Re: [GZG] Ixx Psychology & behaviour?

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take up Mr. Tailby's point:

When I object to the Ixx as a demonic xenocidal race, I'm not talking
about
how they are marketed by other races or even how they are initially
percieved or mis-percieved. I'm talking about how they really are and
will
end up in the long run. The killer bug is a boring stereotype. What's
more,
it robs a lot of more interesting long term play options.

As far as mechanics: You practically can't have a 'worldship' or
anything
near to it in FT or no reasonable fleet could fly against it. So that
isn't
a gameable scenario unless Jon has in mind some new GZG game invovling
dueling bowling-ball sized death globes....

So you need to insert the alien in such a way that it can be a player in
the
game universe and justify the selling of an FT fleet, some new 15mm and
6mm
minis, and that can be played in FT, SG, DS and FMAS. It helps to make
them
rational and perhaps less emotional about individual casualties both
because
of the breadth of scenarios it opens up and because you'd like them to
play
a little differently in-game. At the same time, you don't want to turn
them
into an inexorable tide. To some extent, the KV have already stolen that
niche. So, you want something that makes them interesting, opens up all
sorts of gaming potential, and so on.

I have no problem with the Ixx as being monolithic by hive but not
across
the species. That could make perfect sense. But they're spacefaring - I
don't want to see their behaviours entirely reflective of dirt-crawling
bugs. It is likely that they'd have had to overcome various problems and
limitations of being insectoid long since, much like humanity had to
overcome some of their ape ancestry's shortcomings. To get to space in
numbers, you need flexibility and an ability to overcome challenges in
some
way that is more than one dimensional.

If you make the Ixx equally threatening to the KV, SV, etc. then you
don't
need to make them all chum-chum with the humans. They become allies of a
sort by the old 'enemy of my enemy' sort of logic or perhaps 'serious
pest
of my enemy'. Alternately, if the Ixx incursion becomes serious enough,
it
offers chances for other aliens to become more closely allied with
humanity
just to help cope with the threat of the Ixx. But the non-monolithic
nature
of the Ixx could mean in the long run, some pass through, some stick
around,
some ally with different factions, some fight like rabid xenocidal bugs.

The underlying factors any design has to shoot for
- allows productions of all sorts of new minis for sale
- is not one dimensional nor a single trick pony
- is well enough thought out to allow a wide variety of in game
uses/scenarios
- allows play in all the GZG game systems

TomB

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http://www.stargrunt.ca

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy
from
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