Aliens; rubbersuits?

[stofsk]

Do you find that aliens in your games tend to either be 'rubbersuits' - an expression coined by one of my players to refer to how some aliens are no different from a human with a latex bumcrack pasted onto his forehead - or too weird to really be used? I'm sure we'd all like the 'alien' alien, IE silicon-based killing machine that salivates constantly and has acid for blood, but it's hardly practical.

All my players are human anyway. But I thought about what was said and thus wonder if it's really necessary to have them at all. I really like some of my aliens though.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

I find it is far easier to make them LOOK Different from humans, than to make them THINK different from humans.

In Traveller, I tend to consider the "Ancients" angle a bit more. Going on the Vargr model (who cover a VAST area of space both as residents and as Travllers) as well as human expansion over thousands of years.

Variances in envrionment, genetic manipulation, would redefine the parameters of humanity.

But by and large, I try to present aliens that are differnent evolutionary paths on life on earth, and rarer still, lifeforms of a nature that go beyond it. I mean really weird stuff, not just "animal people". The relatively recent discovery of sea floor vent life has made this easier to conceptualize. I dare say it gives me a good notion as a ref that Life is a lot more common than once thought outside of what we know.

 

[epicenter00]

Making an alien truly different is a hard thing. Biologically, it's easy to create an alien animal or killing machine. But if you want a sentient creature that is truly alien where communication is possible...really difficult. That's almost impossible. That's not to say it's not fun to try, though! Pat Cadigan, my sci-fi literature instructor in uni once pointed out that aliens are rarely alien - you can find thinking and customs far more alien that any alien in a story just walking down a street in some culture unfamiliar to you (she used SE Asia, though if you grew up in SE Asia, probably somewhere else).

Basic Traveller has a bunch of really lousy aliens, really. They're basically easily understood "aliens" who are more like guys in rubber suits from another culture on Earth than they are truly aliens. GDW tried harder with 2300 - if you're looking for aliens where they tried to make them more alien, check out the aliens from there.

EDIT:

Though rubbersuitism isn't always bad. I remember in Jack McDevitt's Engines of God he had some alien race which looked like this fierce carnivores but they found a photo of them all posed with the alien equivalent of a "thumbs up" for a team photo with the guy looking at the image remarking about the irony of these fiercesome looking man-eaters getting together at some morale-building picnic and taking a group pic. It was a pretty touching image in my mind.

 

[Golan2072]

My main homebrew alien race - Celirans (Ancients-uplifited lizards)- is somewhere in the middle between "rubbersuit" and "wierd xenomorph". Sure, there are similarities to humans, and they're "lizard-like" aliens (in fact they ARE uplifted lizards) but the major difference in both look and thought/society is:

While they have "warm blood" (homeothermic; part of their uplifiting) they are NOT mammals. No breast-feeding, no pregnancy; they LAY EGGS. Their reproductive habits resemble these of birds, not mammals: remember that when you feed your hatchlings with chewed food (or cooked mash in modern society) and when everyone could roost (is that the term?) on an egg, both genders could take equal parts in raising offsprings (as is the situation with many species of birds). Moreover, as with some species of birds (such as ostriches [sp?] IIRC), others in the community/extended family could look after the youngsters when the parents are away looking for food (or, in modern society, go to work). Sure, Humans can do so, but it is far rarer due to both technical and social issues that are not much present in Celirans.

Moreover, Celiran females had, even in semi-feral times, a slightly higher-than-avarage occurance of natural psionic powers (some of which could be used even with very primitive training); male Celirans rarely have any sort of psionics. So from early times, most religious figures (shamans, priestesses etc) were female, and some of them could actually "perform miracles" (i.e. use PSI, mostly telepathy/Awareness).

Also, similar to many birds and some reptiles, the Celiran female chooses her mate (in the ur-species according to his outwards look, in the current Celiran species, ofcourse, social and personal matters are very important as well). So Celiran males tend to "peacock-up", that is pay much attention to their appearance, while females usually take a very utilitarian approach to appareal.

The result? A slightly matriarchal society (especially in religious matters), with an inclination towards strong community relations, and with very "confused" gender-roles in Human eyes.

 

[Madarin Dude]

Some races are easier than others to play. Vargr are easier because many peopelhave dogs as pets and are accustomed to their behavior and can adapt some of those actions to their character.

Maybe Celerians are uplifted theropods. (two legged dinosaurs) It is plausable that dinos were warm blooded.

 

[Klaus]

There's the Moties from the Mote in God's Eye. The Mediator class were like rubber suits but that was their job. The others were quite effectively different.

