#01: Chariot of the Gods

1 messages · Page 2 of 1

quiet walrus
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Jump scares in the dark....Nice.

solar trellis
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It's for dealing with tribbles.

quiet walrus
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@solar trellis I knew there must have been a reasonable explanation. A gift from Montgomery Scott then.

lost dust
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I assumed that it might be useful to kill vermin, same reason they have a cat in the first movie

quiet walrus
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No vermin. Lack of O2 would kill them when the crew was in cryo. No need to have a cat on board other than as a good luck charm and as stress relief for the crew.

quiet walrus
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Now de-icing frozen parts of the landing gear or removing aggressive flora from the air vents after landing on O'Bannons world I might have accepted. I complained to FL about the pulse rifle, remember?

lost dust
flint heath
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Hi all, just about to run the scenario on Foundry VTT and just wanted to check if there were any good resources out there I could repurpose?

I so far have:

  • maps of the Cronus
  • various sounds & art (the former is essential)
  • Intro vids from Club Strategie & Mento

Anyone use anything else to help build immersion? Thanks1

quiet walrus
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@lost dust interesting concept, but I'm just going by the novel.

flat wraith
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This is always fun to start with:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htdK962TQ1M&list=PLAlnriBHPtKIXULgk8Qj3aVYcAL3oAKn-&index=1

YouTube
ifrequire
20th Century Fox (Alien 3)

20th Century Fox #logo #intro #identity #Alien3

Seen on a science fiction horror film "Alien 3" (1992).

This video shows content that is not owned by us. All the rights goes to the original designers and owners of the content shown in this video. This is being uploaded non-profit; only for preservation, entertainment, educational and historica...

▶ Play video
topaz atlas
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I really like the playlist that you put together. My only question is how can the video and sound be setup so all or selected players' hear and see it at the same time? Do you put the link in Discord in some way or if your using Roll20 how do you include it in the VTT?

flat wraith
topaz atlas
flat wraith
# topaz atlas Thank you for your reply and I appreciate it. I will try and figure something ou...

I've used roll20 before, and I've ripped the soundtracks from youtube and uploaded them to the jukebox there and that worked well. As for video, I think you might be able to rip that, and upload it to an asset, make it a handout, and then right click on and hit "show to players" and theoretically it should pop up and play for all of the players at once - but that really sounds too easy and I'd test it 🙂

indigo kelp
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We had our game yesterday and it was really awesome. The way the Lucas player revealer itself was perfect. They just said: Humans are morons! While arguing, and Miller was just like, wait, are you not human? Lucas answers, yeah about that... Best moment of the game. Too bad we didnt record anything

solar trellis
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They voluntarily revealed themselves? That's a new one for me!

candid apex
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I do hope they started monologuing right after that.. 👌

indigo kelp
indigo kelp
open stream
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Hey folks. I'm a first time gm attempting to run this for some friends. I'm a little nervous 😅😅

I had a question about the motes on the cronus. Once the scrubbers are working, are they no longer a threat if a player removes their suit? It wasn't clear to me (maybe I'm just an idiot).

Also been advised to cut Lucas and the Sotillo.

Does anyone have any tips? 😊😊

candid apex
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I wouldn't cut Lucas personally, you need it to counter the pcs if they all decide to take samples home and get rich. Plus it adds anther threat.

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The motes get more dangerous, the filters don't remove them and once the suits are off characters can breathe them in freely.

open stream
obsidian sapphire
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Openly aggressive depends. When I played the Lucas character once I just quietly worked against the PC's. Aggression or not, he is an opposing force and definitely helps to ramp up the tension in whichever way the player decides to go with his agenda

open stream
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See when I played it, Lucas was cut so I had absolutely no idea he was a thing 🤣🤣

candid apex
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When I've run it I found Lucas to be good for dramatic climaxes, where he tries to blow up the ship while the pcs desperately try to stop him or escape. Especially if they've killed the bloodburster and a few abominations, this keeps things tense but also fresh

quiet walrus
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@sullen cairn indeed in the first printing of the Chariot of the Gods cinematic, the armoury aboard the Cronus boasted an M41A Pulse Rifle with a single reload. This was later changed to a Weyland Storm Rifle to better suit the time period in which the ship was launched.

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Saw your question. Decided to comment. Hope that helps.

sullen cairn
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I figured that the implication was that someone else had been there before you and dropped it/left it.

quiet walrus
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That was implied later by Andrew Gaska in the CMOM. ||A team of AW soldiers under Col. Meyers out of Ariarcus boarded Cronus prior to the Montero crew searching for samples of Draconis 26.||

candid apex
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Not sure why I was pinged but I do enjoy seeing people have epiphanies so that's a bonus.. 😅

mortal olive
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Pandasaur, I agree with Richard. The air scrubbers don't remove the motes, the only thing fixing them does is clear up the stale air that gives everyone a -2 on Stamina rolls. If the PCs failed to see that there were neomorphic egg sacs on the filters before they disturbed them with cleaning, then absolutely everyone who takes off their suit/helmet on the Cronus gets infected.

Don't cut Lucas. He's quite a versatile piece of opposition because he's intelligent, unlike the very few xenos you get on the ship.

You can leave the Sotillo up in the air until sometime midway through Act 3 before I'd say you HAVE to decide whether or not to use it. I didn't for my group. Sometimes a sensor glitch is just a sensor glitch, it really just depends on whether or not you think your group will be satisfied without the Sotillo, whether it's because they killed all the threats too easily with lucky rolls, or because you need more characters for dead PCs to take over.

open stream
flat wraith
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I also wouldn't worry about getting every detail right according to the book as long as you get the experience right. For instance - in my run through I decided as soon as mother turns on the air scrubbers start running (even if they're not cleaned - which they weren't) which means the motes are in the air everywhere. That way, I wouldn't have to navigate if the PC's don't get infected or take the cure.

candid apex
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Yeah the scenario is incredibly flexible and will not break if you get a thing wrong here or there, or forget about all the modifiers for target size and distance.

In fact, I still regularly forget those last ones and the game runs fine.

Events are entirely up to you, so remember roughly what's in the list and pop one when you feel like it.

open stream
candid apex
open stream
candid apex
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We started at 12, took us a good 9 hours. 🙈

mortal olive
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My group took about the same time, roughly 9 hours. 3 sessions of 3 hours-ish each.

oblique roost
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Since I was playing Miller as GM and I had to hand out the gear, I had her scraping stuff together from the locker rooms, finding a box under the work bench, holding up the thing and saying "What the hell, guys? You have nothing better to do down here? Seems like I dont have enough work for you."

quasi parcel
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Hi, I’m new to Alien RPG and preparing to run this scenario for the first time. Two questions to start with:

  1. Roughly how long does the scenario take in game time? Looks like I only need to worry about food, water and sleep if it lasts more than a day.

  2. The rules seem to say I should run the exploration of Cronos as a turn by turn dungeon crawl, with air supply checks every two zones the PCs move through. But the actual plays I’ve dipped into don’t seem to do that at all. What’s the advice from the veteran GMs here?

flat wraith
mortal olive
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I'd say COTG takes less than 12 hours in game time. There's a couple things that take a Shift to do, which is 4-5 hours

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As for 2, yeah, technically you're supposed to do air checks pretty often, but I and everyone else seem to just wing it.

flat wraith
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I mean, you could wing it, but it works so much better when you use the rules. For almost no effort, it builds life and death tension and turns the exploration of the Cronus into a race where the PCs are almost guaranteed to split up. And, once the power finally comes on, everyone should be low on air and will eventually need to take their helmet off making the spores a real threat. If you wing it, there will inevitably be less checks and you lose all of that. On top of that, winging it feels a lot like “when the GM feels like it” as opposed to rules from the book which empower the PCs to plan for it.
I’ve run it both ways and would never NOT call for air checks as often as it calls for - there’s just no reason not to.

fleet patio
fleet patio
# quasi parcel Hi, I’m new to Alien RPG and preparing to run this scenario for the first time. ...

The "every two zones" is a rule of thumb concerning time in the Stealth/Exploration phase, but I don't feel it makes sense with all the simple hallways in the Cronus as traversing them definitely doesn't take half a turn. Better to roll after every two rooms with some descriptions to them or where players actually set to do something.

Personally I feel the default way of measuring air supply is too involved for the table and creates artificial tension and dissonance with the narrative if someone rolls well and another rolls poorly. I feel its better to make it consistent across the board i.e. "you've 3 hours worth of air but physical strain or high stress can change that" (GM fiat) and also make it so damage to suits can rupture them, disconnect a line etc. to up the tension in combat.

For CoG, I homebrew an O2-torch item similar to an O2-candle they use on spaceships and submarines, basically a heavy self-oxidating cylinder that can quickly supply a zone with O2 to form a base of operations.

quasi parcel
flat wraith
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As a counterpoint to Kylki about - which isn't to say they're wrong - I've found that the rolls are simple and after a couple of turns the PCs will remind you they need to do them at the end of their turn. And the swingyness of them compounded with the reverse exponential way they deplete generates tension and emergent narrative. One of my PCs lost 3 air on a fluke on the first roll and went back to the Montero instead of continuing which turned into it's own little plot thread.

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If you're running this for the first time it can be super overwhelming because the module gives you all the tools but doesn't give you a rough idea on what they're there for. If you can do Act 1 in only 1 session here's the general idea:
-Before they find the Cronus, use the time to let the PCs get into character and talk to each other. Also let them try out the skill system (like the piloting rolls for Davis).
-Once they're on the Cronus, they're searching in the dark finding creepy things as their air runs out. So mentally make sure you know the "important" rooms they're likely to head to first - Cryosleep, Reactor, Bridge, MUTHER.
-Once MUTHER comes on, give them a second to discover the air is breathable before warning them the cryosleep is opening
-Prep something for how the Cronus crew reacts when they wake up. Improvising 5 NPCs on the fly can be tough. I like to frame Cooper as the NPC quest giver so they don't see his head popping coming 🙂
-I also describe a cryosleep chamber as broken out from the inside and a busted head on the corpse inside to set up the second neomorph in case I need it later on. This also takes the suspicion off of the NPCs being infected.
-ALWAYS attack from ambush with Xenos, and only attack when the party isn't all together. They're kind of glass cannons in this scenario. Davis with the Flamethrower will dominate any encounter - so remember she can't relieve stress when she's out of drugs. The PCs usually figure out to give the best weapon to her, but forget the stress thing - so lean into that if you need to 🙂

quasi parcel
flat wraith
# quasi parcel This is really helpful, thanks. Another question, about the infectious motes. ...

No prob - I remember crashing and burning the first time I tried to run this so I like to pass on the lessons and save others from that fate 🙂

I think officially it's not 100% defined. It is easier to run however if you assume the air is already infected so you can roll (or pick) PCs to get infected as soon as they take their helmets off. Logically, you can say the motes get spread as soon as MUTHER turns on the ship (and the air kicks on with the dirty, infected filters). You can also say it doesn't and they're only in danger around the motes in the descriptions - but then you have to figure out how to run that. There's not any advice on how to do it the second way I believe.

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There's one more trick I use to start off the scenario to get everyone kind of proactively making decisions and not waiting for you for the next bit of narration:
Have them wake up dehydrated and with 1 stress because of it. Tell them what each of their jobs are (Cham needs to load Daisy, Davis needs to find the landing beacon, Rye needs to contact the Sutter's World station, Miller should give orders and Wilson can basically relax and watch).
So now they need to decide whether or not to take a few minutes to eat or dive in and get their jobs done - Miller can and probably will exercise their job of making that decision for everyone. THEN have MUTHER call in Miller before she can eat so the whole party is busy (except for Wilson which is perfect). In the end, none of it makes a difference, but it gets the PCs proactive and deciding things.

quasi parcel
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Another question 🙋‍♂️: how do you handle communication among the team as they explore Cronus? Are they assumed to always have a communicator with them, or once their suits are off do they have to use the intercom stations? Perhaps as a penalty for failure in some circumstance, their communicator could be lost/broken - or is that no fun for the player?

With MUTHER, I think I’m going to play it that she can only respond to basic commands unless you go to her room. So any questions have to wait until someone with a key card actually goes to see her.

Thoughts?

quasi parcel
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And another: Wilson has a keycard that allows access to MUTHER on Cronus. If he goes straight there (right next to the entrance airlock), can he immediately get the power back on? Any reason he wouldn’t do that?

candid apex
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As for Wilson, there's no reason other than that he has to think of doing so.

quasi parcel
solar trellis
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I ran it that they did have communicators at all times and it worked out just fine.

flat wraith
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In order to keep the air checks a decent threat, I ran it like MUTHER was off until they could restore power either on the bridge or the reactor room. Turning on the ship and communicating with MUTHER before the "dark and spooky" phase of the scenario has run it's course seems like a missed opportunity. Keep in mind that the module says "in response to the PC's presence" - I read that as the GM times it to when it works best in the scenario, but ideally makes it look like the PCs triggered it.

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Regarding the communications - the movie established that they have communicators in their suits. I ran it that they needed to use the intercoms once they're out of their suits because why else would they be marked on the map?
That being said, aside from not being able to instantly call for help when they're alone (which could be fun) I don't think there's any issue if they can all communicate at all times.

quasi parcel
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I might have Wilson’s keycard not work on the Cronus at all. This would make sense as it’s 75 years ago.

Or the door to MUTHER could be unusable until she wakes up, if there’s an advantage to Wilson being able to access MUTHER for his schemes later in the adventure.

candid apex
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Wilson knows they're going to be sent to the Cronus, however, so him being prepared with access codes would be reasonable. As would him not having access, neither will break your game

flat wraith
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If Wilson's card DOES work though, there's more secrets he can hide from the rest of the crew which could help your drama - something to think about.

quasi parcel
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So much to think about in this scenario!!

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How about the Analysis talent that is mentioned several times, but only possessed by the unfortunate Cooper? I just had the idea of giving that talent to Wilson in addition to Personal Safety.

flat wraith
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My best guess is it's a typo or rememant of a previous version. No one needs the talent for the scenario to work.

candid apex
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There's a lot to think about indeed, but it's also incredibly forgiving of mistakes. Just the fact every run seems to produce a different ending is testament to the scenario's flexibility.

flat wraith
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Yeah, this.

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It looks like sooooooooooo much in prep but when you're actually running it you really only need to choose between 2 things: 1. Things are delightfully chaotic and you just adjucate the rules or 2. Things aren't chaotic enough so you pick an event and fire it off. Anything else you get done in prep is just a bonus.

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The things I actually would think about are things not mentioned much in the book:
-what the NPCs think and a very general script on how they react
-how to make the NPC transformations into abominations interesting

quasi parcel
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Is there an explanation provided for:
a) the two dessicated corpses in the Cryo-pods; or
b) what has smashed its way out of the first Pauling Medpod in the Med Lab?

I can’t find anything written in the scenario to explain these.

candid apex
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That's left to the players' imaginations

quasi parcel
candid apex
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It's just set dressing to emphasise how bad things have been in my eyes, I've never had players dig too deeply into this

quasi parcel
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I guess the medpod could have been where the adult neomorph originally came from.

candid apex
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I've never included that one, it might as well have been an abomination 🤷‍♂️

lost dust
fleet patio
fleet patio
earnest robin
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Hey everyone! I’m hyped to run this, but I haven’t run much with pregenerated characters before. Does it ruin anything if I let all players read and choose from all five character sheets? I in general would like my players to discuss at least some secrets in front of each other, help build suspense and anticipation, and not just talk secretly about secret things others might not get to know much of. But I’m debating whether it’s eg bad for all of them to start with a bad impression of Wilson given that his bio also says he’s come to like the crew.

candid apex
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I'd be hesitant to try it, personally. I give short blurbs without secrets, then let players reveal as much as they like and let things play out.

earnest robin
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How have you distributed the characters then? Not let the players choose?

