Reviewer gives GURPS Space substance 3 out of 5

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Luther

Wow, I've just discovered that spaceships and space combat is useless for a Space campaign! :)

Yeah, when I get back to NJ I'm going to throw out my copy of TSR's Knight Hawks. You know, the copy I wore to pieces in my games while my regular Star Frontiers rulebooks sat on the shelf, barely used...

What was I thinking? They were plot devices! Those foolish hours of "fun" I thought I was having...

:P

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Sam Cade

What about corrugated paper?
http://www.papermart.com/templates/23-0-10.htm


It don't never get no re-spek.

This sounds like an excellent idea! Think about it - the maximum amount of information available in a book is (roughly) proportional to the surface of the book's pages. Everyone knows that corrugated paper has more surface area per volume unit. So printing it on corrugated paper would enhance the information value of each book. Splendid!

Excuse me, the nurse says it's time for my medicine... :)

[zorg]

To summarize...

One can either run a space campaign in which the ships are used mainly/exclusively as plot devices. In that case, no ship statistics are needed. Have fun.

One can also run a space campaign which is vehicles-heavy, reliant on statistics, in the vein of a techno-thriller. In that case, ship statistics are needed. Space4E does not supply these statistics.
Therefore, all one can do is a) wait for Vehicles b) customize the existing vehicles or c) use Vehicles3E (or Space3E). This is not optimal, but doable, I think.

Which kind of campaign one wants to run is a matter of personal taste, and therefore hardly something one can discuss meaningfully. Either you want statistics, or you don't. I think that no amount of discussion can reach another conclusion at this time. One cannot be "right", it's a matter of opinion.

As to the original review: The reviewer may not have understood fully the nature of Space4E. He certainly seems to be biased a little.

In the end, it comes down to what I said before - either you believe that statistics are better handled in a specialized book, or you don't. Having read the thread, I don't think these points of view can be reconciled. :)

Just trying to take a little heat out, y' know :)

[KDLadage]

Originally Posted by Luther

Wow, I've just discovered that spaceships and space combat is useless for a Space campaign! :)

Not so much useless, as much as unneccessary.

[KDLadage]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

{re:starships} What was I thinking? They were plot devices! Those foolish hours of "fun" I thought I was having...

I never said, claimed, or even suggested that startship battles -- even in the context of RPGs -- cannot be, are not in and of themselves, or should not be considered a large part of the fun of Space games. I simply stated that (a) detailing the starship's statistics was not neccessary for space games; (b) the starship battles in the three series listed were not really much more than plot devices to move the sotry along (JMS even stated that the whole Raider sub-plot of the first season was a McGuffin to give the crew something to do while we instroduced the real plot elements for the series); and (c) that a book covering Space Campaigns in RPGs does not need Starship or Gadget rules in order to be considered complete.

[KDLadage]

Originally Posted by zorg

One can either run a space campaign in which the ships are used mainly/exclusively as plot devices. In that case, no ship statistics are needed. Have fun.

Correct.

Originally Posted by zorg

One can also run a space campaign which is vehicles-heavy, reliant on statistics, in the vein of a techno-thriller. In that case, ship statistics are needed.

Correct.

Originally Posted by zorg

Space4E does not supply these statistics.

And it was not designed to do so.

Originally Posted by zorg

Therefore, all one can do is a) wait for Vehicles b) customize the existing vehicles or c) use Vehicles3E (or Space3E). This is not optimal, but doable, I think.

If all you want is a way to measure the ships against one another, heck you can use STARMADA (which is similar to the system I used in the GURPS 3e days anyway), Babylon 5 Wars, FASA's Tactical Starship Combat System, Star Fleet Battles, or any of a hundred or so free online Starship Combat Systems -- many of which are quite good.

Originally Posted by zorg

Which kind of campaign one wants to run is a matter of personal taste, and therefore hardly something one can discuss meaningfully.

You are correct in that we cannot meaningfully discuss campaign preferences. What we can discuss is whether a Genre book needs Rules-crunch to be considered complete.

Originally Posted by zorg

Either you want statistics, or you don't. I think that no amount of discussion can reach another conclusion at this time. One cannot be "right", it's a matter of opinion.

True.

Originally Posted by zorg

As to the original review: The reviewer may not have understood fully the nature of Space4E. He certainly seems to be biased a little.

Yep.

Originally Posted by zorg

In the end, it comes down to what I said before - either you believe that statistics are better handled in a specialized book, or you don't. Having read the thread, I don't think these points of view can be reconciled.

True. You believe that one is better or not. But the fact remains that the current GURPS marketting model says 'no' to this. And SJG did not make any secret of this marketing plan.

