Traveller-digest     Friday, September 10 1999     Volume 1999 : Number 1087



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

RE: Technology Demographics [Palm V]
Re: WoTC
Re: WoTC
Re: WoTC
Re: Question regarding software for Traveller gaming
Re: Hasbro & WotC (Humor) 
Re: Hasbro & WotC (Humor) 
Re: Hasbro buying WOTC
WotC & Hasbro
Re: WoTC
Re: Roger Sanger?
Re: Roger Sanger?
Science Q: Star Position Accuracy
Re: WotC
Naff (was Re: Vacuum Tube Computers)
Re: Naff (was Re: Vacuum Tube Computers) 
Re: Grand Tour
MT Deckplan queries
Re: Hasbro & WotC (Humor) 
Re: Naff (was Re: Vacuum Tube Computers) 
Fw: [gwmg] - The Future of Roleplaying

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 18:03:11 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: RE: Technology Demographics [Palm V]

"Slack, Andy" <andy.slack@gb.unisys.com> writes:
>Chris, I would be _very_ interested in any Traveller software for Palm.
>
>I am a long-time Psion user who has just gone over to the Dark Side
>(as my Psion-using friends put it) and I'm currently running the portable
>version of my Trav campaign off a Palm IIIx, with charsheets held as memos,
>campaign files held in RichReader [text] or ImageViewer [maps and
>deckplans], and
>the RollEm dice roller for, errm, well, you know.

Heh! Heh! Heh! Welcome to the Dark Side... Well, actually, welcome to the
expanding branch of the Lightside - at least you don't 'Wince' when you use
your machine..

On a serious note - where did you get RollEm...

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, 10 Sep 1999 18:40:39 -0400
From: Bill Rutherford <worj@erols.com>
Subject: Re: WoTC

At 05:09 PM 09/10/1999 -0400, Zane wrote:
<SNIP>
...and the
>revamped Greyhawk line has shown to be surprisingly popular, especially
>among older players. Hell, the ad campaign for the new Greyhawk line
>specifically mentioned that demons and devils would be called... demons and
>devils.
<MORE SNIP>

Got me!  I do NOT play D&D but did many years ago and have FOND memories of
Greyhawk; I bought the new GH modules for just that reason!




Bill Rutherford
worj@erols.com

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 10:46:35 +1200
From: rboleyn@paradise.net.nz
Subject: Re: WoTC

On 10 Sep 99, at 8:25, Zane H. Healy wrote:

> I'm no longer that up on the RPG market, what major players are left
> besides Steve Jackson Games?  I assume White Wolf is still around, and I
> know Dream Pod 9 is (though they're pretty small).  What about
> R.Talsorian, or whoever owns Champions?  For all that goes, which games
> are still in print?  Here are the ones I'm aware of:
> 
>  GURPS
>  AD&D
>  Heavy Gear
>  Empire of the Petal Throne (yes, it really is)
>  Call of Cthulu

Chivalry & Sorcery is still around. It's coming up for edition 3.1 after 
problems with the publisher of 3rd edition. The original authors don't 
have full control of the copyrights, and the old publisher went belly 
up, etc, etc (sound familiar?). However they've found a new publisher 
and a new, improved version is being written, and new stuff is being 
published, so it's atill alive.

I think the various Palladium rogs are still alive, too.



- --
Rupert Boleyn <paradise.net.nz>
Wellington, New Zealand

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 23:46:39 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: WoTC

"Zane H. Healy" <healyzh@aracnet.com> writes:

>SIsn't their RPG currently being published by Hogshead Games?  They would be
>a logical candidate for anything new, but their quality has been steadily
>going down hill since at least '92.

The GW material has actually improved of late - the new 40k and Battlefleet
Gothic are quite good.

Hogshead publish the following RPGs:
http://www.hogshead.demon.co.uk/

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (with new unpublished material now)
Puppetland/Power Kill
Violence
Baron Munchausen

>I'm no longer that up on the RPG market, what major players are left besides
>Steve Jackson Games?  I assume White Wolf is still around, and I know Dream
>Pod 9 is (though they're pretty small).  What about R.Talsorian, or whoever
>owns Champions?  For all that goes, which games are still in print?  Here
>are the ones I'm aware of:
>
>	GURPS
>	AD&D
>	Heavy Gear
>	Empire of the Petal Throne (yes, it really is)
>	Call of Cthulu

White Wolf:	Vampire 3rd
		Wraith
		Werewolf
		Trinity
		Changeling
		Minds Eye Theatre

