Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
rancke wrote:
"What you consider a laudable mallability I consider a frustrating vagueness."
Different strokes...
Yes, and your strokes and my strokes can both be right for two different universes, but they appear too different for both to be right for the
same universe.
And the OTU is one universe.
"I want details concerning Imperial governance, finance and budgets in my own Traveller universe, and I think it is a big, ugly flaw in the Traveller rules that they don't provide me with easy ways to get them."
My question then is; How exactly would those details enhance game play in your own Traveller universe?
My answer could be that when I've told you that I feel the need for such details, why should I have to defend that feeling? But I'll tell you: having a self-consistent background helps me make the adventures that take place in it more believable. I don't just want to put in an Imperial patrol when I need one and not put in an Imperial patrol when I need that. I want to make it plausible that the patrol is there when it is and isn't there when it isn't (That or knowing when I can just say that it's there/not there and when I need to explain away an odd circumstance).
"Better yet, since I try to keep MTU as close to the OTU as I can manage, the Traveller background material should just tell me how they work, so that I can spend my energy on coming up with new adventures for my players."
Again, my questions is; How exactly would those details enhance game play in your own Traveller universe? Do your players routinely peruse line items in the Imperial budget? Lobby for or against specific taxes and/or tariffs? Count every last hull in the sector fleet? Keep tabs on the numbers and functions of all Imperial employees? How exactly would those details enhance game play in your own Traveller universe?
That question might mean something if I had asked for details about an Imperial budget at the line level and a full list of all members of the Imperial Navy. But I didn't. The TCS level of detail is the number of capital ships in a fleet and a blanket cost of 10% of their value to cover every other expense, from auxilary vessels to navy pensions. All I'm asking for is some consistency at a very basic level. It may not make a difference to your willing suspension of disbelief if Regina subsector has four
Kinunirs or twenty full squadrons or something in between, but it does make a difference to mine. And it has very little to do with whether or not my next adventure has anything whatsoever to do with the navy or not.
I can, howver, provide you with an example where it does make a difference. It's a contrived example, because I've yet to send my players to that end of the Regina subsector, but I hope you'll allow it anyway.
Some time ago I got the notion (I think it was someone else's suggestion), that the reason why Kinorb has a class A starport and is at the end of an X-boat link is that it's a retirement world for Regina subsector bigwigs. Thus it has a disproportionate number of very rich people. I think that I could turn that into an interesting setting for an adventure. But if I've been regaling my players with tales of Vargr raids for years and then spring a retirement home for billionaires on the edge of Vargr space on them, I'm pretty sure they're going to give me a bushel of disbelief. So the question: 'Can the Regina subsector afford to protect its border worlds against Vargr raids?' would matter. Answer yes: Kinorb Resort World is a reality. Answer no: Think of something else.
"But I can, and do, blame MM for invalidating a bit of already existing published material without providing a substitute."
As Mr. Jacques-Watson pointed out, MWM didn't invalidate anything. Instead, he RESTATED the original intent of the material in question.TCS was meant to be a balanced strategic wargame using HG2 combat rules and nothing more.
That's self-evidently not true. Intentionally or not it became something more the second the decision to place this balanced strategic wargame in the Traveller universe was made.
Also, the
Striker rules that were invalidated at the same time and with the same reason given had a section that
explicitly explained ow to use them in the Traveller universe.
It was Our Olde Hobby who wrongly inflated the role of the TCS materials. MWM simply corrected that error.
Wrongly? We were told that the Island Cluster was part of the OTU. Where's the error?
What you have either forgotten or fail to fully 'grok' is that the OTU was never planned in the first place.
The OTU accreted over the years via scores of articles, amber zones, maps, casual encounters, supplements, and TNS items from dozens of authors living and dead. There was NO overall plan other than 'Provide materials for players in a game'.
What you fail to grok is that it doesn't matter how the OTU came into being. Also, I think you're wrong about the total lack of overall planning. The very first adventure featured the description of one full subsector. Supplement 3 followed up on that, and by the time the library data volumes came out there's definitely a lot of planning evident. But, as I said, it doean't really matter. The OTU is. That's what matters.
There was no structured outline and no attempts to create one until the end of GDW's run.
The Kinunir featured a subsector description and hints for future adventures.
Research Station Gamma featured another subsector and added more hints.
Twilight's Peak tied the worlds where the two previous adventures had taken place together and tied the hints of the two previous adventures together. I'd say that there's more than a hint of a structured outline there.
Take notice of how that coherent, self-consistent outline for Traveller finally was created - TNE had to first utterly destroy the pre-existing Traveller background.
Why?
Not out of some 'hatred' for CT, MT, or the Rebellion, but because that destruction was the only way that a coherent and self-consistent outline could be created.
That's odd. I thought that Dave Nielsen and company had stated that the sheer amount of information about the OTU had become so daunting that it frightened away potential new customers and that the purpose of the Virus was to wipe the slate clean. I freely admit that I can't provide quotes to back that up, however. Perhaps you can provide some to back up your claim? Or is it just a surmise of yours?
The vagueness you bemoan is a deliberate decision on MWM's part to avoid invalidating too much of Traveller's canon. If he chooses an economic model, a budget model, a governance model, if he chooses any of those things vast swaths of Traveller canon will no longer fit.
