An Interesting article in Games Quarterly

[Piper]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:
... but wolf-people, lion-people, centaur-people, and clearly-ripped-off-from-Larry-Niven people."

[Good joke, but... didn't he mention the Aslan twice and forget the Hivers?]

I think he's referring to the Hivers as the "ripped off from Niven people"
They share some traits with Ringworld's Puppeteers.

"The trouble was that every new development wound up choking the original point of the game to death. The Imperium was suddenly hemmed in on all sides of its sadly two-dimensional galaxy; the frontier was closed."

You could make an argument supporting this, but it really only applies if any particular person bought into the published maps/settings in their entirety (as many people did).

The subsector/world generation rules were always there and people were and are free to generate their own settings; incorporating all, some, or none of the published materials as they desire.

Having no unexplored frontier areas can be limiting, but Traveller doesn't require it. Even if you stick to published settings, there's no reason that a campaign couldn't be set around the Zhodani core expeditions (as one example).

 

[Piper]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:
... but wolf-people, lion-people, centaur-people, and clearly-ripped-off-from-Larry-Niven people."

[Good joke, but... didn't he mention the Aslan twice and forget the Hivers?]

I think he's referring to the Hivers as the "ripped off from Niven people"
They share some traits with Ringworld's Puppeteers.

"The trouble was that every new development wound up choking the original point of the game to death. The Imperium was suddenly hemmed in on all sides of its sadly two-dimensional galaxy; the frontier was closed."

You could make an argument supporting this, but it really only applies if any particular person bought into the published maps/settings in their entirety (as many people did).

The subsector/world generation rules were always there and people were and are free to generate their own settings; incorporating all, some, or none of the published materials as they desire.

Having no unexplored frontier areas can be limiting, but Traveller doesn't require it. Even if you stick to published settings, there's no reason that a campaign couldn't be set around the Zhodani core expeditions (as one example).

 

[Jeffr0]

Aha...

I thought he was referencing Niven's Man-Kzin Wars series.

 

[Jeffr0]

Aha...

I thought he was referencing Niven's Man-Kzin Wars series.

 

[Ran Targas]

Originally posted by robject:
Too damn big. Well, yes.

Unfortunately yes. To make the adventurer's game setting sufficiently remote (1 year to capital or so?) required an empire 2 years in diameter.

At an average of jump 4, that's too damn big.

Solution: defang the Imperium a bit. Make it smaller and/or weaker.

Smaller: Proto-Traveller.
Weaker: Set the maximum TL at 12, then try to explain why it's "so low".

11,000 strings of digits don't impress me; they depress me, in fact. I don't want a sea of UWPs. I would like the XBoat routes shown, and the UWPs for the major worlds and trade hubs, and the neighborhoods for the major adventures (?), and that's it.

Leave most of Dagudashaag, Zarushagar, Corridor, Gushemege, Usdiki, what-have-you unlabelled. Show where the systems are, and (at least for some) if there are gas giants or not, and leave it at that.

That's my rant. I don't know if it would even help. The Imperium is too big for me to wrap my brain around it.

Maybe a Faraway sector will help... as long as the starting world's name is Regina, and has stats similar to CT's original Regina, I'll be happy. That would be my Proto-Traveller.

I'll have to cruise over to the PT forum and see what they're up to now.

I agree with you, Rob. I prefer a 2300-ish empire where major/minor routes are established to/from economically important worlds but the perifery is mostly unexplored (unless something really caught the IISS's sensors!).

I think it leaves much more room for GM's imagination to work and still maintains the flavor of an established empire.

 

[Ran Targas]

Originally posted by robject:
Too damn big. Well, yes.

Unfortunately yes. To make the adventurer's game setting sufficiently remote (1 year to capital or so?) required an empire 2 years in diameter.

At an average of jump 4, that's too damn big.

Solution: defang the Imperium a bit. Make it smaller and/or weaker.

Smaller: Proto-Traveller.
Weaker: Set the maximum TL at 12, then try to explain why it's "so low".

11,000 strings of digits don't impress me; they depress me, in fact. I don't want a sea of UWPs. I would like the XBoat routes shown, and the UWPs for the major worlds and trade hubs, and the neighborhoods for the major adventures (?), and that's it.

Leave most of Dagudashaag, Zarushagar, Corridor, Gushemege, Usdiki, what-have-you unlabelled. Show where the systems are, and (at least for some) if there are gas giants or not, and leave it at that.

That's my rant. I don't know if it would even help. The Imperium is too big for me to wrap my brain around it.

Maybe a Faraway sector will help... as long as the starting world's name is Regina, and has stats similar to CT's original Regina, I'll be happy. That would be my Proto-Traveller.

I'll have to cruise over to the PT forum and see what they're up to now.

I agree with you, Rob. I prefer a 2300-ish empire where major/minor routes are established to/from economically important worlds but the perifery is mostly unexplored (unless something really caught the IISS's sensors!).

I think it leaves much more room for GM's imagination to work and still maintains the flavor of an established empire.

