31 Character Challenge Part 20: The Aliens Adventure Game

 

So, there I was at a UIL academic competition in 1987.  After we'd completed our event, we walked over to the computer lab to play some Rogue.  After a while, we wandered over to the movie room, and some crazy adult had rented the brand new VHS of Aliens, which of course none of us had seen in the theater.  We walked in just in time for the reactor room scene, just as the living colonist wakes up and gets chestbursted.  We were riveted.  Holy crap this movie was intense.  And so began a fandom for me, one that, let's face it, is completely centered around the first two films in the franchise and the comics and video games that subsequently involved Colonial Marines.  When the Leading Edge board game and RPG arrived in 1989 and 1991, we played the living crap out of them.

Leading Edge games was known for it's Living Steel and Phoenix Command games.  They were known for being very, very complex.  So complex that in some cases bullet flight time was taken into account.  How hard could they be?  Well, the answer is rocket science.  The author the core system, Barry Nakazono, now works for JPL. He is a literal rocket scientist.

Aliens is not the full-bore Phoenix Command experience. It's a faster-playing, streamlined version of the system.  Much of the core mechanics are pretty simple and straightforward.  Roll 3d6 under difficulty level, modified by how skilled the character is in the particular activity.  Not too terrible.  So, if I'm trying to make an Easy (13) Motion Tracker roll, and I am a Professional (4) at Motion Tracker, I need to get 17 or less on 3D6.  Had I been only Certified (0), I'd need the base 13.  A Novice (-4) would need a 9 or less.  That's not so bad, is it?  But Combat is where things got a bit complex.  Some would argue overly complex.

A character might have 4 Combat Actions, but in some cases as many as 7 or 8, or even a couple more given optional rules for carrying less than your allowable combat weight.  Moving a hex cost 1 action.  Shooting cost 1 action, unless you're aiming.  You can aim for multiple Actions, depending on the weapon.  The actions of Aim yield an Accuracy, then the Accuracy takes you to a column on a table, where you roll d100 and see if you hit, then you check for location, and based on location and possibly armor check for penetration or deflection.  Then you get a Potential Damage, or PD, which can range from 1 to, like, 80,000.  Yes, Eighty Thousand.  Which is somehow less than "Dead."

So, yeah, there's a tiny bit of complexity in combat.  But before you engage the Xenomorphs, you gotta have a Marine.  So let's join the Colonial Marine Corps...

Character Creation

The first step in creating a character for the Aliens Adventure Game is to generate the Primary Characteristics.  These are Strength, Intelligence, Will, Health, and Agility.  The game gives an option for random generation, and point-buy.  If you've been reading this series, you know we gotta go random when it's an option.  So, we roll 3 six-sided dice twice for each Characteristic.  

• Strength:  17
  
• Intelligence: 11
  
• Will: 11
  
• Health: 14
  
• Agility: 11

Secondary Characteristics are always rolled randomly.  These are rolled once, rather than twice.  These are Charisma, Leadership, Perception, and Motivation.

• Charisma: 14
  
• Leadership:  8
  
• Perception: 13
  
• Motivation: 9

From here, we roll for background.  Each roll has the potential to generate Merit Points that will come into play later. Now, here's an interesting thing- the tables in the back of the book have some additional entries that aren't discussed, but it's fairly easy to suss out what they do.  For instance, there are tables for being from Earth, and for being from the Colonies.  But for this, we'll use what is in the chapter on creating characters.

Formal Education - 02, Poor. 0 Merit Points.

Social Background - 25, Underprivileged. 0 Merit Points.

Now, Merit Points for Characteristics, 3 points for the 17, 3 more for the 14s and 13.  Total Merit Points: 6.

The first place we're going to use the Merit Points is to see what Branch of the Marines we can get into.  It takes 4 to get into the Garrison Infantry, the bottom rung of the USCM.  With 5 we can get into the Line Infantry, the standard field Marines.  The next rung up, Auxiliary, are the specialists of the USCM, but that would require 7 Merit Points, and we don't have it. So Line Infantry it is.

