[gurps] How I use Vehicles, was: votw 632

[Onno Meyer]

> Restating: I think Onno has it correct. Post the vehicle using the rules
> as 
> written by SJGames. Any post-production house rules may be added after 
> posting. Anyone that wishes to use that vehicle within their own game can 
> *and should* alter the detailed write-up that is posted to the mailing
> list 
> and the web as they see fit.

Well, yes and no. 

* When I write Vehicles, I ignore any optional rules which do not fit 
  into the genre. By the same token, I don't always push the rules to 
  the limit. YES, the rules allow a 300-mph, cannon-armed, all-metal,
  monoplane fighter in 1915 (3E early TL6). NO, it is not terribly 
  realistic. 

  The yacht would have been a perfectly legal vehicle under the rules 
  if I had taken worse hydrodynamics and less horsepower to bring the 
  speed down a bit. Had it been a yacht for a historical game, that is 
  what I SHOULD have done!

* The name of the ship and the intro made it clear that it was for a 
  cinematic cliffhangers game. Indiana Jones stuff. Getting the look
  and feel right matters just as much as physics, and I believe that 
  a speed better than most period warships was essential to the look 
  and feel - it wouldn't do to have the Evil Overlord caught by any 
  random patrol boat.

* This was all made moot because I did not recall the physical limits 
  when I wrote the yacht, and thereby I sinned against the first half 
  of one of the key rules for good SF writers - "know which natural 
  law you're breaking and do it only for a reason".

Summarized, I believe that the speed was right for the yacht, but I 
should have said why it wasn't right for the real world ... and the 
reminder was entirely appropriate. 

Regards,
Onno