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Or just give them shortened versions of character descriptions?

candid apex
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The last option, short description and let them pick what they think suits them. They're usually happy

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In fact I've yet to hear anything negative from anyone about their character

solar trellis
olive sparrow
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Agreed. Lucas to your most experienced role player is typically a good idea.

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Evan a bare bones description is enough for players to find something they like in a character: "Wilson is a company agent, but don't let that fool you, he is really a great guy." "Davis is the adrenaline junkie pilot" "Cham is the roughneck with a rough exterior and a soft, caring interior" "Miller is the bottom line focused captain" "Rye is the roughneck always looking for an angle to make some extra income on the side"

candid apex
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I've had Lucas as an npc, that also works for a big reveal.

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Plus, dropping hints that he's a synth and watch the players pick up on none of them until the cat's out of the bag is pure joy 👌

solar trellis
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totally

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it's even more fun when it's one of the other players IMO though, especially if the group hasn't played the game before and didn't even know it was a possibility

candid apex
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I'm running it for a group of colleagues at the moment. One of them has played it before so he got Lucas. The rest are completely new to ttrpgs so they're in for a big surprise..

earnest robin
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Alright I’ve finished reading the adventure now and damn it seems deadly, seems there are so many ways to pretty much have everyone killed off… especially if they mishandle the self-destructing ship I guess :p

candid apex
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Players are remarkably resourceful.

lost dust
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also, especially for CotG, the general pacing will usually keep folks fine for at least Act 1. But yes, that's how Alien be

quasi parcel
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I’ve been listening to the How We Roll podcast play through. At around the halfway mark, it’s obvious that the GM has been asking for too many rolls and not giving opportunities to reduce stress. Once you get to 4 stress you’re likely to be succumbing to panic each time you roll, which is no fun except in a genuine crisis situation.

They’ve also only asked for about three air supply rolls in the whole thing, so have relied on failed skill rolls to make tears in the suits.

Other than that, they’ve done an excellent job so far. Great players too.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/how-we-roll-podcast/id968956607?i=1000554065588

Apple Podcasts
‎How We Roll Podcast: 001 - AlienRPG - Chariot of the Gods - A Rude...

‎Show How We Roll Podcast, Ep 001 - AlienRPG - Chariot of the Gods - A Rude Awakening - 15 Mar 2022

solar trellis
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I really do feel that the whole mechanic regarding relieving stress needs to be better spelled out. I've never seen two GMs do it the same way twice. The whole "safe space" thing is just confusing, like, what constitutes a safe space? Is anyone here super-confident of the way they use it?

flat wraith
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I think the specifics are vague on purpose. I think if you really wanted to quantify it it would look something like "If the PCs are above X stress after an encounter or series of encounters, provide a narrative excuse to allow them to relieve Y stress before the next encounter"

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Basically - you want their stress levels to be at a "fun" level for the next encounter. And the game is so swingy that it's difficult to lock down mechanics that would be able to balance out with all the ways a PC's stress can go out of control (or not).

candid apex
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Hmm, I don't know about that Nooch. Managing stress is a player affair. If as the gm you do it for them it'll provide an incentive to just push every roll and never think about the consequences.

You need a screaming pc every now and then to keep them on edge. 😅

clever lintel
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Hey yall, I'm having trouble understanding where the player's access the air scrubber shaft. Any help would be appreciated.

quasi parcel
clever lintel
languid yew
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Hello everybody, I'm planning to run this scenario in person with friends (our first Alien scenario), and I was wondering if there was some sort of issue when handing out ||the two Agendas for the Luca player (like suspicion from other players),|| and if you had some trick to take care of that.dmthink Thanks in advance!

candid apex
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I just handed them out in front of everyone. Wilson gets extra cards too so it's not that extraordinary. I did tell the player in advance of course.

The non-Lucas agenda is just a prompt to play the character believably. You could leave it out and there's no issue.

mortal olive
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I mean, you could always just shove the char sheets into folders, that'd hide a note that explains how Lucas overrides char's normal agenda. Dante's correct though, some players get extra stuff that's not nefarious at all, it's not that big of a deal to just do it in the open.

languid yew
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Okay thank you both, I prefer to have feedback on that but now I know that I can do it without issues 👌

candid apex
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Dante is my character's name in the destroyer of worlds pbp game on this server.. 😅

mortal olive
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Fair enough then.

solar trellis
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Woot I get to run this for the second time. Super excited!

elder anchor
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I had a cool idea for this but I haven't figured out how to make it work yet

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Alien and Aliens both had scenes in which some people entered the alien environment while others watched through monitors

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I thought it would be really cool if there was a way for some players to enter the Cronus without any form of map, while the players on Montero have to give them instructions on where to go

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On the other hand, the Montero players will rely completely on the descriptions from the away team

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For example:

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Montero Crew: "Ok I need you to open the door on the left side, take a left and continue down the hallway"

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Away Team: "Ok headed there now."

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Away Team: "Holy shit there's a dead body."

candid apex
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That sounds like it's not for me to be honest.

elder anchor
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How do you prefer to do it?

candid apex
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I just give them all the maps.

Otherwise I can see the game going like this.

Player 1: "turn into the corridor on you left"
Player 2: "I turn left into the corridor"
Me: describes the corridor
Player 2: "I describe the corridor to player 1"
Etc. Etc.

This takes forever and there's too much repetition of stuff everyone's hard already. There are enough unknowns in cotg even if you have the full map available.

elder anchor
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My plan is to prepare some short descriptions and images and hand them to the away team

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Once the power is restored in the Cronus, I'll just put the map on the table for all to see

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I just like this idea of having two groups of players with limited information

lost dust
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I agree that CotG, at least in the ways presented and that I can imagine, seems to likely play out as Richard described to me. However, there are a couple ways I could see this being fun:

  1. Pre-horrors/troubles revealed: have those watching/guiding be given the "what it should look like" plan, and at first, as a GM, you can roll (truthfully or not) if something is stalking them, or simply nod if what they're told to expect (description, images, etc.) line up. At some point though, the map is wrong, or something is described differently ("there's resin blocking the way...") This can work up to when things unfold. You could have Aliens moments where, say, they have weapons but find out they shouldn't use them else risk blowing up. Changes to the plan are where #1 can be fun.
  2. After reveal/danger. As part of 1, the unanticipated can result in those watching attempting to adapt to help. If it’s specifically to navigate, add a real timer. Regardless, it's important though that both sides still have info the other side doesn’t, and you need to figure out how to minimize making yourself the middleman for flow. The "keep calm..." bomb diffusal video game comes to mind.
elder anchor
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My plan is to limit this to Act 1. Once the power is on, then maps should be available on the Cronus terminals, so it's essentially public knowledge. At that point, I'll place the large map on the table

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I think one of the cool moments will be when they find things like ||the destroyed elevator and the dead body||

solar trellis
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That sounds like a lot of work to me, personally.

elder anchor
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I asked GPT about it

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It said I should put a screen in the middle of the table to separate the away team from the Montero team

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And should provide pre-written descriptions to the away team

quasi parcel
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It reminds me of a team-building exercise where they have you sit back to back in pairs, and one of you has to describe a shape for the other to drawer. The lesson is that it’s incredibly hard to communicate verbally about physical things.

I wouldn’t try this idea, unless I had more table time than I knew what to do with AND my group wanted to try an experiment one night rather than just play for fun.

elder anchor
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I just really want to recreate the scene in Alien where the away team lands on the planet and finds the engineer's ship

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I want that same sense of clautrophobia and limited information

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I plan to only do this for Act 1. Once ||the power is activated and the Montero crew moves over to Cronus||, I'll stop it

quasi parcel
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Edited to make clear I was just expressing my opinion for others to see, not trying to debate you as you seem set on it.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!

candid apex
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Same, I'm always in favour of people trying things 👍

solar trellis
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Has anyone seen a good splash page I could use for Roll20? I've got the standard pic of the floating dude with the light at the side of the ship but wondering if there's something with text or whatnot

grand nacelle
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Kicking off my first session of COTG this weekend. It will be in person. I'm looking forward to it. When I ran Hope's Last Day, it had a bit of frantic feel to it (being a one session adventure). My plan is for this to be a slower build, and to finish the first session with the ||reveal of the bloodburster||. Any suggestions for a first timer on this scenario? (note: I've had a late withdrawal for the player for Miller for this first session).

candid apex
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The beginning is a bit tutorial-ish, with some practise rolls.

Then the Cronus is a bit of a sandbox, I tend to let them explore a bit before waking up the crew. Have Cooper compassion of headaches often and make him say weird stuff from time to time. Give the spotlight to one or two npcs, then kill some off. Don't draw attention to everyone, it becomes confusing and will take up all your time.

It's best to have Cooper pop when part of the crew is away, preferably the one with the flamer. That thing will make short work is the baby neomorph.

solar trellis
# grand nacelle Kicking off my first session of COTG this weekend. It will be in person. I'm l...

Whether you want it to be slower or not will also depend on your players and whether they want it that way or not. But the great thing about this module is that you can absolutely adjust on the fly by having the crew wake up when you want, haveCooper's head blow when you want, have the Montero threaten to blow when you want, have other xenos show up when you want. But let the players drive the action as much as possible and make sure they focus on their individual goals.

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And some groups will, uh, group up for safety's sake, but see if you can get them to split up using the NPCs or whatnot.

solar trellis
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Any idea why there aren't rollable character sheets for the xenos in the Roll20 version of COTG? Unless I'm missing something?

solar trellis
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I did find there is a tab on the character sheet (it's so hidden, geez), but it's not already set up for rolling. Come on, Roll20, we paid good $$$ for this.

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Anyway, new situation/question. My players have chosen Miller, Wilson, Rye and Cham as characters. The people that I think would be the best at Lucas are Miller and Wilson. Now, you obviously can't have Wilson be Lucas but... what do you think about it being Miller? The first problem is that... how is Miller, the captain of the ship for quite a while, suddenly an android on a mission? It doesn't make any sense to me. Also, what story ramifications would that have, especially considering the relationship dynamic between Wilson and Miller seems essential to the narrative?

candid apex
#

Miller is the synth in my current run. It hasn't come into play yet but I think it'll work out fine. Could've been a sleeper agent?

solar trellis
#

So... trying to work out the background logic of this whole thing of even having a competing company's spy synth on board. I assume the background of the story has WY detecting the Cronos. What happens then, they figure that their closest agent is Wilson on the Montero, so they decide to give him order 866? And then how does Lucas get involved? He can't be Miller because Miller is already the captain and that would just be the weirdest coincidence of all time. It's even kind of weird if it's one of the others as they've also been on the ship for a while?

quasi parcel
#

I think WY have detected the ship and sent this ramshackle bunch of space truckers to investigate it, precisely to avoid attention from rival corporations and governments.

They didn’t even tell Wilson before setting off, to minimise the risk of leaks.

candid apex
#

But they failed at that, as evidenced by Lucas being aware of certain details.

quasi parcel
elder anchor
#

I think Cham is the obvious choice.

#

My feeling is that I want every player to have a PC who is fun and offers some color to the adventure. Cham is the least interesting, so making him a traitorous android seems like a great balance

clever lintel
#

I think they had Cham in mind when writing the adventure. He's the only one without a rival.

elder anchor
#

Davis gets to do cool pilot stuff. Rye gets to bitch and do drugs.

#

Also Rye is the character who is most likely to get killed trying to save the helium before the Montero explodes. If she is Lucas, then it would be a real shame to lose her so early on.

flat wraith
#

As a counterpoint to this, Cham is the only flat out "good guy". If you have a player who wants to be a hero, a non-Lucas Cham is the best bet.

elder anchor
#

I think the next best option is Rye

flat wraith
elder anchor
#

I could never let Miller be Lucas, for the same reason that Captain Dallas can't be an android. The captain is a character who is supposed to stress and make really tough decisions. I wouldn't want to confuse that role by adding Lucas to it.

#

Miller is probably going to go to the best RPer on the table, simply because Miller has so much power to move the adventure forward

#

I listened to a couple liveplays, and when they have a great person playing Miller, it adds a ton

#

A well-played captain has the potential to add a ton of immersion and authenticity to the setting, especially if they are very familiar with Captain Dallas's character

flat wraith
#

I've never seen Miller use "Pull Rank" on PCs as often as I'd expect.

#

...just an observation

elder anchor
#

Yeah I haven't seen it much either, but I did see it once

#

I saw a Miller lock Rye in one of the science labs and just leave her there to avoid contamination

flat wraith
#

The best PC moment I ever had in this game and possibly ever was when Rye knew she was turning and tried to convince Cham to leave and he wouldn't. Both PCs. It was almost tear inducing.

quasi parcel
#

Is this scenario playable with only 3 PCs? What changes would you make, and which characters would you do away with vs turning into NPCs?

(I’ve just had two players cancel on me 😞)

solar trellis
#

I played with 3 , it's fine

quasi parcel
solar trellis
#

They chose Wilson, Miller and Davis. Davis was Lucas.

elder anchor
#

I listened to part of a playthrough in which the GM played both Miller and Wilson. I thought it was such a waste that I couldn't bear to watch for more than a few minutes

#

I'm a teacher and two of the big principles we have to keep in mind are student talk time vs teacher talk time, and also teacher-centered classroom vs student-centered

#

It means that generally speaking the students, not the teacher, should be doing the majority of talking and the majority of tasks during a lesson

#

"The person who does the most work in the lesson gets the most learning" Unfortunately, in a lot of traditional classrooms, that means the teacher gets the most benefit

#

I think this applies to TTRPGs as well. As a GM, if you have a choice between playing an important character or giving it to the players, you should always give it to the players

#

And the players should do the majority of the talking in an adventure, This is achieved by giving them situations to deal with, not railroading them. I think the OSR-style of D&D does this really well.

#

When a GM plays both Miller and Wilson, he has basically ruined the game by leaving the players out of the big decision making

clever lintel
#

A player should definitely play Miller. I hope I get one to play Wilson.

solar trellis
#

I tell my groups that Miller and Wilson are essential, and push them towards my best RPers.

#

So my game starting Sunday is going to be something of an experiment... Miller is Lucas! I chose them because the player is my best roleplayer and loves to be devious characters. She'll be great.

candid apex
#

If miller is an npc, you can have her die early on.

quasi parcel
#

I might be missing something obvious, but I don’t see why Miller and Wilson’s goals are opposed. Miller wants money and to stay alive; Wilson wants basically the same things.

Is it just that Miller is the Captain and will try to keep the rest of the crew safe, while Wilson is entirely selfish?

mortal olive
#

That's pretty much it, Dan. It's to drive inter-party conflict.

grand nacelle
#

Ran Act 1 of CotG today. It ended with the death of Cooper and one PC taking a shot with the shotgun at the blood burster. 3 successes was the result of the shot, but the creature got 3 successes on it's armour roll and then fleeing into the ventilation system. And then Mother announced that the Montero was on self destruct.
The players loved the slow build and then the reveal of the threat right before the cliff hanger. Great fun.

#

Rye is the synth for us.

quasi parcel
grand nacelle
#

Wilson actually initiated it earlier but then cancelled the order when he realised that he needed to keep Montero alive a little longer until life support was fully operational on the Cronus.

solar trellis
#

So, when I think about how to RP NPCs I often use movie actors or actual roles in movies as examples. Has anyone done this with COTG NPCs?

