Introduction
ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition has nine core careers: Colonial Marine, Colonial Marshal, Company Agent, Kid, Medic, Officer, Pilot, Roughneck, and Scientist. Each is a crew role with pressure attached. A career sets a key attribute, three key skills, a short list of career talents, gear options, and suggested personal agendas. It does not script the character's personality, and it does not make one player responsible for every scene in its category.
The rulebook admits career descriptions "can feel stereotypical" and says that is deliberate: a career gives the table a quick read on a character, and the player builds the rest. Choose one for three reasons: what you want to do when the crew is in trouble, what difficult decision you want to face, and what someone else at the table can still do better. A crew with gaps is not broken. The gaps are where ALIEN RPG finds its tension.
This guide compares all nine careers with their rules at a glance, then goes deep on the two careers players ask about most, the Colonial Marine and the Company Agent. For the library's overall map, visit the ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition root guide.
Hot Take
The best career is the one that creates useful friction in an incomplete crew. Career balance is about crew coverage and story tension, and identical combat output has nothing to do with it. A team that can answer every problem immediately is efficient. A crew that must decide whether to trust the corporate representative, wait for the Medic, let the Pilot attempt the landing, or ask the Roughneck to force the door is much more alive.
Do not choose a career just to fill a mechanical blank. Choose it because you want to play the responsibility that comes with that blank.
What a Career Sets in Character Creation
Career is the first choice in Campaign Play character creation, and it touches almost everything that follows:
- Key attribute. You distribute 14 points across Strength, Agility, Wits, and Empathy, with each attribute between 2 and 4. Only your career's key attribute may start at 5.
- Key skills. You spread 10 points across the twelve skills. Your three career skills can start at level 3; every other skill caps at 1.
- Starting talent. You pick one of your career's three talents. More career talents, and any general talent, can be bought later for 5 XP each.
- Gear. In Campaign Play you choose two items from your career's list (or roll twice), and any weapon comes with two full reloads. In Cinematic Play, the adventure decides your starting gear instead.
- Cash, signature item, and agenda. Each career lists starting W-Y dollars, three signature items, and three suggested personal agendas. Campaign players may write their own agenda instead.
Cinematic adventures hand you a pre-generated character with agendas, buddy, and rival already set. For the full step-by-step process, visit the ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition Character Creation hub.
The Nine Core Careers at a Glance
The table below compares the careers as play roles. Key attributes and key skills come from each career entry in the core rulebook; the last two columns are table advice rather than rules.
| Career | Key attribute | Key skills | Brings to the crew | Useful pressure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colonial Marine | Strength | Close Combat, Stamina, Ranged Combat | Decisive action, discipline, willingness to face immediate danger | Orders, past service, fear, and the cost of force |
| Colonial Marshal | Wits | Observation, Ranged Combat, Command | Investigation, local authority, a reason to ask hard questions | Justice versus corporate or community pressure |
| Company Agent | Wits | Comtech, Observation, Manipulation | Information, bargaining power, access, corporate reach | Advancement, hidden obligations, and trust |
| Kid | Agility | Mobility, Survival, Observation | Mobility, curiosity, a view outside adult priorities | Dependence, belonging, being underestimated |
| Medic | Empathy | Mobility, Observation, Medical Aid | Triage, care, an informed view of bodily danger | Who gets saved, what treatment costs, professional limits |
| Officer | Empathy | Ranged Combat, Command, Manipulation | Direction, morale, responsibility for group decisions | Authority, accountability, the danger of command |
| Pilot | Agility | Piloting, Ranged Combat, Comtech | Movement, vehicle expertise, dangerous maneuvers | Risk appetite, independence, bad calls |
| Roughneck | Strength | Heavy Machinery, Stamina, Close Combat | Repairs, physical work, practical endurance | Labor, loyalty, exhaustion |
| Scientist | Wits | Observation, Survival, Comtech | Analysis, discovery, curiosity about the unknown | Knowledge versus caution, secrecy, responsibility |
Each career's core play question is a useful shortcut when two options look equally appealing:
| Career | Core play question |
|---|---|
| Colonial Marine | What does trained, decisive action cost when force cannot solve the real problem? |
| Colonial Marshal | What does justice require when authority is weak or compromised? |
| Company Agent | What is corporate access, ambition, or obligation worth to the people beside you? |
| Kid | What does someone adults underestimate notice, need, and choose? |
| Medic | Who needs care first when resources, time, and safety are limited? |
| Officer | How do you make and own a group decision under pressure? |
| Pilot | When is a dangerous route, landing, or escape attempt worth the risk? |
| Roughneck | What must be repaired, carried, or endured to keep everyone moving? |
| Scientist | When should curiosity become caution, and when must knowledge be acted on? |
How to Choose a Career
Start with the campaign or scenario, then look for a role that creates a distinct point of view. The core book supports Cinematic Play with pre-generated characters and Campaign Play with characters created for a continuing crew, and that distinction changes the choice.
