Re: Background Irrelevancy--and Poll (was Re: AIs and such...)

The poll;
 
> 1) Do you REALLY care about the FT background? Are you really
interested in
> what happens to the ESU, NAC, etc. or is it just an excuse for a
battle and
> nothing more? 
Back gound is what you make of it, depending on which you want to use 
to justify why your fighting in the first place. The more interesting 
the background the easier it is to get "into" your part as a 
commander. Your fiighting for a reason, or a cause, the background 
provides these motivations

> 2) Did you read the FT background stuff or did you ignore it? 
I tend to read the background for FT, it's interesting. But sicne I 
havn't played much, I have been rather flaky in my choice of back 
grounds. Mostly pertaining to which minitures I have access to.

> 3) Do you use another background for your games (like Star Trek, Star
Wars,
> B5, homegrown)? 
At present I've been using some modified FT/Star Trek rules due to 
having a lot of the micro machine minitures for the series. But I'm 
flexiable. Honor Harrington, Space;1889, and others have come to mind 
and I may even plan a few games in my friends and my SF story 
background.

> 4) Would you like to see the FT background enhanced, with a more
detailed
> timeline, in future supplements? If so, how many pages out of a
typical
> sized rulebook would you be willing to give up to the background?
Sure, but in defrence to those who just use the rules, (My votes for 
keeping  them very generic) I'd limiit it to a few pages at most.

> 5) Would you like to see some FT fiction?
As  above, but not part of the rules book.

> 6) How "accurate" a background do you want? "I want a hard science
> background taking into effect things like AI development, genetic
> engineering, relativity, etc." or ""Star Wars was accurate enough for
me."
This one would depend on the individual, me I played "Mayday" when it 
first came out and grew  to hate vectored movement. But I've since 
looked for a system to simulate it without all the bulk. I found  FT

> 7) Regardless of number 6, do you want to see guys in fighters,
escorts and
> fleet ships? "Don't bother too much about AI, it's men versus men or
men
> versus bugs that interest me." 
Regarding 6 and above, (You have to to answer the question :) 
Background is what the individual players want. If I'm a cyborg/AI 
raace out to destroy the "Livers" the  background would probably 
dictate that not  only did my opponets use little automation, they 
may fear it with an almost religious zeal.. How that would affect the 
game wouuld be up to how we chose to interpret it.

> 8) "Stop with the stupid science posts, already! This is just a game!"
Ahh, but PSB will always be with us, till someone figures out how to 
actually make it work

Randy