Any progress?

[blzbob]

I know it's just a personal project you do in your own time. I was just wondering if you have made any progress beyond where you were in December.

[evildmguy]

Alas, no.

The project was started when my group used Alternity for two campaigns in a row, something we hadn't done before. I finished it up at the tail end of one and the start of another. We got to use it and refine it during the second. I was pretty happy although I knew it needed work.

We talked about doing a third campaign and using only Alternity but it was not to be. Too many of us, myself included, want to try other systems and see what they can do. Then, six months ago, we came back to Alternity for a SciFi game and once again enjoyed the mechanics of it. For a few months, we played around with the idea of using Alternity for all of our games. I think once we started delving into that idea, and the group saw how much work it would be to modify and update Alternity, especially for fantasy, the idea died.

We are back to Pathfinder for the current campaign and there is talk of FATE, Scion, Exalted, or even WoD for the next one. I only make time to work on it when we play Alternity and usually to fix what my players need. At the moment, it looks like it could be a while before we get back to Alternity. But we are all fickle and who knows?

Sorry if this was more than you wanted! I wanted to explain a bit of my motivation for the project and why it has waxed and waned over the years.

It's also strange to me because when your notification of this post arrived, I realized I hadn't been to these forums in over six months. That seemed weird considering that I used to visit daily, especially when I was working on Alternity.

edg

[blzbob]

Thanks for the update. I haven't been here in over a month, apparently. I may finish up the other books, at least for Star Drive. I am having a hard time getting people into Alternity. It might be because I'm the only one with books...

[evildmguy]

I haven't been on the message boards much, either, for HL, RW or this.

As I said, we aren't playing Alternity at the moment and even when we did, most did it by hand rather than use what I made! As I said, motivation was down.

Take care!

[MadTruman]

I bounce into the forums every once in a while hoping to hear someone get excited about Alternity and suggest there may be improvements to Hero Lab's ability to accommodate it. Alas.

I'm about to run an intense one session adventure using the Alternity RPG rules set and the Mass Effect (video game series) universe. I think it will turn out pretty well. If I'm going to run space opera, I'm always going to want to use the original Alternity rules. They're really something special and I've been sad for so long that this particular treasure has withered on the vine.

[Paragon]

Unfortunately, once WOTC stops supporting something, they don't release it, and while there's a non-trivial following on Alternity, it wasn't popular enough for someone to do the heavy lifting to work out a clone.

[Asandir]

An interesting announcement was just posted by Sasquatch Games about a "new version" of Alternity.

See here for the announcement. http://www.sasquatchgamestudio.com/products/alternity/

[evildmguy]

That's very interesting!

Thanks!

edg

[Paragon]

I'd managed to miss this when Asandir posted it. While I'll give this a look, it sounds like the only thing in common is the name and Rich Baker's participation.

[evildmguy]

Yeah, I'm not sure what to think of this. On the one hand, quite excited to see what the original designers can do with twenty more years under the belts. On the other, they don't have the rights to the settings, "base" aliens, and have not committed to even the base die mechanic at this point.

I'm certainly interested, will be following it, and have high hopes at the moment.

[JakeMilo]

I have seen news that this project has been progressed to kickstarter with an open beta on drivethrurpg.

Looks like they will be using the old core dice roll system, but working on their own campaign setting (Protostar?), due to the previously mentioned IP issues.

To fair, it would have been hard to just pick up the StarDrive setting, it was meant to have a progressing story line and that got spoilered pretty hard once the game was cancelled in anniversary interviews with the old developers.

I don't think, however, it will be an easy conversion to make this hero lab module work for the new system when it is released though.

[evildmguy]

After looking at the beta rules, this would be a complete rewrite in HL to do the new rules. I'm looking forward to what the create but not sure that I will be putting them into HL.