| If you are playing... | Start your choice with... |
|---|---|
| A Cinematic scenario | The assigned character's agenda, relationships, and immediate situation. Play the pressure already built into the role. |
| A Campaign | The crew's shared framework, its work, and the kind of problems the group wants to pursue over time. |
| A mixed-experience table | A clear job in the fiction and an agenda that gives the new player a concrete decision. |
| A table that wants social tension | A career with a duty or interest that can disagree with the crew without requiring betrayal. |
Then answer four questions:
- When an alarm sounds, what kind of problem do I hope to engage with?
- What responsibility or personal pressure could make my character hesitate or argue in an interesting way?
- Which other PC do I want to need when my own answer is not enough?
- What would make this character choose the crew over their own immediate interest?
The third question keeps a career from becoming a claim over the game. A Pilot needs people worth extracting. A Marine needs someone to say what protecting the crew requires. A Scientist needs people to act on or challenge a discovery. A Company Agent needs people who can decide whether an offer is worth accepting. The fourth question matters just as much: careers create flavor, and shared purpose keeps a campaign moving.
Career by Career
Each entry below lists the career's rules from the core rulebook in paraphrase, then covers how to play it well. The Colonial Marine and Company Agent entries run longer because they carry the most table baggage: one invites violence as a default, the other invites secret betrayal.
Colonial Marine
Key attribute: Strength. Key skills: Close Combat, Stamina, Ranged Combat. Cash: D6 x 100 W-Y dollars.
Career talents:
- Banter: you and everyone at Short range lower stress by two steps instead of one for each stretch spent in a safe place.
- Overkill: on a panic roll of 9 or higher, you may ignore the result and go into overkill. Every other PC in your zone makes an immediate panic roll, and you must attack every turn without taking cover, dodging, or defending until you or every enemy in sight is broken.
- Precise Shooter: ammo supply rolls use two fewer dice than your ammo supply rating, to a minimum of one.
Gear (choose two): M41A Pulse Rifle, M56A2 Smart Gun, M314 Motion Tracker, two G2 Electroshock Grenades, IRC Mk.35 Pressure Suit, M3 Personnel Armor.
Suggested agendas: defend your reputation as a decorated hero at all costs; keep a war crime you helped cover up buried; overcome the fear of combat you developed after your buddy died.
Choose the Colonial Marine when you want a PC shaped by disciplined action and frontline danger, whether a professional soldier, an exhausted veteran, or someone whose service is the first thing people notice. The career gives the crew someone who can make a hard call in a crisis, but its strongest stories are about what training, orders, and survival have done to a person. Guns consume ammunition, weapons create noise and consequences, and some threats cannot be beaten with firepower. A compelling Marine knows when to defend, when to hold position, when to retreat, and what they are unwilling to do.
The best Marine player makes danger clearer for the group, then helps the group choose what to do about it.
What the Marine Brings
| The Marine can contribute through... | The player can make it interesting by... |
|---|---|
| Immediate action under threat | Saying what the danger is and asking what the crew needs protected. |
| Endurance and physical effort | Taking a difficult job without turning every obstacle into a contest of strength. |
| Combat awareness | Treating force as a decision with consequences, not a default conversation starter. |
| Military experience | Letting training help in a crisis while other PCs stay the experts in their fields. |
| Shared recovery and morale | Making space for the crew to regroup instead of treating downtime as dead air. |
The career works best when its competence is visible but not total. The Marine can take point at an airlock and still need the Pilot to get the ship clear, the Roughneck to restore power, the Medic to keep someone alive, or the Scientist to explain what the crew found.
