Dice ?? Game mechanic ??

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by GypsyComet:
The most useful thing Marc could do is work toward unification of the setting and sub-mechanics, because another set of core mechanics is really not necessary.

There's always disagreements, of course. I believe Traveller would not only have survived, but flourished had it reamined internally consistent, like most other rpgs do. I know I would have been happier with content published by publishers outside the main one had that happened over the years.

But, that's not what we've got, today. And, obviously, there's people who disagree.

Such is life. It's moot, anyway. I was just dreaming about something that would never happen.

If you're a D&D player, it's nice to go to the market and have all the mulititude of products to choose from--all from different vendors--and all compatible with your game by using the d20 system.

Back in the day, when CT was the king of SciFi games, there were all these publishers--Gamelords, FASA, DGP, Judges Guild, Group One, etc.--all providing content for one game. If you were a Traveller player, you had all this GREAT STUFF to buy and use in your games--much of it by different publishers.

No so, today. CT stuff isn't that useful to you if you're a GURPS Trav player, unless you're looking for background-only stuff. TNE stuff isn't that useful to a T20 player.

My thought is this: If you went to a single system, let's guess that you'd loose a third of each market: a third of the GT market and a third of the T20 market.

But, two-thirds of those two markets switch over to the new-whatever-it-is Traveller T5 system, not because they like playing a d20 or GURPS game, but because they like playing Traveller.

Then, you get two thirds of those who play CT, TNE, and MT, for the same reason.

Combine all that together, it's a healthier, stronger, larger market than the fractionalized one tha exists.

What would hinge this all together?

T5 has got to be a GREAT system.

It can't be so-so. It can't be just another Traveller system. It's got to be one of those where at least two out of three Traveller players are saying to themselves...wow, that's easy to use and makes sense. It feels like Traveller. Marc did a damn good job on it.

That's what's got to happen.

If T5 is just another system "because they felt like it", as Mal said, then it's going to be treated like T20 or GURPS, where some will play it, and many will stay with the systems they are comfortable with.

GREAT single-system Traveller makes a lot of sense to me.

So-So single-system Traveller will prove those who disagree with me right.

It all comes down to QUALITY.

If T5 is a superb game system, then Traveller players will jump onto the bandwagon.

And, if it isn't, what we're in for is more of what we've already seen: a fractionalized/factionalized market.

Just my two cents. And, I already know my opinion is not universal.

-S4

 

[Malenfant]

But, two-thirds of those two markets switch over to the new-whatever-it-is Traveller T5 system, not because they like playing a d20 or GURPS game, but because they like playing Traveller.

Doesn't work like that though.

People play Traveller because they like playing their own version of Traveller. Most people over the years have built up their own rules for stuff, be it the engine itself, the tech, worldbuilding, setting, or anything else. There's no reason whatsoever for them to stop using whatever their own rules are just because yet another version of Traveller comes along. Even if it's an amazing piece of elegant, playable game design, if they're happy with what they've got then why should they change?

From what's been said on these boards so far, it seems that the overwhelming majority of the traditional (ie non-GT, non-d20) fanbase plays with a ruleset that is the best bits of CT and MT with tweaks of their own, and they're wide open to an official ruleset that does that for them. They're not interested in something completely different, with yet another era to play in - they want what they've got, refined a little.

Hell, the core vision of Marc's T5 doesn't even match up with any version of Traveller done in the past either. I remember lots of people scratching their heads wondering wtf he was on when he wrote those in the early days of the playtest.

T5 will not be great though, not by any means - it won't even be good. Its design is ugly and inelegant, and I pity any GM who tries to make anything with it (for example, its "Being Design System" for making aliens is completely random and a nightmare of poorly cross-referenced tables that make little sense, and we all know how much trouble we've had with the other big random design system that already exists in Traveller, that of star system design).

Ideally Marc just needs to stop, and hand over the reins to someone with a better vision than he has, who is more in touch with the market than he is. We don't need T5. Very few people even want another version of Traveller, let alone T5 specifically. The sooner he admits this, the better for everyone.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
From what's been said on these boards so far, it seems that the overwhelming majority of the traditional (ie non-GT, non-d20) fanbase plays with a ruleset that is the best bits of CT and MT with tweaks of their own, and they're wide open to an official ruleset that does that for them. They're not interested in something completely different, with yet another era to play in - they want what they've got, refined a little.

(Raises hand) I'd be ecstatic with a refined T5 set of rules based on CT.

Hell, the core vision of Marc's T5 doesn't even match up with any version of Traveller done in the past either. I remember lots of people scratching their heads wondering wtf he was on when he wrote those in the early days of the playtest.

In 5-10 sentences, what's the Cliff Notes version of the T5 rules again...?

Isn't it the T4.1 system?

Ideally Marc just needs to stop, and hand over the reins to someone with a better vision than he has, who is more in touch with the market than he is. We don't need T5. Very few people even want another version of Traveller, let alone T5 specifically. The sooner he admits this, the better for everyone.

