The Gaming Den

I was asked to join a Alternity game recently. What are the den's thoughts on the Alternity system? A quick search shows that souran hates it, but CatharzGodfoot seemed to think it was ok. Any other thoughts?
If the system is worth a shot, any advice during character creation, or while I am playing the game?

the biggest question you should really be asking here: "Does the game look like it will be fun?"

I don't mean the system, I mean the group, the story (from what you know of the gm), and thirdly, game experience.


If I judged what games to play by Den opinion, I'd pretty much only ever run, and would be the gm equivalent of that crazy hobo who rants about space transmissions from the government to anyone who'd listen.

It's a random group from Nearbygamers.com, so i actually don't know the group yet. Was going to ask about the story later, once I figured out if the rules were usable.

I know I came with fire and vitriol to Alternity, however,

I always say PLAY rather than not play rpgs. Even if your group decides to play stupid ass Rifts, go ahead and play. Just hope to be a glitterboy or the psyhic sword dude or whatever.

Alternities problem is that its clunky, slow, and its impossible to make a reasonable character for any of their settings.

Anyway, I say play.

If nothing else, it will add to your D&D games when people shout "amazing success!" on natural 1s.

I say play. Even if the experience sucks, you can always tell stories about that group of losers who actually tried to play Alternity. Seriously, I never analyzed the game in detail, because when it came out, I was smack in the middle of my hardcore "roleplaying" phase and didn't know how to analyze the implications of mechanics at all. It seemed really cool at the time because it was TSR's first attempt to make a system based on consistent mechanics. Of course, that's less of a selling point now that we're not comparing it to 2e AD&D. Personally, I'd like to see how all that foraging for various additional dice to roll affects the pace of play.

Do you like the genre? Personally, I'm not crazy about sci-fi games; I much prefer fantasy or superhero games, so I'd probably give Alternity (or Traveller or Firefly, etc.) a miss.

Go, check out the group, join a session or two. The fact that you post here means there is a strong likelihood you should be getting out and meeting new people more often.

If you find that with the first couple sessions, you're having fun or getting free beer stick around

If they're all a bunch a morons who just sponge your beer bail after a couple weeks.

Josh_Kablack wrote:If you find that with the first couple sessions, you're having fun or getting free beer stick around

If they're all a bunch a morons who just sponge your beer bail after a couple weeks.

Hmmm so who is the moron if deathdealingjawa is getting free beer?

From your other thread:

As you've read in the last report, your associates harassed a stripper with psychic powers named Krissa

If I didn't know better, I'd say this was one of my games.

(I'm also playing Alternity now, and have some various thoughts on the system up here: http://karriusrpg.blogspot.com/2010/07/ ... rnity.html )

Re-read the fast play rules for this recently - have never actually played it though.
The rules seem to make alot of use of the Amazing/Good/Typical breakdown of results (under 1/4 of skill, under 1/2 of skill, under skill rating) on d20.

They really seem to build on this in the damage rules and the initiative rules ---firstly with the initiative "Phases" corresponding to the check results (i.e. you go in the Amazing phase or in the Typical phase), and secondly with the damage system - where the result level determines whether you cross off Stun, Lethal or Mortal boxes.

Anyway, for anyone playing this - does all the overhead actually seem worthwhile in the game??? Or is it mostly just an annoyance??)

(Also, writing this out now, come to think of it, I can see a possible problem with the maths here - in that Amazing successes and Good successes are equally likely. Maybe that's not so bad since the "situation" die will tend to bump your roll up or down so that the odds aren't 25%/25%/50% of skill, though).

Josh_Kablack wrote:join a session or two. The fact that you post here means there is a strong likelihood you should be getting out and meeting new people more often.

This.

Awesome. I might add this to my signature.