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Author Topic: ALIEN - Chariot of the Gods (... you have my sympathies)  (Read 2154 times)

bromides

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ALIEN - Chariot of the Gods (... you have my sympathies)
« on: June 04, 2022, 03:23:05 PM »
Anyone interested in playing ALIEN? I've been in a sci-fi mood, and nothing has really fit, but I know ALIEN works.

I'm open to running "Chariot of the Gods", a cinematic (read: Crew expendable, TPK possible) scenario where you play as crew members of the USCSS Montero, a company-owned space hauler on a (mostly) routine job - running "the Gauntlet", which is the trade route between Anchorpoint and the Frontier. Of course, you're hauling dozens of tanks of explosive Tritium gas on a special order for a Weyland-Yutani corporate colony known as Sutter's World. And in space, nothing ever goes as planned.

This is a 3-act scenario, and each character will receive a different Agenda for each of the 3 acts of this drama. Not all of the Agendas are in alignment with each other, which is the way these cinematic scenarios are designed.

(Push your Agendas hard. Do not be troubled if they result in PvP. There are opportunities for replacement characters to join the team (should you choose to trust them) in case the entire surviving roster is already taken by players.)

If you want a shorter experience, I'm also open to running "Hope's Last Day", another cinematic/crew expendable scenario where you play colonists from the Weyland-Yutani terraforming and mining colony known as Hadley's Hope (on a planet known as Acheron (LV-426)). This is written as a single act scenario (theoretically, the third and concluding act of a 3-act cinematic scenario). Your colonists have just walked back to the colony after their vehicle broke down in the wastelands on a maintenace run out to Processor 9. There was some kind of emergency at the colony when they left (something about "snake-things" in the vents), but Processor 9 needed fixing and someone had to do it.

I don't have "Destroyer of Worlds" (which is the Colonial Marines scenario), but I do plan to pick it up eventually.

=================================================

I've attached the character information for 3 of the characters for "Chariot of the Gods". since there's a max of 4 attachments per post, I'll add the other 2 (Cham and Wilson) in the next post.

After characters are selected & the group is set, I will send out the character Agendas for Act 1. (The Agendas are deliberately made separate from the characters, and you will receive new Agendas at the start of each Act. Please do not share those because there may be spoilers in some of your Agendas.)

(Re: Fear of the license & stuff. All of the attachments are freely available on the Free League website in the downloads section for ALIEN, including all of the character Agendas should you wish to read spoilers prior to play... and shame on you if you choose to do so. I am simply providing JPGs for ease of use and to avoid temptations with the Agendas.)

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EXPECTATIONS:

Posting: Every other day? I'm not going to expect daily updates, and I'm not going for a speed run here.

Other sht: Speaking for NPCs in your posts.
I don't care... provided that you play my NPCs in a consistent manner as they have already been played.
Do not make them say things they wouldn't say, or act in a manner that is contrary to their characters (as known to you).
My NPCs will not promise anything or do anything that requires a dice roll or Stress check when you "act" as them during your posts...
Otherwise, I do not care if they banter or do minor activities during your posts.

(So... no such thing as, "Doctor Cooper goes into the airlock and spaces himself" or "Reid takes her shotgun and blows the top of her head off" during your posts.)

On the flip side, I may include your characters in my posts in a similar fashion... nothing that requires a dice roll, stress test, or betrays their Agendas.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2022, 03:28:53 PM by bromides »

bromides

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Re: ALIEN - Chariot of the Gods (... you have my sympathies)
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2022, 03:24:09 PM »
Aaaaaaand, the other 2 characters for "Chariot of the Gods".

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: ALIEN - Chariot of the Gods (... you have my sympathies)
« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2022, 04:20:29 PM »
I can’t stand that stupid engineer shit that Ridley crapped all over the franchise.

I’ll just play Amazing Engine: Bug Hunters, thanks. The execution isn’t fucking stupid.

No offense to you personally. Sounds like fun TPK opportunities

bromides

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Re: ALIEN - Chariot of the Gods (... you have my sympathies)
« Reply #3 on: June 05, 2022, 10:45:54 AM »
I don't mind the Engineers as much as the requirement for maximum stupidity out of the crew in "Prometheus", to the point where I haven't watched "Covenant". The events should have been dangerous without requiring a lot of dumb action by the crew.

 The Engineers are a factor in both "Chariot of the Gods" and "Destroyer of Worlds". I can say that without spoiling too much. It would require massive rewriting to remove the Engineer factor.

The original alien(s) is/are the primary danger in "Hope's Last Day", should a group wish to play that one instead.

(Neither the Space Truckers in "Chariot of the Gods" nor the terraforming colonists in "Hope's Last Day" are particularly equipped or prepared for what they are about to face.)

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: ALIEN - Chariot of the Gods (... you have my sympathies)
« Reply #4 on: June 05, 2022, 02:05:00 PM »
To clarify, my problem with the engineers is that they’re not Giger monsters. Drawing them like so would fix the problem: https://www.deviantart.com/action-figure-opera/art/js3-307650719

bromides

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Re: ALIEN - Chariot of the Gods (... you have my sympathies)
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2022, 11:02:46 AM »
I didn't mind the Engineers so much because the story was somewhat interesting, but they totally did not fit the Giger vision on their own.
The Space Jockey was just a helmet? Definitely weak & uninspired. Giger had more humanoid drawings if they wanted something between Space Jockey and fully human. Ridley Scott had a huge budget for Prometheus.

What we got was a guy in a rubber suit and white makeup.

The mythos was interesting, but the visuals for the Engineer were not very inspiring.

...

Anyway, I will give this through the end of the week (Friday, June 10... 11:59pm Pacific time).
  • If we get 1 person, I'll run Hope's Last Day instead of Chariot of the Gods.
  • With 2 or more, I can run either Hope's Last Day or Chariot of the Gods.

If no interest, I'll reboot and do something else. I'm not at all ready to run the Frontier War scenario in the Colonial Marines Operations Manual, but maybe in a couple weeks, I'll have notes together so that I can run it.

bromides

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Re: ALIEN - Chariot of the Gods (... you have my sympathies)
« Reply #6 on: June 11, 2022, 03:37:51 PM »
Time has come and gone without interest. No big deal.

I will shut this down, then. Consider this recruitment to be CLOSED.

...

Still looking at ALIEN, probably Colonial Marines, working towards the Frontier War campaign. This would be a Campaign mode game, but also with Cinematic mode sensibilities. Replacement is built in to the Colonial Marines genre.

I could be persuaded to do Forbidden Lands, perhaps the Raven's Purge campaign (again, in the Free League universe) or the MYZ:Elysium campaign.

I'll start a new thread for that when I'm ready.

Wrath of God

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Re: ALIEN - Chariot of the Gods (... you have my sympathies)
« Reply #7 on: June 12, 2022, 12:52:18 PM »
Recrutation aside - it inspired me to run those few existing Alien scenarios as sort of offshots of my main group.
"Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon.”

"And I will strike down upon thee
With great vengeance and furious anger"


"Molti Nemici, Molto Onore"

bromides

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Re: ALIEN - Chariot of the Gods (... you have my sympathies)
« Reply #8 on: June 12, 2022, 06:29:33 PM »
The scenarios are well done. Definitely a lot of fun in the way they're constructed as 3-act dramas.

Maybe the hardest part is playing a role with an agenda. It's a different task for a player to embody these character agendas, and some players are notoriously passive-aggressive kinds of murder hobos (and won't fare well in a cinematic game).