RPG Archive: Star*Drive for D&D and Traveller

Star*Drive is a science fiction setting from the end of the 90s that TSR put out at the end of its life. Despite the doom approaching TSR, the end of the 90s was filled with new ideas and RPG options in books and in Dragon Magazine. So much of this content is still usable whether you play Dungeons & Dragons, a sci-fi RPG like Traveller, or are looking for a retro sci-fi RPG to try like Alternity. And yes, the cover art for the Alternity Gamemaster Guide connects to the cover art of the Alternity Player’s Handbook!

Planet Alien Space - Free photo on Pixabay​

Alternity and Star*Drive​

Alternity is a set of rules using the Star*Drive setting as a ready example but also with other settings available. Star*Drive is a setting using the Alternity rules with some d20 rules also available in D20 Future and in Dragon Magazine using Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2E.

Star*Drive had a lot of support for PCs venturing out into frontier space in FTL ships to explore alien worlds, combat rogue killer warships, and try to earn money to keep flying. With so much content, this article will concentrate on a brief overview of the setting, two adventures also usable with Traveller, and AD&D and d20 conversions. Used copies of all these RPGs and magazines are easy to find and most are quite affordable with many at or under $30 each.

The main book covers starfaring Earth nations and corporations along with several alien species also found in the Alternity Player’s Handbook. Dragon Magazine (issues #250, #256, #261, and #263) would provide deeper dives into these aliens. Star*Drive - Alien Compendium I provides plenty of new aliens for PCs to interact with or play as a character.

Adventures Usable for Traveller, Mothership, Alternity and Other Sci-fi RPGs​

Star*Drive - The Lighthouse is a moving space station that visits system after system on diplomatic and trade missions. It houses a dark secret (no spoilers) but would be perfect for use with Mothership. If the engines are converted, The Lighthouse would work for Traveller or Spelljammer: Adventures in Space (AD&D 2E) although its secret would need to be altered. PCs could be citizens of the Rock of Bral and travel into Wildspace aboard The Lighthouse. Or play with the original Alternity rules and visit a new star system every game night.

Star*Drive - The Last Warhulk is sprawling space crawl of an adventure. It is epic in size and scope and not well known. I really enjoyed running this one for Star*Drive and would consider it well worth the effort to convert to another RPG.

There are also the Star Frontiers aliens. Converted in Annual #3 Dragon Magazine, one alien race, the dralasites (blob beings able to create a variable number of limbs), are one of my favorite PC alien options and well worth porting over to D&D or Traveller.

AD&D and D20 Future Conversions​

The aliens are converted to AD&D 2E in Dragon Magazine: #251 presents sesheyans (easily the most alien and with their nocturnal nature they would be juxtaposed nicely on The Lighthouse), #253 has the psionic fraal, and #257 covers the lightning fast reptilian t’sa. #244 also has a simple one page Alternity to AD&D idea. The reverse is also possible, with the Alternity Gamemaster Guide having rules to convert AD&D PCs to Alternity and Dragon Magazine #262 has information on converting AD&D monsters to Alternity.

D20 Future also has a short conversion of a small portion of Star*Drive that meshes better with D&D 3.5.

Star*Drive Forward​

Star*Drive has so much to offer: PC aliens, AD&D PC aliens, amazing adventures, awesome aliens, and many ideas that can transported to other RPGs or used with the original Alternity. And the prices for most of these items are less than current RPG prices so there isn’t much to lose to check out the various options.

Over twenty-five years later and I still recommend Star*Drive and Alternity. And Spelljammer: Adventures in Space (AD&D 2E) and the Rock of Bral of course!

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[aramis erak]

Lol, I'm the same. The Star*Drive setting was super cool. Very different from Star Wars, Star Trek, and anything else popular at the time.

Felt very much like a port of Traveller's tropes to Alternity to me. Including the fixed time with any distance not to exceed the drive's rating.

Not a bad port, either.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

Sorry I was referring to the dark conspiracy using traveler second edition rules information or news blurb.
I wasn't very clear on that my bad

Dark Conspiracy using Mongoose Traveller rules:

Now I'm excited for a Dark Conspiracy 2d6 version.

 

[Staffan]

Felt very much like a port of Traveller's tropes to Alternity to me. Including the fixed time with any distance not to exceed the drive's rating.

Not a bad port, either.

The two main things about StarDrive that felt Travellery to me were the fixed travel time/different travel distance thing and having a fairly large amount of space devoted to prices of various goods in different systems as well as the costs of ship upkeep, indicating that "interstellar free trader" was an expected mode of play.

I have a vague recollection of a mismatch however, with one unit of shipbuilding cargo getting you 24 m3 of space while one unit of trade cargo was 10 m3 (or something like that), and with that making me somewhat annoyed.

In retrospect, I think StarDrive tried to be too many things at once. It was definitely designed as having different systems catering to different campaign styles – military over here, exploring ancient ruins over there, former prison planet that-a-way, and so on. I can see why they made that choice – they wanted one setting that could do anything. But the problem is that they ran afoul of the Ron Swanson rule: never half-ass two things. I never felt that the material aimed at any one campaign style was sufficient without doing a lot of heavy lifting myself. It's possible that they had grand plans that would develop each system in more detail, but that never came to fruition.

