In the late 90s TSR was competing (though I use the term loosely) with White Wolf’s World of Darkness games, which used pools of 10-sided dice and had degrees of success based on how many successes you accumulated in a roll. This particular mechanic has always fascinated me. The most prevalent use of this is weapon damage, which increases in severity depending on your success, but it also matters in time-sensitive challenges and other circumstances where it’s important to know not just if someone completed a task, but how well they completed it. Under 6 (one-half your score rounded down) is a Good success, and 3 (one-quarter) is Amazing. Above, your Seduce skill would look something like “Seduce 3 (13/6/3).” Rolling under a 13 means you have achieved an Ordinary success. Skills are a combination of ranks and your ability score, so for instance if you have a 10 in Personality and 3 ranks in Seduce, you will want to roll under a 13.Īlternity also represents degrees of success. You typically want to roll under your skill level. It occupies a comfortable little spot between -d4 and +d4. There’s even a d0, which is really just a placeholder to say you should roll the control die by itself. Think of the dice as a continuum, with -d20 being the easiest, and the most difficult being +Xd20, although the book suggests that more than +3d20 is so difficult you may just want to rule it as impossible.Ī step modifier slides the situation die along this continuum to determine what you should roll. Most basic actions involve rolling d20+d4, but there can be a “step modifier” depending on the difficulty of the task at hand. I suppose on Alternity gaming nights you could have loaned all your d10s to your friend who plays Vampire: The Masquerade. Most rolls in Alternity use two dice: a d20 called the “control die” and either a d4, d6, d8, d12, or d20 as the “situation die.” Oddly the 10-sided die is absent from the lineup. One thing I will never forget about Alternity is the dice. Then there are my two favorites: the bizarre, eight-eyed, bat-winged, lanky sesheyans, who vaguely resemble stealth bombers and the t’sa, who are basically caffine-powered tech-obsessed lizardmen with impressive head frills.īut this is an RPG, not an art class! Downloading System Data… Calling the weren “wookies with tusks” doesn’t really do justice to the sheer brutal presence that post’s art conveys on the page. You’ve got the mechalus, who are essentially humanoid circuitboards with thick strands of cable-like hair. There are the fraal: the classic, lanky gray aliens with big black eyes and psychic powers. Rk post’s illustrations of the alien races in the character creation chapter have stuck with me throughout the years, and probably done more to keep Alternity in my mind than anything else. Although the game is intended to be capable of handling a range of times from the present to the distant star-faring future, much of the art is clearly futuristic, and the implied setting of the books as a whole was released as the Star*Drive campaign setting. The full-color interior artwork features many excellent pieces by rk post, Todd Lockwood, and maps by Rob Lazzaretti. Once upon a time they retailed at $29.95 each, these days you can find them for a little less than that on Ebay when you can find them. If this setup sounds familiar, well, it has been a staple formula of Dungeons & Dragons and its clones for years. In order to play Alternity, you will need at least two hardcover books: the Player’s Handbook and the Gamemaster Guide as I mentioned above. I got my hands on the Player’s Handbook back in ’98, but in typical D&D-like fashion it also required the Gamemaster Guide, which I wouldn’t pick up until some time in 2005 along with most of the other supplements from a used RPG bookshelf at my FLGS of the day.Īnyway, let’s get to the heart of the matter. It has taken on an almost mythic significance in my mind.
I consider Alternity the greatest RPG I have never played.įrankly I’m a little afraid to play it at this point. It was also the game that was home to the fifth edition of Gamma World, and the Starcraft Adventures setting, which was a toned-down version of the system used for an RPG based on Blizzard Entertainment’s well-loved RTS.