RexMundi

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority Would Older be moving Faster or Slower in terms of Galactic movement? ~Rex

Re: What's in a Name? You could swipe the term Trolloc as well. Covers the bases. Still. Troll is Troll to me. Toss an element behind them (ie: Stone Troll), or a descriptive (ie: War Troll, Cave Troll), to break up the different types, and if you want to use Grue, it still works. ~Rex

Re: Post-Apocalypse campaign with Pulp Hero feel Don't forget you can have the Technology Worship thing in equal amounts as the Techno-Phobia. Lot of potential in Post Apocalypse. The REAL structure of Buck Rogers (it's initial run, and the current Dynamite Comics title), would give you what you want as an atmosphere as well. ~Rex

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority *Gets to work moving his Planets and Wormhole connections around a bit for his current campaign*..... Information.....a Dangerous thing indeed. ~Rex

Re: Time Travel in Sci Fi and Games....The Good, The Bad, and the Oh so Ugly... Yeah but look at the Results of the Great Time War. Now, you have ONE Time Lord. Anywhere, and Anywhen. If you look at that in terms of Time Travel that had to be a hell of a Fight because Dr. Who already established you could have multiple incarnations running around at the same Point in time. Still, they seem to have gotten the short end of the stick in that fight because the Daleks were still kicking. Indeed though, Temporal weapons I would think would be high on the list, and in fact, (Take Strontium Dog from Rebellion/2000AD for example with the Time Bombs and Time Drogues), would most likely be developed BEFORE Temporal Travel. ~Rex

Re: Lessons from Byzantium Very true, and excellent points. Still, it's a very usable model especially if you wanted to do, an Empire that's fragmenting. ~Rex

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority Yeah I work in construction though. My math, is strictly limited to Square Footage, Square Yardage, and Cubic Footage and Yardage. You get me out of that arena and I can barely do 2+2 anymore. ~Rex

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority Ah.....Always nice when a Math guy can speak to us lower primates. I can actually wrap what's left of my brain around that. ~Rex

Re: A good quote for SF writers... See who says math and physics people have no sense of humor. It's obvious they do, it's just that we can't understand their jokes. ~Rex

Re: Terran Empire changes Yeah but it seems like, you need to approach it more by Genre, and Terran Empire, is more of the mold of something like the Honor Harrington Stuff, classic Heinlein Stuff, Forever War / Dorsai flavoring, then the Transhuman stuff, of the digital age and forward. STILL, it should be only a matter of editing really to incorporate it all, as so nicely pointed out in the Diaspora and Orion's Arm Project examples. ~Rex

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority *Nods head, puffs on the pipe.....harrumphs and repeats with a few of course of course's tossed in for good measure* ~Rex.....steps back and waits for battle of the math Brains to commence, and for someone to explain Why the Cube Root?

Re: Duke Saturn & The Astro Commandos (6e) Doc invented TONS of stuff in those books, All before really functional Vacuum Tubes even heh.....and we don't say Stilted. We say, Pulp or Space Opera. Actually if you look at Ideas he presented before they were ever used, AWACS, C3 principals, Stealth Technology Craft, and the fact his single largest fan base, were all Scientists and Engineers, we can thank Doc for a LOT of things. So, yeah, Writing of the time. But classic and Immortal. ~Rex

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority Sol-Type Systems I think would be a better term. That little Rat bugger type of star is all over the place. Still, if the math says 1 in 10, then you can simply multiply the distance by 10 and one should be good. Or is it a factor of 10? My experience is more practical then analytical, so if a math nerd wants to fess up the correct answer I'll nod my head in a Sage like manner and agree with the proper harrumphing and pipe smoking. ~Rex

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority Well even if it's 1 in 10, that's Still very much within Carl Sagan's trademark Billions and Billions correct? ~Rex

Re: Could A Faraway Supernova Threaten Earth? Still. VERY far away. Lot of stuff between Us and Them, and again, Moving Target. I think Asteroid or Comet has a better chance of offing us, then Stellar Explosions. ~Rex

Re: 10 Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist You just need to be a smart Dictator. Use Religion. Keeps the workers in line where you need them, and your Armies pointed at people that don't care for your Dictatorship. Then, execute anyone smart enough not to be swayed by the "Opiate of the Masses", use the non lethal stuff to update your Iron Maidens and pear's of Anguish, and all's good right? I do find it interesting though to return to the topic, that in the development of non-lethal weaponry, with all the nausea sound wave generators, microwave beamers, chemical irritants, sticky glues, nerf balls and what not, that the single most effective set of crowd control weapons, are a Sling Shot with a concussion grenade, and a STICK, applied liberally about the head and shoulders of the offender. Sometimes. Less is more. ~Rex

Re: Lessons from Byzantium Excellent example. I was actually planning on buying that book anyway. Got some gift cards for the book store folks, and in the mood to add to the History shelves a bit. ~Rex

Re: What Happened to the Hominids Who Were Smarter Than Us? They;re easy to spot. They Prefer HERO as a game system. ~Rex

Re: Hole in the ground Noted the links, and of course, putting it to use. Need some place to stash my Aliens while they strip the lunar landscape of all usable He-3. ~Rex

