The Return of Alternity

For some reason, I've been on a big "get back to my roots" slash "find lighter systems" kick.  I've gotten sucked into Mutant Future.  I'm working with Dungeonslayers to see if that will be a good fit for lighter fantasy games. However, light sci-fi just never feels right.  Star Wars Saga is a great system, but it does suffer from the game issues as most D20 system based games: bloat.  Even just sticking to the core rules, there can be a lot to keep track of.  Compared to games like 3E D&D and D20 Modern, Saga is much lighter, but there's also the issue that it's so tied to Star Wars that it's tough to separate the system from the setting.  Well, it's not tough, just more work than I care to do.  I'd much rather focus on writing setting material or the occasional stats. 

That brings me to Alternity.  Alternity was a great sci-fi game put out by TSR in their dying days.  It had and interesting die mechanic of rolling a control die (d20) and a situational die (which was anything from 1d4 to 3d20).  It played pretty quick once you got the hang of it, although damage was a little funky.  It was my RPG of choice for several years until I fell into the D20 craze. 

After I started brainstorming on making a more generic setting using the Saga rules, I opened up my old Alternity Player's Handbook on a lark.  I had forgotten just how much I liked the system.  It has everything I'm looking for: cybernetics, psionics, robots, and aliens.  Space Lords is switching gears and moving into Alternity mode!