Re: Starship! and FT, from the author

Hi from one rules author to another!

>Thank you for the pointer.
>
>If you take a look at Starship!, I think you will see that these sorts
of
>conversions are much easier.
>Your URL includes a lot of fan-generated optional rules and rule
additions
>to make these races work. This is fine, but the same can (and has) been
>done with other  systems, like SFB.
>
>The problem I had was that they are unofficial, and somewhat arbitrary.
If
>someone was holding a FT tournament at a con, and you wanted to bring
in a
>fleet using non-official rules, good luck!
>
>And many systems, like SFB and BF Gothic, don't allow custom ships at
all!
>
>What we were trying to do was make a game system where the ability to
>recreate your favorite race, IS official, and universally acceptable to
>anyone playing the game. It is, to my knowledge, the only system that
lets
>you custom design your race and your ships.

Not having seen the Starship! rules (do you have a distributor this side
of
the Pond?) I assume that to do this, you have a "system builder"
mechanism
in the design rules which allows players to make up their own weapon
types
and other systems, and which then calculates an accurate and
game-balanced
costing for said weapon, much as DBI have done in "Shockforce" (at least
in
theory - I don't know how balanced their system is in cost terms, as
I've
never analysed the math)?

Jon (GZG)

>Thanks-
>
>-Brad
>
>
>
>Greg Wong wrote:
>
>>	Hiya!
>>
>>	My name is Brad Carlson, and I am the primary author of the
Starship!
>>
>>
>>
>>	And I don't see any chapter anywhere on creating your own race,
>>with its own special abilities and unique weapons.
>>	Yes, the system is open enough to give you some flexability, but
>>with the limited weapon choices, it does not seem to me like you can
>>really capture the flavor of your favorite race. Just my opinion --
>>y.m.m.v.
>>
>>	You CAN do that with Starship! In fact, you have to -- there are
no
>>"standard" races.
>>
>>	Have I missed something? Or were these Federation, B5, and
>>Gallactica ships created "outside" the rules.
>>
>> You are correct that your mileage may vary. Here is a URL that
contains
>> links to FT conversions to other sci-fi genres.
>>
>> http://www.uwm.edu/~cthulhu/FT/back.htm
>>
>> --Greg