EEEK, it's an ALIEN!

[Hermit]

This has been brought up before in the old boards, but hey, that was some time ago.

 

Speaking for myself, I don't have Star Hero, yet. It maybe sometime before I can get it. I have Champions Universe, and it does seem to have only 4 or 5 alien races in the Milky Way. I know some folks hate aliens, but I like them. It does feel though, that 'officially' it's being discouraged. I maybe totally misreading that. Yes, we have Ironclad and Firewing, etc. However, in the comic books, you see litterally dozens of alien races of varying tech levels throughout the local galaxy. Here we have ...what five?

 

What are other GM's using for their own settings? What amount per galaxy do you think is a reasonable number? do you even have aliens on your planet yet who are known as such?

 

I'm curious. (And also suffering from Insomnia)

[lemming]

Re: EEEK, it's an ALIEN!

 

Originally posted by Hermit

What are other GM's using for their own settings? What amount per galaxy do you think is a reasonable number? do you even have aliens on your planet yet who are known as such?

 

I'm curious. (And also suffering from Insomnia)

 

Answering in reverse: Warm Milk

 

The official line is: None.

 

Though the players have finally uncovered the alien who's on the Earth trying to stop an extra-dimensional race that's been trying to take over the earth through puppetry.

 

So far, I've let out that there are at least two alien races and one extra-D race. And we have at least one example of what appears to be a vampire now.

[ProfessorM@ss]

Re: EEEK, it's an ALIEN!

 

Originally posted by Hermit

What are other GM's using for their own settings? What amount per galaxy do you think is a reasonable number? do you even have aliens on your planet yet who are known as such?

 

I'm curious. (And also suffering from Insomnia)

 

In my current campaign world, aliens are kept to a minimum, for a Very Good Reason. Our part of the Milky Way Galaxy has what amounts to a seethrough mirror; we can see out, but aliens can't see in. Nor can they breach what is called the Black Nebula.

 

The reason for this is simple: all it'd take is one superhuman genius to examine a downed alien spacecraft, and the entire campaign would be changed. One of our campaign's serious themes is: "What would the world be like if all these fantastic things really existed?"

 

Since I rather like my campaign not jumping to the Star Hero level in a few short years, aliens are kept out.

 

--->M@ss

[Lord Liaden]

There are a limited number of "official" alien species that will be detailed in the Champions Universe, which I think is good in principle: keeps the details manageable. However, as far as possible races for use in your games goes, your estimate is rather low, Hermit. As it says on p. 95 of CU, "As of 2002, Humans are aware of at least a dozen other species native to the Milky Way Galaxy." The map of the Hero Universe on CU p. 132 outlines the territories of eleven other peoples: Malvans, Mon'dabi, Mandaarians, Xenovores, Thorgons, Hzeel, Perseids, Se'ecra, Vanranyi, and the Velarian Confederation. Since they are shown there, I'd expect most if not all of these races to be treated in detail in either the Champions or Star HERO lines.

 

CU also mentions the Sirians (the "War of the Worlds" invading Martians), the Qularr (who attempted conquest with giant monsters), the Gadroon (who sound much like Marvel's Badoon), and the ancient alien sorcerors, the Thane (a holdover from the old CU). There's also quite a bit of space between the territories of the established races to fill in with races of your own design. A really useful conceit which appeared often in older Champions books, was the "alien race that just discovered FTL travel" premise. Great for introducing heretofore-unknown aliens to Earth.

 

For my part, I've followed the official CU party line since before it became official: humanity is aware of other races, but formal contact is not yet official. For my new campaign, I have IIRC ten alien species who have had contact with Earth in one fashion or another, mostly based on ones introduced in earlier Champions products. I haven't decided yet how much of the new "galactic community" I want to incorporate into my games.

[winterhawk]

Under the Free Stuff Link, there is a new .pdf listing for supervillains, which includes a comprehensive listing of alien races.

 

As far as my own campaign, I am using the 'party line' and mentioning the numerous invasions mentioned in CU, but not planning on using aliens unless one my players really wants to play one. I am planning on using the DC approach to aliens "Sure we've been invaded a couple of times by alien hordes, so what?" It gets to complicated if you start handling real world implications of alien life in a comic book setting.

[JmOz]

If you take out the Lone surcivors (Superman, Martian Manhunter, etc) and the one shot villains (those guys who got the JLA together in the first place), and the titles who main thing is dealing with aliens (L.E.G.I.O.N., Green Lantern Corps, LSH) you will find very few races left (IN Marvel you will have I think about 5 races left, though I can only think of three right now, The KREE, SKRULL, and the SHI'AR, but am sure there are others).

 

DC has more, but how often do they deal with earthers? Especialy if there is not a hero (thus an origin) from that race on earth (hawkman, Starfire, etc...), so no I don't have a problem with aliens as presented.

 

In my games I have so far I have 6 alien races known of, one is extinct, and another might as well be:

 

1) The Greys, one of the eldest races and has been at war with the next race for thousands of years

 

2) Makleks, a race of parasitic Mind Controlling aliens (Yes I ripped them of of SG-1, thank you for asking)

 

3)The Genetis, a race that is now all but extinct (one survivor works as a hero, and thanks to a blood transfusion there is another hero with a related origin)

 

4) The Old Ones (aka the Ancients), A race that is beleived to be extinct, that no one knows anything about except for what has been left behind

 

5) The Crisk, a reptillion race of warriors bent on world conquest, have tried to take over the world three times before, once in the last days of the nineteenth century, the invasion began in England, the last time was in the 40's on the east coast of the USA. The last time happened in Antartica a couple of years ago, this time they showed there Special genetic soldiers Program (I used Grodds's character sheet for them with a PHYSICAL lim that he HAD to follow the orders of whoever had the control collar on).

