David’s Comments (group member since Dec 15, 2010)

David’s comments from the Spinward Fringe - The Official Group group.

Currently the most common place for us to hang out is in the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/spinw... . There has been discussion of a dedicated forums, with Goodreads recent acquisition by another company, and the changes on Facebook that are not always for the best. With that said, the FB group is the most common area for you to find us.

Well you have engines, life support, engineering bays, you have to have all the ammo stored somewhere, it's not feasible to just generate all your railgun ammo only when you're in a firefight - it would reduce your power levels which could be used for many other things (I'll leave this one vague). You would also need storage space for your fighters, manufacturing bays to make your replacement parts, all of which then need more storage bays to keep equipment, or store it for later assembly. You've got massive areas for capacitors (energy storage), and operating areas for the crew themselves. It's nominal crew was much higher than 200 before all the automation, they were basically running a "skeleton crew" for a ship that size. Randy delves a bit into this in some of the later Spinward Fringe broadcasts.

Spoiler warning: I can't wait to see what happens in Broadcast 7. (in an attempt to limit spoiler) What will happen when they find "Francis" contained near the medical conference room Ashley was in... How will "Francis"'s organization react to the cat being let out of the bag, items released, and secrecy broken?

Good enough for me! Bring on more books! :)

Possible spoilers: I want more info on Expansion Age, and the other ages in Timeline form if you have timeline available. Also, the *main* forces out there, Carthans, etc - any further info / mini-histories?

Not bad... more more more!!! :D
and good price on the stock art

Charlie, thanks for the input, I'll definitely be looking hard at the GURPS templates as soon as I get some time to see how they play together. While I've known about them for years, I've never been able to get a group together to play. I've played Battle Tech and it's modules (Aero Tech, City Tech, etc, etc), Mechwarrior, AD&D (from original redbox basic through the recently released redbox 4e Essentials pack), and Shadowrun (from 2e to 4e).

I had seen a picture of a girl in "space combat armor". Wouldn't be a stretch to see her look like Stephanie Vega. I'll look around and see if it still exists. Unfortunately I couldn't find who actually did the photo.

Good and bad news then, good that you were able to see before having to buy into it, and bad that it's unlikely to have this as an alternative if needed. No use using if it's no where near the quality we all want.

Information submitted, we don't have to show our long division work do we? :D (I've had to deal with some of the Canadian Air Permit people in my line of work, and they can be downright "needy")

Great way to issue in 2011, and I believe I speak for all the readers who are anxiously awaiting the next broadcasts, and hoping for new readers to come in and share in this amazing world you've created!
DS

Glad everyone is stopping by and letting themselves be known! Make sure to view all the threads available in the group discussions and comment there as well!! I'd love more input for the RPG conversion side if anyone plays.

Randy,

I'll see what I can do to come up with some drilling rig and military ship general arrangements.

DS

Mike,

For other sci-fi, a decent read I recently read was Jack Campbell's "Lost Fleet" series. Decent characters, I particularly liked the fleet battles descriptions and tactical maneuvers.

For Audiobook format, some of the best I've heard so far is the pair that did the readings for the "Wheel of Time" series for Robert Jordan. Their names are: Kate Reading & Michael Kramer. Excellent reading, they voiced a little different for each character, and really brought you into the story on a whole other level. Was excellently done, and I'd recommend them. As to what they make, etc, have not a clue.

For film - I'm biased towards animated as you get exactly what you want from the characters and backdrops, etc. However I know this throws off some of the viewing populace for some reason I can't fathom. As long as it's decently done animation (Anime studios like Sunrise's "PlanetES"; or Gonzo's "Full Metal Panic"); Dreamworks Entertainment's "Wall-E", etc); or the people who did
"Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within"; or Satelite who did "Macross Zero: OVA" (search this and watch the animation for ep 1, it's AMAZING, very realistic) then most shouldn't have a problem. On the other hand real-life actors you have contracts and other stuff to iron out, overall you're looking about the same either way, and a lousy actor/actress pick can cripple a film instantly for many viewers.

Patrick,

I know Randy had some audio track notes as to which songs were inspirational to the books and which sections. I will try and find and post the link to that when I find time if Randy doesn't beat me to it.

One of the few authors that have drawn me into a series as Randy has done has been Kim Harrison's (Pseudonym from Dawn Cook) "The Hollows" series which begins with "Dead Witch Walking" published in 2004. Available as an eBook, as well. I got my copy when Barnes & Noble offered it for free, and was instantly hooked, excellent series.

No problem Randy! Just trying to garner interest, and by no means will this limit the RPG works to anything listed here as concrete. We all know this is pre-Alpha works and can change wildly in any direction at any time. Just figured to bypass the AD&D type learning curve they had with 3E rules that were horribly bad then eclipsed by (with much player interaction) 3.5E rules. And they didn't learn with the introduction of 4E, which was nearly immediately overwritten by the much more popular 4E "Essentials" build.
Would rather hash with the other potential players and ideas ahead of time to come out with a great product than release something that no one wants to play because it is either too difficult, or so rigid that you need 500 rulebooks to play.

