MGT and the OTU

[Original_Carl]

I don't really have a use for the Original Traveller Universe in my game, and never have. I would prefer that any rules or supplements released were setting-neutral as much as possible. Further, I avoid buying setting-specific material for my RPGs, and that includes modules/pre-packaged adventures.

I know there's a great deal of enthusiasm for the OTU here, and I think I understand that, but do you think that MGT might get more support from RPG fans if the setting were neutral enough to allow Referees to run their own campaigns and thereby make it the default setting for Sci Fi, like D&D is the default setting for fantasy?

Personally, I hate it when a game system gets so wrapped around it's own setting that I have to start removing stuff to keep it in agreement with what I've already presented to my players. The more setting-neutral the game is, the better off for me.

Reading the High Guard post (the one with 6k views) inspired me to ask this in a seperate thread rather than add to that off-topic blob. ;-)

I know there's a big market for setting-specific stuff and modules, but can we keep those books apart from the rules and still have a popular game?

 

[Commander Drax]

I was under the Impression that the Mongoose ruleset was developed with other non traveller backgrounds in mind. They've already released a babylon 5 sourcebook, so I suppose that's that. I'm not a Mongoose Fan and I fully agree with your comments.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Disclaimer: For me Traveller is the OTU not some rules set. Used to many rules set to play in the OTU to think otherwise

On the question:

As a Traveller rulesset you have the double benefit of serving a well defined part of the RPG players(1) and OTOH can optimize the game, reducing development effort in some areas that can then be used for others (Adventures and rules-light Supplements etc)

If you go "Universal SciFi" you have to compete with GURPS 3e/4e, Space Hero, Fuzion and D20 Future and those beasts have the freedom of not having to support a certain setting. OTOH Mongoose would have to be universal AND support the OTU for the Traveller label to stick. Not to mention that with 4e/Space you have the proverbial 800pound Gorilla in the game (SJ Games) that also can do Traveller (and shows the problems a Universal Set has with a well established setting)

If Mongoose can handel it and become I big player compliments to them and good for the OTU too. Time will tell

(1) Most Traveller Players are not welded to a rules set but to the universe

 

[MongooseMatt]

Not to mention that with 4e/Space you have the proverbial 800pound Gorilla in the game (SJ Games) that also can do Traveller (and shows the problems a Universal Set has with a well established setting)

Not to dispute you, but Mongoose and SJG have been very close in terms of both staff numbers and turnover for a few years now. . .

 

[saundby]

Speaking as someone who started playing Traveller before there was an OTU (at least in publication) I've never seen Traveller as bound to the OTU. I only started using the OTU last year, after running Trav in my own universes for the 30+ years before that, as well as playing in other campaigns that ranged from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Barbarella under the Traveller rules.

I think Mongoose is doing it right, coming out with the additional backgrounds for Trav. That way you can not only play with those backgrounds, the OTU, or some mix thereof but you can also use them as a model for bringing in your own backgrounds.

My group is going to be shifting to a B5 campaign soon (I've already got the first few weeks designed, just waiting to get the book so I'll have ready stats for B5 items.) We have some big B5 fans in our group (I'm so-so on it, liked the show but not a "fan", really.) We didn't care for any of the prior B5 rule sets, and many of our players are dead set against learning a rule set that's tied to one license property (e.g. World of Warcraft RPG, Everquest RPG, Firefly RPG, etc.) So the B5 Traveller rules are a perfect fit for us.

I'm also interested in checking out the Hammer's Slammers stuff when it comes out, and I know others who are looking forward to the Judge Dredd background. If these were standalone RPGs I've have significantly less interest in buying the products vs. flipping through them at the FLGS. As a part of Traveller, they have more value than just being a way of recreating a particular milieu--they're a way of extending Traveller itself.

To be honest, my closest association of background with Traveller is a "Doc" Smith background, which is what I used for my own first homebrew TU. Yeah, jumpdrive isn't inertialess but it's not to hard to use the relatively inefficient inertialess drives of Triplanetary like they're jumpdrives. So I think the association of a TU to Traveller is a matter of "Baby Duck Syndrome" for a lot of folks.

 

[spinwardpirate]

Speaking as someone who started playing Traveller before there was an OTU (at least in publication) I've never seen Traveller as bound to the OTU.

That's exactly my take on it too. While I really like the OTU, I don't see the two as being inexorably tied together, and I'm looking forward to using MGT in different settings. Hell, I've even messed around with some ideas for doing a Golden Age of Piracy game using MGT.

 

[rancke]

Speaking as someone who started playing Traveller before there was an OTU (at least in publication) I've never seen Traveller as bound to the OTU.

And that's not what I mean when I say something similar to what mbrinkhues said (I can't speak for him, of course). I have no problem with other people using the Traveller rules (whichever one of the many variants that might be) to play in other settings. Why should I? And while I don't understand how anyone can say that Traveller is the rules (now that we're coming up on the double digits worth of different rules sets) and feel that slapping a 'Traveller' label on a B5 setting is almost as inappropriate as slapping it on a fantasy setting, I'm not going to lose any sleep over that. I just won't buy it (pun intended).

To me the interesting part of Traveller is the OTU. There's a reason why the only MGT book I've bought yet is MGT: The Spinward Marches.


Hans

 

[spinwardpirate]

I suppose in another month or less this will be a moot point. Traveller will be both a system and a universe. The advent of Babylon 5 will make it so.

