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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 8800749" data-attributes="member: 907">Possibly, but why?Remember that the old Alternity game including StarDrive and Dark Matter is still owned by Wizards of the Coast. What Sasquatch did was essentially what nuTSR are trying to do with Star Frontiers, except that they're actually competent game designers and (to my knowledge) not raging bigots. They wrote a new game that incorporated some elements of the old (because you can't copyright game mechanics) but not the setting elements (because you certainly can copyright Sesheyans), and used the name Alternity for it (because Wizards weren't using it anymore, and unlike Star Frontiers I don't think they've been selling PDFs of it).And that was enough to get them 700 backers and $62k on Kickstarter. That's not exactly a resounding success. It's not nothing, but it's only a little more than EN Publishing got for ACE! – and not to knock ACE!, but Alternity strikes me as a significantly more ambitious product – ambitious enough that $62k clearly wasn't enough to fulfill their promised stretch goals.The problem with Alternity is that it wants to be a setting-neutral science fiction game, much like D&D has sort of been a setting-neutral fantasy game. The issue with that is that it doesn't work. A fantasy game can get away with only the faintest hint of a setting, because there are so many built-in assumptions based on a modern-day distorted view of medieval Europe + Tolkien. I mean, most games don't settle there, but it's enough of a core standard that you can say "It's like regular fantasy, but <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurElvesAreDifferent" target="_blank">Our Elves Are Different</a>." But there's no similar standard for science fiction. Some people hear "sci-fi" and think Star Wars. Others think Star Trek. Or Foundation. Or Dune. Or Shadowrun (which brings us back to elves). Or John Carter of Mars.So you need to make Choices when designing the game. Does it have space travel or is it planetbound? If it does, how easy is it? Is there FTL, and if so how does it work? What alien species are there? What sort of weaponry exists? Are there psychic powers or other magic, and if so how do they work? And by the time you've answered all those questions, you've basically built a setting already, minus the "geography" (astrography?) bits, which means your game isn't as "setting-neutral" as you wanted. At that point you might as well fill in those parts too and add some actual color to your game. Or you could go full generic and make what is essentially a game construction kit rather than an actual game, one where all those calls are up to the GM, which of course means a lot more work on their part (see: GURPS).Anyhow, it all boils down to: why track down and buy the rights to a game that was a knock-off of another game from 20 years ago, and which wasn't particularly successful in either iteration, when you could make your own game instead and get it the way you want it instead of risk cheesing off and getting badwill from those few people who still remember the other game?</blockquote>

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