InDesign, I think.
Finally got my Rulebook and tried to read it...
- Thread starter Ector
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InDesign, I think.
Yes, there are a lot of things to complain about with T5, but some of these I don't understand:
CT, MT, T4, MGT and GT didn't have examples of ship creation either, so that's an unfair expectation (not sure about other versions). Yes, it would be nice, but you're holding T5 up to a higher standard there. Fully statted ships, yes, again would have been nice, but I'd rather have the rules to make my own than a limited set of options. It's sad, but hardly a deal-breaker. And the senses rules are cool not only because they include two new senses for aliens to use, but they also make designing sense-enhancers easier, but also mesh with vehicle, ship, and robot senses very nicely.
MT was a mess too, enough that vehicle combat was confusing and space combat wasn't even possible without the errata, and back then there wasn't an internet to get errata from (I didn't even know such a thing existed at the time), but my players and I still played and loved the game.
I keep hearing this, but why is it that where other people see "overwhelming complexity", I just see ever more possibility? Besides, no one said you had to take it all at once. Start with chargen, tasks, and combat and you're one your way to most adventures right there. That's what my players and I have been doing, learning it piecemeal as we go. Heck, we even did a couple rules-practice sessions before we started playing, not because they were necessary, just to cut down the time searching through the book learning stuff during the game. I've done that with other games before too. Yes there are a lot of rules, and it will take time to learn them, but I don't see any reason to be overwhelmed.
Please, please explain this to me: "no adventure?" What exactly is missing? You even say: "There are the tools to create a campaign as rich as any Traveller, or science fiction game offers (and honestly, I think it may be possible to design Krypton using this book)" So if you can create all this stuff, and any campaign that you used to be able to in Traveller, what exactly is missing? I'm trying to understand based on your comments that followed:
So you can create any campaign from previous Traveller with these rules, but those rules have little application? How about, creating all those campaigns? Is that not enough? Perhaps reading on will help me:
Aw, you don't have exactly all the weapons you wanted some other version of Traveller, that's terrible. But how does that invalidate what is there? Yes, I was sad too when they didn't include my favorite ship, the Subsidized Liner, in MT. But you know what? I could still make it, so not that big of a tragedy really. And I can tell you that making a snub pistol in GunMaker is a heck of lot easier than making a ship in MT. 2 minutes, if you know what you are doing. 5 seconds if you use the online program. So how does that take away "the adventure"? How does that make the other rules "of little application"?
You mean, without those specific weapons already available in the book, her mercenary character becomes unplayable?!? Seriously, you are making way too big of a deal out of this. There are 29 guns in there at the moment, way more than CT started out with, and if that's still not enough, you can make as many as you want in mere minutes. No game is going to be instantly playable. If you want that, go check out Toon. If you want specific things in your game (from previous editions or not), you can make them. And things like guns and armor are fairly quick. For my current game I came up with specific weapons and armor for both the PCs and the NPCs, because I could do custom stuff like that with T5, and it sure didn't take long. But I did do it ahead of time, before the game.
They weren't in the core rules of CT, MT, T4 or GT either, but with T5 you can make them. Again, you are holding it to a higher standard.
I think expecting more from T5 than from CT and the other older games is fair. Firstly, expectations in the RPG world have increased: production values and editing are generally far superior from the start of the hobby. Secondly, the T5 book is, in page count, so much larger than the initial 3 LBBs. Choosing the right "collection" to measure against would of course start yet another debate.
My assessment is that T5 requires more work on the referee's part to get started than CT. More instantiated equipment, weapons and ships would reduce that.
My assessment is that T5 requires more work on the referee's part to get started than CT. More instantiated equipment, weapons and ships would reduce that.
I agree there is no background material in the Core Rules ("obvious Traveller fan-statement is obvious") although that's mitigated by the huge history of Traveller versions. I won't personally bring this up since it's even solved in the CD-ROM that gives you the core rulebooks of every past GDW edition which each have some background (convertible with some effort or deliberately generated with the Maker systems). So I'm not worried.
I like the idea of Maker systems and QREBS to define different manufacturing companies, good and shoddy.
The computerized utilities online from members of the T5 community are very helpful to generate 'examples'. I think we are long past the day where dice-rolling generation rules are presented and seriously expect referees to roll dice during adventure design. Nowadays the power of the computer is an unmistakeable advantage and commonly available to spit out hundreds of planets and equipment. I thought maybe some choice utilities could have been included in the CD-ROM or even in a disk in the back of the book like they do for softcover computer manuals, but I don't recall there were any on the CD-ROM. I think this helps the instances of "no examples."
I like the idea of Maker systems and QREBS to define different manufacturing companies, good and shoddy.
