The Alternity Player’s Handbook and Gamemaster Guide together form a combined 512 page comprehensive ruleset for near future and sci-fi adventure. A new version of the game is slated for 2018 and made EN World’s most anticipated RPG for 2018 poll. This review explores the original edition. Many of the authors of the first edition are working on the new version.
Alternity uses a variety of dice alongside a roll under d20 check. An extra die could add or subtract to this roll. Four outcomes are possible: failure or Marginal success, Ordinary success, Good success, or an Amazing success. Stat blocks included all needed levels to make reading results easier. The dice system is not revolutionary although replacing modifiers with an additional die was new to me in the late 90s. What really Alternity thrived on though was choices, options, and attention to detail.
Players choose a species (if aliens are an option), a career (which provides suggested skills), and one of four professions: combat specs, diplomats, free agents, or tech ops. Each profession has two or three special abilities. In addition to ability scores and skills, each character may also choose perks and flaws. Optional templates took some of the work out of building characters.
The alien species included standards like the reptilian t’sa and Wookie like weren. The sesheyan was a batlike alien that thrived in darkness. I like all the included aliens and felt they interacted in interesting both with human characters and with each other.
The game includes gear, computers, vehicles, starships, and alien artifacts (the last two covered in the Gamemaster Guide along with starship construction rules). For characters, the game offers optional mutations, psionics, and cybertech.
Ship systems included various stations with skill needed to operate it and what the role was. Nine stations included command, pilot, engineering, sensors, and weapons. A sample starship was a trader-class complete with a detailed ship schematic.
GMs are provided with a wide range of tools as well. An included adventure used fast-play rules to introduce the rules. NPC templates and around thirty creatures aid in world building. Campaign design advice includes progress levels to help set up technology. For starfaring games there are star sector, star systems, and planet building rules. A detailed sample star system and planet map are included as usable examples. Adventure design includes adventure hook ideas. There are even AD&D conversion rules.
Star*Drive was the first campaign setting released for Alternity and the species and starships in the rules existed in that setting. It is an easy jump from learning the rules to running a starfaring sci-fi Star*Drive game.
Dragon magazine also provided support for Alternity. The aliens from Star Frontiers were updated to the new rules. Having a dralisite serving alongside a sesheyan on a starfaring ship enhanced my enjoyment of all the species even further.
Alternity expanded into three campaign settings, several setting neutral rulebooks, and novels. Star*Drive had the greatest amount of support. Dark Matter covered modern conspiracies (like the X-Files on steroids). Gamma World was reborn using the rules but had no books beyond the main rulebook.
The new Alternity is likely to cover a campaign centered on humans in the solar system to start. Many of the rules have been updated or changed to make a more modern system. But the details, options, and choices are likely to be baked in again. Campaign and adventure support are already planned.
Alternity is a great game, whether you try the classic version or the free playtest of the new rules. Traveling through space to alien worlds, dealing with inhuman monsters close to home, or living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland are all possibilities.
contributed by Charles Dunwoody
Alternity uses a variety of dice alongside a roll under d20 check. An extra die could add or subtract to this roll. Four outcomes are possible: failure or Marginal success, Ordinary success, Good success, or an Amazing success. Stat blocks included all needed levels to make reading results easier. The dice system is not revolutionary although replacing modifiers with an additional die was new to me in the late 90s. What really Alternity thrived on though was choices, options, and attention to detail.
Players choose a species (if aliens are an option), a career (which provides suggested skills), and one of four professions: combat specs, diplomats, free agents, or tech ops. Each profession has two or three special abilities. In addition to ability scores and skills, each character may also choose perks and flaws. Optional templates took some of the work out of building characters.
The alien species included standards like the reptilian t’sa and Wookie like weren. The sesheyan was a batlike alien that thrived in darkness. I like all the included aliens and felt they interacted in interesting both with human characters and with each other.
The game includes gear, computers, vehicles, starships, and alien artifacts (the last two covered in the Gamemaster Guide along with starship construction rules). For characters, the game offers optional mutations, psionics, and cybertech.
Ship systems included various stations with skill needed to operate it and what the role was. Nine stations included command, pilot, engineering, sensors, and weapons. A sample starship was a trader-class complete with a detailed ship schematic.
GMs are provided with a wide range of tools as well. An included adventure used fast-play rules to introduce the rules. NPC templates and around thirty creatures aid in world building. Campaign design advice includes progress levels to help set up technology. For starfaring games there are star sector, star systems, and planet building rules. A detailed sample star system and planet map are included as usable examples. Adventure design includes adventure hook ideas. There are even AD&D conversion rules.
Star*Drive was the first campaign setting released for Alternity and the species and starships in the rules existed in that setting. It is an easy jump from learning the rules to running a starfaring sci-fi Star*Drive game.
Dragon magazine also provided support for Alternity. The aliens from Star Frontiers were updated to the new rules. Having a dralisite serving alongside a sesheyan on a starfaring ship enhanced my enjoyment of all the species even further.
Alternity expanded into three campaign settings, several setting neutral rulebooks, and novels. Star*Drive had the greatest amount of support. Dark Matter covered modern conspiracies (like the X-Files on steroids). Gamma World was reborn using the rules but had no books beyond the main rulebook.
The new Alternity is likely to cover a campaign centered on humans in the solar system to start. Many of the rules have been updated or changed to make a more modern system. But the details, options, and choices are likely to be baked in again. Campaign and adventure support are already planned.
Alternity is a great game, whether you try the classic version or the free playtest of the new rules. Traveling through space to alien worlds, dealing with inhuman monsters close to home, or living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland are all possibilities.
contributed by Charles Dunwoody
My favorite, though, was how seemingly well the wounds system worked in that game. I may have rose-colored lenses, but I remember it modeled minor and grievous injuries quite well in the same system, thanks to multiple wound tracks and a limited hit point pool.
