GURPS Vorkosigan PDF released TODAY

[cptbutton]

Before lapsing into further pedantry, I would like to note that in my opinion this game book looks like an excellent product about a great series.

Originally Posted by whswhs

She can't have looked at it closely. For one thing, it does not have Eta Ceta, the planet where the capital of the Cetagandan Empire is located; that's a fairly significant incompleteness. For another, each of the Cetagandan worlds it does have—Rho, Mu, Sigma, and Xi Ceta—is out at the end of a wormhole link (respectively to Komarr, Vervain, Ola III, and Marilac) all by itself, with no other links anywhere; on the map as given it takes a minimum of five wormhole jumps to get from any Cetagandan world to any other. That's a weird setup for an expansionist interstellar empire; it would be comparatively straightforward for anyone objecting to its aggressions to interdict some of those links and isolate its planets from each other.

The simplest inference would be that Eta Ceta is off the top of the map, with one-jump wormhole links to the other four worlds, and possibly to Dagoola. But if the map were complete, we wouldn't have to make that inference.

Bill Stoddard

Originally Posted by whswhs

In the case of SJ Games, I accept the previous argument that it's less trouble to accept a map from a previously published source that the author has already approved.

Bill Stoddard

I'm going to quibble here that I haven't seen anyone say it was a map from a previously published source, just that it is based on what SJG was sent by Ms. Bujold and that she approved the final product. And I agree that the latter two reasons are more than adequate justification for doing it that way.

As far as I know the best officially published map is the one in The Vorkosigan Companion. Which has at least two minor differences from the GURPS Vorkosigan. Ah well. It does show the Cetagandan Empire has internal connections of some kind.

There a bunch of fan created wormhole maps out on the web. Googling:

bujold nexus wormhole map

will turn up several of them on the first page, including one that agrees with me about Sergyar. 8-)}

[Tel]

Yeah, the Cetagandan Empire actually is territorially contiguous, with 8 inhabited worlds and four exits. If that's not clear on the map, it's a fairly major omission. (though, again, not really the publisher's fault) Admittedly, I don't think that three of those planets have ever been named, but eh. Another minor and pointless map quibble is that the plot of Diplomatic Immunity requires that the Komarr/Rho Ceta connection is broken up by a three way junction, with another pathway leading eventually to Eta Ceta.

[Jeffr0]

Is the GURPS Lite in this book the same old same old GURPS Lite?

Or has it been tuned up a bit...?

[Paul]

Originally Posted by Jeffr0

Is the GURPS Lite in this book the same old same old GURPS Lite?

Nope. This is a customized Lite.

[Buzzardo]

Originally Posted by Paul

Nope. This is a customized Lite.

Special Draft Lite....

[Jeffr0]

Originally Posted by Buzzardo

Special Draft Lite....

I've have a pint of that, then...

[trekkypj]

Originally Posted by Jeffr0

I've have a pint of that, then...

Make that two! *grin*

My Miles novels arrived yesterday from Amazon and I am diving into them this weekend. Bliss.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Kromm

When working on a licensed product, what matters is respecting your licensor's wishes.

Acknowledged, naturally (and I have cover credits that go with that). However, it's worth noting that not all authors are either (a) hard SF writers or (b) as geekish as some of their own fans. (The two categories who really, really care about internal consistency.) In other cases, you will get internal inconsistencies in a large enough series. A few writers even get so P-O'd with geekish fans that they introduce them deliberately.

And that's without worrying about serial fictions with multiple writers, some of whom just plain screw up (and aren't caught by the series editors).

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Jeffr0

Or has it been tuned up a bit...?

The tuning was an ... interesting ... exercise. Maintaining consistency with a set of already-designed character sheets while trying to keep withing approximately 32 pages or so...

I'm actually rather proud of the result. Even if it ended up as 44 pages.

[Tel]

Actually, the Vorkosigan books are very tight in internal consistency. There's only one major consistent error that I've ever spotted, though there's a couple of minor ones here and there. They literally can be counted on one hand, though.

I think I qualify as a geekish fan here. I've read the book, generally enjoyed it. The coverage of Barrayar is good. I've reported the outright errata, but there's Stuff That Bugs Me that's not quite errata but I want to mention.

I'm dubious about the speeds in the space conversion. Vorkosigan is space opera, not hard SF and while most of the space stuff is completely handwaved, the only actual figures for speed in the books are much higher than those given. The Dendarii fleet can cover 4.2 AUs in 12 hours if it's in a hurry and fight a battle afterwards, which is... not consistent with the 6G acceleration the Ariel is statted with. The speed at which ships cross various systems to get to wormholes also argues for higher acceleration. In contrast, the included parts of GURPS space seem...optimized for lower speeds? I note the helpful chart only goes up to 10Gs.

It would be nice if the book acknowledged that non-white people exist in the Nexus on a level higher than Planet of the Space Muslims (they do). Aside from a mention the Duronas are Eurasian, it doesn't. At all. And it's a little, er, noticeable. The calm assertion that Earth Eastern Hemisphere governments are either a) part of a Euro-dominated consortium or b) completely irrelevant is not supported in the books. There's this general feeling I get from reading this book that "stuff not mentioned in the novels is not important", and I think the feeling I should be getting is "the Nexus is a big place"...

More ships - should it really be assumed that the Dendarii ships we know about are even on the same scale as a major space navy? The Ariel is considered irrelevant to the slugging match with the Cetagandans in The Vor Game, and Aral Vorkosigan's war cruiser back in the day had a crew of 150, as opposed to the twenty or so of the Ariel. There may be a subtle distinction between "fast cruiser" and "war cruiser" that wasn't picked up on...