 

[Original_Carl]

I suppose in another month or less this will be a moot point. Traveller will be both a system and a universe. The advent of Babylon 5 will make it so.

I hope not. Babylon 5 was great and all, but I don't want to run a game there. My setting is more akin to Dune than anything else, and even there it bears only a passing resemblance. Introducing aliens and technology and beaurcratic structures from B5 into the rulebooks would make me a little sad.

I, too, was playing Traveller before there was an OTU or anything resembling a formal setting. For years all I had were the little black books. Mercenary and High Guard weren't released until I was in High School, so allusions to any Traveller Universe were kind of strange to me since I'd been going over those three little books for years. It seemed like they were attempting to lay a setting down over a set of rules that didn't need one and were written without one in mind.

What I'm driving at here is that Setting Books are OK, but not for me. I'd take it as a personal favor if as much "setting" as possible was kept out of the rule books.

 

[Kilgs]

I'm a fan of the concept of the OTU. From there, I strip, lay down flooring, repaint and hang new curtains.

I think Beltstrike did a neat example of setting/expansion book. A good chunk of generic expansion information, then a rich setting and campaign. Although I thought Beltstrike was a little irritating in that the setting they provided was non-OTU (no Jump space). But that was primarily because the book said in the beginning you could place "Sonares Cluster anywhere!" It even told you which hex to put it in the Spinward Marches.

Then you got to the setting and every other page it reminded you that the addition of jump-space tech would change the setting dramatically

I guess I'm neutral on the idea. But I definitely don't want expansion books to be taken up with useless space describing how the new gizmos/rules would fit into every portal they're implementing. Waste of space and my money.

If there's going to be setting specific information in generic expansion books, I'd prefer it be the OTU or at least not Babylon 5 or Hammers Slammers etc.

 

[Icosahedron]

What I'm driving at here is that Setting Books are OK, but not for me. I'd take it as a personal favor if as much "setting" as possible was kept out of the rule books.

My thoughts too. The increasing ratio of setting material to rules is what eventually stopped me buying Traveller stuff new. Too much money being spent on stuff I wasn't going to use.
Unfortunately, it also meant that I missed out on important rule updates. I'm still discovering rules I never knew about from the CTCD.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Not to dispute you, but Mongoose and SJG have been very close in terms of both staff numbers and turnover for a few years now. . .

Thanks for the information.

 

[beowulf2044]

For me, the OTU was fun for a while, but the thing is just so huge and cumbersome that one player group could never make to all the interesting places. As for a really alternate universe, I found the Traveller rules framework to be an excellent tool for running a campaign of Time Travel adventures (in the vein of Simon Hawke's Time Commandos). How's that for flexibility?

 

[Poppyseed45]

Personally, I don't mind the OTU, though I tend to ignore the bulk of it and use the trappings of it, basically, rather than its history, etc. For example, there is an Imperium, there's an Emperor, humaniti is the dominant species, psionics is heavily frowned on or banned, and Jump travel works like it works. Past that, I don't really use the OTU.

 

[rust]

I never used the Third Imperium as a setting for a campaign, in my view it
has too many seriously incredible elements which ruin my suspension of dis-
belief and too many huge gaps in the areas I consider the most important
for my kind of settings.

Therefore Traveller for me always was a system, or more precisely a tool-
box for the systems I designed for my own settings. I used the parts of
the various Traveller versions which I found useful and interesting for my
settings and campaigns and ignored the rest, or replaced it with material
taken from other science fiction roleplaying games.

 

[rancke]

For me, the OTU was fun for a while, but the thing is just so huge and cumbersome that one player group could never make to all the interesting places.

Who says that one player group should be able to make it to all the interesting places? What's the problem with focussing on a smaller slice of the universe?

As for a really alternate universe, I found the Traveller rules framework to be an excellent tool for running a campaign of Time Travel adventures (in the vein of Simon Hawke's Time Commandos). How's that for flexibility?

I ran a campaign based on that series too. I used my own house rules and changed the time patrol to an academic organization (The Time Research Institute of the University of Copenhagen ). It ran for about ten years. I alternated the missions from the books with smaller missions and got through the first five books before the campaign ran out of steam. Pity, that. One of the small missions was to London where the PCs met a couple of the characters from "The Dracula Caper". I had planned to let them know the police inspector and the sergeant beforehand.

<Expletive used to denote emphasis deleted to avoid offending anyone>, that brings back a lot of memories...


Hans

 

[beowulf2044]

Oh, we sliced and diced throughout the Spinward Marches, mostly in District 268 and thereabouts. But Hivers and K'Kree looked more interesting than most of the local alien life.

 

[Psion]

For me, the OTU was fun for a while, but the thing is just so huge and cumbersome that one player group could never make to all the interesting places.

One man's junk, another man's treasure I guess.

The OTU is one of two major settings that for me bring together two great boons: extensive resources and great flexibility. No matter where you are in the Imperium, you can draw on the body of knowledge about Imperial history, nobility, armed forces, and so forth. But if you are playing in one of the less defined regions, you have plenty of latitude to create your own interesting places.

Not that the OTU is the end-all be-all, and on occasion I like to try things other than the OTU conventions. But I've never been at a loss for "interesting places". I just make them. Think of Star Trek or Farscape: every new world is another chance for an interesting place.