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I guess I still didn't figure out what you were after because it seems to me that almost any sci-fi can inspire an equivalent Alien-esque story.

Maybe start by defining what "feels" like an Alien story versus what doesn't, to you?

Which tropes do you lean into?

Which tropes do you subvert?

What must be in an Alien story for you to consider it one?

What must not be?

These are the kind of things I hoped we could discuss; tropes and other GMs experiences with them and how they (GMs) build their scenarios so that non-xeno stories feel at home in Alien RPG.

But we're going around in circles getting nowhere, so let's just call it a day. This obviously wasn't a useful conversation for anyone.

Sorry for the inconvenience and confusion.

I think its a good discussion because you are 100% right that ALIEN RPGs do have this central question to address.

The trick is science-fiction is so huge ... I've seen people on the forum here talk about crossing over thinks like Terminator onto ALIEN ... and you could, and probably still make it feel like ALIEN (in a sense, the David-7s in the UPP start to lean toward this ...)

How do you make the setting work without the xeno?

Generally, keep most of the rest of the tropes and bring in elements from other sci-fi that use similar tropes.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Alien

Personally, I think a lot of the background of how Creative Assembly developed ALIEN: ISOLATION applies to how to develop an ALIEN-style story, xenos or not.

A key piece is "cassette futurism" - explaining the future with 1970's looking retro-tech.

The "corporation is the bad guy" precursor cyberpunk elements have been done to death - but ... it is what the fans want.

Recent stories have started to expand on "its not just the corps - governments and religions are broken too" in the form of New Albion going rogue, and numerous xeno-worshipping cults springing up after Space Beast (my favorite is still Elder Gods short comic story for that one...)

And I think the Amanda Ripley / Zula Hendricks story arcs show how to start counterbalancing all that bad with some small rays of hope here and there.

There *are* rebels out there doing the things to keep everything from completely exploding.

Personally I would prefer the players be in the good guy category but there is something to be said for playing bad guys too.

The ALIEN RPG itself has a lot of toolbox now for non-xeno conflict and struggle.

The Building Better Worlds campaign, to me, is the best launching point ... take out the Fulfremen and xenos and what do you have?

Building Better Worlds system exploration and colony building.

Now add in the non-xeno tropes:
Corporate influences
Corrupt government influences
Crazy religious influences

All causing problems for colonists just trying to build a better life than living in a metal box in space or on some crapsack LV-426 like mess somewhere.

Need a fresher setting? Underwater colonies on ice moons or comets ... like the ABYSS (lots to be inspired by there too also by Cameron and Cobb)

Hopefully some of this gives you some ideas of place to continue the discussion and start getting what you were looking for.

Summary version:
Look at the tropes.
Base on cassette futurism like ALIEN ISOLATION did.
Mix in more than corrupt corps ... corrupt governments and religions too!
Follow similar inspirations: OUTLAND was already mentioned, THE ABYSS is another one to consider.

And I haven't mentioned it before - but like cyberpunk - the key theme, trope, etc is that it should be grounded in a work-class/blue collar/everyday person level struggling against the titanic indifference of space itself and the other scheming "larger than you" forces like corps, governments, etc.

Individuals making a difference against huge factions, etc in brutally dangerous environment of space.

Everything has sharp edges. Everything.

Love the idea of exploring non-Xeno Alien! Here's my take:

Share Your Experience! Did you run a no-Xeno game? How'd it go?
Focus on the Core. Claustrophobia, corporate greed, dread - Alien has themes beyond monsters.
Think Outside the Box! AI rebellion, planetary disasters, mutant uprisings - the possibilities are vast.

Lots of ideas here. It's a fantastic contribution don't you think so Angelman.

The stories about synthetics and corrupt corporations are always the best in my point of view.

The alienesque elements (without the xenomorhs) are: claustrophobia (If it's not a xenomorph it could be the air that's missing) + isolation on a station or huge ship + disruptive corporate elements + an unforeseen synthetic + the central computer MOTHER sets up a ruthless directive + don't forget a countdown for a nuclear explosion + the clendestine passenger.

It's missing some but it's a conversation starter.

Arthur.

What would be interesting here is to talk about possible stories without xenomorph (right) and to demonstrate it.

Have everyone do a (short) demonstration of a possible topic and share it with everyone with a one-pager storyline of your story (a quick brief summary). Everyone could give their opinion and move things forward.

I'm going for it ....

Title: The Lost Android

My subject: a broken synthetic on a sinking space station which is gradually losing its orbit and the synthetic will have to repair itself and find a way to leave the station before the final deadline. It's a good start to the story. A scenario for 1 player and 1 game mother.

But what the synthetic was doing on this station. This could lead to a final twist for the story.

P.S. Tension element = the android stops working for brief periods of time every now and then (Game Mother's choice) but the station still sinks from its orbit and doesn't wait. This will bring a bit of stress to the character-synthetic.

Arthur.

Yes, lots of good ideas here.
,

don't forget a countdown for a nuclear explosion

The timer-to-destruction trope is a very good point that I haven’t really used in my homemade scenarios thus far. That’s one of the quintessential Alien-esque tick-boxes, which I’ll definitely have to incorporate in some way in the future. Thanks for reminding us!

The secret synth is an Alien trope that I struggle to use properly, as my players tend to assume there has to be one somewhere in the game; basically, it’s a bit over-use (with Alien3 doing a clever twist on the trope where we/Aaron believe Bishop to be another synth, but it turns out to be the human original – clever stuff). I find the secret synth hard to pull off in the RPG as they tend not to be all that secret, but I do intend to try it with an NPC kid’s pet snake in my running of the LOST WORLDS campaign later this year.

