ALIEN RPG vs Night's Black Agents
Compare ALIEN RPG and Night's Black Agents side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| ALIEN RPG | Night's Black Agents | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Scifi, Horror | Horror, Modern |
| Play Style | Horror, Survival, Deadly, Atmospheric, One-Shot Friendly, Gritty, Licensed IP | Investigation, Espionage, Character-Driven, Gritty |
| 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. | GUMSHOE engine. Investigative abilities auto-succeed: if you have the skill and there's a clue, you find it. General abilities (combat, athletics) roll 1d6 + spent points vs. difficulty 4. Point pools refresh between sessions, creating resource-management tension. Four play modes (Burn, Dust, Mirror, Stakes) tune mechanics to your preferred espionage tone. |
| Dice | d6 dice pool | d6 |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | High | High |
| License | All Rights Reserved (20th Century Studios license) | GUMSHOE SRD (CC BY 3.0 / OGL) |
| Cost | $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Free League Publishing | Pelgrane Press |
| Year | 2025 | 2012 |
| 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 spy-thriller action fused with supernatural horror: burned agents unraveling a vampire conspiracy through investigation, chases, and tradecraft. |
| 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 | Investigation never stalls: clues flow automatically, Conspyramid campaign structure is a well-designed GM tool, four tonal modes let you dial in the spy genre you want, highly modular vampire creation system, works stripped of vampires for pure espionage |
| 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 | NPC combat math can feel unbalanced against PCs, multiple point pools to track can bottleneck play, narrow genre focus limits reuse, requires significant GM prep for conspiracy networks |