ALIEN: Destroyer of Worlds – review and GM advice

Destroyer of Worlds is the second cinematic adventure published for Fria Ligan’s award winning ALIEN RPG written by Andrew E.C. Gaska. It is an excellent, action packed adventure in the style of the Aliens movie. The first part of this blog post is a review, done after having run it. In the second – longer part I will provide an overview of our experience and my thoughts and tips on running the adventure – which means there will be spoilers in the Game Mother’s section.

In short, the player characters – a group of badass Colonial Marines – are ordered to locate and capture four AWOL black ops marines. The AWOLS fled Fort Nebraska, a UA frontier staging point located on a frigid, half-abandoned, insurgent ridden moon, currently begin evacuated because a Union of Progressive Peoples invasion is imminent, and that is just the beginning. Shit just keeps hitting the fan. Sounds cool? You f…ing bet your scrawny marine behind it is!

The adventure was published in 2020 and comes in a box. The book in the box is 88 pages, and contains a description of the setting, six locations, several NPC’s, a detailed description of Fort Nebraska and the additional rules you need, if you only own the ALIEN Start Set. The box also has seven pre-generated characters, a deck of cards with vehicles (the UPP APC, a Marine Core tank etc), equipment, agendas for the characters and visuals and stats of most of the NPCs. And lastly, there are maps, including a big-ish one of Fort Nebraska. The production value is extremely high and it looks great!

A quick view at some of the stuff in the box.


It is fair to say, you get a lot of value for your money. It should also tell you, that this is not a ‘one-shot’ adventure, in the sense that you can run it in one evening. It is advertised as being a 3-session adventure. That can be done, but you can also easily have it last four or five sessions, depending on the attrition of the characters. The amount of content also means that you can find a lot of value in the box, if you want to convert it for a campaign game. The GM can easily ditch – or change – the plot, and simply use the maps, the setting and the NPCs.

I ran the adventure for a group of five players in a vacation house over a long weekend. We played for a total of 10-ish hours, and I had to rush the ending a bit and cut down on some of the events.

Whereas the first cinematic adventure – Chariot of the Gods – emulates the first Alien film, and is a really good adventure, this adventure explores the second pillar of the ALIEN RPG: science fiction action, and does it extremely well. Destroyer of Worlds is in my view the stronger of the two adventures.

All in all, we had a total blast with the adventure. So much so, that most of the board games we also had brought along were not used.

“Alien: Destroyer of Worlds was a great visceral experience with strong cinematic ties to the movies, which left me craving for more upon completion of the adventure.”

Adrian Jensen, playing Charlie

The adventure has a cool, dramatic atmosphere. It combines investigation, inter character roleplaying with tons of drama and action. The characters are very playable with a clear goal in the beginning and with agendas that will lead to plenty of drama in Act III. The adventure is tense and action packed, where the player’s get to act out any “hell-raising, air assault, breach the door, smart-gun firing” fantasies they might have.

Like I also wrote in my ALIEN RPG review, I think this adventure is very well-suited to introduce people inexperienced with role-playing games to the hobby, because it is so easy to imagine the setting, if you just watched a little of the Alien franchise movies. They need to be keen, however, as it takes more than one evening to complete.

It is also a quite demanding adventure to run. The separation of locations and events makes sense, but it means that the GM needs to prepare carefully, and pre-select some of the options presented. There are also a lot of details to keep track of.

The only real issues I have with the adventure concerns some structural issues around Act II and III, where the timeline seems to break down and with the implementation of some major events, but the players are probably so busy fighting to survive and riding the roller-coaster that they won’t notice.

I would also have like a timeline for what happens before the adventure begins, as you have to piece it together from the description, and I’m still not sure how exactly it should be understood.

“I loved it. An action packed rock’n’roll trip down paranoia lane, as if Jeremy Saulnier was given the task of directing an Alien movie.”

Martin Svendsen, playing Hammer

Why should I buy this adventure?

