Category Archives: Alien

A look at the Alien RPG Maps & Markers Pack

Alien, RPG

More Alien RPG stuff, this time it’s the Maps and Markers pack.

The Maps and Markers pack consists of a large double sided map, and markers to use with the game.

Let’s look at the markers first.

The markers provided are meant to enable the tracking of characters, aliens, motion tracker pings, spaceships and and space combat actions.

As you can see below the markers are double sided cardboard. On the none spaceship/combat action markers one side is the tracker ping with a letter identifier. Whilst the other is an icon plus a letter identifier. The letter identifier is barely readable.

The maps or one side of the maps I have a big problem with.

The side I’m ok with is the star chart of the known charted universe. It’s a star chart.

The other side on the other hand is not as advertised. If you were buying this so that you’d have the required maps/floor plans to use along side the Cinematic adventure Chariots of the Gods. Which it is advertised as and even says so on the back of the packaging. Then you are are out of luck. What they actually give you is the maps for the sample Cinematic adventure Hope’s Last Day that is in the Alien RPG core Rulebook.

A bit of a big mistake. It looks like if you really want the maps for Chariots of the Gods you are going to buy the new boxed set in August.

The map is also not a battle map. As the photo shows below with a couple of tokens on it. The tokens look too big and cover up chunks of the map. It’s ok for showing a rough position.

I think this Maps and Markers kit is over priced for what it is. Especially considering you are not getting the maps you are expecting. I’d have liked to have seen bigger more useful maps. This is the only official product where I feel I’ve been ripped off.

Chariot of the Gods

Alien, RPG

The last three months or so have seen me resurrect my baking skills and extended them. I’m now baking two sourdough loaves a week (I love the toast it makes) plus until two weeks ago shortbread biscuits which have been replaced with pound cake. I’m developing a serious pound cake addiction.

Apart from the fact I’m enjoying the consumption of what I bake. What spurs me on and gives me a warm feeling is the joy my baking brings to Nan. She doesn’t eat much of it. But she loves seeing it straight from the oven, and having a small bit of whatever has just been baked once cool enough.

I have picked up a hard copy of the cinematic adventure Chariot of the Gods for the Alien RPG. This is technically the second published Alien RPG cinematic adventure if you count the mini adventure in the core rule book.

I’ve yet to run an Alien RPG game (hopefully once this pandemic has become safe enough to allow people to gather again). But reading this cinematic adventure it’s obvious they are at least on paper written differently from a D&D adventure.

A cinematic adventure comes with pre-generated characters, cast of NPC’s, agendas, maps, events and descriptions of key locations on the maps.

The pre-generated characters are the first difference. Cinematic adventures are the Alien RPG version of a one-shot. So the expectation is that the adventure is completed in a single session or possibly a second at most (depending on the duration of a session). They are also seen as a great intro to the Alien RPG and also for sessions at a con. With that in mind you get pre-generated characters for the players to choose from to play.

A cinematic adventure is split in to three acts, and at the start of each act players get a new agenda for their character to replace the previous acts agenda.

For me the biggest difference between this and say a D&D adventure is that within an act things are event driven. Some of the events may be mandatory, but the majority will not be, and may never be used. Very none linear.

The maps and the location descriptions are not any different from any other RPG.

With the act structure and events reading a cinematic adventure is a very different experience to other RPGs. Something that took me a little time to adjust to. It’s going to be very interesting to see what an Alien RPG campaign adventure looks like.

With the map and counters pack (on the way) that’s available, and the deck of cards this adventure is well supported for the GM and players.

The adventure is a softback, and 48 pages. And not bad value.

GM/DM Screens

Alien, D&D, Judge Dredd, Paranoia, RPG

To use a DM/GM screen or not to use a DM/GM screen? That is the question.

There’s not a right or wrong answer. It’s all done to your personal preferences.

Some prefer not to use them, and have everything in the open. Others like using them and keeping an element of surprise.

I fall in the later camp. I like them.

For me a GM/DM screen does the following. It firstly gives me access to handy tables that I use and refer to during a session. Secondly the side the players see with it’s art work helps set the tone etc for the campaign/session. Thirdly it allows the DM/GM organise and have things like miniatures, props, maps ready without being seen by the players and keep that element of surprise. Finally if you want to roll dice without the players seeing the result, and thus fudge the result if need be (but the discussion whether that’s a good thing or not is a whole different post all by itself.) I also like that a screen gives me somewhere to clip NPC character cards, or pictures relevant to the current encounter/location.

