It's not Traveller? OK, Why not??

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
So why can't you drop this subject and let the people who buy the game choose how to play it?

If anything, Merxiless is the one who keeps on actually attacking anything here and prolonging the discussion, and you're asking me to drop the subject?

I've not made any attempt to impose any play style on anyone at all. In fact the whole point of the thread was to ask why people get so defensive and claim it's "not Traveller" when someone says "hey, how about I fix this thing?".

Considering how much passion Traveller inspires in people even after thirty years, I'd say that the game has done something right.

There's plenty of things that inspire passion - sometimes for centuries - but that's certainly not proof that they're actually doing anything "right"

 

[Merxiless]

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
So why can't you drop this subject and let the people who buy the game choose how to play it?

Well said.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
I've not made any attempt to impose any play style on anyone at all. In fact the whole point of the thread was to ask why people get so defensive and claim it's "not Traveller" when someone says "hey, how about I fix this thing?".

There's plenty of things that inspire passion - sometimes for centuries - but that's certainly not proof that they're actually doing anything "right"

And this is the crux of the matter.

While saying that a person may play Traveller however they wish while also saying that Traveller needs to be fixed and that however they are playing Traveller isn't right - it comes off as you inferring that if someone does not play Traveller in the manner which you are advocating is playing Traveller the wrong way. Seems awefully judgemental that inferance.

Hell, saying that Traveller needs to be fixed implies that it was broken to begin with. If the game was broken, then why is it still around?

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
While saying that a person may play Traveller however they wish while also saying that Traveller needs to be fixed and that however they are playing Traveller isn't right

Which I haven't said at all.

I've said that Traveller needs to be fixed. There are serious and well known issue with its consistency and coherency across the board - not just with planetary realism, but with the way its sociopolitics, military structure and the economics of trade work at the very least.

I have never said that if someone continues to play using these unmodified, uncorrected rules that "their way of playing traveller isn't right". I have actually stated repeatedly that the way someone plays Traveller or the enjoyment that they get from that is of no consequence to this argument at all.

My issue is with the game alone, not with how people play it. Always has been.

- it comes off as you inferring that if someone does not play Traveller in the manner which you are advocating is playing Traveller the wrong way. Seems awefully judgemental that inferance.

Well, you're the one inferring it... why are are asking me that question?

English 101: The reader infers, the writer implies. The former is the reader actively interpreting text in a particular way that may or may not actually be what was intended, the latter is the writer writing in such a way as to actively suggest something to the reader.

You have been inferring things that I have not said and then assigning those statements to me.

Hell, saying that Traveller needs to be fixed implies that it was broken to begin with. If the game was broken, then why is it still around?

Many religions are "broken" in the sense that they are filled with historical inaccuracy, fiction labelled as fact, and outright contradiction, and they've been around for thousands of years. Why are they still around?

Or let me put it this way: if Traveller wasn't broken, then why do so many people have to house-rule the hell out of it before they can sit down and play it? Why has it had six different editions if the first one was supposedly so perfect? Why does so much of the setting fail to make sense when you stop and think about it for more than half a second?

 

[TheEngineer]

A game is a game is a game ....

 

[Merxiless]

Jeff, I agree.

Saying that Traveller needs to be fixed postulates that it was "broken" to begin with.

It doesn't need fixed, for those who have been playing it for over 30 years, and enjoying those 30 years of it, just fine.

If a person is of a mind that it is broken, then it of course follows that anyone that feels like they can do better, please, by all means, go forth and multiply, divide, do long division, or lengthy integrations and fix it, or design something better.

Doing that, actually doing the work of "improving it" will serve to accomplish same for anyone who wants such "fixes". Everyone else not involved can keep on playing, and stay happy.

That will actually accomplish something more than trying to convince people that like it well enough already that it is "broken", which is nothing more than prejudice against the original design, and just a matter of opinion, obviously.

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

Can I ask: Is there anyone, but anyone, who plays Taveller combat strictly according to the LBBs? Who resolves tasks strictly according to the LBBs?

No houserule?

Not a one?

Congrats, then: for you the game is not broken. You win the infraweb, and I wish I had a laurel wreath icon to post here, just for you, you special person.

