Gee. You go away for a weekend, and the mail just piles up...
Lots of stuff to talk about. Specifically, this addresses points
raised in messages from Jim Baranski and Jonathan E. Davis (addresses
from headers and all that good stuff below with their respective
messages).
First, Mr. Baranski's message (lots of good stuff there):
>From: "Words should echo Truth; Words do not define Truth."
> [email removed]
> Jim Baranski, DEC, Tewksbury MA.
>Subject: Everything
>Date: 09-Jul-1987 1629
>
>RE: Space generation Programs
>
>In the new (first/second) GDW Challenge magazine, there is a BASIC program for
>generating Star Systems according to the guidelines of BOOK 6 SCOUTS. I have
>yet to type it in, but some day...
Yup. Got it here right in front of me (if it's the first issue of
Challenge, how come it says number 25?). The first thing that I notice
is that it's printed on just one page. It also just does the basic
style of world generation, no Book 6 stuff. More than that, I can't
tell quickly. Looks reasonable, though. More later...
>RE: Advanced Character Generation Procedure:
>
>I myself, like them very much. They give more detail to the character so that
I'm rather fond of them myself. So are my players (I usually
referee; it's been quite a while since I actually played). As a matter
of fact, the only time we use the Book 1 character generation is for
short intro games to help new players get used to the system. The new
ones usually move up to the more advanced systems fairly quickly.
>you can get a handle on it easier. Then you have to explain all the twists the
>dice have but into your character!
You do? I've met players that like to make up personalities and
idiosyncracies for their characters, but I've never seen much point in
it. Seems enough just to take the character as rolled and play it,
without worrying about how "he came to be the way he is." Anybody else
have an opinion?
> There is no such thing as an over specified
>character.
I disagree. I request that my players give me a copy of their
characters so that I can keep it going for them if they can't make it
to a playing session for some reason. One time I got *five* pages of
character data from a player for only *one* character. 132 columns,
too. As far as my buried-in-bookkeeping-enough-already referee's
viewpoint is concerned, a UPP and a (simple) list of skill levels is
plenty. If your character can't fit on a 3x5 card, then there's too
much there.
>I'm also in favor of a larger number of 'smaller' scope skills. In my private
Yes, this can be good at times, but, again, it adds to the
bookkeeping.
>RE: Skills in general:
>
>I don't like the idea of a maximum number of skill levels attainable.
I'm not certain, but I believe that the maximum skill levels rule
is there in an effort to maintain game balance. For example, there's
little comparison between a Book 1 Army character, and one from Book
4. The Mercenary will stomp all over the Book 1 "weenie" (at least, in
terms of skills).
>Traveller, as in the books, has the drawback that there is little or no skill
>advancement. What's your ideas on skill advancement? I let characters have a
>chance of increasing a skill every once in a while, and give them bonuses if
>they've used that skill.
To maintain balance, you can't let characters get too powerful. In
Traveller, the basis of a character's power is his store of skills. If
you let skill improvement go on too far, pretty soon a character will be
so skillful and experienced that, in practical terms, they can't fail.
One of my players calls this type of character a "deus ex machina"
(we've run into several of these before, in my campaign; so far, they've
been more trouble than they're worth).
>RE: emphasis on combat:
>
>The problem I have with combat is that I ***like*** combat, slugging it out,
You aren't alone. My group has a deep and enduring love of
killing anything that moves. Maybe the fact that most of them are
in the military (Army Rangers and Mech. Infantry) has something to
do with it...
>etc... But Morally I have a problem with it. I try to make the right and
Moral? Hoo, boy, the stories I could tell... A character called
"RatMan" and his favorite weapon, "The Amazing Ginsu Chainsaw" (it
slices, it dices, it juliennes sentients). I have another player who
suffers from a serious case of gamer's paranoia. He sees bombs
everywhere. One time I plopped a young mother pushing her infant in a
baby carriage in front of him. He then proceeded to pump about 200
M-60 rounds into the carriage (I think the mother got away) and run it
down with an ATV. He said he couldn't afford to take any chances...
Fun times, and never boring.
>RE: supplementary books:
What opinions does anyone have of Book 8: Robots? I kind of
like it, since the idea of making machines do a lot of the heavy work
appeals to me. Also, Robots would have an important place in any high
technology area, like a StarPort. Even if the local tech level is low,
some of the jobs at a Port are dangerous enough that you wouldn't want
to risk a human (or whatever). Also, seems the reduction in human
personnel insurance rates and payroll would more than make up for the
high cost of robotics.
