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Post by andywhincup on Jun 28, 2019 13:05:23 GMT
+1 The thing I have always loved about BP in each of its versions was the setting background and tech. For me the greatest strength and weakness of BP was the "here is a world do as you will" . There so many styles. of game as there were so many I wanted to run/play I could never settle on one. Will there be some suggested campaign frames and resources to help the drowning GM or even a written campaign? Cheers Kev Excellent observation/question. Here is some text from the primer we are compiling: "The most common criticism the original Blue Planet received over the years was that the setting is so big, with so many campaign options, that it’s hard for game moderators to know where to start. They struggled to choose a single campaign current from among the sea of ideas in the setting. In response, Blue Planet: Recontact presents a diverse set of campaign archetypes to provide ready-made options for new moderators. It’s common practice for RPGs to present a diversity of character archetypes so that players can see examples of characters they can play along with the different features of each. Recontact’s campaign archetypes are similar in that they provide guidance for a variety of different adventure types that can be run in the world of Blue Planet. They provide game moderators with starting points, direction, and enough details to get a variety of different campaigns underway. Each archetype outlines a premise, PC suggestions, unique NPCs, key locations, resources, themes, and plot threads from which they can build their perfect Blue Planet campaign." There will be 8 of these archetypes in the core books, and the first will be presented in the primer. It will be based on the Red Sky Charters playtest campaign I ran during BP's original development. I'd say that was a fair critique, if not criticism. There was so much going on that it created choice paralysis: not knowing which of the threads to focus on. Also because of the sheer depth of the setting, sometimes the detail was overwhelming (I often struggled to remember which hotspots were part of which potential flareup.) Giving support for and guidance on different campaign archetypes is a really good way of helping people get over that. I really like it.
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Post by Pawel on Jun 28, 2019 18:48:59 GMT
Feels like the maps in V2 have been an integral part of my life the past many many years, so I'm obviously very fond of them - but I'm definitely looking forward to the updates that Jeff and his team are cooking up!
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Jason
Junior Member
Posts: 29
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Post by Jason on Jul 19, 2019 11:03:43 GMT
Absolutely. We will be leaning heavily on climate change - really emphasizing it - and the Blight will ultimately be the last nail in the ecological coffin. I'm curious to see how that will be received. I remember seeing reviews back in the late 90s that were critical of the game saying it was overly preachy with regards to environmental issues. I suspect that (most of) the world is more on board with that message and those sensibilities now so hopefully it's less of a concern.
Although while typing that, it occurred to me that despite the global importance of it right now, I can't think of any other game off the top of my head that explicitly calls it out and deals with it in a realistic fashion.
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Post by Pawel on Jul 19, 2019 17:26:56 GMT
I can't imagine a single review being critical of this premise these days! And if there was one, we'd probably all be quite happy to get bad press from such a source.
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Post by Admin on Jul 23, 2019 22:26:01 GMT
Absolutely. We will be leaning heavily on climate change - really emphasizing it - and the Blight will ultimately be the last nail in the ecological coffin. I'm curious to see how that will be received. I remember seeing reviews back in the late 90s that were critical of the game saying it was overly preachy with regards to environmental issues. I suspect that (most of) the world is more on board with that message and those sensibilities now so hopefully it's less of a concern.
Although while typing that, it occurred to me that despite the global importance of it right now, I can't think of any other game off the top of my head that explicitly calls it out and deals with it in a realistic fashion.
You are right Jason, it was something some folks found off-putting. Now however, the truth is the truth, and if folks can't deal with it in a game, they have no chance in the real world...
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Post by starkiller on Jul 24, 2019 12:40:18 GMT
Just started re-reading the blu planet player’s guide and found out that the blight death toll was 60% in Asia and only 12% in Africa, any reason why that huge difference in number? To me Africa would suffer the worst effects of famine than Asia, which with its industrialized infrastructure could go fully hydroponic in a short time.
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Post by michaelsd on Aug 1, 2019 17:22:48 GMT
The reason for the high Asian numbers was that the outbreak started in Asia and those countries were unprepared. The rest of the world "just" suffered the fallout so to say, which was long enough. Africa I do not remember.
I never found the envirnmental "message" preachy. Quite the contrary! I though it was refrashing that a game dealt with such issues and effects of such problems.
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Post by Admin on Aug 11, 2019 21:46:38 GMT
Just started re-reading the blu planet player’s guide and found out that the blight death toll was 60% in Asia and only 12% in Africa, any reason why that huge difference in number? To me Africa would suffer the worst effects of famine than Asia, which with its industrialized infrastructure could go fully hydroponic in a short time. The Fischer Virus was originally designed to protect rice crops and so when it mutated it hit those first and hardest. Asia also had a higher population and was less prepared for famine.
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Post by doublea on Aug 12, 2019 17:30:36 GMT
What's really creepy is that we can see a little hint of what the Blight would look like, with Monsan-...errr, 'Fischer' in real life creating new pesticides causing colony collapse and general mass-death of pollinator insects. You can easily imagine how perhaps a GMO corn crop with built-in insecticide could run out of control on itself.
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Post by Admin on Sept 7, 2019 7:08:06 GMT
What's really creepy is that we can see a little hint of what the Blight would look like, with Monsan-...errr, 'Fischer' in real life creating new pesticides causing colony collapse and general mass-death of pollinator insects. You can easily imagine how perhaps a GMO corn crop with built-in insecticide could run out of control on itself. Absolutely. In many ways the Blue Planet setting feels a lot less speculative, a lot less unlikely, than it did in 1997.
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Post by Rifter on Sept 22, 2019 15:52:26 GMT
Let's hope you're right about the tech and wrong about the rest of it.
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Post by automeris on Sept 30, 2019 15:09:26 GMT
If you'd need a good, real-world inspiration I recommend googling for DARPA & Insect Allies. In any case, very much looking forward to the new edition! I read the quickstart document, and am pretty excited for the upcoming funding campaign - good luck, hope it'll be a great success!
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Post by Pawel on Sept 30, 2019 17:05:25 GMT
I'm sure many of us can help make the Kickstarter the success it needs to be. Having said that, I do wonder if it's even gonna be a Kickstarter. They're pulling some rather unsavoury maneuvers at the moment. A bit of a shitstorm might be coming for them and it looks like it might be well deserved. And then we might end up having to do this elsewhere, like on Fig or something. But plenty of time between now and then (Q1 2020, as things stand now), so let's wait and see what happens.
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