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So, we know Sjohn did the Chelarian material (with a template by James Maliszewsky), J. Snead did the Rigelian, Rigel V, and other Rigel Sector planets stuff, and Hite was developing... what else was in the book? Who else was writing for it?
Of all the unpublished material, what I've seen has certainly been the coolest.
EDIT: Was it Sky Princes or Sky Pirates?
As Sjohn is here on the boards, we maybe know more soon :D
Robin Laws was doing some very fine setting material for some of the worlds ... I know I have copies of some of his stuff _somewhere_ but they'd be deep in the old-work-archives layered down in the substrata of zip-archives-inside-yet-more-zip-archives. If I remember later tonight I'll dig in and see if I can come up with my old assignments-list outline.
The setup was that each of the principal writers had one or more "Rigels" to call their own, and there were plenty of Rigels to go around. Part of my assignment was Rigel III, where I was building cultural info around James' material from Final Frontiers (the movie-era book) using a similar process that I used when constructing Andorian stuff around Lou Prosperi's material from Planets of the UFP ... only, much shorter and with a more obvious reference to Tarzan.
The project concept for Sky Princes was that it was to be very overtly pulpy/swashbuckly in a Burroughsy kind of way, with other influences angling in from all directions. Very cutlass-and-raygun with slinky slave girls and lots of TOS fight-theme music in our heads.
It would have been, IMO, the very finest of LUG's achievements.
Cool. I'll mention it next game (I think i bring it up yearly @__@).Quote:
Originally Posted by Sjohn
What was the other part?Quote:
The setup was that each of the principal writers had one or more "Rigels" to call their own, and there were plenty of Rigels to go around. Part of my assignment was Rigel III,
My actual pulp-knowledge is sadly limited. Is it the expedition-leader son?Quote:
What was the where I was building cultural info around James' material from Final Frontiers (the movie-era book) using a similar process that I used when constructing Andorian stuff around Lou Prosperi's material from Planets of the UFP ... only, much shorter and with a more obvious reference to Tarzan.
I want to make a comment about 24th century Rigel involving the other Burroughs, but I don't know how to frame it...Quote:
The project concept for Sky Princes was that it was to be very overtly pulpy/swashbuckly in a Burroughsy kind of way, with other influences angling in from all directions. Very cutlass-and-raygun with slinky slave girls and lots of TOS fight-theme music in our heads.
It totally looks like it.Quote:
It would have been, IMO, the very finest of LUG's achievements.
What's wrong with bringing a cutlass to a phaser fight. I would love to see the reaction of your enemies, when they see the an enhanced cutlass, absorb an energy hit . . . then see his buddy get hacked at. Not that that would happen much . . . but why does everyone dislike cutlasses?!?
If I ever get in the situation, which is highly unlikely, I would love to lead a mechanized cavalry charged with a Saber . . . much like a pilot who would bring a neckscarf for the feel of it . . . :D
I'm sorry, straying off topic.
When the dude who's castle you're storming pulls out some weird ancient golden sphere and sucks the power out of everything in a hundred-km radius, all your dudes are going to wish they brought some pointy swords.Quote:
Originally Posted by JALU3
The wildly variable tech levels would do a lot to make sure you look for the most reliable pieces of equipment...
See below :)Quote:
Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King
Yes. It's not a 100% note-for-note summary of the Tarzan story, but it's meant to evoke it shamelessly.Quote:
My actual pulp-knowledge is sadly limited. Is it the expedition-leader son?
Anyway, I looked up my old documents.
I misremembered about Robin being on this one, and it's not the first time (it's not a memory thing ... I've been mixing it up since back when it was current events)! I misremembered some other bits, too ... Here's the real actual deal:
The actual primary writer (who I have unfairly re-cast as Robin Laws fort he nth time) was Jim Cambias, with about 40% of the total writing workload and final call on details, right under [developer] Ken Hite. Jim was going to do history and nearly ALL of the many Rigel planets, although most would be given only thumbnail descriptions of a few hundred words (or less) apiece. The three main supporting writers were Deirdre Brooks, John Snead and S. John Ross (yours truly), each of whom had specific focus projects .... Deirdre had the largest of these: the shady Orions; John Snead had both Rigel V [the Vulcanoid Rigelians] and general sector info; and I had both Rigel III and a detailed adventuring location on Rigel VII: the "Fortress of the Emerald Overlord," which was Kenneth Hite's name for the Orion fortress from "The Menagerie" (my "Cobalt Blue" Star Trek page retains a picture of said fortress in the page logo). The book would have also featured system-crunchy goodies from LUG core writers Ross Isaacs (pulling together the character-creation chapter from everyone else's scattered templates and notions) and Steve Long (doing starships, of course, because that's why the universe produced Steve Long).
