I guess that, if proper marketed, it would. Traveller appears to have enough brand recognition to sustain two lines (GURPS and d20). Both of them are likely selling much more than 500 copies. Although not every GURPS or d20 Traveller player would buy T5, a reasonable number would, which would boost the sales.
Why Other Versions of Traveller Failed
- Thread starter lamar
- Start date
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EvilDrGanymede
Guest
I guess that, if proper marketed, it would. Traveller appears to have enough brand recognition to sustain two lines (GURPS and d20). Both of them are likely selling much more than 500 copies. Although not every GURPS or d20 Traveller player would buy T5, a reasonable number would, which would boost the sales.[/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]Yes, but I wonder how many people who are into GURPS Traveller are picking up T20, and vice versa? (of course, it's early days for T20 at the moment). And of course you have the CT Reprints, and presumably most of the people buying those are people who were into CT when it first came out. Presumably the latter bunch are going to be the ones who are going to pick up T5 - in which case, does CT finally get laid to rest? Let's face it, there aren't that many games around that are supported in *3* current incarnations, do we really need a fourth as well?
I think T5 would be best done in PDF, if it's ever done at all. Just release a basic rules toolkit, maybe with conversion notes to take G:T, T20, and CT equipment and ships and turn them into T5, and let players sort out their own settings from what's out there.
I suspect my opinion would be different if CT, G:T and T20 weren't around at the moment and still in the loop - but they're going to be here for quite a while.
Speaking as an erstwhile GURPS player (having several books but no fellow players), I can honestly say that the only reason that I don't have T20 is the high price tag - that's the reason that I don't have the CT reprints as well. Well, that and a lack of players. If not for those reasons, I'd be even more interested in T5 as well as the other two.
Evil Dr.,
I don't expect that all gurps and d20 Traveller players will actually buy T5. In fact, I can only expect that a minority will do it. I have the impression that the great majority of d20 players only do d20 and I don't expect that many people who actually apreciate gurps obsession with details to enjoy a relatively simple game such as Traveller. Still, a fraction of those players will purchase T5, as well as many old fans. I don't have access to the actual sale numbers of the CT Reprints, T20, and GURPS Traveller. If they are as low as you imagine, I don't believe that Marc Miller would still doing reprints or RPG Realms be publishing T20. In fact, Mr. Miller have the numbers and he will be able to estimate the market for T5.
Regarding PDFs, I hope T5 will stay clear from it. My guess, based in the threads at EN World and RPG.net, is that they don't sell that much and they are likely hurt by piracy. Personally, I never brought a PDF file and I don't expect do it soon.
Finally, I have the impression that you champion the idea that GURPS and d20 are sufficient to cover Traveller at the moment. I personally dislike both systems and I don't care much for the official Traveller setting. What really draws me to Traveller is the rule set. As such, there aren't any Traveller product aimed at customers like me, except for the reprints.
I don't expect that all gurps and d20 Traveller players will actually buy T5. In fact, I can only expect that a minority will do it. I have the impression that the great majority of d20 players only do d20 and I don't expect that many people who actually apreciate gurps obsession with details to enjoy a relatively simple game such as Traveller. Still, a fraction of those players will purchase T5, as well as many old fans. I don't have access to the actual sale numbers of the CT Reprints, T20, and GURPS Traveller. If they are as low as you imagine, I don't believe that Marc Miller would still doing reprints or RPG Realms be publishing T20. In fact, Mr. Miller have the numbers and he will be able to estimate the market for T5.
Regarding PDFs, I hope T5 will stay clear from it. My guess, based in the threads at EN World and RPG.net, is that they don't sell that much and they are likely hurt by piracy. Personally, I never brought a PDF file and I don't expect do it soon.
Finally, I have the impression that you champion the idea that GURPS and d20 are sufficient to cover Traveller at the moment. I personally dislike both systems and I don't care much for the official Traveller setting. What really draws me to Traveller is the rule set. As such, there aren't any Traveller product aimed at customers like me, except for the reprints.
E
EvilDrGanymede
Guest
I don't think they're particularly low, and I've never assumed that they were. They're probably lower than what you'd see if there was just a single version of Traveller on the market today, because it's splitting the Trav market to an extent. But I don't think they're doing poorly.
I don't particularly champion any system of Traveller actually. Yes, GURPS and d20 are the ones I'm most familiar with at the moment, but I've got all the others apart from T4. I don't really see Traveller as a bunch of rulesets though, I see it as a "settings first, rules second". The problem is that if T5 comes out now, we'd have four mutually incompatible rulesets for the game (having three of these at one time is bad enough as it is), and I'm not seeing why we need any more at the moment. Having different settings at the same time is not a problem for me, since these can be made system-independent to an extect - it's the different rules that are the problem.
