#02: Destroyer of Worlds

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latent bloom
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I tried this but found the marker was too smudgy. I ended up handing them out as is for the bio side, and then handing out a printed B&W sheet on paper for the stats.

fiery willow
trail elm
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Are these from a start collecting box or home printed?

tough thunder
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Ms Eckford has a Major-level Key tag. Is it normal for Weyland-Yutani agent to be in possession of such Key tag?

golden wyvern
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No, it is to do with her being the WY liaison to the project there. She is in league with the Corps for this little Black Ops

opaque forum
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So them elevators in Fort Nebraska, they're out of whack aren't they? There's either too many of them ending nowhere at the level they're supposed to go, or they're labelled incorrectly, or something?

Like on level 1, there's supposed to be 3 elevators going up to level 2, yet on level 2 there's only 2 elevators, with the other going only to sublevel 3, right?

Also, on the north bastion there's an unlabelled octagonal room at the far right, mirroring the armoury on the left... what's it for, my call I guess?

fiery willow
torpid karma
opaque forum
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No problem, just had to ask to make sure I am not missing anything. I am doing the maps in Dungeondraft, so I want to get them right. I think it's possible to keep the elevators as they are, just changing where they actually go to.

spiral wagon
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I have a couple question.

  1. I'm wondering how the players usually handle the charger and the queen. Especially if the queen calls for reinforcements. I'm not intended to keep my players alive undel all circumstances.
    I'm just wondering what are the odds of these encounters.

  2. There are a lot of passive and hibernated xenos on the sublevels. How do you guys handle these? I understand that I can adjust them to the current state of the team. But I'm wondering how do you do it.

  3. Why should the players enter the climber car level C to confront the queen?

spiral wagon
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  1. I don't get the ending. The players can see already used EEV-s around the climber car and fly through space, grab the EEV, open the hatch and clim into it? That's a bit ridiculous. I'm wondering if there's an alternative home made version instead of this one.
latent bloom
latent bloom
# spiral wagon 4. I don't get the ending. The players can see already used EEV-s around the cli...

So I went a little crazy on this but I did something different. It's not for everyone but maybe there's something inspirational here. There is some setup though:

  1. Davidovich is just David that got picked up by the UPP at some point after Covenant but before this scenario
  2. David is piloting the ship that bombards the moon with black goo

So, once the PCs get to the top of the elevator, they get rescued by the derelict ship and discover David piloting it. He say he has been researching the ship for years now and has a kind of lab set up in the space jockey room. He tells the PCs he'll take them wherever they want - he has cryopods set up. END OF SCENARIO (of course they all get experimented on and die)

IF the PCs resist him, he has 4 neomorphs lurking in the shadows to help him in a fight. AND if you have the PCs enter the elevator from a different entrance and just evade evade the queen, she shows up here as well in a 3 way fight. (She jumps off the elevator too and gets in from another entrance).

I had a PC die that ended up embodying David, and another PC that got multiple black goo infections from multiple sources so I figured it would be fun if they started turning into a fulfremen type (from Heart of Darkness) and I gave him control of the queen for the final battle.

spiral wagon
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Thanks for the suggestion. It makes sense but I was deeply dissatisfied with the Covenant, so I'm not gonna alter it a bit.

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My main concern now is the battle with the queen.

fiery willow
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For those that had the PCs attack the insurgent compound with a Cheyenne, how'd that play out for you? I like the idea of it but it seems this thing would wreck shit

latent bloom
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I think it’s fine. The perspective is - these guys are marines whose job is combat. So wiping out the insurgents for these guys is basically loading cargo for a space trucker. It’s the bodyburster that should be the only real challenge so as long as she stays inside you’re fine.

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Full disclosure- the way I run it is the insurgent compound is first with no bodyburster so the only stakes are if they kill Botos or not.

fiery willow
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I'm also thinking my guys are gonna want to drop on the roof of the house itself. Which I think is rad.

golden wyvern
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They can, but there are insurgents there with AA

fiery willow
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Sure, but how is that different from if they land in the yard? Seems even more difficult to land in the yard because all the RPG guys have to do is walk out and shoot right in front of themselves.

golden wyvern
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True

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You can go on all tactical, Hell your players could even go all Solid Snake in there

opaque forum
spiral wagon
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It is.

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My players found a workaround , though.

