It's also named Alternity.  They put up some samples of the game back when it was being kickstarted, and I felt that the system they'd come up with was clunkier than the original sadly, and because of copyright they couldn't use any of the setting content from the original, such as the various species that I thought were pretty cool.

Quote from: Valatar on May 05, 2022, 12:09:00 AM
It's also named Alternity.  They put up some samples of the game back when it was being kickstarted, and I felt that the system they'd come up with was clunkier than the original sadly, and because of copyright they couldn't use any of the setting content from the original, such as the various species that I thought were pretty cool.

  Ah well, thanks for the response.  I like the presentation of the original books.  How does it play? Original Alternity I mean.   It looked to be pretty decent for gritty-ish sci fi.  I just have no idea how that dice system plays out on a table over a campaign.  I think at this point the game group is settled on SW, but I can dream about giving it a whirl for a "guest game" one weekend.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on May 04, 2022, 11:07:48 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 03, 2022, 11:51:40 PM
Dragonlance suffers primarily from being more of a novel series than an actual campaign world. The initial run of a dozen modules was literally "play out the events of the novels complete with the novel protagonists as pre-gens."

  Not quite; the original plan seems to have been that the novels were more novelizations of the game events, to the point that DL5 Dragons of Mystery, the first 'sourcebook', included guidelines for 'playing the novels' as opposed to the original modules. But the novels got ahead of the modules, the tail wound up wagging the dog, and the latter half of the series starts diverging in numerous ways. There are major enemies and locations that were introduced for the modules but never even hinted at in the novels, such as the King of the Deep and the Glitterpalace.

Y'all both got it wrong. 

DL01 takes place mostly before the books start.
DL02 swings between some events in the book and some events not. Not written by Hickman
DL03 again is mostly off book stuff.
DL04 ditto and by Hickman and someone else.
DL05 is a setting book rather than a full on module and not by Hickman
DL06 is another off book event and not by Hickman
DL07 ditto and not by Hickman
DL08 ditto
DL09 ditto and not by Hickman
DL10 ditto
DL11 a wargame
DL12 another off book one. And not by W&H
DL13 ditto
DL14 ditto and another not by Hickman

Predominantly the modules are about the things that the characters mention as happening but never happened in the books mostly. And this was commented on very early on in Dragon and at conventions. The modules in not way "play the books" they instead play the stuff happening offscreen mostly. Not 100% but at a glance its like 75 to 90% offscreen events.

Think of the modules more as interlocking with the books. It makes the comments in the book make alot more sense. At other points the module fleshes out events in the book. Like I believe the whole Pax Tharkas adventure.

I sure did not recall other authors writing so many of the modules. And Weiss is not credited once for a module even it seems. 8 of the 14 were by someone else.

Quote from: oggsmash on May 05, 2022, 12:15:39 AMHow does it play? Original Alternity I mean.   It looked to be pretty decent for gritty-ish sci fi.

Absolute mess. I so wanted to enjoy Alternity, but it felt like it was never playtested.

No idea why WotC won't reboot Star Frontiers. It's also a mechanical mess, but the races were awesome.

Quote from: David Johansen on May 03, 2022, 02:50:49 PMWhen I do it it's marketing and when you do it it's "shilling."

Bingo!

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 28, 2022, 05:34:26 PMI don't care what happens to the current incarnation of D&D or the rape victims they publish which used to be great adventures and settings of D&D past. The more they death spiral, the better.

Exactly.

WotC destroying EVERY setting from TSR totally works for me. Let them reach new heights of woketard!

The old books still exist. The PDFs are always floating around somewhere.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 27, 2022, 02:29:30 PMCopyright laws are largely bullshit and exist mostly to benefit corporations with enough money to enforce them rather than actual creators, making any defense of them defacto defense of corporations, unless you're actually defending a penniless artist having their material stolen or abused.

The main problem with copyright laws is the length of time thanks to Disney. If copyright was limited to 50 years, almost all of the issues with copyright would vanish.

Quote from: Spinachcat on May 05, 2022, 07:50:35 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on May 05, 2022, 12:15:39 AMHow does it play? Original Alternity I mean.   It looked to be pretty decent for gritty-ish sci fi.

Absolute mess. I so wanted to enjoy Alternity, but it felt like it was never playtested.

No idea why WotC won't reboot Star Frontiers. It's also a mechanical mess, but the races were awesome.

d20 Future (and its web enhancements, if you can find them on wayback machine) included a very brief mention of the Star Frontiers setting, here named "Star Law", as well as conversions of some of the races to the d20 Modern rules. Back in 2004 thereabouts. WotC hasn't done anything with it since then and abruptly ceased support for d20 Modern when they launched 4e.

