Customer Reviews

Alternity: Science Fiction Adventure Game : The Adventure Begins Now

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As a seasoned roleplayer I tend to be wary of 'introduction to' books - most turn out to be ripoffs or poorly summarized versions of existing games. I was pleasantly surprised that this book turned out to be neither. Packaged as an introduction to the full-priced Alternity science-fiction game by the same publisher .............................., this book is excellently done.

The plot is interesting, and the characters are varied and well-thought out and come with handy templates which can be passed out to each player. The game rules are clearly explained, the tables and charts well organized, and everything required to play comes with the book. Most importantly, great care was taken to make the book accessible even to newcomers to the hobby. As a bonus, even the interior artwork is uniformly good. Altogether, a high quality product at a bargain price. A commendable effort by TSR to get more people involved with the hobby.

For a fair price, Intro to Alternity provides a good introduction to sci-fi role-playing. The rules are presented in an easily followed format. Player character (hero) templates are even provided to minimize the fuss and time expended in preparing for a game session. Best of all, everything you need to play the game is included with the kit.

The point, of course, is to get players interested in investing their credits in the more advanced material provided in the Alternity players handbook and/or gamemasters handbook. However, creative types could easily have a lot of fun playing with this set for a long time.

This boxed set is even non-geeky enough to pass as an evening's entertainment among the monopoly crowd. If board gamers catch wind of this, I think there will be more folks joining the RPG tables. Overall, an enjoyable product.