From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (urth) TWERPS New Sun
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 98 02:25:00 GMT

Ack!  I should've know that Paul Duggan would be the one to know
"Fading Suns"!

Good points, too, btw.  But under "active interstellar empire" we should
list the qualifiers: "Urth" [sic] is not the capital of this nation,
some place called Byzantium Secundus (hmmm) is; and while yes, all the
stars are fading, when the new emperor gained the throne a new star
appeared <chough>.

I'm sure the same was said for every Roman Emperor!

(There does seem to be some sort of Yesodic government of Briah, but
would that be an Empire, if it even exists?  If it doesn't exist, if
all of the galaxy is in anarchy, then that puts a bit more weight on
the whole "black hole in Old Sun keeps Urth and Empire down" thing.)

The jumpgates and the lack of time-travel are probably just nods to
gaming reality--it is simply too hard to factor in STL travel and the
passage of time for rpgs (imagine all the worlds of the Traveller
imperium being just sequential iterations of two dozen planets within
forty lightyears of Urth).  That planets and towns will change so much
between interstellar visits appears to be too much work for the game
master--lovingly crafted societies vanish after one visit--all visits
are one-shots. If it weren't the case, then maybe there would be more
multiversal games like the few tried by Chaosium based upon Moorcock's
work (Hawkmoon, Elric).  Same's true with time traveling--the small
number of time travel games revolve around "Time Tunnel" type
set-ups, rather than having time travel as just another feature for
all games, another mode of travel, like horseback riding.

Wshoo--good thing "Fading Suns" didn't cross that bobbit line
("hobbit" being owned by Estate Tolkien like "Tarzan" is owned by
Estate ERB)!  (Like how "Arduin" escaped being a "D&D" clone?  Legally
speaking.)  And sure, it's pretty much "goths in space."  If they
did have a bibliography, somewhere (one of the suppliments?), it
would be neat to see them list Silverberg's NIGHTWING, Beckford's
VATHEK ("so beautiful in the original French"), and "everything by
Chip Delany."  Or whatever it is that inspired them.

Still, I didn't know that the suns were fading due to some spiritual
crisis--was that mentioned in the core rule or in one of the numerous
suppliments?

Ah, Scott Haring was hired back?  As editor of the now-only-online
magazine?  Well, good for him, I guess.  It must have been hard after
he moved out of the house on Steve's property . . . or maybe I've got
that part wrong, too.  I'm still more concerned about the downsized
employee on maternity leave--any word on her?  Well, maybe she can go
work for Origins.

So Paul, when are =you= going to do some game design? <g> (Egad,
look--now I've probably done it--it will turn out that you are the
creator of one of those fabulously popular "German" games!)

As for Sarcos, well, at the moment I'm a tad more burned out than
usual, and Project Sarcos is currently one of the cinders.  You can
see this, no doubt!

=mantis=

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