Does Mongoose Traveller leave you cold?

[Jeffr0]

I understand the fear of Meta-plot and Mega-plots... but...

Take GT for instance... there was supposed to be "big things" happening as the line developed, but all I ever saw were hints in the sector books and then maybe a few incomprehensible TAS news alerts (sometimes with goofy jokes.)

That snails pace development where nothing every really happened was excruciating....

 

[rust]

When asked on the Mongoose board:

Will be seeing a book that covers the upcoming Fifth Frontier War,
or will that incident somehow be avoided in this new incarnation of the Traveller Universe?

M. Sprange answered:

Unfortunately, I think war is inevitable. . .

Therefore I think the Fifth Frontier War metaplot will reappear, although
perhaps only as a supplement covering that time period.

 

[Allensh]

I understand the fear of Meta-plot and Mega-plots... but...

Take GT for instance... there was supposed to be "big things" happening as the line developed, but all I ever saw were hints in the sector books and then maybe a few incomprehensible TAS news alerts (sometimes with goofy jokes.)

That snails pace development where nothing every really happened was excruciating....

I agree with that. I always felt there was some big reveal coming in GT but it never showed up. Some of that might have been because they were leaving it up to the GM but if so they kinda went about it the wrong way..teasers but no payoff.

That's why my preferred option would be.."here's the backstory up to 1105. We take it no further...YOU do."

Allen

 

[DaveChase]

When asked on the Mongoose board:


M. Sprange answered: Unfortunately, I think war is inevitable. . .

Therefore I think the Fifth Frontier War metaplot will reappear, although
perhaps only as a supplement covering that time period.

Could be he has been playing a bit too much of Fallout 3 when he replied,
:rofl:

Dave Chase

 

[rancke]

I wouldn't mind seeing a series of adventures that formed a linked campaign of some kind but I don't want to be hamstrung by "this is the official storyline- follow it or don't be supported". I prefer adventures that I could weave into a storyline rather than a storyline for which I HAVE to come up with adventures that fit.

Not having an official storyline isn't going to get individual referees support for their individual storylines. It just ensures that no one gets any support. I've never been able to understand the upside to that. It's not like you have to follow an official storyline and can't cut adventures from an official storyline and paste it into your storyline. As far as I can tell, the only difference between adventures in an official storyline and 'one size fits all' adventures is that those who stick to the former gets something extra from the storyline adventures. But no one loses anything.



Hans

 

[rancke]

I don't mind a large over the top level of story line. MegaPlot if you will. I do 'hate' it when you are playing/planning along in a world and the next book comes out and destroys the place you were playing in.

Sadly, the only way to avoid that is to have no follow-up products at all. Assuming, of course, that an official writeup of a world you've written up yourself really ruins your work. I must confess that I don't see how that works. All you have to do is pretend the new book doesn't exist. How not having the book published at all can be any better is beyond me.



Hans

 

[DaveChase]

Sadly, the only way to avoid that is to have no follow-up products at all. Assuming, of course, that an official writeup of a world you've written up yourself really ruins your work. I must confess that I don't see how that works. All you have to do is pretend the new book doesn't exist. How not having the book published at all can be any better is beyond me.



Hans

Hans, I think that you are missing two of my points (and both are in general talking about all games not just Traveller)
one, it is frustrating to have placed a lot of work into an area (for any game) only to find out by surprise that the area is changed dramatically, destroyed or taken over with out any notice. I only suggested that a heads up about potential changes would allow a GM to addapt to the changes.
two, players will known, buy and read about the new area/supplement and start asking you why this and why that and sometimes you hear about the changes from them and not from reading because you just didn't have the time or your copy came a bit later than theirs.

I never said 'don't publish such work'. I ask only that a layout, story via web or even an official fan mag tell you about areas, potential changes and such before such a publication comes to the public. That way you as a GM can be more prepared for it and if you decide to not follow the pub then you can have worked out a reasonable explaination as to why before the players ask/demand it.

Dave Chase

 

[rust]

While I never used the OTU as my setting, I bought almost all CT supplements
and adventures and much OTU material from other versions to "mine" it for in-
teresting and useful ideas that could be adapted to my setting.

So, while there will never be a Fifth Frontier War anywhere near my setting,
I might well buy a MGT supplement on it to find out what a large scale inter-
stellar war could look like in MGT terms.

