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

[ravells]

Originally posted by Klaus:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by ravs:
WHERE are your traveller pictures???? I want to see!

Ravs

Well since my hard drive died I've kinda lost most of it (yup, this numbnutz failed to back up), but I do have a piece in the last issue of the Stellar Reaches, page 10.

Need to get out the graphics tablet again... </font>[/QUOTE]I hope you get your tablet out soon! Great picture! It must have been soul destroying to have lost all your work.

Ah I see what you mean by zero to 100 now. cheers

Ravs

 

[Klaus]

But you can't say it wouldn't spoil Firefly in a small way.

Mal's point about inconsistency hits the nail on the head. Traveller models the military aspects to minutae, as evidenced by 5 military careers (inc. COTI) and Striker, yet the Scientist doesn't even get any science skills.

Whatever your favoured mode of play, you need a consistent backdrop. The OTU doesn't offer that on close inspection. And it's easily fixed, either by tweaking UWPs yourself or using a better model to produce them

Ta, Ravs. Somethings brewing, but not sure exactly what form yet.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
Outland and Alien realistic? Where? In the fact that anything around Jupiter will be roasted by the radiation for the Io-Jupiter link? The Alien eggs that survive for how long? The whole Alien species?

Sorry, little realism there.

I think it's funny that you're even stricter about realism than I am.

Those are realistic movies as far as sf goes. But like I said, I don't demand 100% realism in everything, and I think expecting that is somewhat unreasonable. This is science-fiction we're talking about after all, not a science documentary.

I'm all for a good story, and I don't really care if the setting is realistic or not - what matters more to me is that it's consistent and coherent. And if you have to stretch reality in places to get that then I'm happy to do it, but only if it doesn't create a jarring inconsistency in the process. And if you have to stretch it in too many places then it just starts to get silly (which is basically what Traveller does). [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]Actually the problems with both movies are in the same region as your proposed changes. After all it's just changing a moon or an alien

As for the rest: I don't care enough about Astronomy to actually notice the "errors" in Traveller so I don't have a problem with them.

And the rest where all similar examples to yours. Your pet problem are Astronomy and Aliens. Another Persons Problems are Computers and Gravitics, a third has...

Where do you stop changing the universe? After all everybodys "errors" have the same value.

 

[Merxiless]

I think I saw that Scientists got Science skills in MT. I am sure I recall being able to get robotics, and sensors and such.

I solve the "perceived problem" by not inspecting the setting too closely, and just tell stories.

As to your point:

And it's easily fixed, either by tweaking UWPs yourself or using a better model to produce them

Yet you also say, "you need a consistent backdrop."

Except that the "Consistent Backdrop" is what you / others want to change, via "tweak" or "better model".

Which is, I think the crux / point of argument for those who don't want it changed, by either method.

The setting as is, it might be unrealistic, but its not changing when someone comes along with a "fix", which may or may not be applicable to everyone / anyone in specific. Doing otherwise results in more work, and effort for the referee to keep track.

Again, I think this falls back into who designed it, and approves it as canon. When GDW makes those kinds of changes, and makes them Official, people accept the changes, stick with what they have, or abandon it, as a game.

I know that some have added in new sectors to the setting, and got them "approved" via license, or emailing Marc for permission / review.

But I will always feel, if I want to change it, I change it for me, not to even attempt anything on the order of: "Oh, this is so much better, more realistic, let's make everyone do it."

That's the point where I will resist, actively.

 

[Merxiless]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
And the rest where all similar examples to yours. Your pet problem are Astronomy and Aliens. Another Persons Problems are Computers and Gravitics, a third has...

Where do you stop changing the universe? After all everybodys "errors" have the same value.

I agree, exactly.

I might have a focus on changing ship missiles, and 3 act stories. That doesn't mean everyone else should, or feel compelled to.

 

[Klaus]

I think the point here is that computers and gravitics are future tech that we can apply plausible handwavium to. Aliens are the purest speculation anyway, so you can plausibly justify almost anything.

The astronomical problems break some concrete laws of physics that we can't handwave away. Thats the nigglesome bit.

 

[flykiller]

Traveller models the military aspects to minutae

really? I didn't notice floor buffer operations in the list of skills ....

Whatever your favoured mode of play, you need a consistent backdrop.

if it tried to cover everything officially, how thick would the book be?

it can't cover everything, so some compromise is made - it tries to cover what most people want and need to play.

running CT, a player says he wants to be a journalist, so I make up career tables for it and invented a couple of new skills. took half an hour.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by Klaus:
But you can't say it wouldn't spoil Firefly in a small way.

Mal's point about inconsistency hits the nail on the head. Traveller models the military aspects to minutae, as evidenced by 5 military careers (inc. COTI) and Striker, yet the Scientist doesn't even get any science skills.

Whatever your favoured mode of play, you need a consistent backdrop. The OTU doesn't offer that on close inspection. And it's easily fixed, either by tweaking UWPs yourself or using a better model to produce them

Ta, Ravs. Somethings brewing, but not sure exactly what form yet.

