I vaguely recall Leroy Guatney as one of those polarizing names spoken
today only in hushed tones, like Roger/Rodger Sanger, but I just think of
them like Cthulhu or Krampus.
> Ya totally lost me on "full Gautney..."
>
> -----Original Message-----
From: "Harold Hale [Traveller_TNE]"
Sent: â2/â23/â2015 3:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Re: What do Hivers know about the Droyne?
>
>
> "Duh" also gets us into areas where we can talk about priorities 20 years
> ago (e.g. how much time was wasted on "Dangerous Journey/Dimensions"
> development that could have gone to other product development that
> wouldn't have caused TSR to get all crampy and reach for their lawyers
> rather than settling for Midol...?), what freelance writer resources were
> available at the time to increase the workforce pool (people willing to
> work on the cheap, not that $20k a year wasn't an embarrassing small
> amount of money even back then), etc. It's a cool discussion to have over
> a couple of beers in 2015, but not something that's really worth going
> "full Guatney" over on the Internet anymore. Actually, one of the few
> regrets I have about that whole era (aside from almost breaking the GDW
> fax machine and running it out of paper with submissions) was spending far
> too much time *talking about* writing and not enough time actually *doing*
> it, particularly with the likes of Guatney.
>
>
>
> Of course it was always going to be impossible to come up with a book for
> designing "everything" and even more impossible to design everything
> perfectly, not even Steve Jackson Games has managed that, though lord
> knows they've probably tried at various points and had considerably more
> resources in terms of staff and such to pull it off. Really, it's a three
> part problem. Players and most GMs would have been perfectly happy with a
> catalog of "low tech" stuff that was essentially nothing more than
> everything out of T:2000, 2nd ed. re-branded for the sci-fi setting with
> some additional add-ons (rifle for your scope, longer range antennas,
> etc.). A separate catalog with high tech stuff (beyond what was presented
> in the RCES Equipment Guide) and they would have been golden. Some GMs
> like to design their own campaign critical stuff from scratch and FF&S
> does a good job there. For writers though...particularly those of us who
> wanted to get published, the details mattered. I personally went on full
> crusade about how the stellar generation system was broken and proposed
> fixes. We nagged about "nerfed" energy weapons....and M16s. Well, others
> did, I was busy designing TL 12 gauss rifle equivalents of the AK-47. It
> turned out pretty well.
>
>
>
> If it seemed like people were giving GDW way too much flak about little
> things, it was because we cared. Consider it a compliment. If TNE wasn't
> something we cared about, we could have easily joined the ranks of the
> "luddites" that thought that High Guard might have added a little too much
> complexity to their "perfect" game.
>
>
> Now see I'm off in the weeds, Droynes...hmm...yeah kinda cool.
>
>
today only in hushed tones, like Roger/Rodger Sanger, but I just think of
them like Cthulhu or Krampus.
> Ya totally lost me on "full Gautney..."
>
> -----Original Message-----
From: "Harold Hale [Traveller_TNE]"
Sent: â2/â23/â2015 3:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Re: What do Hivers know about the Droyne?
>
>
> "Duh" also gets us into areas where we can talk about priorities 20 years
> ago (e.g. how much time was wasted on "Dangerous Journey/Dimensions"
> development that could have gone to other product development that
> wouldn't have caused TSR to get all crampy and reach for their lawyers
> rather than settling for Midol...?), what freelance writer resources were
> available at the time to increase the workforce pool (people willing to
> work on the cheap, not that $20k a year wasn't an embarrassing small
> amount of money even back then), etc. It's a cool discussion to have over
> a couple of beers in 2015, but not something that's really worth going
> "full Guatney" over on the Internet anymore. Actually, one of the few
> regrets I have about that whole era (aside from almost breaking the GDW
> fax machine and running it out of paper with submissions) was spending far
> too much time *talking about* writing and not enough time actually *doing*
> it, particularly with the likes of Guatney.
>
>
>
> Of course it was always going to be impossible to come up with a book for
> designing "everything" and even more impossible to design everything
> perfectly, not even Steve Jackson Games has managed that, though lord
> knows they've probably tried at various points and had considerably more
> resources in terms of staff and such to pull it off. Really, it's a three
> part problem. Players and most GMs would have been perfectly happy with a
> catalog of "low tech" stuff that was essentially nothing more than
> everything out of T:2000, 2nd ed. re-branded for the sci-fi setting with
> some additional add-ons (rifle for your scope, longer range antennas,
> etc.). A separate catalog with high tech stuff (beyond what was presented
> in the RCES Equipment Guide) and they would have been golden. Some GMs
> like to design their own campaign critical stuff from scratch and FF&S
> does a good job there. For writers though...particularly those of us who
> wanted to get published, the details mattered. I personally went on full
> crusade about how the stellar generation system was broken and proposed
> fixes. We nagged about "nerfed" energy weapons....and M16s. Well, others
> did, I was busy designing TL 12 gauss rifle equivalents of the AK-47. It
> turned out pretty well.
>
>
>
> If it seemed like people were giving GDW way too much flak about little
> things, it was because we cared. Consider it a compliment. If TNE wasn't
> something we cared about, we could have easily joined the ranks of the
> "luddites" that thought that High Guard might have added a little too much
> complexity to their "perfect" game.
>
>
> Now see I'm off in the weeds, Droynes...hmm...yeah kinda cool.
>
>