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Re: [DL] Lone Stars Thoughts (spoilers)(long)
At 10:29 AM 5/20/2002, reemull@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
>It's been about a week since Mr McGlothlin has had to answer anything
>concerning Lone Stars so it's about time to start up another Lone Stars thread.
Whoo hoo! More attention!:-)
>Following what can only be described as a catalogue of errors I finally
>managed to obtain a copy - so here are my thoughts/questions concerning
>Lone Stars: Texas Rangers (LS:TR).
I can't tell for certain from the message, but are you Mr. Roy
Spence by any chance? I'm happy you finally got your book in any event.
My sincerest thanks to you for taking the time to sit down and pen
such a thoughtful critique. This sort of thing is gold to we writer-folk,
and I very much appreciate this series of posts on All Things Lone Stars.
>S
>P
>O
>I
>L
>E
>R
>S
>
>
>My first instinct was to compare the book to Agency: Men In Black Dusters
>(MiBD) - and to be honest I must say I preferred it and found it a more
>entertaining read. I think this was mainly due to the style of writing Mr
>Goff (anyone know what he is doing now?) adopted for MiBD- which left me
>skipping ahead to get to the crunchy bits (don't get me wrong I like MiBD
>- I just found some of the text a little tedious).
Wow...that's some of the highest praise I've ever gotten--thanks
very much!
To be fair, though, I had a *much* easier job of it. I was writing
a DL book in a Texan literary voice, while John had to write one in a
"Yankee" idiom. As a writer, you can have a lot more fun as "Stone Cold"
Steve Austin than you can as William F. Buckley.;-)
>My only problem with this section as all the Rangers come across as being
>"X who is the best at Y". Each of them come across as fine upstanding
>gentlemen - which I'm sure they are most probably not.
Three things to consider here:
1) If they weren't fine upstanding gentlemen (and ladies--don't forget
Capt. Porier and her compatriots), Gen. King can and would fire them.
2) Even if they were more the "anti-hero" sort, King would not openly
document their faults in the Ranger Bible.
3) Nothing in LS precludes a Marshal from making, say, Capt. Heivilin an
infant-devouring Abomination, if that would make for a fun scenario (And
yes, the Ranger officers were intentionally left a bit sketchy just so
individual Marshals can fill in their blanks anyway they see fit).
>I would have liked to have seen some stats for some of the Rangers
>mentioned in this section - just some information that would give the
>Marshal a couple of fleshed out Rangers that could be easily slotted into
>their campaign.
A Marshal can stat them anyway they want--what could possibly fit
more easily in their campaigns than that?;-)
You make a fair point here. This was, to quote Shrek, on my "to
do" list, but as you probably guessed, wasn't near the top. In the end, I
had too much material I liked far better to cut any of it to make room for
word-count-gobbling dual stats.
Also, since the Ranger officers are tied to geographic areas,
statting any less than all of them invariably makes a great lot of them
useless text to somebody's campaign. ("Awwww, crap! Can you believe that
moron McGlothlin dual-statted that Capt. Achilli guy!? My Posse's NEVER
going to Atlanta!")
>I like the Chaplain Corps - very nice. Initially I wasn't totally sure
>quite how they fitted in under TR (to my mind they weren't TRs but work
>with them closely), but they provide some variation to character types for
>those wanting to run a TR only campaign. It would have been nice to have
>had some Chaplain names fitted in with the "Who, where" section
The Chaplain Corps material was added at the literal last minute,
and had to fit a *very* tight word-count window. In the end, there just
wasn't time or space left for details like that. It is my hope that I--or
one of you good people aiming to get yourselves published--will be able to
revisit this topic in a future Epitaph.
>(or maybe I missed them).
I mentioned Father Jacques DuRand, the Corps commander, but he was it.
>Anyway, as much as I dislike the abominations I dislike calling them "the
>band" even more.
I am sorry that was not to your liking.
>I can understand why it is done and they need referred to somehow - but I
>cringe a little at that one (however as much as I dislike it - I cannot
>come up with anything better so maybe I should keep my mouth shut? :-) ).
LOL--Your candor is priceless, good sir!
>One thing I wasn't sure about - the book lists the total numbers of TR-
>however doesn't give an idea as to how many chaplains there are (only that
>there members are "small but dedicated")
Based on some feedback I got in playtest, I deliberately decided
to leave this vague. I won't speak on behalf of my 'testers (esp. since
they're here on the List, and can jump in if they are so inclined), but
some of them *really* hate the whole idea of the Chaplain Corps.
As the creator of the CC, naturally, I disagree.;-) However, they
did persuade me that the Corps should be left undefined so they might then
be as unobstrusive or ubiquitous as an individual Marshal sees fit.
