Does Mongoose Traveller leave you cold?

[Supplement Four]

"it's mongoose compliance police. Be careful what you say. The last time i said something, i couldn't use my credcard for a week. There's people that still won't talk to me. My mom looks at me funny. Just watch yourself - 'cause nobody else will. Ya know?"

rflmao!!!!

 

[aramis]

No, it doesn't leave me cold. Character Gen is top notch. Ship design is good.

It's just not as good as MT or even CT. It's better, IMO, than T4 and TNE as far as core rules.

 

[Zparkz]

Even though I won't pick up any MgT books in any forseeable future, it does not leave me cold. As many others I have the rules I need to run my games. As I see it MgT isn't primarily for the grognards but for the new blood that Traveller needs, and if that means that it will break canon it has to be done.

In many ways TNE came about in the same manner. The universe was just too large. There was actually no frontiers just neighbours on all borders. I came into Traveller with MT, but in many ways MT was unplayable unless you had the CT information. And the lack of proper support for the Rebellion made it actually worse. At the time of TNE most CT material was out print and even unavailable. I was lucky to find some in my FLGS and through an add in Challenge I got several more. But for those who was not that lucky. MT was actually pretty unsopprted and left the player guessing a lot about what this third Imperium actually was.

With MgT, Traveller may get a new birth. I however will not follow this child as it grows up and matures.

And it is fine by me. As Gallowglacht, I am not hurt or sad about that. Traveller lives on regardless =0)

 

[tbeard1999]

In keeping with the spirit of the discussion and being too new to the boards to have seen the flamewar that came before, here goes.

MGT is my Traveller of choice for now. My LBB's were the victims of a flood, along with an awful lot of my gaming treasures going back to the mid seventies.

You can replace the entire CT canon for $35+$5.50 S&H. This gets you a CD-ROM with all GDW Classic Traveller material.

Another $35 gets you all of the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society issues (including the Challenge Magazine inserts).

You can buy the reprinted LBBs #0-8 for $28.00. Various other collections (Supplement 1-13; Adventure 1-13, etc.) run ~$28-35.

So if you prefer CT, you can replace your collection for less than the cost of MGT.

www.farfuture.net

 

[Supplement Four]

Even though I won't pick up any MgT books in any forseeable future, it does not leave me cold. As many others I have the rules I need to run my games. As I see it MgT isn't primarily for the grognards but for the new blood that Traveller needs, and if that means that it will break canon it has to be done.

Blasphemy! :smirk:

 

[aramis]

Blasphemy! :smirk:

Religious discussions belong in the pit... :devil:

 

[gcbright]

Is there new blood?

As I see it MgT isn't primarily for the grognards but for the new blood that Traveller needs, and if that means that it will break canon it has to be done.

Is there any new Blood to be had? Our youngest player is 36, our median age is 45 and our elders are 55.

The ones younger than that either play with cards or computer.

(I still don't think anything done by my group is depraved as Grand Theft Auto. )

What ages are the posters in this forum?

Anyone under 20?

under 30?

under 40?

Thanks

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

My hunch is that the CotI age range reflects your gaming group's but that the posters on the Mongoose company forums are a couple of years younger, maybe as many as ten. I.e., early 30s rather than early 40s.

Re. why does the game leave me cold: Nothing in the online discussions wowed me, and some issues turned me off. Especially (what I read about) chargen--that PCs get extra skills if their players come up with a shared back story for them. If that's true, that'd be a nod towards 2000s "storygaming" I can do without, especially in Traveller.

 

[Spinward Scout]

under 40?

Yup! Still under 40.

There is a lot of competition for table-top roleplaying that there never was before. Why would someone take a half-hour just to roll up a character when a computer can do it for you in just a few minutes - type of thinking is pushing rpgs into the computer realm. D&D Online starts this year, I think. Maybe next year. So even the original rpg is going digital. Software like Fantasy Grounds and GRIP is helping - and bringing more people together from around the world. But the imagination necessary to table-top game isn't just fading away. It's being pulled away by more 'exciting' games - it's almost no contest. The visual rendering ability of the computer almost wins by default. The next version of Traveller has to have a computer component or it will probably fail. Maybe even this version might have to evolve and go digital. Traveller was the first Sci-Fi rpg - it should set the standard. The new blood they're looking for will probably demand it. Or move on to something else.

