Re: GenCon: Yet another review

At 12:34 PM 8/21/97 -0700, you wrote:

>This may sound like sucking up to JT, but I have full confidence in his

>abilities to make FT3 compatible with FT and MT.  Any changes in FT3
will 
>most likely be under the heading "Optional Rules" or some such. 

>From the FT3 playtest rules as they stand this isn't the case. I don't
want
to give anything away, but I think it's important to solicit player
opinions
this early in the design stage. The fleet building rules are different,
being based solely on mass. As it stands, there are only two shield
levels,
armour is handled much differently, batteries are quite a bit different,
and
thresholds are different. I like the new idea for thresholds; it would
convert easily. However, the other changes would require you to recreate
your ships in the new system. Not all ships will translate directly. I
suspect that you will not be able to simply pick and choose the FT3
stuff
you want. Some rules could be pushed down to FT2 but most won't.

>Glad I picked up on this thread; I've been tossing all "*.con) threads 
>altogether.  Since we are on the topic of GZG improving FT, if there
was one 
>thing I'd like GZG to come up with, it would be a scenerio book or some
type. 
>I'm not much of a scenerio builder; don't know what should balance what
and 
>all.  I would like to see this book include scenerios that can tie in
DSII 
>and SGII;  Maybe have chapter one be ship invasion, chapter two be
beachhead 
>attempting, and chapter three, actual land warfare.  Something along
the 
>lines of that.

I like this idea. A fleet book (or several fleet books), a campaign and
scenario book, and maybe an alien book. I'd like to see the SG2 alien
stuff
with FT stuff as well. Some people might object to buying one book for
two
games, but this is how a number of other companies do it and it usually
works well. You're essentially using one game to market another.

>For what its worth, our FT leader is trying to build a universe set
around 
>the framework of 19c. Europe.	Lots of angst there, I guess. 
Basically, take 
>the 19c. skirmishes, and update them for space opera.

Geez, that sounds familiar! I've done something fairly similar. Last
year I
ran an "Age of Iridium" PBEM game based loosely on the Russo-Japanese
war.

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca 
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage