Alternity S&S Magic Hazards

Compulsion
Magical power is an addictive thing. Once tasted, the lust for it never goes away. Any time a caster’s power or ability increases the player must make a Compulsion Check. If this check fails, the character’s Compulsion modifier, which begins at 0 increases one step.
If the character is ever faced with the opportunity to increase his prowess, and the player wishes to pass on the opportunity, a Compulsion Check is made against the character’s WILL. If this check is unsuccessful, the player must attempt to obtain the object of the Compulsion. This could be a spellbook, enchanted object, rare ingredients, or magical formula. Anything that could result in the character being more powerful is fair game.
Note that fulfilling the Compulsion is not a suicide mission. If the object of desire is well-guarded or otherwise inaccessible, the character will plot and scheme ceaselessly until he works out a plan for acquiring the object. It is an obsessive Compulsion, though, and will dominate his every thought until he owns it.
Corruption
Magical power was never intended to be wielded by men. It is corrupting, damaging to a caster’s very humanity. Too much contact with the forces of magic will eventually render the caster a twisted, mad creature, no longer human.
 Casters have an additional Trait, Humanity. It starts at one-half WILL. Each time a casting roll attempted, successful or not, the player must make a Corruption Check, against the character’s WILL. This roll is always made with the Control Die only. Each time it is failed, the next roll is made with a +1 per failure. If the roll fails, the character’s Humanity drops by 1. If the sum of the roll + modifier is 20 or more, the character has acquired an Arcane Taint, selected from the following list:
Negative Aura*
Animals and children react negatively to such a character. Animals and children will never react favorably to such a character and may react very negatively.
Disfigurement**
 One of the character’s normal physical features becomes disfigured. It is disturbing and discomfiting to look at, but not supernatural or unnatural. Affects Interaction Broad Skill.
Distrusted
 The character finds it very difficult to win the trust of NPCs. Affects Culture, Interaction, and Leadership Broad Skills.
Broken**
 The character’s physical being is becoming weakened by constant exposure to magic. Affects all Strength Skills, plus Endurance.
Mutation**
An unnatural form of disfigurement. This could take the form of a cloven hoof replacing a foot, an obnoxious odor, eyes of unnatural hue, claw hand, or anything else that isn’t natural about the human body. Affects all Personality Skills.
Odious Personal Habit*
The character develops a personal habit that is so bad it negatively affects his interactions with others. Some examples could include arguing with oneself very loudly, refusing to bath, “nervous" speech patterns, insistence on neurotic behaviors, etc. The possibilities are endless. This affects all Personality Skills.
Nocturnal
 The character has become a creature of the night. Any activity undertaken in daylight suffers a +1 Step penalty.
Mad
The character has become insane. This is difficult to nail down and should be worked out on an individual basis. No matter what, though, it is bad.
Each time an Arcane Taint is gained it causes a +1 Step Penalty to the associated ability.

Odious Personal Habit
The character develops a personal habit that is so bad it negatively affects his interactions with others. Some examples could include arguing with oneself very loudly, refusing to bath, “nervous" speech patterns, insistence on neurotic behaviors, etc. The possibilities are endless. This affects all Personality Skills.

Nocturnal
The character has become a creature of the night. Any activity undertaken in daylight suffers a +1 Step penalty.

Mad
The character has become insane. This is difficult to nail down and should be worked out on an individual basis. No matter what, though, it is bad.

Each time an Arcane Taint is gained it causes a +1 Step Penalty to the associated ability.

Alternity for S&S: Initial Thoughts

(I wasn't going to post this, and just keep these notes here as a back-up. I think, though, that I will post them. If I keep them as back-ups I'll delete them and this design history will be lost. I find it very beneficial to trace the genesis and development of these things, especially when I get off track or need inspiration. Please forgive me if these "designer's notes" are a little more stream-of-conscious than usual. That's just how I roll.)

Broad skills for the types of magic as in ZeFRS. They are "free", point-wise, but each comes with Compulsion. This is not a Flaw in the traditional sense, and does not grant bonus points. I'm not sure what it is, beyond the cost of learning magic. At any rate, Every time a sorcerous character increases in magical power (such as improving his broad skill, learning a new spell, unlocking the mysteries of an enchanted item, etc), he suffers a permanent one-step penalty to the roll. Compulsion checks against WILL whenever the character is presented with an opportunity to increase his power and ability.

Spells should be pre-defined rituals, except for Summoners. They command demons to their bidding.

The Cost of Doing Business I want to study up on the cyberpsychosis rules to see about using them as a model for how sorcerers lose their humanity as a result of trucking with dark forces.

All spells are rituals, to some degree. Some are relatively quick, some may take days, but none are able to be cast in combat. Sorcerers employ a variety of tricks and tactics to bring magic into combat, but no matter how the trappings may differ, mechanically, it all comes down to the same thing:

Foci
A Focus is an item enchanted to be a receptacle for spells. There are an endless variety of Foci. Some examples are:

• Knotted ropes
• Wands
• Staves
• Corked jars
• Flash paper
• Rings of power
• Crowns or helms
• Crystals

Pretty much anything, as long as it is of sufficient quality can be enchanted to hold at least one spell of modest power.

