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

At 10:11 PM 7/15/97 -0700, you wrote:
>My thinking 
>was a 19th century genre with outer space being discovered to be a
fluid of 
>ether.  Have most of the stuff happening around the Solar System with
maybe 
>some ooutposts at Alpha Centauri and whatnot; maybe some H.G. Wells or
early 
>Heinlein aliens on some of the worlds to make it exotic.  However, I 
>mentioned the idea to a friend and he said there was actually a role
playing 
>game that was similar to this.  Any notion as to what it was?

The universe, and the roleplaying game, is _Space: 1889_ by the now
defunct
GDW. It assumes that the ether really exists and that Edison created an
"Aether Propeller". Mars is very similar to Edgar Rice Burroughs'
Barsoom,
only with British colonialism and lots of European and Martian political
intrigue. The games presumed something called "liftwood," a naturally
growing plant that repelled a planet's electromagnetic field. This
allows
the Europeans to produce steam driven gunboats and launch "ether flyers"
(spaceships) while the Martians fly kites (liftwood based sailing ships)
and
screw galleys (galley slaves cranking big propellers).

The first product out for the universe was _Sky Galleons of Mars_ and
was
probably the best of the series. It let you fight battles between aerial
gunboats, screw galleys, and kites. It included plastic miniatures and
thick
paper stock hex sheets. I've been working on converting my figures for
use
on a miniatures with actual terrain. The game system is actually quite
fast
paced. I don't know if the ship creation rules are broken or if they
create
fairly well balanced ships. The figures aren't too terribly detailed
(not
exactly the "model quality miniatures" advertised on the box) but I hear
a
third party is still creating lead miniatures.

The roleplaying game had some good background material but an overly
simplistic system. It didn't sell very well, but that was probably
because
it was a hardback book with lots of gratuitous colour plates. We've been
playing _Space: 1889_ (actually set in 1899) for about 6 or 7 years now
but
it's interesting to note that we're running it in GURPS. The dozen or so
supplements that came out for the game were fairly good, though.

_Soldier's Companion_ is a set of miniatures rules for colonial ground
combat. If you strip out the SF stuff, you've got a pretty interesting
set
of colonial rules. A lot of people use it as a historical game.

The last thing released for the game was _Ironclads and Ether Flyers_, a
set
of miniatures rules for large naval ships. It's essentially the same
system
as Sky Galleons, but it's got some problems. Like many GDW games, it
looks
like it wasn't properly playtested. In spite of the name, there isn't
much
in the way of Ether Flyer combat. You can fight with Ether Flyers within
an
atmosphere, but there are no rules for space combat.

So, if you're looking at creating a set of Ether Flyer combat rules for
deep
space, there is still plenty of room for this kind of game. I know there
are
a couple of us on the mailing list that were thinking of coming up with
a FT
conversion for Sky Galleons but an Ether Flyer variant for deep space
combat
would be cool. Of course, there are no figures available for it...

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