Traveller-digest       Friday, August 20 1999       Volume 1999 : Number 985



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Dear Loren W., RE: Hats Off to Jesse
Re: Experience System
Re: Grav deck plates. 
RE: Squad Leader (long)
Re: HEPlar lives!
Re: Starship Combat Question...
Re: Dear Loren W., RE: Hats Off to Jesse
Re: Flame bait 
RE: Imperial Army
Re: Starship Combat Question...
Chinese Peanut Gallery
Re: Vilani Language
Re: Vilani Language
[BITS] New Traveller Book: 101 Patrons
[BITS] New Traveller Adventure: SpaceDogs
Re: Hard Science
Re: Hal Clement... 
Re: Experience Systems
Re:Grav deck plates
Re: Insulting Leonard

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 07:57:56 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: Dear Loren W., RE: Hats Off to Jesse

From: Smart, David J (David) <dasmart@lucent.com>
Subject: Dear Loren W., RE: Hats Off to Jesse


>Dave Strebe wrote:

>Good lord, Jesse!
>
>_How_ can you keep getting doing such awesome work? I thought the warship
>stern view was *very* cool but the pic of the spinal mount firing raised
>the hairs on the back my neck!


    Agreed Jesse.  One thing I did notice in your bio, was you like Rifts &
well where can I see some of your artwork for that?

>Jesse, if you ever want to sell prints, put me on the your list of
>initial customers.


    Same here.

>As a side note, why on earth doesn't SJG sell T-shirts with these graphics?
>
>Hello, Loren? PLEASE?!?!?


    Yes, please Loren or Marc, please?

Legate Legion
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

"A man may fight for many things; his country, his principles, his friends,
the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd
mudwrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock, and a stack of
French porn." - Edmund Blackadder

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 10:13:02 -0500
From: Kenneth Bearden -- Walker Jane Productions <dreamer@brokersys.com>
Subject: Re: Experience System

Ethan Henry wrote:

> Have a look at the Call of Cuthulu system (at least the edition I played, 3rd
> I think) - skills are percentile based and if you used the skill successfully
> in a session, at the end you got to roll you skill or higher to improve the
> skill by some small amount.

Haven't played the CofC system, but this is the original idea I had on this
experience system.

I thought that every night I'd award points (pips), and these points would
basically be percentage points.

Ex:  If you had one point in a skill, you had a 1% chance of going up.

Ex:  If you've got  42 points in a skill, you've got a 42% chance of going up.

Players could roll to see if they go up at the start of each session.  They will
have a low chance at first, but the more they use the skill, the more likely they
can go up (and, you don't loose the points once your try--each game session, you
can try everything that has a chance to go up).

Of course, there are two problems with this:  (1)  It's not becoming of Traveller
rules to be thrown on anything other than six sided dice.  Percentage dice just
aren't Traveller.  (2)  Doing percentage points that way makes for a long, long
time before anyone goes up.

Kenneth.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 08:57:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: Grav deck plates. 

David P. Summers writes:
> The countermeasure to using grav plates for anti-shipboarding
> actions is just to shoot something that disables them before
> you enter that part of the corridor.
> 
> I suppose if you want them to be able to be used that way, you
> can rule there there isn't something that can be reasonably shot.

Well, in the case of boarding actions you've probably taken down the ship's power plant, which will have disabled artificial gravity in the entire ship.  It's really more of an anti-hijacking/anti-mutiny measure.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 11:58:11 -0400
From: Ian Ferguson <ian@vax2.concordia.ca>
Subject: RE: Squad Leader (long)

Dave Shayne writes:
<snipped>
>Firepower (FP) is largely a result of rate of fire
>  1/3 FP for a revolver or bolt action weapon
>  1/2 FP for a semi-auto weapon
>  1 FP for 3/5 ROF
>  2 FP for 10 ROF (Higher depending on ammo availability ALA german mg's)

	This is a good start, but I tend to think that an ACR-equiped
	squad should have a higher FP than one with assault rifles.
	The ACR-equiped troops have a better chance to hit and tend to
	do more damage, not to mention the possible effects of HE near-
	misses.

