Editorials
‘Alien: The Tabletop RPG’ is the Closest You’ll Get to Living in the ‘Alien’ Universe
There are few movie universes I find more engaging than the Alien universe. The combination of working class aesthetics, evil corporations, and intriguing alien lore has always commanded my attention. While there have been video games throughout the years that have allowed you to step into the Alien universe, the tabletop RPG from Free League Publishing gives you the tools to play around in that world with complete freedom.
Contained in the core rulebook is a wealth of information about the systems, planets, governments, and corporations of the Alien universe. Even though this does take away a bit from the mysterious and economical worldbuilding the movies so deftly employ, it’s never too much and gives you plenty of room to create within the established world. In a clever twist, the events of the film are regarded as rumors and unconfirmed hearsay, allowing your characters to be unaware of the concrete existence of xenomorphs. The book also includes tables allowing you to roll dice to quickly create new systems and planets for the players to explore, giving you infinite possibilities to tell your own story.
The game is built for two different types of play. The first is Campaign, which is closer to what you think when you imagine a Dungeons and Dragons-like tabletop RPG. Players create a group of characters and play out their story over several sessions, with the story evolving as you progress. The manual provides a few different frameworks for your party (Space Trucker, Colonial Marines, and Frontier Colonists), giving you plenty of prewritten plot hooks for each. Being able to quickly roll some dice to figure out a job to send your Space Truckers on is something that’s helpful for any Game Master, and the Alien RPG definitely has those tools in spades.
While the idea of taking a crew on a long tour of the Alien universe is a fun one, to me the Alien movies shine because they are small, compact tales that allow for large amounts of tension. During a campaign, the Alien will lose its mystique if you run into it all the time, creating the need for lots of other types of threats to interact with (which the book does provide, to its credit). If the idea of an extended campaign doesn’t appeal to you, there’s still something for you in this book: Cinematic Play.
Cinematic Play is specifically meant to be played as a one-off adventure, capturing the highly lethal nature of the films. Players are provided with pre-made character sheets that are slotted into certain roles and have hidden agendas. These agendas are often designed to put players into conflict with one another. Like in the films, players could secretly be corporate androids who are meant to capture the xenomorph at the expense of the crew, allowing for drama to come from more than just confrontations with aliens. Cinematic Play is where the game really shines, giving you an opportunity to focus on the pure horror of the situation and kill off players more readily than you would in a long-form campaign.
None of this would mean anything if there weren’t good mechanics to back it up, and luckily the Alien RPG is finely tuned in this area. The game modifies the basic dice resolution mechanics from Free League’s other games like Mutant Year Zero and Tales from the Loop by adding an important stress mechanic that melds fiction and play perfectly. When a player has to overcome a challenge, they roll a pool of six-sided dice based on their skill rating in whatever they are doing. If any of the dice come up with a six, the roll succeeds. Any additional sixes allow you to enhance the action in unique and interesting ways.
For example, if I was trying to quickly hotwire the control panel of a door to slam it shut to stop a xenomorph from getting to my crew, I would roll a Heavy Machinery check of five dice. I roll two sixes, so I succeed and can use that extra six to break the panel permanently so it can’t be opened again by another player or NPC.
The twist on this system is that once players start accumulating stress, they also must roll a stress die. These are dice that can count as successes, but if you roll a one on a stress die, you must make a panic roll. The result of the panic roll can cause your character to act irrationally, having effects ranging from negatives to future rolls to forcing you to attack the nearest person or creature, friendly or not. Stress comes from either pushing yourself to re-roll a failed roll or from fictional situations like someone betraying the group, so it builds up slowly over time, inching you closer to that devastating panic roll. It’s a wonderful system that really ramps up the horror theme, tying dice rolls into the characters’ mental state perfectly.
Not every character is a fighter in the world of Alien, and the book provides players with plenty of choices for character classes. There are rules for combat, but oftentimes situations can be overcome with other problem-solving skills, making the scientist just as useful as the marine at getting you out of a jam.
Alien also has some fairly detailed rules for ship to ship combat and faster than light travel. I can see them coming into use during Campaign Play in order to give players a bit more variety, but these types of scenarios aren’t exactly what I come to the Alien franchise for. That being said, the ship combat rules do seem like a robust set of mechanics that allow all players to be involved, no matter what their class or role on the ship, so they are a strong addition to the already expansive ruleset.
If you’re new to tabletop gaming, the Alien RPG would make for a great place to jump in, especially in the fast and tense Cinematic mode of play. While some of the rules do get a bit heavy on the number crunching, the basic moment-to-moment mechanics are easy to follow and smoothly translate dice rolls into fiction in a satisfying fashion. The core book comes with one Cinematic scenario, and others are available in supplemental books from Free League. Whether you want to follow one of those or write your own, the universe of Alien is brimming with storytelling opportunities for players and game masters to take full advantage of.
Editorials
‘Immaculate’ – A Companion Watch Guide to the Religious Horror Movie and Its Cinematic Influences
The religious horror movie Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney and directed by Michael Mohan, wears its horror influences on its sleeves. NEON’s new horror movie is now available on Digital and PVOD, making it easier to catch up with the buzzy title. If you’ve already seen Immaculate, this companion watch guide highlights horror movies to pair with it.
Sweeney stars in Immaculate as Cecilia, a woman of devout faith who is offered a fulfilling new role at an illustrious Italian convent. Cecilia’s warm welcome to the picture-perfect Italian countryside gets derailed soon enough when she discovers she’s become pregnant and realizes the convent harbors disturbing secrets.
