04: Rapture Protocol

[misty patrol]

Discussion thread for the Rapture Protocol Cinematic Scenario.

[fair cedar]

I can't wait.

[blazing yarrow]

[honest creek]

Can't wait for the preview PDFs to drop!

[dull flax]

https://tenor.com/view/wink-eye-wink-gif-3023120962008687924

[sleek rivet]

A few more weeks boys and girls

[floral wasp]

We have to decide on a way to deal with spoilers etc, some sort of protocol.

[misty patrol]

The end of your statement makes me think you're being silly, but just in case, this channel is where you discuss freely without worrying about adding spoiler tags. Everywhere else you would need to add them. So, like other Cinematics if you don't want to be spoiled you don't come to this forum.

[floral wasp]

I was, but thank you. I'll add an emoji next time.

[unique brook]

Beta version of Rapture Protocol is out, thoughts?

Well, here are my thoughts, bringing in the Cult proper is a nice way to have a human antagonist that isn't just the UPP or Weyland, and the mention of this being the first in the Jerimiah Saga sounds like they are planning more for this planet

[dull flax]

Yeah, and other locations...

[unique brook]

I also like the idea of the apathetic corporation that is Weyland Yutani, the only thing subverting it being a literal doomsday cult that cares even less about human life is kinda funny and intriguing to me

[dull flax]

Yeah, it will be interesting to see where they take it...

[fair cedar]

Good grief, those NPC names.

[sleek rivet]

I do love the set-up this one has, the cult is a great pick

[floral wasp]

I didn't get beyond Martina Martinez myself

[fair cedar]

Reiser, Ross, Rolston, Hiller, Webb, Mantle, Maxwell, Cruz, Orser..

[floral wasp]

I'm so bad with names myself.

Hey, at least I have an idea of how to pronounce those names!

[fair cedar]

Burke, Frost, Drake, Ferro, Morse, William, Van Leuwen, Distephano, Purvis. That was first glance.

[unique brook]

Hearing Purvis just reminds me of Bone Tomahawk honestly

[honest creek]

What, those names are actual character names in the adventure?!

[unique brook]

One character's surname is literally Chalk

[fair cedar]

The actors names are all background npcs or minor characters.

[unique brook]

Some of the other names that are more normal are,
York, Weiss, and Jeffers

Found the crew manifest where it has some easter egg names

O'Bannon is a nice easter egg

[fair cedar]

Horton is MU/TH/UR, Cartwright is Lambert, Fairbank is Murphy, Webb is Morse etc.

[honest creek]

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but do you think they're setting up a Aliens Dark Descent type trilogy for this setting?

[unique brook]

Might be, because it seems very inspired by it, and the name of the saga is the Jerimiah Saga, so that means that it is connected to the planet, or planets of Jerimiah, and there is the mention of the F44AA Pulse Rifle being where it was because of something that happened before that we will learn about in the next work

[honest creek]

Oh well this Alien is really really beefed up. I like it! Its stats are crazy. And it always retreats when it gets to half HP. IMO most Aliens should do that.

[unique brook]

I believe because it's meant to really be a boss fight in this Cinematic, whereas the cultists are the mooks

[honest creek]

Sealed access points have actual armor and HP in this adventure, not indestructible to Aliens like in the new CRB, so that's nice.

[unique brook]

And stuff like Water matters, as the sheer heat from the Head Cult bastard setting the heaters to max make you dehydrated

[honest creek]

The lighting on the maps is much better then originally. Deeper shadows, greater lighting contrast.

[honest creek]

Oh I'm gonna love this adventure, nice.

[unique brook]

Scavenging for stuff other than weapons matters more now

[honest creek]

I like that they're using the actual original comics Church and not the CotTD.

[unique brook]

I think it's because this Cinematic takes place before Aliens and Alien 3, so the main cult presence before that was the comics Church, as the other cults if I remember correctly either came up through Morse's book Space Beast, or through what occured in Dark Descent

[honest creek]

Haven't read the whole thing yet. But I skimmed it. Seems nice. I like it, though t is very straight forward. I don't know what Tom meant when he said that there were a few twists. I see none really for now. The flute mesmerizing thing is not really something I'm a fan of. But it can easily be broken, so I'll live with it.

[unique brook]

Well, the Cinematic here is only meant for GMs to read

[honest creek]

Well, yes of course. This is a spoiler GM thread.

[unique brook]

I think that is what is meant by the twists, either that or there is stuff in the next cinematics that will recontextualize this one

[dull flax]

I think Tomas is talking about the whole Jeremiah saga. Perhaps not so much in this episode... Just a guess....

[unique brook]

There is the old Pulse RIfle, which is explicitly mentioned to be related to another cinematic in the works

[dull flax]

True, true...

[inner zenith]

Is there any reason this needs to take place in 2177? The Core Book still focuses on the 2180s as all the other past products do.

@forest swan may I just ping you? 😄 I know you cannot share spoilers, but perhaps you can answer this: Will I ruin my Jeremiah Saga if I tell my players it's 2186 ?

Of course, I know that the movies and series have often produced prequels, but I would prefer some continuation at my table 🙂

Disclaimer: I haven't read the full PDF yet, just parts

[honest creek]

Pure pure speculation on my part!

But I suspect that either the rifle suggests there was a mission to the Renaissance Station and we'll play as a group in a prequel to Rapture Protocol, or that this Trilogy might somehow tie into the setup for Hadley's Hope or the ruined Anchorpoint Station.

Those are my bets.

[inner zenith]

Other question: Did anyone find on the map where Jeremiah VI actually is?

[unique brook]

good question actually

[dull flax]

JEREMIAH VI

Location 289 G Hydrae System
Coordinates –2.0 Coreward, –8.5 Trailward
Classification Moon orbiting Hydrae III

[inner zenith]

I didn't see it on the map, thank you, will take a look later

[fair cedar]

Not sure if it makes a difference on travel time and direction but the Anchorpoint Station that the Fidanza departs from will be the original - the one that's mysteriously blown up 2 years after this adventure.

Original was in the Neroid sector.

The Wey-Yu ship should be the "USCSS" Resolute. It's a commercial ship rather than military.

The F44AA may be from when W-Y security fought off a UPP incursion. This may or may not be the same as the USCMC / UPP clash in the region in 2147.

[inner zenith]

For those who post in FLs forum: Perhaps they should put it on the core book's map..I mean many people will play Rapture Protocol when the Evolved books arrive

[dull flax]

Yeah, that is a very good point! They should add it to the map...

[inner zenith]

I'd be thankful if anyone could post it there

[fair cedar]

Been done.

[inner zenith]

And I don't understand why the core book still focuses on the 2180s and then they release their cinematic tsking place in 2177 before all the stuff the core book focuses on...

Well... 😅

[dull flax]

True, but its only 3 years... And I think the "Jeremiah Saga" adventures will stretch over a longer period of time, making it end in the 2180s...

[inner zenith]

If scenario isn't a prequel to explain that rifle 😉

[inner zenith]

But yeah, well, it's no problem at my table. I'm used to OSR-style of play, I improvise all the time

It's just an odd inconsistency that I can't overlook easily

[fair cedar]

@inner zenith just in case you hadn't found it.

[inner zenith]

Oh thank you 🤦‍♂️

[fair cedar]

Question - Maybe I missed something, but what is to stop the PC's or even npc's pressing the Fidanza's AGARIC FLY button and using the Starcub shuttle to leave?

[steel hollow]

hey can someone point me to a canon depiction of the cult of the immaculate conception? The idea seems so far fetched that I can't make it click in my head juxtaposed against the "realism" of the Alien world in the Alien movies.

[fair cedar]

First appearance was the Dark Horse comics "Aliens: Book One" by Mark Verheiden. Also influenced by the comic Apocalypse / Destroying Angels.

[misty patrol]

I did my own spin on this in one of my campaigns once. My players visited a space station where modern era social norms were reversed between men and women; so the women were all in charge of everything and the men were looked down upon as nothing more than laborers and "studs" because they were incapable of bearing children. Well, a group of the male dock-workers learned about the xenomorph and managed to somehow get an ovomorph with the intention of proving to the women in charge that men were in fact capable of birthing new life.

[steel hollow]

This is good. I guess that's where to look. What's so wrong that the cultists are looking for an excuse to justify why they think others should be wiped out and (inevitably) they are actually better than them - ie the chosen ones.

Thanks - that's the mental block I had 🙂

[forest swan]

Hey there - no problem with being pinged. I'm actually out of the loop as far as the choice of date is concerned as that's all in Free League's wheelhouse.

[fair cedar]

Those names are placeholders right Jon? Right? Can't believe you didn't put a cat box on the Fidanza either.

[fair cedar]

Unless I've missed it there seems to be no information or NPC card for the ships cat.

[honest creek]

If you're allowed to say/speculate, what is your headcanon as to why the main Alien is tougher than usual?

P. S. Love the added note of having the creature retreat when it goes to half HP. IMO that should be used for all Alien Drones, if not Soldier's as well.

[unique brook]

@fair cedar It seems like it might be an afterthought for getting it out for the beta

[fair cedar]

Possibly, but the booklet mentions an NPC card rather just a token so I was just wondering if Mazarin was as detailed as the cat in HoD.

[steel hollow]

The pdf refers to handouts. Does anyone know where they are? I don't seem them in the agendas or NPC pdfs.

[steel hollow]

Btw - the Act 1 twist/aliens homage is neat. I think that will go over well at my table.

[fair cedar]

No handouts yet.

[forest swan]

LOL - no, they're all in there! But this is the Beta so feel free to feed back. I liked them, they were just a bit of a nod/flavour and it was fun seeing players realise.

[forest swan]

'Because just one of those things managed to wipe out my entire crew in less than 24 hours'. Part of my remit was to take a step back to the original movies with a single creature and to try and invoke that sense of survival, a bit more 'ALIEN Isolation' rather than 'ALIENS Colonial Marines'.

[fair cedar]

Well at least you went with Hurd over Cameron or Scott.

[forest swan]

Not gonna lie, I actively avoided those two, as well as Fincher and Jeunet.

[fair cedar]

Kudos. I look forward to running it. I may have to actively disable the Starcub though. Does it have a moniker?

[honest creek]

Thanks for the answer!

[fair cedar]

There doesn't appear to be a feedback thread for RP on the FL forums at the moment so I guess I'll just note everything down here and port it over at the right time.

[honest creek]

IMO they're a bit on the nose, but I do get it's always tricky with the nods since creators want to have them in and a lot of other fans like it when they realize them as well, we can't deny that. Personally, I'm always for new unused names, but that's just me.

Regardless, glad you're here with us and I can't wait to see where the trilogy of adventures goes!

[honest creek]

There is. Let me find it for you.

[fair cedar]

Sweet. I could only see the starter set and core rulebook ones but perhaps I've got my blinkers on.

[honest creek]

It's in the GM only section for some reason. https://forum.frialigan.se/viewtopic.php?p=96761#p96761

[forest swan]

It does say before the ship stats that 'It is not equipped with any shuttles'. I've not seen the Beta version, though, so they may have changed it.

[fair cedar]

Probably those damned ICC regulations.

But fair enough. I'll go back and check it.

[forest swan]

To be honest, that was more for me as the writer - I knew I wanted Hurd in there as a main.

[fair cedar]

The power behind the throne.

[honest creek]

If the Nostromo didn't have to follow them (only one working shuttle instead of 2), then why does the Fidanza have to have them at all? You know, budget cuts...

[forest swan]

A lot of the Fidanza's stuff has been sold off, including al the gear in her garage. Gotta get money where you can, amnd health & safey be damned.

[forest swan]

I think the shuttle was left in because this is the Bison stat sheet - it might be worth feeding that back.

[honest creek]

We'll let those pesky ICC regs on the FL forum know that they're getting in the way of WY's profit!

[honest creek]

Exactly.

[fair cedar]

Post Nostromo those rules got tightened up, but I could work around it ....

[forest swan]

And just FYI - if you do have feedback for Free League then make sure to use their system, I'm afraid I can't send it on for you.

[honest creek]

Nothing is better for horror than equipment and gear that's barely holding on together. Perfect for the Alien universe as well.

[fair cedar]

Will do. We will pass everything on. Cheers for sticking with us.

[forest swan]

When I wrote Those Dark Places I went for exactly that? 'Emergecy space suits? Lifepods? What on earth for? That costs money!'