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So they entered on the top level of the climber car.

opaque forum
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I have a general question on the Fort Nebraska maps: what is the significance of the squares in the maintenance tunnels? Some of them are diagonally place in relation to the tunnel, some are squarely?

spiral wagon
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2 of them had a flamethrover, so the bossfight wasn't a big deal.

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After defeating the Queen and the warriors they went after 3 facehuggers that escaped during the fight. One of them impregnated a PC. 🙂

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They decided to carry him with themselves and put him into a cryopod. I was so happy that although they survived, they brought an embrio with themselves. 🙂

opaque forum
spiral wagon
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The moved the climber car up using the terminal on the skybridge and enter it on the top level. Maybe there was something in the book that would prevent them doing it, but I wasn't really care.

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The missed the whole sublevel 3, though.

opaque forum
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Fair enough, I just wanted to know in case my players try something like that.

spiral wagon
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It was late at night, I want to finish the session.

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One think I learnt that the players usually want something you don't want.

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But it's you job to make it happen anyway.

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My players killed Eckford in the first session.

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It was my fault, though.

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But they also killed every other NPC who could possible help them. 🙂

opaque forum
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😁

spiral wagon
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They also almost killed Wright, although I made it clear the she didn't want to hurt them.

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They were extremey lucky.
None of them got infected, acid splash didn't hurt anyone fighting the queen.
We lost 3 PCs and everyone survived the last fight.

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At some point I needed to choose more serious things from the xenomorph attach table to make it more interesting.

opaque forum
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I've tried to create some scenery for our DoW adventure with Dungeondraft. Here's a couple of pics

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What do you think, does that look like a proper hive entrance maybe?

sample_hive.jpg
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I've also made 4 colony maps, and by rotating them, I can actually have double the number of maps or more. Then I have some tiles with vehicles, obstacles, crashed cheynne, trash etc. to spice them up a bit

colony_sample.jpg
torpid karma
fiery willow
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Party just took the compound, and only Wright is left to find and I have her at the Spaceport trying to get on the med ship with its fancy tech. I plan on having the UPP attack at some point when the party's there, destroying the ship and causing chaos. I haven't brought Eckford into play yet and am thinking it might be a good time for her to be there before the chaos too, e..g. just as the party sees Wright in the crowd they also see Eckford's grunts.

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QUESTIONS: what's Wright's play here? What's Eckford's?

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I kind of wonder that Wright might want to get captured by the UPP?

latent bloom
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Oh - what if Eckford already made a deal with her to get her off the moon so Eckford is trying to stop the PCs.

fiery willow
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Doesn't Eckford want Wright "for science"?

latent bloom
fiery willow
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Haha yes

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I am thinking of completely rewriting her and maybe making her sympathetic somehow. These guys just did COTG and it might be more interesting for the company stooge to not be yet another stiff, snarky lady lol

latent bloom
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You could make her genuinely trying to help Wright maybe. If the PCs mission is to take out Wright, that makes Eckford both sympathetic AND an opponent.

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I also still like the idea of Eckford micro-dosing black goo for fertility treatments. It opens up so many possibilities for Act 3 🙂

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I also see Eckford as over-confident. So if Dante is figuring out what's happening to her than Eckford might think she can fix her if she can get to sub level 3.

fiery willow
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lol another black goo doing weird shit might confuse my players who are already confused by the fourteen combinations of black goo and xeno, but that's cool as an idea

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I am currently thinking she is somewhat sympathetic but also thinks they need Wright alive and wants to get her to safety. However, she also knows that shit is going down at Nebraska and she's been blocked from getting in (like, maybe there's a bit of a schism between her and Meyers). She might be a good possible NPC-turned PC perhaps.

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And yeah that means a possible "we can save you" to Dante via WY tech off planet. Which is great for my Dante because the player has been struggling with how to play her as not running back to base.

civic dust
fiery willow
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Yeah, I'm not knocking them, it's cool and adds depth and variety to the ones we already know from the movies.

fiery willow
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Ugh, why does Eckford not have any points in Manipulation? Seems even dumber because she has the "Take Control" talent

latent bloom
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Yep. They told me you can change it 🙂

fiery willow
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"they"? heh

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I mean yeah I can change it.

latent bloom
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Sorry. Just ate two fantastic cookies and am in a good (but punchy) mood 🙂

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I never liked the "good at combat" eckford. I like her with like, Clayton's stats from Chariots.

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Honestly, I think she's like that in case a PC becomes her.

fiery willow
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Fair.

