Fria Ligans forum

A friend and I are keen to start up a long-term Alien campaign with some folks online. I'll be the Game Mother. Anybody have any ideas for keeping it fresh? That is, you can't just happen to run into xenomorphs and neomorphs everywhere you go. (Well, maybe in a Colonial Marines campaign but that's not our preference. We're more interested in "space truckers.")

What other scenarios have you sprinkled into your campaigns so it's not just running from space monsters every week? (I was thinking of running it a bit like Traveller and only dropping in aliens once in a while and letting them otherwise deal with troublesome cargoes, shady businessmen, piracy, corporate crooks, getting caught in political crossfires, and so on so that when a xenomorph shows up it's actually a surprise.)

Space truckers is your best option if you're not keen on colonial marines. You can just make them freelancers so they'll do any job.
I'd suggest reading Alien universe books for some ideas, but like you said, you don't want xenomorphs in every session. I'd suggest reading Aliens Bughunt which has eight stories that has no xenomorphs in it.

Look into sci-fi shows and movies as well. Shows like Expanse, For All Mankind, and Firefly, as some examples.

This article gives some ideas as well:
https://roguereviewer.wordpress.com/202 ... ien-world/

I'm writing two scenarios that doesn't contain any xenomorphs or neomorphs. And one that has no creatures in it at all. There is plenty of inspiration if you know where to look.

This has always been one of the more vexing questions about any ALIEN-based RPG campaign.

The question really is - what else can be done in the Alien universe?

Quite a lot - and Free League went a bit overboard adding in as much possible Alien-inspired background from books and comix and such to help with just that.

Some ideas on what sorts of long-term campaigns could be run:
* Survey Teams who go and explore the next possible thing - could include science teams
* Belters exploiting resources from the unclaimed fringes of systems - constantly being harrassed for "claim jumping" when companies think they own everything
* Colony Builders - a variation of Space Truckers primarily on colonization vs established trade - pick surveyed candidate system, build the initial colony or station and move on
* Colonial Marine patrol - this is probably an option from the upcoming expansion - along with anti-piracy and corporate interventions
* Mercenaries - hired by small corps and colonies for protection or raids against rivals
* Medical Intervention - a specialist unit dealing with the various crazy medical situations that colonies are ill equipped for
* Technical Intervention - everyone depends on technology and sometimes you need expert outside help for big station issues
* Space Truckers - hauling stuff to pay the bills
* Space Salvage - space truckers focusing on repo of ships and stations or salvage/recovery of aging/abandoned gear.
* Media / Reporters - paid to cover the colonies with a slant on keeping the folks back home from wanting to emigrate
* Spies - any of the above, but really cover for spies out gathering intel on rivals across the colonies
* Entertainer Troupe - making the colony circuit on a shoestring budget and hoping their creaky ship doesn't fall apart before they can pay it off.
* Athletics Teams - corporate sponsored to improve colonial morale
and finally - what about the foolhardy adventuring type that find ways to knock abut the universe just seeing things?

None of these need xenos - they can all focus on dealing with the physical and mental stresses of deep space existence on their own.

What you are looking for are ways to build *teams* that have some excuse to be mobile in the setting.

Adventures are simply problems put in front of this team to solve.

Then you have a huge sandbox to explore and, anytime you need to wake the players up - well there's a derelict, an egg, or the next colony to visit unexpectedly went quiet