Battlegrounds

[ysignal]

https://akbattlegrounds.net/w/multivers ... ea4a3689e6

I'm looking for teammates for the Hope's Last Day scenario for the Alien RPG. We need 5 players in total to start.

[recoil]

I'm down to play, this is the best DLC I've ever seen in gaming.

[Some guy]

Yep, I'm up for this too.

[icycalm]

this is the best DLC I've ever seen in gaming.

lol recoil knows what's up. What's even crazier is that I haven't yet unveiled the best I got. I will soon though and it will floor you.

Regarding the Alien scenarios (btw scenario is the sci-fi equivalent term of adventure), the books say that they are written for 3-5 players. But they also say that if you have fewer than 5, the GM is supposed to play the extra characters as NPCs. One dumb GM on Reddit played Hope's Last Day without all the pregen characters and they left out the person with the motion tracker and his group got savaged.

I don't want to run any characters myself as I'll have my hands full running the new rule system AND the new-for-us Foundry VTT, and the game will be much more fun with a full team, so we'll only be playing Alien scenarios when we can get a full team.

Note that you don't have to raise your monthly pledge to play in this, you can just send me $50 via XMR, and I believe that, even though it's only 2 hours of gaming (though it'll probably be closer to 4 for us, since we'll be learning everything), it should be some of the best 2 hours in gaming you'll ever have.

It's also possible that it'll be way more than 2-4 hours if I decide to add material that several GMs have published for this scenario on Reddit and the official Alien RPG forum. One of them even devised a follow-up scenario. I still haven't checked out the unofficial stuff, I am just cataloguing it for the time being. I'll check it out after I have read the core rules and the official scenario in full, and know what I am dealing with.

The pregens will be given out on a first-come first-served basis. There are exactly 5 of them, and ysignal will pick first, then recoil etc. This is how we'll handle pregens for all adventures and settings, not only DLC. There are huge differences between characters, so it'll be beneficial to be able to choose first, and that should hopefully motivate people to start threads and join teams asap once scenarios are unlocked.


P.S. I edited ysignal's opening post to add image and link. Always do that when you start a team-forming thread, using imgur.com to host the image. Also, I have now updated the overworld entry for Hope's Last Day so that instead of saying FORM TEAM it says JOIN TEAM and links to this thread.

[Jameson]

I'm down to play.

[shubn]

I'd like to join.

[icycalm]

Awesome, we have a crew! I will make an #alien text channel in the Battlegrounds section of Discord, and you'll all receive the "Alien Crew" Discord role. When the scenario is over, you will lose it so I don't ping you if you're not playing; as long as you keep playing scenarios, you keep the role. If we eventually end up having multiple crews, they'll get "Alien Crew 1", "Alien Crew 2" and so forth.

I also changed the prompt in the scenario page from "JOIN TEAM" to "FOLLOW STORY". No one else can join this scenario now, but they can follow its story if they wish, as if they're watching a movie or TV show, and we'll have summaries/videos/clip highlights etc. for them, with everything of course reflected on the overworld. The entirety of the colony will be explorable from the overworld! You'll be able to zoom in from galactic level all the way down to the freaking basement under the colony! SHOW ME ANY OTHER GAME WHERE THIS IS POSSIBLE. THIS IS THE REAL PLANETARY ANNIHILATION SUCCESSOR. And maybe there will also be planets annihilated here. Just maybe. At some point.

Start reading the rules and available lore in the Player Section I've given you when you can, and post here when you've done a full read-through. There's no great hurry, but I would like to play before the end of June if possible. This will be the FIRST scenario/adventure completed on Battlegrounds, and I can't wait! (As a side note, THIS is the game and adventure we should have started with, and NOT Pathfinder. Everything would have gone so much smoother in that case. Oh well. We did things the icycalm way = the hardest way possible.)

