Is the Traveller Market Fractured

[Paulsnow]

Sorry, I'm thread-crashing a tad here but:

Originally posted by ravs:

:Edit: What we need is a big buget film or TV series in a Traveller setting to inject new members.

I've just been reading the excellent "Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering". He makes the comment about how to set up camaigns that they need:

"MISSION
This obvious point doesn’t warrant much space, even though it sometimes eludes authors of ublished game settings.
You must know, and clearly communicate, what it is that the PCs are expected to do."

I suggest that Traveller does fail on selling the idea of its purpose to its characters(/players).

I would suggest:

CT. No mission other than travel and have fun in the far future. Players and adventures end up with all those slightly-break-the-law, be-a-bit-dodgy adventures because players wanted to be Han Solo not Luke. That was down to the times and DIY nature of RPGs at the time. OTU was just emerging.

MT. A big exciting backdrop breaks out. But it's too large scale to give individual characters any way to be part of the Rebellion mision. I would argue, still no mission inherent in the game. Being a spectator isn't a good adventure-game plot BTW.

TNE: Destroys a lot of the backdrop and cmapaign setting that players know how to deal with

[See Robin Laws:
Fluff ain’t so fluffy as it looks.
If you are using an established setting, I strongly recommend that you allow your players to read any available supplements for it. Adventures you plan to use, or cannibalize, are obvious exceptions. But if you know you’ll never use a particular adventure, try to get your players to read that, too. The more the players know and feel about their imaginary world, the better.
Do this even when a setting tells you not to. It’s easier to get people to distinguish between player knowledge and character knowledge than it is to get them emotionally invested in an imaginary world.]

So, TNE sacrificed a well-known shared imaginary background that involved players in order to have MISSSION.

MISSION:Make a difference!

From my reading it seems that it was the TNE mission that really fired MJD on Traveller. We shouldn't underestimate it.

So, back to:

Originally posted by ravs:

:Edit: What we need is a big buget film or TV series in a Traveller setting to inject new members.

Yes, but what would the Traveler TV series be about?

I think we, as a community, generally liked Firefly because it was a set of characters bumming about in a ship. That spoke the tone or feel of Traveller to us.

But, the mission of Firefly was the big story-arc that was only just coming into focus. And ... I've seen comments from Trav people that they didn't really like that part.

So, 5 rules sets or 1 rule set. Unless you just want to attract the power gamers and rules lawyers to the game, you need mission. What is the essence of Traveller - to sell to a TV producer - or more to the point to a new player browsing a book in a store?

PS. I know someone will reply saying: "Ah but, the OT Universe is your oyster. You can do anything." While this might be true It's only as true as it is for any other game. My point is about clearly defined selling points for Traveller.

 

[The Shaman]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
"Brevity, the soul of wit."

"I quote others only in order the better to express myself." - Michel de Montaigne

 

[Gadrin]

Originally posted by Paul Snow:

PS. I know someone will reply saying: "Ah but, the OT Universe is your oyster. You can do anything." While this might be true It's only as true as it is for any other game. My point is about clearly defined selling points for Traveller.

ultimately yes.

with Star Wars or Trek, you have something that brings to mind certain situations in people's minds (transporters, vulcan mind melds, Luke & Darth, etc) something very tangible and familiar.

for the most part Traveller doesn't do that, unless you happen to have a bunch of well-read, old-school, sci-fi nuts in the group.

so if you get a bunch of people together to play Trek you'll probably get immediate feedback from the players: "Oh remember when..." or "I always wanted to take that type of ship and..." things that a GM can quickly gauge (and even go back and find the ep to bring the game session to life).

Traveller seems to be a collage of points from a dozen different movies or TV shows, all with disparate technology and science. Ultimately there's a bottom line of technology (guns and spacesuits), but you're a week away from anything and if you get lost...

Ultimately, I see traveller as a GMs toolbox, someone who knows about the above in its various incarnations and can merge ideas from different areas into a campaign or scenario.

I like the "step-back" approach from technology that not everyone's beaming around a planet or that your gardeners aren't all force-adepts and the pcs aren't ultimately trying to save the universe, every week.

 

[al duc]

Originally posted by Supplement Four:
Is the SJG JTAS any good?

