The World From Monday Morning, 2001: A Bitter Odyssey

Okay, guys, I'm back! Sorry for the delay. High work load with a week and a half of vacation has generally made this posting impossible for the last month. But, I'm back now to fill your life with sunshine and happiness.

So, the thing that immediately comes to mind to bitch about this week is the airport. I had my first shitty experience at the airport. I've never been one to travel too much, but on the few times that I have my flight's generally been on time, and it was generally a decent experience. Not so this holiday season. Oh my god.

Now, this wasn't the sheer, unadulterated hell that some people have gone through. I found my eyebrows singed from the tale that a friend of mine recounted about her travel hell last week, so I almost (almost!) feel bad about bitching about this.

But I figure, hey! If I didn't bitch about my relatively trite and meaningless angst, I wouldn't be me! If I didn't whine about the plight of having to deal with Gamer Leeches while children starve in Africa, I don't think I could look at myself in the mirror in the morning.

So, my airport story.

I dutifully arrived at the airport two hours before my flight, because this is the holiday season and things generally suck. The airport apparently prefers you get your money's worth of sucktitude when you arrive.

So, I check in, and I discover that my flight has already been delayed an hour and 25 minutes. I'm thinking, "Great! I get to hang out in the airport for that much longer." Called the person in California that was going to pick me up (God bless my Working Assets long distance card.), let her know that life was going to suck for me, and got ready to wait for a while.

Spent much of that time in an airport bar, mainly because I'd never done it. Interesting place. Was amused to see an ad for the new Nine Inch Nails CD during a commercial break for a sports show. So much for targeting your audience.

So, close to the time that my flight was supposed to arrive, I hoofed it over to my gate, to find out it had been moved down a door. So, I hoofed over there, grabbed a seat, started reading a book. About the time that the plane was supposed to arrive, they announce that there was a problem with boarding gates, and that my boarding gate had been moved to the other side of the airport.

Okay, whatever, I grabbed my backpack and hoofed it over to the other side of the airport, took me about five minutes, and sat down again. I noticed that there was something wrong about this gate: It wasn't a boarding tunnel gate. This was an open door out to the airstrip, with stairs leading down. Kinda like what you get for puddle-jumper flights.

Sure enough, as time passes and the flight hasn't arrived yet, and they have everyone move to the other fucking end of the airport, back to where we were in the first place.

Wankers.

Anyway, I need to get back to work, but I'll add one last commentary: People in San Francisco are fucking psycho. Everywhere I went in that city, they had to honk their horns. Didn't matter that there was nothing the people ahead of them could do. They just had to honk their horn. People running randomly across the street. More tourists than you can shake a stick at. I'm thinking the hills in that city fucks with people's minds.

Hello and welcome to hell. Population: me.

Sorry this wasn't up last week. It was Thursday by the time I realized that I hadn't posted this, and so I figured I'd just wait till the following Monday.

So, first up, on a lighter note: Mahir has a fucking single.

You all remember Mahir, don't you? The freaky Turkish guy who has a website that proclaims that he kisses you, likes sex, and would like to invitate you to his home.

Well, he's got a fucking single. Don't "Single what?" me you dolts. A music single. A song. With a music video to go with it.

While all the rest of you had gotten over the freak which is Mahir, other people have taken the ball and fucking ran with it, including EMI records. EMI has helped him produce his song and put out a single.

They apparently took down the original site with the video. You can order the CD here though. All I can say is that it's dance music distilled down to it's most banal, with Mahir prancing about.

Next up on my shitlist: The decline of the gaming industry. I'm not talking about some sort of moral decline. I'm talking about shit just not looking pretty. It starts with Wizards of the Cost. Not that I have any particular beef with them (aside from Dalmuti's stupid beverage policy). No, in fact I buy their books, I play at their Game Center, I'm largely fine with them.

But they bought Last Unicorn Games. Which was the provider of the latest Star Trek game, and was to put out a Dune RPG. I watched their website regularly with bated breath, waiting for the official announcement of the RPG's final release.

And then Wizards of the Coast bought Last Unicorn Games. Which wasn't too bad. A little creepy, but I figured: Hey, at least they'll finally put out the fucking Dune RPG.

And then two things happened.

First, they lost they contract for Star Trek. There was a clause in the contract with Paramount Pictures that said that if Last Unicorn Games was bought by another company, and there was a conflict of interests, the licensing rights would be lost. And WotC had the Star Wars contract already. So poof goes the Star Trek roleplaying game.

