Fully agreed, so for everyone in this thread:
[m;]Please, if you don't have anything constructive to say, no need to post it. Don't force this thread to be closed[/m;]
My canon right or wrong
- Thread starter rancke
- Start date
Fully agreed, so for everyone in this thread:
[m;]Please, if you don't have anything constructive to say, no need to post it. Don't force this thread to be closed[/m;]
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
I'm guessing that there may be some fear in posting to this thread after that general warning.
Let me start out saying the McPerth is, IMHO, the most conscientious and fair moderator on this board.
Now that I've sucked up:
I find myself agreeing with Hans insofar as his belief that we need a consistent OTU and that it should make sense, at least internally. When, as it often does, it fails to make sense in the real world I chalk it up to being "not the real universe" but the Traveller Universe. Things just work differently there than they do here. Again, differently or not, I vote for overall internal consistency.
My beliefs are founded on the principle that we should all be able to get together anywhere at any time and play the game "out of the box". After all, we are, or should be, in the same universe? (If not, give me a quick briefing or cheat sheet?)
House rules are fine but should be kept to a minimum. My Scout Courier should work the same way in your living room as it does at my kitchen table.
Lanth should have the same UWP no matter what.
Weapons should work the same way and do the same damage in the same circumstances.
Missile costs should be taken into consideration in HG...(well, they should be...)
OK humor aside:
Let's get back to what was, and could be again, a very good thread.
Let me start out saying the McPerth is, IMHO, the most conscientious and fair moderator on this board.
Now that I've sucked up:
I find myself agreeing with Hans insofar as his belief that we need a consistent OTU and that it should make sense, at least internally. When, as it often does, it fails to make sense in the real world I chalk it up to being "not the real universe" but the Traveller Universe. Things just work differently there than they do here. Again, differently or not, I vote for overall internal consistency.
My beliefs are founded on the principle that we should all be able to get together anywhere at any time and play the game "out of the box". After all, we are, or should be, in the same universe? (If not, give me a quick briefing or cheat sheet?)
House rules are fine but should be kept to a minimum. My Scout Courier should work the same way in your living room as it does at my kitchen table.
Lanth should have the same UWP no matter what.
Weapons should work the same way and do the same damage in the same circumstances.
Missile costs should be taken into consideration in HG...(well, they should be...)
OK humor aside:Let's get back to what was, and could be again, a very good thread.
GrayPennell
SOC-12
Vladika and others I agree the idea of canon is that when I play Traveller at a convention. That said though I think my idea that you have to break canon down a bit still has to be done before we talk canon. Next we have to than decided what are canon problems, finally solutions are made. Traveller problems can be broken down into three categories
Rules issues/inconsistencies: These are issues that are built into the rules ie badly written rules. They are also problems of getting CT to match MT to GT to MgT to T5. Trying to fix these especially the latter will result in house rules and not OTU. Therefore it is best at the convention you announce what edition your playing and explain any house rules you might have. This should not effect play as either long term players will just nod because we know the differences or new players will just do as they are told.
Rules background canon mix: Here we have rules that directly influence background or background that directly effects rules. This might include the 1000cr per jump vs 1000cr per parsec or UWP issues. I think if we were to be methodical these category would be the hardest to agree on and to fix.
Background canon is the universe we all agree makes up the OTU. This is the what day is Noris born on. It contains the big issue of GT removing the Rebellion. Its whether or not the Viruses occurs. Here we should make the list of the key background issues and start hacking away. Dom has done a great job already with the timeline but there might be other key issues like with the end of Psionic Suppression are psionics acceptable like new age believes become popular after 1850s.
Rules issues/inconsistencies: These are issues that are built into the rules ie badly written rules. They are also problems of getting CT to match MT to GT to MgT to T5. Trying to fix these especially the latter will result in house rules and not OTU. Therefore it is best at the convention you announce what edition your playing and explain any house rules you might have. This should not effect play as either long term players will just nod because we know the differences or new players will just do as they are told.
Rules background canon mix: Here we have rules that directly influence background or background that directly effects rules. This might include the 1000cr per jump vs 1000cr per parsec or UWP issues. I think if we were to be methodical these category would be the hardest to agree on and to fix.
