Burning nostalgic for Alternity

[dm4hire]

I’ve been reading through various retro clones lately and stumbled onto the Fastplay rules for Alternity. One of the few products I wish I hadn’t sold off because I didn’t have anyone to play with. It was a wonderful short lived system that had WotC not gotten the Star Wars license I think would still be around today in print. I’m thinking of picking up some used copies of the PHB and GM book off of Amazon someday. Anyway, I’m wondering has if anyone seen a clone of Alternity floating around the web?

 

[Phaezen]

Would not be too surprised to see a 4e version of Alternity in the next year or two, similar to the Gama World release.

 

[Vicente]

Alternity is probably my preferred game. We played a short one-shot in my group some weeks ago and it seems it's going to scalate into a campaign as we all love the system and the setting (Star*Drive).

 

[FreeXenon]

Alternity Rocked.
The rules were a little complex, but it was a lot of fun! =)

 

[bouncyhead]

Big fan of Alternity and Star*Drive. Ran a great zero to hero campaign back in the day. System was fiddly though. I don't know of a clone. Birthplace of the skill challenge!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I remember loveing it... but I need to be sure, it was the 1d+1d game right?


like 1D20+1d6 for a skill, or 1d20-1d4 for an attack...

and 'complex skills' witch look alot like older skill challanges right...

 

[Henry]

I remember loveing it... but I need to be sure, it was the 1d+1d game right?


like 1D20+1d6 for a skill, or 1d20-1d4 for an attack...

and 'complex skills' witch look alot like older skill challanges right...

Core rule was: roll a 1d20, the lower the better. a bonus would SUBTRACT a second die roll, but a penalty would ADD a die roll. so a really tricked-out skill might roll a 1d20 - 1d12.

The resolution mechanic was a little counterintuitive, but I really loved the way damage, armor, and wounds worked in that system. You could get a mortal wound and keep fighting for a short while, knowing that you were bleeding out, and were likely gonna collapse in a few rounds if you didn't get to help quickly -- or you could batter someone with good body armor into unconsciousness if you sprayed em with enough firepower, even if it couldn't penetrate. It beat the heck out of d20 "fine, fine, fine, DYING" wounds systems, and wasn't that hard to keep up with.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Core rule was: roll a 1d20, the lower the better. a bonus would SUBTRACT a second die roll, but a penalty would ADD a die roll. so a really tricked-out skill might roll a 1d20 - 1d12.

The resolution mechanic was a little counterintuitive, but I really loved the way damage, armor, and wounds worked in that system. You could get a mortal wound and keep fighting for a short while, knowing that you were bleeding out, and were likely gonna collapse in a few rounds if you didn't get to help quickly -- or you could batter someone with good body armor into unconsciousness if you sprayed em with enough firepower, even if it couldn't penetrate. It beat the heck out of d20 "fine, fine, fine, DYING" wounds systems, and wasn't that hard to keep up with.

wow it is comeing back to me... I remember homebrewing a conversion to 2e back in the day and useing the rules to run fromt he tales of the comet box set up into a space game...

 

[Stormonu]

We ran an Alternity game not so long ago (after having the rulebooks sit on the shelf since I tried a Matrix game with Alternity rules so many years ago). I really like the system save for how XP is spent - I'd have rathered a simpler system for spending XP.

Did WotC pull the Alternity PDFs when they pulled the D&D PDFs?

In my mind, the Cortex rules (Serenity, Battlestar Galactica) is an outgrowth of this system - you simply remove the d20 from the d20 + dX roll. The two systems are close enough I used the Cortex rules with the Alternity Gamma World rules with minimal fuss.

 

[Abraxas]

I haven't seen a clone of Alternity.

It's one of the few game systems I purchased without having anyone up for playing it - I think i have everything. The reason I bought it was because of a story hour here.

I now have to go look for the story hour and reread it.