  • You want to run a great Alien adventure
  • You don’t want to run a full campaign, but a one-session game is too short a fix
  • Your player’s love scary, hopeless, out of the frying pan and into the fire action science fiction
  • You want additional setting information and maps for your campaign
  • You want to run a Marine Campaign, and want an easy option for a grand ending to the campaign.

Why should I avoid this adventure?

  • Your players hate everything science fiction and only wants to cast spells and swing swords (which is fine, some people are like that!).

Advice for Game Mothers

Firstly, as you can see if you read the adventure, this text is with the caveat that the modular nature of the adventure means your experience will be very different from ours. But I still think reading a walk-through of our experience will help you run the game more smoothly and avoid a couple of pitfalls.

From here on, there will obviously be spoilers.

It is important to note, that I ran this game knowing I was on a strict deadline. After I had run the first four hours, the players were so enthusiastic that we decided to play the following afternoon for a couple of hours as well, which enabled me to do a bit more with Act II. But the choices I made reflects the time limit and the pacing of running it for two and half session, as well as the actions of the players/characters. If you have more time – especially with unlimited time – your choices, and the player’s choices will create a different flow and experience.

However, you should note that whatever happens, the main clue to reach the end of Act I is an insurgent divulging the location of the compound. There are also dice rolls involved, and there is at least one place in Act III where a failed roll can screw up the ending.

Act I: the Hunt

My players started with the Oblivion Bar, moved on to the Marshal’s Station, then the oil refinery and finally the Insurgent Compound, so the space port and the San Rocco medical facility were never in play.

Oblivion Bar

They went into the bar, and, as the veteran players they are, they stationed two at the front door. This meant that the two insurgents there could not plausibly get out without being noticed, as is the intention in the adventure. And already at this point, I made my first change!

According to the adventure, the girl insurgent was supposed to contact Botos, but I didn’t want the characters to already be aware of the insurgent leader and potentially start looking for a path via radio calls to Botas, so I had them working for Stolls instead as low level mooks.

First, however, Captain Silver went to talk to the bar owner, and as Fei2 is sympathetic, I had her ask them to come in through the back instead, as it would be bad for business for her to let them in through the front. That made the players appropriately suspicious.

I also mentioned Captain Edie, but they thought him too drunk to be worth speaking to.

When the characters notice the two insurgents, and start to interrogate them, it turns into a brawl, before Petre can take a hostage. A brawl is a good way to get the players familiar with the combat system, without too much at stake, so roll with that.

They capture the two, and put them in the APC, where they interrogate them. They let them know that they were to contact Stolls about any marine coming to look for the AWOLS. But when they now contact Stolls via radio, there is no answer (as he is at the marshal’s station).

All the while, they have good fun mispronouncing Zmijewski’s name and he retorting in kind – which seems to be a common experience.

Talking to Fei2, they get to see the security footage, and how the AWOLS argued and split.

To get more information about Stolls, they decide to go to the marshal’s station, if I recall correctly. They certainly didn’t see the potential for Reese having been picked up by the marshals. If you want a more direct clue, you can change the adventure to Fei2 or the dancer seeing Reese getting picked up by the marshals inside the bar, instead of afterwards.

It is great to have the NPC portraits. If I have one complaint, it is that their stats don’t entirely reflect how badass they are. They should have had a talent or two more.


The Marshal’s Station

This scene turned out almost perfectly, and we had our first character death. The characters get past the receptionist and talk to the marshal. They learn about both Stolls and Reese and decide to go and participate in the Stolls interrogation first. They are reasonably successful and decide to also bring him back to Fort Nebraska for further questioning. The Captain decides that she and Hammer will go and check on Reese, while the rest get Stolls into the APC. Yes, a split party!

So, when the two lone marines find Reese’s corpse, and Captain Silva walks back out to the team, she encounters the xenomorph hidden under the ceiling. We draw initiative, she fires and runs back to Hammer (we had forgotten about this rule, but the smarter move, would have been to switch initiative with Hammer, so he would act first, move up beside Silva and get a shot at the alien).