Marines in Cinematic and Campaign Play
| Mode | What to lean into |
|---|---|
| Cinematic Play | Play the pre-generated Marine's agenda, buddy, rival, gear, and immediate stakes. A scenario may place the character in a military operation, but the pressure can still be loyalty, fear, reputation, or a terrible order. |
| Campaign Play | Build a reason this veteran, recruit, or specialist belongs to the crew's framework. Give them a future beyond the next firefight. |
In a Colonial Marines campaign, do not assume every PC needs to be a Marine. The core book describes USCM combat teams as cross-trained and lists military occupations such as vehicle operators and pilots, combat technicians, medics, engineers, and career officers. A crew gains texture when command, medicine, transport, technology, research, or civilian experience can challenge a soldier's first instinct.
Marine Gear Sets Expectations
The Marine's gear list signals a character ready to enter hazardous locations. It does not remove the hazards. In Cinematic Play, a scenario can give a Marine less, more, or different gear because the story needs a particular kind of pressure.
| Gear category | What it helps establish in play | Question it should raise |
|---|---|---|
| Pulse rifle or smart gun | The Marine can create distance or defend a position. | Is firing worth the noise, ammo, collateral damage, or escalation? |
| Motion tracker | The crew may get an early warning or a reason to investigate. | What does the reading mean, and what does it fail to tell us? |
| Electroshock grenades | The character has an option besides lethal force. | Can the crew contain the problem long enough to learn or escape? |
| Personnel armor | The Marine expects danger and can carry some protection into it. | Who lacks that protection, and how will the crew account for them? |
| Pressure suit | The Marine can enter environments where the air itself is a threat. | Is the mission worth exposing the crew to a limited supply? |
The game tracks air, ammo, and power with supply rolls, so these limits are real. Treat them as a reason to plan together. A Marine who names the resource problem before the room becomes desperate is often worth more than one who fires another burst.
Marine Talents and the Story You Want
The three Marine talents highlight different sides of the career. Pick the side you want on screen.
| Talent | It highlights | Play it with... |
|---|---|---|
| Banter | Camaraderie and the value of a safe pause | Shared food, gallows humor, and attention to who is not okay. |
| Overkill | How fear can turn training into dangerous momentum | Consent and care, because it forces panic rolls on other PCs in your zone. |
| Precise Shooter | Preparedness under limited supply | Clear communication about when the crew can afford to shoot. |
Talents are not a personality test. A calm Marine can take Overkill; a hardened fighter can be the one who gives the crew a moment to breathe with Banter. Let play reveal how the character carries that capability.
Marine Pressure Beyond Combat
The rulebook's suggested Marine agendas point toward reputation, past conduct, and fear. Campaign players can also write their own agenda, so loyalty and chain of command are fair game as custom pressures.
| Pressure | Productive question |
|---|---|
| Reputation (book agenda) | What will the Marine risk to remain the person others think they are? |
| A covered-up past operation (book agenda) | What truth is still unresolved, and who could be harmed if it surfaces? |
| Fear of confrontation (book agenda) | How does a trained fighter respond when courage fails at the moment it is expected? |
| Loyalty to a comrade (custom) | When does protection become overreach, and when does it require sacrifice? |
| Orders and chain of command (custom) | What happens when duty conflicts with what the crew can see is right? |
Do not turn a secret into unilateral sabotage. If an agenda could create direct PC conflict, set the table's boundaries first. The personal agenda guide explains the Evolved Edition expectations for secrecy, PvP, and safety tools.
Marine Crew Fit
A Marine shines beside specialists rather than replacing them.
| Crew member | Strong partnership | Useful disagreement |
|---|---|---|
| Officer | The Officer sets direction; the Marine helps execute under pressure. | Orders may be legal or practical without being morally acceptable. |
| Medic | The Marine protects a casualty or evacuation route. | The Medic can challenge unnecessary risk. |
| Pilot | The Marine secures an extraction or landing zone. | The Pilot may refuse a maneuver that sounds simple but is physically impossible. |
| Roughneck | The Marine buys time while the Roughneck restores a system. | The Roughneck may put the ship ahead of a fight. |
| Scientist | The Marine contains a threat while the Scientist interprets it. | The Scientist may need time the Marine believes the crew cannot spare. |
| Company Agent or Colonial Marshal | The Marine provides security during negotiations or an investigation. | Authority, employer interest, and justice can point in different directions. |
In a setting this dangerous, every specialty on that list matters, and none of those characters exists to back up the Marine.