>Penetration (PEN)
>Because of the different personal armor options available in traveller, >I
find the need for a PEN/ARM comparison. (In SL there is of course only >1
armor type - none.)
>I worked it out based on the pen factors from Azhanti High Lightning. But
>you can probably figure them out from your preferred resolution system.
>The basic mechanism is if penetration equals or exceeds armor then you
>roll fire resolution normally, If penetration is less than armor ADD the
>difference to the fire res. (SL is Backward that way.)
>For squads with mixed weapon types. determine PEN by multiplying each
>weapons PEN by it's FP, then dividing the sum for all weapons, then
>dividing by the squad FP rating.

	I was thinking of just awarding "terrain DM's" for armour. 
	For example, +1 for jack/cloth, +2 for CES, +3 for combat
	armour, and +4 for battle dress.  I'm not sure what to do
	with SL penetration, but I expect that gauss rifle-equiped
	squads would enjoy at least some penetration with their 
	firepower.

>Range (RNG)
>Determine effective range by dividing the weapons maximum range in meters
>by 100 (remember that fire at up to double range is posible at 1/2 FP)
>For the range of a squad with multiple weapon types use the procedure
>outlined under Penetration (above) substituting RNG for PEN in the
>calculations of course.

	As I use CT, maximum ranges do not vary as much as effective
	ranges.  SL commandos (which are presumably armed with smg's)
	have ranges of 2-3 hexes, while CT smg's may be fired at long
	range (250-500 m?).

>Morale (MOR)
>OK this one you just choose numbers that work
>6 for green troops, 7 for regulars, 8 for elites or whatever scheme fits
>YTU.

	Works for me.  I would also penalize units fighting higher-TL
	forces.

>Leaders
>Leaders work like standard SL except use two ratings: Leader skill for
>rally, entrenchment, etc. and Tactics Skill for fire combat, instead of
>the catchall leadership rating in SL.

	This is good, though many NPC Leaders may just happen to have
	the same Leadership and Tactics skills in a large scenario ;-)

>For vehicle combat and weapon charecteristics I think the easiest way to
>do it is to assign armor mods and weapon capabilities on a basis of how
>the various weapons/vehicles relate to each other in YTU (but partly this
>is because I haven't had a chance to really look into this in any detail
>{Lots of things going on at work})

	How about light-, field-, medium-, and heavy- guns being 
	37, 50, 75, and 150 mm respectively?  Howitzers get a *
	rating, guns a L rating, and mass drivers a "LLL" rating.
	Lasers, tac missiles, plasma guns, etc.?

>The really fun part is assigning "National Charecteristics" to the units.
>As an example think about the Vargr; 'Vargr are frequently charecterised
>as "inconsistent".... driven by dominance and... charisma." They would be
>more likely to break but easier to rally... hmm... you could probably
>model them with the americans straight out of the box. They are Dogfaces
>after all. <big grin>

	:-) I had already pegged the Vargr as SL americans.  K'Kree
	morale might be contingent on the number of adjascent squads.
	Would you see Aslan as something like the SL Fins?

>Some other things that come to mind.
>Any unit equiped soley with Lasers and/or gauss weapons can fire without
>automatically losing concealment. (perhaps a die roll depending on
>circumstances)

	I hadn't thought about this.  Chameleon suits might allow 
	concealed status in any hex.  Laser weapons might start fires,
	too.  Night vision equipment would negate certain penalties.
	How about in-helmet commo allowing multihex fire groups that
	are not in adjascent hexes?  Grav belts would give squads the
	mobility of grav-vehicles (including flying above the 
	battlefield), and perhaps reduce the penalty for moving in 
	the open to -1 (the troops can "lay down" and fly just above 
	the ground).  What would be the terrain DM for troops flying
	above the battle field?

>Many Grav-vehicles will have functionally unlimited movement points in
>game terms, but noe efects would slow them down to a bit faster than an
>Armored car.

	That is a good point, but terrain effect on movement would be
	different.  Moving through a forest hex would be slow (but no
	chance of breaking down), moving above the trees would be as
	fast as moving above a road, turning might entail limits 
	(e.g. use at least 5 MP before changing direction by one
	hex-side).

>Lots of problems still to be worked out perhaps if others are interested
>I'll work it out in more detail later.
<snipped>

	Yes, please.

Peez

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 09:02:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: HEPlar lives!

