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[DL] mad science in general
"this is me ignoreing the fact that a small flame war is occuring."
The Collegium:Perils of the new Science
One might expect that we could have been happy with 1 smith and robards.
The outlay of the books tend towards the similar even if the differences are
there.
Smith and robards had some problems as a whole. It tried to do the function
of two books at once. Giving a list of in-character inventions and a really
great catalogue is exactly what smith and robards should have done. What
else did it do? It tried to explain a lot of rules inside of that space.
Vehicle rules, artillery rules, alchemy rules, an adventure, and background
on smith and robards itself.
Now this was all bad. The rules needed to be there somewhere but it's my
opinion that they should have been somewhere else. The main book would have
been the perfect place for vehicle rules and an explaination of artillery.
The cry of space limitations will be used. I only say what should have
happened not what is going to happen. In HOE the vehicle rules were saved
for a seperate book. And they did a fantastic job of fleshing them out with
enough story and detail to make the book well worth anyones time. In fact
I'd go so far as to say unless your party is walking the wasted west you
can't run a decent campaign without it.
Back to science. The colliegum rehashed the scrapper rules, added the
backstory of the colliegum to the world of the published material, and gave
us a whole new set of neat gizmos to work from when decideing what kind we
might want to invent.
But mad science still doesn't have it's own book. 2 catalogues with gaps
where the extra rules were shoved in do not make 1 splatbook. The Junkman
cometh did an admirable job when compared with smith and robards. 75% of
the book is left to helping the junker build better devices. Smith and
robards doesn't really give any new help for Mad scientists, and neither
does the collegium. Being a mad scientist requires a lot of effort from both
the player and the marshal who has one. If the MS starts with enough
gadgets that they don't need to invent then they become not much more than a
rich person with a copy of smith and robards an a lot of nearly useless
skills.
The scrapper rules were nice. I have them already. Some of the new tweaks
and revisions were much welcomed but i've not yet run a scrapper so they
don't help in the long run. I almost refuse to run mad scientists because
every player who has tried to do one well is left with a bad taste after his
first 3 week setback.
The way things should have gone in my mind would be closer to the design
quirks that were posted long long ago. That set of rules did more for my
running of MS than either of the MS guides.
I bought it anyway. I wasn't going to let it sit there and be lonely. I
may have even gotten the first copy on the list. Imagine my suprise.
So in conclusion....
Splat book for MS...I'm still waiting.
catalogues full of junk for groups that don't have a mad scientist...2
reasons that those groups don't have a MS....no splatbook
The colegium....what are you waiting for your library isn't complete without
it!
Ron C
_________________________________________________________________
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"this is me ignoreing the fact that a small flame war is occuring."
The Collegium:Perils of the new Science
One might expect that we could have been happy with 1 smith and robards.
The outlay of the books tend towards the similar even if the differences are
there.
Smith and robards had some problems as a whole. It tried to do the function
of two books at once. Giving a list of in-character inventions and a really
great catalogue is exactly what smith and robards should have done. What
else did it do? It tried to explain a lot of rules inside of that space.
Vehicle rules, artillery rules, alchemy rules, an adventure, and background
on smith and robards itself.
Now this was all bad. The rules needed to be there somewhere but it's my
opinion that they should have been somewhere else. The main book would have
been the perfect place for vehicle rules and an explaination of artillery.
The cry of space limitations will be used. I only say what should have
happened not what is going to happen. In HOE the vehicle rules were saved
for a seperate book. And they did a fantastic job of fleshing them out with
enough story and detail to make the book well worth anyones time. In fact
I'd go so far as to say unless your party is walking the wasted west you
can't run a decent campaign without it.
Back to science. The colliegum rehashed the scrapper rules, added the
backstory of the colliegum to the world of the published material, and gave
us a whole new set of neat gizmos to work from when decideing what kind we
might want to invent.
But mad science still doesn't have it's own book. 2 catalogues with gaps
where the extra rules were shoved in do not make 1 splatbook. The Junkman
cometh did an admirable job when compared with smith and robards. 75% of
the book is left to helping the junker build better devices. Smith and
robards doesn't really give any new help for Mad scientists, and neither
does the collegium. Being a mad scientist requires a lot of effort from both
the player and the marshal who has one. If the MS starts with enough
gadgets that they don't need to invent then they become not much more than a
rich person with a copy of smith and robards an a lot of nearly useless
skills.
The scrapper rules were nice. I have them already. Some of the new tweaks
and revisions were much welcomed but i've not yet run a scrapper so they
don't help in the long run. I almost refuse to run mad scientists because
every player who has tried to do one well is left with a bad taste after his
first 3 week setback.
The way things should have gone in my mind would be closer to the design
quirks that were posted long long ago. That set of rules did more for my
running of MS than either of the MS guides.
I bought it anyway. I wasn't going to let it sit there and be lonely. I
may have even gotten the first copy on the list. Imagine my suprise.
So in conclusion....
Splat book for MS...I'm still waiting.
catalogues full of junk for groups that don't have a mad scientist...2
reasons that those groups don't have a MS....no splatbook
The colegium....what are you waiting for your library isn't complete without
it!
Ron C
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com