New thought about the course of Traveller

[Garyius2003]

I was skimming the threads and saw some comments about how MT materials were slanted to fit a point of view. That kicked off a chain of thoughts.

Classic Traveller was written.

Then Star Wars 4-6 came out. Not just big ships, but rebellions, with factions, bases, fleets, nobility on the rebel side. So we got MT. Sure, the 3I and surrounding is huge, but let's blow the whole setting up, not just part, and they rewrote everything, and added adventures in accounting.

Then the 80s sci-fi anarchy wave came, so Miller blew it up again, this time sticking the final knife in Traveller's body by not only ruining another setting, but getting Vampire self aware ships in the mix with literally space pirates with swords and filth.

Literally chasing movies is what ruined Traveller. Compare with D&D, who changed mechanics and even worlds, but never the concept setting.

 

[Draconian]

I dunno if MegaTraveller represented movie-chasing. It could just have been a general principle that increased sources of conflict make for juicier stories. STAR WARS has instant travel and communications across the parsecs; TRAVELLER is more limited. There are questions about how big a political unit you can get, and if someone disagrees, conflict pops up with huge consequences for the inhabitants.

 

[Timerover51]

I suspect that the changes to the milieu had far less to do with movies and much more with generating new sales.

 

[Vladika]

I suspect that the changes to the milieu had far less to do with movies and much more with generating new sales.

BINGO

 

[atpollard]

I find the 'new sales' view just a little too cynical for my taste.
Remember the old adage about never ascribing to malice what can be explained by simple ignorance.

Personally, I found the Third Imperium of the Classic Era a setting far too lacking in 'frontier' and 'unexplored wilderness' for my taste. I mean the Spinward Marches were billed as the Frontier, but what was really left to explore. One giant ancient star empire just grinded up against another giant ancient star empire. I could never figure out why the IISS had an Exploration Branch ... what was there to explore?

I cared little (actually closer to nothing) about the details of the assassination and rebellion, but I loved Hard Times and the Reaction Rocket rules. I really liked the 'feel' of the post rebellion 'these areas are settled', 'these areas are frontier' and 'beyond this point, there be dragons'. It created a setting for exploration and Wild West worlds and opportunities for a Big Darn Hero.

MegaTraveller stole the grand political intrigue of the Classic Era and gave back the 'unexplored wonder' of ProtoTraveller (CT LBB1-3). Then TNE came along and introduced Monsters.

So that's how I see it.

 

[Chris Barlow]

Frontier of course depends on your definition of the word frontier. The Spinward Marches does follow the old world definition of a frontier, ie the borderlands between two or more nations or empires. This in gaming terms gives plenty of opportunities for spying, smuggling and privateering.

However you are right the Spinward Marches are not a frontier in the sense that American West or original series Star Trek, of a frontier as the limit of exploration and settlement, with the gaming opportunities for exploration, meeting truly unknown alien species, and working out how to deal with them.

Re the IISS exploration branch, exploration does not end just because the main planet in a system has been explored, or even surveyed and settled. As a species we have been exploring the earth for millennia, but still finding new animals and plants every decade.

 

[aramis]

I was skimming the threads and saw some comments about how MT materials were slanted to fit a point of view. That kicked off a chain of thoughts.

Classic Traveller was written.

Then Star Wars 4-6 came out. Not just big ships, but rebellions, with factions, bases, fleets, nobility on the rebel side. So we got MT. Sure, the 3I and surrounding is huge, but let's blow the whole setting up, not just part, and they rewrote everything, and added adventures in accounting.

Then the 80s sci-fi anarchy wave came, so Miller blew it up again, this time sticking the final knife in Traveller's body by not only ruining another setting, but getting Vampire self aware ships in the mix with literally space pirates with swords and filth.

Literally chasing movies is what ruined Traveller. Compare with D&D, who changed mechanics and even worlds, but never the concept setting.

Star Wars (now called Ep IV) was released before CT was written, tho' some elements of the setting date back to 1974 with Imperium.

In the designers notes, Marc mentions that they went and saw Star Wars, and then 2 months later, were preparing the final manuscript.

