[OT] Jon Tuffley Made It Into Murphy's Rules!

The fact that fighters are max movement, and starships don't made it into a
Murphy's rules, by John Kovalic. (I don't think it's available to the
public in general; you have to have an on-line subscription to
Pyramid magazine.)

J.

> John Crimmins wrote:

I guess I should have been clearer; Jon Tuffley is CREDITED as the person who
submitted the rule. Given the high standards that Pyramid tries to practice, I
have no reason to doubt them.

We've also talked a lot about the rule on the list, especially when FB was in
the works... it's an accepted convention to keep fighter combat from being too
cumbersome.

I don't intend to offend anybody; I think we all agree FT is a pretty good
game system, otherwise we wouldn't be here.

J.

> At 04:14 PM 3/12/99 -0500, you wrote:

And did you notice who submitted it? How many designers are willing to *admit*
(much less point out) the logical lapses of their rule systems?

> At 06:15 PM 3/12/99 -0500, you wrote:

Well, *I* certainly wasn't offended! My apologies if it somehow sounded that I
was. I was just entertained by the fact that Jon himself submitted this
"mistake" to Murphy's rules hiself! Most game designers would rather die than
admit that there might be any sort of percieved flaw in one of their systems.
Jon, of course, is Better Than That.

And I must add that I don't think that FT is a "pretty good game system"...I
think that it's a *Damned* Good Game System!

> At 06:15 PM 3/12/99 -0500, you wrote:

Yes, I DID submit the Murphy's myself, as have several designers and writers
who aren't afraid to laugh at themselves a bit! Marcus Rowland is another, who
submitted his own Murphy's from Forgotten Futures (his shareware Victorian SF
RPG) about "stealthy elephants and noisy mice" (see the last Murphy's
compilation, now in print). The FT Murphy's came about from meeting John
Kovalic (a really great guy,
BTW) on his recent trip over to the UK. John's a keen FT fan - if you
pick
up his latest issue of Dork Tower (no.3) - the one with the "Global
Village
Idiot" line on the cover - and look very carefully at the game books and
boxes in the cartoon, you should find "Fool Thrust" there somewhere.....
I'm very chuffed to have got into Murphy's - a lot of the rules in there
are ones that (like the FT one) make sense in terms of playability and game
function, but make little or no sense in "real world" terms, and that's why
they're funny. Besides, it seeing the cartoon makes just ONE gamer think
"Hmmm, Full Thrust, wossis then....?" and go look for it at his store, then
that can't be a bad thing.......
Oh, and thanks for all the kind comments - I THINK I can just about get
my head through the office door still.....

:-)

> The fact that fighters are max movement, and starships don't made it

The latest Murphy's should be available for free viewing on John Kovalic's
site:

www.kovalic.com

Don't know if the FT one is up there yet, have to take a look....

> At 10:43 AM 3/13/99 +0000, you wrote:
[snip]
> Yes, I DID submit the Murphy's myself, as have several designers and
(see
> the last Murphy's compilation, now in print).

While you were at it, did you also include the tidbit about screening fighters
being able to exceed a fighter's normal movement rates? I have visions of the
fighter screen being shaken, rattled, and rolled as they are caught up in the
starship's high speed gravitic 'wake'...

[ducking]

> The fact that fighters are max movement, and starships don't made it

OK, just had a look, and the very latest Murphy's isn't up yet. Guess John
hasn't updated the site for a while.

Jon (GZG)
> [quoted text omitted]

> At 10:43 AM 3/13/99 +0000, you wrote:
(see
> the last Murphy's compilation, now in print).

I could give you a long, involved and completely spurious PSB reasoning for
this, but I won't.....

<GRIN>

Jon:
***
The FT Murphy's came about from meeting John Kovalic (a really great guy, BTW)
on his recent trip over to the UK.
***

Having done a bit of 'Net trading with, and met at last Gencon, I can only add
to John be a great guy.

Bit of trivia for our Brit list members: John's early, I think he said first
paid, cartoon work can be found
in an early UK sci-fi gaming mag called Alien Space.

I think John said he'd done it while a student in the UK, and seemed pretty
surprised anyone knew about it.

The_Beast

PS. Now, if you were going to make a parody of FT and call
it Fool Thrust, how would it go...? ;->=

Doug, having a mature moment, said:
***
Bit of trivia for our Brit list members: John's early, I think he said first
paid, cartoon work can be found
in an early UK sci-fi gaming mag called Alien Space.
***

That would actually be 'Alien Star'. *ahem*

The_Beast

> Ground Zero Games wrote:

> >The fact that fighters are max movement, and starships don't made it

I have a subscription to the Pyramid online mag.   Yes it is there.

> That would actually be 'Alien Star'. *ahem*

That would be the fanzine for Traveller by Bob McMahon, wouldn't it?

> devans@uneb.edu wrote:

> I think he said first paid, cartoon work can be found

> That would actually be 'Alien Star'. *ahem*

Alien Space being the Lou Zocchi SF game, the one that was very similar in
mechanics to his Star Trek game (not SFB), which is why the old
stands that came with old SFB ships had fwd-port-stbd-aft firing arcs on