Re: GURPS Current conversions and a revision

David Starner wrote:

> Actually, I agree that 2 dozen intellegent lifeforms on one planet is too
> much. But this is space. There is a whole universe to explore. There really
> should be more than just 5 races in space. One sphere, one race is an
> interesting idea. But why should each of those spheres have as its only
> spacefaring race one of the five.

I picked those five as the most "consistant".  You can add as many as
you want.  I think some of them are really too weird to exist outside of
a fevered game designers mind.

> Anyway, Isaac Asimov's Foundation series had serveral different species:
> robots, humans, an intellegent planet, Solarians. In fact, his races were
> much more diverse races than the 5 you picked.

Hmm, tentacled psionics, humans, nature freaks, brontophiles, midgets
from chaos.  I agree, they must be from a cookie cutter  :)  I don't
know about the planet, but everything came from the humans except for
that.  It was all about the cultural differences, and the internal
consistancy that made his characters alive and different, not just
making them "men in costumes".

If you could explain with vermissiltude the whys and hows of beholders,
I have no objection to their inclusion, or any other.  I simply think
that many players mistake "new" with progress.  With a handful of races,
a GM could make an epic campaign.  Too often, he wastes or neglects
material.

But this is more of a GM problem then a specific spelljammer one.  I
would just change my campaign a little bit.

If a race had a sphere initially, but no space flight, they could easily
have at least a few of their members be enslaved by the more advanced
(look at Africa).  This gives the diversity you crave but having the
races forcibly co-mingled, but still is a rational explaination of why
this happened.


> Also with differing opinion.
> David Starner - deos@????.net
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