Chaosium		Elric!
		Call of Cthulhu
		Cthulhu Live
http://www.chasosium,com/

Britannia Game Designs
		Chivalry & Sorcery 3rd Ed
		C&S Lite
http://members.aol.com/marakush

Steve Jackson Games
		GURPS
		In Nomine
http://www.sjgames.com/

Holistic Design	Faded Suns
http://www.holistic-design.com/

FASA		Shadowrun 3rd Edition
		Mechwarrior?
WEG		Star Wars
??		Blue Planet
AEG		Legend of the 5 Rings RPG
Atlas Games	Ars Magica
RTG		Bubblegum Crisis
		Cyberpunk 2020
		Cybergeneration 2.0?
Pinnacle		Deadlands
		Modern day Deadlands
Last Unicorn	Star Trek RPG in various guises
		Soon.... Dune
New Millennium	Conspiracy X
Final Fantasy Games	Twilight Imperium RPG
Hubris?		Maelstrom?
BITS		Traveller supplements...

>I'm sure there are others, but around here it's pretty slim pickings, and
>I've got to arrange with my FLGS to order anything I want.

It's actually better now than it was... I suspect I've missed out a chunk.
Have a look at Leisure Games catalogue for an idea what is in print
http://www.leisuregames.com/


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, 10 Sep 1999 19:18:50 -0400
From: Jeff Zeitlin <jzeitlin@cyburban.com>
Subject: Re: Question regarding software for Traveller gaming

On Fri, 10 Sep 1999 00:56:22 -0400 (EDT), "B. Mallory"
<bmallory@earthlink.net> wrote:

>     In 1986 an article was published in a Challange magazine titled
>"Electronically Exploring the Traveller universe" with a sub title of "A
>Comprehensive Sector Generator".  The article was written by Marc
>Miller.  The portion of the article that I want to refer to regards the
>usefullness of standardizing data formats.  What I want to find out
>about is the state of progress with this.

No _formal_ standard (a la NBS/ISO) has, to my knowledge, ever
been promulgated - but, at least for stellar data, there are two
_de_facto_ standards that seem to be established - and from what
I can recall of one of them, they're very close to being
compatible with each other from off the mark.  Look at the data
files that come with Jim Vassilakos's GALACTIC program, and also
at the old Sunbane sector archives.  There's a link to GALACTIC
in the Freelance Traveller (http://come.to/FreelanceTraveller or
http://www.downport.com/freelancetraveller/Default.htm) Computer
Connection in the Information Center - look for programs for
MS-DOS systems.  I can't help you with the Sunbane data; I'm not
sure of where it is, myself.

>     The ability to access a public file format for characters,
>subsectors and ships would make writing a ships maintainence program
>much more straightforward.  This is a way for gamers to share their
>creations (the characters, ships, maps, etc.) without worrying about
>stepping on toes.

>     If this has already been done then I would simply like a lead.  If
>not, then what are your thoughts on such a project.  With FFE starting
>to publish the T5 in November This data might be popular.

I like the idea of a standard data format for each type of data,
for the reasons you give - but I question whether one can
successfully promulgate one by fiat. I suspect that what needs to
happen is that some program - or program suite - that is widely
available becomes popular for manipulating the necessary data,
thus establishing _its_ data file format as the de facto
standard. If, however, people want to get into a 'standards
committee' type of mode, I'll gladly participate and give my
input.
- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 16:26:31 -0700
From: "Shawn Campbell" <shawn@electricstitch.com>
Subject: Re: Hasbro & WotC (Humor) 

> > Magic and Monopoly will be combined into a new CGG:  Monopoly: The
> > Aquiring
> > Collect property cards, trade and sell them with your friends.
Especialy
> > for the coveted Bordwalk and Park Place Cards.
> >
> > An influx of new Pop-o-matics with polyhedral dice.
>
> Hey, given the way *some* players manage to roll "off the table" with
> most rolls, I think I'd *buy* some "pop-o-matics" with polyhedral dice!

I can remember a guy that always tossed the dice 1 or 2 feet up with a
backwards spin. 9 times out of 10 it landed in his lap, in the potato chips,
or forever lost in the cushions of the couch...

