--- In , "James" <gypsycomet@...> wrote:
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> Hard Times is a great setting except for its placement in a continuing downward spiral. While the New Era allows for PCs to be significant just doing what PCs do, to have a major effect during HT you had to be a superhero.
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Actually I liked Hard Times because I felt the PC's could be much more significant players than in the Rebellion or in the CT eras. There was just so much crashing down in Hard Times that you really had to do some brutal picking and choosing about where you made a difference.
TNE fell so far that there was just about no other way but up. Hard Times could and was still a ways from the bottom.
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> > I don't think the virus was the main reason for the upheaval. Remember TNE was GDW's best selling game. The main reason for the upheaval was the end of the empire. had you ended it in any other way with more or less the same result it would still be flame wars.
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> Yes and no. I was witness to the TML's screaming fits. The TNE specific fits were almost entirely about the technical impossibility of Virus. Without it, whatever other cause or result GDW used to bring the Rebellion to a close would have seen complaints, but would probably not have been anywhere near as loud, angry, or divisive as Virus proved to be.
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My understanding was people utterly refused to suspend disbelief about Virus and it went downhill from there.
Matt