how things started to roll in the game, I ended up leaving it out.[/spoiler] With the soundboard quietly creating an undertone of the awakening ship and the rising tones of the Alien theme, the characters woke up one by one. On the big screen, I had up an image of the galley of the Nostromo to give the impression they were sitting around, shooting the breeze after waking up from hypersleep. For the first scene, I tried to let the players do a little RPing as the crew awakened, got in a quick meal and then started their duties. The hope was they would introduce their characters, make a quick roll or two to get used to the system and set up a little bit of background and "normal feel" to life aboard their ship. At this point, it didn't go quite as well as I hoped as it had been several years since some of my players had seen the movies and I had to spend some time re familiarizing them with the world. However, it did do the job in the end, and the players somewhat settled into a feeling that this was just another day on a typical cargo run among the stars. The Arrival [spoiler] We secretly RPed out the Company Agent, Wilson, getting the missive about the ship's true goal and the secretive "special order 966" that effectively made "crew expendable" from MU/TH/UR (Mother). As that was finished up, I (publicly) ran a montage with the roughneck character securing the ship's cargo, including moving some of the volatile canisters of cargo onto the ship's cargo sled "Daisy" in prep for off-load (this was to foreshadow events later on). On the bridge, it was time for the first planned encounter of the adventure - avoiding running into the derelict ship [i]Cronus[/i]. The player playing the pilot thought he had easy roll until I reminded him that in the cargo hold below the Roughneck was in the midst of moving a few tons of explosive cargo and that he was about to try a sharp peel away from a ship onrushing at .4c. The comment "my hands are sweaty" told me I'd done my job well. The pilot was successful - with enough successes that not only did he not collide with the tumbling derelict, but was able to gracefully bring the ship about AND slide the last cargo container onto Daisy with a satisfying "thump". :) [/spoiler] Though the first few minutes of the game started a little rough, once the first major event came into play my players were instantly drawn into the game and we could already start feeling the tension mount. Already every character had at least one stress dice as we closed the first scene and the atmosphere of my players quickly turned from a casual "how is this game going to scare me" to "oh, what have we gotten ourselves into" concern. The Investigation [spoiler] As the [i]Montero[/i] now turned, and failed to get a response from the tumbling, derelict form of the [i]Cronus[/i], the Captain (with urging from the Company Agent) had the [i]Montero[/i] match the tumbling ship and connect to the exterior airlock. Again, it was a task the Pilot quickly and easily succeeded at, gaining a soft lock on the [i]Cronus[/i] dorsal airlock. The Captain (being run as an NPC by me), remained on the [i]Montero[/i] to look after the ship while the rest prepared to board and salvage the [i]Cronus[/i] For the last twenty minutes or so at this point, I'd been playing the [i]Montero[/i]'s interior sounds in the background. As the group suited up and moved over to the [i]Cronus[/i], I switched the sound board to the single sound of the character's helmeted breath. I could feel the player's apprehension grow as I did this, and their nervousness was further increased when they found the outer airlock bulging out. One cut into the airlock later, and within the remains of the interior airlock the party found within the floating corpse of one of the [i]Cronus[/i]'s crew - his helmet interior obscured by the obvious fact he'd blown his brains out with a shotgun. One of the Roughneck players nearly lost his cool when the floating corpse drifted into a "hug" of his character when he turned the floating body around to find out what happened to the poor soul. A little uneasily, the Pilot took the corpse's shotgun and the last remaining shell from the corpse's open breast pocket. With the ship's main power off, the group turned their attention to prying open the interior airlock to get at the ship inside. They were just about to finish manually operating the inner airlock when the ship's power breathed to life. [/spoiler] The above portion brought us to about the hour-and-a-half mark in the game. By this time, everyone was both excited and filled with dread at what they would encounter inside. The mood music and soundboard had been a great help in building the tension as things unfolded. Unfortunately, at this point one of my players had to leave for another engagement (my brother, playing the Pilot character), though he wished he could have remained to continue playing. Though it was fortunate he left when he did... I'll be back to post more of the game a little later on. [/QUOTE]
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