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I like "buff" Eckford, it's a change from the usual. But I'm making her more sympathetic, will explain later because I'm not sure yet and the game is tonight lol

fiery willow
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Extendo session report: Marines have found all three AWOLs except Wright, who’s at the spaceport trying to get on the Monygham. They get there, see Wright in the crowd but also a dude in a fat coat, i.e. he’s got a bomb. At that moment, an WY APC shows up, two dog boys get out and flank, and Eckford strides forward. On her coms, she tries to convince Silva to help in bringing in Wright, because unlike Meyers, she’ll help Wright. Doesn’t go over well. Silva gets APCs to “kettle” the crowd, crowd stresses out, dude with bomb exposes bomb and everyone freaks out. Silva convinces Wright via manip roll to come out and come with them… but Dante is like “but maybe she can help” and Eckhart gets two dog boys to go try and bring Dante in. Suddenly a laser from space slashes through the crowd that Wright just left and bisects the Monygham.

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Chaos ensues. They get Wright into the APC and flee, end up on a bluff outside of town to discuss options. Silva wants to kill both Wright and Dante to stop the infection (and because, bad Marines). Eckford coms in and talks to Dante to try and convince her to come along. Dante asks Chaplain for answers, he’s like Project Life Force exists, and Eckford has been doing experiments but in my opinion has her own agenda and actually wants Dante/Wright to survive to help herself. Dante tries to convince Silva, doesn’t work. Silva invites Wright for a cigarette over on the side of the bluff… while they watch the lasers rip the town apart, he pops her with his pistol (though fails a stress roll and almost botches it). We’ll open with the rest of the group like “where’d Wright go”.

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Kudos for @latent bloom for the idea of Eckhart wanting to find a cure to her infertility, which the party never heard about but I think she’s gonna show up again and will be an NPC.

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One of my favourite TTPRG sessions ever. Not a single combat roll made, but so much tension and an explosion of violence and plot.

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I honestly just cannot say more about how the players leaned into their characters. No care about "survival", or power-gaming, they just pushed the narrative.

golden wyvern
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This is the way

spiral wagon
tough thunder
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For the Climber Car, I've a bit of difficulty to visualize it. As there is 3 level of the car (A: Control, B: Personnel, C: Cargo) and it says that it's hatches are a sub level 3 and 2,
Is it correct to assume that each level of the car correspond to a level of the fort. So hence from sub level 3 to 1. However, you can't enter via sub-level 1 as the Control car doesn't have any airlock?

fiery willow
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Any suggestions for some combat music? I can't quite find the right vibe for future war music, it's all cyperpunky or too "sci-fi"

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Also needs to be of the 1 hour variety, not like fifteen five-minute tracks lol

latent bloom
trail elm
long blaze
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Gonna be running Destroyer of worlds for a large group in a few weeks. Does anyone have any tips?

fiery willow
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Hmm. It feels sandboxy but it's really not since the scenario gives so few clues for how the Marines are supposed to get from one place to another. I almost want to make a flowchart lol.

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The timing and flow is also a bit wonky. Like, xenos basically take over the entire bottom of the base in a few hours. Meanwhile, there are quite a few different backstory things or NPCs you can pull in so it can be a lot to wrangle (e.g. crusty oil, Eckford, Davidovich, Hatfield/Meyers/Jaell and so on)

long blaze
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I think some ideas I saw on YouTube were to strand the PCs after act 1 so there’s more time to set up the hive, have the UPP already setting an invasion so that this is a rushed job to get the AWOLs, have the bottom portion of the base be infected prior to the start of the game and another reason the group is sent out is for the colonel to try and deal with sub level 3 before the invasion.

fiery willow
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Those are all good options.

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Like all the ALIEN scenarios a lot of the trick is to keep your "events" in hand and then drop them when it feels right. I usually keep a list on the side and ideas about what might trigger them.

long blaze
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I think act 2 I plan to keep pretty short. Like get to the Choppa to get the pilot and then drop the goo bombs

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As a group we ran Heart of Darkness first in which we had a very bad ending so I am planning on having Erebos station be the culprit for the bombing and destroying the fleets

fiery willow
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dope

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Yeah, Act II can be a drag if it's just the same thing over and over, especially since Act I can be really convoluted and long. But Act II is almost entirely optional events.

latent bloom
long blaze
latent bloom
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I've mentioned this a few times here but I like it so I'll repeat it:
I kind of remixed it to make the main mission get Botos. So they drop into the compound with guns blazing and find dossiers on the AWOLs there that they have to find and evidence of a woman (later revealed to be Eckford) helping them get off moon. Then I have the body burster happen at the abandoned oil facility where she can properly stalk in the shadows.
I also have the PCs enter through the Starport so they actually get to that location. It also would make it seem like the logical place to leave when everything goes to shit so the Moynehan blowing up comes as a bigger shock.

fiery willow
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Yeah a had a few calls but they were increasingly frantic and the last one ended with "AUGH" and an alien screech. They were like "oh, that's what happening".

