Games that do 'ALIEN' well

[aramis erak]

With (yet another) new Alien flick on the horizon (please be good!) I was thinking about TTRPGs which do the Alien franchise well.

Obviously, there's the official Alien TTRPG from Free League (2nd Edition coming soon).

There's Mothership, which I hear also does it very well--I get to play that in a couple of weeks, I hope!

Of course any sci-fi RPG can do Alien, but which ones do it the best?

I've only used 2 for it... ALIENS Adventure Game, and ALIEN.
AAG does not do it well.
ALIEN does it just about perfect.

Classic Traveller has an article about the "Reticulan Parasite"... but using Traveller for it is very Meh, IMO. I've friends who tried it. Neither they nor their players were enthusiastic about it.

Not being a fan of OSR designs in general, and found the first edition of MOthership indecipherable, haven't looked past that.

Hero System can do it, and well, but there are other reasons I've not bothered.

 

[Larnievc]

Ah. Aliens Adventure Game. It's more of a tactics game than a RPG, which I think is why they titled it "Adventure Game" instead. I have a friend who is very, very, into this game. They also published a board game.

Yeah that’s it. Really detailed crit hit tables. You could lose eyes and shoot xeno chins off.

 

[Larnievc]

Thinking about it, you can’t go wrong with using Synnibarr. It’d be perfect.

I’ll see myself out.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

there's no 5th imperium in Traveller, only 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Imperiums.

Sorry, I meant the 6th Imperium.

 

[Squared]

Not a system, but I wanted to add some fodder to the conversation.

I know when people hear ALIEN, as was said, they're expecting waiting around for the xenomorph. I think the whole setting could be interesting for a lot of other reasons, depending on what people sign up for.

I've been recently going down a rabbit hole on Aliens lore, and learned that the xenomorph isn't the first nonhuman life the Colonial Marines had run into - hence the line about 'another bug hunt'. Apparently, there are other alien life forms out there to deal with - Apone and the gang had just come from Pollux with thin, flying aliens that combusted when killed apparently.

The more you know

If you want something that feels like the first Alien movie without having any of the xenomorphs definitely check out Hostile by Zozer games. There is a setting only book that you can get which is absolutely dripping with detail about difficult life out on the fringe.

^2

 

[timbannock]

Death In Space

Vast Grimm, a Mork Borg spin-off

I've actually combined both and run Traveller with it, because I never liked Traveller's rules. It went extremely well, and we had two scenarios that had a very ALIEN-like feel to them.

 

[Jahydin]

Savage Worlds (Aliens specifically)

I know that seems like an easy one to throw out since it's generic, but honestly think the mechanics (extras, exploding dice, all or nothing kill rolls, etc.) support an Aliens movie quite well. Also, coming up with new and fun alien types, even spur of the moment, would be really easy.

I think for a more stealth like game (Alien) it could work too, but would take some work to make it fun and interesting.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

...
Of course any sci-fi RPG can do Alien, but which ones do it the best?

Not sure if its "best" but its been "great"

We use Tremulus: Derelict Adrift (link)

What we feel it does better than any other Alien style game by far = pacing. Be it combat or investigation, Derelict Adrift feels like it is the same pace as watching the films. So the panic and oh naughty word moments are more from roleplay and less from bad rolls.

But we are very used to PBTA, so that helps a ton too....

 

[RenleyRenfield]

hahahahaha I have never seen the censorship on this site before. That cracks me up! hehehe....

 

[S'mon]

With (yet another) new Alien flick on the horizon (please be good!) I was thinking about TTRPGs which do the Alien franchise well.

Obviously, there's the official Alien TTRPG from Free League (2nd Edition coming soon).

There's Mothership, which I hear also does it very well--I get to play that in a couple of weeks, I hope!

Of course any sci-fi RPG can do Alien, but which ones do it the best?

I ran a great Alien mini-campaign using Call of Cthulu. I would certainly use CoC/BRP before any Narrativist type system. The fragile PCs with ablating hit points (& SAN) worked great.