MT is the child of the 80's sci-fi. TNE is of the Early 90's. The designer's notes for TNE that I've seen indicate lots of Frank and Dave dark future influences.

MT has few designers notes - but what little there is indicates that the shatter was to open the setting up for more kinds of adventures.

 

[Quint]

I would tend to agree that the various editions are a reflection of the popular memes of the SciFi genre of the time. Star Wars is the big confound because it's impact on the SciFi of the 80's is both profound in the visual media but a much smaller footprint in text - look at the "Appendix N" found in Sup1 and Sup4. I don't th8nk that the effect of Star Wars was really felt until MT, when the canon backdrop finally became "operatic" in the same way that Star Wars was.

D.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Garyius, I miss your tirades.

When MT came out it had the promise of opening up new horizons, but content was not forth coming, and therefore the Rebellion that was supposed to be, to my mind, never manifested, much less get into the Star Wars setting.

I personally never drew a clear parallel between Star Wars and MT. I think I saw what a lot of other people saw, and that was a possible design opening for players who wanted to emulate SW with the Traveller rules (I think the original SW RPG came out a few months or a year after MT...someone correct me if I'm wrong). But I never got a Star Wars vibe from MT.

Loose tangent here, the funnest time my players and I had with any RPG was with the Star Wars RPG, and only with one adventure; "Strikeforce Shantipole" I think. The cinematic design by being given more than one chance with increased difficulty, to our group, was genius. I had guys leaping for weapons and dodging stuff and doing this and that with great hilarity as we described what happened and the consequences. It was very much like being in a Star Wars or Indiana Jones film.

That, verse Traveller which, even though I always cued up the Indy Jones soundtracks in the backgrounds, had more of an international intrigue, almost James Bond like flavor to it, minus the Bond cinematics.

In short, I can see your perception, but I disagree with your conclusion.

Wow, I haven't seen a Star Wars film in over or year...time to throw one in the old DVD drive.

 

[Garyius2003]

Not so much a rant this time, just I never put it all together like that.

As for T4, I have no idea what the overarching scheme/outlook was because it was so bad there didn't seem to be one (Jr rant) I was embarrassed I spent money on those books it was so poorly done (Jr rant off)

GURPS was an attempt to lay out the CT world in a lot more detail, with explanations and details, and did so very well.

Mongoose seems to be an attempt to do the same, only half well done and half as bad as T4.

Movie chasing, though, seems to explain the choices Miller made.

 

[Blue Ghost]

There's obviously an element of that in there. If you look at any set of publications that come out near the release of a film you're going to find some parallels, and I think Traveller certainly falls in line there. I think what's arguable is how much SW influenced Traveller. How much did SW influence any book or game that came out at that time?

As for T4 and/or TNE, well, I bought the books looking for a local (which never happened), but I never felt there was a riff off of anything there. I think "virus" may have been an early attempt to parody or pay homage to the Y2K thing that was coming.

I think if Traveller were chasing movies, and specifically Star Wars, then you might see more rules or background material to emulate things like various intelligent species in Traveller (note the cantina scene from the first movie, and all the aliens, or Wookies, Ewoks, et al). Instead we get Traveller flavored aliens, a lot of whom are caricatures of human frailties or traits. Vargr being pretty mercurial and so forth.

Just my take.

 

[rancke]

I think if Traveller were chasing movies, and specifically Star Wars, then you might see more rules or background material to emulate things like various intelligent species in Traveller (note the cantina scene from the first movie, and all the aliens, or Wookies, Ewoks, et al). Instead we get Traveller flavored aliens, a lot of whom are caricatures of human frailties or traits. Vargr being pretty mercurial and so forth.

Back in those days, the entire roleplaying community was a bit hazy on the whole copyright question. Most people believed that providing game stats for SF and Fantasy creatures was perfectly legitimate. TSR had a number of, ahem, unfortunate examples in D&D books and The Dragon. I believe magazine editors saw it as simple fan service (in the non-suggestive meaning of the term). But I don't think there were any ulterior motives about getting free rides on the coattails of popular books and movies either. It was, I think, a more innocent¹ hobby back then.