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My group is about to enter Fort Nebraska and I'm scared, the place is huge lol. Gonna be a couple of re-reads tonight and then a bunch of notes. When I was a player through it it was fun but I don't remember a lot of the nitty-gritty about how we got from one place to the next.

latent bloom
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I think like CotG - just get a handle on the "important" rooms. Ops, the terminal with Jeal, the reactor, the lab, I think that's it.

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The rest is kind of random dangers or items to be found you can look up on the fly.

fiery willow
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Heh I am not a "look up on the fly" kinda GM, brain isn't fast enough. I need everything pretty much set, or at least (in terms of this game) have the set stuff set and have the events listed and ready.

civic dust
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I always got the impression a cinematic adventure version of Destroyer of Worlds would be set in the 2nd and 3rd Act.
The entire investigation, conflict, and then Act 2 drags out a cinematic too much but could easily work for a short campaign

latent bloom
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DoW is a cinematic in its entirety. That being said, there's enough to play with there to make it a mini-campaign.

fiery willow
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It's a great setting for something longer.

opaque forum
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I've been thinking about the infestation/hive in the fort: how is it possible that the xenos have managed to build their resin nests so extensively in the short time they've had - in a day or two, if I am not mistaken?

And it doesn't make sense that Major Hatfield was radioing the PC's at the start of Act 2, and didn't say nything about the Aliens? That would mean the Aliens were still limited to the elevator and the secret lab at this point....

Would the black goo attack accelerate this development somehow? Because in our game, we're proceeding in Act 2, and the players are heading towards the Fort, dodging UPP forces etc. I am thinking I should come up with some more events/encounters to delay Act 3. They already got hit, and lost Captain Silva and had severe damage to their APC. So they spent one Shift to repair it back to working condition (and possibly airtight again).

But yeah, reading the descriptions, it looks like at level 1 and sublevel 3 are badly overgrown with the resin stuff?

latent bloom
opaque forum
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Sure, that might work. And there's couple of events that might force them to delay even without me doing anything

fiery willow
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That's why in my game it's already started even before the PCs have started the mission. I also put in lots of delays, taking away their vehicle, etc, so it takes them a while to get back.

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Also... I have only heard this concern from MUTHURs running the game. In my experience I've never heard a player say anything about it. But that's what we do, be super anxious about all the little details.

opaque forum
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Thats true😁

crimson pewter
fiery willow
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I've heard of that before but it doesn't seem to have anything ALIEN specific. Can you tell me about your experience with it? It's like $18 a month for me so I'd need to really like it.

crimson pewter
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Players loved it. Had them jumping with every oneshot (single sound effect rather than bg music). Background music/audio I used was ALWAYS environmental. So for hopes last day I used wind/rain/thunder. along with other stuff one might hear in a metal office complex.

crimson pewter
tough thunder
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As written, the PCs are expected to repair the reactor and then go back to the Mainframe room to re-start Apollo.
I might be wrong but it feel a bit like a slug. As now all the PCs are in the sub-level 2 or 3. And I'm not sure what going back to Level 2 and Mainframe room is bringing.
How other GMs managed that part?

opaque forum
# fiery willow I've heard of that before but it doesn't seem to have anything ALIEN specific. C...

I too use Syrinscape, it actually has a soundset called "Alien from Alien", and it contains some useful moods, ambients and sounds (alien hisses etc.) It's ok, but not great. Then there are some great ones like Cyberpunk Abandoned facility and others.

The great thing about Syrinscape is that you can create custom soundsets, picking sounds from the numerous packs they have, and making your own. What's more, you can add your own effects, music etc. to your custom packs. It's bit clanky but worth it. I've added some weapon sounds available here in the resources section, some motion tracker pings and so on. For DoW specifically, I found some APC & dropship effects, explosions, railgun blasts etc, just by simple searching the massive sound library. There's tons of scifi material.