The computerized utilities online from members of the T5 community are very helpful to generate 'examples'. I think we are long past the day where dice-rolling generation rules are presented and seriously expect referees to roll dice during adventure design. Nowadays the power of the computer is an unmistakeable advantage and commonly available to spit out hundreds of planets and equipment. I thought maybe some choice utilities could have been included in the CD-ROM or even in a disk in the back of the book like they do for softcover computer manuals, but I don't recall there were any on the CD-ROM. I think this helps the instances of "no examples."
esampson
SOC-13
Expecting more is fair, but by the same token that expectation needs to be tempered. We are already talking about a 650 page book here. If Marc had added full write up for each major race comparable to the CT alien books you would be adding another 45*8 or 360 pages, taking it past the 1000 page mark. Let's add another 100 pages for our library data (based off of MT's Imperial Encyclopedia) and give another 4 pages each (enough for a block of stats, a map, descriptions of rooms and color text) to the Scout/Courier, Free Trader, Far Trader, Subsidized Merchant, SDB, Corsair, Broadsword, and Lab Ship and that's another 32 pages. We'll include fully expanded makers using FF&S for another 155 pages. Now we are up to about 1400 pages.
About the only thing that the T5 book fails to give that the first release of CT gave was instantiated equipment, and yes, I agree that leaving that out was a mistake. The first 3 books of CT didn't even provide instantiated ships.
In the meantime T5 does give you a sophont maker, a gun maker, armor maker, more detailed character generation, ship generation and system generation, robots, a great deal more background information about the Imperium than the original 3 LBB, and more examples of ships.
So I would say that yes, T5 is at a higher standard than the original release of CT (even including the equipment blunder). It also has a long way to go, but complaining that it doesn't have all of the expansion material that was later added is in and of itself not a valid complaint because to add all previously created expansion material would have ballooned the project enormously (my 1400 pages didn't even include things such as 1001 Characters, Animal Encounters, or 76 Patrons, all of which are largely milieu agnostic or any of the milieu materials such as Rebellion Source Book or Hard Times).
Personally there's a lot of stuff that I find missing in Starship Generation (the area I've been focusing a lot of my attention in) and I've noticed that while far more detailed than the LBB there's a lot of stuff that could be added to System Generation (formulas to help figure temperature, orbital eccentricities, planetary inclination, captured planets, etc.) but I feel that there is more than enough 'starter' information and I will hope that this missing material will be filled out in future books.
In terms of useability, accessibility for people new to the game; it is a few light years below the Standard set by the release of CT.
esampson
SOC-13
Yes. In terms of accessibility it is well below the standard set by the release of CT. I'm not entirely sure I would go as far as 'lightyears' however. CT had its own organizational problems (just like T5 it has no index. Even worse, it has no table of contents). It is just that with so few pages the organization problems didn't cause as much difficulty in finding things.
However, the only real way to get that same level of accessibility would have been to remove a lot of material. Even if the book were perfectly organize starship creation would be less accessible simply because it is more complicated. Book 2 Starship creation was highly simplistic. Your hull had so many tons. You put an engine in it and that took up a certain number of those tons. Cross reference the engine with the hull and you got performance. Staterooms were a fixed size.
You will never have that level of accessibility when you start doing things like figuring that at higher tech levels people can make the same equivalent engine smaller or when you decide to incorporate rules so that while it is possible to make tiny hotbunk cabins for a military vessel there is incentive to also make larger more roomy cabins.
Unfortunately as you have no doubt seen from many of the posts a lot of players are asking for more detail, not less. They want to be able to figure the price for running a stateroom if they do the maintenance themselves. You yourself even commented a few posts earlier that you would have had some of the information you were looking for in expansions that were published after the initial release of CT.
Not really. Well organized, it could be pretty easy to use. It really comes off as a pre-edited draft document where the loose pages were scooped together and printed as is.
It still boggles the mind how an experienced person could consider that it was ready for market. For the life of me I can't even imagine what was going through Marc's head at the time.
esampson
SOC-13
"Pretty easy" is not the same as "accessible as". The complaint some people seem to want to make is that T5 isn't as accessible as CT, and it is true. Given what people expect from Traveller these days it won't be and can't be as accessible as the original CT material. There's just too much new data that people are asking for.
As for coming off as being heavily in the need of reorganization I think you're preaching to the choir. I don't think anyone here is arguing that it is well organized. There's a lot that can be done to make the material much more accessible than it currently is, but in the end I doubt it will ever become as accessible as the LBBs.
nats
SOC-12
Marc isnt experienced, he has been out of the RPG scene for years, and IMO he probably had a lot of very good advice and help in the old days from other people behind the scenes that perhaps gave Traveller its personality. Because eveything Marc has done since CT has been flipping terrible! Personally I feel this was like an albatross around his neck, he NEEDED to get it done. I think the prospect of making lots of money out of the Kickstarter based on the Traveller name alone also helped.
I would be at all surprised if this is the first and last we see of T5. I think and hope it will die a quiet death.
I really dont know where Traveller will go in the future, I know I havent been at all happy with any of the developments of Traveller since CT. Maybe we should just let Traveller grow old gracefully ....
