Quote:
Originally Posted by Whitestreak
Let's say Larry and I are both working on books that could complement each other - but we are unaware of the fact. My book is on NATO aircraft of the Cold War, while Larry is working on Warsaw Pact aircraft of the same era. If I give the F-4 Phantom a handling of X, and Larry gives the Mig-17 a handling of 4xX, that'll lead to errata down the line, since, historically, the Mig-17 has a smaller turn radius and is more maneuverable overall. Or, Larry could be doing a book on aircraft in Vietnam and give his F-4 a handling of Y - whose version would be correct?
This is a concern because, generally, we've heard in the past to simply use a similar vehicle already published as a guide, which, to me, means hand-wave it, it'll be OK.
|
Most vehicle stats in GURPS are pretty easy to translate. Move has to do with top speed, handling and stability tend to come from what sort of vehicle they are (and there's a Pyramid article with some guidelines somewhere). DR has to do with inches of
Rolled Homogeneous Armor (or the equivalent), weight has to do with weight, ST/HP is derived from weight, and so on. There's still a chance that the two of you will disagree on the stats for X, but that's because sources disagree on the stats for X, but generally they'll look similar enough. The only real problem I see regarding existing vehicles is arming them.
(Note that this is how the vehicles in HT were created, or so I understand)
So you don't even need VDS for your cold-war aircraft, really. And there's someone who regularly publishes vehicles here on the forum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalzazz
'What we have convenient books for' strongly influences what sort of games I will run"
*snip*
I find Spaceships terribly confusing and problematic to use, so now when I run GURPS Space Fantasy it tends to be 'ships? What ships? Ships don't exist', back when I ran d6 Space Fantasy there were ships everywhere because I liked and understood d6 Star Wars ship stuff
|
If you feel that way, I doubt you'd find VDS a "convenient book," which is a good example of its narrow appeal. Like Kromm said, it's for gear heads who don't mind busting out a calculator. GURPS already tends to appeal to those who don't mind getting their hands dirty by diving hip deep into mechanics. Vehicles tends to be more of that kind of thing. So it's not for everyone. There's another major segment of the GURPS populace that like games like DF or Action who just want to grab and go. I suspect we need more vehicle catalogs for them.