 

6) The Fel are blue skin humanoids with pointed ears, technilogicaly they are just entering there Industrial Revolution, but they seem to be concentrating on biological instead of Mechanical technologies

 

There are other aliens, just none that the Earth has interacted with yet

[Acroyear]

I pretty much ignore any and all absolutes that have been laid out in the 5th edition universe. To me, such things are very much against the spirit of a superhero game.

 

It's made much easier when you ignore the 5th edition universe, though, which is pretty much suck on a stick as far as I'm concerned.

[Hermit]

Mmmph. Clearly I need to reread my CU, but it did seem like there weren't that many among the still living.

 

Keep the posts coming though. Interesting to see how others work it.

[Chaosliege]

We don't realy adress it very much. I'm not the GM, so I don't know what's going on that evil mind of his, but we just accept that there are aliens and leave it at that. Dealing with each one as we encounter it. One of our team is an alien. I guess we realy don't have a limit as to how many aliens may be out there. But we haven't encountered that many yet.

[Peregrine]

Terran Empire

 

Terran Empire has quite a few alien races detailed. Since that setting in is the official future of the Champions Universe, all those races (unless noted otherwise in Terran Empire, I would presume) are 'out there' in the Champions Universe.

[Hermit]

Re: Terran Empire

 

Originally posted by Peregrine

Terran Empire has quite a few alien races detailed. Since that setting in is the official future of the Champions Universe, all those races (unless noted otherwise in Terran Empire, I would presume) are 'out there' in the Champions Universe.

Thank you for the heads up on that Peregrine, I'm sure it's just a part of the DoJ's insidious plot to get me to buy other genre products even for my Champs games.

 

[Enforcer84]

Re: Re: Terran Empire

 

Originally posted by Hermit

Thank you for the heads up on that Peregrine, I'm sure it's just a part of the DoJ's insidious plot to get me to buy onter genre products even for my Champs games.

 

 

Its working big time on me let me tell you.

 

They're so good that I don't even mind, though, so clearly, Mind Control is involved.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Hermit

Mmmph. Clearly I need to reread my CU, but it did seem like there weren't that many among the still living.

The pdf which Winterhawk mentioned has a list of all the alien species who have been mention in Champions, Champions Universe, CKC, Bestiary, and Digital Hero. The list is fairly long.

 

My game is set in the CU, and there, many people are suspicious of aliens. My rewrite of Ironclad gives him a Social Limitation Disads for that. The humans remember the historical alien invasions (especially the Gadroon invasion which took several months to repel) and have no love for non-humans in general. Some of this agression and prejudice was removed by Brin Rei Tarn, but now that Earth has a human Star*Guard the old prejudices are creeping back up. It also does not help the alien's cause that virtually every one of them on the planet is a villain.

[zornwil]

Re: EEEK, it's an ALIEN!

 

Originally posted by Hermit

What are other GM's using for their own settings? What amount per galaxy do you think is a reasonable number? do you even have aliens on your planet yet who are known as such?

 

There is no public acknowledgment of aliens but many people believe they exist, moreso than in the real world. No supers have claimed to be aliens and I don't think any of the current major ones are (or I won't say) though there have been a very tiny number. Akin to the X-Files though there is some sort of subsantial involvement of aliens in the world somehow, but unlike the X-Files it is not (at least apparently) a theme or central issue.

[Supreme]

Personally, I can understand why there wouldn't be that many alien races developed. In the comics keeping track of the alien races can be a Pain Supreme. Why do you think so many of the DC aliens races are all dead? Alien races open so many cans of worms. Do they know about Earth? Why don't they conquer us? Why don't they contact us? What is their technology based upon, etc.

 

As an aside, a friend of mine always had one simple rule for any of his players when developing an alien race as part of their character's background: individual aliens have no more physical abilities than we do. That is to say the average lskjlkjhvsdian should come to 0 points, just like the average person. If your PC is a lskjlkjhvsdian, then their powers should make them just as extraordinary to the other lskjlkjhvsdians as they do to us.

 

Personally, I think that the best way to develop alien races, but maintain a good reason why they don't - or aren't supposed to - interfere with us is that the various alien governments have signed some kind of treaty that prevents interference with non-FTL civilizations. This would make Earth a kind of a giant game-preserve/conservation territory. This doesn't mean that other alien races won't try to interfere with us secretly, and in the process create all kinds of super-humans.

 

Just a Thought Supreme.

[Acroyear]

Aliens don't invade Earth, usually, because earth doesn't have anything worth taking to justify the expense (even if their guns and ships grow on trees... they still have to pick them to come and get us).

 

Why don't they contact us? Having extensive knowledge with Earth as a native, I sometimes desire having no contact with it, myself. Again, there's nothing here worth their time (assuming they are an advanced species). We don't set up shop in primitive tribes, either, unless we need something in the area... and then that's just for PR. Aliens that wouldn't consider us primite or would consider us advanced

 

I disagree that aliens should balance out to zero. Dogs aren't zero. Birds aren't zero. Some aliens will be zero. Some aliens will be less. Some will be more. Some alien worlds might affect humans in weird ways (just like Superman is affected here). Aliens that are zero and just look funny or something might as well be French or from the Outback or something. How boring! Most people aren't even zero, anyway... they are negative (a real, average human does not have 10 across the board on the base stats, it's more like 8).

 

Perhaps on an alein world they are "considered" to be zero and humans really total a couple hundred points or something. You have to remember that the rules are written with humans as the standard and, thus, the starting points.