Hmm... it looks like that by bringing up the races we've managed to reiterate a point Steve made to begin with: "But then, the only racial profiles sent to Module Prime were the low-interest ones that didn't rate their own sourcebooks." Oops. My bad.


Here's some idea's for columns.

"New Lifeforms" -- A counterpart to JTAS's Amber Zone detailing interesting beings and creatures.

"New Civilizations" -- Racial Templates, Planetary Surveys and adventure seeds to go with them.

"To Boldly Go..." -- More general GMing advice covering plot, tempo, player dynamics, etc. Generic principles of creating "episodes" for your PD "series."

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" -- The adventure section.

These features could have a lot of fun with the crazy "high concept" sci-fi stuff the original series delved into-- this would contrast to Traveller's more straight ahead "hard" science approach.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, October 22, 2004 - 07:06 pm: Edit

Perhaps ....

GURPS PRIME #1
GURPS PRIME #2
etc.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, October 22, 2004 - 10:14 pm: Edit

I always figured that GURPS would be on top of the publication name. Still, you have to say the whole thing to advertise it so would taking out the word "Directive" be enough?

GURPS Prime: Supplemental #1

Initialized as GPS1.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, October 23, 2004 - 12:57 am: Edit

What percentage of the players DON'T play SFB!?!...we could just reserve 10 pages of CL each issue and put the stuff in there...I bet the SFB crowd would love the background information.

By Hugh Bishop (Wildman) on Saturday, October 23, 2004 - 01:48 am: Edit

I think a good name for the magazine could be Prime DATA. Also has a subscription based electronic magazine been considered? This could be similar to Steve Jacksons Pyramid. Prime Files or Fleet Communicator would be good names for an electronic zine. An electronic zine could be done more frequently and could include stuff for as many products as desired. Certain large graphics files such as detailed adventure maps which otherwise would not fit a limited print format could be done electronically and be available to subscribers. WOTC does web enhancements for many of their print products post release and makes them available for download. These enhancements usually are written so that possesion of the printed product is needed to use them. Just some thoughts.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, October 23, 2004 - 02:45 am: Edit

I suggested that above but I think some players will see a tie in with TNG's Data.

Everything you've always wanted to know about that wacky android by Dr. Soong...Data!

"Communicator" is a good thought.

I seriously doubt ADB will do a subscription thing. It just doesn't fit their style. Schedules get moved around a lot and that is an absolutly undoable thing with anything subscription.

They COULD do it but it might mean other sacrafices.

Of course, I just a average joe player dude and carry no weight but my own. Uuuhhhg.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, October 23, 2004 - 10:26 am: Edit

What percentage of GPD players do not play SFB: about 90%.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, October 23, 2004 - 10:27 am: Edit

GURPS PRIME DATA 1
GURPS PRIME DATA 2

Could work. Short, punchy. Also fits nicely in ads as...

GURPS
PRIME
DATA1

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, October 23, 2004 - 12:02 pm: Edit

Hugh: I'm sorry but I find that I did not in fact actually post the idea of Prime Data. I was recalling suggesting that but I looked and it wasn't there. Then I remembered that I wrote it but then deleted it for the reasons above.

So Hugh Bishop is the one to first post that idea. Sorry Hugh.

By Robert Gilson (Bobcat) on Saturday, October 23, 2004 - 01:33 pm: Edit

I like GURPS Prime Data. Only thing bad is it would have the same initials as GURPS Prime Directive.
Just throwing out titles to see what might stick.

GURPS DATA PRIME
GURPS PRIME MISSIONS
GURPS PRIME INFORMER
GURPS PRIME REPORT
GURPS PRIME JOURNAL
GURPS PRIME ORDERS
GURPS PRIME BRIEFINGS

I like PRIME MISSIONS best.

GURPS PRIME MISSIONS with something like this as a subtitle.
Adventures, fiction and setting information for the STAR FLEET UNIVERSE.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, October 23, 2004 - 02:02 pm: Edit

I like Report, Journal and Briefings.

Good point about the initials of Prime Data.