[honest creek]

Yep, there will always be those places/ship/outposts that have "forgotten" to resupply with the health and safety stuff, until there's "enough room in the budget" which will never happen.

[fair cedar]

You could have given them limited TOOH. At least it didn't get that far with an extra drain on the resources.

[forest swan]

I just noticed on the Free League forum that any feedback has to be submitted by May 15th - so heads up. Stay frosty.

[honest creek]

Just noticed. The character sheet for Weiss has the results for Heath and Resolve switched. We gotta comb through all of the details, to make sure all the typo stuff is caught.

[fair cedar]

You doubt me?

What do you think I'm doing now?

😄

[honest creek]

That was indeed a foolish thing of me to do! xD

[fair cedar]

Yellow light, not red is Captains eyes only.

You said details .

[honest creek]

The character stats are really all over the place. That could be intentional, but we've never before seen such wide ranges. Characters having their attributes and skills, less or a lot more then the starting values have usually been. I get the more stats for skills, but less than the 10 for skills and less or a lot more for attributes is quite interesting.

[fair cedar]

Pregens don't always follow the character creation rules. Neither do npcs for that matter. It tends to be scenario specific.

[unique brook]

That and I think it fits considering Life Path character creation also allows that

[honest creek]

Yeah, then I might be noticing that for the first time. But usually they just had the same number of points redistributed differently than usual. Hurd with 17 attribute points and 19 skill points is one tough bastard. I would not want to mess with him.

[fair cedar]

Granted. I also thought I saw a random generator that could allow 5 assigned to every attribute if the dice fell that way.

Sod the skill points, he has flamethrower.

[honest creek]

I thought so too, but checking the Life Paths, it only can mess with the distribution of points. Maybe with the possibilty of adding an extra point outside of it? But the multiple career terms sacrifice one attribute point for one skill point plus another talent. One disaster though can reduce your HP by one though.

[fair cedar]

He only needs to get lucky once and the party is toast. Or roast.

[honest creek]

LET IT BURN!

[fair cedar]

Cheers Rich.

[floral wasp]

I have one player like that

[honest creek]

He sets fire to the zone and adios muchachos.

[unique brook]

If you stop after the first term, you can have less skill points

[honest creek]

Not really, your character bio you wrote forgot to add 3 total points.

[fair cedar]

And if you stay too long you lose attributes. Swings and roundabouts.

[honest creek]

It's easy to miss, I know the exact section where I also almost missed it.

[unique brook]

If I did wrong, will check

[honest creek]

I found it really interesting how balanced the Life Path actually was.

[unique brook]

Yeah, you were right, I for some reason forgot about the Career skill points

[honest creek]

The Life Paths are beautifully balanced and the descriptions are awesome.

[floral wasp]

Did you feed that back?

[honest creek]

So yeah, Hurd will be mega dangerous. AWSs have nothing on him. He'll be fun to use against the PCs.

[fair cedar]

Everyone is feeding back layout issues - and problems with resolve- and issues with armour.

[honest creek]

Noc did say on the forums about the Layout for Life Paths that needs to be more clear. But you'll always have 14 attribute points for humans (-1 if you get the bad Disaster) and 10 for skills in the first term with a talent. The second and third moves basically one attribute point to skills and gives you another talent.

[floral wasp]

That's well balanced indeed!

[fair cedar]

Jeffers is going to be pissed - he's going to be pulling double duty as an engineer while two people get to sit on their hands. While I get the inclusion of a medic, why does a scratch crew on a milk run need a scientist. Martinez as a company rep would make more sense than a science officer. And York has no piloting skill. How'd he get a flight officer position?

[honest creek]

York should have at least 1 in piloting.

[unique brook]

They grabbed whoever they could, and the science person could be simply a case of "one more body to throw into the grinder if need be"

[honest creek]

The risk is, besides the fact that you're loosing attribute points to become more specialized, if you have to roll on the Disaster table, you have 1 in 3 chance of losing an additional attribute point. I adore the risk-reward part of it. I really can't wait until someone automates this whole thing in an app. It's really suited for that.

[honest creek]

I'm okay with the scientist for the same reason that there was one on the Nostromo even before Ash. Just seems to be a standard thing, right? If their expertise is needed on such voyages?

[unique brook]

Considering they are going to a mining colony, maybe the scientist is a geologist?

[fair cedar]

I could go with scientist or medic, one or the other, but not both at the expense of a pilot or technician. And with Weiss as the plant it would make sense to me that the medic was more important for a single run.

Doubly so that York can't fly.

[honest creek]

But Witt is the pilot.

[fair cedar]

Ok, Martinez it just hitching a ride back to the Core. Deadheading.

And if Witt can't fly for some reason, where's the safety net?

[honest creek]

True, York needs a point in piloting with that logic.

[fair cedar]

The captain needs to be able to do more than just give orders.

[honest creek]

And a technician with comtech would be useful.

[fair cedar]

Martinez has Comtech. Maybe that's the reason she got a berth aboard? Jeffers is the only one with Heavy Machinery. I think thats a weak point too.

[misty patrol]

Wait, did you write this Cinematic??

[honest creek]

That is the author, yes.

[steel hollow]

Lore question:
If this is before Aliens and Alien 3 and Spacebeast wasn’t made yet, how does the cult even exist if almost no one knows about the Xenos? I feel like this is a really simple answer I missed so don’t worry about dumbing it down for me 🙂

[unique brook]

Different cult, existed long before, more insidiously hiding in corporate world

[steel hollow]

Yeah but same question. If they don’t know a Xeno exists how can there be cult around it?

[honest creek]

Short answer, we don't know how. The cult could've had bits of info from the prequels, Romulus, Alien: Earth etc. Also, the author here said that he didn't put a specific date in when this is happening, so that was all Free League it seems. Maybe they missed that logical detail.

[unique brook]

Only certain people know, and it's more from ruins they have found around the galaxy, they don't know what a xenomorph actually is, they just know it must be akin to their "Destroying Angels" they have secretly found relics and info about.

[honest creek]

I can't believe they removed the part about all the cults in the new CRB. Basically, they are thought to be an offshoot of the Earthsavers Cult.

[steel hollow]

Huh. That all just seems really unsatisfying to be such an important part of the module.

[honest creek]

Earthsavers are from the novel Alien Origins. A prequel to Covenant. No Aliens in that one by the way.

Basically a dude had visions. Nightmares.

of the Alien

And that's how it all started.

[steel hollow]

Is the cult basically riffing on Alien 3? I’ve basically only watched the movies.

[honest creek]

Maybe a bit? But these are more stereotypical cults. Made out of desperate manipulated people.

[fair cedar]

All goes back to the Destroying Angels / Aliens Apocalypse comic. Ridley riffed off of it for Prometheus.

[unique brook]

This particular cult in Rapture Protocol is like the Unitologists, they don't know what they are looking for really, but they have ideas of what it is

[honest creek]

Noooo he didn't know of it at all. He doesn't care about the extended universe in the slightest. He has seen none of it.
He was obsessed with the ancient aliens after reading that popular book.
During production people wanted to tell Scott that the plot of Prometheus has a huge number of similarities with the plot of the first AvP film (which he almost certainly didn't even watch) but were too afraid to say anything.

He riffed off of religious themes, ancient aliens pop culture and Lovecraft's At The Mountains Of Madness most likely.

[steel hollow]

While that might be the correct answer, I feel like 90% of the people who play will have my question as opposed to extended lore knowledge and/or movie production knowledge.

Especially with this blurb that has it's own block:

that more or less contracts this:

@forest swan - hey is there a simple answer I missed for the above? How does the cult exist and know about the Xeno before it’s been discovered by someone who survives?

[unique brook]

The idea from what I understand, is that Ripley isn't the first case of xenomorph encounter, just the first case that isn't completely covered up

[steel hollow]

For the sake of simplicity and being truely stand-alone I’m tempted to have Hurd spontaneously create the cult after seeing the engineers statues. He’s already a religious zealot and the stress of the situation gives him followers and purpose kind of like miss Carmody in The Mist.

[honest creek]

That would be cool, but that then interferes with the other 2 key members. Chalk and the cult member higher up at WY who is helping the plot get started.

[steel hollow]

Yeah. The ripples from that will make other edits necessary. I think I could run it more confidently that way though so it might be worth it. For me anyway.

[fair cedar]

Now idly wondering how close Whittaker came to being called Susan Weaver.

[steel hollow]

I do have to say, after reading the scenario I’m seriously considering adding in the minis in pledge manager

[inner zenith]

Why?

[forest swan]

I hate to play the cop-out card but I'll be honest and say that I wasn;t part of the deciding process, and I'd hate to speculate in case I'm contradicting something they already have planned.

Man, being a writer of an existinbg franchise is hard - I've got to be really careful! 🙂

[steel hollow]

No worries! I just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss something obvious and seeing the writer bopping around in the forum was just too great a temptation not to ping. 🙂
FWIW - I was struggling to come up with what I thought of the module and the word I came up with was “iconic”. I think this could end up being THEE Alien module to play so bravo.

[steel hollow]

It’s just after seeing the map and how much stealth mode is used now it’s tempting. “Stuff” at the table is always fun.

[floral wasp]

Dead bodies in the station with the heat dialed up to maximum will make the place stink horribly, I'll need to remember to narrate that properly.

[floral wasp]

One of the events is called "surprise motherfucker" 🤣

Love this scenario, I look forward to running it.

[fair cedar]

There's a dead body being cooked on the hob. Enough to make anyone commit to a tofu filled future.

[floral wasp]

It's an induction hob though, is that supposed to even work?

[odd rock]

Have someone noticed on the Free League forum that they had to remove the word "HIVE" beside the Reactor Core tag in the map? It'll be a spoiler for players.

[honest creek]

Oh I don't think that was mentioned. Good spotting! That should be brought to their attention.

[frigid tangle]

I hate to start negative, but the way the cult is presented in this cinematic is a bit of a turn off for me. I found myself wishing they had stuck to a more traditional setup with miners fighting corporate with the alien thrown into the mix.

I can buy Hurds motivations, and I can see Chalk and Weiss as special operatives sent in by the Cult Leaders - but I find it a bit outlandish that more than a just a couple miners would instantly convert to the cult - as it really is an insane ideology to throw yourself whole-heartedly into. Half the station turning into cultists just doesn't seem reasonable to me.

Suddenly worshipping alien eggs and an giant monster is something I could see Gollic from Alien 3 doing, but he was established as literally insane, not just a regular blue-collar worker on a mining colony.

The timeline also brings up a ton of unanswered questions as people have already discussed. I wish they had provided a bit more background information on the Cult with how heavy their presence is in the cinematic - especially since there are only a few vague paragraphs about them in the core rulebook, one of which heavily places their beliefs on Space Beast, which this cinematic pre-dates.

Now with all that said - I quite like this cinematic as a whole. It's a great setup, and allows a lot of mechanics from the game to shine. Really the only issue I have is the sheer number of cultists. I think if I were to run this, I'd significantly limit their numbers, and focus more on the company commandos, xenomorph, and the malfunctioning station itself being the main threats until the players reach the mine shaft/engineer chamber.

I think I'd throw in a couple additional xenomorphs as well, plenty of time has passed for there to be more aliens spawned from ovomorphing. Have those be expendable/killable, with our "hero" xenomorph being the big bad of cinematic. Give it a few distinct features or scars to make it distinguishable from the rest of the Aliens.

I could easily see myself setting this up like Alien Isolation - where the players think there is only a single xenomorph on the station until a dramatic moment when they discover there are more.

[steel hollow]

Yeah cult thing is a stretch with me too. The only way I see that working is if there's already major us/them problems on the colony and Hurd just happens to be the guy that says it out loud and is charismatic enough to bring them all together. Most of the cultists just want their frustrations acknowledged and to be told they're the "good guys" and the supervisors who haven't lifted a finger deserve to get whats coming to them.

That's why I think it works best if it's a different cult based entirely around Hurd's cult of personality until he discovers the eggs and then he just happens to use that to consolidate power. Maybe even using the discovery as proof he was right all along. "Now, after seeing this, do you STILL doubt me?" - that sort of thing.

[frigid tangle]

I could see that as the start of the rift between the two factions, but then again the xenomorph isn't going to care which side the miners are on.