Antti Lahtinen writes:

>      Hmm. If Traveller HEPlaR drive is considered to be a kind of 
>      plasma focus device, it might be possible to use FF&S to 
>      calculate how much damage the exhaust plume inflicts, assuming
>      that it is a fusion gun with very high rate of fire...

*cough*.  If you really want people toasting small cities with their engines, go for it.  HEPlaR has a power output of roughly 15 megawatts per newton of thrust -- your average free trader, at something like 20 million newtons thrust, generates the equivalent of a 50 kiloton nuclear weapon every second...

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 17:03:02 +0100
From: Phil Kitching <postmark.design@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: Starship Combat Question...

At 09:44 20/08/1999 -0500, Kenneth Bearden -- Walker Jane Productions
<dreamer@brokersys.com> wrote:
>
>
>Phil Kitching wrote:
>
>> Is this what happened or what you expect to happen? Personally, as a PC,
>> I'd hit the thrusters and start firing whilst they were in the umbilical.
>
>It's what happened.  That is the end of my last Traveller campaign.
>We ended with a cliffhanger.  The PCs rushed across the umbilical after
>they blew the bad guys out the airlock.  They rushed across and started
>cutting into the bad guy ship with their fusion torch.  The few bad guys
>left on the ship hit the thrusters with the PCs dangling outside the
>airlock.

Ahhh, so the PCs figured that they could capture the ship belonging to
the guys trying to board them, did they? The scenario does start to sound
resonable now.

[Reasonable in this case meaning "I have adventured with groups who
 would consider doing this". Reasonable ideas and sensible ideas are
 not often^H^H^H^H^Halways the same thing.]

Phil Kitching
- --
  http://www.btinternet.com/~salvo/
  Postmark Design Bureau, Emerging Technologies Division.
 "Microwaving half-baked ideas from across the Galaxy"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 12:09:26 -0400
From: "Sword Worlder" <swordworlder@clinic.net>
Subject: Re: Dear Loren W., RE: Hats Off to Jesse

Actually, Marc is fairly easy to work with on merchandising deals.  If Jesse
will take a percentage contract on sales there are plenty of folks, even on
this list, who could get them made at a decent cost... as to distribution,
well, judging from the deal that the host company of this listserv just put
together, we might have a foot in the door (via Rob?) to three big
distribution outlets.  Not to mention the fact that The Traveller Trader
would love to carry them, too ;-)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The TRAVELLER Domain
http://www.downport.com
Colin Michael, Webslinger

- ----- Original Message -----
From: Legate Legion <legate@futureone.com>
> >As a side note, why on earth doesn't SJG sell T-shirts with these
graphics?
> >
> >Hello, Loren? PLEASE?!?!?
>
>     Yes, please Loren or Marc, please?

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 09:10:42 -0700
From: "Kiri Aradia Morgan" <tiamat@tsoft.com>
Subject: Re: Flame bait 

>> >So, H****r will have a nice, spicy snack....
>> >
>> Funny, on Cottman IV that's actually a family name... there's a whole
family of Hasturs up in those hills...
>>
>> Course no one's supposed to go to that planet, word has it they've got
more telepaths than your average Zhodani consulate hanging around over
there...
>
>I used to like those books, until I *met* MZB at a con.  I never bought
another book of hers since.  *shrug*
>
Keven, I'm a local, and whatever she said to you, I wouldn't take it too
personally.  She's been suffering from a progressive immune system disorder
of some sort for more than ten years, and it's seriously messed with her
mind.  She's said odd things to me, too.

Don't let it spoil the books for you-- she couldn't have managed to continue
writing without her many coauthors.

Kiri

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 12:22:09 -0400
From: Ian Ferguson <ian@vax2.concordia.ca>
Subject: RE: Imperial Army

Alan Bradley writes:
<snipped>
>What TL gear is required to bounce small mercenary/pirate attacks?  The
>highest available, preferably matching or exceeding what the mercs have. 
>It's expensive, but if it makes the difference between having your
>government survive and having it overthrown, equipping a few battalions
>with TL15 gear is a sound investment.

	What most governments want is a cost-effective force.  In 
	Regina subsector, for example, the cost of building and 
	maintaining a TL15 force is higher that that for a TL 10
	force because the equipment is more expensive (and perhaps
	requires more logistical support), and this difference in
	costs is magnified by the great distance to any TL 15 world.
	The Imperial Navy maintains Imperial Way Stations at great
	expense to keep it's forces "in supply," but a TL8 world
	would have to have a really good reason to pay for a 
	significant TL15 army unit.  IMTU, TL15 mercs/pirates are 
	rare outside of areas that have a TL15 world.  Even a few 
	unsupported TL15 miscreants (PC's) can probably be handled 
	by a division equiped to TL10.