>the same is true for the abominations (just how many people(?) are in "the
>band"?)
As a later post indicates, one can actually "do the math" and get
a rough count if one is curious.
>I would have liked some "unofficial" comments from say, Hank Ketchum,
>"telling it how it really is in the Weird West" would have been a nice way
>to finish off this section - even if it had only been put in as a
>single page scribbled note format.
I felt Gen. King did a pretty good job of doing that all on his
own, but I respect your view on this matter.
>The guide to abomination pages are excellent - I was unsure how the
>TR:Bible was going to manage the lowdown on the critters without
>duplicating a whole load of pages from other books or giving everything
>away. However I love the way it's been done and will have no reservations
>using it with my TR player.
Thank you very much!
> Some reviewers are bound to complain that the critter stats are in
> another book - however I cannot
>see another way of doing it without paying through the nose for
>information you already have elsewhere.
Thanks for your unerstanding here. I can't imagine an $80 Ranger
book being a big seller.;-)
>The rank systems for both MiBD and LS:TR I always think work out a little
>complicated in comparison to the rest of Deadlands - however the rules are
>in keeping with the fact that the characters that use these them are now
>part of an bureaucratic organisation (but less so with the TR than the MiBD).
Again, thanks for your understanding. This was unavoidable, IMO,
in trying to combine real-life military ranks with the classic DL Rank Edge
with the d20 System. It was always going to be a monster of
Frankenstein-like dimensions, but it is gratifying to know the stitches
weren't *too* off-putting.
> I like the fact that the Chaplain Corps get their own section - plus the
> fact that the information is both applicable to the North and South is helpful.
Thanks!
>I noticed that there were no archetypes involved with the book - I
>wondered if this was done due to space restrictions and the fact they'd
>have to be done in both classic and D20 systems thus taking up more space?
Both, actually--plus my own observations of the list that people
love new Arcana, new Gear, and new character options far more than archetypes.
>I was a little disappointed with the Shootist AB as it wasn't as upgraded
>as I hoped it might be. Most of the "extra" hexes are simply the cut
>hexes from Law Dogs (OK Acoustic Shadow is a worthy addition -but as far
>as I can see it's the only true addition) - again I've diverted my
>shootists comments to another thread.
IMHO, the old "hexslinger" material needed a complete overhaul.
With that in mind, it took all my allotted space just to get the old
material revised. I would have *loved* to have done more with the Shootist,
but as it was, I felt the "Texas Rangers Sourcebook" was perilously close
to becoming the "Shootist Sourcebook".
With the Epitaphs on the way, it is my sincere hope that I--or one
of you very talented people here on the list--will soon be writing much
more on the Shootist AB.
> A brief note - Doc Holliday seems more clean cut and genuine "do-gooder"
> than I have ever seen him portrayed in any western, never mind what he
> must have been like in reality.
You know, just between us (and I guess, all the people subscribed
to the list, too;-)), I have felt that way for a while now. As most of you
know, I loathe doing overmuch damage to history in my writing, but the
trouble here is, IMHO, there's just no reconciling the "real Doc" with the
"DL Doc".
If you go back and look at what's been written of Holliday in DL
thus far, impending death has apparently made Doc a changed man. While that
quite obviously flies in the face of history, I couldn't in good conscience
contradict multiple, previously published, DL books, including the main
rulebooks, and suddenly change him into "historical Doc".
On the plus side, the "dying man yearning for redemption" was
*exactly* the hook I was looking for to make the Shootist different from
its "huckster with guns" forebearer, so I went with it.
>The book is a fun read and is packed full of interesting tidbits (I was
>happy to see the Ranger oath get it's place). Also as the first dual
>statted sourcebook I was unsure how I would take to the inclusion of
>D20 material (although I own the D20 system I don't own Deadlands D20
>hence the space on this system is of no use to me personally) - and to
>be honest I was perfectly happy with the way the stats for both systems
>fitted together. The book comes across as a bit of a "little goody
>two-shoes" book with everyone being fine upstanding gentlemen - however
>I guess the book was written from a biased standpoint (by that I mean
>being written by the hand of General King - rather than Mr McGlothlin
>;-) )
>
>I love the recent trend in Deadlands books (started with MiBD?) to not
>only have the art directly relevant to the text, but to include
>captions as well.
Thank you very much for the feedback and the high praise, good sir!
>PS Argh! Forgot to mention the fighting moves!
I hope those were to your liking.
Deo Vindice,
Mr. Christopher L. McGlothlin, M.Ed.
Freelance RPG Writer At-Large
Member, Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design
Moderator of the New Gamers Order Listserver
Southern by the Grace of God