ALIEN RPG vs Elite: Dangerous Role Playing Game
Compare ALIEN RPG and Elite: Dangerous Role Playing Game side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| ALIEN RPG | Elite: Dangerous Role Playing Game | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Scifi, Horror | Scifi |
| Play Style | Horror, Survival, Deadly, Atmospheric, One-Shot Friendly, Gritty, Licensed IP | Space Opera, Licensed IP, Ship-Based, Sandbox, Skill-Based, Classless, Tactical, Cinematic, Random Tables, GM-Friendly, Exploration |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a d6 dice pool (attribute + skill). Each 6 is a success. Stress adds extra dice — better odds, but stress dice that roll 1 trigger panic. Push rolls to reroll failures but gain stress. Cinematic mode for one-shots, Campaign mode for long-form play. | Roll a d10 and add your Skill bonus (one-tenth of your skill score, rounded down) — equal or exceed the GM's difficulty number to succeed. A natural 1 always fails and a natural 10 always succeeds, within reason. The same roll plus a weapon's Accuracy bonus drives combat at all three scales (personal, vehicle, and spaceship) against a target's Defence score. |
| Dice | d6 dice pool | d10 |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Accessibility | High | Medium |
| Community | Medium | Low |
| License | All Rights Reserved (20th Century Studios license) | Proprietary (Frontier Developments licensed IP) |
| Cost | $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Free League Publishing | Spidermind Games / Modiphius Entertainment |
| Year | 2025 | 2017 |
| Best For | Sci-fi horror campaigns and one-shots in the Alien universe, with a stress/panic system that mechanically drives tension. Supports both deadly cinematic one-shots and long-form campaign play. | Groups who want to play freelance starship commanders trading, exploring, and dogfighting their way across the 34th-century Milky Way. Particularly suited to fans of the Elite: Dangerous video game who want to expand the experience with crewed ground missions and off-ship intrigue. |
| Highlights | Stress and panic system mechanically reinforces horror tension, two distinct play modes (Cinematic and Campaign), Evolved Edition streamlines rules and improves layout, well-supported licensed setting | Three integrated combat scales (personal, vehicle, and spaceship) share the same d10 resolution but each has scale-specific actions and damage rules. Spaceship combat uses a two-zone abstract flight system with zone-restricted actions — joust, dogfight, broadsides, ram, and others — so manoeuvre matters without a grid. Sixteen ships from the video game (Sidewinder through Anaconda) are statted with full component, weapon mount, and modification rules. The Random Generation System provides d10 tables for generating star systems, missions, encounters, and military objectives between or during sessions. |
| Considerations | Tightly bound to the Alien IP with limited genre flexibility, stress mechanics can feel punishing at high levels, Evolved Edition changes are modest over 1st edition | Spaceship combat has more moving parts than personal-scale checks: shield recharge, equipment actions, floating bonuses, component criticals, and ammo all need tracking each round. The conversational prose style is approachable to read but slow to navigate when looking up a specific rule mid-session. Single-pilot ships are the default; running larger crewed vessels with multiple PCs at the same console takes GM adjustment. The setting is locked to the video game's 34th-century three-superpower politics, which constrains departures from established lore. |