Question about CT and MT

[Blue Ghost]

I've probably read a thread or an article here on COTI, but I've always wondered why CT was shut down, and why MT came onto the scene to replace it?

I felt somewhat left high and dry when the LBBs started to vanish, and no more new adventures were being published.

Anyone?

 

[aramis]

MT was outsourcing to people who loved traveller at a time when most of GDW was busy on other projects. Marc Miller and Loren Wiseman were both working T2300; Frank was busy with Space 1889 and T2K. Loren was hatching Dark Conspiracy, IIRC, and contributing on T2K. Tim was working on T2300, as well, and some stuff for other projects. Marc was also doing board games.

In short, GDW was suffering from SUCCESS. Many players wanted a consolidation ruleset, and DGP offered to do it. GDW said "Let's See it" and MT was born. It provided VERY sellable product at a time when GDW was starting to experiment, while leaving the core GDW staff working on those experiments and collateral lines. DGP also did CT Bk 8... I think they made a few grievous mistakes (not keeping Bk5 ship design, not having an initiative system, the rebellion) but it did provide a consolidation ruleset.

MT ended when Frank and Loren pulled the plug to bring Traveller into the T2Kv2/DC mechanics.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Ah.

Well, from a Traveller fan's POV, I think it was a bad move. Not that that's either here nor there, but the whole line, to myself anyway, seemed enormously successful; creative, fun, infinite possibilities, easy to get a handle on and so forth.

Then all of a sudden it seemed to wither and die

Myself, I love CT. I really do. Back then it was an immaginative relief from a lot of drudgery at the time. Then to see it not be as strongly supported, to my perspective, was a real let down. I couldn't figure it out.

The only thing I didn't like were William H. Keith's sketches (most of them anyway). The rest of it, to myself, was good quality top notch sci-fi gaming goodness

I really miss the days of when I'd buy a new LBB or game for Traveller, open it up, and start to read about the Imperium surrounding areas. To me it seemed like there was a vast realm of possibilities that had gone untapped. Think about it. How many adventures took place in K'Kree space, or the Solomani sphere of influence, or the Vargr Extents, or The Far Reaches beyond the Zhodani Consulate or the Aslan territories?

Granted, the GM and players were meant to conjur their own material with the basics, as was part of CT's mandate, but... well, it's just reflective grousing I guess

Sorry for digging up the past.

I'm just happy that COTI is here, and hopefully will be here for a long time to come.

 

[mike wightman]

I think i can empathise with some of your comments here Blue Ghost.


Don't get me wrong, I like the MT rules and for a long time they were my favourite incarnation of the game, especially the Hard Times era.

But MT always felt like it was ties too much to the OTU in a way that CT never was. And the MTOTU also came across to me as more of one group's "house universe" rather than the more generic OTU of CT times.

I also disagreed with many of the tech interpretations that MT brought - I still don't have reactionless thruster plates in MTU for example - due to having defined them to my own satisfaction years before.

The true usefulness of MT to me was the way it collected the character generation together, integrated the task system, how it handles personal combat, and the Imperial Encyclopedia is an excellent equipment guide for any version of Traveller.

So, a lot to like, but a minor niggle or two.

 

[robject]

As a consolidation, MT put out some excellent books. Really worth their weight in paper, even for folks running Classic Traveller. And those books are out there in significant numbers in the "used" section of many game stores (Titan Games, Sentry Box, and probably Medieval Starship).

But like you, Blue, I found CT easier to understand, especially since I never had the time I wanted to properly immerse myself in Traveller detail. CT gave me the loose framework and easy rules. MT gave me the task system and consolidated data.

 

[kafka47]

The Why? As in the original question, I think, it was motivated by what we would call today a reboot. CT had been coasting along but there needed to be a system that would bring it all together as a way of gaining greater control over the product identity.

At that time, GDW had spawned countless variants and subrules the most successful was DGP's ever increasing production line which took over where FASA left off and was firmly rooted a vision. What's more, they invented a novel and successful game mechanic that made Traveller so much easier - the Task System. While, this is commonplace today, it simply was the best thing since sliced bread, at the time.

In terms of leaving fans out, I think GDW tried to keep all those Adventures, Books, and Supplements alive by incorporating all the best bits into Challenge so that fans would not feel left out.

 

[JAFARR]

What I liked most about MT was the character generation. It seems that LBB2 CT characters are so anemic by comparison. I liked the expanded technology for ships, but adding weight and control points, etc. to make things more realistic also interfeared with the playability of the LBBs IMHO.

 

[aramis]

Agreed, Andy.

MT: Where Striker Meets High Guard....

Not always the best fit. For combat, It's the most flexible ruleset out there.

It has the highest supported TL spread, especially when you add the Wood, Wind, Fire and Steel articles and Hard Times design sequence add-ons.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Interesting. I remember the Challenge and TAS Journals with all their meaty additions to CT and MT. I liked the "Earth" issue probably the best... that and that one issue that had that "body hits location" chart for some real advanced combat.

And don't get me wrong, I really fell in love with the task system. It did rank up there with sliced bread, as aptly stated by Kafka.

But those weren't adventures though. I have an active imagination, but I liked picking someone else's immagination, and exploring the world they created. When I first did Mithril I thought it was pretty bland stuff, but that was largely because I hadn't caught onto the concept of creating animals that inhabited the icy oceans and snow covered terrain. I look at that adventure now and go "Wow! That was really cool!" because it detailed some animals, but, as per CT, left a wide margin for GM innovation.

