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Alien The Roleplaying Game
Alien: The Roleplaying Game
“I can’t lie to you about your chances, but ... you have my sympathies.”
Space is vast, dark, and not your friend. Gamma rays and neutrino bursts erupt from dying stars to cook you alive, black holes tear you apart, and the void itself boils your blood and seizes your brain. Try to scream and no one can hear you—hold your breath and you rupture your lungs. Space isn’t as empty as you’d think, either—its frontiers are ever expanding. Rival governments wage a cold war of aggression while greedy corporations vie for valuable resources. Colonists reach for the stars and gamble with their lives—each new world tamed is either feast or famine. And there are things lurking in the shadows of every asteroid—things strange and different and deadly.
Things alien.
This is 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 beautifully illustrated, full-color hardcover book presents the world of ALIEN in the year 2183 and provides a fast and effective ruleset designed specifically to enhance the ALIEN experience. The game supports two distinct game modes:
• Cinematic play is based on pre-made scenarios that emulate the dramatic arc of an ALIEN film. Designed to be played in a single session, this game mode emphasizes high stakes and fast and brutal play. You are not all expected to survive. The core rulebook contains one introductory Cinematic scenario, Hope’s Last Day.
• Campaign play is designed for longer continuous play with the same cast of player characters over many game sessions, letting you explore the ALIEN universe freely, sandbox style. The core rulebook contains random tables and other powerful tools to quickly create star systems, colonies, missions, encounters, and NPCs for your campaign.
The rules of the game are based on the acclaimed Year Zero Engine, used in award-winning games such as Tales from the Loop, Forbidden Landsand Mutant: Year Zero, but adapted and further developed to fully support the core themes of ALIEN: horror and action in the cold darkness of space.
Space is vast, dark, and not your friend. Gamma rays and neutrino bursts erupt from dying stars to cook you alive, black holes tear you apart, and the void itself boils your blood and seizes your brain. Try to scream and no one can hear you—hold your breath and you rupture your lungs. Space isn’t as empty as you’d think, either—its frontiers are ever expanding. Rival governments wage a cold war of aggression while greedy corporations vie for valuable resources. Colonists reach for the stars and gamble with their lives—each new world tamed is either feast or famine. And there are things lurking in the shadows of every asteroid—things strange and different and deadly.
Things alien.
This is 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 beautifully illustrated, full-color hardcover book presents the world of ALIEN in the year 2183 and provides a fast and effective ruleset designed specifically to enhance the ALIEN experience. The game supports two distinct game modes:
• Cinematic play is based on pre-made scenarios that emulate the dramatic arc of an ALIEN film. Designed to be played in a single session, this game mode emphasizes high stakes and fast and brutal play. You are not all expected to survive. The core rulebook contains one introductory Cinematic scenario, Hope’s Last Day.
• Campaign play is designed for longer continuous play with the same cast of player characters over many game sessions, letting you explore the ALIEN universe freely, sandbox style. The core rulebook contains random tables and other powerful tools to quickly create star systems, colonies, missions, encounters, and NPCs for your campaign.
The rules of the game are based on the acclaimed Year Zero Engine, used in award-winning games such as Tales from the Loop, Forbidden Landsand Mutant: Year Zero, but adapted and further developed to fully support the core themes of ALIEN: horror and action in the cold darkness of space.
392 pages, Hardcover
First published December 10, 2019
21 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
June 19, 2023
6/19/23 Edit: Reread for campaign
Free League have outdone themselves with this title. The book itself is large, heavy, lavishly illustrated with original art and jam packed with the world of Alien. The printing itself, each page is the black expanse of space dotted with stars. The text is white or light green (Much like the movies computers) which lends itself to being very atmospheric. Interspersed throughout are little 1 paragrph - 1 page stories giving even more background.
The book is divided into a player section and a GM (Cleverly called the 'Game Mother') section like most RPG titles. The rules and text are logically presented and easy to read and grasp.
As I said the illustrations are top notch, the book not only covers Alien enemies from the original movies but also the Neomorphs introduced in the prequels. I appreciated this very much as I know I'm in a minority with the fan base here but I honestly really enjoyed both Prometheus and Covenant. Most each type of Alien has a few variants as well.
The universe is huge of course but this book does a great job of getting into some of the lesser known planets and their backgrounds along with the well known sites from the movies. There is plenty for the imaginative just in this volume alone to create an epic campaign of their very own design.
Also represented is vehicular combat both on land and in space which I appreciated.
I have purchased everything that has come out for this so far and have the next hard back volume preordered that is a resource volume on playing the Colonial Marines in more detail/depth. Simply put, very excited to get this to the table.
Free League have outdone themselves with this title. The book itself is large, heavy, lavishly illustrated with original art and jam packed with the world of Alien. The printing itself, each page is the black expanse of space dotted with stars. The text is white or light green (Much like the movies computers) which lends itself to being very atmospheric. Interspersed throughout are little 1 paragrph - 1 page stories giving even more background.
The book is divided into a player section and a GM (Cleverly called the 'Game Mother') section like most RPG titles. The rules and text are logically presented and easy to read and grasp.
As I said the illustrations are top notch, the book not only covers Alien enemies from the original movies but also the Neomorphs introduced in the prequels. I appreciated this very much as I know I'm in a minority with the fan base here but I honestly really enjoyed both Prometheus and Covenant. Most each type of Alien has a few variants as well.
The universe is huge of course but this book does a great job of getting into some of the lesser known planets and their backgrounds along with the well known sites from the movies. There is plenty for the imaginative just in this volume alone to create an epic campaign of their very own design.
Also represented is vehicular combat both on land and in space which I appreciated.
I have purchased everything that has come out for this so far and have the next hard back volume preordered that is a resource volume on playing the Colonial Marines in more detail/depth. Simply put, very excited to get this to the table.
September 30, 2022
Oh Alien, let me count the ways I love thee!!
I've only read this book, not played the game, but I had a great time reading it, and Free League's system at least reads like a not too complicated system that has enough detail to capture the inherent fear and anxiety of anything Alien-related.
But I came to this book primarily for the background info - and it's filled with it. The xenomorph is interesting enough, but this game needs strong worldbuilding to keep it interesting for players. And I think it does. And it is well written, keeping the cynical tone of the movies and books, while also regularly being very funny.
I have some points of criticism - the book has a lot of excellent art, but the chapter on the actual aliens (xenomorphs and others), could've used more illustrations of the creatures. Most of the equipment get individual pictures, and you can't count on every reader having seen the movies. There's one picture showing the stages of the xenomorph's biology by size, compared to a human. Gives a good picture of an Engineer, of a facehugger, etc.
Another point is that I feel the black goo and Engineers are game-technically not explored very well. No stats for Engineers, no ideas how the black goo mutates creatures. Of course you can make a lot of that up, but the book does give random tables for creating planets and star systems, even for missions, why not something similar for the goo?
This is Peterhans, last survivor of this review, signing off.
I've only read this book, not played the game, but I had a great time reading it, and Free League's system at least reads like a not too complicated system that has enough detail to capture the inherent fear and anxiety of anything Alien-related.
But I came to this book primarily for the background info - and it's filled with it. The xenomorph is interesting enough, but this game needs strong worldbuilding to keep it interesting for players. And I think it does. And it is well written, keeping the cynical tone of the movies and books, while also regularly being very funny.
I have some points of criticism - the book has a lot of excellent art, but the chapter on the actual aliens (xenomorphs and others), could've used more illustrations of the creatures. Most of the equipment get individual pictures, and you can't count on every reader having seen the movies. There's one picture showing the stages of the xenomorph's biology by size, compared to a human. Gives a good picture of an Engineer, of a facehugger, etc.
Another point is that I feel the black goo and Engineers are game-technically not explored very well. No stats for Engineers, no ideas how the black goo mutates creatures. Of course you can make a lot of that up, but the book does give random tables for creating planets and star systems, even for missions, why not something similar for the goo?
This is Peterhans, last survivor of this review, signing off.
January 28, 2020
‘Space is vast, dark, and not your friend. Gamma rays and neutrino bursts erupt from dying stars to cook you alive, black holes tear you apart, and the void itself boils your blood and seizes your brain. Try to scream and no one can hear you—hold your breath and you rupture your lungs. Space isn’t as empty as you’d think, either—its frontiers are ever expanding. Rival governments wage a cold war of aggression while greedy corporations vie for valuable resources. Colonists reach for the stars and gamble with their lives—each new world tamed is either feast or famine. And there are things lurking in the shadows of every asteroid—things strange and different and deadly.
Things alien.
This is the official ALIEN tabletop roleplaying game—a universe of body horror and corporate brinkmanship, where synthetic people play god while space truckers and marines serve host to newborn ghoulish creatures. It’s a harsh and unforgiving universe and you are nothing if not expendable.
