From: kabael@softhome.net Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 11:12 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - waiting, and not playing > I have a few people that I could throw together as a group, provided we > aren't all working. I've got about 4 games that I REALLY want to run, but > no time to do it. :-( At least you have people interested in games :) Derek Guder - kabael@softhome.net - ICQ# 24193592 Opinionated reviewer extraordinaire *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Corn God Bob [necrobob@compfxnet.com] Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 10:35 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - waiting, and not playing At 04:11 AM 12/30/2000 GMT, you wrote: > >> All this, and I still haven't gotten First Colony yet....or gotten to play >> BP at all, for that matter. Grr... > >Join the club, I'm trying to keep myself from buying any RPG books for >about 2 weeks, and seeing First Colony would certainly mess that plan up :) > >And I'm still _planning_ on getting my roommate into a one-on-one game of >BP, but I haven't been able to move on that at all. I have a few people that I could throw together as a group, provided we aren't all working. I've got about 4 games that I REALLY want to run, but no time to do it. :-( ____________________ Necromancer Bob, Card-Carrying Member of the Novus Ordum Mundi Visit The Gate: Necromancer Bob's Domain at: http://www.intws.com/necrobob AOL IM: NcroBob ICQ #78542780 *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: kabael@softhome.net Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 10:12 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - waiting, and not playing > All this, and I still haven't gotten First Colony yet....or gotten to play > BP at all, for that matter. Grr... Join the club, I'm trying to keep myself from buying any RPG books for about 2 weeks, and seeing First Colony would certainly mess that plan up :) And I'm still _planning_ on getting my roommate into a one-on-one game of BP, but I haven't been able to move on that at all. Derek Guder - kabael@softhome.net - ICQ# 24193592 Opinionated reviewer extraordinaire *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Corn God Bob [necrobob@compfxnet.com] Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 10:23 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Cetaceans >If I understand what you're getting at, Derek, I think this will probably be >the most important part of the book. How does the GM incorporate a cetacean >character into a mixed PC group, providing challenge, immediacy, excitement, >etc.? Is that what you mean? I can't speak for him, but it's definitely what I'd like to see. >But what do you mean by "completely silly"? Are >you talking about contrivances, like always having a body of saltwater at >hand so a cetacean can directly participate in an encounter or event? I suspect he means something along those lines...there's also the general "Hey, it's Flipper!" aspect of being able to play a cetacean.... > We're >pretty serious about the "no new rules" mantra for our published >supplements, but are more detailed and comprehensive rules on remotes >helpful/necessary in this? Personally, I think it would. There are some essays on how telepresence affects people and how it plays into people's lives, but a better grasp on exactly how dependent (or *not* dependent) cetaceans can be on such technology would be appreciated. 'Course I can always come up with something like that on my own, but it'd be a nice thing to include in the book. All this, and I still haven't gotten First Colony yet....or gotten to play BP at all, for that matter. Grr... ____________________ Necromancer Bob, Card-Carrying Member of the Novus Ordum Mundi Visit The Gate: Necromancer Bob's Domain at: http://www.intws.com/necrobob AOL IM: NcroBob ICQ #78542780 *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: kabael@softhome.net Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 10:01 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Cetaceans > If I understand what you're getting at, Derek, I think this will probably be > the most important part of the book. How does the GM incorporate a cetacean > character into a mixed PC group, providing challenge, immediacy, excitement, > etc.? Is that what you mean? But what do you mean by "completely silly"? Are > you talking about contrivances, like always having a body of saltwater at > hand so a cetacean can directly participate in an encounter or event? Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. I love the idea that people can play dolphins or orcas, but I don't want that to mean that they have to sit out a lot, or the game has to take amazing coincidences to fit them in. Remember how our IRC game went? Our poor dolphin was relegated to recon and watching things go down. I was trying to maneuver for an exciting underwater chase/firefight on a sub, but we didn't get that far. Pooey. > How can we, as GMs, > overcome that distance and provide the same experience for the player whose > cetacean character is participating through a remote constellation? Yeah, that's definitely a serious problem. How do you make it exciting, realistic and not limited at the same time? I'm sure there are ideas out there, but they need to be put in writing. > We're > pretty serious about the "no new rules" mantra for our published > supplements, but are more detailed and comprehensive rules on remotes > helpful/necessary in this? I don't really think we need more rules so much as more advice on how to write plots and run adventures that feature fins. Derek Guder - kabael@softhome.net - ICQ# 24193592 Opinionated reviewer extraordinaire *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Greg Benage [gbenage@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 10:06 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Cetaceans ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 9:12 PM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Cetaceans > > > On a total tangent: What would people like to see in a cetacean sourcebook? > > > > Culture, psychology, toys, tricks, etc. > > Lots and lots and lots and lots of advice on how to both how to play a > cetacean character and (even more important) how to work them into a > campaign without being completely silly. If I understand what you're getting at, Derek, I think this will probably be the most important part of the book. How does the GM incorporate a cetacean character into a mixed PC group, providing challenge, immediacy, excitement, etc.? Is that what you mean? But what do you mean by "completely silly"? Are you talking about contrivances, like always having a body of saltwater at hand so a cetacean can directly participate in an encounter or event? For me, a big part of the enjoyment of roleplaying is the "immediacy" and "immersion," being *there*, in the thick of the action, with my character's ass on the line. I think this is the toughest thing about using telepresence technology as a substitute for personal presence. How can we, as GMs, overcome that distance and provide the same experience for the player whose cetacean character is participating through a remote constellation? We're pretty serious about the "no new rules" mantra for our published supplements, but are more detailed and comprehensive rules on remotes helpful/necessary in this? Greg Benage FFG *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Greg Benage [gbenage@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 9:39 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Introduction and a couple of Qs ----- Original Message ----- From: Wil To: Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 8:10 PM Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Introduction and a couple of Qs [snip] Hey Wil. Welcome, and thanks for the support. > First, I'm used to Build in Silhouette having an equivalent range of weight > for each level. Does Blue Planet have anything like this? Besides > comparing the Build scores of a dolphin and an orca, looking up their real > world weights and trying to extrapolate from there. The only such table currently in existence is in my notes, I'm not confident enough in it to share at this point. ;-) However, the Field Guide (or whatever we end up calling the survival/wilderness sourcebook coming in March) will likely include guidelines for creating your own flora and fauna, at which point we'll have to solidify conversion info like this. So, my advice is to wing it until then. :) > By the same token, how > do you figure out how much someone can lift? Does the Moderator simply > assign a difficulty and the character tests against it? That's how I'd do it. Treat it like any other task roll. If the weight seems high, assign a penalty; if it seems low, assign a bonus. These situations don't come up often in a SF game, and it's a lot quicker to just let the basic system and common sense handle it than it is to look up a chart. > Second, is there any listing of how much damage common materials can take? > Besides the listing of the advanced materials in Fluid Mechanics? If for > some reason I decide to use Silhouette for BP over Synergy, those values > could prove extremely useful. There are armor ratings for various materials on PG 113 and for bioplastic beginning on 143, and the more advanced rules you mentioned in FluMech. Along with the rules for equipment damage on FM 6, you should do okay. > It might sound incredibly simulationist of me, but considering how detailed > BP's setting is I was expecting a little more in the way of details in the > system - not necessarily more rules, but things along the line of the Build > equivalencies or the material damage capacities. Don't get me wrong, an > entire Moderator's Guide full of nothing but secrets and crunchy setting > tidbits is more than pleasing. Personally, I think the realism of the BP setting mitigates against detailed rules for many such things. The rules always end up much less of a simulation of the real world than common