The_Universe said:
1) Of the Campaign Models included in the book, which did you feel were an absolute necessity for D20 Future.
It's hard for me to say. All the ones that made the cut are really just different aspects of what everyone views science fiction as. I only wrote 4 of the 8 that were inlcuded (Genetech, Mecha Crusade, From the Dark Heart of Space, The Wasteland); the others were written by JD Wiker. I can say that my favorites are probably From the Dark Heart of Space and Bughunters. There are also several more that were cut from the book that I hope eventually make it into a web enhancement, but I can't say for certain whether or not that will happen. I do know that there are web enhancements on the way...
2) The Cybernetics section of the book has already been criticized as being a little skeletal, and short. Can we expect a longer supplement in the future?
I can tell you right now that I can't say anything about a future sourcebook along those lines, because I am but a simple unfrozen caveman freelancer who is not privy to such things. Again, JD wrote the Cybernetics section, but I'll answer in a way I think he'd approve of. The cybernetics section is, like so much of the rest of the book, a series of building blocks. Since there is a massive amount that you could do with cybernetics and only a limited amount of space, the basic building blocks were included that can be expanded upon to make more complex modifications. Also, anyone who thinks that the section on Cybernetics is skeletal has a strange definition of the word. There's a lot of great and original stuff in there -- just check out the luminous skin modification.
3) In conjunction with your work on this book, you have also mentioned that you're working on a complete D20 Future campaign setting. Now that this book is released, can you tell us more about that one?
I'm working on a
d20 Future campaign setting, it's true. It's a space Western setting heavily inspired by Joss Whedon's
Firefly but also memorable anime series like
Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, and
Trigun. Additionally, it really emphasizes the themes and ideas presented by classical Westerns, and I drew heavily on everything from
The Magnificent Seven and
The Outlaw Josey Wales to
High Noon and
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Currently it's "in development" and looking for a publisher, but the project is both a campaign setting an a dumping ground for a lot of the stuff I wanted to include in this book but couldn't due to space reasons. Hopefully, if/when it is published both space Western fans and people who bought this book will find some use for it.
4) You've had some well-recieved work in both the D20 Star Wars and Stargate RPGs. How much have those two settings influenced both the "crunch" and "fluff" of D20 Future?
Honestly, I tried to stay as far away from things found in those two settings as possible. I knew that it would be easy for me to fall into those trappings if I got started, so I tried to take an objective look at what science fiction really is. While certainly some staples from those genres will shine through, since the are sci-fi/space opera, for the most part I tried to compile a list of traditional sci-fi sources and took a long look at the kind of things they included. Stargate and Star Wars both have their own roleplaying games, both of which I love, and so I didn't see any need ot re-invent the wheel and put that kind of thing in here. Certainly, though, you could take what is in
d20 Future and recreate any setting, even those two. But rather than reverse-engineer from existing settings, I went for a basic building blocks approach.
5) Do you know the Muffin Man?
The Muffin Man?
. 
