1st Preview up for Mongoose Traveller

[GypsyComet]

TNE removed the Type VI star from the tables completely (on account that there are apparently few enough of them in the entire Milky Way that their occurence on the Book 6 tables gives Known Space more of them than the rest of the Milky Way put together; and you thought Grandfather was scary *before*), and also made the other classes of Dwarf star really rare in the primary star position, relegating them to binary positions in the vast majority of cases.

There were other changes as well.

Hopefully Spica wasn't "reality checked" into being overly self-sufficient compared to the rest of Imperial/Solomani space, as that would give the sector a huge advantage following the advent of Virus. TNE and Hard Times (MT) have rules for determining what a world needs for TL in various environments to be truly self-sufficient, but applying those rules to a healthy period ignores the effects of the interstellar economy and tends to render too many worlds Collapse-resistant.

 

[Klaus]

Well we've not considered Virus, as we're doing it in the 993 era. The stars are fixed, because a certain expert fixed them, but we weren't allowed to alter what came in AoTI (apart from the odd star).

Can't really say much, yet, but there's a nice spread of world types. Don't know about New Era self sufficiency, though.

 

[GypsyComet]

The "TNE Blindspot" strikes again.

The perception that TNE's sub-systems are only useful if you are playing (or developing) in the New Era is far too common. The same type of blindspot applies to every rules set since then, as well. "I'm not playing in that era, so I don't care about anything in that ruleset."

This "Edition Blindspot" is also why the Mongoose attempt to function as a great unifier of the Canon and the community will fail.

 

[Vargas]

The "TNE Blindspot" strikes again.

The perception that TNE's sub-systems are only useful if you are playing (or developing) in the New Era is far too common. The same type of blindspot applies to every rules set since then, as well. "I'm not playing in that era, so I don't care about anything in that ruleset."

This "Edition Blindspot" is also why the Mongoose attempt to function as a great unifier of the Canon and the community will fail.

Well to be fair it appears as if proponents of TNE most often choose to look forward rather than going back to earlier eras.

 

[Flynn]

The "TNE Blindspot" strikes again.

The perception that TNE's sub-systems are only useful if you are playing (or developing) in the New Era is far too common. The same type of blindspot applies to every rules set since then, as well. "I'm not playing in that era, so I don't care about anything in that ruleset."

This "Edition Blindspot" is also why the Mongoose attempt to function as a great unifier of the Canon and the community will fail.

The nice thing here is that, with Traveller going OGL, you can do something about it.

You can publish your own updated version of the rules, integrating all the "blindspot" issues you can find that you feel are relevant and then happily use them for your games, all the while making a little bit of loose change as others partake of the fruits of your labor and pay you for the privilege.

This only works, of course, if you are willing to do something about it. To be honest, most people aren't. It's easier to lay blame than to take action. However, GypsyComet, I know that you have already done a lot for the Traveller community in the past, and I trust that you will likely do something to fix the problem you perceive if you feel strongly about it after the OGL stuff is released.

And personally, I want to see what you come up with...

Looking Forward To It,
Flynn

 

[GypsyComet]

I would love nothing more (in context, please) than to have *one* set of supporting mechanics for Traveller. The problem is that every time someone tries to produce the be all and end all, it's either so bad (most of T4) or tied into one of the era blindspots ("but I don't need New Era stuff") that it fails to either be or end the all it was after.

The closest the tech crowd got was the first FF&S (for TNE, and the only part of that edition to escape the blind spot), but even it needed a follow up "we've done all the nasty work for you, so enjoy the simple version" rendering that it never got. Note that FF&S only stole first place because it was better presented than Striker and had two orders of magnitude fewer typos than MT.

I suspect the problem with the rockheads is that the different editions haven't varied *enough* for them to notice. You're either happy with the first one you picked up, or part of the "hate them all" astrophysics school. It may also be a side effect of a large area of campaign space already done, so those pages rarely see use. This applies mostly to the basic end of Traveller's UWP systems. I hear relatively little kvetching about the planetary detail systems (as seen in Book 6, Grand Survey/Census, and World Builders/Tamers) except that Book 6 is crazy complex (albedo calcs, anyone?), so most people use World Builders (which won't help the newcomers) or ignore the whole thing.

Even character generation can't be reduced to one system. The "every point counts" GURPS (and soon Traveller Hero) crowd opposes the "some control" TNE fans and the "mostly random" CT/MT/T4 factions. No unity to be had there.

