Alien RPG
Pick it up pdf from DrivethruRPG
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My review is based off of my experiences as a player through a six session long campaign that I was a part of recently. Now that it’s come to it’s end I’m ready to give my thoughts on the game and it’s mechanics.
Overall the book itself is rather well done. Like the descriptions of the various careers and what they had to offer. A nice little slice of gear for the 80’s/90’s gamer in me. Everything was pretty easy to reference and find. With plenty of visuals to go along with it. Gives you a feel of what the game is about and the mood they are trying to put forward.
Character creation is pretty straight forward. Four core attributes with skill under each one that cover pretty much what you’ll need in a game like this. The usual descriptive sections and spots for gear, weapons, etc. They straight up give you a step by step guide on what to do that is probably one of the best I’ve ever seen. Knocked my Roughneck out in maybe fifteen minutes and part of that time was reading the options since I was new to the game.
You may seem like you’re going in light on gear but it makes sense. You’re not the walking pile of gear like so many other games start you off as. Mainly just what you would carry around on your character on their day to day lives. I had a tool belt, bolt gun and things like that.
Talents I didn’t really dig into to much since I only got one at the beginning but later on I saw the importance of them. I’ll get into that just a little bit on down.
The mechanics of the system are surprisingly simple. Add your Attribute and the Skill amounts together. Roll that many six sided dice and count all the 6’s as a success. Every success over one allows you improve the success, increase damage or do stunts. The fun part comes from the Stress Dice. These are extra dice that get added to your dice pool throughout the game. When things start going bad, shit hits the fan and the screaming starts your character starts to freak out a little bit. Whenever you make a roll you add your accumulated Stress dice in as well. Now the six’s still count as a success on them. But the one’s start to become problematic and can lead you to panicking, blowing your success and even running away screaming (something my PC did a few times in the last game).
Some equipment and weapons give you a bonus which slides the necessary number for a success down the slide a bit. So a +2 weapon now means that not only a six is a success but also a five and a four. Damage, armor ratings, all that are kept to relatively small numbers to keep the crunching down. Various ways to relieve stress so you lose those pesky dice. Various modifiers based off of character condition, all the little touches that you would need in a horror space game.
Now one thing I will point out is party balance. This game really benefits from having a good variety of career types mixed together. Especially as the game goes on and you start spending experience points. Some of us noticed that if all the bases are covered there isn’t a lot of good reasoning to spend on building more skills up and go for the talents instead. I mean letting me ignore all one’s rolled on panic dice can be crucial when you have racked up some Panic dice. Even if it’s only once per session. That and shrugging off damage was nice as well. The talents really help give your PC’s more of an edge to survive in the end. Much more than just one point more in a skill.
All in all we had a blast playing the game. So I give it two thumbs up and recommend that folks give it a shot. For those who can’t shell out a lot I would recommend instead of buying the fancy but pricey Standard and Panic dice that you instead just buy some Black and Yellow sets from Chessex. You’ll save quite a bit of money and it’s just as easy to read successes on.
Until next time.
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