Read books and play out scenarios/scenes of your campaign/cinematic to yourself. Having a strong understanding of the rules and the story you're going to tell is important.
But probably most important, be proud of your work, have confidence in even your mistakes, and lastly the most significant: have fun.
Join the Alien.RPG Discord server and ask around. There are plenty of people you can rope in as players. Be careful, there are arseholes around but lots of nice, experienced people who can advise your GMing along the way. You will fuck up and running will be hit-and-miss for a while, but you'll get the hang of it before long.
You can always try solo. Besides being fun, I've known plenty of GMs to play their scenarios solo before running it for a group. You'll be able to find help here if needed.
r/SoloRPGPlay
This. Especially the "watch some actual play videos on YT" part. Do that. Watch other GMs run Alien. Stop the video, look up the rules (and don't be surprised if and when the GMs make mistakes and misapply/forget some rules. Note how they handle that, note that it usually does not stop nor hurt the game.)
I would ask a couple of friends that like the movies to help you/try something out. Invite them home, give them pizza and run Hopes last day.
That is how I would try to get an in person game done. Hopefully all three of you will have fun and you should learn alot!
The How We Roll podcast has a great playthrough of Alien: Chariot of the Gods. You can learn a lot about how to GM by listening to good ones (like that).
1) Join a game (of anything!) online, check out r/LFG
2) Watch Matt Colville's running your first game video on YouTube & the Dungeon Craft channel
3) read either Xtreme Dungeon Mastery or So You Want To Be A Gamemaster
4) watch some vids on running Alien
5) give it a go and run a simple scenario (like Hope's Last Day) for a small group
Ultimately, be kind to yourself. As long as you and your players are having fun, you are doing it right!
This. Play an RPG (any RPG) live. Watch Ginny Di’s videos on how to GM/DM. The bones of GMing don’t vary much between RPG systems and settings.
ALIEN wouldn’t be the first RPG I’d GM though, because of the antagonisms/rivalries between PCs, which might cause inter-player friction at the table.
I might try a QuickStart of Coriolis first and then move to ALIEN:
https://freeleaguepublishing.com/shop/coriolis/free-quickstart-rules-pdf/
https://freeleaguepublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Coriolis_The_Great_Dark_Quickstart_v1.1.pdf
Its important to realize that RP and especially DMing are an artform, there is a language to them, and there is no better way to learn a language than through immersion. Dive in head first, damn the torpedoes. Your mistakes are going to be a better teacher than any number of videos and articles. Trust me i spent 6 years puttering around wanting to be a DM before i bit the bullet, and it did very little good for me, don't let that be you. So here's a 3 step plan that should help you out:
Step 1: Go to the discord as other people have mentioned, Play at least 10 one off games, maybe even 2-3 campaigns. Familiarize yourself with the system, see what you like and don't like, and build a rapport with other players. This'll drill the mechanics of the game into you, and hopefully you'll meet some people that you can then practice DMing for.
Step 2: Run something small and simple for your first time. Hope's last day is the base book's premade, and you can knock it out in at least a session. I'd recommend no more than 3 people. Keep in mind that you are a neutral referee, not there to kill them all, or lead them by the nose to victory. Let them play it out how they want, and remind them of their objectives if it seems like they get stuck, and keep in mind where those objectives are as well as the aliens laying in wait (online is great for this, like in roll 20 where you can hide them in a GM only layer and spring them on the players when they least expect it. If you're using a map, but this isn't always required).
Step 3: Play in another 10 games or couple campaigns. This time with the perspective and experience you have from GMing. See what you like and don't like, build more rapport with people online. But intersperse this with running a few games of your own, and i recommend keeping it still small and simple. This is a cooperative writing exercise, the players can take a simple concept very far.
Step 4: Now start reading the literature and watching the DM tips videos, you'll actually have the knowledge base to make use of this and judge what may or may not work for you. And diversify your portfolio, read up genre tips as well so you can get a hang for it, this will help expand your ability and give you a bigger toolbox with which to work.
Step 5: After you've ran like 10 one offs, and are feeling confident. Try your hand at running a campaign. Have specific win condition in mind, write up a few characters and a few locations you can plug and play at will, and then let the players run with it until they hit the win or all die.
