So here (at last) is my review for Destroyer of Worlds for ALIEN. I’ve written before about how I prepared for play (using Trello and including some banter) and changes I made to stat blocks (here and here). So having run it, what did I think?
Spoilers ahoy!
Elevator pitch
If Chariot of the Gods is Alien, then Destroyer of Worlds is Aliens. Our heroes are PCs seeking other marines (AWOLs) just as enemy forces invade, and the AWOLs have been impregnated with something nasty. Oh, and a whole bunch of xenomorphs (including a queen) are between them and their way off-planet.
Before I get going, there are many things wrong with Destroyer of Worlds’ story. All sorts of things don’t make sense—but you don’t notice them at first. I’m not going to go through the flaws in detail—because these two reviews (here and here) have done that for me.
But Destroyer of Worlds doesn’t need to be logical—what counts is what happens at the table. So yes, Destroyer of Worlds is mad and crazy and doesn’t make much sense. Don’t worry about it. (In the same way I didn’t worry about Bishop remote-piloting the second dropship in Aliens—a moment’s thought and I would have realised that the Sulaco must have a full crew. And probably more marines—otherwise, why have two dropships?) As I’ve said before, all the Alien stories are fanfic.
Physically impressive
Destroyer of Worlds is physically impressive. It comes in a box and consists of a 88-page book, a large map, several handouts, six pre-generated characters, and some cards.
Everything is graphically consistent with the ALIEN line—lots of green on black, whether text or the maps. As ever, the artwork is excellent, and I’d like to see more of it.
But this is where I encountered my first problem—I didn’t find the layout easy to read.
Worse, things are scattered around and hard to find (see my previous post about stat blocks for an example). The maps look atmospheric but aren’t easy to use in play—particularly the multi-level Fort Nebraska. I gave up trying to work out routes from one part of the map to another—but more on that below.
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| Pretty, but not so easy to use |
Plus, there are layout goofs, such as the card showing one of the NPCs that reveals that they are dead. The cards are a lovely idea, but only if the writing and graphic design are joined up.
I would have liked to see the background information about the colony also presented as player-facing material. (I created my own.)
Our heroes
Destroyer of Worlds comes with six pre-generated marines: Captain Silva, Warrant Officer Chaplain (an android), Gunnery Sergeant Mason, Sergeant Iona, PfC Dante, PfC Zmijewski and Private Hammer. They form Charlie Team—and they don’t know each other (making rivals and buddies meaningless).
I find the provided character sheets barely adequate for play, so I created new sheets which fleshed out their background as, in some cases, bits appeared to be missing. (I did the same for Chariot of the Gods and wrote about that then.) In addition, I let the players choose who their buddies and rivals would be during play, although that didn’t work out in the end.
As I had three players, I asked that one take Captain Silva. Liam took the Captain, Thomas took Gunny Mason and Jon played PfC Dante, which created a small chain of command. The Colonial Marines Operation Manual talks about how there’s no place for rank around the RPG table, but we all know that’s not true: players like roleplaying the chain of command.
During firefights (and there are many), I had each player control two squad members so I could concentrate on the bad guys.
Finally, I should point out how unpleasant PfC Zmijewski is. I gave Zmijewski to Liam when Captain Silva bought it, but Liam found Zmijewski repellent and handed him back. (I wish I’d noticed that earlier—I would have changed Zmijewski.)
Were I doing it again, I would make the group part of an established team, with history and buddies and rivals. Making everyone strangers doesn’t help the scenario.
The scenario
As with all cinematic ALIEN scenarios, Destroyer of Worlds is presented in three acts.
Act 1—the investigation: In Act 1 the PCs are tracking the four missing marines (AWOLs). Along the way they encounter insurgents, marshals, doctors and a friendly bar owner. They also encounter monsters—a chestburster, xenomorph and something new.
Act 2—invasion: Act 2 starts with an invasion by enemy forces. The PCs are ordered to withdraw and return to Fort Nebraska. This is the shortest act—there are no new areas to explore, and it’s just a list of encounters (an execution squad, a tank, UPP androids, and so on).
Act 3—the Fort Nebraska dungeon: Act 3 starts as the PCs near Fort Nebraska and something drops black goo from the skies, creating a viral plague. The PCs need to get into Fort Nebraska, restart the reactor and mainframe, clear out the xenomorph nest, and ascend the space elevator. Phew! All the while avoiding infection, radiation, numerous fires and other hazards. Disappointingly, it feels like a dungeon crawl.
And yes, it’s as exhausting to run as it sounds.
Running Destroyer of Worlds
My regular games are all online these days, and Destroyer of Worlds was no different. I ran it with three players: Jon, Liam and Thomas. I used Discord for video chat and Trello as our virtual tabletop. We played for 2.5 hour sessions (sometimes a little less).
Act 1 took maybe six hours, Act 1 two hours and Act 3 about three and a half hours. So eleven and a half hours in total. (EDIT - originally I wrote ten hours, but reviewing my notes this was a slight underestimate.)
Overall, the players enjoyed Destroyer of Worlds. There perhaps wasn’t as much in-character chatter as I usually see, but the combats were tense (lethal). None of us really enjoy combat in RPGs, and there was too much fighting in Destroyer of Worlds—but I don’t think anyone expected anything different.