But as it is now, those wast swaths of material invalidates one another and we have no way of deciding what part to keep and what parts to discard, with the result that they're
all suspect.
No order of the kind you wish for can be imposed on the mass of Traveller materials without the loss of a great number of those materials. The price is too high.
That's a matter of opinion and my opinion is that, first of all, you're overstating that amount of damage it would involve and secondly that the gain would be a lot more than the loss.
"The OTU is one universe. Nailing down how things are in that one universe doesn't prevent anyone from doing things differently in their own TU. Especially if he had rules that nailed down what assumptions led to what consequences."
Again, you are assuming that planning occurred. Assumptions were only made for the adventure at hand and the future consequences be damned.
I'm not assuming that planning occurred. I'm assuming - no, I firmly believe - that an overall structure is beneficial for a game setting and that if one wasn't planned from the start then it's a really good idea to impose one ASAP. The very fact that assumptions were made on an adveture by adventure basis is the best possible reason to clean up those assumptions and weed out those that don't make sense.
In 'Aces and Eights', an Imperial army brigade - an IMPERIAL unit mind you - is destroyed by a sneak WMD strike despite the Imperial Rules of War. Making matters worse, the parties who launched the WMD strike are now rulers of the world where it took place. Why was such an adventure 'allowed' to be written? It clearly flouts everything we've been told about the Imperium, so why was it written?
It's not important today why it was written. What's important is whether or not the writer of a future adventure, amber zone, or plot seed (for an official publication) should be allowed to feature a similar situation, pointing to 'Aces and Eights' as adequate justification.
"If MM don't want to nail down how the Imperium works in the OTU then he shouldn't have an OTU in the first place."
He didn't have an OTU in the first place.
Please, Bill, that's not worthy of you. Don't play semantic games with me. Unless my knowledge of English has let me down 'in the first place' as I used it didn't imply that he had an OTU from the start but that he had one at all.
The OTU grew, Hans, it was never planned. There is no order at the center of it, at least no order at the level you wish there to be.
I know the OTU grew, Bill. I think there is ample evidence of at least a little planning, but it doesn't really matter how it got its inconsistencies. What matters is that inconsistencies are Bad. Inconsistencies interferes with the willing suspension of disbelief. Inconsistencies subtract versimilitude from an otherwise rich and convincing setting. In short, incocistencies should be excised when possible and acknowledged and ignored by common consent when impossible.
"Finally, keeping these details vague isn't going to keep them out of canon forever, it just ensures that when they do show up, they're likely to be one huge inconsistent mess."
You've just described Traveller canon perfectly; a huge inconsistent mess. And there is no way to clean up that mess without a wholesale trashing of huge chunks of Traveller canon. It cannot be brought to heel and it cannot be made to fit without great losses.
I disagree. I don't think that the loss would be nearly as great as you claim. What's more, even if you were right, the fact that it was impossible to fix everything is no excuse not to fix as much as possible. It is most especially no excuse for not making every attempt to avoid creating more messes in the future.
"Every time someone writing an official bit of adventure or background material sticks in a reference to Imperial governance, finance, budgets, force levels or any other damn detail about the Imperium, facts solidify and embed themselves in OTU canon. Only now they're pretty much guaranteed to result in horrible belief suspender snappers."
That method has worked for 25+ years.
I thought we both agreed that it hasn't worked. Haven't we just been talking about horrible messes?
If MWM can prevent those various references from being too sweeping or too global, then a GM can squint a bit and either make them fit his needs or ignore them altogether. However, if those references become too orderly and too precise, then the GM's hands are tied. His TU and big chunks of Traveller's canon suddenly become naught but trash.
Completely untrue. The GM's hands aren't tied, since he can do whatever he wants in his own TU, and sizable chunks of Traveller's canon suddenly turns from dross to gold. It's true that other parts of Traveller's canon gets thrown out, but the parts that can't be saved were a mess to beging with. If they hadn't been it wouldn't be necessary to discard them.
Now, all this being said, nothing is stopping you from choosing the details concerning Imperial governance, finance and budgets in your Traveller universe.
I know that (Though I wonder why you pointed out to Bhoins that TCS wasn't canon any more if you already knew that nothing stopped him from choosing whatever details he wanted for his universe?). What I'm not free to choose is what I write for official Traveller publications, nor am I free to choose what other authors write for official Traveller publications, nor am I free to choose what fans who like to stick to the OTU write.
They will be specific to your TU and will still vaguely match up with the OTU. Others will make their decisions based on their needs. As additional materials are released for the OTU they will be (hopefully) vague enough to allow easy importation into your TU and the TUs of others.
Now, you know that that won't work unless they're so vague that they might as well not be set in any TU at all. A lot of the things we discuss are bones of contention precisely because they conflict with other parts of the Traveller canon in such a way that they can't both be true in the same universe.
The fact that we can get that much consistencey out of what was essentially a randomly created body of materials is enough of a miracle.
Not to me.
Cordially,
Hans
(though they had a good excuse; the population multiplier had not been introduced yet, so all worlds had an effective PM of 1. That's bound to make anyone underestimate force levels).