Actually NO GDW system models military careers anywhere near reality once you leave the US system. I could model exactly TWO out of about 20 professional (non conscript) german soldiers.

And while I don't know about CT, the Scientist in MT does get the full set of Science skills (Roll of 5 and 6, pg 23) and some more in Technical (Roll 3 and 4, pg 23)

As for the rest, the Traveller Universe of MT and better is rather stabel and consistent unless one starts searching for bugs and problems.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by Klaus:
I think the point here is that computers and gravitics are future tech that we can apply plausible handwavium to. Aliens are the purest speculation anyway, so you can plausibly justify almost anything.

The astronomical problems break some concrete laws of physics that we can't handwave away. Thats the nigglesome bit.

If future tech would be more advanced or even on the 1980s level, I would agree. Traveller Computers are closer to ENIAC in size.

And if I can accept Aliens (That I don't believe in IRL), FTL, MDrives and Gravitics (That break the currently accepted laws of physics just as well) than I can also accept the stellar problems. After all we are ignoring Einstein and Newton so we might just as well ignore Kepler and Gallilei.

 

[Klaus]

Indeed it can't cover everything. But there should be adequate coverage of things important to sci fi of a hardish flavour (like science), which the OTU does exhibit when it comes the socio-political side of things.

Or more to the point, the stuff thought up by a person rather than generated by dice. That's what is so frustrating to those who care, I think. We like the stuff the game's creators came up with, which is why we play Traveller. The broken stuff didn't have an imagination behind it, just a pair of cubes with numbers on them.

If the data were fixed, all the folks who don't bother with that stuff wouldn't notice the difference, but the folks that do would have an itch scratched.

It's not about saying this is the way you have to play Traveller.

 

[Klaus]

Depends how much computing power you think you need to plot a jump. Or run a battleship.

The terms are vague here. You could argue it is a battery of computers, including capacitors and cooling systems. OK, in this case, a jump plottable computer at tech level 5 is out of the question, but thats a minor change in the scheme of things.

I don't believe in little green men or greys either, but you can't prove there ain't a bunch of 20 tentacled beasties having a similar conversation 80000 parsecs away... Yet.

As for FTL and gravitics, etc, known physics makes it unlikely, but since we can't get the 2 best models to quite fit, there's wiggle room for those with imagination and hope. But the astrography does stuff we can prove is wrong, is observably untrue.

 

[Merxiless]

..Until things like polar jetting Black holes are discovered. Or were. Whatever those things are called.

Untrue, in so far as we have not seen all corners of the Universe.

 

[Merxiless]

Ponder, what if the physical laws of the Universe change as you approach areas of space that were around during the Big Bang? i.e. 15 billion light years out, or whatever?

And yes, I mean, I know okay that this spot was around 15 billion years ago, and space has stretched, or whatever..., just .. see this is where I am like pfft, leave the science to scientists, I want to play the game.

All sorts of crazy things might be found, in places like that. Or closer.

 

[Klaus]

The tiny planet with a dense, breathable atmosphere will, however, always be untrue.

Also, the airless ball with billions of inhabitants next door to a deserted garden world. Strains credulity beyond breaking point, at least with the multiple instances all over the OTU. More people seem to live on hellholes than places with fresh air in fifth millenium.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Merxiless:
[QB] Ponder, what if the physical laws of the Universe change as you approach areas of space that were around during the Big Bang? i.e. 15 billion light years out, or whatever?

And yes, I mean, I know okay that this spot was around 15 billion years ago, and space has stretched, or whatever..., just .. see this is where I am like pfft, leave the science to scientists, I want to play the game.

Well obviously, since there's no such thing as "an area of space that was around during the Big Bang". Oh wait, there I go, I'm oppressing your space opera universe.

Look, at the end of the day, realism is not an issue for you. Which is great, nobody's complaining about your space opera games and nobody's trying to stop you running them. What I find curious is why you've spent so much time here trying to prove that "realism is boring" if it's a subject you don't even care about.

Traveller obviously isn't pure Space Opera. It can certainly be run like that, and it's not wrong to run it like that either - but it's also got a good deal of (attempts at) realism in it, even though it's nowhere near as realistic as it could be. It seems to pay lip service to both Space Opera and Hard SF without being completely true to either of them. And this again all boils down to the schizophrenic nature of the game - it's trying to be Space Opera and Hard SF at the same time, and all that does is lead to conflict about "how the game is supposed to be played", and about whether the setting itself should be wild and wacky a la space opera or realistic a la Hard SF.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by Klaus:
Also, the airless ball with billions of inhabitants next door to a deserted garden world. Strains credulity beyond breaking point, at least with the multiple instances all over the OTU.

It falls down because there are no downsides to "deserted garden worlds" in the OTU. You can just plop yourself down and start plowing.

The Real World(tm) would probably less forgiving. It could well be the case that airless rocks would be better places to live than worlds full of biological hazards and dangerous chemicals.