>My only gripe with this would be that the more TLs you have in a single
>force, the more complicated the logistics get.  It hardly seems
>worthwhile hauling TL8 troops across interstellar distances, although, of
>course you use the troops you have available.  

	Both are good points, I don't see the Imperium doing this
	unless really pressed.


Douglas E. Berry writes:
>>My only gripe with this would be that the more TLs you have in a single
>>force, the more complicated the logistics get.  It hardly seems worthwhile
>>hauling TL8 troops across interstellar distances, although, of course you
>>use the troops you have available.  

>Which is why I see the actual IA being equipped to TL 14-15 standards.
>The extra cost of procuring the equipment and training the "barbarians"
>to use it is more than offset by the value of having universally equipped
>troops.

	I would agree with this if the IA was being used regularly.
	IMTU, it is used only infrequently, and the (IMTU) massive
	expense and dependance on distant sources of equipment makes
	most worlds unwilling to go the extra distance.

Peez

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 11:26:41 -0500
From: Kenneth Bearden -- Walker Jane Productions <dreamer@brokersys.com>
Subject: Re: Starship Combat Question...

Phil Kitching wrote:

> Ahhh, so the PCs figured that they could capture the ship belonging to
> the guys trying to board them, did they? The scenario does start to sound
> resonable now.
>

Yes.  I didn't elaborate before because it was moot.  I was interested in
examining starship combat at close range.  How the ships got to close range
really didn't matter.

Thanks,

Kenneth.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 12:49:38 -0400
From: "Sword Worlder" <swordworlder@clinic.net>
Subject: Chinese Peanut Gallery

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

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	charset="iso-8859-1"
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Recently we have been talking about governments and also had a short =
burst of gee whiz messages on the Kansas curriculum decision, so I =
thought this might tie the whole mess together... and make for a good =
laugh, too.  This guy will be writing for Jay Leno next week.

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Last week, the Kansas Board of Education's vote to omit
macro-evolution from the list of science topics created quite a stir
among academics. Noting the outcry, a Chinese paleontologist, who
reports that recent fossil finds in his country defy the Darwinian
evolutionary theory that major animal groups evolved gradually from a
common ancestor, says, "In China we can criticize Darwin but not the
government. In America you can criticize the government but not
Darwin."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The TRAVELLER Domain
http://www.downport.com
Colin Michael, Webslinger=20

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http-equiv=3DContent-Type>
<META content=3D"MSHTML 5.00.2614.3401" name=3DGENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Recently we have been talking about =
governments and=20
also had a&nbsp;short burst of gee whiz messages on the =
Kansas&nbsp;curriculum=20
decision, so I thought this might tie the whole mess together... and =
make for a=20
good laugh, too.&nbsp; This guy will be writing for Jay Leno next=20
week.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial=20
size=3D2>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D</FONT></DIV>=

<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Last week, the Kansas Board of =
Education's vote to=20
omit<BR>macro-evolution from the list of science topics created quite a=20
stir<BR>among academics. Noting the outcry, a Chinese paleontologist,=20
who<BR>reports that recent fossil finds in his country defy the=20
Darwinian<BR>evolutionary theory that major animal groups evolved =
gradually from=20
a<BR>common ancestor, says, "In China we can criticize Darwin but not=20
the<BR>government. In America you can criticize the government but=20
not<BR>Darwin."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^<BR>The =
TRAVELLER=20
Domain<BR><A =
href=3D"http://www.downport.com">http://www.downport.com</A><BR>Colin=20
Michael, Webslinger</FONT>&nbsp;</DIV></BODY></HTML>

- ------=_NextPart_000_00A6_01BEEB0A.76A24960--

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 17:17:23 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Re: Vilani Language

On Thu, 19 Aug 1999 20:13:33 -0400 (EDT), SD Mooney
<dom@cybergoths.u-net.com> wrote:

>If the Vilani were appropriated and uplifted (effectively) by the Ancients,
>shouldn't their tongue to closer to the Droyne language structure than the
>Terran / Solomani version? IIRC We know the Ancients used them as menials
>etc... so how did they talk?