I feel like once the miners on Hurd's side realize that he's actively protecting the creature that's trying to kill them all, they'd turn against him and go back to Whittaker - with maybe the exception of a few people close to Hurd that have actually bought into the cult's ideology.

[steel hollow]

I think this would be more handled by Hurd's manipulations. Either "They weren't true believers!" or maybe he's somehow baiting the non-cultists into encountering the xeno more.

...but again, this is me more trying to make the existing pieces work rather than swap them out for something else.

[frigid tangle]

Nah I totally understand trying to work with whats given instead of changing it around.

I just know my group of players would be questioning the hell out of it lol. We've watched too many horror movies with cults that had silly motivations 😂

[steel hollow]

I don't think it would take TOO much to swap the cultists out with scientists who believe it's too important a discovery to abandon/destroy and are using the regular miners to continue work in an effort to discover some method of protection. The biggest thing would be "cultists" wouldn't be converting, they would have been with that particular team from the start.

You know, now that I say that I'm going to think about it some. It would be like Prometheus faction instead of an Alien 3 faction. I like that flavor better.

[frigid tangle]

Honestly thats what I had been thinking too, switching it back over to a more corporate vs colonist setting, just requires a bit more re-writing throughout the story lol.

[steel hollow]

...or just make Hurd David 🙂

https://tenor.com/view/perfection-perfect-michael-fassbender-magneto-x-men-first-class-gif-2260686001358167676

[honest creek]

The cult would've worked better if more info and history was given to the workers as to what conditions they were in. The premise needed to be more nuanced to be more believable.
Dark Descent also is on the verge of unbelievable, but it's done much better there. Like there was a whole planet colonized there with multiple colonies and different settlements, existed for almost a century, had rebellions on planetside with ugly wars to squash them down, we have a lot of info their horrible history of being exploited, so I could absolutely understand some of the population being susceptible to a cult in that scenario. But it was just a little fraction.

On a place like this, in Rapture Protocol, the percentage is a bit much for such a small population. Though IMO nothing a little homebrew backstory and history of the place can't fix.

[honest creek]

Well Hurd has definitely got the stats for that. No humanoid NPC has had stats like that ever. That plus the stats of the special Drone, really emphasizes who the bosses in this cinematic are (maybe a bit too video game like, but it could be fun...).

[steel hollow]

You know, honestly, the most believable way for this cult to form before SpaceBeast is David starting it 🙂

[frigid tangle]

I was gonna say David hates humans too much for that - but exploiting religion to further the doom of humanity would be so on-brand for him lol.

[frigid tangle]

Yeah Dark Descent definitely had similar vibes, and I know there's a lot of expanded universe materials where the Cults are prevalent, as you said just in this particular setting it feels a bit too misplaced for me personally.

But again, I really do like the rest of the scenario and how its laid out, I think it'd be pretty fun to run it.

[steel hollow]

I flat out had Davidovich actually BE David in my DoW game because it why not?

[frigid tangle]

Weiss as a player character feels a bit awkward though, they're so against all the other players throughout the scenario, I feel like its going to be hard to make that one work out well, especially that third act.

[unique brook]

Actually, the exact cult these guys are based predate Space Beast in the lore, it's a different cult that worships Morse's book, the cult here is named a bit different from the Morse cult, sharing the name of a cult from the old alien comics.

Hope that helps.

[steel hollow]

Not without more details 😉

[frigid tangle]

The books have them both named as the Church of Immaculate Incubation, hence the confusion lol

[unique brook]

If I remember correctly, the Church Of Immaculate Incubation that the Rapture Protocol is using is one that was started by a former LaSalle Bionational Scientist.

And they are the guys responsible for Xenos making it to Earth in the original comics.

[frigid tangle]

Yeah I remember them from the old Earth Hive books that were based on those comics too, some of the first Aliens novels I had read when I was younger lol.

[unique brook]

Okay, found the Morse Cult, they are a splinter group from the other cult, but have Morse's book as their bible, and that the cult Rapture Protocol is using was often just called the Earthsaver Cult

They are both officially called Church of Immaculate Conception, since they used to be the same group.

But the way to distinguish them is apparently calling them the Earthsavers and the Morse Cult

[steel hollow]

So how do you know it's the Earthsavers in Rapture Protocol?

[fair cedar]

Splinter group from the Earthsavers. Might include Deep Void converts from as early as 2104, members of the Geholghod Institute from the mid 2130's, folks who saw things on Sevastopol or Jericho 3. Morse just put the information out there. Its been around for a while.

[steel hollow]

...as opposed to Morse's cult

[unique brook]

Rapture Protocol specifies when it occurs, which puts it before Alien 3 in the timeline

The main difference between the cults is just who they say is their founder, Sevje the LaSalle Bionational Scientist, or Morse and his book

[fair cedar]

I have to say, I'm less concerned with the origin of the cult, than I am that a character with Hurd's abilities has acquired a military issue flamethrower.

[unique brook]

That is concerning, yes

[steel hollow]

I have to say, as someone who just watched the movies and that's it, I don't know what any of the above actually means and it has officially outpaced my curiosity.

[unique brook]

Essentially, there was a cult before Alien 3, but when Alien 3 happened, guys from that cult decided Morse's book was right and their previous founder was wrong, and started cult around Morse's book

[frigid tangle]

I'd assume thats just because they didn't include any of the other flamethrower/incenerator units in the books lol

For once it makes sense to have flamethrowers since this takes place on a frozen planet

[fair cedar]

Fair enough. It might be enough to say that Hurd may have encountered Jannes Ruedi and fallen under his sway at some point.

[unique brook]

It wouldn't be that hard to just say that some of the miners were cultists who joined as part of Hurd's people infiltrating, or just desperate enough in some cases

[frigid tangle]

Yeah, the book just makes it out that Hurd is a cultist that just happened to be at the same place as an engineer site, rather than it being an intentional thing

[fair cedar]

"We use the flamethrowers to defrost vehicles. Its quicker than waiting for the heaters to start up".

[frigid tangle]

hey we're just gonna ignore that liquidizing ice is going to make an even bigger mess when it re-freezes and enjoy our flamethrowers :P

[steel hollow]

looks at other reality-breaking physics in Alien we all ignore with no problem

[unique brook]

Remember, it's realistic when it needs to be soul-crushingly depressing in the Alien universe~

[fair cedar]

I had the same issue with the flamethrower on the Montero. Could go with it if it were a "Parker Special", but the Bake A Flake seemed out of place. Plus there ought to be at least one reload for the empty .357 one of the miners is walking around with. A loaded gun that can shoot out to medium range might be handy. A thorough search of Travis's quarters should turn something up. Alternatively have one of the characters trip over a useful bit of kit thats been thrown out of the airlock. That last act is going to hurt.

York better go back for the cat.

[frigid tangle]

There's a Colonial Marshal stationed at the facility that was killed by the Alien early on - could have the players find some in his belongings somewhere. Seems like a reasonable weapon for a Marshal to be carrying around lol.

[fair cedar]

I assume its his revolver. The xeno got him first in the canteen I think.

[unique brook]

Yeah, either that or a shotgun, those are part of the common weaponry of the Marshalls

[frigid tangle]

oh, yeah Travis is the marshal, sorry still learning the names lol

The cat better stay on the ship, although I'm sure someone is gonna try to bring him along 😂

Might be why they didnt include a cat carrier haha

[fair cedar]

Technically its York's signature item.

I figure the cats safety should be worked into his agenda.

[frigid tangle]

Yeah I thought it was odd that the signature item could be a cat until I found out that the items no longer have the stress mechanic. At first was like, do they really expect them to bring the cat everywhere? lol

[steel hollow]

The funny part is if the cat dies in an Alien game it's going to be the most traumatic thing they remember out of any Alien game 🙂

[fair cedar]

Plus if its wandering around the station, it could screw with the motion tracker again, or act as an early warning system if the xeno is in the vicinity.

[floral wasp]

Officers could get a cat as signature item in the first edition too iirc.

[honest creek]

After reading it fully, here are my thoughts:

I like the adventure, can't wait to play it and GM it. The highlight is probably the beginning where you're trying to find Chalk.
It is kind of strange the disconnect that is happening then where the Players are expecting an Alien even though the characters wouldn't be and would have no reason whatsoever to suspect exotic and dangerous life being on board, since it's generally rare.
I appreciate having an adventure without the black goo.

Now the things I found strange:

For an adventure with a limited number of maps, with some of them being quite small (the Engineer chamber), I would've expected a lot more events to fill out the runtime. A lot of the events are just instant jump scares, with less complex events than I suspected.

Having one Alien can work, but for having only one most of the time, I would've expected more diverse behavior and events with it. Combat Tactics Talent is really cool though.
Its toughness is really strange though. It's not very vulnerable to actual damage, yet will die when dropped into a furnace? When we know from the films the exact opposite is true! They are quite vulnerable to military grade AP rounds and even lucky pistol shots to the face, yet we've seen them shrug off engine exhaust twice without issue (Covenant and Romulus) and in Alien 3 the Runner survived a furnace and was still able to move.

The Cult's appearance here is extremely underdeveloped. Very generic and mustache twirling. The motivations and plans could've been fleshed out more. There was a great hook of Hurd telling the workers that the eggs should be protected for the great bonus they will receive from the company. But that all just kind of gets dropped? Flimsy motivations aside, I could get the situation if more of the cult members were here to begin with from the start. Or if there was already an established fringe religious group. But half the miners just going culty like that? We don't even know what kind of hardships they endured on the colony to become that desperate.

The WY mercs suffer a similar problem. Just having them outright want to kill everyone is again a caricature. Even in Alien 3, where they're the most mustache twirling, they didn't plan on killing anyone. Morse was purposefully shot in the leg and allowed to live and publish his silly book. Aaron only died because he attacked Michael. So getting back to Rapture Protocol, this place isn't a secret WY black ops bioweapons facility. They're not guilty of anything here. No need to silence anyone. We still could've had a fight with them, we just needed a written reason, something to provoke them (like Aaron did in Alien 3). Maybe have the PCs/NPCs try to shoot and kill one of the eggs or adults and that's what triggers the PMCs to shoot at us back?
But let's say they are muahaha evil and they want none to survive. Why then don't they use their own ship to blow up our ship, the only means of our escape? Or guard it, or overwatch it to block anyone's approach?

All of those details I can flesh out and change and homebrew, but I do wish those details were a bit more in depth and nuanced.

[unique brook]

Hopefully there are updates for the final version that add more stuff to it

[odd rock]

Very spot on comments, also my thoughts. I imagine you just have posted your points on the feedback forum. 👍

[honest creek]

Haven't yet, but weren't they taking comments until the 15th for Hope's Last Day and Rapture Protocol?

Plus with Tomas' comments on the Core Rulebook feedback thread, he said those threads are for typos and basic errors, not really advice or discussions.

He then made a separate thread for that for the Core Rulebook, but I don't think Rapture Protocol has a specific thread for feedback of that sort.

But I could still take a wild shot and just post it in the original Rapture Protocol thread...

[toxic geyser]

Just read thru the session, there is a lot of "mustache twirling" as mentioned above. I'm having a very hard time getting the motivation of the cult. If they were given some kind of special rewards...why pick the apocalypse? The Xenos don't talk or "screw each other over for a percentage". I'm going to find it very hard to DM them. Any suggestions?

[steel hollow]

I had some ideas further up the thread about exactly this.

[fair cedar]

@honest creekeverything ok? Have you fallen asleep on your keyboard or are you writing another essay?

Just checking mate. You never know.

[honest creek]

I plan to homebrew stuff like this:

Emphasize that this is a poor colony with very poor conditions. Extremely poor. Things have gotten very bad and the company just can't afford to ship supplies and replacement parts. They have to make due with what they have, and it's not enough. People work here who are desperate and in debt, they're the cheapest. Half of those miners were already religious and formed their own little support group, dreaming of a better tomorrow. In comes the Alien Cult. Hurd exploits the weakened desperate minds of these. But instead of mustache twirling, he actually believes it. Now I'm talking stuff from Dark Descent. The Alien Cult believes that the Alien is immortal. The Alien is born as you die. Meaning of course, that your soul gets transferred to the perfect shell which will never rot and wither! Literal transformation and reincarnation! The Cult sees the mega corps destroying the subservient working class, and the mega countries on the verge of all out war. The Aliens (if they're true and pure) all get along (ignore the Aliens Genocide reference and the waring hives ideas).