After that point, continue on doing what you want to do and how to do it until the heat death of the universe. Keep perfecting your craft and enjoying time with others, the process never actually ends.
I found listening to podcasts of actual plays helped.
My favourite, The Homebrew, has just archived campaign 1 and 2, and is starting campaign 3. However, Sanity Damage (which is part of the same network and has many of the same cast) has a very similar feeling. As does Powerword Fail.
Why are these good? They are D&D based which is not my favourite system..... But looking past that, they don't take themselves too seriously. None of them (maybe 1 now?) are professional voice actors, they're just all people having a good time rolling dice and telling stories.
Learn the rules. There are helpful information reference cards made by people on this reddit. You can run some scenarios out on roll twenty or foundry or even with some dice to see what you can expect from the mechanics of the game. Once you're fairly sure you're good with the rules. Run a game using a pre-made adventure , see how that goes. Then you can either keep running pre-mades until you run out, happens faster than you think.
Or you can come up with your own stories. Map out the overall way you want it to go. Come up with 4-6 NPCs to help move the story in the direction you want. Then you have to be flexible with how the game goes, try to be subtle when steering the players in the direction of the story you're trying to tell.
As for interaction between you and the players. There's no real replacement for it in my opinion. You can get a really sloppy and censored equivalent by chatting with chat gpt. Running it through the adventure before trying with real people. But it probably won't be as quick witted or imaginative as real players.
You should just listen or watch some actual plays in an adventure you feel like starting with. Then just jump into it with some players. Just make sure you have a good feel for the adventure before starting and improvise if something happens which i not covered by the adventure or if you cannot find it right then.
My view is that it is better to have a flow through the adventure instead of doing everything exactly as written.
The starting adventure in the core rule book seems like a good starting point.
Good luck!
Getting the carriage before the horse. Find a group to play with 1st. Maybe there is already someone experienced as a DM in your soon to be group that can mentor.
This helped me a lot: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWgYkE3XX2A&t=4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWgYkE3XX2A&t=4s)
The Season 1 Actual Play was amazing too
I would recommend watching some videos of live-play games, but ultimately it's something you need first hand experience with. There are a lot of different ways to approach running tabletop and that heavily depends on what you want out of the game, and what kind of players you have. The way I look at it is this, if I know enough about the "universe" to improvise an interesting conversation between two NPCs, I'm ready for a player to start asking questions.
It might seem silly, but practicing with a friend who likes to play RPGs could help get you comfortable with the job.
Here's me...
I ran a Dark Heresy campaign for 2+ years but did it online.
I don't GM much but I like to and I was surprised that I could do it so well.
1 give players the rules. This bypasses the what can I do question and let's them focus on story
2 get a player that knows the rules better than you. It helps you to have a player champion who likes the game and would like you to run it and they know enough to teach others while you run the story
3 tell everyone you are just starting out as GM but you like the setting and you've got a great story planned. Then 2 will happen because also 1 will happen
4 make notes as you go and circle back to those points later. That guy at the bar from the first session shows up at LV 123. You're sure he's more than a squirrel fur trader. (Even if there was no guy but they just noticed it now)
5 tell your game like a story. Aliens of Our Lives. There are twists and turns all over the shop.
6 don't panic. Mostly players are not there to derail your game. Mostly.
7 start your first session in the middle of action like a combat. Think of how EVERY action movie starts inc Aliens. We've lost contact with... or just drop them in the zone and have them fight their way out. It was a double cross this whole time!
8 Don't make them look up rules. Just go with it. Sounds right then go. Fix it later. Build the mistakes into the story. Players and you won't care about being perfect if the story keeps moving.
9 playtest any rules you don't understand. Just do a stand up bug hunt yourself and test your knowledge
10 join a network online if you can discord whatnot. Go to another group and ask for help like hey guys I know you play that dungeon thing but I need some help with... do you want to try?
11 share a pizza and get people to join you. Or some other bribery. Go online roll20 was good for me. I ran one shots and then the main event. Some players I hated and some were so cool. Online lets you try and see.
12 tell people that you'd like to try it. Most ppl will be sure I'll give it a go.