As a general rule, the more spells that are attempted to be placed into the focus, the more likely it will be destroyed in the attempt. Each spell increases the chance of failure, it isn't some flat rate. The relative power of the spell also has an effect.

Obviously, combat is not the only instance where a sorcerer may need to bring magical power to bear in short order. There are many other foci, such as those used in divinatory magic, that are designed for uses other than combat.

That's it for preliminary thoughts. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, so I want to keep the core systems as intact as possible, reskinning where necessary.

Star*Drive

The two Alternity core books were the only RPGs that survived my house fire back in May last year. I'm very happy for that, since I did always love the game, even though I've never played it. Imagine, then, how happy I was today when the mail man delivered Star*Drive.

Dark*Matter was the only supplement I owned for Alternity. I had plenty of chances to get Beyond F/X and Xenoforms from the FLGS before they went out of business, but there was always some reason not to. They had cleared out their Alternity stock long before, those titles somehow remained, despite the deep discounts.

I discovered D*M and S*D on Amazon recently, and was able to secure both for slightly under $25. D*M should arrive by the end of the week. Star*Drive came from Sherrie's Stuff. I mention that because I want to say that they did a fine job. It was shipped in a very timely manner. Its condition was listed as Very Good, and it certainly was. The binding is tight, the pages are in excellent condition with no marks or tears, and the cover shows only slight rubbing. If this is their definition of Very Good, something listed as New must be absolutely virginal.

I've only briefly skimmed it, so far. I like the breadth of what I see. It looks very comprehensive, covering a wide variety of far-future topics. I have long been intrigued by the notion of a port of 2300AD to Alternity. This may be the keys to that kingdom.

Some Alternity Stuff Uploaded

I just uploaded a few things for Alternity to the 4shared folder. The Player's and GM's Fast Plays, and the Dark*Matter Fast Play. There are a couple of supplemental information files for the D*M FP.

I have a lot of Fast Plays, Fastplays, Quick Starts, ets. I'm sure I'll get around to uploading them. If there is something that someone would like to see in the folder, let me know. If I have it, I'll get it uploaded.

Alternity Artifacts

Having rekindled my old flame for Alternity, I have been scouring the net for talk of it over the last few days. There isn't very much current, but I have been perusing quite a few forum archives. There was a great deal of polarity over Alternity. People seem to have loved it or hated it. There was one thing that proved a polarizing point above all others, though: the die mechanic.

For those of you who don't know, it is a fairly straight-forward thing. The target number for any task is invariably the character's stat + skill (where applicable). The goal was to roll under this total on a d20. Circumstance modifiers were handled by adding or subtracting a modifier die. The particular die would be based on the degree of the bonus/penalty. Thus, for your character to negotiate a narrow plank crossing a deep chasm, add Dexterity and Acrobatics. Roll d20 under and you're good. But wait, it is quite windy and there is a driving rain. This results in a 3-step penalty, so you would roll a d8 with your d20 and add them together.

Pretty clear, I think. There are a lot of comments out there about how counter intuitive this is. The variable bonus/penalty isn't the main villain, though. It seems like it would be, since most of us are accustomed to fixed bonuses/penalties. But no, it is the roll under that causes the most wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. Rolling under is counter-intuitive? Are you kidding me? These Alternity haters revile the roll-under like it sprang from the mind of La Vey.

Remember, I said that these forum archives are not new. In fact, a lot of them smack of edition wars, with d20 Modern/Future in one corner and Alternity in the other. D20M wasn't even that old when a lot of these shots were being fired. Why is this relevant? Glad you asked. Most of the people championing d20 and flaming Alternity for it's counter-intuitive roll under mechanic had been playing AD&D only a few short years prior. I love D&D, but let's be real. There are a number of totally unrelated die mechanics for different activities in D&D. Including roll unders, most notably Thief Skills and Non Weapon Proficiency checks.

So, I just don't understand how those haters could blast Alternity for being so counter-intuitive, baroque, and unfathomable, when just a few years prior they were up to the eyebrows in dueling die mechanics. Jim Morrison said it best:

"People are strange . . ."

A Look at Alternity

This is one of those games I adore, but have never been able to play. I'll buy just about any gaming book that interests me, money willing. I've always loved to read, so to me there's never been a difference between paying for a hardback of some novel or historical book, and paying for a gaming book. As long as I am entertained/educated/enlightened, I got my money's worth. As a result of that I've run into a lot of games over the years that I read but never played. Most of the time I could live with that. I knew going in that my group (when I had such a thing) wasn't going to be swayed from D&D. Still, every once in a while, I did read a game I tried to pitch to them, and when I failed to sway, became sad and a little bitter. This was such.

This is not intended as a review, an overview, or any other view. It is simply me lamenting missed opportunities with what I thought was a great game. In fact, it is the rediscovery of this line that has seen me so absent from the blog this week. Between getting reacquainted and wondering if I should even post something about this game (it is not "old school" except under the most esoteric definition), I discovered that there are quite a few diehards still feeling the Alternity love.

If you've never checked it out, you really should give it a look. There are quick starts and a metric ton of support and resources at alternity.net. Most of the line is available from Amazon. You can get used copies of the two core books, plus one of the campaign settings for less than what one of the books cost at release. If any of you do end up checking it out, I'd be interested in hearing your impressions.