Instead, the xenomorph charges down into the cell, where both the marines now are. It doesn’t kill anyone in the first round, but when Hammer opens up with the Smartgun, the acid spray breaks Captain Silva. Zmijewski comes running, and with one more character engaged they finally get the xenomorph killed.

The rest of the characters rush to their aid, and Chaplain (Jaell) now steps into his role as commanding officer, and as he is the medic, decides not to save Silva’s life, even if he could. This can be seen as a controversial ruling, but I decided it didn’t count as PvP. Of course, the player who ran Silva was disappointed that he already had to get a new character and didn’t get to experience her arc. As GM, however, I must admit I think having someone you – from a movie-perspective – could view as a “main character” die in the first act, enhances the mood and tension – like Samuel Jackson getting eaten in act 1 in Deep Blue Sea.

Not the best movie, but a memorable death and it sets the tone!


At this point, I introduce Ms. Eckford, who simply walks up to Dante guarding the APC and asks to speak with his commanding officer. She tries to engage with Chaplain, but he calls Colonel Meyers, who I doubt would want Eckford meddling more, so Chaplain shuts down the building and moves everyone back to Fort Nebraska for a debrief.

In the interest of time, I let them get back to base and have Stolls crack and reveal the rendezvous at the oil refinery.

The scene ended with a very “realistic” mood of confusion, suspicion and sorrow. The player, who played Silva, decides to play Gunnery Sergeant Mason, instead. 

I had foreshadowed the snowstorm, and I move that in at this point.

Ultimately, I didn’t use Eckford again in the adventure. There was simply not enough time to make it work well. But I didn’t know that in the beginning, so I needed her in play early, if I were to deploy her to good effect later. If I had more time, I might have introduced her already at Fort Nebraska, when they get ready to go out after the briefing. That way, they will be less suspicious of her, given that she in on the base and therefore a “legitimate” part of the military operation.

Getting allies can be critical to their success (and a handy source of new PCs).

The refinery
The action at the refinery didn’t take long. They sneaked up on the men in the building, with the assault team leading the way in, and the rest waiting outside as backup. They opened with grenades and then went in full throttle. There was a small firefight and they finally capture one of the people there – the one with the radio, whom they interrogate, and learn of Wójcik and the compound.

The players debate, whether to ambush the insurgents when they get there for the rendezvous, but end up deciding to assault the compound.

I think an ambush at the refinery should be a viable option, and I was thinking that the insurgents would arrive in a couple of tractors and trikes and at the same time Vice Sergeant Major Davydocih would appear with his commandos. The stress of the ambush would trigger Wójcik, and she would run amok inside a tractor or something.

In any case, they are asked by the Major, if they want a Cheyenne dropship available to deploy as an air assault – and OF COURSE they say yes.

This is where we ended the first “session” of around four hours.

Who wouldn’t want to arrive in style?! Knock! Knock!

The Insurgent Compound

The group decides to do a two-pronged assault. The assault team and the Gunny will rapel onto the compound and the rest of the squad will fight their way through the gates with the APC.

The initial assault goes well, and they get through the gate and down to the roof, respectively. However, the two insurgents with rocket launchers in the inner yard gives them some problems.

It is important to note here, that the dropship can be a problem for the progression of the game, as an intact dropship gives them a way off the moon. Therefore, either the insurgents or UPP attack craft need to damage or wreck it.

In our case, a rocket puts a big hole in the dropship, and it flies away to provide firing support from a distance, but is, when the UPP arrives, re-tasked to defend the colony.

The assault team, Hammer and Dante led by Mason enter the compound from above after taking out the lone guard on the roof, and quickly encounter Wójcik. With three opponents to pick from, and a couple of lucky parrys, the group manages to defeat “her”. But are very freaked out.