Shawn Campbell
shawn@electricstitch.com
IMTU tc+ tm+(++) !tn t4 ru+ ge>+ !3i+ c+ jt au+ st+ ls(+) pi+ ta he+(++)

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 19:51:17 -0400
From: Jeff Zeitlin <jzeitlin@cyburban.com>
Subject: Re: Hasbro & WotC (Humor) 

On Fri, 10 Sep 1999 18:30:16 -0400 (EDT), "Keven R. Pittsinger"
<jamstar@accesstoledo.com> wrote:

>> > Magic and Monopoly will be combined into a new CGG:  Monopoly: The
>> > Aquiring
>> > Collect property cards, trade and sell them with your friends.  Especialy
>> > for the coveted Bordwalk and Park Place Cards.

>> > An influx of new Pop-o-matics with polyhedral dice.
 
>> Hey, given the way *some* players manage to roll "off the table" with
>> most rolls, I think I'd *buy* some "pop-o-matics" with polyhedral dice!

>*spew*

>There goes another keyboard...

Y'know, I first read the line about pop-o-hedrals, and chuckled.
Then, I thought about it for a second. It's actually an
interesting idea. The only problem, conceptually, is that you'd
need to pop quite a few times if there's only one die in a popper
- - or, if they came with varying numbers of dice in them, you'd
need to have a lot of poppers. (With the multiple-poppers route,
I'd probably go with 1, 2, 4, and maybe 8d poppers, for each
shape. Those 4 and 8d poppers are gonna be big suckers, though.)


- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 20:01:27 EDT
From: AveNelso@aol.com
Subject: Re: Hasbro buying WOTC

In a message dated 9/9/99 9:31:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
Sethkimmel@aol.com writes:

<< 
 Well, I wouldn't shed a tear about CCG's disappearing, but I'd miss the 
 RPG's... :-) Seriously, I too wonder about D+D III. I bet that if it's in 
 final production, it'll go. I bet though otherwise it'll be put on hold 
while 
 marketing (who I bet hasn't one gamer in the whole staff...) decides if 
there 
 is enough of a market for it. I bet they say no... :-( I personally detest 
 D+D but I pray for its' re-release since it DOES have name recognition and 
it 
 would hopefully bring fresh blood in to the hobby. Said fresh blood could 
 hopefully be induced to try Traveller...
  >>

    Couple of things might keep D&D afloat, at least for  awhile:
    1) Wizards has actually made their RPG deivison run a profit.
    2) It seems that hasbro is keeping WOTC intact as a division with current 
management, since it is profitable and no use tinkering with profit.
    3) D&D3 is in the works, timed to come out at the same time as the Lord 
of the Rings movie and Dungeons and Dragons  movies both coming out in 2000.  
It would seem silly to drop the game with those fortuititous promotional 
tie-ins.
    4) Hasbo is probably less subject to boycotts than anyone but Proctor and 
Gamble.  I mean, if you don't buy Hasbro (inc. Parker bros, and Mitlon 
Bradley and Tiger etc.) you don't buy toys.  Some guys are just too big and 
too broad for boycotts

    My 2 cr, anyway

Dave Nelson

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 20:03:42 EDT
From: GypsyComet@aol.com
Subject: WotC & Hasbro

A chat with my local FLGS owner turned up other ugliness. Apparently WotC is 
pursuing a direct-distribution scheme in combination with their recently 
bought chain of retail stores, GameKeeper. At first (two months ago) this 
resulted in independent game stores being dropped to the bottom of the list 
when Pokemon, Magic, and TSR allocation was done, no matter how large or how 
long they had been customers.  Now I'm hearing that any independent who has 
the misfortune to be too close to either a GameKeeper or a ZainyBrainy is 
being dropped from the WotC lists altogether. The store in question is close 
to BOTH, and has just discovered that it cannot get restocks or new items 
from any of the WotC/TSR lines.  Bad? Oh yes. Combined with the everpresent 
threat of GW moving in and doing the same thing (this is California, so they 
haven't yet...) we have the potential to lose a lot of stores and a lot of 
product exposure in a very short period of time...

