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Toys for GURPS and other Role Playing Games

science

Biology fun for creature design!

My money's on the Rex.

Clearing out some old links I'd noted, here's some good reading for game designers (or just detail-happy GMs) wanting to give good, hard biology a friendly nod:

The Biology of B-Movie Monsters

http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/2/21701757/

Wow, this is a heck of an article by Michael C. LaBarbera, professor in Organismal Biology & Anatomy at the University of Chicago. It's a layman-friendly grand tour of how size and scaling work in reality, and what that means for B-movie creatures – and by extension, game-table monsters. Scaling of area vs mass and its relevant effects on cooling, terminal velocity, metabolism, and so on; mass and falling damage; mechanical difficulties posed by huge size; and much more – it's all there.

Biomechanics fun

I would have liked to hear the speech by the inimitable Steven Vogel on "Power from the People: Life When Muscle Was Our Main Motor", an overview of how biomechanics shaped the lives and work of our ancestors. The article at http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2007/02/archeological_biomechanics.ph... provides some interesting fodder for the dilettante game designer, though it's unfortunately brief.

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