Alternity: Player's Handbook and Gamemaster's Guide
Okay, you asked for it. Recent complaints levied at the nature of RPGnet reviews aired a desire for less D20 stuff and perhaps a few out of print games. Well, I shall deliver! This time I take a look at a game I consider all too under-rated: Alternity.
Tale of a SF RPG lover:
I have a secret to confess here. RPGnetters may find me to be one of those nutty D&D/D20 advocates. But my first love isn't really fantasy. It's SF. Much of my youth was spent watching Star Trek: TOS reruns after school and devouring books in the "space SF" vein. One of my favorites has always been Larry Niven, a very good storyteller with an eye for science as well.
Though D&D was my first game, I soon started to branch out and explore other games. Traveller (and its heir, MegaTraveller) was a big part of my "formative gaming experiences." Those were the days of wild and wooly space opera, intrepid investigation, and world rending warfare. It was great. I ran a MegaTraveller campaign for many years after GDW first went on to Traveller: The New Era (often referred to by some as "The New Error"), which I considered an inferior edition both due to the poor system and due to the implausible backstory.
Though I enjoyed MegaTraveller for years, even that wonderful workhorse got tired. It was time to look for something new. A company called Far Futures Enterprises tried to bring Traveller back with T4 – the mechanics were an immediate turn-off to me. I have never held a high opinion of GURPS, so even when I heard they would be licensing Traveller, I was less than enthused. I played with my own homebrew system, but never had the time or persistence to finish. Likewise, many other offerings in the industry failed to impress me.
To be honest, when I saw a preview version of Alternity that a friend got a GenCon, that didn't impress me at first, either. Its very strange dice mechanic seemed gimmicky to me at the time, something that will usually eternally doom a game in my eyes.
When they came out with the real version of the Alternity Player's Handbook, being SF-starved I picked it up. I began to study its dice system and learned the beauty and genius of it. Eventually, the game earned my respect. Could this be the new Traveller on my gaming shelves?
As was soon to be seen, it was going to be like Traveller in some rather unpleasant ways: an untimely demise.
Alternity: A Short History.
Alternity is a game put out by TSR, whose design began before they were acquired by Wizards of the Coast. It was apparently an attempt to recreate what they had with D&D: a genre-specific but not world-specific system aimed at a given genre to which campaign settings could be tacked on to. It was a novel concept, one that players like myself who like home-grown settings could really appreciate.
But the approach had its problems. Under the control of Wizards of the Coast, the landscape changed. The company began to focus on fewer and fewer settings for its role-playing flagship, Dungeons and Dragons. What could this mean for their second string adoptee that they didn't really ask for in the first place? Nothing good, I assure you. Amid tales of waning sales, support for the Alternity line dwindled and nearly stopped. The X-Files-esque Dark*Matter setting caused a brief resurgence of the game, but ultimately it didn't change the fate of the game. When I heard that Wizards of the Coast had acquired the rights to publish a Star Wars game, I thought that this, at last, would be a chance to get Alternity the recognition it deserved.
Alas, it was not to be. Wizards of the Coast had its business plans with the D20 license in the works then, a plan that Alternity didn't fit into. Eventually it was announced that Star Wars would be a D20 product and that Alternity's days as an officially supported product are numbered. At the time of this writing, you can continue to buy Alternity material, but development of new material has halted.
Alternity: The Core Mechanic
Let's hold of on specific appraisals of the books for a second and dwell on the heart of the Alternity system: its skills / task / dice mechanic.
The basic dice of the Alternity system is the D20. To succeed at a task, the player must roll equal or under r the PC's skill number to succeed (I will detail how skills are handled shortly.) If the character roll half this number, they get a good success. If they roll one quarter of their skill total or less, they get an amazing success.
So far, this sounds like a standard "roll under target number" mechanic. Here's where the system gets a little unusual. Instead of varying the difficulty by changing the target number, you add or subtract the result of one (sometimes more) situation die of a size according to the difficulty.