Now I see the source of our diferences. I don't really cared much for the Traveller background. I have played a lot in the 80s, mainly in The Beyond and the Vanguard Reaches, which are kind of distant from the official setting. By the time I started running my own games I discovered that there are a lot of things I don't like in the background, such as the ancients spreading humans and dogs around the galaxy, the aslans, much of the Imperial society, the conflict with the Zhodani, and so on. Still, I like key concepts such as slow FTL drive, slow communications, which are enforced by the rules. Finally, I really like aspects of the rules such as career based character generation, characters that aren't more powerful than common people, simple and gritty combat system. In the end, I disregarded the Imperium setting and created my own.
So, I hope you can see that, to a Traveller fan like me, GURPS Traveller and T20 don't really qualify as Traveller, as they replace Traveller's rules with something else.
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EvilDrGanymede
Guest
I suspect I may have overstated my issues with the rules. Basically, I don't really *care* what ruleset is about. My opinion is that I think too many different rulesets available at once doesn't really help anyone - it confuses potential gamers, it splits the fanbase, and it means the producers have to split whatever money they may make. So I guess I'm against more versions of Trav right now for marketing reasons more than anything else.
Thing is, I think the Traveller background is OK - it's a decent enough setting. I prefer MT and TNE because the backgrounds are a darn sight more interesting to me than CT. Even the G:T background is a bit dull for me really - what I love about G:T is that it developed so many things that hadn't really been examined in as much detail in the previous Travs - trade, military life, etc.
But that said, I've only ever used the Traveller rules to develop my own sci-fi settings - I take an armchair interest in the Imperium, I guess. I take design rules from here, world building rules from there, game mechanics from somewhere else, and just throw it all together. I guess I'm against yet more versions of Traveller because it's getting to the point where rules and systems are just getting duplicated over the various incarnations, but the new versions aren't necessarly improved versions of what came before. And as more versions come out, I'm paying money for more stuff that I've got already with the older versions. It's a case of diminishing returns, I think.
WHile I agree with much of what the good Doctor says about, a saturation of rules. I just wonder how we can trigger a Traveller resurgence, in which people will be generally looking at products and say that is cool...how can I find out more.
I wonder if there will ever be an attempt to build a solid milieu or are we just Sector building?
If T5 is going to ever come out, it will be after the termination of GT and T20 line, it seems. It seems that Traveller is doomed, to have had a glorious past but questionable future. It reminds me of the interregium between Star Trek and Star Trek : The Motion Picture.
All fans are waiting for The Wraith of Khan but instead we are left with something not consistant with what we felt with the original series...
I wonder if there will ever be an attempt to build a solid milieu or are we just Sector building?
If T5 is going to ever come out, it will be after the termination of GT and T20 line, it seems. It seems that Traveller is doomed, to have had a glorious past but questionable future. It reminds me of the interregium between Star Trek and Star Trek : The Motion Picture.
All fans are waiting for The Wraith of Khan but instead we are left with something not consistant with what we felt with the original series...
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EvilDrGanymede
Guest
I don't think that's a problem specific to Traveller - it's more a problem to do with sci-fi roleplaying in general. Look at the big sellers - modern horror (be it Buffy, Vampire/WoD, d20 Modern or anything else) or fantasy (Exalted, LotR, D&D, etc). I'd guess that original sci-fi RPGs don't rank very highly in the Top 10 of gaming sales (Star Wars and Star Trek are major licenses, so they don't count here).
I'm not sure sci-fi RPGs have really had their day yet. We've had big resurgences in horror and supers settings lately - but not really sci-fi, which seems to trundle along at its own rate throughout. I'm not entirely sure why this would be the case. Maybe part of it is down to the fact that it's harder to be a hero in a realistic universe that's often so much bigger than you are.
Heh. By "or are we just Sector building?" do you really mean "or are we just pissing in the wind?"
It's an interesting question though. One thing I've noticed about Trav is that there's very little material in *any* incarnation about what it's actually like to live in the Imperium. There's tons of books on ships and aliens and equipment, but I can't think of a single book that actually tells you anything concrete about what it's like to be an Imperial citizen. Instead all we have are little snippets from Library Data. There's got to be some scope for expansion there, surely - then we might well get something that feels more like a "solid milieu".