Actual play mechanics are a religious argument that goes far beyond Traveller. Even with unity on my mind, I know better than to think everyone wants to use the same system for play. I am in fact a proponent of "play style suggests mechanics; and mechanics suggest play style".


I'd just like the discussions about, for example, starships, to not *have* to start with "In MT, we were able to..." and finish with "...but I can't make it work under SSDS".

 

[Judas Iscariot]

I have some concept art for the update of Striker I have been working on that one of the olunteers did for us as a sort of proof of concept.

They amrry the old LBB style of Black background with a colored stripe (orange in the case of Striker, now called System Striker3 - the final Product will be System Striker 5). In addition to the Colored Stripe and Black background, there is a fade into a different background color against which is silhoueted (I am sure that is spelled wrong, but I have been up for three days now working on projects from the Singularity Summit last weekend... I got to meet Peter Theil...woohoo!) a soldier kneeling and firing some sort of weapon (It has still not decided whether to go with he Gauss Rifle, an PGMP/FGMP, Laser Rifle or ACR)... People thought that the designs really captured the spirit of the CT LBBs, while bringing a new reimaged look to Traveller. I have a bit of a rep as a cool hunter among some circles (and didn't even know it until recently), so I am betting that it has that certain "something" as well. If it doesn't now, then it will when it gets its back-cover artwork and interior cover artwork, which will be similar to the front cover, except that the details will be filled in on the silhouette... And a battle scene will be shown that is approapriate to each book (I think that we have one main rule book, and four minor Booklets that deal with different aspects of play and the miniatures).

I have even come up with a system that uses the traditional 2D6 roll to do a fast combat resolution system for unit-unit combat. Seems that this was easier than I first thought. I won't go into it here, but you can see a few posts on the developing concepts on the Ct-Striker yahoo group.

School seems to be less of an obstacle than it was last year, so I should have a little bit of time on weekends to continue work on SS3. I have a small number of minis with me as well, so I can even play out some of the test scenarios I have drawn up. The biggest obstacle to making a successful miniatures game for Traveller is coming up with a miniatures line that is well supported, and in all of the popular scales (No reason to NOT do this in today's world). People still have 15m and 25mm Traveller minis from Martian Metals, Citadel, Grenadier and RAFM (Wasn't someone else doing them too???). I personally would like the Unit Tactical and Grand Tactical games to be predominantly played in 10mm or 6mm. So, this would mean that minor alterations would need to be done on 3DO files for each figure. a somewhat expensive task initially, but the success of the 15 and 25 lines would help to support the 10mm and 6mm lines until they could develope a following of their own (much like Space Marine did among 40K players)

The RPG aspects are still cool as heck, but I feel that the game is going to begin to be terribly dated even before it comes out (Fermi Lab for instance, created a completely artificial single celled life form that was capable of mitosis. So, nano-tech and bio-tech have just recieved another MAJOR piece of the puzzle to working nano-scaled devices and assemblers. This news was announced just before the weekend). That is just one example. The recent Singularity Summit detailed some advances in AI that led many researchers to believe that combined with Moore's Law, and a recently completed Genetic and evolutionary Algorithm for producing code, that we could see a recursively improving AGI within 9 years, or "5 if we really, really try." (Ben Goertzel Phd. Owner of Novamente Cog.). Peter Thiel has a hedge fund that is betting on AGI within the next 15 years (Thiel is the founder of PayPal), I had the opportunity to talk with him over the weekend, and he was pretty sure that the world is going to be so strange and different within that time frame that it will be nearly indistinguishable from now. Sort of like the USA of 1920 was completely alien to the world of 1905 (actually, a more appropriate metaphor given the exponential growth involved, and modifying the dates to reflect that. it would be a change of more like 80 years relative to 1920, so it would be in relation to 1840 whose resident would not recognize 1920. An even more contrasting set of dates brings to mind an even shaper contrast. Would the world leaders of post WWI have thought that in a very few years they would have to worry about weapons that could erase an entire city from the face of the earth? (1920 to 1945. What would the leaders of 1920 done if they knew that the USA would develop a weapon that was capable of destroying the earth if it were made large enough?)