>RE: Fuel:
>
>Can anyone recouncil the fact that suposedly the Jump drives burn all the Jump
>fuel at the start of the jump,
Sure. Well, maybe not. Why does the Jump drive have to burn all
its fuel at the start? Maybe a large portion of the fuel goes to power
the drive during Jump. Rationalizaion 1A: The way that a Starship
travels through Jump space is by maintaining a field around the ship
that interacts with the fabric of Jump space (fundamentally different
from our own, remember) in such a way that the ship is propelled
through Jump space from its insertion point to its emergence point.
> with the fact that the Jump drives are not *the*
>limiting factor of the powerplant? I.E. the rest of the equipment is just as
>important in deciding how big you want your power plant.
Well, sure. You only use one at a time. It'd be kind of stupid to
fire up the Manuever drive during Jump, eh? Besides, I look at it as
part of the Jump drive is the drive's own personal power plant (*this*
piece of equipment is what burns all that fuel). The reason that the
Jump drive has anything to do with the ship's main Power Plant (which
runs everything else) is that the main Plant is needed to "jump-start"
(excuse the pun) the secondary Power Plant that powers the Jump drive.
>RE: Varying Technologies:
>
>Has anyone ever run a campaign where different people had widely different
>technologies (Jump Drive vs. Black Hole Drive), not just varying Tech Levels?
Sure. Sometimes, I just let the players design tech systems,
cultures, non-human sentients, etc., and then file them away. You never
know when they're going to pop up...
>From: DAVIS JONATHAN E
<DAVISJE%csbvax%steinmetz%uunet%seismo%gatech%tektronix%dadla.tek.com@
RELAY.CS.NET>
>Subject: RE: Everything (Regarding Everything, hmm.... :-)
>Posted-Date: 10 Jul 87 16:02 EST
>Date: 10 Jul 87 16:02 EST
>
>
>BTW, it is possible to generate a world with a class A starport with
>any population UPP. I guess those 10 to 99 guys have a lot of work
>to do at (Overworked SubSector 0205 Busy A-567100-A). I guess it
Isn't automation wonderful? Seriously, Maybe those 10 to 99
non-gender-specific-organo-sentients (whew; much more of this equality-
for-all stuff, and I'll need another vacation) are just the administrative
and supervisory (both technical and admin) staff for the StarPort. Maybe
just a few of them are, and everything else is done by automated systems.
>will take a little longer than 24 months for that freighter you
>wanted to build there. A legit modification to any system generation
>is to bump up the population of a class A port to 3 or 4.
If you're willing to wait, the population will bump itself up... :-)
>>RE: Traveller Chronicles:
>>
>>If there is any interest, I have several tales of Traveller adventures which
>>I could post, if you think it would be appropriate. What do you think?
>
>You should probably consult James Perkins regarding the length of the
>messages. (If he doesn't contact you first.) If they offer some
>interesting ideas for our own campaigns and subplots, I would
>certainly like to see them posted, or you could directly e-mail them
>to me. I enjoy a good tale.
Me, too. I have a couple good stories, too. It turns out that
Zero-G combat can be quite amusing at times...
>>I don't like the idea of a maximum number of skill levels attainable.
>>Traveller, as in the books, has the drawback that there is little or no skill
>>advancement. What's your ideas on skill advancement? I let characters have a
>>chance of increasing a skill every once in a while, and give them bonuses if
>>they've used that skill.
>
>I have no problem with a character developing any of his or her
>personal attributes, such as STR, DEX, and INT, or skills within
>reason. But I think it is unreasonable to have a low INT and EDU
>character who has high expertise in highly technical skills such as
>Computer, Pilot, Engineering, etc. (Probably not so unreasonable for
>Admin though :-) ) Expertise in the less technical skills (some may
>debate me) of Streetwise and Brawling could be possible but adding
>rules to account for that would be a waste of paper and simply
>complicate the game.
It should depend on the skill. Some skills (streetwise, brawling,
carousing, etc.) would be relatively easy to improve (not really easy,
but relatively so). Others, like the tech skills, would be more
difficult. Unfortunately, providing for this increases the amount of
bookkeeping required (I do go on about that, don't I?). It would also
slow the game action down (not much, but I get little enough done in one
night as it is). Everything's a tradeoff...
- --
Brent Woods
USENET: {seismo, decvax, ucbvax, ihnp4}!pur-ee!s.cc.purdue.edu!ahh
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USNAIL: Brent Woods
[address removed] "I don't wanna play, I just wanna