Greetings all,
I'm relatively new to this list and to Full Thrust (which is a great system, I
think). I too would like to see additional material available for it. One
method I thought might be a good way to go about it is this (please forgive me
if this is something that's been discussed already):
Step 1: Writer of Cool New Idea/Background/Ship submits document to a
review group (or the whole mailing list). Step 2: Reviewers of the document
send feedback to writer and document is modified accordingly. Some playtesting
probably might happen here.
Step 3: Semi-final draft is sent to mailing list/GZG/Jon for OK and
supplement number. Step 4: Final doc is formatted and proofed and post to
official/semi-official web site.
I see this process similar to the way articles are submitted to the Journal of
the American Medical Association (JAMA) or the way a proposed new Internet
standard might be dealt with.
These steps assume that a system to support it be built (who does what, a
hosting web site, legal issues are sorted out, etc...).
Just a thought,
On Monday, September 01, 1997 2:23 PM, Nathan [SMTP:njp@cyberramp.net] wrote:
<sniP>
> for it. One method I thought might be a good way to go about it is
The issue with step 1 is how you set-up the review group
too many cooks may be unmanageable but people who are keen won't like being
left out. It will require tact and diplomacy and some one to self appoint
themselves as arbiter. It might be better if a rolling review group existed
where those interested were on a quarterly rota and so that certain people
didn't dominate it and people could give a lot of commitment for a short time.
Just sending it to the list can be patchy review at best.
Step 2 - doing the playtesting would may be a bit thorny
how do you measure that you have done enough and that it was sufficiently
objective? You need to evolve evaluation criterion. However these sort of
things have been done in the past. It
just needs a lot of co-ordination by someone.
Step 3 - I think Jon Tuffley is probably going to be
too busy to review this in any depth, he is at best a sporadic poster to this
list (for good reason).
If the first two steps have been done correctly this might
be OK - but if a lot of effort has already been expended
on the initial work and he says 'Non starter' people are going to loose
interest quickly.
Step 4 this all requires a high level of commitment. Which may or may not
exist.
I agree with the sentiments of this post but I'm sceptical that the process
will work. I think that you need OFFICIAL sanction on the idea at an early
stage before you waste effort. I also think you must find committed dedicated
people, who can commit for a given period of time. You also need one person to
organise it all and chase people, a thankless task at the best of times.
My scepticism is due to having done this sort of thing trying to get a
standard PBEM computer format adopted and spending hours working on stuff that
falls on stony ground I know how frustrating it can be.
At best if someone posts a good idea, reviews it on the list, correlates the
responses and puts
it up their own web page, the rules become a de-facto
standard in their own right, if they are any good. IMHO Mk's B5 rules may have
reached this sort of status. It would be nice to get the OFFICIAL stamp, but
is it realistic?
As many have said we wait for JT to speak...
sincerely
> Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 09:58:16 -0400
> njp@cyberramp.net writes:
snip snip -- rules for submission -- snip snip
> Joh has already spoken about this issue and seems to be fairly
We could produce scenario packets that add specific rules to tailor the
system(s) to a certain gendre or universe.
> It is very easy to produce a non-general system; we see it all the
We could clean up problems like that with writers' guidelines.
> Second - the process is designed to handle out-of-place submissions
The process could also reveal something none of us have yet thought about,
that could be very compelling.
What
> worries me is that some of these rejected submissions may take on a
Right now we have no submissions folks. Many people want to write for Jon, but
without a clear policy statement they have no idea what Jon
wants and what he will accept.
> njp@cyberramp.net writes:
@:) Step 1: Writer of Cool New Idea/Background/Ship submits document
@:) to a review group (or the whole mailing list).
@:) Step 2: Reviewers of the document send feedback to writer and @:) document
is modified accordingly. Some playtesting probably might @:) happen here.
@:) Step 3: Semi-final draft is sent to mailing list/GZG/Jon for OK
@:) and supplement number.
@:) Step 4: Final doc is formatted and proofed and post to
@:) official/semi-official web site.
Joh has already spoken about this issue and seems to be fairly
well-disposed to it, so my criticism of this idea should be read with
that in mind. I think the idea is good but possibly inappropriate. I would
expect two problems:
First - what Jon has already mentioned - the submissions will tend
not to fit well into the game universe, or perhaps more importantly into the
game system. By the universe I mean the various human fleets and the Kra'Vak
and Sa'Vasku, their fleets, weapons and other systems. It is not difficult to
invent weapons, systems or vehicles that don't make sense for any of these
groups. By system I mean not just the rules of FT (or the other games) but the
spirit of those rules which specifies that they will remain as general and
flexible as possible.
It is very easy to produce a non-general system; we see it all the
time as list members post "lasers" rather than "beams".
Second - the process is designed to handle out-of-place submissions
such as those described above. I would expect a large number of submissions to
be rejected as happens in any editorial process. What worries me is that some
of these rejected submissions may take on a life of their own and become
generally used, or possibly even developed into products. On second thought,
though, perhaps this is less a problem and more an opportunity for expansion.
> Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:
> John D. Hamill writes:
@:) One of the reasons people on the list post specific systems to the @:)
lists is that in the books Jon Tuffley himself explains the weapon @:) tech he
uses in the "official" universe; i.e. Beams are particle @:) weapons.
Well, that's true but I think it misses the point to a certain extent. In the
same paragraph as the "Particle Accelerator" statement it is mentioned that
players can use the same weapon to represent "a Laser, Phaser, Blaster or
whatever!"