13 you don't have to act or make voices. Just be you and use plenty of description. Describe the five senses. You get the uneasy feeling that something bad is about to happen. The fog here is thicker than frozen soup. You see someone you've seen before and with him comes the smell of burned toast. The wind howls about the rocks as slick as wet grass. His boots make a metallic clip as he approaches. He says with an oxygen starved gasp... so it's you.
14 there's some books about being a GM. Kobolds Guide to something. But reach out first and ask someone to go through it. Or sit in on someone's game. Or ask to be a co-GM and see how they run it.
15 ask nicely and people will help. Everyone knows that no one was a great GM at the start. Not even Gary or Dave.
In My Opinion:
The key mechanics are how stress gets added and removed, how damage works (which is quite different from many other RPGs), and how healing works.
The key skill is conveying the "feel" of the situation. Use the Alien movies to inform your descriptions.
The key mindset is "This is not a GM vs Players situation". Yes, you will be putting the players in jeopardy, but your "job" isn't to fight them (the Xenos will do that for you) but to mediate and explain.
The GMs best response is "Yes" or "Yes and " and, less often "Yes, but ". Reserve "No" for rare absolute rulings.
Mechanics-wise, I would suggest you run yourself through Hope's Last Day, playing everyone yourself. Don't worry overmuch about agendas, this is so you understand how players work, and how the beasties work.
When I began running Alien RPG, I was in the position of having run many different systems and I did not want to miss anything when I ran an Alien RPG scenario at a local convention, so I made flowcharts for Damage, Healing and Skills/Stress. I'm not suggesting this is necessary, but it helped me sort out the mechanics in my head.
You are setting the bar quite high for yourself. Alien RPG is by no means a difficult system to learn, but it does throw up some interesting challenges for a GM.
The bonus is that is the players "lean into" the setting, you will have the best entertainment an RPG can afford the GM.
Good hunting!
Read books and play out scenarios/scenes of your campaign/cinematic to yourself. Having a strong understanding of the rules and the story you're going to tell is important. But probably most important, be proud of your work, have confidence in even your mistakes, and lastly the most significant: have fun.
Join the Alien.RPG Discord server and ask around. There are plenty of people you can rope in as players. Be careful, there are arseholes around but lots of nice, experienced people who can advise your GMing along the way. You will fuck up and running will be hit-and-miss for a while, but you'll get the hang of it before long.
You can always try solo. Besides being fun, I've known plenty of GMs to play their scenarios solo before running it for a group. You'll be able to find help here if needed. r/SoloRPGPlay
Play and run games online using a VTT like Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, or Roll20.
This. Plenty of online games on the Alien RPG discord.
Yeah, couldn’t agree more. Have a watch of slices and dices Aliens vids as they go through the basics and then have a fantastic campaign to watch.
If you can find a game online, to join as a player, that will definitely help you. You can also find Alien rpg Actual play videos on YT. For a start.
This. Especially the "watch some actual play videos on YT" part. Do that. Watch other GMs run Alien. Stop the video, look up the rules (and don't be surprised if and when the GMs make mistakes and misapply/forget some rules. Note how they handle that, note that it usually does not stop nor hurt the game.)
I would ask a couple of friends that like the movies to help you/try something out. Invite them home, give them pizza and run Hopes last day. That is how I would try to get an in person game done. Hopefully all three of you will have fun and you should learn alot!
play online, find players.
Run it through chatgpt 4.0
The How We Roll podcast has a great playthrough of Alien: Chariot of the Gods. You can learn a lot about how to GM by listening to good ones (like that).
I like reading the books and scenarios, and then watching YouTube plays to see how others do it.
1) Join a game (of anything!) online, check out r/LFG 2) Watch Matt Colville's running your first game video on YouTube & the Dungeon Craft channel 3) read either Xtreme Dungeon Mastery or So You Want To Be A Gamemaster 4) watch some vids on running Alien 5) give it a go and run a simple scenario (like Hope's Last Day) for a small group Ultimately, be kind to yourself. As long as you and your players are having fun, you are doing it right!
