Hostile: Alien - Part 1

 

The stasis pods open

Introduction

I've created the crew of the Nostromo from Alien in the RPG Hostile by Zozer Games and I'm playing through the story solo to see how it turns out.

Just one more quick bit of character creation: Hostile has rules for characters suffering stress, but it involves doing an Intelligence roll. I find this a bit odd since it would mean a character like Lambert who can't handle the situation at all and freaks out repeatedly during the film, would have to have a low Intelligence score and therefore fail a lot of her job-related rolls.

I'll assign each character a Stress characteristic which they'll use to do their "panic roll". This is based on their behaviour in the film.

Dallas (Captain): 7

He stays very calm throughout the film but does panic and go the wrong way in the air vent when the alien's coming for him.

Kane (Executive Officer): 9 (+1)

Admittedly Kane doesn't get to experience being hunted by the fully grown alien but he does handle himself in the expedition well.

Ripley (Warrant Officer): 12 (+2)

I think we have to give Ripley a score that gives her a +2 DM because she's such a survivor, despite regularly losing patience and getting annoyed with her crewmates when they're trying to formulate plans to deal with the intruder ("Parker! Parker! Shut up!").

Ash (Science Officer): 5 (-1)

When Ash finds out Ripley's discovered his secret orders his programming can't provide a logical way for him to behave and he turns violent. This means he should get a low score.

Lambert (Navigator): 2 (-2)

Unfortunately Lambert's score is even lower than that of Ash, since she immediately panics and repeatedly tries to persuade the others to abandon the ship before freezing in terror when confronted by the alien.

Parker (Chief Engineer): 10 (+1)

"I'm not drawing any straws. I'm for killing that goddamn thing right now!" Parker keeps his head throughout the film and bravely tries to kill the alien. He gets a high Stress score.

Brett (Technician): 9 (+1)

World weary Brett isn't much phased by the possibility of being eaten alive by a space alien. He just gets on with things in a way that suggests he isn't at all surprised he's having to deal with this kind of thing as a Weyland-Yutani employee. When the alien rears up in front of him his reaction is pure bemusement rather than fear. He also gets a +1 DM.

Jones (Ship's Cat): 15 (+3)

Obviously Jonesy gets a high score here, he defiantly hisses at the alien, annoyed at it invading his territory.

The Adventure

Let's get right into it.

2122, The USCSS Nostromo, commercial towing vessel of the Weyland-Yutani corporation is on its way back to Earth on a routine job towing a refinery processing millions of tons of ore from a distant planet. The crew are awakened from their cryosleep pods to learn that they're not in fact back in our solar system yet - the ship's computer Mother has "intercepted a transmission of unknown origin", in the words of Captain Dallas.

Since it could be of intelligent origin the crew are obligated by company policy to investigate it. Chief Engineer Parker objects, saying that they're not a rescue ship, but Science Officer Ash reminds him that they'll forfeit their company shares if they ignore it. This settles the matter. They'll travel to the source of this possible distress signal and investigate.

I'm not doing any skill rolls for this stuff since it's all determined by the characters' personalities.

After listening to the transmission which sounds unlike anything the crew have ever heard, they track it down to a small planetoid nearby, 1200KM in diameter, 0.86 times the gravity of Earth. Designated LV426 in the company's starmap, the crew begin the two hour detour to travel there. When they arrive they begin the process of orbit insertion, unfortunately during an intense atmospheric storm.

This is an intense scene in the film with all the bridge officers playing a part, and presumably Parker and Brett in engineering managing the ship's power distribution and other low level systems. If you're familiar with the Hostile Solo rules we could do a scene resolution roll here and resolve the whole scene with one dice roll, but I'd rather have each crew member play their part.

We're going to do one skill roll of average difficulty for each crew member of the seven, and if three of them fail the ship will take a hit to its systems as if it's been hit in combat, with a further hit for every two more failed rolls.

The ship approaches the planetoid and carefully detaches itself from the refinery, leaving it in orbit. "Equatorial orbit nailed." says Ash.

"DOR's online" reports Captain Dallas. The chatter on the bridge increases.

"How's the status on the lifters?"

"Gimme an EC pressure reading."

Dallas makes a check (Difficulty 8)

6 +2 Leader = 8. Success.

Kane makes a check (Difficulty 8)

9 +2 Comms = 11. Success.

Ripley makes a check (Difficulty 8)

7 +1 Comms = 8. Success.

Ash makes a check (Difficulty 8)

3 +1 Computer = 4. Failure!

Lambert makes a check (Difficulty 8)

7 +2 Navigation = 9. Success.

Parker makes a check (Difficulty 8)

10 +3 Engineering = 13. Success.

Brett makes a check (Difficulty 8)

6 +2 Engineering = 8. Success.

"Turbulence." Ripley reports. A big jolt goes through the ship and Ash apologises. "I didn't see that coming, sorry." Lambert shudders and glares at him as the ship recovers its stability and eventually touches down.

"Any response yet?" Dallas asks Ash, referring to the message they sent out to the location of the distress signal. The answer comes back negative - the unknown signal repeats every twelve seconds. They track down the location of the signal to a spot 2KM from the landing site, which would take roughly thirty minutes to reach on foot, depending on the terrain.

Ash analysis the atmosphere and finds it's primordial: nitrogen, carbon dioxide, methane but no oxygen. Kane thinks about volunteering to be part of the expedition, but will he? There's a small chance things might turn out differently in our alternate universe Alien story. We'll roll a D6 and say he changes his mind on a 6.

3. He volunteers.

Dallas will choose another crew member to join him. His first thought is Lambert, but will he change his mind? Let's roll a D6, and on a 6 he'll pick someone else.

3. It's Lambert. "Swell." She says, unenthusiastically.

"I'm gonna break out the weapons." Dallas announces, having accepted his traditional role as expedition leader. He heads over to the captain's locker on the bridge and takes out three RXF-M5 EVA laser pistols.

In the film they bring these on the expedition but decide not to use them when hunting the fully grown alien. It's not said aloud but I assume that once they discover it has acid blood they don't want to risk killing it onboard and causing a hull breach.

Hostile doesn't have a laser pistol in its rules so we'll go to the Cepheus Deluxe rulebook instead.

Laser Pistol

Effective Range: 50 metres

Maximum Range: 200 metres

Damage: 3D6

Magazine Size: 10

The trio get into their vacc suits and step into the airlock. Next time we'll use Hostile's Dirtside book to do a short traversal over the rocky terrain of LV426!