In my opinion, yes. (Of course, I'm not a neutral observer on this, since I've published two dozen articles in JTAS. But that still leaves 900 other articles in the archives that I've enjoyed reading).

Of course, it all depends on what you're looking for:

- If you're actively GMing Traveller (any version of it), JTAS will give you enough scenarios, plot hooks, NPC encounters, world descriptions, etc... to fill a dozen campaigns.

- If you're primarily looking for something to read, you also have Loren Wiseman's editorial in every issue, and many longer articles detailing the Traveller universe or exploring variants.

One of the best thing to come out of JTAS in recent months has been Hans Rancke-Madsen's "Regina Startown" project: a series of linked articles (6 or 7 so far) presenting an introductory campaign setting.

 

[ravells]

Paul Snow said:

Yes, but what would the Traveler TV series be about?

But Paul, Firefly was as close to a Traveller TV series as we're ever going to get and it seemed to work well enough.

Although there was an overriding story arc (concerning River and Mal only) each episode was pretty well self contained and it it was slightly-break-the-law, be-a-bit-dodgy adventures who travel and have fun in the far future.

To the extent that people who got into Firefly wanted to try a role playing game about the subject, unfortunately for Traveller, a separate Firefly RPG was written. It would have been far better if a Firefly ATU had been written for Traveller as that would have got more people into the idea of Traveller who might then have wanted to try gaming in the OTU (regardless of which Traveller ruleset they preferred).

For an RPG, 'mission' can be defined by the adventure the characters are playing. In terms of story arc, Traveller sort of has that in that the macro-history is pretty well laid out so if you're in the Imperial Navy in the year 998, on the Solomani Rim, you have a pretty good idea of what's going on on a universal political level.

Sorry this is really getting off topic now.

Ravs

 

[bryan gibson]

(Long Post, so be advised)


As I see it ( IMO only) Traveller suffers from three things, for the most part:

Money

Sure, we'd like to think differently, but the fact is, just like any other market, the gaming industry is driven by money. If a company can't make a profit ( or think they can make enough of one worth trying) then getting something published out there is problematic at best.

Costs are up, reflected by end user prices ( the day of the 15 dollar printed book are but a happy memory, when the avergae magazine now sells for between six and ten dollars on the news stands and SF magazines are struggling to stay afloat just like gaming, so its not unique to traveller - the SF genre as a whole is having its issues.

Before folk get up in arms, read tis next bit carefully - the problem is, in terms of where the market is going, the fanbase doesnt really count for much in terms of floating a new publication or version of traveller to a publisher not familiar with Traveller.

I mean, lets face it, the thing about a fanbase is, you know why they will buy it, you know they already like it. Problem is, the fanbase is simply too small for a major publisher to make it a really attractive go of it based on the fanbase alone.

Case in point: its worth noting that for the most part, since the publication of T4, all of the publishers of Traveller have been fans publishing the product, relying on the fanbase to make the money to float their product.There have been no publishing of the product outside of the fanbase, to speak of, with one exception - SJG and GURPS. ( and that could be argued against, as SJG is a gaming company that doesnt rely on Traveller as its sole supporting product but is rather one of a great many it produces, softeneing the shock and mutually supporting one another financially.)

And this means that for traveller to be seen as a money making proposition, it has to have the next quality, one it suffers from badly - Relevance and topicality.

This leads to the second point:

Is Traveller dead?

I'm not talking whether a dedicated fan base is keeping Traveller alive, per se - While the fan base counts, to be sure, the fan base isn't the primary reason fo a company to project sales. (Space 1889 and various steampunk gamese have , like traveller very dedicated fan bases, but as a market they are flyspecks in the gaming industry) It takes a certain amount of numbers, I think, for traveller to be seen as live.

T20 sold plumb off the shelves, when it first came out, and Avenger is publishing as well not to mention the various fanzines and boards, but traveller is seen by most gamers as having no current relevance - theres a reason so many of the fans are oldsters - and little appeal.

Look at any of the boards, objectively, and what do you see? Fans constantly arguing over the same thing...cyclically, for years about what is and isnt traveller, what minute point of canon is relevant, what is the best ruleset set ( yes, its damn fractured, too, but thats another topic) and while it has a huge wealth of canon or game content attached to it, traveller simply isn't especially attractive to new fans, it inflames no passion to new people, for the most part.