Making Decisive Action Collaborative
Use short statements that offer the crew a choice rather than issuing orders to other players.
| Instead of... | Try... |
|---|---|
| "I shoot it." | "It is closing fast. I can hold this corridor, but I need to know whether we are escaping or taking it alive." |
| "Everyone follow me." | "I can lead through the service route. Who can tell me if the air system will hold?" |
| "We have enough ammo." | "We can spend what we have here, but what are we saving for?" |
| "This is a military operation." | "My training says secure the exit first. What does everyone else need before we move?" |
| "I take command." | "We are out of time. I will make this call, but I need each of you to tell me the risk I am missing." |
Those lines keep the Marine decisive while respecting every player's agency. They also make it easier for the Game Mother to give the crew a clear, dangerous choice instead of a single obvious target.
Colonial Marshal
Key attribute: Wits. Key skills: Observation, Ranged Combat, Command. Cash: D6 x 200 W-Y dollars.
Career talents:
- Authority: use Command instead of Manipulation to make someone bend to your will. The talents chapter version adds +2 dice to that roll.
- Investigator: +2 dice to Observation when actively searching a zone for something hidden (not passive Observation).
- Subdue: +2 dice when attempting to grapple in close combat.
Gear (choose two): .357 Magnum revolver, Armat Model 37A2 12-gauge pump-action, hi-beam flashlight, personal medkit, stun baton, D6 doses of Neversleep pills.
Suggested agendas: get even with a longtime partner who defected to a crime syndicate; work toward handing in the badge and settling down; face a past wrong that has come back to haunt you.
Choose the Colonial Marshal when you want to investigate, establish facts, or confront a local abuse of power. The rulebook frames the Marshal as the rare Frontier lawman who takes no bribes, which makes the career a natural fit for colony stories, port investigations, and any situation where someone claims procedure still matters.
The pressure is authority with limited reach. The Marshal can ask who is responsible, but must decide what justice looks like when evidence is incomplete, officials are compromised, or the law cannot protect everyone.
Company Agent
Key attribute: Wits. Key skills: Comtech, Observation, Manipulation. Cash: D6 x 1,000 W-Y dollars, the most of any career.
Career talents:
- Company Resources: once per act in Cinematic Play or once per session in Campaign Play, take +1 stress level to produce an item you "had all along." It can be any gear item or anything else the Game Mother deems reasonable, no larger than a regular item (weight 1). The Company will want it back.
- Cunning: roll Manipulation using Wits instead of Empathy.
- Personal Safety: when you are attacked and another PC or friendly NPC is within Short range, roll Manipulation (no action) to make the attack target them instead. Each use costs +1 stress level.
Gear (choose two): leather briefcase, comm unit, Samani E-Series watch, data transmitter card with corporate clearance, VP-70MA6 service pistol, D6 doses of Naproleve.
Suggested agendas: seize every opportunity to gain power; find out what the Company is holding back from you and why; get even with the Company that is blackmailing you into its dirty work.
Choose the Company Agent when you want access, observation, technology, and social pull, plus a reason for the crew to question your motives. The role can be a field representative, corporate fixer, administrator, procurement specialist, junior executive, or someone sent far from headquarters to make a problem disappear.
Corporate loyalty should never be a shortcut to taking control of the table. The key question is whether a promotion, debt, instruction, or opportunity is worth the human cost it demands, and the answer is more interesting than "the Agent is secretly evil." "My employer told me to do it" is not drama by itself. "My employer can save the colony only if I give them evidence that will ruin someone I trust" is a decision. The Agent should complicate the crew's choices, not turn other players into spectators to a private plan.
