Alternity General /altg/

>Alternity is a science fiction role-playing game (RPG) published by TSR in 1998. Following the acquisition of TSR by Wizards of the Coast, the game was discontinued in 2000 as part of a broader rationalisation of TSR's business holdings, but it retains a small and devoted fanbase.

Characters are both class-based and skill-based. Classes offer some minor benefits and alter the costs of skills, which are purchased individually based on player preference. Skills are used for nearly everything, so they're the meat of your character.

All die-rolls are based on the control die, a d20. Situation Dice are added to or subtracted from this roll, which is compared to the ability scores, modified by the skill. To succeed, the roll must equal or undercut the ability score. Penalties are added to the roll, which makes it harder to equal or undercut the required score, and bonuses are subtracted from the roll.

Bonuses and penalties are expressed as situation dice, which are added or subtracted from the roll of the control die. For instance, if one is trying to grab a rope thrown from a ship in heavy seas, the GM may rule that the hero must roll against Dexterity with a +3 step penalty, to account for the difficulty of the task. In this case, the hero would have to roll a d20 (the control die), and add d8 to the roll (the 3rd situation die, after d4 and d6).

Some settings have been published, but the game itself is fairly setting-agnostic.

Other urls found in this thread:

sasquatchgamestudio.com/products/alternity/
alternityrpg.net/downloads/misc/Alternity-font.zip
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

...

Character sheet in amazing technicolor.

Psionics, Mutations, Cybertech and Computers are optional.

But is it better than Starfinder?

It plays like an alternate-history D20 system.

It's like 2E AD&D began to develop into the garbage that is D20, only to veer off course and turn into something else entirely.

So yes, it's better than any variation of 3.pf.

What happened with the kickstarter for the new edition?

It's out, I believe. I'm not familiar with it, because new things scare me.
sasquatchgamestudio.com/products/alternity/

>Alternity General

Ah yes. The very first pnp rpg I ever played, and the same first game was also my very first GM experience. My bros and i still talk about that fateful game.

Have you ever used it to run a fantasy game? I feel like it would be suited to fantasy with only some minor rejiggering of the skill list, but I've never gotten around to actually trying it.

bump

I remember that there was a supplement for introducing various types of magic to the game. They were called "FX", as in special effects, because they were deliberately out-of-place with the default system, and included anything from demon summoning to comic book superpowers. I think they were divided into three vague categories, with some guidelines about customizing the system to fit your campaign, as most non-setting-specific RPGs try to do.

It had the official Starcraft rulebook.
The idea of using die instead of numerical modifiers was nice. 5e used it in a Proficiency bonus variable rule, no?
Why it didn't took off?

Would you happen to know the actual font used for Alternity? I've got my player's handbook right here, and it's kinda bugging me that I can't quite match it.

If you look at the PDF properties it has a list of all the fonts in the document.

When tsr got bought by wizards, they didn't like the idea of the same company making a competing game system to d&d, so when it was time to choose between d&d and alternity, d&d won out because of it's popularity history and recognition. So thus d20 was born and it's shitty i-want-to-be-gurps supplements.

Alternity and any other game systems made by tsr fell into obscurity

But that's wrong, WotC bought TSR in '97, and Alternity came out in '98.

Most of my alternity books are branded TSR. A buy-out takes quite some time, and TSR was still pumping products while wizards was buying them. As soon as wizards had it all, they canned alternity to stick with d20 future

>Most of my alternity books are branded TSR.
Because Wizards kept the brand name around for recognition. Check the second-to-last line of the credits section in the PHB: "TSR, Inc. is a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast, Inc." Check the addresses given, they're those of WotC USA and Belgium.

I'm pretty sure a lot of the alternity stuff was developed before the buy out and things being published in the late 90s was already in the pipe.

God, don't remind me. I will hate them forever for what they did with d20 Dark*Matter. You'd think the chance to update a conspiracy setting from a pre-9/11 world to a post-9/11 world would light a fire under everyone, but no. They already harvested everything interesting from the setting to put into the Menace Manual and straight up copied and pasted the original Campaign Setting book minus two chapters into the "new" book.

The only really new content was the addition to the History of the World section, where the sidebar detailing weird stuff of the year goes up to 2007. The Final Church did 9/11, by the way. So save your time and get the original Alternity version, because goddamn.

>alternity general

is this real life?

Here ya go.

alternityrpg.net/downloads/misc/Alternity-font.zip

Why would Wizards can a product that was pretty much ready to hit the shelves? All the heavy lifting had been done. They just went ahead and released it, despite having no intention of doing anything with Alternity afterward.

Unfortunately almost all of the d20 Modern stuff was totally phoned in. I don't think anyone on the creative staff wanted to do a pseudo-GURPs game and it shows. Who is the prime mover of the original Dark*Matter and was he still around at the time of the re-release?

It was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. They both did a stint with WotC after TSR was taken over.

I know, it's the worst. d20 Modern was my first real RPG and it took four years and three notebooks full of ideas on how to "fix" it before I realized it was shit. I didn't discover Alternity until I spent enough times on the WotC forums, wondering what this Star*Drive thing in d20 Future was and if there was more of it. God that hurt.

It would've been nice if there was some guideance from somewhere. I still wanna play Dark*Matter and the first question I have to answer is "Okay, what happened in 2012?". I think I've got a good answer, but the fact that the setting is painfully unsupported is just tragic.

A content bump is better than no bump.

My ideas for updating Dark*Matter (since WotC wouldn't do it) are pretty simple.

By 2000, the Hoffman Institute's public presence is as a promient think tank that runs in the same circles as all the others on CSPAN, occasionally hosting talks on alternitive energy, but mostly being known for simltaneously sponsoring NOVA specials and Ancient Aliens. From 2000 to 2007, the Washington DC and New York offices of the Institute doubled in size.

The 2012 High Tide happened. And no one quite noticed because it wasn't the apocalypse everyone said it'd be. It's much more insidious. Doorways into paralell universes are as common as anything else, and the Mandela Effect seems to indicate that people are traveling from other universes without their knowledge on a semi-regular basis. Illuminati are making use of this information, finding ways to replace their adversaries (or allies) from ones with more adventageous beliefs or backgrounds.

In the kaleidoscope of tangents (you brought Alternity Tangents, right?) still lies the High Tide apocalypse, burning bright on the horizon. Research at the LHC seem to be a UN effort to bolt down our current reality, but can be readily subverted.

Otherwise, it's almost business as usual. The High Tide doesn't have to be mentioned until some NPC seems positive that the govenor of Texas was assassainated last week, and then the adventure begins.