Current WotC doesn't seem to be interested in producing anything that won't make tons of money. They're more popular now than they've ever been but their product output compared to the third edition days and earlier is tiny. They have tons of IPs that they could monetize but they're not.

Quote from: Spinachcat on May 05, 2022, 08:09:02 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 27, 2022, 02:29:30 PMCopyright laws are largely bullshit and exist mostly to benefit corporations with enough money to enforce them rather than actual creators, making any defense of them defacto defense of corporations, unless you're actually defending a penniless artist having their material stolen or abused.

The main problem with copyright laws is the length of time thanks to Disney. If copyright was limited to 50 years, almost all of the issues with copyright would vanish.

Totally. Although in the case of volatile media like video games then I would cut this by half.

Quote from: Shasarak on May 04, 2022, 05:17:56 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on May 04, 2022, 11:07:48 AM
  That said, you're correct on the core issue--Dragonlance was built as the backdrop for a single story, with a set group of heroes and villains.

There are about 200 Dragonlance novels that say you are wrong about that.

And apart from the original trilogy they're all garbage.

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 05, 2022, 08:46:56 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on May 04, 2022, 05:17:56 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on May 04, 2022, 11:07:48 AM
  That said, you're correct on the core issue--Dragonlance was built as the backdrop for a single story, with a set group of heroes and villains.

There are about 200 Dragonlance novels that say you are wrong about that.

And apart from the original trilogy they're all garbage.

I see you have heard of the Pareto principle.

Quote from: Spinachcat on May 05, 2022, 07:50:35 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on May 05, 2022, 12:15:39 AMHow does it play? Original Alternity I mean.   It looked to be pretty decent for gritty-ish sci fi.

Absolute mess. I so wanted to enjoy Alternity, but it felt like it was never playtested.

No idea why WotC won't reboot Star Frontiers. It's also a mechanical mess, but the races were awesome.

   That....was the other thing I got the vibe about...was this play tested for all the sorts of things Players like to do or try.  I only remember Star Frontiers from the box set, and I remember percentile dice for combat and skills, past that It has been a looong time since I played that.

I played in a Star Frontiers campaign a couple years ago and played a Knight Hawks campaign more recently.

What WotC should do is compile it and put out an omnibus.  I guess you could colorize the art, I wouldn't, but if you can't get Parkinson and Elmore please don't use any of these crappy new guys.

I'd probably tweak the rules.  Of course, I'd tweak the rules, I can't help myself, I'm a sick, sick man.  Okay so each skill will now have one rating with a 1/2 stat + 10/rank base.  The subskills / tasks will now be modifiers.  Taking damage over 1/2 current Stamina from a single shot is now incapacitating.  As is it's too much of a hit point grind followed by sudden and instant death.  There will be rules for military vehicles and powered armour but they will take a similar format to the civilian vehicles rather than using the Tanks Again and Tanks A Lot articles from Dragon which WotC probably doesn't have the rights to anyhow.

I think that's about it.  If you needed to bulk up the page count I'd put in all the adventures and any setting and race information from Zebulon's guide.  But the core thing is to realize it's a decent enough game and not pollute it with any newfangled fifth edition D&D crap.

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 05, 2022, 08:46:56 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on May 04, 2022, 05:17:56 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on May 04, 2022, 11:07:48 AM
  That said, you're correct on the core issue--Dragonlance was built as the backdrop for a single story, with a set group of heroes and villains.

There are about 200 Dragonlance novels that say you are wrong about that.

And apart from the original trilogy they're all garbage.

Not really. The Time of the Twins sequel is actually not bad really.
A few of the anthologies arent bad either. Very hit or miss from the ones I saw or had. Especially the TNG set of anthologies.
But the further out it gets the worse it feels. I have some of the Huma set but have never gotten around to reading. One book from the after chaos event was ok, if very disjointed and abrupt. The rest was unimpressed with more and more.

The first 3 books actually suffer for their module tie ins as if you never got the modules you are missing out on while chunks of story they are referring to.

Look on the bright side, at least they're not trying to reboot/relaunch Buck Rogers.

Well, I'd love to see XXVc. back in print.  I mean, Buck Rogers barely appears in it and it's a pulpy, transhumanist, hard sf setting.  There are telepathic cats in one of the modules and the terraforming timelines are pretty ambitious but otherwise it's a neat setting.  Mechanically it's the cleanest and most functional iteration of AD&D 2e and works fairly well for the game.

I only got to run it once or twice and the best memory is a character fleeing through an apartment block from a red headed girl with her hair in curls screaming, "My very own space hero!  I'm gonna love him and hug him and keep him forever!"  And you thought C'thulhu was scary.