Or MorningLightMountain from P F Hamilton's Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained. A monolithic single mind dominating an entire species. Complete inability to think creatively. Succeeds by complete overkill.

 

[kafka47]

Initially, I began with the idea from AD&D, aliens were simply monsters albeit intelligent but monsters nonetheless.

Then I began to see the real beauty of the ecological approach for animals that Traveller created and the need for scarcity of alien intelligent life, so I shifted my focus over to the Major Races and populating a few worlds with indigenous lifeforms.

Then I realized how boring that is. Therefore, I have not come full circle but populate my planets as need arises with plenty of lifeforms and potentially intelligent ones as need arises. In the meantime, places of Interstellar Commerce become a very cosmopolitan place with race hardly factoring into the equation.

Therefore, players may encounter a Vargr who behaves just like an Imperial human or vice-versa as need arises. The trick is to switch player's perceptions, as long time players have memorized all your tricks, so the secret is to be fluid.

Therefore, the acid bone gnawning alien that chased them around the abandoned space station may come from a highly developed civilization of philosophers and poets but was reduced to this state by constant torture or was brought at a very young stage of its development (meaning maybe after it has eaten enough a Crystalis stage has to passed) before sentience is achievable.

What would the average human infant become if it was subject to constant stress. Where is the borderline between our animal and our human nature. Is there a borderline. These are the questions that introducing aliens into a campaign represent.

 

[Black Globe Generator]

"Really alien" aliens are a neat idea, but they don't really add much to game-play except as plot devices. IMHX it's important that the players be able to relate to sophonts in the setting - a silicon-based crystalline-crust alien life form on a moon with a trace atmosphere is interesting, but if they can't interact with it because it's "so alien," it's really nothing more than scenery.

If you posit that convergent evolution works at interstellar scales, then those "rubber suits" tend to fade into the background.

 

[Plankowner]

IMHO CJ Cherryh writes some of the BEST aliens in the business. I constantly used her ideas for my alien species. I used to make any player that wanted to play an Aslan read "Pride of Chanur", THAT was my Aslan, no the OTU version.

Playing an alien, and not playing it as a rubbersuited human is perhaps harder than GMing an alien. Coming up with explainable, but different responses to situations is REALLY hard, especially if you want them to be consistant and not get everyone killed in the process.

I also liked to play humans raised by aliens (another Cherryh favorite). You could really freak some people out when you whipped out your DewClaws, growled and attacked!

 

[Ptah]

I like the aliens of C.J.Cherryl, Larry Niven, James White, Frank Herbert and David Brin.

IMTU no Aslan, Varg etc. but there are Kzin, Knnn, Jockta, Gowachians and Jophur to name a few.

IMHO aliens with truly alien ways of thought are not for players to play. Playable aliens might have different physical and mental abilities, societies and cultural values; but they still come at problems the same way and understand logic (even if their value judegments are different).

I think the "rubber-suit" part is a bit unfair. Just because these aliens think in ways we can understand, if not agree with, doesn't make them a rubber-suit. The same simplification could be applied to human cultures, are they all just "rubber-suits" of one another. Dismissing something with the comment: "Yeah you dress it up different but it is all the same in the end?" is always true if you make the "same" part simple enough.

But cultural differences between aliens are where the role playing is IMHO. Heck what is polite and works best in Japanese business interactions is not the same as in the U.S.; yet we can certainly get along and work together. Nevertheless, the consumate cross-cultural liason will take into account those differences and behave accordingly to maximize the interaction.

Now for truely alien ways of thought I cut and paste part of what was one of my first posts here I believe.

All part of an effort to make aliens just not rubber suits adn run them with some consistency.

Here it is. Some of the non-human ways of thinking I have a hard time describing being a human. It's my first shot at trying to capture alien thinking.

This idea struck me about 5-8 years ago when I was reading both C.J. Cherryl's Chanur novels, White's Sector General novels and investigating the Myers-Briggs personality profile scheme. Cherryl had the matrix brain Knnn (I beleive without pulling down the book) and White had the relevant physiological aspects of alien life forms classifed with letter codes, Myer-Briggs looks at human personality with four binary concepts, the introvert/extrovet, sensing/intuitve, etc. concepts.

My cognitive classification:
Cognition is described by 4 areas: (1) Sense of Identity; (2)Thought Process; (3) Event Relational Process; (4) Temporal Perception. The non-human ways will appear non-sensical and illogical to humans (that's why they are alien) but strangely these alien cultures can still build starships, etc.

