GURPS Traveller: Sword Worlds. Is it canonical?

[aramis]

The big problem with Don's Method was the equally picayune detail mongering by folks like Hans Ranke. (Miss him, too.) The problem with Hans is that he was trying to glimpse the underlying shared vision of the [g="CT1E, CT2E, MT, TNE, T4, T5, T20, GT, GTIW, HT, MGT1, MGT2]12 editions[/g] without admission that the underlying universe modeled changed with each, so there really wasn't a singular universe being modeled.

And then, people like me, who prefer the "no overlapping subsets" rules editions, and see (now at least) each rules edition as a separate parallel universe.

Actually, CT, it looks like a cluster...

• Bk2-77
• Bk2-81
• Bk2-77 + HG-79
• Bk2-81 + HG-80
• Bk2 + striker/AHL
• Bk2 + HG-80 + Striker/AHL

And each of those is two, really - one with and one without advanced CGen.

Each describes a different universe, but the timeline really isn't terribly different, but what has to happen for a universe only using those to look like the OTU is quite different. Regina under a Bk2+Striker (for the econ) universe without HG has many hundreds of ships in its navy. No ship runs past about GCr1. Guns are bloody lethal.

None of these game-prescribed universes match the one described in the fiction of the game. All of them come close...

I'm new to the "inner circle"... and I'm as obsessive about "This is what the rule tells me about the universe" as Don was about "What contradicts what" and Hans was about "This is the apparent underlying truth misdescribed by the rules"... I pointed out the problems with higher order drives by doing the math - both in 2d and 3d - for "will we hit something between here and there" using T5.0 assumptions. That was a real eye opener - I used actual astronomical frequencies, too.

 

[robject]

No one else I know holds Hans' particular heresy about all editions accurately describing one self-consistent OTU.

I believe Marc's view is more like: each ruleset represents, or results in, a spin on the setting. Which seems to me to acknowledge that different people were in charge of different rulesets at different times.

 

[aramis]

No one else I know holds Hans' particular heresy about all editions accurately describing one self-consistent OTU.

I believe Marc's view is more like: each ruleset represents, or results in, a spin on the setting. Which seems to me to acknowledge that different people were in charge of different rulesets at different times.

Don bordered on it. Cryton used to. Several of Crytons & my old players do. I did before coming to COTI....

 

[mike wightman]

The thing is we now have a self-consistent OTU, the one described in Marc's novel.

I am aware that it ends a few hundred years before we started our adventure in the 3I in 1105 and that the next book has some interesting history to develop, but the book series has to be a consistent setting.

 

[Quint]

Don bordered on it. Cryton used to. Several of Crytons & my old players do. I did before coming to COTI....

Yeah, I certainly did - even when I was doing my own riff of Traveller and Cyberpunk 2020 and running several campaigns in a row that each started at the same "start-point" and explored a new, alternate timeline.

Nowadays I'm somewhat agnostic on the issue. I've given up on the OTU and moved back to Proto-Traveller, my only real question is how much of the elements of Known Space am I going to incorporate, or if I even should.

I'll still buy and read stuff because I'm interested in the vision, but I'm not really interested in running in the OTU anymore.

D.

 

[LeperColony]

I'm a TNE guy, so I don't have to worry so much about the rest!

 

[Garnfellow]

Marc is, basically, the Walt Whitman of RPGs.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

His willingness to embrace indeterminacy is a tremendous strength -- we get to choose between a GURPS Traveller, Champions Traveller, d20 Traveller, Mongoose Traveller, Traveller Traveller. We can adventure in the Interstellar Wars era, Milieu Zero, Golden Era, Rebellion, New Age, and beyond. We get novels, board games, and role-playing games.

But this radical openness is also inimical to a large contingent of people naturally drawn to a science fiction RPG: engineers, software designers, military veterans. Basically, people who expect precision, accuracy, and certainty.

Personally, I think this tension makes things interesting. But then I'm a Whitman guy, myself.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I commented some years ago on this board that I viewed the OTU in terms of a grand story FIRST, and the number crunching of a particular rulesets secondary.

To start, the biggest rule of improvisational theater is once something is introduced by a comedian/actor/writer, you cannot deny its existence. In order to remove something you have to explain it away. But that means you had to acknowledge that it existed and was part of of the situation, even if at least temporarily. So, perhaps I am more like Hans Ranke than I like to admit.

I view the OTU as good improv disguised as slavishly hard factual history. The broad strokes of history are ALL consistent and canon. To me this is axiomatic. On the drill down of data not supporting such a storyline, I now simply attribute this to the fog of history told from individuals in IY 1902 looking back 750 or more years into the past.