Then, it turns out that WotC had over-extended themselves, and had to lay-off a shit load of people, and Hasbro decided to curtail shit, so no Dune RPG.

Which leads me to a minor side rant: People fucking assume that RPGs are big money. Fuck no. People who give out licensing agreements assume that they are going to make a shit load of money. And they won't. Hasbro probably tried to fucking compare D&D sales to Monopoly for all I know, and that's why they fucked themselves. Dolts.

Okay, back on track. So, then this Sunday was the last day of opening for Arcadia Comics and Games. A small, local owned game store. Okay for collectibles and roleplaying games, fucking excellent for renting anime. Went tits up. They had a lot of stuff working against them, and finally they just had to fold. They're filing for bankruptcy. A week or two prior, Games & Gizmos closed their Seattle store. Haven't heard why, but that's what I've heard. Two Seattle gaming stores have had to close their doors. So, the number of good gaming stores in Seattle has dropped. And that fucking sucks.

And, the fucking icing of the fucking cake. FASA is fucking closing shop. Sure, their website had a long standing tradition of being fairly useless. Which, as a small aside, I've noticed is a common trend among gaming companies. Steve Jackson Games is a minor exception, but it's still not as slick as it could be.

But anyway, their website sucked, and Shadowrun had lost a lot of the edge that it had when it first came out, but their games fucking ruled. Shadowrun was and is the coolest damn thing I've seen come out in a long time. Sure, I've had a special place down in the cockles of my heart for games like All Flesh Must Be Eaten, but really. How many times have I played AFMBE? None. I own the book. Had fun reading it. That's fucking it. How many times have I played Shadowrun? A lot. How many times have I played Earthdawn? A few. And the Battletech RPG is a long time resident of my "buy" list.

And FASA is closing it's doors. It's the end of a fucking era. The fact that the license for Shadowrun and Battletech is being sold to a company owned by the former co-founder looks dodgy, though.

So, now for my weekend. Which sucked.

Friday I come home and find that my phone doesn't fucking work. My mind was running through the possibilities. Could it be that my phone is broken? Could it be some problem with my phone bill getting paid? I was fairly paniced, no less due to the fact that (a) I was going to have a shit load of people coming to my place for the first time the next day for a game of Amber, and (b) it being Friday night, I wouldn't be able to get ahold of anyone regarding this problem if it's a billing issue until Monday. I spent a good chunk of time looking for a pay phone near my house, but couldn't find one. All because of one fucking wrong turn. God damn it.

So, the next day, I was supposed to go visit a friend whose daughter was at Children's Hospital after some surgery. Some signals were crossed, and I never got ahold of her, but my adventure at Children's Hospital was... quaint.

You see, first off, when I go to a hospital, I kinda expect there to be some main entrance where you can go in, ask, "Where can I find this patient" and then go on your merry way.

Au contraire.

First off, there's no main entrance. There's a Whale Entrance, a Train Entrance, a Balloon Entrance, etc. No main entrance. The first entrance I came to directed me to the Emergency Services entrance. Which I kinda wanted to avoid. The last thing I want to see at a hospital is a bunch of kids with nails through their head or some shit like that. But I go that way, and the door there said that that door was only for emergencies, and so I should use the door to the left.

So I go to the door to the left, and it leads me through a long series of hallways where I finally emerge in a dimly lit portion of the hospital called the anesthesia clinic. No nurses or anything at the desk. So I wander a bit, finally find this place called "Central Services". I have no idea what kind of central services they provided. It was just a couple of bored looking guys in surgical scrubs hanging out and talking about their girlfriends. But they got me connected with a directory, which transferred me three times, and finally turned up a room where my friend's daughter was located.

So I get there, and she's not there. After waiting a while, the nurses asked me what I was doing there, and I told them, and found out that she wasn't there. Oh well, time to go catch my bus to go home and get ready for all the company I have coming over tonight.

So, how do I get out of here...?

I tried to use basic urban survival skills. Exit signs lead to more exit signs, which eventually leads to an exit, right?

Not at Children's Hospital. Oh, no.

You see, the first door I came to was staff only, and some worried looking people informed me that I'd get trapped if I went down those stairs, as I didn't have a keycard.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what's known as "foreshadowing".