Stay alive if you can.’
Before I get into this review, I feel I should explain my background with the Alien franchise.
I first experienced Alien on a black-and-white TV set in 1982. It scared the living crap out of me, but it also completely changed my view on all things science fiction, and what a film could do to manipulate feelings, instil terror and create a world so mysterious and yet so familiar that you could hardly comprehend it. Alien is, without a doubt, my favourite movie of all time.
The sequels I’m mixed about; Aliens is my favourite action movie of the 80s – I saw it on opening night at 15 years old – and it coloured and influenced my view on sci-fi action for years to come. However, I love it as a movie but dislike it as a sequel. The full reasons for that are for another time, but I felt it reduced the alien to simple overgrown insect that could be shot, and that kind of ruined the mystery for me. The majority of the following expanded material, from comics to novels, followed this theme and I never got heavily involved in it because of that.
Alien 3 was a good film but slightly ruined by it’s treatment of two major Aliens characters, which made them and the finale of that film redundant when you go back and watch it after. However, the Assembly Cut was excellent, it fleshed things out and made for a better movie and visually – apart from some of the creature visuals – it was stunningly shot.
I don’t talk much about Alien Resurrection. To be honest, the only reason I own it is because it was part of the Quadrilogy/Anthology box sets.
It’s the same with the Alien Vs Predator films; they’re another pair of movies I could quite gladly forget, and the fact that they pretty much tied the two franchises together so that a lot of fans can’t separate them is a massive shame. They’re fan fiction, I think.
The two new movies, Prometheus and Alien Covenant, are a mixed bag for me. Visually stunning with some great characters, they fall a little flat on story content and a lack of sensible connection to the original films. Did they ruin the franchise? Certainly not; any problems the franchise had were already well established from Resurrection onwards, maybe even before, so it’s a bit disingenuous to say that Ridley Scott ‘ruined the franchise’…
Oh, no. I did it again. I went off on a tangent. Okay, so my opinions on the Alien franchise are out there, but it illustrates my feelings on the franchise and what it means to me, and I promise it will make sense when I talk about the game.
The game.
Well.
I’m not going to mess about here – this is a stunning book. I mean, it’s beautiful to look at, you crack it open with what is akin to reverence and the fresh print smell and the sheer atmosphere it exudes is somewhat overwhelming. Am I exaggerating? Not as a huge Alien, tabletop roleplaying and Fria Ligan fan, no. These are my three favourite things coming together so my expectations were not just high, they were probably unrealistic.
The presentation is probably the best Fria Ligan has ever produced. I loved the visuals of Coriolis, I adored the nostalgia of Forbidden Lands, but Alien is stunning, a great mix of visuals and setting. It’s dark, moody and really drives home this sense of bleakness and strange Lovecraftian adventure, and the artwork by Martin Grip, John R. Mullaney and Axel Torvenius is pretty spot on. It suits the excellent writing of Tomas Härenstam and Andrew E.C. Gaska perfectly, and it makes for a fantastic read that really helps to suck you in to the world.
It’s a thick hefty tome, but the print is quite large and there is a lot of dead space, with large black areas with barely anything on them. The text is either white-on-black – which isn’t easy on my eyes – or presented in data readout-style boxes. It all adds to the atmosphere, but I imagine the guy at the printers in charge of the black ink was a busy guy when this was on the presses.
The book is divided into sections that covers everything you’ll need to play a general sci-fi game, not just an Alien game, so there’s plenty of use for these rules even if you somehow get bored of the whole alien wrapping. There’s Space Is Hell (an introduction to the world), Your Character, Skills, Talents, Combat & Panic, Gear, A Hard Life Amongst The Stars, Your Job As Game Mother, Governments & Corporations, Systems & Planets, Alien Species, Campaign Play and the obligatory adventure Hope’s Last Day. There’s everything you need to run a sci-fi game, it’s even got starships and starship combat for those of you who want to go that extra lightyear, so the options you have are quite varied and useful.
The rules system is a D6 dicepool. Players divide points between Attributes and these have relevant Skills. Rolls are dice pools of D6s, adding Attributes and Skills together to create a number of dice, and any that score a six garners a single success. They’re the same mechanics found in ‘Coriolis’, ‘Mutant: Year Zero’ and ‘Tales From The Loop’ and they work just as well here. As I’ve said before in previous reviews, low dice pools can be extremely frustrating with continued failed rolls, but that adds to the tension and atmosphere of the setting and just makes the single six that sometimes appears all the more exhilarating.
There’s a new mechanic in here called the Stress Dice. This addition allows players to put extra dice into their dice as they try to get through rolls or experience gruesome… things. This helps them succeed in stressful situations where they may otherwise have failed, but it can work against them in the long run and the more risks or pushes through rolls a character takes, the more dangers they face later. It’s an interesting mechanic and it really helps to add another layer of tension and pressure on to the already stress-laden characters, making games unpredictable and heightening the already tense atmosphere.
There are two kinds of play, best explained by Fria Ligan:
‘Cinematic play is based on pre-made scenarios that emulate the dramatic arc of an ALIEN film. Designed to be played in a single session, this game mode emphasizes high stakes and fast and brutal play. You are not all expected to survive. The core rulebook contains one introductory Cinematic scenario, Hope’s Last Day.
Campaign play is designed for longer continuous play with the same cast of player characters over many game sessions, letting you explore the ALIEN universe freely, sandbox style. The core rulebook contains random tables and other powerful tools to quickly create star systems, colonies, missions, encounters, and NPCs for your campaign.’
This is a great idea as the Cinematic play caters to the horror fans who don’t expect to survive a single session, and Campaign suits the players wanting to explore the larger world of the Alien universe and have ongoing adventures. I fall into the Campaign area of play, but Cinematic is perfect for one-shots, or even two-three session games. It gives the GM and group choice and caters to different play styles.
So, what kind of Alien game can you play?
Any kind you want.
Do you want to play a game inspired by the claustrophobic tension and horror of Alien, Alien Isolation and Alien 3? No problem.
Do you want to load up and get yourself to fry-up city? Want some Aliens action? Got you covered.
Do you want the wonder and terror of exploration, delving into the mysteries that Prometheus and Covenant gave you? Done.
Do you want to explore the political/business side of things, deal with the human element and face those willing to cast innocents into the fire into the name of profit? You’re sorted.
The Alien RPG lists all the equipment, ships, and foes you’ll need. From shady businessmen to soldiers, from nasty facehuggers to different xenomorphs appearing in the different movies, games and comics, the game lists everything that could be a potential threat to you and your team. You could go entire sessions without having to face off with an alien because there is so much a GM could throw at you. In fact, that’s another great use of the Cinematic and Campaign styles; if your players just want to dive in to alien shenanigans then Cinematic it is. If the group want to go the long way and build up to the reveal, then Campaign is the way to go. There is so much more that a group can do with this game that isn’t simply ‘oooh it’s dark-alien!- dead’.
The fact is, the game has taken most aspects of the Alien franchise and incorporated them into this game so that the majority of the franchise can be emulated. The timeline runs from 2023 (Peter Wayland’s Ted Talk) to 2180 (three years after the events of Aliens). To be honest, there’s enough material to go beyond that and reach the outer years of Alien Resurrection if you really wanted to, as well as create your own version of events and situations.
In my game, I opted for the timeline surrounding Alien Isolation and the events leading up to the Sevastopol’s destruction. I ran a game of agents going after the Nostromo’s black box the USCSS Anesidora picked up and arriving at Sevastopol as things went wrong. The period between Alien and Aliens is my preferred time as it still holds that mystery and horror before the franchise classified and detailed the alien and it’s life cycle, which took away the unknown for me.
But that’s what’s great about the Alien RPG, you can use it however – and whenever – you want. It’s designed so that you can take what you like, discard what you don’t like, and play it as you see fit. There’s no hard and fast rules as to how or when to run your game, and the system is really malleable and flexible so if you wanted to add something ‘out there’ - such as a Predator – you can easily do so.
The D6 pool system may not be to everyone’s liking and the starship combat system seems a little superfluous, but overall the game gives you everything you need to run a dark, mysterious science fiction game. As I said earlier, even if you got tired of using the franchise elements you can use this system for any kind of science fiction RPG you can imagine, using the rules for any other kind of campaign. You can even drop the Stress rules, if you want to just go pure gung-ho action movie, and it works fine. There’s a lot you can do with the system and the options the rulebook gives you.
