Which alien races from your favorite sci-fi RPGs are you particularly fond of and why, and which ones didn't really hit the mark in your estimation?

I always like the Vargr from Classic Traveller.

Angry, clannish, space wolf pirate raiders! What's NOT to like there?

I don't remember ever losing one to death during character generation, which is a plus!

Dralisites in Star Frontiers were always a favorite...though I never straight played the game I borrowed them and the Sathar into other games. Probably mostly because I thought Dralisites were a bit like Shoggoths... though really aren't at all.
The MiGo from CoC. Weird and unknowable.
The Throon from The Arduin trilogy... huge 4-armed black-purple space barbarians (and I only just now realize they're an 'homage' to Tharks).

ALL the aliens from 2300AD , they were amazing.
In Classic Traveller I always liked the Hivers , I always wanted to play one but I didn't get the chance.
In FASA Star Trek I liked the Orions - swashbuckling space pirates and sexy green women.

Traveller and 2300AD have both scored high with aliens that are truly alien. Sometimes to the point where they are not playable as PCs.

d6 Star Wars was chock full of playable aliens, but they were all humans in funny rubber suits.

The Vrusk and Dralasites from Star Frontiers, Hivers and K'Kree from Traveller, all of them from 2300 AD are on my top list (most of which appear to be common in this thread).

I have likely forgotten any I didn't like, since i'm drawing a blank.

Yeah, the Hivers and Kkree were great.

There's one in GURPS aliens I always liked... large 4-dimensional sea shell looking creatures called Traders... showing up at random to conduct enigmatic deals and then disappearing. Certainly not playable as a PC... but I once filled most of a notebook with ideas for an adventure that centered on their bizarre trading patterns.

Didn't work - the invading amoeba/termite things in Cyborg Commando.

Quote from: jeff37923;752085Traveller and 2300AD have both scored high with aliens that are truly alien. Sometimes to the point where they are not playable as PCs.

d6 Star Wars was chock full of playable aliens, but they were all humans in funny rubber suits.

IIRC the 2300AD rulebook didn't actually allow alien PCs and players were told not to read the alien section of the rulebook so as to keep an air of mystery about the creatures. And the Alien Book : K'kree essentially admits that K'kree as unplayable as characters.
I think it would be pretty hard to play many of the aliens in Doctor Who as PCs as well , maybe Sontarans in a wargame scenario or the 80s Cybermen ( who had some emotions ) in a one-off but that would be about it. The Dr Who aliens are monsters in the D&D tradition.

All of the core Star Frontier races, most of the Traveller ones. I'll be honest the thing that really gets me is how they're alien, but still playable.

2300 had some awesome ones as well..

I can think of only one from Alternity that I thought was well done (Sesheyen)


Other than that most of them aren't all that memorable.

Vargr was my first thought--but then I remembered Dralisites, which I also enjoyed.

Quote from: Silverlion;752165I can think of only one from Alternity that I thought was well done (Sesheyan)

Oh yeah, the sesheyans were the best of that lot, enough that I contemplate switching them in for yazirians in the Star Frontiers lineup.

Pure opinion incoming: The fraal were at least iconic enough to get a pass even if they weren't super exciting. The tone on the t'sa kept shifting (serious or silly?) and they were hampered by wonky art design. The aleerin were too specialized, and didn't have a solid roleplaying hook because the writers were trying to do half the "machine people" shtick without committing to the machine behavior. The werren were ugly and dull, a seemingly zero effort production.

Quote from: Simon Owen;752157IIRC the 2300AD rulebook didn't actually allow alien PCs and players were told not to read the alien section of the rulebook so as to keep an air of mystery about the creatures.

True, but it didn't stop us from playing the Sung and Ebers and Pentapods.

Quote from: Simon Owen;752157And the Alien Book : K'kree essentially admits that K'kree as unplayable as characters.

Really, where?

I'm curious because the meat of that book is about how to create a K'Kree family as either PCs or NPCs and even has an adventure specific to the K'Kree as PCs.

Vargr were pretty much lifted from Edmond Hamilton's Starwolf trilogy.

Which isn't known that well today, but was turned into a TV show in Japan (and made it over to the US for not one, but two episodes of MST3K as Fugitive Alien)

In something like Star Wars, most aliens do seem rather human like, but given the nature of the setting, where there has been a galactic civilization for literally 1000s of years, I think there would be a lot of racial (or cultural) identity lost.

That goes for humans, too. Star Wars humans only seem to have a few cultures - English (for Empire), sort of a generic American-Canadian-European one (for the Rebels) and then a tacky Asian stereotype for the Trade Federation (in the prequels).

But I think Star Frontiers just really did a great job. Sure, you didn't know much about their cultures, but they just were cool. Even the Yazirians.

Kelibor from Star Ace.   Big telepathic polar bears who wear Hawaii shirts and just wanna have fun.

I also like the races from Spacemaster Privateers but I might be alone in that.  The thing is they went with races that would be easy to get into and play  noble, knightly wolf guys, psychotic killer cat guys, gentle pascifist bear guys who are slowly turning into psychotic killers, enigmatic psychic bug guys, speed freak velocoraptors with the attention span of a toddler.   What they gave us were the sf equivalents of elves and dwarves.  Hairless monkey guys who talk too much (humans).  I'd have liked it better if they were a little more generic and balanced.

SPAM got a lot of flak for the furry races because SM2 was very much a transhuman society with heavy elements of Dune and Aliens.  Okay, adding Aliens to a Dune-like Empire was a brilliant move, I'd love to see HR Giger's Dune.  Time to dig him up and put his brain in a jar.