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| Second Running |
This afternoon I ran my second session of the Alien QuickStart, with a different group of players at a small online gathering. It went generally well, but I'm now certain that the introductory adventure is probably 4-8 hours of play, not a convention length game.
I'd implemented the changes that I realised were necessary from the previous game and overall I'm feeling that I am getting far more familiar with Roll 20. I still found the tokens side a bit of a pain, but fortunately one of the other players gave me some sound advice (thanks J0rdi).
The scenario works really well to get people into the tropes of Alien, but this time the dreaded party split happened. This presented a challenge because the characters also delayed the big close out of Act 1. I ended up heading towards two separate climaxes, and we would have just concluded Act 1 after 4 hours of play had we continued. Instead, we decided to abstract out the ending with some survival rolls, a hint of double crossing and we left the surviving crew members adrift on an EEV heading back towards the Network, hoping to be picked up.
This was the first session with combat; it was very interesting and scarily brutal. I managed to not get a single 6 when rolling 8d6 3 times in a row. The players realised that xenomorphs shouldn't be fought with pistols or shotguns (although the Bolt-gun and incinerator units are pretty effective). The quickstart is missing images of some of the key creatures, but we worked around that. I'm sure the full book will have them.
Talents came into play a few times and worked well.
The stress rules worked a dream, and it was pretty funny when the players realised that the chance to rest up and lose stress was unlikely to happen anytime soon. One of the characters really suffered in effects, but it worked out well dramatically.
It felt like an Alien film. It played well. It was just too long for the slot.
Things to do better:
- - A couple more markers for the rules I referenced
- - See if I can find more images that are useful
- - Make sure the changes I did with Roll 20 are rolled back to the first game.
- - Work on my skills with Roll 20.
- - Still a lot of chopping and changing between location descriptions and plot. Fortunately the flowcharts I've done helped.
Thanks to J0rdi, Jiminy, Dr Mitch, Rich and Jules for a fun afternoon.
10 August 2019
The party split was largely triggered by one Pc's agenda and then the response of another PC to that trigger; in all honesty the split didn't cause any time issues because one half of the split were largely waiting and observing. For me the big finale shouldn't be forced in any case - if the journey through the scenario is a good one then resolving things at the end with a few dice rolls is absolutely fine; better, in fact than having a GM march you relentlessly towards a pre-conceived ending. It was cool and player led as things should be.
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