Posted by Anders Sandberg on December 29, 1999 at 10:40:39:
In Reply to: Why Alternity as the rules system? posted by Trey Palmer on December 27, 1999 at 23:34:38:
: Mainly curious as to why given the currently limited material available for that system. In many ways, GURPS with GURPS Ultratech 1 & 2, GURPS Biotech and GURPS Robots (as well as GURPS Reign of Sttel) seems a better "fit" for the technology and support right now. Granted, GURPS AI's don't seem quite as much fun. Given I've played GURPS for years I am curious enough to go ahead and begin working on GURPS character creation rules and references for the various technologies.
I had little experience with both systems when I started, and my players argued for and against each. In the end it was nearly a random decision (also, one player argued that it was better to have some tech integrated into the setting from the start and not added on like in Gurps), but I'm not certain it was the right one. As you point out, there is a lot of GURPS modules that are relevant (Ultratech 2 is the only module I have seen so far for a roleplaying game that deals with nanofactories). I would really like to make a GURPS version of BIGV.
When we played, I found that Alternity was a bit too "stardrivecentric" and had trouble with some of the tech (C3I systems change fighting too much, for example) and perhaps even more with the style (7th level advertising gurus?).
: Still, I am growing more fond of the Alternity system as I read it and learn, and am getting tempted enough to start bringing in technologies from the above books as Alternity rules.
I think game systems are a bit like operating systems; ideally you should be able to use the one whose abilities suit your needs the most, and not have any trouble converting between them. But that tends to be tricky, unfortunately.