So, they direct me to take an elevator up to the fourth floor, and leave by way of the Emergency Room. Yes, this is Seattle, the hospital's on a hill, you can get out on the fourth floor.

So, I take the elevator up to the fourth floor, looked for a sign that said, "Emergency Room" and failed to find it. But I saw a sign that said, "Exit", and figured, this must be it! The exit signs led to stairs again.

And, the stairs were not locked, so I figured I wouldn't get trapped.

So, I go down the stairs, and come out on a playground. I remembered something about a sign saying something about a playground coming up, so I figured, "Hey! I must be at the other end of that sign", boldly stepped out onto the playground, and headed out.

Except there was nowhere to head out to. Tall fences, twenty foot drop on the other side. This bode ill for young Bolthy. I explored a bit more, found an area fenced off with orange construction fencing, the kind that's too stiff to move out of the way and too flimsy to climb. I really need to be in better shape.

So, I figure, there's lots of doors out of here, right? I'll just go up to a door, open the door, go back into the hospital, go back to the elevator, and go back the way I should have.

Except the doors were locked. All of them.

Panic ensued.

I don't know if you realize how sucky it is to be a 25 year old man, standing in the middle of a playground, without any fucking way to escape, and the knowledge that you have a fucking bus to catch in ten minutes, but it fucking sucks.

I was near tears.

Finally I discovered that through the darkly tinted windows of one room there was a little play area, and my knocking (which I didn't dare do too loud, because I didn't want to boldly announce that I was a fucking moron) didn't rouse anyone. Finally I timed my knocking as a sweet 8 year old girl walked by, she heard me, and opened the door for me.

Yes, my life was saved by an 8 year old girl. I don't know her name. I was too busy trying to duck out of that room before anyone wondered what a 25 year old overweight guy with a backpack and a big bag from Kinko's was doing wandering through their little pre-school area.

I eventually escaped. Caught my bus. Got groceries. Got home to find that someone had already arrived and was being entertained by my houseguest playing Diablo 2. I'm sure she was thrilled.

Then I find out there has been a shitload of voicemail, and of course I can't use my phone, so I have to walk down the fucking street to the Chevron station and use the pay phone.

And we accomplished so very little during our character generation session. And a bunch of people didn't show up.

And I forgot to take my anti-depressants. Can you tell?

Anyway, the phone isn't a billing problem, it's a technical problem. It may even be fixed by the time I get home. Yay!

So, this was a pretty crap-ass weekend. The high point was getting to see Bladerunner on the big screen at the Cinerama. I need to figure out how I'm going to manage to see Raiders of the Lost Ark there next week.

Anyway, first up is the third fatality in the "death of game stores in Seattle". Saturday morning the Wizards of the Coast Game Center on University Way closed its doors. For those not in the Seattle area, the WotC Game Center was a rather ambitious project WotC decided to go for in the U-District. It featured a large arcade with Battletech Simulator pods, a retail store, and a large gaming area downstairs (an area that used to be a dance club) which featured roleplaying games and collectible card game tournaments all the time. Sundays featured weekly open D&D campaigns in the local Living Greyhawk setting. The Game Center also butted up next to an in-house restaurant called Dalmuti's, which you've likely heard me bitch about. As much as I hate to support a corporation as big as Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro, I had to admit this was a really neat place. On more than one occasion I found myself drifting in there to see what new releases there were, or getting my fix of Joust in their arcade. Some weekends I would spend both Saturday and Sunday there gaming while swilling down caffeine.

And now: Closed. I've yet to get a full story. I've heard that Hasbro is thinking of selling of Wizards of the Coast now that they've discovered how unprofitable gaming is, and figure the Game Center is a little unsellable. I've heard they want to just cut their losses, and for the size and location of the Game Center, it ain't exactly the most profitable.

Toss in the fact that they are located in the University District, arguably the highest per capita population of street kids, and it becomes far more seedy. The arcades ain't going to attract the kids like the other locations. The U-District just ain't a kid place. So, the doors closed.

Which pisses me off. Hasbro just took a big shit on the gaming community in Seattle as far as I'm concerned. They teased the gaming community with an ideal in gaming venue, and then just shut it down. No warning to anyone, really. I knew before hand because I knew some people that worked there. But that's it. No signs. No warnings. Just one day "Closed".