Generally, species which are the same in all 4 areas of cognition will be able to at least communicate effectively. Although cultural differences can lead to misunderstandings (see Sol's history), their brains basically work the same.

Aliens which differ in 1 area can be communicated with but with great difficulty even if the two species share a common goal and a desire to work together.

Species with two or more code differences find it near impossible to communicate or work with each other. The other species' actions appear chaotic, insane and are completely unpredicatbale to the other. In this situation, an intepreter species is needed to bridge the gap. I give some examples below after the classifications.

Alien Cognition Classifications

Sense of Identity - individual (I), collective (H), cooperative (C), emergent (E)

Thought Process - linear (L), matrix (M)

Event Relational Process -sequential (S), reflexive (R)

Temporal Perception -uniform (U), variable (V)


EXAMPLES:

Identity

I=humans, H=collective: many individual thougths form one group will/mind, there are no individuals (e.g., borg STNG); C=cooperative: individual minds can access a group mind but individuals still retain individual will/mind; E=emergent:individauls have no sapience but in groups a form of sapience emerges, also refered to as a hive-mind.

Thought Process

L=linear: individual concepts can stand alone, binary logic possible, concept of independent variables possible; M=matrix: no concept stands alone, do not readily grasp binary logic or concept of independent variables, grasp problems composed of multiply dependent variables readily.


Event Relational Process

S=sequential: effect follows cause, effects are the maifestation of cause, predictive theories favored; R=reflexive: cause is the manifestation of effects, theories often appear ad hoc or by fiat to S (sequential thinkers) but such species appear to more readily grasp faster than light travel concepts.

Temporal Perception

U=uniform: time percieved as proceeding in a linear fashion at a relatively constant rate; V=varaible: one of the hardest concepts for U (uniform) species to grasp, V species have a hard time grasping beginnings and ends as these concepts are understood by U species.


For example, Humans are ILSU as are almost all species in sci-fi, the Borg HLSU, the Knnn IMSU, a "hive" species might be EMSU.
Accordingly, humans may find it near impossible to understand the "hive" but can communicate with the Knnn, albiet with difficulty. The Knnn have a hard time with humans and the "hive" but can communicate with both. The Knnn can thus serve as go betweens or interpreters for the Human and "hive" species.

All PC species should be ILSU in my opinion, this is not a system primarily for PC development but for universe development.

For example, this cognitive system can be used to "explain" why aliens act in unexplainable and to humans irrational ways. The GM need not even need to explain, how can a ILSU do so. One role-playing aspect is through using an NPC interpretive species and being aware that aliens are not just beings with more or less limbs who breathe different air. Thus, some NPC species may become a valuable interpreter/diplomatic species even if they have nothing else going for them.

Just some thoughts. Constructive comments welcome.

 

[Plankowner]

Wow Ptah! I like that!

Concise, clear and it explains all the weird things. If a GM reads about an alien species in a book, this system could be used to classify them. Perhaps new modes of thought could eventually be added; but your list seems pretty comprehensive.

 

[cgriffen]

Originally posted by stofsk:
Do you find that aliens in your games tend to either be 'rubbersuits' - an expression coined by one of my players to refer to how some aliens are no different from a human with a latex bumcrack pasted onto his forehead - or too weird to really be used?

I wish I could say they weren't played as "rubber suits" but most of my players, when they've played aliens, have fallen into the rubber suit category more often than not.

To be fair, the only two alien species played by my players were Aslan and Vargr. I think the player who played the Aslan did a fine enough job, but out of pride he frequently forgot to emphasize the total dependence the male Aslan has on the female of the race.

My player who played a Vargr did well enough, but I think he was more into the idea that his character was like a ferocious guard dog or a werewolf than an alien obsessed with status and a denizen of a culture whose tiers of rank and privelege would seem chaotic by human standards.

I played a Vargr myself for a campaign. I was the captain of a Regency starship in a New Era campaign. I tried to emphasize my desire for upward mobility at the cost of all else.

It's hard to get out of the rubber suit mentality. What I would recommend for anyone who wants to play a Traveller alien is to own the corresponding alien guide (or copies pages of cultural and personality information) and urge the player to read them and refer to them repeatedly. It makes it more fun if they really get into it and try to BE alien.

 

[Ptah]

Originally posted by Plankowner:
Wow Ptah! I like that!

Concise, clear and it explains all the weird things. If a GM reads about an alien species in a book, this system could be used to classify them. Perhaps new modes of thought could eventually be added; but your list seems pretty comprehensive.

Thanks Plankowner. Now if someone could only tell me what James White's codes really were.