Background canon is the universe we all agree makes up the OTU. This is the what day is Noris born on. It contains the big issue of GT removing the Rebellion. Its whether or not the Viruses occurs. Here we should make the list of the key background issues and start hacking away. Dom has done a great job already with the timeline but there might be other key issues like with the end of Psionic Suppression are psionics acceptable like new age believes become popular after 1850s.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
The problem is that the game has been evolving over a period of 34 years, with several sets of rules, along with a large number of supplements. Someone who has stayed with the 3 LBB who walks into a game of Traveller, The New Era is going to be in serious trouble. And there is more than one Official Traveller Universe, depending on what rule set you are playing, to include Mongoose Traveller. Then you have the issue of the small ship universe of the LBB verses the large ships universe of High Guard and Trillion Credit Squadron.
Weaponry and vehicles exist in MegaTraveller that do not exist in Classic Traveller using only the 3 LBB. You have detailed vehicle design sequences in the later versions that would leave someone used to Classic Traveller, Starter Traveller, or The Traveller Book trying to figure out what game he/she is playing. Add to that the fact that just about every GameMaster is going to put his/her own interpretation of the Traveller Universe into the game and demanding total consistency is impossible. At best, you can try for consistency within a single set of rules.
Personally, I prefer Classic Traveller, to include Starter Traveller and the Traveller Book, over any of the later versions, and keep the use of supplements to the minimum, as not everyone has all of the supplements. The reason is, aside from strongly disliking some of the vehicle design sequences, the more material you add to the game, the harder it is to maintain consistency, as the writers are also going to build on what has already been done.
Weaponry and vehicles exist in MegaTraveller that do not exist in Classic Traveller using only the 3 LBB. You have detailed vehicle design sequences in the later versions that would leave someone used to Classic Traveller, Starter Traveller, or The Traveller Book trying to figure out what game he/she is playing. Add to that the fact that just about every GameMaster is going to put his/her own interpretation of the Traveller Universe into the game and demanding total consistency is impossible. At best, you can try for consistency within a single set of rules.
Personally, I prefer Classic Traveller, to include Starter Traveller and the Traveller Book, over any of the later versions, and keep the use of supplements to the minimum, as not everyone has all of the supplements. The reason is, aside from strongly disliking some of the vehicle design sequences, the more material you add to the game, the harder it is to maintain consistency, as the writers are also going to build on what has already been done.
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
I'm pretty much in agreement there. I've often wondered, since Marc won't, may "we" (CotI collectively) should address these issues and see where we could go with it. Maybe one rules version at a time?
GrayPennell
SOC-12
I am a story teller more than a rules lawyer so the whole making rules work and together does little for me. I might be interested in the second category if it makes the background smother. The last would be where my interest lie.
We could make a parallel in subfora to the site assortment of Memory Alpha for Star Trek canon (from on-screen only), Memory Beta for licensed works, and Memory Gamma for fandom/anything goes-- but for rules-- and we'd live in the Memory Gamma parallel universes.
<heretical statement>I'd like to see the Traveller rules without Jump Drive, as I think that's tied to the Imperium and not to a generic science-fiction ruleset.</>
I agree with GrayPennell on most of his post.
Any given ruleset must be internally consistent to begin with. This is not directly a canon issue, but will prevent some forms of canon issues from occurring. This relates to how well the rules themselves work regardless of any setting and should have no real issues. This is covered by the various official errata that exists. This does not include houserules which cannot be considered for canon purposes.
The rules define how the TU works. Because of this, I feel each edition's version of the OTU is slightly different from the others. For consistency issues, often. seemingly innocuous changes between editions can mess things up. As an example, consider how the T5 position that psionics is now genetic should have serious implications of Zhodani culture/politics as well as how the psionic suppressions were handled ( distinct bloodlines having greater chanve for higher psi potential and selective breeding/eugenics, etc. ) as opposed to how psionics has been described as randomly occurring.
