mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
It's the megacorps that enforce them
Book 2 economics, again! Beating the dead horse...
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
District 268? The Lanth Subsector? The Forboldn project? 728-907?
Yes, and they all look to their own interests first.
These are the worlds that produce a lot of the goods that are sold on the markets of the less developed worlds within the Spinward Marches.
High Tech, High Population worlds have an interest in maintaining the frontier mentality. If every garden world in the Marches invested in economic migrants and technological developments then these worlds would lose their markets.
Dulinor may have had a point after all
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I agree, there's a lot to like in the T20 trade system.
T20 is the best expression of the Bk2 paradigms.
AS to the "age of sail" feel: 400 years of a very different economic paradigm? 1500-1900, being generally considered the extreme bounds. Realistically, more like 1600-1800, still 200 years... and killed off not by the improvements in travel, but in communications.
In the US, demand based shipping was predicated upon both the 1880's telegraphs and rail and the 1930's highways. Things only moved when beyond local capability. Cattle moved east because of great surplus, not because of terribly great demand. Modern macro economics are predicated upon good knowledge and communications. Easy, steady, and fast communications. The third is NOT true of any TU not changing the rules mechanics. The second is not readily supported off the XBoat routes, since it's implied that such worlds get a weekly courier swap.... one in, one out.
The Roman Empire, decentralized as it was lasted a long time; 500 years. With similar commo lags, and similar local law allowances. What the Roman empire didn't have, was a lack of a shortcut for trade. Most roman trade took little time; one could ship from palestine and be in rome in a couple weeks, even tho' one could only reach the fringes by land in 6-8 months.
The Chinese empires maintained a relatively stable government for more than 2 millenia... with periodic upheavals.
The TU described by CT Rules is NOT a modern economy, tho' it has lots of them... they stop at the jump point. Not is it truly capable of becoming one without changing the rules.
The imperium, like any empire of persons, is not a perpetual institution. MT, while similar in setting, and in rules, it clearly different than the sole read of CT will produce. They are, to refute Hans, not the same universe, since neither the setting materials nor the rules produce consistent results with CT.
Nor, for that matter, is ANY edition of traveller the same setting as any other. They are close, but they are not the same. Even the worlds in the marches differ; in some cases, in their physical makeup. Typos? Perhaps.
The haphazard growth of CT, the focussed changes of MT, and TNE, and the way more haphazard growth of both T4 and GT really show us a huge range of different universes with a few common assumptions.
Bk2, like it or not, is the canonical means for CT small-scale speculation. It's very powerful at making money in certain conditions; conditions which some (Thrash and Hans) claim can't exist; canonically, they do.
Since CT is unlikely to be revised, and unlikely to be pulled, and still drawing new players, this issues isn't going away. Accepting the DGP changes as proof of Marc's intentions is as bad as citing Lennin's changes for Marx's intentions, or Stalin's changes for Lennin's intentions; it's done, and often, but is incredulous and erroneous, and leads to wrong conclusions. Unlike Marx and Stalin, we have a conduit to Marc: Robject.
It is pretty clear Marc's vision is NOT what GDW produced, at least not late on in the process. It's a hybrid of Marc and Loren, and even Tim, Frank, Joe, Gary, and The Brothers Kieth.
I like the autonomous dukes. I like the megacorps being little more than a parallel of Dune's Great Houses. I like merchants having to speculate in order to make the bills. It's good drama, and good fun. I could care less if it fits modern macroecon; modern macroecon also is leading us away from the values of personal liberty, basic human dignity, and basic compassion.
Traveller is humanism: a Man with a gun makes a difference. A man with a cargo changes worlds.
Bk2 allows a Man to Make a Difference...
AS to the "age of sail" feel: 400 years of a very different economic paradigm? 1500-1900, being generally considered the extreme bounds. Realistically, more like 1600-1800, still 200 years... and killed off not by the improvements in travel, but in communications.
In the US, demand based shipping was predicated upon both the 1880's telegraphs and rail and the 1930's highways. Things only moved when beyond local capability. Cattle moved east because of great surplus, not because of terribly great demand. Modern macro economics are predicated upon good knowledge and communications. Easy, steady, and fast communications. The third is NOT true of any TU not changing the rules mechanics. The second is not readily supported off the XBoat routes, since it's implied that such worlds get a weekly courier swap.... one in, one out.
