An Alternate Reality by Joseph Mohr is a role playing game supplement published by Old School Role Playing for use with Cepheus Engine. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The supplement is available as a 15 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, three the front matter and three the Open Game License.
The opening paragraphs explain that the characters are contacted by a member of the Sonoran Interstellar Police – the adventure is set in the Frontiers of Space – about some strange financial transactions and the purchase of a planet by an AI. The characters are wanted to go to the planet, and during the adventure they come across evidence suggesting they are living inside a simulation.
More Experimental Ideas explain that this is another adventure with an odd premise.
Patron has details on the employer.
Complications are things that are not known or which can go wrong.
Oribus II has details on the planet and its oddities.
What is Overlord Doing on this World? explains what the AI has discovered and is up to.
Solving the Mystery looks at the clues that the characters can find.
Conflict Resolution looks at what the characters might do.
Choices looks at the various options.
Key Locations describes the important locations.
Key NPCs looks at the most important NPCs.
Agents of Overlord are the agents of the AI.
Agents of the Simulation looks at these.
Reprogramming looks at how this could be done.
Conclusion explains that this is all very Matrix like.
An Alternate Reality in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a single column format and appeared to be free of errors. Bar the covers, there are no illustrations. Presentation is okay.
As is, this adventure is not going to be to everyone’s taste as it has the entire campaign probably become a computer simulation; many players are not going to like that. However, it could perhaps be tweaked. Maybe the characters were captured on a mission and plugged into a simulation in order to get information out of them, and they have to escape (think of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s Framework for instance). This would require some work be done to the adventure. An Alternate Reality can be found by clicking here.
Leave a Reply