If you only see one Carnivon, it means you're about to die.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Wednesday, February 08, 2017 - 05:07 pm: Edit

Ryan, only if it is black and grim looking ...

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Wednesday, February 08, 2017 - 05:17 pm: Edit

Nah, they use the cute and cuddly members of the pack to distract you while the grim ones sneak up from behind.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Wednesday, February 08, 2017 - 07:23 pm: Edit

Make sure you yell 'PUPPY!' when you see one...


(*or look to see what's behind you*)

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, February 08, 2017 - 07:37 pm: Edit

(Scratches head doubtfully...)

You could crouch in a friendly manner, hold out one hand with a bit of food, saying in soothing tones "nice doggy!"

You MIGHT survive, but I wouldn't recommend it!

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Thursday, February 09, 2017 - 02:08 pm: Edit

From Dennis Payne (My answer's have ++ preceding)

On Page 11 under Q'Naabians, it has "A Q'Naabian may use his tail that to express emotion." The sentence doesn't make sense you could remove the "that" but I would prefer some explanation on how it uses it's tail to express emotion. I assume it is probably like a cat or dog were the movements of tail tell you if it is happy or annoyed. But for all I know it could change colors based on mood.

++ Sentence is fixed and added in that it uses its tail much as a Terran dog.

On page 12 still with Q'Naabians, you have "A Q’Naabian historian who deliberately misstates or slants the true facts of history is shunned by polite Q’Naabian society." Then a paragraph later you have "Any Q’Naabian who deliberately records false information as true history is ostracized by proper Q’Naabian society." This seems redundant.

++ This one isn't actually. One is formally about the historians; the other about normal Q'Naabians. The first has to do with slanting the facts as well as misstating the information. The latter is recording wrong evidence, not merely slanting it. Historians are held to a higher standard.

Pronhoulites, Rovillians, and Korlivilar include "have ISC Common as a language skill in addition to their native language" as the last paragraph before the homeworld. Q'Naabians and Veltressai do not. I would drop the paragraphs as the information is already in the stats.

++ Good catch!

Darkvision description everywhere mentions twice that they do not see in color.

++ That covers two situations: darkness and a complete absence of light. We have that information stated the same way in the main book; I think we probably need to keep that.

One other minor mistake I noticed on the example for Stun damage, Lee's character is hit by Stun-2 and needs a 20 to save. I believe that should be an 18 to save.

++ I mistyped. It should have been Stun-3 which is indeed a 20. Fixed! Also fixed the double "take the numerical take the numerical" damage phrase.

By Eddie Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Thursday, February 09, 2017 - 03:50 pm: Edit

"If you only see one Carnivon, it means you're about to die." That was your first mistake, there is no such thing as one.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, February 09, 2017 - 06:14 pm: Edit

It is seriously doubtful that you will only see two Carnivon. They are Pack hunters, with a working set of doctrine and best practices. Proceed with caution and maintain weapons status III.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Friday, February 10, 2017 - 07:33 am: Edit

Carnivons are short, furry and canine. Are they the kobolds of the SFU?

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Friday, February 10, 2017 - 08:38 am: Edit

Kobolts, one of the first D+D creatures my players ran into. Module B2, The Keep on the Borderlands (caves of chaos). Memories of long ago.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, February 10, 2017 - 08:59 am: Edit

My DM from long ago was a ROTC with a soft spot for miniatures battles and quantity vs quality scenarios.

I once spent eighteen hours in an advanced dungeons and dragons gaming session trying to avoid a tpk (total party kill) with a ten player team that stumbled over a kobold kingdom... and managed to offend the Queen in a particularly nasty confrontation.

It was like playing Avalon hills starship troopers with the kobolds cast in the role of the bugs.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Saturday, February 11, 2017 - 03:06 pm: Edit

Curiosity question; our last new source book was PD Federation in 2010, when might we see another source book?