So – my favourite franchise, my favourite hobby and my favourite publisher coming together, creating a game in a universe I love using a system I got a lot of use out of in Coriolis? It’s a foregone conclusion that I was going to love this game. I put it on a pedestal and I had my expectations and, for the most part, Fria Ligan met them. They’ve taken the horror, mystery, action and overall terror of the Alien franchise and somehow managed to put it into the pages of this rulebook. It’s an incredible job.
Yes, I have my issues with elements of the franchise but they’re not in the rulebook to be enforced, just to be utilised. If you played in my game of the Alien RPG I’d ask you to watch Alien and play Alien Isolation beforehand, because that’s the kind of atmosphere I’d go for; however, before any of that happened I’d explore the corporations, do some games in the seedy backstreets of the settlements, go for that cyberpunk vibe. Then I’d throw in the overall story, start to hint at the alien and then introduce it in to the mix. Not the Bloodburster, not the Neomorph, but the original 1979 movie creature you couldn’t see in the shadows.
Because the Alien RPG allows you to do that.
And that’s why I love it.
Things alien.
This is the official ALIEN tabletop roleplaying game—a universe of body horror and corporate brinkmanship, where synthetic people play god while space truckers and marines serve host to newborn ghoulish creatures. It’s a harsh and unforgiving universe and you are nothing if not expendable.
Stay alive if you can.’
Before I get into this review, I feel I should explain my background with the Alien franchise.
I first experienced Alien on a black-and-white TV set in 1982. It scared the living crap out of me, but it also completely changed my view on all things science fiction, and what a film could do to manipulate feelings, instil terror and create a world so mysterious and yet so familiar that you could hardly comprehend it. Alien is, without a doubt, my favourite movie of all time.
The sequels I’m mixed about; Aliens is my favourite action movie of the 80s – I saw it on opening night at 15 years old – and it coloured and influenced my view on sci-fi action for years to come. However, I love it as a movie but dislike it as a sequel. The full reasons for that are for another time, but I felt it reduced the alien to simple overgrown insect that could be shot, and that kind of ruined the mystery for me. The majority of the following expanded material, from comics to novels, followed this theme and I never got heavily involved in it because of that.
Alien 3 was a good film but slightly ruined by it’s treatment of two major Aliens characters, which made them and the finale of that film redundant when you go back and watch it after. However, the Assembly Cut was excellent, it fleshed things out and made for a better movie and visually – apart from some of the creature visuals – it was stunningly shot.
I don’t talk much about Alien Resurrection. To be honest, the only reason I own it is because it was part of the Quadrilogy/Anthology box sets.
It’s the same with the Alien Vs Predator films; they’re another pair of movies I could quite gladly forget, and the fact that they pretty much tied the two franchises together so that a lot of fans can’t separate them is a massive shame. They’re fan fiction, I think.
The two new movies, Prometheus and Alien Covenant, are a mixed bag for me. Visually stunning with some great characters, they fall a little flat on story content and a lack of sensible connection to the original films. Did they ruin the franchise? Certainly not; any problems the franchise had were already well established from Resurrection onwards, maybe even before, so it’s a bit disingenuous to say that Ridley Scott ‘ruined the franchise’…
Oh, no. I did it again. I went off on a tangent. Okay, so my opinions on the Alien franchise are out there, but it illustrates my feelings on the franchise and what it means to me, and I promise it will make sense when I talk about the game.
The game.
Well.
I’m not going to mess about here – this is a stunning book. I mean, it’s beautiful to look at, you crack it open with what is akin to reverence and the fresh print smell and the sheer atmosphere it exudes is somewhat overwhelming. Am I exaggerating? Not as a huge Alien, tabletop roleplaying and Fria Ligan fan, no. These are my three favourite things coming together so my expectations were not just high, they were probably unrealistic.
The presentation is probably the best Fria Ligan has ever produced. I loved the visuals of Coriolis, I adored the nostalgia of Forbidden Lands, but Alien is stunning, a great mix of visuals and setting. It’s dark, moody and really drives home this sense of bleakness and strange Lovecraftian adventure, and the artwork by Martin Grip, John R. Mullaney and Axel Torvenius is pretty spot on. It suits the excellent writing of Tomas Härenstam and Andrew E.C. Gaska perfectly, and it makes for a fantastic read that really helps to suck you in to the world.
It’s a thick hefty tome, but the print is quite large and there is a lot of dead space, with large black areas with barely anything on them. The text is either white-on-black – which isn’t easy on my eyes – or presented in data readout-style boxes. It all adds to the atmosphere, but I imagine the guy at the printers in charge of the black ink was a busy guy when this was on the presses.
The book is divided into sections that covers everything you’ll need to play a general sci-fi game, not just an Alien game, so there’s plenty of use for these rules even if you somehow get bored of the whole alien wrapping. There’s Space Is Hell (an introduction to the world), Your Character, Skills, Talents, Combat & Panic, Gear, A Hard Life Amongst The Stars, Your Job As Game Mother, Governments & Corporations, Systems & Planets, Alien Species, Campaign Play and the obligatory adventure Hope’s Last Day. There’s everything you need to run a sci-fi game, it’s even got starships and starship combat for those of you who want to go that extra lightyear, so the options you have are quite varied and useful.
The rules system is a D6 dicepool. Players divide points between Attributes and these have relevant Skills. Rolls are dice pools of D6s, adding Attributes and Skills together to create a number of dice, and any that score a six garners a single success. They’re the same mechanics found in ‘Coriolis’, ‘Mutant: Year Zero’ and ‘Tales From The Loop’ and they work just as well here. As I’ve said before in previous reviews, low dice pools can be extremely frustrating with continued failed rolls, but that adds to the tension and atmosphere of the setting and just makes the single six that sometimes appears all the more exhilarating.
There’s a new mechanic in here called the Stress Dice. This addition allows players to put extra dice into their dice as they try to get through rolls or experience gruesome… things. This helps them succeed in stressful situations where they may otherwise have failed, but it can work against them in the long run and the more risks or pushes through rolls a character takes, the more dangers they face later. It’s an interesting mechanic and it really helps to add another layer of tension and pressure on to the already stress-laden characters, making games unpredictable and heightening the already tense atmosphere.
There are two kinds of play, best explained by Fria Ligan:
‘Cinematic play is based on pre-made scenarios that emulate the dramatic arc of an ALIEN film. Designed to be played in a single session, this game mode emphasizes high stakes and fast and brutal play. You are not all expected to survive. The core rulebook contains one introductory Cinematic scenario, Hope’s Last Day.
Campaign play is designed for longer continuous play with the same cast of player characters over many game sessions, letting you explore the ALIEN universe freely, sandbox style. The core rulebook contains random tables and other powerful tools to quickly create star systems, colonies, missions, encounters, and NPCs for your campaign.’
This is a great idea as the Cinematic play caters to the horror fans who don’t expect to survive a single session, and Campaign suits the players wanting to explore the larger world of the Alien universe and have ongoing adventures. I fall into the Campaign area of play, but Cinematic is perfect for one-shots, or even two-three session games. It gives the GM and group choice and caters to different play styles.
So, what kind of Alien game can you play?
Any kind you want.
Do you want to play a game inspired by the claustrophobic tension and horror of Alien, Alien Isolation and Alien 3? No problem.
Do you want to load up and get yourself to fry-up city? Want some Aliens action? Got you covered.
Do you want the wonder and terror of exploration, delving into the mysteries that Prometheus and Covenant gave you? Done.
Do you want to explore the political/business side of things, deal with the human element and face those willing to cast innocents into the fire into the name of profit? You’re sorted.
The Alien RPG lists all the equipment, ships, and foes you’ll need. From shady businessmen to soldiers, from nasty facehuggers to different xenomorphs appearing in the different movies, games and comics, the game lists everything that could be a potential threat to you and your team. You could go entire sessions without having to face off with an alien because there is so much a GM could throw at you. In fact, that’s another great use of the Cinematic and Campaign styles; if your players just want to dive in to alien shenanigans then Cinematic it is. If the group want to go the long way and build up to the reveal, then Campaign is the way to go. There is so much more that a group can do with this game that isn’t simply ‘oooh it’s dark-alien!- dead’.
The fact is, the game has taken most aspects of the Alien franchise and incorporated them into this game so that the majority of the franchise can be emulated. The timeline runs from 2023 (Peter Wayland’s Ted Talk) to 2180 (three years after the events of Aliens). To be honest, there’s enough material to go beyond that and reach the outer years of Alien Resurrection if you really wanted to, as well as create your own version of events and situations.
In my game, I opted for the timeline surrounding Alien Isolation and the events leading up to the Sevastopol’s destruction. I ran a game of agents going after the Nostromo’s black box the USCSS Anesidora picked up and arriving at Sevastopol as things went wrong. The period between Alien and Aliens is my preferred time as it still holds that mystery and horror before the franchise classified and detailed the alien and it’s life cycle, which took away the unknown for me.