Because the setting should follow published rules, any canon changes that modify published rules should be avoided as it means the setting might not be consistent with the rules that define it. Drop tanks are an example. Canon arbitrarily forbids drop tanks until a specified date due to a minor TAS entry despite that the rules themselves make no mention of this leading players to assume, by the rules as written, that drop tanks are always available in the design sequences.
The rules define the setting and how it works, not the other way around.
Anything else is fluff and could probably be straightened out by resolving conflicts on a timeline and by making all canon information widely available and easily accessible. As it is, some canon is in hard-to-find supplements or out-of-print materials. This in itself will lead to conflicts.
Most of it will be unknown or unimportant to the vast majority of citizens anyways. After all, how many people know when the Turkish president's birthday is? And he's on this world, not dozens of parsecs away.
Any TU is self-contained and different from the real-world and thus the real-world should not be used as evidence of how a TU works. The OTU fails several real-world 'reality checks' as it is, but so far as it is self-consistent, that is not a problem in and of itself. Cherry picking real-world science, etc. can give weird or undesired results. The UWP is an example. Make world-building or economics realistic, and the present OTU crumbles and becomes unrecognizable.
Any given ruleset must be internally consistent to begin with. This is not directly a canon issue, but will prevent some forms of canon issues from occurring. This relates to how well the rules themselves work regardless of any setting and should have no real issues. This is covered by the various official errata that exists. This does not include houserules which cannot be considered for canon purposes.
The rules define how the TU works. Because of this, I feel each edition's version of the OTU is slightly different from the others. For consistency issues, often. seemingly innocuous changes between editions can mess things up. As an example, consider how the T5 position that psionics is now genetic should have serious implications of Zhodani culture/politics as well as how the psionic suppressions were handled ( distinct bloodlines having greater chanve for higher psi potential and selective breeding/eugenics, etc. ) as opposed to how psionics has been described as randomly occurring.
Because the setting should follow published rules, any canon changes that modify published rules should be avoided as it means the setting might not be consistent with the rules that define it. Drop tanks are an example. Canon arbitrarily forbids drop tanks until a specified date due to a minor TAS entry despite that the rules themselves make no mention of this leading players to assume, by the rules as written, that drop tanks are always available in the design sequences.
The rules define the setting and how it works, not the other way around.
Anything else is fluff and could probably be straightened out by resolving conflicts on a timeline and by making all canon information widely available and easily accessible. As it is, some canon is in hard-to-find supplements or out-of-print materials. This in itself will lead to conflicts.
Most of it will be unknown or unimportant to the vast majority of citizens anyways. After all, how many people know when the Turkish president's birthday is? And he's on this world, not dozens of parsecs away.
Any TU is self-contained and different from the real-world and thus the real-world should not be used as evidence of how a TU works. The OTU fails several real-world 'reality checks' as it is, but so far as it is self-consistent, that is not a problem in and of itself. Cherry picking real-world science, etc. can give weird or undesired results. The UWP is an example. Make world-building or economics realistic, and the present OTU crumbles and becomes unrecognizable.
I enjoyed the rules on world building and creating your own maps from the Traveller Book (Classic Traveller), which happened to be the book I learned to play Traveller with. As a result, I avoided most of the canon wars and various OTU nonsense.
I like J4 merchant ships, so I have them IMTU.
I never really liked the X-boat/Tender concept - by most starship design rules a J4 scout ship could do the job just fine.
While all of these personal opinions would seem, at first glance, to have nothing to do with canon and the OTU, on closer examination ... actually, even on closer examination, they have almost nothing to do with canon and the OTU.
Where they do have something to do with something, is they bring me hours of fun ... reflecting the higher truth that Traveller is (first and foremost) a game and designed to be fun. Carry on with the discussion, but y'all might want to try to have a little fun while you are at it.
IMHO, that is how victory is measured in a discussion like this ... the person who came, said his piece and had some fun ... wins.
I like J4 merchant ships, so I have them IMTU.
I never really liked the X-boat/Tender concept - by most starship design rules a J4 scout ship could do the job just fine.
While all of these personal opinions would seem, at first glance, to have nothing to do with canon and the OTU, on closer examination ... actually, even on closer examination, they have almost nothing to do with canon and the OTU.