And yet precisely because you're so special you don't matter. Because you're a tiny minority. An anecdotal blip. The fact that there's a mountain range of house rules out there says that CT as written never quite worked.

You can draw two conclusions from that:

a) You houserule the hell out of it until it works, and you love doing that. Nothing wrong with that. Au contraire, S4 has been doing this in a majorly impressive way. It's actually an opportunity for creativity.

b) You eagerly await an improved edition. Maybe because time's short, because you don't feel like being THAT creative, or because you simply love a game that's so well designed, it's playable out of the box. It's no longer 1977, there are now such games.

In my case, I'm returning to Traveller after a long absence. I have a choice now:

1) Review the actual CT rules, review everything S4 has done, look at Mayday for ship combat, look at Striker for ground combat, maybe buy Trav Digest for the UTP. And pull it all together.

2) Or I'll just use MT. I have the box, I have the errata, it's CT++ anyway. But it just doesn't feel right playing Sky Raiders with MT, you know?

3) Or I put my stakes on T5. In which case it better be good.

But what I'm not going to do is play LBBs as is. Because nobody's doing that.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Many religions are "broken" in the sense that they are filled with historical inaccuracy, fiction labelled as fact, and outright contradiction, and they've been around for thousands of years. Why are they still around?

When did Traveller become analogous to a religion?

Traveller is a game.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Rhialto the Marvelous:

But what I'm not going to do is play LBBs as is. Because nobody's doing that.

Since we're having this conversation, I'd say that some people are.

 

[Merxiless]

I would not say, "not playing Straight LBB means it's broken."

I will say "The Referee should feel free to flesh out the game rules as he or she desires, since the core rules of any game system, to properly cover every possible situation, will necessarily be impossibly large."

Referees should feel free to add to, change or replace rules that they don't like, to make play more enjoyable for their own individual group.

Because it doesn't cover or explain everything doesn't mean it is "broken."

If your problem is combat, change it.
Some want more realism, some want more playability.

Have at it. I'm happy with what I had, until T4 came out. Then I liked it more. Does this mean that Classic Traveller was "Broken?" Hardly, and not in my book.

I took The Traveller Book, and 2d6 to sea in 1988, and we played two out of three nights after hours on the messdecks, for over 7 months, with no problems.

Nobody nitpicked, we all had fun. It's not broken.
It's just not nearly as satisfying for some people here. Do your fixes, as you will.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
When did Traveller become analogous to a religion?

Traveller is a game. [/QB]

You do know that 'canon' is a primarily a term used in a religious context, right?

Besides, it became analogous to a religion when it started to share many similarities to one. First the "Traveller canon", there are the "heresies" of various ATUs, then you have a patched together body of knowledge assembled gradually from various sources over time which have been updated and altered by many over the passage of time (much like your average holy texts), then you have the zealots who "believe" in the work so much that they can't actually recognise the flaws in its logic when they're right in front of them... so yeah, it's perfectly reasonable to use religious analogies for Traveller.


Obviously, it's merely a game. Perhaps if people started treating it as such instead of as an inviolate holy text then we might actually get somewhere.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Merxiless:
[QB] I would not say, "not playing Straight LBB means it's broken."

I will say "The Referee should feel free to flesh out the game rules as he or she desires, since the core rules of any game system, to properly cover every possible situation, will necessarily be impossibly large."

There's a big difference between "broken" and "incomplete".

Traveller is broken. I've demonstrated that it is in one way already - if you apply the +4 DMs for pre-existing habitable mainworlds to the star size and type in the continued generation system described in Book 6, then the primary star is suddenly very likely to be a subdwarf or a white dwarf. This is completely nonsensical, because someone didn't properly consider how the tables interact with the DMs when they wrote it. It's either bad design or bad playtesting.

There are other aspects that have been raised. Tiny rockballs can hold onto atmospheres that they are completely unable to retain under any circumstance. Another example is that trade in CT doesn't work in many ways.

Because it doesn't cover or explain everything doesn't mean it is "broken."