The four worlds that would be detailed beyond the thumbnail stage were Rigel III (S. John - 3,000 words), Rigel IV (Cambias - 3,000 words), Rigel V (Snead - 3,000 words), and Rigel VII or "Orion" (Cambias - 6,000 words). Obviously, if you add up all the numbers, "Sky Princes of Orion" was _very_ much about Orion and the Sky Princes thereupon, with Orion given the largest world writeup, a very substantial cultural writeup (a big 17,600 words by Brooks), and even a detailed adventuring locale (my "Emerald Fortress" section was slated for more than 8,000 words, plus isometric map ala Castle Ravenloft). There were other miscellaneous sections, of course (anomalies, politics, etc), but all related back to the stuff above.
The final title was planned to be a 160pp hardcover with 32pp full-color section (the rest in 2-color) and foldout map sheets (Rigel VII on one side, the Fortress of the Emerald Overlord on the other). Ken's Hollywood summary of the project was "Casablanca" meets "Barsoom."
Some of this material (from John Snead and myself) have made their way onto the 'Net. Some of it (including the fortress, and Deirdre's stuff) fell on the other side of the axe and wasn't completed in any publishable form. I'm not 100% sure about the bulk of the book - the Cambias material. I have _some_ of it right here on my hard drive (including what looks like the complete Astropolitics, History and Campaigning sections), but I suspect some of it must have remained unfinished, since we were right in the middle of this one when everything just ... stopped.
:(
There. My memory is repaired, and your curiosity is both sated and cruelly, retroactively teased.
My confusion re Robin Laws involves the groovy setting material he _was_ doing at the time, for the Cardassian project (I don't recall if it was a book or box).
Whoa, thanks.
It's the day after Valentine's–I think everyone's inured to a little teasing at this point. What're the other authors' views on releasing the unpublished material? Finished or otherwise.
In general, I'll have to let them speak up on that themselves, if they're tuning in.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King
I do have one tidbit to offer, however: Deirdre Brooks gave me permission last year to publish her drafts for the movie-era sourcebook on my "Untaken Treks" pages, and I've been meaning to get around to it, but work (and my regular campaigns) nibble away at my website time. Being nudged back in here has reminded me that I really should get around to it, like now-ish. Some good stuff in there; her assignments on that included the Khan background/Eugenics Wars material.
So, expect that within a matter of weeks at most, or days if I can manage it.
I may also publish the one semi-solid scrap of my own LUG work that isn't on the site yet, because it actually predates my public involvement with LUG. In an odd bit of irony, I was actually the original writer assigned both Andoria and Tellar in "Planets of the UFP," but I had to bow out due to other work. I recently ran across my original (incomplete) drafts, including a readable fragment of my take on Tellar.
Cool. New stuff. Or at leas "new" to most of us. ::cool:
And it's nice to see Sjohn posting again. :) :)
That's cool.
I don't know how many visit the site regularly any more–it's been a while for everyone. I think the last time Steve's been around was the last SRM release (*cough cough*), Snead's stuff is on RPG.net (I think you've seen it?). About Brooks and Cambias, you'd know better than I...
Quite true,Quote:
Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King
It is a shame, too. The board used to really be something, with lots of good ideas and discussions on all sorts of things going on all the time. What waqs so great was that the people of both sides of an issue usually had good points to make, were civil, and we could interact with the authors. IMO this was one of the best, if not the best, forum for discussiong Trek and/or RPG stuff.
Few places I've been to on-line even come close to what this place was like back in it's heyday. Here7s hoping that more of the ol' gang start posting again.
