So, Did the Spinward Traveller Debut Happen at Gencon?

[mike wightman]

A Traveller film or TV series would likely not be Traveller (the rpg) based, it would more likely be a Third Imperium:Spinward Marches film or TV series.

The OTU setting as the basis for the series is not the same as using the Traveller rules to make a series - Firefly, Dark Matter, Killjoys even the Expanse could all easily be Traveller but none of them are set in the OTU.

Traveller has, since the mid 80s, had a greater identity with the setting rather than the rules. While there are many ATUs out there, how many are well known by the Traveller fan base? And does the Traveller fan base matter at all to the success of a Traveller film or TV series...

I would argue that D&D is still more about making up your own setting than using one of the myriad of official settings that have seen print. I take your point of the tropes D&D evokes, but for brand identity purpose the various owners of the D&D IP have always released official worlds to set their scenarios in.

Would the D&D film have been more successful if it had used Dark Sun as its setting? Or Dragonlance? Well they would have sold one more ticket because I would have gone to see those concepts. Like I said I have zero interest in a generic fantasy film loosely, very loosely based on the tropes and themes rather than an actual setting.

I saw the Warcraft film twice at the cinema and it didn't disappoint me - sure they took artistic licence with the plot and stomped all over Warcraft canon, but the film was recognizably Warcraft.

There was nothing in the D&D film when I watched it on video that made me think D&D rather than generic fantasy film - Hawk the Slayer was a better D&D film than the D&D film.

 

[mike wightman]

Not sure about post size restrictions so I split this.

Marc's novel Agent of the Imperium surprised me in several ways.

It wasn't the adventures of a merchant crew in the Spinward Marches.
It isn't the adventures of a mercenary unit fighting on the frontier.

It took the technology and tropes of the T5 rules and the historical Third Imperium setting and did something unexpected and new.

I would rather see a film of Agent or a TV series based on the wafer Agents than Firefly done in the Spinward Marches...

Part of the problem with doing a Traveller film or a Traveller TV series, and by that I mean a Third Imperium, is that an awful lot of the tropes you would use have already been done to death in other films and TV series. A Traveller media event would have to offer something that the general public would find familiar and yet get hooked on.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Who knows? Ultimately that may be what manifests.

FYI there actually was a DL feature length toon, but Disney it wasn't. It was direct to video quality, and I think skimped out on some of the story by Weiss and Hickman (I'm not a DL fan, I just bought one of the trade paperbacks to see what it was about). I also seem to recall that there was a D&D cartoon, but that it departed from Greyhawk as well. It had issues as well, but was more aimed at younger pre-teens than the core fan base of the game.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Not sure about post size restrictions so I split this.

Marc's novel Agent of the Imperium surprised me in several ways.

It wasn't the adventures of a merchant crew in the Spinward Marches.
It isn't the adventures of a mercenary unit fighting on the frontier.

It took the technology and tropes of the T5 rules and the historical Third Imperium setting and did something unexpected and new.

I would rather see a film of Agent or a TV series based on the wafer Agents than Firefly done in the Spinward Marches...

Part of the problem with doing a Traveller film or a Traveller TV series, and by that I mean a Third Imperium, is that an awful lot of the tropes you would use have already been done to death in other films and TV series. A Traveller media event would have to offer something that the general public would find familiar and yet get hooked on.

Possibly. Maybe like a "Man from U.N.C.L.E" type of thing. Having said that, you never see a show about a travelling merchant and his crew. "Firefly", to me at least, was a bit psychotic ... the captain kicking a bad guy into the ram air intake and the like.

I wasn't a big fan of Bab-5, but I think a Bab-5 like setting would be right up the game's ally for a setting of intrigue and interstellar tensions/opera/warfare kind of stuff.

 

[Condottiere]

We do have the Star Trek model, mothership and away party.

 

[mike wightman]

Possibly. Maybe like a "Man from U.N.C.L.E" type of thing. Having said that, you never see a show about a travelling merchant and his crew. "Firefly", to me at least, was a bit psychotic ... the captain kicking a bad guy into the ram air intake and the like.

That and many similar events have happened in my Traveller games. Back in the early days ethically challenged merchant was one of the go to tropes.

I find the 'modern' Traveller audience/player/referee as super spys in space, or everyone is ex-spec ops...

I wasn't a big fan of Bab-5, but I think a Bab-5 like setting would be right up the game's ally for a setting of intrigue and interstellar tensions/opera/warfare kind of stuff.

Metagame stuff and political movers and shakers have their place, but that's not what Traveller was originally intended for.

It was for a group of characters to seek their fortune by, and I will quote this bit:

The players themselves have a burden almost equal to that of the referee: they
must move, act, travel in search of their own goals. The typical methods used in life
by 20th century Terrans (thrift, dedication, and hard work) do not work in
Traveller; instead, travellers must boldly plan and execute daring schemes for the
acquisition of wealth and power.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Oh sure, but with Knightfall, Hard Times, the two MegaTraveller computer games, to me at least, tended to veer towards "Okay ordinary merchant / scout crew, you're living your lives, but the 'galaxy is in turmoil', and you need to do something about it." kind of thing.