But that’s what’s great about the Alien RPG, you can use it however – and whenever – you want. It’s designed so that you can take what you like, discard what you don’t like, and play it as you see fit. There’s no hard and fast rules as to how or when to run your game, and the system is really malleable and flexible so if you wanted to add something ‘out there’ - such as a Predator – you can easily do so.
The D6 pool system may not be to everyone’s liking and the starship combat system seems a little superfluous, but overall the game gives you everything you need to run a dark, mysterious science fiction game. As I said earlier, even if you got tired of using the franchise elements you can use this system for any kind of science fiction RPG you can imagine, using the rules for any other kind of campaign. You can even drop the Stress rules, if you want to just go pure gung-ho action movie, and it works fine. There’s a lot you can do with the system and the options the rulebook gives you.
So – my favourite franchise, my favourite hobby and my favourite publisher coming together, creating a game in a universe I love using a system I got a lot of use out of in Coriolis? It’s a foregone conclusion that I was going to love this game. I put it on a pedestal and I had my expectations and, for the most part, Fria Ligan met them. They’ve taken the horror, mystery, action and overall terror of the Alien franchise and somehow managed to put it into the pages of this rulebook. It’s an incredible job.
Yes, I have my issues with elements of the franchise but they’re not in the rulebook to be enforced, just to be utilised. If you played in my game of the Alien RPG I’d ask you to watch Alien and play Alien Isolation beforehand, because that’s the kind of atmosphere I’d go for; however, before any of that happened I’d explore the corporations, do some games in the seedy backstreets of the settlements, go for that cyberpunk vibe. Then I’d throw in the overall story, start to hint at the alien and then introduce it in to the mix. Not the Bloodburster, not the Neomorph, but the original 1979 movie creature you couldn’t see in the shadows.
Because the Alien RPG allows you to do that.
And that’s why I love it.
October 28, 2020
I would give this book more stars if only I could.
I am a long time fan of the Alien universe. I've seen all the movies. I've read all of the books - all of them, from the best to the worst. I've read almost all of the comic books. I've played almost all of the games, and I have a pretty nice collection of figures, busts, and other memorabilia.
I was pretty excited to hear that an Alien RPG was in the works, because this particular dystopian future feels like it had a lot to offer in terms of theater-of-the-mind play. I also just enjoy reading roleplaying books. If done well, they can consolidate and present the worlds they represent in refreshing, comprehensive, and often very detailed ways.
All of that said, the Alien RPG core rulebook is better than I could have hoped. It brings all of the best of the Alien franchise into clear focus and creates a real sense of canon that I think Alien has been needing for a while.
I am a long time fan of the Alien universe. I've seen all the movies. I've read all of the books - all of them, from the best to the worst. I've read almost all of the comic books. I've played almost all of the games, and I have a pretty nice collection of figures, busts, and other memorabilia.
I was pretty excited to hear that an Alien RPG was in the works, because this particular dystopian future feels like it had a lot to offer in terms of theater-of-the-mind play. I also just enjoy reading roleplaying books. If done well, they can consolidate and present the worlds they represent in refreshing, comprehensive, and often very detailed ways.
All of that said, the Alien RPG core rulebook is better than I could have hoped. It brings all of the best of the Alien franchise into clear focus and creates a real sense of canon that I think Alien has been needing for a while.
October 16, 2023
A seriously well made and well thought out RPG book. Even if you didn’t know anything about the world of Alien or weren’t interested in that specific , this system is perfect for running a universe-spanning sci fi adventure. I hope I can run this game one day!
August 28, 2025
I saw the movie Alien when it first came out in the theater. It was so packed that me and my friend had to share a seat, alternately sitting in the isle and on the seat.
The truth is, I was rather disappointed by it. But the thing is, I’d been reading up on the film in Starlog magazine for months and it seemed like it would be a much more cerebral science fiction film than the monster movie it actually turned out to be. I’ve since come to appreciate it for what it is, rather than what I expected it to be.
I really had no intention of buying the RPG. For some reason there is a glut of ‘horror sci-fi’ games these days and the best I’ve seen is Hostile which has some fantastic products for it.
But I stumbled across this one super-cheap somewhere and figured why not.
The truth is, I’ve played out the ‘alien’ scenario so many times in science fiction games that I honestly don’t see how you could base a whole campaign on it. Though Hostile does a good job of adding a lot of variety.
Let’s see how this game does.
Of course, it’s a beautiful book, but someone has got to explain that white text on a black background gets really old to read quick.
So far, nothing unexpected. You’re playing a colonist, space trucker or colonial marine.
I did have to LOL are the term for Game Master. Many RPGs have struggled with this term. Some RPGs have renamed it to be cute or invoke the genre of the game, but it is understood traditionally. In my own games I’m going with “Game Moderator” as a compromise, but I have to give them props for their solution - “Game Mother”.
There is a very odd break down of “Game Modes” inherent throughout the rules. “Cinematic” or “Campaign”. Cinematic appears to be One-shots where you are not necessarily expected to survive. Like an “Alien” move or the “Mothership” game. Campaign play seems to be what most RPG players think of. You are expected to at least want to survive. It seems an odd distinction to me.
Colonial Marine, Colonial Marshal, Company Agent, Kid, Medic, Officer, Pilot, Roughneck, Scientist are given rough descriptions. They are not really classes as they have no real mechanical effect. Just some equipment, a personal ‘agenda’ of some kind and a trinket and appearance. The rules say nothing about what these are for. Inspiration?
Skills are an admirably short list. 12. Something you never see in a dice pool system is a table of probabilities. I appreciate that.
By the way, this is a very attractive book, but the amount of ‘white space’ on each page (actually it’s black space) is HUGE. Now if I remember correctly I paid $10 for this book, but if I paid the $55 it’s currently being charged on Amazon I’d be super pissed at the wasted space and completely unnecessary glossiness. If I wanted an Aliens coffee-table book there are plenty already out there. I’d rather have something that was easier to use at the table.
The Stress in this game (as opposed to Mothership or Hostile has an interesting twist in that it allows you to add bonuses to Skill rolls. It’s kind of a neat idea. This means you’re REALLY under the gun to succeed at a skill.
I like what they do with the skills. Each ‘success’ (each die that rolls a 6) after the first allows you to choose a ‘stunt’, such as ‘You act quietly’ or ‘Gain +1 to a later skill roll related to this one’. That’s a clever use of the success mechanic I haven’t seen before. I think I’ll steal it!
I have to say the Talents are very steal-able as well. Banter allows you to relieve the stress of your team.
Combat has a lot of creativity to it as well.
The use of playing cards (sold separately) for initiative is actually pretty clever. No PC skill is involved which makes for a pretty even playing field. I’m not ready to use it but I like the out of the box thinking.
Stealth Mode takes special care to emphasize when can or can’t see or notice each other and how it is activated. This is obviously especially important in this game!
Actions - what you can do when it’s your turn - is divided into Fast Actions and Slow Actions. And you can do one each when it’s your turn. The initiative cards can be ‘tapped’ (turned on its side) to indicate which actions you’ve already done. It’s a nice simple, intuitive distinction that makes combat easy to run.
Movement is done by variable sized ‘zones’. It expects that you’ll be buying the ‘official’ maps that have these marked out for you. I first saw this in TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes and have always been surprised it wasn’t used more.
I do think the massive use of ‘black space’ greatly hampers the usability of this book as a reference guide at the table. I’d really like the paperback version.
The rules have as lot of ”this happens… when the GM finds it dramatically appropriate.” which is utter bullshit. I understand why its done but if the GM is capable of deciding when something is ‘dramatically appropriate’ they don’t need you to tell them that. If they aren’t capable or good at that, then they will very likely get it wrong. A rulebook can ALWAYS be ‘overridden’ when it’s ‘dramatically appropriate’ but its usually a lousy thing to hang the rules on. You’re players are going to make life-changing decisions based on what they think is reality. You’re telling them reality can change any minute at the GM’s whim. Which means they shouldn’t learn the play the game. They should learn to play the GM.
The Alien RPG continues to impress. The Critical Injuries and Mental Trauma table provides a lot of interesting effects in very simple mechanics. Inevitably comparing it to the Mothership RPG, which undoubtedly came first, the way ‘stress’ and ‘wounds’ are handled are MUCH simpler and better here. Hindsight being 20/20 and all.
Dealing with Other Hazards however, their need to simplify rather backfires, making Starving, Dehydration, Exhausted and Freezing virtually identical mechanically. Vacuum however, is uniquely gross and fatal.
The weapon section has pictures of most of the weapons, but the armor section only has a picture of the Power Loader Ripley used. Bogus.