GC

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 19:35:28 -0500
From: "Kurtis Rodgers" <kurtis@fastlane.net>
Subject: Re: WoTC

> - -----Original Message-----
> From: Zane H. Healy <healyzh@aracnet.com>
> To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com <traveller@lists.imagiconline.com>
> Date: Friday, September 10, 1999 11:28 AM
> Subject: Re: WoTC
<snip>
> The major players are:
>
> TSR - AD&D, excellent showing with Alternity both are available in chain
<snip>
> White Wolf - The Storyteller System, Vampire at the lead, then Werewolf,
<snip>
> Palladium - Rifts is surprisingly popular, for how little it's talked
about.
<snip>
> Steve Jackson Games - GURPS, a relatively popular system, but it still
comes
<snip>
> Dream Pod 9 - Heavy Gear and others, these guys have made a name for
<snip>
> Last Unicorn Games - Star Trek series, excellent distribution deal and
<snip>
> Chaosium - Call of Cthulhu, as long as there are RPGs, there's always
going

I thought it interesting that FASA didn't make your list, but I guess that
just depends on the 'major' criteria.  Still, FASA's Shadowrun is still in
production and widely available.

I would also like to offer up Holistic's Fading Suns for at least an
honorable mention.

Kurtis

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 21:09:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Prior <robert_prior@sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Roger Sanger?

>A ps to my last bit. Anything *sold* that you weren't paid for writing
>means that you have a good chance of claiming a *lot* of damages. And
>it's fairly likely that Roger "inherited" this when he bought the
>rights.
>
>Regardless, he *can't* market them without your permission *if* you go
>to the trouble of re-establishing your claims.

And how would one do this? I suspect that it would be fairly expensive...

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 21:09:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Prior <robert_prior@sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Roger Sanger?

>I am not a lawyer. But from what I recall lawyers saying, I daresay
>that getting DGPs authors together might be worthwhile. Any of you that
>had any sort of contract and who weren't paid, can reclaim the
>copyright fairly easily as I understand it.

Under Canadian civil law the copyright is still mine, as DGP never
fulfilled their half of the contract, thus rendering it void.

>It *would* cost money. But I bet that once his "valuable properties
>start *costing* money, Roger will be *glad* to dump them.
>
>If there isn't a contract things are gonna get a lot messier.

There was a contract, but it was verbal. Legal, but tough to prove.
COntacting Joe Fugate would be a good first step. Anyone know where he
hangs out nowadays?

>For what it's worth, *I* would spend the $20-50 for s hort consult with
>a lawyer regarding retrieving the copyright on your material.

Thanks. I'll have him send you the bill, then. :-)

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 21:13:51 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Science Q: Star Position Accuracy

For all you professional (or unprofessional ...) astronomers out
there, I have a quick question: how accurately do we know the
positions of various stars, relative to earth? Specifically, I need
to figure out how accurately you could figure your position based
solely on star pattern matching.

I know you can get *angular* position quite accurately (i.e. pitch,
roll, yaw in heliocentric or earth centric inertial). But I'm looking
for more than attitude determination. Any ideas?
- -- ------------------------------------------------------------ --
   Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj 

   Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings, they 
   did it by killing all those who opposed them.

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 19:59:08 -0600
From: cos 90 <cos90@powersurfr.com>
Subject: Re: WotC

>Sure, they're sitting on Avalon Hill properties. I hope you didn't expect to
>see Panzer Blitz sitting next to Monopoly at your local toy store! It was
>never fated to happen. The tabletop wargaming market is dead. There is no
>market for them.
>
>On the other hand, TSR is the industry leader in roleplaying games. It's not
>a dead market. In fact, as of recently, the roleplaying market has begun
>growing again, due in large part to excellent leadership of the WoTC's new
>management on the AD&D line.
>
>That's right! It's a reversal of the trend we've been seeing for so long.
>New roleplayers are being lured in.

Role-playing gaming has its roots in the tabletop wargaming hobby,
and eventually supplanted it. More recently, collectable card games
grew out of the role-playing market. A few years ago, when Magic The 
Gathering was at its peak and there were new CCGs coming out left 
right and centre, an acquaintance of mine made the bold prediction 
that CCGing would eventually do to roleplaying what roleplaying did
to tabletop wargaming. This, despite the fact that at the time she
worked for WotC in its roleplaying game division! I told her that I
could in no way agree with her prediction... It's been a handful of
years since we've been in touch* -- I wonder how she feels about
RPGs and CCGs now that her prediction has turned out to be wrong?

