Ring Side Report: RPG Review of ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition Starter Set

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Product– ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition Starter Set

System– ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition 

Producer– Free League Publishing

Price– $19.99 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com//product/521240/alien-rpg-evolved-edition-starter-set?affiliate_id=658618 

TL; DR– Everything I wanted and more! 100%

Basics: What happened here?  This is the starter set for the Alien RPG Evolved Edition, and it includes the “Hope’s Last Day” adventure.  It’s got five pregens with detailed backstories, multiple cards for players to navigate the adventure and see ever-changing motivations, and lots of dice specific to the system.  For those of you who remembered the original book, this adventure is in the back of that version.

Mechanics or Crunch: This has all the intro crunch you will need.  The box comes with a 20-page book discussing the mechanics of the system.  I’ve gotten pushback on my glib remarks about how little crunch this game has (in the best possible way), but this book is honestly about 20 solid pages with enough rules to get you and your players playing FAST.  There are item cards that you can hand out to your players so they can see the stats on the different weapons.  And everything is just done well. This is a solid intro for the crunch of the system.   5/5

Theme or Fluff– This box gives you the movie world of Alien fast.  It’s just a short book with a 3-4-hour adventure and multiple character motivations.  Characters don’t like each other and have conflicting motivations, so make sure your players are ok with that, but it’s a simple adventure that explains the world well.  Just well done.   5/5

Execution: I love this boxset.  Check out my unboxing here: https://youtu.be/uDghTPRaujE. Just amazing production values and great writing and layout all around.  I love everything that’s here.  There are a few errors like a location on the map being mislabeled, but aside from that, it’s just everything I wanted in a box. 5/5

Summary: I can’t recommend this enough…. To the right people.  This adventure has five players try to survive the horror of an Alien invasion.  But, the adventurers don’t like each other and might stab one another in the back. If you just want a big damn heroes adventure, maybe don’t get this one.  If you want movie-accurate gaming with a good explanation of the rules, and great production with minis, dice, maps, and cards, then this is a great way to get into the Alien RPG!  100%

Ring Side Report: RPG Review of ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition Core Rulebook

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Product– ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition Core Rulebook

System– ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition 

Producer– Free League Publishing

Price– $20.99 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com//product/520969/alien-rpg-evolved-edition-core-rulebook?affiliate_id=658618 

TL; DR– Good horror missing an example.  97%

Basics: In space, no one can hear you scream, 2nd Ed!  Well, more like 1.5.  Alien Evolved Edition has some minor changes to the original edition.  Honestly, it’s the same system, so I wouldn’t call this a new edition, but really an update.  The biggest changes are stress.  Stress is MUCH more forgiving in this edition.  Bad things happen, but you don’t have cycles where everyone just goes crazy from one roll feeding off others’ craziness along the way.  It’s more forgiving.  The game is much kinder to players, as characters have a better chance of surviving encounters.  There are many other small changes, like armor now being a static number rather than a roll, acid splash being nicer to players, and so on.  But honestly, if you know the original, you can play this new edition with a quick skim of the book.

Mechanics or Crunch: I liked the original, and the updates are just nicer to the players.  I like a gonzo RPG where players die every five minutes, but that also means the story can’t be very deep for that character.  The Alien movies, when they are rock-solid, have deep stories and gut punches that make you love and hate the characters and what happens to them.  By tempering the harder aspects, you get much more survival.  I LOVE that.  I also like that it’s still there; stress and rerolls go hand in hand.  Panic-driven storytelling and having characters freeze at the worst times make the story deeper and more intriguing.  It feeds well into the theme below.  Solid work on the tweaks that make this game more fun for longer campaign play.  5/5

Theme or Fluff– Do you like Aliens?  Do you like the extended Alien universe?  Honestly, this book is about 10 pages of rules, but the rest of the 300 pages is world.  You have all kinds of world-building in this book.  This is a solid book to build the world of Alien.  5/5

Execution:  This is a good book, but it’s missing some big things.  All the big things are here, like hyperlinks, good layout, and even amazing art.  But the big things it’s missing are pregens and an adventure.  Those are completely needed for any RPG.  You need a free adventure to really help get the GM and players into any RPG, but the new edition has new things like one-player rules as the soul survivor.  Good, but not the adventure I wanted. 4.5/5

Summary: I love what’s here, but I need a bit more.  The mechanics are absolutely solid. It’s more forgiving than before in just the right way.  The fluff is amazing.  You can see so much more of the universe is out there than the movies show you.  The execution is good, but missing.  I need an example to build off of.  I think most other GMs need that as well.  But, aside from what’s missing, the book is solid.  If you like horror and d6 dice pool-based RPGs, this is a must-have. 97%