To drive home the horror genre, a harsh environment can be an effective tool; when going outside is enough to threaten your life, the suspense tends to ramp up automatically. Cold space or lifeless celestial body is a given, but killer cold and hellish heat has worked very well in my games, too. As a bonus, most harsh environments can obscure vision, and the spotting-something-alien-lurking-about-in-the-storm motif can be a powerful first-sighting moment. (Although that again plays on the xeno-thing, which we're not really discussing here). Darkness has much the same effect, of course.

Interestingly, I’ve found that the, for Alien, central trope of body-horror doesn’t work all that well in an RPG. At least in my groups, players tend to be too removed and meta to really stress out about their characters’ becoming infected with stuff… They know that they can always make a new character, which is especially common perhaps in a game like Alien RPG, so the body-horror thing isn’t that effective.

The secret traitor trope, on the other hand, is very effective. My players tend to be rather paranoid anyway, but in Alien RPG they see ghosts everywhere, which makes it very easy for the GM to (ab)use. Basically, any NPC is a potential plot-twist hidden traitor which the GM can trigger to steer the story where it needs to go. And, it's always the NPC they least suspect, which works great as they will often suspect many NPCs to be shady characters.

(I should here add that I do not run particularly sandboxy/reactive adventures, but rather GM from a very meta perspective. I try to always be aware of where we are in the story; which act it is and what needs to be set-up/resolved before we move on further, which makes having a any-NPC-is-a-potential-a-plot-twist card in my back pocket very useful. I’m a [failing] fiction writer in real life, so that’s how my brain works as a GM; always thinking about plot and structure and tropes).

Drugs, smoking, and booze I think are important elements to making a character or scene feel at home in Alien RPG. No one but corporate stooges are allowed to be healthy in space. A similar prop is 70s & 80s music, especially rock and country stuff; the Middle Heavens is forever stuck in those peak decades.

And now, a couple of structural/meta things I’ve found useful to give scenarios an Alien-esque feel, includes:
• Slow pacing: A slow reveal of the central issue/monster is something I find useful. This is very much in keeping with Alien and Alien 3, but less so Aliens (where the problem is known up front – well I guess you could count the Queen as a slow reveal plot twist…). Again, this helps increasing the tension as the story progresses, and it naturally delivers a powerful plot-twist potential for when the issue/monster finally is revealed.

• Movie echoes: This – to include call-back lines or scenes in the scenario – is a storytelling tool I initially ignored, thinking it was stupid to rip-off the movies like that, but after running published scenarios and cinematics that uses this technique I was completely sold on it. For some reason, this just works perfectly in Alien RPG, adding atmosphere and tapping into movie-nostalgia (or whatever you want to call it). I mostly use it for static things, like computer commands (“Crew expendable”) and broadcast warnings (“Fire in Cryogenic Compartment”/"All Personnel Must Evacuate Immediately"), but I love doing it now, and it really triggers (for a lack of a better word) my meta-thinking players as well. Good stuff.

• The surprise 4th act: I tend to organize my scenarios into a standard 3-act structure, which is somewhat of a crutch for me, story-wise. Therefore, if there’s any chance of bringing one of the scenario’s adversaries back for a surprise comeback round once the players think the story is over, I try to take it; that has worked marvelously in the past. (My most memorable example here is when in the Op. Quiet Catch mission in the FRONTIER WAR campaign, I managed to run a 4th act when Bolshoy hitched a ride with the gang and started stalking them onboard the Tamb’Itam; dramatic stuff).

Very interesting your story with Bolshoy. Yes the surprise 4th act is very interesting. We can say that The Clendestine Passenger and The Surprise 4th Act are a bit the same thing.

There are many references to films in my stories and even the names of the characters refer to them. I use this a lot.

But, as a Game Mother, we must always adapt what works to our table and let go of what doesn't. There is always an adaptation (tools and twists) in relation to your players. And that's okay.

Arthur.

I ran a campaign for a year (every two weeks so over the course of six months really) without any Xeno's till the very end. It started as a routine cargo run, delivering colonists to some far flung destination, when the ship catches a distress call from a research station orbiting an ice planet. The station has been in a steady orbital decay (the icy surface has earthquakes every twenty minutes, consuming anything that lands on it… so already the planet has a built in time factor). They find the station has been raided. It had been researching something they found in the ice (a Queen-the same Queen from the ending to Aliens) and managed to extract royal jelly from it (as per the rulebook, page 313 "Royal Jelly is extremely addictive to humans and other animals, and when ingested in large quantities causes an adrenal increase in strength, stamina, and aggressive tendencies—eventually bordering on the superhuman and homicidal."). The scientists (working for Lassalle Bionational… the space trucker players work for W-Y, hence the interest) are studying its effect on cancerous tumors (testing it on animals on the station). One researcher's mother lives on Wright-Aberra station and has cancer so she smuggles it off (on compassionate leave) to get it to her mother, but of course, dealing with smugglers and criminals, they want the drug to sell on the market… eventually they follow her back to the source and raid the station, stealing the Queen (who's kept on ice)… leaving it in it's orbital decay… and the story goes from there. I wanted to run a story that dealt with the ramifications of having this alien entity in our universe… so here I was simply dealing with royal jelly itself as a highly potent byproduct, immediately human nature would exploit that somehow and you've got yourself an Alien: Breaking Bad story.

The topic author Angelman does not seem to answer you (hahah! he's my friend, he will understand the joke) Thank you for sharing your experience jj_kapelusz. Your campaign really looks very interesting. A play report would have been interesting to read.

Arthur.