So in thinking about upcoming one-shot games, I thought about a scenario in the Alien universe.

The scenario is on a Weyland-Yutani bioweapons development space station, where they have a bunch of captive xenomorphs that they are using to develop into better weapons. But one of the engineers hates what they're doing, and he communicates with a set of them how to escape just before he leaves the station. They proceed to escape and try to free the other xenomorphs and destroy their captors.

The twist here is that the PCs are the xenomorphs.

I want it to be a highly lethal scenario, where players are likely to have their character killed and grab up a replacement character. Also, it would be an interesting challenge to play low-tech but intelligent characters on a high-tech space station. I was thinking the engineer gave them a programmed autopilot that would let a ship take them to a nearby uninhabited planet, as a possible but difficult win condition.

Any thoughts on what you'd like to see in a scenario like this?

Just a thought, but add a bit of a mystery vibe to the whole scenario.

One of the station inhabitants is carrying a developing queen.  Give the players a few clues as to which person it is, but make them work for it.

It will probably up the difficulty factor because the players will hold back, not knowing if they can go on a killing spree, but it could be fun, depending if that's the sort of game you are looking at going for.

And I know, in the later aliens films, the drones knew Ripley was carrying the queen and wouldn't attack her, but those later movies, bleh.

How about having a second, different colony of drones on the station? Competing projects on different floors of the station, perhaps.

The players initially won't know anything about the second group, but a few of them will also escape captivity to add that little bit of extra chaos (and something for the PC xenos to fight).

Quote from: aganauton on March 15, 2024, 09:54:15 AM
Just a thought, but add a bit of a mystery vibe to the whole scenario.

One of the station inhabitants is carrying a developing queen.  Give the players a few clues as to which person it is, but make them work for it.

It will probably up the difficulty factor because the players will hold back, not knowing if they can go on a killing spree, but it could be fun, depending if that's the sort of game you are looking at going for.

And I know, in the later aliens films, the drones knew Ripley was carrying the queen and wouldn't attack her, but those later movies, bleh.

I like this, but I think it might reduce the fear/horror effect. One of the things I wanted to emphasize in this is just how terrifying humans with assault weapons are. Properly run, they should be far more terrifying than most fictional monsters.

Encouraging players to hold back in killing humans might reduce how effective they are at being horrifying death-dealing monsters. I like pushing hard on just trying to survive.

Quote from: Thornhammer on March 15, 2024, 10:29:17 AM
How about having a second, different colony of drones on the station? Competing projects on different floors of the station, perhaps.

The players initially won't know anything about the second group, but a few of them will also escape captivity to add that little bit of extra chaos (and something for the PC xenos to fight).

I like having a second or even third group of xenomorphs, and had thought about it before. There is potential for conflict, but also - if the other group is in trouble, it introduces some social / moral complications - do they risk themselves to help the others?