Fans constantly have posts and entire threads as to the "dream film" or next cool thing to expose traveller to new folks, but observe- there are literally hundreds of Star wars fan films, Star Trek films, and so on and not so much as ONE Traveller fan film.(if there has been, and I've missed it, let me know cause I would love to see it)

( I am not counting Andrew Boltons excellent works, which undeniably are trav fan films, but you'll see why in a moment - his stuff has always been a one man show)

Why is this? Its symptomatic of the fanbase as a whole, and why I think everyone agrees its a fragmented/balkanized fanbase- when the proposal goes up, absolutely no one seems able to agree on how to do it, pony up th bucks to effect it (even fan films cost some money)or engage in such egregious ego pandering and tall talk that it never gets done.

This is why Andrews stuff gets done, I suspect - he just ups and does it without suiffering from the divisions that seem so endemic to a Traveller fan poduction.

And THIS is the quality that most of the rest of the gaming community sees- we ceratainly arent the only ones, as fans, to read the boards here.

Simply put, Traveller fans are seen as hostile, ill mannered, and generally highly insular. ( well, I admit the same could be said of Vampire/Goth RPers too, but theres a lot more of them, apparently- more on that in a bit)

In other words, Traveller fans are generally regarded as assholes, pure and simple. Oh, certainly not universally - but if you go to a gencon, why are there so few of us? THIS is one reason that we may not hear about face to face or see on our own boards, but is very much evidenced on other boards when commenst are solicited as to "why don't people play traveller"

Among industry pros, traveller fans are seen as the ungrateful children of the industry. Observe the way fans treated Dave Nilsen, or any of the ongoing flamewars we see on COTI or the TML. This kind of behaviour never goes unnnoticed, and this image hurts us, badly.

This is symptomatic of a "dead " game. If not dead, Traveller is dying. Get the crash carts! Code Blue!

Relevance, or, Why Would I Want To Play

This is Travellers biggest problem. Most Traveller fans probably don't think much of Vampire and th various WW larps and so forth - its certainly not MY cuppa tea - but they were at first wildly successful and remain a steady seller - world of darkness is still white wolf's core product, for over a decade now, and their players and fans far outweigh traveller ( see how its starting to come back to MONEY? More fans, more buyers!)

Star Trek, Star Wars, World of Darkness - and never minding that computer games take a massive bite out of potential RPers and tabletop gaming - what have they got going for them that Traveller ( IMO a much superior game and setting, in spite of its flaws) that Travller does not?

I won't pretend to address that in depth, because I don't know, but one thing I can attest to is they have some relevance, some topicality to the new fan/player that traveller hasn't got. traveller hasn't substantively grown much in the last ten years becuase, with the exception of 1248, for nearly a decade nothing new came out advancing the storyline, or offering a fresh perspective on the game.

period. thats it, I'm inclined think.

Traveller needs what Star Trek, Star wars, and all the others have, and seems to manage to not have - it needs to capture the imagination of the newcomer ( and no, dont everyone start getting up and posting about how it sparks YOUR imagination -we know that already, thats why you're a fan ^.^)


It needs relevance to the new generation of players - be it system, setting, whatever - it needs something they can identify with. And all arguement aside, Traveller must be missing this, else more new folk would be buying it.

Until Traveller begins growing, begins having enough appeal to draw in more new people, it will remain a long standing, grognardly, old mans game. It needs to ring in the new players, the youngsters, and to do that it needs something they can get excited about - otherwise it will remain a niche market, and niche markets , while long standing will never be or see their potential of what that game could be.

Unless , of course, people LIKE it being that way, but since I always see lots of posts to the effect of why are'nt there more players, lets assume thats not so.

can it be cured? I don't pretend to know, but for what its worth, these are a few of my thoughts on the subject, seen from the inside as an industry proffesional, traveller creator and long time fan.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by ravs:
Yes, if there is a unified system those who are producing products for a minority of the market (e.g. T20) are likely to gain, but that will mean losses for someone else, unless either the size of the market increases or people spend more.

Not necessarily. See, the biggest part of the market is being ignored. 75% of the market are those CT/MT fans.

Nobody is producing items for that market.