- There’s so much in Destroyer of Worlds that I dropped a fair bit:
- As Chaplain was an NPC, I dropped his plot. As it was, Chaplain suffered a severe chassis breach at the end of Act 1, which put him out of action. (With a fourth player, I would have asked that one take Chaplain.)
- I kept the UPP androids in the background. By the time they were due to appear, I was tired of all the combat scenes.
- I toned down the black goo airburst and ignored fire and radiation in the base.
- The PCs didn’t visit the spaceport or the refinery.
- I changed how the PCs moved around the base (see below).
And although I dropped plenty, the players never knew. Destroyer of Worlds isn’t short of action.
Combat: There is a lot of fighting in Destroyer of Worlds. Between the xenomorphs and the invasion forces you will be rolling combat dice a lot. And if the dice fall badly, things can rapidly spiral out of control.
I sped up combat by pre-rolling for NPCs, so I didn’t make to-hit or armour rolls, which made things much easier. (More on this here, when I talk about stat blocks again.)
Although I am not fond of combat, it did create our most memorable scenes. In our final fight of Act 1, Captain Silva froze (panic!) while making her rappelling roll—and moments later, the dropship was hit by two RPGs. Chaplain was hit (he was piloting) and the dropship went into a spin, crashing and killing Silva (skull crushed) and disabling Chaplain (severe chassis breach--legs torn off). All in a matter of moments.
Act 3 dungeon crawl drudge: I found the Act 3 Fort Nebraska dungeon crawl a real drudge. Infection, fire, radiation, black silt—and all of that before we get to the xenomorphs running around. (I toned down the environmental hazards—I largely ignored the fire and radiation, and I only infected the odd NPC with the black goo.) Plus, the maps aren’t much help—I became fed up of poring over them, trying to work out the best route from A to B.
And really, I’m not sure how important most of the base is. There are key scenes (the reactor, the armoury, rebooting APOLLO, sublevel 3’s med bay, the climber car) and a couple of nice events. But everything else I handwaved.
So I changed how I ran Act 3. I told the PCs: Fort Nebraska is a war zone. Fires are raging, smoke is everywhere, your radiation alerts keep pinging and you haven’t fully cleaned everything of black silt. Dead bodies, debris and rubble block passages and make movement difficult. Alien creatures are stalking the corridors, hunting survivors...
To move between locations:
- Describe what you are doing to help reach your destination.
- Each PC (not NPCs!) roll Mobility (+ Stress).
- Successes needed:
- Five successes (in total as a team) if you are all moving
- Four if you leave Sgt Iona behind (he has a broken leg)
- Three if you leave Iona and the civilians behind (we have four rescued civilians still with us)
If they succeed, then they move between locations without incident. Otherwise, they met something, or I triggered an event.
I didn’t worry about which precise route they took. Instead, we treated it cinematically: the boring bits happened offscreen.
This change worked well—it introduced some description and interaction, and the players suggested that we could have used that from the start of the game. (Certainly from the start of Act 2, I think.)
Main issues with Destroyer of Worlds
So I have a few issues with Destroyer of Worlds.
Hard to run: My main complaint with Destroyer of Worlds is that it’s extremely hard to run straight from the box. I found the layout extremely GM unfriendly. I’ve mentioned some points above, but it feels like the playtesting could have been more thorough.
The standard ALIEN layout doesn’t help. I’ve mentioned revising the stat blocks above, but even something as simple as using manipulation against an NPC is more complicated because it is an opposed roll, but the stats for that NPC aren’t where you need them. (It would be simpler if NPCs had a target number to beat, but I discussed that in this post.)
As another example, the xenomorph attacks say things like:
5 LEG SLASH: With a snarl the Chestburster slashes its target’s leg, metallic teeth flashing in the light. Roll for the attack using six Base Dice, Damage 2. If the attack causes damage, it automatically inflicts critical injury #53 (even if the victim is not Broken), triggering an immediate Panic Roll.
I like the random xenomorph attacks, but why make it hard on the poor GM? Injury #53 is a fatal cut leg artery—so why not write … automatically inflicts a fatal leg artery cut (critical injury #53)… and make it easier to run?
It doesn’t have to be like that. RPGs don’t have to be hard to run.
The characters: The pre-gens aren’t great—they’re not as interesting as those in Chariot of the Gods. As a result, my group spent less time bickering amongst themselves (one of my favourite parts of roleplaying). I think that may be the nature of a military-based game (and is one reason why I’m not planning to run the campaign in the Colonial Marines Operations Manual.)
And Zmijewski is horrible.
Combat rules: Combat isn’t why I run and play RPGs. I know it’s a big deal for some, but it’s not for me. I guess I knew what I was getting into with Destroyer of Worlds, but it’s no surprise that I found this challenging.
But having said that, ALIEN’s combat rules are too clunky for running fights with multiple opponents. Against a xenomorph, they’re fine, but I recommend simplifying them.
And overall?
I’m pleased I ran Destroyer of Worlds. I put a lot of preparation into it, but that helped make the scenario mine.
I wish it were more coherent and better written. But the players didn’t notice (except when I had to vent) and as far as I can tell, they had a great time.
I am thinking about creating my own ALIEN adventure, but if I do so, it will be more investigative-y and less fight-y. Closer to Alien than Aliens. But that’s a way off yet.
Informative.
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