Kinda sounds like a similar rant I have about Geroge Lucas and his Star Wars prequels...he just fracked the epic series...

 

[Malenfant]

Take the worst of T4, combine with all the now archaic game design concepts of CT and games from the 70s (lots of tables, too much random design, little explanation), and mix it all into an incoherent mess. That's pretty much T5.

As I said, when I left the playtest, Marc wasn't budging on the core mechanics, which requires players to use an unnecessarily arcane dicerolling system called "Flux" that forced them to do more work to get simple numbers. It was ridiculous.

 

[Border Reiver]

Long time moved on from this..

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
As I said, when I left the playtest, Marc wasn't budging on the core mechanics, which requires players to use an unnecessarily arcane dicerolling system called "Flux" that forced them to do more work to get simple numbers. It was ridiculous.

CT is: 2D for 8+, 2D for stat or less, rolls like that.

MT is: 2D for target or better. Targets are 3, 7, 11, 15..etc. Get +1 per skill and +1 per 1/5 stat.

TNE is roll d20 for target or less. Target is Skill + Stat. Sometimes difficulty is 1/2 target.

T4 is roll Stat + Skill or less on a number of D6. The number of D6 reflects the difficulty of the task.

T20 is the d20 system.

Can you describe FLUX in a line or two like that? So that I get a general idea of what you're describing?

 

[Border Reiver]

S4, don't bother. Flux is a dead horse.

Here's a playtest doc on T5's task system

I don't like it. Too clunky for my tastes but I've put it through it's paces and is workable. I'm just not a big fan of the fistful of dice system.

 

[Border Reiver]

Not a lot changed from T4 really but then I quiet liked T4 in principle if not practice.

 

[Malenfant]

From what I can recall, it was a horrid d66 like thing where you had to roll 1d6 and then subtract another 1d6 to get a number on a table usually between -5 and +5 (maybe more or less with modifiers).

It added nothing to the game engine but complication - it just seemed pointless when the vast majority of the time you were rolling on a table that was basically a normal 2d6 one. I mean, there's 11 numbers from 2 to 12, and 11 from -5 to +5 (including 0) then why force people to do jinky subtractions when they can just add the two numbers rolled like in any other game?

It added nothing, had no advantages and several disadvantages, and was just different for its own sake. I don't know if Marc has changed it since the early "playtest", maybe he finally caved in to pressure, I dunno. From what I recall most of the people who could have actively contributed something useful to the playtest were driven off early on by that sort of thing and his stubborn resistance to any suggestions playtesters offered anyway.

I can't help but notice that nobody's posted anything that they think will actually attract new players to T5, or anything positive about the game on these boards lately. Even robject, who is the most involved in it, hasn't been too enthusiastic about the direction it's going in. Where are the T5 evangelisers? I haven't heard a peep from anyone on this board to indicate that there's anyone involved who even likes what Marc is producing for T5. That alone is a strong indictment against the game.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Border Reiver:
S4, don't bother. Flux is a dead horse.

Here's a playtest doc on T5's task system

I don't like it. Too clunky for my tastes but I've put it through it's paces and is workable. I'm just not a big fan of the fistful of dice system.

Is that actually the new system in T5? Or another of these old files from previous versions? Perusing the file, I don't like it... it's a task system but it's got too many fiddly bits for a game engine for my taste. One big strike against this task system is that it's roll-under, which isn't too popular nowadays. And Marc's writing style continues to be terrible - he's supposed to be writing a roleplaying game, not a wargame.

And is Flux really dead? Flux was more for rolling on tables, not for tasks.

 

[Border Reiver]

Flux was awful but is <hopefully> long gone. It looks like T5 is shaping up as a fixed T4 (but nothing to to with T4.1) which works for me.

I suppose if I was looking for something radical I wouldn't be looking to play Traveller. As S4 says, CT, MT and T4 work best in that they work well with each other, almost backward compatible (but not quite). I liked TNE but saw it more as an engine for running 2300.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by Border Reiver:
Flux was awful but is <hopefully> long gone. It looks like T5 is shaping up as a fixed T4 (but nothing to to with T4.1) which works for me.

Whelp, so much for T5 being GREAT, then.

I guess I'll just stick with the UGM and CT then.

(High hopes desperately being dashed that T5 is all I want it to be.)

-S4

 

[Border Reiver]

Oh there's more to the game than the task system. The technical architecture, the ship combat, personal combat, trade.

Wait and see. Or contribute.

 

[Malenfant]

What's so great about it then? As far as I'm concerned, FF&S1 was the pinnacle of technical architecture - a single well-written, well-researched (and very educational) book containing pretty much every technology you needed to flesh out any scifi setting. FF&S2 was just embarrassing by comparison. How would T5's system be better than what's come before it? What does it offer that would make someone use that instead of what they're already using?

How about the ship combat? What reason would there be for people to drop whatever system they're using and adopt T5 instead for that? Is it even particuarly narrative at all? Or are you bogged down with numbers? Ditto for personal combat.