 

[aramis]

I've been able to make the Aslan, Vargr, Virush, Newts and Droyne really come alive as aliens to my players. Better still, I've had players make them just as alien.

The traveller aliens are wonderful: a good GM or player can make them feel alien. They are no more alien that, say, the Edo Period Samurai, but they are alien enough.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Ptah, I think Marc read that (and I seem to remember that post!) and has discussed something similar on the T5 playtest forum. Good stuff.

 

[Kawaresksenjajok]

Always an issue of debate, but at least this is a game that exists in the mind and not at the whim of a franchise like Star Trek, land of the prosthetic foreheads.

As I've always seen it, there seems to be two categories of alien; the one that almost non-recognizable, becomes a plot element and requires careful thought and investigation; and the other being the sort of race a player can take the role of and hobnob with humaniti without being the freakazoid kind who sits on the ship-dock in its hermetically sealed tank, holding the bag, while everyone else is off having fun.

Regardless of the plausible sacrifice, I prefer the latter personally, and like someone else has mentioned, no matter how weird you look or what atmosphere you breathe, if you don't try to think differently, you're still just another rubber-suit.

 

[sabredog]

The fundamental problem with trying to have truly alien races in a role-playing game is that it is played by humans.

It has been pointed out by numerous scientists that if we were to ever encounter an alien race we might find that we are so different that we will have nothing to even say to each other, let alone maybe not even recognize the other as intelligent. From the POV of a biology major I agree. I also find the reeeeally alien aliens more interesting as plot points.

So I see the problem of having aliens in this game as being this: how do you have a really alien race that we would have anything in common with without having any qualities that we would recognize as human? Logically you're going to have a lot of them or there wouldn't be much basis for understanding and interaction. They'll have their quirks, things we'll never figure out, but heck - I can't hardly figure why my kids do some of things they do so aliens would be a deep mystery.

As I portray them, my home-brewed aliens are alien enough in behavior and actions to be different, but still having enough touch-points in human-like behavior/needs/wants that players will deal with them in a fun reasonable way without getting so frustrated that they just avoid the whole mess.

They follow a logical progression: they like the same kind of territory/resources (or we probably wouldn't run into them at all in the scale of things), they either prey on us or us on them (again, a more extreme resource competition but it lends to more contact because of the hunt angle), or we have something they want/need (and vice versa). That also lends to more chances of contact for those who don't always want the same real estate.

The biology will be somewhat different, but again, unless they are some hydrogen breathing gasbag-glider (useless for PC) it'll still be pretty similar to ours or the above rules won't apply. The exception to all these BTW are the bug-eyed monsters that sometimes need killing. They will look different, they will have followed a different path of evolutionary biology of course, based on what was going on on thier world, environmental pressures, adaptations, etc. Chemical processes might be similar enough we wouldn't have to worry about the old alcohol won't get them drunk- but "fill in here" does chestnut most of the time.

If I can at least make the alien society and individual motivations different enough from mainstream human norm, but still understandable enough that the players get it I feel it's all good. As it is, IMTU I don't have as many major races as the OTU. Most tend to be minor neobarbarian types on really backwater worlds.

That said, though, I feel the Vargr/Aslan are a bit of a cheat since they are just uplifted animals. My gosh, samurai lions and , well, my dog. Only bigger, slightly smarter, and it talks. Probably smells worse in the rain, too.

 

[sabredog]

AN example of my first (circa 77) alien race, much improved over time:
Here's my example:

Prox: 1.6 meters or less, 75kg or so
Omnivorous, bipedal, digitigrade, diecious, marsupial, warm-blooded

Gray skinned with bristly short black fur covering the upper legs, torso, and culminating in a mane around the shoulders and back of neck tapering to a ridge between the large ears and ending at the forehead. Prox have a slightly top-heavy look to them because of their heavy shoulders and thick necks, enhanced further by their normal slightly crouched gait. They tend towards a dense bone and muscle structure. They have non-retractile claws on the four fingers and one thumb, much heavier ones on their heavy, splayed feet. They do not have a tail. They can eat almost anything a human can. They can hear far into the subsonic range. “Wolfish” Hyena’ “Jackal” is often used to describe them.

The eyes are fairly close set and forward, protected by heavy sockets. The eyes are large and highly reflective because of a tapetum membrane in the eye itself that reflects light a second time back through the retina – amplifying night vision. Prox wear dark goggles during the daytime on worlds with bright suns because of the discomfort caused by this amplification. It is one of the qualities that make them valuable as night fighting mercenary specialists. They see farther into the infrared, but less into the ultraviolet. The lgiht amplification adaption is because of the dim world they developed on, not because they are truly nocturnal.