The chargen alone should be easy to computerize, I would think.

 

[Supplement Four]

Why would someone take a half-hour just to roll up a character when a computer can do it for you in just a few minutes - type of thinking is pushing rpgs into the computer realm.

Yep. I have long held, for a decade at least, that rpg publishers should start including software with their core rule books. The launch of D&D 3.0 was a start--remember that edition came with a CD-ROM disk that contained a character generator that made creating a character simple. You printed it out when you were through.

Science Fiction games, especially those like Traveller with one foot in "reality" really should come with applications for character generation, starship construction, world building, equipment creation, etc.

This day and age, there's no reason why someone playing Traveller shouldn't be able to hit a few key strokes and print out an entire planet complete with a color picture of the world and all appropriate details.

All rpgs should come that way. But, my guess is that something like that wouldn't be that expensive to produce--but expensive enough to be cost prohibitive for the short print runs of most rpgs. Heck, most rpgs can't even include good art, much less a GM-time-saver program.

 

[aramis]

I disagree with SS.

I see no reduction in the numbers of kids playing RPGs in the high school halls. In fact, it's more open and visible now than it was 20 years ago. It's still a minority, and still a "Geeks and Nerds" kind of thing, but it's still there in the halls.

The specific games I've seen: Rifts, D&D 3.x, D&D 2.x (Yes, really), WWG oWoD and nWoD, L5R. At least one group in Dimond HS was running T20 in 2006... as several kids asked me about which ruleset it was, and if it was any good, sicne they'd seen a group playing it.

I've seen groups in every high school I've been to. That's East HS, West HS, Chugiak HS, Service HS, Dimond HS, Highland Tech 7-12, Stellar 7-12, Polaris K-12, and Bartlett HS. (I've not been to South HS nor Eagle River HS, nor the special programs, nor McLaughlin Youth Corrections Facility.) But in all of the HS halls, I've seen at least one group gaming RPG's at each school. And that's without searching.

I am aware of at least 2 groups at Eagle River HS (from talking with students).

But the thing is, more and more, I'm seeing simpler systems over the more complex. But the play is still happening amongst the Youth.

 

[Supplement Four]

But the thing is, more and more, I'm seeing simpler systems over the more complex.

I just stuck my head back into d20, after a long 15+ year break (AD&D 2E), with the Conan rpg (yes, Mongoose! And...it's goood!!). Even there, on that forum, Conan players are griping about the complexity of d20, switching to Savage Conan and several other different, simpler, game systems.

Easy is where it's at. It's always been there for me. I want to spend my time playing, not rule lawyering.

I'm even noticing a lack of interest in my players in building their characters (Feats, Skills, Combat Maneuvers). They don't want to mess with that. They just want to play.

 

[aramis]

It's about telling stories, man. Complex mechanics interfere with the story.

MGT admits story is important. It incorporates more story into CGen.

Traveller was always better than D&D for that very reason: The Trav character has a story, unlike the D&D character. MGT has a better story than CT or MT...

And that may make it more popular. It's been over a year since I taught in a HS, tho', so I've no idea if MGT has hit there.

 

[DaveChase]

Will probably buy but not rushing to do so.

I try to have copy of every base Traveller game. I really buy the great/good/full of detail supplements to each Traveller game.

Also IF I ever get anyone interested into playing Traveller (or any game I find) it is very hard to get people to play a game that is out of print or the 'old' version of the game.

After a few sessions, I can usually get the individuals to be more interested in the game than the mechanics.

Dave Chase

 

[Icosahedron]

I like the basic die rolling mechanic and the basic skill list from MGT. I also like the fact that the system is similar enough to both CT and MT that it is fairly easy to replace the parts I don't like with systems from CT and MT.

