Not a bad thing, since the weapon creation systems I've seen either rely on subjectivity anyway (EABA) or are highly fiddly (FFSx) and therefore broken in diverse, often undetectable, ways.
Does Classic Traveller need an update?
- Thread starter Supplement Four
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Not a bad thing, since the weapon creation systems I've seen either rely on subjectivity anyway (EABA) or are highly fiddly (FFSx) and therefore broken in diverse, often undetectable, ways.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Hate the trademark ("D20"), not the die type (d20). A table that uses a d20 is not a D20 mechanic.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Don't ya know? Non cubic polyhedrals are inherently evil! All that rolling around forever trying to find a side to sit on. Except for that dangerous d4 of course, cleverly disguised as a die this caltrop is just waiting to fall off the table and embed itself deep into your foot, or if you're careless enough to carry it in your pocket it'll strike an even more tender spot! No, d6s are the only safe and true randomizer. They were good enough for Yaskodray, they're good enough for me.
Now where's that darn satire icon gone to...
CT doesnt need an update it needs to be quietly and reverently retired and a completely new system put together. Mongoose Traveller which appears to look back to it, I hope will bring in lots of new Traveller players to bring things back to life. I can hope.
But the CT system itself was full of odd things (why did a 95 ton shuttle and a 100ton shuttle require different piloting skills?), subsequent versions rarely looked at them, merely adding more chrome, sometimes contradicting earlier things.
Perhaps the real question should be who actually plays with CT (and which version) as it was written?
But the CT system itself was full of odd things (why did a 95 ton shuttle and a 100ton shuttle require different piloting skills?), subsequent versions rarely looked at them, merely adding more chrome, sometimes contradicting earlier things.
Perhaps the real question should be who actually plays with CT (and which version) as it was written?
What is CT?
Is it the little black books in the iconic box? Is it books 1-8? Does it include the supplements? The aliens books? The board games? The adventures (which are really supplements as well, IMHO)? Everything GDW published?
Are third-party books part of CT? The Gamelords' environment books? FASA's ship books? Paranoia's merchant and scouts books? DGP's planet and robot books? Marischal's adventures? BITS and Avenger's classic material? QLI's CT-compatible supplements?
Does it include periodicals? Is it limited to the house organs, JTAS and Challenge? Or does it extend to White Dwarf, Dragon, Pegasus, High Passage, Far Frontiers, Travellers Digest, Space Gamer, Different Worlds, Variant, and Adventure Gaming as well?
How you answer that question may influence whether or not you feel CT needs an update or not.
The CT that I play pulls from all these sources and more - some MT and T4, some fanzine stuff, and my own house rules. I'm not looking for an "updated" CT because my game is already "updated" thanks to all the revisions and variants available for me to apply.
My CT is a big binder filled with indexed pages of all of the variants that I use, with TTB as my "core rule book." I've already consolidated my system.
Is it the little black books in the iconic box? Is it books 1-8? Does it include the supplements? The aliens books? The board games? The adventures (which are really supplements as well, IMHO)? Everything GDW published?
Are third-party books part of CT? The Gamelords' environment books? FASA's ship books? Paranoia's merchant and scouts books? DGP's planet and robot books? Marischal's adventures? BITS and Avenger's classic material? QLI's CT-compatible supplements?
Does it include periodicals? Is it limited to the house organs, JTAS and Challenge? Or does it extend to White Dwarf, Dragon, Pegasus, High Passage, Far Frontiers, Travellers Digest, Space Gamer, Different Worlds, Variant, and Adventure Gaming as well?
How you answer that question may influence whether or not you feel CT needs an update or not.
The CT that I play pulls from all these sources and more - some MT and T4, some fanzine stuff, and my own house rules. I'm not looking for an "updated" CT because my game is already "updated" thanks to all the revisions and variants available for me to apply.
My CT is a big binder filled with indexed pages of all of the variants that I use, with TTB as my "core rule book." I've already consolidated my system.
MT WAS farmed out to DGP. As much as I loved DGP and their products, people from the "loosey, goosey" school of gaming have no damned business writing or rewriting the rules. Anything that they were not interested in was done half-assed, i.e. ship design. Look at the gyrations needed to recreate any CT ship in MT.
