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Review of Alien: The Roleplaying Game Starter Set / Alien RPG Starter Set
Blurbs from the publisher: 'The job was routine, the money fair. Then the damn company diverted you to answer a distress call from a ship that disappeared almost 80 years ago—a derelict carrying something bizarre, twisted, and alien. What the ship's frozen crew brought back with them was bad enough—what they themselves were turning into was a bloody nightmare. Add to that an annoying sensor ghost shadowing you in the void, and your stress level is shot.
It's all a bit much.
You don't get paid enough to deal with monsters. But hold your breath, count to three, and play your cards right with this one, and you just might walk away very rich. Oh, who am I kidding?
You're all going to die.
This is a starter set for the official ALIEN tabletop roleplaying game—a universe of body horror and corporate brinkmanship, where synthetic people play god while space truckers and marines play host to newborn ghoulish creatures. It's a harsh and unforgiving universe and you are nothing if not expendable.
Stay alive if you can.
This boxed set contains everything you need to start playing:
- A 104-page condensed rulebook with a fast and effective ruleset designed specifically to support the core themes of ALIEN: horror and action in the cold darkness of space.
- The 48-page complete Cinematic scenario Chariot of the Gods by sci-fi novelist Andrew E.C. Gaska, taking you on a thrilling, terror-filled ride into deep space where no one can hear you scream. Chariot of the Gods is designed for 3-5 players plus the GM.
- Five pre-generated characters to play.
- A huge full-color, double-sided map (format 864 x 558mm), with one side depicting chartered space in the year 2183 and the other floor plans for the Chariot of the Gods scenario.
- 84 game markers for keeping track of characters, motion tracker pings, and more.
- 56 high quality custom cards for weapons, personal agendas, and initiative in combat.
- A set each of ten engraved Base Dice and ten Stress Dice, designed specifically for the ALIEN roleplaying game.
A full pdf of the contents is included. Note that most of the content in the boxed Starter Set has been published previously as separate packages.'
What you get: Your EUR 45,12 or equivalent will buy you the Alien RPG Starter Set in both physical and pdf form (where applicable). The set is a part of the Alien RPG game line and includes the following items:
Alien The Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook is a full-colour, 104-page softcover book that is split in 5 chapters (as opposed to the hardcover 394-page, 13-chapter Rulebook that is sold independently). More on this book and the gameplay later on.
Chariot of the Gods is a 48-page softcover adventure (as opposed to the 44-page version when the adventure was sold as part of Alien: The Roleplaying Game Bundle / Alien RPG Bundle which is no longer marketed). The adventure used to be sold independently. It no longer is.
The 5 double-sided character sheets depict the pregenerated characters for the adventure. The sheets include both the characters' relevant stats as well as background information and roleplaying instructions.
The Alien RPG Base Dice Set is a set of 10 six-siders with a white, framed number upon a black background. All numbers appear on the dice, even though 6 is smaller in size and its side is dominated by an abstract rendering of a ping. The item was included in the Alien RPG Bundle, and is also sold separately.
The Alien RPG Stress Dice Set is a set of 10 six-siders with a black, framed number upon a fluorescent yellow background. Number six is smaller in size and its side is dominated by an abstract rendering of a ping. Number 1 is even smaller in size, with its side dominated by a face hugger. The item was included in the Alien RPG Bundle, and is also sold separately.
The 56 63 x 88 mm cards are broken down as follows: 12 Weapons (from pistols to incinerators and heavy riffles), 10 Characters (the 10 NPCs from Chariot of the Gods), 10 Initiative cards (each bearing a number from 1 to 10) and 24 Personal Agendas regulating the behaviour of different characters in different acts of Chariot of the Gods. These are only partially the cards that were included in the Alien RPG Bundle / the cards that make up the Alien RPG Custom Card Deck which is still sold separately. The Initiative cards are identical in both decks.Weapons-wise the present deck includes the same weapons, but each weapon comes in only one copy (12 cards instead of 24). There are no Vehicles in the present deck (there are 3 in the Custom Card Deck). The Character cards relate exclusively to Chariot of the Gods (the Alien RPG Custom Card Deck also included the Characters from Hadley's Hope, as well as its PCs), while the Personal Agenda cards are a novelty.
