Original_Carl
SOC-12
T5 being a game that requires the Referee to pretty much roll her or his everything, I thought I'd try posting some material that I find particularly inspiring for my own T5 game.
Back when I started my T5 Beta game, I became interested in building a more realistic Sci-Fi setting. I wanted to design new, better ships that reflected real-world design principles, took physics into account and generally would lend themselves to providing a strange newness. Naturally, I started looking at naval vessels and various aircraft, but they just didn't seem to scratch the itch.
Then, one fine day I came across this site, Atomic Rocketships of the Space Patrol.
After series of rather bizarre web searches that I'll not go into, I found my Mecca. I spent more than a few work hours
file_22 reading this site while waiting for code to compile or database jobs to complete -- I'm a software engineer on a hardware development and manufacturing team -- and what I found on this site truly blew my mind. The concepts this guy was espousing were just so different than other stuff I'd read about writing and producing science fiction.
A couple of notes about the site itself:
I don't know that this will have any impact on your games or play style or anything, but there's a meme-comic on the Preliminary Notes page with the caption, "Science: because figuring things out is always better than making s**t up."
For me, I started looking at my science fiction gaming a lot differently after reading this site and I'll warn you, once you read the Common Misconceptions session, you may have a hard time using some of the tropes you may have become accustomed to over the years.
I hope you all enjoy it, and I hope that it can provide some fodder for discussion.
-Carl
Back when I started my T5 Beta game, I became interested in building a more realistic Sci-Fi setting. I wanted to design new, better ships that reflected real-world design principles, took physics into account and generally would lend themselves to providing a strange newness. Naturally, I started looking at naval vessels and various aircraft, but they just didn't seem to scratch the itch.
Then, one fine day I came across this site, Atomic Rocketships of the Space Patrol.
After series of rather bizarre web searches that I'll not go into, I found my Mecca. I spent more than a few work hours
file_22 reading this site while waiting for code to compile or database jobs to complete -- I'm a software engineer on a hardware development and manufacturing team -- and what I found on this site truly blew my mind. The concepts this guy was espousing were just so different than other stuff I'd read about writing and producing science fiction.A couple of notes about the site itself:
- I have no connection with the author at all. This is simply a cool site I came across one day.
- Navigation is a little tricky due to some questionable site-design choices, but I figure if you're in the T5 forum, you're not going to get stymied by that.
- Start with the Preliminary Notes section.
- If you're looking for something to turn your sci-fi game on its head, go to the Common Misconceptions section. This was the first page I read and I was hooked.
I don't know that this will have any impact on your games or play style or anything, but there's a meme-comic on the Preliminary Notes page with the caption, "Science: because figuring things out is always better than making s**t up."
For me, I started looking at my science fiction gaming a lot differently after reading this site and I'll warn you, once you read the Common Misconceptions session, you may have a hard time using some of the tropes you may have become accustomed to over the years.
I hope you all enjoy it, and I hope that it can provide some fodder for discussion.
-Carl
