Alternity is the best god-damn RPG system ever. EVER.

[Huitzil]

Simple...

Everything in Alternity is resolved with the same simple method: Roll a d20, and add or subtract one "situation die". Roll under your skill, you succeed. Roll under half for a Good success, or under a quarter for Amazing. Shooting a gun is resolved the same way as researching an alien.

All skills use skill points, nothing like D&D2's "weapon proficiencies" or D20's asinine "Use Feats to get skill in weapons". Perks and Flaws don't come in set numbers, you just buy them with skill points. Anything that might require you to consult a table is right there on your character sheet -- your resistance modifier, for example. D20-style EXP is swapped for gaining Achievement Points, which are identical to skill points except you can't spend them immediately.

There's four basic character classes ("professions") that can fit any "job", plus a specialty profession for psionics and "FX Adepts". Nothing like "Barbarians are an entirely different class than Fighters" -- they're both Combat Specs, one of whom might have the Primitive flaw. There's no nead to constanly make presite classes for the type of charcter you want to play, as you can do prtty much anything within the limits of the existing sytems. If you can't fit what you want to do into one of the existing professions, you aren't trying.

Numbers stay low. When you take damage, it will almost always be in the single digits -- more probably would kill you. Thus, when you take damage, you check off boxes rather than erase and re-write a HP total. This means that you're less likely to botch your mental subtraction when you take damage, plus it's just far more elegant.


...but not too simple.

Unlike TriStat, Alternity differentiates between strength, dexterity, and constitution, meaning that not all strong characters will be fast, or all fast characters will be hardy, or so on. Unlike UniSystem, stat numbers go up to 14, allowing for a wider range of differences between characters.

Unlike TriStat, d20, Unisystem, GURPS, or any other game I can think of right now, bonuses or penalties are never static. Rather than get +4 or -2, you get +d12 or -d6, and so on. This adds to the unpredictability of the game, wich is the entire reason dice rolls are used in the first place. You have to get funny-sided dice, but let's all admit it: you like those anyway.

Mutants, psionics, and cyber gear are all special cases under character creation. The rules are simple in all cases -- psionics are bought just like normal skills, but using a psi skill requires the expenditure of one psi point, a score equal to your character's Will attribute that refills with rest, mutants get x beneficial mutations and x-1 harmful mutations picked from the back of the book, and cyberware is like powerful equipment and armor with the restriction that the total "size" of your cyber gear can't be more than your Constitution -- but they're DIFFERENT. A character with a nanocomputer in his brain does not feel like an ordinary guy. Compare this with TriStat, where all the things listed above are bought the same way as you might buy more HP or a bunch of money, a system so simple as to be homogenous.

Skills cost varying amounts. Learning surgery does not take the same amount of skill points as First Aid, and costs of skills increase as their levels go up, you must pay the skills cost plus 1 point for each level you have in it. Compare this with d20, where every skill costs 1 point regardless of level, or 2 if it's a "cross-class"skill -- a concept that Alternity does not have.

There are 4 types of hit points, or "Durability", and for a human all of them are either equal to your CON or half of your CON. The game differentiates between Stun, Wound, and Mortal damage, and has a Fatigue damage track that isn't used in combat but to record how much energy you have. Losing all your Wounds does not mean you die, and characters can usually, unless spectacularly unlucky, get patched up after a fight even if they spent most of it facedown in a pool of their own blood. Non-lethal weapons never kill anyone unless you keep zapping someone with it for half an hour after they pass out, and you don't have to keep track of what percentage of HP loss doesn't count.

Just the right power level

Though you do almost everything with Skill Points, it's not really a point buy system, and as such not as open to min/maxing abuse. Flaws give you 2 to 5 skill points, enough to get 1 or 2 more levels in a couple skills but never, ever enough to buy another attribute point (for WIL, STR, CON, etc). You can use skill points to buy extra attribute points, but they're so expensive that doing so means you will be really hurting for skills. Everything balances out, it's hard to create an unbalanced character without using FX Powers, which are supposed to be super-powered anyway -- and even then, FX skill costs are so high, you can't ever get to a position wher your character can take everything thrown at him.

Characters do not gain HP as they level up, and if they want more, they can spend Achievement POints to buy them indivdually. Let me repeat that, because it's important:

CHARACTERS DO NOT GAIN HIT POINTS AS THEY LEVEL UP.

This is as it should be -- a person who has exploded 20 starbases is not 5 times harder to kill than someone who exploded 3. Higher level characters are more powerful than low level characters, but the gap is not nearly so wide as it is in d20.

And though characters gain in power as they level up, even at level 20 they are still mortal. A level 20 Fighter can beat a goblin army with his teeth, a 100-CP BESM character can explode planets with a Weapon Attack, but even a lvl 20 Combat Specialist is going to get fucking decapitated if he starts acting like an idiot. This means less munchkinism, and it also menas that MageOhki will never play it. If MageOhki has ever played a game, that game becomes worse -- it's a proven scientific fact.

Alternity has a Diplomat class, and it's actually a viable choice. Though it always depends on your GM, this goes a long way towards having games where the solution to every problem is not a plasma gun.