<taking notes for Traveller-Culture> I'll ask Kenji when he gets
back...
- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 17:53:58 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Vilani Language

AveNelso@aol.com writes:
>    Since it is over 300,000 years between Ancient meddling and "modern
>times" the Vilani language would have absolutely no resemblence to anything
>the Droyne might speak.   That amount of time is absolutely immense in
>linguistic history terms.  Remeber that only 5000 years ago Hindu, English,
>Russian, Latin and Greek (among others) were all the same language.

This is where I play the ignorant engineer card... ;-)

Thanks for clarifying that.

Regards,

Dom

- ----------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com------------
                       MiB - Marines in Battledress
   "Protecting the Imperium from the Scum of the Galaxy"
Rob Prior's Mac software @ http://www.bits.org.uk/ 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 18:09:12 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: [BITS] New Traveller Book: 101 Patrons

          BITS - British Isles Traveller Support
                http://www.bits.org.uk/

A NEW TRAVELLER PRODUCT COMING SOON FROM BITS....

Following the announcement earlier this week of the imminent release of
'The Khiidkar Incident', a new adventure for Traveller, we're proud to
announce the forthcoming 101 Series Book:

101 PATRONS

.....A compilation of adventure ideas and plots to liven up any Traveller game.

What more need we say?
	Complementing and expanding upon the successful 101 Plots, this
book adds a whole new collection of exciting (and sometimes humorous)
adventures, plots and patrons to motivate your players.

ISBN 1-901228-14-2, RRP 4.95 (4.50 to BITS members, incl. UK P&P). Due
for release October 99.

- ---------
Dom (BITS Webmaster)
BITS products can be bought or ordered through all good role-playing shops.
Mail-order BITS products direct from BITS, Steve Jackson Games in the US
and Leisure Games.
BITS UK Limited, PO Box 4222, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, CM21 0DP, England.

- -------------Dom Mooney---webmaster@bits.org.uk----------------
                 BITS - British Isles Traveller Support.
 http://www.bits.org.uk/              mailto:bits@bits.org.uk
Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
GURPS is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, Inc.
BITS and CORE are trademarks of BITS UK Limited.
All rights reserved.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 18:09:14 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-netcom>
Subject: [BITS] New Traveller Adventure: SpaceDogs

           BITS - British Isles Traveller Support
                http://www.bits.org.uk/

A NEW TRAVELLER PRODUCT COMING SOON FROM BITS....

Following the announcement earlier this week of the imminent release of
'The Khiidkar Incident', a new adventure for Traveller, we're proud to
announce the forthcoming 'Little White Book' adventure:

"SPACEDOGS"

An adventure suitable for use with all forms of Traveller, in particular
Marc Miller's Traveller and Steve Jackson's GURPS Traveller.

Imperial Vargr . . .
. . . uplifted doggies who do the dirty jobs. They are the underclass,
doomed to live and die in the slums.

Little Heaven . . .
. . . a small colony in big trouble. Drug-crazed pirates besiege their
village.  The only help they can afford is canine. They don't care about
fur and fangs, as long as you can fight.

Spacedogs is no simple combat mission - if the team win on the ground the
struggle goes all the way to the Imperial Court.

A detailed Traveller adventure...
	...containing pregenerated Vargr characters, deckplans and
statistics for two starships, a description of the colony of Little Heaven,
non-player character details, guidance on playing Vargr and a generic task
system compatible with all versions of Traveller.

ISBN 1-901228-21-5, RRP 4.95 (4.50 to BITS members, incl. UK P&P). Due
for release September 99.

- ----------
Dom (BITS Webmaster)
BITS products can be bought or ordered through all good role-playing shops.
Mail-order BITS products direct from BITS, Steve Jackson Games in the US
and Leisure Games.
BITS UK Limited, PO Box 4222, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, CM21 0DP, England.


- -------------Dom Mooney---webmaster@bits.org.uk----------------
                 BITS - British Isles Traveller Support.
 http://www.bits.org.uk/              mailto:bits@bits.org.uk
Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
GURPS is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, Inc.
BITS and CORE are trademarks of BITS UK Limited.
All rights reserved.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 10:31:06 -0700
From: "Benyamene' ZeAbe' Akella" <xrp@sierratel.com>
Subject: Re: Hard Science

> yet we know that such things as Ether are in fact incorrect.