(* She aggressively tried to recruit me into CARPGA, a gamers' 
activist organization, possibly because of my academic background
in library science and my (now) 20 years (then 15 years) experience
in gaming. She didn't take it too well when I told her what I thought
of her organization, and stopped speaking to me entirely when I told
her what I thought of her prediction about CCGs taking over RPGs...
perhaps I was a little harsh?) :)

- -- g


     Glenn St-Germain  Edmonton, Alberta, Canada 
cos90@powersurfr.com  http://plaza.powersurfr.com/glenn
        "There is no longer any normal to be"
                                 -- Gary Numan

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 20:11:52 -0600
From: cos 90 <cos90@powersurfr.com>
Subject: Naff (was Re: Vacuum Tube Computers)

>>Hey, UK'ers...what was that "general purpose 4 letter word" the BBS
>>invented for use on British TV?  I want to tell my boss, ex-Navy
>>CPO, all about it...he's always looking to expand his vocabulary.
>><g>
>
>The writers of the (superb) BBC sitcom "Porridge" invented the word naff for
>this purpose, with a range of variations (eg naffing hell!) and it
subsequently
>entered the language as an adjective, basically as an alternative to crap.
>Though Princess Anne once got into trouble for telling a bunch of
reporters to
>naff off, assuming it was reported correctly.

Amazing how made-up words get into the general vocabulary, isn't it?

My comment, though, was that in response to the above question, I thought
of *two* general-pupose 4-letter words that I first heard on British
television, neither of which are "naff":

"Zark" -- from Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (as in, "Zark off!")
"Smeg" -- from Red Dwarf (several permutations)

The latter has the advantage (?) of being derived from a real word...
:)

(And both are better than the one from Battlestar Galactica: "Frak")


     Glenn St-Germain  Edmonton, Alberta, Canada 
cos90@powersurfr.com  http://plaza.powersurfr.com/glenn
        "There is no longer any normal to be"
                                 -- Gary Numan

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 22:18:23 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@accesstoledo.com>
Subject: Re: Naff (was Re: Vacuum Tube Computers) 

> Amazing how made-up words get into the general vocabulary, isn't it?
> 
> My comment, though, was that in response to the above question, I thought
> of *two* general-pupose 4-letter words that I first heard on British
> television, neither of which are "naff":
> 
> "Zark" -- from Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (as in, "Zark off!")
> "Smeg" -- from Red Dwarf (several permutations)
> 
> The latter has the advantage (?) of being derived from a real word...
> :)
> 
> (And both are better than the one from Battlestar Galactica: "Frak")

You forgot 'feltercarb'.

Keven

- -- 
tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 22:30:58 -0400
From: "Terry Carlino" <carlino@home.com>
Subject: Re: Grand Tour

<< I hope Tukera Lines doesn't claim this ship to be *unsinkable*. ;-)
 There's a story there somewheres methinks.
  >>

>Gee, would that involve an uncharted planetoid and not having enough
shuttles
>for all of the sentients onboard...:-) ?

I sure hope not. I was thinking of that murder of the Marquis that happened
just two hours into jumpspace. The next stop is a sector capital, and the
Duke, who happens to be the Marquis's brother will insist on holding the
ship, unless the PC's can find the murderer before the ship falls out of the
hole.

Let's not forget the little Countess Vandi, travelling with her Regent, only
14 and somehow she's managed to get herself lost in the middle passage
decks. Her cousin, hoping to procure an Imperial appointment for the
Countess (her being a member of the local nobility), is beside himself. The
PC's must prevent this from becoming a scandal.

And of course there's the Ine Givar. The Deneb faction would just love the
attention from blowing up a Tukera Liner full of Nobles.  The Spinward
Marches faction has no great wish to be hunted down for such an act by
proxy.  Can the PC's stop it? Is the Zhodani agent trying to help the Ine
Givar, or stop them?

There's probably a few thousand more leads in there....

Terry C

All that is Gold does not glitter
Not all who travel are lost

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 23:22:22 -0400
From: "Terry Carlino" <carlino@home.com>
Subject: MT Deckplan queries

>>What happens when you
>>have more people in a ship than you have 'paid for' in terms of quarters.
I
>>mean, if life support is based on hull volume, how can it be applicable to
>>how many quarters you have.

>  If you have a sudden, and hopefully temporary, overflow of people onboard
>you have two choices as Captain: pay the per-trip costs for each actual
>person, allowing them to exist  somewhat above abject misery; or pay the
>usual per-stateroom cost and pray these people aren't onboard for more than
>one jump, since hunger and sanitation will become issues very quickly...

RL example. When stationed on a US Frigate during the Haiti boat lift we had
several hundred refugees picked up from unseaworthy craft on a ship designed
for ~140 officers & crew.  They stayed on deck and crew members were not
allowed above decks (due to possible disease infection).  Salt water showers
were rigged up.  The smell was so bad that for weeks after there was no
where on board that didn't stink of human waste, sweat and unwashed bodies.