Sure, QLI and Avenger are putting out dual T20/CT items (and that's a smart move on their part--probably boosted their sales more than the T20 segment did). But, I'm a CT buyer, and I always feel like CT is the red-headed step-child with those supplements. I like them, yes. But, they feel like CT is an after-thought. T20 takes precedence.

Take a look at TA1 - Personal Weapons of Charted Space.

It's a good supplement, yes. Yeah, I like that it's got CT weapons at my finger tips. But, reading that book, it's obvious T20 is where the book is directed and CT is tacked on for extra sales.

With one system, this wouldn't be a problem.

So I'm still not convinced that a unified system is going to increase the amount spent on traveller products unless a unified system is likely to attract new players or cause existing players to spend more (again - not convinced about this).

As I said above, going to the one-system "only" isn't going to heal Traveller. It'll be a step in the right direction, but you've got to have dynamite output too.

As I said in one of my posts above, T5 could surely stink and be ignored by 90% of the Traveller buying public.

But, even if this happens, all publishers of Traveller (now publishing for the one single Traveller system) will not take a hickey on their fractured market. The number of people they are selling to will stay about the same.

The one-system for Traveller idea is Traveller's only hope.

-S4

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by the Bromgrev:
I would like to point out that if the market went all-T4 all-GT, all T20 or all-T5, I wouldn't be in the Traveller market. CT yes, MT maybe, but that's it.

I've got two hats. One is the business hat. That's the one I wear when I say the single-system is Traveller's only hope.

The Traveller publishers have nothing to lose going single system because an unfractured market would give them the same size market even if 90% of the entire Traveller market evaporates in protest over the change.

In other words, if 9 out of 10 Traveller players get pissed over the "official" change of Traveller to single-system and never buy another Traveller item again, those publishers selling to what's left of the Traveller market would still be selling to about the same number of people they're selling to today in the fractured market.

Now, there's my consumer hat, too. Although I know Traveller's only hope is to go single-system, I'm with you. I won't buy new single-system Traveller either, unless it's some improvement of CT or MT.

You and I are likely to be part of that 90% pissed and evaporated Traveller market.

But, let's return to what I said three paragraphs earlier: If less than 90% of the Traveller market is pissed with the switch to a single-system, then the total buyers for Traveller publishers' items will only grow.

What's the key? What's the best plan?

That would be to please the largest segment of your fractured market--those people interested in CT and MT.

If you go single system, based on CT and MT, 90% of the Traveller market won't evaporate.

Guess, more like 25% of the market will go away (those who will only play T20, or TNE, or GT, or T4).

If that happens, the entire Traveller market will be smaller, BUT, each Travelle publisher will be selling to a market that is 7 times as large.

Clearly, an effort to unfracture the market is really the only sound way to steer Traveller's future.

-S4

 

[Malenfant]

Most Traveller fans probably don't think much of Vampire and th various WW larps and so forth

There's a certain amount of sneery snobbishness toward rivals in all fanbases really. You hear a lot of people here going on about how CT is so much better than what's around today because "it doesn't hand you everything on a plate", as if somehow it's worse to have a fully fleshed out setting to play in. I've also seen some people going on about how they think they're more imaginative and creative and better than the current RPG generation as a result, but I think that's a load of self-absorbed BS myself - I've seen plenty of younger players and GMs in their teens and 20s with far more imagination and creativity and ability to think outside the box than the older guys.

Personally I love the WW stuff myself (I'm reading the nWoD Werewolf corebook right now), and I play in a homegrown D&D campaign too. As a setting though Traveller doesn't really do much for me though - I'd find 2320AD or the upcoming EVE RPG setting much more interesting if I wanted to do an Interstellar Scifi thing.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by al duc:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Supplement Four:
Is the SJG JTAS any good?

- If you're actively GMing Traveller (any version of it), JTAS will give you enough scenarios, plot hooks, NPC encounters, world descriptions, etc... to fill a dozen campaigns.</font>[/QUOTE](Slaps head). I just realized that SJG's JTAS would be GT related. That would drop my interest down to "if I got if for free...I might be interested if I didn't have to do much work to get it".

Sorry, but that's how I feel about GT.

So, my question is: Is JTAS entirely devoted to GT?

 

[Roger Calver]

Originally posted by Supplement Four:

Sure, QLI and Avenger are putting out dual T20/CT items

Just to clarify, Avengers products are not dual stated with T20 content but just CT content.