I myself am not so sure. But then I am a nut-ball.
BZA
////////////////////////////////////////
Akella 0609 C654474-6 S kk+ hi++ as+ va+ dr+ da+ so@ zh- vi+  A523
IMTU tc++ ?t4 ru@ 3i+(-) c+ jt au@ st- ls+ pi+ ta@ he+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 18:14:25 +0100
From: "Nick Bradbeer" <nickb@ndirect.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Hal Clement... 

> >> a pretty grim Merc to blow away a cute, adorable little fuzzy critter.
>> Or somebody who's seen Return Of The Jedi.....
>Oh, come on, Nick.  I *LIKED* that movie.


Oh, I loved the *movie*.....

The ewoks, the the other hand.....

Nick
- ---
(Please forgive my asterisking, people)

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 18:32:10 +0100
From: "Nick Bradbeer" <nickb@ndirect.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Experience Systems

>    As a referee, I really liked the T4 experience system.  It was less
messy
>than MT, and it allowed some neat things to be built into adventure design.
>I liked to award 1,2 or 3 exp points based on how the players did in the
>adventure.  As an example, here is the exp award for an adventure (posted
at
>Freelance Traveller, by the way):
<SNIP>

That looks reminiscent of the system TFG's Prime Directive uses.

NB

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 23:55:30 +0100
From: John Buston <John.Buston@tesco.net>
Subject: Re:Grav deck plates

>What is the maximum G rating a deckplate could be set for.

In GT 3Gs at GTL10, 6Gs at GTL12.

>I imagine you can have separate staterooms adjusted separately and such for 
>special needs, and higher grav for workouts and such, but could you set a
>high grav setting to inconvenience unwanted guests aboard a starship, assuming 
>they don't have power assist or batteldress.

Presumably the grav field reaches up to top of the deck and outwards in a
sphere. So gravity near the walls might be a little interesting if your
stateroom was set to zero G and the next one to 1G 

>I'm envisioning a companionway firefight, at one end the defenders under .7G
>on the other the boarding party under 6G+.

More like randomly varying between 0 and 6G :-O

In TNE this was a trick that some v***s infested ships performed on the crew to
soften them up.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 10:59:15 -0700
From: "Justice Hypercleats" <eris@sierratel.com>
Subject: Re: Insulting Leonard

> Leonard was always condescending.

That is a very foolish thing to say. I am still behind in the posts as I
have not been on the computer in a while, but I have to say something to
this. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been reading about E-Prime,
a language based on English, but without the word "is". This is because the
word places us back in an Aristotlean mind set with things having immutable
"essences", as in certain units of furniture having an essence of
"chairness". This is why most Skin Monkeys are baffled by Quantum Physics,
including myself. We are using poor software in our heads.

How do you know Leonard was being condescending? Are you an empath? A
telepath? I missed the paragraph were Leonard says "I am in contempt of your
ignorance". I wonder where you found it. I am not so much defendind Leonard
as making a pre-emptive defence for myself and others. How can one place
verbal inflections on the written word? If one does not, much of the meaning
can be lost. Asterisks before and after a word are not to indicate
condescension. They indicate itallics, at least as far as I know. OK, I'll
admit that some of Leonards posts sound like he is overly confident in his
own knowledge, but so are we all. Even A. Einstein had a streak of arrogance
that caused him to dismiss theories based on his own predjudices. S. Hawking
is the first really open-minded scientist I have read, but even there, some
Aristotlean thought patterns come through.

Your statement written in E-Prime:
Leonard's posts seem to my perceptions as extremely condescending.

Now that is a reasonable statement, and could even allow the two of you to
learn a little about each others mindsets. Maybe even help Leonard to not
sound as condescending to you.

If my post ever generate this type of misunderstanding, I would appreciate
it if members of the list could *ask* what I mean before jumping to
conclusions.
BZA
////////////////////////////////////////
Akella 0609 C654474-6 S kk+ hi++ as+ va+ dr+ da+ so@ zh- vi+  A523
IMTU tc++ ?t4 ru@ 3i+(-) c+ jt au@ st- ls+ pi+ ta@ he+

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #985
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