This (turned on its head) is what makes me interested in MGT. I consider myself a die-hard CTer, but in reality, my game has so many borrowings from other versions that it isn't really CT any more, it's just Traveller. In fact I also borrow from non-Traveller games for my house rules. What I always look for is better and more realistic systems, but retaining a playable simplicity.

I won't get to read MGT until the pocket version is out, but it may be that I'll adopt MGT CharGen in preference to CT. OTOH, by all accounts I'm unlikely to use MGT weapon design in preference to Striker...

I'm pretty sure that, in common with every other RPG under the sun, MGT will have good points and bad ones - if I can cherry-pick enough good ones to justify the purchase price, it will have served its purpose for me. Any bits I don't like, I'll simply not incorporate into my game.

I agree with S4's notion that generation software is likely to become a necessity in future games, but at the same time, it worries me because it invites complexity - it doesn't matter how complex the generation/combat system is, because we provide software to do it for you. Unfortunately, the main thing that puts me off computer games is the lack of flexibility - You can't house-rule them.
If RPGs include software in the future, please, please, make it tweakable. If you can't house-rule it, it becomes useless after the first few weeks and you end up writing your own software anyway.

 

[Ran]

<Pulls the new guy aside to the edge of the alley>

"Shhh! You're new around here so I'll tell ya. We had a riot in here a few weeks ago, and it wasn't pretty. A couple of people went... missing. If you know what I mean. You don't know about MCP."

<Looks around to see if anyone's paying attention>

"It's Mongoose Compliance Police. Be careful what you say. The last time I said something, I couldn't use my CredCard for a week. There's people that still won't talk to me. My Mom looks at me funny. Just watch yourself - 'cause nobody else will. Ya know?"

<All of a sudden, there's a commotion down the street. Three thugs in police gear and mirrored face plates running towards them>

"God no! It's MCP! Run!"

. . . . . . .

Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad. We had a small flame war you missed all the fun in.

:rofl:
I love the MGT book. But then, I don't think that's a surprise at this point.
The art is good, things are well organized, the humor is subtle, and the game is mostly solid. I couldn't ask for much more.

 

[Spinward Scout]

But the play is still happening amongst the Youth.

My nephew seems to disagree with you. I've run him on Star Wars and a couple of D&D games and his biggest complaint was how long it took to make a character. And neither of those take as long as Traveller to make a character. He and his friends play Wii and they can spend hours at it. But then, I think he's the only kid I ever see anymore. That happens when you work all the time.

 

[dmccoy1693]

My nephew seems to disagree with you. I've run him on Star Wars and a couple of D&D games and his biggest complaint was how long it took to make a character. And neither of those take as long as Traveller to make a character. He and his friends play Wii and they can spend hours at it. But then, I think he's the only kid I ever see anymore. That happens when you work all the time.

Yea and 20 years ago, the non-Geek/nerd kids would rather play Atari (or this new thing called Nintendo) before playing D&D. This is nothing new. Sales for RPGs may be in decline but that's only because there are more companies then ever before. Back where there was only TSR and like 3 other publishers, they had a nice size chunk of the RPG pie. Now there's WotC on top, about 5 major 3PP, a dozen intermediate, and hundreds of small PDF publishers. And that's just D&D. That doesn't count the dozen or so D&D spin-offs (Savage Worlds, True20, Pathfinder, Modern20, etc).

IMO, the markets has grown greatly, but so has the number of publishers. So it looks like the market is shrinking to every individual publisher. But if they all actually revealed their actual numbers to each other (never going to happen), they'd probably find that the market is not as small as they think.

 

[Echo]

Whilst I would also look forward to seeing some comprehensive software for Traveller systems, there is still an appeal for generating stuff just using two dice, a pencil and a scrap of paper.

 

[ThunderChilde]

On the topic of software, as has already been noted Vallance's LBB5 app is nice, and Heaven and Earth is impressive. Best kind of freeware you could ask for, it works. Some others on these boards have written trade apps, not sure for which version.

Perhaps a sticky thread for any code monkeys that want to work on apps or tools is in order.