How would you ReWrite Phase world?

[gaby]

How would you ReWirte Phase world?

What from canon would you keep?

What would you changed?

[taalismn]

Given your own strong interest in the setting, I'd be interested in hearing your opinions to those questions set forth first, as the basis of future discussion. I imagine you have some strong opinions/ideas, so feel free to express them.

[Glistam]

How would you ReWirte Phase world?

With a pencil.

[drewkitty ~..~]

The one thing that pops into mind is to rewrite the Phantom Racial text. Fixing the parts that something was left out of.

Of the thing I'd change in the 3G books would be to add in a starship construction tables like the ones in the AU:GG book.

[Greepnak]

Codify differrent types of energy weapons and their unique behavior (this is houseruled in my game so laser and ion are differrent from plasma etc so there's a reason to use them over just author flavor)

Flesh out the cosmic forge and the cosmo knights. I'd like a canon truth that I could then spin or ignore as I saw fit. Also explain what makes cosmos so amazing when really, they're either a strong dungeoneer-level PC or a terribly weak space-battler pew pewed two or three times by a GR-Gun or Neutron beam.

Make the cosmo knight code less self conflicting... the mercy and fairplay tenets can fly in the face of the destroy evil stuff. Do you fall if your dragon buddy paralyzes a Demon Lord and you cosmic blast his head off his shoulders?

I'd put the Three Galaxies and Center in the same universe as Rifts Earth for simpler cosmology.

[glitterboy2098]

redo the space movement system to be more inertia based, and weapons ranges appropriately to match.
include some rules for reaction drive type ships so you can have actual technological level diversity (ala babylon 5)
rewrite the technobabble for contragravitic drives and other related technologies to be less idiotic and problematic.

include a lot more civilian ships and technology.

[DhAkael]

Much as I hate to jump on these band wagons, I think I'll spout off for a moment or two.
KEEP THE SLIDE-RULE posse out of it. It's space opera, not a NASA handbook.
However, some consistancy in the technology would be nice, PLUS better editing and layout. Hmm one slide-rule-retentive point I WOULD address is the laughable ranges for beam weaponry, heck, kinetic-kill systems; even the most OUT-THERE space-opera fantasy novels still have combat conducted at the 1000 km mark for 'knife fighting' ranges.

Aside from that, yeah; fix the editing mistakes, clarify the OCCs and RCCs to bring them up to R:UE and expand on some of the material beyond maybe a paragraph.

[Natasha]

Actually, it's science fiction. Let's leave the Science Illiteracy Project out of it. Saying this kind of thing doesn't get anywhere and totally misses the point. So let's stop being dismissive of things we don't like and realise that Space Opera and Science Fiction can not only co exist, but also Space Opera is enriched. Nothing will give you consistency like solid STEM basis. Also, with his suggestion the Space Opera camp gets more cool stuff and still don't have to care about the science.....

[eliakon]

Actually, it's science fiction. Let's leave the Science Illiteracy Project out of it. Saying this kind of thing doesn't get anywhere and totally misses the point. So let's stop being dismissive of things we don't like and realise that Space Opera and Science Fiction can not only co exist, but also Space Opera is enriched. Nothing will give you consistency like solid STEM basis. Also, with his suggestion the Space Opera camp gets more cool stuff and still don't have to care about the science.....

^THIS^
I want to play Science Fiction space opera not Science Fantasy ones
So I would rather have a game system where they have at least nodding familiarity with the laws of physics and there is some attempt to have some grounding in it.
If for no other reason so that I have a baisis to start from when I have to make a ruling because my player wants to do Cool Action X and I need to extrapolate what happens. Right now I literally cant do that.

Never mind the fact that as written it takes days or weeks to cross between nearby stars, and can take months or years to cross between distant ones. I ran into this when I realized that my PW game which is a daring time crunch sensitive game... may take 20-30 years of flight time.

[glitterboy2098]

and who says a slide rule would be involved. i've actually worked up rules for all this that are plug and play with the current stats and rules. you literally only need to know how to add and subtract. don't even need a high school education, just know how to read and do basic math. even the "advanced" optional rules mostly only need a Jr High education level to use. (the exception is the travel time chart.. but that one just needs a basic scientific calculator and a 5th grade understanding of mathematics)

now, was some complex mathematics involved in creating those rules? yes. but ii simplified them down such that any gamer can use them without much more than an extra sheet of scrap paper for notes,and an extra minute or so at the start of each melee for record upkeep. and yet they open up so many possibilities for GM's and players, it is amazing.

[Greepnak]

Glitterboy I want to tell you I really appreciate those rules and the work you put into them.

[flatline]

I don't think I'd bother. As a setting, it's fine. If I were to rewrite a setting, it would be wormwood. No other Palladium setting is as interesting.

--flatline

[blainedeyoung]

I really hate the damage divided by stuff. Phase powers and cosmic knights both have MDC values but you divide all incoming damage by 4 or 10 or some factor. If you want them to astronomical hit points, why not just give them astronomical hit points? It's simpler.

[jtjr26]

The range for ship to ship combat always seemed incredible short. I mean space is big so I would think the range of weapons would be larger. In Dimension Book 3 the CCW Protector Class Battleship's main guns have a range of 100 miles in space. That seems vary short range to me. I would have main gun range at least 20000 miles and fighter craft or dog fighting range be within 1000 miles.

[Wise_Owl]

I think the biggest overall issue stems from one of competing interests. Clean up in terms of technology would be great(not listing Speeds in Mach Numbers for example...) but intrinsically there has to be some sort of balance in terms of the 'realism' of the setting and the capabilities of magic. Phase World isn't' hard, or even Soft-Science fiction, it has literal space elves and planets ruled by actual Gods. But some acknowledgement of basic Newtonian physics might be nice?

The thing that needs to be decided and implemented, to my mind, is what is the game's tone? Good Space Opera tends not to get bogged down in the specifics of technology but rather in the tonal aspects. JMS, writer of Babylon 5 famously said a Star Fury( a type of starfighter) travels at the speed of Plot, meaning that a Star Fury would arrive late if it was necessary for the plot, or on time or early. In Star Wars the specific numeric capabilities of various craft are largely irrelevant; Tie-Fighters are faster than X-Wings but blow up easier, a game needs to reflect that fiction.

Phase World obviously has a greater degree of freedom, being its own self-created 'world', but some Tone decisions would inform better choices in Mechanics and in what is presented to the players/GM. Tech assumptions can and do inform a world; that's why Star Trek is radically different from say, the Expanse, and some of these also need to be taken into consideration. Sometimes less is more;

Things I'd like? A more definitive Tech/Magic paradigm so a better sense of what different groups are capable of. This isn't a unique problem with Phase World of course. Better differentiation between different weapon types; Why use Ion guns instead of Lasers or vice-versa?