An update. I'm spending time doing pdfs for Gary to read one last time rather than reading it myself. That's going to ruin my holiday weekend (and Gary's!) but it can't be helped. I've sent him 0, 2, and 3 so far, all of them updated with Petrick's changes.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 25, 2002 - 03:44 pm: Edit

Petrick has now read the whole book. (He is the first person to read the whole book from page 1 through page 176 in order front to back.) I've made Petrick's corrections to chapters zero, two, three, four, and five and sent pdfs to Gary. Leanna is still reading chapter one so I won't update it until she finishes.

By Randy Buttram (Peregrine) on Saturday, May 25, 2002 - 06:54 pm: Edit

Ride it... ride it...

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 25, 2002 - 07:28 pm: Edit

Leanna has finished 2. I have finished making all of Petrick's changes (and all of Leanna's to 0 and 1) and have sent Gary a PDF of the whole book. I'm taking the book home to read as I'm the only one of the top four who hasn't even started reading it.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, May 25, 2002 - 08:39 pm: Edit

I'm sure that anyone of us on the board would be happy to read it for you.

By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar) on Saturday, May 25, 2002 - 09:44 pm: Edit

True, all too true, but we'd have to do it with his eyes anyway...and I don't think he'll loan them out....

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, May 25, 2002 - 10:29 pm: Edit

I wouldn't trust anyone but him, anyway.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Sunday, May 26, 2002 - 04:28 am: Edit

If you guys had any idea how big the PDF files are, you wouldn't offer to read them. My cable modem is starting to glow red...

In any event, in the 90+ pages or so I've read so far today, I've found like one typo, and only identified one short section that needs to be rewritten to any extent.

However, as my eyes are also glowing red at this point, I'm going to call it a night. But overall, progress is excellent.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Sunday, May 26, 2002 - 02:28 pm: Edit

Just finished my final read-through of the final version. Only found a few minor typos.

I have a short paragraph to write regarding the Phelan's Phlippers, and ... it's done!

By Jonathan Biggar (Jonb) on Sunday, May 26, 2002 - 05:09 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

If you guys had any idea how big the PDF files are, you wouldn't offer to read them. My
cable modem is starting to glow red...

---

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 26, 2002 - 06:13 pm: Edit

I hate to rain on Gary's parade, but so far, I have found over over 70 typos on the first 32 pages. And four sections needing serious rewrites (rank, disparate points, phelan, missing rules).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, May 26, 2002 - 06:54 pm: Edit

SVC:Writer/editor must be something akin to a fighter/mage.

By Randy Buttram (Peregrine) on Sunday, May 26, 2002 - 07:53 pm: Edit

Given all the checking, rechecking, and cross-checking going on with this book, I doubt SJ will have any issues with it at all, unless they are content issues, and given the (from what I've seen) cross-talk with SJG during the design and playtest phases, I doubt there will be any content issues.

Did I mention I'm drooling in anticipation?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 26, 2002 - 07:54 pm: Edit

Indeed, very different skills. I've done both.
"Who wrote GPD" is an amusing question. Much of it was written by Gary, much by me, some by Tim & Mark, much comes from GURPs, and various others wrote various bits (Harding wrote page 172, Alex wrote the Legendary officers, Hubby wrote the andro robots). A fairly big chunk is "SFB background" which basically means I wrote it and others have tossed in bits and pieces, and I've rewritten it six times.

I really do need to take time someday to figure out who wrote what. That's complicated by the number of rewrites (many of which are consensus rewrites with two or more authors).

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Sunday, May 26, 2002 - 08:58 pm: Edit

What Steve said Large chunks, especially of the new rulesy material (like the racial templates) involved a half dozen people of varying levels of familiarity with GURPS and the SFU hashing them back and forth.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Sunday, May 26, 2002 - 10:28 pm: Edit

IMPORTANT!

This is the final list of playtesters that I have. If your name is missing, or if you'd like to submit the names of the people in your playtest group, you've got maybe 24 hours to do so. Email me ASAP with corrections or additions.

(These are in no particular order)

Thomas Gamble
Nick Blank
Craig Pichach
Jonathan Rhee
Jonathan Lang
John Sickels
John Berg
David Telemann
Jay P. Hailey
Jake Brumley
Garth L. Getgen
Dwight Lillibridge
Davyd Atwood
David Lang
Dan Kitzman
Aslan Collas
Alex Chobot
Aaron Hendricks
Andrew Harding
Bill Schwartz
CJ Beiting
Doug Howard
Jeffrey Glass
Kurt Brown
Robert Padila

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 27, 2002 - 12:05 am: Edit

I started working up a list of "who wrote what". Everything includes minor-to-major editing by everyone else.