Under Pharmaceuticals: Recommended for use during any self-inflicted cesarean performed to extract an unconventional fetus from your womb.
Annoying that the Vehicles section does not have illustrations of the new vehicles added to the game. Only the two vehicles from the movies. I already know what those look like!
Annoying that they have no illustrations for the FOUR different types of escape pods described. I think that’s serves as a warning to players however….
The spacecraft chapter gives stats on 4 spaceships and 1 shuttle. And not a single deck plan. Just two sideview illustrations (and one of the Nostromo, of which there are plenty of illustrations already). We don’t even have a picture of the shuttle used in the first movie! Not impressed.
The space combat section is fine. After that is the ‘Game Mother’ section which you have to admit is a pretty cool alternative to ‘game master’.
The background section is useful for factions and enemies and explains the mega corporations involved. Nothing particularly exciting or inventive, but it does the job of providing organizations to play with.
For what it’s worth, they also explain the Prometheus movie in this book. It still makes no damn sense.
Finally we get to the Alien Species chapter which will tell us all about the Xenomorph and it’s history! One of the main reasons I bought this game!
Holy Crap! They’ve invented about 20 new version of the alien xenomorph! They are all about 5% different! It seems completely pointless. Sure, some could have come from comics or novels, but it’s hard to believe all of them are!
Of course, they suggest that you can have many variations on the xenomorph. I’m not convinced this would make them much more interesting however.
There are several new creatures as well. Four of them. Only one is illustrated.
An unusual feature of the creatures is that they each have an ‘attack’ table which is a 1d6 table of how they attack (though they are not all attacks). This is also true of all the xenomorph varieties. This allows for some interesting uniqueness among the creatures. Of course, there’s only four animals besides the xenomorph and you’ve seen all the xenomorph attacks. So it’s a neat idea that I thought I’d point out. Not sure how it would play.
Campaign Play is four pages describing Colonial Marines, Frontier Colonists and Space Truckers. No surprises.
Creating Star Systems is next. I’m a little surprised to see this feature. There is actually plenty of variety in these tables. Not a lot of detail, but I think it’s more than enough.
Following the star system creation tables are quite a lot of other tables that can help the GM quickly create scenarios, missions and adventures. Cargo runs, Military missions, Expeditions all with complications, plot twists and other helpful tables. I don’t think anyone can really run a good game with just tables, but I believe they can be quite helpful in creating a unique scenario.
They are quite a lot of very good encounter tables as well.
After that is a Non-Player Character chapter which gives 15 example NPCs. Not a lot. But nice to have any.
Novgorod Station is an example space station complete with maps. the maps aren’t very detailed, but they should do the job.
There are some useless adventure seeds for the station and four NPCs which are more useful.
Finally ‘Hope’s Last Day’ is a sample adventure. These are always tough to write well. A good one will effortlessly start a campaign and the examples are few and far between. A bad one will give the GM more work than if he hadn’t used the starting adventure!
The adventure is pretty good. You’re stuck in a place with a lot of aliens in different places until you get to a shuttle. It doesn’t honestly look like many players will survive. Then end of the adventure is if anyone makes it to the shuttle and flies away, knowing everyone left on the planet is doomed.
That’s the Alien RPG by Free League. Frankly it’s about 100 times better than I thought it would be - licensed games of any kind are notoriously terrible. But this one is playable, does the theme very well and seems like in the hands of the right GM could be a lot of fun. I’m not that GM however, though I may well steal bits and pieces from this game.
I am also aware that even before I finished reading this game there was a second edition coming out. You can blame that on 1) Shitty play-testing of the first edition, 2) Greed and a desire to gouge the customer base or 3) Wanting to get as much use out of the license before they lose it. If you can think of an altruistic reason - then you are less cynical than I am.
That said, I think the first edition is a good game. Not a masterpiece but a strong 4 stars that I would recommend to anyone interested (and who hasn’t already played this type of game/scenario out to death).
The truth is, I was rather disappointed by it. But the thing is, I’d been reading up on the film in Starlog magazine for months and it seemed like it would be a much more cerebral science fiction film than the monster movie it actually turned out to be. I’ve since come to appreciate it for what it is, rather than what I expected it to be.
I really had no intention of buying the RPG. For some reason there is a glut of ‘horror sci-fi’ games these days and the best I’ve seen is Hostile which has some fantastic products for it.
But I stumbled across this one super-cheap somewhere and figured why not.
The truth is, I’ve played out the ‘alien’ scenario so many times in science fiction games that I honestly don’t see how you could base a whole campaign on it. Though Hostile does a good job of adding a lot of variety.
Let’s see how this game does.
Of course, it’s a beautiful book, but someone has got to explain that white text on a black background gets really old to read quick.
So far, nothing unexpected. You’re playing a colonist, space trucker or colonial marine.
I did have to LOL are the term for Game Master. Many RPGs have struggled with this term. Some RPGs have renamed it to be cute or invoke the genre of the game, but it is understood traditionally. In my own games I’m going with “Game Moderator” as a compromise, but I have to give them props for their solution - “Game Mother”.
There is a very odd break down of “Game Modes” inherent throughout the rules. “Cinematic” or “Campaign”. Cinematic appears to be One-shots where you are not necessarily expected to survive. Like an “Alien” move or the “Mothership” game. Campaign play seems to be what most RPG players think of. You are expected to at least want to survive. It seems an odd distinction to me.
Colonial Marine, Colonial Marshal, Company Agent, Kid, Medic, Officer, Pilot, Roughneck, Scientist are given rough descriptions. They are not really classes as they have no real mechanical effect. Just some equipment, a personal ‘agenda’ of some kind and a trinket and appearance. The rules say nothing about what these are for. Inspiration?
Skills are an admirably short list. 12. Something you never see in a dice pool system is a table of probabilities. I appreciate that.
By the way, this is a very attractive book, but the amount of ‘white space’ on each page (actually it’s black space) is HUGE. Now if I remember correctly I paid $10 for this book, but if I paid the $55 it’s currently being charged on Amazon I’d be super pissed at the wasted space and completely unnecessary glossiness. If I wanted an Aliens coffee-table book there are plenty already out there. I’d rather have something that was easier to use at the table.
The Stress in this game (as opposed to Mothership or Hostile has an interesting twist in that it allows you to add bonuses to Skill rolls. It’s kind of a neat idea. This means you’re REALLY under the gun to succeed at a skill.
I like what they do with the skills. Each ‘success’ (each die that rolls a 6) after the first allows you to choose a ‘stunt’, such as ‘You act quietly’ or ‘Gain +1 to a later skill roll related to this one’. That’s a clever use of the success mechanic I haven’t seen before. I think I’ll steal it!
I have to say the Talents are very steal-able as well. Banter allows you to relieve the stress of your team.
Combat has a lot of creativity to it as well.
The use of playing cards (sold separately) for initiative is actually pretty clever. No PC skill is involved which makes for a pretty even playing field. I’m not ready to use it but I like the out of the box thinking.
Stealth Mode takes special care to emphasize when can or can’t see or notice each other and how it is activated. This is obviously especially important in this game!
Actions - what you can do when it’s your turn - is divided into Fast Actions and Slow Actions. And you can do one each when it’s your turn. The initiative cards can be ‘tapped’ (turned on its side) to indicate which actions you’ve already done. It’s a nice simple, intuitive distinction that makes combat easy to run.
Movement is done by variable sized ‘zones’. It expects that you’ll be buying the ‘official’ maps that have these marked out for you. I first saw this in TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes and have always been surprised it wasn’t used more.
I do think the massive use of ‘black space’ greatly hampers the usability of this book as a reference guide at the table. I’d really like the paperback version.
The rules have as lot of ”this happens… when the GM finds it dramatically appropriate.” which is utter bullshit. I understand why its done but if the GM is capable of deciding when something is ‘dramatically appropriate’ they don’t need you to tell them that. If they aren’t capable or good at that, then they will very likely get it wrong. A rulebook can ALWAYS be ‘overridden’ when it’s ‘dramatically appropriate’ but its usually a lousy thing to hang the rules on. You’re players are going to make life-changing decisions based on what they think is reality. You’re telling them reality can change any minute at the GM’s whim. Which means they shouldn’t learn the play the game. They should learn to play the GM.
The Alien RPG continues to impress. The Critical Injuries and Mental Trauma table provides a lot of interesting effects in very simple mechanics. Inevitably comparing it to the Mothership RPG, which undoubtedly came first, the way ‘stress’ and ‘wounds’ are handled are MUCH simpler and better here. Hindsight being 20/20 and all.
Dealing with Other Hazards however, their need to simplify rather backfires, making Starving, Dehydration, Exhausted and Freezing virtually identical mechanically. Vacuum however, is uniquely gross and fatal.
