Long Response to Various Stuff...

[email removed] (Derek Wildstar) types:
>
> Bertil Jonell [email removed] writes:
> >
> > One theory that I have heard is that the rules and the background were
> > incompatible in that they attracted different segments of the gaming community
> > The victorian background attracted the serious role players but the
> > simplistic rules were more targetted toward beginners.
>
> Nah, I don't buy that argument.  How about this one: Space:1889 only
> appeals to gamers who actually read (and enjoyed reading) the source
> material: Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs.  The
> rest just don't understand it.  And most of the current generation of
> role-players, born around when Star Wars came out give or take a few
> years, just haven't done the reading, either because they don't read
> much, or because they aren't interested.
>
> I have noticed an accellerating trend.  Everyone, even science-fiction
> fans and role-players, seems to be doing less reading and more watching
> of movies (on videotape, actually) and television.  And this is
> reflected in our games.
>

Not only that, but what books they are reading are, to my mind,
somewhat questionable... Witness all the D&D/Dangerous Journeys/BattleTech/
Shadow Run/etc. books taking up shelf-space in the SF section...It's
getting a little too self-referential for my taste:  instead of good
fiction spawning games the games are spawning the fiction, which then
spawn gaming supplements (The Drow stuff with Mennazoberanen <sp?> spring
to mind...)

Really, this shouldn't be that surprising:  Fewer than one person in one
hundred buys or checks out *one book a year*.  And I, personally, am
making up for at least a few hundred people in that statistic :).


>
> I like Space:1889.  A lot.  I know one other person who does.
>

Sounds like there are several more here on the list. :)  I'm more interested
and inspired by it than I have been by any game I've seen in quite awhile.
Unlike you, however, I'm pretty sure I know some people who might be
amenable to a game.


In response to Wildstar's comments above,
[email removed] (Martin Snow) types:

>I've read Verne and Burroughs, but that doesn't mean I think their
>universes would be interesting to wander about in.  I prefer playing
>in a world where things have evolved, not regressed.  For example, are
>there any female characters allowed in Space:1889?  If there are, there
>shouldn't be (for internal consistency) and if there aren't, probably half
>the likely players have just put that game back on the shelf and picked up
>the next Cyberpunk game.

>I take it as a sign of the maturity of the gaming public that games like
>Space:1889 die out rather than a sign of their illiteracy.

I find this hard to follow, I'm afraid.  Why is there maturity in
rejecting a game set in the period of English Imperial-/Colonialism?  I
mean, if we're looking at the barbarity of the time period, shouldn't
modern gamers be even more horrified to be gaming in a Medieval setting
where religious intolerance and even greater repression of women occurred?
Space:1889 takes liberty with the time period to minimize many of the more
negative aspects of the time period and/or turns them into an opportunity
for role-playing, as almost any game does.  <Shrug>  Artistic license and
all that :)

The difference in playing in a setting where things have evolved vs.
regressed is interesting, but I'm curious what exactly you mean by it.
What games *do* you enjoy that have 'evolved' settings?  Traveller?
T:TNE?  In many ways, I'd say that T:TNE seems a shoe-in for regressed,
considering the amount of decay and inhumanity perpetrated by Hard Times
and the Fall of the Imperium.  The RCESs are hardly a shining example of
man's moral character :)

I agree that simply liking a genre doesn't mean you'll want to game in it.
What Wildstar was saying, I think, was that the set of gamers who enjoyed
Space:1889 was properly contained in the group of gamers who enjoyed
Verne/Burroughs/Wells/(And who, perhaps, also enjoyed Blaylock's _Lord
Kelvin's Machine_ or Moorcock's "Oswald Bastable"), not that the two groups
were necessarily identical...


ObTraveller:
Mark Watson [email removed] comments:

>- - lack of conspicuous success led to usual GDW loss of interest and
>general spiral into oblivion.
>

This seems to be a somewhat common theme for GDW, not just in terms of
Space:1889.  It almost seems to me that all this mucking about with
Traveller stems in large part from the people writing the game not being
excited about it.  When it fails to make money, they decide to pound
on it to make it more "modern".  <Shrug>  Does this make sense to anyone
else?

>- - the background makes information about the hivers essential, but you
>still seem to need alien module 7 to play them. Also, has anyone ever
>seen a picture of an Ithklur?

I noticed this, too:  Not only do you need info on the Hivers you haven't
got, but I don't (at the moment) recall T:TNE giving you even a physical
description of the Ithklur, which Module 7 does, thank goodness!


>PS: I saw in a store this weekend a new game, FTL:2448. Anyone looked
>at it? Anything useful in it? How does it compare with Traveller?

Actually, this is an old game, which has been reincarnated :)  I've yet to
track down a copy, but I'm also interested in how it stacks up to
Traveller...Anybody?

Dane

[email removed]
[email removed]
TNS Stringer ------------ Terra/Solomani Rim (1827 G867975-8)
"I'm not a real scientist, but I play one in an RPG."