Stormonu
NeoGrognard
About two weeks ago, I got my gaming group together for a one-off adventure using the new Alien RPG, and the scenario I got along with it - Chariot of the Gods. I want to forewarn folks, there will be plenty spoilers here, because I find it difficult to talk about the game without actually discussing our play-through.
First of all, I want to say that this is the game I’ve been waiting for ever since I watched Aliens! Back in the day, I had made my own Alien RPG, loosely based on Star Wars WEG D6 system. It worked for the game I ran, where the characters were a group of marines tasked with chasing down alien infestations and eliminating them. But it lacked one crucial element that this game works to perfection - the growing sense of dread in panic dice, and the sheer deadliness of Aliens and how they literally break the rules of the game - in an effective and believable way.
The rules for the game are deceptively simple - I made a few mistakes my first run through with them, but the basics are that you have four stats, a handful of skills and a couple edges/perks. When called on, you make a check by rolling a number of 6-sided dice equal to a stat + skill. Each 6 you roll is a success. Unlike most RPGs, though, you only roll when it’s dramatically appropriate-not for every single thing that comes up. If you’re not under stress the game encourages you to succeed at tasks without rolling. It’s only when things start to get dicey and characters are under pressure that you’re expected to start rolling (which usually starts to occur about a 1/3 of the way into the game or so). Of course, you also and always make these sort of rolls for combat, and defense.
The big wrinkle to making checks is two-fold. If you fail (and you’re not the secret android on board), you can “push” the roll, gain a stress dice (more about that in a second) and reroll to try for a success. Now, as you push (or other unsettling things occur), your character accumulates stress dice. These dice (using basically different colored dice) can also be rolled to give you a better chance at succeeding - but if you roll a 1 on these dice - you panic. A small amount of panic dice won’t likely hurt when you loose your cool, but get about four or more of them and then blow a roll - and you’re likely to wig out and get yourself and those around you in a heap of trouble.
Quickly speaking of combat, when you make your attack roll, if you get any successes, you deal the weapon’s base damage, plus an additional point for each additional success. If panic hasn’t gotten the better of you, you can usually attempt to block or evade damage with a counter-roll. There’s more complexity to the process with Armor, Armor Piercing and a few other factors, but that’s the basics. If you take enough damage to reduce you to zero health, you’re “broken” and roll on a big nasty d66 table to see how bad things are. Let me just say, if you roll 60+ on that table, you’ll be taking over one of the other survivors very shortly.
Then of course, there’s everybody’s favorites - the Aliens. They follow slightly different rules, breaking from the standard rules in unusual and frightful ways. While the Aliens have some familiar stats/skills (such as Stealth), when it comes to combat, they break the rules dramatically in two frightening ways. Offensively, you roll a D6 on a table for the type of attack they make (and most of the Aliens make two or more attacks a round). Pretty much anything a 4+ on those tables results in a 8+ dice attack where a single success KILLS outright. Regardless of health. Regardless of armor. No blocking. It’s as frightening a prospect as in the movies. In our game, it caught me utterly by surprise (I’d skimmed over the stats, only noting at first there was a random list) and scared the bejeesus out of the players when the character was literally torn to pieces in the opening round. However, it created a totally appropriate respect and fear for the rest of the game.
The game has two modes of play - campaign (typical multiple adventures with the same characters) and cinematic (one-shot, semi-adversarial adventure). The latter is what we played, and is basically a one-shot. I will say, the game favors - and shines using cinematic. However, based on the results of that one-shot, I’m considering running a follow-up longer campaign, but may simply continue with a series of one-shots, using the results of the last game to frame the next (like playing through Alien, Aliens and Alien 3). I will say, the outcome of our game definitely felt movie-like and we had a blast with the rules.
In the next post, I’ll get more into our actual game (I’ll try to keep those portions in spoilers) and my thoughts on how it played out. If you have any questions about the game int the meantime, I’ll happily answer what I can.
First of all, I want to say that this is the game I’ve been waiting for ever since I watched Aliens! Back in the day, I had made my own Alien RPG, loosely based on Star Wars WEG D6 system. It worked for the game I ran, where the characters were a group of marines tasked with chasing down alien infestations and eliminating them. But it lacked one crucial element that this game works to perfection - the growing sense of dread in panic dice, and the sheer deadliness of Aliens and how they literally break the rules of the game - in an effective and believable way.
The rules for the game are deceptively simple - I made a few mistakes my first run through with them, but the basics are that you have four stats, a handful of skills and a couple edges/perks. When called on, you make a check by rolling a number of 6-sided dice equal to a stat + skill. Each 6 you roll is a success. Unlike most RPGs, though, you only roll when it’s dramatically appropriate-not for every single thing that comes up. If you’re not under stress the game encourages you to succeed at tasks without rolling. It’s only when things start to get dicey and characters are under pressure that you’re expected to start rolling (which usually starts to occur about a 1/3 of the way into the game or so). Of course, you also and always make these sort of rolls for combat, and defense.
The big wrinkle to making checks is two-fold. If you fail (and you’re not the secret android on board), you can “push” the roll, gain a stress dice (more about that in a second) and reroll to try for a success. Now, as you push (or other unsettling things occur), your character accumulates stress dice. These dice (using basically different colored dice) can also be rolled to give you a better chance at succeeding - but if you roll a 1 on these dice - you panic. A small amount of panic dice won’t likely hurt when you loose your cool, but get about four or more of them and then blow a roll - and you’re likely to wig out and get yourself and those around you in a heap of trouble.
Quickly speaking of combat, when you make your attack roll, if you get any successes, you deal the weapon’s base damage, plus an additional point for each additional success. If panic hasn’t gotten the better of you, you can usually attempt to block or evade damage with a counter-roll. There’s more complexity to the process with Armor, Armor Piercing and a few other factors, but that’s the basics. If you take enough damage to reduce you to zero health, you’re “broken” and roll on a big nasty d66 table to see how bad things are. Let me just say, if you roll 60+ on that table, you’ll be taking over one of the other survivors very shortly.
Then of course, there’s everybody’s favorites - the Aliens. They follow slightly different rules, breaking from the standard rules in unusual and frightful ways. While the Aliens have some familiar stats/skills (such as Stealth), when it comes to combat, they break the rules dramatically in two frightening ways. Offensively, you roll a D6 on a table for the type of attack they make (and most of the Aliens make two or more attacks a round). Pretty much anything a 4+ on those tables results in a 8+ dice attack where a single success KILLS outright. Regardless of health. Regardless of armor. No blocking. It’s as frightening a prospect as in the movies. In our game, it caught me utterly by surprise (I’d skimmed over the stats, only noting at first there was a random list) and scared the bejeesus out of the players when the character was literally torn to pieces in the opening round. However, it created a totally appropriate respect and fear for the rest of the game.
The game has two modes of play - campaign (typical multiple adventures with the same characters) and cinematic (one-shot, semi-adversarial adventure). The latter is what we played, and is basically a one-shot. I will say, the game favors - and shines using cinematic. However, based on the results of that one-shot, I’m considering running a follow-up longer campaign, but may simply continue with a series of one-shots, using the results of the last game to frame the next (like playing through Alien, Aliens and Alien 3). I will say, the outcome of our game definitely felt movie-like and we had a blast with the rules.
In the next post, I’ll get more into our actual game (I’ll try to keep those portions in spoilers) and my thoughts on how it played out. If you have any questions about the game int the meantime, I’ll happily answer what I can.
