I don't see the collective discussion board included as a playetester. (I consider my minimal comments to be in that category).

By Aaron Hendricks (Aar0n) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 02:40 pm: Edit

TL's do no lock anything in, and they are only guidelines to help the GM set the setting. If you tell the players that the Campaign is generally set at TL 8 then that means a lot. You might say to them that medical tech has evolved to TL 9 or just one particular TL 9 drug is availible. But as a whole the world is set in one TL.

if you visit a new planet every adventure and the GM wants to describe to the players what they are dealing with on the planet below...he will pick a TL. The players then have a general knowledge of what to expect. They can flip through the Ultra tech books and see what type of danger they might be in. Sure they might be hidding TL 15 zapper gun, but that would be unusual.


see what i'm getting at.


If i can't use the ultra tech books "as-is" then all the TL's descriptions become useless. If they keep it the same, then all the gurps books work together in harmony.


"i'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. I'd like to....." sorry hippy in me.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 03:03 pm: Edit

It is impossible to change GPD TLs to Match GURPS TLs. Impossible, period. There are things hard wired into GURPS in several different TLs, all of which are in the same GPD level. And vice versa. It's just impossible to do. Matter transmission alone makes this impossible. Even if someone had a brilliant way to get around this, it would delay the product three months just to edit it.

By Aaron Hendricks (Aar0n) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 03:48 pm: Edit

so, your saying..... no go.... ok.

(((zip mouth))))

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 03:51 pm: Edit

In MPA we're going to have a FOOTNOTES IN HISTORY article regarding the Tholians, their regression from TL14, and so forth. FYI, the Tholians do have one remaining TL14 artifact that they use; it's about 0.75 AU in diameter...

(Incidentally, "FIH" is going to be one of the "regular features" in MP. Another such in MPA will be about the Cygnan homeworld under Kzinti rule, which will also be in CL24 as one of the Middle Years articles.)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 04:33 pm: Edit

Yeah, Aaron, once you realize that matter transmission (which GURPS as at TL15) has to be around during TL11 (or TL10, I forget which) you are led to the inescapable conclusion that GPD has its own tech levels.

By Nick Blank (Nickb) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 05:16 pm: Edit

I thought that SVC declared the Tholian Dyson Sphere to be a really small one, like the size of a small gas giant, i.e. only three or four hexes in diameter, around an artificial heat source, or a small white dwarf of something of that nature. Or did this change in GURPS, is your .75 AU actually the new measurement or just a random comment?

Just curious...

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 06:35 pm: Edit

unfortunantly the thread on dyson spheres has long since been cleared from the archive, but my memory agrees with Nick's

By Robert Herneson (Herneson) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 07:13 pm: Edit

Hey gang,
ATTENTION PLEASE!!!!

In the rules it notes that the TL of any campaign, world, or whatever are an agregate, and average, a mode, a norm, the general levels all together.

IT IS A GUIDE.

The rules note that many campaigns and cultures will have higher and lower area than the average TL given.

In other words, GPD does use the same TL system as the rest of the GURPS rules. All that GPD establishes is the TL in some fields of the GPD campaign.


***

If we were working on a magic basec campaign, just saying that in is a medium mana campaign doesn't mean that there can be high and low mana areas, that some mana areas aren't aspected for special use (Elf forests for plant magic, for example), it just says that is the AVERAGE... Just like TLs in GPD.

***

I've run campaigns for years with this system from GURPS and it works VERY well and adds a lot of flavor and is very easy to use.

Again, with all due respect to everyone, PGD is doing TLs by the main rules.

Robert

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 09:43 pm: Edit

AT some point we should do a short little article a'la the tech paths in the front of UltraTech 2, to help convert hings a bit easier.

Also, look at Transhuman Space, it's latel TL-9 with TL-10 biotech...but individual fields are all over the place becuase of the setting genre conventions (hard sci-fi equals no grav manipulation, for example).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 10:37 pm: Edit

Trying to wind up the last of this and get it to Steve Jackson. I've done all of the changes to 0-1-2 and printed out his copy. Gary is working on a few last touches to 3 and 4. Leanna is proofing 5 and 6. I have made the final changes (except for Leanna's) to 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 11:16 pm: Edit

Nick: I'm not aware of prior ruling by SVC re size of Tholia. But as Space3 has specific rules on this, it may change. Or it may not, after SVC reads this!

In any event, Steve and I will make a decision after I work out the math: we have to decide what kind of star is in the center, its surface temperature, life-zone temps for Tholians (around 400 F), and how big the sphere has to be to achieve the target heat levels.

A few other headaches, but I've got a spreadsheet that does all that math, so all I have to do is plug in numbers until they match up with what we want. Even if Tholia is larger than previously decided, we can say that part of the interior is uninhabitable due to whatever.

In any event, I'm getting about a month ahead of myself. Probably won't think about this until after Origins.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 11:24 pm: Edit

Gary, about two yeas ago there was a thread discussing tholia and the defences that it had. SVC surprised everyone by popping in and declaring that tholia was a 3 hex wide sphere (27kk to be precise IIRC :-) and that the 'star' in the middle wasn't a true star but an artificial one (which I guess pushes them somewhere above TL14)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 29, 2002 - 08:35 am: Edit

Gary: Whatever Tholia is, or isn't, will be decided in SFB, not in GPD. We'll let you know.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 29, 2002 - 05:21 pm: Edit

The draft has been sent to Steve Jackson for his review. Let's all hope he's in a good mood tomorrow!

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 29, 2002 - 05:24 pm: Edit

Back to Aaron's TL comment, I don't see a problem with just using UT and UT2 in a given campaign with their printed tech levels. They'll be used for ADDITIONAL stuff; the GPD-TL stuff is already hard-wired into GPD. If you go to a TL11 planet and your GM uses UT-TL11 stuff, you should be just fine. Remember that we only changed a couple of things (and had no choice in them), the other items are NEW items from sfu and have no impact on UT-TLs.

By Robert Merkamp (Rdm) on Wednesday, May 29, 2002 - 05:40 pm: Edit

SVC,

Would sending a stripper to Steve Jackson have a beneficial effect?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 29, 2002 - 05:44 pm: Edit

I can't say. Might be good, might be bad.

By Aaron Hendricks (Aar0n) on Wednesday, May 29, 2002 - 05:53 pm: Edit

I'm willing to handwrite chapter 9 on the stripper if that might help.

just let me know.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 29, 2002 - 10:36 pm: Edit

It's a thought.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, May 30, 2002 - 01:24 pm: Edit

[off topic, deleted]

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, May 30, 2002 - 03:06 pm: Edit

This is not the topic for that discussion.

Just FYI, there isn't one and we don't need one. Everything that could be, or needed to be, said was said. The topic is archived. I'll look at it "sometime". When SFB is done with it, PD can use whatever it wants of it. I don't see any of the possible decisions being relevant to PD; you're going to do an adventure in a couple of square miles so just exactly how big the thing is remains pretty much irrelevant.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, May 30, 2002 - 03:17 pm: Edit

UPS confirms that the book is physically in the hands of Steve Jackson his own self.

By Robert Merkamp (Rdm) on Thursday, May 30, 2002 - 03:22 pm: Edit

Did UPS confirm his mood?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, May 30, 2002 - 03:22 pm: Edit

His email seemed happy.