What was your most original Alternity Game? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

What was your most original Alternity Game?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
zombiegleemax
Jul 23, 2004 21:41:50 I've just come off an extended campaign. It spanned four distinct periods of human(oid) development, and made good use of the system's adaptability. Kind of makes me wonder what other types of campaign words people are playing in.

I think it a shame that TSR started off with Star*Drive. I wonder how far Alternity could have gone if they hadn't started with core books for an open gaming system, then tried to force it into a set campaign world. Dark*Matter was the type of campaign guide I wished to see more of: lots of possibilities and suggestions and lost of "in your game it might be like this, but it could be like that." Flexibility and variety are at the heart of Alternity (with lots of personal touches).

The campaign I ran started in a modern day world using the Dark*Matter setting as a source. Think X-files meets SG4, only the gates could not be traversed. I had my players totally spooked, especially when I started using stuff straight out of real life and adapting it to fit. They started keeping a notebook computer handy so they could do research whenever I threw something new at them. It's frightning, the links a derranged mind can make.

The second act took place about 150 years later. Humans had good-sized cities on the Moon and Mars and a few larger stations in orbit. Cyber-punk genre with slow system travel.

The third act took place in a more distant future, with Humans, Fraal, and Mechalus working together. Interstellar travel was just budding, but the game took place entirely within one solar system. The players got to negotiate their way through the first encounters with the T'sa and Weren. (Yes, I know I said original, and here I'm using all the usual suspects. Don't worry, I put my efforts into the fourth act.) It was a more gritty SF setting: more like Alien than StarWars.

The final act was totally space opera. Jumping across light-years at a time. Traveling across the galaxy and meeting strange aliens. AI computers, psionics, core arcana (a type of magic that works only near the heart of the galaxy), sleek ships, anti-grav, basically anything I could think of.

What made this all one campaign was a single thread that wove through all of the games: the search for the creators of the gates from act one, which also happened to be the forgotten ancestors, masters, or destroyers of the Fraal -- no one knows, that's why they're forgotten. Also, an ongoing battle with the etoile, beings that were loosed from an alternate dimension that the now un-traversable gateways passed through.

I added another element for the players: each time they had to make new characters, they got to keep all of the experience they had accumulated from the prior acts, so they got to start with pretty advance heros by act four. All in all, we had a lot of fun. And it wasn't a canned game.

So, what else have people done using the Alternity rules?
Jump in and share. :pile:
#2
Starglim
Jul 24, 2004 21:07:08 I haven't run anything as connected as that. When I bought the game in 1998, I put together a PL 6 Solar System-based setting with a lot of horror/weird fiction elements, strange social changes, intrigue and corruption. It was really a grab-bag of my own random ideas, but my players seemed to like it for the three sessions that it lasted.

I've spent more time on Dark.Matter, and made quite a few additions for the game that I'm running by e-mail. It's still recognisably the same setting, but with much Tangents material added, and probably about 50% my own conspiracies, plots and speculation about the alien species. I wanted more crazy mediaeval orders, more CIA mind control, more heretical facts and hidden history, and frankly, less Star*Drive-ish Greys. I tend to tinker with adventures and run converted modules.
#3
zombiegleemax
Jul 24, 2004 21:29:22 I play in a game that I've been accused of "shamelessly promoting" called colloquilally, "EV2503", with this URL: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/escapevelocity2503/

Y'all DO know that there's lot's of similar discussion over on Alternity.net... right?
#4
zombiegleemax
Jul 25, 2004 3:28:29 we got all these freaks creating their own galaxies here http://alternity.net/onlineforums/index.php?s=&act=SF&f=14

and then some stuff on some really old forums http://www.alternity.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowBoard&Board=Homemade&Idle=&Sort=&Order=&Session=

some old "Tangents" here http://www.alternity.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowBoard&Board=Tangents&Idle=&Sort=&Order=&Session=

and some new "tangets" here http://alternity.net/onlineforums/index.php?s=&act=SF&f=15
#5
zombiegleemax
Jul 25, 2004 6:41:44 I think the most original game is actually the one I'm about to run, Orphan Soldiers. Another short campaign I ran was unusual, but it was based on Evans's "Aztec Century" novel so I could hardly call it original.

I have to confess to not being very keen on Dark Matter; the whole X-Files thing left me cold. I couldn't shake the impression it was like Scooby-Doo on bad acid.