sense could provide, and usually more complicated. I certainly recognize this is a matter of taste and preference, though. > Finally, I'm toying with the idea of starting a campaign on Earth and having > the PCs go to Poseidon - perhaps even being forced to go there somehow. Has > anyone tried anything like this? It might start as a more or less typical > cyberpunk game and then I'll dump these edgerunner-style characters onto > Poseidon. The fresh air might just kill them ^_^ Based on past list discussions, I think this is a fairly common way to begin a campaign. It rules out certain character concepts (e.g., natives, veteran colonists), but it's a good way to emphasize the differences between Earth and Poseidon. Thanks! Greg Benage FFG *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Wil [dreamweaver@keyway.net] Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 9:33 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Cetaceans > Lots and lots and lots and lots of advice on how to both how to play a > cetacean character and (even more important) how to work them into a > campaign without being completely silly. I think the idea of the cetaceans interacting with above-surface environments through remotes and such is pretty darned cool - much more so than any kind of "dolphin-mobile" they use to get around on the surface. I would assume that cetacean remotes would be very highly customized, both in appearance and function. The ultimate would, of course, be a neurally controlled humanoid robot. "Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?" Dreams of Flesh & Spirit: http://www.atomicrumpusroom.net/tribe8/ The Datacore: http://www.atomicrumpusroom.net/jovianchronicles/ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Wil [dreamweaver@keyway.net] Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 9:26 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Cetaceans > Howdy, Wil. Nice to see you around. I'm everywhere, and no one can get rid of me ^_^ > On a total tangent: What would people like to see in a cetacean sourcebook? I'll have to get back to you on that, until I know what kind of info there is on cetaceans in the first place. I'm still not entirely clear on whether or not the cetaceans have been modified or if we've just figured out how to communicate with them between now and then. Of course, I'm barely into the system information in the Player's Guide. Somehow, I'm feeling the urge to go and reread David Brin's Uplift books again. "Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?" Dreams of Flesh & Spirit: http://www.atomicrumpusroom.net/tribe8/ The Datacore: http://www.atomicrumpusroom.net/jovianchronicles/ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: kabael@softhome.net Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 9:12 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Cetaceans > On a total tangent: What would people like to see in a cetacean sourcebook? > Culture, psychology, toys, tricks, etc. Lots and lots and lots and lots of advice on how to both how to play a cetacean character and (even more important) how to work them into a campaign without being completely silly. Derek Guder - kabael@softhome.net - ICQ# 24193592 Opinionated reviewer extraordinaire *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Justin Bacon [triad@prairie.lakes.com] Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2000 9:12 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Cetaceans Wil wrote: > Just wanted to introduce myself...I'm Wil recognizes me>. Howdy, Wil. Nice to see you around. > Besides > comparing the Build scores of a dolphin and an orca, looking up their real > world weights and trying to extrapolate from there. On a total tangent: What would people like to see in a cetacean sourcebook? > Finally, I'm toying with the idea of starting a campaign on Earth and having > the PCs go to Poseidon - perhaps even being forced to go there somehow. Has > anyone tried anything like this? I haven't tried it, yet, but this is one of the primary campaign structures I'm weighing for when I finally do get a BP campaign off the ground. Justin Bacon triad3204@aol.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: ChrisTheS [stormsurge@stormsurge.org] Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 8:47 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Introduction and a couple of Qs > Finally, I'm toying with the idea of starting a campaign on Earth and having > the PCs go to Poseidon - perhaps even being forced to go there somehow. Has > anyone tried anything like this? It might start as a more or less typical > cyberpunk game and then I'll dump these edgerunner-style characters onto > Poseidon. The fresh air might just kill them ^_^ RE: This adventure hook is, I understand, a fairly common introductory tactic (although I've never used it myself). There is a very good earth-to-Poseidon adventure on http://www.multimania.com/bpfr/, but I can't remember the url to the english version (at least, I assume this was the site