D&D 5E Why not Alternity? (Or, will or how might WotC do SF?)

[Azzy]

I do not want a space-fantasy cross over with D&D à la Starfinder.

I want a real science-fiction game. Ideally that uses d100% like Star Frontiers.

I don't want another Starfinder, either.

However, I've never been a fan of d100 systems.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In the original Modern UA, it seemed like they were going to go this route. You could just be a wizard, cleric, warlock, fighter, etc.

I wish we could have seen more of where they wanted to take it.

You could have gone there as-was if you were willing to set up some combination of Talent and Feat choices as trade-offs to give early access to magic. That might have lead to complaints that magic tied up a lot of your character resources, but I'm long out of patience for people who want to play spellcasters, have D&D levels of magic, and want a cookie too.

 

[Mind of tempest]

People have been doing it successfully for 20 years now, and there are at least two solid 5E implementations available right now. If WotC chose to do it, it would not be difficult for them and would probably be successful. Moreover, given we know they are making a sci-fi CRPG, I think it is very likely that they will bring out a tabletop version/tie-in simultaneously.

from what I gathered people who wanted that moved on to new systems but now that is not really happening so it might be the perfect storm we have waited for.

It certainly can involve social interaction, or violence, but most characteristically, interaction with the world itself. Surviving alone in the desert of Arrakis is not social. It's all about learning how the alien environment works.

so we get decent exploration pillar stuff as well does not sound bad.

You'd think so. And yet, here we are, nearly a half-century into D&D's dominance, and I think it's still so popular not despite the relative lack of mechanics for doing anything outside of combat, but because of that.

Not trying to get us into the pointless old debates about D&D's bugs, features, and bug-features, though. I'm just stubbornly trying to circle back to an earlier point, that there are tons and tons of games with very cool mechanics for social interactions and other non-combat stuff that might come into play in SF and any genre that isn't D&D (which is its own genre, related to but separate from high fantasy, in my opinion). Those systems don't require you to invent and graft on rules for not killing things. Some have even thought through all kinds of apparently thorny issues, like how to reconcile high-tech weapons with overall challenge levels, or this odd business that keeps coming up in this thread--the problem of ship-scale weapons vs. kaiju enemies, a gripe that's so firmly planted in D&D-centric FIGHT THE MONSTERS WITH WEAPONS THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO DO IN RPGS play-style I feel like I'm in an entirely different hobby. Those other games are just sitting there, waiting to be played.

people like conflict and there is something nice to fighting but as they need more content to keep the golden goose going they will look to stuff to fulfil it.

Enough planetary romance involves sword fights in alien environments that this rings a bit false, to me.

Also, you gotta keep in mind that for a lot of people, social interaction should only ever have a resolution mechanic and ways to tell who is good at what aspects of socialization, and pretty much nothing else.

D&D 5e isn’t so sustainingly popular because players don’t care about social interaction. I’ve seen very very few groups of new players who don’t care or just want to get past it to the “good stuff”, or whatever. 5e hits the right balance, for many people, of getting detailed where details will promote fun, and getting out of the way everywhere else.

So, the fact that a genre has a lot of social interaction is only a mark against 5e being able to do it if that is basically all it has going on, like Jane Austen novels. D&D would do Pride and Prejudice and Zombies just fine, though.

I find the present social aspect a bad system as without high cha you might as well not bother at all and not all classes can let you have that without making yourself useless so a better system but not super complex would help.

Except for the fact that they elide over most of his actual learning. They hand Paul a stilsuit, play him a a round of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way", teach him how to ride worms, and that's done. The rest is about becoming a messiah, which he has to work out on his own.

The point I am making is that planetary romance, as a genre, is not specifically combat-action focused. Some early examples, like the Barsoom books, might be, but the genre as a whole is a lot more than that, so that D&D, with its pittance of non-combat rules, isn't a great fit for the genre overall.

that is a difference between medium and goal, a book is not an rpg they have different goals and ways thus give that I do not wish to adapt one particular setting it should not be too much of a problem.

I do not want a space-fantasy cross over with D&D à la Starfinder.

I want a real science-fiction game. Ideally that uses d100% like Star Frontiers.

may I ask why?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I find the present social aspect a bad system as without high cha you might as well not bother at all and not all classes can let you have that without making yourself useless so a better system but not super complex would help.

I get that, for sure. Being more relaxed about when proficiency apples solves that, for me.

In my game, you Wizard can use Arcana to convince a group of mages that a threat is real, and the Barbarian can use Strength for Intimidate.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I get that, for sure. Being more relaxed about when proficiency apples solves that, for me.

In my game, you Wizard can use Arcana to convince a group of mages that a threat is real, and the Barbarian can use Strength for Intimidate.

yeah, but I play monk so I am out of luck.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

yeah, but I play monk so I am out of luck.

Why? Wisdom is a good social stat. In my game, or any table allowing skills with different ability scores, you’d be able to use Wisdom to persuade.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Why? Wisdom is a good social stat. In my game, or any table allowing skills with different ability scores, you’d be able to use Wisdom to persuade.

two reasons apparently when was wisdom more convincing than charm? and that depends on the dm really.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

two reasons apparently when was wisdom more convincing than charm? and that depends on the dm really.

That’s D&D. Each group is playing a different game.

But letting a PC use different ability scores with a different skill is an optional rule in the core books, so it’s not like I’m just making up homebrew here.

As for wisdom and charm...most of the time, IRL. Understanding your audience, ie emotional and social intelligence which is wisdom in D&D, is vastly more important than charm to convincing people of things IRL.

Non-charming people are persuasive all the time, especially on an individual basis.

Thus, in my game, you can use Insight, or Wisdom (Persuasion), to persuade people.

 

[Davies]

Er, Star Frontiers is as the softest, fantasy-est end of science fiction. It's much closer to Star Wars than 2001 a Space Odyssey. I think a lot of SF fans would balk at the idea that Star Frontiers was "real science fiction".

Eh ... there's no artificial gravity in the Frontier beyond what acceleration provides, nor any psychic powers (until the very end of the game line) so ... and given that TSR's adaptation of the latter was done in that system, that's a (possibly intentionally) funny thing to say. I'd agree that it's not ultrahard, but it's not as fantasist as you're saying.

 

[Don Durito]

Not being a particularly good system for the settings created for it hasn't exactly stopped D&D in the past.

So I don't see why it would be an issue.