[OT] Alternity & Starting from the ground up...

***
I had it and we played, it was a great system which I am still kicking myself
for letting go. That is the system I would love to adapt to Traveller if I
could ever find a copy. Guess I should search eBay again.
***

I may have a spare copy around. Perhaps I should flog it on eBay.
;->=

***
The GM has to be rather strict, there is a tendancy for the CO to attempt to
micromanage everything. I took care of this with time limits. Starting now you
have 20 seconds...
***

Back when I was trying to to work a computer mag's multi-seat
ship simulator (Interface Age's?) from the original dumb-terminal
to LAN'd PC's, I always thought of engineering as a version of
Atari's old Scram simulator. Try micro-managing THAT over
someone's shoulder! *heh heh*

Still, I'd say that FT is more for the generating of large ebb and flow of the
universe in which a campaign is run. Generating
the battles/assaults from which Traveller Advisories are
generated.

***
Has anyone looked at TSR's Alternity system and their ship combat.
***

I had trouble FINDING them. Not sure that I did. What I did find
looked very VERY sparse to me. The kind of role-playing with a
couple of decisions followed by a die roll or two, then, 'after the battle...'

If I just didn't give it a fair go, let me know.

The_Beast

> At 02:27 PM 10/27/99 -0500, you wrote:

Yeah, the ST:RPG SCS was a great system. It didn't hurt that we had a great GM
though. He made up panel displays for all the bridge sections out of old Lite
Brites he found at the Salvation Army. He repainted them, covered the front
with redesigned control sheets mounted on black construction paper, plugged
them in, and viola! Really cool looking lighted displays. If the ship was hit
for 10 points of damage, pull 10 of the green lite bright pegs in the Ship
Status Display out and replace them with red ones. He also used to do stuff
like have the bridge set up in one room, and conduct the planetside adventures
in another room. Need to contact the ship? Yell for them from one room to the
next, and hope they understand what you're trying to say.

Now I'm getting all misty-eyed...

You may want to have a look at the rule book in your local game store. I think
it is quite an orginal approach to Sci-Fi role-playing, mechanic wise.
Maybe as
much as GZG's novel approach to sci-fi wargaming.  Ah, but I'm up on my
soap box