Awesome art

rk post, mother FUCKERS.

The best settings ever.

Alternity is suitable for any sci-fi setting, and anyone can tell you that "sci-fi" could be a lot of things. UNlike the D&D worlds, which are all generally the same save for PLanescape and Dark Sun, the three primary Alternity settings have nothing in common with each other, each unique and awesome.

Gamma World is a remake of the classic TSR post-apocalypse RPG, but I can't speak much on it because I don't hve the book near me.

Star * Drive is a space opera that manages to strike a medium between the Star Trek utopianism and mega-corp dystopianism. Realistic but not "Hard SF" anal, gritty but not dark, S * D is set just as humankind begins to expand from its arm of the Milky Way to another -- I say humankind because, though there are aliens and they are cool, they're outnumbered by humans by about a million to one. Aliens are special, instead of mundane as they are in Star Trek, and massive human hegemony presents a myriad of interesting roleplaying opportunities.

Dark Matter is a modern compiracy-occult setting, and also the best setting for any role playing game ever. Every conspiracy you've ever heard is true -- the government IS controlling your mind with ultralow frequency sound, the reptiles ARE breeding in the sewers and planning to take over the Earth, the Chinese ARE occyping Tibet because there's a UFO crashed there, mole people DO live in Lower Wacker Drive, and sasquatches DO walk the Earth -- and they're members of the Knights Templar! Layered with conspiracies but never stupidly so, filled with horrors but not such that the PCs are powerless, Dark Matter is everything you could ever want in a modern setting. The book is not only gorgeous, but it's so chock full of cool-ass conspiracy lore that it's worth picking up even if you never plan to play Alternity in your life.

There you have it. Alternity is the best RPG system ever. IF you think otherwise, you are quite simply wrong. If you are playing a game with any sort of SF element, you should switch over to Alternity right the fuck now.

[Pana]

I will be blunt. I never even tried, let along played Alternity before but I do have some questions concerning the substance of the conclusion of your essay.

When you say that Alternity is the best RPG system ever, does this mean that you have tried out most, if not all of the RPG systems out there like Castle Falkenstein, HackMaster, Dark Sun and others that are currently available?

Secondly, I noticed that you stated that if everyone plays a game with a SF setting, they "should switch over to Alternity right the fuck now." What about if I play a Fantasy setting?

Concerning about the amount of HP that a character has when he levels up...Frankly if a GM in any system allows a player to do something stupid, an equal and opposite reaction should best him. The PCs' (and villians) are suppose to be hardy heros, no matter what genre they are in, inflicting and taking damage to anything that catches their eye (and the GM to regulate and slap them in the face if they go too far)

I do have a serious disagreement about singling a person out. What does he have to do with the system in question? If it was in general terms about munchkins, then it would be different but to call on someone without any proof is to disrupt a person's dignity.

In the end, I would like to view the system so that I can offer a rebuttal, agreement, opinion, etc etc.

When was it made and is it still easy to pick up a copy?

[Huitzil]

I will be blunt. I never even tried, let along played Alternity before but I do have some questions concerning the substance of the conclusion of your essay.

When you say that Alternity is the best RPG system ever, does this mean that you have tried out most, if not all of the RPG systems out there like Castle Falkenstein, HackMaster, Dark Sun and others that are currently available?

One need not have tasted a hamburger to know that filet mignon is better. And isn't Dark Sun both out of print and for D&D2?

Secondly, I noticed that you stated that if everyone plays a game with a SF setting, they "should switch over to Alternity right the fuck now." What about if I play a Fantasy setting?

Alternity can be used for a fantasy setting with little adaptation, but the rules are really built for sci-fi.

Concerning about the amount of HP that a character has when he levels up...Frankly if a GM in any system allows a player to do something stupid, an equal and opposite reaction should best him. The PCs' (and villians) are suppose to be hardy heros, no matter what genre they are in, inflicting and taking damage to anything that catches their eye (and the GM to regulate and slap them in the face if they go too far)

Yes, but a lack of constant HP advancement measn the GM need not place his characters against increasingly silly monsters or challenges to threaten them.

I do have a serious disagreement about singling a person out. What does he have to do with the system in question? If it was in general terms about munchkins, then it would be different but to call on someone without any proof is to disrupt a person's dignity.

Apparently we're not talking about the same MageOhki here. The man is like a vengeful wraith crafted by the voodoo gods to sap all the fun out of RPGing.

In the end, I would like to view the system so that I can offer a rebuttal, agreement, opinion, etc etc.

When was it made and is it still easy to pick up a copy?

1998, and books come up regularly on eBay. It's a fucking travesty that this game was abandoned the instant WotC got the Star Wars license -- "The game is complete" my fucking ASS, if it's complete how come you had supplements you were going to publish but were cancelled?

[Pana]

One need not have tasted a hamburger to know that filet mignon is better. And isn't Dark Sun both out of print and for D&D2?

My fault. I meant Fading Suns --;

[Dracos]

Nice Pitch, Huitzil.

Dracos