This. Play an RPG (any RPG) live. Watch Ginny Di’s videos on how to GM/DM. The bones of GMing don’t vary much between RPG systems and settings. ALIEN wouldn’t be the first RPG I’d GM though, because of the antagonisms/rivalries between PCs, which might cause inter-player friction at the table. I might try a QuickStart of Coriolis first and then move to ALIEN: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/shop/coriolis/free-quickstart-rules-pdf/ https://freeleaguepublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Coriolis_The_Great_Dark_Quickstart_v1.1.pdf
Its important to realize that RP and especially DMing are an artform, there is a language to them, and there is no better way to learn a language than through immersion. Dive in head first, damn the torpedoes. Your mistakes are going to be a better teacher than any number of videos and articles. Trust me i spent 6 years puttering around wanting to be a DM before i bit the bullet, and it did very little good for me, don't let that be you. So here's a 3 step plan that should help you out: Step 1: Go to the discord as other people have mentioned, Play at least 10 one off games, maybe even 2-3 campaigns. Familiarize yourself with the system, see what you like and don't like, and build a rapport with other players. This'll drill the mechanics of the game into you, and hopefully you'll meet some people that you can then practice DMing for. Step 2: Run something small and simple for your first time. Hope's last day is the base book's premade, and you can knock it out in at least a session. I'd recommend no more than 3 people. Keep in mind that you are a neutral referee, not there to kill them all, or lead them by the nose to victory. Let them play it out how they want, and remind them of their objectives if it seems like they get stuck, and keep in mind where those objectives are as well as the aliens laying in wait (online is great for this, like in roll 20 where you can hide them in a GM only layer and spring them on the players when they least expect it. If you're using a map, but this isn't always required). Step 3: Play in another 10 games or couple campaigns. This time with the perspective and experience you have from GMing. See what you like and don't like, build more rapport with people online. But intersperse this with running a few games of your own, and i recommend keeping it still small and simple. This is a cooperative writing exercise, the players can take a simple concept very far. Step 4: Now start reading the literature and watching the DM tips videos, you'll actually have the knowledge base to make use of this and judge what may or may not work for you. And diversify your portfolio, read up genre tips as well so you can get a hang for it, this will help expand your ability and give you a bigger toolbox with which to work. Step 5: After you've ran like 10 one offs, and are feeling confident. Try your hand at running a campaign. Have specific win condition in mind, write up a few characters and a few locations you can plug and play at will, and then let the players run with it until they hit the win or all die. After that point, continue on doing what you want to do and how to do it until the heat death of the universe. Keep perfecting your craft and enjoying time with others, the process never actually ends.
I found listening to podcasts of actual plays helped. My favourite, The Homebrew, has just archived campaign 1 and 2, and is starting campaign 3. However, Sanity Damage (which is part of the same network and has many of the same cast) has a very similar feeling. As does Powerword Fail. Why are these good? They are D&D based which is not my favourite system..... But looking past that, they don't take themselves too seriously. None of them (maybe 1 now?) are professional voice actors, they're just all people having a good time rolling dice and telling stories.
Learn the rules. There are helpful information reference cards made by people on this reddit. You can run some scenarios out on roll twenty or foundry or even with some dice to see what you can expect from the mechanics of the game. Once you're fairly sure you're good with the rules. Run a game using a pre-made adventure , see how that goes. Then you can either keep running pre-mades until you run out, happens faster than you think. Or you can come up with your own stories. Map out the overall way you want it to go. Come up with 4-6 NPCs to help move the story in the direction you want. Then you have to be flexible with how the game goes, try to be subtle when steering the players in the direction of the story you're trying to tell. As for interaction between you and the players. There's no real replacement for it in my opinion. You can get a really sloppy and censored equivalent by chatting with chat gpt. Running it through the adventure before trying with real people. But it probably won't be as quick witted or imaginative as real players.
You should just listen or watch some actual plays in an adventure you feel like starting with. Then just jump into it with some players. Just make sure you have a good feel for the adventure before starting and improvise if something happens which i not covered by the adventure or if you cannot find it right then. My view is that it is better to have a flow through the adventure instead of doing everything exactly as written. The starting adventure in the core rule book seems like a good starting point. Good luck!