So the Cult wants to save humanity. As simple as that! Humanity can't survive in space. It needs to transform to do so. It needs to be saved...

Why do they believe all of this? Easy... All cause of decades of Chinese whispers, the echo of an echo. In the first half of the 22nd century, some scientists, doing research on Aliens, found out some things. After reaching to adulthood, they don't age biologically anymore and will hibernate indefinitely when possible (that's why the Cult believes the creatures will never die of old age). They also found that the creatures seem to have memories from their Queen within them and maybe even some spatial and device usage memories from their hosts (an Alien Resurrection reference, that's why the Cult believes the soul of the host is within the creature). The researchers found that introducing two Queens (maybe Queen chestbursters if you find it hard to believe that 2 adult Queens could be captured) were not aggressive to each other and cooperated perfectly (that's why the Cult believe the creatures are the only way of achieving piece and a true meritocracy, also a reference to Ripley's line: You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage...).

If all of this is too much for you, those 3 things could just be hypothesize and speculation based on limited info. It may not even need to be all true for your game. Of course, research station/outpost got destroyed. The findings barely survived. Either there was one researcher survivor who went mad from the horrors and trauma after the event who was a key member of all of this new Alien Cult stuff, or the research findings were uploaded somewhere to WY or another company. They could've been stolen, they could've been picked up by some snoopy fellow and over time, through the decades and transformation of the story, you get to what the Cult currently believes (what I outlined).

Nature is mostly just dark, black space. The Alien is one with nature. A perfect representation of it. That's why it is black like the Void itself. You can also play with the belief that they want to be transformed into the Holy Shell (the Alien).

There is nothing more painful to them then being killed by the Alien instead of being taken to be facehugged. That means they were rejected and found dirty and impure by the Holy Shell. But to make them seem more human you could have them realize in the last possible second before being facehugged (or chestburst) that they indeed are afraid, and they're not so sure about all of this. In the end the unfathomable level of fear clears their mind of their delusions. But by that time, it's already too late. The fear has paralyzed them of retreat or speech or screams. In the embrace of death personified, no one can hear you scream. (Something similar to that was done with the very first Alien comic with the exact same Cult).

Play it subtly, play it convincingly and straight, no mustache twirling. Like this, I believe it could work.

[honest creek]

Check my above message, I screwed up the reply reference... xD

[honest creek]

Thanks for checking in. Me and my damn essays, I can't help it though.... The person asked about how would we approach making the Cult more believable and I just went loose... My idea could be absolute BS, but it's there for me to figure out what I like and if anyone actually likes it, to have inspiration for their own stuff.

[toxic geyser]

Yes, this makes way more sense to me. The whole rebirth works too...

[fair cedar]

Becoming Angels of the Apocalypse.

Yeah. Read that comic too.

Also very Red Dragon.

[unique brook]

And it fits because we learn through other lore that the idea that Xenos are in perfect harmony is just... wrong, if they do have to screw each other over, they do it without a second thought, and queens hating eachother is confirmed in most circumstances, it fits with the irony that the cult, for all it's mysteriousness and smartness, are really desprerate people who have no true idea what the feck they are doing.

Because their understanding of the xenomorph is mostly shit they semi-understand, but they think they fully understand

[honest creek]

A lot of stuff stitched from old media plus some of my logical extrapolations how to make it more sensical and more empathetic from a human prespective. The "bad guys" always believe they're doing the right thing. So make it so in their eyes. Saving humanity. Apocalypse of the soft hateful flesh known has Humans (since they've suffered so much of that hate already, make it a sad story). Glorious Rebirth of Man into Everlasting Dark Angels.

[unique brook]

If Weyland Yutani are the NFT Guys, then the Church of Imaculate Incubation is Scientology, they aren't mustache twirling villians, they are dumb people who think they are smart and have way too much time and way too little skill in keeping money, they are people who are so sure that they are right or were convinced that the cult is right, that no convincing that it is stupid is possible, they will just double down out of fear of being wrong.

[toxic geyser]

Yes the miners are grasping at anything and Hurd is telling them of a new reborn life where you are never lonely or weak but an immortal tall and strong

[honest creek]

Depends on which source you deem as canon, there are people who don't consider the Aliens fighting amongst themselves as canon and they take Ripley's line literally (unless the other Alien strain isn't pure like the K series or the Biodrones, basically Dalek level of resentement of anything not close to their genes), but of course there are multiple sources of different hives duking it out. So of course, you could always go the route of the Cultists believing one thing and just completely not understanding the full picture and having a meltdown when they realize that reality isn't what they imagined and that they're disappointed and horrified by what's in front of them instead of being all crazy and in awe of the thing in front of them.

A million and one approaches possible with them.

[honest creek]

Oh, haven't watched that film in a long time, a good reminder, thanks.

[unique brook]

Treat them like those people on r/WallStreetBets who are so convinced about their "genius plan" to make a lot of money that they spend their life savings and are confused that they just lost 60k on a company they were so sure was gonna rise in stocks (it wasn't).

There are plenty of reasons to believe in something flat out wrong, just pick one that you feel works for you and your party for the cult.

[honest creek]

Plus, if we get to the question of why would the cultists sacrifice themselves to protect the Alien if the cultists want to live forever? Well, they do, but they are not in that form yet. To kill an ageless, biologically immortal organism is the greatest sin. Killing a human, something mortal, is more understandable since mortal things will die sooner or later. The Immortal Holy Shell, Dark Destroying Angel, whatever is much more valuable since it can spread its seed like no other creature. Life personified. Nothing grows and spreads as fast. Protect one and more will come.

Plus such a mindset would also avoid the cult being generic murder hobos. They will kill you if you risk their plans and the creatures, but they would prefer for you to join them. If not in human form, than in Alien form. In that form you will surely understand and join all of your Alien brethren. So that would make sense as to why they would try to have you facehugged if they can. They think you're the delusional one! And by being facehugged, you'll be set free and saved!

[ornate garden]

Page 16 There are air ducts throughout the ship, marked on the map including access points. At three points, marked A, B and C, there are vertical ducts allowing movement between A Deck and B Deck

But those are marked as X,Y and Z on the map?

[honest creek]

Yeah, that's been reported on the feedback forum thread.

[honest creek]

Tomas stated on the forums that they'll probably push the events of this cinematic up to 2185. The cultists and WY mercs will seem a smidge less strange in their behaviors cause of that.

But the main motivations of these factions are still cartoonish.

[unique brook]

I don't mind that, because one has to remember that many actual cults have beliefs that make one ask how anyone fell for it in the first place, but they succeeded to get recruits

[sleek rivet]

Aye

[floral wasp]

The players will probably not fully figure out the motivations of the cult either, mine won't at least.

[unique brook]

Scientology exists, a cult about xenomorphs seems par for the course at this point

[steel hollow]

The current political landscape also makes rediculous cults so much more believable.

[unique brook]

"Believe in aliens? fuck yeah! These guys at least have a plan!" - a desperate colonist who just had their work hours increased for the 10th time this year

[floral wasp]

Plenty of irrationally to point to in the last decade.. 😬

[sleek rivet]

Way too many to be honest

[unique brook]

Genuinely, while my mental disorder makes it impossible for me to ever get things like cults, doing a few years of psychology classes in college has done nothing but confirm that no matter the type of people exist in the world, there is always gonna be someone really good at convincing people to believe in something they really shouldn't.

[honest creek]

People are strange sometimes, and a charismatic leader can definitely do a lot of damage. But even most Cults/extremist groups believe they're doing the right thing, one way or another, however messed up it may be.

It's one thing to say: I want to spread the Alien to save you all so you can be reborn etc. But another thing completely is: I want to spread the Alien to kill everyone, just because. The more extreme a group is, the less people percentage wise will be part of it and the more time it takes to convince them to join. I just wished it was fleshed out more.

[frigid tangle]

Yeah it's unfortunate they based the new cinematic on one of the most extreme cults in the book, but didn't give us much to work with for background information. I'm sure some player won't care much about their motivations, but I like stuff to at least make sense. Religious doomsday cults are pretty hard to get right in the horror genre, especially this one, where the only references to them are entirely outside the films that most people are familiar with.

If this were a movie, it would be getting a lot of comments on why half the mining colony suddenly turned into zealous doomsday cultists in a matter of days when the other half just seem like normal people.

I kinda get similar vibes to the movie "The Mist", but those people were much less extreme in their beliefs and it made more sense in the context of the film lol.

[honest creek]

Updated Rapture Protocol seems to be out. Just got a mail.

[unique brook]

stat block for the cat

[honest creek]

Oooohhh

[unique brook]

And some updates to stats and wording, it is mostly the same, it seems it's just an update in the most literal sense

[honest creek]

Yeah, I wasn't expecting too many changes anyway for this one.

[frigid tangle]

Year was changed to 2185, so the cult makes a bit more sense in the timeline.

One interesting change was the gun found in the engineer chamber - used to be an old Weyland Storm Rifle, now it's an F44AA pulse rifle.

And yeah the cat has a lovely stat block lol

[steel hollow]

Is that after SpaceBeast was published?

(I'm terrible with lore outside the movies)

[honest creek]

It is! Space Beast was around 2179.

[unique brook]

So now it's a Morse Cult, or at least the idea of xenos is more widespread, so more people joining cults makes more sense

[honest creek]

Pardon me for spreading false information then!

[fair cedar]

Have the crew stats been updated?

[unique brook]

I imagine that the previous cult is still the ones in control here, but the random miners that join are Morse guys that think they are joining the Morse cult, but in reality are little more than fodder for the Earthsaver cultists

[fair cedar]

And is the shuttle still aboard the Fidanza?

[honest creek]

Looking at it now. I think the robo butler has had his stats updated. Most others seem similar. Let me know which specific ones to check?

Oh damn, they gave Hurd Hardened x3? He has 8HP.... More than a Drone, the same as a Warrior? Damn are the stats off IMO. I don't like how artificially bosses (him and the Alien) feel stat boosted in this adventure. He still has 17 attribute points and 19 skill points.

[honest creek]

Which cult do you mean specifically? The Church of I. I. is it's own thing. The Earthsavers are long gone and transformed, the Church is an offshoot from them. And the Children of the Two Divines are an offshoot of the Church.

[floral wasp]

I guess the way to take him down is by aggro-ing a facehugger..?

[honest creek]

Seems like it. Unless someone brings a boatload of blasting charges?

[unique brook]

I mean in the sense that the higher-ups like Hurd feel like they are part of the Church that is led by the Lasalle Bionational guy, while the random miners feel like they would have read Morse and got ideas, but are just fodder to Hurd

[honest creek]

Oh that.

Well yeah, they're all using each other down the chain.

[unique brook]

It makes more sense if the random miners that went cultist are Morse guys, while the cultists that are embedded into high positions, like Hurd and Weiss, feel like they are cultists for the church

[honest creek]

Space Beast was just one of the books that are used by different cults. The Church was already functional and with an enough charismatic leader they can certainly get their way in enough time. If newly indoctrinated miners base their beliefs off of just Space Beast (which really isn't much of a special book) without the Church bending the narrative and feeding more info for their goals, I can't that being something too logical. Cause Morse alone neither was entranced by the Alien, neither did he become a cult leader himself, nor is the book anything special.

[fair cedar]

First look - York is slightly more well rounded. Jack of all trades and master of none. Yellow warning lights, the shuttle has gone. Nice cat. 3 flashlights. Still no cat box.

The Dogcatchers gear has been updated.

[honest creek]

I like their gear now.

[floral wasp]

Hurd must've been laying the groundwork for some time though.

[honest creek]

THE ALIEN'S HP HAS BEEN INCREASED TO 16?!?!

And it still has speed 3.

That is really OP.

[floral wasp]

That's high.

So players will see it take 8 hp and flee, what are they opposed to make of that?

For all intents and purposes it's invincible. Nobody is going to face that thing twice.

[honest creek]

If they wanted an Alien type encounter, just make the pregens shitty at CC and RC and don't give them good weapons. It's their fault they made the cutting torch, axe, flamethrower and boltgun so OP, now they're afraid those tools might be too harsh or what?
No need to make the Alien that bullet spongy. Use a damn Praetorian or Queen at that point. Or just have confidence in your Combat Tactics talent!

Or are the devs afraid of the full auto of the gun?

[honest creek]

Maybe the devs were going for the PCs to think that you broke the Alien and it rolled a retreat? So that you think that that's all of the HP? And only later do you find out it has more? So much more....