In my opinion, the published settings were really there just as a suggestion, to get things going and show what the system could do, rather like the many D&D settings.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Jul 23, 2004 21:41:50	I've just come off an extended campaign. It spanned four distinct periods of human(oid) development, and made good use of the system's adaptability. Kind of makes me wonder what other types of campaign words people are playing in. I think it a shame that TSR started off with StarDrive. I wonder how far Alternity could have gone if they hadn't started with core books for an open gaming system, then tried to force it into a set campaign world. DarkMatter was the type of campaign guide I wished to see more of: lots of possibilities and suggestions and lost of "in your game it might be like this, but it could be like that." Flexibility and variety are at the heart of Alternity (with lots of personal touches). The campaign I ran started in a modern day world using the Dark*Matter setting as a source. Think X-files meets SG4, only the gates could not be traversed. I had my players totally spooked, especially when I started using stuff straight out of real life and adapting it to fit. They started keeping a notebook computer handy so they could do research whenever I threw something new at them. It's frightning, the links a derranged mind can make. The second act took place about 150 years later. Humans had good-sized cities on the Moon and Mars and a few larger stations in orbit. Cyber-punk genre with slow system travel. The third act took place in a more distant future, with Humans, Fraal, and Mechalus working together. Interstellar travel was just budding, but the game took place entirely within one solar system. The players got to negotiate their way through the first encounters with the T'sa and Weren. (Yes, I know I said original, and here I'm using all the usual suspects. Don't worry, I put my efforts into the fourth act.) It was a more gritty SF setting: more like Alien than StarWars. The final act was totally space opera. Jumping across light-years at a time. Traveling across the galaxy and meeting strange aliens. AI computers, psionics, core arcana (a type of magic that works only near the heart of the galaxy), sleek ships, anti-grav, basically anything I could think of. What made this all one campaign was a single thread that wove through all of the games: the search for the creators of the gates from act one, which also happened to be the forgotten ancestors, masters, or destroyers of the Fraal -- no one knows, that's why they're forgotten. Also, an ongoing battle with the etoile, beings that were loosed from an alternate dimension that the now un-traversable gateways passed through. I added another element for the players: each time they had to make new characters, they got to keep all of the experience they had accumulated from the prior acts, so they got to start with pretty advance heros by act four. All in all, we had a lot of fun. And it wasn't a canned game. So, what else have people done using the Alternity rules? Jump in and share. :pile:
#2 Starglim Jul 24, 2004 21:07:08	I haven't run anything as connected as that. When I bought the game in 1998, I put together a PL 6 Solar System-based setting with a lot of horror/weird fiction elements, strange social changes, intrigue and corruption. It was really a grab-bag of my own random ideas, but my players seemed to like it for the three sessions that it lasted. I've spent more time on Dark.Matter, and made quite a few additions for the game that I'm running by e-mail. It's still recognisably the same setting, but with much Tangents material added, and probably about 50% my own conspiracies, plots and speculation about the alien species. I wanted more crazy mediaeval orders, more CIA mind control, more heretical facts and hidden history, and frankly, less Star*Drive-ish Greys. I tend to tinker with adventures and run converted modules.
#3 zombiegleemax Jul 24, 2004 21:29:22	I play in a game that I've been accused of "shamelessly promoting" called colloquilally, "EV2503", with this URL: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/escapevelocity2503/ Y'all DO know that there's lot's of similar discussion over on Alternity.net... right?
#4 zombiegleemax Jul 25, 2004 3:28:29	we got all these freaks creating their own galaxies here http://alternity.net/onlineforums/index.php?s=&act=SF&f=14 and then some stuff on some really old forums http://www.alternity.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowBoard&Board=Homemade&Idle=&Sort=&Order=&Session= some old "Tangents" here http://www.alternity.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowBoard&Board=Tangents&Idle=&Sort=&Order=&Session= and some new "tangets" here http://alternity.net/onlineforums/index.php?s=&act=SF&f=15
#5 zombiegleemax Jul 25, 2004 6:41:44	I think the most original game is actually the one I'm about to run, Orphan Soldiers. Another short campaign I ran was unusual, but it was based on Evans's "Aztec Century" novel so I could hardly call it original. I have to confess to not being very keen on Dark Matter; the whole X-Files thing left me cold. I couldn't shake the impression it was like Scooby-Doo on bad acid. In my opinion, the published settings were really there just as a suggestion, to get things going and show what the system could do, rather like the many D&D settings.