Grognardia

[Allensh]

This is a very interesting blog post that has some thigs to say about Traveller (and Mongoose Traveller in particular, later on) that I found quite thought-provoking.

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/01/travelling-man.html

Allen

 

[Icosahedron]

worst of all, GDW's example setting, the Third Imperium, ceased to be an example and become what Traveller was all about.

Talk to almost any fan of Traveller and chances are they'll eventually start blathering on about the minutiae of the Third Imperium setting.
<snip>
Back in the day, I created my own setting for my Traveller campaigns and, to my mind, that's how Traveller ought to be played; that's where the heart and soul of Marc Miller's brilliant creation lie.

This was (is) pretty much my take on Traveller, too. I have a suspicion that Mongoose will take Traveller in the opposite direction (back to its roots, I'd argue) with the OTU/Third Imperium being the focus for most rules-examples early on, but gradually relinquishing centre-stage as other settings come online.

 

[aramis]

The OTU was coming to dominate the traveller line by 1979... and by 1981, it was a fixture.
1977-1979 "generic" traveller... 2 years
1979-1981 Nascent OTU CT starting to form... 2 years
1981-1987 OTU oriented CT... 6 years

 

[fiat_knox]

Nice article. Thanks.

 

[saundby]

The OTU was coming to dominate the traveller line by 1979... and by 1981, it was a fixture.
1977-1979 "generic" traveller... 2 years
1979-1981 Nascent OTU CT starting to form... 2 years
1981-1987 OTU oriented CT... 6 years

I don't recall it being treated as a fixture by players--some players--until about 1983. This is based on limited experience, playing in groups in the SF Bay area, LA area, and California central coast area on a semi-regular basis at the time. The OTU was there, and it may have come to dominate the published materials, but the games being played lagged behind this with respect to their OTU-ness. It was usually the newer refs who went with the OTU, though one established campaign I played in shifted in that direction as we moved from one part of the galaxy to another while dodging the Law.

*shrug*

I think the dividing lines may appear to look clearer when looking backward than they actually were among the gamers at the time.

I didn't encounter the OTU being presented as The OTU until 1987 or so. The reference made was so confusing to me WRT Traveller I assumed the person was talking about some other game or a redux under different ownership, like RQIII.

 

[aramis]

I started Traveller in '83. No one around here was doing anything BUT the OTU, and all the books were clearly OTU aimed. I never heard of anything prior to the '81 version of the rules until 1996...

And while prior to '81, the rules were not OTU fixated, the '81 edition sure was. As was TTB, and Starter. And everyone I knew of had '81 rules or later.

The grogs I've known in Anchorage playing primarily non-OTU, all of them also have pre-81 editions of the rules.

 

[Whipsnade]

I think the dividing lines may appear to look clearer when looking backward than they actually were among the gamers at the time.

Saundby,

All dividing lines are clearer in retrospect.


Regards,
Bill

 

[tbeard1999]

The guy really encapsulates why I love Classic Traveller (and I suspect why folks like Supp Four and Whipsnade like it as well):

...I think it's key to understanding Traveller's lasting appeal, not just for me, but for many older gamers, who fell in love with this masterpiece of rules elegance and concision.


Say what you will about CT -- but it is a lean and elegant ruleset.

This is especially obvious in this day and age of "rules bloat" IMHO.

LBB1-8 are the equivalent of about 200 letter sized pages, yet contain far more *stuff* -- most of it actually useful -- than any comparable game I've seen in the last few decades. And as I get older and less patient, I appreciate that more and more. CT's sparseness is a virtue in another way -- the mechanics are obvious and easy to analyze. And for the most part, they work well. Oh sure, the combat system (for instance) is dated. But it still *works* -- and it defined state of the art in 1977. And with a very simple play aid, combat flies at lightning speed. It flies pretty fast without it, actually.

So I just love it.

 

[spinwardpirate]

BING!

"Sadly, Traveller very quickly came to be dominated, both at GDW and among its fanbase, by folks who wanted to do just that: make sense of it all."

That's the sound of the hammer squarely hitting the nail on the head!

I'll be passing this one along to my gamer friends.

 

[Supplement Four]

And with a very simple play aid, combat flies at lightning speed. It flies pretty fast without it, actually.

So I just love it.

I love it too... o: Did anybody know that? That I love CT? I was just wonderin'. Maybe I haven't been vocal enough about it...that I love Classic Traveller.

