[OT] Dark*Matter Recommendations

[haiiro]

After seeing Dark*Matter recommended so often on these boards, I decided to pick up a copy ($12 used and looks brand new ) -- thus far, I'm enjoying it. (To all those who unknowingly led me to buy it -- thank you.)

I'm curious to know what else is out there for this game, and what those who like it would suggest picking up next. I'll probably never wind up running it as-is -- I'm much more likely to borrow ideas from it for another game (Delta Green-esque CoC, GURPS Illuminati or Unknown Armies, for instance).

Here's what I already know about:

Alternity PHB
Alternity GMG
Arms & Equipment Guide
The Final Church
The Killing Jar
Xenoforms
Mindwalking: A Guide to Psionics

...unfortunately, my FLGS has none of the above -- otherwise I'd just skim them all. On the strength of Cordell's 3e material, I'm highly interested in The Killing Jar; I'll more than likely grab the PHB and GMG from eBay -- I like the idea of having all of the relevant rules. A&EG sounds good because I'm a sucker for equipment.

Any recommendations?

 

[Davelozzi]

The Killing Jar is a cool adventure, I heartily recommend it. Xenoforms and Arms & Equipment Guide are both good reference materials, although not as fun to read, in my opinion. I haven't seen The Final Church. I believe that it's an electronic only release, so no surprise that you haven't seen it at the store.

The two main Alternity books are excellent, and fairly essential if you're planning on using the system for your Dark*Matter campaign, although as many others have pointed out, it would be fairly easy to use the setting material with d20 or any other system.

I haven't seen Mindwalking, so I can't really comment too much there, except to say that I question whether or not it would be as essential for Dark*Matter as it would be for a more fantastic sci-fi setting like Star*Drive.

Also, regarding the Arms & Equipment Guide, if you order one online be sure that you're getting the right one, as there were two published for Alternity (one for Dark*Matter and one for Star*Drive).

I hope that helps. Enjoy.

 

[haiiro]

Thanks for the info, Davelozzi.

Any other takers?

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

I highly recommend just about everything that has the Dark*Matter label on it--especially The Killing Jar and Xenoforms. Arms & Equipment is decent, but not essential.

If you plan on using the Alternity ruleset, then obviously the PH and GMG are vital as well. I'd avoid StarDrive stuff, since it's pretty much setting specific.

The Final Church is an online only thing, if i remember correctly...never really checked it out. Mindwalkers, I haven't actually seen, but I thought that it was mainly for StarDrive... I dunno.

Time to hijack the thread... just a little... I'd love to see some suggestions for conversion to d20 though...

 

[Cazador]

The Arms & Equipment Guide it's a must buy and gives you a lot of options, just be careful not to give the weapons and ammunitions easily to your players.

The adventure it's a good one and the Xenoforms book will help you a lot with adventures ideas if you want to use "monsters" instead of organizations as the bad guys.

The Final Church talk about that organization and expand the info from the main book, it's good but you'll use it if you plan adventures around the Final Church, anyway the price it's low and there's no harm on having that one.

The psionics guide it's a matter of personal taste, same with the FX book. You can use both in D*M but if you don't like the idea of psionics or the "magic" in game you can play without them.

Cazador

 

[haiiro]

Well, Killing Jar and Xenoforms are certainly starting to sound like must-haves. I was a bit wary of Xenoforms given that it's by J.D. Wiker (who is responsible for the offensively bad Diablo II: Diablerie book for D&D), but I'm glad that doesn't seem to be a problem.

 

[EarthsShadow]

Xenoforms is a cool book. I like some of the creatures in it.

Get Mindwalkers if you can. It has great rules for psionics and is a fun read, and it is a great option if you don't like how magic is done in the DM book.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

The entire run of Alternity products (with the sole exception of Gamma World) is available in PDF form on RPGnow.com.

I'm likely to buy most of the supplements for use in my d20 games-- a good stopgap for until they are re-released properly for d20 Modern, an event which I am hoping for with the intensity of a thousand dying stars.

 

[Staffan]

There's also Beyond Science: A guide to FX. Like Mindwalking, it's not a specifically Dark Matter-based product, but I imagine it would be useful in a Dark Matter game. I don't have it myself, but I think the FX skills included in the Dark Matter book are based on Beyond Science.

 

[haiiro]

Korimyr: I'm not much into PDF products, so I'll probably wind up looking for D*M books offline. Thank you for the suggestion, though.

Staffan: I wasn't sure how much FX played into D*M, but as I've looked over more of the book it seems like it could potentially be a very neat inclusion. Thank you.