Daily Punch 8-13-25 Thick Skilled talent for Alien RPG

Basics– Game over man, GAME OVER! Colonial Marines Operation Manual expands on the world of Aliens, focusing on the military men and women who will defend the frontier from both men and monsters. This book features a few new careers, talents, and items for the players and for the GM it has a TON of story and a whole campaign.

Mechanics or Crunch– This is a classic example of what’s here is good, but there needs to be more. There are a TON of ships and tanks, so if you wanted to have more of that in the game, you are going to love this. But there is not much new for characters to directly build themselves. What’s here is good however. The new military careers are fantastic and will make your character feel more like they are more than just generic soldiers. I would just like more player specific options. For the GM, there is an impressive amount here to throw around with a guide on how to make a military campaign and a full military campaign in the book! 4.5/5

Theme or Fluff– Want to learn over 200 years of history and culture in a book? This is that book! This book goes deep into the lore of the universe, and it’s well done. You get small glimpses into individual soldiers’ lives and an overview of nearly two centuries of corporate intrigue and international and planetary politics. This doesn’t even cover all the multitude of new aliens added to the lore or added to this game. This is a solid story hit. 5/5

Execution– I like what’s here, but don’t completely love it. The layout is ok, but it’s lots of green boxes with a black background. There are pictures, but not many when it comes to the aliens. Humans and weapons yes, which I like, but not many to show the new xenomorphs. The book does read easily and has hypertext, so I love that. The campaign is good, but I don’t like the layout as I feel some of the style hides the lead and makes it a bit hard to run on the fly. But, I do appreciate it. I’d like the pregens to be separate, but they do exist in the book. Not as character sheets, but as blocks that you can print out. It’s good, but I would like a few improvements. 4.5/5

Summary– If you want to run a military campaign for the Alien RPG, this is the book you need. Heck, it comes with a military campaign so you don’t event need to do hard work as a GM for the first 8 sessions! It’s not perfect; I want more player options and some changes to layout and writing. But these are small complaints compared to the parts of the book that are well done. 93%

Daily Punch 8-1-24 Diehard talent for Alien RPG

August 2, 2024 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Can’t take me down!

Diehard: To mad to die! The first time each day you take a critical injury, you can ignore it. You are at zero hit points, and the next point of damage will result in a critical injury as normal.

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 7-30-24 Sharpshooter talent for Alien RPG

July 31, 2024 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

More Alien fun!

Sharpshooter: Aim! The first additional success you use to do additional damage adds two damage instead of one.

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 7-25-24 Undying talent for Alien RPG

July 25, 2024 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Back to Alien RPG! I’m reading about the colonial marines, so here’s a talent for them.

Undying: You just wont stay down! You can continue to take actions even after you are broken at zero hit points, however if you are at zero hit point and take more damage, you take an another critical injury as normal.

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 8-8-23 Drudgery roughneck talent for Alien RPG

August 9, 2023 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Too much doesn’t wear you down.

DRUDGERY : You are used to having life just beat you down. Once per shift when you roll a 1 on a stress die, you can ignore it. If you roll multiple 1s or a second stress roll is a 1, you are affected as normal.

Ring Side Report- RPG review of Alien RPG

August 6, 2023 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Product– Alien RPG

System- Year Zero Engine

Producer– Free League Publishing

Price– $24 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/293976/ALIEN-RPG-Core-Rulebook?affiliate_id=658618

TL; DR– No one can hear you scream how good this is! 98%

Basics– In space, no one can hear you scream! Alien RPG is a new take on the classic Alien franchise. Let’s dive into the basics of the game.

Mechanics- This system uses the Year Zero Engine. Here, you take a specific skill you want to do and the associated trait and roll that many d6’s. The GM may add or remove dice as the difficulty warrants, but if you roll one 6, you succeed. Additional 6s add more levels of success. You do this for everything from fixing a cargo door to shooting a xenomorph.

Stress- The Alien movies are nothing if not stressful! When you do something, you might fail, and if you do, you can reroll but you gain a different colored d6. If you roll a 1 on these d6’s you panic and roll a d6 and add your current stress level to that roll. Roll too high and you can go catatonic to violent to anything in between. You also gain stress dice when violence happens to you, to seeing androids, to fire full auto into a monster among the stars.

Combat- This game uses cards to track initiative. You draw cards at the start of a fight. There is no rolling for turns. Each turn on your card time, you can do a slow action and a fast action. Slow is shooting a gun or fixing a cargo door, while fast is yelling, running, or even pushing the button to open the airlock. Damage is determined by the weapon you are using minus any armor the creature or person has. Monsters are interesting in this system as well. Instead of the GM planning what happens, you roll a d6 when a monster attacks and that die determines what they do.

Ok, let’s go my thoughts on the system.

Mechanics or Crunch– This is a pretty low crunch system, but that doesn’t make it bad! What I just told you above gives you enough to jump in and start playing. You just need a character and two colors of D6s. It’s fast and lets you focus on the world that is here. I will admit getting only one talent or a feat for your character is kind of a bit light to me. I like having lots of fun toys for my character to use to get through the world. But that is what you get from Year Zero. I’m glad I get the talents/feats I do, but I would like just a bit more. In terms of how it fits the world, I love it. Stress is key in the movies and key here too. A near perfect fit of mechanics and world. 4.75/5

Theme or Fluff– I love the Alien movies (yes even the bad ones!). The people who made this did too. They even reference old books that I thought most people forgot about long ago! The world is built out a TON in this book. To the uninitiated, it is WAY more than just Weyland-Yutani and chestbursters, and this book shows that. Solid world building in this one. 5/5

Execution– PDF? Yep. Hyperlinked? Yes! Solid Art? Yep. Good layout? Yes. This is the first full book by Free League Publishing, and I have to say I am impressed. Good layout, good art, good flow, good everything EXCEPT respect for my printer when I try to make pregens from the book. The Alien world is dark. That’s ok, but the background of the book is dark as well. So if you print off characters for your friends, you WILL kill a printer cartridge! Give me some pregens on nice white paper please! 4.9/5

Summary– I love me some sci-fi, and I don’t think enough is done with it in RPG spaces. This book brings back the atmosphere of the 80’s Alien to a new decade and with a system that fits well with it. It also doesn’t fall into any of the 80’s pitfalls of RPG book design and is a solid expression of modern book layout. My issues are small. I want more stuff for my characters, and I would like pregens on better, less black intensive sheets. But, if thats the worst I can say about this, then an empty print carriage is a small price to pay for this awesome book. 98%