Is this Really such a good idea?

[kzin]

Hunter:

No problem, I didn't realize it had posted multiple times. :-}

(I hope it's not related to the way I navigate ... I tend to go back (with the back button) a lot, and it annoys me the way this software tries to make you go forward after you post, instead of assuming you're going to want to go back)

(is there a news interface to these message boards?)

 

[kzin]

Hunter:

No problem, I didn't realize it had posted multiple times. :-}

(I hope it's not related to the way I navigate ... I tend to go back (with the back button) a lot, and it annoys me the way this software tries to make you go forward after you post, instead of assuming you're going to want to go back)

(is there a news interface to these message boards?)

 

[hunter]

It must be the way you are using the Back button because it did it again with this last post too!

It should push you back to the topic when you post.

Oh I see, it pushes you back to the very first page of the topic. (just noticed when I posted this reply)

Hunter


[This message has been edited by hunter (edited 14 May 2001).]

 

[aramis]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by T. Foster:
The more I think of it, the more the concept of 'levels' seems to be a spectacularly bad fit with Traveller-as-we-know-it.
[snip]
Traveller (at least up to now) has always been about trained mid-career professionals going about their business; the idea of callow inexperienced novices advancing through a series of adventures to eventually become superheroes is not only totally incompatible with 'traditional' Traveller, I daresay it's downright antithetical.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, considering that the first uestion I ask as a GM about a new character is "How many terms? As what?", and have run games where the most experienced character was in fact a 1 term character... I and most of my players have ALWAYS equated Traveller Terms to other games Levels. And careers to classes, especially if using Advanced CG (CT Bks 4-7, or MT), where the branches really do fit as classes.


------------------
-aramis

 

[Doctor Rob]

I must convess surprise at some of the reactions on this board. I'm deligted at the notion of a D20 Traveller edition. It means that Traveller will have the backing of a HUGE production and marketing enterprise, putting the game in the shops worldwide.

In my expereince, the quality of a game is relatively indepentdent of the rules themselves - even the best rules system can be worthless if the refereeing is poor or the players are duff or the background is badly realised. Conversely, some of my most memerable roleplaying experiences were with systems I did not necessarily like but the refereeing was superb and/or the background was good. The ambiance of a game is conveyed by the realisation of the campaign background and Traveller has an enviable strength in that department!

I for one can't wait for the D20 Traveller to come out and I will supporting it with my wallet. I also look forward to seeing the game being entheusiatically embraced by a new generation of players.

Rob

 

[halofgazal]

While a Traveller system based on the D&D mechanic is not Traveller to me, it does stand a much better chance of success than T5 ever would.

D&D is the most popular role-playing system on the market. By plugging Traveller into this system, Mr. Miller has the best chance to attract new players that he has had in a long time. If Traveller is to survive it must find new players.

Veterans like myself will probably continue to play whatever previous edition of Traveller we prefer (with whatever house rules we feel are necessary). However, judging from the posts on the T5 forum, few of us will play T5. Therefore, any future editon of Traveller must be designed to appeal to new players.

However, I am still not eager to play a Third-Level Marine.

 

[DaveShayne]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mar_Sane:
Why is it that I am getting the impression that many out there think that T20 will be D&D in space.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<snip>

Posibly because the people the game will be marketed to (ie, DND players) will be looking for DandD in space. And could be mighty peeved if they don't get it. (Which could result in a backlash against Traveller in general.) It reminds me of something a friend of mine said about the Monkees movie Head, "It was too freaked out for the Monkees fans but too Monkees for the freaks."

Oh good movie by the way. Wonderfully sureal.

