New Edition Of ALIEN RPG Includes Romulus Material--But Kickstarter Delayed To 2025

Jackson's Star by Col Price​

Free League's 2nd Edition of its 2019 Alien roleplaying game is coming to Kickstarter--and with over 10,000 followers waiting for it, it looks to be another blockbuster crowdfunded from the Swedish company.

Included in the new core rulebook will be content based on the recent Alien: Romulus movie, with information about the mining colony Jackson's Star, along with weapons like the F44AA Pulse Rifle and the USCSS Corbelan IV mining hauler.

The Kickstarter has been delayed from this Fall until Spring 2025. Free League says that since Gen Con in August, fans gave offered ideas and feedback, and the publisher wishes to bring those ideas to the table.

ALIEN 2nd Edition Is Coming...

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...

www.enworld.org

Alien RPG 2nd Edition Maps Revealed

Free League revealed two of the battlemaps that will be part of the Alien RPG Second Edition coming to Kickstarter this fall. The full-color maps will be 34x22 inches scaled to the RPG miniature set that will also be part of the upcoming Kickstarter. The first map features the mining ship USCSS...

www.enworld.org

F44AA pulse rifle by John Mullaney
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The Kickstarter will include the new core rulebook, along with a new starter set, a boxed set adventure called Rapture Protocol, and a range of miniatures. Free League's original Alien RPG won multiple ENnies and other awards.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

He made Prometheus.

Then he should have seen the alien queen mural on the wall of the room full of goo cannisters. The archeologists stop and shine their flashlights over it and wonder about it.

I would take what Scott says about the Alien movies he doesn't make with a huge grain of salt, unless he was completely disconnected from the creation of Prometheus, which he doesn't seem to have been. He's clearly unhappy about the studio daring to make movies without him -- he repeatedly complained about it during the Gladiator 2 press tour -- but since he's using elements from them, "they aren't canon to me" seems to be a bit of hyperbole.

 

[Morrus]

Then he should have seen the alien queen mural on the wall of the room full of goo cannisters. The archeologists stop and shine their flashlights over it and wonder about it.

I would take what Scott says about the Alien movies he doesn't make with a huge grain of salt, unless he was completely disconnected from the creation of Prometheus, which he doesn't seem to have been. He's clearly unhappy about the studio daring to make movies without him -- he repeatedly complained about it during the Gladiator 2 press tour -- but since he's using elements from them, "they aren't canon to me" seems to be a bit of hyperbole.

I mean, I don't care what Ridley Scott says is canon, or what James Cameron says is canon, or what the Pope says is canon. I was just responding with a bit of mild trivia to somebody who hoped Modiphius was the secret agent of the studio's momentous announcement that two of the films would be dropped from canon. Which, obviously, is daft.

 

[aramis erak]

But will it have content from Alien: Resurrection and AVP: Requiem?

A:R? already present in 1e, tho' not obvious.
AVP:R? They don't have the predator license, last I heard.
They have incorporated elements from a number of games.
The announcement mentions Material in from the current movie (Romulus?)

I would take what Scott says about the Alien movies he doesn't make with a huge grain of salt, unless he was completely disconnected from the creation of Prometheus, which he doesn't seem to have been. He's clearly unhappy about the studio daring to make movies without him -- he repeatedly complained about it during the Gladiator 2 press tour -- but since he's using elements from them, "they aren't canon to me" seems to be a bit of hyperbole.

He doesn't own the rights, so, unlike Lucas before the sale to Disney, his opinions on what is or is not cannon are technically immaterial to licenses. Tho' the Licensees' views might take it into consideration... But given that they've incorporated material from the games, I would hazard that they don't.

 

[Nikosandros]

I would take what Scott says about the Alien movies he doesn't make with a huge grain of salt, unless he was completely disconnected from the creation of Prometheus, which he doesn't seem to have been.

Scott was the director (and one of the producers) of Prometheus.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Scott was the director (and one of the producers) of Prometheus.

Right, which is why he definitely knows there's a mural of a xenomorph queen prominently featured in the black oil cannister room in Prometheus.

 

[ersatzphil]

Right, which is why he definitely knows there's a mural of a xenomorph queen prominently featured in the black oil cannister room in Prometheus.

For what it's worth, there seems to be quite a bit of contention on that topic. Lots of people argue it's a queen, others a deacon.

I genuinely had no idea that there was so much contention as to whether 'Aliens' was 'canon'. On the topic though, I did find Cameron's 2k word letter he sent to STARLOG magazine in the early 90s, which is a pretty fascinating read: link.