At first glance, this appears similar to some dice pool mechanics. But it really isn't, and it has some interesting and useful properties. In a "dice pool" type system, you vary the number of dice according to capability, difficulty of the task, or both. The odds associated with this sort of dice mechanic are a bell curve that varies in shape according to the number or type of dice used, and figuring the odds of a given roll requires some non-trivial calculations best left to statistics gurus like me. And even I don't like to do that icky stuff during a game.
While this sort of approach is problematic, strictly linear systems (i.e., that use one dice, like everyone's favorite, the D20 system) have some properties that may be undesirable as well. Using a d20 as an example, you have the same chance to roll a "1" as you do a "20" … or any other number on the dice. This makes character's abilities vary wildly. While this works well in some more cinematic systems, in some more down to earth system, this degree of variance seems unrealistic.
The Alternity dice system in most instances creates a "trapezoid curve." That is, in the low and high ends of the scale, the odds taper off linearly. In the "middle region", the curve is flat, and odds vary just as if a D20 had been rolled – each "point" is a 5% change in the odds. If you are adding a situation die, this middle region extends from N 1 to 21, where N is the size of the situation die.
The way I see it, this gives the Alternity dice system two very useful properties. First, it makes it easy for a DM to eyeball the odds of a given roll without resorting to complicated math during the game. Second, unlike a linear system, extreme results taper off in probability. In short, the Alternity system strikes a compromise between the ease of use of linear systems and consistent results of a bell curve system.
At the extreme high end, Alternity adds more than one extra dice to the roll. Once you are rolling D20 D20 to resolve tasks, each additional level of difficulty adds another D20. This is jumping into dice pool territory, but this isn't really a problem since at this point, you are really intended to fail.
Character Generation and Skills
Characters in Alternity use a 6-stat set similar to that of D&D: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Willpower, and Personality. The default scale is lower than that of D&D, ranging from 1-15 for normal humans.
The standard generation method is distributing 60 points among the 6 attributes, allowing an average of 10 in each attribute. This is slightly above the normal human average. Alternative generation methods, such as random generation, are provided in the Gamemaster's Guide.
The player can choose one of four professions for their characters: Combat Spec, Tech Op, Free Agent, or Diplomat. These professions are much broader than D&D classes. For example, engineers, medic, and pilots all very comfortably fit under the Tech Op profession. The choice of profession has two primary impacts on the character. First, it determines which skills the character can buy at a discount. Second, it gives the character a game related benefit: Combat Specs have an easier time with one weapon, Tech Ops can learn skills faster, Diplomats have a wider range of discount skills, and Free Agents get more "last resort points," points that grant the character a boon of luck.
Players are allowed to generate Alien PCs as well as humans, and 4 standard ones are included in the game. A character's race does not directly affect their statistics, but the minimums and maximums for the character's stats are determined by their race. The basic skills set of the character are determined by their race, and a race may have certain special characteristics and abilities.
Characters receive a number of starting skill points according to their intelligence. Characters can buy broad skills and specialty skills. Characters start out with 6 broad skills according to their race, and can buy more.
Broad skills are categorical and if you have one it only allows you to use any of the specialty skills on it at a number equal to the associated ability score. You cannot, however, add any ranks to a broad skill.
Once you have purchased a broad skill, you can purchase ranks in specialty skills under that broad skill. These skills are limited by your character's experience, but lets you extend your capabilities beyond what you can do with the broad skills.
Characters can also buy other abilities and benefits with these points called perks, or get points from selecting flaws.
Alternity characters do have levels, but the XP are precisely equivalent to skill points. The only real purpose the level serves is as a broad assessment of character power, and limits what special abilities a character can purchase. If you despise class/level related systems, you have little to fear from this system, as it is at its heart skill based. The familiar terminology should make the transition easier for those who cut their teeth on such systems, though.
