Funny New Guys Disappointment

[ehrbar]

Anyway, if you want to use M-66s instead of M-16s for Funny New Guys, these are the following changes you need to make:

1) When reading Funny New Guys, every time you see "M-16", think "M-66". Everything FNG says about malfunctioning, and early M-16s vs. M-16A1s, applies equally to the M-66 vs. M-66A1.

2) Use the special EPS rules and M-66 stats in GURPS Tedchnomancer Designer's Notes instead of the M-16 stats in the Third Edition Basic Set or High-Tech. The major differences here are the number of shots per clip (125 for M-66), the elemental rest/recharge rules, and that elementals are released from the gun on "firearm breaks" or "explodes" results.

[sir-talen]

Originally Posted by HANS

I, too, am a bit disappointed of FNG. I feel it spends too much time on the historical Vietnam War to be rated a true Technomancer supplement. I like it, being interested in the era and currently writing some stuff on it myself, but I think more could have been done to make it truely technomancery.
HANS

That's pretty much the point I made too in the RPG.net review I submitted (Hasn't appeared on their site yet). As a short historical subject it works pretty well, deleting mild anamolies like the dragons and the 13th Whatevertheircalled. As a Technomancer supplement it just wasn't wierd enough. The sample adventure should have involved shooting it up with mythical Vietnamese critters, or renegade Z Division zombies, or Vietcong chimera, or screaming for fire-support from dragons.

Instead we get an introduction to a rather mundane firebase, with no mages, one fox chimera, and a routine couple of firefights that could have been lifted from the Tour of Duty tv-series.

Snore.

[tylrlsaa]

You could put a little pyramid icon next to the title of official/canon material. At least it would cut down on people asking: "Is this official? What about that? What about this over here?"

Just a thought.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by HANS

Hm. I've written two pretty long e23s so far. They didn't get an official playtest and as far as I know neither SJ nor Kromm read them (at least I didn't get the usual comments from either of them). I have little indication that other e23s were treated differently. Thus, I would hesitate to pronounce such material canon, no offence to Scott and his crew.

This is the issue here.

The e23 Transhuman Space scenarios are very nice, but at least one of them contains a bit of space operatic orbital mechanics which is, to use a technical term, total b******s. If it had been anywhere near a playtest, I'd like to think that this would have been shredded, gutted, and then rewritten. I could certainly offer a suggested change that I think would even make the adventure more interesting.

(And yes, this does matter. This is Transhuman Space. Anyway, the passage in question is wildly incompatible with other published TS material.)

So I don't think that e23 material can safely be classed as "canon" for those who care about such things.

[HANS]

>So I don't think that e23 material can safely be classed as "canon" for those who care about such things.

Same for FNG concerning both "real-world" as well as "game-mechanical" issues (rather than the specific Technomancer problems we already talked about). For example, there are heaps of error-riddled weapon descriptions (AK-47 exactly the same as SKS?, TT-33 same as Colt .45??, M21 TL6???, etc), and simultanously, some pretty glaring rules issues. For example, the templates all feature non-existing specialisations ("Guns: Light Assault Rifle" is as wrong as "Throwing: Grenade"), and logical problems like Basic Training requiring HT 11, yet each of the other soldier templates (including Advanced Infantry Training) listing HT 10 . . .

As Phil says, all this would probably have been caught in a playtest or other quality-control measure, but since it hasn't, canonality sure isn't given.

Cheers

HANS