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 - 7:00 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
Tactical / Crunchy
Roleplay Heavy
Hexcrawl / Exploration
Meet the Game Master
4.8
(6)
1 year on StartPlaying
4 games hosted
Highly rated for: Inclusive, Storytelling, World Builder
Average response time: Under 1 hour
Response rate: 100%
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
Character creation will follow the standard rules for ALIEN THE RPG - I recommend using the character creator at https://game-mother.com/cc.html to get started. Please choose from one of the CMOM careers. If you plan on playing a synthetic or an AWS, please message me first so we can discuss some totally normal plot points!
What to expect
Preparing for the session
For this game you will need a discord account so I can add you to our voice server, as well as the 3D VTT TaleSpire, which you can download from Steam. A cursory review of the Zero Year/ALIEN RPG rules will be helpful but not strictly necessary. And if you haven't watched an Alien movie before... well, I love it when people enter games blind!
What Zara brings to the table
My personal GM style is to balance tactically demanding and combat with impactful roleplaying and tense 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. I'll also work with you to create a custom Heroforge miniature of your character, which we'll import into TaleSpire.
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