I can't even imagine how much worse it would have been in a sealed
environment.

Terry C

All that is Gold does not glitter
Not all who travel are lost

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 23:54:44 -0400
From: "Jory Earl" <j-man@iname.com>
Subject: Re: Hasbro & WotC (Humor) 

>Y'know, I first read the line about pop-o-hedrals, and chuckled.
>Then, I thought about it for a second. It's actually an
>interesting idea. The only problem, conceptually, is that you'd
>need to pop quite a few times if there's only one die in a popper
>- or, if they came with varying numbers of dice in them, you'd
>need to have a lot of poppers. (With the multiple-poppers route,
>I'd probably go with 1, 2, 4, and maybe 8d poppers, for each
>shape. Those 4 and 8d poppers are gonna be big suckers, though.)

Ever consider the NOISE those things would make?  Don't play with a
hangover..:)



___________________________________________________________
 J-Man
 ICQ# 2843475
 New Hampshire - U.S.A.
 Email : j-man@iname.com
 Home Page : http://www.geocities.com/~jman037/
___________________________________________________________

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 23:59:26 -0400
From: "Jory Earl" <j-man@iname.com>
Subject: Re: Naff (was Re: Vacuum Tube Computers) 

Also forgot great ones like :

"dingo's kidneys!"

"holy zarquan's singing fish!"

"Belgium!"

"Tanj!"
___________________________________________________________
 J-Man
 ICQ# 2843475
 New Hampshire - U.S.A.
 Email : j-man@iname.com
 Home Page : http://www.geocities.com/~jman037/
___________________________________________________________

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 00:01:02 -0400
From: "Jory Earl" <j-man@iname.com>
Subject: Fw: [gwmg] - The Future of Roleplaying

___________________________________________________________
 J-Man
 ICQ# 2843475
 New Hampshire - U.S.A.
 Email : j-man@iname.com
 Home Page : http://www.geocities.com/~jman037/
___________________________________________________________

- ----- Original Message -----
From: James Hicks <jhicks10@mindspring.com>
To: <gammaworld@egroups.com>
Sent: Friday, September 10, 1999 10:54 PM
Subject: [gwmg] - The Future of Roleplaying


> There's been a lot of buzz in the gaming community about the WoTC
takeover,
> but just a few points to remember:
>
> 1)  Hasbro purchased the game company, not the game designers.  If Hasbro
> destroys WoTC and TSR and transforms AD&D into a video game, the creative
> minds at WoTC/TSR will not cease to exist -- they will go on to found
and/or
> join other game companies.  It may be the end of AD&D (etc.), and would
> definitely be the end of CCG's, but roleplaying would go on.
>
> 2)  CCG's seem to be a low-overhead/high-profit industry.  I don't have
any
> inside info on this, but I once saw a guy drop $300 on a handful of rare
MTG
> cards -- three-hundred smackaroonies for a few ounces of ink and cardboard
> !!  Not to mention that there are literally THOUSANDS of CCG players out
> there who would never play RPGs..... thus, CCGs are fairly mainstream.
>
> 3)  Someone mentioned low profit margins with RPG material, and how Hasbro
> would not be interested in something like that because they are a big
> company.  That just isn't true.  The point is that there IS a profit
> margin -- big corporations make their money a few cents at a time, the
same
> as a small company.
>
> 4)  Hasbro surely owns intellectual properties gained from other
> acquisitions that may not be obvious.  As an example, let's say that
Company
> A invented the wheel and the lever. Company B, on the other hand invents
the
> boat.  The engineers at Company B discover that if they attach the wheel
to
> the boat, they can invent the wagon, and so Company B buys out Company A.

> So Company A would be known for its boats and wagons, and -- to a lesser
> extent -- its wheels.  Yet it would also own the lever (acquired as a side
> effect of the Company A buyout), which they might find a use for someday.
>   What I'm trying (and failing miserably) to say is that WoTC will have
> access to ideas previously unavailable to them.
>
> So anyway, I AM a little leery of this whole thing since Hasbro doesn't
seem
> to be the type of company which would get involved with the RPG industry,
> and my fear is that the future of RPGs will be boxed sets with smiling Pat
> Boone-types on the cover ("Dungeons & Dragons / No Reading Required / Ages
3
> and up")
>
> That's my piece,
>
> Grimm
>
> The Orphanage
> http://www.mindspring.com/~jhicks10
>
>
>
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>
>

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

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1087
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