This is pretty much how I see it. One other advantage of not mentioning specific bits of technology is that the game won't age as quickly. Nothing ages a game as quickly as mentioning specific storage capacities for computers, as just one example.
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This is pretty much how I see it. One other advantage of not mentioning specific bits of technology is that the game won't age as quickly. Nothing ages a game as quickly as mentioning specific storage capacities for computers, as just one example.
There are all sorts of magical tweaks to the rules that we can make our Space Opera, a reality. Notwithstanding, Traveller is a Hard Space Opera therefore has to conform to lives that might be within our possible futures (not all of which are utopian).
For instance, although, medical advances have lengthened lifespans there are still other forms of disease and pestilence that still can kill us. What if out there among the stars, we encounter a lifeform of Vilani origin that defies any known cure for it is a form rapid mutating virus that the Ancients used to make Humanti suited for other worlds. This would kill off 90% of the Solomani enforcing the interbreding between the Vilani and other minor human races to ensure survival (I never quite accepted GURPS Humaniti...so don't bother thrusting some of those racial templates at me). This could be responsible for thousands of deaths right up to 1116 every year much is cancer/heart disease is today. A person in the 11th century AD could die of cancer but it is more likely that other things would have killed him/her off first.
Similarly, simply because medical advances are there, who has the means in which to pay for them? If costly repeated treatments are in the MCr range, it certainly would not be the average citizen (who just happens to be the average Traveller character) who can afford them.
But, back to Mongoose's plans, I guess that I can be resigned, if the rule set is solid, I will incorporate it into my campaign but if it falters then I will revert to my house rules. What we can best hope for is a language that my house rules can be understood, if it is based (otherwise rooted) in the CT template, then almost any edition of Traveller will be good for that purpose. Where Mongoose will excel is that they are making the whole thing OGL, so finally, we come back to a time when all SFRPGs will model themselves after Traveller, if they want to openly rather in the shadows. For the genius of Marc W. Miller & co. was to take all the stories that he had grown up with and codify them into a mechanic. The genius of many others has been to take that mechanic and expand our imagination to touch the Stars.
OGL will allow many products to be created but also many fine ones. The universe is open for business once again. And, if Mongoose keep Traveller in the gaming public's eye - then I will be happy.
For instance, although, medical advances have lengthened lifespans there are still other forms of disease and pestilence that still can kill us. What if out there among the stars, we encounter a lifeform of Vilani origin that defies any known cure for it is a form rapid mutating virus that the Ancients used to make Humanti suited for other worlds. This would kill off 90% of the Solomani enforcing the interbreding between the Vilani and other minor human races to ensure survival (I never quite accepted GURPS Humaniti...so don't bother thrusting some of those racial templates at me). This could be responsible for thousands of deaths right up to 1116 every year much is cancer/heart disease is today. A person in the 11th century AD could die of cancer but it is more likely that other things would have killed him/her off first.
Similarly, simply because medical advances are there, who has the means in which to pay for them? If costly repeated treatments are in the MCr range, it certainly would not be the average citizen (who just happens to be the average Traveller character) who can afford them.
But, back to Mongoose's plans, I guess that I can be resigned, if the rule set is solid, I will incorporate it into my campaign but if it falters then I will revert to my house rules. What we can best hope for is a language that my house rules can be understood, if it is based (otherwise rooted) in the CT template, then almost any edition of Traveller will be good for that purpose. Where Mongoose will excel is that they are making the whole thing OGL, so finally, we come back to a time when all SFRPGs will model themselves after Traveller, if they want to openly rather in the shadows. For the genius of Marc W. Miller & co. was to take all the stories that he had grown up with and codify them into a mechanic. The genius of many others has been to take that mechanic and expand our imagination to touch the Stars.
OGL will allow many products to be created but also many fine ones. The universe is open for business once again. And, if Mongoose keep Traveller in the gaming public's eye - then I will be happy.
Plankowner
SOC-13
Valid points Daryen and I have to say that a day later, perhaps I was a bit harsh. But, it was (and to some extent still is) how I feel about the article. BUT, I still don't want a rehash of the same old stuff. We have the Spinward Marches in the Golden Age, the Rebellion, the New Era and soon in the Post New Era (or whatever it will be called). What will Mongoose bring to that region that we don't already have?
Regarding Basic and Advanced Character Generation, I agree with you, there should be ONE way to get skills. Advanced Character Generation broke the system in many ways and Citizens of the Imperium went backwards, not forwards in that regard. I don't have MT, but from what I have read here, it at least made the various careers more even with regards to skill development.
