Free League Publishing Announce Alien: The Roleplaying Game

Started by Corporal Hicks, Apr 26, 2019, 05:35:38 PM

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Free League Publishing Announce Alien: The Roleplaying Game (Read 158,481 times)

Corporal Hicks

For the first time in thirty years, Alien is returning to the world of tabletop role-playing with Alien: The Roleplaying Game! Coming to us from Free League Publishing, Alien: The Roleplaying Game will be a “beautifully illustrated full-color hardcover book, both presenting the world of ALIEN in the year 2183 and a fast and effective ruleset designed specifically to enhance the ALIEN experience.”

What’s really interesting about Alien: The RPG is that it comes with two distinct gameplay modes. One is the traditional long-form campaign based over several sessions, the other is what they’ve dubbed “Cinematic play,” a mode that is designed to help ease in players unfamiliar with RPG.

For others who may be trying roleplaying for the first time, there's the "Cinematic" experience, a series of pre-generated storylines that can be played in a single sitting. The first one is called Chariot of the Gods, written by sci-fi author Andrew E.C. Gaska (Death of the Planet of the Apes). Härenstam compared it to the pre-made stories made for Tales From The Loop.

"We wanted to make [Alien] an approachable game. Our most successful game to-date is Tales From The Loop. Of course it's very different from this game, but there are some similarities to how we approach it," Härenstam said. "In [Cinematic] mode, you play scenarios with pre-generated characters and sort of a core arc. They emulate the dramatic structure of an Alien film. It's sort of built for one-shots and shorter play."

Alien: The Roleplaying Game will ship with the single Cinematic storyline, Chariot of the Gods, written by Andrew Gaska (who has previously joined us on the AvP Galaxy Podcast) but according to Free League co-founder Tomas Härenstam there are plans for more.

Campaign-wise, the game is set several years after the events of Alien and Alien 3 and will explore the frontier life of the Alien universe as the characters push towards the Outer Rim.

The year is 2183little more than three years since the destruction of the Hadley's Hope colonyon LV-426, the disappearance of the USS Sulaco, and the closing of the prison and lead works on Fiorina 161. The loss of a Sulaco's Colonial Marine unit along with these Weyland-Yutani sponsored outposts, and the implications of corporate foul play stemming from these incidents, have created an air of distrust between the company and the United Americas.

To add fuel to the fire, conflicts between the rival sectors of space have increased exponentially in the past five years. While unconfirmed, many believe that Hadley's Hope was a test site for one of Weyland-Yutani's bioweapons and that an enemy state sent a warship to nuke it from orbit. Others believe that the Company is working with a rogue nation to assume control of the colonies on the Frontier.

The 2180s are a dangerous time to be alive.

You can learn more about the game in i09’s interview with the publisher’s co-founder Tomas Härenstam or by heading over to the official Alien: The Roleplaying Game website and signing up to their mailing list!

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The Old One

Woohoo!

The era I always wanted.

Resident4ever

Cool, I wonder if the game will include the U.P.P. or other rogue like sectors like Alexandria from the Aliens Adventure Game.

Komenja

Sweet! I dig the time setting, gives the potential for stuff from nearly every movie (sorry, Resurrection) to appear. The mention of "Synthetics playing god" makes me wonder if any of the supplements will involve David or any of the creatures from the prequels. I may not like those movies, but they have some stuff that would be cool to play around with in an rpg. Probably means your character should never remove their helmet though, lest the DM decide to spring "Black Goo Spores, everyone dies" on you.  :P

Never played anything with Year Zero rules before, but I hear nothing but good things about Mutant.

Corporal Hicks


Mr. Clemens

SOLD! The Aliens rpg was a disaster rules-wise, but a fun read. This sounds even more up my alley.

[cancerblack]

Sounds similar to my own homemade one, especially the "cinematic"/one-shot mode, which was always hugely popular in my circles - so much so it was often run as a one off in other local groups.

Eldritch_DM

I'M SO EXCITED FOR THIS. For the longest time, I've done nothing but my own homebrewed rules/system for Aliens/AVP etc. So I'm quite intrigued by the notion of an official TTRPG.

I know nothing about the company producing it, everyone seems to say they do good works. What else do they produce?

SM

They did Corilolis and Tales from the Loop. I've not played an rpg in nearly 30 years but I had a look through both books and they look very slick if nothing else. They were going to send me a e-copy of Coriolis last year when I spoke to them but it sadly never materialused.

Local Trouble

Sounds like exactly what could have been if not for AR.

[cancerblack]

The "cinematic mode" will be a HUGE boost to this, especially if it gets supported with downloadable missions or expansion books once in a while. Campaign play is nice and all but my experience is that people get the most out of a one-shot, single sitting type game with the Alien setting, because it's so conducive to a 3 act format combining exploration/espionage and high-stakes bloodbaths into a single evening. All meat, no fat.

Monster Man

Monster Man

#11
Couple of questions -- I'm sure they're answered if I read on but for the sake of conversation.

Is this a D20 ruleset or something of their own concoction?

Can a player play as the alien? Of course your GM has to do it, I'm more curious if there's any alien-centric stories where you can make a PC alien and they go through what essentially equates to the Alien campaigns in AvP titles.

[cancerblack]

Personally hoping it's not D20 myself. D10 roll-under would be my preferred option.

Monster Man

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Apr 27, 2019, 02:04:44 AM
Personally hoping it's not D20 myself. D10 roll-under would be my preferred option.

I'm thinking they'll rip elements of Call of Cthulhu system which is another derivative of a D20.

However, I got to say -- nothing on the website reveals it's gameplay method at all, just a cool trailer and all the nicely drawn artwork to accompany it.

Regardless I'm gonna nab this and DM it for my friends, it's going to cool. Best part is that it's coming out this year.

Corporal Hicks

Quick post from the writer of the game.


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