Where they do have something to do with something, is they bring me hours of fun ... reflecting the higher truth that Traveller is (first and foremost) a game and designed to be fun. Carry on with the discussion, but y'all might want to try to have a little fun while you are at it.
IMHO, that is how victory is measured in a discussion like this ... the person who came, said his piece and had some fun ... wins.
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
OK I'll grant you that's pretty heretical! So do you have something else in mind for FTL travel?
I mostly agree with your categories of canon, and here is where some deviations from canon may be done or not:
Rules inconsistences are (IMHO) better resolved as errata. after all, most of them are (within the same paradigm). Inconsistences from one paradign to another will depend on which one you decide to play.
Rules/background inconsistences are perhaps the most difficult to swallow, but quite numerous (I've told in many threads about the hughe naval losses in Rebellion were imposible to get if you play naval combat with HG/MT rules, where most ships "lost" are in fact crippled but easily repairable). Most times you must accept the background (no matter how inconsistent with the rules) or play a different one.
Background canon is the easier to deviate from. After all, it's not worth a dime if you're playing in YTU, where background is different.
While this is true for CT and MgT as they are presented at their beginings (they were presented as background free games), that is not so true for all games.
In some cases setting predates game (MERP, SW...), in others it was developed parallel (MT, TNE, T200K, 2300AD...), and in most those cases if you alter rules you alter setting and (at least to some point) vice versa.
And even those games supposed setting free will asume some setting basics to work.
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
I too have enjoyed world building and creating my own maps. When I was a freshman I remember writing a program to do that while teaching myself basic. I started my first TU at TL9, "Earth" with the first exploration of space by Terran's. I honestly believe I had more fun with that than any other campaign I've ever been involved with.
Scout exploration was followed by colonization and then trade. Eventually all three occurred at the same time.
I have J4 merchants also but with a twist. Recognizing they could never be economical as common carriers they tend to be involved in speculative trade. Unused cargo space goes for the traditional 1000Cr per ton rather than "deadhead" that portion of an otherwise empty hold.
Good points and insightful. I guess it really shouldn't matter who changes canon when looked at it from the "it doesn't effect my parallel universe".
That could even be interesting; from certain SciFi genres, characters "bleed" back, forth, through, etc. various parallel universes. The differences are there but mostly subtle enough to not notice right off.
(Does anyone remember the "Thieves World" stories where various SciFi authors continuously changed the setting by using each others characters in sequential writings? I believe the only "rule" was you couldn't kill off another writer's creation.)
I doubt that could ever be better put!
What is often overlooked or ignored in rules discussions is that there are (at least) two very different kinds of rules: There are the kind that reflect the underlying "reality" with greater or lesser accuracy[*] and then there are the kind that deviate from "reality" for the sake of making one aspect or another of gaming easier.
As an example, we have a rule in JTAS10 (p. 24-26) for establishing troop strength of a world. According to this rule, a world with a TL of 10 has 1 battalion of troops if its population level is 5, 15 battalions if its population level is 6, 150 for 7, 1500 for 8, 15000 for 9 and 150,000 for 10. Now, if the rules define the universe, this means that every single world with a population level of 8 has 1500 battalions, whether the population is 100 millions or 999 millions. Also that the moment the population ticks over to become 1 billion, the army immediately expands by a factor 10 stays like that until the population reaches 10 billion.
But if the rules just reflect reality, we can say "Hey, that rule was made back before the population multiplier was introduced. Obviously it should be interpreted to mean that worlds have 1.5 battalions per 100,000 inhabitants."
And if the rule is meant to make it simple and easy to come up with game counters for a FFW-style boardgame, we can even begin to entertain the notion that in "reality" the number of troops depend on historical events, politics, astrographics, strength of potential threats, percieved strength of potential threats, perceived intentions of neighbors, and a whole slew of lesser factors far too complicated to accurately reflect in any game rule simple enough to be practical. We might even begine to operate with such refinements as "battalion equivalents" instead of battalions and let different kinds of troops cost different amounts of BEs.