For a more detailed look at the basics of the Alternity system, take a look at the fast play rules on the Wizards of the Coast website. At the time of this writing, the fast play rules are at:
http://www.wizards.com/alternity/files/AlternityPlayer.pdf
Alternity Player's Handbook Overview
The Alternity Player's Handbook is sorted into 15 Chapters, plus compiled tables and character sheet originals. The interior layout is mostly well done, attractive and readable. The major exception is that some sidebar material is offset in a dark green that is somewhat difficult to read.
The book is full color, and the art attractive and pertinent. I am especially fond of the artwork of rk post, whose works have also enhanced the pages of Dragon and the Planescape setting for D&D.
Chapter 1 is the fast play rules. These are pretty much the same fact play rules linked to above.
The bulk of character generation material is in Chapters 2 (Hero Creation), 4 (Skills) and 5 (Perks & Flaws). The basics of this process are as described above.
Chapter 3 is entitled "Heroes in Action." It describes the basic mechanics of the game. The core dice mechanic is described above. The chapter also describes things such as how adventuring works, actions, combat, damage, and movement works.
Damage in Alternity is a semi-abstract system. All characters are allotted a number of Stun, Wound, and Mortal "boxes" according to their constitution score. Weapons inflict damage according to the success level that was inflicted on the to hit skill roll, but varies by weapon. For example, a 38 revolver does d4 wounds on an ordinary hit, d4 1 wounds on a good hit, and d4 mortal points on an amazing results. By comparison, a normal unarmed attack does d4 stun/d4 1 stun/d4 2 stun for a hit in the same category.
Each category of damage also does damage of the lower types. For example, if you take wounds from the above revolver, you also take half of that damage as stun.
Armor blocks an amount of damage also determined by a random dice roll, regardless of whether the damage inflicted is stun, wound, or mortal. The damage stopped by armor varies according to the weapon type used in the attack.
Chapter 6 has sample careers. Sample careers are simply very basic character concepts categorized into the different professions of the game. A career is mostly a list of skills with a pre calculated cost of how much those skills cost. Careers are in no way mandatory. Sample careers for a combat spec include corporate security specialist and law enforcer; sample careers for tech ops are computer tech and doctor.
Chapter 7 is entitled Attributes. Attributes are generalized descriptions for the character's personality. Attributes come in 3 types: Motivation (deeper meaning, discovery, personal power, helping others, etc.), Moral Attitudes (corrupt, anti-authority, honorable, just) and Character Traits (aggressive, honest, optimistic, etc.) All players are encouraged to take a Motivation, a Moral Attitude, and up to two Character Traits for the character. There are no game mechanical effects for attributes, other than the possibility of extra points for good role-playing as assessed by the GM.
Chapter 8 is entitled Achievements, and describes experience and advancement. The game's experience is expressed as "achievement points." The game does use levels, but at every level you get a number of skill points equal to the amount of achievement points it took you to reach that level.
That being the case, you might wonder why you just don't give the character skill points? That is a possibility, but there in addition to a general assessment of a character's power, there are a few mechanics that rely on the level. Some things you can buy with skill points you can only buy at certain levels, and the tech op extra skills are governed by level.
Chapters 9 through 12 describe things you can buy and use in the game. Chapter 9 is Goods and Services, Chapter 10 is Computers, Chapter 11 is Weapons and Armor, and Chapter 12 is Vehicles.
The only general complaint I have about the equipment is the assumed technology is very scientifically implausible. The game sorts technology into Progress levels from 0-10, with 5 being modern day. The PL 5 and 6 items are fairly well done, but beyond that, they are a little too cartoonish for my taste. Any GM can make up implausible equipment, but I think the game designers could have done their audience a favor if they would have stuck to more reasonable extrapolations for their baseline technology.
Chapters 13 through 15 describe alternate character creation rules. Chapter 13 describes Mutant, detailing special powers that genetically altered creatures have. Chapter 14 describes Psionics, and chapter 15 describes Cybertech.