But that's certainly not the case in the OTU.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Klaus:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
Not trying to be insulting, but could you be a little bit more clear in showing your proof? All I got out of the above was that you are claiming expertise as an artist.

No insult taken. One of the main things you are taught at art college is to set yourself limits to work within. You get creative by challenging those limits. When you teach, you need to set defined limits to get the best out of your students.

An example. Doing life drawing with the wrong hand, with a 10 second time limit. That's a standard exercise. Produces interesting results.

Another example (probably contraversial): Pink Floyd wrote good songs, but knob twiddled all the soul out of it on their 32 track mixing desks. However, all the covers I've heard are fantastic.

With Star Wars, George Lucas was severely limited in what he could do with special effects, and with budget. He worked against them and produced an arguable masterpiece. TPM had no limits with budget or cgi, and was a lazy, godawful mess.

And you have to admit Bad Taste is far more creative than the cgi borefest that is King Kong.

Tezuka and Miyazaki tell epic stories in 5 frames a second.

Einstein's great leap of imagination came from struggling with the limits of known physics.

</font>[/QUOTE]OK, now I got you. Although several things are argueable in your examples.

You're the first person I've ever read complain about Pink Floyd, so I'll consider that one as personal preference.

George Lucas and the problems with The Phantom Menace were due to scripting, not special effects. So that analogy falls a bit flat, even though I agree that TPM was bantha poodoo.

I have not seen either bad Taste or the new King Kong, so I can't really say anything on those two.

I'm a fan of Miyazaki, but wouldn't his talent shine just as well if he made live-action movies? Defining the medium as a limit is a bit soft here becuase Miyazaki has had critical success with manga as well as anime, but I understand what you are saying.

As for Eienstein, he is considered a success not because of working within the limits (as is being advocated by the pro-realism faction) - but because he broke out of those limits.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

As I've stated before, realism works until you start interfering with game play - then it has to go.

Considering some of the complaints about FTL and artificial gravity, aren't those two aspects of science fiction that players expect to see since they show up in science fiction TV and Movies so often? In that, Traveller meets the expectations of players and works.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
As for Einstein, he is considered a success not because of working within the limits (as is being advocated by the pro-realism faction) - but because he broke out of those limits. [/QB]

Einstein broke out of the limits of newtonian physics - the point is that he was still ultimately constrained by the limits of reality itself though. He didn't somehow invent a "cooler reality" by thinking out of the box - that reality was there all the time but previously unnoticed. He just opened peoples' eyes to it.

The thing with realistic scifi it's accurate until the reality that it's based on is better understood (at which point it can be updated) - the thing with unrealistic scifi is that it's wrong all the time. Whether that's important to you or not is another matter

You say that the "pro-realism faction" is advocating "working within the limits" as if we're stagnant, close-minded conservatives who are out to limit everyone's choices and oppress everyone's imaginations. Nothing could be further from the truth - if anything we're trying to make people realise that there is actually a lot of interesting stuff out there that can add a lot of fun to a game. We're just trying to open peoples' eyes to the immense possibilities that really are out there and say "hey, you know what? These are cool too!".

Look at Mars. Hell, look at Earth - they're as realistic as you can get because they ARE real. And then tell me you can't think of anything fun or interesting to run on the realistic planets in our own solar system. So what if the planets are dead? You can still run a lot of high human adventure in those environments, are you really going to tell me those wouldn't enjoyable? You certainly don't need canals or martians with heat rays or lost alien civilisations to have an interesting and enjoyable story.

All I'm seeing here are strawmen created by the "reality is boring faction" because they basically don't see any need to actually think about what they are creating. They make wide sweeping generalisations and saying that "realism is always boring", but what they actually mean when they say that is "realism isn't for us". One's expressed as a statement of fact, but the truth is it's just an opinion.

I think much of this really boils down to the fact that some people just don't like being told what to think. Realism is being portrayed as some terrible threat to people's ideas, something that puts limits on their imaginations so things can't be crazy and wacky as they'd like them to be. And yet when I sit down and make a realistic system all I see are a myriad possibilities opening up ahead of me every time I sit down and think about things, that make the place more vivid and real and consistent and add much more depth where none existed before.

And that's the thing really - the wild and wacky space opera style is primarily for people who can't or won't take a closer look and scratch beneath the surface. Sure, it's fun and enjoyable, but there's no depth to it. It's not designed to be thought-provoking or conjectural or even necessarily consistent or coherent. A realistic Hard SF style on the other hand appeals to people who ask "well, why does that work like that?", and when they peel away the surface they can reveal more layers that make everything work togethre as a satisfying, consistent, cohesive whole.

Neither style is objectively better or worse than the other, or "right" or "wrong" - they just appeal to different kinds of people is all.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Neither style is objectively better or worse than the other, or "right" or "wrong" - they just appeal to different kinds of people is all.

So why can't you drop this subject and let the people who buy the game choose how to play it?

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