Is trade finally fixed? Does it actually make some kind of economic sense now? (unlike CT, which didn't at all).

"Wait and See" is not sufficient. If you want people to be interested in the game and to see its strengths, then you've got to pique their interest with more than that. As for "contributing", is Marc still only interested in hearing the opinions of people who agree with him already, as he was early in the playtest?

 

[Border Reiver]

"Wait & See" works for me.

There were no sneak peaks available for 2nd Edition WFRP or Mongoose Runequest before I got them but my interest was long piqued before it. I got Starcluster, EABA and CORPS all on spec.

Of course you could just wait for the reviews.

FF&S1 was ground breaking but was full of the most stunning faults, V.2 was so badly organised as to be nigh on unworkable and MT has errata almost as big as the design system. The main scope of the design system seems to be on a simplified FF&S, removing the math. Not something I go with but seems to have some support and has good reasoning behind it.

And Marc appears to be taking on board comments made by playtesters and adjusting but TBH it appears to be slow going and I very much doubt there will be any product before the year is out let alone GENCON.

 

[Malenfant]

Has that awful "Being Generation System" been scrapped then? What about character generation? World generation? It seems that the only thing going on is rule design, is there any consistency and cross-referencing between each part of the ruleset? Has Marc realised the need to bring his "vision" in line with what the fanbase wants from another version of Traveller, or is he still insisting that everyone has to conform to his "vision"?

What about the setting? I've seen and heard nothing whatsoever about any setting that may be coming with T5, is he planning on explicitly defining every sector in Known Space? Fixing the problems of tiny hot rockballs with thick atmospheres and billions of people? When I was on the playtest Marc was insisting that habitable worlds could orbit O abd B V stars and supergiants largely "because it was cool and scifi-ish". Is he going to fix the historical inconsistencies of the 3I setting? Are we going to get yet another time period to play in that nobody's really interested in?

 

[Qstor2]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
There's millions of RPG players out there who aren't playing Traveller yet, but who could be. They're even not particularly attracted to Traveller right now, despite GT and T20, and they're certainly not going to be attracted by a system for T5 that seems to be designed from the outset to appeal to as few people as possible. That doesn't mean that nobody should bother trying to get their attention though.

Well is that Marc's fault or QLI and SJG's fault? QLI, SJG and Comstar are the only one's making new Traveller products. And QLI and SJG haven't had any new Traveller products in a while. I don't count the FarFuture CD ROMs.

I personaly think Traveller unless it's licensed as a new MMRPG isn't going to get the interest of a lot of younger role players, because new products are being made part from Comstar and no one's marketing them. If QLI/SJG started making new T20 products and marketed them at Origins, GenCon UK, Indy etc along with maybe a new Traveller computer game, I think the 30th anniversary of Travller would go off rather well..
Just my humble 2 credits..

Mike

 

[Malenfant]

I'd say it's Marc's fault. QLI and SJG actually gave Traveller a new market and expanded its fanbase - QLI more so because it used d20 as its base. All Marc's been doing is sitting there re-releasing old material on CD and in book form (with the CT reprints), and writing a T5 that is aimed at... well, nobody. Marc seems to be largely oblivious to what the RPG market in general - and his own market of Traveller fans - actually want. He's made no effort at all to expand the market to his game - everyone else has been doing that.

Traveller has had a few computer game licenses in the past, but nothing recent. An MMO would be interesting, but requires a lot of time and energy and investment.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Traveller has had a few computer game licenses in the past, but nothing recent. An MMO would be interesting, but requires a lot of time and energy and investment.

Good computer games cost millions to produce, and the Fallout MMO has a budget of $75 Million.

That's probably a little outside of Marc's scope.

 

[kafka47]

Or could it be that Marc would want to enjoy his semi-retirement in peace? Work on a product that essentially guarantees the IP of Traveller to allow a mechanic that, say, a Malenfant would take up and do wonderful things afterwards to but essentially develop a language that a kafka or a MJD could take up and create additional wonderful worlds for people to enjoy.

T5 is not so much probably a game by itself, I speculate, but a vehicle in which the stories can continue with a reasonable amount of consensus. If you want a brand new game, there are plenty released every year. But, if you want Traveller, this might be the mechanic (whether you like it or not) that will provide the basic rules that everyone can understand and translate back into their Traveller Universe, whilst, giving a glimpse of hope for the future...unlike countless other games which say there is: "No Future".

Don't get me wrong, what you asking for a re-foundation of the Traveller Universe. Whilst, I may sympathize, I cannot say that is a feasable or desirable outcome given all that has gone on in the past. What we can best hope for is consoldiation and let others take the flame, of which, I hope, that you will Mal., as your knowledge of real world astrophysics makes us all green with envy but at the same time, we would hardly like to game with you, for fear of breaking a law or two of physics.

Stop trashing Marc**, rather work with the universe that we have and help us build a better one.

**SJG, QLI, and whomever else you have a grievance with, even that means me.