It's true that major geology is moulded. However, I doubt that the topsoil is a uniform 20 meters around the ring. For one thing, weather conditions will cause drift and erosion; so there will be deeper patches and shallower patches. Second, ensuring a uniform depth across the vast area of the ring doesn't make much sense, given the vast area involved - even for the Pak. Third, the event causing Fist of God would displace a lot of topsoil which would redeposit in unequal layers, so, in the area surrounding the mountain, you could expect greater depths than 20 meters.
You could also assume that the cross-section in the gamebook is a 'typical' survey reconstruction, based on average soil-depth readings.
You could further assume that, because I'm not a geologist, I'm talking complete pants. But I think the above statements are reasonably sound!
I was reading the Journey of the Catseye scenario (Gamemaster's Book,
From: John Wood [mailto:john.wood@...]
Sent: 06 May 2004 21:35
To: RingworldRPG@...
Subject: [RingworldRPG] Journey of the Catseye scenario
p32) this evening and came across what looks like a silly error. Or
maybe I'm not reading it correctly. On page 40, under "Analysis of the
ship's condition", the scenario states that the ship is "...buried
under 217.2 meters of Ringworld soil, at the end of a 12.5 km tunnel."
But isn't the landscape on the Ringworld moulded in? The diagram on
page 6 of the Gamemaster's book shows 10-20 meters of soil over 10-20
meters of bedrock bonded to 30-40 meters of impenetrable scrith.
Hmmmm. pity, because this was a nice dilemma to face the players with.
But it's more likely that they'd be sitting in a trench with 10 - 20
meter high sides and a floor of slippery scrith, just like Louis and
crew on their first trip. Just nit-picking I know but these things are
occuring to me as I read the game books again for the first time in a
long while. Has anyone run this scenario? What do you think of it as an
introduction to the Ringworld?
John
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