 

[ravells]

Hi S4,

So you're saying that people will buy more product if there was a unified system. I just hope that if the system is good, people don't get Video to DVD fatigue and refuse to buy into yet another system.

Bryan's right though, the whole thing needs to be redesigned from the ground up with an eye to creating a relevance to younger gamers which is self evidently lacking at the moment. I don't think COTI is unfriendly, far from it, but I do think we are very grognardy in our approach and that may put off a lot of people.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and obsess about the where to put the maintenance system in the evolving starport...

Ravs

 

[Jeffr0]

I've you've wanted the CT LBB's to pick up where they left off... Avenger is putting them out!

 

[al duc]

Originally posted by Supplement Four:

So, my question is: Is JTAS entirely devoted to GT?

No. A good number of articles give CT stats, and many, many more are systemless (most of the "Amber Zones", for example. And making up a UPP code based on an NPC description is a trivial exercice.

Also, most articles can be used equally well with the CT or GT timelines.

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Supplement Four:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by the Bromgrev:
I would like to point out that if the market went all-T4 all-GT, all T20 or all-T5, I wouldn't be in the Traveller market. CT yes, MT maybe, but that's it.

I've got two hats. One is the business hat. That's the one I wear when I say the single-system is Traveller's only hope.
-S4 </font>[/QUOTE]Snipped most of it for brevity. I disagree completely. If I dropped the T20 line, I'd lose a LOT of customers. Many more than I would pick up otherwise.

I also take exception to your T20 is first and CT an afterthought on our materials. T20 was designed from the very beginning to be as compatible with CT as absolutely possible, particularly with regards to equipment, vehicles, starships, etc. Frankly IMO T20 is more compatible with CT in that regard than any other version published.

 

[Paulsnow]

Originally posted by The Shaman:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
"Brevity, the soul of wit."

"I quote others only in order the better to express myself." - Michel de Montaigne
</font>[/QUOTE]What can you expect from a pig but a grunt?
Old English proverb

Wit is a form of intellectual humour, based on manipulation of concepts; a wit is someone who excels in witty remarks, typically in conversation and spontaneously, since wit carries the connotation of speed of thought.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wit

 

[Klaus]

That's true, sir. T20 is as close a simulation of CT that is possible with D20.

In fact, the design sequences have nothing to do with D20 at all, and are very much the cleaned up, functional and updated mechanics that a lot of people seem to want (tho I'd still use CT prices, meself; lots of inflation in 993 it seems

)

The only place where it can't is in random skill acquisition. While it is possible to come with some kind of random skill and feat tables, it ends up just too messy to be practical.

OK, how about committing heresy....

OTU reboot. Or to use a horrible word, a reimagining?

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by ravs:
Bryan's right though, the whole thing needs to be redesigned from the ground up with an eye to creating a relevance to younger gamers which is self evidently lacking at the moment.

I don't disagree with much of what Bryan said.

People do judge books by their covers. The content has to be good, absolutely.

Consider too...rpg-ers at their local game store. One of them spies a freakin' cool looking book. Hey, what's this? They open it and see this incredible cross-section full color diagram of a starship, all sections labeled, drawn in 3D. One looks at the other, "Traveller? Isn't that the old-grognard game? Man, this stuff looks cool. Let's check it out."

Good content is a requirement. A focus on marekting is what's going to bring in new gamers, though.

-S4

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by hunter:
I disagree completely. If I dropped the T20 line, I'd lose a LOT of customers. Many more than I would pick up otherwise.

That's right now, with the market fractured.

Things would be different for you with a non-fractured Traveller market.

If Traveller went to a single system, and the T20 license was allowed to expire, you'd lose all of the T20 market, but gain the combined Traveller market when you started producing new material for the new single-system line.

Of the entire Traveller-buying market, what do you guess the T20 segment accounts for? 10%? 20%?

If 25% of the Traveller market shrank because Traveller went to a single system, QLI would then be selling to 75% of the Traveller buying public today...instead of only 10-20%.

I think you'd make more money.

-S4

 

[hunter]

I already sell to the majority of the Traveller market. The vast majority of Traveller fans will buy Traveller material regardless of the system, with the exception of core rules. Supplements, adventures, etc. tend to sell across the board without regard to system.