Meanwhile, the other half of the team blasts into the inner compound, after shooting everything that moves outside, but the APC is hit with a very efficient RPG shot, which wrecks the armoured vehicle, and sends a blast of flame through it. Only the NPC Iona, driving the APC is damaged, but they get out quickly, and fight their way into the compound, lighting up the RPG-wielding insurgent with an incinerator.

The ground team discovers Stolls and his insurgents inside the living room, and sneak in a couple of grenades. That isn’t enough to take them out however, and they end up in a cool gun fight. I will say, the grenades seem like they are less effective than they would be in real life.

The fight in the insurgent compound was very intense.

Stolls escape to the outside of the compound, but the characters take him and a fellow insurgent out, when they attempt to climb the wall.

At the top floor, they discover LC Wright, chained in the next room, and she promises to help them, if they release her. The scenario highlights this as a secondary option for her location, and that worked well. It was especially useful to have a ‘voice’ in the rest of the adventure, who could talk about Fort Nebraska and the xenomorph problem.

The radio comes to life, and Act II begins in dramatic fashion.

Playing this scene took almost two hours, and it was great fun – chaotic and dramatic, with shit blowing up and cool close quarter battles.

Giving them the chance to blast gates and insurgents with gatling guns and plasma cannons was all kinds of fun.

I confused stage II and III for her Anathema forms, and used stage III attacks for both segments, but it didn’t influence the outcome.

ACT II: Invasion

Going into Act II, I knew I had to cut it fairly short, to stay within our time limit, but I also needed to make it feel significant enough to provide a break between the two acts, let the players play out their agendas and increase the tension.

The characters find Wrights gear, restocked on grenades from Botos and pick up his radio, so they knew someone was coming, but Chaplain collapses and begins to reboot. They were out of transport but take two of the quad bikes from the compound – one was destroyed when the gate house was blasted by the plasma cannon – and use them for the wounded and Wright (whom they don’t trust fully yet).

They hoof it through the snowstorm, while seeing the bombings of the space port, celebrations and incoming drop ships and dog fights above them.

I think it was an observation test to see their pursuers that prompted the high-strung Hammer to roll a face hugger on his stress dice, and as a result he dropped something. I ruled that he suddenly realized that his pocket with X-Stims had torn during the previous fight, and he must have dropped his drugs just a few moments ago in the snow (as I’m sure he obsessively checks that they are there). He immediately turns back to look for them, which forces the team to face their pursuers.

A hard firefight in the relative open begins, and the team gets the upper hand – mainly because of their many stress dice, and with Wright they have superior numbers. But Zmijewski gets a crit (gut shot). I forget to use the actual stats of Davydovich, but in the interest of time, it doesn’t matter. If I had had more time, he could have become a recurring threat, or reused as an ally later. But I was actually happy with how this encounter went. After the fight, Dante has a couple of blood drops run from his nose, even though he wasn’t hit (event).

I then add meeting Fei2 and her UA loyalists, and as Mason wants to save everyone, they bring them with them.

I also mention the ruptured oil pipes, but they don’t investigate them closely.

Finally, I introduce the tank and the insurgents sneaking up on it. The team takes out the couple of insurgents without dice rolls (again, I need to conserve time, and it seemed a foregone conclusion) and they order the tank crew to take them to the base, with Chaplain inside, while the rest of the team rides on top and Fei2 follows behind with the refugees.

The act ends with the electromagnetic burst and the black goo.

The Black Goo attack is a bit overkill, in my view, but it clears out Fort Nebraska.

The electromagnetic burst gave me problems, and I admit I missed that broken equipment could be repaired with a COMTECH roll. I think it is a bit too vaguely described – it says “most electronics – even those that would otherwise be shielded” are destroyed. How much of their equipment is actually electronic – and what might avoid being burnt? Is Mason’s CBRN detection kit electronic? I mean, it can be a very important piece of kit in Act III. What about their pulse rifles or Smart Guns? It seems like they would be affected. But it isn’t like the game explicitly expects them to be disarmed going into the fort and going to an armory to re-arm. Is anyone inside the tank or an APC protected, since “shielding” doesn’t work?