The scale creep is ridiculous. This used to be the HP of the Crusher...

[steel hollow]

Yeah, honestly, the more interesting way to handle this would have been to modify it's critical hit table.

[honest creek]

Exactly, give it new, fun, custom crit tables!

[steel hollow]

And that's even assuming you wanted it that overpowered

[honest creek]

The Doctor's card is updated to just a chestburster carrier in the main book, but it still wrongly says Queenburster carrier on his individual card.

Xeno's HP is still 14 in the book. But 16 on the card.

[floral wasp]

It's going to leak acid all over the crawlspaces too

No more ceilings..

I'm keen to run this scenario though, it looks like it could make for a really cool game.

[honest creek]

It will be a fun game of cat and mouse. Could be much better, but it would be fun even like this.

They changed this, added text to the xeno flute thing:

"Martinez can use her Analysis talent to realize
that the flute is somehow connected to the
Xenomorph and may have an effect on it."

I have no idea how one would deduce that. That's some meta gaming right there. And even though I think the flute thing is ridiculous, having a distraction mechanic is cool. Especially since the person has to continue to do manipulation well each round.

Seeing all of this be done half as good as I believe it could be does inspire me to create an Alien Isolation supplement with all of the game mechanics translated into YZE. So at least there's that.

I really do like the timer countdown supply roll.

[floral wasp]

I've been wanting to do an Alien: Isolation inspired scenario for two years now, struggle to make it work.

I'm also not someone who often finishes hobby projects

[honest creek]

I'm not much better either there, snails are sprinting compared to me...

[floral wasp]

We need to team up with someone who's good at finishing but lacks ideas.

[fair cedar]

Curious about the timely arrival of the Dogcatcher team. How'd they know about the situation on Jeremiah VI?

[floral wasp]

If the cult can organise a sleeper and stowaway on a supply ship, then WY can send out a team in that same time I think?

Must've overheard something

[honest creek]

Hurd and the stowaway are approved and sent by a Church member who's a high ranking official in WY.

So the exec probably sent in a team to secure the rights for themselves.

Just to be triple sure.

I'm still sad that the mercs have no real reason to want to kill us right away without any talking or negotiating, since we're just civilians in just a normal facility.

[fair cedar]

Which makes the Fidanza mission a bit redundant and incurs extra resources. Ho-hum....just thinking.

[floral wasp]

It's a possible source of weaponry 🤔

[frigid tangle]

I'm wondering if the WY team is a separate group from the high-level executive who is a part of the church which wants to use the xenomorph for the Church's goals - while the Resolute commandos are trying to capture the xenomorphs for the company.

Since everything goes through Network and back to the company, I doubt that executive was able to keep the xeno's a secret from Weyland Yutani.

[fair cedar]

Now that makes a bit more sense.

[honest creek]

Oh I like that possibility.

[sleek rivet]

Or possibly that the high level member was found out, busted, confessed everything and the dogcatcher unit is send in to seize the xenomorph and take care of any incriminating evidence, which includes witnesses

So yeah, civies in a compromised facility

[honest creek]

All very plausible. Would've been nice to have a sentence or two giving that context in the story.

[floral wasp]

It might come up in a second scenario?

[honest creek]

I hope so. Though having that context would still be better for the GM to know that there is a way to make sense of it all.

[floral wasp]

I agree, context really helps deal with unexpected queries during play etc.

[abstract ermine]

My petpeeve with the Church of Immaculate Incubation is the silly name. It's also really difficult to translate, since the "Church of Immaculate Conception" the name is a play on, is usually localized based on contents, making it Holy-Mary something or other.
Like others have mentioned, it might make more sense to consider the chuch similar to Scientology, especially the OT-levels which are a useful gauge for how invested and deep each member is into the church, and how the church handles these people: most mooks are probably just useful idiots for donations, facilitating church operations or taking the fall for some actions, whereas the deep operatives can get their hands dirty. Confirmed information about the xenos, engineers and such is need to know basis only.

Another angle is to consider the church as a tool for the powers that be: at the top of the chuch-ladder there is only the regular money-oriented W-Y suits. They promote the church, because it is a cheap way to keep workers proactive and eager to find alien shit. These cultists will report any xeno-findings up the church-ladder, no matter where they ar posted or who they are working for. With deep enough indoctrination, they will protect and procreate the xenos so its a sure pick up for the dog catchers - who will of course purge the witnesses, because they don't want anyone to soil the function of the church.

Hurd could be made more interesting, if he sees through this ploy. He doesn't have the cojones to get hugged and ascend, but he's also a bit petulent – which is why he's made it difficult for ships to leave if they land AND why he's in the egg chamber with an incinerator - the weapon that has most prominently been used against eggs in the film. If the dog catchers came down, it'd lead into an "if I can't have her, no-one can" outcome.

[steel hollow]

I think they said this is supposed to be the first of a trilogy of scenarios. I do worry about what can be changed about the cult that won’t affect the other scenarios to negatively.

[abstract ermine]

Spent a good half hour fiddling at the ship map 😅 If there's one notable feature about the decks on the Bison class ships, it's that the ladder wells should be straight across the decks. But maybe the Fidanza is already such a mess, that even the decks don't align anymore 😁.
I hope that the finalized cinematic comes with a digital map with corrected dimensions and simple central reference points on both decks so it's easier to make them overlap in VTTs and such.

[floral wasp]

Ttrpgs have a long and proud tradition of staircases not lining up 👌

[abstract ermine]

I'm thinking of revisiting an old idea of using a sci-fi Geiger counter to detect an irradiated xenomorph. I think this scenario would be a good opportunity to try it out, since it would allow the players to avoid the big bad boss while also remaining oblivious to other threats and characters.
The Geiger counter could differ from the motion detector in that it could be active at all times, either limiting Observation (headphones) or giving away the unit's position with the crackling on the speaker. The counter would give information of the threat in the zone based on radiation: background (no xeno activity), low (xeno activity 2-3 stretches ago), medium (xeno activity in the last stretch), high (xeno in the area), extreme (xeno contact imminent). Of course, this wouldn't function in the reactor.

[steel hollow]

A Giger counter then?

(sorry couldn't resist)

[abstract ermine]

Anyone else feel like this scenario might do with a bit more mining stuff? More seismic charges (instead of just the one small one in the shower), hazards from some heavy machinery, etc.
I could imagine players familiar with mining wanting to do some shenanigans, like turn off/poison the air circulation to the mines, or cause cave ins and what not. I'd rather have some tools for facilitating that as the GM.

[fair cedar]

Its supposed to be more limited in terms of equipment, but if they're feeling desperate, the characters could always make observation rolls outside the airlock closest to the workshop where the cultists have supposedly disposed of anything that can be used as a weapon against the xeno. Cutters, drills and mining lasers should be used sparingly.

That goes double for explosives.

[sleek rivet]

And with low power batteries in them

[fair cedar]

Spotted an actual play of Rapture Protocol on YT. Unfortunately for me it's in French. However, if you can speak the language or don't mind reading subtitles it's out there if you fancy seeing how the scenario plays out.

[marble flame]

I have finally read the rapture protocol

It feels.. formulaic?

[floral wasp]

I've only read through it once and it's been a few days. In what sense formulaic?

[abstract ermine]

IMO, there is a distinct "work towards the end boss" feel to it – he even has higher than normal HP, despite being a regular-Joe.

[fair cedar]

He's certainly committed.

[floral wasp]

Yeah reading it I got the feeling winning by proxy of the facehuggers was the only tactic with a decent chance of success, but I've been wrong before.

[marble flame]

It just feels like a generic alien adventure. Mcguffin forces players to place. Lock ship. They have to go find the guy to get out. Xeno danger

It’s not dissimilar from hadleys hope in gameplay loop

Aaaand it’s probably because the last pre mades we had were things like chariots, which was a very strong open.

[steel hollow]

I mean, this is kind of the plot of every module - even the draconis trilogy. It's kind of fair to say they want the published modules to resemble an Alien movie. This follows the same pattern as the others, but with different details. This time there's only 1 xeno. And there's kind of a neat fake out at the beginning with the extra lifeform in Act 1.

[marble flame]

I don’t disagree, however having ran all the rest of it, I find myself wondering how I’ll maintain player interest if it’s all… the same?

[steel hollow]

My guess this is to kind re-introduce the game to people post-evolved edition.

[marble flame]

And likely I’m overthinking it but that was my initial thought

[marble flame]

Pretty much what I was thinking actually

[steel hollow]

Yeah that's true. If you've played a lot of the devolved edition then this is really basic.

I've only been doing the modules really so my group only occasionally dips into Alien so every time I run it they want the same Alien movie homage - just different.

[marble flame]

Yeah last we ran was heart of darkness, which while I felt was a bit over bloated in parts was a major narrative event

I’m pretty sure the rest of the narrative is going to land well though. It is free league. And like you said, this is likely an intro to the new edition. Which seems to have slightly more changes than I thought it did?

[steel hollow]

Yeah my thoughts too.

[steel hollow]

You know, maybe the subversion of expectations will be enough to keep it fresh. The act 1 lifeform isn't a xeno, the new stealth rules, the discovery of the egg chamber, and only a single xeno that's super-tough. Maybe that in itself is a fun change of pace.

Maybe not, but it's possible.

[marble flame]

I’m fairly certain they’ll enjoy themselves regardless.

I’m in the middle of running mage the awakening 1e, but this is gonna be next.

[frigid tangle]

I think one of the unique things about Rapture Protocol is the severe lack of weapons available to the players compared to other scenarios.

The group only starts off with one bolt gun and a cutting torch. They can find a shotgun later, but it has to be repaired in a specific room, and only has one reload available. There's not any additional ammunition noted that I've found for any of the weapons.

The Miner NPC's just have melee weapons, an empty revolver, and a couple boltguns. Near the end of the scenario in the engineer chamber, Hurd has an incinerator and there's the damaged F44AA that also needs repaired. Then finally the W-Y Commando's have pulse rifles.

I think this will lead to some interesting gameplay where the players have to outsmart the xenomorph rather than fight it directly - and they might need to try and instigate a fight between the alien and the commandos to take them out - which could let them steal one of their pulse rifles afterwards.

[fair cedar]

PC's will find a way. Jury rigged double barrelled bolt guns and molotovs swiped from behind Boyd's bar sort of thing.

[floral wasp]

Improvised missile by knocking the end off a gas tank.

If my players don't remember that's a thing from a previous game then that's on them.

[fair cedar]

Your players grow up watching the A-Team and McGyver, they tend to get ideas.

[frigid tangle]

Hey im all-for macgyver'ing weapons and traps ala Alien Isolation and Alien 3, its fun to see players get creative with whatever they have at their disposal.

Using the bar for molotovs is a pretty good idea actually, lol.

Although starting fires in an enclosed station might prove to be a double-edged sword if the sprinklers aren't working 😆

[fair cedar]

We have sprinklers?

[frigid tangle]

Exactly lol

[fair cedar]

Hurd is walking around with a flamethrower. Might be a good idea to make some portable extinguishers available.

[abstract ermine]

"Burning hearts, no burning spirits – only use gasoline for your Molotov cocktails" 😉😁

[sleek rivet]

I would certainly award one of my players a storypoint if they came up with the idea of making some molotovs

[floral wasp]

I'd award them with some molotovs but that's just me..

[fair cedar]

Be even better if they can persuade Boyd to bar the xeno from the rec room in the style of Peggy Mitchell.

[floral wasp]

"get outta ma pub!"

[honest creek]

I'm on the opposite end. I think the PCs have too many strangely OP weapons at their disposal for this adventure. Multiple weapons with damage 3, AP, and a flamethrower that's extremely effective against the Alien.

Logically and realistically, in universe, those should be weak things that can't do anything to the Alien for the most part. But in game, those items are super strong.

No wonder they had to make the Alien have unrealistic HP as a Queen.
But having illogical bosses like that, a drone with huge HP and a person with crazy stats is too much for me. Too video gamey in the worst way possible. Kills the immersion for me.

I'm all for having an adventure with one Alien! But then give the humans damage 1 weapons, maybe one damage 2, no reloads, low ammo dice, not AP and not with the OP fire mechanics from the game.

And with one Alien, having more unique events with the creature would've been nice to flesh out its behavior even more.