Correct. And totally beside the point.
Gaps in the rules aren't the problem, the issue is that some of those rules are actually, demonstrably broken in the sense that they produce nonsensical results. Parts of the the game do not work as intended, so it is therefore broken to an extent.

You may choose to ignore that, but it still doesn't change the fact that it is still fundamentally broken.

 

[Liam Devlin]

In accordance with the rules of moderation set down by the TLP, this discussion since 13 Feb 2007 until today, has yielded the following statistical data (numerically greatest to least, & the alphabetically where tied) from 36 posting members:

Author: Malenfantx with 43 posts

merxiless x 20 posts
Michael Brinkhues x 19 posts
Jeffr0 x 10 posts
Jeff M. Hopper & Klaus with x 9 posts each
The Shaman x 8 posts
ravs x 6 posts
atpollard, Heretic Keklas Rekobah, & Roger calver each with x 4 posts
Blue Ghost, flykiller, Kafka47, Liam Devlin, & Rhialto each with x 3 posts.
alanb, Andrew Boulton, Far Trader, Ishmael James, Maladominus, Scarecrow, & The Bromgrev each with x 2 posts
and alte, anthony, Border Reiver, CDR Drax, Gadarin, Hal, loyal_citizen, Madarin Dude, Ptah, Randy Tyler, Rover, Space Cadet, & The Engineer weighed in with x 1 post each.

That's an approximate 1% representation of the 350+ odd active posters of this board.

The original query about what changes one could make to Traveller (tm) and it it still be traveller broke down somewhere along the way into the view that the author was "telling folks how to play the game"; and the arguments of was the game "broke" or not, warranting such changes as he suggested.

This could have, IMO perhaps been better served by a poll, on the Imperial Scout Surveys board.

Look at where we're at now:

If you're in this to out shout/ out last the other guy to "declare victory"--give it up. I saw no one in 185 odd posts changing opinions here.

There is however, a clear side of those who want changes of some sort to the original game & a side who does not. I think a poll of those who actually post here would be a better way to define that if we're looking for a numeric answer of members here, rather than dwindle this down to an essential "it's broke--it's Not" website brawl.

On the flip side, this has been more civilly conducted than previous topics the past two weeks, and I thank you all.

So how about someone doing that poll? How about competing polls?
An if its broke, what changes can you tweak/ make and it still be Traveller, & another poll for the Its not Broke crowd?

Any takers?

 

[Merxiless]

I am pretty certain that the thread topic was not:

"Traveller is fundamentally broken."

Seems to me it was originally more along the lines of "Why are 'fixes for realism' not Traveller?"

Just because it has not been explained to the satisfation of all parties, doesn't mean it hasn't been explained, in detail, ad nauseum.

I'm done here. I'm fully confident that all points have been covered, as far as I am concerned.

 

[Malenfant]

I think somewhere along the way I got an answer to my question, which was that most people actually would still call it "Traveller" if details were tweaked a little for realism's sake (e.g. primary stars altered, orbits moved, world size or atmosphere changed, things like that), but not if things were changed wholesale (eg jump drive changed for something else, aliens replaced by human equivalents).

Again, the work I'm doing on the Realistic Regina case study on the TAS boards (see here) should demonstrate the difference that changing an existing system into a more realistic one makes. People can then take a look at that and decide for themselves whether that difference would add or subtract fun from their game, or make it any less "Traveller".

 

[Liam Devlin]

In accordance with the rules of moderation set down by the TLP, this discussion since 13 Feb 2007 until today, has yielded the following statistical data (numerically greatest to least, & the alphabetically where tied) from 36 posting members:

Author: Malenfantx with 45 posts

merxiless x 22 posts

sorry folks, server speeds again!

I almost forgot as well:
There was also the minority present of the "what the heck is the argument" crowd, which while not for the tweaks/ realism changes, certainly leans towards the "it's not broke" side to some extent.

My thanks to all for the civil debate once again, and those within the thread who asked for it--thank you Mr. Calver.

 

[Liam Devlin]

For a silent (if you wish to) poll, look here:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=000419;p=1#000000

Those wishing to regurgitate and re-affirm may do so as well. My votes reflects my posts here, in case your wondering...

