Aslan Preview

[Klaus]

It would have been if it actually had been 40 pages of complaints about six points of conflict, a couple of which were highly debatable. However, a lot of it are reactions to the complaints, reactions to the reactions to the complaints, reactions to the... need I go on?

Ah, the "others were a lot worse" red herring. It's not a good excuse, and there were complaints about canon inconsistencies in previous versions too. Back to the days where there were only one version.

Not when a handful of mostly minor (bay weapons change is not minor, but I like it ) changes become a focus of such vim and vitriol that has been offered to the Mongoose staffers and also the players of MGT by a few extremely vocal posters, and on much more than this thread.

While, as Dan stated much earlier in this thread, only a small minority of those with complaints have been offensive, they account for a much larger proportion of posts than that implies.

There are also several folk that also have misgivings about some of the decisions Mongoose has made, but also happen to like and play the Mongoose rules, yet they get lumped in with the so-called fanboys.

And yes, even among the froth and invective of some posts, there are good points made; even better when that froth and invective is turned off, and the points can be seen above the smoke and fire.

That's a legitimate complaint, I'd say.

Traveller deckplans as a whole need a shake up. The tyranny of the grid is way too prevalent. I want to see curved corridors and elliptical rooms, especially if the hull form suggests it. I realise it makes it easier for grogs to count the squares to test the specs, but for me interesting plans are better than well audited ones.

Believe me, nothing would please me more than a complete lack of things about MGT of which to complain.

While I respectfully disagree with many of your complaints, you've never stooped to the snarkiness of the posts that bring the heat. It would be nice to have a proper debate without the unnecessary fire and the polarisation between so called fanboys and haters. The folk remaining civil on both sides end up getting conflated with the 'impolite' on both sides, and people that would otherwise be having fine conversations find themselves on the opposite sides of a no mans land.

This is akin to a civil war, with a lot of collateral damage.

Updated with bays?

Yes. The Chrys has 2 particle beam bays (the Fiery has one too), the Sloan 10 missile bays.

 

[far-trader]

Side topic, but one dear to me...

...Traveller deckplans as a whole need a shake up. The tyranny of the grid is way too prevalent. I want to see curved corridors and elliptical rooms, especially if the hull form suggests it. I realise it makes it easier for grogs to count the squares to test the specs, but for me interesting plans are better than well audited ones.

Nothing is stopping anyone (I've even done it) from doing curvey non-linear un-1.5m locked deckplans. I'd like to see more of it too. But one thing to remember is much of life is set to square standards for sound ergonomic and economic reasons. I don't see that changing.

Personally I see no reason to have to choose between interesting and accurate. Both should be the goal and any that don't meet both should be considered disappointing to varying degrees.

 

[Klaus]

Nothing is stopping anyone (I've even done it) from doing curvey non-linear un-1.5m locked deckplans. I'd like to see more of it too. But one thing to remember is much of life is set to square standards for sound ergonomic and economic reasons. I don't see that changing.

Personally I see no reason to have to choose between interesting and accurate. Both should be the goal and any that don't meet both should be considered disappointing to varying degrees.

That is all true. However, in general, much of Traveller deckplans tend towards the prosaic grid based architecture.

There are ergonomic reasons to square stuff off. There are also good design reasons why NY style corridor plans, especially repeated deck after deck. Very difficult to find your way about.

May fave design is the original CT Type S, which is incredibly interesting, and that trumps the fact that is has a few too many squares.

 

[robject]

Aslan deck plans in particular should reflect the curviness of their outer hulls, I think.

 

[far-trader]

And we're back on topic (or in the right stellar neighborhood anyway ).

I once did an Aslan launch that was all curves. Well there might have been some straight lines on the deckplan but they represented nice flowing curved hallways. The staterooms were all rounded and cozy with nooks and even the bridge was roundy. I quite liked the effect and the challenge of doing a non-linear layout. But it still tallyed to the right range of volume. It's not that hard to do, but it is easy to screw-up. Equally easy to catch with a few simple measurements too so there's no excuse for being grossly over.

 

[Whipsnade]

That is all true. However, in general, much of Traveller deckplans tend towards the prosaic grid based architecture.

Klaus,

That has more to do with the period in which those deckplans were produced and less to do with some alleged lack of imagination.

Now it's easy to produce the kind of deckplans you want to see. Drawing programs are simple and computers powerful enough to run them are simpler still. In the 1970s and 1980s however, that was not the case. Remember, Traveller is that old. GDW produced the first editions and supplements without the use of word processors.

You want curved deckplans? Look no further than GT's AR:1 or DGP's S&A for MT. The Aslan deckplans there should give you a warm and fuzzy feeling.


Regards,
Bill

 

[drh]

Now it's easy to produce the kind of deckplans you want to see. Drawing programs are simple and computers powerful enough to run them are simpler still. In the 1970s and 1980s however, that was not the case. Remember, Traveller is that old. GDW produced the first editions and supplements without the use of word processors.

