Alien: Welcome to Hell
A squad of bad-ass colonial marines is deployed to the edge of known space to secure a vital world. There's just one problem: they aren't alone...
$35.00
/ Session
Details
Bi-weekly / Friday - 6:00 PM UTC
Session Duration / 3–4 hours
0 / 6 Seats Filled
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About the adventure
It is the year 2183, and the United Americas and UPP are on the brink of war. The frontier colonies are threatened by disease, piracy, corporate espionage, and worse. As a Colonial Marine of the 66th Mobile Assault Unit, you’ve heard rumors about what’s out there. You and your squad have fought proggies, insurgents, pirates, hell, even a bughunt or two when some colonists somewhere couldn’t handle the wildlife. But this deployment is going to be different. Your unit is being sent to the ass-edge of the galaxy to “secure a world vital for the future of the United Americas” but they don’t send marines out to colonize just any old rock. Somewhere on that planet there’s an enemy, and you’re going to find them and kill them, like you have countless times before. Hoo-rah! That’s what your character knows and believes. You as the player should prepare for something altogether different: a survival horror campaign that will blend tactically demanding squad combat with tense exploration mechanics and a delicious dose of lethal ALIEN horror on an unexplored world where danger could be lurking around any corner. Make no mistake: character death is a real possibility in this game, and for your PC to survive they’ll need to make smart decisions with your squadmates, scavenge for resources and supplies, and discover the truth about this world, along with the real reason your unit was sent to it. With that being said, this system is incredibly easy to learn and use, even if you’ve never played the ALIEN RPG or another Zero Year game before, and we will go over those rules in a Free Session Zero where we will sit down and create a squad of PC’s and NPC’s that we know and care about, who have history, bonds, and rivalries with one another. We will go over what we love about RPGs and the Alien universe out of character, and use that to inform how we approach this campaign. We will also go over the Yellow/Red Card safety system, along with etiquette expectations and scheduling. Once we’re all agreed on that the campaign will begin!
Game style
Sandbox / Open World
Rules as Written (RaW)
Hexcrawl / Exploration
Tactical / Crunchy
Roleplay Heavy
Meet the Game Master
4.8
(6)
1 year on StartPlaying
Highly rated for: Inclusive, Storytelling, World Builder
About me
Hi! My name is Zara Bamford and I live in Chicago, IL, with my partner and our adorable little monster of a cat. I’m passionate about history, comic books, medieval fantasy, science-fiction, and cooking. I’ve been DM’ing professionally for over three years on the convention circuit and have run D&D 5th Edition, Arkham Horror, and Star Wars: Edge of the Empire at major conventions like Gencon, Gamehole Con, and Pax Unplugged on behalf of Asmodee. I got my start in tabletop gaming with Warhammer 40,000, and spent countless hours hunched over kitchen tables and patios in my youth waging epic battles with plastic and metal figurines, but I always craved something more than just tactical combat - I wanted narrative, an epic adventure to accompany awesome battles. I wouldn't start truly DM'ing till college however, where I started a Rogue Trader campaign for my friends which continues to this day!
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
We will create characters together in a free Session Zero, using the rules for Colonial Marine character creation found in the Colonial Marines Operations Manual. I think it will be a lot of fun to create these characters together and come up with shared history as a unit, and I recommend you use a free PDF editor like Kami to edit your character sheet.
You will be playing as a squad of United States Colonial Marines, each of whom has a different MOS, or Method of Service, that will allow your group to overcome any situation.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
For this game you will need a discord account and the VTT Tale Spire. You only need access to the free Guest Edition which you can download from Steam.
What Zara brings to the table
My personal GM style is to balance tactically demanding and dangerous combat with impactful roleplaying and exciting exploration sequences. I have an immersive narrative style I’ve honed over a decade of theater experience, so you can expect dramatic third person narrations of place and scene and a range of voices for the people your characters encounter. I’ll also make use of atmospheric and moody soundtracks and soundboards in every session to help immerse us in the tense, dangerous world of ALIEN. My personal GM philosophy is to adhere as closely to the rules as possible for whatever game I’m running. Improv has common courtesy: Roleplaying games have common courtesy and a rulebook. The ALIEN RPG in particular was built to be fast and lethal, and I firmly believe that the less we tweak this system, the more fun we’re all going to have telling a survival horror story set in everyone’s favorite cassette futurism universe. That being said, I have homebrewed two rules which I think will help make the game even more immersive and fun for us in the long term.
Homebrew rules
Androids can suffer unpreventable damage (starting at 1) to push a roll. This damage increases by 1 each time the PC pushes a roll, and can only be repaired with a shift of work and a successful Heavy Machinery or Comtech roll. You can purchase knacks from other careers if there is narrative justification for it (For example: If the group had a PC Officer who died, another character might be able to learn from them after their death and purchase Officer knacks). These knacks cost an additional 5 experience.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Webcam
Platforms used
Safety
How Zara creates a safe table
The world of ALIEN is frightening, dangerous, and at times totally hostile to human life and wellbeing. I, however, am not!! While I want your character to become terrified and stressed out, I want you as the player to enjoy yourself and have an amazing time in our game. To that effect, I will be going over the campaign themes and content in Session 0, where we will collectively establish Lines and Veils for our playgroup. When we play, you can message the chat or say RED CARD out loud to indicate you want the current scene to end, or YELLOW CARD to indicate that you want the subject curtailed. In either case I will pause the game and check in with you to see what is happening, and adjust the scene as needed either through a redo or retcon. After every session, I will check in with the players as a group to see how the session went and if there was anything that could be improved or adjusted.
Content warnings
Safety tools used