 

[aramis erak]

For what it's worth, there seems to be quite a bit of contention on that topic. Lots of people argue it's a queen, others a deacon.

I genuinely had no idea that there was so much contention as to whether 'Aliens' was 'canon'. On the topic though, I did find Cameron's 2k word letter he sent to STARLOG magazine in the early 90s, which is a pretty fascinating read: link.

It wasn't so much a canonicity argument back then; it was more just a quality one. Fan obsessions with canonicity in general rise with public internet access... the ability to discuss the sources and secondary products with other rabid fans...

Tho' BSG, ' Trek and ' Wars had heated BBS discussions in the late 80s and into the early 90's thanks to OPUS, WWIVnet, UseNet over FidoNet... and robust secondary products with story (both Novels and games), and both 'Trek and 'Wars had robust timeline advancing TTRPGs...

 

[Big J Money]

The biggest issue my players had with the game was the way Stress worked. When their Stress levels were sufficiently high, they were discouraged from doing anything that would require a roll.

This is down to taste, but you could have a timer for declaring actions in tense situations. "X happens. What do you do? You have 5 seconds to do something or Y happens." Count down out loud.

I introduced this to players unfamiliar with the concept in a new 5E campaign to make combat more chaotic and the players loved it. I introduced it slowly though, making sure they got a feel for how combat works on a timer and how to quickly choose actions, etc.

If you don't like the countdown, an alternative version for Alien RPG might be called "Pressure Points". You as a DM decide when a decision is a pressure point (essentially any time action is required when things are tense, especially when time is critical). Instead of counting down, you would count up. The number of seconds it takes for them to describe their action is the number of their stress dice that will apply to that roll:

P: I walk down the corrider and peek down the passage on the right to see if anything's down there.

GM: Two guards patrol the hallway. You spot each other at the same moment. Alarmed, the guards shout "Hey you, stop and come with us!" as they reach for their rifles. This is a pressure point, what do you do? 0, 1, 2, 3...

Obviously you don't have them add more stress dice than they have accumulated, so you can stop counting when you hit their max. If they haven't accumulated any yet, then there's no point to doing the count up at all. If they describe an action that you feel doesn't require a dice roll, it still does not require a dice roll; being a pressure point moment wouldn't change that.

 

[MGibster]

This is down to taste, but you could have a timer for declaring actions in tense situations. "X happens. What do you do? You have 5 seconds to do something or Y happens." Count down out loud.

This past December I ran Destroyer of Worlds for my group. In DoW, the players are Colonial Marines tasked with apprehending some AWOL marines before you have to bug out off world. What I discovered was there's a point in the game where you get into a death spiral so far as Stress is concerned. On the Stress table, one of the more common results is for the player to gain a level as Stress and for all the other players in the area to gain a level as well. Other players might also have to roll on the Stress table and getting a result where everyone else gains a Stress was pretty common when I ran the game. What happened was a chain reaction where one player gained Stress, other players either gained Stress or were also forced to roll on the Stress table, and it often resulted in still more Stress being gained by others. This happened during the many combat encounters from the scenario, so the players had no other choice but to react or they'd be dead.

I also found that running a more action oriented scenario on the vein of Aliens didn't work as well as I'd hoped. The biggest problems is the marine pulse rifles just don't do enough damage. A pulse rifle does 2 points of damage + extra if they get more successes than needed to hit, but a lot of the Aliens have like 5-7 hit points, which means all of the PCs would have to concentrate fire on one xenomorph to take it down quickly. Contrast that with Aliens where the marines were gunning down xenomorphs left or right.

I'm hoping this new edition fixes these problems. I'm going to wait and see before I participate in the Kickstarter. As it stands, I don't think my players are interested in playing Aliens anymore. Which is too bad, I think it's a solid game overall.

 

[GMMichael]

. . . This happened during the many combat encounters from the scenario, so the players had no other choice but to react or they'd be dead.

The biggest problems is the marine pulse rifles just don't do enough damage. A pulse rifle does 2 points of damage + extra if they get more successes than needed to hit, but a lot of the Aliens have like 5-7 hit points, which means all of the PCs would have to concentrate fire on one xenomorph to take it down quickly. . .

I'm hoping this new edition fixes these problems.

React or die is an Alien theme. Bumping up pulse rifle damage seems like an easy GM fix. So, are these really problems?