Re: [HoE] Re: Tech Level

[Richard Petska <ripper@gpcom.net>]

At 09:36 AM 12/21/98 EST, you wrote:
>1. Once the Ghost Rock bomb was invented, Mad Scientists were not getting any
>further help.  They accomplished their goal.  If anything, the manitous would
>have hindered any further developements (except for improvements on the
bomb).

See earlier post.

>2. The players have to relate to whatever technology level you use, and
the GM
>has to run it.  The amount of advancement which could be possible is really
>beyond our ability to imagine.  Do you think anyone in 1898 had any reference
>for what the world was is like today?  By keeping the tech level at near
>current day, you avoid having to re-invent every little thing your players
are
>going to touch.  Otherwise you spend more time dealing with the tech than you
>do playing the game, and that will kill an RPG faster than anything else.

This I can, at least partly, agree with.  It is much easier to roleplay
when you don't have to explain every little item.  But they could have
upped the tech a few notches, and it wouldn't have been that hard to
describe.  Case in point, a laser pistol.  All I have to do is say it, and
most people have a pretty good idea what it is.  Nice thing about
roleplayers is they have a greater pool of knowledge to draw from, because
they tend to read more, watch more sci-fi movies etc.  Anyway, you get the
idea.

>3. Ok, there are three points.  The last production line (with one or two
>exceptions) stopped thirteen years before.  Most things are busted or very
>fragile with a scarcity of replacement parts.   Electrical power is going to
>be rare, so most tech goes right out the window.  And yes, I know that there
>are generators and junker devices, but they are going to be rare as well --
>you have to find it, you have to fix it, and you have to feed it.  Ghost rock
>doesn't grow on trees.

Once again, I pretty much agree with you.  My original point, though not
well stated, wasn't that the HoE world wasn't at the proper tech level now,
but before the Apocalypse.  In some ways, the world was very advanced, in
others, it doesn't seem to have moved up almost at all (weapons being the
main area).

Anyway, I don't mean to nitpick so much, this is just something that
bothers me.  I am going to run the game as is, it's one of the best
Post-Apocalyptic games I've seen.


Cthulhu for President -- 
for when you're tired of choosing the _lesser_ of the two evils.

Richard Petska
ripper@gpcom.net