So, we learn some skills now.  In Aliens, you have a Learning Roll, it's equal to Intelligence plus Motivation minus 10.  So for this Marine, it's 10.  That means this Marine has a whopping 10% chance to learn something when given the opportunity.  In Basic Training, failing the Learning Roll means being Novice, and passing means Certified.  Outside of training, it's all or nothing to improve a level, and for the upper skill levels multiple consecutive Learning Rolls are required.

So, in Basic, we roll Gun Combat, Balance, HTH Combat, Climbing, Scouting, Survival and Infiltration.  Rolling... 05, 07, 64, 87, 17, 53, 28. I'm calling that lucky.  Certified in Gun Combat and Balance against the odds. Novice on everything else.  We can now apply for Specialist Training by having qualifying Characteristics and rolling less than half our Merit Points on a d10 - oh, BTW, in this game a '0' is zero on the die, not ten.  Wow, most specialist jobs require all Primary Characteristics at 12+.  Rough.  We don't qualify. A grunt we are. Now we roll a d10 to see how many years active duty our character has. 4. A reasonable term. So, now we'll roll through the experience table, which is a bit like Traveller in that you get an assignment, a chance to earn some skills, a chance to pick up some awards, and maybe get promoted or earn an award or two.

Each year, we'll roll an assignment, which will yield some skill chances.  Roll less than the Learning Roll to raise a skill.  Then there's a chance to earn Merit Points, which occurs if a Learning Roll is made.  If this puts the character above the Merit Points required for promotion, another Learning Roll is made to secure the promotion.  It's pretty obvious you want to roll a decent Intelligence and Motivation when you are creating a character.

First tour - 22, Military Police. Check a Class 2 and a Class 5 skill, and then a chance for Merit Points.  When a skill chance is given in a class of skill, choose the skill before rolling.  We tried HTH and Diplomacy, failed both. 29 for Merit Points, also failed. For my free skill roll allowed each year, my Marine will attempt to learn Comm/Computer as a hobby.15- close, but no joy.

Tour Two. 49 - Security, off world. 1 Class 3 and 2 Class 4 chances.  We'll go Scouting, and Espionage twice. 34, 11 (DAMN!), and 36.  No go.  1 Merit Point chance... 89.  Trying again for Computers as a hobby... 17.  Nope.

Tour Three. 25. Tactical Team on Earth.  Class 1, 3, and 4 skill chances.  1 is a no-brainer, there's only Gun Combat.  But for 3 and 4 we'll try Scouting and Espionage. 72, 99, and 56.  1 free Primary Skill Chance, I'm going to roll for Gun Combat, 52. No. 1 Merit Point Chance 35. Negative. And hobby once more... 23.

Final tour of duty.  84, which is a Hot Patrol as a member of a Strike Team.  This is what the RPG considers Lieutenant Gorman's team from the film, a Strike Team.  Class 1 and 3 chances, 1 Primary Skill Chance, and TWO Merit Point chances.  So, Gun Combat, Scouting, and Gun Combat. 36, 07, and 99.  Holy crap! We made one.  Scouting becomes Certified. Merit Points, 85 and 98. If we were using the optional rules for awards, this would have been some kind of reprimand or prison sentence. (Rolled a 94 for shit and giggles, it would have been a Court Martial.)

So, our 23-year-old Marine is still a Private.  We select armor and gear now. The book indicates that what the Marines in the film were wearing is "light" armor.  So we'll go with that.  With a Strength of 17, wearing Light Armor, our Marine can carry 65lbs of stuff in addition to the armor without losing Combat Actions. We get the standard Marine gear on page 13, but need to figure out what our Combat Load is.  So, M41-A Pulse Rifle, Pistol, two magazines for each.  Knife, 8 Grenades, Light & Comm Gear.

Using the tables, we find we have 5 Combat Actions per turn, a Knockout Value of 23, and are paid 34 credits per month.  34 credits.  See, in Aliens the Colonial Marines are paid based on their skills, not their rank.  Our Marine has four skills at Novice, and three at Certified.  1 credit for each Novice skill, 10 for each Certified.  If we had anything at Professional, that would be 100 credits, and 1,000 for Expert or higher.  This is above and beyond food and housing.  On the surface, this seems kinda ludicrous, a pittance, why would anyone sign up for the USCM for this kind of pay?  Well... the room and board, given the poverty and squalor the book mentions is rampant on Earth.  So, I guess I can suspend disbelief enough to enjoy this overly Corporate ideal of paying Marines.