I'm almost willing to believe that the Game Center was one of the factors that contributed to the demise of Arcadia Comics and Games. Well, that and there was another Comic and Game store right next door to Arcadia. But still. They were off in the fringe of the University District, where there's really nothing else but Asian hair salons, tatoo parlors, and other stuff, while the Game Center was right in the heart of the U-District, a block from the University of Washington. Location, location, location.

So, now I'm reduced to four gaming stores I can go to. Four. Unless I'm mistaken, they may be the only four damn gaming stores in Seattle. And one of them is a WotC retail store. Which I sure as hell ain't gonna support. I'll still buy the occasional supplement, but I'll be damned if I'm going to support their retail stores anymore. So, this reduces me to going to Comic Corner 2/The Dreaming, which was right next to Arcadia and has even more absurd hours. I swear they're closed half the week. There's American Eagles, which is technically a hobby/model store. They have games that have been out of print for decades. Like the old Stormbringer RPG. Yeah. So their selection of new RPGs is hardly stellar. And then there's Gary's Games, which is way the fuck over in Greenwood. I have only a vague notion of how to get there by bus. I swear to god the place is an anomoly in the space-time continuum.

So, in other news, last Wednesday we were at the Game Center (which was actually the day we found out about it closing), and discovered that someone had left behind a Chick tract.

No, this isn't feminist literature. It's far more insidious than that.

Jack Chick is a professional cartoonist who has his own publication company. They put out a number of books and comics with a Christian slant, but most importantly the put out tracts. Tracts are basically those stupid little booklets you find in bathrooms, phone booths, class rooms, and Lord knows where else. They are typically people facing life choices, and find Christ. Woo.

The one that we found at WotC was called "It's Coming!" We thought it was funny based off of name and cover illustration alone. Check it out, and you'll see why. "It's Coming!" features some interesting bits. The main deal is that it's about Noah's flood, and how, really, it happened. It has a charming philosophy based off of Creationist doctrine about the origin of the dinosaurs, the age of the earth (6,000 years), and where all that water came from for the flood (giant canopy of water surrounding the Earth, which also created a hothouse effect, which created such a perfect world that people grew to live to be 900 years old, but were horribly corrupt. Even though this perfect world only lasted 1400 years... they must have gotten to be evil within a few generations.)

This is hardly the only tract they have. We should be so lucky. No, they have about 80 tracts in print, as well as 9 others that are no longer in print, but still in stock. You can order them in multiples of 25. They also have tracts that you can read online. No, you can learn how Buddhism is really all about money buying you a better future, Halloween is satanic, and Roman Catholics are gonna burn in hell too. Woo!

Be afraid. Especially with George W. president. Things may get fucked up enough for me to take an interest in politics.

So, a while back I made a pithy comment about the sites that gaming companies have, and figured it would be worthwhile to back up my comments with a look at some of the sites out there for RPGs. Not that anyone complained. That would imply that people read this bullshit. But, I figured it would be a neat topic, and I couldn't remember what I wanted to write about this week anyway.

So, first off, lets establish some criteria for how I'll be evaluating sites. There are four things I'm looking at:

• What do they do?
  When I go to their site, can I tell what they produce? If I'm someone who doesn't know about RPGs, could I tell enough from their site to tell what they do? A website is a perfect opportunity to bring new people into the hobby. If they don't provide a means for doing that, then they've failed.
• How's their site look?
  This is more than just "pretty" or "ugly". It's a matter of establishing brand identity and making information easy to find. If it is not user friendly, they've failed. If people cannot view their site, they've failed. If their navigation is unclear, they've failed. If their site is so ugly that words cannot bear to speak of it, they've failed. I'll be allowing partial credit on this.
• Can I find information about their products? The site is also for getting people aquainted with their products. Even if you know it's a game company site, if you can't find their main sourcebook, then they have failed.
• How helpful is their overall content? This is a catch all. How good is the content on their site? Do I learn something when I go there? Do they update it regularly? Do I feel dumber after leaving their site? Every website has a purpose, and for game company websites this purpose is to get info to their customers. If they don't do this, then they've failed.

Okay, so let's start out with a really simple one: Wizards of the Coast. Called the Microsoft of the gaming industry, they are owned by Hasbro and bought out long-time royal bastards, TSR. They put out Dungeons and Dragons, the new Star Wars RPG, as well as evil collectible card games. They must have an ad agency.

