Review: Alien: The Roleplaying Game

Daren Hutton7 comments

Players: 2+
Playing Time: 60mins+
Age: 15+


Alien: The Roleplaying Game is an immersive, story-telling game based on the classic sci-fi horror movie franchise.

If you have never played a role-playing game before, the idea can seem quite daunting but Alien has very simple rules and the rulebook is so well written and laid out that old hands and new roleplayers alike will be able to follow that game.  One player takes the role of Game-Mother (a good nod to the name of the computer in the original film) or GM while the others take on different roles and characters. You can use pre-made characters or there are rules for creating your own from scratch. During the game, the GM will describe the story and the other players describe what their characters do and how they act throughout. There will be certain situations when the players will need to roll dice to see if their actions fail or succeed.


The rules for Alien are extremely simple but very thematic. When you need to see if your actions succeed you roll a number of regular six-sided dice determined by your characters abilities, some characters may be better at fighting or shooting guns, while others may be more skilled at fixing spaceships or rigging traps for example.  If any of the dice roll a six then you have succeeded. As your characters face more and more threats (usually killer aliens as you can imagine) the more stressed they get, each character has a Stress level that means that they roll more dice but the more dice they roll the more likely they are to freak out and will have to roll on a table to determine how they act.

The combat in Alien is also very thematic, involving the GM secretly moving the aliens around a map while the characters use their in-game scanners to try and track them, leading to several moments that recall classic scenes from the movies.


Alien can also be played in two ways. A Cinematic mode where players usually use pre-made characters in one-off games and a more involved Campaign setting where games are played over several sessions.


If you love Dungeons & Dragons and want to try something similar in the world of the Alien movies then look no further. It’s a perfect game for people who are fans of the Alien films and also looking to get into Roleplaying Games.


Roleplaying Game
Sci-Fi/Horror
Immersive

You can buy Alien: The Roleplaying Game here

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