#

For example, Rye has always been Mary Elizabeth Winstead in my head

elder anchor
#

I want to do a plug for MS OneNote. In this example, every red pin is a hyperlink to a description

#

Here is an example of a location description ^

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As the PCs traverse the ship and explore new areas, I simply click the room on my map and I can see all the notes

#

I can also write notes for any of the individual rooms

elder anchor
#

I found that it always worked best if I based the fake person on a real life person

#

So if anyone asked for their description or other details, I didn't have to make them up on the spot

#

I'm going to use your idea going forward. It's pretty great!

maiden bluff
elder anchor
#

And it is stored in the cloud

#

Once you have something like this set up, it's extremely easily to learn and run an adventure

#

You can just tour the ship and easily visualize every detail from the book

maiden bluff
#

This would work well for any location based adventure

elder anchor
#

That's how I roll. I'm coming to Alien from OSR

maiden bluff
#

Once we finish heart of darkness, I want to try running my players through gradient descent using alien RPG

#

Speaking of OSR style

elder anchor
#

I've never heard of gradient descent

#

What is that?

maiden bluff
#

I don't know why they say it's inspired by Blade Runner lol

solar trellis
#

Does anyone have that interactable galaxy map, the one that you could search for locations and had travel times & stuff? Trying to find on the official one is a nightmare.

lost dust
#

it might be in #legacy-resource-databank

jovial knoll
#

Just finished the module today and had a blast. I’m curious for anyone else who ran it. How many of your players lived and who were they?

solar trellis
#

lol I am desperately trying to remember but can't to save my life. It was pure chaos though.

twilit matrix
#

Hey! I have a question that I could wing completely but curious to know if anyone had given an interesting description of it: how do you tell the players that the air on the Cronus is stale? Do they use a measuring tool, is it part of their suit etc? I find it interesting that they might not know the exactitude of the air quality and freak out when MUTHUR deactivate the cryos c;

flat wraith
#

The Life Support monitors on the bridge can tell them. I don't think they're meant to know that immediately.

twilit matrix
solar trellis
#

I just said their suit detected it but didn't really know the extent of the issue and that life support on the bridge would give more details. You know, to get them to the bridge.

fleet patio
fleet patio
#

Personally I switched the high-levels of CO2 to high-levels of N, and explained that's the common procedure for when the ship is in stasis, as it would provide for a more inert atmosphere. Makes any ping during this phase more disturbing.
It also disconnects the motes and abominations from the common biological system of gas-ventilation, so the players won't feel cheated if/when a beluga-head starts acting out in space.

#

In terms of what information the players have available from their suit, I looked at the compression suits from Alien Covenant. Adam Savage does a deep dive into all the detail in the actual suits in this video. https://youtu.be/IeO2yamsjiQ?t=278

YouTube
Adam Savage’s Tested
Adam Savage Incognito in the Alien: Covenant Spacesuit!

In this very special incognito walk through Comic-Con, Adam puts on one of the actual spacesuits from Alien: Covenant! This beautiful suit was made by FBFX, and is packed with incredible detail, digital displays, and lighting that makes it look believable on screen. Of course, we can't help but scrutinize every inch of this suit, from the soles ...

▶ Play video
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And I know "that isn't the IRC Mk. 50!" but in my tables it is (or at least closer to it) and the Nostromo suit and its ilk is the Halitel CM-2200 or derivative there of (mainly because of the weird design that doesn't get revisited with the other IRC:s and there being very little usable detail to either the suit or name)

azure harbor
#

I made an 𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗘𝗡 (1979) inspired movie-theater poster for my upcoming session ~ we're in Act 3, nearing the end of the line.

ALIEN_09-28-2023_Send.png
twilit matrix
clever lintel
quasi parcel
#

I just ran CotG for the first time, end to end in one 8-hour session (with a break for dinner). My first time running or playing Alien as well.

It went great - I think the scenario is incredibly well designed and really easy to run so long as you’ve prepared well.

Johns, Wilson and Clayton were the only survivors, all together on the EV. The Cronus is still floating around with a xeno (Cooper’s bloodburster) loose onboard.

They used their story points at the end to spot the xeno and then managed to injure it with ranged fire so it fled before it could attack.

Clayton (NPC) tried to kill Wilson (PC) but failed - yet they still took her unconscious body with them!

Really grateful for the advice received here - especially on reducing stress from time to time, and doing air supply rolls properly.

Next time I will try to remember that ammo runs out when you panic.

candid apex
solar trellis
azure harbor
earnest robin
#

So I'm down to three players for starting the adventure in today's session, and we've distributed characters already... Not sure if I should redistribute... I have noone playing Miller, and that seems fine enough. But noone playing Wilson, won't that take away too much potential tension, drama? Cham seems like a nice enough character, but he probably won't inspire a player to make the game more interesting, or to make things happen, even if I make him Lucas?

#

Advice? Experience?

#

Would be comfortable to have Cham as one of my character, he doesn't have to talk much. But on the other hand, he's close to the others. But GM playing both of the PCs that are in charge?

quasi parcel
# earnest robin Would be comfortable to have Cham as one of my character, he doesn't have to tal...

You could kill off Miller right at the start (How We Roll podcast did this by having him burn to death in a faulty cryopod, before waking up), then Davis would be thrust into the position of acting captain.

But I think you need Wilson. One alternative would be to get a player to take over Clayton early on, as she has more or less the same agenda. The Montero destruct is a good opportunity to lose a player-character just after the Cronus crew wake up.

All that said, my recommendation would be to redistribute. Neither Cham nor Rye has any secrets, so the fact your players have seen their sheets is not an issue.

earnest robin
#

Thanks, that's great input!

solar trellis
#

I also killed Miller in my first run through, though I did so by having her go to the Cronus's MUTHUR right when they first got on board and then go missing. She was found dead not long later, another moment of increasing dread.

azure harbor
#

What year is it during this scenario?

quiet walrus
#

2183

fleet patio
# quiet walrus 2183

Allegedly. 😁 The people at Focus Entertainment really bamboozled the fans by including the Montero in Aliens Dark Descent and giving it a history from 2177 to 2198. Personally, I ain't even mad: might as well retcon the timeline as a way of keeping the cold-sleep a bit shorter, maybe below 57 years to keep a certain someone's record, eh? Eh?

#

Granted, I've no idea how this would mesh with the rest of the scenarios. 😏

quiet walrus
#

DoW and CMOM Campaign 2184 -85, HoD 2185, Fallout & Evac 2186, some discrepancy but Trojan Horse supposedly 2187. A:DD messed up mentioning the Montero. Should probably patch that.

#

She didn't actually hold the cold sleep record. Longest known before irreversible damage and death was 65 years as of 2179.

fleet patio
#

Then again, it becomes a moot point if we consider for relativity. 🤷🏻‍♂️ 57 years from then to now, a few less on the Narcissus, as it probably wasn't going in whatever state all the other ships are going at so as to appear tens of light years away in a matter of days/weeks.

Actually, I guess that would also solved the issue with the Cronus crew: they don't have to have been gone for 70 years if they were adrift using regular rules of physics. 🤔 I think it might even be more tragic if only a few months passed on board.
Edit: Nvm, at 0.04 C, the difference is only 5 years.

quiet walrus
#

Aliens - the novelisation.

flat wraith
fleet patio
flat wraith
#

It's like those questions that occasionally pop up on D&D boards where some asks "what would a magic society REALLY be like?" in order to make a setting. It always ends with "rediculous and non-functional". It's just best to not look at it. Like artificial gravity on ships.

fleet patio
#

But lets not dwell on the matter on this channel, though I've no idea which one would be the better fit. 😅

flat wraith
#

Sounds good to me. Now I have go find a game in the LFG channel so I can Superman time travel and get my dead PC back 🙂

olive sparrow
fleet patio
fossil crown
#

Me trying to comprehend and calculate the timelines

lost dust
#

started running chariot of the gods again last night, ended act 1 with the same cliffhanger i always do. the pic is one of my players in our group chat

image.png
#

(he's playing davis)

candid apex
#

My current players are super slow. 2 sessions done and Cooper hasn't popped yet, nor has the ship exploded.

Wilson got infected with a dollop of the black goo though so he'll turn pretty soon I reckon.

solar trellis
#

What event actually pushes the story from act II to act III?

flat wraith
#

The easiest signpost is the ship coming online. But sometimes things just start going to hell or the PCs blow through their agendas and it just feels right to trip Act 3.

solar trellis
flat wraith
solar trellis
#

Ah, OK

fleet patio
lost dust
quasi parcel
solar trellis
#

All of these make some sense. So, it does feel that there isn't a RAW time for the change in acts. Which is wierd, because the agenda cards actually mention certain events. I feel it would have been good for the module to give a more specific delineation between the acts.

flat wraith
#

I mean honestly, it should probably be after the last of all of the above occurs - which should be pretty close.

open stream
#

Just concluded my first time GM'ing Chariot of The God's and didn't mess up too much 🥳🥳

candid apex
open stream
# candid apex Congrats! How did it end? Everyone seems to have a different final to this scena...

Clayton tried to bribe Wilson into escaping with her and the samples. Wilson attempted to subdue her when she wasnt looking, conflict ensued and they killed her. I used an infected Flynn as the final bbeg because they killed the neomorph. They used the EEV and escaped with some samples. I then closed with the Sotillo finding them adrift and boarding while they were in cryo.

The group enjoyed it so much they've asked if I'll run heart of darkness next.

Pretty pleased as a first time GM 😅😅

solar trellis
#

I'm a little confuesed by the idea that, when the Montero threatens to blow itself up, there's even close to enough time for someone to go back over, load up a bunch of Tritium, and fly the Betty out and to safety. Am I the only one?

#

That said, I just realized that they'd actually started loading the Betty right they woke up, so in my game's case it at least makes some sense.

marble mantle
#

In 'Partial Truths' it's not clear to me if all of the knowledge is supposed to be shared with my players (via Johns), or if some of that is kept back

candid apex
flat wraith
#

You know (and this just occurred to me) the Montero blowing up is very "overt" for Act 1/2. That would make a better transition to Act 3 in my opinion. The Montero MUTHER locking down and maybe some "accidents" happening to a PC trying to leave the Cronus seems more in line to the feel of what CotG is going for. I may consider trying that the next time I run this.

candid apex
solar trellis
#

Pretty sure the Montero blowing up is at the least a 2 to 3 transitional event. Someone's act 3 card says "with the Montero blown up..."

flat wraith
#

Yeah. It’s real tough to mess with the pre-made scenarios when the players have agendas that reference the standard events.
I rearranged things in Destroyer of Worlds a bit to kind of ease in the plot and NPC’s a little more gracefully and typing up 7 new agendas was the longest and most tedious part of it.

solar trellis
#

Typing up new agendas, yeah, that would be work. I think next time I run COTG I might tweak a couple of the more basic ones (Rye, Cham, Davis) to give them more punch.

fleet patio
#

For the one CotG I've ran, I used the Cronus as the catalyst for making the Montero inaccessible: The Cronu's engines can thrust at an angle whereas the Montero is pushed from the rear. This lead to the umbilical getting severed once the engines went online. The Cronus very quickly went hundreds of kms away from Montero, and recalculating and maneuvering a path back would take a few shifts (just long enough for Act 3 to take place).

hexed fractal
#

Just want to say thanks to everyone above who has told about their adventures.

I am doing prep for my one shot (going to shoot for one ~6hour session) and just finished reading everything everyone wrote above. It's interesting how differently everyone runs it and especially how some people do it in one sitting, and others drag it out super long.

solar trellis
#

A lot of it has to do with your players. Some like to RP a lot, and if the party splits up that slows down things a lot as well. Of course, splitting the party up is great so NO RAGRETS

hexed fractal
#

It also seems a determining point is how/when GMs do the mandatory events, I am going to pace out my time and keep them at a steadyish rate to make the one session goal. Basically set a time for each act and gently progress.

Of course, like every plan, it only lasts until contact with the players.

quasi parcel
hexed fractal
#

Thanks! Already shared a brief description, thanks in no small part to the discussion above.

flat wraith
# hexed fractal It also seems a determining point is how/when GMs do the mandatory events, I am ...

I do this for my one shots. I find the best setup is to line up the mandatory (not what the Alien book says specifically but just the few things that HAVE to happen to hour marks (or half hour marks if that makes more sense). Then add in the stuff that can be dropped in between. If the party takes a while on a single event between any of the hour marks you can drop the non-essential ones, whereas if they cruise through it you have plenty of stuff to add in to hit the time marks.

#

For Chariot specifically, I had to drop one planned session and had to do acts 2 and 3 in one 4 hour block. I dropped the Montero blowing up (I just had it shut down), cleaning the air scrubbers, all of the spacewalk fixing (the comms array and engines), and of course the Sotillo. It still went off fantastically with the NPCs getting infected, then the PCs, then the agendas kicking off.

solar trellis
#

I like to stack events with when other shit goes down. For example, in one game two pc's went to the reactor and triggered the abom there and... as combat started i had the montero's self destruct warning go off as well. It feels very movie like and fits with the cinematics perfectly.

flat wraith
#

Yeah totally. One playthrough I had Cooper pop after the Montero self destruct countdown started 🙂

solar trellis
#

Haha that is like accelerating two acts at once, love it

hexed fractal
#

I am currently thinking that I'll save my montero pop until someone inevitably goes "we gotta get out of here" and starts getting on the Montero. If no one does that, I'm not sure it's needed.

solar trellis
#

Yeah. In my recent game everyone was perfectly content with hanging on the Cronus, fixin' stuff, even though there might be monsters 'n' stuff. So I had Clayton go... "maybe we should get off this thing?" and suddenly everyone was like "oh yeah, I guess we could do that" lol. And then they started loading up and I had it go off.

hexed fractal
#

I'm using the foundry module and going to wire up stairs for players to use to traverse while in stealth.

topaz vector
#

does anyone feel the need, especially for new players to the system, to bring in things like the radiation counters and dehydration and all that or do you think it sa bit of a system overload for new players / gms?

solar trellis
#

Those don't come into play much in this module.

#

Depends what you mean by "all that" though, lol

topaz vector
#

true, but i noticed in the booklet it mentions they start with dehydration, and i imagine the cronus crew would too given their situation. then one of the locations in the cronus mentions if they go in they get radiation sickness and stuff. im just wondering if the majority of GMs (myself included) ignore that or skip over it, or am i in the minority

#

i still use the air supply counters as i like that mechanic, and power for the tools. but im not tracking food, dehydration, radiation. that kind of thing.

#

i guess my question is in a cinematic do GMs or players feel like this is something that needs to be included or is it just information overkill?

solar trellis
#

I can't remember about the dehydration part but yeah they would start with that. As for the radiation it's only in the one room.

#

As for your question... it's up to you if you think you can handle it. It's not a complicated rule set so I use whatever I can, but I have some experience.