From Will Bates’ gothic score to the filming locations and even shot compositions, Immaculate owes a lot to its cinematic influences. Mohan pulls from more than just religious horror, though. While Immaculate pays tribute to the classics, the horror movie surprises for the way it leans so heavily into Italian horror and New French Extremity. Let’s dig into many of the film’s most prominent horror influences with a companion watch guide.
Warning: Immaculate spoilers ahead.
Rosemary’s Baby
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The mother of all pregnancy horror movies introduces Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow), an eager-to-please housewife who’s supportive of her husband, Guy, and thrilled he landed them a spot in the coveted Bramford apartment building. Guy proposes a romantic evening, which gives way to a hallucinogenic nightmare scenario that leaves Rosemary confused and pregnant. Rosemary’s suspicions and paranoia mount as she’s gaslit by everyone around her, all attempting to distract her from her deeply abnormal pregnancy. While Cecilia follows a similar emotional journey to Rosemary, from the confusion over her baby’s conception to being gaslit by those who claim to have her best interests in mind, Immaculate inverts the iconic final frame of Rosemary’s Baby to great effect.
The Exorcist
William Friedkin’s horror classic shook audiences to their core upon release in the ’70s, largely for its shocking imagery. A grim battle over faith is waged between demon Pazuzu and priests Damien Karras (Jason Miller) and Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow). The battleground happens to be a 12-year-old, Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), whose possessed form commits blasphemy often, including violently masturbating with a crucifix. Yet Friedkin captures the horrifying events with stunning cinematography; the emotional complexity and shot composition lend elegance to a film that counterbalances the horror. That balance between transgressive imagery and artful form permeates Immaculate as well.
Suspiria
Jessica Harper stars as Suzy Bannion, an American newcomer at a prestigious dance academy in Germany who uncovers a supernatural conspiracy amid a series of grisly murders. It’s a dance academy so disciplined in its art form that its students and faculty live their full time, spending nearly every waking hour there, including built-in meals and scheduled bedtimes. Like Suzy Bannion, Cecilia is a novitiate committed to learning her chosen trade, so much so that she travels to a foreign country to continue her training. Also, like Suzy, Cecilia quickly realizes the pristine façade of her new setting belies sinister secrets that mean her harm.
What Have You Done to Solange?
This 1972 Italian horror film follows a college professor who gets embroiled in a bizarre series of murders when his mistress, a student, witnesses one taking place. The professor starts his own investigation to discover what happened to the young woman, Solange. Sex, murder, and religion course through this Giallo’s veins, which features I Spit on Your Grave’s Camille Keaton as Solange. Immaculate director Michael Mohan revealed to The Wrap that he emulated director Massimo Dallamano’s techniques, particularly in a key scene that sees Cecilia alone in a crowded room of male superiors, all interrogating her on her immaculate status.
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times
In this Giallo, two sisters inherit their family’s castle that’s also cursed. When a dark-haired, red-robed woman begins killing people around them, the sisters begin to wonder if the castle’s mysterious curse has resurfaced. Director Emilio Miraglia infuses his Giallo with vibrant style, with the titular Red Queen instantly eye-catching in design. While the killer’s design and use of red no doubt played an influential role in some of Immaculate’s nightmare imagery, its biggest inspiration in Mohan’s film is its score. Immaculate pays tribute to The Red Queen Kills Seven Times through specific music cues.
The Vanishing
Rex’s life is irrevocably changed when the love of his life is abducted from a rest stop. Three years later, he begins receiving letters from his girlfriend’s abductor. Director George Sluizer infuses his simple premise with bone-chilling dread and psychological terror as the kidnapper toys with Red. It builds to a harrowing finale you won’t forget; and neither did Mohan, who cited The Vanishing as an influence on Immaculate. Likely for its surprise closing moments, but mostly for the way Sluizer filmed from inside a coffin.
The Other Hell
This nunsploitation film begins where Immaculate ends: in the catacombs of a convent that leads to an underground laboratory. The Other Hell sees a priest investigating the seemingly paranormal activity surrounding the convent as possessed nuns get violent toward others. But is this a case of the Devil or simply nuns run amok? Immaculate opts to ground its horrors in reality, where The Other Hell leans into the supernatural, but the surprise lab setting beneath the holy grounds evokes the same sense of blasphemous shock.
Inside
During Immaculate‘s freakout climax, Cecilia sets the underground lab on fire with Father Sal Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte) locked inside. He manages to escape, though badly burned, and chases Cecilia through the catacombs. When Father Tedeschi catches Cecilia, he attempts to cut her baby out of her womb, and the stark imagery instantly calls Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s seminal French horror movie to mind. Like Tedeschi, Inside’s La Femme (Béatrice Dalle) will stop at nothing to get the baby, badly burned and all.
Burial Ground
At first glance, this Italian zombie movie bears little resemblance to Immaculate. The plot sees an eclectic group forced to band together against a wave of undead, offering no shortage of zombie gore and wild character quirks. What connects them is the setting; both employed the Villa Parisi as a filming location. The Villa Parisi happens to be a prominent filming spot for Italian horror; also pair the new horror movie with Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood or Blood for Dracula for additional boundary-pushing horror titles shot at the Villa Parisi.
The Devils
The Devils was always intended to be incendiary. Horror, at its most depraved and sadistic, tends to make casual viewers uncomfortable. Ken Russell’s 1971 epic takes it to a whole new squeamish level with its nightmarish visuals steeped in some historical accuracy. There are the horror classics, like The Exorcist, and there are definitive transgressive horror cult classics. The Devils falls squarely in the latter, and Russell’s fearlessness in exploring taboos and wielding unholy imagery inspired Mohan’s approach to the escalating horror in Immaculate.
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