I so love Classic Traveller.

I really do.

Yeah, that's me, the Classic Traveller fan.

I'm right here! Hey! Somebody throw a tarp over me!

Gimmie a "T". Gimmie a "R". Gimmie a "AVELLER". What's that spell? C'mon now, you know. TRAVELLER!

TRAVELLER!

TRAVELLER!

Yeah, baby. Music to my ears.

I'm a Traveller. On a space tramp I ride. I'm wanted: Dead or Alive.

Dead or Alive.

Dead or Alive.

Dead or Alive.









BUT....

What I really posted to say was that I get confused when people refer to Classic Traveller combat as "old school", saying that you have to look up charts.

It aint' like that, folks.

Sure, there are charts. But, they're there for your convience. Just about every rpg has stats for weapons, yes?

MGT has stats for damage and recoil. In many editions of Traveller, there are various modifiers for weapon range. MT has plenty of stats, as for penetration and such.

All CT does is put these stats on a chart rather than bury them in the weapon description.

It's no different.

There is no chart looking during a game.

Just like you would in any other rpg, you write down the weapon's stats on your PC equipment page. Story over. There's the stats for that weapon.

There's nothing archaic about it. Most rpg's today ("modern" rpgs, if you will, although I fail to see how different they are from when the hobby first started) do that same thing. If anything, CT is advanced in that it puts all the weapon stats on a chart rather than making you dig through weapon description (yeah, I know, many rpgs do the same....before someone like Aramis misses the point completely and starts going on and on about how many rpgs have weapon charts).

So...

In CT. When it's time for your character to act. And, you want to run across the corridor and then fire off a blast of your shotgun just as you get to the other wall...all you do....as in most rpgs...is look down at your character's weapon sheet and use the DMs you've jotted down.

Just like most rpgs you've ever played.

Why Classic Traveller has this stigma that it's like old AD&D where a chart looking is needed for combat, I don't know.

 

[atpollard]

What I really posted to say was that I get confused when people refer to Classic Traveller combat as "old school", saying that you have to look up charts.

It aint' like that, folks.

Sure, there are charts. But, they're there for your convience. Just about every rpg has stats for weapons, yes?

I have no idea why "look up charts" are "old school" when many games both older and far newer than CT use charts.

... but, one really MUST either use the chart, memorize the chart or copy the data, in order to play the combat rules. The Weapon vs Range and Weapon vs Armor do not follow a simple progression that could allow one to reference the data during character creation and not need it during combat.

At the risk of showing my age, compare that to another 'Old School' concept like AD&D 1st ed THAC0. Traveller weapons could have been created with a system like Rifle needs a 4+ to hit an unarmed target at short range with a -1 per point of armor and -2 per 10 meters of range. THAT would have "not required the use of tables" (physical, memorized or selectively copied) during combat.

I am not saying that my example is better, I am merely pointing out a system that truely does not need the combat tables.

 

[aramis]

Becuase the size and scope of the charts in CT makes it hard to memorize them, whereas AD&D2, for example, attempts to rationalize the progressions so that you need not use tables in play, only during CGen.

MT does much the same thing: it attempts to reduce in-game table lookups.

CT has 17 data points per weapon (6 ranges, 7 armor types, damage, length, wt, ammo); MT has about 8 (Pen, Atten, Damage, Sig, Recoil, Length, Weight, ammo). Much more convenient to use.

 

[Ishmael]

I don't see much difference between copying weapons info down on your character sheet and holding a weapon info/stat card with similar info on it.

I think the 'old school' comment may be because CT seems to require every weapon to have a unique dm for every armor type which can give big table full of numbers, whereas 'new school' games like Striker/MTuse weapon 'power' vs armor 'resistance'.

Both abstract things and both do the job.
Each person has reasons why they like one system or the other.
Its a matter of taste.

 

[Allensh]

The line that stood out to me was:

"I love the Third Imperium to pieces, but, in the end, it helped kill Traveller."

The preceding two paragraphs are neccesary to make sense of this but in general, Traveller becoming so focused on the OTU limited the types of adventures it could be used for (not for everyone of course, but in the minds of a lot of people) and thus damaged the game.

THIS is why I support the Mongoose concept of the OTU being ONE of the settings for Traveller but not the only one nor even neccesarily the main one, although I do think there should continue to be support for it.