#

I don't think you miss too much not using them.

topaz vector
#

im still new to the system, it will take me a while to get around all its little elements. but if they dont add too mcuh in a short cinematic run then i'll keep those elements out for now

candid apex
#

I tend to forget about the radiation and then skip it to be honest. Not intentional, but that's what happens

solar trellis
#

It's just in the reactor room anyhow and it's super unlikely to actually have much of an effect on anything due to the shortened time of the campaign.

topaz vector
solar trellis
#

Not in this case. Can't speak for all the scenarios, though.

quasi parcel
topaz vector
#

yeah that was one i considered. and still might for the Cronus crew members

candid apex
#

Cronus crew members will be npcs when they're introduced, and tracking stress for them is more effort than it's worth in my book.

topaz vector
#

i hand them over as PCs when my montero crew die so players arent left out

#

Agent wilson just got his head caved in by an abomination so, its time to flick through the cronus roster for a new character

solar trellis
solar trellis
topaz vector
#

excellent. im so glad im not like, doing it all wrong. its always good to get some outside confirmation of 'its ok, were doing the same thing' 😄

olive sparrow
#

When my Cronus player characters came out of cryo I told them they were all dehydrated and hungry and this would make it impossible to relieve stress. The captain character then said "no one starts work until they've had a healthy breakfast!", which cleared those conditions but gave me the option to introduce them again later when they were stuck on the Cronus post-Montero destruction. Also gave me the opening to tell them if they drank coffee they would start with one stress, which they also liked, especially Davis' player felt that really leaned into their adrenaline junky description.

topaz vector
#

very nice

green tide
#

Has anyone ran COTG as a “speed run” ? Another wards trimmed it down to a single night of play?

fleet patio
#

But if you absolutely must run CotG, consider which theme you want to highlight, because you've only time for one or two: is it the dreadful atmosphere of act 1, is it the paranoia of act 2, or is it the sense of urgency from act 3?

green tide
#

I’ve run it before and it took about 4 sessions (12 hours total of gameplay)

#

I would love to get some of the shoot facade scenarios. Where can I find them?

fleet patio
green tide
#

Thanks

flat wraith
topaz vector
#

yeah if you wanna speed it along cut the sotillo, for sure

flat wraith
topaz vector
#

ooh, true. its hard when youre trying to condense it because that build up of tension can be harder to achieve on a strict timeline

candid apex
#

The start is also a bit of a tutorial with some low-stakes rolls and people finding their feet. Not strictly required, but you'd miss out on the warmup, as it were. Skipping through it is a good suggestion in this case.

topaz vector
#

totally. if the crew know how to play alien that works great to skip it

quasi parcel
solar trellis
#

Personally if you're just looking for a really short module I'd suggest Hope's Last Day... if for no other reason that COTG is so awesome and I'd never want to rush it.

green tide
olive sparrow
#

@green tide The scenarios from the Titan novels are also good one session one shots. I and my players really liked the scientists focused Fallout in the back of the Colony War book. EVAC in Inferno's Fall seems to be a decent Marines one shot. And Trojan Horse (also marines, haven't run it yet, saving it for my CMOM campaign) in Enemy of My Enemy is basically endable at any time because of the premise. For fan stuff in #1047618381899108466 I really like the premise of Shadows, but haven't run it. Seems like it could be compressed to one shot, and it has a great opening for bringing in a survivor character or two from a previous scenario, such as possibly from your player who has played Hope's Last.

green tide
#

Thanks

fleet patio
#

@dense fiber keep CotG stuff off the general ARPG channel.
"Basic Question: Act 1 "the headless man", as the GM, can I have him appear on any deck of the Cronus, or does it have to be Deck A, close to where PC enter ship?"

#

It can be anywhere, it's there to signal something being amiss. Personally I omitted the gun, because shooting oneself is one of the most common ways of suicide and I don't know my group that well: there's a risk this throwaway-shock-gag will ruin a player's game session, if they start thinking of a family member/friend/etc. who shot themself.

solar trellis
#

Yeah, this is why I do an anonymous survey before playing with new people.

#

As for the headless man, yeah, put him wherever you want. The great thing about this module is you can move stuff around both in terms of where it is and when it happens to make the story flow best.

dense fiber
#

Is that the same for Ava 6? I can't find anything in the module how she is revealed.

topaz vector
#

bring them in when you need them

#

and, if you never need them, feel free to leave them right out

fleet patio
solar trellis
restive rune
#

Started running Chariots of the God's with my son. Just the two of us. Haven't read ahead in the story. Going thru it along with him. I'm running Miller and he's running Rye. The other characters of the Montero have become NPCs right now.

We made it thru a short Prologue. Was running Tritium to the USCSS Laurent who was taking that to Sutter's World. But missed the rendezvous and lost in deep space. Failed comtech roll to see if anyone was out there. Received distress signal and introduced to Wilson, who reminded us if we walk away we get nothing. Then crashed into the Cronus because Davis failed piloting roll, attempted to push and went into panic - throwing their pill bottle and emptying it completely.

earnest robin
eager scaffold
#

Hey! I've been GM'ing 2 CotG scenarios and I've been loving it along with my players. I have a question regarding Clayton. ||How would I make her out to be the villain of a game where the players agree to bring back the black goo to Weyland-Yutani?|| Thanks!

candid apex
#

If the players agree, they're really the villains 🤔

eager scaffold
#

True, but there needs to be some opposing force. In that case I guess, the Sotillo it is?

candid apex
#

Lucas I'd think

fleet patio
quasi parcel
flat wraith
# eager scaffold True, but there needs to be some opposing force. In that case I guess, the Sotil...

For what it's worth, it actually doesn't matter. The real "meat" of the scenario are people turning into abominations and possibly neomorphs. Whether they work with or against Clayton doesn't break the game - it's more just a choice for roleplaying variation.

That being said, by the end Lucas should be planning something big to stop it. And if you still want drama, you can have Johns start claiming he's the ranking officer on the ship and start ordering people to do stupid things like going into an air vent alone. You can have the others start creating drama too - the marine (forgot her name) can start getting paranoid and barrade herself somewhere and shoot at people who get too close, and the doctor can get scared and run off into lonely dark places to hide.

eager scaffold
#

Thanks guys for the replies, all very good advice!

severe obsidian
hollow veldt
#

Hi
I just got the starter set and Im going to DM CotG in a couple of weeks. I have a few questions I hope you can sort out for me.
What is the best order to choose PCs if you are fewer players? In what order should you choose characters both from the original crew and the rest of the characters if it comes to that?
Second, since i only have the starter set i dont have a description of talents. Only the starting crew have descriptions of what their talents do, the rest only have its name not what they do. I havnt been able to find a cheat sheet or such, anyone know a good resource?

lost dust
#

I think the only character perhaps worth picking first is Wilson?

candid apex
#

There is a description of the talents in the rule booklet that comes with the set I believe.

#

As for characters, I tend to give my players a quick blurb about them and just let them choose. Worked well so far.

quasi parcel
# hollow veldt Hi I just got the starter set and Im going to DM CotG in a couple of weeks. I ha...

Wilson and Miller are the most important characters (their agendas are opposed: save the goo vs. save the crew).

Next most important is for one of the other three characters to secretly be Lucas, but it doesn't matter which.

3 players is fine. Maybe have one of the spare characters stay behind on the Montero so they're out of the limelight, or else kill them off early so you don't have to worry about roleplaying them yourself.

quasi parcel
hollow veldt
#

Thanks for the help!

boreal tiger
#

If I have the players in Act 2 with the Montero on T-minus 10 minutes and no players killed yet, am I going too fast? This was a 4 hour session which ended with the bloodburster in the vents and the stalker still in the ship.

lost dust
#

I think pacing is hard to say with any certainty.

candid apex
#

You're absolutely fine, I often have no pcs killed in act one.

Careful with your players though 😬

boreal tiger
#

Thanks for the input 🙂

quasi parcel
boreal tiger
quasi parcel
# boreal tiger Oh I didn't see that! Fantastic!

Actually I went back and checked, it doesn't say that. I was remembering this from the Starter Set Rules (p27), about player vs player: "You are strongly recommended to wait until the third and final Act of the scenario before taking such drastic action."

Anyway, the important thing is to keep tension high. PC death isn't necessary for that, and in fact can be counter-productive because a) fear of something bad is usually worse than actual something bad; and b) the players will usually be more attached to their starting PCs than the replacements.

topaz vector
#

Act 1 isn't about killing, it's about building tension. Act 2 is about putting them in danger, but not deliberately killing them. Act 3 is feasting time. Their stress is either gonna keep them alive, or get them killed at that point

boreal tiger
odd turret
#

Finished my second and final session of CotG this past Saturday. It was a great time, even if I had to really think on my feet in Act 3. A long list of my favorite moments:

  • Rye barely surviving an encounter with the Abom on the hull by cutting it's tether and kicking it out into space just as it was about to slam her head into the ship.
  • Johns turning S2 Abom and disemboweling Miller with an Axe while Wilson and Rye looked on. Rye got her 3rd kill of the game shooting him the back of the head with her last bolt gun shot.
  • A replacement PC Reid having to drop trou in the hallway while on watch and coming face to face with the Neomorph stalker while pulling up her pants.
  • ChamLucas being revealed when the Neomorph ambushes the main group and later pounces on him, getting a few good slashes in. He punched the shit out of it making it run away, and managed to save his corporate cover just through being an asset to the team.
  • S3 AbomFlynn ripping out Wilson's jugular as he walked up on him and Clayton packing up her EEV. Reid and ChamLucas managed to get the kill with some good shooting, but saw Clayton (As Wilson's player's last minute NPC replacement) lock the door to her suite and run to the EEV.
  • ChamLucas going full terminator on Clayton's door, smashing it completely with a 3 stunt close combat roll. Clayton got a pistol shot off through ChamLucas' cheek, but our heroic(?) android knocked the pistol out of her hand and proceeded to pop her kidney like a balloon with a hit from his spanner.
  • Davis shot herself on top of Miller's corpse as she started to feel herself go Abom. Meanwhile a ChamLucas who has started to feel something like affection for Rye and Reid unloads the EEV of all materials and sends Rye and Reid off with all Clayton's cash. He then ran to set the engines to destruct and died holding Ava in the Reactor Room as it went off. Group determined Rye was the main character all along.
#

Sorry for the wall of text, but it was damn fun, and the group is itching to do Destroyer of Worlds next in a couple months.

topaz vector
#

sounds fantastic and very satisfying! hats off to you and your crew

odd turret
#

I love that my ChamLucas PC decided to fuse their personalities a little bit. It was completely unexpected to me, but made the ending just so good.

#

It allowed Clayton to take the big bad role, which worked so much better

topaz vector
#

for the most part, Lucas's goals align with any PC that isnt too self serving anyway.

#

the cinematic im running at the moment is super tense as theres so many contradicting and counter productive agendas and its gettin spicy, but with CotG there quickly forms a kind of, 2 team group if everyone is sticking hard to written agenda. but as with all RPGs, players put a little twist on it and make it so much better 😄

odd turret
#

Yeah, I love how divergent and sandbox the story can be in the second half. I really felt like the PCs led me through most of it, which actually worked really well. I think they also preferred the "happy ending", but with some groups I would definitely run it with a more brutal Act 3

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I also think I'd take the advice I've seen before to remove weapons from how the book has it written. The group had far too much weaponry throughout, which made it much harder for me to threaten them with the Neomorph. It worked out anyways with the Aboms, but I would have liked more chance to get some more stalking surprise attacks before having to have it run away.

topaz vector
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the 'happy' ending is entirely up to them. sometimes they get away, sometimes they fight tooth and nail, and sometimes, they all choose to be corpo douchebags and bail out with all the valuables leaving crew to be eaten by xenos. whatever they choose, its all fun 😄

topaz vector
elder anchor
#

Can anyone recommend a very good live play for this?

solar trellis
#

I don't know what you mean by "very good", exactly, but I really enjoyed those by Dork Tales and Rogue Watson. Neither of them had experience with the game so rules-wise they're a little rough but they're fun.

odd turret
#

@elder anchor Definitely Stream Punks: https://youtu.be/b_5XKk0A7bQ

YouTube
AltHaven
Stream Punks Present Alien: Chariot of the Gods

The Stream Punk delves deep into the dark recesses of space this time stepping away from Star Trek and moving into the world of Alien! Chariot of the Gods is a scenario by Free League press. The Alien RPG takes a very interesting look into the very DARK world that is the Alien franchise! Join Eric Campbell, Sam De Leve, Aki, Alex Ward, and Eddie...

▶ Play video
topaz vector
#

i always give them the first 5 minutes to see if audio balancing is good. if one of the mics sounds screamy, or if theres too much in-joke banter early on, im out 😄

solar trellis
solar trellis
odd turret
#

It definitely makes some changes, but I enjoyed the group as a whole

topaz vector
#

oh in jokes formed in THAT game, absolutely. i mean like, in jokes for previous games they ran together or in jokes from their friendship outside of the game, i cant dive in ithout doing homework on their game group and... its a no from me

solar trellis
#

It's definitely a balancing act. One of my favourite small groups is super-in-jokey but I've been watching for like two years so I don't mind. But for sure it can be a massive turnoff... this shit is about making parasocial relationshps, not making me feel like an outsider.

topaz vector
#

^

#

a tough line to walk for twitch live players is welcoming in new followers and entertaining the long-haul fans. but avoiding excessive specific in-jokes goes a long way especially in the opening act of a new game/system/campaign

solar trellis
#

Ya. Ironically, it's one of the reasons I can never get into Critical Role, they just have wayyyyyy too much history and chemistry.

long elk
#

First time gming this. When you play in real life how is “secret” stuff handled?
Like Wilson sabotaging the Montero etc.

topaz vector
#

It's handled by your players being good role players and not metagamers? 🙂 or you can have phones on desk and send a text to dm, or hand write notes. Things like secret agendas are easy enough to handle, but secret actions I guess you gotta choose if you wanna be sneaky on the table or be open and let your players be good un-meta-gamers

long elk
topaz vector
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Often the player tension goes up the more they KNOW but can't act on, and that helps them rp the stress of their characters. So as long as people aren't acting on the secrets they shouldn't know you're fine

solar trellis
# long elk First time gming this. When you play in real life how is “secret” stuff handled?...

As mentioned, using phones for messages works. I often get players to go to a different room if it's complicated (which it definitely can be). That said, I find that with the cinematics at some point it gets unfeasible to hide everything and it just comes out at the table, and when that happens the players need to understand (and be mature enough) to not metagame. And that's an entirely acceptable way to play RPG's, it can be really fun to play a character who knows less than the player does. And the Alien RPG cinematics are kind of built for it.

long elk
long elk
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First session went well. They flew through act 1 in about 3 hours and we stopped just after the bloodburster popped. The only issue seems to be them talking over each other and not listening when other people are talking, maybe 5 is too high a number of players. So I need to figure out how to handle that.

candid apex
#

You could try taking control of it by asking specific players what their character does.

"You all immediately recognise the claxon as the ship's collision warning.

Bill, Davis is the pilot of this ship. What does she do?"

"The ship's umbilical has connected with the derelict ship. Fred, as MU/TH/UR brings up the deck plans of what appears to be The Cronus, what are Miller's orders for the crew?"

long elk
#

That's a great idea, I'll give it a go.

solar trellis
#

I do feel 5 is too high but doable as long as everyone agrees to give each other time. The more players you have the longer the game goes, too (because everyone has their little agendas).

stark zealot
#

Hi all. Quick question. Does the Blood Burster quickly grow to become the Adult Neomorph for later encounters ?

flat wraith
#

For me, (and I recommend it) - the blood burster matures in Act 3 and shows up at EXACTLY the wrong time.

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I also seed early on that there's another neo running around in case they kill the blood burster.

stark zealot
#

Cool. Thanks dude

#

Im running Chariot of the Gods on Roll20 for a few friends in a fortnight. Can’t wait. I have a lot of DM experience with various other systems so im hoping to make it a dark and memorable experience 😊

flat wraith
#

One thing the module doesn't go into alot is what the other NPCs do. You're going to have a scene where they all wake up at once, so figure out ahead of time what each one is going to do. That's alot to improv at once 🙂

stark zealot
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Yeah I did have a think about that recently. They kinda need a purpose and a place to go on the ship

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They probably need to be worried and want to be somewhere safe

flat wraith
#

For me I did:
Johns tries to take over and give terrible orders ("go into that vent alone. It will be fine.)
The marine threatens people with a gun to leave
The doctor runs and hides somewhere (good setup for finding him as a mutant when he does it a second time)
Vickers is mostly quiet and tries to keep people calm while watching to see who is stongest and can be bought.
Cooper I set up to be the guy who takes charge and is the main NPC questgiver - just to make it that much more of a surprise.

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and yeah, I got those names wrong

stark zealot
#

Hahaha

solar trellis
#

lol yeah I was having a tough time there

obsidian solstice
#

Hello, a question about Alien RPG: how do you handle a player who is planning to kill their fellow players and wants to go off alone on the map, separated from the group? How do you manage the meta-game in that situation?

My situation: The player who portrays Wilson in Chariot of the Gods has been bullied by the rest of crew along with Miller after the T-minus event. Considering Wilson's personal agenda now, he is planning to kill the rest of the team and depart alone for a Wayland station with the spaceship Cronus.

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The problem Is the other players they think he Is suspicius

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But now Wilson wants to go around alone and try to find a way to kill them 😂 how can i prevent meta-game ?

#

I'm in Act-I

candid apex
#

Let's see if I understand this correctly.

The Wilson player wants to wander the ship alone and get some sort of revenge for being picked on.