What the Agent Brings
| The Agent can contribute through... | The player can make it interesting by... |
|---|---|
| Access and contacts | Explaining what the connection can offer and what it will expect in return. |
| Observation and information | Sharing enough to give the crew a real decision. |
| Technology and communications | Helping the group reach, verify, decrypt, or operate something important. |
| Negotiation | Offering terms without dictating another PC's response. |
| Corporate context | Making institutional power a pressure on the group rather than a private excuse. |
An Agent just needs an interest specific enough to be tested when the mission turns dangerous, whether or not they're rich, cruel, or secretly in charge.
Leverage Is Not Mind Control
The core rules say plainly that Manipulation does not take control of someone's mind. What you ask for must be "somewhat reasonable," or the Game Mother can disallow it, and a person actively opposed to your view makes an opposed roll. Your negotiating position also shifts the odds. The Agent is far more compelling when the player treats leverage as a conversation.
| Instead of... | Try... |
|---|---|
| "The Company says we do this." | "The Company will fund extraction if we secure this sample. Do we trust that offer?" |
| "I manipulate the Marshal into helping." | "I can offer the Marshal access to the records. What do they need before they will take the risk?" |
| "I pull rank on the crew." | "I have clearance, not authority over you. Here is what it opens and what it could cost us." |
| "I keep everything secret." | "I cannot share the source yet, but I can tell you the threat is real. What proof do you need?" |
The Game Mother decides when a roll is warranted. Describe a concrete offer, pressure, or exchange first. That keeps social scenes grounded in the fiction and preserves everyone else's agency.
Agent Gear and Corporate Access
The Agent's gear list favors professional tools over heavy field equipment: a person who can document, contact, authorize, or conceal. In Cinematic Play, the adventure sets starting gear and may give an Agent an asset, a liability, or a carefully limited kit.
| Gear | What it can mean in the fiction | Question for the crew |
|---|---|---|
| Clearance card | A door, record, service, or person may be accessible. | Who notices that access, and what trace does using it leave? |
| Comm unit | Someone off-site can receive information or make demands. | Who is listening, and what should stay off the channel? |
| Briefcase | The Agent carries work that may be valuable or dangerous. | Is it evidence, an offer, a cover story, or all three? |
| Service pistol | The Agent is not helpless when things turn violent. | Why was a corporate employee issued it, and when is talking the better option? |
| Naproleve | Survival and performance can carry personal or institutional costs. | What does the character need, and who controls the supply? |
Use equipment to generate questions. A clearance card is more useful when it opens a troubling possibility than when it bypasses every obstacle.
Agent Talents and Their Costs
The Agent's talents are strong precisely because they invite uncomfortable questions.
| Talent | What it supports | Pressure to keep visible |
|---|---|---|
| Company Resources | Revealing a plausible, Game Mother-approved item from corporate support. | It costs stress, and the item belongs to the Company. Someone may ask for it back. |
| Cunning | Approaching a social problem through analysis rather than charm. | Treat people as people, not switches to flip. |
| Personal Safety | Redirecting an attack onto a nearby PC or friendly NPC. | This can wreck trust and should never be sprung on the table casually. |
Personal Safety deserves a table conversation. An ability can be legal under the rules and still be a bad surprise between players, so set expectations for PC-on-PC consequences before the scene that might produce them.
Agent Agendas That Create Play
The suggested Agent agendas cover ambition, withheld corporate information, and blackmail. Treat them as starting pressures to roleplay rather than instructions to betray the crew. Campaign players can also write their own, such as the opportunity row below.
| Starting pressure | Weak version | Better question |
|---|---|---|
| Ambition (book agenda) | "I always take the profitable option." | "What success is worth losing the crew's trust for?" |
| Hidden information (book agenda) | "I keep every fact from the group." | "When does withholding this become more dangerous than revealing it?" |
| Corporate blackmail (book agenda) | "I must do what the Company says." | "How do I turn the tables on the Company without sacrificing someone else?" |
| An opportunity (custom) | "I claim the discovery for myself." | "Can I secure a future without selling out the people who kept me alive?" |
For Campaign Play, write an agenda with a goal and a cost, for example: "I will earn enough pull to leave this employer, even if I must refuse a deal that would save my career." That drives action without deciding the outcome in advance.