The weapon section has pictures of most of the weapons, but the armor section only has a picture of the Power Loader Ripley used. Bogus.
Under Pharmaceuticals: Recommended for use during any self-inflicted cesarean performed to extract an unconventional fetus from your womb.
Annoying that the Vehicles section does not have illustrations of the new vehicles added to the game. Only the two vehicles from the movies. I already know what those look like!
Annoying that they have no illustrations for the FOUR different types of escape pods described. I think that’s serves as a warning to players however….
The spacecraft chapter gives stats on 4 spaceships and 1 shuttle. And not a single deck plan. Just two sideview illustrations (and one of the Nostromo, of which there are plenty of illustrations already). We don’t even have a picture of the shuttle used in the first movie! Not impressed.
The space combat section is fine. After that is the ‘Game Mother’ section which you have to admit is a pretty cool alternative to ‘game master’.
The background section is useful for factions and enemies and explains the mega corporations involved. Nothing particularly exciting or inventive, but it does the job of providing organizations to play with.
For what it’s worth, they also explain the Prometheus movie in this book. It still makes no damn sense.
Finally we get to the Alien Species chapter which will tell us all about the Xenomorph and it’s history! One of the main reasons I bought this game!
Holy Crap! They’ve invented about 20 new version of the alien xenomorph! They are all about 5% different! It seems completely pointless. Sure, some could have come from comics or novels, but it’s hard to believe all of them are!
Of course, they suggest that you can have many variations on the xenomorph. I’m not convinced this would make them much more interesting however.
There are several new creatures as well. Four of them. Only one is illustrated.
An unusual feature of the creatures is that they each have an ‘attack’ table which is a 1d6 table of how they attack (though they are not all attacks). This is also true of all the xenomorph varieties. This allows for some interesting uniqueness among the creatures. Of course, there’s only four animals besides the xenomorph and you’ve seen all the xenomorph attacks. So it’s a neat idea that I thought I’d point out. Not sure how it would play.
Campaign Play is four pages describing Colonial Marines, Frontier Colonists and Space Truckers. No surprises.
Creating Star Systems is next. I’m a little surprised to see this feature. There is actually plenty of variety in these tables. Not a lot of detail, but I think it’s more than enough.
Following the star system creation tables are quite a lot of other tables that can help the GM quickly create scenarios, missions and adventures. Cargo runs, Military missions, Expeditions all with complications, plot twists and other helpful tables. I don’t think anyone can really run a good game with just tables, but I believe they can be quite helpful in creating a unique scenario.
They are quite a lot of very good encounter tables as well.
After that is a Non-Player Character chapter which gives 15 example NPCs. Not a lot. But nice to have any.
Novgorod Station is an example space station complete with maps. the maps aren’t very detailed, but they should do the job.
There are some useless adventure seeds for the station and four NPCs which are more useful.
Finally ‘Hope’s Last Day’ is a sample adventure. These are always tough to write well. A good one will effortlessly start a campaign and the examples are few and far between. A bad one will give the GM more work than if he hadn’t used the starting adventure!
The adventure is pretty good. You’re stuck in a place with a lot of aliens in different places until you get to a shuttle. It doesn’t honestly look like many players will survive. Then end of the adventure is if anyone makes it to the shuttle and flies away, knowing everyone left on the planet is doomed.
That’s the Alien RPG by Free League. Frankly it’s about 100 times better than I thought it would be - licensed games of any kind are notoriously terrible. But this one is playable, does the theme very well and seems like in the hands of the right GM could be a lot of fun. I’m not that GM however, though I may well steal bits and pieces from this game.
I am also aware that even before I finished reading this game there was a second edition coming out. You can blame that on 1) Shitty play-testing of the first edition, 2) Greed and a desire to gouge the customer base or 3) Wanting to get as much use out of the license before they lose it. If you can think of an altruistic reason - then you are less cynical than I am.
That said, I think the first edition is a good game. Not a masterpiece but a strong 4 stars that I would recommend to anyone interested (and who hasn’t already played this type of game/scenario out to death).
August 6, 2023
Ring Side Report- RPG review of Alien RPG
Originally posted at www.throatpunchgames.com, a new idea every day!
Product- Alien RPG
System- Year Zero Engine
Producer- Free League Publishing
Price- $24 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/293976/ALIEN-RPG-Core-Rulebook?affiliate_id=658618
TL; DR- No one can hear you scream how good this is! 98%
Basics- In space, no one can hear you scream! Alien RPG is a new take on the classic Alien franchise. Let’s dive into the basics of the game.
Mechanics- This system uses the Year Zero Engine. Here, you take a specific skill you want to do and the associated trait and roll that many d6’s. The GM may add or remove dice as the difficulty warrants, but if you roll one 6, you succeed. Additional 6s add more levels of success. You do this for everything from fixing a cargo door to shooting a xenomorph.
Stress- The Alien movies are nothing if not stressful! When you do something, you might fail, and if you do, you can reroll but you gain a different colored d6. If you roll a 1 on these d6’s you panic and roll a d6 and add your current stress level to that roll. Roll too high and you can go catatonic to violent to anything in between. You also gain stress dice when violence happens to you, to seeing androids, to fire full auto into a monster among the stars.
Combat- This game uses cards to track initiative. You draw cards at the start of a fight. There is no rolling for turns. Each turn on your card time, you can do a slow action and a fast action. Slow is shooting a gun or fixing a cargo door, while fast is yelling, running, or even pushing the button to open the airlock. Damage is determined by the weapon you are using minus any armor the creature or person has. Monsters are interesting in this system as well. Instead of the GM planning what happens, you roll a d6 when a monster attacks and that die determines what they do.
Ok, let’s go my thoughts on the system.
Mechanics or Crunch- This is a pretty low crunch system, but that doesn't make it bad! What I just told you above gives you enough to jump in and start playing. You just need a character and two colors of D6s. It’s fast and lets you focus on the world that is here. I will admit getting only one talent or a feat for your character is kind of a bit light to me. I like having lots of fun toys for my character to use to get through the world. But that is what you get from Year Zero. I’m glad I get the talents/feats I do, but I would like just a bit more. In terms of how it fits the world, I love it. Stress is key in the movies and key here too. A near perfect fit of mechanics and world. 4.75/5
Theme or Fluff- I love the Alien movies (yes even the bad ones!). The people who made this did too. They even reference old books that I thought most people forgot about long ago! The world is built out a TON in this book. To the uninitiated, it is WAY more than just Weyland-Yutani and chestbursters, and this book shows that. Solid world building in this one. 5/5
Execution- PDF? Yep. Hyperlinked? Yes! Solid Art? Yep. Good layout? Yes. This is the first full book by Free League Publishing, and I have to say I am impressed. Good layout, good art, good flow, good everything EXCEPT respect for my printer when I try to make pregens from the book. The Alien world is dark. That's ok, but the background of the book is dark as well. So if you print off characters for your friends, you WILL kill a printer cartridge! Give me some pregens on nice white paper please! 4.9/5
Summary- I love me some sci-fi, and I don’t think enough is done with it in RPG spaces. This book brings back the atmosphere of the 80’s Alien to a new decade and with a system that fits well with it. It also doesn't fall into any of the 80’s pitfalls of RPG book design and is a solid expression of modern book layout. My issues are small. I want more stuff for my characters, and I would like pregens on better, less black intensive sheets. But, if thats the worst I can say about this, then an empty print carriage is a small price to pay for this awesome book. 98%
Originally posted at www.throatpunchgames.com, a new idea every day!
Product- Alien RPG
System- Year Zero Engine
Producer- Free League Publishing
Price- $24 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/293976/ALIEN-RPG-Core-Rulebook?affiliate_id=658618
TL; DR- No one can hear you scream how good this is! 98%
Basics- In space, no one can hear you scream! Alien RPG is a new take on the classic Alien franchise. Let’s dive into the basics of the game.
Mechanics- This system uses the Year Zero Engine. Here, you take a specific skill you want to do and the associated trait and roll that many d6’s. The GM may add or remove dice as the difficulty warrants, but if you roll one 6, you succeed. Additional 6s add more levels of success. You do this for everything from fixing a cargo door to shooting a xenomorph.
Stress- The Alien movies are nothing if not stressful! When you do something, you might fail, and if you do, you can reroll but you gain a different colored d6. If you roll a 1 on these d6’s you panic and roll a d6 and add your current stress level to that roll. Roll too high and you can go catatonic to violent to anything in between. You also gain stress dice when violence happens to you, to seeing androids, to fire full auto into a monster among the stars.