We're in Europe, and the connection/lag can be an issue sometimes. So that's the downside. Mostly works though. Not free of course...

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By the way, in the Fort map, the large room tagged "Commissary" - not being English native, I thought it had something to do with "commissionary", some sort of management type room... turns out it's some kind of mess hall, isn't it? 😬

frank crescent
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Yep.

crimson pewter
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If you do use syrinscape I suggest using a streamdeck. It’s soo useful and integrates amazingly

crimson pewter
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And then yes upload them to syrinscape

flat iris
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I play on Roll20 and was trying to find some imagery that I can use to evoke the feeling of the colony. Any suggestions other than digging through google images. Thinking something like this:

Screenshot_2025-11-25_at_6.53.44_PM.png
opaque forum
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I haven't seen too many... you mean like scenic views rather than maps per se? If you can stand AI, it's fairly easy to generate something like this

obl4.jpg
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The above image is from DoW I believe?

civic dust
fiery willow
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and the moon's surface seems to extend to the ground lol

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AI is still bad

civic dust
fiery willow
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That I don't agree on, but... that's a long discussion lol

civic dust
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What people currently call "AI" will always be bad.
Actual AI is an entirely different conversation

fiery willow
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...and I'm already confused

civic dust
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A sapient artificial intelligence isn't the same thing as a bunch of code running in a data center to spit out a half-assed biased image based on how the weights were determined for it to conjure up said image.

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All determined by a person's prompt (aka keywords) for it to use as a starting point.

mellow vessel
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Also AI used for like cancer cell detection and stuff like that is absolutely beneficial

civic dust
fiery willow
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stop with all your nuance heh

latent bloom
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Everyone thinks AI is bad until it helps you with something quicker and better than people you can’t afford to hire.

civic dust
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Commercialized data-stealing "AI" that negatively affects our cognitive processes and ability to learn will always be bad, yes.

crimson pewter
# latent bloom Everyone thinks AI is bad until it helps you with something quicker and better t...

I am on both ends of this debate. I use photoshop and with that smart fill (selecting an area to erase people/pest/so on) uses AI. HOWEVER I am the one take the photo, I develop the image. Nothing else is touched by AI.

However, it is cheap to learn to draw. It just takes time. It’s better to do yourself than use AI. AI when creating a full art piece is cheap way out that shows no skill.

Not only that, AI has shown that it stole people’s artwork to develop its own database to “make” whatever it spews out. AI is not needed as a DM/GM nor should it be used. There’s MANY resources out there. Use them effectively.

crimson pewter
latent bloom
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Honestly, a properly trained AI would blow any non-professional GM out of the water. And that should be obvious to anyone who’s played more than a handful of sessions and is probably MORE obvious to us GM’s knowing what we’ve either screwed up or forgotten.

crimson pewter
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AI can’t even keep a story straight longer than a few pages worth. Once players want to fully be chaos demons it will break most AI’s

latent bloom
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They’ll obviously get every rule right and every module ran correctly. And as far as improv goes watching any handful of GMing videos shows just how simple and shallow that algorithm is. Mix that with the vast amount of material it has to improv off of and it’s really easy to see how good it would be.

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Like, a human GM might be better at 1 aspect, but AI will be at least decent at all of it

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If you don’t believe me just ask ChatGPT to run a game for you

civic dust
mellow vessel
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I mean sure, an AI might remember every rule and stuff, but you lose out on that human element. I feel like the point of games like this is to share experiences with other people, even if they’re imperfect

civic dust
crimson pewter
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lol chatbots again can’t keep a congruent conversation going. How are they going to deal with 6+ players all with unique abilities chatting every single second. No that tech is far off.

civic dust
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I'll stick to messy humans

crimson pewter
latent bloom
crimson pewter
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And with all that experience you think AI can remotely keep up?

latent bloom
# crimson pewter And with all that experience you think AI can remotely keep up?

I mean, I need a highlighter and an hour or two prep a 4 hour session for a single chapter at a time. I can remember how a handful of actors deliver lines to differentiate one NPC from another. And I know how to play probably 50 different systems.
But like, I’m sure there’s a few rules in each system I don’t know. And my library of source material I use to improv off of doesn’t hold a candle to a large language model.

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If I put into prompt language how I improv and what my NPCs motivations are, I’m sure AI will at least be as good with its responses.