The map is 87 x 56 cm big; it is not identical to the map included in the Alien RPG Bundle. Like that map, one side depicts the skies of the Alien universe and the global powers that control them. The other side however depicts the four decks of the USCSS Cronus, a United States Corporation Star Ship. It is reminded that the map in the Alien RPG Bundle in its obverse side depicted Hadley's Hope, the colony that appears in the short adventure based on the franchise's second film, which is contained in the hardcover rulebook.
The 84 markers are identical to the ones found in the Alien RPG Bundle. In the past they used to be found in the Maps & Markers Pack which was sold both separately as well as part of the Alien RPG Bundle. This pack is no longer on sale.
The pdf alone can be purchased for EUR 17,15. It is comprised of seven pdfs: the Rulebook, Chariot of the Gods, its Character Sheets, the map, the markers, a pdf with the cards' front sides, and another with their back sides. You didn't expect electronic dice in there, did you?
For a more holistic approach one can buy the Alien RPG Starter Set Bundle for EUR 70,29. It includes the present Starter Set as well as Destroyer of Worlds, a complete cinematic scenario within a boxed set. Seeing how the two items separately cost just over EUR 73 while the bundle costs EUR 70, one can save EUR 3 or just under 5% of the price.
Taking into account the extensive overlap between the present Starter Set and the contents of the Alien RPG Bundle that we visited together less than a year ago, the two reviews share obvious similarities. I never liked making one review a prerequisite for reading another. In any event, this is not your average playtest.
Gameplay: The Alien RPG came out in 2019, 40 years after the release of the first Alien movie. Neither I nor Wikipedia need to tell you about the importance of the franchise in the history of film-making. Less than a year after the RPG's release, the Starter Box tries to provide an easier, more gradual, more structured approach into the line.
The game uses the Year Zero system or at least one of its simpler iterations. In that respect, it feels closer to Tales from the Loop than to the system's initial progenitor, Mutant: Year Zero.
The softcover rulebook does not mince its words; its first chapter is called Space Is Hell, and it tackles the introduction to what an RPG is as well as a broad introduction to the Alien universe. The game takes place in 2183, just after the events of Alien 3. A timeline explains how we got there, with the first event diverging from the real world being the introduction of androids in 2023. Alien's universe is dystopic. Three major polities vie for supremacy in the coldness of space: the Three World Empire (the UK, Japan, and more), the United Americas, and the Union of Progressive Peoples (centered around Russia and China). Add the Independent Core System Colonies (a loose coalition of privately-own worlds), and you get the idea. Life on the frontiers of space is harsh. In contrast to Star Trek's ubiquity of breathable and livable planets, Alien offers nothing but hell holes, planets which need terraforming in an industrial scale order to become marginally hospitable. Taking all that into account, there is no question about the game's theme balancing between the wonder of exploration, sci-fi action, and space horror.
The game can be played in two modes. The cinematic mode condenses an Alien film within a single session or two. It is most likely to use pre-generated characters, it is brutal, doesn't hold back, and will most likely end in a TPK. This is what the present Starter Set allows you to do. Campaign play on the other hand is designed for continuous play where the same characters keep on tackling challenges under one of the three different frameworks that the movies made famous: Space Truckers, Colonial Marines, and Frontier Colonists. These however are not the only types of characters that one can meet on the frontier; company reps are a rather large part of the picture after all.
Your Character is a 7-page chapter about the game's protagonists. It does not include character creation rules, it does however discuss a character's constituent parts. We get to learn what a career is (but not which careers you can choose from), as well as the attributes. Each character has four attributes, rated from one to five: Strength, Agility, Wits and Empathy. Androids are playable characters. They play differently in that they don't stress, thus they can't push rolls, and they take damage differently. The game uses twelve Skills (things like Mobility, Ranged Combat, and Medical Aid) that also work on a scale from 1 to 5. Talents are more specialized than skills. They are tricks, moves and minor abilities that provide a small edge. Each pre-gen in this box has his own, yet there is no extensive list in the Starter Set's rulebook. Characters have their own gear and consumables. The latter are of paramount importance; you can't live without air, water, food and power. You also cannot live without human relationships. That's why every character has one character as a buddy and one as a rival. Also expect Personal Agendas, hidden instructions and roleplaying revelations about the character that only his player knows. The more a character pushes his agenda, the more Story Points he is rewarded by the GM at the end of each act. Fun fact: GM stands for Game Mother. Creepy... yet you already knew that from the Alien RPG Bundle review.
