[Alternity] A rambling bit of review... (longish)

[Andrew Cooper]

Ron expressed a desire on another thread to see a review of the Alternity game done by someone who has or is currently playing the system.  My gaming group is using the system to run a Star*Drive campaign.  We've been doing so for a few months now and I feel comfortable enough with the game to present an informative view of the system.

Disclaimer:  I am not a Sci Fi guru.  I've played d6 Star Wars, Robotech and Cyberpunk 2020.  I haven't played any of them a lot, so I can't really be drawing too many comparisons.  I generally play Fantasy.

Some Definitions

Just to be clear, Alternity is a generic ruleset generally considered to be focused on modern, future and far future settings.  It isn't inherently tied to any specific setting.  It would take very little work to play in the Star Wars setting with the Alternity rules.  The fact that TSR made mention quite frequently to Star*Drive in the Alternity Players Handbook (PHB) and Gamemaster's Guide (GMG) seemed to me to be mostly a marketing tactic.

Star*Drive and Dark Matter are two settings that TSR released for the Alternity system.  Star*Drive is a far future space opera style setting.  If you are familiar with Babylon 5 or Star Wars, then you have a good idea of what to expect from Star*Drive.  Dark Matter was a modern day / near future setting that featured the "Grand Mysterious Conspiracy".  I haven't done a whole lot with that setting so I'll let someone else explain it if they like.

The System

Alternity is a fairly coherent, skill-based, Simulationist system.  Character's in the system have both a class and a level but both of those terms are almost meaningless in practice, as I'll explain a little later.  Character creation is done on a compartmentalized point-buy system.  Character effectiveness is determined through skills layered on top of attributes. The system revolves around a core mechanic that is simple and elegant and is probably the best single attribute of the system.  Alternity also features rather weak meta-game mechanic that seems like it is something that was slapped on at the last minute rather than a really integrated part of the system.

Characters

In Alternity, characters are essentially a collection of attributes and skills.  Yes, there are psionics (they even released a book that contained super powers and magic) but these are just skills in terms of the game.  Each skill in the game is associated with a specific Character attribute.  A character's effectiveness with a skill is a composite of the number of Achievement Points (AP) that he has put into the skill and how high his associated attribute is.

When making a character, the first thing a player does is choose a race.  The PHB has the standard stereotype races; the big, hairy brute, the calm and philosophic, the emotionally challenged technocrats, the quick and wily sneaks, and the spunky humans.  The choice of race gives the character some starting free skills, nifty bonuses and the mins and maxes for attributes.  Nothing terribly exciting and pretty standard fare.

Next, the player choose a Profession (Class).  There are 4 Professions; Combat Specialist, Free Agent, Tech Op and Diplomat.  There is also the optional Mindwalker, if you decide to use those rules.  The biggest thing that Professions do is determine how much skills cost for the character.  Each skill has a cost (say 2 points) and generally the skill has a Profession associated with it (say Combat Specialist).  If the character is a member of the associated profession, then the skill costs 1 less than advertised price.  Professions also give the character a few other minor bonuses depending on the profession taken.  That's about it for Professions.

Next the character needs attributes.  Alternity has 6 attributes which strangely enough correspond almost 1:1 with the 6 attributes in D&D.  You can assign attributes either by spending a set number of points or by rolling for them.... kinda like another TSR game we all know and love. :)

Now we get to the meat of the Character, the skills.  Skills are divided into two types; Broad Skills and Specific Skills.  Broad Skills are things like Modern Ranged Weaponry while Specific Skills are narrower focuses within a Broad Skill like Rifle, Pistol and Submachine Gun.  A Character must have the associated Broad Skill to get a Specific Skill.  Only Specific Skills may be improved.

Bada-bing... bada-boom... you've got a character.

The Core Mechanic

The core mechanic in Alternity revolves around rolling a d20 (the Control Die) and adding or subtracting another die or variable type (the Difficulty Die) and trying to get under a Target Number (generally set by a Skill).  For example, using a Specific Skill such as Rifle generally starts at a +0 Difficulty.  After taking into account the specifics of the situation, the GM can make the task harder (+1, +2, etc) or easier (-1, -2, etc).  A +1 would mean to roll the Control Die and add a d4 to it.  A +2 would mean roll the Control Die and add a d6 to it.  (+3 is +d8, +4 is +d12. etc)  Minuses mean the same thing except you subtract the Difficulty Die from the Control Die (-1 means d20-d4).  You take the result of the Control Die and the Difficulty Die and compare it to the Target Number.  If you are equal to or below the TN then you succeed.  If not, you fail.

This sound kinda complicated but it is actually very fast in play, with no lookup time for tables or anything.  The GM says to the player says, "Roll your Rifle skill at a +d8." to the player.  The Player rolls a d20 and a d8, adds the numbers together and then compares it to his Skill Level.  Easy... easy... easy.

Almost everything works off this type of die roll.  I personally like this mechanic quite a bit.  There's very little calculations needed and it tends to stay in the background and not get in the way of game flow.  I hadn't ever seen this type of mechanic before Alternity.  Perhaps someone knows an earlier game that used something similar?

Metagame Mechanic

Alternity has a single Metagame Mechanic called Hero Points.  Hero Points may be spent to alter the outcome of a single die roll.  A player may spend AP to get more Hero Points.

The thing I don't like about Hero Points is that they tie the maximum number that a Character may have and how much it costs to get more to a Character Attribute, thus you can have a Character who can't have any Hero Points at all.  Why have a Metagame Mechanic that is tied to some internal Character attribute?  Seems silly to me.

