Re: FMA Fantasy etc.

> Some of the essential concepts in FMA seem to me very, very, 
> grounded in the psuedo-modern style SF gaming genre. I don't really
> see any equivalent of a SG squad or DS platoon in the Tolkien-esque
> fantasy genre. Perhaps a DBM-esque element could substitute?

I don't think there are any /essentially/ SF elements in SG.  You have
ranged combat and you have close combat with different levels of
effect.  You have armour.  Sometimes you have riding beasts/vehicles.
Seeme pretty straightforward to me.

There are /plenty/ of squad-equivalents in fantasy warfare.  The front
line of peasantry before the knights ride into battle are a few really
/large/ squads of low-level fodder which can be nasty en masse.  The
knights that follow could be done as squads of high-mobility forces
with high lethality but very low numbers, sometimes using the
individual figure rules in SG.	You have massed squads of archers
raining death down on the battleefield which more often just kept
troops under cover than killed them.  I don't see too much more that
you need save rules for sorceries.

> It could be worth a shot. Or stab. I'm not so sure about all those
> chits littering the board.

Trust me, those chits are a /lot/ less wieldy than they look at first
glance and save a world of time in record keeping.  Its akin to the
difference between an analog instrument panel and a HUD in a jet.  It
may not be strictly /period/ for me to have complete information of
that nature, but its certainly a sacrifice worth making for
playability.

> GZG is a wholly SF enterprise. The only obvious gap I can see is for 
> a lower-level skirmish game (where the basic game token is a single
> person, not a squad) and one "Jungleland" has been on the cards for 
> sometime. Or one could focus more tightly and create the FMA-RPG.

Perversely enough, I'm actually working on an FMA-RPG set of rules
which could, I suppose, be used for man-to-man scale battle; if I'm
lucky Mike'll see this post, tell Jon, and send me private email
regarding a possible buy-out.  :)

> Jon also carries a range or two of anime and comedy ("nuns with 
> guns") figures, so that might be a fertile area. Jon is a well-known
> anime nut, so much so that I'm surprised he doesn't supply a 
> Japanese army for StarGrunt consisting of uniformed schoolgirls...
> 
> ...or new alien race: the Ka'Wai.

Oh, now /that/ could be fun.  EVERY weapon is considered a terror
weapon to them but in close combat they get a two die-shift boost due
to the large mallets they pull out of extradimensional pockets.  Makes
my ideas for a tentacle-porn game that much broader.

> What other fertile SF genres are there? Car duelling? Unfeasable
> Giant Robots?

Both of those fields are /more/ than adequately covered by other
entries that would be nearly impossible to displace.  Between BTECH,
HEAVY GEAR and MEKTON ZETA there's little chance of anyone making a
solid entry into the lets-build-cool-stuff-and-fight-'em field.  An
FMA-RPG could actually make some headway, because there's just no
simple and flexible SF RPG system out there.