Trello for ALIEN: Destroyer of Worlds

When I run and play online RPGs, my preferred virtual tabletop is Trello. I use Discord for videochat, and a Discord dicebot (there are several, but I recommend Sebedius for Alien as it has the panic table built in).

Trello allows me to keep everything organised—and the players can also contribute (either by finding pictures or adding notes).

So this is how I set Trello up for Destroyer of Worlds. It has taken a bit of time to prepare, but I quite enjoy it and it helps me understand the game. I haven’t prepared everything yet—I’ve got most of Act 1 prepared, which is enough for me to start. Acts 2 and 3 can follow once I have a handle on the game.

Lists

Trello is organised in columns, called lists. I’ve created the following lists for Destroyer of World: PCs, Other squad members, The mission, Locations, Others, Zones for combat, Initiative, TBC, and No longer with us.

So taking those lists in order.

PCs

These are the player characters—our marine squad. When I set up the game, I put them in rank order (Captain Silva at the top, Private Hammer at the bottom). Each card had the character’s picture and their skills & weapons in them. I’ve used the same stat block I discussed before.

I will give the players full character sheets as well, but I’ve set the cards on Trello up this way so they can be easily referred to in combat.

(One downside of Trello is that if the lists get long you have to scroll down to see them. It’s not the end of the world, but I often move stuff to the top of the list to make sure key cards don’t fall off the bottom. Of course, monitor size helps here.)

Other squad members

This list is for squad members not controlled by players. After my players have chosen their characters, I will move the NPC squad members into list 2. That makes them easy for me to see and grab their key stats.

I’ve also put the squad APC in this column. (Along with some key vehicle rules.)

I will ask that the players control the NPC squad members in combat. I will have three players, and I’ll ask that they control one NPC each (rolling dice and so forth).

The mission

This list contains the mission briefing, the Ariarcus map, and the four AWOLS the PCs are hunting. In the top card I have attached a few files:

• The general background to Destroyer of Worlds (pages 5-7 of the book).
• The Destroyer of Worlds mission background (pages 11 and 12, plus the AWOLs, the PC squad and equipment/weapon stats)
• A summary of the rules I found on Reddit. (There are other summaries available—this one misses the rule that you can swap initiative with another player at the start of a combat round, so it isn’t perfect.)
• The skills list (so the players can see what stunts are available).

Locations

I’ve started this list with Fort Nebraska, The Eye of Oblivion and the spaceport. (These are the locations the PCs know about at the start of the mission.)

For each, I’ve taken a screenshot of the player-facing map and dropped it in there. As we discover new locations I’ll drop them in during play.

Others

This list is for other PCs. At the moment it just has Major Hatfield (’ve used the image for Col. Myers) and a M40E Ridgeway Heavy Tank (as I have no doubt I’ll need that at some point).

Zones for combat

This is a new way to use Trello for me, as my games rarely have much combat. I will explain the zones, and put all the combatants in those zones so I can see who is where. (More or less.)

This will be fairly abstract, but that’s okay as I usually run combat using theatre-of-the-mind rather than with miniatures. My main intent is to understand who is in the same zone (or engaged in close combat), and what the range modifiers are.

As the characters and zones are all cards in Trello, they are easy to move about.

This will be the first time I’ve tried this, and I’m looking forward to it. (As much as I ever look forward to running combats.)

Initiative

This list is purely so I can track initiative. I’ll get everyone to roll dice to determine their initiative, but once that’s established it’s just 

This also makes it easy for PCs to swap initiative, as the cards are easily moved.

TBC

The cards on this list are all NPC portraits—I’ve used some from the scenario, and others from Chariot of the Gods. I’ll use them for NPCs as I need them, both the named NPCs in Destroyer of Worlds and any others that I may need.

I could have put these on my other Trello board (as described below), but I don’t think there I’m giving anything away by showing the portraits here. I’ve not named any of them—I’ll do that as the PCs discover who they are.

No longer with us

The graveyard for dead NPCs and foes. Currently empty.

My other Trello board

It’s easy to move cards from one Trello board to another. So I’ve prepared additional cards for events I know are coming up soon. So this list contains a couple of xenomorphs that I know I will need early on, and the ambush card I talked about previously.

I’ve also turned some key information normally read out to players into a card. So for example, Dr Litvin’s prognosis (page 31) into a card. That way I can both read it out, and give it to the players so they can review it later.

(The Alien scenarios don’t do enough of this for me—I would use more handouts and less boxed text.)

That’s about it for now

I haven’t prepared the whole scenario. I’ve got enough for the first couple of sessions, and will add new cards between sessions depending on what the PCs do.