XXVc Notebook - More Random Stuff

Tried to run a bookless, diceless and, ultimately playerless game of XXVc last night and you can probably guess how that went.

In the absence of anything to say about that, I do want to share some flavor ideas and a quote from a fellow XXVcers web log.

I got to thinking about how people refer to their tech gadgets and decided that common usage would continue into the future. Case in point the fact that people will refer to their mobile communication device as a phone, no matter how advanced the thing is or what all its functions are. Applying that to other gadgets I've decided that anything one might wear on their wrist (that isn't a weapon) is called a Watch; any small hand-held comm device is, as I said, called a Phone. This replaces my earlier, clumsier term "celcomp"; Any portable computing device (no matter what it can do) is called a Book. This assumes that, in the future, most or all personal computers will resemble in some way today's tablets. This term would apply to devices that are more rugged than something you might find in an office or library.

I've used the term Scroll for a fancier version of the Book; one that kind of rolls up into a kind of short rod, but I think I'll go with Flat, which is a very far-sighted gadget seen on the sci-fi series Andromeda. This is where I actually see computers going in the future- a thin, flexible touch-screen computer, roughly the size of a sheet of typing paper and maybe 3mm thick. I can see these as being more common than the Book, but perhaps unsuitable for use in the field. I guess I should include Glasses now, as well, which could potentially replace the Watch. Maybe Glasses are a strictly Martian thing.

UPDATE! - Televisions--anything from a simple home entertainment box to a giant Diamondvision type screen--is now called a TV in the common vernacular, although the term Palantir is finding some footing among the hoi polloi, particularly on Mars and Venus, where the entertainment  conglomerate of the same name dominates.

Here's a portion of a post by +DerKastellan (I think. I don't read German) that provides a little more variety to weapons-

In fact so limited that the designers of the computer games tried to introduce magical items through the back door by establishing +1 up to +4 bonusses on THAC0 and damage for weapons according to their quality of manufacture - Terran or regular would receive no bonus, Martian +1, Venusian +2, Mercurian +3 and finally Lunarian +4

 True, it's not a exactly glowing endorsement for the game, but this uncovered nugget is at least an attempt on someone's part at TSR to make the game better. For more on XXVc (not all of it happy) and Space: 1889, have a peek here.