Fria Ligans forum

Hey guys,

I just wanted to share some of my campaign notes for new gms. I feel a lot of people are making the mistake of thinking that this game is limited to the movies. Which means after a few cinematic scenarios with aliens, this game ends up on the shelf. This universe is way more interesting and expansive than most think.
The main thing is to have xenomorphs be extremely rare. The campaign I did was the players escape from a colony prison and stole a modified bison ship with armaments. From there, it was episodic sometimes doing dirty work for corporations, smuggling, getting attacked by pirates, and very rarely seeing aliens in ancient ruins. I hope this idea helps some newer GM's and those who limit themselves to the movies. It was a lot of fun.

I agree 100%, less xenomorph is the thing to do in a campaign mode.

Agreed! Xenomorphs have not appeared in my campaign. I use the cinematic scenarios we play (with the pregens) as background lore for the campaign, and it's only in those that the players regularly see xenomorphs, etc.

You could even ask: is Alien just about the xenomorphs? Of course, in the movies you often see the characters run from these creatures with acid blood. That is the horror part of the movies. It’s very visual. But the very reason the characters end up in problems is because The Company has made secret discoveries in space. It’s easy to imagine that they have also found a lot of other bizarre stuff out there. So if you focus on corporate secrets in dark space - rather than just running from or shooting at xenomorphs - you end up with a drama that fits the campaign format a lot better. I actually think that’s a lot more interesting.

Exactly, I think of it as a darker version of Traveller

A sidenote to this is that it’s also possible to use the xenomorphs in other ways than in lethal battles. They could for example be contained in a lab. The players may then expect an infestation like in Resurrection, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Maybe they’ll get stolen or sold instead?

It could also be interesting to just use eggs, embryos or maybe tissue or DNA samples. Or a fossilized specimen. You can do a lot with xenomorphs without battles computer game style.

One idea, which I think I've posted elsewhere here before, is to keep the xenomorphs mostly offscreen as a threat.

Think of them / use them much like "Reavers" from Firefly ... a threat lurking nearby but the players only see the aftermath.

The original ALIEN movie was great for this ... exploring the derelict, they find an empty egg (in the novel) and the "Space Jockey" chest blown out.

You could have dead colonies, stations, or ships ... but no explanation of why... other than acid burns and ripped metal clawed open.

Players would know, but their characters would be clueless or only "guess" it was one of the scuttlebutt stories they'd heard.