The Skills chapter covers both the resolution system as well as the actual skills. The resolution system works on the basis of Attribute plus Skill, there is however an enormous difference to most games out there. The idea is that the characters should not roll often, and that everything they can do simply happens. Only dramatic situations and tough challenges merit dice rolling. The player will roll as many base dice as that number, and will try to roll the most 6s possible. A single 6 is enough for the action to succeed, more however provide stunts, like the ability to aid another character in the same situation, hiding your tracks while performing your job, doing things faster than expected, understanding the motivation behind a threat etc. The system includes positive and negative modifiers for skill rolls, even though these don't have the same meaning as in other games. Characters may help one another providing modifiers to a roll. Opposed rolls are also envisaged be it against NPCs or in PvP situations of which you will encounter plenty. Rolls can be pushed once, this however increases the characters' Stress level.
Do you remember this line? 'Game over man, it's game over! What are we going to do now? What are we going to do?' Stress is the be-all-end-all in the Alien RPG. Stress accumulates every time a character pushes a roll, fires weapons on full auto, suffers damage, survives without sleeping or eating, gets attacked by his own crew etc. Every time a character makes a skill roll, in addition to his base dice he also gets to roll a number of fluorescent stress dice equal to his stress level. These are almost identical to the Base dice, in that any 6s rolled are successes. You read that right: the adrenaline in your body makes you more likely to succeed in what you are doing. There is however a serious catch. Every 1 rolled negates the possibility to push that roll and calls for a Panic Roll. This means rolling a d6 and adding the character's current stress level. Results from one to six are innocuous, from seven onwards however bad things start happening. These include becoming more nervous and increasing the stress levels of your friends, dropping items, freezing, screaming, or even becoming catatonic without any capacity to act. Very high stress can lead to additional mental trauma, with effects like phobias, nightmares and amnesia. A character can relieve himself from stress, provided he feels safe and spends time in a secure location. Try it; it might help you survive until the end of the act.
Combat is immersive. It starts in Stealth Mode, what happens before you engage the hostiles, depending on whether you actively seek them, or whether they actively seek you. It includes elements like range and zone features (e.g. cluttered, dark, or cramped), hazards like freezing, dying in the vacuum of space, exhaustion etc. Initiative is determined randomly through the use of the Initiative cards from the deck. Initiative cards can be exchanged between characters from one round to the next. Each character can perform either a fast and a slow action or two fast actions. Fast actions include running, moving through hatches, and picking up items, while slow actions include shooting, crawling, and starting a vehicle's engines. Close combat involves committed moves like blocking, grappling, shoving and retreating, while in ranged combat characters can get into overwatch mode in order to indiscriminately shoot when something appears on their crosshairs. Armor doesn't make one harder to hit, it reduces the damage he receives. Damage effectively represents fatigue, and a player will roll on the critical injury table when his health reaches zero. Critical injuries vary from becoming winded to dying because of impalement or a crushed skull. Some fatal injuries allow one last chance for the character to overcome them, four of them however are as final as they get. The rulebook also provides rules on other hazards like fire, diseases, explosions and drowning. Xenomorphs occupy half a page; this is only a Starter Set after all.
Gear is the rulebook's fifth and final chapter. Its 22 pages cover weapons, suits and armour (but not vehicles like the hardcover rulebook), industrial machinery, computers, all sorts of tools, medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, not to mention food and drinks. Don't expect any meals; in the dystopia of the Alien universe, food translates into 'bug juice' protein drinks and candy bars.
The book ends with a one-page index.
Chariot of the Gods is the set's three-act introductory adventure. Depending on how fast or slow you take things, it will probably last you from one longish session to two rather long ones. When it comes to the plot it does not differ in content to its previous incarnation. There are still five pregenerated characters with different backgrounds. A character may come up as an android, even though nobody else will know that at the beginning. The ship's cargo run will be interrupted when it gets diverted towards a derelict ship transmitting a distress call for just less than a century, and things go all south from there. A few minor layout details are different when compared to the adventure's previous, independent iteration. The specs of the Cronus' are only included once and not a second time in the middle of the book (logical, since now you get a full map on that). The Personal Agendas are stated on cards, thus they are no longer mentioned in the appendix. The existing appendix on the other hand goes heavier on Xenomorphs with 10 pages devoted to them, since it does not have the hardcover Rulebook to support it. Finally, it registers seven talents or one per career of scientist, kid, medic, colonial marine, company agent, pilot, and officer.
Further elaboration on the dice, cards, the maps, the tokens and the character sheet is not necessary.