Joe,
The First book is free, and can be downloaded (newest versions always at Smashwords first) here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
Link copy/pasted from the Freebies thread for you.

David

Quickie .... Isn't this what your editor warned you about being brought out of context? =)

Aside from that, question on Ashley: Will we be seeing her off-ship more in Broadcast 7 (aka *mini-spoiler* the Bikini scene *end mini-spoilder*)?

After Broadcast 7 (end of "Season" for practical reasons), we should have a wide enough amount of data to begin to change the multi-verse over to a playable format.

Want to hear your input on this. Randy most likely has a lot of ideas, and I want to see what the community is really looking for.

Some of the questions off the top of my own head:
Q1) Would you rather make your own characters, or would you rather go the more storyline approach?
A1) I'd rather make my own character and play with a group of like minded people, but my experience I would also like 1 or 2 person games (1 player with multi-characters & 1 Game Master to set the scene and be the NPCs, etc). I can see the reason behind the storyline, but everyone would want to play a specific person, and this could lead to unhappy players, which we'd obviously want to avoid.

Q2) If you want to make your own characters, what Abilities would you want:
Examples:
Strength (physical)
Constitution (health, endurance)
Dexterity (coordination, agility, balance)
Intelligence (how well you learn and reason)
Wisdom (common sense, self-discipline, empathy)
Charisma (force of personality, leadership)
Others??
A2) I'd like to see Galactic Karma: add 1 dice per level, or adjusted per Major action moves (add Karma points for good deeds (freed slaves), or remove Karma points for evil deeds (took the slaves and sold to highest bidder) - I'm thinking maybe each point would be able to re-roll a lousy die roll - 3 dice max per roll, up to 9 total dice re-rolled per encounter, and once exhausted, wait X real hours or next game session to renew back to normal)

Q3) Alignment
A3) ... most are indifferent. Could be either way, and could be set towards the Galatic Karma ability if used. Discuss.

Q4) Gameplay. Need lots of discussion, if we go this route, we want to make this fun to play for all involved. How do you want to play. Card game? Pen / Paper standard w/ GM map and players with hand sketches? Minifigure game w/ hex or squares (hex works better if facing rules are in effect)? What dice to play with - multi 6 sided dice, or 4/6/8/10/12/20 sided standards?
A4) I want your input.

Q5) Bases of Operation. We'll most likely have a few options to start with, did you start from a coreward planet and... or where your character starts in the universe and areas to be developed.
A5) Discuss. I used to have an old computer game for flight sim - you were introduced to an area that needed cleansing, but you were part of an expeditionary force. You had limited equipment, limited ammo, limited funds. From that you did your missions, and based on your missions, what you used in ammo, fuel, repairs for fleet, and orders for new equipment & replacements you could increase the base and grow. Eventually could operate a new FOB (Forward Operating Base) and expand (RE: Samson as small base, then they took over the Triton which was a huge step up, allowed more profitable runs, but more dangerous, could also (as of broadcast 6 publish) run small side encounters with the smaller ships while operating the Capital ship.

Q6) Galactic Map as a 2-D poster.
A6) I know I'd LOVE one, and could be used to help denote corp / government / (other) faction boundries, could be used to make "hop" plans for travel, allowing distance to be calculated and time between to continue (repairs done while in hyper-transit, etc). Lots of possibilities.

Q7) Ships.
A7) LOOT!! Gotta love it. What types of ships, character starters, up the chain to Capital types, including fleet auxilliaries (cargo/fuel/food) to escorts.

Q8) Cargos
A8) When you pop or tackle something in space, and you're able to make it away... what did you capture?

Q9) Equipment
A9) Personal and fleet equipable items

Q10) Battle.
A10) I would love a mix of battles, some could be space based (grab and go's), some could be grab and tag (would use ship layout grid maps), planetside maps for port side captures.

Discuss.

Hey, I'm David from over on the FB forums and discussion boards. Have 2 kids who I'm trying to get to read (age 6 and 10.5 months currently Dec 2010) and am introducing to the wonderful world of RP Gaming. I've played D&D in most of the iterations for over 27 years, and multiple other systems throughout the years.
I first picked up Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins (older version) while I was in Africa on business. I needed something to read, and it was free. Can't get any better than that. I love sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, etc, and the book just absolutely blew the doors off all the competing books out there. I love the story, the backgrounds, and characters. In August 2010 I was diagnosed with cancer and while in isolation for treatment I purchased and read the released set (up to Broadcast 5 at that point) 4 full times. Upon receiving my copy of Broadcast 6 when it came out, I was able to find some editing issues and relayed them to Randy to be fixed in a future edit. He was greatful for the help as I found he was doing all his own work! How amazing!!!
I've since offered my help once Broadcast 7 comes to life and readers everywhere are immersed into the Season Finale, so to say to assist in jumping media format and bring the books to life into the RPG format. I've already a few alpha play-testers who'd be willing to play through what we come up with, and I'm been badgering to get and read the books prior to any playtesting.
Looking forward to the new Broadcast 7 soon, and write on, Master-Story-Teller Lalonde!