Is anyone actually running a GPD civilian campaign? Or at least a non-Starfleet campaign? What sort of things are you coming up against that isn't covered in GPD? Are any other GURPS sourcebooks proiving useful? What sort of material needs to be created for a civilian campaign?

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 11:05 am: Edit

I did for a while, until most of my group got sent to Afghanistan and Iraq. It will probably see print someday under the working title "LTGG".

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Thursday, March 18, 2004 - 02:18 am: Edit

Would that be a work of fiction or a setting/ campaign guide? Either one could be very cool.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Thursday, March 18, 2004 - 01:20 pm: Edit

A campaign setting, definitely. I don't do fiction because I stink at it.

SVC and I had a conversation a long time ago, and we agreed that play-once stuff like the old PD1 adventures was not what we wanted to do as standalone products. Numbered paragraph solo adventures were good fun for MP, but if someone is going to pay for a book, you should be able to use it more than once.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, March 18, 2004 - 04:47 pm: Edit

Source data. There is so much to be had. Give me more more more!

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Friday, March 19, 2004 - 12:31 am: Edit

Wonderful. That's the sort of thing GPD really needs. Strong roleplaying oriented setting material. If I ever get around to running GPD again, I'll see what I can put together for you guys.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Saturday, March 20, 2004 - 03:05 am: Edit

Right now, I'm waiting for SFB Module Y2 to come out.

The reason is that LTGG is set in the Y105-110-ish time period, in a hex that was within Kzinti borders until Y102 (thus the name), when it became Federation space. There is stuff in Y2 which I need, and until it gets frozen in print, I'm stuck.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 02:48 pm: Edit

Gary, there is a very active discussion of Y1R going on right now in the new products topic. It isn't Y2, but...

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 03:09 pm: Edit

I've been following it, David, primarily in lurk mode. Some of the topics being discussed there directly impact LTGG.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 04:12 pm: Edit

Well, if you have some preferences or even some scenario ideas (to "write" history), feel free to chime in. If there are good logical reasons for one choice over another, I'd be interested in hearing it.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 11:04 pm: Edit

Of course I will!

As for scenario ideas, I hadn't thought of that. Let me mull things over a bit ...

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - 12:40 am: Edit

HEY, DAVID!

Want to write a SFB scenario, real quick? See the MPB topic, comment re Paravian YDN in Y85.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 12:37 pm: Edit

The Police Service is totally separate from Star Fleet, per an e-mail discussion with SVC .... which totally destroyed a fiction story I have in the works. I tried to re-write it to make the crew all Police, but it looses too much of its flavor. Ergo, I have attempted to come up with a reason of how and why Star Fleet came to own/operate a handfull of Cutters. It has been sent to SVC for review.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 02:48 pm: Edit

Interesting, though I cannot see why Starfleet would ever want a Cutter. Next to a FF they are not as good.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 03:00 pm: Edit

One of the reasons that the USN re-re-re-retired the Missouri-class BBs in the mid-1980's is that they were FAR too expensive to operate in peacetime. If we assume that the POLs are a lot cheaper to operate than an FF, that might make sense as to why Starfleet wanted a few POLs in their stable.

In any event, Garth, I have no problem with the above. The chain of events makes a weird sort of sense, actually ...

By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 03:45 pm: Edit

Seems to work OK, except that the Y136 Fed/Kzinti war began with a full-scale Kzinti invasion, not a series of half-hearted raids. See CL 24. Also note the presence of a police FF flagship at one of the initial battles.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 04:04 pm: Edit

The numbers still seem way off (on the low end). SVC in another thread stated the numbers are 1 FLG per province and 1 POL per hex...and by the 2nd fed/kzin war (year 136) there should already be 49 FLG's in service (46 on map and 3 off map provinces) and upwards of 250+ POL's in service(at the 1 per hex rate SVC cited).

There is a reason the POL was called "ubiquitous"!

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 05:13 pm: Edit

John, Thanks for the refernce to CL24 ... I couldn't find anything hard on that, but it appeared to be something less than a full-scale war. For example, I'm sure there's a specific mention that the Four Powers War was the first time that logistics and modern warp drive allowed for real war, not just border raids.

