 April 13, 2013 - 3:06pm | So Issue 4 of Frontier Explorer has hit and presumably some of you have had a chance to read it. Perhaps you noticed the the article on Morgaines World which is a "cultural perspective" What exactly is a cultural perspective? Its sort of a planetary brief from the player's side of the gaming table. It deals with all the same information as a planetary brief but is not concerned with the things a referee is concerned with ie whats there, what might happen there and rooting and grounding an adventure there. Instead its concerned with helping a player root and ground his player character background in that location. Since it deals with all the same information as a planetary brief it only occurred to me as issue 4 was going to print that i could have been thorough and done the planetary brief as well sort of a Morgaines World with referee section and player section. Although any halfway creative referee really ought to be able to run an adventure by the seat of his pants with only having read the cultural perspective. I for one believe I could abstract a lot just from the Morgaine's World article without a detailed planetary brief if i needed to use the planet as a referee (but then I wrote the article so maybe that's just me.) I've been considering future writing projects of this sort and it seems to me that there are actually more players than referees and thus cultural perspectives should be in higher demand than planetary briefs. Morgaine's world was actually fairly straight forward and no doubt other worlds might be more complicated due to multiple species calling it home- i can see a multi racial world having separate treatments or paragraphs covering the culture of the different species. I'd love some feed back on this. Do you consider a cultural perspective more or less half finished if the author neglects doing a detailed planetary brief or do you prefer a the short abstract article that essentially allows each referee to abstract the details they need within a broad frame work laid out by the perspective. What other sorts of cultures in the frontier would you like to see treatments for? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 14, 2013 - 1:19pm | I like the GM's section and player's section idea. That way players can ignore the mechanical aspects and focus on playing the role. I don't think you need information for each species. The racial write-up of the species should provide such. A write-up on a planet should only involve its geology, weather, available terrains, astronomical relevance within its system, significance to the Frontier, ovarching culture and the societal relationships between its races. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
April 14, 2013 - 4:33pm | Ok Ascent, you threw out a lot of topics that should be covered I'll have to digest those, any critique, good or bad of the recent Morgaine's World article? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 15, 2013 - 1:47pm | The article was fine. Considering the details regarding the clothing, boots and knives, I think a separate article was probably best. That said, perhaps we can vew such articles in a database or encyclopedic format. In a database, you will get the basic data for the planet, then it touches on cultural specifics, it wills say something like "See Morgaine's World Economy" or "See Morgaine's World Society and Cultures". So the articles could easily be handled separately, because the more you include in an article, the longer it is, so we have to be selective about what is included in a single article. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
April 15, 2013 - 4:12pm | The article was fine. Considering the details regarding the clothing, boots and knives, I think a separate article was probably best. That said, perhaps we can vew such articles in a database or encyclopedic format. In a database, you will get the basic data for the planet, then it touches on cultural specifics, it wills say something like "See Morgaine's World Economy" or "See Morgaine's World Society and Cultures". So the articles could easily be handled separately, because the more you include in an article, the longer it is, so we have to be selective about what is included in a single article. Cue malcadon and the wiki. I have participated in the wiki but it sort of drops off my radar. I'm probably more of a magazine guy as I believe that will be a more lasting contribution to the game in the long run. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 15, 2013 - 11:06pm | I actually meant that figuratively. By separating the articles, it treats it as a separte page in a database. If you put all that information into a single article with the usual brief, it would be a little too long and it wouldn't feel cohesive. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
April 16, 2013 - 1:09am | I actually meant that figuratively. By separating the articles, it treats it as a separte page in a database. If you put all that information into a single article with the usual brief, it would be a little too long and it wouldn't feel cohesive. I think they do need to be treated as separte articles but if you were writing one you could write the other and then just present them side by side. On the other hand its occured to me that a cultural perspectives on cultures that are not tied to very specific setting locations would be handy: vrusk trade houses or "belters"- miners and rock hounds, I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 16, 2013 - 10:03am | Of course. And, that too.  View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
 April 19, 2013 - 9:29pm | [Cue malcadon and the wiki. I have participated in the wiki but it sort of drops off my radar. I'm probably more of a magazine guy as I believe that will be a more lasting contribution to the game in the long run.[/quote] Jedion, I agree with you on the magazine being a longer lasting media. It seems that with websites disappearing and such, that the ezine lasts longer. as long as people have downloaded it and we keep it free, it should always be available one way or another. |
April 20, 2013 - 5:43am | Jedion, I agree with you on the magazine being a longer lasting media. It seems that with websites disappearing and such, that the ezine lasts longer. as long as people have downloaded it and we keep it free, it should always be available one way or another. My belief that a free ezine will last longer is predicated on the fact that out of print RPG products keep making their way to sights like Scribd.com and others and that periodically the IP holder instructs the site to take them down but that the same document inevitably makes its way back onto the site. As long as there is an internet and these sites maintain a viable business model they will persist and if a free ezine is on them it will persist long after the time that any SF site I'm paying for goes away. Dont get me wrong, I'm not saying that there isn't a value to actual fan sites because there is, I'm just gambling that there is greater longevity to a zine. Plus I might actually put on my resume my work on ezines but not creating fan web sites. So for me the magazine are totally "added value". The value of fan sites starts with a site like this one where the community can congregate and talk, chat, develope and share ideas. this is important. it builds community and should one member drop out another usually takes their place. it makes possible for someone that drops off the radar to come back and pick up where they left off. A personal fan site is great as it creates a presence on the web and becomes a place to visit but should the personality behind it drop off the web and it goes un funded then it disappears. If you look at the SF sites in the early days of the internet you had the list serv and personal sites, much of that stuff is gone. Sure the list serv archives linger here and there but they are a pian in the butt to read through now. so while I participate in the SF-UN yahoo group, its really just the new incarnation of the old list serv and 10 years from now who is going to go back and read its archives? its purely about a conversation for today. there are some personal websites around now and they are interesting to visit but they are not cornerstones to the community. sorry if you are one of the people maintaining one I just dont see the impact being much more then they were 13-15 years ago. they are great for a time but they are prone to disappearing. many of the early ones were actually free sites that got set up at .edu locations and persisted their for a long time, probably longer then the person that set them up was at that institution but all things come to an end. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
