Making a living in space is not easy. Radiation, micro meteors, and no food, air, or water. A mistake can take your life. And mankind is not alone. There are hostile things lurking in the shadows of mankind’s colonies and ships waiting to kill or worse. Things alien.
Releasing today, Alien the Roleplaying Game (PDF) is a 392 page full color hardcover that explores the universe after the events of the movies Alien and Aliens. Campaigns are either limited Cinematic Play with pre-generated characters or longer running Campaign Play. Characters are blue collar space truckers, colonial marines, or colonists.
The Alien RPG is divided into thirteen chapters covering characters and character creation (including playing synthetics), combat and panic, gear, the dangers of space including ships and ship combat, the Game Mother’s job, governments and corporations, systems and planets, alien species, and campaign play with random adventure generators. Hadley’s Hope is described as an adventure for Cinematic Play with players running doomed colonists in the last chapter. Everything needed to kick off a campaign is included.
The game runs on Year Zero, the d6 dice pool system from Free League. Rolls can be pushed allowing rerolls but also generating stress which can lead to panic. I have run a few games of the Alien RPG and the panic is real. Players, not just their characters, become tense as stress builds.
Slight spoilers for the included adventure. The pregen MacWhirr, Colonial Administration union organizer, has the Talent of Pull Rank. She can give orders using Command and force another PC to obey even if it leads them into harm or danger. However, MacWhirr takes a point of stress every time she bosses someone around. And her commands won’t stop panic. So she gets closer and closer to losing it herself as those colonists she is responsible for panic or get ripped apart by xenos or betray and kill each other. Being in charge in the Alien universe is never easy. Getting ordered to your death is not great either, though.
Stress is bad but xenos are worse. Many Year Zero games use critical hits. In this game, aliens may be able to inflict critical hits just by connecting with a regular attack. A PC does not have to be reduced to 0 Health to get their throat slit or their skull crushed by the more powerful xenos.
While Cinematic Play is fast, brutal, and full of betrayal, Campaign Play promises to spread out the terror and dying by aliens with the nice gentle dangers of space travel and conflict with other humans. I haven’t gotten to play this style of Alien but the descriptions of corporations, military units and their ships, alien worlds, and the dangers and opportunities of space travel are all supplemented with various tables to generate adventures.
The book itself is beautiful: black with green textboxes, bringing to mind both the depths of space and the computer screens used on board ships in this universe. Full color art depicts the blue collar body count building nature of space exploration. And everything is easy to find with a well put together layout and an index. Maps of space, floor plans, ships, and depictions of xenos bring the world of Alien to extraterrestrial life.
If you are looking for dangerous sci-fi with working stiffs just trying to survive or want to explore the worlds depicted in the Alien movies and extended universe then this RPG is what you are looking for. All the tools needed to play as a player or run a campaign as a GM is included from ships to aliens to worlds to adventures. All packed together with a visual style designed to immerse you in an alien setting. And once you start playing you can feel the weight of command, feel the pressure of being outmanned and outgunned, and face your own mortality in the uncaring blackness of space. Time to embrace the alien and die screaming or face your fears and be one of the few to make it back home alive. This time.
Releasing today, Alien the Roleplaying Game (PDF) is a 392 page full color hardcover that explores the universe after the events of the movies Alien and Aliens. Campaigns are either limited Cinematic Play with pre-generated characters or longer running Campaign Play. Characters are blue collar space truckers, colonial marines, or colonists.
The Alien RPG is divided into thirteen chapters covering characters and character creation (including playing synthetics), combat and panic, gear, the dangers of space including ships and ship combat, the Game Mother’s job, governments and corporations, systems and planets, alien species, and campaign play with random adventure generators. Hadley’s Hope is described as an adventure for Cinematic Play with players running doomed colonists in the last chapter. Everything needed to kick off a campaign is included.
The game runs on Year Zero, the d6 dice pool system from Free League. Rolls can be pushed allowing rerolls but also generating stress which can lead to panic. I have run a few games of the Alien RPG and the panic is real. Players, not just their characters, become tense as stress builds.
Slight spoilers for the included adventure. The pregen MacWhirr, Colonial Administration union organizer, has the Talent of Pull Rank. She can give orders using Command and force another PC to obey even if it leads them into harm or danger. However, MacWhirr takes a point of stress every time she bosses someone around. And her commands won’t stop panic. So she gets closer and closer to losing it herself as those colonists she is responsible for panic or get ripped apart by xenos or betray and kill each other. Being in charge in the Alien universe is never easy. Getting ordered to your death is not great either, though.
Stress is bad but xenos are worse. Many Year Zero games use critical hits. In this game, aliens may be able to inflict critical hits just by connecting with a regular attack. A PC does not have to be reduced to 0 Health to get their throat slit or their skull crushed by the more powerful xenos.
While Cinematic Play is fast, brutal, and full of betrayal, Campaign Play promises to spread out the terror and dying by aliens with the nice gentle dangers of space travel and conflict with other humans. I haven’t gotten to play this style of Alien but the descriptions of corporations, military units and their ships, alien worlds, and the dangers and opportunities of space travel are all supplemented with various tables to generate adventures.
The book itself is beautiful: black with green textboxes, bringing to mind both the depths of space and the computer screens used on board ships in this universe. Full color art depicts the blue collar body count building nature of space exploration. And everything is easy to find with a well put together layout and an index. Maps of space, floor plans, ships, and depictions of xenos bring the world of Alien to extraterrestrial life.
If you are looking for dangerous sci-fi with working stiffs just trying to survive or want to explore the worlds depicted in the Alien movies and extended universe then this RPG is what you are looking for. All the tools needed to play as a player or run a campaign as a GM is included from ships to aliens to worlds to adventures. All packed together with a visual style designed to immerse you in an alien setting. And once you start playing you can feel the weight of command, feel the pressure of being outmanned and outgunned, and face your own mortality in the uncaring blackness of space. Time to embrace the alien and die screaming or face your fears and be one of the few to make it back home alive. This time.
