Tekopo posted:

The issue with not having this rule present in the game is that if it is not present, you end up splitting the party a lot earlier, and also have to rely on the PvP rules which are difficult to get right for a system which is as crunchy and rocket-taggy as Alien RPG. I have heard horror stories of people leaning into their antagonistic agenda too much as part of their play (for example, scientist characters just trying to get people killed from the get go, and the game just turns out to be a glorified PvP game instead), so the reason for the rule is to make the player playing that specific character really think hard about when they are going to betray the party, and only do it at a saliant point in the story when it would have the most impact.

So the reason for the rule is both to add dramatic impact to the decision, and not make the decision an easy one, as well as encouraging the party to stick together, to prevent situations where you have to juggle two separate parties with conflicting interests, and to prevent people just being killed out of the blue too early in the story. I would strongly suggest you keep to the rule, because all the times where I've heard people not sticking to it have been horrible. The game is not built for PvP, it is a PvE party-based game and the game rapidly deteriorates (like most RPGs, to be honest) if you allow PvP to occur.

You just have to treat characters in Alien as extremely expandable, especially in cinematic play, so going from one character to another should be encouraged and the GM should tell their players not to worry too much about losing their character, either by death or by going antagonistic.