GURPS Fantasy-Tech 1: The Edge of Reality

[Edges]

Originally Posted by whswhs

It sounds as if you are expecting the authors, or the playtesters, to have done some of all of this. If so, you radically misunderstand the level of resources that it's practical to commit to a project of this type, at this level of funding.

I wasn't expecting anything actually. 'Just expressing curiosity. But by your description, you did do some of it.

Originally Posted by whswhs

For most of this book, no primary empirical or documentary research was done. The most notable exception was that one of the playtesters took his musket out into the rain to test his ability to load and fire it—which qualifies him as a Hero of the Soviet People First Class in my book.

I would have been surprised if primary research had been done. Kudos to the Hero BTW. Note that what you quoted was only in answer to David Johnson2's question. I included "experimental" for completeness. I didn't actually think that the book would be based off of play tester experimentation.

Originally Posted by whswhs

What we did was to consult the best published research we could get hold of...

Bill Stoddard

This was what I was asking about (thank you), but regarding Esoteric Medicine in particular. I notice that none of your examples were actually about Esoteric Medicine. Boat building, catapults, stirrups, bows...all excellent fields and I am delighted that you and the other authors have done so much to provide us with accurate data. My question was, to what degree was this also done with Esoteric Medicine? Does your library also now stock journals on the study of acupuncture, for instance? Did anyone look for research on blood-letting or was the idea that "well everyone in his right mind knows this doesn't work so lets not waste our time looking into it."

Originally Posted by whswhs

If you can find inaccuracies, you should submit errata.

Thank you. I guess in the unlikely event that I do, I will. I do hope you don't think I'm saying, "you guys didn't do enough research" or "you guys did it all wrong." I'm not saying anything like that at all. (I'm not trying to be confrontational here. I think you guys are awesome.) I'm just curious how much historically and scientifically accurate source material on Esoteric Medicine did y'all track down? And when you said,

Originally Posted by whswhs

But generally, I went for "this treatment may give actual benefits in these specific cases; those benefits won't be as good as modern medical care provides."

Was the bold portion based on that scientific source material or your world view?

[whswhs]

[QUOTE=Edges;1030800]This was what I was asking about (thank you), but regarding Esoteric Medicine in particular. I notice that none of your examples were actually about Esoteric Medicine. Boat building, catapults, stirrups, bows...all excellent fields and I am delighted that you and the other authors have done so much to provide us with accurate data. My question was, to what degree was this also done with Esoteric Medicine? Does your library also now stock journals on the study of acupuncture, for instance? Did anyone look for research on blood-letting or was the idea that "well everyone in his right mind knows this doesn't work so lets not waste our time looking into it."[QUOTE]

I did not look at any journals at all. Doing journal research is a job for graduate students. For GURPS books we rely on scholarly books, supplemented by Web sites.

Was the bold portion based on that scientific source material or your world view?

I found two books that attempted to evaluate the effects of methods derived from premodern medicine: One on herbs and one general survey of "complementary medicine." Both authors had consulted the literature and made some attempt to assess it critically. I also read a number of discussions of low-tech surgery, including archaeological findings of healed injuries in Paleolithic remains.

However, my view was also based on the epistemology of medicine. The fact is that we now largely know how the human body works, and based on that, we can come up with astonishingly effective treatments. But that knowledge is incredibly new. Galen knew a number of things that weren't so about human anatomy, his theory of human physiology was almost entirely false, and he had no understanding of the causation of diseases. So his medicine, insofar as it worked, could not have been based on theory, except perhaps on very small-scale and limited theories; it was overwhelmingly empirical. Empirical treatments occasionally address underlying causes, but mostly they treat symptoms and give symptomatic relief.

And, well, symptomatic relief is what complementary medicine seemed to be good for, mostly, when I looked at the literature. So there you go.

Bill Stoddard

[Edges]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I did not look at any journals at all. Doing journal research is a job for graduate students. For GURPS books we rely on scholarly books, supplemented by Web sites.



I found two books that attempted to evaluate the effects of methods derived from premodern medicine: One on herbs and one general survey of "complementary medicine." Both authors had consulted the literature and made some attempt to assess it critically. I also read a number of discussions of low-tech surgery, including archaeological findings of healed injuries in Paleolithic remains.

However, my view was also based on the epistemology of medicine. The fact is that we now largely know how the human body works, and based on that, we can come up with astonishingly effective treatments. But that knowledge is incredibly new. Galen knew a number of things that weren't so about human anatomy, his theory of human physiology was almost entirely false, and he had no understanding of the causation of diseases. So his medicine, insofar as it worked, could not have been based on theory, except perhaps on very small-scale and limited theories; it was overwhelmingly empirical. Empirical treatments occasionally address underlying causes, but mostly they treat symptoms and give symptomatic relief.

And, well, symptomatic relief is what complementary medicine seemed to be good for, mostly, when I looked at the literature. So there you go.

Bill Stoddard

Thanks....

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by whswhs

And, well, symptomatic relief is what complementary medicine seemed to be good for, mostly, when I looked at the literature. So there you go.
Bill Stoddard

IMHO That seems to be what a lot of alternative medicine is used for today too.

[pyratejohn]

Originally Posted by whswhs

For most of this book, no primary empirical or documentary research was done. The most notable exception was that one of the playtesters took his musket out into the rain to test his ability to load and fire it—which qualifies him as a Hero of the Soviet People First Class in my book.

Spasibo, tovarish.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The most notable exception was that one of the playtesters took his musket out into the rain to test his ability to load and fire it—which qualifies him as a Hero of the Soviet People First Class in my book.

I'd also add to the list of luminaries the playtester who put on his hauberk and tested running up and down a field with the "skirts" loose, vs holding them up, while his wife timed him, to get a little anecdotal evidence to test the theory that flexible armor might be more encumbering than its weight suggests.

[mjonz]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I'd also add to the list of luminaries the playtester who put on his hauberk and tested running up and down a field with the "skirts" loose, vs holding them up, while his wife timed him, to get a little anecdotal evidence to test the theory that flexible armor might be more encumbering than its weight suggests.

Any good scientific exploration collects notes for later publication
so, I'm curious, is there collection of playtest anecdotes?

Because I gotta tell ya, these little glimpses crack me up...

Especially when I imagine the scenarios...
"Honey, where's my hauberk and the stopwatch?"

[dcarson]

IIRC for Gurps Illuminati the first writer dropped out of sight and has never been heard from again. This hopefully had nothing to do with the book.

For Martial Arts the writer learned another style and competed in a tournament.

[PK]

Originally Posted by dcarson

IIRC for Gurps Illuminati the first writer dropped out of sight and has never been heard from again. This hopefully had nothing to do with the book.

No, it has to do with the fact that he died. But he never quite dropped out of sight; he even has a Wikipedia biography, though I'm sure that's just a plot of the Secret Masters.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

We had Dan Howard dress up in armor, and I whacked him with swords until he was seriously injured. Then, we had a witch doctor use TL1 alternative medicine on him and measured its effectiveness.

It worked! I'm perfectly ffffine tod..to...today