 

[Colonist4711]

Actually the "living" nature of GDW's Traveller is one of the more interesting elements of those backgrounds. The way GDW handeled it in the past was in broad strokes that would never effect the average group and that style would be nice.

NOT doing it would be another "black mark" against Mongoose "Traveller" in my book

 

[aramis]

Having just skimmed T&G, HG and Merc... HG looks pretty good. Merc isn't. T&G is decent.

QC is up to mongose's abysmal standards. OBVIOUS layout errors that should have been caught.

 

[Allensh]

Having just skimmed T&G, HG and Merc... HG looks pretty good. Merc isn't. T&G is decent.

QC is up to mongose's abysmal standards. OBVIOUS layout errors that should have been caught.

I will agree with you. They really need to step that up. They left the entire power plant fuel table out the Pocket Edition ship design chapter, I am told.

I like parts of Mercenary and parts I don't care about so I probably didn't pay that much attention to them.

Allen

 

[rancke]

Assuming, of course, that an official writeup of a world you've written up yourself really ruins your work. I must confess that I don't see how that works. All you have to do is pretend the new book doesn't exist. How not having the book published at all can be any better is beyond me.

one, it is frustrating to have placed a lot of work into an area (for any game) only to find out by surprise that the area is changed dramatically, destroyed or taken over with out any notice. I only suggested that a heads up about potential changes would allow a GM to adapt to the changes.

I agree that it is frustrating. I did a lot of work on the Trojan Reach, including making a historical map for every 30 years for most of a millenium to trace the settlement patterns following the settlers of the -2200 era. As a result, there's no Floriani in my TU and the Glorious Empire is a small remnant of an empire that spanned most of the sector. The alignment code 'fl' stands for 'Freedom League', a breakaway part of the Old Empire. Oh, and there's a Minor Human Race called the Troiani.

And a couple of months later the issue of TD with the Trojan Reach came out.

But what do you want publishers to do? Plan their publications years in advance and print a list? How far ahead? Often a magazine don't know what it's going to print more than one issue ahead.

two, players will known, buy and read about the new area/supplement and start asking you why this and why that and sometimes you hear about the changes from them and not from reading because you just didn't have the time or your copy came a bit later than theirs.

There's a simple solution to that. Tell your players not to make assumptions about YOUR Traveller Universe based on official publications unless you endorse it.

Actually, if I know that my players have access to a setting description, I change some of the details as a matter of course.

I never said 'don't publish such work'. I ask only that a layout, story via web or even an official fan mag tell you about areas, potential changes and such before such a publication comes to the public. That way you as a GM can be more prepared for it and if you decide to not follow the pub then you can have worked out a reasonable explanation as to why before the players ask/demand it.

How can you come up with a reasonable explanation for why your version of [world/subsector/sector] is radically different from the official version no matter how much advance warning you have? (Except, of course, enough advance warning not to work out your own version at all).


Hans

 

[DaveChase]

...

But what do you want publishers to do? Plan their publications years in advance and print a list? How far ahead? Often a magazine don't know what it's going to print more than one issue ahead.

Nope, I would not expect any successful business to plan ahead.
Being employed in the Game Hobby industry, I know that you need to be flexible with many things to stay abreast of fads and gamer desires.
But we are talking about long range planning here for a game that has been around how many years.
Oh, I am not advocating that every little detail be planned, designed and waiting until a release date. see below for more about this

There's a simple solution to that. Tell your players not to make assumptions about YOUR Traveller Universe based on official publications unless you endorse it.

Actually, if I know that my players have access to a setting description, I change some of the details as a matter of course.

Nothing wrong with this.
Keeps them on their toes. Did the same for some of AD&D games by using other company game's creatures and treasures. Nothing like fighting a Pallidium dragon versus a AD&D dragon. Got my players to start asking more detail questions before just charging in on any old adventure.

How can you come up with a reasonable explanation for why your version of [world/subsector/sector] is radically different from the official version no matter how much advance warning you have? (Except, of course, enough advance warning not to work out your own version at all).

Hans

Because I usually don't deviate that much from cannon when I run my Traveller game. My Futura game (pure SciFi), anything can go cause it exists somewhere out there, or you can be the first to find it. That one is for my mind and such. (Had over 151 galaxies involved in that game. Mega level play, travel where ever play, down to individual worlds. All depended on the players at the time and the scenario/situation at that moment in the game.

But My Traveller (R) was for a set game based on the OTU. I also shared the universe world with 2 other very good GM. We each had a part of 3I and each of us played/controled set alien sectors. That allowed us to play sometimes and run at other times so we did not get burned out. So, in my situation it was important to maintain as close to OTU as information was available.