So, what does their website say they do? Well, you click on company, and there you see a link that says, "What is Wizards?" Hmmm... we may have a winner... And here we have a whole lot of excessive information about their story, the founder of WotC, profiles of the execs, awards. Um, okay, let's click on their story. Okay, they have a very poetic and lame story about the origin of their company, and doesn't tell you anything straight forward.

Even looking at the site map, it tells me jack shit. I finally recall after reading way too many press releases that there's usually what's called a boiler plate, a bit of copy at the end of their press releases that describes the company. I did pass press releases earlier, and see that, yup, they have it.

This is the company that puts out the highest selling RPG of all time. It's a company that not only puts out not only all sorts of games, but puts out magazines and novels, and, as icing on the cake: It runs the two biggest and longest lasting gaming conventions. Should I have gone through this much effort to find information about their company?

I vote no. They get ZERO points.

How's the site look? Okay. The nav is okay. The design is nice and clean. If you kinda know what you're looking for, you can probably find it. I give them one point.

Can you find their games okay? Well, let's make this simple. I want to get their main RPG. I want to buy D&D 3rd Edition. I want the main rules. Let's see. How can I find it? Now here's where we hit a sticking point. If we go through their catalog, sur enough, there it is. But let's say we want to just get general information about it. So, let's click on games. Okay, we see their games. Role-playing games... ah, here's D&D. RPG products... Grind, grind, grind, grind. Holy shit! Look at this! My browser is going nuts! I'm on a T1, and I'm watching it try and download a shitload of information. I'm having time to rant bitch while it downloads. Taking a second to check out a print preview of it, I see that this would be 37 pages worth of information. Oh, hey, Core Game Products. This should have it. Okay, here's a bunch of stuff. Is Player's Handbook the first item on their list? Nope. It's not even visible when I load up the page. It's #13 of 15 items on this page. I think they should sack the guy doing this page and just link straight to the store. They get .5 points, because they have redundant information, and one source is god-awful horrible to find.

Information, there's more than they know what to do with. I'll give them a point.

Total Score for Wizards of the Coast?: 2.5

Next up, the other big player in the arena: White Wolf, which has put out but loads of games geared around horror, with a recent venture into sci-fi and superheroes. Fortunately, they aren't as bad as Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game, where you too can play characters from a fighting game. Though, they did adapt the rules for World of Darkness: Combat for reasons I cannot fathom. Even the wimpiest of characters has a 3 foot vertical jump. I don't know why.

Okay, what do they do? Well, I go to About Us... and I get more navigation. I see "Submissions", "Bios", "Internships"... nothing that says, "What we do". Guess they get a ZERO. If I can't find it, they don't deserve a point.

How's their site look? Not bad. I liked their original design. Home page is less cluttered than before. Sure, they get a point.

Can you find info on their products? Well, let's go for their flagship. Vampire: The Masquerade. It's their oldest and quite possibly their most popular. Hell, they named their LARP league after something from it (The Camarilla) so I figure it must be doing good. So... here's Vampire... Here's the one I'm looking for... Oh, wait... Now I get a page telling me that I'm getting sent to the catalog. Well, dang. So it's opened a new window for no reason, and now I have their catalog. Which I could have gotten straight to with one click. Which they could have linked straight to from their page in the first place. Half a point.

How helpful is their overall content? Well, they update it, they have all sorts of info. They have FAQs for all their products... I'd say the content is good, if it wasn't so hard to find. I'd dick them here, but that'd just be double jeapordy for them, so I'll give them a point.

Total Score for White Wolf: 2.5

Okay, let's go to one of the lesser dogs in the yard: Chaosium. They put out the cult classic Call of Cthulhu, plus a ton of games that most people never play, like Nephilim. I'll admit a small degree of bias, because I think their webmaster is pretty neat, so don't be surprised if I'm bordering on kind. =)

What do they sell? Hell, right there on the front:

Welcome to Chaosium's official World Wide Web home page. Chaosium has been publishing quality books and adventure games for 25 years including the Call of Cthulhu Role Playing Game, the Elric RPG, Nephilim RPG, and our very popular Call of Cthulhu Fiction line. We invite you to learn more about our little company and our many books here at the Chaosium webpage.

Well, shit. That was painless. One point.

How's the site look? Looks simple. The webmaster is organized, but not exactly artistic. But, it's generally organized, the look is clean, there's no nasty ickies on their site. Hell, a point to them. I want to buy their main product. Call of Cthulhu. Click on the link to look at "Call of Cthulhu", get the general page for it, an easy link straight to the main rules, a nice neat page on what the book is, a button to order it... And you can add it to your shopping cart. How cool is that? One point!

