D&D 5E Why not Alternity? (Or, will or how might WotC do SF?)
- Thread starter Mercurius
- Start date
Why not? Gamma World (six(?) editions), Buck Rodgers, Star Frontiers, Alternity, Star Wars (two editions), d20 Modern/Future. That's why not.
I get why it sounds cool on paper. But TSR/WotC has been down this road before and their track record isn't great. There have been some decent games but they don't get supported for very long.
I get why it sounds cool on paper. But TSR/WotC has been down this road before and their track record isn't great. There have been some decent games but they don't get supported for very long.
Does sci-fi even have relevance in pop culture anymore? I can see supers, horror, and of course fantasy, but are there any big sci-fi franchises out these days?
Even if the genre were popular enough, I think D&D is synonymous with fantasy. For WotC to try to make a sci-fi version to be comparable to 5e D&D is like the time IHOP tried to focus on selling hamburgers.
Even if the genre were popular enough, I think D&D is synonymous with fantasy. For WotC to try to make a sci-fi version to be comparable to 5e D&D is like the time IHOP tried to focus on selling hamburgers.
Star Wars? The Expanse? Altered Carbon? Westworld? IDK, I could go on... I don't see a lack of relevance there. YMMV I guess.
Starfinder is probably the model that works the most easily, but I'd prefer something other than D&D rules with ray guns.
Grendel_Khan
Hero
I think as soon as you step out of TTRPGs, sci-fi arguably has way more pop cultural relevance than fantasy. How many fantasy TV shows are on right now? And until the D&D movie happens how many new fantasy movies are getting released (I wouldn't count The Green Knight, since that's way more arthouse horror, it seems)? Meanwhile on the sci-fi side there's a slew of Star Trek and Star Wars stuff, there's the Expanse, there's all the sci-fi elements in MCU and even DC movies and shows, plus under-the-radar stuff like Raised by Wolves and upcoming movies like Dune, Matrix 4 and a million Avatars. We might be seeing hype about upcoming GoT, LotR shows, but those are all gambles and few and far between, while sci-fi is trucking right along.
If anything the fact that D&D's version of fantasy is so dominant in TTRPGs is a little inexplicable. I get the appeal, but it doesn't really reflect the wider culture. It basically defies it.
LuisCarlos17f
Legend
James Cameron's Avatar is a good example of primitive cultures facing enemies with high-tech.
In that movie of Godzilla in New York the kaiju could be killed when the helicopters attacked in the right place and moment. King Kong could be killed with 1930's airplanes. Today a real remote-control drone can attack with explosive rockets. Some survival videogames show us a big guy can be killed easier if the PC has got enough weapons and ammo.
In that movie of Godzilla in New York the kaiju could be killed when the helicopters attacked in the right place and moment. King Kong could be killed with 1930's airplanes. Today a real remote-control drone can attack with explosive rockets. Some survival videogames show us a big guy can be killed easier if the PC has got enough weapons and ammo.
Urriak Uruk
Gaming is fun, and fun is for everyone
Sci-Fi not having enough relevance in pop culture? As Fenris mentioned a few examples, I'll take on Guardians of the Galaxy, the Manadalorian, and the upcoming Dune film as all great recent examples.
Now, your second point is more relevant. It's entirely possible WotC find sci-fi as out-of-scope for their RPG teams, and therefore will never attempt it.
Thomas Shey
Legend
Honestly, far as I can tell, TSR/WOTC's experience has probably taught them that SF games don't pay the bills. When your criteria is "does it sell like D&D" that's probably going to be nearly a tautology.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Wth?!!?
Nothing about Alternity was "proto-3E". d20 Modern was a total car-crash FYI, apart from the art and style. Everything else about it from the rules, to the tone, to the total failure at genre emulation, to the weird way it seemed to want to be solely about '80s and 90s action movies, but didn't have the balls to say so, was bad.
But Alternity's rules are nothing at all like 3E. Lest anyone think I'm bullshitting, let's go through some of them:
1) Dice-rolling works completely differently, with you rolling a d20 + or minus other dice, potentially multiple other dice.
This stands in start opposition to 3E's approach, which was just to add giant piles of complicated modifiers. It was simple and relatively elegant and felt way more modern than 3E. It also had gradiated success, unlike 3E.
2) Turns worked completely differently, being segmented.
3) Damage worked completely differently, being essentially a wound-based system.
I could go on - obviously there was no AC, no HP, no spell slots, no saving throws, about the only things even vaguely similar were that it had six stats roughly analogous to D&D stats, but not the same, and rated 1-10, with most PCs have 2-4 at the start of the game, and that it had levels, which were not at all like D&D levels because they were a minor power gain, not a huge one.
Anyway, with that corrected, I think there's zero chance of Alternity coming back because it just wasn't ever very popular. It had a few settings, Star*Drive, which was a mediocre SF setting, and Dark*Matter, a disappointing and slightly off-beam conspiracy theory setting,where what were then quite far right conspiracy theories were often true, like "Satanists are everywhere and real in the sense that they work with demons who are also real, and both Satanists and demons have magical powers, run crime rings, abuse and kidnap people, and are running parts of the government!" (sigh, that one came back recently...), which was, er, surprising in a conspiracy-theory game, esp. as D&D had been implied to be part of that Satanic deal in the 1980s, and didn't really work because the safe nature of it and other conspiracies meant the PC organisation felt more heroic and safe than games like Conspiracy X or shows like the X-Files or Millennium, which it was clearly wanting to ape. Like you were do-gooders, with other good guys to back you up, not risk-takers trying to find out the truth (which Conspiracy X was extremely good at doing).
Anyway, despite this I did run Dark*Matter because I did like a lot of the design and the Alternity system wasn't terrible but it also wasn't hugely exciting or involving.
If WotC do make a sci-fi RPG, despite grogs wishing for a new Star Frontiers or w/e other games which were dead before I even got into RPGs in 1989, I think we'll see a new IP. None of the old IPs have any real draw or mystique or decent fanbases.
I will say this Star Frontiers fan-art, however, is delightful.
And yeah like Urriak, I would expect something more along the lines of ME or Star Trek than Star Wars. I don't think people are in the market for a counterfeit Star Wars, but I definitely know people in the market for a counterfeit Mass Effect, or Star Trek tone but without so many rules and regulations and established facts about the universe.