Reward and Advancement

At the end of adventures, Characters are given Achievement Points by the GM.  Achievement Points are collected until a Character has a specific number based on current level and then may be spent on improving skills.  In fact, this is the only function of levels.  They simply determine when AP may be spent.  The GM even has an alternate rule that eliminates levels and allows players to spend AP whenever they have some they want to spend.

Interestingly, the GMG doesn't give any real hard and fast rules on how or why the GM should hand out AP.  There is some mention to finishing a mission and being at the session and the generally unhelpful "good role-playing".  Other than that, it's left almost completely up to the GM.  This seems to me suggest that the system might be quite easy to drift to other CA's other than Sim.  My own experience is that it drifts quite easily to Gamism, as I hand out AP for completing missions successfully and the points generally go to helping the Characters be more effective in completing missions successfully.  I haven't tried anything that was primarily Nar with Alternity, so I don't have much to say there.

All done.

Well, this is getting long.  I'll post some stuff on actual in-session play, if folks are interested.  I'd also be happy to hear how others have or have not been able to use the system, especially anyone who has used it with primarily Nar goals in mind.

[Zak Arntson]

I, for one, am very interested. System is one thing, how it responds to a group is another entirely! I'll hold off on questions/comments until you post the actual play part.

[rafial]

In fact, this is the only function of levels.  They simply determine when AP may be spent..

I also noted that levels were almost vestigial.  However, isn't it true that levels have one other function, and that is they control when certain "advanced" perks and skill features may be purchased?

[John Burdick]

I've bought Alternity and a number of the books for it in the past year. I'm interested in seeing your play experience.

John

[Matt Wilson]

In fact, this is the only function of levels.  They simply determine when AP may be spent..

I also noted that levels were almost vestigial.  However, isn't it true that levels have one other function, and that is they control when certain "advanced" perks and skill features may be purchased?

Yes. You can see a lot of pre-d20 stuff in Alternity, stuff that I think was often improved upon in the later product. Variable skill costs become class/cross-class, level-based perks become feats, that sort of thing.

[ghostwolf]

Good Posting, you beat me to the punch :)  I had just broken out my old alternity books and was trying to remember how the system worked.

In actual play with my gaming group, the dice mechanic always seemed to take a session or so to really sink in for new players (My group grew slowly from 2 players to 5 over the course of the campainge).

The major flaws I saw in the system were the almost useless level system (It's an RPG, it's GOTTA BE THERE) and the total genericness of the system itself.  TSR wasn't committed to marketing a unified game/setting, they were testing the market to see what worked at the time (to my perception).  STAR*Drive setting was release with the core books, then shortly afterward Dark Matter was released.  TSR published a smattering of material for STAR*Drive, Dark Matter and some seriously generic rules for weapons, Gridrunning and Starship design that was meant to be used by the GM to create their own setting.  The Campaigne expansions for STAR*Drive after the core book were stock TSR module format, complete with Boxed-Text scene formats and dialog.

IMHO, if they had focused on one setting, the game would have shined enough to attract more than just a cult following.  At the time, however, TSR was pretty much on their last legs.

I mourned the passing of this game.  

-Ghostwolf

[johnzo]

I ran Alternity Gamma World for twelve weeks or so and liked it.  

My main beef with it was in the character creation.  The character class choices (smart guy, warrior, rogue guy, diplomat) didn't map onto the Gamma World setiting very well.  Plus, there's a lot of fiddling with points to get your skill totals set, which, IMO, is annoying and boring to no good purpose.  The levels manifested only as xp thresholds for character improvement.  In play, they had very little function.

Actual play is quite fast and smooth.  Our veteran gaming crew had no problem picking up the system.  It felt like a slicker form of GURPS.  My Gamma World game was all about gritty tribal warfare, and Alternity served it well.

I'd play it again, although I'd write my own character creation rules and advancement charts, and make it purely skill-based.

zo

[Autocrat]

Hope I'm not interupting or intruding......

  Nice write up.  The alternaty game was the first sci-fi RPG I had a crack with... and though it reeked of AD&D, (And they tried so had to state it wasn't ad&d with laser guns and space ships LOL), it was different enough to make it different and enjoyable.

  Just to help keep things tidy, there was also optional rules for Mutants and Cybergear, as well as the Mindwalker careers.

  Mutants.  You get to roll or decide for what type of mutant you are...engineered, accident or freak.  Then you decide on the level of mutation.  This totals the amount of mutant points you have.  You then get to decide upon the mutations by buying traits...good/bad.  You were also limited to the number of levels of Mutations, (slight, moderate and super).

  Cybergear.  I think the amount of cyber gear you could have was based on you Constitution score (???real stat name I can't recal!).
Depending on this score, you were allocated a set amount of cybergear spaces.  All gear takes up a varying amount of space, (gadget1 = 2, gadget 12 = 6, limb =3 etc.).  If you had 12 spaces, you could fill the first 1/2, anything over that and you had to make a rejection roll.  If you passed rejection, then you could use up the next 1/4, and so on.
  You also had the chance of psychosis.  Turning into a killer schitz etc.

  Mindwalkers.  Not to clear on this, yet the powers for the mindwalker was treated similar to skills, I think.  You had to have purchased ESP to gain access to emotion sense, psychography and other such specific skills.


  Though the game had several annoying quirks carried over from another  game.....hmmm..... it was otherwise quite good and resulted in hours of fun.


Did any that played the game have any problems with the movement die, or was I the only one who struggled with that for a while?