StarCraft: Adventures

[Kevka Palazzo]

So a friend of mine found out that a friend of his has a copy of the StarCraft: Adventures sourcebook. I didn't know what that meant, but I got the gist of it. (StarCraft RPG = win + good)

I Wiki'ed it later, and read a bit about the system, and saw that it was based on something called Alternity. I have no idea what that means, and could find nothing online that explained anything about Alternity. If anyone here could kindly explain what the hell it is, I'd be very appreciative.

[Zincorium]

Alternity is a lot of fun, unfortunately it's no longer supported in any way. You can probably find the books fairly cheaply on Amazon, I got mine for between fifteen and twenty bucks each a few months back.

Key thing to remember is that most of the stuff is backwards, i.e. low rolls are good, and instead of adding solid numbers, you add 'dice'. A +1 might be worth a d4, for example.

[Kevka Palazzo]

Well, like I said, his friend has the sourcebook already. He's giving it to us because he doesn't play P&P RPGs and he bought it when he loved everything that Blizzard so much as crapped out just because it had the brand name.

But what do you mean the stuff is backwards and you add dice?

[Deathcow]

There's a StarCraft RPG? I have two questions:

1) Why haven't I heard of this before? And
2) Where can I get a copy?

[Zincorium]

Well, like I said, his friend has the sourcebook already. He's giving it to us because he doesn't play P&P RPGs and he bought it when he loved everything that Blizzard so much as crapped out just because it had the brand name.

But what do you mean the stuff is backwards and you add dice?

1's are automatic successes, 20's are automatic failures. Positive or negative modifiers are addressed as 'steps'. A single beneficial step gives you -1d4 to the total roll, two gives you -1d6, and two negatives and a positive gives you a net penalty of +1d4. Confused yet?

Anyway, I haven't personally played the Starcraft RPG, but I've been a big fan of the alternity system and the Star*Drive and Dark matter settings since TSR came out with them. I'd like to start up a PBEM game or something, but the vast majority of gamers haven't even heard of alternity.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If you check out the Homebrew forums, we're working on making D20 rules for the various Starcraft units. Zerg, for example, have Hive Mind, and as such, you have to surprise all zerg units to surprise any of them. Furthermore, you have to penetrate a significant SR to use any mind-affecting stuff on 'em, because they're already under control whom you have to effectively fight over to get control of the unit. Terran units are fairly straightforward, we're working on the classes now.

It should end up being a lot clearer than the aforementioned system, anyways.

[Dervag]

I like Alternity, though it's largely dead.

The Starcraft sourcebook for it was terrible though. It's based on a bastardized version of Alternity that removes some of the most interesting parts of the system. It contains no process for character generation. Its canned adventures contradict Starcraft continuity to some extent, and it does a very bad job of providing content that can be used to expand from those canned adventures.

I'd rather take the basic Alternity rules and use them to create my own Starcraft campaign setting; I almost did so once.

[Kevka Palazzo]

The Starcraft sourcebook for it was terrible though. It's based on a bastardized version of Alternity that removes some of the most interesting parts of the system. It contains no process for character generation. Its canned adventures contradict Starcraft continuity to some extent, and it does a very bad job of providing content that can be used to expand from those canned adventures.

^ *sadness*