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And again, ask ChatGPT to run a game for you

civic dust
crimson pewter
latent bloom
misty elk
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Cue John Henry

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or Paul Bunyan

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fight the march of tech making humans obsolete and die in the process

civic dust
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It was the bomb

long blaze
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My players did so well until fort Nebraska this week. They made so much noise going to Apollo and 3 died on the same turn after a surprise round

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Rolling 3 head bites in a row felt crazy though

fiery willow
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Mine are going in to Fort Nebraska tonight. Any advice? The funny thing is that I still have Eckford (who never got to make a deal because the attack interrupted) and Davidovich (who they shot out of the air) in play. Am thinking they might make good replacement PCs.

fiery willow
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re: sentry guns' field of fire pg. 38 "The field of fire is three zones deep but starts one zone out from the wall." Um, what does that mean?

mellow vessel
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So like the guns can see at minimum one zone away from the wall, and at maximum four zones away

fiery willow
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OH so if they're right against the wall (ish) they can't be hit) gotcha

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thanks

mellow vessel
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Yup yup

fiery willow
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there's only one way down from the grounds, the one ladder in the west wing?

mellow vessel
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Theres also elevator shafts that the players can traverse, as well as vents

fiery willow
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From the grounds? There aren't any on the map that I can see.

mellow vessel
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Oh I misunderstood, yeah they’d be in the ground floor of the north bastion

fiery willow
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There are none that I can see.

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I really should have looked at this more than once lol

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these maps and descriptions are driving me crazy

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heh and that one ladder doesn't go to level 2 or even sub 1, it's all the way to the fusion reactor. Which is kinda neat.

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lol I am misreading the levels, never mind (for the moment)

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That's really funny, I was completely misunderstanding the way everything was laid out.

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Is there any reason not to just have no cocooning/resin except on the subfloors? Does it break anything?

blazing birch
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I can't think of any problems with limiting the hive to the sublevels.

opaque forum
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Returning to the Fort Nebraska maps; I am still trying to figure out what the retractable canyon bay doors are like. Furthermore, it says in their description that... "These large fan doors spread over and seal the base’s sublevels from enemy attack, trapping the climber car below."

I just dont see how this can be, since the doors seem to be outside the spot where the climber car is actually marked on the map? That is, assuming the dottend line marks the door's borders? So is the climber car actually visible from the north bastion level 01 yard or not? There doesn't seem to be anything stopping a person from entering the inner yard of the north bastion, is there?

fiery willow
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From my view you seem to be correct, the doors don't cover the climber car. Which means... that whole area of that inner yard is exposed below. I'd just argue that the doors do swing all the way through and sorta lock around the "spine" of the car (or the car, if it's at that level).

tough thunder
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I know we should always expect surprise from the players but last session I had a couple of surprise.
The group was fighting the Aliens that are near the Elevator entrance. And during the fight, despite it was hard and dangerous, Mason decided to kill Dante (although the alien was removed from her successfully). Then, once the fight is over, I was expecting them to go cautiously to the Space Climber. Especially that their motion tracker revealed several movements inside him. But Captain Silva decided to bang on the entrance and announce her. The player was thinking it was other Marine inside.
I think our session tonight will go to an end (and not an happy one).

golden wyvern
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Oh, don’t you just love it as a GM when the party sets up the next death flag entirely themselves. This will be glorious

light heron
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Hey all.
I am a player in the Destroyer of Worlds at the Moment and i Hope Hope for some help/advice that could help our GM without spoilers.

We are in Act I and our Player of the Android (don't have the name right now) shot one of our AWOL's while we wanted to interrogate him. He said he acted in accordance to the Characters Agenda. We detained the Android and the player let everything happen without resistance. Now i'd like to help the GM to get the Player back in the game but i can't figure out a way that would make sense because the other Characters would have no reason to trust the Android anymore?

Does anyone has suggestions?

misty elk
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Are you all still in Act 1? The knee-jerk answer I have is they're forced to keep them around because command tells the PCs they have to keep their synthetic on a leash for the time being for reasons. Maybe the GM can have a superior they're intended to meet with later order them the return of the synthetic specifically to them AFTER their mission with the AWOLs. Makes trust in the synthetic moot

light heron
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Yes, we are still in Act I.
I find all possibilities good and am curious what the GM will do.

winged coral
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How are the acts dividing up for you? For my group it took three sessions to finish act 1. Now I´m looking at Act 2 and wondering how to even fill one session with it. ...But I´m guessing Act 3 will require several sessions as well!

