I assume everyone knows this book anyway, it is very old and a bit of a classic, I was just flagging it up for the younger generation and noting it was on the internet archive.

@RogerBW @Taskerland

@Printdevil @Taskerland I can't help picturing my players laying out a buggy racing course.

Doesn't this "staked claim" map just reek of assumptions, exceptionalism and adventure

@Taskerland

Rubbish buggies are pretty much a staple of low budget 60s-80s Sci-Fi. With guns that are a pipe and a grip that does "zoot zoot" and makes a smoke effect.

Smoke Effect disintegrations are of course the pinnacle of FX and have never been bettered.

@RogerBW @Taskerland

@Printdevil @Taskerland And monorails! Especially if the monorail is slower than walking.

@Taskerland As a quick addendum the whole book is written with a straight face, and as the manual for new pioneers, so the material is all ready to be handed to players, with no "gm only" redactions to be made. You could actually just buy old copies of the paperback of the book for £10. The handsome hardback is a lot pricier. But I think you'd just print a chapter out for a game because the players are hopefully all going to the same place*

*knows this is never true in practice

"ambient monorail zoooo-p noises intensify*

*refuels a buggy with a pipe full of christmas tree lights*

*dances with Gil Gerard*

@RogerBW @Taskerland

@Printdevil @Taskerland Now I'm reminiscing about explaining realistic space travel to players. "So you thought Horror on the Orient Express was on rails? Ain't got nothing on this, your options are 'arrive where and when you planned' or 'die'"

@Taskerland Even this paragraph is full of foreboding for me. If this was what the GM gave me as my introduction I'd already assume horror was about to break out everywhere.

There's an entire chapter about that in the book. Not so much the dying, but explanations of time/time dilation, the weeks to arrive (all calculated for you)

Also preparation for the atmospheric and gravitation changes.

There's a few game weeks alone in that actually shipboard, which would make for a good Session Zero/skill system learning period, followed by "oh dear the planet you've arrived on is overrun with bald feet Dereks"

@RogerBW @Taskerland

@RogerBW Yeah... Fair point. I think that is literally the canonical example of concentric city planning. @Printdevil

@Printdevil I feel that SJG's Transhuman Space books are the spiritual descendants of those non-fiction science fiction books. Terrain Trade Authority and all that.

I think if you projected forwards you could imagine cities built that way, because there's basically nine different types of world, one already distinctly capitalist, but the social-frame of the game.. cough cough.. book is very pioneer era supported via occasional drops. It's very "you make it here yourself, for a new life on Weirdo XII"

Which is of course totally stressfree

In a game

Which of course this isn't

<_<

>_>

totally is..

@Taskerland @RogerBW

@Taskerland Certainly had a lot of influence on a lot of Sci-Fi peeps. This book was very very popular in the 70s, and then.. vanished. I've never heard it referred to in the RPG circles, which I just assumed was that I didn't really move in them, but with @strangequark and I discussing Space1999 a bit recently it popped up on my suggested reading lists and I got a bit nostalgic and was surprised just how good a supplement.. er.. book it still is. It smokes Barrier Peaks for example.

@Printdevil I feel that this is what good Traveller campaigns are made of despite being completely unsupported by the actual game. @RogerBW

It's *literally* a traveller campaign being handed to you.

You would have to do nothing with either the rules or the generation of Traveller to use it. It's all there.

It works well as a set of worlds to place Star Trek plots on, but that's an abstraction from the actually game.. cough book's narrative.

@Taskerland @RogerBW

@Printdevil @Taskerland The emphasis on plausible tech would seem to make it a better fit for 2300AD, but I just like 2300AD (if one can pry it away from the milsf people, of whom I have been one, I'm just not in the mood for it at the moment).

@Taskerland @Printdevil It's a shame that the Terran Trade Authority RPG fizzled out with only the rules released.

@Printdevil @Taskerland
Whatever did your alt text read across the lines, not within the two columns. It's unintelligible.