My thoughts on deckplan design

[Scarecrow]

I've written a short (very short actually) article on how I approach deckplan design. I'm not much of a writer (or speller for that matter) but I hope it's helpful, at least in some small way to someone.

The Fine Art of Deckplan Design

Enjoy,

Crow

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Impressive work!

My favorite method for "cobbling" a ship togehter is to mix up the deckplans and use sections from each. It's as if some belter went into a salvage yard and put something together from what ever was available at the time.

Then I tweak the dimensions to fit the minimum size for the bridge, for instance.

Usually, none of these ships are streamlined, but that too can be tweaked.

KR

 

[rvatsaas]

Excellent Treatise! I definitely agree with you on the fuel issue. i could never figure out the point of that rule was It was completely arbitrary, anyway. I just may remember to steal some fuel space and make it into enigneering spaces, just to make it interesting. As it is, I steal Fuel space for landing gear and corridors all the time. So there.

My approach though, is a bit different; take the old design everyone is accoustomed to, and make it cool, and functional.

I have been working on the Sulieman for over a year to achieve this. I am not ready to show the public, though.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I agree with most of your points, but you need ceilings higher than 2m. 1.9m isn't an unusual height now, and low-g humans or Aslan can easily top 2m, and vac suits etc would add another 5-10cm. I generally use 2.4m, with 2m hatches.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

An excellent example is the Magog worldship from the "Andromeda" series. A collection of worldlets bound together around a massive fusion power plant in the form of a gravitically-controlled star.

One could duplicate that easily by merging the two Traveller concepts of "Asteroid Ships" and "Battle Riders" in a three-dimensional configuration.

I can heard the pencils scratching on graph paper already!

Keklas Rekobah

 

[rvatsaas]

I use 2.5m, but allow lower for small craft. My design for the horizon class gig, the head room is only 1.5!

Even thought I have a ceiling height of 2.5m I allow beams and other protusion to 2.3. Areas at the edges of spaces can be much lower if not needed for walking around.

 

[Scarecrow]

That's fair enough. I do often feel 2m is just a tad too low, even for utilitarian ships. I'm quite a short person so 2 metres seems quite extravagant to me =)

Crow

 

[aramis]

Agree that 2m is too low; I usually use 2.25-2.4m ceilings, with 10cm deck structure, and 3m decktop to decktop.

And I have ALWAYS thought of drives as taking multi-deck spaces...

My bullet shaped design for a Type R used a bridge forward below... for landing ops... and torrids conforming to the hull wrapped around the tubular M-Drive for the PP and JD.

 

[rvatsaas]

By the way, What is a Munchkin? I have a guess but I don't quite know the history.

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Egapillar:
By the way, What is a Munchkin?

Originally the short people from the Yellow Brick Road segment of Wizard of Oz (link). In gaming terms it's starting to be overused to the point of being the equivalent of being like the term fascist for gaming IMO. More or less a gamer who goes to any lengths to win and focuses only on racking up XP and GP. Typically the gamer who brags about their +12 sword of DOOM, uses any lookholes in the rules to their and only their advantage, and whines when they don't get their way. This is not quite the same thing as good gamist play. Similar but more inflammatory than Power Gamer.

The Knights of the Dinner Table comic book and Hackmaster RPG are kind've parodies of Munchkinism and old skool gaming. Steve Jackson Games makes some fun Munchkin games and related products (link).

Some games are generally thought to easily lend themselves to Munchkinism though IMO it has more to do with the player and what the GM allows than the game. You can have munchkins in Traveller. Imperial Marines DDDDDD running around in BD and blowing up the landscape with their FGMP-15s then doing the same with their personal dreadnaught come to mind.

Oh and while never getting hit or hurt.

As always YMMV and HTH.
Casey

 

[flykiller]

By the way, What is a Munchkin?

http://www.df.lth.se/~jesper/funnys/archive/realmen.frp.html

http://www.funagain.com/control/product/~product_id=012068/~reviewsShowAll=true

 

[rvatsaas]

Its what I thought.

That was the downfall of the one PBEM I entered. Basically D&D with Plasma weapons.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"Some games are generally thought to easily lend themselves to Munchkinism"

Say, any system that uses XPs, especially if they're awarded for killing things...

 

[aramis]

Munchkin, in gaming terms, is someone who plays RPG's to win, usually at the expense of others in the group.

Mostly, they set their definition of winning as being the only one to have fun, often at the expense of others.

Subsets include Power-gamers (My character is more powerful than yours), Loot-catchers (See what nifty goodies I got?), rules rapers (see what I can get away with), Party fratriciders (Try to have the only surviving character), and other varieties of individuals who usually ignore story in the aim of "winning".

 

[rvatsaas]

So why munchkin? cause they like to munch other players, My appoligies to crow for high jacking this thread. We will now return to regularly schedule programming.

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
"Some games are generally thought to easily lend themselves to Munchkinism"

Say, any system that uses XPs, especially if they're awarded for killing things...

<sigh> Or point-based games like Hero and Gurps, or <White Wolf game of choice>, or Star Wars d6, or TW2K, or <Traveller game person hates>, or <insert name of game person doesn't like here>. This is one reason I think the term has been overused close to the point of being useless.

It's also why I didn't name any systems. The full line you quoted from also has "though IMO it has more to do with the player and what the GM allows than the game."

But this is more a topic for some place like rpg.net, a new thread here on CotI, or IM.

Casey

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Egapillar:
So why munchkin?

After doublechecking with the Jargon* file entry for Munchkin (link) my guess is that it's from the Munchkins in Wizard of Oz being short with high voices, i.e. young. So being a munchkin is seen by some as a beginning infantile stage. At some point some munchkins "mature" into other "better" stages of roleplaying.

You may want to check Player Types (link), rpg.net, and The Forge (link) for more info. Though at some point I just wanna roll dice and have fun. ^_^

* as in the computer or hacker jargon dictionary

Casey

Update: Monte Cook has a fairly good article on this called The Evolution of Munchkin (link).

 

[Scarecrow]

Originally posted by Egapillar:
My appoligies to crow for high jacking this thread.

No worries. This is more interesting and informative than my article anyway

As far as I understood it there were no specific criteria for being a 'Munchkin'. It's a general term for any player who min-maxes and plays purely to win, exploiting every loop-hole in the rules to do so, regardless of what rule system.
I've always assumed they were called munchkins because such offenders tend to be kids or young teenagers so the name came from older players being smug and condescending.

Crow

 

[flykiller]

As far as I understood it there were no specific criteria for being a 'Munchkin'. It's a general term for any player who min-maxes and plays purely to win, exploiting every loop-hole in the rules to do so, regardless of what rule system.

nah, lots of non-munchkins do that. the real munchkin trait is the total lack of perspective or proportion. +60 swords, "slay ruler and transfer loyalty of populace" spells, ninjas that get one hundred attacks per round, are only the beginning. in traveller terms it would be one hundred automatically replaced psionic point characters that have every skill in the book, at level 12, with their own personal one hundred thousand ton scout ship. it's a power trip thing.

I've always assumed they were called munchkins because such offenders tend to be kids or young teenagers so the name came from older players being smug and condescending.

as I understand it the term first was applied to gamers during a particular gencon that was overrun with power-trippin' grade schoolers.

 

[rvatsaas]

it's a power trip thing.

And their day job is as a parking lot attendant?