02-27-2016, 02:55 PM | #131 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post
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It's good because your perspective will challenge mine. I view your comments as challenges that I need to answer, not for you, but for me and the quality of my work. "Why not rifles," you ask. If I cannot give a good answer then that might be a problem. I can give a good answer, so it isn't a problem (that's not to say you couldn't do it another way! It just means I have sufficient justification that I, personally, do not need to worry about the approach I've chosen). "WHy not more ST?" I can tell you why not more ST. "Why not allow more versatility? Like a more melee-focused bounty hunter, more Wrestling, more Shortsword?" Uh... hmm. Good point. "Do you really need all three talents?" Ah... well, they do a nice thing, and I could make them work... but on second thought, I think I'm better off with just one. Your questions, whether I end up agreeing with your approach or not, strengthen my work. And as you've noted, my answers (and my own questions) whether you agree with them or not, strengthen your game. That means we're having a very productive discussion. You've certainly improved the quality of the Iteration 3 templates (Our discussion made me go back and give them a more critical look and the Commando really benefited from it, especially since he's the one template that hasn't had a signature character or a playtest). Quote:
(Plus in the long run, I mean, you don't want to wade through tons of journal to run Iteration 6 Psi Wars. You just want to run Iteration 6 Psi Wars)
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My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars. |
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02-27-2016, 03:36 PM | #132 |
Join Date: Feb 2009
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Re: Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post
I wasn't trying to imply that you were, just pointing out that its been cool and useful and I've been picking up a few things thanks to your being kind enough to answer questions, things I wouldn't have picked up just being shown the finished product
And I meant the 'open to having my mind changed' remark in that while I have been enjoying the iterations, I won't count out the possibility that the final end result will be so amazing to make all this discussion and such just pale in comparison And yeah, the summary pages are good, because otherwise trying to actually find anything on a blog can be a real bear You may run extremely different games than I (though admittedly, I don't know exactly how your games actually unfold in play), but yeah, you definitely prepare games waaaaaay differently than I do, if someone asked me for my campaign notes I would just give them a bewildered look and ask 'what notes?' The joke about 'and what happens when someone wants to be a cook?', yeah, that isn't a joke, thats my game. Literally the last quest I ran in my Tanuki City USA campaign involved a PC restaurateur checking resumes, interviewing, hiring a cook, and serving notice to the new cooks former employers, complete with an Iron Chef style cooking battle with celebrity judges and secret ingredient . . . . . I can assure you, when I started that campaign I absolutely had no plans whatsoever of running the 'Lets hire a cook!' quest (since you often plug books, I will do that here to. I rolled out the secret ingredient and the celebrity judges using DF 8 Treasure Tables, so the ingredient to be cooked was Narrative, and the judges were an Elk, Geometric Designs, and a Dress) |
02-27-2016, 03:54 PM | #133 |
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: The plutonium rich regions of Washington State
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Re: Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post
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02-28-2016, 11:38 PM | #134 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post
Today, we start Iteration 3 and the next data dump with a brief post on why technology matters so much for a sci-fi setting, the course I want to take with Psi War's technology, and what references I'll be using..
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My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars. |
02-29-2016, 09:07 AM | #135 | |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post
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I've long been struggling with making reactionless drives for a setting, ones that would be, well, vaguely compatible with operatic expectations. Notably, I want them to, much like in Star Wars, not be useable as neither kinetic-kill WMDs nor perpetual motion engines. I.e. I want them to be only useable as a technology of transportation. How can that be done? Pseudovelocity seems like almost required to prevent the WMD/KK clause, but that opens another can of worms that risks turning it into a perpetual motion machine, and I still want power generators and finite batteries/capacitors to be a thing in the setting. |
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02-29-2016, 02:01 PM | #136 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post
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First of all, the vast majority of your transportation is done with FTL. That's what really matters. It skips over 99.9999999% of your travel distance, and whatever technology you pick at the tail end for your maneuvering is just the odds and ends of movements. You just leapt over lightyears, and now you're fussing over how you'll move a few thousand miles. So that's trick one: Choose a form of FTL that makes your actual maneuvering as irrelevant as possible. Then choose an engine that won't break your setting. For example, if you want to have quick travel but you worry your players will somehow turn a reactionless engine into a perpetual motion engine and, having those sorts of players, you still insist on running a space opera game? Use high-efficiency, high-thrust reaction drives, like the super fusion torch. Not worried about perpetual motion engines? Use reactionless engines. Want engines that actually work like you see in the movies and video games? Use boost drives: A boost drive has pseudo-velocity, which is how these things clearly work, because if you shoot a ship's engine, it drifts much more slowly than it was maneuvering. Second, ships seem to have a "maximum speed," which makes no sense with real engines, but makes perfect sense with boost drives. The final solution, and most important, is that if you're going to run a space opera in the vein of Star Wars, you need to not worry about the physics of it too much. I mean, Han Solo's maneuver in the Force Awakens literally makes no sense. Nobody can have that kind of reaction time (I think you're getting into sub-planck-time reaction time there). In clone wars, people have staves that can resist a light-saber blow, but nobody makes armor out of that stuff why? And what evolutionary forces made a hutt possible, and how did they ever manage to forge an empire of terror and crime across a major section of the galaxy? The answer to these questions and more is usually "Stop worrying about it and learn to love the lightsaber fights!" or "Run a different sort of space opera," both of which are very good ideas, but Psi Wars is definitely more the former. I'll look more into the latter later (possibly much later, so don't hold your breath)
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My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars. |
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02-29-2016, 10:41 PM | #137 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post
Today, I look at FTL, how its choices can impact our setting, and make some choices about how to apply it to Psi Wars.
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My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars. |
03-01-2016, 12:58 AM | #138 | |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post
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03-01-2016, 01:05 AM | #139 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post
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I do actually touch on something that begins to look like a hyperdynamic universe (which is a thought I had on the way home from work, which is also a pretty good explanation for why a boost drive works the way it does), but I don't do it because I want to explore a hyperdynamic universe, but because the result "looks like Star Wars." For Psi-Wars, I want starfighters and I come up with excuses to make them happen, rather than looking at fictional physical models and hoping starfighters pop out. I'm not saying that your approach is a bad way to create a setting (though if I had to pick a "first principle," I think your core activity should be your first choice, because fun gameplay typically trumps setting rigor for actually getting people to sit down and play a game), just that it isn't the approach I'm taking for Psi Wars.
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My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars. |
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03-01-2016, 01:08 AM | #140 | |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post
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* == As opposed to dramatic conventions, but I don't recall pointing that out explicitly. |
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