Combat- This game uses cards to track initiative. You draw cards at the start of a fight. There is no rolling for turns. Each turn on your card time, you can do a slow action and a fast action. Slow is shooting a gun or fixing a cargo door, while fast is yelling, running, or even pushing the button to open the airlock. Damage is determined by the weapon you are using minus any armor the creature or person has. Monsters are interesting in this system as well. Instead of the GM planning what happens, you roll a d6 when a monster attacks and that die determines what they do.
Ok, let’s go my thoughts on the system.
Mechanics or Crunch- This is a pretty low crunch system, but that doesn't make it bad! What I just told you above gives you enough to jump in and start playing. You just need a character and two colors of D6s. It’s fast and lets you focus on the world that is here. I will admit getting only one talent or a feat for your character is kind of a bit light to me. I like having lots of fun toys for my character to use to get through the world. But that is what you get from Year Zero. I’m glad I get the talents/feats I do, but I would like just a bit more. In terms of how it fits the world, I love it. Stress is key in the movies and key here too. A near perfect fit of mechanics and world. 4.75/5
Theme or Fluff- I love the Alien movies (yes even the bad ones!). The people who made this did too. They even reference old books that I thought most people forgot about long ago! The world is built out a TON in this book. To the uninitiated, it is WAY more than just Weyland-Yutani and chestbursters, and this book shows that. Solid world building in this one. 5/5
Execution- PDF? Yep. Hyperlinked? Yes! Solid Art? Yep. Good layout? Yes. This is the first full book by Free League Publishing, and I have to say I am impressed. Good layout, good art, good flow, good everything EXCEPT respect for my printer when I try to make pregens from the book. The Alien world is dark. That's ok, but the background of the book is dark as well. So if you print off characters for your friends, you WILL kill a printer cartridge! Give me some pregens on nice white paper please! 4.9/5
Summary- I love me some sci-fi, and I don’t think enough is done with it in RPG spaces. This book brings back the atmosphere of the 80’s Alien to a new decade and with a system that fits well with it. It also doesn't fall into any of the 80’s pitfalls of RPG book design and is a solid expression of modern book layout. My issues are small. I want more stuff for my characters, and I would like pregens on better, less black intensive sheets. But, if thats the worst I can say about this, then an empty print carriage is a small price to pay for this awesome book. 98%
August 12, 2024
I'm not sure what brought me here. Sure, I like the ALIEN movie franchise, but prior to reading this game the first time, I had never picked up a comic book or a novel. It is not like I had played another Free League before. Let's blame it on the yellow dice with the Facehugger then.
Strangely, I started rereading this book the day before Free League announced the upcoming second edition of this game, so this review is close to worthless. That said, I wanted to put in digital print that this is an excellent game, and a very good book. I had the fortune of playing the Colonial Marines campaign with a wonderful group, and I swear by the mechanics of this game. They are extraordinarily simple (roll a whole bunch of d6, if you roll a 6 you've succeeded) but the stress addition of stress dice (more dice to your pool means a higher chance of success, but roll a 1 and then you panic) makes it the most tense experience I ever had with an RPG, and that is even before the xenomorphs appear! I believe a fair amount of effort was put into adding variety and unpredictability within these iconic monsters to keep them fresh, and scary, and to prevent players from thinking "Oh, it is just a drone, be sure you have enough gas in your flamethrower and you will be fine." I believe this will increase the replayability of the game substantially, which is great in a game that has a very limited scope, even if it is one at which it excells.
As complete as the book is--rules, background, monsters, a one act Cinematic Scenario, a space station and enough tables to let you start your own campaign--I believe it is with the supplements (both the campaigns, and the cinematic scenarios) that properly show what this game is all about.
I probably could have spent a few more years with this game as it is, but I am curious to see what comes next.
Strangely, I started rereading this book the day before Free League announced the upcoming second edition of this game, so this review is close to worthless. That said, I wanted to put in digital print that this is an excellent game, and a very good book. I had the fortune of playing the Colonial Marines campaign with a wonderful group, and I swear by the mechanics of this game. They are extraordinarily simple (roll a whole bunch of d6, if you roll a 6 you've succeeded) but the stress addition of stress dice (more dice to your pool means a higher chance of success, but roll a 1 and then you panic) makes it the most tense experience I ever had with an RPG, and that is even before the xenomorphs appear! I believe a fair amount of effort was put into adding variety and unpredictability within these iconic monsters to keep them fresh, and scary, and to prevent players from thinking "Oh, it is just a drone, be sure you have enough gas in your flamethrower and you will be fine." I believe this will increase the replayability of the game substantially, which is great in a game that has a very limited scope, even if it is one at which it excells.
As complete as the book is--rules, background, monsters, a one act Cinematic Scenario, a space station and enough tables to let you start your own campaign--I believe it is with the supplements (both the campaigns, and the cinematic scenarios) that properly show what this game is all about.
I probably could have spent a few more years with this game as it is, but I am curious to see what comes next.
August 22, 2024
I've read the whole Player's Section, holding off on the GM's Section for now.
This is my first look at the Year Zero system, which I find very fascinating. Very easy to understand, almost no math on the fly, and skills and abilities seem to have a decent effect on sucess rate. I like it a lot, at least until I see it in play. There's a fair amount of rules, but they're generally all "this happens when that happens", not obscure cross-references, so it should be reasonably easy to look up things that come up in play. OSR this is NOT, to be sure. I'm also quite surprised at a hefty section on ship-to-ship space combat. That is not something I expected at all in a TTRPG based on the Alien franchise. Are there any ship combats at all in the movies? At any rate, that system too seems solid - similar enough to normal combat for things to click, and it gives all group members something to do (largely).
As for the book itself, it's massive, lavish, and one of the most decompressed RPG rulesets I've ever seen. Generally little text per page, huge illustrations. Funky. Some sections are far more text heavy than others (the "lore" in particular,) which drags a bit. There are some odd layout bumbles, where the text refers to tables that have consistently already been presented. I think there are some other minor oversights here and there. Wondering what the 2nd edition will bring?
This is my first look at the Year Zero system, which I find very fascinating. Very easy to understand, almost no math on the fly, and skills and abilities seem to have a decent effect on sucess rate. I like it a lot, at least until I see it in play. There's a fair amount of rules, but they're generally all "this happens when that happens", not obscure cross-references, so it should be reasonably easy to look up things that come up in play. OSR this is NOT, to be sure. I'm also quite surprised at a hefty section on ship-to-ship space combat. That is not something I expected at all in a TTRPG based on the Alien franchise. Are there any ship combats at all in the movies? At any rate, that system too seems solid - similar enough to normal combat for things to click, and it gives all group members something to do (largely).
As for the book itself, it's massive, lavish, and one of the most decompressed RPG rulesets I've ever seen. Generally little text per page, huge illustrations. Funky. Some sections are far more text heavy than others (the "lore" in particular,) which drags a bit. There are some odd layout bumbles, where the text refers to tables that have consistently already been presented. I think there are some other minor oversights here and there. Wondering what the 2nd edition will bring?
August 6, 2025
An incredible game and one of my absolute favorites! I love the Alien universe and this game does an amazing job capturing the feel and essence of it! It gives you so much more than just a setup for a xenomorph attack (though there's plenty there for that!). And mechanically it's brilliant! It uses Free League's Year Zero Engine, like many of their games, but with some outstanding modifications. My favorite (and honestly one of my favorite mechanics in any game) is the stress dice mechanic. Basically, the Year Zero Engine works on a d6 dice pool system, so you'll roll dice and look at how many successes you get. So the more dice you roll, the better your chances. As you face stressful or terrifying things, you'll accumulate stress points and beginning rolling that many stress dice in addition to whatever you normally roll. Any successes on those dice count as successes, but if you roll any 1s on a stress die you panic instead and something else happens (eg, you're shooting at the xenomorph and start to panic fire, thereby emptying your gun and leaving you without any ammo). It's a brilliant way of simulating the positive and negative effects of adrenaline: that it can help you push through your limits, but it can also cause you to panic.
If you're a fan of the Alien franchise or horror games, pick this up!
If you're a fan of the Alien franchise or horror games, pick this up!
April 22, 2021
It's no coincidence this game became this popular. It's not only Alien, sure you can play one-sitting cinematic xenomorph scenarios with quick mechanics but you can also run a totally independent retro-futuristic space campaign.
Not only the art and story but also the game mechanics reflect the spirit of the Alien chronicles.
My only criticism is lack of diversity in character options. There is no new, original occupations other than the ones in the films (scientist, soldier, company rep, worker) we need more ideas to avoid repetitiveness.
I'll still give 5 stars as this is a new game and source material is on the way. Also, I am sure player groups will create their own content by time.
Not only the art and story but also the game mechanics reflect the spirit of the Alien chronicles.