that I saw it on originally... layout's the same, and I remember it was one of the french sites). *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Wil [dreamweaver@keyway.net] Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 8:11 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Introduction and a couple of Qs Just wanted to introduce myself...I'm Wil . I'm the webmaster for Dreams of Flesh & Spirit and the Datacore - I'm a pretty big Dream Pod 9 fan, but Blue Planet has looked good for a while and Christmas gave me the perfect opportunity to pick up the books. So far, I like what I've read - it might just be a contender with Jovian Chronicles for my favorite science fiction setting. I haven't gotten into the Moderator's Book, but I'm assuming that there are some cool twists in it. However, my skim-through of the rules in the Player's Guide has left me with some questions. First, I'm used to Build in Silhouette having an equivalent range of weight for each level. Does Blue Planet have anything like this? Besides comparing the Build scores of a dolphin and an orca, looking up their real world weights and trying to extrapolate from there. By the same token, how do you figure out how much someone can lift? Does the Moderator simply assign a difficulty and the character tests against it? Second, is there any listing of how much damage common materials can take? Besides the listing of the advanced materials in Fluid Mechanics? If for some reason I decide to use Silhouette for BP over Synergy, those values could prove extremely useful. It might sound incredibly simulationist of me, but considering how detailed BP's setting is I was expecting a little more in the way of details in the system - not necessarily more rules, but things along the line of the Build equivalencies or the material damage capacities. Don't get me wrong, an entire Moderator's Guide full of nothing but secrets and crunchy setting tidbits is more than pleasing. Finally, I'm toying with the idea of starting a campaign on Earth and having the PCs go to Poseidon - perhaps even being forced to go there somehow. Has anyone tried anything like this? It might start as a more or less typical cyberpunk game and then I'll dump these edgerunner-style characters onto Poseidon. The fresh air might just kill them ^_^ "Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?" Dreams of Flesh & Spirit: http://www.atomicrumpusroom.net/tribe8/ The Datacore: http://www.atomicrumpusroom.net/jovianchronicles/ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: kabael@softhome.net Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 4:14 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - [somewhat OT] game design and abstractions > I don't think its so much hard to do a good CCG from an established concept, as > it is to open yourself up to good design decisions while working from an > established concept. Indeed. 3 prime examples are the ones I mentioned earlier. Vampire, NetRunner and Kult. Vampire _could_ have been a "card game of personal horror" but instead of it was a battle between ancient methuselahs manipulating a slew of minions. On top of that, a lot of the cards in the game make absolutely no sense _except_ as complete abstractions. And the game works brilliantly. NetRunner is based on Cyberpunk, but is set entirely in the Net, based around netrunning and all that. All physical-world people and events, including familiar things like solos and all that, were isolated card that you played as needed. I really like that. If the game had tried to combine both physical combat and decking, it wouldn't have worked at all. Kult completely turned the tables on the RPG. Instead of being a victim of the Illusion, fighting for any degree of victory, you paly the forces in control of it, those who crafted reality - the Archons and Death Angels. Not to mention the tarot-card layout kicked ass too. > For a non-CCG example, take a look at the excellent LUNCH MONEY card game from > Atlas Games. Highly abstracted, has nothing -- really -- in common with an > actual free-for-all fight -- but it captures the feel and pace of such a fight > perfectly for a card game. Another good example would be the duel system that > Greg Stolze designed for USAGI YOJIMBO -- highly abstracted, but still results > in the feel of a samurai conflict. Definitely. No matter what you do in an RPG or CCG, it is at some level going to be an abstraction. You have to accept that and use it to your advantage. Derek Guder - kabael@softhome.net - ICQ# 24193592 Opinionated reviewer extraordinaire *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: ChrisTheS [stormsurge@stormsurge.org] Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 3:04 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - [OT] Shadowfist and other CCGs The problem is that most CCGs have more in common with the strategy game genre than action or role playing, which is why most CCGs (which are based on either of those genres) miss the target so much. If the setting from which