[floral wasp]

notes down "unique event with xenomorphs"

Don't mind me, just working on my never-ending homebrew scenario..

[fair cedar]

It's not just the xeno they have to worry about though is it? The cult have the numbers and the DC's have armour and decent ranged weapons. PC's are going to need to need to be really clever, really sneaky and really lucky to use the old "Pied Piper Ploy".

[floral wasp]

Oh I like that analogy

[fair cedar]

I figure having the creature drop into the C-Block, wreak minor havoc with a couple of the npcs before giving the good doctor a sniff, hissing and buggering off back into the vents should create a bit of an atmosphere too. Unique Xenomorph event - call it "Cat Amongst the Pigeons"?

[waxen cave]

Can't figure out from the map how to get to the reactor control room..

[frigid tangle]

Yeah its not clear, I didnt see anything that said how to get inside it in the descriptions either. I think maybe there was supposed to be a door in the Control Room that lead to the Reactor control... I can't imagine the only way to get there is through the vents.

Either that or the entrance is on the ground floor of the refinery core, underneath the refinery control tower, but considering the vent positions, it looks higher up.

[narrow canyon]

has anyone cooked up a spoiler-free map of the mining colony? was hoping to drop the map into foundry but it's completely covered in non-player info lol

[waxen cave]

If you copy the image from the pdf viewer and paste it somewhere, it will be without those layers of secret information. In Foxit Reader go here: Home/Select/Select text and image. Click the map, hit ctrl+c..

Q about the rifle in the chamber. Scenario says "The Pulse Rifle: In the rubble close to the sealed original entrance, the PCs can make a strange find – a very old and rusted rifle."
I have mentioned the caved in corridor on the opposite side of the chamber when players stepped in. But even after defeating Hurd they ignored the sealed entrance and never found the rifle. I'm afraid that when describing the sealed corridor I made an impression that it is not worth exploring. Do you think I should just give the PCs the rifle?
They had their heads full of Hurd and miners and facehuggers, no wonder that blocked corridor was not of any interest for them..

[floral wasp]

No, I don't think you should.

It's fine for players to miss things, especially things that are not required to complete the scenario.

How did you get on running this if I may ask?

[arctic bloom]

About to run this for the first time this weekend, has anyone made a full character sheet for Chalk, that they’d be willing to share please? I have a 6th player and they’re experienced so seems like a good fit

[frigid tangle]

ah I see you already asked here lol
This is editable so you can make whatever changes you'd like, wasn't sure what to put for appearance since there wasn't really any details given aside from the vague portrait in the book.

[arctic bloom]

Thankyou 🙂

[frigid tangle]

no problem!

[inner zenith]

So, now that it is out. How is everyone feeling about the new cinematic?

[gaunt shell]

Currently preparing to GM a game. I like it, but I think it takes a bit of extra work from the GM to maintain pace and tension.

I am working on changing a few of the Pregen character agendas based on their existing information. Just to give a bit more depth and purpose. For example Jeffers spending 2 acts searching for booze is pretty boring.

I also have 2 new to rpg players in my group so I plan to expand the first act as an extended tutorial of mechanics and puzzle solving (since it's already a glorified stealth tutorial as is). Likely they start on Anchorpoint Station, hurriedly preparing to disembark.

Last major change I have for now is to expand a bit on the dog catchers in act 3 so they aren't just mindless killing machines. It would make sense that they want to sweep and secure first, trying to gather extra information about the current situation before attempting xeno capture/mass slaughter.
Lots of opportunity there narratively.

[unique brook]

One way you could do the Dogcatchers is they pretend they are a rescue team, so they can use the survivors who aren't going to immediately attack them (the cultists) to try and lead them to the xenomorph, with their plan being they will just gun the survivors down later.

Afterall, they need to know where their target is, and it is easier with using the survivors to lead them then gun them down immediately, and you could have extra colonists try and attack them more often.

[gaunt shell]

That's a neat idea. I wanted to make their intentions and threat a little clearer off the bat, since the miners and cultists aren't.
I tried to tie them in to some new agendas also to give some story hooks for the players.

I've written more extensively on the free league forums if you're interested;
https://forum.frialigan.se/viewtopic.php?t=14639

[odd rock]

It's a nice adventure, but the gap with the Gaska's old adventures is very wide. Gaska is a writer, a storyteller and, even if the old adventures are a little convoluted and complex, are very compelling and well written.

Rapture Protocol is nice but, for me, even too simple (both in story and writing style). Also, PCs Agendas (one of the most important parts of a cinematic adventure) are, in my opinion, pretty boring and maybe need a little rework to emphasize conflicts and a more gradual change of the PCs state of mind and objectives.

I think that the comments and ideas written by user Karbous on the Free League forum (see the link in the above message) can be really useful to understand and enhance this scenario.

[gaunt shell]

Yeah he had some great insights from his playthrough

[inner zenith]

Thank you, I had a similar first impression. Thanks for pointing me to those forum posts

[sleek rivet]

Oh, some good point are made. Definetely worth reading later

[honest creek]

Lol I love how Karbous intuitively understood that the adventure has unnecessary amounts of rolling for the simplest of stuff which should be easy one button pushes. They naturally came to the conclusion from the RPG that rolling should only be used when something is actually difficult, uncertain of success and has consequences for failure. Which the cinematics often ignore, but especially this adventure.

So it's funny how even new people to the RPG get a better understanding of this than the folks writing these books.

[gaunt shell]

He did amazing as a first time GM, figured many out the systems out intuitively.

[odd rock]

After the playtest I've done with another group, in January I'll record Rapture Protocol for my YouTube channel: even if I usually like playing RAW, I'll not use the "new" and clunky Stealh Mode and, for sure, I'll also use the Karbous notes myself, to let the game flow smoothly.

[ripe sparrow]

I had a proper read-through of the scenario this morning. I like it a lot. Although I have some criticisms.

For one thing, I think it goes a bit overboard on 'knowing references.' I counted roughly half a dozen instances of NPCs being named after actors or writers who have been attached to the Alien movies. I'm nitpicking here, but that's a little jarring for folks who are paying attention for that kind of thing. A little too on-the-nose. And let's be honest, we're Alien fans. So we're going to notice.

There are a couple of details baked into the adventure that I can see might need some tweaking to prevent things ending in tears (in the worst way.) That countdown in the third act seems like it needs some careful judgement on the GM's part. I'm not a fan of in-game events that could lead to an abrupt end to proceedings with the death of all PCs. Especially when what's indicated that can happen after that point is more interesting.

Overall, though, I dig it. It's got a lot of cool ideas in it. The notion of dumping the PCs straight into a conflict between two factions with an extra added xeno in the mix is cool. There are some nice surprises to be found if the players look for them, and there's potential for some really spiteful plot twists (in a good way.)

The only thing I feel a bit on the fence about is the length of the scenario. It seems like it could be a very short adventure. And on the one hand, I don't mind that - not everything has to be a sprawling epic. But on the other, I can't help but think it feels like a slightly meatier variant on Hope's Last Day, with the three act structure servicing a much more constrained set of story beats. I'll have a better idea what I think of it after I've run it.

[gaunt shell]

Agree with everything you said ( though the references don't bother me too much)

For act 3 I'll give the dog catchers a lot more flexibility in their actions. Instead of moving in to kill everyone asap, they would instead secure people who comply and try to gather information before trying to capture the xeno.
This can give the GM a lot more opportunity to control the pacing and tension depending on how the cinematic is going. Ramping up the threat of any faction as needed.

I'll also have some other changes such as reworked agendas and I'm currently making a small addition to act 1 where players are at Anchorpoint station hurriedly preparing to disembark. Sort of an extended tutorial for my new player group.

[honest creek]

I also don't understand the mustache twirling of the PMCs trying to kill witnesses so quickly when it's not like anyone would believe them. Plus they could just imprison the PCs and interrogate them for info, later to be dumped in some prison as being insane. They literally captured a convict in Alien 3, instead of shooting everyone there dead.

It's not like they see anything too important or classified in Rapture Protocol. Just the creature, but no secret project. It's not like they discovered which WY exec is a cult member as well. So no real reason to kill them.

[gaunt shell]

My only guess is that it's purely because they wanted the whole cinematic to be stealth based.
Act 1: tutorial on stealth
Act 2: stealth under pressure
Act 3: balls to the wall try to stealth your way out while everything dies around you

[sleek rivet]

I agree with the people saying to expand on the Dogcatchers, this also allows your players more interaction, attempt to arrange an escape, and all other kinds of shenanigans

[odd rock]

Also to me it is not clear why the Commandos have to kill everyone. But I have to say that in my playtest, when I announced the arrival of a Conestoga class ship, all the players immediately switched on "more troubles" mode, sayin' "They're for sure W-Y mercenaries, here to kill us all!" 😁

[sleek rivet]

I do think it is great if the players assume WY mercs are out to kill them, you can have fun with that misconception

[floral wasp]

Plus it means you don't have to establish that yourself by actually killing everyone.. 🙈

[honest creek]

Huh didn't think of it that way. While I still think that's silly to the determent of the story to bend around a game mode, I can imagine that's something they would do for this edition.

[ripe sparrow]

Where the WY commandos are concerned, my mind immediately went to a place of using them to set up a big scare / cliffhanger.

For example: have the commandos contact the station, maybe even speak to a PC or NPC to provide instructions - sit tight and await instructions / prepare for extraction, or something like that.

Then have the PCs witness the commandos arrive, briefly communicate with one of the survivors with the appearance of being there to help... before abruptly executing whoever they're speaking to. Stress goes up by one, and the stage is set for a cat-and-mouse game as the PCs attempt to avoid the commandos AND the xeno, and ultimately escape the station.

I can see ways that this would play out that might prove very exciting.

Like, imagine the moment somebody snags one of the commandos' pulse rifles and suddenly goes all Die Hard on them.

[sleek rivet]

Loving that

[fair cedar]

Right time of year for it. Probably gonna be worth giving the team a bit more personality. The Fidanza crew might all be dead by the time the Resolute arrives.

[ripe sparrow]

Also: I've seen a few comments around the internet where folks are saying the cult component of the scenario isn't doing much for them.

I wonder of folks realise how much room there is to play with that. Nothing says 'oh, shit, son!' more than having the most devout of wack-a-doodle Alien worshipers come face to face the object of their deification in a profoundly religious experience ... only for it to abruptly slam its inner jaws through their forehead and splatter their brains over anyone else who's there to witness, it.

You had BETTER believe I'm working that into the scenario when I run it.

[sleek rivet]

Nothing is stopping a GM from going ham with the Xeno cult, you can go balls to the walls with them and their worship

Especially since we have the Darwin Era cult from DD and the new Alien Cult novel to rip from

Besides, there is no shortage of examples of apostates and priest preachign their message

Just steal from it, twist and go nuts

[ripe sparrow]

This is the thing I always have in mind whenever I see folks complaining about the perceived quality of a TTRPG module.
Yes, some bad ones exist. But I think they're rare. A good GM can and should alter, embellish and tailor a module to their own taste and to meet the desires of their players.

[abstract ermine]

There's also the matter of play-fun vs. literal quality. We can plan for all kinds of interesting and intricate details that create a more believable and even impactful story. But at the end of the day, a lot of that fine tuning doesn't translate into more entertainment per hour.

[dim cloud]

So how’s everyone holding up?

[ripe sparrow]

Yep. This is true. Sometimes you can have a REALLY cool idea to inject into a game, and you can get to a point where the amount of work and the gymnastics you'll have to do to make it happen means it never makes it to the table.

Which is no bad thing. The players should be allowed to have fun and shape the narrative how they want to.
I think that's where the real quality of any given module shines though, though. If the framework is strong, it ought to allow a gaming group to do what they want without sliding too far off the rails.

[gaunt shell]

Asmana is basically built to do this. When the players still aren't sure of what's going on she can lead them deeper into the facility towards the other survivors (cultists) then surprise! Dragged off into the vents kicking and screaming leaving the players feeling left high and dry.

[gaunt shell]

I'm workshopping a mini prequel for act 1 if anybody is interested in reading and giving some feedback.
Apologies for the formatting, wrote it all on mobile

https://www.reddit.com/r/alienrpg/comments/1pjtvwx/rapture_protocol_mini_prequel_feedback_pleae/

[frigid tangle]

Just my thoughts on some of it:

Time Limit: Giving the players a specific real-world time limit to complete the intro at the start of the scene might not be a great idea, especially since everyone will be separated and spending time doing their own individual tasks - and if they are new you'll need to explain things to them throughout it. Also since everyone is doing their tasks at the same time, while it might take an hour to go through everyones actions, in the story that all might have happened over just a 20-30 minute timespan.