First off, I always promote splitting the party in alien rpg games, as it leaves characters more vulnerable. Not that I pick them off straight away, but the players know their characters are vulnerable and it gets the players in the right mood. Let it happen, but switch back and forth between groups frequently.

Have Wilson be accompanied by someone from the Cronus crew and divert him in a direction that supports the plot. He can get infected in the lab or run into the abomination in the reactor relay room, or maybe he gets into a fight with Reid.

You can't prevent "the meta game". I don't really believe human brains can separate out player knowledge and character knowledge. They can pretend and make odd choices considering what they know, but they'll be aware they're doing it.

Solution: let it happen, but don't let it derail your game. Your players, and therefore their characters, already don't trust Wilson. Consider if what they're doing is reasonable in that situation and adjudicate appropriately.

"I keep an eye out for sudden movements" during an argument: fine.

"I drop what I'm doing and rush 3 floors down to the hangar to stop Wilson from doing something even though he's out of sight and earshot": obvious bullshit. Resolve Wilson's scene first and let him get away, then have meta-gamer arrive when it's too late.

That's how I tend to approach it at least.

obsidian solstice
candid apex
#

Good luck!

solar trellis
#

To some extent you can do things secretly (like by text or something) but eventually the game eventually relies on the players not to meta-game. If you're worried about that, let your players know that the point of the game isn't to "win", it's to make a good story, and dying awesomely/losing can be great story.

flat wraith
#

Also, if you need the nuclear option, I think the book says that if there's PC on PC fighting, whichever one is the "bad guy" turns into an NPC after the first fight is over. Presumbly to prevent the entire game from turning into passing notes. If it gets out of hand you can let them know that's what's going to happen.

#

...but it might just be more fun to drop a neomorph on both sides and watch them learn safety in numbers and see if next time they get over their differences.

topaz vector
#

so far, ive found different groups require different treatment. first few games i ran, i used the 'pc on pc fighting gets resolved and the 'bad guy' becomes my dmnpc' move, but, with my current playgroup so long as the 'bad guy' is following their agenda, we all understand that that is partof the story/film we are making. animosity between the characters works when theres no animosity between players. infact at the end of the games when i do a little 'stars and wishes' segment i find both sides tend to give their stars to the other party with big thanks for helping create that story beat together.

solar trellis
obsidian solstice
#

Good morning, I'm playing this scenario and I'm having a debate with a player about this scene:

Bloodbuster Scene: Death of Dr. Cooper

The player in question (Miller) argues the following thesis... when Dr. Cooper started having an epileptic seizure and spitting blood, he wanted to leave the room and leave the entire crew of the Cronus by sealing the door.

He argues that...

*Sealing the room to quarantine them would have been the most logical choice for a commander, to not expose their crew. It's a bit like when there's a very serious infectious disease. It's not a death sentence, but isolation to prevent further contagion. Doctors on Earth do it all the time, quarantine, you can't say they're delivering death blows. This is always from the perspective of a character who knows nothing about aliens.

Saying that it was a death sentence with the resulting dice roll for empathy from the commander, along with the subsequent rolls you mentioned, implying it was a mercy killing, I find inappropriate. Or rather, it would have been if Miller had known what was about to happen, but he knew nothing about it. So at most, he could have experienced stress posthumously, not for mercy reasons. Sentencing four people to death couldn't be considered a deliberate action given his knowledge.*

#

He contests the fact that I told him to make 5 empathy rolls for the possible death sentence of the Cronus crew.

flat wraith
#

I think those five rolls are excessive. Empathy rolls are used for deliberate action to kill a helpless in cold blood. This situation is kind of a slippery slope because if that triggers an empathy roll, all sorts of PC actions in a horror game might trigger it.
Also - it doesn't mess up the scenario at all if he seals the door. It actually makes it better. The bloodburster attacks 1 person (maybe) and then flees into the vents the next turn and now you have to deal with a neomorph later.

That all being said, I think the module implies that the entire bursting sequence happens in a single turn before the PCs can react.

obsidian solstice
flat wraith
obsidian solstice
#

so no chance of an attacking situation

flat wraith
#

I guess my point is, if it's not going to mess up the scenario it's usually best not to restrict a PC's choices. That can lead to the above type of debate.

obsidian solstice
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he wanted to doge the fight

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yea but scenario says to not kill so fast all the Cronus crew members

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:/

#

and is irrelistic that alien attacks one member kills him and then escapes for no reason

flat wraith
#

I mean, the thing is pretty fragile. My PCs have always been able to kill it before it can escape.

flat wraith
obsidian solstice
flat wraith
#

When you get to a point where you need to debate a PC on some sort of ruling, there's already a disconnect on the expectation of the game. Someone needs to change their expectation in order for it to still be fun, and usually the GM has the most tools available to adapt. That's the way I see it anyway.

#

Obviously if the PC is doing something wildly unbalanced or inappropriate for the game they need to adapt. But this instance is in line with the genre I'd think.

#

And again, the fight he's dodging now is just going to be a bigger one later that most likely he won't have the advantage of seeing coming.

obsidian solstice
#

To me, this issue is a gray area that leaves me with many doubts. Killing off the entire Cronus crew so quickly would mean removing significant pieces from the story and interactions... but I understand that what I did limited the players' freedom to move within the game and their free will.

flat wraith
#

I mean, don't get me wrong either - the "quarantine for suspected infection" line is BS too 🙂

#

He obviously saw something coming wanted to gtfo

flat wraith
#

For that matter, the four of them could probably kill it before they all die too.

#

The one thing these Alien modules lack is a kind of explanation of intent as to why things happen which is tough when you need to improvise. Everything is keyed decently, but the "why" could use a bit more explanation.

obsidian solstice
#

gotcha thx!

#

if any one wants to give me other points of view I will also like to know thx!

candid apex
#

I would never ever ask for five rolls just to adjudicate one action. One roll should do it to be honest, if any.

You also don't have to kill all the crew, once the door is shut nobody can see what happens inside anyway. You can spin up any story afterwards, have the thing gore one npc and bolt for the vents. Perfectly acceptable.

topaz vector
#

To summarize: I think your Miller was meta-gaming to seal the room. I think if you asked them why and they said "to contain the infection" u could counter to say "so you think it's deadly? Roll an empathy roll" singular, just one, for knowingly locking a group in a room with a deadly infection. The 5 was excessive. Chest burster breach is meant to happen very quickly and be shocking, such that players don't get to "d&d" their way out of it with "I run away while it's happening". Its a narrative story, make sure they know it. And lastly ramp up the stress. +1 stress for seeing the new creature. +1 stress for locking your crew inside a room with it.

quasi parcel
# obsidian solstice if any one wants to give me other points of view I will also like to know thx!

I think the main problem here is your assumption about the bloodburster's behaviour. According to the attack table on p40 of the adventure book, it has a 50% chance of fleeing each turn. On p29 it says it will also flee as soon as it takes any damage.

You say the Cronos crew are all unarmed, but between them they should have two pistols, a shotgun and a surgical kit. Cooper is the only one without a weapon.

There is almost zero chance that it will kill all of the crew before fleeing.

Miller's action could have set up an interesting confrontation after the bloodburster flees - the Cronos crew would be pissed off with him.

#

One more comment: in general, if you don't like how a player is behaving, then address it out of character. Don't use game mechanics to try to address the situation.

solar trellis
#

My issue is that said player is ignoring what I think the point of that scene is, which is to shock the characters and the "audience" of this "movie". Doing something rational at that point when NONE of these people know these aliens (if any aliens of this danger level and intelligence) exist doesn't work for me. This should be a moment of existential terror... that's why the module has that mile long descriptive text of what happens, and then, to balance it a little, says to have the xeno run away after a turn of attacking (if it doesn't choose to do so right away, though I just say it attacks, personally).

#

I know this sounds kind of "railroady" but I think the AlienRPG is kind of built for those kinds of moments.

topaz vector
#

to be clear, im on your side here. its a movie moment they metagamed.

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but, if they want to justify 'im doing this for quarantine' thats also a movie moment, and you make sure the consequenses of that happen.

#

the mistrust of the crew after miller sentenced them to die. the failure in leadership from the captain, even though the captain will see it as good leadership, there may be a mutiny on their hands. maybe they try to seal the door, and fail the commtech...

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all in all, yes, they were wrong, but, 5 empathy checks was, also a wrong response 😄

obsidian solstice
topaz vector
#

in some books i read about it diving back into the host after breaching to feed, and i LOVE doing that to really horror the players.

#

especially if the host was a friend

#

first round it dives back in for cover and feeding, second round it breaches again through another part of the body, and leaves a bloody streak on the floor. if they try to attack it it has cover because of the body 😄

obsidian solstice
# quasi parcel I think the main problem here is your assumption about the bloodburster's behavi...

The scene unfolded a few minutes after waking up; Cooper asked for water, Clayton tried to provide as little information as possible, and then Cooper began to experience health problems. As per the manual, it is written that the crew of the Cronus was very disoriented; they too were caught off guard as soon as the Bloodbuster emerged. I don't think they went to sleep fully dressed with weapons during cryosleep.

obsidian solstice
topaz vector
#

you dont have to use that, but i like to. in my games i try much more to chill my players rather than attack them. stress and panic tend to be their undoing more than monsters and guns 😄

obsidian solstice
topaz vector
#

you live and you learn, and the only way to know waht to do in a situation in game is for it to happen

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i dealt with my first amnesia roll last fortnight and hot damn, our play group nailed it

quasi parcel
# obsidian solstice The scene unfolded a few minutes after waking up; Cooper asked for water, Clayto...

Next time you run it, I suggest you allow more time (in the game world) for the Cronus crew to wake up and become functional, before triggering this scene.

Also try to ensure that more than one of the Montero crew is present - but ideally not all of them, otherwise they are quite likely to kill the creature before it gets a chance to escape. Also try to prevent them from having a flamethrower handy (I removed this from the inventory altogether, when I ran it).

As @flat wraith (I think) recommends, have Cooper start giving directions to the Montero crew, which sets him up in their minds as the 'quest giver'. Then trigger the bloodburster, subverting the players' expectations.

Once again, I think you put yourself in a difficult position by thinking that the bloodburster would kill the entire Cronus crew, and that's what led to the disagreement.

I also agree the player is meta-gaming, but that should be dealt with out of character. Maybe they had misunderstood exactly what their character could see, and a quick out of character conversation might have cleared that up and changed their mind about what they were going to do.

fossil seal
#

I was planning to run CotG at a local Con, using three three hour slots to do acts 1,2 & 3, but have just been told that the early slots are all taken. Any ideas on how best to edit it down for six hours?

topaz vector
#

i mean, if you cut the third act entirely, and trim out the non-mandatory events, you can do it in 6 hours easy.

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just remember to pace it well, and neuter the amount of weaponry they have.

flat wraith
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Honestly you don’t need the entire Montero blowing up part or the outside the ship repairs. That should be all you need to cut to make that time.

solar trellis
#

Yeah, the Sotillo section is completely optional (and intended as such). The good thing about this module is that there are lots of ways for you to control the pacing, just make sure to retain the ability to bring in Xeno/NPC threats when you feel it's necessary. Don't worry about keeping track of exactly where they are all the time.

fossil seal
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And just like that I am now informed I can have the extra slot. That gives me the leeway to have some time to answer questions before piling in each session and keep everything. Can't wait.

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I hope this one is popular. Last year I pitched two different games and only one drew any kind of interest on the day.

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Next question: How few players can CotG be run for and still give a decent player experience?

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I've only ever run it with 5 before.

solar trellis
#

Pretty sure I've seen people run it with three. It just means you running more NPCs, or removing them (which I'm not a fan of).

fossil seal
#

What are your viewas on doubling up Players/PCs? Obviously the secret agenda thing won't work as well - maybe only keep one agenda and allow PCs under one Player to share the same agenda?

solar trellis
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Did it myself when I was a player in Destroyer of Worlds, do not recommend. Really breaks the vibe.

fossil seal
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I'm not keen on having the majority of the crew under GM control though. Previous experience in my Space 1889 game is that one can easily end up with GM vs GM scenes which are just boring.

solar trellis
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I get that. That's where you just ("just" lol) have some of the NPCs bugger off to do stuff somewhere else. And you kill them off.

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Or you just remove some to start with?

topaz vector
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NPC's going walk abouts generates alot of distrust/tension, and players instinctively from otehr game systems try to stick together so, there you go, you get to split the party with the perfect way to prevent metagaming. obv ideal to have a full crew of PCs but, in a pinch, use it to your advantage to have control.

fossil seal
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Yes, "NPC PCs" wandering off and maybe answering pages only when they feel like it, or dropping hints like "What? Look I'm kinda busy here ... what the hell was that ? <open channel hiss>" would generate tension.

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They could also pop up as blips on the micro changes in air density detector, raising the possibility of hair-trigger PCs wasting friendlies. This has possibilities.

#

I need to make a few lists of alternative actions, just in case.

#

Wish I had time to make some flashing LED "blips" for the map.

topaz vector
#

bring a old timey rotating flashing light for the table

#

slow spinning so it doesnt set off epilepsy sufferers

fossil seal
#

I'll be in a hopefully well lit area in the main display hall of the Cradle of Aviation air and space museum. Flashing lights of that sort, while a great idea for this game, will cause complaints from adjacent tables running more pedestrian games and will not have the impact they might in an atmospherically lit play area.

#

Since all the materials are sleeved I might pull the trick I used in the 2000 Baltimore Tourney when shaking hands with my 40K opponent (Tyranids, me): A hand well-lubed with hand-sanitizer. Nothing says alien like slime. "What does it feel like?" "Here, let me pass you a tactile clue". Maybe not. It can only be played once to an audience.

#

Hee hee. A sheet of rubber smeared in hand sanitizer would be a great sloughed skin.

topaz vector
#

ooh, if youre in person, i got one little thing i love to do

fossil seal
#

I love the idea of the rotating beacon, just not in this game area. A treadle operated strobe aimed at the ceiling would also work well for late in the game.

fossil seal
topaz vector
#

if theyre talking too long in an area, or pissing around and you need to progress the story / heighten the tension, put your hand under the table, and rap your fingernails across the underside of the table... signifying something in the vents....

fossil seal
#

Love it.

long elk
#

Hi, if my players don't try to leave the Cronus how would you justify the Montero self-destruct?

candid apex
#

You can have it be simply gone when they go up to check and the game is progressing nicely. No explanation needed

long elk
candid apex
#

You'll miss out on the mad rush of trying to fly the space ship away but if there's no need for that having it just disappear will raise some questions

fossil seal
#

New question. Cronus has multiple airlocks. How do you justify only one can be used? I'm not happy with my previous 'explanation' to players and want to de-railroadify this as much as possible.

#

Do you allow players to see the Cronus map before they enter? It should be in their ship's database of other ship classes, no?

flat wraith
#

Two quick things:

  1. That airlock is the only one that isn't busted, so really that's all the justification you need.
  2. Even if they enter a different one, it doesn't break anything. They might find one of the abominations earlier, but that's fine.
flat wraith
#

It shouldn't be run as a dungeon crawl. The scenario benefits from them planning ahead as to what they want to do and then find a route to accomplish that. I even tell them places of interest when I give them the map because it's a little overwhelming all at once.

fossil seal
#

But the top lock is busted. They have to fix it.

flat wraith
#

...or at least, the others are busted beyond repair or something.

#

FYI - my PCs entered on Level 03 and it worked fine.

fossil seal
#

It just says "not without major repairs". I can deal with it, just looking for new ideas on how.

fossil seal
flat wraith
#

One of the nice things about having them familiar with the ship ahead of time (and possibly pointing out areas of interest) is they're more likely to split up to get what they're looking for as opposed to staying together and exploring as a group.

fossil seal
#

I'm going to hand mini maps to anyone in "command central" and anyone who has a motion tracker (last game the players left those behind!) Along with wet erase pens.