My personal preference is that a screen is landscape. It gives you the benefits I talked about above, without totally feeling you are cut off from the players.

It’s possible to purchase (or make) a generic DM/GM screen. These are blank screens that you can attach your own sheets of paper to that contain the exact information that you require. These are a bit more expensive than the dedicated screens you get for particular systems. I haven’t gone this route yet.

Naturally I have built up a small collection of screens for different RPGs that I own (which I may or may not have played yet). What follows is a brief look at the ones I own and my thoughts about them.

Official D&D DM Screen – This is a landscape screen that has four sections. The art the players see is cool, but generic D&D (image above ‘borrowed’ off the Internet). I really like this screen. For a noob DM like me it’s perfect. There is a lot of information on the DM side, such as status conditions, available actions, encounter distances (a very very handy table), DC levels, plus lots more. Information that you will use a lot during a session. I really do like this screen a lot.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh (GoS) DM Screen – When WotC release a campaign book usually a third party like Galeforce 9 get the licence to produce a DM Screen for it. This is by said licensee for the GoS book. Like the official screen this is landscape with four sections. The information naturally contained on this screen is geared towards running a GoS campaign or one that involves a lot of sea travel. We have tables for generating random ships, encounters on open water and hazards at sea. I love the art on the player side, and think it sets the tone and atmosphere really well for a sea based adventure. In fact to date that has been my main use for the screen! I have this in front of the official screen when the characters are at sea.

In an ideal perfect world I’d have this screen up along side the official screen.

Judge Dredd and Worlds of 2000 A.D. RPG GM Screen – this is a four section portrait screen. So it stands taller than the previous two mentioned and is not as wide. The player side of the screen has some great comic book art on it that definitely sets the tone, especially if playing judges. I like that it also has a handful of tables that players would find useful having access to for sentencing, and for their standard equipment the lawgiver and lawmaster. I’m conflicted with this screen. I feel that the publisher wasted a section by focusing on character creation. For me I’d preferred if this was replaced with information on creating dice pools and combat. Something a GM would use a lot more than the character creation information. I like the table listing NPCs and the page in the rulebook they can be found. The on patrol table is handy to have for generating on the fly crimes for players to handle. But the whole character creation stuff keeps niggling me from making this a must buy for the RPG. I hope that if they release a Strontium Dog version of this that they don’t make the same mistake.

Paranoia RPG – another portrait screen with four sections. This is a different screen to the others. The player side is designed to be used by the players! You actually need to keep the sheet of paper that comes with the screen as it has instructions and a table for when the players do use the screen. It’s very thematic. There are lots of tables on the GM side covering the cost of equipment, rewards, security levels, etc. Not the prettiest screen by far. Very practical with a fun player interactive element. I feel that alone is in keeping with the tone of the game. I think the only way this could be improved is to have a table of computer speak.

Alien RPG – my newest screen. This one is a landscape screen with three sections. So once again this is not as wide as the D&D screens. The player side art just oozes Alien, suspense and horror. The information on the GM side looks useful, there is the panic roll table, critical injuries, and other tables relevant to combat. There isn’t much I can say apart from this is a nice GM screen, and I’m glad I have it for the RPG.

There we have it, I hope you found this a helpful post.

Impressions of the Alien RPG

Alien, RPG

Back in I think 1979 when the original Alien movie came out it became this infamous scary movie. A couple of years later when I finally got to see the film for the first time it didn’t disappoint. The hype was real. Then Aliens came out. And wow! I was in love with this franchise, the whole universe.

So this Alien RPG is something that ticks a lot of boxes for me.

For fans of the movies, books, comics, and video games the good news is the RPG is set before Alien 4. However Prometheus and Covenant are canon. which may or may not be good news depending on your view of the two movies. It should also be noted that the Alien v Predator movies are not canon in this setting.

As an aside as to what constitutes the Alien timeline, I did read on the internet somewhere, but never dug any further, that Bladerunner and Soldier (the Kurt Russel movie) were part of the Alien timeline! One day when I have nothing better to do I will dig into this a bit more.

I don’t think it will be a surprise to anyone that based on the setting the Alien RPG that the designers say it has three themes, space horror, sci-fi action and sense of wonder. The Year Zero Engine that the game uses has been adapted to support those themes.