Information? Heck, they've got lots of information on mailing lists, and status on new products coming out. Dang, I'll give them a point.

Total Score for Chaosium: 4.0

Next up: Alderac Entertainment Group! They put out really good games like 7th Sea and Legend of the Five Rings. They once paid John Wick money, which is pretty neat. So, let's break down their site.

What do they do? "About AEG" links to a page that says: This site is under construction! Zero points.

How does their site look? Well, it's neat, it's clean, it's pretty. They get a point.

Can I find information about their products? Well, I click on the link for L5R, and get the page for it... Not only are they highlighting their new rule books, but when I go to look for information on them, I find nothing. I have to go to their catalog to find information. Now, for the added piece of shittiness, I'm giving them a trick question: Not many people know they own Brave New World. There's nothing on their main site about it. There's no little tab for it. I can order it from their catalog, but they don't even have a blurb on it. I'm giving them a half point here.

Information? Yeah, they got it. This is kind of an easy category. They get a point.

Total Score for Alderac: 2.5

And now, lastly, since I need to get home at a reasonable hour: Pinnacle Entertainment Group. They put out the really neat sounding game Deadlands. And, they once put out Brave New World. So, let's see what we got here.

What do they do? Umm... Hmm... No clue. No points.

How do they do on site? Well, it's generally nice looking. But. They only made it viewable over Netscape 6 and IE 5. So my little putt-putt of a Netscape 4.0 browser can't view it too well. All the text is squeezed into a one-inch wide column that goes down for about 3 or 4 pages. Half point.

Let's get their main rules. Well, on the bright side, there aren't any broken images this time. There's a link to Deadlands: Weird West. And here we hit a road block. We have a "Hangin' Judge Statuette". Um... a book called "The Collegium". No, that doesn't help. "Hexarcana"...? No... Oh, wait, here's the Deadlands Leather Bound Edition. For $99. $99 for a game I know nothing about so far...? To be fair, they do have a link to "Sourcebooks", and it's the first one. So, I'll give thema half point.

Info? They have a partially populated free stuff section. They have contact info. Nothing great. I'm gonna have to give them a half point.

Total Score for Pinnacle: 1.5

Which, I might add, is really a shame. I even sent them an email, and accomplished nothing. Bah.

Anyway, I'm going home. Bolthy needs food badly. Bolthy is about to die...

Sorry I haven't been updating this in a while. Life's been hectic again, and when I've tried to sit down in the past I kept forgetting what it was I wanted to rant about.

So, since I've been obsessed with the new d20 Star Wars game of late, I thought I'd post a few gripes I've had with it. And realistically, since some of these games also appeared in the game put out by West End Games years ago.

See, I naturally started to wonder about a few things. Things I wanted to do. And as I poked around, I not only found no answers in the d20 version of Star Wars, but sometimes I didn't even find the answer in the WEG Star Wars. For those who have no interest in RPGs, you may want to skip this.

First up: Shields. Like deflector shields. The "stock light freighter" that the Millenium Falcon is supposed to be derived from does not have shields. It has armor. It doesn't have shields. The Millenium Falcon has shields. The stock light freighter doesn't. Okay, so how much does it cost to buy shields?

No answer is supplied in either set of rules. They even say that everyone customizes their stock light freights, with the improvided hyperdrive being a common option.

Then there's shit they took out. Like Droids as player characters. You can no longer play a droid as far as they're concerned. Whatever.

Another notable exclusion is how to resolve combat between different types of combat scales. The old WEG game had a handy way to resolve that. They had different scales for everything, so if you had a Jedi Knight go toes with the Millenium Falcon, you could do that. Not so in d20. In fact, they don't even note the speed that starships are capable of any more. As far as I can tell, they make the big assumption that there will be no cross-scale combat. What's better yet is that if you look through the combat rules, they have information on how to shoot items of various sizes, with a table that asks whether it's being carried or worn. Of course, this includes things that are the size of starships. What the hell?!

I've been doing some referencing with old WEG sourcebooks, but have not found answers to all my questions. I'm very cross.

© 2000 Jeremy Zimmerman, unless where noted. All rights reserved. Comments, complaints, death threats, and flaming chickens may be sent to bolthy@bolthy.com.