It raised a lot of questions, and my players asked multiple times: does this work, still? I usually said yes, because it was easier , especially given the time pressure (and had overlooked Comtech). Furthermore, the writers suggest that the tanks could be used to blow the gate, but wouldn’t they have been blown by the EMP? Because my players certainly wanted to go that route – and it would have been fun? And what about the sentry guns on the fort walls?

With more time, perhaps I could have broken much of their equipment, and made it an imperative to replace it at the base. One idea would be to roll a number of stress dice according to the equipment’s bonus dice, and break it on a Facehugger.

The EMP mostly seem like a plot device to “kill” all the hardware before the black goo is deployed, but the authors don’t seem to have thought through the consequences. Or maybe I missed something…

The artwork in the adventure is amazing. But the book is mainly text and maps.

ACT III: Getting off the moon

Fort Nebraska works like a dungeon crawl with random encounters, and where the group has to go back and forth to various objectives. I wish I had more time to run it, but on the other hand, I think with the tension built high, it shouldn’t run on for too long.

First, a word on ‘game stoppers’. In both this adventure, and Chariot of the Gods, there are a couple of times where a failed roll will completely derail the game. In Chariot of the Gods, failing to open the first air lock is such a time. In this adventure, it is when they try to restart the reactor in Act III. If that fails, it is basically game over – go blow a nuke. That kind of failure can be interesting in a campaign, where there is always another potential option, but here it kind of screws the ending. So, watch out for that!

I also ran into a bit of a problem with the black goo bomb, although I don’t think my players noticed. Given the time I think I needed to pass in Act II, they also moved most of the distance to the fort (about 5 clicks). Most groups will be coming from the compound, which means the black goo bombs have been dropped south of the fort, and the consequence of that is that the group shouldn’t run into the worst hit anathemas.

I let them experience one, before they reached the wall and its defenses. They decided to blow a couple of sentry guns with their rocket launcher, and I hand-waved that effort, although it cost Dante an ammo count. I didn’t find that part critical, given the time constraint. It is also a situation, where a freak, non-dramatic roll can kill a PC, which would be anti-climactic, given the stage of the game.

So, they climb the wall and enter the fort. They are told by Wright about the need to find a Major’s dog tag, and I added the ‘End of a Good Marine’ event, and Hammer picks up the marine saber.

They enter the lobby and find the area secreted and with several in cocoons. Later, the players remarked that it seems very quickly that the xenomorphs have accomplished all this work. I fully agree. It also seems like an odd location. Furthermore, shouldn’t there be ovo-morphs to impregnate the cocooned? However, the function of it is to telegraph that the base has been taken over by xenomorphs, to increase the tension. You could change this to an encounter with a single xenomorph or move the area to deeper inside the base and add a few ovo-morphs.

In short, they try to get down to sub-level 2, but discover the radiation in one of the shafts. Wright suggests that there are Hazmat suits in the armory, which they go get, but as there are only five, only the PC’s enter the second floor.

I roll a xenomorph encounter for the passage to sub-level two, and with Dante on point, I introduce the ‘cuddly xenomorph’, which is noticed by Hammer, and they begin to freak out and it ups the tension.

They reach the maintenance pits and the reactor relay room, and sneak past. Then they have the cunning plan, that they send Dante into the reactor room, to prepare it. This turns into an excellent scene, where Dante – sweating profusely in a HAZMAT suit – works for 15 minutes in the room, while the three xenomorphs in there come up and check him out. Very tense! And spot on for the mood.

He is a killing machine with 10 stress dice and the Overkill Talent, and he rips through the xenomorph

Meanwhile, Hammer sneaks out to test himself. He walks into the maintenance pit and charges a xenomorph with the Major’s blade. Here, I made a special ruling, because I thought it would be cinematic, that Hammer would be able to use Move to avoid acid sprays.