The Mutation chapter contains rules for creating mutants that have engineered abilities or that have random abilities. The GM may allow either or both options. Random mutants have more mutations and drawbacks and must select their powers randomly.
The Psionics chapter basically treats psionics as skills. A new profession is introduced for psionics, the Mindwalker. However, characters who are not Mindwalker may select psionic skills if the GM allows it.
Finally is Cybertech. Cybertech requires an initial skill point expenditure to learn how to deal with the Cybertech. After that, it's all cash on the barrelhead.
Alternity Gamemaster's Guide Overview
Much like TSR/WotC's D&D, Alternity clefts its core rules into a player's book and a GM's book. The Alternity Player's Handbook having been discussed, let's take a look at the Alternity Gamemaster Guide. The Gamemaster Guide provides more details on tweaking the game, providing challenges, and creating settings and adventures.
Chapters 1 through 6 and 7 & 8 are parallels of chapters in the Alternity Player's Handbook, but tell things from the GM's point of view. Chapter 1 is the GM's version of the fast play rules, giving a simple adventure and quick tips on running the game. Chapter 2 is Hero Creation, providing the GM with variant character creation rules such as variant ability score methods (some random) and creating new alien species, as well as addressing the finer points of using aspects of character design.
Chapter 3 is Gamemasters in Action, and describes how to use the game mechanics from a GM point of view, and includes such things on guidelines on using the dice mechanic, how to handle time and combat, examples of certain common hazards (heat, cold, vacuum, etc.) and so on. Chapter 4 is Skills, and has some more specific examples of handling the skills of the game in common situations that would arise in a SF setting. Similarly, Chapter 5 spells out how the GM can handle Perks & Flaws.
Chapter 6 is Supporting Cast, what Alternity names NPCs. It gives some general advice on how to make NPCs that fill various roles, and well as a selection of "stock NPCs" that the GM can use when inserting a fully fleshed out PC would be too time consuming.
Chapter 7 is Attributes, again focussing on the PHB attributes chapter from a GM perspective. It discusses how to handle less mechanical character traits such as contacts, allegiances, social status, and money.
Chapter 8 is Achievements, and is very short, detailing how the GM should hand out experience ("achievement points") and how to handle general character advancement situations.
Chapter 9 is Running the Game. It discusses essential GM tasks and considerations such as play styles, running adventures, challenging the players, and so forth.
Chapters 10 through 12 cover more technical details on staples of a SF game. Chapter 10 details vehicles, chapter 11 details spaceships, and chapter 12 details alien artifacts. Each chapter has rules for handling these items, including construction rules, combat, and handling of special capabilities.
Chapters 13 and 14 discuss the creation and management of a campaign setting. Chapter 13, Campaign Design, dwells on the more general aspects of campaign conception. It covers the fundamental decision-making a GM will have to do for a campaign setting: campaign time frame and style (near future, space opera, etc.), tone (realistic to superheroic), technology availability and assumptions, and frequency of life in the universe. Chapter 14 gets down to the details such as mapping, making star systems, planets, and civilizations.
Chapter 15 is Adventure Design and conveys basic information most suited for novice GMs. It describes how to set up a general act/scene type adventure, and describes the use of other essential adventure elements. It also contains some small adventure hook ideas for a GM to start out with.
Chapter 16 is Optional Rules. The optional chapters of the Alternity PHB are discussed – mutants, psionics, and cybertech. Other options are addressed such as Artificial Intelligence, FX (Alternity's word for strange abilities and powers other than psionics, e.g., superpowers, magic, and miracles.)
Chapter 17 is Creatures and Aliens. It has templates for a variety of standard creatures – crocodiles, apes, and so forth – which can be used as is in a modern game or altered to become threats in a new world. Then the chapter provides some standardized alien creature types.