golden wyvern
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Act II is a big sandbox, you can go nuts with it and really ramp up the invasion aspect if you want. But you can just as easily use it to wrap any remaining loose ends from Act I and then go straight to Act III

latent bloom
winged coral
latent bloom
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I kind run this by default where bombs start dropping when the 2nd AWOL is found no matter what. And that second AWOL is a bloodburster - which tends to make it Wright more often than not.

winged coral
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BTW: a nice little dramatic touch to the shift between acts 1 and 2 that I came up with midst the game: if the PCs are at the compound and came in with a dropship and intend to leave with it as well - have Davydovich´s dropship turn up at the same time for some suspense. Some mobility rolls, maybe firing rockets to delay the UPP dropship until everybody is evacuated.

latent bloom
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One great thing about Alien scenarios is the events are optional and floating - so you can layer them like that which is great. I did that with the neo and the self destruct in Chariot.

winged coral
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Yeah, I got some great moments with the neomorph lurking outside the hull in Chariot... it got into a fight and hurt, then fled, only to sneak in through the cargo gates while one of the PCs was steering the cargo hauler in.

opaque forum
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Question about the black goo attack or bombardment in DoW: how long does to stuff remain active after falling from the skies? Is it permanent or does it have a half-life, as it were? And after that it 'spreads' by the infected freakers etc? For the purposes of the scenario I am wondering when the PCs can safely exit their APC when they don't have a hazmat/space suit or whatever? And would mere oxygen mask provide any protection, or is being exposed via bare skin enough?

misty elk
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They're generally fine from the immediate effects when stepping out as far as what's in the air. At least, that's how I remember it when I ran it many years ago

fiery willow
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I think it's easier to say that it's only an issue from the first bombardment and then burns out (like most xeno stuff does).

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But only after a period of time, like, a shift or something

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but yeah, it's still an issue as much as you want because you can bring infected to bear any time you want

radiant cedar
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Hey all, I'm getting ready to run DoW this weekend and I've been getting great ideas reading through a lot of the previous posts here. I have one big question, though. I just got the Evolved Edition of the rules and I'm wondering if there are any functional changes that need to be made to work with the updated rule set?

misty elk
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I don't think there's any structural change I can think of, mostly updating some of the stat-type stuff, primarily armor values I think

radiant cedar
misty elk
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If there is, I can't think of it, but as you may have already seen in a recent message, I haven't ran the scenario in years

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But armor is something that'll apply to the xenos and such too, so not just equipment

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Fortunately, most of the ones that are in DoW are also already statted in the EE corebook

frank crescent
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Check the character sheets for the talents. Some will require updating or outright changing for EE rules. And everyone will need a Resolve score and health point check.

latent bloom
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Mason has that awesome talent of getting a -2 on her panic rolls. That probably got reworked in the Evolved edition.

frank crescent
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Substituting Nerves of Steel for two levels of Seen It All seems fair.

misty elk
radiant cedar
opaque forum
# misty elk They're generally fine from the immediate effects when stepping out as far as wh...

Yes, I decided not to get hung on that, especially as the PCs didn't have enough gear to manage airborne virus. They were super careful anyways, sending out only four + Chaplain, and the 2 remaining marines stayed in the APC while the other did a recon of the fort grounds.

Then the other marine in the APC had her chestburster do its thing, and the remaining marine had to evacuate in haste. Managed to get his leg slashed but cooked the APC with a grenade, and then joined the rest inside north bastion.

As we retired last week, the PCs are about to rappel down the restricted elevator on level two after wondering which way to gp...they headed pretty much straight there via the mainframe room, skipping all the rest. On the other hand, they want to restart the reactor to get power on, but they're not sure which way to go. Chaplain should know it's down on sublevel 2, I think?

distant oriole
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Howdy all. I'm new to the Alien RPG, which I know puts me about five years past the curve when discussing this scenario. At any rate, I'm prone to latching onto minor details and diving head first down rabbit holes, so I have a minor lore question. Maybe someone knows; heck, maybe the author is here. Fei2 is described as a "Venture Type Fei Two pleasure model." My question is: is "Venture" referring to the Venture Corporation, the lesser Weyland-Yutani rival featured in the novel Alien: Prototype?

