Quote from: pawsplay;468094On the other hand, Aliens Unlimited is pretty much cat people, dog people, lizard people, more cat people, etc.

Yeah, well, I guess it depends on the book.  But you certainly can't say Palladium hasn't been creative with its aliens.  I mean, they have freaking cactus-people! Even their anthropomorphisms are unusual!

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Quote from: RPGPundit;468115Yeah, well, I guess it depends on the book.  But you certainly can't say Palladium hasn't been creative with its aliens.  I mean, they have freaking cactus-people! Even their anthropomorphisms are unusual!

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Oh, totally. I was basically constrasting Rifts (full of aliens, Texan Nazis, and lots of other stuff I steal for, well, most of my games) to Aliens Unlimited (makes Traveler seem like a China Mievelle novel).

Quote from: pawsplay;468126Oh, totally. I was basically constrasting Rifts (full of aliens, Texan Nazis, and lots of other stuff I steal for, well, most of my games) to Aliens Unlimited (makes Traveler seem like a China Mievelle novel).

I wonder what accounts for the difference in quality?  I don't know, I've never looked at Aliens Unlimited.

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Quote from: RPGPundit;468233I wonder what accounts for the difference in quality?  I don't know, I've never looked at Aliens Unlimited.

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My guess is that viewing Aliens Unlimited as an adjunct to a generic superhero game wanted to cover the "standard" pop culture alien types.

Quote from: RPGPundit;468233I wonder what accounts for the difference in quality?  I don't know, I've never looked at Aliens Unlimited.

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Aliens Unlimited isn't bad. I thought they did a good job explaining why the different races are the way they are. They give a ton of background on each race's home world.

Sure, there are a lot of animal races, but I think that's mainly because Paladium loves anthropomorphic animals (After the Bomb, Heroes Unlimited). It fits.

Battlelords of the 23rd century had some... interesting... takes on relatively humdrum alien cliches.

You of course had clones humans, then you had six fingered 'orions', that were really just reskinned humans.

You had the mutzachan, arrogant psychic 'little grey men' with truly massive heads.  There was another pyschic race with sort of exoskeletony skin and asparagus heads.

You have methane breathing samurai aliens, and their enemies, methane breathing octopoids (who eat people, yummy),

you had sentient ooze, blind and loving it... very well conceived actually.

Then you had two races of giant, strong and dumb lizard people. That came from the same planet. And hated each other.

Oh, and smart, matriarchal cats.  Not Aslan, nor Kzinti or what have you. Pumas and lions and shit.  

think I got them all.

Certainly colorful interpretations of some old trite standbys, and some fun ideas in the mix.

Phase World and its sourcebooks have some pretty sweet aliens (if you disregard the Star Elves, Dwarves, and Minotaurs). The newer books get pretty damn interesting.

Horta are rather neat, especially when you consider the source material.

Quote from: Soylent Green;467889So what non-license system has the coolest, intelligent space opera alien races?

PS Or at least not the usual cat people, lizard people, dog people, squat men from high gravity planets that act like dwarves and tall people from low gravity planets that act like elves.

2300 AD's Kafers. Humanoid like creatures that appear to have low intelligence until placed under stress, like combat, at which point their intelligence increases 10 fold. The experience is somewhat euphoric and also results in a small increase in the individual's base intelligence. This turns them into violence junkies and impacts their cultures.

2300 AD also has the Ebers which have multi-lobed brains each of which are optimized for a particular type of intellectual activity. Superficially all their cultures are highly ritualistic however the rituals are the method they use to switch which lobe is dominant.

Quote from: RPGPundit;468233I wonder what accounts for the difference in quality?  I don't know, I've never looked at Aliens Unlimited.

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An inordinate fondness for cat people?

Quote from: pawsplay;468498An inordinate fondness for cat people?

That's a surprisingly common problem.

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