This is the commercial vessel [GARBLED] out of Nassau, registration number GSV-527R, calling the drifting section of Sevasto- [NOISE] ...rrying four passengers on a Weyland-Yutani bond. We hereby lay official claim to the wreck. Our recovery crew has full salvage authority [CHANNEL LOST] [CHANNEL REACQUIRED] moving to dock. If anyone is on board, please prep- [NOISE] ...tricky approach. But we'll try to make it work. Brace for impact! Over. [TRANSMISSION ENDS] Alien: Regression v1.0 Alien: Regression Anyone who keeps reading can never reasonably play this as a character. This is a one-shot scenario with 6 The guiding principle for this design cooperative space horror game. An characters made for internal conflict. is Tension. With some preparation, expert will find many balls to throw Players win by completing their Assembly can happen while the game is around. Veterans can use it like Lego. mission objectives. It is a Closed played. It will bend to the needs of The wreck could be a whole station Game with secrets for a large group. the moment and create a unique spire. The Creature could be a individual experience where the Shoggoth. This is a toolkit. The GM selects one out of countless characters are caught between deadly Role Playing Systems and generates threat and murderous infighting. Players will discover a web of lies to the player characters to resemble the untangle, a place of dread to explore, Cast. The story is constructed This scenario structure is unusual. A and a Battle Royale all at once. roguelike from provided Plot elements, first time GM may find it overwhelming ideas for Challenges to roll against, to handle so much at once. Removing References at the bottom of each page and the Xenomorph. the missions could turn it into a nice link to all contents and back here. Contents Canon 3 Relation to Alien universe Cast 4 Player characters Additional Secrets 12 Optional mid game escalation Plot 14 Story puzzle pieces Challenges 23 Things characters might do Xenomorph 25 The Creature Tension 29 Making it spooky Flavor 31 Making it taste just right Assembly 32 Making it come together Role Playing Systems 33 Thoughts on mechanics Last Words 35 As good a place to start as any Appendix 36 Lingo, names, lists, handouts OVERMONITORING ADDRESS MATRIX Alien: Regression 2 Canon Knowledge of the media franchise is fun but not required. All every player needs to know is This mission will probably be their last because they will discover a thing that kills better Any survivors could make a lot of money 2122 Alien (1979) Xenomorph discovered on LV-426, Nostromo destroyed 2137 Alien: Isolation (2014) Sevastopol Station destroyed, Lab section adrift 2138 Alien: Regression (2018) (this scenario) The mission is set in Zeta Reticuli, 16 involved. James Cameron's Aliens can be The stories of Ransome, Waits, and Lingard years after Alien, 6 months after Alien helpful for the life cycle and when dealing from Isolation have been inflated to just Isolation, and decades before Aliens. The with well armed PCs vs a wave of beyond what is implied in the game. The GM might rewatch Ridley Scott's Alien for Xenomorphs. things they did in their last hours could its themes and aesthetics. Everyone should. have happened like this, or not. A level Always. Alien: Isolation can be For managing suspense and trust like in has been added to the Map of the lab. It informative as this scenario relies heavily this scenario, Scott's Alien is the most condenses a lot of story opportunities into on it for parts and will spoil some of its relevant inspiration. It draws a classic a more concentrated version of canon secrets. Playing Isolation is not needed to tension curve and puts the characters into reality. It was merely a room in Isolation run this in any way. It can be a place to conflict that escalates in parallel. The that here becomes a whole story. None of turn to for clarifications. No other same thing happens here with Cast and these freedoms taken violates continuity incarnations of the franchise are directly Xenomorph. blatantly. No one will even notice. OVERMONITORING ADDRESS MATRIX Alien: Regression 3 Cast Player character titles The Cocked Hammer The Exploited Hireling The Tragic Lover The Political Independent The Honest Entrepreneur The One With A Plan Different role playing systems pay texts. Players just finish up scheming. They should not even be attention to different aspects of character generation with their lists written on the sheets themselves. play. This needs to be balanced in of equipment and their names. That way character creation and cannot be left the game can start right in the thick So everyone picks, then everyone up to the players. Nobody can have an of it. learns that The One With A Plan is the undue advantage. They should however Project Manager and so on. The player have different strengths like the Players pick characters by the titles learns what that means from the text. skills listed under Character before the roles on the crew are Each text is secret and just for the Generation. revealed. The titles are just for player of the PC and the GM to read. selection and in no way binding or The CAPITALS are the character's Pregenerating characters is the way even helpful and best forgotten mission objective. to go. The GM prepares everything and immediately so other players do not hands out PC sheets with the secret induce too much meaning while OVERMONITORING ADDRESS MATRIX Alien: Regression 4 The GM should consider what equipment Only the Project Manager, Ship's shares, fees, and bonuses, to allow the characters to have access Captain, and License Marshal have reputations, or other dramatic to. Some mechanics may have a roll for freight space available. The others devices. On board each PC is limited contacts or resources. The threat will are limited to lockers. A utility in their actions only by the scale with it effortlessly, but it exoskeleton, mini tank, or combat expectations of the others. They are will set a tone. All players should shuttle could be possible, whatever the tribe and in charge of order and have an equal footing and that can fits in the garage bay. A second hyper acceptable conduct. There are mean having an out off play talk about drive vessel would be too big and hierarchies, but they can shift within what the PCs expect to find. break the scenario. the story. Players may want to put ridiculous The challenges can scale with it. If This primitive society is the focus of things on their equipment lists. All the players prepare for waves of the game and requires narrative lists must be confirmed by the GM, but Xenomorphs then they get them. But underlining. It is entirely up to the vetoing any item should be considered their gear will also get stuck in players how to structure it. carefully. The only obvious reason crawlspaces, rip the habitat to would be if it was game breaking, like pieces, spray acid everywhere, and Characters can be any gender and a blatant comedy gimmick, or something generally not save them. If that is ethnicity, so can Lee the tragic love that violates the genre. Everything what the GM intends for the game then interest. Names are picked by the else is just a challenge and the GM it should be allowed. Or they can just players after reading the secret text, must decide whether to deal with it or forbid such things for reasons of aided by a list of quick suggestions. reject it solely on their personal shipboard safety, company regulations, Middle names and hyphens are sense of how it might shape the game. maritime law, and plain old GM encouraged. Funny names are bad for The intricacies of the scenario are authority. Contraband is possible, but tension building. Some players have to more easily explored with a group not up to the GM. name their cover identity as well as armed to the teeth but improvising. their character, or something related There is no military rank on board. to their role. Players will ask for weapons, and some This is a private enterprise with characters could reasonably have everyone contracted to comply with Endgame transmissions are a taunt to access to an arsenal. If this is standards. The ship is owned by the get players of surviving characters allowed on commercial space ships, if captain who hired the ship's engineer. into the mind set that the story must this is a clear warning signal of an The mission is led by the project conclude and maybe shift loyalties one insane person who is probably manager who hired everyone including last time. They can begin The end, but dangerous, or if this is the Wild West the captain and the marshal. The they do not have to. They are just frontier in space where a man is not a license marshal has legal authority another tool at the GM’s discretion. man without his gun is up to the GM but can at the most confine someone to and the group's expectations. Weapons hypersleep if the mission allows it. In case of an emergency that prevents should not be rejected out of a role the sixth player from making it to the playing instinct to prevent overly Most of the motivational bad stuff is session the Exploited Hireling can be powerful PC gear because that gets far off and not happening in the left out of the story without causing balanced later.