My only criticism is lack of diversity in character options. There is no new, original occupations other than the ones in the films (scientist, soldier, company rep, worker) we need more ideas to avoid repetitiveness.
I'll still give 5 stars as this is a new game and source material is on the way. Also, I am sure player groups will create their own content by time.
May 25, 2021
The game feels like a blend of Shadowrun and Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars RPG. One might think, given the complexity of both of those games, that this would be something of a mess, but it isn't. Streamlined and beautiful in its simplicity, the system does what it came to do with an efficiency and enjoyment that makes it fun to learn and play. I love the stress/panic system, and the way androids are treated. I was delighted, too, to find space combat a part of it all.
Incorporating both the EU of Alien and the movies, the game stays true to source and gives the Alien universe a living, breathing feel as a TTRPG. It also has one of the fastest, let's get to the action, character generation systems I know.
Brilliant.
Incorporating both the EU of Alien and the movies, the game stays true to source and gives the Alien universe a living, breathing feel as a TTRPG. It also has one of the fastest, let's get to the action, character generation systems I know.
Brilliant.
October 7, 2021
Good sci-fi horror game set in the Alien universe.
The rules are Free League's Year Zero engine, which are pretty simple but still fun.
I found the stress mechanic not very realistic but probably fun in a board-gamey sort of way. It's a push-your-luck system where the more stress you have the better you do at things (for some reason) but the higher chance you have of panicking and having a mental breakdown.
The only real problem I had with this book is the same problem I have had with other Free League books that I've read: they are constantly pushing other things you can buy for the game down your throat. They never stop reminding you that they have special dice, cards, maps, etc. that they want you to buy. I just want to read some rules, not be stuck in an endless commercial.
The rules are Free League's Year Zero engine, which are pretty simple but still fun.
I found the stress mechanic not very realistic but probably fun in a board-gamey sort of way. It's a push-your-luck system where the more stress you have the better you do at things (for some reason) but the higher chance you have of panicking and having a mental breakdown.
The only real problem I had with this book is the same problem I have had with other Free League books that I've read: they are constantly pushing other things you can buy for the game down your throat. They never stop reminding you that they have special dice, cards, maps, etc. that they want you to buy. I just want to read some rules, not be stuck in an endless commercial.
May 4, 2023
Super jdr.
Règles simple et compréhensible, ponctuée par une description de l'univers.
Que ça soit la découverte des différentes factions en dehors de la Weyland Yutani, ou de comment se passe la vie dans l'espace avant la rencontre de Xenomorphe, tout est un plaisir à lire globalement.
Reste des ajouts de règles, notemment les combats spatiaux, qui font par moment trop et soporifique.
Le livre dispose d'un scénario pour se faire la main dessus qui fait écho aux films.
Globalement, tout est plaisant à lire. Une découverte de l'univers étendu et ponctué par une belle description des Xenomorphes ainsi que d'autres types de rencontre alien.
De quoi, proposer quelques sessions de jeux mouvementés.
Règles simple et compréhensible, ponctuée par une description de l'univers.
Que ça soit la découverte des différentes factions en dehors de la Weyland Yutani, ou de comment se passe la vie dans l'espace avant la rencontre de Xenomorphe, tout est un plaisir à lire globalement.
Reste des ajouts de règles, notemment les combats spatiaux, qui font par moment trop et soporifique.
Le livre dispose d'un scénario pour se faire la main dessus qui fait écho aux films.
Globalement, tout est plaisant à lire. Une découverte de l'univers étendu et ponctué par une belle description des Xenomorphes ainsi que d'autres types de rencontre alien.
De quoi, proposer quelques sessions de jeux mouvementés.
February 10, 2020
This is the first time since the release of D&D 5e that I have sat down and read straight through a large RPG source book. The authors got the themes and tone of the source material dead on. I think the one shot “Cinematic” game mode would work well with lots of players interested in a tense horror game.
A campaign would be really interesting, but I’m afraid it’s appeal is more narrow as you would essentially be playing a hard sci-fi space exploration game.
Im excited to try out the game system as the press your luck stress/panic mechanics seem like really good ways to force interesting and spontaneous role playing situations.
A campaign would be really interesting, but I’m afraid it’s appeal is more narrow as you would essentially be playing a hard sci-fi space exploration game.
Im excited to try out the game system as the press your luck stress/panic mechanics seem like really good ways to force interesting and spontaneous role playing situations.
June 28, 2021
Of all the RPGs that I have played this has to be my favorite. It is non-collaborative, and you will find yourself in conflict with your best of friends, or at least those you thought were. This is an open-ended sandbox where there are of course many xenomorphs that will gladly take your skull off. But the game is much larger than the alien franchise. It enables all players to encounter an incredible full-fledged science fiction universe where aliens, evil corporations, wonders and mysteries of the universe can be beheld by all. What an incredible game.
November 16, 2022
An enjoyable RPG system with the standout being an ever-increasing stress and panic mechanic that will see your players going from bad to worse as the horror comes to a head. The book does a fine job of rounding out the xenomorph's biology, adaptability and other aspects that might be a little muddled after viewing the films. It treats ALIEN, ALIENS, ALIEN 3 and ALIEN Isolation as universal canon.
Pick it up and play. I had a blast.
Pick it up and play. I had a blast.
September 8, 2025
Read it when it was new. Liked the idea, don't think I like the expansion of the setting. Its an okay game, got to play it when a friend ran the introductory adventure for us. Main problem is not the structure but the fact that the number of stories you get to tell are very compressed. Ultimately its a franchise game. Okay if that's what you want, not okay if you're looking for something with more body horror directly connected to the mechanics.
May 26, 2021
Fantastic mechanics that perfectly simulate the genre. Pushing rolls and stress dice add real tension to situations. The consumable and encumbrance rules are also perfect for the survival horror genre. It's a perfect blend of setting and mechanics, and really fun at the table. The book is also a joy to read if you're an Alien fan. If you like rpg's and the Alien franchise, buy this now.
August 10, 2024
Expertly crafted blend of survival horror and science fiction that captures the essence of the Alien universe.
Contains a lot of information that will be appreciated not only by RPG players, but also by fans of the Movies. Stunning illustrations, high-quality production, and game mechanics that emphasize tension and fear. Loved it.
Must-have for fans of the franchise and tabletop RPG enthusiasts alike.
Contains a lot of information that will be appreciated not only by RPG players, but also by fans of the Movies. Stunning illustrations, high-quality production, and game mechanics that emphasize tension and fear. Loved it.
Must-have for fans of the franchise and tabletop RPG enthusiasts alike.
June 3, 2023
Fantastic Alien sourcebook, crunchy system and not always in a good way (diminishing returns with huge dice pools, a lot of random stuff happening according to tables), and a pretty meh introductory scenario. There’s great content here but it needs GM work.
February 22, 2024
The Call came from the Nostromo and I never looked back. It is everything a fan of aliens and roleplaying could want from my point of view. Hitting all nostalgia points, very lethal and has you by the throat.
July 4, 2020
Rules have low complexity. Combat is quick and abstract. Some will love this level complexity. Personally i wanted more complex rules.
November 6, 2020
That was excellent. Can't wait to play.
February 4, 2021
Whoa this seems amazing. Very excited to read a couple Cinematic modules and try it out!
Read
May 11, 2021Great game, with minor flaws, clearly aiming at one-shots and short campaigns. Most of typos fixed in re-print.
September 12, 2021
Aun no lo he corrido, pero el sistema es muy bueno y da mucho espacio a el drama y tensión, a parte de mucho lore muy bien explicado
August 11, 2024
Startlingly good adaptation of its source material, cunningly adapting the Year Zero engine to support action where the stress your character is under might give them the edge they need to succeed, or could lead them to panic and get in worse trouble. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
January 4, 2025
I can't wait to show my friends ~ThE HoRrOrS~ including shooting a hole into the side of their open ship and developing alcoholism.
February 25, 2022
Uses a fairly easy D6 system, where 1 is a failture. 2-5 is a success with a consequence, 6 is a success.
The system is not a favorite, it is decent and easy, but the setting? Oh that is where this book and system shines. If you are a fan of the Alien's movies and setting, then this is a good and proper horror game to enjoy minor games with.
It has 2 game modes, campaign for longer games and Cinematic, where you have more One-shots and shorter mini-stories. Both are pretty good and allows you to run some interesting games.
The system is not a favorite, it is decent and easy, but the setting? Oh that is where this book and system shines. If you are a fan of the Alien's movies and setting, then this is a good and proper horror game to enjoy minor games with.
It has 2 game modes, campaign for longer games and Cinematic, where you have more One-shots and shorter mini-stories. Both are pretty good and allows you to run some interesting games.
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