Back to Traveller... I am still psyched to see this coming out. I do not play RPGs any longer, but I do use them as a sort of background for limited strategic miniatures campaigns, which I like to have a GM and a grou of players portraying a small group with the power to alter the course of events within that strategic campaign.

 

[far-trader]

The cover concept you outline does sound cool. Would you be able to post a sample to the new CotI Gallery for oohs and ahhs (and maybe a few boos ).

I expect Moore's law is racing at breakneck speed for a blind curve and will be braking hard soon or crash

And, no slight to anyone, but we see "predictions" of "wonders" of the future always falling flat (flying cars in every garage ) so I'd be tempted to bet against that hedge on nano.

Many people did imagine world busting weapons long before they were reality of course, what it takes is very special individuals and times to actually see them created. Same with anything else, even nano. It will happen sometime, but quite possibly not the way we imagine.

 

[flykiller]

Actual play mechanics are a religious argument that goes far beyond Traveller.

does traveller consist of its actual play mechanics?

 

[Vargas]

I hear relatively little kvetching about the planetary detail systems (as seen in Book 6, Grand Survey/Census, and World Builders/Tamers) except that Book 6 is crazy complex (albedo calcs, anyone?)

I don't know, I seem to read a lot of complaints from certain quarters that the UWP generation sequence is seriously flawed and needs to be more realistic, (which infers complexity). I think the problem is that there's an awful lot of "Traveller doesn't meet my needs so sod off" thinking instead of realizing the any set of rules really needs to be "one size fits most". Perhaps the best approach is along the lines of what CT wound up doing; Books 1-3 provided, for example, basic system generation and ship design sequences which were later expanded in Books 6 and 5 respectively.

 

[far-trader]

...Perhaps the best approach is along the lines of what CT wound up doing; Books 1-3 provided, for example, basic system generation and ship design sequences which were later expanded in Books 6 and 5 respectively.

If only they'd made them (and the advanced char gen too) compatible.

I'm hoping if RTT is the "new" LBB1-3 that Marc's T5 is more compatible than the later LBBs were with the first three.

 

[Vargas]

If only they'd made them (and the advanced char gen too) compatible.

I'm hoping if RTT is the "new" LBB1-3 that Marc's T5 is more compatible than the later LBBs were with the first three.

I guess it depends on how you define capatible.

Characters generated under both systems are equally playable using the same basic rules. (Yes, one is more capable than the other in terms of quantity and levels of skills but they're played the same). And is the issue really all that pressing? If all I have is the basic char gen PC and I want to play with a group that has all advanced char gen PCs, or vice versa, dontcha think someone will help me out and lend me their books? Not the most elegant solution true, but it's not a deal breaker.

The UWPs out of Book 6 are almost perfectly comprehensible to someone with only Book 3, (the S and R designations for satellites and rings, respectively, and gas giant designations being the only real differences, I can think of).

The two ship design systems are definitely different in that they don't yield identical ships but the differences overall are pretty minor.

 

[GypsyComet]

Yes, the "not realistic enough" crowd are the second rockheads group I was refering to. They vary a bit in degree. Some would rather there were a few more edge controls in place to keep tiny worlds from having standard atmospheres (for example), while others want to throw out the standard orbits, introduce another decimal place in diameter notation, and bar certain types of stars from having habitable planets or ANY planets (for example).

I should have been a bit more specific, as well. *System* generation appears to be the primary bone of contention. The mechanics for taking a basic UWP and turning it into a detailed world don't attract nearly as much heat.

If someone could convert their "greater knowledge" of planetary physics into a revised version of system detailing that was no more complex than current systems, they would have my attention. If such a person was also willing to build fuzzy enough edges into said system to account for the historical presence of 421 planet-shattering (and moving) gods, they might get Marc's attention.

Boundless optimism, I know

 

[aramis]

It would have been far less a deal breaker if Adv CG and Basic CG covered ALL the same careers. But most of Supp4 wasn't done.

So in my CT days, B4-7 were solo-play only... I didn't allow the characters in my games. Basic CG only.

MT made the overall skill ranges more compatible.

 

[Gruffty]

I also sit boggled.

Boggle away!

The project has been tied up trying to apply a stronger taste of reality than *anywhere* else in Known Space?

Yup. It was worth the effort to us.

And it worked. :smirk:

Please tell me that at least these weren't the same problems that GDW corrected 17 years ago for TNE.