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Sunday, October 24, 2004 - 03:58 am: Edit

Although everyone keeps talking about racial profiles, they shouldn't be the focus of every issue (or whatever you call it). I do like the idea of themes, but they don't have to be races. You could do "ships" as a theme, providing ship stats and details of shipboard life, and maybe even adventure seeds that show what fun characters can find on their own ships. Or an "exploration" theme, complete with a random planet generator, organizations in the SFU that support exploration and GMing tips for exploration campaigns.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, October 24, 2004 - 12:14 pm: Edit

I made a list above of what I thought should go in a magazine. To that add your ideas but entirely eliminate racial profiles from the magazine. You could do teasers and primers of races. In fact I'd encurage that but not full racial profiles. I think those should go in a racial profile product line.

By Hugh Bishop (Wildman) on Sunday, October 24, 2004 - 06:42 pm: Edit

Loren I think the the possible confusion with TNG would be a bonus to roleplayers who don't know about the SFU but may be looking for a good sci-fi rpg setting and like Star Trek. They may pick up a copy and be captured by the superiority of Prime Directive.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, October 25, 2004 - 10:04 am: Edit

A couple of thoughts....

The magazine could include longer fiction (assuming that the fiction was good) as it has fewer other big chunks of stuff to print.

The magazine could print an 8-page extract of a future 64/128-page racial profile.

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - 03:27 am: Edit

One thing I'd really like to see is support for civilian roleplaying. Maybe not quite the "free trader" model (As people seem to want quite a bit of economic detail), but Federation Marshalls have gotten rather short shrift even though they did get a template in the GPD main book. So did the Galactic Intelligence Agency and the Merchant Marine. Where is campaign support for these organizations?

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - 03:52 am: Edit

Or civillian scientific research. All the fun of a free trader campaign without the paperwork and no need to figure out ways to keep the PCs from having access to all the military hardware.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - 04:50 am: Edit

even with the GIA or Marshalls ability to wave a card and get their transportation for free you still need to answer the questions to know what other people are going to be on the ship as well

unless a GM just wants to wing it in which case they can do whatever they want anyway

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 01:01 am: Edit

True, Marshalls and the GIA both get a "free pass" in terms of equipment and transportation. But they also have different jobs than Star Fleet crew. Jobs that can be just as full of adventure even if they don't necessarily involve "strange new worlds."

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 01:43 pm: Edit

I think I mentioned this but I was thinking a bit more about a magazine.

Certainly any mention of Module is out, I know and I think, from all I've read thus far, that it really needs to be a magazine magazine. It might have teasers on racial profiles but those would end up in thier own books (possibly with combinations of Profiles).

So I thinking of a Magazine called: GURPS PRIME SUPPLEMENTAL Magazine(GPS Mag).

Among fiction and other things mentioned before perhaps SJG could have a section on general GURPS stuff to include. Hear me out...remember how Nexus was organized? SFB was only part of that. Other parts were about other games.

This magazine would be all GURPS (well maybe one page about the SFU in general...more like an SFU ad). But maybe not all GPD. Perhaps SJG could have a regular section of the mag. Possibly 1/3 of it. SJG doesn't have a magazine, right?

This might put ADB's magazine in the hands of MANY non-GPD playing GURPS players. THis would give SJG a medium to put into print some things it currently has no venue for without a large commitment to come up with a whole magazines worth of stuff. It also lightens the load a bit for ADB. The result is a full sized mag which neither company has to generate all the content for which reaches a wider audience for ADB.

ADB would actually publish the magazine and ship it to wholesalers.

Just a new line of thinking. No idea if it's possible or a good idea.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 07:28 pm: Edit

The Question I have is...will putting the GPD Mag' in CL cause lots of Gurps Players to become SFBers or just a few???

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 08:29 pm: Edit

I'm not suggesting putting a GPD mag in CL. That is a non-starter. Ick no!

The original intent of Module Prime was a CL "like" magazine. That's what I'm talking about NOT being like (which has been decided already, IIRC).

MJC, I think you missed the point entirely. I'm not suggesting anything in relation to CL.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 09:12 pm: Edit

Well I'ld rather see GPD serviced by a few pages in CL than to see GPD not serviced by a magazine at all.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 11:42 pm: Edit

We plan to have a magazine but we need to get some books done first. It will probably be less like captain's log than GMPA was, but it won't be part of Captain's Log. We'd never count on forcing GPD players to buy 106 pages of SFB-F&E-SFC-SFBF to get six pages of GPD. Very bad business model.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 12:10 am: Edit

SVC: Is my idea worth considering? (1:43pm)