The strong points: Isn't it easier to read a small rulebook and get straight into the action with the most possible accessories, instead of assimilating an enormous tome without being even certain that this game is for you and for your group? The Alien Starter Set succeeds perfectly when it comes to giving a taste of what the Alien RPG has to offer.
Starting with the rules, they are the same as the ones found in the hardcover rulebook. Alien, when played with pre-gens, is a structured roleplaying experience. You breathe your own ideas into the character your incarnate, on the other hand however you also have hard instructions to follow, and will be dully rewarded if you follow them and survive. You can't run a do-gooder campaign in Alien; you need drama, friction, inexplicable outbursts. Inexplicable to your fellow players, at least, but not to your Mother; (s)he will know very well why you behave that way. You will never roll unless it is really important, something that makes players comprehend the gravity of each roll. Stress accumulates fast, and provides a very entertaining experience. You will find yourself wondering how to behave the more stressed your character becomes, and even more so when Mother gives you new hidden roleplaying instructions. I was very happy to see that the Starter Set did not opt for a dumbed-down approach of all these concepts; I really dislike it when games follow that path since you have two sets of rules to learn. If you like Chariot of the Gods and decide to invest further, you will only need to add things like character creation and options. And there's a million reasons to like the game, seeing how perfectly it recreates the source material... if you have the stomach for it. Hint: it is seldom about the alien. Most of the time it is about poor choices succeeding one another, dreadful impulse control, and extremely misplaced values.
I stated in the review of the Alien RPG Bundle, and I need to underline once again, that the game does not require any knowledge of the franchise. Irrespective of whether you are a long time fan like me, or a teenager curious about an RPG of a franchise that started 40 years ago, the thrill will be the same.
Chariot of the Gods is a strong adventure. It does some things in a similar vein as the movies, and plays out differently in others. The subplots are great. If you have time in your hand, and for a game like this you'd better prepare well for the emotional conflicts, I strongly recommend preparing the most audio elements possible. There are many situations in which the ship speaks in its female, slow, flat, non-sentimental voice. If you record all these parts (with a female narrator, of course) and play them on your stereo when appropriate, your players will shit themselves. 'Displacement drive malfunction. Cascade failure imminent. Fission reactor overload in T-minus 10 minutes'. Record even if you are a lady. This should sound right, and a computer sounds right when you hear it out of loudspeakers. While the countdown progresses with only minimal involvement from your side, you will be able to act on other things, and interact with your players. Nobody is used to their GM multitasking like that. The characters being stressed is one thing, the players freaking out is another!
The production values are very high. I can't hide it: I like boxes in my library. The artwork is good, admittedly however you have seen it before in either the hardcover rulebook or the first iteration of Chariot of the Gods. The new accessories make the adventure shine brighter than before. The character sheets are very good, even though I am not a big fan of glossy paper since you cannot erase and rewrite as easily. The cards with the Personal Agendas are a blast. Once again, this beats dictating or handing out cut documents from the pdf edition, as was the case before. The map is awesome, and even more so because it is printed on extremely thick paper. It is probably twice as thick as the map from the now OOP Maps & Markers Pack. The dice follow the 1970s-1980s rules of aesthetics, and rightfully so. Their visuals are positively retro sci-fi. The black-on-yellow colour scheme on the stress dice is genius; this is a construction site where accidents wait to happen. One doesn't need to look at anything more than an abstracted black face hugger on top of a bright yellow background before his face contorts in agony.
The pdf is very well done. Bookmarks go three levels down in the rulebook, and two levels down in Chariot of the Gods. Once again, the Index provides live links, even though the table of contents does not. All images are extractable. Good work on pdfizing the cards along with their backs, even though this could have been better done by placing one right next to another.
If you are worried that the Alien RPG line will be a short one, don't be. It already boasts of three adventures: the one in this set, the one in the hardcover rulebook, and Destroyer of Worlds. If I understand Free League's intentions correctly, more will be published. Needless to say, we will visit Destroyer of Worlds shortly.
For those wondering 'why is the Starter Set sold in a bundle with Destroyer of Worlds?', I saved the better part for last. Destroyer of Worlds actively advertises itself as playing with either the hardcover rulebook, as well as the rules found in the Starter set. You read that right: you don't need the hardcover rulebook in order to enjoy the setting's first boxed set adventure. I don't know whether this practice will continue in the future, yet it suddenly makes purchasing the Alien RPG Starter Bundle very enticing.