At this point, he is a killing machine, with 10 stress dice and the Overkill Talent, and he rips through the xenomorph. It destroys the blade of course.

This is where the whole thing hangs on a dice roll. Charlie rolls easy Comtech to restart the reactor. But fails and can’t push as an android. Fortunately, he has a story point available, and succeeds (barely) with the second roll (he should have succeeded automatically as per the rules). Without that success, the adventure will grind to a halt, so maybe have a backup plan, like going to the mainframe and ask Mother/Jaell to boot it up?

At this point, I overlook that they need to go back up to A.P.O.L.L.O to reboot the mainframe. In retrospect, I’m actually glad I didn’t, because it would have added time to complete the adventure, which we didn’t have.

Next, they go to set some nukes. They succeed in sneaking past the Charger – which is good, because I don’t have time to run the combat. They set a nuke, but fail to deduce how much time they’ll need to ascend. I’ll get to this point, when I discuss the climax.

Climbing to sublevel 1 via the chains in the ammo depot requires a push, and I use it to deploy the Charger, where the final character climbing up the chain barely escapes.

The team then proceeds to sublevel 3 with the NPCs.

Meeting the Queen is an epic – almost once in a gamer-life experience. Try to time it, so it doesn’t happen at 2AM with half the group asleep at the table!

Sublevel 3 and the finale
The characters go directly to the medlab and quarantine lab, where Charlie preps Dante for surgery. But while they are in surgery Hammer makes his play (according to his objective) and drops two frag grenades on the rest of the team and hauls ass.

After recovering, they pursue him to the space elevator shaft (I did not consider combat resolved, so Hammer is still a PC). As Dante and Charlie are doing surgery, the players get Iota and Wright.

Hammer opens the gate and is face to face with the Queen – the moment I think everyone was waiting for. Hammer opens up with his SmartGun, and with his total of 20-something dice, does a ridiculous amount of damage. His attack is followed up by grenades and other munitions, which takes out the Queen (I forgot to roll on her Critical Table, and make an epic come-back. FAIL! But I was tired…). Hammer is rushed by the xenomorph sentries and is broken, and when the rest of the marines rain fire on them, he is (deservedly) killed by the acid spray.

The remaining marines kill the last couple of xenomorphs and they get ready for departure. Because they discover that the inoculation had worked on Wright, they decide that everyone needs a shot, before getting on to the elevator.

I narrate how they go up the elevator, and as they begin to turn anathema, the nukes go off, and the space elevator tether collapses and the whole thing ends in a massive impact event.

Additional observations

Roads not taken

If you’ve read all of the above, you will notice that I never got to use the space port, the medical facility and most of the Act III events and the NPCs useful for Act III ( Colonel Meyers, Eckford and Davydovich). With a full session for Act III (or even two), it would have been great to at least use a couple of events with surviving marines and the frozen body of the Colonel.

And they never met Jaell. But I forgot about A.P.O.L.L.O. It was a lose end that would have been nice to tie up.

Things I learned and things I should have done differently

  • First of all, rolling to understand how long the elevator will take to get up there is dumb. They should know, more or less, how long it takes, because several of them must have taken the elevator, or have an understanding of that kind of tech.
  • I forgot COMTECH to fix equipment broken by EMPs.
  • A few hours after the game was over, I knew how I should have ended it. I should have let them use the escape capsule, while the elevator is getting destroyed. and land somewhere on the moon. Then more than half the characters would turn anathema – and if we’d had the time – played that encounter out, with the survivor waiting on a crashed escape module in the middle of a frozen wasteland. But – even experienced GMs – don’t always make the perfect call.
  • Overkill and plenty of stress plus armor piercing guns, means that marines can without too much effort kill Stage IV xenomorphs with one attack – or Stage 5 with an RPG. I think that is by design, but even though 14 armor looks like a lot for a Queen, it doesn’t hold up to RPG attacks, sniper rifles and SmartGuns, when players roll 4+ successes every time. Consider bumping the Queen up a bit, depending on who/how many survives at the end.
  • The recommended “three session” length for the adventure isn’t too far off, but it obviously depends on the length of your sessions, and there are many variables: Act I can be long or short, depending on how quickly the players move to the compound, Act II can be stretched out with events, roleplay and combat, and Act III has the potential to be very long, if you use the events and “random encounters”.
  • I would schedule at least 12-14 hours of game time for the adventure, and I would try to avoid doing Act III in one session to make sure you have some awake and fresh players for the conclusion.

