Funny New Guys Disappointment

[ehrbar]

I must admit, I'm somewhat disappointed that the e23 release Funny New Guys, for GURPS Technomancer, spends so much time talking about the M-16.

After all, the successor to the M-14 in the Merlin timeline, as established by Technomancer author David Pulver in the GURPS Technomancer Designer's Notes (a freely available sample article), is the Colt M-66, an elemental propellant slugthrower. The conventional AR-15/M-16 was passed over by the Merlin DoD and would never have made it to Vietnam, except maybe as a handful of testing samples.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by ehrbar

After all, the successor to the M-14 in the Merlin timeline, as established by Technomancer author David Pulver in the GURPS Technomancer Designer's Notes (a freely available sample article), is the Colt M-66, an elemental propellant slugthrower.

Well, I guess that means that David's designer's notes have been superseded by later developments.

[HANS]

>Well, I guess that means that David's designer's notes have been superseded by later developments.

Unlikely, as David's article specifically mentions that the AR-15 series was NOT adopted on Merlin. I'd rather hazard to guess that the author of FNG didn't read the article.
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.

Cheers

HANS

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by HANS

Unlikely, as David's article specifically mentions that the AR-15 series was NOT adopted on Merlin.

You're missing my point. Pyramid articles are not canon and need not be respected in later published material.

[HANS]

>You're missing my point. Pyramid articles are not canon and need not be respected in later published material.

So e23s are canon? I am not so sure.

Anyway, in this particular case, I take the viewpoint of the originator of the world over secondary material by anyone else anytime. Especially, and this is probably most relevant, since David's Elemental Propellant Slugthrowers are sooo incredibly cooler and appropriate to the setting than the same lame M16s that already didn't work properly in OUR timeline . . .

Cheers

HANS

[ehrbar]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

Well, I guess that means that David's designer's notes have been superseded by later developments.

Disappointingly.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by HANS

So e23s are canon? I am not so sure.

Unless Kromm says differently, I'd think they would be, yes.

Anyway, in this particular case, I take the viewpoint of the originator of the world over secondary material by anyone else anytime.

I shrug. David is fiendishly creative, but that doesn't mean his ideas are sacrosanct, particularly ideas that were cut from the published materials or were later add-ons.

[HANS]

>Unless Kromm says differently, I'd think they would be, yes.

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.

>David is fiendishly creative, but that doesn't mean his ideas are sacrosanct, particularly ideas that were cut from the published materials or were later add-ons.

Certainly, but I do prefer cut ideas of the original author to untested material of authors based on stuff written by the original author. Again, in this particular case, the newer stuff directly contradicts the original material, and is also less fun and appropriate to the setting. I can't see why anyone would, from a work-immanent point of view, prefer the newer interpretation.

Cheers

HANS

[jahn]

Originally Posted by HANS

I can't see why anyone would, from a work-immanent point of view, prefer the newer interpretation.

Because different people have different criteria for reasonableness. Published-in-book-format material trumps magazine articles. The question in my mind is whether or not SJG treats their e23 material with the same care as their published books. If they do then SJG e23 published books are as canon as other books, if not then SJG e23 published books are only a step above magazine articles.

But that's just my opinion. If I was already using Elemental Propellant Slugthrowers in my campaign I'd still use them instead of what's written in Funny New Guys.

[Archangel Beth]

In Nomine e23 material . . . it depends. If it has Superiors in it, it's gone through at least some playtest. If it's nothing but an adventure, it may or may not have, and is probably only iffily canon -- though I will try not to let too much by that really breaks canon.

But that's IN stuff, and because I'm a control-freak Djinn.