An appendix is provided to allow conversion of 2nd edition AD&D characters to Alternity. I imagine that it will see less use in that role than it will be used as the source of some unusual races in a space fantasy type campaign or a campaign that has species resembling the stereotypical fantasy races.
Overall, I don't consider the Alternity Gamemaster Guide to be near the indispensable reference that the D&D 3e DMG is for D&D, but it should help inexperienced GMs into the saddle and will give more experienced referees the low down of how to handle a lot of situations using the Alternity system.
Other Materials Available
There are several sourcebooks and campaign settings available for Alternity.
The sourcebooks include:
- Dataware – By Wolfgang Baur, the dataware book gives new and expanded rules for computers, computer networks, "hacking", AIs, and Robots (including characters).
- Mindwalking: A Guide to Psionics – By JD Wiker. As the title implies, this book expands upon psionics in the Alternity game. Probably the best written of the supplements, Mindwalking is written with an eye towards the fact that different GMs will use psionics in different ways, and it uses its page count well.
- Beyond Science: A Guide to FX – By Sean K Reynolds. As the psionics book expands on Psionics, Beyond Science expands on the rules for FX – miracles, magic, and superpowers. Unfortunately, this book suffers a little from insufficient page count for a broad subject matter. It feels more like a "sampler." It will, however, be indispensable if you intend to add any of these sorts of effects to your game, since this book handles the subject much better than the Gamemaster Guide.
- Starships – By David Eckelberry. As you might guess, this book expands on rules for making, using, and fighting spacefaring vehicles. Two thirds of the book are devoted to expanding rules and systems for starships. The last third is devoted to starship designs, complete with deckplans.
- Tangents – By Bruce R. Cordell. This book is really the first supplement to break new ground, so to speak. It covers the topic of parallel universes. Oddly enough, though it deals with the most esoteric subjects of SF, of all the Alternity books it is probably the most scientifically rigorous. It has a system for conceiving and cataloging alternate realities, as well as an adventure involving the heroes in a trip to alternate realities. This book is not the idea mine that other alternate reality books like Champions in 3D are, but will be indispensable if you want to run a Sliders-type campaign.
- Campaign Kit – By David Eckleberry. A GM screen and a book of forms: Character sheets, starship sheets, and GM reference sheets. Nice to have, but not essential.
Three setting are available for Alternity: Star*Drive (a far future, space opera type setting), Dark*Matter (an X-files-ish modern setting), and Gamma World (a fantastical post holocaust settings). The first two have supplements and adventures devoted to them, some of which can be used by GMs making their own settings. For example, both Dark*Matter and Star*Drive have Arms & Equipment Guides that can be liberally plundered.
In addition to all this material, a final supplement Warships is available on the Wizards of the Coast website for free download. Warships expands the starship system even further, adding rules for combat and construction of huge capital ships to the game.
Summary and Conclusions
Alternity is a strong RPG with easy to use, logical character generation, task resolution, and combat systems. Some will imagine it a D&D clone in space, but this is simply not the case as the system class and level conventions seem to be mostly to make D&D veterans feel comfortable.
The primary fault with the game in my estimation is that the core assumptions are too strong. Alternity has a reputation for being a gritty system, but many technology assumptions are rather implausible and space opera-like (like singularity guns). That's nice if you want to play a campaign like Star Trek or the Lensmen Books, not so nice if you want to play in the more rigorous worlds like those of Larry Niven or Arthur C. Clarke. The authors could have done a service by providing both alternatives or making a midline assumption. Anyone can make up implausible technology; making up reasonable extrapolations takes a little more work.
The books are graphically attractive, with full color interior art. The art is well done, with many pieces by rk post, one of my favorite artists in the employ of Wizards. The only problem I have with the graphical setup of the books is that some of the sidebar material is offset in a dark gree block, which is somewhat unattractive and difficult to read.
Overall, If you are seeking a playable modern system unhindered by an overly strong setting with which to build your own visions of the future, Alternity is a good choice.
-Alan D. Kohler
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