Stuff I'm Thinking About

Yags. Currently running Traveller using my Yags rules. Seems to be going okay, and not too many changes needed for the core rules.

Galactic mapper. Software to automatically generate star systems and planetary maps. Can generate planetary systems from Traveller UWP data.

Kingdoms. A web based adventure game set in a vague approximation of Dark Ages Britain. Written in Java and running on Tomcat.

Painting. Just finished painting some Basti for Wargods of Aegyptus. Almost finished my Dark Ages armies for Warhammer Historical.

Science Fiction Authors

Alistair Reynalds. A reasonably new author who writes very good hard science fiction space opera. He mixes the scale of Vinge or Baxter with dark cyberpunk. Nice.

Stephen Baxter. I haven't enjoyed his most recent books as much as his older works, but he's still a good hard sf author.

Will McCarthy. He's written some very interesting SF based around the concept of replicaters. You can copy (and merge) people, move those copies around, and what you have is basically a post-scarcity economy with almost immortal people. Immortality has its own problems however.

Roleplaying Games

Ars Magica. Has the best and most detailed magic system of any game system I've seen. Excellent setting as well, though can tend to get bogged down in history lessons occasionally.

GURPS. I quite like GURPS, though this is more because I haven't found a generic system with fewer flaws. I keep thinking of running some GURPS Traveller though never have the time, and most people I know hate GURPS, so the chance is very small.

Star Wars. Fun and simple. The system fits the background perfectly. I'm talking about D6 Star Wars. The d20 version is rubbish.