I think that is why I see and would like to see a bit of the upcoming, where we are going type information. I REALLY LIKE the JTAS (later Challenger) magazine. Often times they would tell you about something and have an adventure or such for it. Then a bit later you would get the actual book or supplement for it.

So, I don't have much problem explaining the changes IF I know some are coming, unless the players are over their heads involved in the area that just got changed.

To give you an idea of why it was important to stay OTU as much as possible (besides the notes above), we had about 10-12 players (some where military diehard gamers) that only played Traveller(R) and GDW games. Period. Nothing else, and you better be correct. (They were holly terrors when Twilight 2000 came out.)

As for my Futura world, it was more popular. I had 12 to 16 players a game (largest ever done at one time was 22). Had almost 50 players who would play off and on over the month. Ran once to twice a week for 4 to 6 hours a game session. It was work. My college scores showed the result (low grades). I had to stay on top of many things and have about a dozen or so possible scenarios ready at any time, many times just notes and played it by ear. (with more notes taken during the game so I could keep track of future developments.)

After about 2 years of this, I really really started like a set universe like Traveller. I didn't have to work so much and keep so much straight. Marc and GDW did the outline work for me. Love them for that.

Sorry, I was so long winded. I just wanted you all to see my view point about why I said what I did. Thanks for listening.

Dave Chase

 

[rust]

I understand your approach very well. Some time ago we had a fantasy
campaign in the Forgotten Realms, in the nation of Sembia, which the
designers had kept as a "white spot" on the map to allow GMs to fill it
with their own ideas - which we did.

With the next edition of the Forgotten Realms the policy had changed,
and now there were detailed maps and descriptions of Sembia, but they
had nothing at all in common with what we (and many others) had deve-
loped.

The many times I had to explain to new players that "no, our Sembia is
different from the one in the book, forget all you did read about it there"
really strained my nerves.

In fact, I think the unnerving "Sembia Desaster" was when I decided ne-
ver again to use a published setting.

 

[DaveChase]

...
The many times I had to explain to new players that "no, our Sembia is
different from the one in the book, forget all you did read about it there"
really strained my nerves.t as a "white spot" on the map to allow GMs to fill it
with their own ideas - wh

In fact, I think the unnerving "Sembia Desaster" was when I decided ne-
ver again to use a published setting.

Had a GM friend who decided to do something different with the many versions of a world settings. He did basically the same as the TV show Sliders. You had to be careful what you knew or thought you knew because you might walk through a door or rift and not be sure what, where you where ending up in time or setting.
Sometimes it was back or forward a few days to years (rarely more than 3 or more) and you would never run into your self. Just did not happen, period. Most times it was something twisted that you would have to find out about the hard way.

The characters (players, very rarely any NPC) all had rift sense, ie they knew where a door or rift was and they could decide to go through or not (also if you didn't have rift sense you could not go through it). If you all didn't go through as a group or with in about a days time of the first one through, you could not longer play in that group cause you were now either in a different setting or left behind.

Once in a great while you would run into a great temor in the rift. IF you went through that one you would actually change game systems. Screwed up several players the first time that happened. Magic spells did not exist but ritual magic/PSI did.

Always thought that kind of play might be interesting in a Traveller universe. You see your Jump engine misjumped but unknown to you it is not distance but realities that you Jump into. Players would discover the malfunction over time and then would try and figure out how to get home (if they wanted to go home.) Do they try and fix the Jdrive and get stuck or do they keep jumping.

Dave Chase

 

[rancke]

Oh, I am not advocating that every little detail be planned, designed and waiting until a release date.

Never thought you were. But I did gain the impression that you wanted the publishers to inform you well ahead of time if they were going to publish a writeup of, say, the Sword Worlds .

Keeps them on their toes. Did the same for some of AD&D games by using other company game's creatures and treasures. Nothing like fighting a Pallidium dragon versus a AD&D dragon. Got my players to start asking more detail questions before just charging in on any old adventure.

I have fond memories of the time I decided to pit the PCs against a vampire. First I sat down and worked out how vampires worked in my world. Then I took five different fantasy games and copied their descriptions of vampires, stripping out all game rules and just keeping the text. Then I gave each player one description and told him that was what he'd heard about vampires when he was a kid.

Because I usually don't deviate that much from cannon when I run my Traveller game.