I find it interesting that you don't mention the present there. That's typical of a lot of CT fans here, I think. There's a lot of reminiscing about "the glorious past" (beware: nostalgia doesn't paint an accurate picture), a lot of wishful thinking or doom/gloom about the future, and very little focus on what's available *RIGHT NOW* - at least any more than sweeping it aside. I think if Trav fans took more time to focus more on the present they might find things to be happy about.
What's this, he mocks the greatness that is Star Trek: The Motion Picture??!!
(seriously, I really like ST:TMP, it's one of my favourites of the series. I also liked Wrath of Khan too
).Not exactly true tavaritch, Remember the Bastard stepchild of Imperium games known as Marc Millers Traveller. The pages of the Main Rulebook and Mileieu 0 had plenty of info on what it was like to live in the 3rd imperium albiet the beginning of the third imperium. Which brings up an interesting point for T5. When do they want it set,
1.At the Beginning of a new empire(T4 and TNE)
2. in the middle of an exhisting one (CT T20 or Gurps)
3. at the end of an empire (ala Mega Traveller) 4. almost no settng at all (the first 3 books of CT)
To be cannon Traveller id have to take the CT or T4 route. Love the rules of hate them with T4 a dedicated attempt at creating a living breathing universe were pretty successful. M0 is possibly one of the best books ever written for Traveller and since its just packed with ideas and light on the rules Id suggest everyone click on over to e-bay to snatch up a copy.
With Traveller information on the Imperium is pretty much only presented in adventures with a few exceptions.
Just to make one final point before I turn in for the night the greatest part about the Imperium and any time setting its based it is that I liked making the Imperium my own. I ported in anything I could from Sci-fi,... today the Imperium is like the Empire in Star Wars, the Federation in Star Trek and the Empire in Foundation. Didn't matter with a universe to play in there's no reason it couldn't be all 3 and with no metaplot (except those pesky ancients) there isn't any one story fueling the game either.
Traveller was and is more than any other sci-fi game on the market t belongs to the people that have brains, that have imagnation, and that have gawdawful amounts of free time and thats why I think we need a T5.
1.At the Beginning of a new empire(T4 and TNE)
2. in the middle of an exhisting one (CT T20 or Gurps)
3. at the end of an empire (ala Mega Traveller) 4. almost no settng at all (the first 3 books of CT)
To be cannon Traveller id have to take the CT or T4 route. Love the rules of hate them with T4 a dedicated attempt at creating a living breathing universe were pretty successful. M0 is possibly one of the best books ever written for Traveller and since its just packed with ideas and light on the rules Id suggest everyone click on over to e-bay to snatch up a copy.
With Traveller information on the Imperium is pretty much only presented in adventures with a few exceptions.
Just to make one final point before I turn in for the night the greatest part about the Imperium and any time setting its based it is that I liked making the Imperium my own. I ported in anything I could from Sci-fi,... today the Imperium is like the Empire in Star Wars, the Federation in Star Trek and the Empire in Foundation. Didn't matter with a universe to play in there's no reason it couldn't be all 3 and with no metaplot (except those pesky ancients) there isn't any one story fueling the game either.
Traveller was and is more than any other sci-fi game on the market t belongs to the people that have brains, that have imagnation, and that have gawdawful amounts of free time and thats why I think we need a T5.
etherflyer
SOC-12
Well, I used the MT mechanics pretty much as written. Indeed, I still use them on occasion (the task system, in particular).
etherflyer
SOC-12
His Name is Rodger Sanger. I can't find the email right now, though I just bought a MT book from him recently. He is reasonable to deal with unless:
a) one of the companys he owns owes you money, or
b) you expect a sane price for reprduction rights.</font>[/QUOTE]Of course, as some DGP writers are still owed money for their work, DGP didn't legally have the rights to it, which means Sanger doesn't either.
As one of the freelancers who's owed money, I'm watching carefuly to ensure that none of my material is reproduced by Sanger...
Granted it's D&D in space but Dragonstar is selling well. I'd like to think Transhuman Space is too. Right now the change to D20 for Star Wars and having two similar Star Trek RPG in less than 5 years done by pretty much the same people has hurt both games and sci-fi RPG's in general IMO. I've not bought any D20 SW as I'm still hunting down D6 books (though the Core Worlds book looks neat) and I still have the LUG Star Trek books. No need to buy it all over again. ('sides I like wild dice)
A book on life in the Imperium along the lines of DP9's excellent Life on Terra Nova or Chaosium's Gaslight or various 1920's books would be great.
