Let me start off with a few questions to GDW.
1. Do you have the future history of TNE universe mapped out for the next
50-200 years? eg are you running a REAL game now played at the
political/military level that encompasses all the major players in the
TNE universe and that is creating the future TNE history or are you just
making it up as you go.
2. Do you have specific psychological models for the currently unpublished
alien societies? ie how individuals in the societies behave to each other
and to outsiders; how the government and traders relate to external
groups, empires, consortiums, etc.
3. Have you justified logicly to youselves the various social and military
interactions of the various alien societies in your universe. Why 5 wars
with the Zhodani and now suddenly peace? Why hasn't the Imperium trashed
the SWORD WORLDS and gotten rid of that annoying group.
4. Are we (the GMs and players of TNE) being treated as if we were simply
moving through a planned TNE timeline and we're only being fed information
like "this is the news today" and that's really all we should know. If this
is the case then give us some more news!
5. Are there groups around the world who are privy to the details of the
TNE future history and possibly helping to design it.
6. What's on the otherside of the empires surrounding the Imperium? Have you
mapped these regions out? In great detail or just 'other empire' borders
or is it unplayable so it's treated as not being there?
7. While I'm not keen on rolling lots of dice in combat I find the armour
penetration rules a bit too black and white. Oh you've got that gun and
I've got this armour so you can't hurt me. In a lot of cases I would like
to do away with the straight subtraction of damage dice and simply roll
them all and have the defender roll what dice would have been subtracted
and then subtract the two sums. There are cases where you will inflict
damage where previously it was impossible. How do you feel about this
variation?
8. I find it very difficult to get exceptional successes with most average
characters unless they are 'super' at a skill and the 10 point range is
a very large single step. Have you looked at 5 point steps with 5-9
giving a 1 point defenders armour reduction, 10-14 giving the 5-9 bonus
plus double damage, 15-19 giving the double damage bonus plus a 2 point
reduction in the defenders armour rating?
9. The fact that TNE combat does very little damage can mean that combats
run on for long periods. In the case of the head and chest rule
of saving throws for death by NPCs it goes to the other extreme with
one shot kills for NPCs but players dragging on until all their blood
has drained away. There must be some middle ground where realism can
at least share the lime light with playability. What combat mods are
people implementing along these lines?
10. We converted our characters to TNE and found the 'feel' of the game to
have been totally changed. Preferred weapons now don't penetrate and
don't have anywhere near the knock down ability they had before. To
fix the laser weapon fall from grace our GM simply added "1-" to them
and the universe has shifted part way back again. There seems to be a
number of misprints in the weapons tables .... do you have an errata
for them yet?
11. The move to T:2000 in-house game system is a good rationalisation for
GDW but I feel that the equipment stats for HIGHER TECH equipment
has been fudged rather badly. Sure, if I have a TL-10 pistol and
we upgrade it to TL-12 we don't JUST want a copy made. What you need
is a branching of capabilities not a straight line "this is now this".
The TL-12 pistol would have several variants. One identical to the
original for direct sale to TL-10 worlds at cheaper than TL-10 can
produce it, one with better range but with less penetration, one with
better penetration but with less range, one with better penetration at
close range but worse penetration at longer ranges but still has the
longer range ability. There doesn't appear to be enough variation
for players to role play around ... "Damn he's just out of range, should
have bought the other model gun" OR "I always carry two pistols, one
for close in people stopping and one for long range". Do you have plans
for some trade manuals so we can "go shopping"? It would be nice to front
up at a shop and have the GM say "Some binoculars? Oh well if you look on
page 24 you find variants 1-5 and 11 which are available over the
counter and he can order in variants 19-24 in 2 weeks or a 25 will take
a month. What would you like?". Look around today, want to buy a TV; how
many variants can you get? Some variety please.
Just some thoughts...
How about the rest of the TMLers ... comments please.
Bruce... [email removed]