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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MGibster" data-source="post: 8397194" data-attributes="member: 4534">In the wake of 1977’s box office smash Star Wars, movie studios attempted to cash in on the popularity of science fiction by releasing movies like The Black Hole (1979), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), and even B-Movie king Roger Corman got in on the action with 1980s Battle Beyond the Stars. Alien was released in 1979 to mixed reviews.“A haunted house film” set in outer space is how film critic Gene Siskel described Alien. The plot of the film is kicked off when the crew of the Nostromo, a tug hauling ore back to Earth, receives what appears to be a distress signal of unknown alien origin and are obligated by company policy to investigate or forfeit their pay. When the crew unwittingly brings aboard an alien, they are picked off one-by-one as they try desperately to figure out how to kill it.Despite receiving mixed reviews at the time, today Alien is often cited as one of the best science fiction movies of all times. Swiss artist H.R. Giger designed the titular alien, an eyeless bio-mechanical phallic thing, most of the crew were played by actors in their 40s which lends a certain gravitas to the cast, and it was well acted with characters behaving like average working men and women who just want to finish the job and get their paycheck. The combination of a strange unique alien and good characterization made Alien the classic it is today.Seven years later, the sequel Aliens was released in 1986 and in many ways is very different from the original movie. In Aliens, all communication with the colony on LV-426, the moon the Nostromo landed on in the first movie, has been lost. The Colonial Marines are sent to investigate and instead of running into a solitary alien picking off colonist one-by-one they discover a whole swarm of aliens. Aliens is less of a horror movie and more of an 80s action movie but it works rather well and many fans consider it superior to the original.When designing a game based on the Alien franchise, how do you create something that emulates Alien with it’s haunted house horror vibe but also works for the 1980s action movie aesthetics of Aliens? (To say nothing of emulating the various sequels and prequels.) Free League Publishing does a great job of this with 2019’s Alien: The Role Playing Game.This review will be broken down in two parts. The first part will consist of a standard review of the Alien RPG. The second part will consist of a review of the Alien RPG Starter Set which includes the adventure Chariot of the Gods. In the second review, I will include examples of how I applied the game rules to various situations, how well they worked, and what mistakes I may have made. More to come. Please feel free to add anything you have to say about the Alien RPG here.Please don’t post any spoilers without providing ample warning for those who wish to avoid it.</blockquote>

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