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Canon vs. Fanon & The Wiki...

:eek:o:
:rofl:
Well said

again nobby-w, and to everone else, what is the manual of style? I have an interest in writing articles which ARE CANON before and after 1105-1116. I intend to hone my admittedly poor writing skills for TAS and/or Galaxiad. It is simply because I would like do them. I don't want what I write about deleted, else why do it. Some things written WILL crossover into and out of "The Golden Age" time period.
 
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nobby-w said:
The obsession with Canon in Traveller fandom is unhealthy, and writing documents to attempt to codify it in some way simply encourages arguments about its minutae, which do little to advance the start of the art. Really, a canon guide would largely be used as a reference guide for folks getting involved in flame wars. In practice, I think that if such a thing were written it would be little but an attractive nuisance.
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It's not unique to Traveller.

It's happened with...
  • Star Trek fandom
  • Star Wars fandom
  • Battlestar Galactica (OS) fandom
  • Battlestar Galactica (NS) fandom
  • Space 1999 fandom

All to varying degrees, but still.
 
nobby-w said:
It's worth thinking about what you want the Traveller Wiki to be.

  • Do you want it to be a reference site as to what is Canon? .
  • Do you want it to be a site where fan-made material can be put up?
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Neither of these is entirely correct. As originally envisioned the wiki was supposed to be an aide for players (and referees). A publication of Library data for use in your Traveller games. As such there are several secondary items that come out of this:

The wiki serves as a canon reference, but not a canon source. The current publishers don't want their canon text in the wiki. We continue to improve the references for articles.

The wiki collects some of the Fan produced material. It wasn't going to be a primary source for this. And not every fan writer wanted their material in the wiki. But, like the canon the wiki was going to be a reference to the numerous fan sourced material for Traveller.

There is a Ludography/Bibliography of the Traveller publications, both canon and not. Another reference for Players and Referees.

So the wiki was and is targeting the Traveller players. People looking for interesting details and background for their games. I really hope that is a much larger group than the Traveller writers.
 
aramis said:
It's not unique to Traveller.

It's happened with...
  • Star Trek fandom
  • Star Wars fandom
  • Battlestar Galactica (OS) fandom
  • Battlestar Galactica (NS) fandom
  • Space 1999 fandom

All to varying degrees, but still.
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Absolutely, and you can see it in plenty of other media franchises various other RPG franchises such as D&D.

It's still unhealthy and I don't think it should be encouraged.
 
nobby-w said:
Absolutely, and you can see it in plenty of other media franchises various other RPG franchises such as D&D.

It's still unhealthy and I don't think it should be encouraged.
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D&D has had it for the Forgotten Realms and for Krynn for YEARS. Simply put, sales figures say "Fan Canon Obsession sells books."

In fact, it's the surests sign of an invested player base. Lines that didn't have that kind of fan angst over canon aren't the ones that stick around.

It's happening with Star Wars (#3 overall sales winter 2015), Golarian (Pathfinder RPG, #2 on the sales), starting to happen with Dragon Age (#4 on the sales chart)...

Fantasy Age is likely to be a bit of a splash-in-the-pan, unless Wil Wheaton's setting gets more canon books out for it...
 
The Traveller fanbase is expanding Maksim. They just do not post here. They post over at the Mongoose forums. They also have a different view on canon.

As an observation from a recent thread there called "Canon Timeline?"

The OP asked if the wiki's timeline was canon. I explained relative time periods of ALL the different product lines, the difference between OTU and ATU and the general reason why we oldsters cannot agree to a single canon outside of "canon is for writers".

What I got out of the thread is that younger/newer players WANT an advancing/progressing Canon timeline and are reluctant to buy more products unless there is one.
 
flykiller said:
why? do they do anything with it besides read it?
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The ones I've met? Yep.

I've seen three trends in the people I've seen talking about it online.

most seem to be either (A) using one of the few MGT sectors, or (B) generating a subsector or two, essentially "on a random border", but linking to what they see of canon in their MGT books, or (C) going whole hog old school, and ignoring canon altogether. A very small fraction are (D) Using T5 without other canon references, except maybe Travellermap.