#

I'm thinking of adding some sort of "ping" indicator, posdibly a flashing indicator. I want to see if I can reproduce that "Are you sure you can't see it, Dallas?" escalating player panic in separated parties in comms with each other.

solar trellis
#

A few comments on the above conversations... yes, give them a couple of ways to get in. This way they have options and it generates discussion. Yes, give them the whole map, as it also generates discussion (what are we going to do when we get in there?). It's also WAY easier on you. Blow up the Montero no matter what... who knows what the motivation was? Let the party come to their own conclusions.

long elk
#

Decent act 2 session. Miller was headcrushed by the reactor abomination, Davis is down with a busted kidney. Cham just arrived to help and Rye unveiled himself as Lukas because panic was cascading and he was getting nowhere.

Wilson is en route with Johns to help.
Meanwhile Reid is roaming aggressively after going loopy earlier and Flynn is with Clayton somewhere on Deck B chatting.

#

All is ready to go to shit in act 3. 😅

candid apex
#

That sounds excellent. What are the players' responses?

long elk
#

Everyone says they're happy with the game, the Miller player is a bit of a wild one, not paying attention and the rest have to repeat and re-explain many things. For example 5 mins through the Montero countdown she was surprised that it's gonna blow up, and that is like 20 mins of real-life time after I announced it and the other players actively discussing plans etc. This kind of thing. But overall I think they're having a fun time.

I had to implement a more turn based style after act 1 to make sure they all have time in the spotlight and it's much better now.

#

They were all shocked about the synth which was awesome, they had zero suspicions.

candid apex
#

Good stuff!

idle jetty
#

Greetings, fellow enthusiasts!

Started slowly my first game on this exciting scenario, and I would like to ask you something.

Does anyone have a version of the schematic map of Kronos, but without inscriptions? I know that the MU/TH/UR database will have a schematic of this ship, but I really don't want to spoil the presence of an EEV in the Clayton's suite before someone will find it.

quasi parcel
idle jetty
#

Aha, they see it on the map, but all they actually find is a broken suite. And a big closet full of expensive suits and dresses. The only thing untouched in decades. Huh.

fossil seal
idle jetty
#

Well, we are playing on Roll20, but that's a great idea!
To add a little noise and inaccuracy on the map. After all, the Montero isn't the newest ship, his data base could have some flaws.

#

Thanks a lot, both of you.

fossil seal
#

Two statements rfom the opening of CotG that I'm having a little trouble reconciling:

#
  1. The Montero’s bay is currently full of 72 high-pressure tanks carrying 200,000 tons (I read this as 200k/72 or 2777.8 tons per tank).
  2. Each tank is half the size of a tanker trailer.
#

Seems to me someone got carried away with the hyperbole. almost 3Ktons of what amounts to helium in a container "half the size of a tanker trailer"?

#

Also, how in Geiger's name are the crew supposed to contemplate saving the cargo in ACT II if each canister masses 3K tons? The cargo lifter won't handle those kinds of loads and Daisy might be a tad overloaded if they figure a way to drag canisters onto the flatbed deck.

#

I know it's make-believe, but it should also make sense and I want the players to seriously think about saving the cargo as the Montero counts out its last minutes of life.

#

"We have 10 minutes" "How many 2.7 Kiloton containers do you think we can move in that time?" "Forget it! It's suicide to try."

quiet walrus
#

Ignore the numbers. Just follow the No Money event description in Act 2. The PCs should be acting, not number crunching.

fossil seal
#

PCs should be immersing. Some Players care about this stuff. Ask me how I know this. 😄

candid apex
#

Just switch off artificial gravity, makes it easier to lift. Failing to roll means can't stop it floating into something in time, leading to damage.

solar trellis
fossil seal
#

I've run it once. Came up almost immdiately.

#

I can of course work around it. My main point (were I really making one) is that perhaps if one is writing a scenario with lots of descriptive fluff that may form part of the plot, maybe dial back the awesome to manageable levels.

fossil seal
candid apex
#

I stand corrected I guess. 😅

This has honestly never come up when I ran it and I've done that 3 times now. I'm surprised it does with other people but it just goes to show we can't rely on anecdotal evidence.

solar trellis
#

Both of my groups immediately assumed they couldn't get all of it across, but understood that a lot of money was involved and wanted to give it a shot.

#

Side note: both times, I mentioned that after they awoke from hypersleep, one of the work tasks needed to be done would be to go down and prep some of the cargo to be ready to move as soon as they docked. We had a full shift of activity on the Montero just to get a "vibe".

#

But I do agree that it would be good for the module to give a bit more advice on that regard. There are a few bits in the module that are like that.

fossil seal
fossil seal
flat wraith
#

I did the same thing. After they woke up I told them what their job was, and what they were expected to do when they get to Sutter's World. I gave them that prep before they ate and told them they were also dehydrated to kind of establish they have choices too.

#

AND before the meal was over MUTHER pings the captain to add to the choices.

fossil seal
flat wraith
#

It worked well - better than taking them by the nose and telling them where to go.

fossil seal
#

Of course, someone on he bridge crew has to have the opportunity to say "That's not our system". 😄

solar trellis
quiet walrus
#

Ferro - or Ko, Reid or Hunslett. They're all pretty much the same.

solar trellis
#

Ferro. Who are the others?

quiet walrus
#

Ko is the dropship pilot from Fireteam Elite, Reid from Colonial Marines (game), Hunslett from Dark Descent. I suppose I could also throw in Maryland from Colonial Marines (DH comics).

quasi parcel
#

@worthy axle answering this message here to allow spoilers: #gm-studio message

Yes I played the other characters. There are five crew on the Montero, available as starting characters, so two were player-heroes, the other three I ran as NPCs.

The players made all the choices. One was Miller, the Captain, and the other Wilson, the Company Agent, so it made sense for them to give orders to the others.

One NPC remained on the Montero, so that was easy.

The other two were ordered to do something very dangerous around the end of Act 1, and died.

The GM anyway has to prepare to run a further 6 NPCs who appear part way through the scenario. But by then it's quite likely some of the starting PCs will be dead, so a player can take over one of the NPCs (this is completely expected in the scenario design, and adds to the fun).

There are a further 4 NPCs who can be dropped in near the end as an optional event. Only recommended if the scenario is going too smoothly (for the PCs, that is), or alternatively if you're running out of characters due to many deaths.

worthy axle
#

This is the confidence i needed to run it tbh

#

Ill defs give the one shot a go whenever im done running cyberpunk

quasi parcel
worthy axle
#

50 💀

#

Bro ive done 8 sessions of cyberpunk and its probably like 30-40hrs all up

#

50hrs is insane

candid apex
#

Yeah I don't see how that happens either, but if that's what they report their group must be pretty special.

royal zodiac
#

I'm in one of these groups, Chariot took us around 50, Destroyer took us more than 100h lol
It really depends on the group's playstyle, in our case we really do not understand how some scenarios can be run in under 20h or less, it just seems not feasible to us no matter how we approach it

candid apex
#

That's interesting, you must have a completely different gm / playing style than me, or must people I know. What do you do with all that time?

royal zodiac
candid apex
#

Ah that might explain something, I tend to jump around a lot when gm'ing to move things along.

royal zodiac
#

We have trouble doing that, it just doesn't feel natural to us whenever we try it, that's one of our big problems actually cause we do tend to linger a lot more than we should
Timing is the one thing that fucks us everytime, like when i'm the one gming and i think something will last let's say 1h, it can end up lasting 20 min or it can end up lasting 3h, and there's no telling really lol
Same when it's our other GM, it's the one thing we really struggle with as we don't want to feel like we are rushing anything

candid apex
#

It'll come down to specific habits to change that. It's very tempting to say "just do this" but that'll likely end up being nonsense.

That said, when someone is working on the air scrubbers, for example, I'll have other players declare one thing their characters are doing, resolve that and then fast forward to when scrubber guy is done.

#

Whether that'd work for you I can't tell.

royal zodiac
#

We try to do that too, but it doesn't save us much time in the end; usually what will happen is that we will roleplay talk during this, or other players will just go and do something else elsewhere which means moving the tokens etc etc
It's a slow process lol, we really just have a hard time skipping over parts without feeling like we're rushing, and right now since i'm not the one GMing it's also quite complicated for me to try and "fix" this

candid apex
#

Yeah that's fair enough, it's not really your job either unless it annoys you to the point that you want to quit.

royal zodiac
#

It doesn't annoy me to that point no thankfully, but it's true that in this scenario we're playing specifically, there has been points where i was really like "this is taking way too long", but i'll bring this up to the gm once the scenario is over so it doesn't cause issues
Anyways i'll leave this topic here most likely as we've drifted quite away from chariot specific talk now lol

solar trellis
royal zodiac
quasi parcel
#

The shift where they're fixing the air scrubbers must have been fun. 8 hours of banter.

royal zodiac
#

no 8h of banter for sure lol

#

it was our very first scenario, something like 2 years ago now, so things were different lol

fleet patio
royal zodiac
#

Complete with flamethrower cleaning, toxic spores included

solar trellis
#

Do the suits used by the PCs impose any penalties?

fleet patio
solar trellis
#

That's what I thought, just confirming. But there are suits in other adventures that have them I think.

fossil seal
edgy cradle
#

Maybe a silly question, but before muthur is fully booted up on the cronus, is there enough auxiliary power for doors to open, or do the characters have to prybar them open?

fossil seal
#

Whatever works best with your players at the time. Do they need a challenge above and beyond the next set piece? Crowbars. Does a player need a moment in the sun? "Hudson, run a bypass". Is time getting tight? Hey, this one is still working.

quasi parcel
edgy cradle
#

Thanks for the responses all!

ocean flower
#

So after I drove a while to meet up with friends to play I realized I left the personal agenda cards on my desk at home. Could anyone send me pictures of them? I would be eternally grateful.

olive sparrow
fossil seal
#

Well that was fun. 2 sessions to TPK with ||Clayton and Flynn adrift in the exec escape pod, Cham a lone survivor but having breathed "soot" and been present when Luke was smashed to bits (including the three vials of Black Goo he had stashed in his flight suit) I personally don't rate his chances especially with an abomination and a neomorph loose in/on the Cronus - which is heading for Earth.|| Good game.

candid apex
#

gg

solar trellis
fossil seal
solar trellis
#

ah OK lol, fair

fossil seal
#

I thought I'd maybe run the damage system incorrectly, but going back over the sessions it turns out that every crit was insta-kill. The Neomorph had a nasty habit of shrugging off firearm attacks then either biting throats or impaling with its tail. || Lucas was taken out by the Abomination using its dreaded fist pounding followed by massive system damage/shut down, though he had his arm torn off the previous round, giving the game away in a very satisfying "Ash is an android!" moment.||

candid apex
#

Some people reroll doubles on the attack table for that reason, but this way it's quite scary. Nice!

white tundra
#

So I have a question. I have a game planned for Sunday where we will be starting CotG. The player who who selected Rye (who I handed the ||Lucas|| card to) dropped out and we can't find a replacement. Do I

A: Hand the ||Lucas||card to another player and have Rye be an NPC/backup PC

B: Keep Rye as an NPC and have her still be ||Lucas||?

Or any other options you can think of?

candid apex
#

I've had Lucas as an npc and it gave me a lot of narrative control. It's also great in the hands of the right player. Either is fine, just don't give it to someone passive.

quasi parcel
white tundra
fossil seal
flat wraith
#

I'd like to see an all secret andriod run of it. It wouldn't be a great game, but it would be hilarious 🙂

white tundra
#

(participated a lot in pre-game chats, etc)

candid apex
#

Cham then

white tundra
#

In the foundry module, is there a way to designate ||Lucas||?

fossil seal
#

Single-player handout?

white tundra
#

there's nothing i need to do mechanically?

#

So when revealed they would just manually raise their stats?

#

If that's all, i'm fine with it. I just wasn't sure if there was something I needed to do GM side mechanically to designate it in the system

fossil seal
#

You could make up a whole new character sheet but why bother? ||Let the player edit his/her own sheet to reflect changes when they decide to out themselves (or, as happened in my last game, have heir arm ripped off).||

candid apex
#

It's fine to discuss spoiler-ey details without tags in this channel I believe. That's what it's for.

white tundra
#

Session 1 last night concluded with Davis getting his arm and leg ripped off by the abomination and getting infected by spores. They just took him to the med bay in critical condition

candid apex
white tundra
#

"you see a space suit in a disheveled pile on the ground. Next to it is a shotgun. The arms of the suit appear to have been stretched somehow, at least as far as you can see. The helmet appears to have been misshapened as well and looks to be fogged up"

"I go to wipe the fog away from the helmet."

#

...

candid apex
#

You love to hear players say that

edgy cradle
#

Once the Cronus repairs are complete and Muther sets a course for Earth, how long would it approximately take to return to Earth? I know one of my players is going to ask.

candid apex
#

The ship has an FTL rating of 16 (not given here but in the BBW book), meaning it takes 16 days to travel 1 parsec. It's not clear where exactly they are, but lets say it's about 10 parsecs.

That means travel time will be 160 days.

Feel free to add or subtract from this, the drive may not be at full capacity or they might simple be at a different distance, but it's roughly that I think.

edgy cradle
uncut maple
white tundra
#

Session 2 complete. Wilson dead, floating off into the void of space somewhere after the destruction of the Montero sent him flying in a space suit. Davis is now a one armed one legged abomination locked in the Cronus medbay. Rye is a catatonic vegetable.

candid apex
candid apex
weak lantern
#

Anyone got any good ideas for random tasks for the characters at the beginning? Just when they wake up and they have jobs to do

candid apex
#

Check systems, check up on cargo, fix random minor component damage from the table in the CRB.

quiet walrus
#

Make the damn coffee.

fossil seal
# weak lantern Anyone got any good ideas for random tasks for the characters at the beginning? ...

from my own list given the Captain at the last con game: (All Roughnecks): Check Daisy is ready for work, check the cargo is secure for transfer to Sutter's, and we have a leak alarm so check whether it is just a bad sensor or the paycheck bleeding away. Oh, and no steel tools, and the smoking light is OUT unless it turns out to be a sensor after all. (Davis) Run a systems check on all flight-deck avionics. No more sudden surprises from the Monty please. (Wilson) Get in touch with Sutter's STC and get us booked on a fast trajectory through controlled space, and find out how long until we have to slam on the brakes for orbit. (Captain checks out command functions, looks for messages from MUTHUR). The players enjoyed this chance to go for a spin in heir new characters and did some quality scenery chewing.

#

And this was how ||Wilson saw the "sensor ghost" and Davis was ready for the Cronus close approach||.

solar trellis
maiden bluff
#

Ran Act 1 tonight for newbies. Two PCs killed by the beluga-head in the reactor relay room.

olive sparrow
#

Heck yeah! That reactor room abom is a deadly surprise.

flat wraith
#

Is it just me or does the reactor abom roll more head crushes than the others?

candid apex
#

Mine tried to rip Wilson's arm off twice last run, and failed both times. 😢

fleet patio
#

Mine ripped Reid's arm off. Lucky for her, it was her synthetic arm so the player didn't bleed out. 😁

edgy cradle
quasi parcel
quasi parcel
spiral igloo
#

Thanks for the amazing tips in this discord!
I ran our second session of it yesterday and it was a blast thanks to the explanations and tricks I learned from you.
Since we’re playing it with only two players a tpk was nearly inevitable and both of them got killed while doing the repairs in act II. Incredible how deadly the cinematic scenarios are. I also went pretty rough with the many npc and both of the players refused to play one of the remnant since I told them there might be another option (crew of the sotillo)
In our second session they played as a slightly modified Pin and Bolaji with the objective to retrieve whatever the Montero was after.
It was a huge chaotic sess with the mutated crew of the montero, two neomorphs, Lucas and Clayton against them but they truly managed to leave with a probe of the black goo.
We had so much fun with that amazing cinematic!
Thanks again to all of you!

#

I even painted some cover art for it

maiden bluff
spiral igloo
fossil crown
somber seal
#

Poll for no reason in particular:
Who is the most common in your experience to be Lucas?