Oh, also only a few of you have so far created a World Anvil account and followed Battlegrounds. Please do this asap because I just locked the rulebook and you won't be able to access it without an account. Also, all other players should do this too as I'll be sharing Pathfinder content exclusively in this manner from now on. Username format should be CULTxusername. I need to see all your names here: https://akbattlegrounds.net/followers



I haven't yet set up the follower permissions, so even those who've made an account and followed won't be able to read the rulebook. I'll fix this probably tomorrow and let you know. Currently, anyone trying to access the rulebook will get the default World Anvil access denied page:



It's from The Fifth Element. Not an especially good movie, but I admit the reference is funny. That's probably the only memorable thing about that movie. And the only good thing coming out of it: for cheeky admins to use it as an access denied page.

I will eventually replace this with a custom Battlegrounds page with cool art and directing people to subscribe if they want access, because eventually I will be making the entire world private. I might even make this forum private too. Insomnia subscribers who don't play with us can get access right now the same way the players can: just make a World Anvil account using your Insomnia username, with or without the clan tag—it's up to you—and "follow" Battlegrounds and I'll give you full access. You're contributing to my game and our world too, after all.

As for Foundry, you don't have to do anything on that front. It's all web-based and you will connect through the browser I will recommend to the web address I will give you. I'll spend the first hour of the session explaining to you how to use the new VTT. This is 2.5D-capable and video-capable, among a ton of other wizardry, so expect much higher production values than Fantasy Grounds! It even integrates Syrinscape, positional audio per character, sounds triggered by actions, just a shitton of cool stuff (though don't expect ALL of it to be set up from the very first session; it will take me months to add it all). In fact, this will be Cult Engine 3, and I will launch it later this month with also much more added content. Within a few weeks there'll be so much content in the game, you won't believe what you're seeing. THIS IS THE REAL METAVERSE. NOT EVEN STAR CITIZEN CAN DO THIS.

Foundry Virtual Tabletop - Anniversary Overview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuyzLlk_QQQ



A Foundry trailer to get you hyped! It should be a treat for all of us, and especially 4K users. It's a 2-year-old trailer though, and the engine can do a HELL of a lot more today.

Oh and I almost forgot, World Anvil has Alien integration that we'll be using!

https://blog.worldanvil.com/announcemen ... orld-anvil

For all horror fans out there, World Anvil now has an Alien RPG character sheet, completely integrated with our character and campaign manager! Whether you're looking for a campaign manager to plan and play your Alien RPG campaign or a character manager to keep your Alien PC organized, updated, and awesome, you've come to the right place!

That page includes instructions on how to set up your Alien character in your World Anvil account. You then sign up the character for my game, and voila: you're in my game! And you can do this with your Pathfinder character(s) too, so you can have all your characters, past and present, in your account.

However, don't do this yet because I am not sure I want to handle it this way. Remember we lost 2 players recently, and the separation wasn't amicable. Thankfully I hadn't invested much in them, so we didn't lose anything, but I can see at some point in the future someone storming off and taking all his characters with him and screwing my game over. So I want to see if it's possible to create all characters in my account, and just give editing permissions to their players. I'll look into this soon and get back to you.

But the point is that we'll get ALL your characters from all settings and campaigns into the overworld! You'll even be able to move them around! And you'll have all their stats and even inventories available 24/7! We'll facilitate this by stopping each session 10 minutes earlier so that every player can update his character on World Anvil. Eventually, this duplicate work will be phased out when we move entirely to Menyr that fuses VTT + overworld, but this is at least a year or two out, and even then it won't do much for the Fantasy Grounds or Foundry content. We'll still have to copy stuff over from those engines to Menyr. Unless someone builds an importer, I guess. There's already something along those lines between Foundry and World Anvil, but I think it only handles journal entries and not characters. So it might help me with transferring content from the Foundry scenarios to the overworld, we'll see, but it won't do anything for the necessary duplication of character data. But the effort will be worth it, I assure you. You'll see how much more immersive it will be having ALL the characters moving around the overworld, and their full stats and inventories accessible 24/7. Their homes, their whole bloodlines even (World Anvil has bloodlines as well as timelines, and organization charts, alliance webs, etc.)

And I left the best for last!

