Post by GRWelsh on Oct 18, 2021 8:39:15 GMT -5
The game has two modes of play: cinematic and campaign. Cinematic is intended to be a one-shot and feel like one of the movies, and is even structured like a movie with three acts, and story points awarded to players for good acting or following their secret agenda, and buddies/rivals for each character. The tension builds due to the stress mechanic. The more stress dice you roll, the higher your chances of success since you need to roll a 6 to succeed -- symbolized by a bullseye or crosshairs target symbol on the custom dice that come with the starter set. But if you roll a 1 on a stress die -- symbolized by a facehugger on the custom dice -- you automatically fail and go to the panic chart. You roll a d6 and add your current stress level and the higher the roll on the panic chart the worse the outcome. Towards the end everyone has so much stress that panic is common and effects get worse and worse. People start to drop items, flee, go berserk, etc. Even with a good plan, there is this sense of everything spiraling out of control towards the end of the game session.
The game has a lot of modifiers and rules. The worst thing about the first game session was me, as the GM, since I often had to look up rules or second guess myself. There are attributes, skills, talents, gear and so on that all have their own ways of interacting with each other, plus new rules mechanics we were unfamiliar with. I had to explain the rules as we went since none of my players had ever played ALIEN before. But we got through it and everyone had a good time. I'm sure the next session I run will go much smoother.
The game has a lot of modifiers and rules. The worst thing about the first game session was me, as the GM, since I often had to look up rules or second guess myself. There are attributes, skills, talents, gear and so on that all have their own ways of interacting with each other, plus new rules mechanics we were unfamiliar with. I had to explain the rules as we went since none of my players had ever played ALIEN before. But we got through it and everyone had a good time. I'm sure the next session I run will go much smoother.