Same here. If anything else it's a great movie to watch when you have the flu.What's this, he mocks the greatness that is Star Trek: The Motion Picture??!!
(seriously, I really like ST:TMP, it's one of my favourites of the series. I also liked Wrath of Khan too
Casey
Strephon XVII
SOC-7
Traveller, like Coca Cola, Should be Classic...
I would often think, while reading a Traveller supplement in the days of yore, That perhaps Mr. Miller was some sort of alien sent to earth to provide hands down the best RPG, ever, period.
Best, you say? Ever, you say? Yes! How else could you express support for a system that gave you the chance to generate a universe with a calculator and 2D6? The thing that made traveller great by comparison to other games of the day, was its zen-Like Simplicity. Scores of different magazines would pop up filled to the gunnels with "hit location charts" or "swinging on ropes in high winds tables" and other minutae. But not traveller! Traveller had a format. You could expect to go to Amber Zone planet dingus and find a scrap or to there... For lovers of the "less is more" school as myself, Traveller was a boon like no other... Thanks, Marc!
As far as most of the newer versions of traveller go, they seem to fall into the "gearheads took over" category. Not that im anti gearhead, mind you, but task checks out the wazoo!! "uhm, i open a door" (ref:"task check") Hey, is my shirt green?" (ref:"task check") perhaps im being a little too harsh on it, but it seemed as if the flow had gone out of the mechanics in the later years... A wise man once told me, "any game that presents itself as a wall of charts tables and statistics, unbreachable by new players, is akin to taking the money you would spend on it, roll it up into a wad, and rub it on a cheese grater until you have a pile of money dust." Fisst, i thought him a madman, but then I saw his wisdom...
As much as I would like it to be only for me, Traveller is a product, and a good product survives like many religions, by making new converts. The average person is just not going cold buy 4 different megatraveller books or 5,090,723 Gurps books at thirty bucks a shot because the rules systems are off putting to the average consumer. A game grows best with new blood flowing into it, which is what a game should do, grow...
But the old Empire was Stagnant, you say, its stable, established background would not change!
Nonsense... As a fan of the FOUNDATION series of novels traveller appealed to me because it had teh great potential for simulating cosmic politics in action, not merely by some war or that, but by givng life to the setting, depth...
The "shattered Imperium" era pooped on this. Instead of a vast interacting culture at tech level F, we find that biological development of a species is meaningless, and they are no better at handling conflict than us at tech level 7 or whatever it is... I call this the "DEEP SPACE NINE" effect... DSN was a bad show, a bad show with a flimsy concept and B grade characterizations. It began to be crushed in the ratings... the makers of star trek, in a panic thought, "what could we do to shake it up a little? (snap) lets have a war!!" I use DSN as a parable to what went down in traveller, as to me it makes no sense why anyone would want to disrupt the normal flow of civilization for petty squabbles, sure you may own a part of the Marches, but when was the last time you got an Xboat message from Granny? Doesn't stand up to logic. Perhaps it is yet another permutation in the overly violent media culture we live in, but I remember Traveller being pretty violent without Huge planet levelling space battles and what not. It seems like filler added to make people say "neato" and detract from the true grace of the background. Destruction does not neccessarily gaurantee excitement.
As far as the "Virus" plotline goes, I remember a few years back reading a comic called "marvels" (im a comic fan, fancy that!) it was cool because it took all the famous stories from that mythology and told them beautifully from a different perspective, which gave it a whole new spin to things that were commonpace for me. Then, I read this other one, called "Ruins" it had the same style of cover, so I figured, what the heck, this had to be for me the most Vile, bad spirited, grim and gritty monstrosity that i have ever read. It was a "Dark Universe" and alternate one, where everything was just all Wrong somehow... It had the net effect of making me feel as if someone had taken something from childhood that i enjoyed very much, say, Bugs Bunny, killed him brutally with a hammer, cut off his head and stuck it on a pike outside my bedroom window, then tied me to a chair and force fed me wabbit stew while ELMER was tattooed on my Forehead. The "Virus" plot was like that for me, no longer a break fom the real modern world, The Traveller universe became a lot more like it.
Summary:
Game system:
CT= simple and good
MT= complex and Bad
GT= complex and another game entirely
T4= (@$@#$^%^$&^&^)
TNE= jury still out...
T20= has got a couple of strikes against it already
BAckground Setting
CT= Yay! I made my Bank payment on my ship!
MT= my ship was destroyed by neo vargr princess margret sympathizers? Ok, can i still get a sandwich?