They tend to be a little stronger than average humans (2D6+2), have a little higher endurance (2D6+1), and the same dexterity.

Prox developed on a higher gee world than humans with a dimmer sun. Prox were originally opportunistic carnivore scavengers that developed limited pack behavior and evolving into sight hunters when beginning to pursue prey more than wait to find it dead already. hunt behavior was typically short loping jogs interspersed with frequent erect posture to see and listen over the top of the tall grasses covering the ancestral lands. The biggest, most aggressive member of the hunting group would make the kill and defend it against the others until he had enough. After they all ate in turn the largest then reclaimed (sometimes before the smallest members could eat) the rest and dragged it back to the den for his mates and offspring.

Prey was killed by crushing it's neck/shoulder in the jaws then ripping at it with the hind claws. The Prox's eyes were protected by the heavy boned sockets.

The females of the alpha male were his alone until one of the other males could kill him. They lived in an underground den almost the entirety of their lives, only functioning to provide offspring. They only left the den when the family group moved, which wasn’t often. Population and the urge to breed pressures (along with the urge to survive at all) caused young males to constantly need to strike out on their own to find vulnerable females (young ones who venture out of the dens sometimes), or to make “abduction” raids on other dens when the alpha male is away. The male then took the female off to establish the beginnings of another “clan”. Territory is constantly guarded and defended against other clans. Groups of younger males began forming aggregate packs to protect larger expanses and more complex social interactions developed around family grouping within these aggregates. The basic alpha male/everybody else better follow or else dynamic continued, but by relying more on a (loose, constantly morphing) cooperative societal model the Prox were able to evolve into a more complex species.

These dynamics can be seen in final forms among modern Prox, and explained why early contacts with them were so violent and difficult to sort out. And why they still have a reputation for aggressive, sometime chaotic (from a human POV) behavior. It’s also why they never really became more than a just barely major race on their own, but readily adapted to all the advantages of gaining technology from others. Anything that helps the family/clan/pack aggregate grow and protect territory is to be desired. Advantage is constantly jockeyed for among them, but they still tend to unite against outsiders to the race – the reason they even advanced at all as a race is that they gradually evolved to the attitude that while individual clans are paramount, that can be extended to a larger clan of race. The ultimate form of the pack/clan aggregate in times of stress against territorial invaders.
Prox females are only semi-intelligent. Males are found all over space. They tend towards piracy/privateering, but a lot form merchant clans – they tend to be very protective on new trade routes, etc.. Forming criminal syndicates based on smuggling, gambling, and extortion also are favored. Territory must grow and be held, the family is all.

 

[sabredog]

Now, by using an evolution model to set up the Prox I was able to determine how their survival strategies might have influenced their development of intelligence. Prox had two main pressures: to reproduce they needed to control females, to feed expanding families they had to have increasing territory, and protect both against aggressive fellow Prox.

The strong alpha types used strength to overcome these obstacles, but also had to be smart enough to thwart the younger clever ones who tried to steal females and kill his young while he's away hunting. The smaller, younger ones had to be smart enought to do the stealing while also gaining the cooperation of others to provide protection against the larger alphas.

So as Prox continued to evolve these tow strategies met somewhere in the middle and created a race of aliens who felt intensely threatened by first contact (territory pressure/outside aggressor group response), but also were smart enough to adapt and adopt the technologies and other advantages of these outsiders in an attempt to compete more successfully in a fairly aggressive way (piracy, mercenary work, claiming territory before humans can establish themselves there). They also went down the path of using economics to achieve the same goals in a less aggressive, but equally efficient way through merchant adventurism, organized crime in the areas of gambling and smuggling. Extortion and theft.

The first strategy was used by the "big, strong alphas", the secong mainly by the "smart, smaller alphas". The largest majority is somewhere in the middle.

If you watched Firefly I would argue the prototypical Prox was Jayne: as long as your goals matched his (in a Prox sense..money=advancement=territory & access to females) then he would be yours to command. If anyone threatened the core group he would fight to the finish (defend clan territory against outsiders while putting internicene issues aside), and not be trusting of new core members who might cause more outside trouble or upset his role in the pack. You couldn't turn your back on him, or trust noone could ever lure him away if they a closer parallel interest to his own so you had to be a strong, smart leader. And be ready to put him down if needed.

Its a rough comparison, but it works to give players an idea of how to run one.

 

[Jame]

Sabredog, do you have stat-generation for the Prox? I would like to borrow these.