The Alien RPG uses d6 dice. It helps to have two different colours for your dice. You can buy the official dice. There are two sets, a base set (black) and a stress set (yellow). They have a face hugger on the one face, and a cube on the six face (as shown in the photo below). But these are not required. Regular d6 can be used instead. And I like that. It winds me up when a system requires custom dice (FFG I’m looking at you). That’s just an excuse to fleece gamers. Even with these official dice I’m boarder line in recommending them because of the cost. Each pack gets you ten 16mm dice. But cheapest I’ve found is £15. In my opinion these shouldn’t be more than a tenner.

As an aid to playing the game it’s possible to get a deck of 55 cards that contains 22 weapon cards, 20 character cards, 3 vehicle cards and 10 initiative cards. I particularly like the initiative cards I find them useful in my D&D sessions. However the Alien RPG uses them with a twist. Instead of rolling a die to establish the initiative order, players and the GM on behalf of any NPCs draw a card at random to determine the order. Naturally this way of doing initiative can be replicated using regular playing cards with the ace acting as a one. The character cards match up with the characters in the rule book. So can be handed to players to reference if using them. These cards are nice and handy but not essential.

I actually like the official GM screen. Despite it just being three landscape panels. My preference would have been four like the official D&D screen. The side the players see has a piece of lovely atmospheric art. I thought the tables on the GM side were ones I would use during a game, particularly the panic roll table.

Let’s look at the rule book.

Basically the heart of the Alien RPG is a d6 dice pool made up from a combination of an attribute and skill, plus stress level. Roll at least one six and you succeed, roll a one on a stress dice and you are making a roll on the panic table. The more stress you have the more likely something bad happens.

There is an element of push your luck here on the attribute check, because you can decide to push your luck and reroll any none six dice results. You can do this once per check, although some talents may allow this to be done more than once. However there is a catch. You increase your stress level and have to add another stress die to the roll. So if you hit a one on those stress dice with the increased stress level you are more likely as I said above to have something bad happen to you.

The Alien RPG has two modes of play Cinematic and Campaign.

Cinematic is the Alien RPG version of a one shot. It uses pre-written scenarios and characters. The scenarios follow the dramatic arc of the Alien movies, high stakes, ramping up the pressure, and brutal. The chances of surviving are low. The rules contain an introductory Cinematic scenario, Hope’s Last Day. Plus there is an additional Cinematic scenario Chariot of the Gods that can be bought separately (although in August you can buy it as part of starter box set that includes maps, tokens, dice and cards). A brand new Cinematic scenario is also being published in August.

The other mode of play, Campaign sees players creating their own characters and exploring the Alien universe over several sessions.

The characters players create can be one of four careers, frontier colonist, space trucker, colonial marine or company rep. Naturally these are all humans. However with the agreement of the GM it is possible to be an Android within the game.

Characters have personal agendas that act slightly differently in the two modes. They can also have a buddy and rival.

I’m not familiar with the core system that Alien is based upon. But it does seem less complicated than some other systems like I have used or seen. Which is good in this case. Keeping things simple means they are less likely to get in the way and take players out of the game.

Having just four attributes and twelve skills for a character plus a talent contributes to this. It speeds up character creation and keeps the character sheets a lot simpler and easier to reference.

When playing a Campaign you need to chose one of the frameworks based around the three main careers of space trucker, colonial marine and frontier colonist. Within the refuel book there are tables that allow you to generate missions within those frameworks.

What I like about the rules is that it also caters for space travel and combat. So it is possible to have a planet/space exploration campaign that involves fighting it out with space pirates, rival corporations etc. And that really appeals to me that you have rules here that can switch between that close quarter horror to almost space opera!

With the majority of my RPG experience being D&D or similar where a grid based system on maps is used. Within the Alien RPG they use zones. Which should make it easier to do theatre of the mind, and also speed up combat. I’ve seen a similar system proposed for the Genesys RPG by fans.

But there is a tonne of information in this rule book along with some great art work. I love the guidance they give on running this style of game, the suggest further reading, the structure of a Cinematic scenario.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of this rulebook and what is covered. At 392 pages this is not a small rule book. And this would be a much bigger post if I went into real detail. I’ve just highlighted bits that have stood out to me so far.

If you are a fan of the movies then this is a must I think. The supporting accessories are pretty good and useful. I like this a lot. I just hope I can find some players locally to play a Cinematic scenario or two.