Customer Reviews

Alternity Gamemaster Guide

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A core rulebook for TSR's new science fiction roleplaying game, the Alternity Gamemaster Guide provides ideas and essential rules for running an Alternity campaign. Alternity brings flexibility to the sci-fi gaming universe, allowing the gamemaster to create any sort of campaign, from friendly exploration and alien contacts to gritty, grim wars of vast planetary destruction.

Use of this book assumes ownership and working knowledge of the Alternity Player's Handbook. It covers the basics of running a roleplaying game for novices, Alternity's special quirks for the experienced gamemaster, adventure and campaign design, and fast-play rules for the impatient. Sections deal with details of handling character creation, personal statistics and their effects, hero careers, and non-player characters. Tips are given for designing new hero careers, alien races beyond the five provided in the Player's Handbook, and a variety of vehicles, star systems, individual planets, spacecraft, and alien artifacts. The Guide contains many short tables for effects and characteristics, and for determining species lifespans (as determined by technology level). Brief optional rules are also presented for mutants, psionics, cyborgs, artificial intelligence, and "special effects" (any magic, miracle, or superpower beyond the other rules provided).

For players' displeasure there are statistics for 15 dangerous animals from good old Terra and 20 generic alien creature types to modify for every alien need. TSR fantasy fans will find an appendix of conversion rules for bringing AD&D characters, races, equipment, and spells into an Alternity game.

For ease in using published adventures and accessories, a sample nonplayer character statistics form with explanatory notes is provided. Also included are forms for ship design, ship status, and solar system design/record. There is an index of both this book and the Player's Handbook.

Alternity Gamemaster's Guide is an essential element in what promises to be an exciting new game in the science fiction game genre.

--Sharon Daugherty for Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine

The Alternity Gamemaster Guide is one of the more solide products TSR's published recently. The Player's Handbook, however, set a high standard for Alternity - and the Gamemaster Guide falls a bit short.

That's not to say that it's bad. (Actually, it's almost as good as the Player's Handbook.) With a random star system generator, starship and vehicle components, artifact rules better than AD&D's, templates for NPCs and aliens, and the FX system, what more could you ask for? The answer is "a lot."

The FX rules are a good example of this. The system is way out of whack; for a chapter predestined to attract attention, the rules on Faith, Arcane Magic and Super Powers need serious revision. The same goes for starships; if you don't like stardrives, you're outta luck. And these are only the start of the list of bugs. The alien creation rules seem designed to spawn supermonsters (check out the Elves in the Appendix), and need a point-based system. The system generation rules also need to be defaulted off of. (According to the list, A5 and R5 environments don't exist in the universe!) No equipment creation rules? No random encounter system? In a game touted for its all-encompassing flexibility, the Alternity Gamemaster Guide is almost a fluke. Don't get me wrong; this is still a crucial book to buy. If you get it, though, get Starships (and maybe the Arms & Equipment Guide, even if you don't use Star*Drive). You'll be glad you did.

D&D 4e may get all the attention, but Alternity is a superior system. This GM guide gives you the basics you need to do starships combat and build a universe. Not bad for something under $20! ;-)
This flexible, intuitive system only died because the Star Wars RPG replaced it. Star Wars has the brand, but its RPG system is inferior to Alternity. Alternity's way of handling hit points and damage is far more realistic. Same goes for Modern d20, although poor replacement to Alternity.
Thanks to Amazon, you can get all the Alternity books today for cheap and play away!

This is the other Book you'll need to play Alternity(the other one is the players handbook). If you fimilar with other TSR products like AD&D there is no suprize that you need a Players Handbook and Game Masters guide.

This new system that TSR made is nothing like any of their other products, to put it simply this isn't AD&D in the future it's a whole new game. The rules are simple so you can get into the action right away, there is also a brand new combat system that makes combat a lot fast so you won't spend and entire evening on one combat round.

I must recomend the Alternity books to anyone who loves to play in Far Future settings battling Hodes of Aliens and humans...

I read through the Game Masters Guide, and I think that TSR really did a good job. The rules are solid, well thought of, and the book contains a lot of advice for GMs. I have played several RPGs, and I think Alternity is a great one.

The Gamemasters Guide is an excellent resource for anyone who has tried Alternity and wishes to host thier own campain. The guide covers all the areas that you need to run a successful game. The Alternity game systems really makes it easy for the GM to be able to manage a good sized group without getting bogged down in complicated rules. Your players will have a blast! This is an excellent gaming system to start off with as well, since it is so strait forward. The game mechanic is simple, but allows for alot of depth and completeness depending on your tastes.

Quite often in other game systems problems arise that are difficult to resolve with the rules, with Alternity Guide not only are the rules well organized and complete, the number of rule problems are minimal because of the efficent game mechanic and well written guide.

If you are thinking about purchasing this Guide, it wouldn't be a mistake. It is well worth just to read and see the artwork throughout.

Loved it...looks to be fun...too many rules ,but can easily ignore the details...unless you are into that...will be running a sci-fi game soon.

Fan of this old series and was tired of the old d20 rules. These rules seem more "realistic".

Overall, Alternity is a good game. It allows for just about any kind of campaign a GM might want to run, and the rules don't seem too hard to get used to. Though I did find that the armor rules needed a bit of tweaking (they made armor too strong), that was the only thing I could find about it that wasn't up to snuff. Highly reccomended.

In my opinion, Alternity can be racked up as Traveller for the late 1990s. The Gamemasters guide presents rule refinements and an excellent system for role-playing. I think that combined with the Alternity Player's Handbook, this game will present gaming enjoyment for years to come.

The chapters on campaign design and campaign archetecture are real stand-outs. They would be very useful to any GM in any S/F role-playing game.

My only complaints were a lack of an adventure (unless you got your copy early enough) and relativly weak chapters on adventure design, both of which would have been very useful for a fledgling GM.

Overall, Alternity is a great system.