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(I know Venture Corp is not otherwise mentioned in the RPG)

civic dust
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Don't worry, we have people discussing this module and the rest of the Draconis Strain trilogy fairly often.

blazing birch
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I am very confident it is a reference to Venture Corp from Alien: Prototype. Use that string is up to you. Canon is more of an inspiration than a straight jacket in this RPG.

distant oriole
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Ah, after realizing I own A:Prototype (in the novel compendium with The Cold Forge) I dug in a little and learned it too has a repurposed pleasure model synth character. So yeah, confirmed Venture Corp callout.

fiery willow
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TIL there are pleasure models in the ALIEN universe. Neat.

golden wyvern
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Yes, several novels refer to them

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Plus there are also cracked models used for that purpose

frank crescent
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If they didn't have cracks they wouldn't be much use.

misty elk
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Androids indistinguishable from humans aren't likely being made that way for kicks. Probably primarily to hold up an illusion over a demand: human intimacy, gaining trust, generally tricking people into thinking they're human. So pleasure models makes about the most sense as well as sleeper agents or at least embedded influence.

frank crescent
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Hyperdyne have the 129-4 model built for that particular purpose.

misty elk
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I think in DoW, Fei-Fei was (formerly?) one as well? It's been a hot minute since I last looked through it.

frank crescent
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Thats right. Shes a Venture model.

distant oriole
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What’s fun is that Venture’s robotics division is apparently mostly known for making drones based on xenoinsects.

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Some designer just got really sick of engineering beetles.

frank crescent
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Expanding their horizons, keeping up with the Joneses (with regards to W-Y), and keeping the employees occupied. Makes sense.

fiery willow
misty elk
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For sure, but probably less so if they looked like a skeletal T-800 I'd imagine. It looking like a hot human is what makes it

fiery willow
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Yeah, that's my point lol

misty elk
winged coral
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Hey, gonna be running the final session for DoW on tuesday. A detail, as written, about the very end, getting into the airlock on the climber car (is my players survive that long), is confusing to me: the text says a "fused personnel airlock" is located on deck B but "cannot be accessed without compromising the climber´s hull. Entry must be from the cargo doors below" How have you interpreted this? Is the airlock accessible from deck B or not? Or is the idea that the players have to return to deck C to get to the airlock?

winged coral
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Ha ha, doesn´t matter: my players chickened out when they peeped into the lift and saw the eggs and the queen. They just got back into their tank and drove out of the fort, having already set the nukes on timer, hoping to get outside the blast radius and taking their chances on the moon. 😄

A quite stylish ending, really.

latent bloom
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I missed that earlier message - yeah, RAW they can only get in on C so they have to get by the Queen.

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I had B deck openable so they think they win, and then discover the queen on the way up. Sets up a "suck it out of the airlock" moment nicely.

civic dust
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Colony's been fucked, tower is blown, UPP and UA pulled out after the disaster, so what now?
You got enough immediate supplies for two days in the tank, and limited supplies for dealing with radiation and the black dust.

distant oriole
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Finished Alien: Prototype and have concluded my dive into the rabbit hole that started with Fei2. So here's my quick take on Venture Corp's synthetics, which I'll use to help me roleplay Fei2 if I ever get the chance.

Venture Corp is (was?) a wannabe Weyland-Yutani known to be active and hungry back in the 2130s; the corp's current status in the 2180s in unknown. Could still be trundling along, could have been bought out by W-T; who knows? Venture wanted to be one-stop shopping for the second wave of colonization, so it dabbled in al manner of products. When it comes to robotics, they specialized in drones modeled on xeno-insects for utilitarian purposes. They did, however, dabble in synthetics, using W-T's old patents no doubt. The only Venture synths we've heard about were their pleasure models; maybe they thought they were filling a need in the marketplace. Just one more service colonists would need out in the boonies.

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However, Venture's R&D dept. was never a master of synth programming, so its androids tended to be a little "quirky" like the old Hyperdyne 120-A/2s. Well, not like them; the A2s could be outright dangerous. Rather, Venture granted their pleasure models a high sense of empathy and even a certain level of creativity. As with Thia and Tessa far in the future, Venture didn't imbue their synths with these traits to make them more human, but simply rather to make them better at their factory-setting priorities. "Bugs" emerged when the synths' compliant natures met their creative, empathic logistics. The Venture androids tended to push boundaries, finding oddly "creative" and sometimes internally inconsistent and thus unpredictable solutions to problems presented to them. Every Venture Corp synth is prone to developing an idiosyncratic personality over time. And while they can be repurposed, quite ably in many cases, their core programming cannot change--you can't wipe their empathic personalities without causing serious damage.