09-20-2009, 12:33 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Puerto Rico, U.S.A.
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Re: GURPS Uplift
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After asking her, she said the spots are meant to be a visual equivalent of a fish's lateral line, they hook up directly to the spinal cord and so react by reflex based on the "darkness" of the shadow (the darker the shadow, the closer the attacking target and bright overhead light makes for the sharpest shadows) and at the speed of which two or more eyes are "tripped". Any input the brain has is delayed anyway, because it would take them too long to look up and then decide where to move when they have something stooping down at them anyway. Hence, my slapping it as Danger Sense, as there was no cognition, just a reaction. And actually, I only have the 2ed Uplift sourcebook available. |
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09-20-2009, 11:43 PM | #12 |
Ceci n'est pas une tag.
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Vancouver, WA (Portland Metro)
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Re: GURPS Uplift
Ah, Uplift. I hope someone takes the time, someday, to post a revision of the ur-species rules. (Hint hint hint... Someone who has more experience with GURPS than me, that is! :-)
It's nice to know that someone is actually playing Uplift. One of my favorite "daydreaming" campaign settings. Have you seen the Alliance for Progress Encyclopedia and Grey Matters Campaign website? http://www.geocities.com/allianceforprogress/ Very cool website. (I'll have to remember to "synch it up" again, so if it ever goes down permanently, I have it in my hard drive...) |
09-21-2009, 12:43 AM | #13 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: GURPS Uplift
By the books, it would be very expensive since light is quite common. Unless you're playing GURPS Bats.
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09-21-2009, 12:56 AM | #14 | |
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Puerto Rico, U.S.A.
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Re: GURPS Uplift
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I keep A4P in my menu bar, it's one of my favorite websites, I haven't finished reading it all yet. I approached the owner last year or so about making a wiki out of it, just so there'd be more space for new entries, never got a reply though. How do you play out of Uplift, Pragmatic? I mostly just use the ur-species generator and the tech specs. |
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09-21-2009, 01:06 AM | #15 | |
Ceci n'est pas une tag.
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Vancouver, WA (Portland Metro)
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Re: GURPS Uplift
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For me, the ur-species system is great for generating aliens that have actually evolutionary reasons for their behavior. Aside from that, it's just fun to see the statistics for the species I read about in the GURPS series. (And have you read the two free Uplift short stories on Brin's website?) It's great for "idea mining." I like to create ur-species, and combine that with GURPS Space's star system creation, and have different human colonies discover promising ur-species and show how they react to them. |
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09-21-2009, 01:08 AM | #16 |
Ceci n'est pas une tag.
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Vancouver, WA (Portland Metro)
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Re: GURPS Uplift
I don't think it's been updated for a few years. So I don't know if the author is still around or not. But if he hasn't responded back yet, I'll have to use some link-spider thingamajig to permanently save all the pages on my hard drive. I don't want to lose the site again!
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09-22-2009, 03:26 PM | #18 | |
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Puerto Rico, U.S.A.
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Re: GURPS Uplift
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Heh, I'm almost as bad as you, outside of a bunch of GURPS books, I have tons of D&D source books (including the Dragon Magazine Archive on CD), and a few others from White Wolf. Despite that I live very far from anyone even remotely interested in table games. (And yes, I have, Brin's dolphins and Uplift themes had a heavy hand in how I regulate my dolphins in game-play, it makes for much more interesting writing, I'll tell you that, when the dolphins can just as easily drown sailors as save them.) Ooh, cool. I like that, I use the ur-species system the same way. Lately, I've been applying it to an PbeM-RP wiki resource I have, based on a book series on an alien planet that never sufficiently fleshed out any of it's fauna to my taste (and when GURPS comes out with a PLANTS! sourcebook, I'm sure I'll find things to desire in the flora too). There were only about two or three "hard" rules about the animal life there, and basically none of it past that was ever described. I thought it a pity, because there was a lot of room for interaction with the local wildlife. The ur-species system is wonderful for filling up the niches, just yesterday I rolled out a mole-like, hive-minded, tropical jungle burrowing species. The fun part now, will be turning the numbers/results into "real" details. |
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09-22-2009, 03:28 PM | #19 | |
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Puerto Rico, U.S.A.
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Re: GURPS Uplift
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09-23-2009, 12:00 AM | #20 | |||
Ceci n'est pas une tag.
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Vancouver, WA (Portland Metro)
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Re: GURPS Uplift
Heh. Keep in mind, that's my REBUILT collection. I originally had something close to 30 boxes of stuff. To break my collection addiction, I had to hire someone to sell all that stuff privately and on eBay (and the blankety-blank walked off with about a third of it, grumble grumble...)
Back before WOTC stopped doing PDF scanning (and LONG before the Hasbro suits made them do "cease-and-desist" orders on all the sites selling their PDFs...), I rebuilt my D&D collection (Basic, AD&D 1E, AD&D 2E, and some other out-of-print TSR/WOTC items) with PDFs. And I bought some of the d20 stuff I liked. And picked up a few other gaming systems. I'm currently sorting through what made it up here on the move, deciding if I'm going to purge more. (I'll likely reduce by another three or four boxes. But they're NOT getting my GURPS or Forgotten Realms 3E stuff...) Quote:
I have a "Mary Sue" mini-space empire society that is way too ideal. I'm in the process of fleshing them out, and in tossing in undesirable elements to make them a little more plausible... Quote:
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Not to mention a veritable "Noah's ark" of remnant populations and DNA catalogs of various species. (Thus, they start from existing animals, but rebuild diversity by using their DNA catalogs and a little genespliced mutations.) On their several worlds, they've built various "domed biomes" of the various regions of Earth, recreating everything possible. I also imagine them having ur-species of Gubru, Jophur, Kanten, and Tytlal to discover. (Interesting groups to Uplift and societies to craft...) Then I toss in unusual and interesting creatures I've found. For instance, the Future Predator of the now-canceled Primeval series. It would be interesting to have a "bat sonar" form of "vision" creature, but having to reduce their natural aggression. |
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gameplay, uplift, ur-species |
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