GT= hey this is a lot like champions, but different, because its called GURPS
T4: *turns on gas in oven*
TNE: "sticks head in oven"
T20= I dont know, they wont send my damn book to me! damn Ecommerce!
I would often think, while reading a Traveller supplement in the days of yore, That perhaps Mr. Miller was some sort of alien sent to earth to provide hands down the best RPG, ever, period.
Best, you say? Ever, you say? Yes! How else could you express support for a system that gave you the chance to generate a universe with a calculator and 2D6? The thing that made traveller great by comparison to other games of the day, was its zen-Like Simplicity. Scores of different magazines would pop up filled to the gunnels with "hit location charts" or "swinging on ropes in high winds tables" and other minutae. But not traveller! Traveller had a format. You could expect to go to Amber Zone planet dingus and find a scrap or to there... For lovers of the "less is more" school as myself, Traveller was a boon like no other... Thanks, Marc!
As far as most of the newer versions of traveller go, they seem to fall into the "gearheads took over" category. Not that im anti gearhead, mind you, but task checks out the wazoo!! "uhm, i open a door" (ref:"task check") Hey, is my shirt green?" (ref:"task check") perhaps im being a little too harsh on it, but it seemed as if the flow had gone out of the mechanics in the later years... A wise man once told me, "any game that presents itself as a wall of charts tables and statistics, unbreachable by new players, is akin to taking the money you would spend on it, roll it up into a wad, and rub it on a cheese grater until you have a pile of money dust." Fisst, i thought him a madman, but then I saw his wisdom...
As much as I would like it to be only for me, Traveller is a product, and a good product survives like many religions, by making new converts. The average person is just not going cold buy 4 different megatraveller books or 5,090,723 Gurps books at thirty bucks a shot because the rules systems are off putting to the average consumer. A game grows best with new blood flowing into it, which is what a game should do, grow...
But the old Empire was Stagnant, you say, its stable, established background would not change!
Nonsense... As a fan of the FOUNDATION series of novels traveller appealed to me because it had teh great potential for simulating cosmic politics in action, not merely by some war or that, but by givng life to the setting, depth...
The "shattered Imperium" era pooped on this. Instead of a vast interacting culture at tech level F, we find that biological development of a species is meaningless, and they are no better at handling conflict than us at tech level 7 or whatever it is... I call this the "DEEP SPACE NINE" effect... DSN was a bad show, a bad show with a flimsy concept and B grade characterizations. It began to be crushed in the ratings... the makers of star trek, in a panic thought, "what could we do to shake it up a little? (snap) lets have a war!!" I use DSN as a parable to what went down in traveller, as to me it makes no sense why anyone would want to disrupt the normal flow of civilization for petty squabbles, sure you may own a part of the Marches, but when was the last time you got an Xboat message from Granny? Doesn't stand up to logic. Perhaps it is yet another permutation in the overly violent media culture we live in, but I remember Traveller being pretty violent without Huge planet levelling space battles and what not. It seems like filler added to make people say "neato" and detract from the true grace of the background. Destruction does not neccessarily gaurantee excitement.
As far as the "Virus" plotline goes, I remember a few years back reading a comic called "marvels" (im a comic fan, fancy that!) it was cool because it took all the famous stories from that mythology and told them beautifully from a different perspective, which gave it a whole new spin to things that were commonpace for me. Then, I read this other one, called "Ruins" it had the same style of cover, so I figured, what the heck, this had to be for me the most Vile, bad spirited, grim and gritty monstrosity that i have ever read. It was a "Dark Universe" and alternate one, where everything was just all Wrong somehow... It had the net effect of making me feel as if someone had taken something from childhood that i enjoyed very much, say, Bugs Bunny, killed him brutally with a hammer, cut off his head and stuck it on a pike outside my bedroom window, then tied me to a chair and force fed me wabbit stew while ELMER was tattooed on my Forehead. The "Virus" plot was like that for me, no longer a break fom the real modern world, The Traveller universe became a lot more like it.
Summary:
Game system:
CT= simple and good
MT= complex and Bad
GT= complex and another game entirely
T4= (@$@#$^%^$&^&^)
TNE= jury still out...
T20= has got a couple of strikes against it already
BAckground Setting
CT= Yay! I made my Bank payment on my ship!
MT= my ship was destroyed by neo vargr princess margret sympathizers? Ok, can i still get a sandwich?
GT= hey this is a lot like champions, but different, because its called GURPS
T4: *turns on gas in oven*
TNE: "sticks head in oven"
T20= I dont know, they wont send my damn book to me! damn Ecommerce!