At least that's the vibe I get. Hence your super-spy observation.

 

[mike wightman]

We do have the Star Trek model, mothership and away party.

Traveller was intended for post career adventure, not active duty campaigns. The active duty campaign is fun, and many people enjoy them and run them - I have done so myself.

There is no real right way or wrong way to run or play Traveller, the important thing is to have fun.

But a Traveller TV series/film requires something more than a copy of ST;D or The Orville in the Spinward Marches, or Dark Matter/Killjoys/Firefly for that matter.

 

[mike wightman]

Oh sure, but with Knightfall, Hard Times, the two MegaTraveller computer games, to me at least, tended to veer towards "Okay ordinary merchant / scout crew, you're living your lives, but the 'galaxy is in turmoil', and you need to do something about it." kind of thing.

At least that's the vibe I get. Hence your super-spy observation.

I know what you mean. By the time you are into MegaTraveller you have moved away from the CT feel of the game IMHO.
MT characters have more skills, the setting is metagame orientated (so much so until the publication of Hard Times I didn't bother with it much) and character actions are pretty much pointless in the grand scheme of things. Hard Times makes it so you can make a bit of a difference at times, but it is a very emotionally charged setting (similar to watching the little girl get nuked in the nBSG pilot).
TNE to me was always a much brighter and more positive setting than MT and Hard Times (althoght HT remains one of my all time favourite Traveller settings).

 

[Blue Ghost]

Traveller was intended for post career adventure, not active duty campaigns. The active duty campaign is fun, and many people enjoy them and run them - I have done so myself.

There is no real right way or wrong way to run or play Traveller, the important thing is to have fun.

But a Traveller TV series/film requires something more than a copy of ST;D or The Orville in the Spinward Marches, or Dark Matter/Killjoys/Firefly for that matter.

Which is why if I had to place a bet, then I'd go your superspy route for a Traveller TV thing.

I really need to be cleaning and doing other things, but your responses have pulled me from everyday life ... broken record time here; I'm still old school in the sense that I still see CT as that classic do-all GURPS-like RPG in space. And I guess that's colored my thinking of how I thought Traveller might manifest on the screen.

It seemed like everything from Snapshot to Shadows and all the early stuff, had things aimed at a group of characters gallivanting around space. But I guess Agent points in a different direction. Almost Dr. Who like, minus the time travel.

Oh well.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

“Ordinary people facing extraordinary situations.”

Stargate Universe fell into this. Firefly/Serenity too. Both were good series’ that ended too soon (IMHO). Take four or five ordinary people, put ‘em in a ship, add some cargo and a passenger or two, and send them out into the sector.

All they have to do is keep from being irradiated, shot, stranded, incinerated, swindled, infected, arrested, attacked by pirates, or dragged into someone else’s war - all while trying to turn a profit.

 

[Barsanuphius]

Who knows? Ultimately that may be what manifests.

FYI there actually was a DL feature length toon, but Disney it wasn't. It was direct to video quality, and I think skimped out on some of the story by Weiss and Hickman (I'm not a DL fan, I just bought one of the trade paperbacks to see what it was about). I also seem to recall that there was a D&D cartoon, but that it departed from Greyhawk as well. It had issues as well, but was more aimed at younger pre-teens than the core fan base of the game.

My wife has known this. She placed the DL film (Annimated, Staring Keither Sutherland) in our Netflix Que.

 

[Barsanuphius]

Ratings are the mainstay.

At least we can count on 15 people in this thread would at least watch the pilot and the first few episodes. Then it is a matter of broadening the audience to gather enough interest and draw in the wider audience. Considering the possibilities, a greater departure from CT would be needed. Somehow there sits a setting that may fit the bill, Marc Miller's Traveller. Cleon has declared the Imperium and the crew is sent out to find the worlds lost in the Long Night. Star Trek exploration, with Firefly Pirate/Merchant, and maybe a B5 space opera. Just some ideas. Scouts/privateers would be the main character points. :coffeesip: Oh, and there is the starship a HERO-class refit free trader, named BEOWULF.

 

[Blue Ghost]

My wife has known this. She placed the DL film (Annimated, Staring Keither Sutherland) in our Netflix Que.

Well, it's pretty much direct to video stuff. It's not something I'd recommend, but YMMV.

 

[whartung]

For Traveller to come to, well, ANY screen, much less the big screen, even episodic, they'd have to contract Jump. People in the game rarely play Jump, asking a viewing audience to endure 7 days of routine travel is a but much.

I love Star Wars travel. Pull back the levers, streak the stars, play a quick game of 3-D Fantasy Beast Chess while meandering through the tunnel, and POP, an entire planet fills the cockpit. Dramatic stuff.

