01-22-2010, 08:17 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Giving spaceships character
In what ways can one turn a spaceship into a character in its own right by giving it quirks? I don't mean building a spaceship with the character-creation rules; I mean individualizing spaceships.
In my case, I need ideas for a state-of-the-art, retro-tech (TL 6+3) Patrol frigate for Tales of the Solar Patrol. |
01-22-2010, 08:26 AM | #2 |
Aluminated
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
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Re: Giving spaceships character
Do you have the old Pyramid archives? There's an article on that topic, giving vehicles and other equipment individual "character" through quirks like systems needing time to warm up before reaching full power, making funny noises under specific circumstances, and so on.
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01-22-2010, 08:39 AM | #3 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
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Re: Giving spaceships character
Quote:
Ghostdancer
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01-22-2010, 08:45 AM | #4 | |
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Yorkshire, UK
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Re: Giving spaceships character
Quote:
"Appendix Z: Starship Troubles" by David Morgan-Mar -- For starship quirks (25th April 2002) [0425.3.html] "Appendix Z: What's Wrong With It?" by Matt Riggsby -- For component quirks (29th August 2002) [0829.3.html] They're both in the 2002 archive zip, filenames listed on the end of the above lines! Last edited by SCAR; 01-22-2010 at 08:54 AM. |
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01-22-2010, 09:21 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: Giving spaceships character
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01-22-2010, 10:19 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: Giving spaceships character
I'm thinking of Firefly, here, so I don't know if this will jibe exactly with what you have in mind, but aside from operational quirks (which she certainly had and contributed greatly to her character), one of the things that gave Serenity her character was the shape of her. Not just her profile, but inside, things were sort of awkward in places because, presumably, some conduit had to run through the wall, here, and you just have to duck, too bad. Similarly, she crew had personalized the spaces. I assume it was Kaylee that did it, but anyway, someone painted vines and flowers along columns and beams in the galley room, for instance. Jayne had his weight set in the cargo bay under the little platform thingie.
Those are the kinds of things, anyway, that I think about when I think of ship character. They're the same kinds of things that caused my wife and I to go shopping specifically for a house built in the 50s or 60s, rather than new construction. Ben
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01-22-2010, 12:39 PM | #7 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Giving spaceships character
State of the art milspec equipment will inevitably suffer from having some features in the design specs that the contractors dutifully put in, that don't actually work. Pick some tasks that are normal spaceship operations and introduce some widget that in theory will make it easier but have the widget just never quite work right.
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01-22-2010, 02:34 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: Giving spaceships character
Ah! Yes, I get the feeling that the mechanics have never quite gotten the AutoChef to get the coffee to taste quite right.
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Tags |
spaceships, tales of the solar patrol |
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