Response 1 and Query
I hear what you are saying about a DSN effect for Traveller. But, I think that GDW had all this military hardware lying around from the 5FW and they did not know what to do with. Perhaps, one of the ancients (note the small "a") or Great Old Ones, could illuminate me, what was the impact of the JTAS issue entitled: "War!"
I must admit when I got it, I thought it was a tacky marketing ploy.
Response and the MegaTraveller Effect
But, when I read the Challenge TAS headlines about the assassination of Stephon, my ears really perked up. I just couldn't wait to get my hands on more Challenge magazines (and at that time it was still a quarterly) and Traveller's Digest was very hard to find in Canada. So when MegaTraveller came out, it was like lightning. It illuminated the entire Traveller universe in a flash. Sure the rules were a pain, but, at that time we could just easily go back to Traveller 101 (no relation to BITS) and use CT. But, eventually we got sucked in when the DGP powerhouse began churning out supplements and TD.
Why is this important?
Bringing this arguement to the present one at hand...has T20 become the lightning flash for the SFRPG market in your area? If not, what gets more attention. If it is Dragonstar, then I have no words... If it is the other games including Fading Suns or whatever. Then whatever T5 or future T20 products come out better emulate what makes these things work or else Traveller will go the way not as the Star Wars or Star Trek of its time but as the proverbial dodo and not even be feared as a dinosaur (read: CT).
Traveller could really work wonders if it did build up that side of wonder of living in a TL F civilization. This is what I am counting on T20 to do. As it seems the only Milieu that we can begin to explore ideas like Space Cities around Gas Giants or implications of sentient machines, etc. Rekindle the wonder back into SF.
However, it is a fact that dark sells (look at the hype and sales of "The Book of Vile Darkness") therefore, it is for this reason, I advocate that MJD's book be very dark and co-exist with a bright Traveller future. Both carry the torch in different ways and may yet have some similarity. Nobody ever responded to my tread regarding time travel experiments in the OTU. We still need to explain GT...
What needs to be done and clarification
For the record, I do like Star Trek The Motion Picture... But, it was entirely different experience than what we experienced when we watched the TV show. And, the Wraith of Khan was another completely different experience again. These differences linked a disjunctive mythology into an emerging cannon. Why cannot Traveller 5 perform the same task? So as much as I do like Marc's mechanic, this is why I say it is now time to develop the storyline rather than argue about the perfect ruleset.
If T5 is about errata-free rules, then let the rules be there for FREE in PDF and fill my Traveller Universe with wonder from a story that needs to be told!
I hear what you are saying about a DSN effect for Traveller. But, I think that GDW had all this military hardware lying around from the 5FW and they did not know what to do with. Perhaps, one of the ancients (note the small "a") or Great Old Ones, could illuminate me, what was the impact of the JTAS issue entitled: "War!"
I must admit when I got it, I thought it was a tacky marketing ploy.
Response and the MegaTraveller Effect
But, when I read the Challenge TAS headlines about the assassination of Stephon, my ears really perked up. I just couldn't wait to get my hands on more Challenge magazines (and at that time it was still a quarterly) and Traveller's Digest was very hard to find in Canada. So when MegaTraveller came out, it was like lightning. It illuminated the entire Traveller universe in a flash. Sure the rules were a pain, but, at that time we could just easily go back to Traveller 101 (no relation to BITS) and use CT. But, eventually we got sucked in when the DGP powerhouse began churning out supplements and TD.
Why is this important?
Bringing this arguement to the present one at hand...has T20 become the lightning flash for the SFRPG market in your area? If not, what gets more attention. If it is Dragonstar, then I have no words... If it is the other games including Fading Suns or whatever. Then whatever T5 or future T20 products come out better emulate what makes these things work or else Traveller will go the way not as the Star Wars or Star Trek of its time but as the proverbial dodo and not even be feared as a dinosaur (read: CT).
Traveller could really work wonders if it did build up that side of wonder of living in a TL F civilization. This is what I am counting on T20 to do. As it seems the only Milieu that we can begin to explore ideas like Space Cities around Gas Giants or implications of sentient machines, etc. Rekindle the wonder back into SF.
However, it is a fact that dark sells (look at the hype and sales of "The Book of Vile Darkness") therefore, it is for this reason, I advocate that MJD's book be very dark and co-exist with a bright Traveller future. Both carry the torch in different ways and may yet have some similarity. Nobody ever responded to my tread regarding time travel experiments in the OTU. We still need to explain GT...