As far as GDW not caring about MT I give the following:
1. Production schedule:
1987 - Referee's Manual, Player's Manual, Imperial Encyclopedia, ($30)
1988 - Rebellion Sourcebook, Referee's Companion ($20)
1989 - COACC ($10)
1990 - Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium, Knightfall ($20)
1991 - Hard Times ($12)
1992 - Astrogator's Guide to the Diaspora, Assignment Vigilante, Arrival Vengeance ($17)
Doesn't look like it's adding very much to GDW's bottom line does it?
2. Have you looked at Don Mckinney's errata? 57 single spaced pages of errata tells me that no one at GDW was minding the store.
3. Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium - enuff said.
4. Look at the decline of Traveller articles in Challenge Magazine.
5. Rules sets published in 1987 - 1st Adventure published - 1990 (by Joe Fugate of DGP), 1st Adventure published by GDW staff 1991 - only MT item published by GDW that year.
TNE came about because no one at GDW was interested in the MT milleu. TNE was based on the internal gamesystem that GDW was playing at the time. GDW was under the delusion that everyone would just go out and learn a new gamesystem just because the name TRAVELLER was slapped on top of it. Of course, GDW wasn't the only game company doing this. At that time, it seemed as if EVERYONE was re-writing their core rule books and expecting everyone to continue to repurchase everything they already owned, AKA, the SQUAD LEADER fallacy.
In addition, Marc Miller felt that the only way to regain control of the OTU was to blow it up & start all over. In doing so, he chased a lot of people off. I know that I had absolutely no interest in wiping out 13 years of playing experience & starting all over. Especially after seeing how GDW "supported" MT.
Of course, to this day, Marc & Loren still feel that they made the right decision to blow up the universe. It is interesting to note that after TNE, each version of traveller went back in time. From where I sit, doesn't appear that anyone is interested in the post 1120 traveller universe.
Leave my CT alone.
Now if you want to update Traveller please do. I will more than likely even buy it or parts of it (like I have done with each update).
But leave the Classic Traveller alone.
Just like I will let you to leave all other Travellers editions alone.
If you want to add to the world of x version please do but leave the flavor/feel of each addition to its self.
I like the T20 version because it helps/allows other RPG to take an interest.
I like the CT version because it is quick and uncluttered.
I like the other versions because of the wealth of information and other neat toys/systems (sol).
I like GT because it went over board on details. I like Gurps as a whole but I rarely ever run a Gurps world/game. I have friends who run nothing but Gurps so I believe it was a great addition to the family of Traveller.
I really like Alex (Mongoose) so I am really looking forward to the newest child of the Traveller Family.
So there.
Leave my CT alone.
Dave Chase
Now if you want to update Traveller please do. I will more than likely even buy it or parts of it (like I have done with each update).
But leave the Classic Traveller alone.
Just like I will let you to leave all other Travellers editions alone.
If you want to add to the world of x version please do but leave the flavor/feel of each addition to its self.
I like the T20 version because it helps/allows other RPG to take an interest.
I like the CT version because it is quick and uncluttered.
I like the other versions because of the wealth of information and other neat toys/systems (sol).
I like GT because it went over board on details. I like Gurps as a whole but I rarely ever run a Gurps world/game. I have friends who run nothing but Gurps so I believe it was a great addition to the family of Traveller.
I really like Alex (Mongoose) so I am really looking forward to the newest child of the Traveller Family.
So there.
Leave my CT alone.
Dave Chase
sfchbryan:
There is clearly some intrest in Milieux 1200, since people are buying 1248.
The TNE shift wasn't just nuking the setting, but also changing the fundamentals of the ruleset; it was character and hardware incompatible. It's not a horrid game, but for many, neither the rules nor setting felt anything like CT nor MT. I've run the CT setting with TNE; it feels VERY different, due to massive differences in rules and the design assumptions.