OR maybe the fans will develop a revised and updated version of CT and take Traveller to the place it needs to go next....that has always been my hope.
With the Trav SRD, a person/company could make a new "Trav" game. The way Paizo(sp?) did with D&D 3.x when WotC choked.
While there is still much of T5 I don’t understand yet, I see this as a *presentational* issue. What I do understand of T5 I like a lot. A rewrite for understandability would be welcome but I don’t want someone to go off and write T6 (or another updated version of CT). There is no need. Just rewrite T5 to be clearer.
I’m looking forward to the T5 players’ manual, and Greg Lee’s adventure.
Muad'dib Pendragon
SOC-9
This.
Add to this the fact T5 requires a fair bit of work on the part of experienced Traveller grognards to make it playable, and is all but inaccessible to new players, and one soon realizes T5 is really meant for another era, an old fan base, and in no way competitive in today's RPG market.
Muad'dib Pendragon
SOC-9
And therein lies the problem. Traveller has a core fan base with varied focuses (roll playing, role playing, gear heads, etc) that simply can't be appropriately appeased in a single book, regardless of the page count.
In my estimation, by trying to meet everyone's needs, Marc ended up meeting few. Worse, the effort (in addition to the follow-up, or lack thereof) appears to have alienated many current fans and all but eliminated potential new ones.
Muad'dib Pendragon
SOC-9
Agreed... to a point. And this is what's disconcerting. Many have posted ad nauseum about the lack of organization, and for good reason. But when one considers experienced Traveller players like you are struggling to understand many parts of T5, it really puts off those with lesser or no exposure to T5 specifically and Traveller in general.
Definitely agree.
The clarity/understandability issue is the biggest problem for me. The complexity of T5 is more than I like, but it's not a deal-breaker. If a game is complex but well-organized, I can at least read through it and pick and choose what I want to use.
What I *don't* want is to find myself in a position where I can't look up what I need in the rules quickly and efficiently. I'm also not fond of having to figure out how to actually use stuff once I find it, where the explanatory text is vague or absent or located many pages away from the material it is explaining. I want rules that are organized transparently so I can get right into the game.
I don't think it's a useful exercise to speculate on Marc's motives for doing T5 the way he did it. Very few people (if any) except for Marc himself are in a position to have an informed opinion on that. I am certainly not one of them, so I will refrain.
Speculating about what niche in the RPG market T5 is best suited to serve, based on its actual contents, seems like fair game. We can all read it and bring our RPG experience to bear on the question. I think it will appeal to grognards who will take it out for a spin at the gaming table, and completists who will keep it in pristine condition on their bookshelves. I question its appeal to new players.
In the end, let's remember that we have what we have. T5 either suits our individual styles as players and referees, or it does not.
What I *don't* want is to find myself in a position where I can't look up what I need in the rules quickly and efficiently. I'm also not fond of having to figure out how to actually use stuff once I find it, where the explanatory text is vague or absent or located many pages away from the material it is explaining. I want rules that are organized transparently so I can get right into the game.
I don't think it's a useful exercise to speculate on Marc's motives for doing T5 the way he did it. Very few people (if any) except for Marc himself are in a position to have an informed opinion on that. I am certainly not one of them, so I will refrain.
Speculating about what niche in the RPG market T5 is best suited to serve, based on its actual contents, seems like fair game. We can all read it and bring our RPG experience to bear on the question. I think it will appeal to grognards who will take it out for a spin at the gaming table, and completists who will keep it in pristine condition on their bookshelves. I question its appeal to new players.
In the end, let's remember that we have what we have. T5 either suits our individual styles as players and referees, or it does not.
esampson: only the exploration guys get 8 skills per term; don't forget to generate a Sanity attribute and dock it every 2 terms: the price for extra skills. This means an average roll of 7 will leave with a measly 4 San after 6 terms. And I do recommend NOT applying house rule dice rolling conventions for Sanity, if you use them at all. Make it a straight roll.
Just my .02 CrImp.
Just my .02 CrImp.
As a game in the market, T5 is dead. It's sales post Kickstarter will be insignificant compared to even a product like MGT Trav. I'm talking reality here. So, just looking down the line as to what happens to the rule set after Mongoose no longer has a license.
Literally true. p. 184, examples of Personal skills, comes before the Personals chapter that would help you understand what they mean.
Or maybe they were hopped up on the possibilities of variant Sophont anatomy and put their "appendix" at the "top" instead of at the "bottom".
I was pleased to read it all in an unbroken vacation. But I felt like Neil Armstrong. It was a disorganized landscape and I had the uneasy feeling no one else had gone through it before...
Can it be saved? Sure it can. I'm the Referee and it's my show...
But, how to say it? A game should be popularized and spread on its own merits, like the Pathfinder Beginner Box, all slick and modular programmed learning. If T5 requires "disciples" to interpret it and popularize it, it will be a much slower process. A "slow" product can easily be confused with a "dead" product.
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