So... if you want a shopping list, buy the catalog book; if you want the crunch, buy the rules book; if you want setting material, buy the world book; if you want campaign design advice, buy the genre book.

Seems pretty straight forward to me.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by KDLadage

(c) that a book covering Space Campaigns in RPGs does not need Starship or Gadget rules in order to be considered complete.

I simply can't buy that argument. Some campaigns certainly feature spacecraft and hardware as plot devices and don't really need stats or rules. Others rely on detailed specifications for them. I've been in any number of campaigns where the GM and some of the players lavish huge amounts of loving attention on exactly what their ships and gear can do. And even in less stat-porn-oriented campaigns, there's going to be a desire for fairly specific stats for at least some gear. GURPS Space doesn't provide that. Given the amount of additional homework a GM would have to do in order to run a SF campaign with only the Basic Set and Space, I wouldn't argue with anyone saying that it's incomplete. It's an exceedingly fine distinction to champion it as a great book on science fiction campaigns but not be able to actually run any particular science fiction campaign with it.

Having said that, I can accept that GURPS Space has no starship rules and no gadgets. It's not immediately obvious that it's not designed as a one-stop-shop for all of your SF gaming needs (indeed, it seems to require quite some explanation), but I can deal with the fact that that's the case. Yes, I'd have wanted at least a few pages of gear and sample spaceships as worked examples of underlying ideas (e.g.: "Here are some stats for an ultra-tech gun. If you rationalize your guns as lasers, it will have special effect a. If they're particle beams, it has special effect b. If you want a more cinematic game, consider special effects c, d, and e. If you want your combat deadly, standard armor in the campaign should have DR no more than X, but if you want it survivable, it should be at least Y."). However, I understand that there's limited space in any given book. Equipment can be offloaded to a book on equipment and spaceships can be moved to a book on vehicles so that they can be given a full treatment in an appropriate place, but there aren't many other places to move stuff about aliens or planets.

[dravenloft]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I noticed when I got IW - I have the 4e books in a pile beside my monitor, and I was entertaining myself sorting them by 'tech level', and then by publication date. Then I noticed that the product numbers followed a different pattern - 'type'.

I've been trying to work out if Fantasy and Magic having the same colour for their spine and cover text has any great significance. Also, they are yellow, as is Characters, though of different shades, so does this mean that Campaigns, Space, and Powers being some shade of blue has some deep meaning? ;)

I actually started a thread about that once. I'm not sure what was ever concluded. I think the idea was that we'll have to wait for some other book ?Martial Arts? to come out first.

[dravenloft]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Somewhat hostile??? 4e is extremely hostile to players that want to actually think. Look at the optimization algorhythm in 3e and in 4e:
3e: Check total next skill level cost, check next attribute level cost. Compare and see the advantages and disadvantages of both.
4e: Check for total next skill level cost to be 15+ or 10+; if yes, buy IQ! or DX!, regardless of level. If IQ! and DX! not available, check for costs at 20+, and buy up the attribute if you get that number.

Point-based, as opposed to scheme-based shipbuilding makes for some weird assumptions, such as two ships of vastly different sizes having same cost. (Do I need to make an example, or is the mention enough?)

I'm not sure I follow your logic? I mean, it may say that it's encouraging the use of "buy higher IQ" to raise IQ based skills, but not in place of it buying up those skills. Character concept it says should ALWAYS be the biggest deciding factor. If it makes no sense for the character to be smarter all around, but it does make sense for his skill to go up 3 more points, and that's going to cost.. what.. call it 24 points then that skill is being fed 24 more cp, and IQ can take a hike. If the char's been doing just a lot of thinking and being pretty darn bright, then maybe spend part in IQ, or all in IQ. Either way to me it seems like you've got more thinking to do. Not "what would be most cost effective?" unless that's how you prefer to build chars, but rather "what best describes the way this char has developed?"
To say nothing of the fact that 3e's advancement costs were such that it could take a fairly long time to ever get very high.

And what did cost of increasing character stats have to do with ship design anyhow? Or am I missing the point by virtue of thinking that Vehicles was mad, and thus never planning to read it?

[dravenloft]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

This sounds like an excellent idea! Think about it - the maximum amount of information available in a book is (roughly) proportional to the surface of the book's pages. Everyone knows that corrugated paper has more surface area per volume unit. So printing it on corrugated paper would enhance the information value of each book. Splendid!

Excuse me, the nurse says it's time for my medicine... :)

Ah, but you see, I've noticed a good many people on the forums (and I'll assume that makes an accurate cross section of people who play GURPS/SJG products) are owned by cats. If mine are any indication, there is no better thing to claw than corrugated paper. One even goes out of his way to scratch the stuff if he notices that something came wrapped in the stuff.