 

[Staffan]

This is a good example of how the sci-fi gets old very poorly. The new generations miss technology that is normal today but there wasn't decades ago, for example the tablets and the mobiles.

Today after buying my "Eclipse Phase" I can't imagine me in a sci-fi TTRPG without mind-upload and digital inmortality, and "surrogates" (remote-control androids). And some players would want to add the gadgets from their favorite videogame, for example exo-suits.

Mind uploads and similar tech are pretty easy to ignore for me at least. They seem like a techbro hope of immortality that will probably never come to fruition. But drones... yeah, that's definitely a thing that should be around in more sci-fi.

 

[Duo Maxwell]

I wanted to like Alternity, I tried so hard.

Oh good, I thought I was the only one who really struggled to enjoy this game. And I really really wanted to like this

 

[MGibster]

I remember seeing these products at my local game store in the late 90s but I don't remember even I even glanced within their pages. At the time, I thought Alternity, Star Drive, and Dark Matter were completely separate games rather than part of the same product line. I have heard from some people who remember the game fondly.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Dark*Matter was "monster of the week" in the current age instead of "future among the stars". This meant earthling firearms facing alien with ray guns. Other point is today lots of players would want to play Dark*Matter with no-humans because the great influence of White Wolf's World of Darkness.

My suggestion for an update of Dark Matter is to create a total fictional world style New Capena (Magic the Gathering) because it would be an IP protected by copyright and to avoid possible controversies linked with the real life (for example telling the British royal house are a bloodline of reptilian aliens). If some players drink as source of inspiration some conspirancy theories from the real life we may face serious troubles.

* Have you imagined a Spelljammer wildspace cluster with the species and factions of Star*Drive? Replacing high-tech with magitek. Aliens from Star Frontiers also would be wellcome.

* My idea for transhumans is the forks working like monster pets or nPC allies. They would be weaker than the original PCs but they could know more about other fields, like hiring servarts. Or the forks have to start from zero if they wanted to use paranormal powers (psionic or magic). Other risk is players with a wicked imagination using the crunch to create stories style "Black Mirror" serie. For example a convict in prison is innocent, their memories being a ganster were uploaded by the true criminals to trick the justice.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

I ran a lot of Star*Drive. I ignored military campaigns and power armor and the klicks. I ran it like Han Solo space opera and although I didn't know it at the time like Firefly. We never went back to Earth and just stayed in the Verge. The PCs were always those who didn't fit in in normal society.

Basically, the Verge can be run like the Old West. Lawless in many places and you and yours have to look after yourselves and try to keep flying.

I never had a problem with the three ranges of damage, and I actually liked the initiative system. The system worked well for me.

The advantage of picking up and playing Star*Drive today is you can run it just like Firefly. Ignore mutations, power armor, and all the rest. Just have the players create flawed PCs who have to adventure to eat and keep flying. Concentrate on human stories in the vastness of space. You even have a villainous corporation in VoidCorp who could be the main antagonists. I still remember that PCs who had been in VoidCorp advance slightly faster in XP, but VoidCorp is always going to want them back.

And the aliens in the Alien Compendium and Alien Compendium II were amazing. Full color, unique to the setting, and full of detail. It is hard to believe that D&D 3E other than the main books were mostly black and white only a year after the Alternity line ended. Star*Drive was special for the time and the art and maps still hold up.

 

[The Soloist]

Alternity (1997) came out at the wrong time for me. I was heavily invested in Magic the Gathering, and even though I liked the book's looks, I did not have the funds to start a new RPG. We played AD&D2e and Star Wars WEG until 3e came out. By then I was done with MtG.

 

[Reynard]

I ran a lot of Star*Drive. I ignored military campaigns and power armor and the klicks. I ran it like Han Solo space opera and although I didn't know it at the time like Firefly. We never went back to Earth and just stayed in the Verge. The PCs were always those who didn't fit in in normal society.

Basically, the Verge can be run like the Old West. Lawless in many places and you and yours have to look after yourselves and try to keep flying.

I never had a problem with the three ranges of damage, and I actually liked the initiative system. The system worked well for me.

The advantage of picking up and playing Star*Drive today is you can run it just like Firefly. Ignore mutations, power armor, and all the rest. Just have the players create flawed PCs who have to adventure to eat and keep flying. Concentrate on human stories in the vastness of space. You even have a villainous corporation in VoidCorp who could be the main antagonists. I still remember that PCs who had been in VoidCorp advance slightly faster in XP, but VoidCorp is always going to want them back.

And the aliens in the Alien Compendium and Alien Compendium II were amazing. Full color, unique to the setting, and full of detail. It is hard to believe that D&D 3E other than the main books were mostly black and white only a year after the Alternity line ended. Star*Drive was special for the time and the art and maps still hold up.

Star*Drive managed to build a universe where it made sense that you could run pretty much any subgenre of sci-fi, from "Alien" style horror to "Aliens" style military sci-fi to "Aliens: Resurrection" style cyber-bio-horror-punk.

I kid, but the strength of the setting and the Alternity rules was its versatility. They really nailed that part of the design.

I do wish they would have gone all in on Star*Drive for d20 future, though, rather than just sprinkled buts of the setting throughout the books.