There was a situation with some sophonts called the Ancients that altered star sytems, leaving mysteries. The Vilani (re)invented Jump Drive and created a "human" empire. Some time later, Terrans took over the Vilani then screwed up the area. Some planet named Sylea created a new empire that had two civil wars before being brought down by an existential threat. This threat almost almost killed everyone in Charted Space. Eventually new stories are told of the surviving sophonts, stories of bravery and new empires in the same area of space.

As an example, because of looking back 750+ years, it is easier to sweep away some confusing "little detail" like IRIS existing or not vs. an existential threat (Virus) that almost brought down all of civilization. Discussions of the former will be of interest to historians at a university, the latter more likely taught in 6th grade history class. I went to public school in Chicago and learned about the Black Death in 6th grade history class. I did not learn about the workings of the Exchequer of the English crown in 6th grade public school history. The broad strokes most everyone knows, the little details not everyone.

I do not expect the rule systems to be able to explain everything, though if it could that would be great. My example is C-Jammer and the other reaction thrust generation-ships going to Reft Sector. Stat me those ships and sleep pods with 2000+ year supplies and endurance using the TL of Terra and the TL of various equipment. I have tried. But it is still OTU, the story is more interesting than the consistency and slavish adherence to a specific rule system.

It all happened. So go ahead, TL 27 reality manipulate away 1248, TNE, Virus and Rebellion. What difference will it make? The writer of such will expand the OTU, hopefully write a good story, and in making said events disappear, force upon the audience that at one time it was before it became a was not.

Like good improv.

Or like old Star Trek vs. J.J. Abrams Star Trek. Old Star Trek existed, even if was now only remembered one old dead Vulcan.

 

[GypsyComet]

I commented some years ago on this board that I viewed the OTU in terms of a grand story FIRST, and the number crunching of a particular rulesets secondary.

My approach is similar. I prefer to derive a whole from the parts, both with rules and setting details, and either caveat or discard the pieces which do not fit.

Just like I live in a Craftsman house (that did not come out of a Sears catalog), there are many Beowulfs flying that are not the original Sandwich class Vilani trader, and a LOT of Type As that are not Beowulfs at all.

Did the RC use HEPlaR drives, huge turrets, and CLC lasers? Sure. Did everyone else? Probably not.

Skill names and coverage gets messy between editions, but so do real life skills.

Jump fuel percentages, power plant size and fuel efficiencies, and other foibles of ship design are reflections of the complications of real world engineering, the often broad range represented by a single TL, and the degree to which you think you can flout 9,000 year old Vilani patents.

Just like TNE's RC thought 1201 was the New Era (see 1248 for that ret-con), DGP's Imperium thought it was well into TL16.

Is the Imperium/Vilani/Vargr/Zhodani/Solomani/K'kree/Hivers inherently Light or Dark? What Emperor, Decade, Domain, Duke, and Day of the Week are you asking for?

 

[Timerover51]

(that did not come out of a Sears catalog),

Just a side note, but Sears did sell pre-made houses in its catalogue. There are quite a few still around in the Chicago area.

As for overall canon, I view it as you can have a canon based on a particular rules edition or version, but a single, unified canon is not possible.

 

[robject]

the original Sandwich class Vilani trader

I have to see that.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Don't you people ever read?:rofl:

HERO-CLASS 200-DTON PRIVATE MERCHANT
...
The English name of this ship class is a classic example of the pitfalls of automatic language translation. As with most Imperial merchant vessels, the 200-dton packet vessels had no official names, just registry numbers. The original Confederation Navy designation for the ship class was simply “Type A.” When Terrans asked what the ships were called, their crews often responded disigshar, which means “sandwich filled with a variety of sliced meats and vegetables.” This is an example of Low Vilani slang, commenting on the ships’ less-than-elegant appearance and pedestrian mission.
However, the most popular early Vilani-to-English translation program rendered the word as “hero,” and the name stuck. Examples that fell into Terran hands were soon named after famous figures from folklore, mythology, and popular fiction...GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars pg.206

 

[mike wightman]

So the Vilani had a 4th Earl of Sandwich too - strange case of parallel evolution, must have been the ancients

 

[MThompson016]

While I really like GT: Sword Worlds, and I feel it has a great deal of potential for characters and campaigns, I prefer to have a lot of wiggle room for play what's true and what's not.

While I like things like the population change for Hofud, I'm not ready to use it all. I will not allow anything to say how my universe is.

 

[Hyphen]

I commented some years ago on this board that I viewed the OTU in terms of a grand story FIRST, and the number crunching of a particular rulesets secondary.

A wonderful take on things. Thank you.