No, definitely not. They were a whole new set of issues arising from the map of Spica sector in Atlas of the Imperium and the SunBane UWPs and stars (the core reference documents we were required to use as the starting point for the sector's reconstruction).

You have to bear in mind that we were operating under constraints applied from outside the project with regards to what and how many changes we could make to the basic AotI elements (hex location, starport, size, atmosphere & hydrographics, population, bases, gas giants, allegiance). If we had been given carte blanche to regenenerate the entire sector from scratch, without reference to AotI and SunBane, life (and the workload) would have been mucho simplistico. But we weren't allowed that degree of freedom.

But we still managed to do it. :smirk:

 

[Vargas]

I only ever had the SunBane data for Zarushagar but I can tell you it was just terrrible. My analysis of the buggered up stats appeared in one of the last issues of Challenge and if I recall, there were somehting like 40 worlds where the first three UWP stats were 110.

 

[Gruffty]

I only ever had the SunBane data for Zarushagar but I can tell you it was just terrrible. My analysis of the buggered up stats appeared in one of the last issues of Challenge and if I recall, there were somehting like 40 worlds where the first three UWP stats were 110.

Yay! Just like the M0 book, where Pop/Gov/LL were all the same three digits! :smirk: :nonono:

 

[Britti_Lover]

Good news is - I really like this game. Use good artwork and it is a winner.

Bad news is - I won't be playing or buying it at all.

For a nice time - 1998 thru 2005 we had Gurps Traveller for GURPS 3e. Rad RPG with something for all.

I might be tempted to just play this game - its that good. E23 is also publishing the whole game with Behind the Claw and First In now for sale at 7.95

With the current Traveller model being Classic Traveller back in print with new material, Gurps Traveller being one 4e book and Traveller T20 having lots of support what to do?

I am putting together my GURPS 4e Traveller game with an eye on all the advantages Gurps 4e has.

In the main Gurps Traveller for Gurps 3e book it was recommended that you use other GURPS books to "expand" your Traveller universe. So - to me it is one big happy set of gaming books. So - Gurps Martial Arts, Space, Ultra-Tech and Bio-Tech will be used for me to create my own "Ziru Sirka" - using the optional Terra conqurered by Imperials rule in GTIW - now go forward 3,000 years with Terrans in control through internal Imperial politics (read: superior genes) and the possibilities are endless. The Traveller Imperium of your dreams!

One set of rules for all of my gaming! Using this method no additional Traveller books are needed.

I'm sure this will make gaming for me much easier and better for players too - all equipment and rules from the same books.

My Imperium will be Galaxy wide and a Terrian Emperior will have been on the throne for 2,000 years. Terrian rapid tech growth will continue for an additional 3,000 years resulting in a galaxy where TL 11 and 12 is the norm.

Terrians will have gained the Imperial throne from within - a bloodless coup and take-over.

So basically its GTIW - galaxy-wide and TL 12 with Terra in complete control.

I'm pretty sure that all of the great new Traveller stuff being developed - Classic Traveller has TONS of new material coming out all the time now and Mongoose Traveller material could fit right in actually will work in my game.

Many people are confused by what the heck Mongoose is doing - I assume that Traveller T20 is toast after three 1/2 years (too bad, 2320AD looks real nice).

Gurps Traveller may only have the one GTIW book (good thing GURPS 5th edition is no where to be seen for the near future at least).

BITS I hope survives - their classic Traveller material is great stuff and loved by all Traveller fans.

Anyway - the Mongoose stuff looks very nice and it will sell quite well.

I just hope that BITS, GURPS Traveller and Traveller T20 survive - the material is fantastic and well worth owning.

 

[aramis]

The last time "wiping the slate" was tried, the purchasing public castigated Marc and Imperium Games loudly and at length. The changes SJG wrought in the Spinward Marches also attracted a lot of approbation.

The setting either needs a COMPLETE zap (IE, the New OTU isn't in the same TU as the Old OTU, as was done with T2300), or to be faithful to the old of the Old.

And by complete zap, that includes not even using the same sector names as a general rule.

 

[Vargas]

The setting either needs a COMPLETE zap (IE, the New OTU isn't in the same TU as the Old OTU, as was done with T2300), or to be faithful to the old of the Old.

And by complete zap, that includes not even using the same sector names as a general rule.

My guess is that the lifespan of anyone trying this will be measured in minutes.