Re: Terran Empire changes Yeah I'd second the BIG ships, heavy on the Submarine and Carrier aspects. Also, a Really good set of Alien books. As for the personal tech, I'd be more for something that set's Terrans apart from the rest of the field. Instead of Phasers, you go for thing like David Webber style Slug Throwers from the Honor Harrington series (gravity flung ultra sonic speed slivers), or like the Side Arms in his Apocalypse Troll novel, and the attendant Missile Technology along those lines as well to get something different then *BEAM* it dies. Definitely, more ALIEN aliens as well. As it stands the Terran Empire aliens are along the lines of the Bumpy Head of the Week. Give me something like, oh, a Planet, populated by critters like Vulture from Jack Chalker's Pirates of Thunder Series. Some Well World style Aliens, Ancient Uber Tech Aliens that are more Markovian, less Space Elf. ~Rex

Re: Duke Saturn & The Astro Commandos (6e) Lensman *Digs them all out of the box*. Hard to beat those books, they just started a re-release as well. I'd be interested in the Saturn Ring myself, since it's a heroic style game, curious to see what you stuck in it. ~Rex

Re: What Happened to the Hominids Who Were Smarter Than Us?

Re: Time Travel in Sci Fi and Games....The Good, The Bad, and the Oh so Ugly... In addition to Time Cop (which also spawned a TV Show), and Time Trax (which is interesting from the point that it's a Fixed point of Travel), you have Seven Days as well, which was another unique point of view. Folks brought up Fires of Paratime which is one of my favorite books and the one that really got me hooked into the evil clutches of Sci Fi book Club forever (heh), and of course all the other material including my beloved Poul Anderson books. Fritz Leiber's approach was a good time. One of the things I have done for my current 6e campaign, is go heavily into the time travel background material, since, time travel can spark a lot of things. It Does actually, combine every element I can think of. My only bad point so far is I let my biggest Power Gamer Ultra Plumber, get his hands on my copy of Roger Zelazny's Creatures of Light and Darkness. Combine that with 6e Duplication and attendant Advantages, and poof temporal fugue, a more direct and combative form of Time Travel. Pulling all of these various types of time travel together has made for a very interesting campaign setting that allows me to use Every Genre I can think of. Letting the Players influence those Genre's in one way or another, has given them an insight into just what goes into building a GOOD campaign setting, for them to play in, and now, they look for ways to Add to it, instead of ways, to get over it. I think I will hide "The Man who Folded Himself" from a few of my players though, since that opens up some odd cans of worms I don't think they could incorporate very well yet. Primarily though, all this time travel stuff (and things like the montauk project etc, MJ-12, Alien Abduction, Supernatural stuff hiding in the background, atlantean super science etc) is what leads to the development of Super Humans (Even though my Super Humans are more along the lines of, Hugo Danner, Tom Strong, Masked Men of Vengeance, etc), even though the players at the moment, are a bunch of 275 Point Heroic, that could change, since the developmental angles are just starting to come into play (it's only a once or maybe twice a month game). They're just starting to get whispers so to speak.... Now, WHERE, and when those whispers come from are another thing altogether. It's quite possible, the entire origin of the Super Powered folks could be owed to something along the lines of "The 4400" series. I thought at first, tying in all the elements of Time Travel through sci fi and even fantasy (and certainly pulp), and meshing it in with Heroic Adventure (along the lines of Richard Marcinko meets Sam and Dean Winchester, teaching young Tony Stark how to stake vampires with lost atlantean technology) would be difficult, but doing so, sort of builds in a lot of automatic GM retcon handwavium ability, if something breaks or bogs down, AND, no one can really gripe about it, because such a thing (Like the Protective Agency that only exists because someone mucked with the time stream, and while duty bound to fix it, doing so would erase them so they avoid doing it angle) is actually possible, and you can even Support, Opposing views of Time Travel at the same time. It's turning out to be, very easy. And that's before factoring in the player development of the various genre angles, that they then get to affect over the course of game play in the primary campaign arc. Toss in, the ease at which 6e is learned, by folks coming over to it from all over the gaming field (converting even die hard M&M folks as well at this table), and the fluidity of the new mechanics and tool kitting, it's shaping up to be an interesting build, that is practically, building itself. So, the MORE, brainpower I get looking at the topic subject, the easier it is for me to fine tune something that is roughly the game equivalent of the Saturn V. It's either going to the Moon, or exploding and taking southern Florida with it. ~Rex

Re: Time Travel in Sci Fi and Games....The Good, The Bad, and the Oh so Ugly... Really I wanted to take a look at that Game and haven't been able to find it ANYWHERE. What do you think of it? Especially in relation to this topic since I have no issues with swiping and assimilating alien culture, much like any good borg will do if presented the opportunity. ~Rex

Re: Time Travel in Sci Fi and Games....The Good, The Bad, and the Oh so Ugly... Right, which makes it PERFECT, for PC's. It also keeps the pot of water boiling so to speak, and opens doors to some interesting possibilities. Now, what if you added in an element, like what you see in David Gerrolds _The Man who Folded Himself_ ? Now it's more Localized, individual Time Travel, with some rather odd potentials in interactions as well. ~Rex