Allen

 

[sabredog]

I've used Striker since it came out because it made more "sense" to me to have weapon penetration vs. armor as a way to realistically portray combat. But...

I have now gone back to the original CT method (including the original dice values - you gotta love 3D6-8 Body Pistols..like BB guns), because I don't want that much "realism" anymore - I want adventure and daring-do in my games again. I want sword n' blasters escapades in my universe again.

Traveller used to be that way before all the extra rules buried it. I just last week re-read the original books and came away amazed at how much freedom I had lost in constraining myself to "new school" type rules, so I'm going back to the way I played it when I was a kid. Less rules, more fun.

 

[rancke]

The line that stood out to me was:

"I love the Third Imperium to pieces, but, in the end, it helped kill Traveller."

I don't think that's true, but I'm convinced that even if it is, the OTU kept Traveller alive for a long time before end. (What end? As far as I can see, Traveler is still alive).

Traveller becoming so focused on the OTU limited the types of adventures it could be used for (not for everyone of course, but in the minds of a lot of people) and thus damaged the game.

If that's true, it's very sad that a fallacy like that damaged the game. The only adventures that can't be run in the OTU are those that are strongly tied to another universe.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

Sorry S4 but I have to take issue here.

The CT range and armour matrix is a pain in the behind.

Yes you can write down your commonly used weapons, but what happens when then they pick up a differnt one?

Or pity the poor ref who has to refer to the entire infernal table.

Did anyone ever use all the weapon vs armour types in AD&D? I certainly didn't - pain in the behind. Made more so by the fact that the monsters often didn't use armour but had a natural AC.

CT sufferes from this as well - you have to look up every critter or memorise the chart or have the chart available as a play aid.

T4 all the way for me - damage die and armour rating, much simpler.

 

[tbeard1999]

Sorry S4 but I have to take issue here.

The CT range and armour matrix is a pain in the behind.

Yes you can write down your commonly used weapons, but what happens when then they pick up a differnt one?

Or pity the poor ref who has to refer to the entire infernal table.

Actually that very simple play aid I referred to can be printed out and made easily available.

T4 all the way for me - damage die and armour rating, much simpler.

I like the T4 combat system, but there is definitely a different feel to it. The reason is that armor absorbtive systems like T4 (or MGT for that matter) tend to produce slow erosion of hit points, which can reduce drama. (It also isn't a particularly accurate way to model gun combat, but that's not a big deal for me. The loss of drama is). By contrast in CT, a single hit can be a game changer (especially with the "first hit applied to one stat" rule, which I endorse), since armor is an "all or nothing" proposition. (Which non-intuitively models real world armor/bullet interaction better, in my opinion).

My Combat System C was an attempt to retain the dramatic scope of the CT combat system, but ditch the cumbersome charts. Actually, the charts don't bother me; the difficulty of adding and calibrating new weapons is bigger issue for me.

 

[tbeard1999]

I don't think that's true, but I'm convinced that even if it is, the OTU kept Traveller alive for a long time before end. (What end? As far as I can see, Traveler is still alive).

If that's true, it's very sad that a fallacy like that damaged the game. The only adventures that can't be run in the OTU are those that are strongly tied to another universe.

I don't agree that the 3I "damaged" Traveller. It just had a chilling effect on the kinds of game expansion material that was commerically available. For all practical purposes, the 3I killed any serious commercial expansion material that wasn't set in the 3I. There's no telling what other, possibly more compelling settings might have emerged. As a reverse example, imagine what gamers would have lost if AD&D had never grown beyond the World of Greyhawk. No Forgotten Realms. Maybe no Dragonlance. No Spelljammer. No Ravenloft. Etc., etc.

And I, for one, didn't really care for the 3I that much. especially after I became a history major and found other, more compelling analogues than the Roman Empire/Age of Sail situation. It is, of course, among the most detailed RPG settings ever. But it never really spoke to me. I also found the OTU aliens stunningly uninteresting or lamely derivative.

But the 3I didn't ruin Traveller for me; I took what I wanted from the 3I and ignored the rest.

A more systemic problem with Traveller, IMHO, is the jump drive. Given the relatively small number of destinations that can be reached with a jump drive, it seems to me that Traveller really doesn't allow for "exploring strange new worlds". Hence, I am toying with Really Big Hexes to enable some exploration type games.