TNE has strong "Brand Loyalty", so do CT and MT. Each with different groups. A revised CT that is TRUE TO CT would not look like TNE at all; it would be similar to MT, but not entirely so, making use of Bk5 rather than Striker as a model for craft design, and probably a more hybrid mechanic.
There is clearly some intrest in Milieux 1200, since people are buying 1248.
The TNE shift wasn't just nuking the setting, but also changing the fundamentals of the ruleset; it was character and hardware incompatible. It's not a horrid game, but for many, neither the rules nor setting felt anything like CT nor MT. I've run the CT setting with TNE; it feels VERY different, due to massive differences in rules and the design assumptions.
TNE has strong "Brand Loyalty", so do CT and MT. Each with different groups. A revised CT that is TRUE TO CT would not look like TNE at all; it would be similar to MT, but not entirely so, making use of Bk5 rather than Striker as a model for craft design, and probably a more hybrid mechanic.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
I come from the LKW school of weapon design. Ever read his article in JTAS about designing a laser pistol? Great stuff. It took, like, maybe four short paragraphs to describe it.
Just use common sense. Pick a weapon that's already created, then tweak it. Wa-laaa, done.
IIRC, LKW used the laser carbine stats, tweaked range and other stats. He listed his reasons. Poof. Done. Laser pistol for use in the game.
For more examples, just check the GDW adventures. You'll find all sorts of things. Extended clips with more ammo. "Shot" shells for a revolver. The laser pistol. Target pistols. Survival rifles. Etc.
For all of these weapons, they're just modifications on what is already in the game.
I think the system works brilliantly. There's no need to spend an hour and a half on a FF&S style worksheet developing a weapon (especially when those rules can't be used to duplicate the weapons already in the game). Just use some common sense. Pick a weapon that is close to what you want to bring to the game. Tweak, tweak to make it unique. Boom. All done.
Why is 99% subjective weapon creation bad?
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
S4, you sound as if you're currently going through a self-analysis phase - no worries, I do it myself periodically - "Oh look, my house rules are into their 5th volume, there must be a simpler way, I'll go back to basics" Then of course, I start to figure "Well, that house rule wasn't so bad, and neither was this one, that one fixed such a problem..." That's the perennial tweaker for you. Recognise him?
It might look like that, but that's really not the case.
What have I been running? I was running CT, as-is, with the UGM task system and a couple of tweaks to combat (like making armor act on damage instead of the to-hit roll).
I've been playing pretty straight CT (but it may seem, since I participate in a lot of tweaking threads, and I am a proliferate tweak-writer.
In reality, it's just a task system (that I use sometimes) and moving the DMs around on the CT weapons matrix. My CT tweaks really have been minmal.
Now, I'm just going fairly straight-out-of-the-box CT. I dropped the UGM, opting for CT's structureless system (using Rule 68A) 100% of the time. And, I decided to play CT combat as-is instead of moving the DMs chart around.
It wasn't that big of a switch to go with vanilla CT.
I am still using three house rules, though. As you can see, they're minor. I'm using the Stun Rule. I'm considering combat instantaneous. And, I'm using an initiative throw. Other than those three things, what you see in the CT books are what I'm playing.
Self-analysis phase? I don't think so. I'm always trying to make my game better. I just decided that CT was pretty damn good the way it was. My tweaks (although good--I still stand by them) are not needed.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
This type of thing is what I'm talking about in a clean up. Either a paragraph that makes sense on why this is so...or a quick "fix" in the rules. Either would work.
(Raises hand.)
That'd be me.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
I consider CT everything ever written for the game before MegaTraveller was introduced.
Not all are "official". There are variant rules. But all are CT.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
I don't think MWM was involved with GDW, was he? I think he had already left.
TNE was more Frank Chadwick, Dave Nielson, and Loren Wiseman, right?
Obviously I agree.
It's my experience that many gamers may only be familiar with "bare bones" Traveller - the little black books or TTB, maybe a few of the other GDW books and supplements. These gamers may say something like, "Traveller needs x," never knowing that x was covered in a Gamelords supplement and in articles in Travellers Digest and Different Worlds.
I think there are quite a few gamers who have strong opinions on what CT "needs," but may not know what CT already covers.