David Shayne

 

[hunter]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DaveShayne:
Posibly because the people the game will be marketed to (ie, DND players) will be looking for DandD in space. And could be mighty peeved if they don't get it. (Which could result in a backlash against Traveller in general.) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't necessarily think so. D20 Call of Cthulu, D20 Deadlands, even Star Wars are not simple rehashes of D&D in the given setting. I know, CoC and Deadlands D20 aren't out yet, but I have been following the Deadlands development, and I have serious doubts that Chaosium would let WoTC bastardize CoC that much (From what I understand CoC will be set in the 21st century. ie: near future modern)

Hunter

 

[DaveShayne]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hunter:
I don't necessarily think so. D20 Call of Cthulu, D20 Deadlands, even Star Wars are not simple rehashes of D&D in the given setting. I know, CoC and Deadlands D20 aren't out yet, but I have been following the Deadlands development, and I have serious doubts that Chaosium would let WoTC bastardize CoC that much (From what I understand CoC will be set in the 21st century. ie: near future modern)

Hunter

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I certainly hope so for your sake. I'm trying to not be too negative about the whole thing. Honest I am. I just have a bad feeling about it.

David Shayne

 

[The Shoveller]

Brandon: "Here you call it a hard SF game, and in a previous post you say Traveller is supposed to handle any kind of campaign. Make up your mind."

By Hard SF, I mean an SF system that isn't cartoonish in nature [i.e. a real attempt to simulate a possible future timeline]. Rifts comes to mind first, but Star Wars is getting awful close. I think we agree on the concept here, but are just using different terminology.

B: "Actually, right now, GURPS Traveller is probably the best selling Traveller line. And GURPS is a vastly better system than d20."

Okay. But GURPS is getting buried by D20 sales, too. We obviously differ in opinion on the GURPS system. I hate GURPS. But you are also contradicting yourself. How can you claim you want a realistic/"gritty" system and claim the GURPS system is better for said system. You don't get greater realism from the poorly defined PCs the GURPS character development system generates. You have to step toward HERO system or SpaceMaster to get greater realism than D20 provides. You need more stats to get greater realism, not less.

B: "I can always find players -- there is no need for me to settle for a system I don't like.

Can I ask you a question, Brandon? Why are you posting on this thread? You claim you are happy with CT and GURPS Traveller. You hate D20. You aren't looking to try D20 because of the potential increase in gamers it can bring to your game. Your needs seem to be filled. I'm happy for you. Why come on this board and poo-poo those of us who are looking forward to this new product? There is a huge hole in the D20 market for a hard SF game. About 3/4 of the potential game players out there now know enough about D20 to be able to jump into a game with very little instruction. I'm looking forward to being able to throw my GM stuff on a table in a game shop, and get a spur-of-the-moment game going whenever I wish. You can do that right now with D&D3e. I want to do that with my SF campaign [which is kind of similar to Peter F. Hamilton's "The Night's Dawn" trilogy]. D20 Traveller will make that possible.

So, all you guys that are completely happy with the game systems and game groups you have, that's wonderful. If you are on here posting constructive information which will help in the development of D20 Traveller, fantastic. But if all you are doing is haunting the board to express displesure with the D20 system in it's various forms, and have no interest in purchasing said products, then maybe your posting time would be better spent elsewhere.

I intend to purchase this game system. I want D20 Traveller to work. If you aren't helping to make D20 Traveller a success, and don't intend to help make D20 Traveller a success, your presence isn't necessary or needed on these threads.

 

[jalberti]

If the new T20 system publishes suppliments which can be used by other editions of Traveller, I think it is a good idea.

I play Traveller using the MegaTraveller rules set in the Rebellion Era, but GURPS does have some good suppliments (Star Mercs and Ground forces) which I find of great use.

If T20 is the same, it will attract new players and provide useful suppliments to those who use other Traveller editions.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DaveShayne:
<snip>

Posibly because the people the game will be marketed to (ie, DND players) will be looking for DandD in space. And could be mighty peeved if they don't get it. (Which could result in a backlash against Traveller in general.) It reminds me of something a friend of mine said about the Monkees movie Head, "It was too freaked out for the Monkees fans but too Monkees for the freaks."

Oh good movie by the way. Wonderfully sureal.

David Shayne<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don't worry; d20 won't hurt Traveller. Traveller has survived through, what, 4 or 5 different systems. If anything, it'll infuse Traveller with a lot of new blood. I'm getting pumped for it, both because I'm a d20 fan and because I'm a Traveller fan - I still have a load of the little pamphlets for the original Traveller, some of the Megatraveller stuff, and some of the GURPS Traveller stuff. Dragon Lords of Melnibone d20 doesn't seem to have hurt Elric or Chaosium, so I'm confident there won't be any Traveller backlash.

