Is it me or has this site died

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Omg.

Whartung; like Uncle Bob, you're the voice of reason. I always pictured my stuff being up for publication someday via official channels, so I refrained from "Heavy Metal" or really bizzare settings... however much I'd like to place a set of conventional characters in those settings. That's what great stories are all about.

As another example; I tried incorporating the vehicle in this image in one of those "musjump"/"parallel universe" adventures; http://www.waynesbooks.com/images/graphics/gw10.jpg

*looks around for Aramis* Ummm, you know BG you are

Spoiler:

a big nerd, but so am I since I totally know the game, but GW, really, kinda shlocky isn't it?
*hoping that 'nerd' isn't on the bad word list and now I am real trouble, but can't resist saying hi to another of the tribe*

My God, Gamma World, you got GW! OMG, that's from back in the day. LOL. Wow... And 'Heavy Metal' Rocks....when it's not as confusing as all get out.

I had hopes that my group would try to take on this thing in a sort of Joint Operations type of exercise. But the adventure didn't go as planned, and it was a combination of me not being able to make the CT rules work for such a beast in that image, and the players kind of whimping out.

I'm going to write my operatic adventures, and see what comes of them. I've teased a lot of people on this BBS with promises of fiction, and I have delivered (believe it or not), but I've kept the fiction circulating among a small group of friends for feedback. In short, I'm not satisfied with it, and hope to write something really competent that I won't be ashamed to post and/or publish.

Anyway, thanks again for the reminder

Off I go.

More later... work beckons.

And you go with your bad self, me, I hardly get peeps to play so mostly just read the books for the History, same with the Realms (DnD), I love the huge scope and depth of the Canon and Histories. But wait, I too am a big nerd too, so *shrugs* whatcha gonna do?

Oh and that is what Players do, sir. They mess up the carefully laid plans of the Referee/GM/GOD (Game Overall Director). Just remember the ancient military axiom: No plan ever survives contact with the enemy. And yes in this case the Players stand in for the enemy, if only for planning purposes...which bring me to axiom two (and this is ancient, so I should be ok with this one...frankly I think I might have remember this myself: KISS or "Keep it simple, stupid.", really, it helps when your players decide there going to chase some thing you don't even remember putting out there...oh yeah, they just decided to do it...yep, we players are big PITAs.

OTOH, I do like a Ref who takes time for grand plans...well, that's just me, I dig on the Grand Political thing...another reason I dug...*sniffles* the Realms...*looks about to cry* they killed the realms, all i got left is traveller....

As for the Dyson Spheres, what about all those supposedly 'empty' hexes on the map, I mean, I for one can't resist a good conspiracy and well, suppose the IISS is Under Orders to alter the maps? You know:

For the Good of the Imperium and the Galaxy, by Order of the Moot's Office of Special Affairs and HIM Strephon Rex, the IISS Cartography Section is hereby forbidden to List the Existence of [REDACTED] at Hex [REDACTED] in the Subsector of [REDACTED] in the Sector of [REDACTED], Domain of [REDACTED]. By Our Hand on this Day, 265-1105.
Strephon Rex, HIM of the Third Imperium.

I mean no one never, ever lies when making maps right?

 

[rust]

I mean no one never, ever lies when making maps right?

Yep, just think of that secret Darrian deep space base for their TL 16
warships.
They do not exactly encourage astrographers to put it on the subsec-
tor maps, I think.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

*taps rust on the shoulder*

Yep, just think of that secret Darrian deep space base for their TL 16
warships.
They do not exactly encourage astrographers to put it on the subsec-
tor maps, I think.

Excuse me, gentlebeing, could you step over here into this office, thank you, no, no trouble, merely an administrative detail to work out, this way, thank you...*looks around before ducking in behind rust*

-THUMP, THOMP, BUMP, RIPP, SCUFFLE-

*door opens and rust reappears minus his map of Darrian Space*

And thank you again for visiting.....

 

[rust]

Ah, this would be the very, very friendly approach. They normally use a
Personal General Memory Prohibitor, or PGMP, for such tasks ... :devil:

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Roflmao!

