Originally posted by Jeffr0:
[...] but IMO it has little to do with game design.
A game generally has clearly defined rules and objectives (often miltary or eoconomic or both) for two or more sides. If it is played solitaire, then one side plays according to a simplified sort of "program."
I hate to tell you this, but I've never discovered any RPG whose "core" rules mechanics for PC-gen, skills, combat, non-combat, and advancement that I am completely happy with.
They all have their advantages and disadvantages (ok, the bad ones have mostly disadvantages).
Traveller, in it's various incarnations, supports tech and world gearheading better than any other game, IMO.
T5 will try to do good with it's "core" rules, but if past performance (in specific for the Traveller line), and in general (for the gaming industry as a whole), I'm not really going to be holding my breath (especially with the almost two year wait remaining). T20 is closest thing I have to work with right now as far as core game system rules go, and as I have loads of d20 stuff, would probably game with it right now. However, as I mentioned, I don't really have any players locally.
Now, as far as the "core" game rules goes, every single game has them, one way or another (even diceless Amber had some general rules for settling disputes based on PC stats).
What sets Traveller apart? I already mentioned it. Tech and world gearheading.
Is that all there is to the game? Of course not, and I never said otherwise. Are they
major features of the game that go far, far beyond the core mechanics? Yes. Are they features most other games (most SF games, at least) lack and therefore suffer from? Yes.
d20 Starwars? Starship construction might as well not exist.
The Palladium System (yes, they did actually come out with a starship design sequence in one of the books)? Take a good look at it, it really doesn't compare.
Spacemaster? Eeeeek! We're going to need
big spreadsheets!
Starfire? Excellent but highly abstract. Not "crunchy" enough in the fine details, although starship combat is a breeze and huge fleet battles may be conducted rapidly. Spreadsheets were eventually introduced to the empire building game in order to handle all the paperwork involved.
Star Frontiers? The milieu, "The Frontier", didn't have any "core" worlds that it was on "The Frontier" of. It appeared to exist in isolation. 20 years ago I glanced through Knighthawks and remember behing underwhelmed in comparison to the brilliance of CT:Book 5. Traveller (even without the OTU) seemed like a better option (especially with the limited funds I had at the time). I examined Knighthawks again much later, and decided it just didn't match my tech or world gearheading needs. (Star Frontiers also seemed to lack an exploration portion, strange, considering the name). And yes, despite all this, I also read up on all the old Ares articles about Star Frontiers, and thought a lot of it was quite interesting, even if not quite suiting my needs.
Space Opera. Forget it. The explanations and outputs of starship design were, in a word, clunky (or so I thought). I seem to recall an Ares article on "The Moon" in Space Opera (that Dragon's "Ares" section had a bunch of lunar articles, by game system, and one was for Traveller, I believe). Socially and culturally speaking, it was a polite ripoff of Luna in Heinlein's
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which permanently prejudiced me against the game.
Alternity? Don't make me laugh.
Trinity/Aeon? The setting never grabbed me, and there was no gearheading that I learned of (ok, I didn't poke my nose in all the books, it could have been there; but WW isn't know for their work in that area).
I'm sure I've missed a bunch. There was that other d20 space setting with, dragons, I think, that I was never more than peripherally aware of.
What does all this wrap around to? If I want to do my own gearheading, Traveller is the game of choice, and no other holds a candle to it AFAIC. It is why I'm so concerned about the future of these aspects, and the quality with which they will be treated in the approaching T5. For that, I will hold my breath, for no matter what happens to the supposedly "core" game mechanic (which every game has), I think will be what happens to the tech-building and worldbuilding system that will have a
significant influence on the future of Traveller and on the commercial success of T5.
I can tinker my way around faults in the "core" mechanic. But once tech and world gearheading rules are published, you can't really tinker with them because then you've got something that won't match what anyone else has done. Who cares if you house-rule auto-fire systems from one game to another? The game still moves forward.
The same does not apply to tinkering with gearheading rules. But if one game is going on 50% jump fuel, designs will not cross over no matter what. A fleet built on my massed battery-fire rule could not be matched against a fleet built on the standard rules You can post your own variant designs all you want in an attempt to share your hard work, but no one else who isn't using your variants will be interested in it. Non-standard designs to not contribute to the fann-produced body of work that would otherwise support the game. The same goes for worlds. I've played (as several others have) with creating alternate UWP lists to include more and better information. But no one besided me can read it, and given a wideapread resistance to the UWP in general, I doubt more than a tiny handful would be interested in learning it (if any).
As for actual play vs. worldcraft: If I can manage to find Players and run a game (or play in game), that will be good to. But just because I'm not doing the later now, does not invalidate the rest of what I do. I think, if you probe far enough, that a great many of the most active participants in CotI and the TML are in a similar state of affairs.