What needs to be done and clarification
For the record, I do like Star Trek The Motion Picture... But, it was entirely different experience than what we experienced when we watched the TV show. And, the Wraith of Khan was another completely different experience again. These differences linked a disjunctive mythology into an emerging cannon. Why cannot Traveller 5 perform the same task? So as much as I do like Marc's mechanic, this is why I say it is now time to develop the storyline rather than argue about the perfect ruleset.
If T5 is about errata-free rules, then let the rules be there for FREE in PDF and fill my Traveller Universe with wonder from a story that needs to be told!
E
EvilDrGanymede
Guest
This could be really rather interesting - kinda like a far future Transhuman Space, which incidentally is very good if you want some ideas on the implications of sentient machines on society... think through all the implications of gravitic technology, AI, pseudoreality, etc too and see what you get? I don't think it'd be recognisably Traveller though.
That said, TNE had sentient machines in it and people didn't exactly take to that very well. A TNE:1248 background that explored this further though would be very interesting to see...
I don't think it would neccessarily have to be a Transhuman Space : Far Future. Rather, it would remain a version of Traveller, not currently seen on the market.
I think that many things that were great in CT, found especially in JTAS sadly never made the cut into MT. I am sure that Marc and Co. wanted to include all these but the urgency of the Rebellion narrative precluded their further development. So that is why I have great hopes for T20, it is written by writers who also love contemporary SF but also like the 1950s heroic adventure genre. Combining those two, plus the latest developments in science would make Traveller the number one game again.
That is why, I stress art. If we have guessed that we have found a planet that would be raining lead. Then art for games ought to catch up to reality. I realize that art budgets are very small and game companies must take what they get, sometimes. But, that is why I propose a collective formed amongst gamers via the 'net. If we keep on sharing ideas and illustrations, and we want nothing more than a credit or to be "discovered"...then we can move on to paid work.
So I do like much of the art seen in T20. But, I must say I do head more toward openning frontiers. Surely, as well, there must be a whole wack of stuff in the public domain that various Space artist could contribute. If these things were incorporated into Traveller, as they were into 2300AD and other games. We would regain the wonder.
The saddest thing about Traveller and society in general, is that we lost our vision of the future. Once we dreamed of Space Habitats, Underwater Cities...now we dream of Freedom 55 in Costa Rica. We also need to bring back the sense of the alien landscape to Traveller (which it never really had). Traveller is about seeing things that we never saw, not simply Class M planets in every system...
Anyhow, that's my .02Crs worth.
I think that many things that were great in CT, found especially in JTAS sadly never made the cut into MT. I am sure that Marc and Co. wanted to include all these but the urgency of the Rebellion narrative precluded their further development. So that is why I have great hopes for T20, it is written by writers who also love contemporary SF but also like the 1950s heroic adventure genre. Combining those two, plus the latest developments in science would make Traveller the number one game again.
That is why, I stress art. If we have guessed that we have found a planet that would be raining lead. Then art for games ought to catch up to reality. I realize that art budgets are very small and game companies must take what they get, sometimes. But, that is why I propose a collective formed amongst gamers via the 'net. If we keep on sharing ideas and illustrations, and we want nothing more than a credit or to be "discovered"...then we can move on to paid work.
So I do like much of the art seen in T20. But, I must say I do head more toward openning frontiers. Surely, as well, there must be a whole wack of stuff in the public domain that various Space artist could contribute. If these things were incorporated into Traveller, as they were into 2300AD and other games. We would regain the wonder.
The saddest thing about Traveller and society in general, is that we lost our vision of the future. Once we dreamed of Space Habitats, Underwater Cities...now we dream of Freedom 55 in Costa Rica. We also need to bring back the sense of the alien landscape to Traveller (which it never really had). Traveller is about seeing things that we never saw, not simply Class M planets in every system...
Anyhow, that's my .02Crs worth.
Strephon XVII
SOC-7
Yeah sure, dark sells, but its just that sort of thing that promotes bad gaming. Everyone always says "Dark sells, man" without really giving it a thought as to why... or why that must be. Dark, apparently, means violent, absurdly violent in most cases. I can't remember how many short lived Traveller Campaigns i've played in where it invariably turned into a group of Dreadnaught flying, sleeping in battledress, FGMP-15 under pillow mercenaries/warlords. It always seemed that there was just this linear progression to absolute power. Its this hypermilitarized attitude
that defeats the purpose of Floating Cities and Planets of Wonder. Dystopias make little logical sense, and are usually short lived, as people just get plain fed up with people firing guns off all the time. Not to say that there shouldn't be "dark " periods of history, as a good source of conflict they are essential, but sometimes it goes too far. I agree with how important it is to establish a solid background/setting, my question is, must it always involve Homicidal Machines and bloody coups? Doesn't the universe hold more than that?