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Saturday, February 11, 2017 - 03:19 pm: Edit

I don't know.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Saturday, February 11, 2017 - 04:15 pm: Edit

OK, thank you for the prompt answer.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Saturday, February 11, 2017 - 09:12 pm: Edit

It all depends on outside writers.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Saturday, February 11, 2017 - 09:18 pm: Edit

I thought you had a manuscript from Loren Knight on Tholians, is it unusable?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, February 11, 2017 - 09:50 pm: Edit

they are waiting for the statute of limitations to expire. The Federation never should have explained the concept of Lawfare to the Tholians.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, February 12, 2017 - 09:37 am: Edit

Loren sent in a lot of stuff, not complete but a lot, Petrick has a metric asteroid ton of issues with it that we haven't started to resolve. I had a few of my own. Too many projects and too few Petrick hours and way too few SVC hours. You don't realize it but you're asking for us to stop working on SFB, CL52, ACTA, FC, F&E, and Starline and do PD THOLIANS. And we should, soon as we can.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Sunday, February 12, 2017 - 11:09 am: Edit

I do understand the limited hours aspect, that is why I tried to ask diffidently, you have to spend your hours where you get the best return. Hopefully RPGs will become a better return on effort.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Sunday, February 12, 2017 - 12:21 pm: Edit

What empires/products are you soliciting/accepting submissions on?

Has anyone taken Lyrans, Kzintis, Gorn?
That's a specific question to a general query, which I'm more interested in the answer to the general query.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, February 12, 2017 - 05:18 pm: Edit

I have submitted an essay giving my thoughts about some possibilities for the Lyrans.

Some (perhaps much) of it may be in conflict with SVCs vision and be bound for the dumpster, but I hope some of the ideas make it to the final edition.

One thing I think IS necessary for the Lyrans is some kind of lesser nobility (lords, barons) and perhaps some higher level, but planetary bound nobles. Plus some counter weights to the whims of the Counts/ Dukes. Perhaps the "major planets" have Dukes and the "minor planets" have Counts of their own.

IIRC, not all County and Ducal capitols are on major/ minor planets.

Plus, given the patriarchial structure of the highest nobilty a means to incorporate a parallel female centered power structure.

One big problem is that when writing about the Lyrans is that (as SPP noted) in many ways the Lyran Navy is actually an assembly of county navies...

By Charles Chapel (Ctchapel) on Sunday, February 12, 2017 - 05:53 pm: Edit

Following your analogy, make the planet bound counter weights Bishops and Archbishops, or some such. That way control of the nobility is through control of the labor and why don't they have space fleets.

The clergy might be in control of the system defenses and later in the war provide squadrons like the Fire Sqd.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, February 13, 2017 - 03:14 am: Edit

I think we saw Mike G's Lyran thing years ago and told him it was impossibly in conflict with published data and could never be used. At least ... somebody sent one like that and we told them that.

We are always looking for creative material that builds on, rather than contradicts published data.

We have such a clear idea of the Empires that there really isn't much of a way for someone outside to write a whole book. If you take into account all the published info and can say "this is how I am going to fill in the blanks" we will look at it.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, March 16, 2017 - 03:40 pm: Edit

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, March 16, 2017 - 02:03 pm: Edit

MY DAY: 15 March (Wednesday) 2017
...
JES work: customer service, marketing, GURPS PD2.
...

Remembering the GURPS 3E to 4E debacle, would this be GURPS PD3?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, March 16, 2017 - 04:14 pm: Edit

I don't remember 3E to 4E being a debacle (although I would have liked more warning of the change).

That said, a lot of character/species stuff is just wrong, just insanely crazy. It was done back in the old days when I thought outside authors didn't need supervision. We all learned on that one, just like I had to learn to stop writing game rules for PD20 when I had never read the underlying rulebook. Oh well, previous stupidities cannot be held against me, only previously stupid products.

Jean is fixing things, one species at a time.