On top of the 5 players and 1 GM we'll have at hand for this scenario, for a total of 6 people—the most we've ever had roleplaying in a voice channel at the same time!—we can also have as many more people as are available to play as NPCs, or even perhaps as... aliens! HOW IS IT POSSIBURU, you ask? It's possiburu with the power of Ultimate Edition! Check the relevant chapter to freshen up:

GM Assistants: Combat Narrators & NPC Actors
https://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=7391

So we could have 7, 8, 9 people all in the same voice channel roleplaying! It will be wild! And of course the assistants don't have to pay for DLC, if anything I should be paying them, though I won't because I'd rather get more SC ships.

So once we have a date, I'll ping everyone on Discord and see if any other players are available and willing to drop by and help us out in creating a more immersive experience together. I'll give them role options, they might even be able to manage combat for me if the system is tactical enough, I'll have to look into that. And I don't yet know how many NPCs there are, or even if there are NPCs at all in this scenario. But there will definitely be in future ones, so anyone who wants to directly experience Foundry and Alien will be able to do so, as long as they're willing to give me a hand.

This option will be especially helpful to aspiring GMs. At first you will add to my workload because I'll have to manage you on top of everything else, but the goal is for you to eventually reduce my workload by smoothly handling your assigned NPC(s) or creature(s), and ultimately even add flavor to the game with your unique interpretation and playacting of these entities. It will be the first step towards me eventually trusting you with more responsibility in the Battlegrounds. If I see you're doing well, I'll give you more things to do, until some day I'll let you handle the entire session while I take a break and go surfing. That is the end goal for those who're interested in GMing, and that is how to begin on that path—and the DLC will be the perfect venue for it since it'll be simpler than Pathfinder et al. both in terms of rules and adventures.

[icycalm]

So let's get ready to play this thing. I am amped like hell and I've spent the last couple of days preparing. I am dedicating the entire next week to learning the new rules, the new setting, the new scenario, and the new VTT. It's a lot of work for me! But you have to do a little work yourselves too.

First off, I finally figured out how to make the rulebook visible only to the 5 players in this thread.







Pretty cool, no? Anyone other than those 5 will get this message:



Two reasons I am locking the book. 1) I am planning a public profile for every player in the manner of Steam et al., and these books will be the unlockables. My Battlegrounds will have the coolest unlockables in all of gaming, guaranteed! Anyone who wants to unlock this book will have to play an Alien scenario. Now you'd be justified for saying, "I'd like to read the rules before I sign up for a game". In that case, google the PDF, or better yet buy the PDF or the print version. You can also always just message one of the guys who have unlocked it to let you take a peek, I don't mind, and it's between you and them. Plus we have a review of the game right here on this very site [ > ] and you can always google for more. So though I think this demand is reasonable, I can't fulfill it on my site due to the scarcity/achievement effect that I am trying to achieve. And hey, you can always just watch us play on Twitch, or read the thread posts and reports after (or even join us to control NPCs and/or aliens, more on which in a future post!) So overall you have tons of ways to evaluate the material despite me hiding the book from you.

2) More importantly, it is illegal for a GM to share books with people who aren't playing in his sessions, and we won't be doing anything illegal in this game. Note also that I own THREE copies of every Alien product: print edition, PDF and VTT. So I can easily host dozens of players between those.

Link to Player Section of the rules: https://akbattlegrounds.net/w/multivers ... er-section

The site loads much faster than before, but the PDFs still lag a little. If it bothers you, and you find it impedes you in the middle of the game, there's a button to download the file. I really prefer if everyone used the site because it looks so cool, ideally on a second display (though for streaming purposes, alt-tabbing between windows of a single display works better for viewers...), but do whatever makes you comfortable.

Here's a pic of how cool the rulebook page looks on a 4K screen in Opera for those who don't have access:



Note that the Firefox PDF interface is much uglier, but more functional. Maybe there's another browser that combines a cool UI with functionality. I need to look into this. In any case, that page looks so good in Opera, I can sit there watching it for hours without even playing or reading anything. And there are STILL things I want to add!

