Not DND - Alien RPG with Tomas Härenstam

The official ALIEN tabletop roleplaying game—a universe of body horror and corporate brinkmanship, where synthetic people play god while space truckers and marines serve host to newborn ghoulish creatures. It’s a harsh and unforgiving universe and you are nothing if not expendable. Stay alive if you can.

NOT DND is our weekly streamed show where Jessica Hancock interviews tabletop RPG creators about their games -- focusing on those which are not D&D! You can catch it every week at 10-pm on our Twitch channel, catch up on past episodes on YouTube, or listen to it as a weekly podcast wherever you get your pods! Past episodes include Dune, Star Trek Adventures, WFRP, Blade Runner, and many more.

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[Jaeger]

Sounds cool.

But I'll wait until the 5e version comes out...

 

[Vincent55]

To be honest, any system can be used to do any type of setting, i have used D&D to play space opera and modern fantasy settings, the weird west and cyberpunk. All it really takes is enough time and imagination to do the work to make the alterations and put together the setting. But if you don't want to do that due to whatever then this i guess would be fine.

 

[Morrus]

To be honest, any system can be used to do any type of setting,

Of course. People have been saying "just do it in D&D" for decades. And sure, you can play in the Forgotten Realms with just coin flips if you really want to. But just like D&D does the Realms better than coin flips do, some other systems do some flavours of game better than others, and there are thousands of really good games out there that aren't D&D. This interview series highlights some of those.

 

[Arilyn]

We've been really enjoying the podcast. I love the variety Jessica has on her show, from small indie obscure games to bigger names, like Alien. It's a fantastic idea to deliberately showcase "Not D&D." And Jessica is a great interviewer!

 

[Haiku Elvis]

I agree I like the way it goes from the larger "not DnD" publishers like Free League and Modiphius down to solo indie designers. I must admit it's inspired me to buy a couple of things I wouldn't even have been aware of otherwise. But to be honest how they got into RPGs why they were inspired to make the games they make and how the process works is what I find the most interesting.

 

[MGibster]

To be honest, any system can be used to do any type of setting, i have used D&D to play space opera and modern fantasy settings, the weird west and cyberpunk. All it really takes is enough time and imagination to do the work to make the alterations and put together the setting. But if you don't want to do that due to whatever then this i guess would be fine.

This is like telling someone that any automobile can be used on any type of terrain. It's true, I could take my 1983 El Camino off roading. I just need to have the time, skill, and funds to lift the vehicle, put on all terrain tires, put in a skid plate, put in a recovery point, some emergency equipment, a roof rack system, and maybe a sweet sound system so I can blast some AC/DC while tearing up Mother Nature. Or I could just make my life a whole lot easier and buy a Jeep that was specifically designed for off road use in the first place.

Personally, I'd rather not waste a lot of my time hammering D&D 5th edition into something resembling the shape of a xenomorph. Much better to have a game designed to feel like what I'm looking for right out of the box.

 

[Vincent55]

This is like telling someone that any automobile can be used on any type of terrain. It's true, I could take my 1983 El Camino off roading. I just need to have the time, skill, and funds to lift the vehicle, put on all terrain tires, put in a skid plate, put in a recovery point, some emergency equipment, a roof rack system, and maybe a sweet sound system so I can blast some AC/DC while tearing up Mother Nature. Or I could just make my life a whole lot easier and buy a Jeep that was specifically designed for off road use in the first place.

Personally, I'd rather not waste a lot of my time hammering D&D 5th edition into something resembling the shape of a xenomorph. Much better to have a game designed to feel like what I'm looking for right out of the box.

Do you want examples? because I have over 5 other books really more that use 5e for everything from superheroes to alien space opera and cyberpunk old west and more. While i am not saying anything bad about this book or system feel that unless it is an official release that it will not work, and that is just wrong. Ultramodern 5e is just one example of taking the system and applying it to everything, stargate 5e is another, carbon 2185, the spygame, genefunk 2090, and there are more

 

[MGibster]

Do you want examples? because I have over 5 other books really more that use 5e for everything from superheroes to alien space opera and cyberpunk old west and more. While i am not saying anything bad about this book or system feel that unless it is an official release that it will not work, and that is just wrong. Ultramodern 5e is just one example of taking the system and applying it to everything, stargate 5e is another, carbon 2185, the spygame, genefunk 2090, and there are more

Let's be clear about something, I like 5th edition D&D and consider it the best version of the game to date so I'm not arguing that it's a bad system. And I don't really need any examples because there's no doubt in my mind that you can modify 5th edition to do whatever it is you want it to do. But I don't think 5th edition is the best system for every game, and the system Free League used for Alien is a much better fit for what they were going for.

Below you'll find a picture of an El Camino that's been modified for off-roading. Just looking at that photo will put a mullet on you so don't stare at it for too long. It's proof that you can modify anything. But it seems like a colossal waste of time to me. Better to get a Jeep or a Toyota Tacoma.

 

[Jahydin]

Personally, I'd rather not waste a lot of my time hammering D&D 5th edition into something resembling the shape of a xenomorph. Much better to have a game designed to feel like what I'm looking for right out of the box.

Agree, especially considering the Alien RPG is pretty unique in its approach in simulating the setting!