Do you seriously believe that somehow publishers lacked the ability to draw curved lines on deckplans in the 70s and 80s? I'm not going to pretend to know why so many of the deckplans stick to the grid, but the available technology has certainly always been capable of drawing curves as well as straight lines, even when the technology was more primitive. For proof, just look at old D&D maps, they're from the same era and have curves and straight lines on them even while they have a grid. It's not like maps and plans back then were made using a Turtle programmed in LOGO or something! ("forward 10, right 90, forward 20...")

 

[far-trader]

Klaus,

That has more to do with the period in which those deckplans were produced and less to do with some alleged lack of imagination.

Now it's easy to produce the kind of deckplans you want to see. Drawing programs are simple and computers powerful enough to run them are simpler still. In the 1970s and 1980s however, that was not the case. Remember, Traveller is that old. GDW produced the first editions and supplements without the use of word processors.

I'm not so sure it wasn't partly an imagination deficit. The Drawing program I used for my Aslan launch circa late 70's was a Model HB that had an error corrector on one end and if it crashed could be rebooted in a second with the sharpener accessory. And my computer was an original Wetware Grey Cells model with an odd collection of software.

But yeah, modern tech can rock, for those who know how to use it*

* Not me, not competently anyway, I'm still working (not much though) on mastering the old Model HB )

 

[far-trader]

For proof, just look at old D&D maps, they're from the same era and have curves and straight lines on them even while they have a grid.

But a lot of them did stick to some pretty arbitrary angles and almost exclusively to the grid in dimensions iirc.

It's not like maps and plans back then were made using a Turtle programmed in LOGO or something! ("forward 10, right 90, forward 20...")

Heh, there's a blast from the past. I hadn't thought of LOGO in ages

(Wasn't there a curve function for it? Or am I thinking of something else?)

 

[drh]

But a lot of them did stick to some pretty arbitrary angles and almost exclusively to the grid in dimensions iirc.

My Keep of the Borderlands map has curvy passages and trees and non-linear things on it. Yes, a lot of it is on the grid, but I think that's more because the designers wanted to avoid players having arguments about what square they were really on. I'd guess that's probably why Traveller maps are so tied to the grid too.

 

[far-trader]

My Keep of the Borderlands map has curvy passages and trees and non-linear things on it. Yes, a lot of it is on the grid, but I think that's more because the designers wanted to avoid players having arguments about what square they were really on. I'd guess that's probably why Traveller maps are so tied to the grid too.

Very likely

 

[Whipsnade]

Do you seriously believe that somehow publishers lacked the ability to draw curved lines on deckplans in the 70s and 80s?

drh,

No. You missed the point.

What I seriously believe is that most RPG writers weren't draftsmen and didn't have drafting tools. T-squares, French curves, and splines, let alone drafting tables, weren't exactly common items. I'm old enough to have actually been taught drafting, or manual drafting as it is known now, in school and have some appreciation of it's intricacies. (I learned how to use a slide rule too. It was back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.)

Drawing a squiggly line on some dungeon diagram to represent a cave wall is not the same thing as drafting a curved, balanced line to represent a starship's hull.

There are plenty of curved lines in various classic deckplans. Among other thngs, the x-boat is a cone shaped stack of circles, the Marava has her pickle-forked bow, and the Type-R has a curved nose and flared wings. What none of those deckplans have are curves beyond that which can be drawn with a simple compass.


Regards,
Bill

 

[drh]

If I missed a point, you perhaps should have made it more clearly. Maybe the people who drew the original Traveller deckplans had limited tools, but again the original D&D maps clearly show that such tools were available at the time. I think it is more likely that designers wanted to use whole squares to avoid player confusion over position.

Either way it's not worth arguing about.

 

[Whipsnade]

If I missed a point, you perhaps should have made it more clearly.

drh,

Yes. My poor prose style has caused problems in the past.

Either way it's not worth arguing about.

Which, of course, is why you tried to begin one.

If you look at your D&D maps and I'll think you'll find all those swoops and curves are products of the humble compass too.


Regards,
Bill

 

[MongooseMatt]

What a useful remark. Really advanced the discussion.

This _is_ something I have already explained, hence the brevity

I beg you pardon. Your goal was to avoid a situation where all major alien races had psionics to one degree or another, and making the Aslan non-psionic was a means to reach that goal. A goal that had already been reached, since, according to canon, the Hivers are not psionic.

Hivers are different - just different. They will also not be featured in the current Traveller for a little while yet.

But that's not the way you're writing it, to judge from the preview. The information is presented as authorial voice, and that information says that there are no credible reports of Aslan psionics.

You're trying to have it two ways. On the one hand, you've changed it, and you intended to change it. Fair enough. But now you're suddenly trying to say that maybe you didn't change it, maybe that text was just the report of some crackpot ethnologist with an axe to grind.

Uh, no - we were talking hypothetically.

No, but information that individuals have ready access to in-universe should be black and white.

I disagree - that need not always be the case, and if you leave a grey area, that leaves the referee something to decide for himself.