(C) is the most vocal, but they also tend to be playing Original D&D (little brown or white books), Tunnels and Trolls, Far Trek or Where No Man Has Gone Before (a pair of OSR type games released under Paramount's old Fan Use permissions), &/or Starships & Spacemen (either edition).

(B) seems, from plays reported on RPGG, various Facebook and G+ boards, and AP threads on 4chan, 7chan, and The RPG Site, to be the most common, and usually using MGT rules.

(A) tends to be a little more odd - a lot of "I sold all my books, and saw the new edition, and dived in." Some, however, are new to the game, and want to use the setting because it saves them work.

From what I've seen, few would match up with what's in Agent, but those that would are usually buying older editions on CD, and making leaps.

A few newbs have started with T5. I recall one guy got T5 hoping for it to be his first RPG to run... he'd been a player a few times in D&D, I think... He did manage to grasp much of it. (More than me, actually. T5 makes my head spin at times.)

I'm not seeing many who are doing ATUs who aren't grogs, but there are a couple. I've never seen an AP for MGT Judge Dredd Traveller edition. (For my own part, I've managed to generate a few characters. The skill levels are insanely high. Insanely.)
 
Nathan Brazil said:
The Traveller fanbase is expanding Maksim. They just do not post here. They post over at the Mongoose forums. They also have a different view on canon.
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I do see that and read the Mongoose forums, but rarely post there.

That expansion is mostly localized to British fans. There are many Yanks and others who like Mongoose Traveller, but the majority of the youth expansion I see is Brit in nature.

On the other hand, fans like Pakkrat, very much American in locale, are definitely using Mongoose product and sometimes trying to reconcile it with T5.

Nathan Brazil said:
As an observation from a recent thread there called "Canon Timeline?"

The OP asked if the wiki's timeline was canon. I explained relative time periods of ALL the different product lines, the difference between OTU and ATU and the general reason why we oldsters cannot agree to a single canon outside of "canon is for writers".
Click to expand...

I wish we could resolve that somehow. I hope Robject's efforts turn up gold.

Nathan Brazil said:
What I got out of the thread is that younger/newer players WANT an advancing/progressing Canon timeline and are reluctant to buy more products unless there is one.
Click to expand...

I would tend to agree.

Thanks for sharing your insights. I always appreciate hearing from you.

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
 
maksimsmelchak said:
Surely. Now we just need the fan base to expand... We're a lot of old farts and not so much fresh blood...

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
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Until you have more materials in print or available for T5, you are going to have a limited fan base for it. As it is still a work in progress, producing materials for it is not going to be easy.

Mongoose is going to have a growing base as Mongoose is producing materials for its edition of the rules. Aside from "Agent of the Imperium", what material for T5 is out there?
 
timerover51 said:
Until you have more materials in print or available for T5, you are going to have a limited fan base for it. As it is still a work in progress, producing materials for it is not going to be easy.

Mongoose is going to have a growing base as Mongoose is producing materials for its edition of the rules. Aside from "Agent of the Imperium", what material for T5 is out there?
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Cirque.
Imperiallines.
T5 deckplans

And I'm aware of a couple in progress that are not yet announced.
 
aramis said:
Cirque.
Imperiallines.
T5 deckplans

And I'm aware of a couple in progress that are not yet announced.
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Imperiallines and the deckplans promote T5. Cool. But I suspect these do not promote the timeline.
I have read the new Imperiallines. Don't know about the deckplans, I did not buy those yet and generally buy them last. Going off to buy Cirque. Forgot about that one. When does it take place?

Unannounced products are not in motion and difficult for an objective observer to detect dim objects at such distances. :)
 
atpollard said:
Cirque for T5
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Based on the review in Freelance Traveller, a portion of which is quoted, "Cirque" takes place circa 1110. That would appear to be roughly 800 years prior to the T5 OTU, which is set in 1900. Or do I have the wrong version? I do not do Facebook.

The classic era is defined as beginning in 1105 and Cirque starts at the end of 1110, a few months (confusingly, the text says years) after the Fifth Frontier War.
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