The weak points: The obvious things first: as a Starter Set, the product caters towards the basics. No character creation, no lists, no advice, no world-building, less options on many things. There will be a significant amount of overlap if you decide to purchase the hardcover rulebook in the future, all that however is to be expected.
As I stated in the review of the Alien RPG Bundle, when it comes to theme Alien is a product of its time. One can make new horror movies in space, or new trucker movies in space, yet this franchise's aesthetics are firmly anchored in the end of the 1970s. I am not talking about the bulky computers and the lack of miniaturization while at the same time sentient androids walk among the humans. I am not even talking about every other person smoking cheap cigs inside artificial atmospheres supported by machines; I am talking about the background, the theme. Corporate dystopia as an entertainment concept hasn't seen that much use after the change of the millennium. The fear of the other (and of the unknown) back in the day usually translated into anti-communism, into a strong projection of individuality. In that sense, and as much as I enjoy Alien, the RPG came late. Both the Mother and the players need to put a lot of effort in order to create the nuances beyond the obvious and superficial 'monsters in claustrophobic locations in space'.
In another comment I made in the Alien RPG Bundle review, take your Personal Agenda with a grain of salt. They are more flamboyant than they needed to be, following the rather off-putting example of Coriolis' Personal Problems. The characters are conflicted and to a certain extent disfunctional, they are still however trained professionals that have been doing runs for a while. At some point you will probably die. No need to exaggerate your roleplaying in order for you to die faster.
As much as I enjoy the structured approach for the players' roleplaying experience, the Mother does not get much to work with when it comes to her side of the screen. I am talking about concrete, extensive, adventure-specific tricks and advice to regulate the sessions' tension, wherever needed. That was a comment I had also made for the Alien RPG Bundle, even though there it mostly related to general principles that apply to any session of Alien. You want friction and drama. On the other hand however these cannot be chaotic and you should be able to regulate the session's flow. Where is the fun in forfeiting the whole adventure because things got out of hand in act one already?
The layout is as bad as in the hardcover rulebook. There's just too much dead space for me in both the softcover rulebook as well as the adventure. What is the wasted space good for? The game has a black background, so one can't take notes on it. I am not just complaining for environmental reasons mind you; the more the dead space, the more you will need to flip pages at any given time. During the game I want to be an impressive Mother; not lose myself in pages upon pages of nothing.
The adventure faces the same issue that all Alien cinematic adventures do so far. The less players you have the less of an impression it will make. It is not the scenario's fault; the cinematic mode simply works like that. Play it with five players, i.e. the maximum number of pre-gens, to get the most out of it.
You don't need the Starter Set if you previously invested in the Alien RPG Bundle. Content-wise, there is literally nothing new. On the other hand you are likely to feel stupid for going all-in at the beginning and paying almost triple the Starter Set's price for content that to a certain extent is similar to this one. The map is printed on thicker paper, the pre-gens for the adventure get functional character sheets, while Personal Agendas are easier to handle through the cards. There's no sugar-coating it: this Starter Set is most probably the result of a marketing shift in order to better promote the line. Yet, such shifts after a line is launched tend to generate bad faith and piss early adopters off. I wouldn't want to have autonomously bought the hardcover rulebook and Chariot of the Gods, only to see them reformatted and repackaged in less than a year's time with better materials, cards and dice. It's always better to get marketing right the first time.
I am ultimately afraid that the Starter Set might give one the wrong impression about what the game does. It mentions, but does not elaborate on many of the directions that the hardcover rulebook tries to follow. Yet, the Starter Set is good enough for one to subconsciously believe that what follows is at least as good as what he sees here, something that unfortunately is not the case. No matter how much you enjoy this Starter Set, I recommend you read the Alien Bundle RPG review to get a better understanding of what the hardcover rulebook is about and what its shortcomings are. On the other hand, you can actually play Destroyer of Worlds without ever buying the hardcover rulebook. If Free League continues this practice, and you don't care about running your own sandbox games, you might not need the hardcover rulebook any time soon.
Conclusion: The Alien RPG Starter Set is better than its line's hardcover rulebook and almost reaches perfection. It comes out as extremely tight and focused, distills the Alien experience, and works excellently on both the obvious as well as its more nuanced aspects. With the right Mother on board, players will lose their sleep for days. Strongly recommended if you hadn't already invested in the Alien RPG Bundle.
For more info on the Alien RPG Starter Set visit Fria Ligan at http://frialigan.se.
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