Another "Traveller" ripoff?

[aramis]

Anderson, Chandler, de Camp, Harrison, Piper, Vance.


Hans

I've not read Anderson nor Chandler, what I've read of de Camp screams "D&D started here" but looks nothing at all like Traveller, Harry Harrison I can see some, but nothing strong enough to be more than genre reference...

HB Piper is clearly an influence on Traveller, but the books don't feel at all like traveller to me. There are bits lifted... but the feel was very different.

And Vance feels nothing at all like anything I've played in gaming. I can see how Gygax pulled inspiration from the magic, especially Rhialto, but Ugh... I can also see almost all of what I consider Gygax's worst advice to GMs seems to be an attempt to out-Vance Jack Vance... I found volumes 3 & 4 of Dying Earth particularly unpleasant. If I was playing in a game with a GM trying to emulate those, I'd tell him to do anatomically impossible things, and walk away.

EE "Doc" Smith is also a strong influence on some people's Traveller games... and the description for the Special psionic power clearly hints at Lensman.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Funny you should mention that movie...

Note that Buchwald may have won $150,000, but he spent $200,000 to do it.

That just proves that crime does pay if you got the money to justify it. I shrug at it. What's worse is that I used to be a fan of Bungie Games with their very cool Myth series. A game that was nearly ten years or more ahead of the competition.

I heard about the Buchwald lawsuit on the radio when it happened. I never heard the results until you posted the link. What's funny is that according to the article the judge called the initial contract that Paramount tendered to Buchwald "unconscionable", and yet only awarded Buchwald and his lawyer a fraction of what the contract said he was owed. That is something I truly do not understand. The judge blasts Paramount, then gives Buchwald pennies on the dollar. Oh well.

 

[Timerover51]

I've not read Anderson nor Chandler, what I've read of de Camp screams "D&D started here" but looks nothing at all like Traveller, Harry Harrison I can see some, but nothing strong enough to be more than genre reference...

HB Piper is clearly an influence on Traveller, but the books don't feel at all like traveller to me. There are bits lifted... but the feel was very different.

EE "Doc" Smith is also a strong influence on some people's Traveller games... and the description for the Special psionic power clearly hints at Lensman.

I do not see much of Poul Anderson in Traveller, although his short story, Industrial Revolution, may have given the idea of skimming fuel from a gas giant, and clearly would be a great help to anyone running a Belter scenario (and it can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg). I am not sure about A. Bertram Chandler at all, although he does go very strongly into mixed sex crews.

The books that scream D&D to me are the Harold Shay series by Fletcher Pratt and Sprague de Camp, not de Camp by himself. Some of Anderson's fantasy stories along could have been inspiration for D&D as well.

As for Vance, I wonder if some of the ideas for the Other career came from the Galactic Effectuator and Magnus Ridolph stories.

As for the Psionics, I think of James Schmitz's Telzey Amberton series and also the John Berryman short stories of Psis that appeared in Analog in the late 60s (also available on download from Project Gutenberg).

 

[rancke]

I've not read Anderson nor Chandler, what I've read of de Camp screams "D&D started here" but looks nothing at all like Traveller, Harry Harrison I can see some, but nothing strong enough to be more than genre reference...

De Camp's Viagens Interplanetarias stories are the sort of realistic, down-to-Earth, yet exotic adventures that Traveller IMO is all about. The other I mentioned wrote many of the same sort of stories.

And Vance feels nothing at all like anything I've played in gaming. I can see how Gygax pulled inspiration from the magic, especially Rhialto, but Ugh... I can also see almost all of what I consider Gygax's worst advice to GMs seems to be an attempt to out-Vance Jack Vance... I found volumes 3 & 4 of Dying Earth particularly unpleasant. If I was playing in a game with a GM trying to emulate those, I'd tell him to do anatomically impossible things, and walk away.

I'm talking about Vance's SF stories, not his fantasy stories.


Hans

 

[JimMarn]

Chandler's Commodore Grimes stories are mostly good. Especially the times where he takes a ship to the edge of the galaxy and odd things happen. The time travel ones, along with the Ancient Martians, seemed kind of contrived.

H. Beam Piper stories definately shows the 'small group fighting against big odds'.

 

[rancke]

Chandler's Commodore Grimes stories are mostly good. Especially the times where he takes a ship to the edge of the galaxy and odd things happen. The time travel ones, along with the Ancient Martians, seemed kind of contrived.

Oh, I'm not saying that all of Chandler's stories are Traveller stories. But many of them are. Every one of the lost colony stories, for instance.

H. Beam Piper stories definately shows the 'small group fighting against big odds'.

I ran the plot of Four Day Planet for my Traveller group practically unchanged.


Hans

 

[JimMarn]

I don't remember the name of the story, but there was a lost colony one where the only books remaining after the starship crash was several of Sherlock Holmes stories and a book on clothing and customs of Scotland's Highlanders. The survivors built a society based on the books.