it is abstracted is a similarly strategic one (say, for example, a CCG was made of WarCraft), it would find the process of conversion from one type to another much easier, simply because all that really needs to be done is convert from real-time strategy to turn-based. In other respects, all the usual elements of both are there (resource management and combat). Whereas converting from a roleplaying game or film setting, there are a lot of other things that have to be taken into account, and decisions have to be made to balance game mechanics with the settings' details, and generally both have to be sacrificed too far to make a decent game (for example, the Doctor Who RPG, which has rotten mechanics and has sacrificed the detail of the series so far that really the only things that link it to the series are the names, the card art, and the time travel elements). ----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin Bacon" To: Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2000 12:30 PM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - [OT] Shadowfist and other CCGs > > > ChrisTheS wrote: > > > It's really hard to do good CCGs from > > an established concept, unfortunately (I had the misfortune of playtesting > > the Wheel of Time CCG, which has some of the worst mechanics I have ever > > seen in a CCG). > > I don't think its so much hard to do a good CCG from an established concept, as > it is to open yourself up to good design decisions while working from an > established concept. > > The same goes for RPG design, really. I've seen people, for example, try to > design "fixes" to the combat system of WEG's old STAR WARS game so that the > duels between Luke and Vader can be played out with blow-by-blow accuracy using > the system. The resulting system was, of course, always clunky, lopsided, and > clumsy. > > You need to remain open to the process of abstraction which a game, by > necessity, must engage in. (For a good example of this, take a look at the first > issue of STAR WARS GAMER -- which shows how the abstract system of WotC's STAR > WARS game could "result" in the duel between Obi-Wan and Darth Maul at the end > of TPM.) > > For a non-CCG example, take a look at the excellent LUNCH MONEY card game from > Atlas Games. Highly abstracted, has nothing -- really -- in common with an > actual free-for-all fight -- but it captures the feel and pace of such a fight > perfectly for a card game. Another good example would be the duel system that > Greg Stolze designed for USAGI YOJIMBO -- highly abstracted, but still results > in the feel of a samurai conflict. > > MtG, after all, is an extremely abstracted mage's duel. If they had tried to > build a game, though, that could -- with precise exactitude -- model the "final" > battle of Gandalf in Moria from LOTR, it would have been pretty terrible. > > Justin Bacon > triad3204@aol.com > > *************************************************************************** > To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com > with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Justin Bacon [triad@prairie.lakes.com] Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2000 2:30 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - [OT] Shadowfist and other CCGs ChrisTheS wrote: > It's really hard to do good CCGs from > an established concept, unfortunately (I had the misfortune of playtesting > the Wheel of Time CCG, which has some of the worst mechanics I have ever > seen in a CCG). I don't think its so much hard to do a good CCG from an established concept, as it is to open yourself up to good design decisions while working from an established concept. The same goes for RPG design, really. I've seen people, for example, try to design "fixes" to the combat system of WEG's old STAR WARS game so that the duels between Luke and Vader can be played out with blow-by-blow accuracy using the system. The resulting system was, of course, always clunky, lopsided, and clumsy. You need to remain open to the process of abstraction which a game, by necessity, must engage in. (For a good example of this, take a look at the first issue of STAR WARS GAMER -- which shows how the abstract system of WotC's STAR WARS game could "result" in the duel between Obi-Wan and Darth Maul at the end of TPM.) For a non-CCG example, take a look at the excellent LUNCH MONEY card game from Atlas Games. Highly abstracted, has nothing -- really -- in common with an actual free-for-all fight -- but it captures the feel and pace of such a fight perfectly for a card game. Another good example would be the duel system that Greg Stolze designed for USAGI YOJIMBO -- highly abstracted, but still results in the feel of a samurai conflict. MtG, after all, is an extremely abstracted mage's duel. If they had tried to build a game, though, that could -- with precise exactitude -- model the "final" battle of Gandalf in Moria from LOTR, it would have been pretty terrible. Justin Bacon triad3204@aol.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message.