Re: (TFT) In defense of Geekyness.

[Christopher Fuhrman <fuhrman8or@yahoo.com>]

I agree with Justin's comment in the sense that a fantasy world is
for many types of players. One person's passion for gravity or
astronomy may not necessarily be shared by the average player. Or,
like my dad once said when I asked too many practical questions about
a James Bond film as a kid: "It's a James Bond film! Hard to enjoy if
you have to explain everything scientifically!"

Overcomplicated combat rules can also be a symptom of too much
geek-esterone, too.

That said, I read Larry Niven's Ringworld around the same time I
started playing TFT in the early 80s. If you've never read the
Ringworld series, and you're intrested in the Cidri thread, then I
recommend the books to you. Just from the standpoint of scale, the
books are interesting. If I recall correctly, on the Ringworld, there
were to-scale (flattened) maps of the original planets of the
adventurers.

Getting back to the geek-factor... Here's an excerpt from the
Dedication of Larry Niven's "The Ringworld Engineers", the sequel
that he claims was written after all the scientific support (which
I'll call positive geekyness) of the first book Ringworld:

"From all directions came news of the need for attitude jets. (During
the 1971 World Science Fiction Convention, MIT students were chanting
in the hotel hallways: THE RINGWORLD IS UNSTABLE!) but it took Ctein
and Dan Alderson, working independently, several years to quantify
the instability." 

Also, there are some references on wiki if you're in search of ideas
for Cidri:

Ringworld: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RingWorld
Dyson Sphere: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DysonSphere

--- Dan Tulloh <dwtulloh61@cox.net> wrote:
> Yeah, I concur.  I remember wanting to base the mythology 
> of my world based upon the how bright the other planets in 
> the system appeared in the sky.  Learned a lot about planetary
> magnitudes in the process.  (not as straight-forward a subject
> as you might guess - especially when you're trying to compare
> your calculations to our planetary system)
> 
> From: "Rick Smith" <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>
> Subject: (TFT) In defense of Geekyness.
> 
> 
> > Hi Justin,
> >    Tho I have warm and high regard for you,  I am afraid 
> > I must disagree with you on this one.
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