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by Rhialto the Marvelous:
Can I ask: Is there anyone, but anyone, who plays Taveller combat strictly according to the LBBs? Who resolves tasks strictly according to the LBBs?

No houserule?

Not a one?

Congrats, then: for you the game is not broken. You win the infraweb, and I wish I had a laurel wreath icon to post here, just for you, you special person.

And yet precisely because you're so special you don't matter. Because you're a tiny minority. An anecdotal blip. The fact that there's a mountain range of house rules out there says that CT as written never quite worked.

You can draw two conclusions from that:

a) You houserule the hell out of it until it works, and you love doing that. Nothing wrong with that. Au contraire, S4 has been doing this in a majorly impressive way. It's actually an opportunity for creativity.

b) You eagerly await an improved edition. Maybe because time's short, because you don't feel like being THAT creative, or because you simply love a game that's so well designed, it's playable out of the box. It's no longer 1977, there are now such games.

In my case, I'm returning to Traveller after a long absence. I have a choice now:

1) Review the actual CT rules, review everything S4 has done, look at Mayday for ship combat, look at Striker for ground combat, maybe buy Trav Digest for the UTP. And pull it all together.

2) Or I'll just use MT. I have the box, I have the errata, it's CT++ anyway. But it just doesn't feel right playing Sky Raiders with MT, you know?

3) Or I put my stakes on T5. In which case it better be good.

But what I'm not going to do is play LBBs as is. Because nobody's doing that.

My closing 0.5 Euro:
====================

I would totally agree on changing the game system. I have houserules and changed MT and TNE quite a bit, including writing a new chargen for T2K/TNE(1), same with other game systems. And I have more than a few WTF with MT and to a lesser degree TNE(4). I also never used some rules like encounter tables.

But I have always seperated rules from settings. And the reason for the x, x->n, n € |N rules systems for Traveller has a lot to do with marketing and companies having their own system, less with problems in the last GDW incarnation (TNE) IMHO. I mean why should SJG use another system instead of GURSP?(2)(3).


I have found reasons to fine-tune the OTU by adding some things from real life (Spacers Guild etc) or fleshing others out (nobles) but unlike say Shadowrun (where I basicall re-wrote the background once) I do not make big changes to the OTU. I might realise some "strange" things, similar to the fact that I realise language problems in RIFTS or 2300AD(5). But I never cared enough to change them

I assume some people might go for a more realistic stellar/system generation, maybe taking a look at GURPS Space or First In for alternates. As stated, when the result keeps the Traveller feeling and is "for free" I might use it. But it is not something I would pay money for since it will not enhance my gaming experience.

From the examples given by all here, this is very much a "our group" thing. Some groups query every small detail(6), some groups gloss over them. As long as the group as a whole is okay with it, the primary target of the game is reached: Everybody had a fun evening.

So: Have fun, play Traveller and share your ideas even so we will rip them appart and burry them You can do the same with mine for compensation


(1) I check any "Near Future"/"Present day" system that claims realsim by trying to build myself, my father and my mother. Can't even get close with the T2K/TNE systems in terms of age and skill level/skills (Some to high, some to low, some not there)
(2) I admit a T4 using the T2K system would have been interesting. Might have made me pick up the game
(3) I thing Traveller works best with a "Point Buy" system where you can tailor your character. My preferred system would be Fuzion for it's ease
(4) Never played enough CT to comment
(5) And while I buggered Colin about spellings I actually never changed writings in my 2300AD games
(6) Had such a player in BattleTech (boardgame) once

 

[TheEngineer]

Just ROTFL

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

1. I'm officially sulking because Liam didn't incorporate my single but succinct and indeed profound post on this topic in his thread survey. In recompense I demand to be made a moderator.

2. Funny, I'm looking at 2300AD right now, and while I haven't gotten to combat yet, chargen and task res are looking quite nice on paper. I wonder if anyone plays Trav using these?

3.

(3) I thing Traveller works best with a "Point Buy" system where you can tailor your character. My preferred system would be Fuzion for it's ease

Okay, that lttle paragraph has enough material for two 20-page flame wars in it.