Hi Xiggz456, thanks for the comment!
I quite like Chariot of the gods as a scenario in this game. It's quite adaptable and allows the GM to give breathing room or apply pressure to the players depending on what's needed. I saw lots of comments on release saying that they were disappointed that it didn't contain -The Alien- but I was sort of glad it didn't, partly because I don't want this game to just be about Big Chap and it was a nice treat to open up the physical copy and read it's stats for the first time and go "Oh Dear.... GOOD LUCK" when you see how badass it is.
Chariots has an Alien feel throughout, it's a ghost ship with monsters hiding in the dark and is designed to hit certain admittedly familiar story beats which works in its favour. In RPG's I suppose this could be considered a bad thing for some because the players feel somewhat railroaded, however as an introductory scenario it gives the players a fantastic taste of what Alien has to offer whilst delivering a solid RPG Horror experience.
With the Agenda and Buddy/Rival systems thrown in for good measure the players tend to determine how and when certain things will go down which has been random each time I've GM'd Chariots with some very different outcomes.
The one important distinction is that the Cinematic Scenarios are all about getting the players into the fire and keeping them there until they're cooked. It's meant to be a relatively short RPG experience over a few sessions unlike the campaign where you might only introduce the Alien at the very end of the games story arc. Player Characters are as easy to kill in Campaign as they are in the Cinematic ones.
Personally I do like the Story overall, I think ACT 2 gets a bit messy with all the NPC's coming out of Cryo and I imagine a new GM would really struggle with what to do with them all, especially because each of them has their own agenda! Of course this adds to the absolute chaos aboard the Cronus, especially when they start turning
. I certainly have my little complaints about how the scenario is planned out in the book as well. For example the crew get on the Cronus and you're meant to tell them "Hey there isn't much in the way of breathable O2", this bit of information makes it a high priority "FIX ME" task, however you aren't meant to fix this until ACT 2!
So without too many spoilers, I really do like Chariots as a more streamlined story with as you said some variation each time. It has quite a bit of replay value as well because I've found that players tend to interpret their Agendas differently sometimes. Lucas can be hidden by giving the player the Android objectives as well as the actual crew agenda to help throw people off. The slow introduction to finding their first hostile Alien creature is spot on.
I hope this somewhat answers your question and I didn't go off on too much of a tangent. I really do love this RPG and so far Destroyer of Worlds is delivering on the story front as well.