Jeff, yes, but until a few days ago, the "hard numbers" were around 170 POLs by Y168, and we had no numbers at all for the FLG, save for the two named in the Ship's Registry. Ergo, those production rates could be a bit higher.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 06:17 pm: Edit

Just to make it clear ... this timeline input is >MY< proposal, subject to SVC's acceptance/modification, and not meant to be taken as "real" until he says it is.


Garth L. Getegn

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 06:37 pm: Edit

Star Fleet doesn't want or need or get POLs. There is no point to it, no need for it, far too many reasons against it. This is, and always has been, a dead issue. I don't rewrite history and ignore common sense to allow any one story to be written.

Now, given that during peacetime the average POL sees ten times as many shooting situations in a year than the average CA, you could easily see every POL having one or two naval officers on board who are there to see the elephant. This easily allows Garth's story to work (and frankly, work much better) since his ensign straight from the academy thinks she's been insulted by being selected to serve a tour on a police ship, but she is in fact being given a chance to get shot at and shoot back, a chance her academy classmates could only wish for.

Not that this is the topic for it, but Y124 was a full scale war. What Garth misunderstands is that prior to 4PW, a full-scale war could not capture more territory than the supply range of the pre-war bases, thus no invasion could reach deeply into enemy territory or threaten a race with utter defeat and subjugation. The Klingons did it to the Hydrans only because there were pre-war Klingon colonies in Hydran space.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 09:18 pm: Edit

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Quote:

The Klingons did it to the Hydrans only because there were pre-war Klingon colonies in Hydran space.

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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 11:07 pm: Edit

They had enough of them. Note from GMPA that these colonies still existed in the General War as "exile races" loyal to the Hydran crown. At least until the Klingons "liberated" them. Curiously, there were Dunkar-crewed Hydran ships operating in Y165. But I digress.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, May 03, 2004 - 12:34 pm: Edit

Wow...

Trying to take in the ramifications of the National Guard and Police functions of the Federation.

Some quick points...(of course I could be wildly wrong with these, I assume that If I am in error, it will be corrected!

1. There would be 2 (possibly 3) segments to the national guard organization, lets call them the ground forces (PDU and infantry/tanks etc), Fighter Command(some operating independently such as the F15 squadrons posted to navy carriers) squadrons posted to PDU hangers (possibly to FRD's?) and the Naval reserve (the NGCA and DD class ships).
2. The span of command has been ignored but (IMO) assumed to be centralized from SFHQ (Earth?!?)...but with a NGCA and 4-5 NGDD in each province I wonder if each province equates to US NG structure where each state has its own National guard commander reporting to a province govennor(or other political executive). That means that each govenor would have a ground force commander, a fighter command officer and a Naval Reserve officer forming the province NG command?
3. The Police function was (IMO) assumed to be centralized...but now I'm wondering if comparing them to a US States State Police organization is a better comparison...with a FLG and 5 or 6 POL's forming a "Troop"
4. If each province is an independent governmental unit for purposes of the National Guard and the Police functions...then each province in effect is a separate customer for ships and supplies...and they "lease" government convoys to deliver the supplies and replacement ships as needed...
5. If the Province has a revenue value (read as Econ Points in F&E terms) that means that there is a source of economic activity...planets, colonies, Ag stations, Mining colonies, Base Stations, Non aligned worlds (but may be observers to the United Federation of Planets Council)...that are all out of scope for F&E but that support (and are policed by) the NG and Fed Pol's.

Anybody have other observations to share?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 03, 2004 - 01:24 pm: Edit

I could just tell you how it works. That way, we don't need any observations since you'd have the facts.

Each planet has its own national guard. Depending on the population of the planet, that could be a lot of troops/ships or not many. These troops report to the planetary government. The Federation provides training and equipment but requires them to meet standards, and has a National Guard Bureau to provide this support and set this standard.

Member planets have their own police skiffs; colony planets have Federation police skiffs.

Police are under Federation control, and are divided into region, province, and district (hex). There is a Federation "administrator" for each province and district, but these aren't really in a chain of command structure and member planets are outside of this structure. It's more complex than that, but you'll see it in Gurps Federation.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, May 03, 2004 - 01:47 pm: Edit

Never mind. I'll work on it later.