So your job is to read as much of the Player Section as you can, as soon as you can, because after I make this post I'll ping you on Discord to see if we can play this weekend. You don't need to have read the whole thing by then, but it would be nice if you had. I will have read it twice by then (and note that my version is pretty much precisely twice yours lol, 400 vs. 201 pages).

WHILE you're reading, you should also be thinking about which of the characters below you want. Once you've made your choice, post here to let us know. ysignal picks first, because he started the thread, and then the rest of you in the order in which you signed up. So basically the last guy doesn't get a choice, and the thread-starter has the greatest chance of getting a character he likes.

FOMOOOOOOO!

Now you might ask why can't we just roll a character as in every other RPG?

Because that's how Alien's Cinematic scenarios are made. You have to use the pregens because the characters' Personalities and Buddies/Rivals/Personal Agendas are set up for Alien-worthy cinematic conflicts. If you unlock the longer sandbox campaigns (currently, Colonial Marines and Building Better Worlds) you'll be able to create your characters from scratch, also using the new classes etc. in those books. But you must get through some Cinematic scenarios before arriving there.

So in this scenario you'll have to set aside the roleplaying mindset of "I am going to create my own character". You'll have to think more along the lines of, "Ridley Scott hired me for the next Alien movie and handed me—not a script, but a very tight character profile, and if I interpret it well I'll be a rich and famous movie star!"

So if you ever looked at a movie and thought, "I'd like to try some acting, I think I could be pretty good at it", this is your chance to find out how good you could be. This isn't the case as much in Pathfinder and traditional RPGs, because most people just play themselves (the best and most hardcore players though challenge themselves with a variety of character types over the years; but the newbs just play themselves, and that makes perfect sense). And since much less is riding on this scenario than in the PF campaigns, feel free to let loose and experiment more in this one.

It's still a game though, and you still want to survive and hopefully accomplish your hidden agenda, because there will be rewards on the overworld (you basically get to keep the character, if he lives), and after further reflection, we're also keeping the Story Points (I'll talk about that in an Ultimate Edition: Alien RPG thread soon). Unless your card says that your character would be willing to sacrifice himself for the others... Then you must sacrifice yourself, if it makes at all sense in the context of the action, if you want the Story Points. Bum deal, but good drama.

So without further ado, here are our protagonists!


P.S. If you cringe at the idea of playing a female, I feel you, but note that there's something wrong about an Alien scenario without females. After all, when watching Ellen Ripley, you identify with her, otherwise you wouldn't be enjoying the film. And it's easy to identify with her, since she's a fierce, charismatic individual. So then, if that helps you get into the role, interpret your female character this way. If all else fails, remember that all the females in ancient Greek plays were played by men in masks.

P.P.S. If you're wondering how your characters know all the info below about each other, it's because they've been working together for years, so they have a good idea of what everyone is about. Don't worry, the hidden agendas give everyone a further dimension that you'll have to discover in the game.




MACWHIRR, OFFICER
FULL NAME: Janice Macwhirr
JOB: CA Union Organizer
AGE: 42
PERSONALITY: Officious

You are the Colonial Administration union
organizer here on LV-426 and take your respon-
sibilities very seriously. Naturally, you expect
your workers to do the same. It’s hard enough
with the Weyland-Yutani bastards breathing
down your neck, but if you don’t get help from
the workers, what hope is there? At least some,
like Singleton, are supportive, although you’d
sack Hirsch and Holroyd if you could.

STRENGTH 3, AGILITY 2, WITS 4, EMPATHY 5
HEALTH: 3
SKILLS: Mobility 1, Ranged Combat 1, Observa-
tion 2, Comtech 1, Command 3, Manipulation 2
TALENT: Pull Rank
SIGNATURE ITEM: Company ID badge
GEAR: Knife, Watatsumi Bolt Gun (four shots).



HIRSCH, EX-MARINE
FULL NAME: Morgan Hirsch
JOB: Cleaner
AGE: 39
PERSONALITY: Religious

You’ve been cleaning up Hadley’s Hope since
day one and have seen and done it all. When
you went AWOL from the Colonial Marines and
into hiding here ages ago, you knew Hadley’s
Hope would be your home for the rest of your
life. The only downside is MacWhirr. She’s your
boss and never lets you forget it, although the
young Singleton doesn’t like you much either.