@:) From that simple statement you can project the other tech, such as @:)
screens being simple EM fields designed to disrupt incoming @:) particle
beams, which is why they don't work on solid projectiles @:) or pulse torps.
from that start you can add additional weapons @:) (lasers and the like)
because you have a starting tech point.
I think that's all right but I don't think it's really important what the new
weapons are called as long as their rules distinguish them significantly from
the existing weapons. Maybe you want to write rules for a weapon that does one
die of damage at any range out to 36" and weighs as much as a B battery. OK.
Call it a laser if you like (and if it fits your universe) but maybe I've
invented the same weapon
and called it a mustard projector - it doesn't matter. I would hate
to see people arguing about things like "no laser could ever fire over 36
inches" or things like that.
What I'm interested in seeing are weapons (or other) ideas that really add
something to the game. Customization of FT to a specific universe is
interesting but I'd rather see an expansion of the types and functions of
weapons. Jump torpedoes are an example of something
really quite new, as are the B5-style PDAF/interceptors. These
systems can probably work in many universes and therefore I think they would
be a more valuable addition to the game than Advanced A battery with range to
48" or the like.
> Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:
In the real world, dramatic new tech doesn't really happen that much. For
example, tank cannons are outwardly the same since WWII, but a whole host of
small incremental improvements have occured since then so that a modern M1A1
could take out any number of WWII tanks at little risk to itself. The same in
naval tech, with the exception of the overwhelming switch from guns to
missiles. So any space combat game that is going to cover different periods is
going to come up against the same thing. If you want to say for example that
the C batt. is the first one designed, then go right ahead. But why would old
tach be used on new ships? Just something to think about.
> John D. Hamill writes:
@:) In the real world, dramatic new tech doesn't really happen that @:) much.
For example, tank cannons are outwardly the same since @:) WWII, but a whole
host of small incremental improvements have @:) occured since then so that a
modern M1A1 could take out any number @:) of WWII tanks at little risk to
itself.
Agreed. I don't think FT is very well suited to modelling incremental changes,
however, because of the fairly high level of abstraction in the game.
Incremental ship class upgrades such as those seen in SFB, for example, would
be more difficult because of FT's greater granularity. Adding a C battery to
an FT ship, for
example, is a significant change, while adding a phaser-3 to an SFB
ship is a very minor change.
That being said, on a larger (time) scale incremental improvements could be an
interesting part of the game.
@:) So any space combat game that is going to cover different periods @:) is
going to come up against the same thing. If you want to say for @:) example
that the C batt. is the first one designed, then go right @:) ahead. But why
would old tach be used on new ships? Just something @:) to think about.
One alternate proposal is to allow the standard A, B and C batteries to
represent different weapons at different times. There was a
discussion on this list about representing low-tech, near future
combat with FT. Weapons available would be standard explosives, rail guns, and
possibly particle beam devices. One could imagine designing a situation like
that one and then later rewriting it to represent "the future" by simply
changing the definitions of the weapons. Changing the ships might not be
necessary in such a case.
The problem with this idea is that the game doesn't _feel_ any
different in the two times, and usually people prefer to have a different feel
to the game when it changes. I think this was why the Kra'Vak were introduced,
and the Sa'Vasku and all the fancy weapons in
More Thrust - to avoid the "more of the same" syndrome.
So I've been thinking about this stuff and I have one (new) worry
and one idea/topic for discussion. Here they are, presented in the
order they were received:
Worry: design by committee never seems to work. I work in the computer
industry, where design by committee is usually heralded as a holy grail but
also generally scoffed at as impractical. The usual complaints are that the
committee design moves so slowly that ideas
have already battled it out as non-standards (and some of them have
become de facto standards) by the time the committee puts out the "real"
standard. Often the committee standard is out of date by the time it is
finished. Would a similar situation arise if FT were to be expanded based on
player submissions?
Idea/thought: the most creative works I've seen produced by list
members are not new weapon designs or even individual rules, but
customizations of FT to fit a particular universe. FT has been modified to
approximate the Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, and
World War II "universes", as well as various mechaverses and assorted
universes of other films, television programs and books. Each customization
has included ships, rules and systems specific to that universe. I think it
would be neat to publish some of these. I don't know how to deal with
copyright issues, duplicate customizations to the same universe, or possibly
other issues.
Well, FWIW, there is the HRT (Harn Religion Team) approach - in a
nutshell, someone was selected or self-appointed (I don't know which)
as co-ordinator in chief, and web page host, of the different topics
(in this case variations to the published religion rules for the HarnWorld
product of Columbia Games). Each topic (God in this
example) gets a co-ordinator, and articles are received, edited, and
posted by the aforementioned coordinator.
HRT is unoffical, fan-based, and very interesting to read. There are
variations to the published material, additional (unofficial) rules, and just
general articles on Religion in this excellent Fantasy
World. The Fan-based HarnPage has a fan material section that gets
(very slowly) reviewed by the CG staff to pull out of it material to be
published later by themselves. Bear in mind Columbia Games has twice the
number of employees GZG has (CG is a Dad and Son
operation....)
The URL for the HRT is:
http://www1.tripnet.se/~mly/hrt/hrt.htm
The URL for the HarnPage is:
http://www.roleplay.org/harn/
and for the submissions page, it is:
http://www.roleplay.org/harn/newstuff.html
There you have it - I've become quite the vociferous character
today...