 

[rancke]

I disagree - that need not always be the case, and if you leave a grey area, that leaves the referee something to decide for himself.

This is an all too common fallacy. A game module does not need to leave the referee something to decide for himself, because it's not up to the module -- a referee can decide for himself anyway. If I want to have the world of Mewey populated by rival groups of humans descended from two different wrecked starships and nary an alien in sight, I can simply ignore the canonical description of the minor non-human race living on Mewey and have my shipwrecked civilizations instead. This decision comes at the cost of being unable to use any adventure set on Mewey by official or fan authors directly[*], but that's my choice. But if the canonical description leave the nature of the population nondescript, it's not leaving something for me to decide, it's leaving something I have to decide for myself, willy-nilly, and it practically guarantees that what I decide on will not agree with any subsequent official or unofficial description of the world.

Mind you, I'm fully aware that often it's necessary to leave grey areas, for the simple reason that there is not enough space to describe things in sufficient detail. The example I used was from personal experience, as I'd developed Mewey on my own from the UWP alone, whereupon BtC completely invalidated it all by introducing the Mevey. And I'm not in the least bit upset that it did -- how could the authors possibly know or care about my work on Mevey[**]? But if I was obsessed with keeping my TU compatible with the OTU (which I'm not, fortunately ), I would have had to tell my players that the adventures they'd had on Mewey was all a dream and if I wanted to use that background again, I would have had to find another grey area (say, Borite) and move it there -- creating another filled-in spot that can be invalidated any day. But such grey areas never give referees any options that they didn't already have. Whereas, if I'd known about the Mewey from the start, I would haqve been able to account for them all along, without the risk of getting my adventures invalidated -- after all, I can trust the publishers not to change canon under my feet gratuiously, can't I?

Grey areas don't give referees more options; they're just grey areas that he doesn't know how will be filled when/if the publisher gets around to it. Areas of doubt and uncertainty.

If you want to give referees options, you can describe them and then make it clear which one applies to the OTU -- the common reference setting. Like the GT Planetary Surveys do. Best of both worlds, as it were.



Hans


[*] Obviously, I can move the Mewey to another world and use the adventure there, thus establishing another unwilling disconnect between my TU and the common reference TU.

[**] Well, if they'd known, they might have cared; my version was pretty darn good, even if I say so myself.


Edit: Just realized that you hadn't addressed a qualifier in my original statement. I said that information that individuals have ready access to should be black and white. If the PCs are being sent to investigate rumors of a hitherto unknown species of Tree Kraken in the uncharted forest/swamps of equatorial Forboldn, obviously they shouldn't be able to find the beast described in the library data. But if they're sent to inspect the huge megabuffalo herds that has been ranched for millenia on the wide-open plains of Shululsish, then everything there is to know about the Shululsian Megabuffalo should be available to them. Grey areas need not apply.

 

[rancke]

If you look at your D&D maps and I'll think you'll find all those swoops and curves are products of the humble compass too.

Actually, you can (or could ) get draftsman's rulers with various curves. I know, I had one (sadly, I did not have the skill to use it properly).

I think the deckplans stick to the grid because that's the way wargamers like it. Probably corridors vary in width in "reality", but 1.5 meters is close enough for tabletop gaming.

It's also easier for people without an artistic bone in their body to draw along the grid instead of messing with curves, but that's probably not the reason why professional artists did it.


Hans

 

[drh]

Which, of course, is why you tried to begin one.

Hard as it is to believe, you were wrong. You stated something that was not based on fact. And you still insist you're correct.

If you look at your D&D maps and I'll think you'll find all those swoops and curves are products of the humble compass too.

They really aren't. There are these crazy things called "hands" that have been used for drawing for ages, and that's how the maps appear to have been drawn. Yes, some things are circles and straight lines drawn with rulers and other tools, but a lot of things (contours, trees, rivers, passages) appear to have been hand drawn.

I would suggest you look at the maps yourself, and then you'll see what I'm talking about. Specifically the ones in Keep on the Borderlands, published in 1980.

 

[tbeard1999]

They really aren't. There are these crazy things called "hands" that have been used for drawing for ages, and that's how the maps appear to have been drawn. Yes, some things are circles and straight lines drawn with rulers and other tools, but a lot of things (contours, trees, rivers, passages) appear to have been hand drawn.

I would suggest you look at the maps yourself, and then you'll see what I'm talking about. Specifically the ones in Keep on the Borderlands, published in 1980.

I think that his assertions imply that he's talking about maps of *finished* structures and tunnels. Obviously, caverns and other natural features were often hand drawn. But the map in Keep on the Borderlands has no non-regular curves that aren't part of the cavern complex. I'd add that the entire map appears to have been drawn freehand (i.e., without using a ruler) as even the square rooms are a bit squiggly.

 

[Allensh]

Hivers are different - just different. They will also not be featured in the current Traveller for a little while yet.

Uh oh...that's not gonna make Gruffty real happy...

Allen