Ah, this would be the very, very friendly approach. They normally use a
Personal General Memory Prohibitor, or PGMP, for such tasks ... :devil:

Oh, I am so stealing this one too, and of course, we always strive to give our fellow Citizens the Personal and Friendly Service.

 

[Blue Ghost]

*I stand before a circle of chairs, clear my throat*

"Hello. My name is Blue Ghost, and I'm a nerd.*

*approving support group applause*

Seriously, I'm a fat old bald guy who tips the scales at 236, or thereabouts

I've combed the comic books and sci-fi novels and sci-fi art books for inspiration. That included Gamma World. I actually bought the game for that module alone because it looked really cool

Much to my chagrin the massive mobile fortress tank on the cover doesn't have a great deal to do with module. In fact, ... well, I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't played or read through it. Needless to say I was pretty let down. So I did what any good GM does ... I improvised. Suddenly this massive mobile fortress had EVERYTHING to do with the adventure. But, alas, our band of heros flaked... "No way... oh my god ... dude..." Or, as one of our characters (mustered out a General no less) used to say "Let's go home."

Another good setting that I never got around to was Ghandahar. It's a French animated film based off of an Asimov novel; "Gandahar verse the Men of Metal", or something like that. If you know anything about the story or have seen the film, then you know that that setting has great potential for challenging a basic set of Traveller charactrers.

There's a host of other settings I'd like to exploit, and I'm going to give it a shot (maybe tonight, maybe later on this week) to see what I can come up with. Conventional settings (a jungle portion of a planet camped by Imperial marines) doesn't have too much umph-value. Once you get to the firefight and finish it, then what's left?

I really want to do some outlandish worlds to see how they work. I'm going to give this another try, and see if I can come up something that's intriguing, compelling, yet comprehensible to players and readers.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Welcome Blue Ghost...

So how long have you had your Addiction to Trying to Get Players to Act Right?

Well, I can guess, the damned MF wasn't even in the Module, right?

And remember BG, CrImps, Ships and even bigger guns will usually do it, appeal to their baser instincts...

 

[Blue Ghost]

Yeah, as expected, it turned out to be "a rumor" in the events section. I was pretty steamed.

The players wandered about a map that was worthless (intentionally), and found some relics from Earth long ago. That is until they came to some sort of underground laboratory. All I could think of was "Gee... didn't we do an undersea lab adventure a few weeks back?.... *sigh*"

I toyed with all kinds of settings. I thought of Dune, Macross, some low tech settings, and so forth. I came up with hidden "pocket" universes for Ancients and all sorts of things. It was refreshing to "think outside the Traveller box", but by this time our group was going off to college, and so we started a new group with new characters and so forth.

Same problem, but a new twist; MT was even more defined than Traveller. And the Alien (and elusive Robot book 8) module's absence didn't help any.

Ah, the joys of youth

 

[Commander Drax]

Hi Guys, the original post was not flame bait, in my many years of visiting this site, I have never once started a flame war and neither would I want too. I'm just a bit depressed at the state COTI's in. As has previously been mentioned it's running on autopilot right now, but I preferred it when it was fully concious. Hunter built the system, MJD created the products with some help from a few freelance authors who understood the Traveller universe and that's what's lacking at COTI, direction from hunter and some interesting products from talented writers etc.

Like I say this isn't a rant, it's just sad, like seeing your favourite pub/bar/restaurant slowing degrading into a run down joint that over time becomes less fun to visit

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

On Rum Joints...

Really sir some of the most interesting things happen in rum joints....o::smirk:

Ya just got to know where to hang out and what to look for...

 

[VargrIntellectual]

On the issue of the OTU/canon... I like CT as a quasi-generic sci-fi game (of a particular type, to be sure, but at least quasi-generic). I only use Starter Traveller / Trav Book for rules with a little supplemental material (some of the alien modules, Sup 4).

CT is nice because you really can take it in your own direction if you want to. And you can pick and choose from the canon stuff, too. It's all pretty flexible, actually.