It's understandably quiet around here. I figure no one is likely to read this. But I had a great session of Alien Invasion last night, and I want to share anyway!

This was my third time running a game (I got the book about a year ago), and one of the guys had played in the previous one. But the other two hadn't played before. But man did it go great. The game totally lived up to it's full potential, even in just a roughly 3-hour session that included 'character' creation and rules for the two new players.

The last time I played (including with one PC in this game), we did the 'Skitter' scenario. I wanted to have a very different experience this time, so I went with 'Visages'.

R ight at the beginning I had my persona run out to pick up pizza with just one subtle hint that something might have happened along the way. My persona had been replaced by a Visage and his goal was now to infect the PCs by getting them to drink contaminated water.

Of course, the whole pushing of water by a Visage onto an uninfected person is a big part of the weirdness. If everyone had immediately drank the water that my Visage had brought them, a big part of the tension of the game would be lost. But it just so happened that one of my friends who was playing never drinks tap water. I didn't know that going in, it was pure coincidence. So while the other two characters drank the water and became infected, this guy refused to drink the water and there was a wonderful tension as I kept pushing the water on him, and he became more obstinate in his refusal to drink it.

After an appropriate amount of in-game time, I had one of the infected PCs go into my basement alone, where his Visage attacked him. After a brief struggle he (apparently) fought off and killed the double, but when he called for help and the others came running, there was no body, no sign of a struggle besides possibly the PC stumbling down some stairs or something similar.

The basement was searched, police and ambulance were called. No evidence of an intruder, PC declared fine by the EMTs. Did it really happen?

Everyone decides to call it a night. Two infected PC head outside to their car while my Visage holds up the uninfected PC in the house. Simultaneously, the other infected PC gets jumped by his Visage out in the driveway while my Visage attempts to subdue and force the uninfected PC to drink the contaminated water.

While the uninfected PC is able to fight off and ends up killing my Visage, the one infected PC fights with his visage while the other tries to figure out whom is whom and keep the two apart. Eventually, as it becomes clear that this is a life-or-death struggle between the two versions of the PC, the other PC (who had been the one in the basement) figures out which one is which and attacks to help his friend.

You can probably guess where this is going. The PC who had been attacked in the basement was actually a Visage, his character having failed to fight off his double in the basement. When he attacks, he hits and stuns the human PC, allowing the double to finish him off.

The uninfected PC gets outside just as the human PC is killed and figures out that this isn't right. After a brief chase where the two Visages attempt to catch the uninfected PC and forcibly infect him, the PC gets to his car and escapes.

And that's where we ended it.

Everything hit. The tension of the water, the surprise reveal of that the one PC was actually a Visage even though he didn't even know through most of the game... It could easily have been a movie or TV episode.

Man, what a great time!

1 hour ago, RMGreenley said:

I  figure no  one is likely to read this. 

I read, and appreciated your AP review!

It's a shame this system doesn't get more attention. It is so easy to pick up and play, and as they do with most of their stuff, FFG made a beautiful product with quality content. Including the Scenarios.

Thanks for contributing!

Hey, thanks for reading! I appreciate it! :^)

What I really like about the system is how, because the PCs are playing themselves, it's really easy for people to role play. The players don't have to work as much to separate themselves from their characters.

The group I played with usually plays D&D, where we do generally focus more on the mechanisms than on the role play. Which is fine. Most of the group isn't life-long, die-hard RPGers, and we have fun with it. But it means that a narrative driven-style game like EotW is pretty different from what they're used to. But it's more accessible thanks to removing that layer of abstraction.

I'm also sorry that the system didn't really catch on. But fortunately, my book works just fine regardless of how well the books did for FFG! We'll definitely be coming back to EotW in the future.

Nice write-up!