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THE GAME

Quick reference:

Role Play	Play By E-Mail	The Feel	Rolls, Roles and Rules
Character advancement	Dutch Courage	Family Commitments	FAQ
Frenzy	Religious Persuasion	Synthetics

Role Play

Most likely you are familiar with the escence of Role Playing Games (RPG). The Games are built essentially around Characters invented by the players in colaboration with the games Administrator. The characters should be interesting and above all balanced. They should have weknesses as well as strengths, since it is through the exploration and overcoming of human flaws that true adventure is found. The enjoyment of players tends to hinge on a moderate amount of reward compared to a chalenge they are able to barely meet. If the struggle is too hard, or the profit not worth it the venture will be unrewarding, and so will the game.

Play By E-Mail

PBEM games differ in many significant ways from the table top counterparts. For a start it is significantly slower, taking many months of real time to see just a few days of game play. Second actions can be considered carefully. You may get a mail Monday and take a week to decide how to respond at your leisure. It is also harder to differentiate players from characters. This has caused many arguements by players who have mistaken a character attitude to be that of the player. This should be avoided. Also it is harder to have a consistent stream of action since you may send a mail saying you talk to a character at the same moment you recieve one saying they left the room. this all gets sorted out eventually if you are patient enough.

The Feel

It helps enormously if the Genre of the game is one that the players enjoy. In this case the game designer has blatantly cashed in on a popular movie series and it is advisable that players be familiar with the movies. It is not vital, however, provided players have a fair understanding of the "Dark Future" style Science Fiction. Equipment is usually antiquated and prone to critical failure. Life is hard and usually short. Almost all the trade and industry is controlled by a single dictatorial and uncaring company, Wayland Yutani. Androids, or Synthetics, are rare and expensive as well as almost indistinguishable from humans. Faster-Than-Light (FLT) engines are still painfully slow for most ships and require the crew to spend many months in suspended animation while travelling between over 300 surveyed worlds.

Rolls, Roles and Rules

This game is based narative. The adventure is driven by the interplay of characters, not the luck of the dice. As such the rolls have been kept to a minimum. The basic rule is that all things are described like an unfolding story. For a thing to happen it must be logically feasible as well as dramatically significant. So a soldier can assume that he has a better chance of being able to fire a weapon he has just found than does a company clerk, but this may infact not be the case. The Soldier may fail while the clerk gets lucky. It will depend upon the dramatic importance teh Administrator feels it has to the plot.

The exception to this is Fear checks, which are made in threatening situations. These are rolled by the Administrator and compared to your present courage level. Players may suggest any things they wish to be taken into acount when calculating bonuses.

Character advancement

During the course of the game a character will be introduced to new situations and need to learn new skills in a hurry. It is assumed that most characters will not make it to the end of an adventure, so rewards should be given during the course of the adventure. Each character that starts the adventure is given 4 points that they may distribute during the course of the adventure. [Ripley learnt to use paramilitary weaponry (2 points), Alien, and then military special Weapons (2 points). When the points are allocated no further advancement is allowed until subsequent adventures. Characters that start part of the way into the game get fewer advancement points [Ripley would have 4, Alien, Newt would start with 3, Aliens, Bishop’s designer would have had none, Alien³, and Purvis only 2, Alien4.]

Dutch Courage

1. If the character fails a Courage roll and chooses to spend a point to pass the point is not deducted from their total score until the effects of the drug wear off. Thus a doped Marine can wade through an Alien infestation and it isn’t till he sobers and realises what he has done that the full impact hits him.
2. It becomes much easier to enter a state of Frenzy, and this may be initiated by the DM on your character’s behalf.
3. The DM takes partial control of your actions since your brains higher functions are not full operational. This may mean that your character behaves in ways that you would not wish them to. Think about the number of times that a drunk will regret their actions the next morning.
4. In extreme cases of inebriation the DM may insist that a character spend a Courage point every time they fail. They are just insanely brave

Family Commitments

1. If the character fails a Courage roll and chooses to spend a point to pass the point is not deducted from their total score until the effects of the drug wear off. Thus a frightened mother can wade through an Alien infestation to save her child and it isn’t till they are safe that the full impact hits and she bursts into tears.
2. The character will only Frenzy to hold off the Aliens to allow their family to escape.
3. A character may come out of Frenzy to help the threatened individual.

Frenzy

1. Complete control of the character is surrendered to the DM.
2. A character will never retreat from action, and must be dragged away.
3. A character will not make much of an effort to save it’s own life, even in extreme danger.
4. A character may move into danger to achieve a perceived goal.
5. If a character manages to survive Frenzy their ability to Frenzy again must be checked with the DM.

Religious Persuasion

1. If the character fails a Courage roll and chooses to spend a point to pass the point is not deducted from their total score until the effects of the religious persuasion wear off. Thus a zealot can wade through an Alien infestation and it isn’t till he starts to question and realises what he has done that the full impact hits him.
2. It becomes much easier to enter a state of Frenzy, and this may be initiated by the DM on your character’s behalf.
3. In extreme cases of religious fervour the DM may insist that a character spend a Courage point every time they fail. They are just insanely brave.
4. A character may be pulled out of Frenzy by the Minister who instigated the Religious persuasion. By the same token Religion can be use to stop a person taking action.

Synthetics

Questions Raised

My answers to some of the questions and criticisms leveled at this system.

Being a Convict seems to disadvantage you in the skills you can have.

Yes. In this future any criminal activity will seriously impact on your life. Ripley’s hearing, Aliens, destroyed her career as a Pilot even though she never received a Sentence. If you have spent time in prison it is natural to assume you have not had the freedom to explore other factors of life. Note you can still spend up to 5 points in Other Skills, by being a mass murderer on a life Sentence. Obviously the more skilled you are the greater the crime you committed when arrested, and the less skilled the less trouble you could get in.

Maybe you should be more specific with the skill and job descriptions.

I have deliberately avoided describing long lists of specific skills since in real life there is no such distinction. The clarification comes from the Reasonable Assumption rule. I have made very broad designation that can be used to describe a character concept rather than provide and restrict one. Rather than saying, "I want to play a Marine , therefore I must take Weapons and a specialty", my system allows people to say, "My person has served in the Armed Forces for a short while but was kicked out of boot camp. He is now a Plumber by Trade". This character may still choose Weapons and Field (Lab) as their skills. The skills describe the idea, they do not provide a description in and of themselves.

My characters are dying faster than I can create them.

This game is designed to kill the characters fast, unless they are really careful. Try running away, most Administrators like to think they have their players scared.

What if I only want to be a minor criminal?

There is no classification in this game for such. It is just assumed that the way you conduct your business is in less than ethical ways. You can purchase the skill Reputation, or even Sentence if you are not a Convict .

Why is cargo Goods a skill? Surely that will depend on what a player can find in the game.

This does not define what cargo a Trader or Pirate is carrying, rather that which they can expect to do a decent trade in. It assumes things like having a provider of the merchandise as well as a person to receive and pay for the Goods. A person may be brilliant at shipping luxury items, but not have the capacity to transport raw materials in the masses needed, or a passenger transport captain might find someone who is interested in a shipment of fresh fruit but not know where to get it for them.

Still interested? Mail me at ro@ikcfhew.com