I guess when I saw the list of proposed materials, It read very much like the original published material, which I already have... I was hoping for something MORE. Wish I could explain it better than that, but I can't right now.
daryen
SOC-14 1K
Fair enough. I more than understand. I do see a need for some things, even if they are redundant, but I agree that something "new" would be very nice.
If you want a full newly developed sector for the Classic Era that gives a decent mix of races, but hasn't been extensively developed prior to now, you are probably forced to use Hinterworlds or Leonidae sectors.
Also, there is a use for Yet Another Version of the Spinward Marches (YAVSM). Yes, the Marches have been done to death. In addition to the various versions you mention, there have been three separate versions done for the classic period (Supp3, SMC, GT:BtC) which are all very noticably different. And the classic data from other sources (TNE's RS) is different still. (Go figure.) If the purpose of Mongoose Traveller is to be "The one version that rules them all", or, uh, unifies them all, then having a "superset" version of the Spinward Marches that unifies the various versions would actually be a useful thing. Plus, unlike all of the others, it would actually be in print. Hopefully, for a while, too.
Actually I'm not. AI is a term with a meaning so wide as to be almost useless. What I'd like to see is some kind of proper discussion on it. There's the kind of AI that lets robot hoovers avoid the cat, all the way up to The Culture's Minds, and beyond.
Whether robots replace humans for jobs like piloting or medicine is up to the local humans. Why does the 3I not have AI systems? Probably because there's legislation against it, rather than the fact it's impossible, given that Virus was already waiting in the wings.
If we're talking Turing machines, those that are indistinguishable from a person in conversation, then that's not unlike C-3PO.
Maybe AI is too unreliable or untrustworthy to be in general use.
I'm not saying it should be in the core system, but there should be hints as to how it might integrate.
The thing that makes Traveller unique is it's Hard SF outlook. The rules should be able to cope with anything that has come out of that genre, and in the last 30 years that includes AI.
Personally I'd like to see a bit of a reboot in the OTU to incorporate some of the tropes that have emerged from the literature in the last couple of decades. Just little tweaks mind, before folk get vexed...
We actually need a new version of the Marches, a definitive one, one with detail. I can't see it as 'done to death' as someone has mentioned as I still know virtually nothing about most of the worlds there.
In fact, only the published adventures and Avenger's recent 268 stuff actually shed any real detail on it. We can't even decide if Regina has an indigenous alien population or not. We don't know much about the original colonists, apart from the fact that the Sword Worlders are Northern European. Apart from the Frontier Wars we have very little history.
I'd go as far as saying that the Marches should be the only sector in official supplements, leaving the rest to third parties and almost decanonising everything else, to give room to new refs to develop their own stuff. Currently all the vast pages of raw UWPs for almost the entire 3I leave refs with no room to maneuver.
There are what, 440 worlds in the Marches? I don't think the sector is exhausted by a long shot. A highly detailed treatement of Regina subsector alone could fill a couple of products for years to come.
It's funny, while I don't disagree with you, I remember people years ago complaining that Atlas of the Imperium was published without UWPs.
Personally I'd have the Marches and the Solomani Rim be the only two official subsectors and just let everything else fade away. (Now I'll be accused of being an evil grognard
).
daryen
SOC-14 1K
Personally, I would love to see a full reimaging of the Third Imperium. But I always hesitate to bring that up, because there will be as many different definitions of "reimaging" as people contributing definitions.
I do agree that there are many different things that can be done with the Spinward Marches, up to and including "redefining" it to a large extent. However, even if canon is closely held to, there is an absolute ton of new material that can be created for the sector.
There are many major worlds that are complete black holes of information. There are vast quantities of important, influential people besides Duke Norris that just cry out for detail. Even the minor aliens we know are completely wasted (the Dandies seem to be full participants in a hi-tech society; why don't we see them off Junidy?).
Also, many retcons cry out for a fuller backstory. Let's go ahead and fill in blanks around Andor and Candory. How about Seldrian? Let's detail her, and add to her history. How about Retinae? Can we please give that stupid planet some kind of story that might work? Entrope is a great non-Imperial world that desperately needs some detail work. What about well-known, but completely blank, worlds like Jewell, Efate, Collace, Strouden, among others?
Seriously, even a version of the Spinward Marches that is completely faithful to canon can easily contain a massive amount of new material. And even after that, it will still have lots of unexplained or explored worlds to cover.
I do agree that there are many different things that can be done with the Spinward Marches, up to and including "redefining" it to a large extent. However, even if canon is closely held to, there is an absolute ton of new material that can be created for the sector.