But I thought the problem was when you had written up some place where you couldn't stick to canon because there was no canon to stick to, and TPTB then published a writeup of that place.

But My Traveller (R) was for a set game based on the OTU. I also shared the universe world with 2 other very good GM. We each had a part of 3I and each of us played/controled set alien sectors. That allowed us to play sometimes and run at other times so we did not get burned out. So, in my situation it was important to maintain as close to OTU as information was available.

I also try to stick as close to canon as possible (except when canon doesn't make sense to me, of course). But the OTU is a big place, and there are going to be lots of places that still hasn't been written up 30 years from now. It's just not possible to anticipate which places are going to be written up and which aren't. Why is the Aramis subsector and the Sword Worlds subsector written up while the Regina subsector and the District 268 subsector aren't? I don't know why the Aramis sector was chosen as the setting for The Traveller Adventure, but I can tell you that Sword Worlds got started by a fluke.

I think that is why I see and would like to see a bit of the upcoming, where we are going type information. I REALLY LIKE the JTAS (later Challenger) magazine. Often times they would tell you about something and have an adventure or such for it. Then a bit later you would get the actual book or supplement for it.

You would? That's not how I remember it.

Anyway, advance notice will only help you with your problem if you haven't set any adventures in the region that's going to be published before the notice is printed. How often is that going to happen? My most recent campaigns have all been set in the Duchy of Regina, and so have most of my JTAS articles. If Moongoose announces today that they're going to publish a writeup of Regina subsector in six months, that's not going to help me save my version of Regina, because I was working on that long before Mongoose got into the Traveller business.

So, I don't have much problem explaining the changes IF I know some are coming, unless the players are over their heads involved in the area that just got changed.

I don't understand that at all. Either the changes are small enough to be glossed over (pretty unlikely if you've done any amount of work with the place), or it's so incompatible that there's no way to reconcile the two versions. I don't see how advance notice is going to make a difference.

Sorry, I was so long winded. I just wanted you all to see my view point about why I said what I did. Thanks for listening.

Not at all. Thanks for trying to explain. I still don't get it, but I appreciate the effort.



Hans

 

[jericson]

I’m boycotting Mongoose Traveller until they make miniatures. Not real logical, but I’m sick of making due miniatures wise. With all the RPG material, that is available for Traveller, I want to see a commitment to making quality miniatures, then I will start buying new stuff.

I don't know that there is much of a market for that. Ad Astra made really nice starship minis (including a AHL), and basically, nobody bought them.


Too bad, I'd like some more.

And you can always get the GZG minis for actual figs.

 

[GypsyComet]

I don't know that there is much of a market for that. Ad Astra made really nice starship minis (including a AHL), and basically, nobody bought them.

There isn't as much of a market for a $60 fleet box as there might be for the individual minis, certainly. The one fleet combat game for Traveller that calls for minis and is in print (Power Projection) is relegated to the "red-headed step-child" seat, because the armchair admirals of Traveller seem to prefer pure thought exercises unsullied by maneuver (CT High Guard).

The adventure class ships done initially by Megaminis and sold to Ad Astra later have the misfortune to be an obviously different scale than the RAFM minis that preceded them (by a decade, yes), so those who were buying the RAFM minis were not interested in the MM versions. The Megaminis ships are also rather large, meaning that nothing above the Free Trader they did is going to be practical for sale, no matter how gorgeous (and don't get me wrong, the MM ships are gorgeous).

Mistakes have been made. No one cares to admit them.

 

[jericson]

There isn't as much of a market for a $60 fleet box as there might be for the individual minis, certainly. The one fleet combat game for Traveller that calls for minis and is in print (Power Projection) is relegated to the "red-headed step-child" seat, because the armchair admirals of Traveller seem to prefer pure thought exercises unsullied by maneuver (CT High Guard).

I wonder if the $60 price point is really that big of an issue.

It's 1.5 times the MgT core price. It's pretty standard box for most minis games, like Flames of War, Warhammer, etc etc.

The fact that the armchair admirals perfer pure thought excerises is probably why there isn't a market for it, at any price point. (Well, OK, for $0.01 / miniature there is probably a market - just no market at a point where it makes financial sense to produce them.)

They couldn't even get to the sixty box pre-order for them. Sixty whole boxes, from across all of Traveller fandom.

 

[GypsyComet]

Part of it for me is that the fleet box was the only form those ships are available in. What if I want another Lightning?