Nope. Marc was with them to the end... but working on board games. At least according to both Marc and Loren.
Marc was the lead on the Europa series.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
No, I hated the Rebellion, the Infinite Errata *and* a fair amount of the MT mechanics. In particular, I detested the combat system (it somehow managed to be less satisfying than the CT system, which is pretty hard given my dislike of that system) and the fact that the "basic" (i.e. CT Book 1/Supp 4) character generation systems *still* failed to generate characters as good as the "advanced" (i.e. CT Books 4+) character generation systems. I also found Round 1 of the Traveller task system fetish to be underwhelming.
I use MT gadget lists all the time for my campaign, despite being a CT referee.
No, I hated Virus, the character generation system and what has to be one of the worst RPG combat systems *ever* (sadly I think that Mongoose Traveller may eclipse TNE in this regard). Roll a bucket of d20s to hit. Then a bucket of d20s for location. Then make a series of sequential multipled6 rolls for damage...aaaarrrrrggggghhhhh! Nor did I find Ship Shares to be any big deal. In a world with spreadsheets -- yes, there were PCs and spreadsheets when T4 came out -- handling equity in a starship is a trivial task and I am perplexed at the continuing expenditure of effort and praise on such a simple matter.
And while I'm sure that there's *something* that has concerned me less than accurate stellar class distributions, nothing immediately leaps to mind. Oh, and TNE's presentation was hideous -- 300 dpi laser printed masters, amateurish graphics, crappy fonts, etc. (GDW did much better on later supplements when they started having the masters set on an imagesetter.)
<shrug>
I just couldn't take a game with half dice seriously. And I personally think that the T4 combat system was the best since Striker. And easily adaptable to CT or Mongoose Traveller. Interestingly, you, with your obviously more cosmopolitan attitude, failed to note that.
No, I hated all those things, *and* one of the worst combat systems around (for gun combat especially). And while an impressive amount of support material has been published, the quality is, at best, uneven.
T20 had some interesting stuff in it, but nothing earth-shattering IMHO. The d20 system is, of course, a mindless kludge IMHO.
You seem to be demolishing a straw man here. As someone who prefers CT, I am well aware of all of the subsequent versions of Traveller. And few of the innovations you describe are particularly earth shattering, nor do most of them rise to the level of "something that really needs to be addressed in CT".
Heh. After analysing the Mongoose Traveller combat system and task system, I am quite confident that those who try to play that game will be *far* less happy than most CT players I know.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
So far, I am not optimistic about Mongoose Traveller. But your blind faith is touching, if a little optimistic.
Every game has break points in its data; you'll need to do better than that.
I agree with you on this point. GDW failed to address the most serious problems with CT. However, historical context is important. In those days, RPG referees were *expected* to tinker with games, so companies tended to be less concerned with fixing problems (see AD&D for an example of the same kind of thing).
In my 3 decades of gaming experience, I have found that virtually no one plays a game as it is written. So this question doesn't really get us very far.
That example is flawed, since any small craft can be flown with a mere 1 level penalty using pilot skill...
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Earth Shattering? I hope not. I rather like the place, warts and all.
No straw man. I've seen the blindspot in action too many times, including here and now.
Every edition of Traveller should be part of the Traveller Ref's toolkit. You may not use all the tools provided, but knowing you have them is better than willful ignorance.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Gypsy...c'mon. I mean, I usually respect your posts. You've been around forever.
But, those two statements are utter crap. And to describe a Traveller GM who doesn't think that way as haveing a blindspot is rather eliteist.
I own a bunch of TNE stuff. I own it because, being a Traveller fan from edition one, I used to buy everything in sight with "Traveller" in the title. But, in practice, how often do I open those books? How often to I actually use them?
Never.
Well, close to never. So close to never that I might as well not be using them. So close to never that I'm considering (as-in, probably will, if I get off my lazy butt to do it) selling all of my TNE stuff.
I just never use it. It's collecting dust. There's nothing about the entire edition that I think is worth keeping.
Blindspot? No.
Cold, hard realization that the TNE stuff adds nothing to my game? Yep. That's it.
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