They can still be on a restricted time limit, but you can be a little vague with them needing to depart very soon, or within the hour so they need to hurry and prioritize what they do. This way players still feel the need to do things quickly, but don't feel penalized for not being able to accomplish things if another player's scene takes longer than you'd expect.

As the scene progresses to what you'd consider to be the right moment you could, for example, have the station manager announce a more specific number about their departure time window, encouraging everyone to take their final actions.

Lifepod Diagnostic Task: it can kinda be risky giving players medical issues right off the bat, this scenario is pretty deadly so if they fail to get their injury healed or recover then they're at a pretty big disadvantage right off the bat.

Maybe instead of causing medical issues - one of their lifepods could malfunction and not open when the players wake up, causing the other players to have to free them in some way - ComTech to override it, or heavy machinery to force it open (good introduction to using tools to assist with rolls as well), or if everything fails, they can use a last resort of breaking the glass (good thing they brought a 'spare' lifepod eh?). This still creates some tension and animosity between whoever checked the pods - and, if your players have watched Covenant, they might start getting worried about the trapped player being roasted alive lol.

Station Power Loader Task: on failure, they could damage a crate, causing whichever item/supplies to be unknowingly damaged/destroyed until they open the crate and examine the contents.

Witt's Agenda: I like the other agendas as they are fairly engaging, but I think Witt could use something else. Having the player essentially not doing anything but spend time meditating to remove a penalty doesn't feel very interesting for the player.

Overall though I think it's a pretty solid introduction for new players to get used to the basics of rolls and how actions work before the real scenario kicks off.

[gaunt shell]

Thanks for the detailed feedback, greatly appreciated!

TIMER
You're certainly right about the time limit. It's a new group so I'll play it loosely and wrap things up to ensure there's at least a couple of missed tasks/agendas.
It's meant to be a fairly short and sharp prequel, would hate to bore everyone to death before they even leave the station haha.
I haven't done much stuff with timers yet so your suggestions are very helpful.

LIFEPOD
Great suggestion! I'll add it to the list.
My idea with the illness was more of just a step up from fatigue, some heavy nausea, headaches etc which could be remedied with some medicine from the medbay (forgot the name of it) .

Really though it was just an excuse to try and seperate 2 of the crew as early as possible.
I was imagining them walking to the medbay, hearing some clunking in the vents or seeing something strange, then shortly after the rest of the crew is informed of the lifeform loose on the ship.

LOADING CRATES
Another great suggestion, cheers.

WITT
I agree, hers is currently too uninvolved and boring. I wanted to play into the fear of space stated in her character sheet, but didn't think of anything else yet.
There's already one borderline alcoholic so I didn't want to have her doing something similar to take the edge off.
I also want it to be something that will carry into the proper act 1 section if not completed.

Thanks again for the feedback and suggestions!

[fair cedar]

The dog catcher team all have their callsigns stencilled across their APE Suits. Guv - team leader, Hoss - engineer, Claymore - door kicker, Lynch - marksman, & Link - comms. Not mindless killers but professionals doing a job.

[ripe sparrow]

One very general bit of feedback I'd offer with regard to that alternate opening scene for the adventure:

Beware of shoe leather.

I think it's a good idea to allow a party of players some time to interact and get comfortable with each other and their characters before a scenario kicks off properly. A lot of pre-written adventures don't really allow for this. But you want to be careful not to overdo it, or add anything to the front end of the scenario that might unbalance or derail the scenario once it's properly underway.

You need to offer the players just enough so that they feel attached to their characters. But not too much. Rapture Protocol has a good degree of lethality about it, so building up characters too much in advance might be counter productive. And you don't want to draw things out too much before you get to the guts of the adventure.

[gaunt shell]

Thanks! Yeah the intention is that after the Station Manager hands out the job sheet they will have a bit of time to introduce themselves as well as discuss the tasks before being pushed to get to work.

The reason I even first decided to do this was because the original act 1 plays as a bit of a slow and drawn out stealth tutorial. This should hopefully raise the stakes in the original section a little while also adding a bit of fun learning of other mechanics without wasting too much time.

I've made agenda changes throughout the whole cinematic just to make it a bit more involved and interesting. I've done this also with some NPCs to flesh them out in preparation for any death, especially as stock doesn't seem to have many viable replacements for PCs

Also making changes to the dog catchers so I can have some more flexibility in the pace and tension of act 3.
Thanks for your input!

[ripe sparrow]

Happy to help! Best of luck, and have a ton of fun when you run the game!

[dim cloud]

It’s insane how rapture protocol uses dark horses ||cult of the immaculate conception||

[floral wasp]

Why insane?

[dim cloud]

Because I never thought we would see them again

[frigid tangle]

they've been in the core rulebooks too

[winter oar]

Has anyone had a chance to review the foundry module that dropped yesterday for this adventure?

I got the physical books and PDFs from the kickstarter. Gonna be playing on Foundry tho and so im wondering if its worth it to just set things up myself or pick up the foundry modules as well

(like might get atleast the core rules but was unsure if it would be worth getting the scneario module since I have the pdf and books already)

One of the things im curious about is if there is walls and custom lighting setup, and if so how

Especially in regards to the walls if it has em (because we now have the vents map overlayed ontop of the regular map. And I assumed thats gonna make things whacky when trying to setup walls properly)

[winter oar]

@runic ferry is this something youre able to answer btw? (My question about the walls and lighting)

[runic ferry]

The maps have walls and doors but no lighting. Personally I think lighting is a GM choice. But I may a some lighting in the next release. The overhead ducts were a particular challenge but I have done the best I can to allow GM’s to move creatures (best if they are hidden) and PCs to explore if they are mad enough.

[winter oar]

Thanks for the quick reply ❤️

What method did you decide on for the ducts?

[runic ferry]

Normal walls where they did not overlap a room with one way ethereal walls to block vision into the duct openings.
The only other way would have been to use a 3rd party Levels module which I don’t like doing as it adds a dependency.

I could not do a lot where they went through a room.

[ripe sparrow]

One detail about the boxed scenario that I was wondering if anyone else picked up on:

I was thinking the other day about ways to present Rapture Protocol on stream without using a VTT (on the show I'm producing, all maps and tokens are managed in OBS as individual objects.) I considered simply scanning in the cardboard character tokens. But they all kind of blend into one another. The artwork is great, but the colour scheme is si uniform across them all that it's hard to tell one from another at a glance.

The only ones I really don't like are the facehugger tokens. Those are kind of confusing to look at, and not immediately identifiable as what they're supposed to be. At least to my eyes.

[unique brook]

It's one of those issues where what works in person doesn't work online

[dull flax]

Perhaps a colored frame around the tokens will make it more clear? Like red frames for enemies etc?

[ripe sparrow]

The thing is, I think the same problem would exist if you used the counters at the table. They're all just a mix of blue and dark tones. It strikes me that it'd be easy to move the wrong one by accident if a player isn't 100% attentive.

[ripe sparrow]

For our sessions, I generally design simple tokens from scratch. I might have a go at futzing with the colours in Photoshop and adding nameplates. I've been designing player tokens to use with Wrath & Glory recently, and that's generated a few ideas I might be able to lean on.

[odd rock]

I’ve tweaked a little the backgrounds, signature items, and Personal Agendas for York, Witt, and Jeffers to make them a bit more interesting (at least, according to my own tastes). They fit into the structure of the adventure without requiring any changes at all. At most, you’ll just need a little improvisation between Jeffers and one NPC in Act Three. Hope you like them, enjoy!

[gaunt shell]

Nice, that's the same thing I did for Jeffers with mine, tie him in to the dog catchers. Makes for a much more interesting and varied act 3 for sure

[long hedge]

Can I play Rapture Protocol with only 3 players? And are there any pregen characters that I really should include? Maybe Eve Weiss because of the plot twist?

[gaunt shell]

You could pretty easily. It's quite low lethality until the third act, after which you can make some small changes to give you a bit more control over how things unfold.

Weiss if she's an npc can stay on the ship to betray others later. Otherwise the plot twist may be fun but could make the other 2 players feel a bit too against the odds (Can be good or bad depending on the group)

The other spare NPC (Ideally York because of his uneventful agenda) you can control and have follow the group only to be dragged away by the xeno instead of the usual miner/cultist. Otherwise waiting on the ship also. That could potentially set up for a tense end finding their body when trying to escape.

For changes, the main one I would suggest would be for the dog catchers (commandos) that arrive in act 3. Don't make them kill everything on sight. Allow them the sweep and secure the facility as they investigate first. Then you can play them as more hostile/friendly depending on players actions or the situation.
At the end of the day they still are there to capture a xeno and may only be friendly to see that goal through, after that..

I would also remove the heat problem in act 2 when players arrive in the facility.

[long hedge]

Great advise thank you :) I only ran Hope's Last Day so far and this one seems a bit more daunting to run.

I might have 1 or even 2 people join the second session, so maybe I can have one or two of the pregen characters be residents of Jeremiah VI mining facility? Or I can just introduce them as new characters of the Fidanza crew with no problems

[gaunt shell]

Even better that you keep the unused pregens on the ship or somewhere safe then!

Otherwise there is a lack of very usable NPCs available. I am working on some options and fleshing out backgrounds/agendas for then. I attached my (very very) rough notes

Also can use the ships cat, it already has a stat sheet

[vague thicket]

Just got my first look at Rapture Protocol and I have to say, it seems extremely basic compared to the draconis trilogy adventures, and even the campaign missions? Anyone else feeling this?

There's just nothing, absolutely nothing new or unique about it. The most interesting thing is the cult, and they played a much bigger role/were more fleshed out in the two campaigns... even the PCs are a kind of boring.

What's it been like to run/play for people who have played the first edition games? And do the new miniatures seem like they make up for any of this?

[gaunt shell]

It definitely feels like a tutorial for the new stealth rules that got extended into a cinematic.
Act 1 is a gentle introduction to the rules.
Act 2 is the rules in action, avoiding xeno threats while investigating.
Act 3 is everything turned up to 11, trying to find your way out with multiple deadly threats.

That said I think there's still a lot of fun to be had. It just takes more work from the GM to set it up as a tense slow burn. Some changes should be made to the PC's agendas to make them more engaging and also to the dog catchers to make them more versatile instead of just mindless killing machines.

They've said the second part of the Jeremiah saga will revolve around a group of marines.

[vague thicket]

I heard that too, "marines escaping from a moon"...

kinda just sounds like DoW again, and if 'jeremiah saga' is anything to go by it might be the very same moon rapture protocol takes place on :/

[gaunt shell]

I think it's a safe bet they're exploring the underground engineer structure

[sullen lagoon]

My thoughts exactly, i was kind of disappointed with the first act which is a cat and mouse game against a simple human. We need to add something to spice it up a little 😉 I used Gemini Pro Ai to distribute the suggested events into the rooms and generate new ones based on the same spirit as the existing events. Gemini did a great job, it should do the trick. Loss of gravity, steam jet, disturbed dust, missing items, cat feeding(someone feeded the cat) etc. A dozen complete new events to choose from with full description for the GM to read to the players.

[gaunt shell]

I ended up making a mini prequel where the crew has to prepare the Fidanza on Anchorpoint Station.
There's a new set of Agendas and 'Tasks' that the crew must complete within a time limit, with negative effects for anything not completed.

[vague thicket]

I'm considering just repurposing it for an adventure using a different franchise, not alien. Put a marker and necromorphs in it or something.

[gaunt shell]

Had a chance to stress test my lil extended act1 with some friends today (fairly casual group). It is designed as a tutorial of sorts for me new group who are mostly brand new players to RPGs.

I gave the drunk (York in my version) to a player that tends to be a bit of a wild card, that way he could have some opportunity to play a bit more into his style within reason.
Well, he took a swing at the bartender on Anchorpoint directly after being refused a drink...

This caused security to be called and the station manager (who is in charge of getting them prepared to disembark) was forced to rush procedures, saying he wouldn't be able to stall security for long.

I sped up the timer (just loosely timing so I can manage pace) causing quite a few of the Tasks/Agendas not to be completed in time. This then caused more issues on the Fidanza for when Act1 properly begins.