The Roman Empire, decentralized as it was lasted a long time; 500 years. With similar commo lags, and similar local law allowances. What the Roman empire didn't have, was a lack of a shortcut for trade. Most roman trade took little time; one could ship from palestine and be in rome in a couple weeks, even tho' one could only reach the fringes by land in 6-8 months.
The Chinese empires maintained a relatively stable government for more than 2 millenia... with periodic upheavals.
The TU described by CT Rules is NOT a modern economy, tho' it has lots of them... they stop at the jump point. Not is it truly capable of becoming one without changing the rules.
The imperium, like any empire of persons, is not a perpetual institution. MT, while similar in setting, and in rules, it clearly different than the sole read of CT will produce. They are, to refute Hans, not the same universe, since neither the setting materials nor the rules produce consistent results with CT.
Nor, for that matter, is ANY edition of traveller the same setting as any other. They are close, but they are not the same. Even the worlds in the marches differ; in some cases, in their physical makeup. Typos? Perhaps.
The haphazard growth of CT, the focussed changes of MT, and TNE, and the way more haphazard growth of both T4 and GT really show us a huge range of different universes with a few common assumptions.
Bk2, like it or not, is the canonical means for CT small-scale speculation. It's very powerful at making money in certain conditions; conditions which some (Thrash and Hans) claim can't exist; canonically, they do.
Since CT is unlikely to be revised, and unlikely to be pulled, and still drawing new players, this issues isn't going away. Accepting the DGP changes as proof of Marc's intentions is as bad as citing Lennin's changes for Marx's intentions, or Stalin's changes for Lennin's intentions; it's done, and often, but is incredulous and erroneous, and leads to wrong conclusions. Unlike Marx and Stalin, we have a conduit to Marc: Robject.
It is pretty clear Marc's vision is NOT what GDW produced, at least not late on in the process. It's a hybrid of Marc and Loren, and even Tim, Frank, Joe, Gary, and The Brothers Kieth.
I like the autonomous dukes. I like the megacorps being little more than a parallel of Dune's Great Houses. I like merchants having to speculate in order to make the bills. It's good drama, and good fun. I could care less if it fits modern macroecon; modern macroecon also is leading us away from the values of personal liberty, basic human dignity, and basic compassion.
Traveller is humanism: a Man with a gun makes a difference. A man with a cargo changes worlds.
Bk2 allows a Man to Make a Difference...
Hey now . . . some plots are about daring-do, swinging from chandeliers and fighting pirates with cutlasses.
Granted I lend toward using the tropes but I balance my games. In game terms I would set up the fact that Tureka is looking to put small time operators out of business. My philosophy is story driven not rules.
Aramis,
Your criticism is quite valid because I can be hopelessly campy at times and to me balance, setting and acting are more important than the specific rule set. If I know a rule is broken or works counter to game balance I change it and have 200 ways to justify it. (In my line of work I spend my whole day arguing.)
My shameless use of tropes and cliché lends a certain predictability that I think they appreciate. If they find themselves in situation A then threat X is likely, in situation Y reward B is on its way. I would not suggest that it is better than your way, just different. If I played at your table your way would be the best way and I’d like it, the change would do me good.
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Kurega, I don't think Wil meant that as a criticism.
Gentlemen,
Economics is one of the most frequently debated topics in Traveller and one of the most futile topics to debate in Traveller. Like a running sore, an infected tooth, or a drug-resistent strain of the clap, OTU economics just keeps on 'giving' and never really goes away.
I would like to re-post something recently written by a TML member named Bruce Johnson on this very topic:
This is "How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin?", translated into Traveller.
Short answer, distilled from years and years of watching this subject erupt again and again is this:
"Don't worry about this, it'll make you go crazy."
The OTU is not, never has had, and never will have anything like a coherent economic model.
There are too many metagame monkeywrenches in the cogs, like standard freight rates of 1Kcr/Dt, standard prices for commodities, an entirely undefined Imperial taxation scheme and contradictory in-game 'facts' regarding the monetary basis of the Imperium.
The most detailed interstallar scale economic models don't come from Traveller, in fact, but the related game Trillion Credit Squadron, which is entirely concerned with large scale military conflicts, and has some rules for fleet-building, which is like extrapolating modern global politics from the rules of Risk. There are trade rules, different, contradictory sets of trade rules in various books.
Divining Imperial economics is like trying to accurately reconstruct an aircraft carrier from three bolts, a half of a radio panel, two pieces of armor plate and a cargo cult bamboo model of a flight deck with some stick figures on it. Oh, and the radio panel is from a B-17, and one piece of armor plate is from a T-38 tank.