STRENGTH 5, AGILITY 3, WITS 3, EMPATHY 3
HEALTH: 5
SKILLS: Heavy Machinery 1, Close Combat
3, Stamina 2, Mobility 1, Ranged Combat 2,
Survival 1
TALENT: Banter
SIGNATURE ITEM: Cross necklace
GEAR: Cutting torch (Power Supply 3).



SINGLETON, PILOT
FULL NAME: Han Singleton
JOB: Tractor Driver
AGE: 32
PERSONALITY: Self-sufficient

You’ve stood on your own two feet for as long as
you can remember. The only lesson your useless
parents taught you was that life is hard, and you
have to be harder. You want to advance by any
means possible, and if that includes ignoring
a few principles on the way, then so what? You
have your Company orders, so follow them.

STRENGTH 4, AGILITY 5, WITS 2, EMPATHY 3
HEALTH: 4
SKILLS: Heavy Machinery 1, Close Combat 1,
Ranged Combat 2, Mobility 2, Piloting 2,
Comtech 1, Command 1
TALENT: Reckless
SIGNATURE ITEM: Toy dinosaur
GEAR: M314 Motion Tracker (Power Supply 5),
M4A3 Service Pistol (one reload).



SIGG, SCIENTIST
FULL NAME: Sonny Sigg
JOB: Lab Technician
AGE: 29
PERSONALITY: Curious

You love your job as a lab technician, then
those Weyland-Yutani inspection team
scientists show up and treat you with thinly
disguised contempt. Hadley’s Hope is just
a way station for you before moving on to
bigger and better things. You like Hirsch as he
has an open mind, but MacWhirr acts as if she
owns the place, and you.

STRENGTH 2, AGILITY 4, WITS 4, EMPATHY 4
HEALTH: 2
SKILLS: Observation 2, Comtech 3,
Medical Aid 2, Manipulation 1, Mobility 2
TALENT: Analysis
SIGNATURE ITEM: Lab coat
GEAR: Medkit.



HOLROYD, ROUGHNECK
AGE: Looks to be in his 30s
JOB: Mechanic
PERSONALITY: Hard-working

You are a Weyland-Yutani android. You’ve
been on LV-426 for two years now, and you’re
a technician known for getting on with things
without complaining. You try to get along
with everybody and overall that works fine.
However, you think Sigg spends too much time
griping and not enough working, and for some
reason MacWhirr dislikes you.

STRENGTH 7, AGILITY 6, WITS 4, EMPATHY 3
HEALTH: 7
SKILLS: Heavy Machinery 3, Stamina 1, Ranged
Combat 1, Mobility 1, Survival 1, Comtech 2,
Medical Aid 1
TALENT: Resilient
SIGNATURE ITEM: None
GEAR: Electronic tools, Samani E-Series
Watch.


Once you have chosen, I will DM you on Discord the hidden details so you can study them and have the time to get into character. If you have the time and inclination, you could research acting methods, if not for this scenario, then for future ones.

LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOO

[ysignal]

I choose Macwhirr.

[icycalm]

I am reading the scenario and laughing to myself. It is fucking brutal. This is no D&D lol. It should be a riot.

Merely seeing something upsetting gives +1 to Stress Level. And there are upsetting things everywhere.

On top of that, the writer gives you hope in one sentence, only to whisk it away the next. I feel like I am in an Alien movie just by reading a couple of room descriptions. I can’t wait to see how this plays.

[recoil]

I'll go with Holroyd.

[Some guy]

I'll be Hirsch.

[Jameson]

I'll be Singleton.

[shubn]

After careful consideration, I am picking Sigg.