Rye🇷
Wilson🇼
Miller🇲
Cham🇨
Davis🇩

uncut maple
#

Oh man my group just had session 2 last night and although they’re having so much fun they have made it very clear that I am evil (affectionate) for putting them through this lmao

#

And I’m sitting here thinking “psh no one’s even died yet, you haven’t even encountered the Abominations”

candid apex
#

Glad they're enjoying it! I can understand their responses though. Suspense is king, once the monster comes out to play it is often broken.

Questions such as "are you sure you don't to push that?" when a player gets one or two successes on an opposed roll often cause more worry than having a xeno drop from the vents in front of them and the next course of action becomes clear.

uncut maple
#

Ooooo yeah that’s a good one, I’m making sure to pepper questions like that around just to raise their irl stress lmao

#

I loved their reactions every time I asked them to make an air roll

candid apex
#

This game is great at transferring some of the character's stress to the player

dense ruin
#

Howdy folks. I have a question about the logic of CotG's story. The background for Wilson seems to indicate that the Montero's crew have been together for a long time (at least 6 months): why would Lucas have been installed into that ship's crew? They're just an average space trucker group, right?

Did a miss a plot point regarding Lucas?

uncut maple
#

It’s likely that Lucas replaced a crew member, disguising themselves as whoever they replaced.

The way my Lucas player is swinging it is that Rye was an ally to Lucas’ organization and actually died way before joining the Montero. Lucas took on Rye’s persona both as a cover and to help support Rye’s brother

#

This’ll also lead to some interesting interactions once it’s revealed that Rye has been an android the entire time, particularly with Cham I think

#

Also unrelated but who do you all turn into an abomination from the Montero crew? I’m thinking of Miller or Davis, at least at first

dense ruin
#

Davis is the risk taker, so I suspect it'll be them. But that's my plan: let the player actions determine who gets... interesting.

uncut maple
#

True true

#

I’m definitely gonna turn Reid into an abom first, she’s too much of a heavy hitter and I feel like she’ll make things too easy for the players if she’s kept alive :)

flat wraith
dense ruin
#

Someone else referred to the NPCs as 'temporary hitpoints,' which I liked 😀

flat wraith
#

You'll be able to figure it during the game. I have them roll stamina in the open but I roll the infection behind the screen. I use that more of a guideline than anything else.

flat wraith
uncut maple
#

Oh yeah I was thinking about that ahead of time, I meant to write myself some notes but the adhd hit so I just have mental images of all the npcs

#

Yeah that cryo scene was definitely a bit rough at first for me even with prep cause this is my first time running any game, but my players thought I did well

flat wraith
#

Yeah, it's a bit of a crash course 🙂

uncut maple
#

I’m definitely having to think on my feet, I was expecting some nice combat with Cooper’s bloodburster but on Davis’ first turn (she had second initiative), she stepped forward and torched the little guy and rolled super well, so I had him skitter off into the vents to lick its wounds

flat wraith
#

Yeah - the bloodburster never was really dangerous whenever I ran it. They always killed it. I tend to seed the existence of the other neo with a broken cryobed, frozen slime on the vents, ect... so I can pull it out in Act 3.

uncut maple
#

Ah that’s some good thinking, I wasn’t planning on having that existing neomorph on the ship cause I figured with the one bloodburster and all the abominations they’d already have their hands full

flat wraith
#

I also like to keep in my back pocket the Sotillo crew getting infected in case I need something else because they're doing so well.

#

ALSO - Clayton has that talent that redirects attacks. I like to have her get attacked first, and then she uses that when a PC witnesses it 🙂

uncut maple
#

My Wilson player is so excited to use that talent, he’s leaning hard into playing the corporate shill

candid apex
uncut maple
#

Yikes

solar trellis
solar trellis
uncut maple
#

Also space does weird things to people, who knows why your crew mate suddenly developed a couple of quirks

solar trellis
#

Yeah, these are all possibilities, I just haven't seen any evidence of this kind of thing happening so far in the canon. But it's absolutely a possibility. I would rather say that Lucas has been on the crew as said character the whole time, it's just a lot easier. That it doesn't work perfectly (as noted by OP) is kind of annoying, though, and something I noted (but my players didn't) the three times I've run this.

uncut maple
#

Yeah you definitely bring up a good point

#

And yeah like I said before that’s kinda what my Lucas player is doing, the Montero crew never knew the real Rye

solar trellis
#

Haha, in my games there never were real "Ryes" (or Davis, I think, in one game), they were always constructed specifically for this purpose. Interesting how we all provide our own narrative backfill when the module doesn't quite specify.

uncut maple
#

Thinking about how in last session, Davis used a Mobility stunt to gracefully pirouette and dance around all the egg sacs in Sci Lab 1 to get the keycard, and the only person who witnessed was Rye using the motion tracker

maiden bluff
#

Something funny happened in one of my games tonight. Last session, one of the PCs died so I needed to replace that PC with an NPC from the Cronus. As it happened, the company rep character got to choose who came out of cryosleep first and thus who the other player was going to play as. And she chose Cooper 😆

#

He lasted about 10 minutes before his head popped and my poor player had to get a third character

candid apex
#

That made me giggle out loud in the office. And my colleague / player who's sitting next to me. "he picked the guy with the headaches..?"

uncut maple
#

How’d the character die before the Cronus crew woke up??

topaz vector
#

funny game that alienrpg. stress can get you killed quicker than a GM can...

clear idol
#

I have a question here as I am looking to use this scenario to introduce the game into our group but I feel like the rest will be disappointed if I didn't use the actual Xenomorph. Does anybody have any experience with replacing the Prometheus/Covenant stuff with normal Xenomorph stuff? And if so what did you change?

topaz vector
#

keep reading the scenario, theres a xeno

flat wraith
topaz vector
#

ah true, by wording yes. i mean, ||adult neomorph is pretty close. ||i suppose if you never name it, and just describe it, they're gonna fill in the blanks for you. but, yeah if you really want them to face a xeno-like threat, you can kick off the act 1 event 'hunter and prey' at any time

Hunter and Prey
||An adult Neomorph (see Stage V, Adult Neomorph) hibernating on the Cronus is awakened by the PCs arrival, and starts to stalk them. It could attack at any time. This event can also occur during Act II or Act III.||

#

i liek to use this if they have any hiccups attaching the ||umbilical, and as they go through the umbilical toward the cronus, have them hear a scrambling along the OUTSIDE of the umbilical, across from the cronus to the montero.||

#

(spoiler tagged incase players are new)

flat wraith
#

Okay just wanted to be clear so the OP wasn’t flipping through the book for something that isn’t there. He specifically said replacing the Covenant stuff so Xeno-like doesn’t cut it.

topaz vector
#

yep, got it, i was wrong

clear idol
#

Yeah, they aren’t so fond of the last 2 movies so playing an alien rpg without the alien might not go down as well

#

I do like the scenario, hence I want try it with the alien instead

solar trellis
#

Just my input: I can't see how you'd use the xenomorph (original alien) in this module. You'd have to rewrite the whole thing. Why not just play another module, like Hope's New Day, or Fallout?

#

COTG is too good of an adventure to mess with, IMO

flat wraith
#

I agree with the above mostly, but I can see where there's a specific set of circumstances where you'd want the quality/length of this scenario but also a xeno for the full experience (ie, you're not 100% sure you'll be playing this again with the group).

What you might want to do is run it as it's written, but leave in the science module behind a locked door. When it opens (ideally in act 3), have a few eggs with one open and a dead, chestbursted, half-frozen scientist. That gives you a xeno and a few facehuggers for the finale. You could also leave some notes from David about "discovering LV-1119 and re-creating his Shaw experiments" to tie it to the movies' fiction.
So you get your xenos at the end exactly when they're not expected because you have Covenant stuff. It should be a decent setup.

#

FWIW - you can't do this scenario without the Covenant stuff because so much of it has to do with Abominations and the uncertainty of infection. The entire danger revolves around the infectious air and the infectious cure.
And lets be honest - Covenant was actually a pretty awesome movie right up to the point where David showed up. This has neos without having David so it's not all bad 🙂

clear idol
#

Some good points

#

Hmm, I guess it would be better to pick a different scenario then

flat wraith
#

For as "basic" as Hope's Last Day seems on reviewing, it's actually a really good Alien scenario for meeting expectations. Especially if you put some thought into how you present the encounter (the details that make it creepy)

#

...and you can do it in 1 session, which usally is before people get bored with it so you could do Chariot of the Gods for the next session(s) as written having already filled your xeno quota

clear idol
#

Yeah, that scenario looks better yes

solar trellis
#

Yeah, I really do think HLD is the best introductory scenario becuase it's a) simple and b) so closely related to stuff the players already know that they aren't overwhelmed by context and can focus on learning the game.

#

I adore COTG and think it's one of my favourite adventures in any system but it is pretty complicated and relies on processing a lot of background/historical information.

clear idol
#

Noted

#

Thank you all kindly for your advice

elder anchor
#

As a GM, if you had to play one of the characters, which would you play and why?

uncut maple
#

In the campaign I’m running rn, I kept Cham for myself because his agenda is the simplest and basically boils down to “help everyone else”

elder anchor
#

Cham could ||make a great Lucas|| because he is so nice

#

I want to give the most interesting characters to the players

#

I’ve listened to some live plays where the GM took Miller (and sometimes Wilson as well) and it blew my mind

uncut maple
elder anchor
topaz vector
candid apex
#

This is the channel dedicated to discussing chariot of the gods, you don't need to use spoilers here.

elder anchor
#

Does anyone have any supplemental resources they use for Chariot of the Gods?

#

I’m currently putting together a PPT to help players learn basics of the game

#

It follows up with the basic exposition for Chariot

elder anchor
#

I’m always looking for cool supplements like more maps, videos, role playing materials, etc

topaz vector
#

if you play in person, name badges, dossiers, table lighting, things like that. i love soundboard apps for common sound effects / ambient backing noise

elder anchor
#

I basically took all the exposition and am presenting them in a PPT, including star maps, equipment, Montero layout, character introductions, etc

topaz vector
#

just like a classic boring yellow manilla folder, but with their character sheet, agendas made bigger and fleshed out a bit, act agendas for later in envelopes to be opened when ready, and any starting equipment plus details. you can add your own fluff in side like postcards from home or whatever

elder anchor
#

I’m a little confused about the vaccinations

#

It says they are 95% effective

#

Does getting the shot guarantee that you will become an abomination?

#

Or is it only a 5% chance?

uncut maple
#

It’s a “dealers choice” kinda thing. It’s up to the GM which of the NPCs turns

#

For the players, it recommends to have them make a sickness roll

#

You can make it a 100% chance that everyone will turn eventually, or you can pick and choose

elder anchor
#

I’m guessing the way to balance is it to get a variety of deaths

#

Some people become abominations, others are killed by them

#

And some are killed by the neomorphs

#

Use the transformations as a volume knob for tension

uncut maple
#

Exactly

#

If things are slowing down or people are getting a bit too comfortable, amp things up with a transformation or two

elder anchor
#

I gave the PDF of the adventure to ChatGPT 4 and am getting a lot of good advice from it

#

I wasn’t sure how to incorporate the Sotillo

#

GPT suggested that the Sotillo receive updated orders to steal whatever scientific materials it can from the Cronus

#

It also suggested that a Neomorph sneak into the Sotillo

#

In addition, it clarified many smaller details I wasn’t sure how to handle, such as the broken outer airlock on the Cronus

#

It even gave me a word bank to help describe the corridors of the ship in a spooky manner

flat wraith
flat wraith
# elder anchor I wasn’t sure how to incorporate the Sotillo

Remember to NOT decide ahead of time weather to use the Sotillo or not. You'll know if you need it because you'll be either out of living PCs or out of monsters for Act 3. If there's no problem, don't use it. If there is, you either have new PCs or new NPCs to turn into bloodbursters.

flat wraith
solar trellis
topaz vector
flat wraith
topaz vector
#

aaaah true true. man, ive run it so many times with so many different occurences i forget whats in the actual booklet for it these days 😄

fossil seal
elder anchor
#

Does anyone have any good resources for ||the Montero’s countdown to destruction?||

uncut maple
#

I’d recommend not setting a strict 10 minute timer, but rather verbally counting down at opportune moments to stress out the players and make sure they know time is running out

#

For example, anytime the players were discussing things too much during the countdown sequence (e.g. who stays behind to pilot, whether or not to try and save some of the tanks), I’d just loudly say “X minutes remaining”

flat wraith
# elder anchor Does anyone have any good resources for ||the Montero’s countdown to destruction...

https://youtu.be/EO9x0y5lqD0?si=fcUwqWn0cWvPU0nx

YouTube
7OXICiTY
#ALIEN - Nostromo destruct sequence

The "Nostromo" destruct sequence animation from the 1979 film ALIEN by Ridley Scott.

This video is a homage to ALIEN and I hope you enjoy its emergency, the sound scape is an enhanced version of a video found on YouTube by user jamesuk9999 (link below) and the video was recorded from a PC running a program I designed which also runs on an Andro...

▶ Play video
elder anchor
#

In a liveplay I heard an actual recording of the “cascade failure” line

#

Looking around for it

uncut maple
#

How do you guys handle the air scrubbers? At the end of last session one of my players started to go at them with a flamethrower to get rid of the egg sacs, should I still make him roll? Should I leave him there to work for a shift while the other players do other stuff?

elder anchor
#

As long as the character has any ranged combat skill I wouldn’t make them roll on it

#

Fixing the air scrubbers is one of the three basic conditions for getting the Cronus and crew back to Earth, so I wouldn’t gloss it over

#

The others being fixing the reactor (both inside and outside) and fixing at least one piloting console

flat wraith
# uncut maple How do you guys handle the air scrubbers? At the end of last session one of my p...

yeah, I think "I clean the air scrubbers" is enough. If you look at the writing of the area, it's not that cleaning them is the challenge, it's that it's a great place for an ambush by a neomorph. You might tell the PC it takes a shift or so to clean them, cut to the other PCs, and when you loop back to this PC say the shift is over and either the air scrubbers are clean or ask what that slime that just dripped onto their shoulder was...

clear idol
#

Hahaha yeah…

#

Run

uncut maple
#

Alright thanks for tips guys! I think what I’ll do is let him flamethrower everything to kill the egg sacs and then tell him the filters still need to be cleaned or maybe replaced. If I saw they need to be replaced I could have him trek to the vehicle bay to get some from the engineering storage

elder anchor
#

Though the Montero’s replacements might be too new and won’t fit

uncut maple
#

Well unfortunately the Montero is long gone at this point lmao, we just finished session 4 about 20 mins ago

#

The Montero blew at the end of session 2

#

So far Reid has turned into an abomination (and was subsequently killed) and Davis’ head was crushed by the reactor room abom

#

So fun times

elder anchor
#

In that case, I think I’d create a risk reward scenario:

#

The scrubber can be fixed relatively easily if they can find a replacement filter on the Cronus

#

But obviously there are risks involved there

#

Without the replacement filter, the only filter can be repaired, but will take a shift of work

uncut maple
#

No yeah they found some replacement air filters in the engineering workshop down on Deck D. I still had it take some time to replace tho

candid apex
#

There's no need to endlessly complicate things though, at some point a job is just done. 🤷‍♂️

hard oriole
#

Reading this I think neatly summarises my problem that like the movies the plot is based on, it relies far too much on incompetence and stupidity to work

mortal olive
#

It was...a learning experience. I think I probably made CotG too sandboxy and just let my players have too much free reign, I let them be very proactive in their approaches rather than force them to be reactive to circumstances as in HLD and DoW

elder anchor
mortal olive
#

Nothing really, they just kinda breezed through it with the replacement characters after Cham accidentally blew up 3/4s of the players. They didn't have a tough time with much of anything, they didn't make any additional serious errors, and I even had to fudge sickness results because the 26 Draconis Strain decided it really, really didn't want to infect anyone at all, I didn't roll a single success for Virulence.

elder anchor
#

What about the agendas?

mortal olive
#

Wellllll since the original crew kinda mostly died in the first act uhhh...not a whole lot of those got played out

elder anchor
#

You also don’t have to roll for virulence if you don’t want. Just infect them

uncut maple
#

How did Cham blow everyone up?

elder anchor
#

Monsters, infections, accidents, etc, are tools to keep the tension up

#

If things get too easy, crank up the volume

mortal olive
#

So you know that thing where it says the crew might want to save some of the valuable tritium cargo on the Montero before it blows up? Cham tried to save some of the cargo. And immediately dropped it. And rolled a facehugger. With almost everyone in the cargo bay helping.

elder anchor
#

Did you warn them about the danger?

mortal olive
#

Yep.

elder anchor
#

“Based on your technical experience, you know that…”

mortal olive
#

They knew it was valuable but explosive.

elder anchor
#

That’s a bummer

#

I gotta be careful to keep them from congregating there

#

Especially Lucas

uncut maple
mortal olive
#

Yeah. That was my gf playing him who did that, me and my friends still give her crap for it.

flat wraith
#

When I ran that part, I flat out told them the mechanics of what would happen ahead of time so they could judge if it’s worth it. I also told them getting 5 tanks gave them a story point - getting all 10 gives them 2.