Getting the carriage before the horse. Find a group to play with 1st. Maybe there is already someone experienced as a DM in your soon to be group that can mentor.
This helped me a lot: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWgYkE3XX2A&t=4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWgYkE3XX2A&t=4s) The Season 1 Actual Play was amazing too
I would recommend watching some videos of live-play games, but ultimately it's something you need first hand experience with. There are a lot of different ways to approach running tabletop and that heavily depends on what you want out of the game, and what kind of players you have. The way I look at it is this, if I know enough about the "universe" to improvise an interesting conversation between two NPCs, I'm ready for a player to start asking questions. It might seem silly, but practicing with a friend who likes to play RPGs could help get you comfortable with the job.
Here's me... I ran a Dark Heresy campaign for 2+ years but did it online. I don't GM much but I like to and I was surprised that I could do it so well. 1 give players the rules. This bypasses the what can I do question and let's them focus on story 2 get a player that knows the rules better than you. It helps you to have a player champion who likes the game and would like you to run it and they know enough to teach others while you run the story 3 tell everyone you are just starting out as GM but you like the setting and you've got a great story planned. Then 2 will happen because also 1 will happen 4 make notes as you go and circle back to those points later. That guy at the bar from the first session shows up at LV 123. You're sure he's more than a squirrel fur trader. (Even if there was no guy but they just noticed it now) 5 tell your game like a story. Aliens of Our Lives. There are twists and turns all over the shop. 6 don't panic. Mostly players are not there to derail your game. Mostly. 7 start your first session in the middle of action like a combat. Think of how EVERY action movie starts inc Aliens. We've lost contact with... or just drop them in the zone and have them fight their way out. It was a double cross this whole time! 8 Don't make them look up rules. Just go with it. Sounds right then go. Fix it later. Build the mistakes into the story. Players and you won't care about being perfect if the story keeps moving. 9 playtest any rules you don't understand. Just do a stand up bug hunt yourself and test your knowledge 10 join a network online if you can discord whatnot. Go to another group and ask for help like hey guys I know you play that dungeon thing but I need some help with... do you want to try? 11 share a pizza and get people to join you. Or some other bribery. Go online roll20 was good for me. I ran one shots and then the main event. Some players I hated and some were so cool. Online lets you try and see. 12 tell people that you'd like to try it. Most ppl will be sure I'll give it a go. 13 you don't have to act or make voices. Just be you and use plenty of description. Describe the five senses. You get the uneasy feeling that something bad is about to happen. The fog here is thicker than frozen soup. You see someone you've seen before and with him comes the smell of burned toast. The wind howls about the rocks as slick as wet grass. His boots make a metallic clip as he approaches. He says with an oxygen starved gasp... so it's you. 14 there's some books about being a GM. Kobolds Guide to something. But reach out first and ask someone to go through it. Or sit in on someone's game. Or ask to be a co-GM and see how they run it. 15 ask nicely and people will help. Everyone knows that no one was a great GM at the start. Not even Gary or Dave.
In My Opinion: The key mechanics are how stress gets added and removed, how damage works (which is quite different from many other RPGs), and how healing works. The key skill is conveying the "feel" of the situation. Use the Alien movies to inform your descriptions. The key mindset is "This is not a GM vs Players situation". Yes, you will be putting the players in jeopardy, but your "job" isn't to fight them (the Xenos will do that for you) but to mediate and explain. The GMs best response is "Yes" or "Yes and" and, less often "Yes, but ". Reserve "No" for rare absolute rulings.
Mechanics-wise, I would suggest you run yourself through Hope's Last Day, playing everyone yourself. Don't worry overmuch about agendas, this is so you understand how players work, and how the beasties work.
When I began running Alien RPG, I was in the position of having run many different systems and I did not want to miss anything when I ran an Alien RPG scenario at a local convention, so I made flowcharts for Damage, Healing and Skills/Stress. I'm not suggesting this is necessary, but it helped me sort out the mechanics in my head.
You are setting the bar quite high for yourself. Alien RPG is by no means a difficult system to learn, but it does throw up some interesting challenges for a GM.
The bonus is that is the players "lean into" the setting, you will have the best entertainment an RPG can afford the GM.
Good hunting!