That sounds really interesting, actually... is this the 'mafia planet' version?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sjohn
It's from the same time as that, though (being Tellar) it isn't that :)Quote:
Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King
Heh, I meant the version of Andoria... did Tellar have a 'thing'? I mean, we know their personalities, but did Tellarites have an underlying 'theme' to them the same way the Andorians seemed to? I've always been interested in the creative decisions behind the LUG version, because of design choices like the ones they took with the 'core federation members.'Quote:
Originally Posted by Sjohn
Well, only the core designers could really tell you that ... Apart from Ross Isaacs telling me "The Tellarites are our Dwarves," at one point, I wasn't privy to the core design decisions, all of which predated my involvement by a year or more.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King
I know what you mean; I'm the same way. It's why I'm a sucker for Designer's Notes articles; I wish they hadn't fallen out of fashion. :/Quote:
I've always been interested in the creative decisions behind the LUG version, because of design choices like the ones they took with the 'core federation members.'
That would be cool to read, especially after some of the discussions we had a few years back about Andorians.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sjohn
If it were cool to read, I would have posted it years ago. :) Honestly, it's nothing much at all ... I just found it while rummaging for the Sky Princes stuff, so I figure what-the-heck-let's-be-a-completist.Quote:
Originally Posted by Capt. K. Vaughn
It's not of much interest in terms of LUG canon, either, since it's unrelated to any LUG material except the original Tellarite thumbnail description from the TNG core.
As "missing" material goes, it's about as thrilling as a "special extended episode" extended by 2.4 seconds because the camera lingers on someone scratching their nose.
I agree and wholehardly concur. ;) :D :cool: :)Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyg
One never knows what little tidbit another might find inspirational... :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Sjohn
Amen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sjohn
As a GM, I found it much easier to run something or interpret a rule when I had a clue as to what the designer had in mind rather than just the game mechanics. I recall one topic on here a long time back when Don Mappin and myself completely disagreed about a rule, but we both made our decisions for essentially the same reason. He had used rule A to prevent situation X, while my style of GMing prevented situation X in another way, so I eliminated rule A--or vice versa. We both had the same end goal in mind, but just choose different methods of achieving it. Once we understood what they other guy was trying to do, and how, we ended up in agreement.
Knowing why a certain rule exists really helps in deciding if it is something that can be dropped or modified, and what problems might arise from doing so.
Absolutely, or as I like to put it: "Motive is half the crime." :)Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyg
Inexplicably, the other half is some sort of pan-cake.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sjohn
Only if they are hot-cakes, although that would most likely be the work of a cereal killer. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King
So... any news?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sjohn
Not yet, alas. Soon, though. Digging myself out of some of the map-work for Medieval France.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King
The map is not the territory–UNTIL YOU FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE LIVING GOD!Quote:
Originally Posted by Sjohn
Does he enjoy manually pasting in accented letters in Illustrator? Because if he does, and works cheap, he's got a job :)Quote:
Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King
Maybe he doesn't, but I do. : dQuote:
Originally Posted by Sjohn
Wow! S. John's back!
*Queeg waves*
How go the Fire Eaters? I am/was one, once upon a time. Kinda fell out of the loop a couple years back! :eek:
Cheers,
LQ
You know, it's been over a year, and I've checked S. John Ross' site on and off since then, but still I've yet to see Deidre Brooks' movie era material... ;)
I don't know if the talented Mr. Ross actually still cruises the Trek RPG forums, but if he does, I hope that he sees this post and remembers where that stuff is so that he can post it and we can all see it. :)
mactavish out.
I think this one got forgotten ! :)
Perhaps I can ressurrect this thread? I'm interested in a TOS-era or pre-TOS Pike-era campaign and the Sky Princes material would be really cool to see. I found some dead links on SJohn's site. Anybody have any ideas?
I've put up a little material on Orions, updated for Enterprise, on my page... Click on the Triangle tab, then select the Turnstile section...
http://www.coldnorth.com/owen/game/s...0sun/index.htm
Ressurect away ! This stuff looked good. Got my hopes up for more after the first batch.Quote:
Originally Posted by HeirophantX