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Hi all! New here, and with an odd intro post.

Has anybody tried running a scenario where nothing is meant to go wrong? Just a routine mission, no aliens, maybe a salvage job in the middle to pump up the value of the load.

And before anybody wonders how the Hell that would be even remotely interesting, here's where it comes into play:

We play up the fact that they're almost certainly on board a ship that's chewing gum and prayer away from being a derelict itself (don't blame the engineer, they fortified it with the prayer!)

The idea came to me a couple years back, when I was running CotG just after *two weeks* of a water heater having some sediment issues. For those two weeks, we could barely sleep thanks to the burbling, bumbling noises like something running through the ventilation shafts. Actually, we couldn't sleep, not until we grabbed some ear plugs. And there's a prime moment for precisely that to happen in CotG too.

Mechanical issues in a vehicle that your life depends on are always nerve wracking when you know they're there. When you DON'T know they're there, it's worse. Random hissing, wheezing, knocking, and bubbling noises that seem to be coming from everywhere all at once. It's stressful even when you aren't expecting xenomorphs.

And I think this system is perfect for simulating precisely that - the stress of an ongoing job on board a flying death trap that you're not necessarily familiar with... but that may work just fine regardless. None of the individual problems rate taking the ship out of service, it's all up to code, but all the little nuisances - combined with one or two incidents that can serve as red herring sources for "real" trouble - could add up to the point where the crew ends up destroying themselves while they're working and trying to track down things that aren't really there.

But at the same time, this could also result in a GM getting thrown out the proverbial space lock when they figure out that they've been gaslit like that.

Thoughts?

Welcome to the forum.

I forget whether it's explicitly stated in the Core Rulebook, but I know as conventional wisdom/practice it's highly encouraged in campaign play to not expose the PCs to Xenomorphs, Engineers, goo of unknown origin, etc.; but instead to give the PC whether they be space truckers, marines, colonists, etc. initial missions that are very much "routine."

As a GM, the utility in that, especially for new players, is to give the players some "base line" of the mechanics and understanding of the conventional hazards of living/working in space and colonies etc. I mean, if your Alien game does reach the point where an actual Alien is revealed, it'd be less fun if players were still trying to figure out their basic functions when the big reveal is made. I think the Alien universe is also built up well enough that a campaign where "xeno stuff" rarely if ever shows up is completely viable.

And using a failing boiler for atmosphere inspiration, that's a nice touch. Maybe not for the most well resourced Marine Unit or Corporate back operators, but it seems there's lots of people in the Alien universe working in highly hazardous environments with below optimal equipment. Having "the ship" be it salvage or their own ship as "the monster" I think would work well.

that's a good idea ...

reminds me of the comic DEAD ORBIT ... for a moment when I was reading the comic I was thinking that everything was in the mind of the main character ...

thanks.

I really like this scenario idea as a start for new players. If they get woken up several times because their ship is falling apart and they need to get outside to fix stuff etc., maybe they will welcome an active android crew member, during their hyper sleep