Does GURPS need original-setting world books?

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

Unlike White Wolf, the SOB's, who never even heard of consistency ... sorry.

IIRC it was SJG licensing of White Wolf properties that convinced SJG that 'other than what we already have in the pipe there is no way we are doing that again for a while'.

Personally I found GURPS own versions of things and fan efforts far better than the stuff SJG licensed from White Wolf. Blood Types was miles above VtM and Unlimited Mana did in a few pages what took Mage an entire book to ramble through.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Caleban

Earth religions would not fare well in Yrth with out major reformations. Just looking at Chrisitanity:

During the crusades Christian cosmology held a geocentric world view. After the banestorm believers are no longer on earth (ie the center of the universe). What theological explanation do they have for:
What happened to earth?
Where is Yrth in their cosmology?
Why would God send them there: aka why would God send the banestorm?
Why is God suddenly answering prayers through divine magic?
What does he want them to do with this new found power?
The bible doesn't cover Yrth or the various fantastic creatures and races in the creation stories so where did they come from and what does God want believers to do about them?
Why haven't the churches co-opted local traditions, mythologies, or philosophies in their attempts to proselytize their religion (eg the co-opting of Christmas trees).

The list could go on and on. Other earth religions would fare no better in explaining the implications of their new existence with out major revisions and reinterpretation.

I agree with you. Contrary to popular belief Christianity was fragmented long before Martin Luther was even born. Instead of a Catholic-Protestant conflict there was a Western-Eastern conflict. The Eastern or Byzantine Christians were remarkable tolerant for their day, letting Jews, Muslims, and even non-Christians to go about their business in relative peace as were their
Muslim contemporaries.

It was largely due to the Crusades that the Middle East became like it is now but what is the motivating force to create Crusades on Yrth?
Why did Yrth's mainstream Islam become something that made the Ayatollah Kumani look like a left wing hippy liberal by comparison?
Given the isolated communities dumped on Yrth c1100 why didn't Christianity and Islam become more fragmented then they are presented?
Why are things like gunpowder suppressed but more dangerous things like the printing press encouraged?

That is just the short hand list. There was and to some extend a lot "wrong" with the Yrth setting.

[Rocket Man]

The debate over what does or doesn't "fit" in Yrth is a fascinating one .. but it should probably get its own thread, so we don't wander too far afield of the original topic.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

The debate over what does or doesn't "fit" in Yrth is a fascinating one .. but it should probably get its own thread, so we don't wander too far afield of the original topic.

True but perhaps Yrth is the best example of why we don't see many original-setting world books for GURPS--they are hard as blazes to do 'right'.

Transhuman Space is a special case as we seem to somewhat forgiving of future history settings and this one is firmly rooted in hard science so there is little utopia Mary Sueness or dystopian aren't you glad you don't live in this nightmare extremism one usually sees in such works.

For myself GURPS other attempts at original-setting world books was a real mixed bag. Time Travel had some issues they fixed in Infinite Worlds (The Time Corp variant reminded of a watered down version of the Time Master RPG but I regard it as homage to a RPG game that never really got a chance), heaven knows what they were thinking to let Fantasy II every see print, the old Supers had a good setting it was just the rules were such a train wreck, Car Wars was starting to have major problems with its future history timeline but that is always a problem unless you set things insanely far into the future, and In Nomine setting was top notch.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Transhuman Space is near future, hard sf. It isn't skiffy space opera at all, perhaps you should take another look at the setting.

[Tangent]
I wouldn't call Transhuman Space hard sf.
Then again perhaps you'd also stretch the meaning of hard sf to cover the likes of sci-fantasy settings like Sterling's Schismatrix, in which case our definitions of hard sf are so far apart there really isn't much to discuss.
[/Tangent]

Back on subject, I'm no real writer, but I do have many gaming worlds which I could write a few small e23 type setting books for, but since my impression is that I'd have to give up my rights to my settings when getting published, I've gone with the option of keeping the settings to myself.

Where they'll stay, until the day after I finish the next great American novel set in those worlds, something which will happen shortly after hell freezes over, or a few years after I retire, whichever comes first. *grin*

[Max Schreck]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

[Tangent]
I wouldn't call Transhuman Space hard sf.
Then again perhaps you'd also stretch the meaning of hard sf to cover the likes of sci-fantasy settings like Sterling's Schismatrix, in which case our definitions of hard sf are so far apart there really isn't much to discuss.
[/Tangent]

Maybe you wouldn't, but nevertheless the setting is meant to be hard SF, or at least semi-rigid. It says so on the opening pages and on the back cover and right here. While you may disagree with those assesments, it does not invalidate Sir Pudding's claims that TS is a hard science fiction setting, as it is marketed as such.

Might I inquire what you find "science fantasy" about TS? I know that the partial terraforming of Mars is impossibly fast, but that is a time line problem, not one of credible technology. And sure, talking space adapted cephalopods is a lame idea, but every game setting has at least one of those. It hardly disqualifies the rest of the TS setting totally as a "hard SF" setting.

Is there anything particularly "science fantasy" about genetic engineering, augmented reality, computer networking, STL intra-solar space travel or nanotechnology?

Off on a tangent, again, I know, but I was just curious as to why you find TS less than hard.

Cheerio,

Max

[tantric]

heaven knows what they were thinking to let Fantasy II every see print

Fantasy II was awesome! All hail the new weird! Unfortunately, it wasn't very playable - I could never convince a group of people to play paleolithic tribespersons.

Frankly, I would never pay for yet-another-pseudomedieval-Disney-fantasy setting. Spare me. I want *originality*, not cliche. Darksun, maybe.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by tantric

Fantasy II was awesome! All hail the new weird! Unfortunately, it wasn't very playable - I could never convince a group of people to play paleolithic tribespersons.

That was the whole problem with Fantasy II; it looked great but was impossible to RP in. That the whole freaking world seemed like one giant Tomb of Horrors didn't help. But it got worse as Clerics are nonexistent as the gods are insane deranged homicidal nutjobs that would soon kill anything in their path as have anyone worship them; this is assuming the natives don't kill the would be Cleric first becuse they do tend to attract aforementioned kill happy dieties. Wizards are in much the same boat, and with property communicable being something akin to a thief is imposable. Also who wants to play in a world that one person described as like a D&D campaign where simply going around a corner could result in you meeting Orcus.

Originally Posted by tantric

Frankly, I would never pay for yet-another-pseudomedieval-Disney-fantasy setting. Spare me. I want *originality*, not cliche. Darksun, maybe.

Well Dark Sun is at least playable in. There are just some settings that make for crappy RPGing worlds and Madlands was one of them.

[Gamer_Zer0]

Maybe one of the issues with a original setting word book would be GURPS's greateast strength,along iwth its current target group which appears to be those who think very hard about the setting and how everything fits together,some of D&D settings take alot of "hand waving",which I garther a majority of GURPS players don't like. So you would have to upset on gorup while marketing to another one.

[Randover]

Sorry about skipping reading all the 5+ pages of post. Will get to it eventually.

What I kind of miss is database of characters, creatures, and other stuff...database that would allow search for your paramaters an thus provide a good deal of inspiration. Some more complex characters and creatures builds - not just templates - templates are good as a second step, but rather something that you could use as an example of basic/advance examples...for starting and twieking players.

I am not so sure if something like that is not supported by Pyramid.