Seems I am always looking for a game. Kinda funny actually. So a couple of the ones I would love to find right now are--

 --Alternity:Stardrive
Yeah I know an older system that next to no one has heard of. Still love it.

 --Shadowrun 3rd Edition
How can one miss the shadows of 2055? Simple it's been like 25 years since I have played last and I miss old Harlequin. Well him and my elven mage ex-Tir Ghost who carries a magic imbued flintlock. Yeah anachronism he is. Just miss the system really a trillion trillion ideas.

 --Anima Beyond Fantasy
I really want to play this game. So much it isn't funny.

Wow, that's going back...

Given your emphasis on Star*Drive, I'm assuming 1st Edition?

I might be able to put something together. I went on an Alternity kick some years ago and bought damn near everything for Dark Matter and Star Drive and the core Alternity system, even the Gen Con exclusive releases (yay used book stores and the internet). I don't know why, the more vocal members of my group at the time hated the system ('cause it wasn't D&D based), but I liked it, perceived warts and all. Trouble is, never had a chance to run it all that much, so I'm thinking play-by-post might be the perfect place to give it a shot. Not sure about a full on campaign, but a short adventure and then seeing where things go from there might be fun.

It'd be weird, given the time it was released, kind of like running an edition of Shadowrun from before wireless technology and USB's with gigabytes of data were as widespread. ;-) I might be down to give it a shot though.

In reply to DevilOfRoses (msg # 2):

 Alternity was actually based on 2nd edition D&D back when TSR still had it. Before Wizards existed.

  Shadowrun was honestly at it's best before the wireless Matrix. For one reason the matrix was always a messy part of the system then add in all the wireless part of it and it got really whacked. One role I never did was decker because I didn't like the mess. Magic, rigging, and literally everything else was easy by comparison. Heck even went through the Bug City DMZ with a few street Sams bent on extracting a target from Cermack before the nuke went off.

   Play by post is both a good way to learn the system and a bad way to learn the system. It all depends on how you want to look at it. I'm looking to play and someone brought the old Alternity nut out.

This message was deleted by the user at 14:40, Wed 04 Mar 2020.

I mean, sort of but not really? It came out around the tail end of AD&D 2E, but aside from lifting things like Classes (Professions) and Attributes (with Charisma becoming Personality), it was a very different beast mechanically. Example: Stars Without Numbers is based on OSR, Alternity however, is a very different game from AD&D 2E. Designed by folks who worked on AD&D 2E and 3rd Edition, sure, but they were designing a very different game rather than an AD&D based game set anywhere from modern times to the far future. So it makes sense that some concepts are similar, but the mechanics of TSR's last Science Fiction outing were quite alien (pun intended) to 2nd Edition of the AD&D rules set.

As for Shadowrun, my experience was never potent enough for me to really be invested in 80's/90's retro-futurism enough to feel something like wires were necessary to the soul of the game, but that's me not being a die-hard fan, so it's just like, my opinion, man.

Alternity would be my game of choice, though I admit, I'd likely run through some of the modules just to re-familiarize myself with the rules. Tried digging up a text-based character sheet but couldn't find one, so that could be troublesome, if you know of any resources for that, it would be welcome. Drumming up other interest would be the next hurdle.

Also, sorry about the delayed response.

Mechanically, what I miss most about the move away from SR3 is having Task Pools. It meant that two characters with similar stats could be played very differently thanks to allocating the various Task Pools a character has. In some ways, I also prefer the Damage System for SR3 to 4 and 5 (never played 6). What I dislike about the current Damage System is that it punishes you for going the tank route.

What I don't miss about late-era SR3 is cross-referencing rules between 3 books to determine a target number for a dice roll. Anyways, I have so many fond memories and character moments of Seattle in SR3, I'd love the chance to revisit my old haunts.

For my Elven Decker to wield Black Hammer running on his Fairlight Excalibur, for my Dog Shaman to have her Ally Spirit at her side once more. For my 'Borrowed Time' Phys Ad to work off that flaw doing whatever it took to survive (4th ed came out before his time was up).

Never did get the chance to run the Arcology: Shutdown set of missions.

Cheers.
This message was last edited by the user at 15:49, Mon 09 Mar 2020.

In reply to MrSerious (msg # 7):

Task pools.....oh the memories of the Astral mage who tried to kill Lowfyr only for the Wyrm to offer him a job. Now that was a run.....Seattle, Chicago, London, Germany so long as it is 3rd ed I literally dont care.

@DevilofRoses

 I played 2e D&D, Alternity, and 3rd D&D in the same week when the latter two came out. Trust me the first two share more in common than they don't as far as base stuff goes. Regardless if you are willing to run I'm willing to play. As for finding players run an Interest check in the Advice section and possibly a players wanted ad.

Played it when it came out myself, have also been reading the rules recently, so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. :-P

I'll try and dig up some sort of character sheet people can use on this site. Once I have that, the only real obstacle is finding players.
This message was last edited by the user at 07:27, Thu 12 Mar 2020.

In reply to Knight_Vassal (msg # 1):

I d love some grognard SR3  action...

I always enjoyed Shadowrun 2nd Ed. the most. Hell, I remember in first edition where we had to make those rolls for spells; one for power and one for casting. It always sucked when I rolled up a really powerful spell that I botched casting. Killed a character by accident once too. Ah, them goofy ol' days.

I tried running an Alternity/Star*Drive game here a year or so ago. Didn't quite work out, but I have a character sheet all ready to go.

Alternity wound up morphing into D&D 3.0.

Also, there's been recent talk of someone publishing a new version... using a positive skill system (high is good, low is bad).

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 12):

Bump

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 12):

Yeah, a second edition was published awhile ago, haven't had a good chance to look at it. I'd much rather use the material I already have rather than work on something brand new though.

Older shadowrun versions sound great to me.

In reply to TMTO (msg # 15):

Well, for my part, I'm still down to run an Alternity game. Unfortunately I never got into Shadowrun (not for lack of interest, just never got into it, yay relatively obscure system in small town Alaska, I was lucky they had White Wolf RPGs instead of All D&D all the time!).

In reply to DevilOfRoses (msg # 16):

Bump

I love Alternity and played it a bunch over at alternityrpg.net back in its heyday.

I'm not able to run a campaign right now but I would definitely love to play if anyone gets a game going!

I've never played Alternity before, but I wouldn't mind giving it a whirl too.

Just posting to note I've not forgotten about this. I've been running three separate games on three separate systems that have taken the bulk of my attention. Still picking my way through the core book. I'll link to whatever game I end up making once I set it up. Tentatively hoping to have something done this weekend.

In reply to DevilOfRoses (msg # 20):

I will keep an eye out. I'm not in any hurry. I prefer quality over quantity and day.

There was a 2055 sourcebook for either 4th or 5th edition SR, too, so you might have better luck not restricting things to 3E.

In reply to gmpax (msg # 22):

 Up until 4th the entire system was backwards compatible and to a certain extent this is true for 5th, but not 4th. 3rd was where the elegance was last. Kinda like D&D weirdly enough. Both tried to hard to be computer games.

So, I'm still doing a lot of reading, but here's the 'Looking for Players' advertisement:
link to a message in another game

This message was deleted by the user at 17:34, Sat 30 May 2020.

  Still looking for Anima.

 Kinda of an odd system but Brave New World. Never heard of it I'm not surprised to be honest. I have the old books for the most part. Haven't had the free money to get the new ones yet.
This message was last edited by the user at 00:52, Sat 18 July 2020.