There are many major worlds that are complete black holes of information. There are vast quantities of important, influential people besides Duke Norris that just cry out for detail. Even the minor aliens we know are completely wasted (the Dandies seem to be full participants in a hi-tech society; why don't we see them off Junidy?).
Also, many retcons cry out for a fuller backstory. Let's go ahead and fill in blanks around Andor and Candory. How about Seldrian? Let's detail her, and add to her history. How about Retinae? Can we please give that stupid planet some kind of story that might work? Entrope is a great non-Imperial world that desperately needs some detail work. What about well-known, but completely blank, worlds like Jewell, Efate, Collace, Strouden, among others?
Seriously, even a version of the Spinward Marches that is completely faithful to canon can easily contain a massive amount of new material. And even after that, it will still have lots of unexplained or explored worlds to cover.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
What I'd like to see in setting coverage is pretty much an update of what the various editions have given us:
Low-detail coverage of *everything* out to the limits of the old map. The CT Atlas of the Imperium actually represents about the right level of coverage when you're looking at sectors three to the left of Fulani. Stellar types, gas giants, and water...
For worlds within known polities, a standard one line UWP and some statement of when in the timeline this data was determined. Yes, there are worlds on the fringes for which data exists, but which is three centuries old. This is a good thing.
The Imperium should have all sectors, subsectors, and mainworlds named. A surprising amount of this is already done, but unification isn't a small task. Spotted Library data needs to be compiled, DATED, and added to.
Pick sectors or, in Imperial Space, Domains to concentrate on. Go to town. Unless Marc has specifically de-Canonized prior work, try to follow what has come before.
The key is to concentrate commercial effort on a few adventure-rich environments and leave the rest of the setting to players. A unified set of low-level details helps to keep those who want to develop other regions from going too far astray. In general, unification of what already exists from various editions can accomplish this.
Low-detail coverage of *everything* out to the limits of the old map. The CT Atlas of the Imperium actually represents about the right level of coverage when you're looking at sectors three to the left of Fulani. Stellar types, gas giants, and water...
For worlds within known polities, a standard one line UWP and some statement of when in the timeline this data was determined. Yes, there are worlds on the fringes for which data exists, but which is three centuries old. This is a good thing.
The Imperium should have all sectors, subsectors, and mainworlds named. A surprising amount of this is already done, but unification isn't a small task. Spotted Library data needs to be compiled, DATED, and added to.
Pick sectors or, in Imperial Space, Domains to concentrate on. Go to town. Unless Marc has specifically de-Canonized prior work, try to follow what has come before.
The key is to concentrate commercial effort on a few adventure-rich environments and leave the rest of the setting to players. A unified set of low-level details helps to keep those who want to develop other regions from going too far astray. In general, unification of what already exists from various editions can accomplish this.
Sorry, but AoTI is pretty much less than useless. How is that helpful to refs or players? Lots of star locations, with the wrong stellar types, that don't correspond to either physics or Book 6 rules, and that's about it. You're honestly better off starting from scratch. All that does is restrict refs ideas to an arbitrary star map.
If there's to be rules for generating star systems, then let the refs use it without restriction.
So, Spinward Marches in meticulous detail, a few other sectors that are developed third party through the OGL (thinking here Gateway, Empty Quarter, Spica, that are current ongoing projects), perhaps Solomani Rim in the same detail, and everything else blanked. Key strategic worlds in various sectors may be mentioned for consistency's sake (Sylea, Deneb etc), leave the rest to the refs and their MTU's.
AoTI should be decanonised as it's just a waste of paper.
If a world's to be named, it had better have details on it's history, gravity, fauna and flora, useful exports, important figures, interesting features and what not. A raw UWP, or even less than that, is just an insult to the players imaginations. And it's too lazy for words....
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Let them go astray. If official products keeps their mitts of it, what's the problem? If what you want is adventure rich environments, encouraging producers to make bare bones sectors is not the way to go. The size of such sectors inevitably make it just so much filler with a handful of interesting bits.
The whole Imperium should be like Foreven sector, apart from a handful of named (and detailed) worlds, and the key play areas.
To me this is fragmentation. You publish 6 adventures.. Each one takes place in different sectors. How is a ref to get his player group to go through all those adventures when it's going to take them years of game time to get from point to point. So every ref might buy just the one nearest to where his game is set. That's no good: he should be able to buy and use all six without modifying them to the point of starting from scratch.
Also, as a ref, I'm sick of situations where I want to take my game to a particular kind of world, yet there is none in the sector where the players are. I look at the neighbouring sector, and no joy, and so on and so on. If those neighbouring sectors were like Foreven, then I'd be able to make my world and still have the players reach it before they go gray.