As a D&D player, I can assure you I'm not looking for D&D in space. d20 Star Wars isn't that, and neither will d20 Traveller.

D&D3e brought me back into gaming after years away. It's really a good, flexible system. I understand the trepidation, but relax. It'll be fine. Remember, not all D&D players are min/maxers or munchkins. Some of us are RP vets in our mid-30s+ who not only remember classics like Traveller, we respect them and don't want to see them screwed up any more than you do.



------------------
"Illegitimis non carborundum." - General Joseph Stilwell

 

[MJD]

I play Traveller every week. On the table we have T4 rules, deck plans from CT and MT, World Data from Behind the Claw, and we're playing an updated Twlight's Peak.

That's what's so great about Traveller. Pick the rules you like; you can use the background and scenarios with any of them.

T20 will fit into that picture - most of the contents will be useable in any Traveller game, with any rules.

 

[neil]

As i am the ref for Martins game ,i agree that for me i couldnt care less which type of Traveller books i am using as long as they give me the data to play Traveller! <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MJD:
I play Traveller every week. On the table we have T4 rules, deck plans from CT and MT, World Data from Behind the Claw, and we're playing an updated Twlight's Peak.

That's what's so great about Traveller. Pick the rules you like; you can use the background and scenarios with any of them.

T20 will fit into that picture - most of the contents will be useable in any Traveller game, with any rules. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
PS i hate d/d, but iam looking forward to exploring new areas of the Traveller universe


[This message has been edited by neil (edited 20 May 2001).]

 

[CleverName]

Well, I will be happy to see another stab a Traveller, d20 or no.

While I had a great time playing with the LBBs, I have to admit that they did a much better job simulating commerce than character.

GURPS, I know intellectually is a fine system, but I tried running and playing the game many times and it just does nothing for me.

And while I'm sure d20 is not for every system or every gamer, I thought they did a remarkable job with Star Wars. After looking at it with a jaundiced eye (I liked WEG's version) I finally played it last Friday and it did not seem like D&D is space at all.

Yes, it does use levels, but so what? It's just a conceit -- with both advantages and disadvantages.

While the designers can screw up the d20 version of Traveller, I think what will actually make or break the success of the game is how well it is written -- can it fully encompass the wonder of the Imperium?

I don't approach the, what _six_ game systems as translations of the original, but as different versions of the same game.

It will be different, just like all the rest. The real question is can they come up with an exciting version that does not concentrate on converting mechanics (yawn), but make you want to participate in the society.

The Developers will _never_ please the folks that won't play a Traveller game without a UPP -- don't waste your time.

Produce a game that makes you want to _play_ Traveller!

 

[Neo]

the D20 is not the perfect system, no claims have ever been mad it is, and far too many people thing D20 is D&D.... it isn;t the D&D genre was around many many years before the D20 system in it's current form was ever thought off. And the D20 system was designed from the get go to be generic, capable of being modified with tinkering to suit whatever other genre anyone else wants to use.

If it was just D&D noone would have given it an open license..

But like it or not the D20 system has something few other systems have, and that is a system which by and large is popular with most who use it and more importantly because of it's origins it is well known.. for people using it for thier own systems it's a dream come true as the D20 label is PR personified, "Because" of those same ties people have made mentally to D&D.

And although levels and experience are not ideal, they are workable, easy to use, and learn, making the system one anyone can pick up and use, this is something not every version of Traveller has been able to say IMO.

But Traveller has a wonderful depth and established setting, history, and heaps of Potential.... that tied with the D20 label can only benefit all of us, by meaning Traveller will go on and on and on.... bringing us more supplements, more updates, more of everythign which for those of you who played it from the first edition have grown to love a lot....

simply because D20 is different, will not mean it is bad..

Give it a chance...

------------------
Neo

"Et semel emissum volat ireevocabile verbum".

 

[Dominator]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MJD:
T20 will fit into that picture - most of the contents will be useable in any Traveller game, with any rules. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As a former CT/MT player, and a long-time GURPS player, this is exactly what I will be looking for in T20.