Traveller was created by gaming and history buffs, not economists. Rules were added because they sounded good at the time and had the desired effect on gameplay, not because they fit some economic model or axiom.
Your TU may have whatever structure you think necessary, but the OTU simply doesn't have one... this is where you look closely and see that that's not a vast star-spanning empire over a thousand years old, but some painted flats at the back of the stage that the player characters are playing on...
...and the answer to that is to stop staring at the flats, sit back and enjoy the show.
--
Bruce Johnson
I especially like one bit, so I'll repeat it: ... which is like extrapolating modern
global politics from the rules of Risk.
You know... if you keep picking at that scab it will never heal...
Have fun,
Bill
Economics is one of the most frequently debated topics in Traveller and one of the most futile topics to debate in Traveller. Like a running sore, an infected tooth, or a drug-resistent strain of the clap, OTU economics just keeps on 'giving' and never really goes away.
I would like to re-post something recently written by a TML member named Bruce Johnson on this very topic:
This is "How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin?", translated into Traveller.
Short answer, distilled from years and years of watching this subject erupt again and again is this:
"Don't worry about this, it'll make you go crazy."
The OTU is not, never has had, and never will have anything like a coherent economic model.
There are too many metagame monkeywrenches in the cogs, like standard freight rates of 1Kcr/Dt, standard prices for commodities, an entirely undefined Imperial taxation scheme and contradictory in-game 'facts' regarding the monetary basis of the Imperium.
The most detailed interstallar scale economic models don't come from Traveller, in fact, but the related game Trillion Credit Squadron, which is entirely concerned with large scale military conflicts, and has some rules for fleet-building, which is like extrapolating modern global politics from the rules of Risk. There are trade rules, different, contradictory sets of trade rules in various books.
Divining Imperial economics is like trying to accurately reconstruct an aircraft carrier from three bolts, a half of a radio panel, two pieces of armor plate and a cargo cult bamboo model of a flight deck with some stick figures on it. Oh, and the radio panel is from a B-17, and one piece of armor plate is from a T-38 tank.
Traveller was created by gaming and history buffs, not economists. Rules were added because they sounded good at the time and had the desired effect on gameplay, not because they fit some economic model or axiom.
Your TU may have whatever structure you think necessary, but the OTU simply doesn't have one... this is where you look closely and see that that's not a vast star-spanning empire over a thousand years old, but some painted flats at the back of the stage that the player characters are playing on...
...and the answer to that is to stop staring at the flats, sit back and enjoy the show.
--
Bruce Johnson
I especially like one bit, so I'll repeat it: ... which is like extrapolating modern
global politics from the rules of Risk.
You know... if you keep picking at that scab it will never heal...
Have fun,
Bill
daryen
SOC-14 1K
Bill,
That is a good point. However, despite my digressions, my concern is not to have a coherent economic model for Traveller. That would be hard and make my head hurt.
All I really want is a freight system that lets J2 ships exist. That's it. Nothing complicated. Nothing radical. Doesn't even have to work as nice as the Type R. Just come close.
I just forgot there was a whole cottage industry dedicated to not letting them work. The surprising part is that group includes the game designer. Go figure.
That is a good point. However, despite my digressions, my concern is not to have a coherent economic model for Traveller. That would be hard and make my head hurt.
All I really want is a freight system that lets J2 ships exist. That's it. Nothing complicated. Nothing radical. Doesn't even have to work as nice as the Type R. Just come close.
I just forgot there was a whole cottage industry dedicated to not letting them work. The surprising part is that group includes the game designer. Go figure.
daryen
SOC-14 1K
I don't question the "age of sail" paradigm. That makes perfect sense based on how communications and jump drives work.
My disagreement comes with "frontier" and "wild west". Both of those conditions are very short term.
[EDIT: I did once say "western and age of sail" once when I meant to say "western and frontier". I apologize for the stupid mistake.]
Oddly enough, fairly irrelevant to my point. You can find a frontier world anywhere. I imagine, given Traveller's strict use of unmodified random dice rolls, you can find frontier worlds in the Core sector.
Yes, District 268 can be fairly wild, but, with the very sedate and sophisticated hi-pop world (Collace) in the middle, any frontier aspects to the subsector are in their very last twilight, if not already gone.
My contention is that the Spinward Marches, as a whole, is not a frontier. It is settled and it is known. It has too many hi-tech, hi-pop worlds to be otherwise.
Daryen,
If you have a system that already works IYTU, you're search is over. The OTU, every other personal TU, and all of it don't amount to a damn thing.
