There are three types of campaigns that allow for Alien PCs:
- Setting Specific Aliens (e.g. Star Trek, Traveller, Star Frontiers) where PCs all come from one of a handful of races defined in advance, such as Vulcans or Vargr.
- Alien Is Just Another Kind of Background (e.g. StarWars, Farscape) Despite possibly having many different physical forms, aliens PC aliens’ abilities are mostly defined by their profession (Class) , such as Pilot (Chewbacca) or Thief (Chiana)
- Alien is A Way of Life (e.g. Space: 1999, E.T., Needle, Legion of Super-Heroes) Aliens’ abilities are mostly defined by the innate characteristics of their species, and are often unique to their species, such as Maya’s shape-shifting ability, or The Hunter’s ability to inhabit a host.
A campaign can allow for one or all types of aliens. Once you know what type of alien you’re creating you either: get the details of the setting specific alien you are playing, create an Alien as Background using the tables, or create an Alien is a Way of Life alien by creating a Mutant from Mutant Crawl Classics.
If you’re creating an Alien as Background, you go though the tables in the posts
- Build an Alien
- Roll a d10: 1-7 Bumpy Forehead Alien, 8-10 Calling a Rabbit a Smeerp Alien, or Judge chooses
- Build an Alien 2: Eclectic Bugaloo
- Build an Alien 3: Weirdos from Another Planet
- if you rolled an Exotic Adaptation on the charts in Build an Alien 2.
- These Aliens Are Crazy!
- Alien Names
If the table says roll a variable size of die (e.g. d6 to d12) roll the smallest die, and if you get the highest result subtract 1, then re-roll and add the result; keep doing that until you don’t get the highest result any more. E.g. roll a d6, get a 6, take 5 and add another d6, get another 6 and you have 10 (5+5) plus another d6… get a 3 and the total roll is 13.
Space Crawl 