I don't know I'd go that far because it prevents someone from working up a region of space for OGL projects. While there is a lot of potential for bad products to be published, it does allow the Keiths of the world to do their version of Reaver's Deep.
Publishers need to serve many masters. Some customers want to be able to play adventures 'straight out of the box' while others only buy adventures to mine them for ideas. The former want lots of hard details and the latter get turned away if there's too much detail they can't use. And even if a publisher decides to set all of its finely detailed adventures in Regina subsector, for example, it runs the risk of alienating those customers who want to play in District 268. It's a fine balancing act and I think the CT LBB adventures did a very good job of walking the tightrope.
What's to prevent you from changing a world's stats to suit your needs or even dropping one whole on to the map?
There isn't, but why would anyone pay good money for a product they'd have to fill in the copious blanks themselves?
You can do that just as easily with a highly detailed sector.
The low detail approach is just plain lazy, and feels like a rip-off. If a ref wanted to develop his own sector then that's what he'd be doing, not purchasing a book he'd find he'd actually have to write himself.
A richly detailed and exciting illustration?
A blank sheet of paper?
Or a join the dots colouring book?
Would you buy a software app where you had to finish the code off yourself?
Bare bones never cut it, and certainly doesn't today.
And it doesn't stop third parties doing their own sectors. Bring it on. Just make sure it's got good detail and actual info, rather than lines of number strings that mean virtually nothing.
A good portion of the OTU can be ditched and nobody would notice. Apart from some well designed and reasonably filled in areas (and we know where those are) it's just colourless vanilla.
And an adventure in Regina moving on to D268 is perfect. That can be traversed in under a year, and if the SM book is suitably informative, the journey can be made fun. Traversing from SM to Ley and back is a bit less realistic, and thru a bunch of raw UWPs, or not even that, the ref basically has to write a campaign from scratch.
I agree with Klaus on this one. I was a very loyal GDW fan until the second TNE product was released: Forms & Charts...that left such a bitter taste that when the next product was just a collection of worlds in the RC, I was completely disguisted and did not buy another TNE product for about 10yrs. If Mongoose goes the route of "generic" fill in the blank product line then Traveller will lose people. Like how GDW lost me. We are moving toward a stage within RPG are going to look very different than what has gone on before. I would ask people to check out Fear Itself (
) as a Third Generation RPG.
I have nothing against diluting the Traveller Universe, so long as it is done with some sensability that went on before it...ie no giant killer robots unless they are part of the Ancients Milieu. Or Vilani protrayed as the consumate villians of Bondian fame unless it is done in the Interstellar Wars Milieu. So, sure, there should be nanotech or things that go faster than Jump Drive but they should be done in moderation just as it always has been done.
These are the challenges for Mongoose, it won't be easy but I trust that if they hire the right people and we the gaming public, we can be sure to set them straight.
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http://dyingearth.com/gumshoe/fearitself/index.htmlI have nothing against diluting the Traveller Universe, so long as it is done with some sensability that went on before it...ie no giant killer robots unless they are part of the Ancients Milieu. Or Vilani protrayed as the consumate villians of Bondian fame unless it is done in the Interstellar Wars Milieu. So, sure, there should be nanotech or things that go faster than Jump Drive but they should be done in moderation just as it always has been done.
These are the challenges for Mongoose, it won't be easy but I trust that if they hire the right people and we the gaming public, we can be sure to set them straight.
AOTI was only useful to me for getting players from one sector I had stats for to another I had stats for, given the lack of useful data, it provided a map with points where fuel was available...
...until I got the sector data in about '96... at which point, my Excel spreadsheet of the data became a useful tool when combined with AOTI.
...until I got the sector data in about '96... at which point, my Excel spreadsheet of the data became a useful tool when combined with AOTI.
So I guess that makes my old group one of the original splitters from 'pure' Traveller
It's odd really that this rule causes so much heat and debate but is so easy to houserule.
I've never seen a CT edition that didn't have short-term & out as an official option (though I'm told ones earlier than the ones I've had lacked it).
MT swapped which was optional. Since 87, I've only killed characters in CGen at the player's request.
Plankowner
SOC-13
Back in the Dark Days of Classic Traveller, when there was only LBB 1-3, you died in Character Generation, there were no other options.
As I remember, that was the FIRST rule change we made. We let you get injured and start play at that point.
By the Traveller Book, I think it was a published option, but I'm not sure.
As I remember, that was the FIRST rule change we made. We let you get injured and start play at that point.
By the Traveller Book, I think it was a published option, but I'm not sure.
I'd have to check my books but I believe this was actually amended as of the Deluxe Traveller edition, circa 1981.