Experienced Traveller players are apparently not the target market, but if the books are reasonably easy to adapt to other rules sets, and add something useful to the Traveller universe - then a lot of sales will be to the grognards.

------------------
---
Dominator
---
"Germany has shown that it is a peace-loving nation, one that does not
need war to achieve glory and which does not want war to make conquests.
I really do not know what we would do with a piece of land wrested from
Russia or France." -- Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Moltke, 1880.

 

[Antares Administration]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MJD:
I play Traveller every week. On the table we have T4 rules, deck plans from CT and MT, World Data from Behind the Claw, and we're playing an updated Twlight's Peak.

That's what's so great about Traveller. Pick the rules you like; you can use the background and scenarios with any of them.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think that many of us do that. I refer to quite a bit of Traveller material in other systems: most recently a lot of Book 6 content in a hard SF/non-mecha Heavy Gear campaign.

The marketing angle is, however, important. T^20 will, more than any of its predecessors, introduce a new generation of players to Traveller. I have a group of young players who love D&D3e, but play in my ad-hoc Heavy Gear campaign for the "gritty realism", i.e. the hard SF. The transition to T^20 will be be relatively easy for them, and I'm looking forward to introducing them to the Traveller milieu.

AA

 

[JMBrooks]

I first bought LBB/CT Traveller in 1981. I played and enjoyed it for many years, and still do, on occasion.

CT fans who are posting their hatred and fear on this board need to wake up and smell the tea leaves. CT is a dead system. It cannot and will not ever grow.

CT is a snapshot in time, like boxed edition D&D or 1st edition AD&D. T5 might or might not emerge, but the game concept behind CT character generation is, frankly, old-fashioned and not acceptable to a younger generation of gamers.

It is unacceptable to most new gamers because it completely removes control over the end product from the player. This is a actually a failing, not a benefit. The lack of a clear character growth path is frustrating to people looking for a clear benchmark for their advancement. And most people are looking to emulate the sci-fi worlds they see in movies--space opera--not hard science fiction.

If CT is all you want, play it and have a great time. But don't look for a second coming of CT, because it won't happen. The game has gone through several "second comings" since the original came out, and none of them have succeeded.

Traveller is about a campaign world, not a game mechanic. It is the wonderful depth and breadth of that universe that matters, a history that many of us have come to value. What Marc Miller and QuikLink are trying to do is to try to keep that universe alive by making it as widely available as possible.

I am frankly not concerned about what people are posting at the SJGames boards. I am sure that they feel as threatened by this development as CT diehards.

T20 is frankly the best idea that has come out for Traveller in a long time. It opens the door to wider convention play, and a new, younger fan base. Kudos to the team at QuikLink for their work on this, and I look forward to the end result.

 

[AndreaV]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JMBrooks:
I first bought LBB/CT Traveller in 1981. I played and enjoyed it for many years, and still do, on occasion.

CT fans who are posting their hatred and fear on this board need to wake up and smell the tea leaves. CT is a dead system. It cannot and will not ever grow.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have to agree here. CT is dead and gone. The whole reason why GDW brought out MT was that CT was groaning under the weight of the advancing years. People look back through glasses tinted by their memories of their youth and forget just how the CT system was falling apart at the seams from all the paste on's and fixes.

MT was a (failed) attempt to preserve the feel of CT and present a cooherent system. What came out was a cumberous overly complex system that did more damage to Traveller than those who worship at the alter of MT and DGP will ever admit (yes I don't worship at that particular alter). You could not learn MT on your own, on average it took several sessions for new players to gronk the system.

TNE attempted to fix the system by throwing it out and starting from scratch. Again the system was probably too complex, but by then it really didn't matter. Traveller was hemoraging too badly under the twin evils of the Virus and the damage done by MT.

T4 was a valiant attempt to recreate the "feel" of CT that almost worked. Beneith all the bad prodution values and sloppy editing there was an excellant system struggling to get out. People didn't like T4 because of the low production values of some of products and because of some problems with the system. I hope to see T5 and I hope it stays a product improved T4, but I expect anything "tainted" with T4's brush will rejected out of hand due to the bad taste left by Imperium Games.