Secrets, PvP, and Boundaries
The rulebook keeps Cinematic agendas secret, handed out per act, while Campaign agendas are discussed together at the end of each session. It also treats direct PC conflict as a table matter. A Company Agent needs that conversation early. Before play, agree on these points:
- May the Agent receive private instructions from an employer?
- What categories of information, if any, can be withheld from other PCs?
- Can the Agent use Manipulation, Personal Safety, or corporate resources against another PC?
- Are betrayal, abandonment, injury, or theft within the campaign's agreed scope?
- How will anyone pause or redirect a scene that crosses a boundary?
The personal agenda guide covers the core book's safety tools, secrecy guidance, and Cinematic PvP procedure in more detail.
If the group rules out a type of conflict, change the agenda. The Agent can still face corporate deadlines, competing employers, public scrutiny, hostile contracts, or a conscience that is getting harder to ignore.
Agent Crew Fit
| Crew member | Strong partnership | Useful disagreement |
|---|---|---|
| Colonial Marshal | The Agent opens records or contacts for an investigation. | The Marshal may seek accountability where the Agent seeks containment. |
| Scientist | The Agent secures equipment, transport, or an audience for findings. | The Scientist may refuse to treat knowledge as a commodity. |
| Medic | The Agent obtains supplies or authorizes care. | The Medic can challenge a decision that values assets over patients. |
| Roughneck | The Agent funds or negotiates a repair. | The Roughneck knows when a corporate promise cannot keep a failing system running. |
| Officer | The Agent presents options and consequences. | The Officer must decide whether those options protect the crew. |
| Colonial Marine | The Agent offers a mission objective or intelligence. | The Marine can demand to know who bears the risk of that objective. |
Let the Agent be useful in ways that make the group ask better questions. That lasts longer than making the Agent the person with the secret answer.
Kid
Key attribute: Agility. Key skills: Mobility, Survival, Observation. Cash: D6 x 10 W-Y dollars.
Career talents:
- Hard to Catch: +2 dice to Mobility when dodging an attack.
- Lucky: re-roll one death roll or critical injury roll and keep the result you prefer.
- Nimble: push an Agility-based skill roll twice, with +1 stress level per push.
Gear (choose two): laser pointer, radio-controlled car, yo-yo, electronic handheld game, personal locator beacon, coloring pens.
Suggested agendas: find an adult you can trust completely; make sure you never end up alone again after losing your family; explore and make your own fun because nobody gives you anything to do.
Choose the Kid when you want to explore a frontier situation from the perspective of someone adults dismiss. The career brings curiosity, quick movement, and a practical instinct for finding paths, hiding places, and dangers that others overlook. The rulebook's Kid spends time playing hide-and-seek in the ventilation system, which tells you exactly where this character will be when things go wrong.
Do not play the Kid as a reason to derail scenes or force other players into caretaking. Give them agency, a need they can express, and relationships that let the group decide how to protect one another without removing the character's choices.
Medic
Key attribute: Empathy. Key skills: Mobility, Observation, Medical Aid. Cash: D6 x 200 W-Y dollars.
Career talents:
- Field Medic: +2 dice to Medical Aid when giving first aid.
- Nurse: each day you tend a character recovering from a critical injury counts double, and each shift you can tend as many patients as your Medical Aid level.
- Surgeon: +2 dice to Medical Aid when treating a critical injury that requires surgery.
Gear (choose two): surgical kit, IRC Mk.50 Compression Suit, D6 doses of Naproleve, D6 doses of Neversleep, personal medkit, Samani E-Series watch.
Suggested agendas: protect your secret painkiller addiction and your stash; find out why the Company wants the classified medical reports you hold; keep your oath never to take a life.
Choose the Medic when you want the crew's injuries and medical discoveries to matter to a person instead of a resource track. The Medic brings urgency after violence, accidents, infection, and exposure, and the rulebook's version is a jaded Frontier professional whose job is keeping people alive until they reach a MedPod.
Its best pressure is triage: who needs help first, how much risk is acceptable, and when professional ethics collide with an employer's demands. A Medic with a firm boundary, like the no-killing oath, makes survival scenes sharper.
Officer
Key attribute: Empathy. Key skills: Ranged Combat, Command, Manipulation. Cash: D6 x 300 W-Y dollars.
