Playing The Game

For most of the Alternity game, you are wandering around trying to accomplish a specific goal. Some of the places that you might find yourself are your ship (the Lancelot) other ships, planets, space stations, etc.

Each character has a certain walk and run speed, telling us how far they can run (or walk) in a single turn. A run speed of 16 means they can run 16 meters in one turn.

Each character has the same abilities: strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, will, and personality. These are general topics. There are also general skills: more specific, but still general (such as knowledge and awareness). You cannot improve general skills or abilities. You can, however, improve specific skills. These skills are not used as often (such as charm or sneak). To improve a skill, add one to its ordinary score, divide it in half (round down) to get a good score, and divide in half (round down) to get the amazing score.

To make a skill or ability check, roll the d20 (20 sided die) add or subtract the situation die as the GM tells you to do, and check the chart. If its less than the ordinary score, then its ordinary, below the good score, its good, and if its below the amazing score, amazing! Amazing is better than ordinary. Above the ordinary its a failure. A one one the d20 is an automatic success (the best) and a 20 on the d20 is a critical failure (horrible).

A character has to kinds of health: stun and wound. If a character looses all his stun points, he is unconscious, if he looses all his wound points, he is dead.

There are two different kinds of encounters in the Alternity game. You may encounter a good character, or you may encounter an evil character. Also you may have a neutral encounter too.

An encounter with a good character usually is a questioning sequence. You must ask specific questions, or the character my mislead you.

An evil encounter is a battle. See Combat.

A neutral encounter is when you have to do something before something else happens, like fly a spaceship through a magnetic field before the blast doors close.

In the Alternity game, a battle is an encounter with an evil creature. The GM should have a map af the area like the one shown at the right and a enemy sheet like the one shown at the left.

The battle begins with each character rolling an initiative check (a score on the d20 that tells when you act) If the score is lower than the ordinary score, then you act in the ordinary phase, lower than the good score, you act in the good phase, lower than the amazing score, than you act in the amazing phase. If its higher than your ordinary score then you act in the marginal phase. The sequence is the heroes that act in the amazing phase go first, then the GM characters that act in the amazing phase, then the heroes that act in the good phase, etc.

A character may do any of the following things in one turn: attack (unarmed or armed), run, dodge, recover (if you are unconscious) or use a skill.

At the end of each phase, you roll initiative.