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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[RareBreed]

Part of the reason I kind of left the RPG hobby other than as an observer is because people pretty much only wanted to play D&D and MTG. Like most people I started with AD&D, but very quickly graduated to many other RPG's from the 80s and early 90s. Somewhere along the MTG and 3rd edition days and college causing our group to split up, I couldn't find people who didn't want to play unless it used the D&D rule set.

The argument I usually hear is that people don't want to learn a new game system because they know all its ins and outs already. Maybe I'm weird, but I used to learn a system almost every two months (granted, we didn't always play the new system often, but we used to rotate our games quite a bit).

I guess I am also weird because as a software engineer, I've used something like 15+ programming languages over my career (I learned about one new language every year and a half). Having learned so many languages of differing types, from FP languages like lisps and haskell, systems languages like C++ and rust, dynamic languages like javascript or python, and even a smattering of logic flow and HDL languages, it taught me to think differently and approach problems differently. I believe the same is true with most things in life.

If all you have is a hammer, everything becomes a nail. All programming languages are Turing (or for FP languages, Lambda Calculus) complete...in other words they all have equivalent computational power. But trust me, you don't want to write a front end web app in C (and yeah, you can now thanks to web assembly through emscripten). You'll be WAY better off using javascript, typescript or even rust (with web assembly).

So with that long diatribe out of the way, I'm glad there is this series that showcases other game systems.

To paraphrase a quote from Max Mueller: "To know one game system is to know none".

 

[Vincent55]

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.


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Wow, what a bad example, that's a physical object and not even close to the same reason as behind an RPG system. As an RPG game system can effortlessly be changed by adding or taking away a few rules. A better example would be that you prefer a jeep over and hummer both are off road but it is just you prefer the one name over the other is all.

 

[Aldarc]

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

This feels more like a declaration of how many different shades of lipstick that the pig can wear rather than what the pig can actually do well.

 

[Pentallion]

I hope these guys do an M-Space podcast one day.

 

[RareBreed]

Wow, what a bad example, that's a physical object and not even close to the same reason as behind an RPG system. As an RPG game system can effortlessly be changed by adding or taking away a few rules. A better example would be that you prefer a jeep over and hummer both are off road but it is just you prefer the one name over the other is all.

Then look at my example of programming languages. All Turing complete or lambda calculus based programming languages are equivalent in what they can compute. But some programming languages makes certain kinds of problems easier to solve than others.

It's the same with game systems. Out of curiosity, have you tried other game systems?

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Do you want examples?

Sure. But if the following are your examples:

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

You've only proved that 5e can do many things adequately, but not particularly well. And yes, I've played Carbon 2185, Ultramodern 5e, SW5e, and several others.

However, the GAME PLAY of different systems varies wildly. I can't think of anyone who would seriously say that Mythras M-Space plays the same as Savage Worlds plays the same as 5e plays the same as Aliens plays the same as Star Trek Adventures plays the same as FFPs Star Wars, etc., etc. Sometimes, people are looking for systems that give a certain feel to the game when playing.

You're posts come across as someone who really likes 5e and feels somehow attacked when others point out other systems that better fit a particular setting. We're not attacking your or your favorite game fixation (5e). Or, at least, I'm not. I'm just saying that while 5e is adequate for most things, other systems are just a better fit.

Meanwhile, you bopped into a thread clearly marked "Not DnD" and shouted: "Just use D&D! 5e is perfect for everything, ya heathens!" As such, you're the aggressor here.

When it comes to playing D&D, I don't see how you can do better than 5e. But for many other things,... meh.

As an RPG game system can effortlessly be changed by adding or taking away a few rules.

No. No, they can't. And many who truly think so, produce a lot of untested, unbalanced crap.

 

[BrokenTwin]

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.


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I mean... I can't lie, I want that El Camino. It would be an inefficient nightmare to do literally anything with, but I still want it.

To the actual OP, I've played the Alien RPG a few times now, and it offers a drastically different experience than playing in the Alien IP with a 5E system would. It's not a system I particularly enjoy for longer campaigns, but it really captures the feel of the IP. The stress mechanic is an amazing subsystem that I want to port into other systems.

 

[MGibster]

Wow, what a bad example, that's a physical object and not even close to the same reason as behind an RPG system. As an RPG game system can effortlessly be changed by adding or taking away a few rules. A better example would be that you prefer a jeep over and hummer both are off road but it is just you prefer the one name over the other is all.

I disagree that it's effortless to adapt a set of rules and feel as though you diminish the efforts of game developers. Back when the OGL for d20 was all the rage, there were many, many adaptations that glutted the shelves of my local game store. There was a lot of garbage on the shelves including the Wheel of Time and the d20 version of Deadlands. But there were also many good game including Spycraft, Mutants and Masterminds, and d20 Call of Cthulhu. If changing the rules was effortless, then all those games should have been equally good. But changing the rules in a way to reflect what you're trying to accomplish takes both skill and effort.

So I stand by my El Camino example. The 5th edition rules were designed for a specific style of game play which is radically different from what the developers of Alien were going for. Just like the El Camino was designed to be driven on paved roads.

I mean... I can't lie, I want that El Camino. It would be an inefficient nightmare to do literally anything with, but I still want it.

Yeah, me too. Maybe if I had a ton of money lying around.

 

[Aldarc]

So I stand by my El Camino example. The 5th edition rules were designed for a specific style of game play which is radically different from what the developers of Alien were going for. Just like the El Camino was designed to be driven on paved roads.

Agreed. IMO, a simple point to demonstarte this issue is how 5e D&D was designed with "bounded accuracy" as one of its design philosophy goals; however, "bounded accuracy" will not be the most appropriate model for all genres and/or play styles.