Bottom line: Not all rules are created equal and not all rules reflect the setting with equal fidelity.
Hans
As an example, we have a rule in JTAS10 (p. 24-26) for establishing troop strength of a world. According to this rule, a world with a TL of 10 has 1 battalion of troops if its population level is 5, 15 battalions if its population level is 6, 150 for 7, 1500 for 8, 15000 for 9 and 150,000 for 10. Now, if the rules define the universe, this means that every single world with a population level of 8 has 1500 battalions, whether the population is 100 millions or 999 millions. Also that the moment the population ticks over to become 1 billion, the army immediately expands by a factor 10 stays like that until the population reaches 10 billion.
But if the rules just reflect reality, we can say "Hey, that rule was made back before the population multiplier was introduced. Obviously it should be interpreted to mean that worlds have 1.5 battalions per 100,000 inhabitants."
And if the rule is meant to make it simple and easy to come up with game counters for a FFW-style boardgame, we can even begin to entertain the notion that in "reality" the number of troops depend on historical events, politics, astrographics, strength of potential threats, percieved strength of potential threats, perceived intentions of neighbors, and a whole slew of lesser factors far too complicated to accurately reflect in any game rule simple enough to be practical. We might even begine to operate with such refinements as "battalion equivalents" instead of battalions and let different kinds of troops cost different amounts of BEs.
Bottom line: Not all rules are created equal and not all rules reflect the setting with equal fidelity.
Hans
[*] The quotation marks acknowledge that the OTU reality is a fictional one.[**]
[**] Albeit one every bit as complex are the Real World.
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I too believe in some J4 cargo capacity. Namely that used for "China race" type commodities -- goods that for one reason or another are time-sensitive. If that sort of goods can be sold for enough more if it reaches the market X weeks earlier than it would otherwise fetch, J4 cargo makes sense. ( What I have all kinds of doubts about is that the amount of such trade would be what made any trade route major.)
(I would let unused cargo space go for whatever it would cost to send it by J2 rather than for Cr1000.
)But as for goods that are not time-sensitive, keep in mind that even if a trader can sell them for enough profit to keep a J4 ship in the black, he would be able to sell them for the same if it came by J2 and score an even bigger profit than if he moved them by J4. So for such goods J4 is a bad investment even if it wouldn't bankrupt you. For some fairly easily understood reason, traders generally prefer a big profit to a small profit. It's just human nature. :smirk:
Yes indeed. No one can actually force anyone[*] to adopt a change in canon. Marc Miller couldn't force anyone to adopt a change in canon.
[*] Except prospective contributors to official publications.
Hans
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
One of the advantages of J4 speculative trade is that you can often "one jump" between worlds with mutually advantageous Trade Modifiers. Also, if your ship is large enough, you an refrain from selling a cargo for a few jumps until you get the right market. You ship, while buying and selling some cargoes, warehousing others until market conditions are right.
Also, for a trading company, smaller J1 & J2 ships are working "feeder" routes. There they do much the same thing but bring lucrative cargoes to "pickup" worlds to access superior markets. This is much like American Rail Roads did it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Also, for a trading company, smaller J1 & J2 ships are working "feeder" routes. There they do much the same thing but bring lucrative cargoes to "pickup" worlds to access superior markets. This is much like American Rail Roads did it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
I believe we share two views here; the realization that we can't be forced, and the hope Marc will get, and stay, consistent.
I think you may be confusing a game rule with a setting rule here. Or maybe not. Be that as it may, I agree that J4 ships will be used if they allow the owner to make bigger profits than J2 and J3 ships. The problem I wrestle with in that connection is, how often is that going to be the case?
Using a ship as a warehouse can't be cost-efficient.
Smaller ships work feeder routes, sure. Big J1 ships jump back and forth between worlds lying one parsec apart. Big J2 and J3 ships do the same for worlds lying respectively two and three parsecs apart or they follow multiple-jump trade routes. J4, J5, and J6 ships are restricted to niche routes (though there are more niches for J4 passenger ships than for J4 freighters, and the same for J5 and J6 ships, only more so).
And if that's not canon, it ought to be.
Hans