1-SVC (but it's the credits, so no big f d)
2-SVC (but it's advertising, who cares?)
3-Glossary & index more or less did themselves.
4-14: SVC wrote the story, very little editing by others
15 and half of 16: SVC with heavy input
16R-18: Gurps edited by Gary
19L: Gary
19R-20: SVC
21: gurps
22L: Gary
22R-42: Racial templates. Gary did the numbers (with heavy editing by many others). Most of the text came from old SFB stuff (which means mostly SVC writing). Probably a page or two came from Tim+Mark in PD1, but (other than the Brecon, Mynini, and Arcturians it's hard to select it out)
43-46L: academy packages, Gary
46R-47: Gurps
48: ranks, SVC
49-50: Jon Cleaves
51-52: GURPS
53-71: GURPS as selected by Gary
72-79L: Gurps as selected by Gary
79R-82L: Gary
82R: SVC
83-99: GURPS heavily edited by Gary
100-101L: Gary & Alex
101R-108: SVC (except for one medal by Gary)
109-120: Gary, with a few bits by SVC and a small piece of GURPS
121-127: SVC
128-129: Lang, Hendricks, editing by SVC
130: SVC
131-132: Alex Chobot
133-136: SVC
137-141: Deck plans by Blank, text by SVC
142-152: old SFB files re-edited by SVC for GPD
153: SVC
154-164: Hendricks & Gamble
165-170: Gary
171: SVC
172: Harding
173-176: SVC
Anybody want to add it up?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 27, 2002 - 12:16 am: Edit

This doesn't add up exactly right, but it's a rough count....

GURPS: 50
SVC: 49
Gary: 32
Old SFB: 21
Hendricks: 12
Blank: 3
Chobot: 2.5
Tim & Mark: 2
Cleaves: 2
Lang: 1
Harding: 1

Hard to count some things. I kinda divied up the RTs and some other stuff.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 27, 2002 - 12:18 am: Edit

None of this amusing accounting should change the fact that Gary was the leader of the project. He picked the GURPS material to include. Very little of what SVC provided was "rules" (although I did write half a page of them).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 27, 2002 - 09:46 am: Edit

Current playtest list: If you are not on it, speak up. If you are, and don't want/deserve to be, let me know.

Playtesters: Nick Blank, Ken Burnside, Alex Chobot, Garth Getgen, Andrew Harding; Davyd Atwood, CJ Beiting, Jake Bernstein, Eric Braden, Kurt Brown, Jake Brumley, Aslan Collas, Andrew Cookson, Sebastian O Couture, Marcus Evenstar, Jamar Fluellen, Timothy L. Freeby, Thomas Gamble, J P Haley, Robert Herneson, Douglass E Howard, Christopher King, Brian Kreuzinger, Robin Lamond, Jonathan Lang, Dwight Lillibridge, Jim Morgan, Robert Padilla, Kenneth Peters, Craig Pichach, Jonathan Rhee, Bill Schwartz, Richard Short, John Sickels, Steve Schonberger, and David Telemann.

By Aaron Hendricks (Aar0n) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 01:30 pm: Edit

one last begging plea to change the TL levels so that they match the GURPS TL levels!!!!??????


I just dread having to do the conversion every time I want to intigrate a new GURPS book in with G:PD.

By Robert Herneson (Herneson) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 01:47 pm: Edit

[Scratches head...] From what I read, they are reasonably close, aren't they? I mean you are supposed to adjust TLs for that societies abilities in that particular area. The Federation is probably TL 12 in most things, but only TL11 in Genetics and TL 14-15 in Matter Transmission (Transporters), as an example.
Unless things changed quite a lot from the draft I read, that is what was there.

Robert

By Aaron Hendricks (Aar0n) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 02:05 pm: Edit

I say that TL 12 is the highest that SFB should go.


TL 13 is world building (i see no indication that anyone can terraform or move orbits of planets)

TL 14 Dysonian: construction of worlds,ringworlds (I'd say SFB is about 200-300 years away from this)

TL 15 cosmic power (no more warp engines)


just dont say that xships are TL13 X2 ships are TL 14. In fact most of the stuff i see, makes me believe that TL 11 is SFB and maybe TL12 for X2 ships.

Big clunking space ships
no AI
no personal force screen (force screens not mature)
FTL communication that is relatively new
Communicators that are size of cell phones

sounds closer to TL11 to me

By Matthew J. Francois (Francois42) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 02:24 pm: Edit

Wouldn't that make the Tholians TL14?

Yet they can't create a shipyard to build something bigger than a PC.

Is it really going to be that hard? I think it's possible to look at something in a GURPS book and say "Yeah, a Klingon could have that."

This kind of reminds me of a DnD discussion I had the other day. A new PC met my roommate's Lawful Good Paladin. As they introduced themselves, the new PC introduced himself, saying, "I'm a first level thief class." My roommate immediately attacked, subdued, and hauled that PC off to the town warden.

How does this relate? A character isn't (or SHOULDN'T) pick up an object, and have the DM describe it as a "TL14 weapon." Just as the PC above should have said something like "I'm a treasure hunter," the DM for PD should say "It's a weapon you've not seen before, with a highly advanced look and feel."

And besides, I dislike GURPS TL's at a basic level. For a "generic" system, it sure locks technology into a singular path of advancement for all societies.

-Francois
francois@purdue.edu

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 02:29 pm: Edit

Matt, the Tholians as they exist in the SFU Milky Way are TL11 or TL12 exiles who dwell in the creation of their TL14 ancestors. In short, they've regressed.