[icycalm]

The Hadley's Hope map is now up. You can get to it by zooming into the Hadley's Hope Vicinity map: https://akbattlegrounds.net/w/multivers ... ea4a3689e6

Or you can use the Hadley's Hope direct link: https://akbattlegrounds.net/w/multivers ... 2bbd80ccea



Note that now in Battlegrounds you can zoom in from galactic level all the way to underground, which even in Star Citizen you can't do (you can only zoom in from stellar level to underground).

The reason I am giving you the map straightaway is that your characters have been living in this colony for years, so of course they know the layout. You, however, don't know it, so you need to study it and get familiar with it. Remember, this isn't a dungeon crawl, and you aren't expected to search every room as in the typical D&D adventure. If you do end up searching any rooms, it will only be a handful and you'll be under immense pressure, so you best choose wisely which ones to search, and when. And for how long.

Remember also that Ultimate Edition is a Real-time Game, at least to an extent; but Alien is much more so than D&D or Pathfinder because it is horror-themed, so as things become more and more horrible, I'll be allowing players less and less time to make decisions, and what's more, the chances of the party splitting up are much higher in Alien than in D&D, so if you end up alone you won't be able to rely on other players' knowledge of the colony to make your way. And that's before we've even counted that—again unlike the typical D&D adventure—some players here will be working against others. So if you want the best chances for your character to survive—let alone achieve any special/hidden objectives while fighting against BOTH aliens AND your party members—you need to learn both the game's rules and the colony's layout as well as possible.

The reward for surviving is that you get to keep your character and use him in the Strategy Layer/aka Master of Heroes that I'll unveil soon in Battlegrounds Alpha 2.0. That said, some character(s) might have a self-sacrificial or even suicidal bend, as unveiled in their Agendas (which I will give you shortly), so in those cases, if you want the Story Point (which can be spent to help your NEXT character survive and accomplish his objectives in the next scenario you play), you'll have to sacrifice your character at the right point/moment, and in the right way. Of course, you can also ignore the Agenda, and that might save your character's life because the Agendas aren't easy to fulfill. But that means no Story Point, and also none of the perks your character might earn by both surviving and fulfilling their Agenda.

Fun fact: This map is exactly the one used in the movie Aliens, and this scenario is a prologue to that movie, showing what happened in the colony before the marines were called in. Once the scenario is completed, the movie will be unlocked on the overworld, and if you've learned the colony's layout well you'll be able to follow the movie much more closely.

I am currently aiming to run this scenario, not this weekend, but the next one. We'll talk about it on Discord to see if everyone can make it. I am aiming to release Battlegrounds Alpha 2.0 early next week, and then tie up some loose ends in my Alien/Foundry prep, and be ready next weekend. So you have until then to study the rules and the map. It's not obligatory to read the entire book, but the more you read the better it will be, and if you do end up reading the whole thing, post here to let us know. I've already read it once and plan to have read it a second time before we start.

[recoil]

I've read the entirety of the Player Section. I'll read through it again before we play.

[Some guy]

Just finished reading the whole book.

[shubn]

I've finished reading the book.

[icycalm]

I made a mistake earlier, shubn's character, Sigg, is male not female. I've replaced the portrait. Nothing else changes, stats and background are all the same, just the gender. This change might have influenced the character selection earlier on, but it's not worth redoing it for a brief introductory scenario. It's not a big deal either way.

[Battlegrounds]

Location: https://akbattlegrounds.net/w/multivers ... 888fb6afad

Alien | Cult Cutscenes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypA_bVy9kEE

In 2121, the crew of a commercial spacecraft encounter a deadly lifeform after investigating an unknown transmission.

GM Note: It's a good idea to watch Alien before we play the first session, or rewatch it even if you've seen it several times in the past, and this goes for all kinds of unlocks: the movies above all, but novels, games, comics etc. too. The Alien franchise has by now a very complex plot spread across hundreds of artworks and Gaska uses ALL of it on top of massively expanding it himself. You aren't required to become Alien experts in order to play in the Battlegrounds Alien setting, but at the very least you ought to watch the films as you unlock them. You'll have real advantages in the game if you understand the different factions, the setting and its technology, the major locations and so on, and you won't be completely lost when Gaska starts unloading his plots on you. -icy