| From: | "Arno R. Lehmann" <arlehma@***.NET> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | NERPS: City Life suggestion |
| Date: | Thu, 20 Aug 1998 10:19:25 +0200 |
reply to is correct! My mailer doesn't allow me to disable my reply-to
address, and listserv doesn't remove that either (which it should, I
believe), so you have to modify it if you want to send your answer to
the list.
In this case I will not forward anything to the list that goes to me
privately. I've done this too often, and with this here everybody
should be able to make sure the address is correct.
Thanks.
=================================
Ok, this is the my idea about a NERPS publication.
NERPS: City Life is nothing but a not-so-great idea of a title. After
all nobody restricts us to cities.
The parts in such a thing would be street blocks or, perhpas, singe
buildings.
We would give a map, as detailed as possible, and information about
everybody living or working there as well as information about the
things.
It should be made sure that only a small percentage of everything may
be shadowy, the biggest part should be completely legal and normal.
After all, this should not be something like a "Who's Who in the
Shadows" but background information. Everything in it would, of course,
also be used without the context we give it -- I strongly believe that
many GMs would use ordinary people's description in their games.
The information provided should be compact. As detailed as possible,
but limited to what is needed. For example the description of a person
doesn't need to include cholesterol and blood sugar levels but should
give some health information. For a corporation, for example, we
wouldn't need to know what titles all the files in their office have
but we would want information about how many of them there are, how big
they are, and what can be found in them.
Sure, this sounds like a lot of work.
I think it will be manageable. First, if many people contribute there
would not be the need to invent legions of corp workers for the single
writer.
Second, for the purposes of Shadowrun I think we could make the
descriptions of not-so-important people very short. Even as short as
"There are 12 people in the office. Eight of them are caucasian (sp?),
average height, weight, different eye and hair colors. Four female,
four male." Names should be given -- I usually have problems inventing
names and there are already too many people running around with the
names of the authors of our source books.
Only the remaining four ones would perhaps need more description.
Third we could probably find a guideline of how to format submissions.
That would ensure that it will not be too much work compiling all the
information.
Fourth we should enforce deadlines. Better leave blank space than not
publishing anything at all.
Fifth it would be possible to organize the production quite easily;
Starting with an idea of what we would want to do we would need a map
first. The map than would probably contain several buildings which, in
turn, usually contain several floors or other sections. So, once this
sectioning is done, we would need one or more volunteers for each
section. If people work in a group a coordinator could collect all they
produce and make sure it fits together.
After posting the whole thing for a section everybody can comment or
make suggestions for corrections or improvements. The result can be
reposted, but to really finish things there should, again, be a
deadline so that we know when a section will be completed.
Once all the parts are there they only would be needed to collected and
edited, and hopefully this would be a fast thing.
I know that this sounds like some bureaucracy, perhaps too much
organization for some people, but I'm quite sure that if you want to
get a perhaps large number of people to work on one project you do need
some structuring and organization. You even need some hierarchy among
them.
Sixth we could start with a mini-project. If it turns out to be usefull
and manageable we still could decide to start something bigger. We then
would have more experience, meaning we probably could worke better on
it.
Seventh all this are only suggestions. I think I came up with something
usefull, but I'm sure that other approaches are possible. The most
important thing is, I think, to first decide on what to do -- or, of
course, to do nothing -- than start working.
I am definitely intersted in contributing to such a project.
I'm working on something for the NAGTTW, but since I do have some
problems with that piece of work I think I could come up with something
for City Life. And I didn't promise anything concerning NAGTTW, so Erik
doesn't need to call me lazy ;-) (which I surely am).
Eight: If there is only a limited number of people interested but their
interest is as strong as mine we could make this thing more dynamical.
It would be possible to create a growing work which we could put up on
the web. I could provide the server and maintenance in this case. In
fact, If we would do it this way there already is something I did for
my group of players. That stuff could easily be recycled. Still, I
would want some US people and people with more background info (and
sourcebooks) about the world of Shadowrun in this.
Any comments?
--
Arno
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