Most of the Act on the ship went fine; York was berated thoroughly as players were dealing with problems / trying to find Chalk. This worked mostly quite nicely as I could get them split up and build some good tension. Nobody was brave enough to walk alone except York who was still trying to score a drink.
Eventually though everything was dealt with and Chalk managed to convince everyone she was just hitching a ride to Earth.

There was a very fun turn of events at the end of the session, after the players had landed and were going to enter the Jeremiah facility.
I had Chalk tamper with one of the compression suits, adding c02 gas into one of their oxygen tanks.
The idea was she would tamper with all of them (except 1 reserved for herself), causing the crew to perish ideally outside the Jeremiah facility, ready for the cultists to take control.

The plan was of course disrupted by the players searches and was also hinted at by an out of position suit and a clank of a CO2 canister being dropped nearby when players were in the area.

Funnily enough, the PCs didn't pick up on the clue or investigate the suit further as they were too busy chastising York for being useless (found him drinking while they were searching).

They suited up and pushed through the storm, despite Witt now feeling a headache. York quipped that maybe Witt got into the booze too leading to some more bickering with the rest of the crew.

Witt got to the facility, just, with some lucky rolls and assists but was not in the best shape. The crew came to the conclusion that the suit must have been damaged and the toxic air from outside was affecting Witt.
The situation worsened rapidly when one PC suggested that York must have sabotaged the suit, just as he sabotaged their departure from Anchorpoint.
I ended the session there.

It was meant to just be a one shot of the first act, but I didn't expect such a turn of events. We're definitely going to play out the whole cinematic to see where things go!

Apologies for a walk of text, just bashed it out before sleep

[floral wasp]

That's certainly in interesting turn there, yeah let us know how this develops!

[winter oar]

For anyone who has modified the PC's personal agendas. Whats the new agendas youve come up with?

Also Im contemplating randomizing the secret cult member amongst all the PCs. But if thats the case I would need to come up with a completely brand new agenda for Weiss for all 3 acts. Any suggetions on what her new non cult agenda could be or has anyone else done something similar in their game?

[odd rock]

Here are some of the changes I made after a first RAW playtest.

[winter oar]

Thanks 😄

[winter oar]

And oh right. Meant to ask. You kept Weiss's agendas unchanged then?

[winter oar]

Any thoughts on these modified Act 2 and 3 agendas for Martinez? I wanted the goals to be the same as I like the character arc they have. But trying to rephrase them to make the act 3 agenda make more sense rather than coming out of no where (also the whole conflict of 'doesnt want to die yet is going to kill the xeno at any cost')

Act 2:
Something weird is going on at Jeremiah VI, and you're going to get to the bottom of it. As solving this mystery will look great on your service record.
Collect as many samples and recordings as you can find. Even wandering off on your own and investigating anything interesting you find. No stone left unturned.

Act 3:
This creature is exactly what you were after, 'the find of a century' and the path to the biggest bonus one could only dream of. You should be excited, and yet after going over all your notes one last time, you can only come to one conclusion. The knowledge of this creature is just too dangerous.

You've already seen what this thing has been able to do on such a small scale. What if it got loose, allowed to spread amongst civilized space? Who knows what untold destruction and havoc it could wreak then. What good is a bonus if there's nothing left to spend it on anyways? You will take every measure to make sure the beast dies.

[winter oar]

Also got this for Jeffers act 2 (took some inspiration from some posts I saw online). @odd rock using the pdf you posted above as a base (so the military background). But included a detail about Jeffers getting demoted back to the "crap jobs" after his drinking problem was discovered by superiors. Hence now the following agenda.

Act 2:
Something weird is going on at Jeremiah VI, but the Company sure as fuck ain't paying you enough to care.

Your current situation does present an attractive opportunity though. In all this chaos, surly the Company won't notice if some of the promethium canisters you were sent here retrieve go "missing". Selling them would give you more than enough to get your career and life back on track. Besides its only fair after how the Company has treated you.

While youre at it, you should check to see if the station's bar has any "liquid courage" that you can stock up on for the journey home.

---

And then plan on going the same route for act 3 as what you had in your PDF (about having the connection to one of the commandos and trying to get onboard the resolute). Figured the act 2 agenda can flow into the act 3 one this way, as that could be one way the player tries to convince the commandos. Using the promethium canister as a bargaining chip "Get me on board and we can split the profits" sorta idea

Thoughts?

[gaunt shell]

For martinez, I really didn't like how much her character flipped from act 1&2 to 3. Desperately wanting it to needing to bury it.
My small change was that she still wanted the samples, but she understood how dangerous it is.
"If she can't take it alive then she'll definitely take a piece of it".
This still keeps the theme of killing the xeno but more in line with act 1&2 in wanting to advance her career.

[steel hollow]

Hey now that this has been out a while, what's everyone's opinion of Rapture Protocol for those who have ran it?

[misty patrol]

For those who have run this, about how long did it take? Was it a single long session, or did you need to split it up into separate sections for the various Acts?

[indigo plume]

I just made the Cinematic up in Foundry for parts of my Group that regularly meet in Person.
We played just Act I so far and it lastet three hours.
As far as i know my group and reading the text of the adventure i would assume we will need at least three hours of time for Act II so that i couldn't play the Cinematic in one long Session.

[unique brook]

Every cinematic is theoretically possible as a one shot, you just need to not do any side events at all

[gaunt shell]

Rapture can be a one shot if you cut out the first act and the mines.

[unique brook]

Easily

But to be frank, no one ever runs cinematics with just the main events

[indigo plume]

It was just an answer to the question above my Message and a one Shot is not the way i run cinematics.
Why would i pay a lot of money and rush it down in a Single Shot. I want to enjoy the experience, the tension, the questions the players ask themselves and the reveal of the answers.

[unique brook]

But yeah, some cinematics can take upwards of 12+ hours if you do everything that is included, though it of course depends on the cinematic, Destroyer of Worlds would last longer on average than say Chariot of the Gods

[winter oar]

Yea im expecting my group to turn this Cinematic module into a mini shot (we normally move thru things fairly slowly cause get lost in intercharacter RP). So im budgeting like just over a month long prob for my group

[inner zenith]

But I'd expect Rapture Protocol to be much shorter than the first three cinematics

[unique brook]

Depends really, haven't had the time to truly test that

[indigo plume]

My group played Act I (3 hrs) and II (3.5 hrs) of Rapture Protocol so far. The first Act was a lot of RP Game and the second not really much. In Act I everybody managed to go after their Agendas and in Act II nobody 😂. The Players and i had a real blast playing so far and the Cinematic is in my opinion hell of fun.

[steel hollow]

I was just about to ask how long each act would be 🙂
im getting ready to prep this and the acts seemed shorter than the others. Act 1 in particular seemed like it would just take an hour.

I’ve also been watching actual plays to try to anticipate weak spots and the first is the fact that MUTHER detects a life form on board but can’t tell the location or any info as to what it is. I was thinking about playing it like:

• oxygen sensors report oxygen usage for 1 more person than normal
• MUTHER reports a door opening somewhere while all the crew is together
• than a load bang echoes as something large falls in a room a a couple rooms away

Then let them draw conclusions.

[sleek rivet]

That does sounds like a better way to tell the crew they have am extra passenger

[indigo plume]

In my opinion if MU/TH/UR detects specifically for one Person you don't put as much tension to the players for a possible Alien as the Cinematic wants to.
Maybe MU/TH/UR could detect higher oxygen use as expected instead if the adventure text does not state this already.
In my opinion the door opening is a too big hint for a Human, too. Aliens tend to crawl through vents. Maybe a loud bang in a nearby room (vent Cover) can alert them.
By doing so you put tension to your players without hinting too much in the direction that they have a stowaway.

[steel hollow]

Yeah - I typed the above kind of quickly. I didn't mean for it to say "one person" - it's just that's how much the sensors would notice. I just included that for clarity.
I am a fan of having three clues just to be thorough though. So maybe not a door opening. Maybe all the sensors in a room error (because Chauk smashed them or something). Then the loud bang.

[steel hollow]

Reading back a bit I'm tempted to tweak those agendas and maybe make the cult more generic so the PCs don't need to know much about the setting, but man, it sure would be nice to use just everything the boxed set gave me instead of re-creating all the agendas and sheets.

[honest creek]

Yeah, I had an issue of how simplistic and campy the cult was, so I needed to make it a little more believable and humanized. And yeah, the agendas are a far far faaaaar cry from what they used to be in previous adventures.

[steel hollow]

Hey dumb question - what’s the point of Chalk stowing away on the ship? The ship is going to mining colony either way, and Hurd and his followers are planning on getting the artifacts onto the ship anyway.

I’m tempted to play her as a cult member acting on her own just to “witness” or see the holy place whereas Hurd has plans to leverage it for his own gain. True believer vs cult leader type vibes.

[fair cedar]

The only thing I can think of is backup for Weiss because the cult can't get an entire crew of cultists for the Fidanza at short notice. Also, the situation on J6 is an unknown. May be clutching at straws but it's all I can think of at the moment.

I think its the timely arrival of the Dogcatcher team that's a little more difficult to account for.

[steel hollow]

Huh, maybe expanding on the above:
Hurd sells out the cult and called W-T for profit. Maybe Chalk being the true believer is more charismatic and the cult follows her instead in Act 3

Maybe Chalk is the cult leader all along

[honest creek]

Oh, so to make her as the backup cause someone found out Hurd wasn't doing his part? That would be cool, but that would totally derail then the actions of the cult on the planet. Her story reason for existance is very weak. Game wise, we know she's an excuse for a cat and mouse fake out for Act 1. But it is strange to have stowaways and secretly stashed mobile cryo pods in these situations.

[steel hollow]

Yeah exactly - I don’t want to break her game reason for existence while changing her story reason for making sense.

[steel hollow]

Not really a backup btw - what if she’s the real leader and basically said “secure the artifacts and wait for my arrival”. Hurd, sensing his authority in the current situation and realizing it dissolves as soon as Chalk shows up uses that window to sell out to Weyland Yutani.

[honest creek]

Seems like a panicy and dumb thing to do, which is completely in line with human nature, so I'd say that's quite possible. Story wise, I don't understand how they can implant one of their own in the crew, and not like expand the roster for one more of their implants, they really couldn't have written a +1 so that Chalk had an official role? We know larger crews are more than possible, likely even.

[winter oar]

They could of rewritten chalk having a no fly status (as thats why she got smuggled in the first place) but then you would have to reorganize act 1 to have something else going on.

But I can see why they went the route they did if youre treating act 1 as a glorified tutorial section for stealth mode rules

[steel hollow]

You know, it occurs to me you could actually have Chalk just be an honest to goodness stowaway just wanting to get back to earth and it breaks nothing.

Oh wait there’s that PC that is supposed to help her - nevermind.

[winter oar]

Could modify that out of the PCs personal agenda tbf. But then it might make it a bit more boring for the player since theyre just trying to blend in rather than play two sides (blend in and assist chalk)

Could merge chalk and the PCs agenda into one. Where blend in with party but you need to find a way to contact the cult once you get there (so maybe trying to secretly persuade the Pcs to go in one direction over another)

[vague thicket]

You could certainly re-write it. Someone suggested they only included a stowaway in act 1 so that players can try the new stealth rules, and I'm inclined to agree.

[steel hollow]

I mean yeah - and it's a nice set up. A kind of subvert your expectations thing too. I'd really just like to use the "stuff" that comes in the box so I only want to rewrite things that aren't on handouts.

The more I think about Chalk being the real leader the more I like it. It seems a way to make all of the existing set up as a whole make the most sense. Maybe Chalk is even the political/ambitious one who called W-Y's dog catchers and wants to be there to get the paycheck while Hurd is her underling but an actual believer. That makes his actions on the colony make better sense.

[honest creek]

That'll not a bad idea actually. Have them both have different enough selfish goals that warrants them all trying to get at this. Selfish and waring internal factions in WY or the cult are more than appropriate for the universe

[steel hollow]

Multiple factions are always fun too. And if a PC becomes Chalk, an agenda to help the dog catchers is interesting too.

You could even forshadow it by having her have some criminal record for stealing. That's we she's "stowing away to earth". But it also fits the MO perfectly that she's selling the xeno to WY.

...if the PCs try to find records to verify her story early on.