#

Then, there was the game where it didn’t blow up at all, just powered down and refused to turn on - I still think that works better for the module.

elder anchor
#

It’s an interesting idea but I worry that the players would seek refuge on the Montero where it is safe

#

And the Montero is a massive ship and would need its own map, creating a headache for me as the GM

#

I feel like the Montero map provided in CotG is only there to fool the players into thinking some action might happen there

flat wraith
flat wraith
flat wraith
#

Actually, now that I remember, the finale was basically Wilson getting off the Cronus with the Cronus company girl (forgot her name), and Rye trying to ram it with the Cronus after witnessing her friend Cham mutate. (She missed so the last scene ended up being on the Montero)

uncut maple
#

Running session 5 for my group tonight! Tensions are rising between characters, they’ve still gotta do the spacewalk repairs, and Clayton is going to start trying to get Wilson on her side. On top of all that, there might still be the Neophyte running around

uncut maple
#

Wow that… happened

#

Repairs are all done, and Clayton’s got Wilson on the same page about things. The players discovered the drums of flammable chemical onboard and grabbed a few (I figured they were medium sized drums/heavy items). Unfortunately Miller got infected and began to turn, using one of the drums and the flamethrower to go out in a blaze of glory in Sci Lab 2, trying to take Ava and Wilson with her. A successful mobility roll and a huge explosion later, Miller’s been immolated and Sci Lab 2 underwent explosive decompression, but Ava managed to tackle Wilson out of the room and they only got slightly buffeted by the explosion

#

Oh yeah and then Rye, Cham, and Flynn are being chased by the hulk Abomination as they’re trying to get back inside

candid apex
#

Intense things happening in parallel, I like it!

uncut maple
#

Oh yeah I’ve been really going hard on the “Meanwhile…” transitions, turns out splitting the party is a very common thing in Alien lmao

#

Oh and the players also discovered what Special Order 966 is, since the ship is now autopiloting towards earth

candid apex
#

I love a split party

solar trellis
#

IMO playing this without splitting the party is doing it next-level wrong

uncut maple
#

Oh absolutely. In my group Wilson’s player keeps getting more and more stressed every time the group splits up. Every time someone suggests it he looks so aggrieved and tries to argue against it (and then they of course split up)

candid apex
#

I tend to not trigger most events until the party splits up. Having the blood buster show up with everyone in the room results in that poor fella being dispatched before the round is over.

The flamer is particularly bad to have in the room..

elder anchor
flat wraith
clear idol
#

How devious of you

elder anchor
#

Make them immediately roll panic and then see how it goes

clear idol
#

An adult neomorph?

elder anchor
clear idol
#

Oh Lordy

#

This will be a bloodbath

elder anchor
#

It depends on how well armed and lucky they are. I’ve listened to some live plays where the players got lucky and killed a neomorph easily

#

Shotgunned it

flat wraith
elder anchor
#

One of the main challenges I’m going to face is convincing them to split the party. “Never split the party” is a mantra at our table due to their experiences in 5E

#

I could very easily see them staying as one group and going from fixing the air scrubbers to fixing the reactor to fixing the piloting station

#

I’m going to need Lucas and the abominations to spice things up

flat wraith
#

Also, if you've done Act 1 right, they don't have enough air to stay together and get done what they need to.

elder anchor
#

Though it’s polluted

flat wraith
#

Yeah - but they don't know that before the Cronus wakes up :).
My PCs have always been in 2 or 3 separate groups when the air comes on. Some combination of Reactor (for power), MUTHER (for information or help), the Cryopods (for the NPCs), or the Cockpit (again for information).

#

When they first get on board they're basically racing their air supply to accomplish their mission and the only reasonable way to do it is to be at multiple places at once.

elder anchor
#

Ok that makes sense. I’ll make sure to lean into that

flat wraith
#

Did you do act 1 yet?

elder anchor
#

I haven’t run it yet. I’m still prepping

flat wraith
#

Definitely double check the air supply rules. You're supposed to call for air every turn - that's 2 zones of movement. That's a hallway then a room. If you don't be kinda strict about it you lose the tension of the air running out in a dark ship. It's definitely one of the highlights of the experience of the module.

uncut maple
candid apex
#

I found the strongest force in splitting up the party is the npcs on the cronus. People offering different pcs to help with different jobs, for example.

flat wraith
#

Man, this conversation makes me want to run it again 🙂

candid apex
#

I've run it three times now? I can probably do it blind.. 😅

uncut maple
#

I kept it pretty loose for the air roll timing since the group moved very slow through things, so I just called for air rolls when dramatically appropriate

flat wraith
candid apex
#

For some reason, Reed always ends up turning first, perhaps because she's already on edge so much she seems a natural fit

flat wraith
#

I like giving a "quest giver NPC" vibe to Cooper so the PCs expect him to tell them how to escape. 🙂

uncut maple
candid apex
flat wraith
#

I like to have Reid threaten the PCs with a gun as soon as she wakes up - any solution is a bonus: violence, talking, restraint - nothing breaks the scenario.

uncut maple
uncut maple
flat wraith
uncut maple
#

Oh man I bet your players loved that

flat wraith
#

Had a real time audio of the alarm going when it happened. But again - glass cannon. It died round 2.

uncut maple
#

Oh damn, yeah the bloodburster is pretty squishy

candid apex
#

It needs to run away immediately, preferably around a corner. No hissing, just bolt..

uncut maple
#

My Davis got a nasty hit on it with the flamethrower that should’ve killed it, but I bent the rules a bit and had it run off into the vents. I’m gonna bring it back next session (the last session) all scarred and twisted

#

Prob with a little less health or armor than it should have

elder anchor
flat wraith
# elder anchor What audio did you use?

https://youtu.be/EO9x0y5lqD0?si=xnG_rkpnGFRcscpK

YouTube
7OXICiTY
#ALIEN - Nostromo destruct sequence

The "Nostromo" destruct sequence animation from the 1979 film ALIEN by Ridley Scott.

This video is a homage to ALIEN and I hope you enjoy its emergency, the sound scape is an enhanced version of a video found on YouTube by user jamesuk9999 (link below) and the video was recorded from a PC running a program I designed which also runs on an Andro...

▶ Play video
flat wraith
#

Also, a little addition I tack on is having one of the cryopods burst open from the inside and frozen slime on the vents when the PCs show up. It makes the 2nd Neo showing up make sense and pulls suspicion away from the crew (and cooper) being impregnated early on.

elder anchor
#

I have a question about the Neomorphs. So the book says that an adult Neomorph typically dies of natural causes after about 24 hours. In that case, how can a Neomorph still be alive in the Cronus after 70 years?

uncut maple
#

Xenomorph hibernation is a wild thing

elder anchor
#

As long as the existence of the Neomorph is foreshadowed, it’s fair

flat wraith
#

Yeah pretty much. It may have been frozen too

elder anchor
#

Do you all have any resources for good physical tokens or minis for CotG?

#

I find the tokens in the Starter box to be pretty bland

solar trellis
#

Yeah, they are awful, and the tiny little letters used to identify individuals are nearly unreadable

elder anchor
#

I have the Mothership boxed set on the way. Perhaps I can borrow the minis from it

solar trellis
#

Oh man I watched a video about Mothership just yesterday, neat-looking game and interesting to contrast with Alien

elder anchor
#

I’m hoping to get a lot of inspiration from it

#

I love space horror in general so I think it’s going to be great

uncut maple
#

Man I’m running what’ll probably be the last session tonight and I’m so nervous. I hope I’ll be able to wrap up everything in a satisfying way

elder anchor
uncut maple
#

Rye (PC), Flynn, and Cham are trying to get back in the ship after repairing comms, but they’re being chased by an abomination. Ava (PC), Johns (PC), Wilson (PC), and Clayton are reeling from Miller’s self-immolation, but once they all join up Clayton’s going to try and convince everyone to let the rest of the xenomorphic material be for company retrieval on earth

#

I’m kinda loosely planning that the abom is gonna reveal that Rye is secretly Lucas (by ripping off their arm), and that Clayton’s gonna try to get to her pod with Wilson (and Flynn unwillingly) after no one else takes her up on her offer

#

And then Cooper’s son shows up again

elder anchor
#

@uncut maple So they were on the exterior of the ship trying to fix it?

#

What happened to Miller?

elder anchor
flat wraith
uncut maple
uncut maple
uncut maple
candid apex
#

I hope it'll give them a real headache

elder anchor
elder anchor
#

Any tips of how to manage the multiple Cronus NPCs once they are awake? I’m a bit nervous about that

candid apex
#

Have one or two wake up at a time, split them up and get them to take a PC with them, or try anyway.

It's a lot to keep in your head no matter how you do it, but it's easier when they're not all together.

flat wraith
# elder anchor Any tips of how to manage the multiple Cronus NPCs once they are awake? I’m a bi...

I like planning ahead of time what they’re going to do - at least when they all wake up. Here’s what I settled on:
Johns: tries to give orders to people (including the PC’s to “secure the ship” alone to cover more ground
Reid: is paranoid and threatens the PCs to leave with her gun
(The dr forgot his name) runs off and hides the first chance he gets
Cooper: tries to explain that they can get out of this mess if he can get to the lab
Clayton: waits to see who ends up in charge and tries to latch on to them.

nimble ocean
#

Just a nice pic...

Alien_RPG_-_USCSS_Cronus_Ship_2.jpg
elder anchor
#

That’s really helpful

#

I have a question: for those of you who have ran CotG in person, did you find the size of the map and the markers to be suitable?

#

I’m wondering if I should print larger versions of the Cronus map

nimble ocean
candid apex
#

I ended up not using the markers

elder anchor
elder anchor
nimble ocean
#

I do have a big RPG table so they can fit...

elder anchor
nimble ocean
candid apex
#

No I just had the map in the middle for reference and everyone remembered where they were. Combat was all theater of the mind.

I'm too lazy for minis, I default to coloured 8 mm cubes that I numbered.

#

Far from spectacular but hey ho

nimble ocean
#

I can't really find the minis I used right now... But here is an example (Not for CotG)...

pf_alienversuspredator_018.png
elder anchor
#

I guess I could use my Mothership paper minis

flat wraith
#

I just used what was in the starter set, but at any resolution it’s overwhelming at first glance so when I put it out, I pointed out important rooms. Like “Here are the cryobeds - anyone still alive would be here. Here’s the reactor - it controls the ship’s power, etc…. It shouldn’t be a dungeon crawl - they should be able to form a plan ahead of time since they have the plans.

solar trellis
#

Yeah, I ran it twice on Roll20 but when I was a player we did it in person just with the maps that came with the module. It went OK, as this game isn't super-tactical for spacing like 5e or something, the most challenging thing was the players keeping track of NPCs.

#

I love being able to give them the map and say "welp here you go, plan away".

elder anchor
#

I'm considering printing this in A3, with a separate A3 for decks C and D

#

I'm hoping the size increase will help

#

These images are also clearer in black and white

#

Here is an inverted version

#

I think this looks a lot cooler but will need a better printer

lost dust
#

Glad to see a printer-friendly version! The inverted I imagine is nice for use on a screen

plain plume
#

Speaking of printing the maps larger. I ran this game for some friends last year in Foundry. I remade all the maps so that I could align them better in Foundry. This year I wanted to try running the game in person for my family and neighbors, so I printed it out at Staples. It's by no means to scale but I have miniatures to mark the players position and some aliens for aliens.

IMG_5655.jpeg IMG_5654.jpeg IMG_5661.jpeg IMG_5660.jpeg
lost dust
#

woah, that's cool

clear idol
#

Very cool indeed

elder anchor
#

Wow that’s fantastic! @plain plume

#

Where are the minis from?

plain plume
elder anchor
plain plume
elder anchor
#

Let me know what you think!

#

I think having a simplified checklist will help me to be more flexible

#

There are a few details I forgot to fill in, like how to fix the air scrubbers

#

As the players complete the events, I can just check them off. If they go out of order, then its not a big deal

plain plume
#

Here are the floor plans. These are for screen use, if someone wants to print them and use them the way I did I can upload different files.

USCSS_Cronus_DeckA.jpg USCSS_Cronus_DeckB.jpg USCSS_Cronus_DeckC.jpg USCSS_Cronus_DeckD.jpg
plain plume
elder anchor
plain plume
primal yacht
#

Okay so, im going to be running this for 3 players. they've chosen Miller, Davis, and Cham. Any thoughts on Lucas? I trust my players so thats not an issue, but for storywise/player enjoyment, should one of them be Lucas, or maybe Rye?

uncut maple
#

Rye or Cham fit Lucas quite well imo, Davis could also work too

#

In your case I’d say if the player’s down, have Cham be Lucas. They could either be a conflicted Lucas (cause Cham’s whole thing is he wants to help the rest of the crew), or it could be the ultimate betrayal

primal yacht
#

i can see that yeah

#

cham might be the way to go

fossil crown
fossil crown
primal yacht
#

my main concern with having Lucas and Wilson as npcs means I'd have to rp them against each other

uncut maple
#

Yeah that might be a lot to handle, and I feel that might make the players feel a little left out rp-wise

solar trellis
#

I wouldn't use Miller because that negates the very strong function she already has in the narrative. But Cham or Davis absolutely work. My opinion would be to pick the player of the two that you think would be best in the role.

#

It's quite a challenge in terms of roleplay, you need someone mature enough to handle it.

fossil crown
#

PCs should be Miller, Davis, Cham for 3 players. Add in Wilson for a 4th and Rye/Lucas for a 5th.

#

3 Players they'll feel like all odds are against them and will probably try to off Wilson. 4 players and you've got a decent dynamic with people picking sides.

solar trellis
#

Personally I think Lucas has to be in there, and in the hands of a player because it's just so much fun. But that's just me lol I can see why others would avoid that with three players.

primal yacht
#

if lucas and wilson have a confrontation against each other id have to like, argue or roll dice against myself

#

while the players watch

#

id rather have one of them pushing the lucas or wilson narrative along

#

normally i would give this kind of role to davis' player, but she had the secret saboteur role in HLD, and Davis with the drug addiction and everything i feel like might play out better in the story as a normal human

#

if only i had one other person i could invite to this :kekdog:

topaz vector
primal yacht
#

in person

elder anchor
#

You’re depriving the players if you don’t make them Miller, Wilson, and Lucas

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I’ve listened to some live plays and I turn them off immediately if those characters aren’t played by the players

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I heard one where both Miller and Wilson were played by the GM, which blew my mind

primal yacht
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i absolutely dont want to force my players to pick certain characters so im very glad one picked Miller and i can make Cham Lucas

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and theres no saying one wont die and pick up Wilson >:)