Now, our Marine is ready for play.

The Character

The streets of Houston were always covered in a sort of murky slime, the oppressive heat mixing with the ever-present humidity, and vast swaths of the city a vulgar parody of old Venice as the sea levels had climbed steadily over the past centuries.  This was where Bobby Garcia had grown up.  His family lived in a dilapidated modular home in dire need of some repair or other as long as he could remember. With far too many relatives and far too few credit vouchers under the roof, Bobby received the standard substandard education at the hands of the Corporate public schools, but had no desire to compete for one of the low-paying jobs that occasionally came open around the city. There had to be a way out, a way to take the burden of his upkeep off his family, and maybe send some money home.  He was a strong, healthy young man with a likeable personality and a keen eye, and managed to qualify for the United States Colonial Marine entrance exam.  He was off to MCRD San Diego, his first time outside the Houston sprawl.

13 weeks in San Diego made a Marine out of Bobby, now Private Garcia.  He did well on the rifle range, and in athletic endeavors, but his qualification scores were not quite high enough to get him into any specialist schools.  He was an 0311 and it looked like he was going to stay that way. His first tour was a year of Military Police duty supporting local law enforcement to ensure calm and orderly food distribution in neighborhoods much like his own, but on a different coast.  It was here he learned to keep his head on a swivel and his streetwise ended up with him assigned to scouting ahead of the unit and walking point in the really bad parts of town.  From there, he transferred to the fleet, and spent some time as a scout with an offworld platoon on security duty for US government personnel.

Private Garcia seemed to have found his niche, and transferred to a tactical team on Earth, taking on assignments more likely to result in actual combat.  The tour was uneventful, against all odds, but it got him noticed enough to be assigned to a Strike Team- where the real action was.  The Strike Team had a hot patrol, engaging colonial separatists on several worlds, and at the end of an exhausting tour, Private Garcia was glad to return to Gateway and wire what little money he had accumulated back to his family.  All in all, Bobby Garcia is disappointed he's not moved up in the Corps, nor excelled at a more diverse set of skills, but he's just re-upped for another 4 years for lack of any better options.

My Thoughts

So, despite all the combat craziness, I really like this game. Like, beyond reason. I know it's not elegant. I know the combat is overly complex. I know it's burdened by a system that requires separate charts for different kinds of creatures, so is rather limited by that factor.  For instance, the only vehicles you really have stats for are the ones we see in the film, and maybe one or two more.  But since vehicles require a complex chart for hit location, penetration, and damage... it makes adding new stuff rather difficult.  Same with weapons, the list is very short, and for a system that prides itself on detail, you end up fudging quite a bit since you only have the weapons from the film, plus a sniper rifle and an SMG to really play with.

But I keep running this every couple of years.  I play it at North Texas RPG Con with my gaming buds from the panhandle.  I just... dig it.

Here's the thing, though. I think there's a decent game in here if you streamline combat.  Take out about three steps and replace the damage rules with something more conventional, like HPs.  I know it goes against the realism and detail the authors originally intended, but it makes the game simpler and more playable.  Character creation and the skill rules are pretty solid - though you could argue the Learning Roll is pretty damn punishing.  Also- characteristic generation is pretty hard core given the requirements to be anything but a grubby private.  But then, most of the Marines in the movie were grubby privates.  Only Gorman was an officer, and Apone, Hicks, Dietrich and Ferro were the NCOs, all of them corporals save Apone.  Even the specialists, like Hudson, Vasquez, and Drake were privates.  I guess the USCM doesn't believe in Privates First Class or Lance Corporals.  Well, this version of the USCM doesn't, there are several PFCs in the film according to the computer readouts and script, and the later published material mentions the ranks.  But the game just has Privates.

I once had a bunch of house rules for this based on reading the Aliens novelization, and being a USMC JROTC cadet at the time I got the game in in 1991.  So our Aliens games had more specialist roles (like ComTech, which was Hudson's role in the novelization, and MedTech, which was Dietrich's) and all the USMC ranks.

Damn.  Now I wanna play this again.  Yes, I know there's a new Alien RPG.  But I'm also hunting for the nostalgia of playing this game I loved in High School.  Oh, well.  Another game for the list.