Career talents:
- Field Commander: give orders in combat with Command as a quick action instead of a full action.
- Frontline Leader: +2 dice to Command when rallying a broken character.
- Pull Rank: use Command to order non-officer NPCs from your own organization. On a success they must obey, even into danger. Each use costs +1 stress level.
Gear (choose two): M4A3 service pistol, Rexim RXF-M5 EVA pistol, Samani E-Series watch, M314 motion tracker, IRC Mk.50 Compression Suit, Seegson P-DAT.
Suggested agendas: earn a promotion or award soon to live up to an officer family; avoid taking the blame for another mission failure after a past mistake; make sure nobody under your watch screws up, and that they understand why.
Choose the Officer when you want to take responsibility for direction, morale, and the consequences of a group decision. Note that Pull Rank works on NPCs, not PCs. The Officer does not need to command every other player character, and a player who treats rank as permission to overrule the table makes the role smaller.
Use authority to frame choices: state the danger, ask for expertise, make the call when time has run out, and own what follows. The career is most interesting when leadership has a cost.
Pilot
Key attribute: Agility. Key skills: Piloting, Ranged Combat, Comtech. Cash: D6 x 200 W-Y dollars.
Career talents:
- Full Throttle: +2 dice to Piloting rolls to accelerate or decelerate a spacecraft.
- Like the Back of Your Hand: +2 dice to all Piloting rolls for one specific ship or vehicle model. You can take it more than once, for different models.
- Reckless: take +1 stress level before a skill roll, before pushing; you can still push normally for another +1 stress level.
Gear (choose two): M4A3 service pistol, PR-PUT uplink terminal, hand radio, maintenance jack, Seegson system diagnostic device, IRC Mk.50 Compression Suit.
Suggested agendas: push the limit and take a risk; refuse to back down even if friends get hurt; do tasks alone whenever you can.
Choose the Pilot when you want vehicles, space travel, escape routes, and dangerous maneuvers to be part of your character's identity. The Pilot gives the crew a person who understands that getting somewhere is often the whole problem.
The pressure is the temptation to prove a risky move can work, and all three suggested agendas feed it. Give the Pilot a reason to slow down sometimes: passengers, a ship they care about, a previous disaster, or a promise to bring everyone home.
Roughneck
Key attribute: Strength. Key skills: Heavy Machinery, Stamina, Close Combat. Cash: D6 x 100 W-Y dollars.
Career talents:
- Resilient: whenever you take damage, roll Strength alone (no push, no action); each success removes one point of damage.
- Steady Hands: skip rolling one or two stress dice on any skill roll. Stress and panic effects still use your full stress level.
- True Grit: push a Strength-based skill roll twice, with +1 stress level per push.
Gear (choose two): cutting torch, Watsumi DV-303 bolt gun, D6 doses of Hydr8tion, maintenance jack, IRC Mk.50 Compression Suit, hi-beam flashlight.
Suggested agendas: step up for any risk going; never let your friends down after sacrificing your family for the job; protect your downtime, a beer, and some time alone.
Choose the Roughneck when you want to repair, carry, force, improvise, and endure while the environment fails around the crew. The Roughneck makes the setting's infrastructure feel real: air systems, machinery, cargo, doors, tools, and shifts all matter because someone has to keep them going.
This career carries natural tension around labor and loyalty. A Roughneck can be practical without being uncomplicated. Ask what the character has already sacrificed for work and what they will not sacrifice again.
Scientist
Key attribute: Wits. Key skills: Observation, Survival, Comtech. Cash: D6 x 300 W-Y dollars.
Career talents:
- Analysis: after examining an alien artifact or creature for at least a stretch, roll Observation and ask the Game Mother one listed question per success (such as whether it is alive, how old it is, or what problems it could cause). Answers are truthful but may be vague. Success lowers the stress of other PCs at Short range by one; failure raises it by one. One attempt per object.
- Inquisitive: push a Wits-based skill roll twice, with +1 stress level per push.
- Xenomorphology: when facing any extraterrestrial creature, roll Observation as a quick action to spot a potential weakness, if one exists. Failure costs +1 stress level, and you get one attempt per creature.
