Alternity
In 1998, after TSR had been bought out by WotC, but before it was dropped as a separate brand, it released a generic rules set for science fiction role playing game. It was written by Bill Slavicsek and Richard Baker. Characters would be created by a points system for six statistics (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Will, and Personality) and take on one of five classes (Combat Specialist, Tech Operator, Free Agent, Diplomat, and Mindwalker). Classes were rather weakly defined with each class having an innate benefit and a discount on their appropriate skills, and except for psionic skills any character could eventually excel at anything they wanted to spend points on.
Despite being a nicely-illustrated book, having good reviews and a well presented rule book, it had little in the way of actual sales. There were a few campaign settings sold for it, notably a pen and paper version of Blizzard's PC game Starcraft. The product line was discontinued but settings such as Dark Matter survived into D20 Modern. Wizards of the Coast axed the product line and instead focused on Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition.
Mechanics
Alternity used a dual dice mechanic of rolling a control die (d20) and situation dice (such as d4) for resolving tasks but the dice size and number rolled could change due to circumstantial modifiers. The aim being to succeed by roll low under a target number (such as a skill) then working out what degree of success or failure occurred.
The dice used were the d4, d6, d8, d12, and d20. The d10 was excluded. The situation dice could be subtracted to make the roll easier or added to make it harder. These were described as difficulty "steps", with all the factors that affect the complexity of attempting an action expressed in how many steps they add or subtract to the roll.
| Dice Rolled | Situation Dice | Description | Step Modifier |
| d20-d20 | -d20 | No Sweat | -5 |
| d20-d12 | -d12 | Cakewalk | -4 |
| d20-d8 | -d8 | Extremely Easy | -3 |
| d20-d6 | -d6 | Very Easy | -2 |
| d20-d4 | -d4 | Easy | -1 |
| d20 | None | Average | None |
| d20+d4 | +d4 | Tough | +1 |
| d20+d6 | +d6 | Hard | +2 |
| d20+d8 | +d8 | Challenging | +3 |
| d20+d12 | +d12 | Formidable | +4 |
| d20+d20 | +d20 | Grueling | +5 |
| d20+2d20 | +2d20 | Gargantuan | +6 |
| d20+3d20 | +3d20 | Nearly Impossible | +7 |
The add or subtract nature of dice in Alternity produced a very different probability curve from dice pooling. Dice pools will always form a bell curve, where an add or subtract system produce a plateau where the probability of any outcome within the plateau is equal.
Star*Drive
The main far-future setting of the Alternity line. Star*Drive is set at the dawn of the 26th century, and humanity has spread out across the Orion Arm.
Publications:
- Alien Compendium
- Arms and Equipment
- Star*Drive Campaign Setting
- Klick Clack - An adventure in the Hammer's Star system dealing with the invading Klick aliens.
- Outbound - A collection of several micro-adventures on unexplored worlds.
- Planet of Darkness - An adventure of the "get rich quick" sort set on an intrigue-filled mining world.
- Star Compendium - Expands out the Campaign Setting with six more worlds to explore.
- Threats from Beyond - A collection of partially developed adventure hooks.
Novels:
- Harbinger Trilogy (Starrise at Corrivale, Storm at Eldala, Nightfall at Algemron) - Marine gets set up as the fall guy for an assassination, but then becomes the pawn of a precursor alien AI that could tip the balance in a brewing war between the known space nations, and a unknown external alien threat.
- Two of Minds - Street urchin fortune teller gets caught up in intrigue and turns out to be a latent telepath.
- On the Verge
- Zero Point
- Gridrunner
Dark Matter
The X-Files except they couldn't call it that. Dark Matter is a present-day conspiracy setting where secretive state and corporate entities are keeping the paranormal under wraps.
Gamma World
A re-release of TSR's old Gamma World. Alternity included mutations in the core rulebook so it's likely a Gamma World redux was on the list from day one.
StarCraft
Literally StarCraft. It was a licensed tie-in.