Metamorphosis Alpha is one of the first science fiction role-playing games, published in 1976. It was created by James M. Ward and originally produced by TSR, the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons.
Description
The original edition is set on a generation spaceship, the starship Warden, which has been struck by an unknown cataclysmic event that killed many of the colonists and crew. The characters must survive their missions in the ship, which they believe to be a world. They no longer understand the technology around them, and they encounter numerous mutated creatures.
Players can portray a human, a mutated human, a mutated plant, or a mutated creature. Articles in Dragon expanded those options to include clones and robots as well as adding rules for cybernetics. Players have five characteristics: radiation resistance, mental resistance, dexterity, strength, and constitution. Humans have a sixth characteristic, leadership potential, while mutated humans and creatures add a random number of mutations, both physical and mental. Metamorphosis Alpha's combat rules resemble those in the original edition of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).
Metamorphosis Alpha is the intellectual precursor to Gamma World (1978), also produced by TSR.
Though often credited as the first science-fiction RPG, it was beaten to press by Ken St. Andre's 1976 game Starfaring.
Science fiction or science fantasy? Metamorphosis Alpha has an emphasis on super science and an element of science fantasy (as confirmed by the creator James M. Ward in 2006). Ward has stated that the game is not "hard sci-fi".
In 1980, TSR released AD&D module S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. The module was based on the idea that a starship such as the Warden (though not the Warden itself, according to TSR founder Gary Gygax) becomes marooned in a D&D universe. In the module's foreword, Gygax writes that the module was written to introduce Metamorphosis Alpha to the wider D&D audience and to demonstrate how one might undertake science fiction/fantasy crossover.
Inspiration
James M. Ward, the game's author, stated that the original inspiration for the game was Brian Aldiss's science fiction novel Non-Stop (also known as Starship, 1958). In the British RPG magazine White Dwarf, issue 1, Ian Livingstone wrote a review of the game and published his own additional rules for playing Metamorphosis Alpha on Aldiss's ship. However, it is often suggested that the game was inspired by Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 novel Orphans of the Sky. James M. Ward has stated that he was not familiar with the 1973 Canadian TV series The Starlost, a show with a similar concept, and that Metamorphosis Alpha is not based upon that series.
Ownership and rights
The rights to Metamorphosis Alpha are owned by James M. Ward. Ward also owns the rights to all Metamorphosis Alpha material previously published in Dragon. WardCo. (Ward's publishing business) has been granted permission by Steve Jackson Games and by Judges Guild (the estate of Bob Bledsaw Sr.) to host and republish some material. In 2008, Ward requested via public forums that sites hosting unlicensed copies of his original rules and the material previously published in Dragon magazine remove them, as they were a breach of his copyright and directly competed with products that he is selling. All permissions to host the Metamorphosis Alpha rules and the Metamorphosis Alpha articles in Dragon magazine, other than those being sold on behalf of WardCo., at sites other than at the official homepage have been rescinded. In 2010, Signal Fire Studios acquired the rights to produce a new edition of the game based upon Hasbro's 4th edition D&D. In 2011, Ward announced that he had negotiated a deal to produce a graphic novel of Metamorphosis Alpha.
Editions and supplements
Metamorphosis Alpha was first published in 1976 by TSR. It was written by James M. Ward and illustrated by Dave Sutherland III.
In 1981, Ward announced plans to rewrite the game as Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega, a supplement for the 1st edition Gamma World rules (Anon 1981). The Gamma World supplement was never completed, but in 1994, TSR used the title Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega for an Amazing Engine supplement () written by Slade Henson.
In 2002, Ward's company, Fast Forward Entertainment, published a new version of the game, entitled Metamorphosis Alpha: 25th Anniversary Edition. It was designed by Ward himself.