Gear (choose two): digital video camera, Seegson P-DAT, Seegson system diagnostic device, personal data transmitter, M314 motion tracker, personal medkit.
Suggested agendas: keep your findings secret after your last project was stolen; resist authority whenever you can; take on everything yourself because you struggle to delegate.
Choose the Scientist when you want discovery to be a source of risk rather than a safe answer. The Scientist investigates strange evidence, artifacts, creatures, systems, and phenomena, turning the unknown into questions the crew can act on. Analysis and Xenomorphology make that literal at the table, and both carry a stress cost when they go wrong.
Curiosity is powerful pressure in horror. A Scientist should have reasons to learn more, and also reasons to stop, warn the crew, or destroy information that cannot be handled safely.
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Build Crew Coverage Without Chasing Perfection
The nine careers spread attention across physical danger, movement, technology, observation, social pressure, medical care, leadership, labor, and research. A campaign needs a crew that understands where it is vulnerable more than it needs every category represented.
| Crew need | Careers that naturally engage it | Productive gap if nobody covers it |
|---|---|---|
| Immediate danger | Colonial Marine, Roughneck, Officer, Colonial Marshal | The crew must avoid, negotiate with, or escape threats rather than overpower them. |
| Investigation and interpretation | Colonial Marshal, Scientist, Company Agent | The group must act with uncertainty and decide whom to trust. |
| Medical consequences | Medic | Injury and recovery become a shared responsibility. |
| Movement and transport | Pilot | Travel, landings, and extraction need plans, help, or risk. |
| Equipment and systems | Roughneck, Pilot, Company Agent, Scientist | Broken technology becomes a problem everyone must address. |
| Social leverage and group direction | Officer, Colonial Marshal, Company Agent | The crew must build influence through relationships rather than status. |
A gap works when it creates choices, not paralysis. If nobody can perform a task, the Game Mother should still offer a way forward through time, danger, cost, assistance, or a hard bargain. A crew that lacks a specialist may need to bargain, prepare, take a risk, or ask for help.
Overlap Is a Story Tool
Two PCs with similar capabilities do not have to be duplicates. Let them disagree about why and how to use that capability, including the responsible way to use shared expertise.
| Pairing | Shared area | Different pressure |
|---|---|---|
| Colonial Marine and Officer | Crisis action | The Marine may focus on immediate survival; the Officer carries the decision for everyone. |
| Colonial Marshal and Company Agent | People, evidence, and influence | One seeks accountability; the other may seek advantage or institutional protection. |
| Medic and Scientist | Unknown biological or environmental danger | One focuses on care and safety; the other wants an explanation. |
| Pilot and Roughneck | Vehicles and failing machinery | One must get the craft moving; the other must make it hold together. |
| Kid and Colonial Marshal | Seeing what others miss | One moves outside formal authority; the other has to decide what to do with the truth. |
Build the distinction into each character's agenda, buddy or rival relationship, and personal history. A career label cannot do all that work alone.
Career Questions for Session Zero
Before finalizing a Campaign crew, and after everyone has a tentative career, discuss these questions together:
- What shared work, obligation, or destination keeps these PCs on the same crew, and why does each role belong on it?
- Which career pressures are welcome sources of disagreement?
- Can corporate duties, rank, law enforcement, medical, or research interests conflict with the group, and how far?
- Which crew gaps sound exciting, and which would make the campaign less fun?
- Where do two characters overlap, and how do their methods or obligations differ?
- Who is each PC's buddy or rival, and what relationship will keep the characters talking after a hard decision?
- What kinds of secrets, disagreement, or direct PC conflict are in scope?
- What would make each character stay after the first serious disaster?
Answering these does more for crew balance than covering every possible skill or piece of gear. It turns every career into a person with something at stake. The personal agenda guide explains how Evolved Edition handles agendas, safety tools, and PvP expectations.
Where To Go From Here
Take your career choice into the ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition Character Creation hub to finish attributes, skills, and relationships. Return to the ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition root guide for the current library map.
Source Scope
This guide was checked against the ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition Core Rulebook's nine core careers: their key attributes, key skills, career talents, gear options, starting cash, and suggested personal agendas. Full career write-ups, gear costs, and talent rules text stay in the book. Return to the ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition root guide for the complete library map.