In Traveller they'd just have to cut all that out. It can be done, just simply let the Heroes arrive at the start of the show at some planet, Participate In Adventure, and, then, perhaps, Jump out to a new star and more adventure.

But its hard to get any real dramatic urgency while stuck in a week long jump space ride.

"Faster Scotty, the little girl is sick!" "I canna violate the laws of physics, I gotta have 168 hrs!"

 

[kilemall]

For Traveller to come to, well, ANY screen, much less the big screen, even episodic, they'd have to contract Jump. People in the game rarely play Jump, asking a viewing audience to endure 7 days of routine travel is a but much.

I love Star Wars travel. Pull back the levers, streak the stars, play a quick game of 3-D Fantasy Beast Chess while meandering through the tunnel, and POP, an entire planet fills the cockpit. Dramatic stuff.

In Traveller they'd just have to cut all that out. It can be done, just simply let the Heroes arrive at the start of the show at some planet, Participate In Adventure, and, then, perhaps, Jump out to a new star and more adventure.

But its hard to get any real dramatic urgency while stuck in a week long jump space ride.

"Faster Scotty, the little girl is sick!" "I canna violate the laws of physics, I gotta have 168 hrs!"

Hmm, you're thinking of action movie pacing.

Remember, especially with a TV series there is a cost factor and having 1/4 to 1/2 of the scenes on the ship would cost a lot less.

I do think they would definitely have to go to a 10D/Mongoose combat ranges, even a 15000km shot is going to be jarring to most viewers.

 

[Blue Ghost]

At least we can count on 15 people in this thread would at least watch the pilot and the first few episodes. Then it is a matter of broadening the audience to gather enough interest and draw in the wider audience. Considering the possibilities, a greater departure from CT would be needed. Somehow there sits a setting that may fit the bill, Marc Miller's Traveller. Cleon has declared the Imperium and the crew is sent out to find the worlds lost in the Long Night. Star Trek exploration, with Firefly Pirate/Merchant, and maybe a B5 space opera. Just some ideas. Scouts/privateers would be the main character points. :coffeesip: Oh, and there is the starship a HERO-class refit free trader, named BEOWULF.

Ah, Nielsen. The very system that killed my beloved classic Kirk and Spock era Star Trek. :rant:

At the very least I'd tune into the premiere. I'm one of those strange dudes who when something gets popular I tend to shun it until I can "discover it" on my own without all the hype and attention. Just me

 

[whartung]

Hmm, you're thinking of action movie pacing.

You think every other episode should be a week in jump space with the engineer staring at dials with steam leaking out of them, reading a "gentleman's magazine", and clipping his toe nails?

Firefly spent time in space. They even commented on travel times (notably since they were chronically low on fuel), but whatever the travel time was, it was mostly compressed story wise. And I certainly never got the feeling that it took a week or weeks to get from planet A to planet B.

Plus, Jump Space specifically is completely confining. They can't "turn around and go back" after they hit the button. They're trapped for 168 hrs +/- 10%.

Similarly, in TV shows we hear folks perhaps TALK about their commute in and out of the office, traffic, the subway, how far away, but, gracefully, we never have to experience it as an audience.

 

[Blue Ghost]

One of my personal jokes about the original Star Wars movie was that it all took place within a 24 hour period. There's one "night" sequence comprised of a handful of scenes around Luke's home, but otherwise, the next day, things happen (so to speak).

The truth is travel time is never really addressed in either of the big scifi franchises. With Trek it's implicit that a warp-journey can take minutes, hours or days depending on where things are according the story.

For a Traveller TV series, a week in jump doesn't necessarily mean a week's worth of story time watching the crew play games or watching movies. Cinematically it may appear as a Star Wars like hyperspace jump, but again with the implied message that a week's worth of time has passed.

 

[whartung]

The truth is travel time is never really addressed in either of the big scifi franchises. With Trek it's implicit that a warp-journey can take minutes, hours or days depending on where things are according the story.

There are quotes in Trek where they say "we're XXX away, we'll be there in YYY {time units}".

In Star Wars, we don't have hard numbers, from the movies, but we know, for example, that Luke felt "Han and Leia" were in trouble, and then rushed over to Cloud City from Degobah. It seemed to me, at best, that travel took a day. In the recent movie, we saw Finn and Rose travel to another world, fetch the prize, and come back during the course of the movie.

For a Traveller TV series, a week in jump doesn't necessarily mean a week's worth of story time watching the crew play games or watching movies. Cinematically it may appear as a Star Wars like hyperspace jump, but again with the implied message that a week's worth of time has passed.

Jump is a great interstitial from episode to episode, without necessarily losing a lot of continuity. If you've watched, say, ER, some episodes are back to back in real time, others are definitely leaps forwards of weeks or months. Plenty of time for travel in the overall narrative, and plenty of opportunity to have a "bad jump" episode where the characters have something gone wrong in Jump.

Travel in Traveller is "fast", but not "quick hop down to the chemist" fast.