Lysando

Re: Worlds of Empire - Waddya think? Vermont is beautiful, still a bit springish. It's a beautiful state....and the most beautiful woman in the world (my wife) comes from there. ntb

Re: Worlds of Empire - Waddya think? Also missing from the profile for each planet was population. Population was sometimes mentioned in the text, but not always.

Re: Worlds of Empire - Waddya think? I read mine last weekend on a trip to Vermont. I've read everything except the GM's Vault section since there is some info there my GM is probably going to be using. Overall I was very impressed. Some of the places that are only references in other books get fleshed out more fully. Plenty of places to adventure in and ideas for adventures. So what was your favourite world? I really liked Fex (though I'm curious why a race of cat-people can be so pacific). Trovadore would be a great place to visit. ntb

If you have WOE already, what do you think?

Re: Weapon of war vs. Weapon of terror You might want to take a look at the current situation in Iraq. I think what you see there is essentially a war where one of the combatants is at least a Tech Level above the other. However, the "simpler" side has still managed to carry on a war which some argue they are winning. How are they doing this? Some of it is tried-and-true guerilla warfare tactics, some of it is doing well in the propaganda/psych ops/"will to fight" side of the war, some of it is just being willing to accept a ridiculous casualty rate. Human ingenuity is not about to allow a little thing like a disparity in technology levels prevent it from carrying out war.

My primary Fantasy Hero character is a wizard. Some time ago I bought him an Illusion spell. But in the time since then I haven't really used it much, or even particularly well. So I'd be interested in y'all's insights into clever uses of Illusion, or clever ways you've used an Illusion spell, or even just insights into how to deceive your opponents. Thank you! ntb

Re: Ghost in the Shell resources? Here is a much better intro to THS: http://joesplace.typepad.com/THSintro.pdf

Re: Ghost in the Shell resources? Fair enough, sounds like THS is a little different than what you are looking for. You wrote "I do wish the setting was a bit more precarious or chaotic.". One of the characteristics of THS is that technology has advanced to the point where everything can be much more orderly, predictable and "locked-down". This is a bit of a limitation to running THS, where do you fit in the sort of rambunctious characters that people sometimes want to play? To get away from that you have to get to "the edges", ie nonFifthWave countries, asteroid belt, outer solar system, virtualspace, etc. ntb

Re: Ghost in the Shell resources? I would highly recommend Transhuman Space, which is a GURPS setting by Steve Jackson Games. (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/transhuman/) Ghost in the SHell was one of the inspirations for THS. It is a hard-science SF setting set around the year 2100. I was rather blown away by future shock the first time I read it, and had to put it down half way through. I like it because it represents a serious attempt to extrapolate what life might be like 100 years from now. It isn't meant to be as dark as cyberpunk (though you could play it that way), but neither is it entirely optimistic either. It also doesn't assume (like much space opera) that people will essentially be the same culturally in the future. In fact perhaps the most mindblowing aspect of THS is when you begin to understand just how very different people can be in 2100. Some random things you will find in THS: bioroids uplifted animals memetic engineers AI (at different levels such as NAI, LAI, and SAI) infosocialism space travel in the solar system beanstalk being build in Kenya US colony on Titan Gypsy Angels Duncanites Preservationists Some things you won't find in THS: FTL travel Anti-gravity Sorry, I'm not doing THS justice with this!

How will the departure of Allen affect the schedule for Worlds of Empire?

Very pleasantly surprised to see that Worlds of Empire is scheduled to go out. I was given to understand that the Star Hero line was on hold. I'd llike to know more about what is going to be in it. I've searched the boards here but haven't found any more information. Did I miss anything?

Re: pulp hero over opinions? Somehow a man shooting at a woman, even if she is a Nazi, I found very disturbing and not really in keeping at all with the Pulp genre. Call it sexist or whatever you like, but it seems to be to be in contradiction to the general attitude at the time that women were to be protected, generally, and not shot at. I don't like this cover at all.

Hello all, I'm currently playing a ship's doctor and I was wondering if anyone has given any thought to medical technology in StarHero beyond the little bit in the books. I don't have the Spacer's Toolkit (but I have looked through it), but I do have StarHero, Alien Wars and Terran Empire. These have very little other than a few gadgets and drugs. Ideally I'd like to find a description and writeup of the medical equipment in the sickbay of a merchant vessel or other small vessel as well as descriptions and writeups of other medical equipment. Also interesting would be a description of the medical technology available at each tech level. That would give some sort of idea what technology might be available. All the other characters in the game seem to enjoy planning on what new gadgets, etc. they'll need for their part of the ship, I thought it would be fun to also have "upgrade paths" and other crunchy bits to dream about for the doctor and the sickbay,and to just in general flesh out the character and make him more interesting. Thank you! Trevor

Re: Solar Hero I think some things you make because you expect there to be a market for them, and some things because you hope to make a market for them. THS for example appears to me to be an example of the latter. Again I understand that THS is different than what you would be doing, but it does demonstrate that there is a demand out there for innovative nonspace-opera SF settings. THS went to 10 or so books. Actually there is another GURPS product which might be more applicable, and that is GURPS Mars. I have no idea how well it did, but it is a good book.

Re: Solar Hero Sounds very cool. Space opera is fun, but I've noticed over the years that the books that I'm reading, and that most inspire me with gaming ideas are less and less space opera-ish and are based in settings that are more "realistic" ( ie no FTL, forcefields or humanoid aliens or other space opera tropes ) and usually take place on Earth or in our solar system. Thus my interest in Transhuman Space. So I'm excited to hear about this. Not that I expect it to be Transhuman Space HERO or anything, I just mentioned THS as a recent excellent example of a non-space opera realistic setting. It will be interesting to see your approach. Lysando

Does anyone have information about what Solar Hero will be about? From what little I've seen (and I can't remember where I saw it, argh) it sounds like it could be something like Transhuman Space (GURPS). I've done a search on these boards but turned up nothing. Thank you! Lysando