Maps and stuff
The maps for the adventure are very cool, but also too small. I had a local print shop double the size of the Act I locations, which was very useful, and at a reasonable price.

Unfortunately, it turned out the fold-out map of Fort Nebraska is also too small. None of the players could actually read the text on the maps, which was a bit frustrating. If you have the spare cash, especially if you expect to run the adventure more than once, consider getting a print of Fort Nebraska double the size of the original (BIG).

For background music, I used some tracks from Aliens, but I also found that the score for the movie Hunter Killer also worked quite well.

Hunter Killer is a quite poor to mediocre action flick, but the sound track worked well for this adventure.

Final thoughts and verdict

I think I can speak for all of my players to say we had a blast, and ultimately none of my mistakes, or any flaws of the adventure itself, ruined our fun.

The game is so action-packed and dramatic, that it is very likely any lack of logic or irregularities will be overlooked until after the game.

The time you have to run it, and the paths your players take, will mean that your choices and experience will differ significantly from mine, and I think that is ultimately what really elevates this to a superb adventure. It provides a very solid framework for a fantastic role-playing experience, but ultimately it will be up to you and the players to make all the parts come together and have an epic, action-packed movie-like science fiction horror experience.  

With new or immature players, the “following orders” and use of hidden agendas could create problems. On the other hand, the official chain of command might make it easier for an inexperienced group to play as there is a defined structure as to who makes decisions – as opposed to a fantasy adventuring group free for all.

It is a challenging adventure to run, where you need to keep a lot of moving parts at your fingertips. I personally like how Free League structures the adventures, with locations first and then events you can sprinkle mostly as you please. But it does require careful preparation. I made a flow chart for Act I, where I plotted in the various clues that could bring them to other locations, to ensure I didn’t forget to deploy the relevant hooks.

I can see the need for the mysterious outsider attack with EMP and black goo, to ensure that the base is mainly deserted and to get the UPP attack out of the way, but it also seems a bit overkill for an adventure already mainlining cocaine and adrenaline!

In Act III, as a Game Mother, you need to consider if you still want to kill PC’s with “random shit”, and let them take over NPC’s, or make sure they die at cinematic moments?  The slow whittling down of the group mirrors Aliens perfectly, but it might not be that much fun – as a player – to have your character killed two hours before the climax of the game.

Three points of critique

  • The EMP blasts and the Goo attacks don’t seem to have been fully thought through and their consequences applied to Act III
  • The timeline for a xeno-morph takeover of Fort Nebraska seems off
  • As written, a couple of dice rolls in Act III can derail the fun.

The two cinematic adventures have covered two of the three themes (Space horror and Sci-fi action). The one left is Sense of Wonder, so I assume the third adventure might involve some colonist stumbling on some Engineer ruins and something about the Draconis strain, which is present in both adventures.

If you got this far, I hope that you will pick up the adventure and run it with as much – or more! – success. I for one hopes that Free League will continue to publish such excellent content for a really great game.

If you have questions or comments, please write in the comments or connect on Twitter.

5 thoughts on “ALIEN: Destroyer of Worlds – review and GM advice

  1. I’m getting ready to run this and I’m really glad that you shared your experiences, what worked well, and what was a challenge. I learned a lot from you. Thank you!

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