 

[JFZeigler]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:
In conclusion, the article isn't particularly thoughtful, enlightening, or encouraging. It's mostly just a sarcastic diatribe that amounts to whatever-it-must-be-cool-to-say-about-Traveller-around-the-watercooler-at-Steve-Jackson-Games. I really wish that the magazine had disclosed the fact that Hite worked for SJG. Of course, the article is so cynical, it doesn't even sell me on the GT solution!

In the future, I'd much rather see an article by someone that actually cares about Traveller... and that doesn't have a financial stake in the background/system/setting wars.

Ken Hite only worked at SJG for a few months, as I recall, and I know for a fact he never did any work for the GT line. At most, he's written a few (mostly favorable) reviews of Traveller material in his magazine columns.

I suspect he was writing from the point of view of an interested fan and industry observer. He certainly doesn't speak for SJG, formally or informally.

 

[JFZeigler]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:
In conclusion, the article isn't particularly thoughtful, enlightening, or encouraging. It's mostly just a sarcastic diatribe that amounts to whatever-it-must-be-cool-to-say-about-Traveller-around-the-watercooler-at-Steve-Jackson-Games. I really wish that the magazine had disclosed the fact that Hite worked for SJG. Of course, the article is so cynical, it doesn't even sell me on the GT solution!

In the future, I'd much rather see an article by someone that actually cares about Traveller... and that doesn't have a financial stake in the background/system/setting wars.

Ken Hite only worked at SJG for a few months, as I recall, and I know for a fact he never did any work for the GT line. At most, he's written a few (mostly favorable) reviews of Traveller material in his magazine columns.

I suspect he was writing from the point of view of an interested fan and industry observer. He certainly doesn't speak for SJG, formally or informally.

 

[Jeffr0]

Ah well. Point taken.

At the least, it's just a little bit tacky for a prominent GURPS author and Pyramid columnist to be writing an article about how GURPS "yanked the Imperium out of its death march."

The editors of the magazine should have given at least a bit of a bio on Hite.

 

[Jeffr0]

Ah well. Point taken.

At the least, it's just a little bit tacky for a prominent GURPS author and Pyramid columnist to be writing an article about how GURPS "yanked the Imperium out of its death march."

The editors of the magazine should have given at least a bit of a bio on Hite.

 

[RossWinn]

The editors of the magazine should have given at least a bit of a bio on Hite.

Anyone reading Games Quarterly who doesn't know who Ken Hite is should probably get out of the business of selling games. This is comparable to reading an issue of Nature and having no idea who Stephen Hawking is.

 

[RossWinn]

The editors of the magazine should have given at least a bit of a bio on Hite.

Anyone reading Games Quarterly who doesn't know who Ken Hite is should probably get out of the business of selling games. This is comparable to reading an issue of Nature and having no idea who Stephen Hawking is.

 

[Jeffr0]

Many of the readers of Games Quarterly do not play or sell rpgs at all.

 

[Jeffr0]

Many of the readers of Games Quarterly do not play or sell rpgs at all.

 

[Skarl]

Originally posted by ross_winn:
Anyone reading Games Quarterly who doesn't know who Ken Hite is should probably get out of the business of selling games. This is comparable to reading an issue of Nature and having no idea who Stephen Hawking is.

I don't think that it is a good analogy. Many of the readers of Games Quarterly are local shop owners, many of whom do not know the RPG hobby all that well. Most shops specialize instead on CCGs, collectable miniatures games, or Games Workshop as their bread and butter. I have worked for years in the business and I am an RPG fanboy and I have only tangentially heard the name Ken Hite...

The danger is that these shop owners, without the critical information about Hite's potential bias, might be inclined to write off Traveller, even GT. Which means they won't preorder new product for this "dead game", which in turn leads to publishers of Traveller material going out of business.


Skarl

 

[Skarl]

Originally posted by ross_winn:
Anyone reading Games Quarterly who doesn't know who Ken Hite is should probably get out of the business of selling games. This is comparable to reading an issue of Nature and having no idea who Stephen Hawking is.

I don't think that it is a good analogy. Many of the readers of Games Quarterly are local shop owners, many of whom do not know the RPG hobby all that well. Most shops specialize instead on CCGs, collectable miniatures games, or Games Workshop as their bread and butter. I have worked for years in the business and I am an RPG fanboy and I have only tangentially heard the name Ken Hite...

The danger is that these shop owners, without the critical information about Hite's potential bias, might be inclined to write off Traveller, even GT. Which means they won't preorder new product for this "dead game", which in turn leads to publishers of Traveller material going out of business.


Skarl

 

[mike wightman]

Emm, stupid question time.

What has Ken Hite written?

 

[mike wightman]

Emm, stupid question time.

What has Ken Hite written?

 

[Jeffr0]

He wrote GURPS Infinite Worlds... and wrote a long running column for SJG's Pyramid Magazine called "Suppressed Transmission."

 

[Jeffr0]

He wrote GURPS Infinite Worlds... and wrote a long running column for SJG's Pyramid Magazine called "Suppressed Transmission."