Aliens

[Scourge108]

I'm looking for information on what RPGs may exist that have aliens as player characters.  Most games I can think of that fit that bill are of the general science fiction/space opera/ Star Trek or Star Wars type of game.  When I think of aliens, I actually think of something a bit different.  

The first kind I think of are the "real" aliens of paranoid mythology.  Whether there are gray aliens probing cattle right now or not, many people have some real beliefs about what they think real aliens are like.  The second kind comes from comic books, where aliens often perform the same function that gods do in fantasy.  Incredibly powerful and wise beings like Galactus, Uatu, and the Living Tribunal just pop up every once in a while.  Even the aliens in comics that are more suitable as PCs tend to be the ridiculously powerful ones, like Superman and Silver Surfer.  So what games are out there with evil alien invaders and groovy space brothers as PCs?

[Andrew Martin]

I think Teenagers From Outer Spac (TFOS) might be one RPG that has non-human PCs.

[M. J. Young]

Star Frontiers had several alien races, including player character races; its rare supplement Zebulon's Guide to the Galaxy added several more, including a mechanical one. These, though, were mostly of the same level of ability as humans, just differing in what they could do and what they could do well.

Has anyone seen the Stargate materials? There are a lot of aliens in the show; do any of these wind up as playable?

--M. J. Young

[Mark Woodhouse]

The immediate one that comes to mind for "groovy space brothers" would have to be Starchildren: Velvet Generation.

I can certainly imagine playing a UFOnian-in-disguise or an alien hybrid in the right Delta Green game.

That's it from the top of my head. (Under the tinfoil, natch)

Mark

[peejay]

Umm... Alternity (now sadly defunct) nice background lots of fluff and excepting the 'Mechalus' (less said the better) not bad PC Alien races, including the Fraal (read brown Greys ! )

Peejay

[simon_hibbs]

When I think of aliens, I actually think of something a bit different.

I must admit I'm having a bit of difficulty seeing how the examples you quote are any different. Rather than just examples, can you give some qualitative guidelines for the kinds of aliens you're interested in?


Simon Hibbs

[Scourge108]

I must admit I'm having a bit of difficulty seeing how the examples you quote are any different. Rather than just examples, can you give some qualitative guidelines for the kinds of aliens you're interested in?

I'm thinking of more of an "aliens living secretly among us" kind of scenario, much like TFOS.  This can be humorous, like Mork & Mindy or 3rd Rock, or it can be serious and creepy like X-Files or The Hidden.  I never saw the Roswell series, but I heard that was a good one.  This also seems to be the basic premise of a number of comic heroes, from Superman to Norrin Radd to Captain Mar-Vell.  That would be more akin to the alien from Starman.  

However, I think these aliens definitely differ from the ones found in the majority of Science Fiction games.  Most of them seem simply like the different races of fantasy games.  I would guess this is because they are trying to be more like Star Trek or Star Wars, where aliens have basically the same role that Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs do in fantasy.  These games need a lot of different alien races to fill the empires and cantinas all over the galaxies.  Not that I have anything against these games, just that they are different.  Most games with aliens focus on the setting, giving us an intricate look at a futuristic society that has dozens of different species living together in war and peace.  I'm looking for games that focus more on the alien, and its role in a more-or-less modern day society.  I see it in TV and movies all the time, so it does seem to be a sub-sub-genre.  But it's hard to think of any RPGs with that as their focus.  Men In Black comes the closest I can think, but I think you still play the humans in that (correct me if I'm wrong).

[Jaik]

How about any of the White Wolf (except Exalted) games?  Granted, they tend to be about outsiders living in their outsider society nested within "normal" modern society, but (at least in the books) they're all about trying to fit in or not, alienation, change, nonconformity...

[Vaxalon]

If I were going to play an "aliens among us" sort of game, I'd definitely use the Men in Black background.  The game itself focuses on the MIB's themselves, though, so you'd have to make modifications to make it fit your goals.

[Lxndr]

One of the early supplements for GDW's old Dark Conspiracy game included the ability to play rogue aliens hiding on Earth.  The basic game included "Cyborg Escapee", which was about playing a human who got all these weird cyber things installed, then escaped from a UFO with no memory other than 4 (8, 12, etc.) years had passed.  The basic assumption was still "you play humans", but the aliens-on-Earth angle was addressed.  And these were meant to be the "near-human-looking Grey" sorta aliens.

Besides that, as was pointed out by Jaik, any of the White Wolf books are in large part about the alien living beside the human, but that's only thematically similar, whereas you seem to specifically be looking for alien in the "from outer space" sort of sense, right?

Do you get to play the aliens in Starchildren?  If so, then that fits your point, although Starchildren is slightly in the future (2070).  I can't think of many more games whose settings focus on the evil invader aliens as PCs.  Mostly you play the humans defending the hearth, or investigating, not the aliens who are the 'intruders.'

[contracycle]

Conspiracy X is very X-filesy and is, as mentioned above, mostly about humans defending the earth from invaders.  But there is at least one set of aliens (or rather, subset) that is available for player characters.  It could be quite easily adapted to an alien viewpoint quite easily though, as the aliens adre quite well worked out and constructing PC-type motivations for them would not be too hard.

[contracycle]

Conspiracy X is very X-filesy and is, as mentioned above, mostly about humans defending the earth from invaders.  But there is at least one set of aliens (or rather, subset) that is available for player characters.  It could be quite easily adapted to an alien viewpoint quite easily though, as the aliens adre quite well worked out and constructing PC-type motivations for them would not be too hard.

[Lxndr]

GURPS Uplift does an interesting job with alien-type creatures, and tries its darnedest to mimic the series' focus on "what makes us alien, and what makes us human?"  Not sure how well it does in play.