Re: (TFT) Hex and Earth LOS ranges

["Jay Carlisle" <selfinflicted_wounds@boardermail.com>]

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Craig W. Barber" <craigwbar@comcast.net>
> Useful tidbit for RPGs:
> 
> According to my old "SURVERYING" textbook (Moffitt/Bouchard. Harper and Row,
> NY):
> 

GREAT stuff Mr. Barber!
Thank You!
 
> 
> Finally, remember all the caveats available to the GM:
> 
> 1.    "Earth?  What is this Earth you speak of?"  If Cidri is a ringworld,
> then visibility is actually infinite.  (Think about cosmonauts looking down
> from LEO: it's easy to see through a rapidly thinning layer of air only a few
> miles thick.  Ditto for Louis Wu looking up at the Arch.)  This one is my
> fav.
> If Cidri is a monster sphere, then the equations need adjustment.  (Have fun.)

No kidding! Ergo my attempt to push the Cidri as Hyper-Reality (Number of the Beast, Cronacles of Amber) bit. I can even make the arguement that...
TFT ITL pg. 4
"Yet even the great Book of Maps lists 911 locations which cannot be found within the known area - including the mountain city of Paska-Dal, which (by Gate) has carried on commerce with gem merchants everywhere for at least four hundred years."

It actually reads nine hundred and eleven 'locations..' I added the 911 for emphasis. Make of it what you will... lol

> If it's flat (why not?  makes a lot more structural, dynamic and gravitational
> sense than most options) then visibility is theoretically "infinite" but
> functionally sharply limited by atmospheric scatter: 1 mile of SURFACE air
> with normal dust in it is "clear", 10 miles is misty, 100 miles of normal
> surface air is a wall.  (NOT equivalent to the cosmonauts view.)
> 2.    Not all places on Earth are perfectly spherical, in fact, even the
> oceanic surfaces have wide altitude variations due to gravitational
> anomalies.

nice point. Reminds me of the Physics joke with the farmer and the cows. Punch line; The Physicist draws a circle on the chalkboard, points to it and says, "Assume this is a cow."

> 3.    "My my my, it sure is hot today...  Hey!  The lost city is right over
> there!  Can't be more than a mile away from us!  We won't have to go very far
> into the Desert of Sure Death!"

Yeppers! It's even MORE fun to show them mathmaticly exactally HOW you killed 'em. Sorta like salt in the wound. :-)

> 4.    "It's just slightly misty.  Visible range is EXACTLY 250 megahexes.  Now
> roll 3 vs. IQ, damnit."

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

> 5.    "Sorry, General Pickett, didn't I mention that swale?"

Yes again. I do think however that there is an advantage to being on 'home ground' so to speak and so twords that end once a figure in my game gains control of a location (either directly or through a follower) then it's their responsability to keep the map. If I want to regain control of a property as GM then I have a KIND of advantage in that I have default control of the NPC's but since I advocate a limited resource system I have a limited number of people available to me as well and if I kill too many NPCs from the village (for example) then the village can't feed itself and bye bye village. If I want more people then the better I take care of them the longer their half-life, the lower their infant mortality, etc. 

Oops, I babble.

Anyway I haven't laughed that hard in a while.
Thanks.



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