Hostile: Alien - Character Creation Part 2

 

Arthur Dallas (Tom Skerritt)

Introduction

We're making the crew of the Nostromo in Hostile, the RPG from Zozer Games in order to play through the plot of Alien and see who survives. Next up is Captain Dallas.

Arthur Dallas, Captain

Characteristics

Strength: 6

Dexterity: 7

Endurance: 5 (-1) 

Intelligence: 10 (+1)

Education: 9 (+1)

Social: 12 (+2)

Dallas's characteristics are hard to pin down. He obviously cares about his crew a lot but is prone to making rash decisions under pressure. He orders Ripley to break protocol and let him back onboard the ship with Kane and the facehugger, and panics when he loses track of the alien in the air vents, fleeing the wrong way and going into its path.

I'll represent this trait by giving him only 5 Endurance. He gets 10 Intelligence because he comes up with the plan to trap the alien, which was a pretty good plan even if they couldn't execute it. From his page on Xenopedia we know he went to a flight academy and became an officer, so that gets him an Education score of 9.

He's good at rallying the crew and getting on with both the senior officers and the roughnecks, so we'll give him a good Social score of 12. I originally gave him a Strength of 8, but after failing his ageing roll he loses 2 points from it.

Career

Dallas like Ripley is a commercial spacer. However his page on Xenopedia has a full career history for him taken from the company personnel files on the DVD extras we mentioned last time. I'm not sure who wrote it but we'll take it as "canon".

After graduating from a flight academy he spent three years as a pilot and navigator aboard a salvage ship before joining the military, serving in the United Americas Outer Rim Defence Fleet. This career ended in disgrace when a ship he was captaining was destroyed, killing over fifteen thousand people. He then served on a smuggling ship before being given a second chance by the Weyland Yutani corporation.

This means he's had a portfolio career of commercial spacer, military spacer and rogue.

Rank and Position

He is captain of the Nostromo. This grants him the skills Vacc Suit-1 and Pilot-1.

Age

47. This makes him a veteran character and as such needs to roll 2D6 to check for effects of ageing. Unfortunately he fails this roll and loses two points from a characteristic of my choice: Strength.

Skills

Dallas hails from Montana on Earth, letting him choose three of the Earth homeworld skills. He has an Education modifier of +1 which lets him pick an extra primary education skill. I'm going to pick his career skills from the three careers he's been involved with.

Leader-2

From military spacer career. He demonstrates good leadership throughout the film.

Tactics-2

From rogue career. He comes up with the plan to deal with the alien.

Computer-2

From commercial spacer career. He communicates with Mother when needed.

Comms-2

From commercial spacer career. He's heavily involved in landing the ship.

Pilot-2

From commercial spacer career.

Navigation-1

From commercial spacer career. He served as navigator aboard the salvage vessel USCSS Snark.

Vacc Suit-1

From commercial spacer career.

Gun Combat-1

From military spacer career.

Ground Vehicle-0

Earth homeworld skill.

Carousing-0

He's good with people, so drinking and schmoozing come naturally to him.

Streetwise-1

From rogue career.

Comms-0

Primary education skill.

Agriculture-0

Montana has a lot of farmland, so why not? Primary education skill.

Psych Profile

As we discussed, he's loyal to his crew, comes up with a solid plan to get rid of the alien, insists on being the one to go into the vents and confront the alien, but panics when he's in danger. He also has to represent the Company and is realistic about Parker and Brett's chances of getting more money from them.

• Loyal
• Brave
• Panics under pressure
• Intelligent
• Company man

So that's our second character done. I didn't realise making each one would take a whole evening, but that's what you get with crunchy RPGs. It's fun though.