Alternity Player's Handbook is a core rulebook for TSR's popular new sci-fi roleplaying game. This book is all an Alternity player needs (besides a friend using the Alternity Gamemaster's Guide). The Alternity system emphasizes ease of play and is based on a "design your own universe" concept for flexibility, allowing for gaming styles from storytelling to rules lawyering and campaign flavors from humorous to gritty.

The book covers basics of roleplaying for novices, fast-play rules, combat, and character creation. Five sample alien character species are included here, all from the Star*Drive Campaign Setting. Also included are five character professions: combat spec, diplomat, free agent, tech op, and mindwalker. Other chapters cover the nitty gritty of computers, weapons, armor, vehicles, and equipment for a sci-fi campaign. Covered at length are optional rules for mutants, psionics, and cyborgs (including player characters). Extensive character sheets (with permission to photocopy) are bound in the back of the book. The book is indexed and includes a handy guide to all info tables.

You say you'd like to play but would rather not design your universe from the bottom up? Some Alternity campaigns are slowly becoming available: first up are the 26th century universe of Star*Drive, a campaign of exploration and war on the stellar frontier, and the near-future campaign of Dark Matter (November 1999), a creepy world of the paranormal and occult in a time when doorways to other worlds are appearing and conspiracies abound.

Alternity Player's Handbook is a fresh new start in imaginative roleplaying.

--Sharon Daugherty