My day of the week clock is going to be so messed up this week. Mainly because I’m working both days of the weekend.

However I have a transfer date to my new store. Which means this time next week I’m based at a new location. Doing a new role. Very exciting times.

But that’s enough about me. We are here for that day seven goodness of the #RPGaDAY2022 thing.

So todays thought for the day is “System Sunday: Describe a cool part of a system that you love.”

Before I actually share my brief poorly written thoughts on this subject. I just want to say I love the idea of doing a regular Sunday thing looking at a cool part of a RPG that I own. Maybe it’s something I’ll come back to once this death march has finished.

In todays answer I’m going to look at the cool part of the Alien RPG that attracted me to the game.

I’ll admit right here and now I’ve not played the Alien RPG. I have everything for it. But not played. There are plans to run a session or two starting to take place. But nothing solid at the moment.

When I first heard about the Alien RPG obviously the theme of having a RPG set in the Alien universe really attracted me to the game. I love the Alien movies. Love the books, graphic novels, video games set in that universe.

However what really sold me on the game and made it a “I must own this and play it” was when the YouTube channel (sorry can’t remember which) I was watching started talking about the stress mechanic the game used.

“… mounting tension is represented by your STRESS LEVEL. It usually starts at zero, and can increase by pushing dice rolls (see page 60) and by experiencing frightening or stressful situations…“ page 30, Alien RPG Core Rulebook

This is how the core rulebook describes how the stress mechanic works.

“When you push a roll, your STRESS LEVEL immediately increases by one point… When making skill rolls—including the immediate re-roll when pushing—add a number of Stress Dice to your dice pool equal to your current STRESS LEVEL. This means the stress actually increases your chances to succeed at skill rolls—it makes you more sharp and alert. However, if you roll a face hugger symbol on one or more Stress Dice during a skill roll, you risk panic.” page 61

The stress dice should be a different colour to the other dice used in a skill roll. Obviously Free League sell their Alien specific dice (pictured above). However any six side dice can be used.

That push your luck element to represent stress really did impress me. It sounded so cool and simple. And yet effective.

Rolling those dice and seeing the face hugger appear surely must cause the tension to rise not just for the player rolling but also round the table. What’s going to happen on that panic roll? “A Panic Roll can cause your skill roll to fail no matter how many you rolled.” page 61.

A panic roll has you “Roll a D6, add your current STRESS LEVEL, and check the table…” page 104.

As long as your total is less than six, nothing bad happens. But seven upwards bad things start to happen. The severity of that bad thing gets worse the higher your total. It starts off minor but soon gets to “oh shit”.

The more you push your dice rolls the more likely something bad happens when you get the face hugger symbol. So you have to manage that stress level. All of a sudden that skill test you have to pass becomes a difficult decision about whether you push the roll and increase your stress level risking bad things. I can only imagine (at the moment) the tension.

All this just resonated with me. I just needed to play/own this game.

I hope you also found this mechanic cool. What would your answer be.