[OT] Alternity (was Starting from the ground up...)

Has anyone looked at TSR's Alternity system and their ship combat. I've got
the
rules and given them a once over, I do like them from a role-playing
aspect.

devans@uneb.edu on 10/27/99 10:46:40 AM

Please respond to gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU

To:   gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
cc:    (bcc: Aron Clark/AM/Avid)
Subject:  Re: Starting from the ground up...

***
he rolls a 6 and then another 6. Boom, everyone is dead. Role playing game
over.
***

Well, the ship's dead; we assume pilots punch out of dead fighters, why not
ship's personnel?

While Traveller isn't, but there ARE systems that are that deadly. Other's
have 'fudge' factors when PC's are involved.

You could think of using fractional damage; you could say a ship's box is
actually 5 or 10. Or, you could allow damage control a roll to stop critical
failure. But why bother?

I know, if someone showed me just how deadly fighting could be, I'd be
working, thinking, talking my way out of fights, not running for them.

Big YMMV here. While people in them can be, I think of
war/battle/fighting as interesting, not heroic.

I'd say the REAL problem with using FT in RPG is the granularity of action.
FASA's first ST simulator had a level of play where there were at least 4
(maybe 6?) bridge
stations. There COULD be actually role-playing of manning a
ship.

I have the system, but never played. Don't know how well it worked; just using
your PC's characteristic to accomplish
a task that was straight-forwardly produced in the courser
level sounds like a yawn, but if the engineer had to actually balance energy,
keep track of systems, and interact with other crew, there might be interest
in there...

The_Beast