¹ 2 a : lacking or reflecting a lack of sophistication, guile, or self-consciousness : artless, ingenuous [Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary]​

Hans

 

[Dagrill]

I find the 'new sales' view just a little too cynical for my taste.
Remember the old adage about never ascribing to malice what can be explained by simple ignorance.
Personally, I found the Third Imperium of the Classic Era a setting far too lacking in 'frontier' and 'unexplored wilderness' for my taste. I mean the Spinward Marches were billed as the Frontier, but what was really left to explore. One giant ancient star empire just grinded up against another giant ancient star empire. I could never figure out why the IISS had an Exploration Branch ... what was there to explore?
MegaTraveller stole the grand political intrigue of the Classic Era and gave back the 'unexplored wonder' of ProtoTraveller (CT LBB1-3). Then TNE came along and introduced Monsters. So that's how I see it.

Actually I enjoyed the Spinward Marches and thought it had an excellent frontier feel (and still do). My problem was with the break up of the human empire when surrounded by large alien empires, in fact the only direction for expansion is
rimward of the Solomani.

Also as I didn't by MT/TNE at the time, but did buy GURPS, it only facilitated a rivals sales...

Regards

David

 

[Vargas]

While there are parallels between TNE and what was popular at the time, it was also an attempt to literally level the playing field so that all of the setting baggage of the last two versions of the game didn't need to be dragged along. (The Marches was the deliberate exception to make a certain customer subset happy).

 

[rancke]

While there are parallels between TNE and what was popular at the time, it was also an attempt to literally level the playing field so that all of the setting baggage of the last two versions of the game didn't need to be dragged along.

For which there really was no need at all. All they would have needed to do was publish game supplements that didn't attempt to include all the setting baggage of the previous two versions. Just make sure that the new stuff was backward compatible and the people who had previously published material would have been happy and the people who didn't have any of the previously published material would have been happy. Happiness all around.


Hans

 

[robject]

Star Wars (now called Ep IV) was released before CT was written, tho' some elements of the setting date back to 1974 with Imperium.

In the designers notes, Marc mentions that they went and saw Star Wars, and then 2 months later, were preparing the final manuscript.

As Wil said. The GDW guys went to see Star Wars, and then finished up Traveller with that swirling around in their heads... along with Dumarest, Triplanetary, Dune, Star Rangers, Citizen of the Galaxy...

 

[robject]

While there are parallels between TNE and what was popular at the time, it was also an attempt to literally level the playing field so that all of the setting baggage of the last two versions of the game didn't need to be dragged along. (The Marches was the deliberate exception to make a certain customer subset happy).

This sounds right to me. TNE brought Traveller into the House System. So there were good intentions, and I think Nilsen is a good writer.

 

[aramis]

This sounds right to me. TNE brought Traveller into the House System. So there were good intentions, and I think Nilsen is a good writer.

He certainly managed to piss off major chunks of the fanbase. Between the debacles of democratizing the Regency, the Ithklur, the introduction to H&I, and the general irreverent tone of his body of work...

 

[mike wightman]

I notice that no one has brought up the dead end evolutionary branch that was Traveller:2300.

I remember reading that Traveller:2300 could have become the baseline tech for a retcon to CT - i.e the stutter warp replacing manoeuvre drives and jump drives.

You can definitely see the movie and popular literary (at the time) influences on T:2300+

Now if they had detailed the provolutionists and pentapod rather than getting stuck on the kafer war they would have been ahead of the game - transhumanist sci-fi before it became what all the cool kids read.

 

[Vargas]

For which there really was no need at all. All they would have needed to do was publish game supplements that didn't attempt to include all the setting baggage of the previous two versions. Just make sure that the new stuff was backward compatible and the people who had previously published material would have been happy and the people who didn't have any of the previously published material would have been happy. Happiness all around.

If you go back and look at what Dave has to say about that time period there was a very vocal group of people who pushed for more and more canon compliant material of increasing detail which made it difficult for new people to "buy in" to the game. TNE was a (failed) attempt to break the cycle by pulling out a blank sheet of paper.