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
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