As far as CT being a dinosaur or dodo:
part of the problem with the decline overall in campaign quality seems to be the more Byzantine they make the rule systems, the less you have to think for yourself and use your imagination. Of course this works both ways, as the rise of the
Moronic Card Type game has shown. Those rules are so simple the action is reduced totally to abstractions. CT, at least for me, was right in the middle... Simple enough to make a character, but complex enough to assure that the guy Refereeing it was a total madman/masochist. As it should be, I say!
(in old geezer voice) Damn kids and their card games! Back when i was a kid... etc.
that defeats the purpose of Floating Cities and Planets of Wonder. Dystopias make little logical sense, and are usually short lived, as people just get plain fed up with people firing guns off all the time. Not to say that there shouldn't be "dark " periods of history, as a good source of conflict they are essential, but sometimes it goes too far. I agree with how important it is to establish a solid background/setting, my question is, must it always involve Homicidal Machines and bloody coups? Doesn't the universe hold more than that?
As far as CT being a dinosaur or dodo:
part of the problem with the decline overall in campaign quality seems to be the more Byzantine they make the rule systems, the less you have to think for yourself and use your imagination. Of course this works both ways, as the rise of the
Moronic Card Type game has shown. Those rules are so simple the action is reduced totally to abstractions. CT, at least for me, was right in the middle... Simple enough to make a character, but complex enough to assure that the guy Refereeing it was a total madman/masochist. As it should be, I say!
(in old geezer voice) Damn kids and their card games! Back when i was a kid... etc.
I think, if we are going to have a "dark" period, it might as well be TNE. But, reading MJD's novel we can see the room for hope. For me, Traveller provided a means for a Passion Play well before HDI came up with the concept and to a certain extent I think the Imperial Campaign followed that idea...that hubris will exact revenge for anyone who follows it.
But, because of the openness of the T20 ruleset, it places back into the position that CT enjoyed as the prime SFRPG on the market. That is why I state always that the Milieu 1000 ought to be filled with hope, adventure and excitement. Building those worlds of wonder and allowing us to see what we have visualized in SF writing over the last 25 years. Then will come the exacting revenge of TNE, with the possibility of hope - that is where I hope that adventurers will make it happen - something I think MJD agrees with.
So to have the two contrasting games under one roof of Traveller is entirely possible but difficult to orchestrate - that is why there is such a utopian hope for T5*. And, once we get that done, the exploration of other milieus can begin. However, Traveller has to break free of the image that it currently possess by non-enthusiasts.
As it has been said many times on this thread, Traveller has been a brand that never failed just the companies producing it have.
That is why it is very important that we contribute actively to this board as sending ideas back and forth. Generating a milieu or a feeling comes like it does when you move to a small town, it comes through a sense of community. This is usually to be found in the recognition of one's self in the narrative, as expressed in the local newspapers. Traveller has this community, however much we may disagree it is through the synergy of our disagreements that we may indeed find the energy to put into new products.
*maybe, T5 is the project of us actively (re-)building community that flourished when Traveller had the monopsony.
But, because of the openness of the T20 ruleset, it places back into the position that CT enjoyed as the prime SFRPG on the market. That is why I state always that the Milieu 1000 ought to be filled with hope, adventure and excitement. Building those worlds of wonder and allowing us to see what we have visualized in SF writing over the last 25 years. Then will come the exacting revenge of TNE, with the possibility of hope - that is where I hope that adventurers will make it happen - something I think MJD agrees with.
So to have the two contrasting games under one roof of Traveller is entirely possible but difficult to orchestrate - that is why there is such a utopian hope for T5*. And, once we get that done, the exploration of other milieus can begin. However, Traveller has to break free of the image that it currently possess by non-enthusiasts.
As it has been said many times on this thread, Traveller has been a brand that never failed just the companies producing it have.
That is why it is very important that we contribute actively to this board as sending ideas back and forth. Generating a milieu or a feeling comes like it does when you move to a small town, it comes through a sense of community. This is usually to be found in the recognition of one's self in the narrative, as expressed in the local newspapers. Traveller has this community, however much we may disagree it is through the synergy of our disagreements that we may indeed find the energy to put into new products.
*maybe, T5 is the project of us actively (re-)building community that flourished when Traveller had the monopsony.