If it works for you, it works for you. Nothing else need apply.
Don't bother trying to 'prove' how it should and can work elsewhere. Simply post your ideas with IMTU prominently stamped all over them. When the College of Canonista Cardinals comes calling, point to the IMTU stamps.
Meanwhile, other GMS, who are actually play Traveller instead of merely playing with Traveller, will be merrily using your LBB:2 economics ideas to gasp create fun for themselves and their players.
Who have thought it?
Your statement about the Marches not being a 'frontier' are correct. Aside from the 'deep time' of the various 1st Imperium colonies, RoM refugees, Solomani sublight missions, and the Darrians, large portions of the Marches have been settled for over a thousand years and nearly the entire sector settled for 500 years. There are frontier worlds in the Marches, the sector can hardly be considered a frontier however - no matter what canon has to say on the matter.
I prefer to look at the Marches as Sector, Interrupted. Compared and contrast the political and economic development of Germany from the Peace of Westphalia to the Napoleonic era to the rest of western Europe. Now look at the Marches. Intriguing, no?
Have fun,
Bill
Hmmm . . .I am thinking of criticism in the good sense. Identifying the argument, looking for the flaws and strengths, then rephrasing them so that the speaker can better understand his own position.
Strength comes from understanding your own weaknesses and playing to your strengths.
That is one of the reasons I hang out here.
daryen
SOC-14 1K
If that is true, then I would strongly suggest that Marc completely rework the setting to match his base assumptions.
That would end up decoupling the Second Survey effort from T5 (or possibly invalidating it).
The OTU is way, way too internally inconsistent. You either have to take the setting and live with the assumptions that ends up applying (what Hans and I tend toward), or jettison the OTU and rework the setting to fit the assumptions you want (what you, Sigg, and Aramis lean toward).
So, if Marc wants a Proto-Traveller setting, that is great. But he needs to make that setting for T5, because the OTU ain't it.
It's just what that other poster said about not focusing in too closely, coupled with Bruce Johnson's comment that, basically, this wasn't designed so much as grown.
And it's supposed to be played. I'm guilty of trying to take it apart more than trying to play it.
And it's supposed to be played. I'm guilty of trying to take it apart more than trying to play it.
daryen
SOC-14 1K
I do all three: take it apart, play it, and put it back together.
And again, the reason I want per-parsec is so that I can play the game I want (trading in a J2 ship) according to the rules without having to either 1) use house rules, 2) have my PC go broke, or 3) have my PC get insanely rich using loopholes in the rules.
I know, I know, I am being completely unreasonable ...
And again, the reason I want per-parsec is so that I can play the game I want (trading in a J2 ship) according to the rules without having to either 1) use house rules, 2) have my PC go broke, or 3) have my PC get insanely rich using loopholes in the rules.
I know, I know, I am being completely unreasonable ...
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
So just include them IYTU, or use the GURPS ATU
GT has a per-parsec model, GT:ISW has per-parsec.
CT et al encourages speculative trade to make ends meet.
IMHO the latter is a better match to the age of sail, limited communication paradigm of the OTU.
GT has a per-parsec model, GT:ISW has per-parsec.
CT et al encourages speculative trade to make ends meet.
IMHO the latter is a better match to the age of sail, limited communication paradigm of the OTU.
...but I'll agree that the Spinward Marches doesn't feel much like a frontier. It does look like a border, and has backwaters, but I never considered that the definition of frontier might be wrong.
1 a. An international border.
b. The area along an international border.
2 A region just beyond or at the edge of a settled area.
Maybe the hangup is on the idea of the Wild West terminology. Frontier by definition doesn't involve anything more than the proximity to a border, though we may have romantic attachments that go beyond that.
1 a. An international border.
b. The area along an international border.
2 A region just beyond or at the edge of a settled area.
Maybe the hangup is on the idea of the Wild West terminology. Frontier by definition doesn't involve anything more than the proximity to a border, though we may have romantic attachments that go beyond that.
B
Black Globe Generator
Guest
Quoted for truthiness.Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
So just include them IYTU, or use the GURPS ATU
GT has a per-parsec model, GT:ISW has per-parsec.
CT et al encourages speculative trade to make ends meet.
IMHO the latter is a better match to the age of sail, limited communication paradigm of the OTU.
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Maybe that's because the other kind of frontier can be pretty boring? If you just use the definition of a border, where's the exploration? Where's the unknown? I think we use "frontier" as short-hand for that.
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