Thanks for the thoughts, all. Some good replies here.

 

[whartung]

Just on a tangent, I think you're the first person I've ever heard of that didn't like Keiths art work. For me, it was a defining aspect of the flavor of the system. I always liked the stark nature of it, its clean lines, and its precision.

I think the Scout in Book 4 was just the definative soldier in Traveller. Of course, I think Book 4 for me was simply the pivotal LBB for me. (I've always felt JTAS #9, WAR was the singular most interesting thing they ever published, as it brought the size and scope of the entire Imperium crashing down on us, like sitting home quiet one day, all caught up in the sort of stuff that catches us all day to day, and then boom -- it's on TV. Very powerful and fundamental book.)

The LBBs have pretty much no art whatsoever, but there he is anyway, rifle ready, watching for threats, wired in to the troop and command.

So, anyway, just interesting.

 

[aramis]

Starter and TTB both had decent art, including a couple of Keith Brother's pieces.

Bk5 was the pivotal book for me. Of course, being a US Navy JROTC Cadet at the time may have had some impact.

MT came out fall of 1987... and I was neither in college nor in HS. And I had the time to adapt to it, and I loved it. But, over the years, the craft design system lost it's luster, due to more complexity than needed.

Blue Ghost: The "Earth Issue" and the Hit Locations articles were both in DGP's Traveller's Digest, Not challenge nor JTAS.

 

[mak]

I too really liked HG; after a while I had the design sequence memorized and spent a lot of class time in high school designing starships with nothing but a notepad. High Guard made me a bit of savant when it comes to simple math. Even after all these years I could probably still design a starship by heart (except maybe the computer prices).

Ah, what a waste of time.

 

[whartung]

Ah, what a waste of time.

Yea, drugs and pety vandalism are much better ways to misspend ones youth.

No, I think what I liked most out of Bk4 was simply the "Ironmongery" section. First, I'd never seen that word before, second it had all of this wonderful neat gear: Gauss rifles, Auto RAM grenade launchers, P/FGMP, etc. You could see the advancement over time as TL's grow from your basic Rifle on up to the better more sophisticated arms. Gauss rifles gyro stabilized with integrated optical site! w00t! How cool is that? I felt like Ralphie eyeing a Red Ryder Range Rifle with compass in the stock!

So, for me at the time, that was all pretty new. Somehow HG didn't surprise me as much, though I too spent much wasted time designing ships. I had an HG ship design program written in BASIC+ for a PDP-11, running on a generic "smart" terminal. But I never care for Naval careers. Just seemed pretty boring compared to the grunts on the ground.

Trillion Credit Squadron was more "interesting" than HG was.

By the time MT had come around, it was more involved and more complicated, but it wasn't really fresh any more for me like LBBs and JTAS was. More like summer re-runs in the early phase, and by the time of the Rebellion I had outgrown it a bit by then, so, you know, "who cares".

Just plain 'ol more Wonder in CT than MT, but that has probably more to do simply with me than the systems themselves.

It's quite different today when you can absorb it all at once and get instant answers on forums like these, compared to back then when your sole source for info was the quarterly JTAS and you made it up as you go.

Today, it's a huge universe populated with diversity, rivalries, and complexities. Back then, it was simply getting bigger every quarter, and you got to grow with it.

 

[Plankowner]

Originally posted by mak:
I too really liked HG; after a while I had the design sequence memorized and spent a lot of class time in high school designing starships with nothing but a notepad. High Guard made me a bit of savant when it comes to simple math. Even after all these years I could probably still design a starship by heart (except maybe the computer prices).

Ah, what a waste of time.

If you enjoyed it, it wasn't a waste of time.

I have not played Traveller since the mid 1980s, but I still do star system generation and mess with ship design from time to time for my Pleiades Cluster "Campaign". If it's fun, it's not a waste of time.

 

[aramis]

Plank;
I can do the same, excluding prices, for the common elements in hg with Bk2 crews (sub1000td).

I like the level of detail in hg. Just enough for playability, and not too much for playability. What i can't do is MT designs without the books AND a calculator. I can approximate, but can't do "real" MT designs without calculator.

TNE I flat out need a spreadsheet; MT is iterative; FF&S becomes massively so on many scores.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Originally posted by whartung:
Just on a tangent, I think you're the first person I've ever heard of that didn't like Keiths art work. For me, it was a defining aspect of the flavor of the system. I always liked the stark nature of it, its clean lines, and its precision.

I think the Scout in Book 4 was just the definative soldier in Traveller. Of course, I think Book 4 for me was simply the pivotal LBB for me. (I've always felt JTAS #9, WAR was the singular most interesting thing they ever published, as it brought the size and scope of the entire Imperium crashing down on us, like sitting home quiet one day, all caught up in the sort of stuff that catches us all day to day, and then boom -- it's on TV. Very powerful and fundamental book.)

The LBBs have pretty much no art whatsoever, but there he is anyway, rifle ready, watching for threats, wired in to the troop and command.

So, anyway, just interesting.

One or both of the Keith's lifted some of their art from other science-fiction publications, and merely traced and/or sketched over them with some minor alterations. The Piranah class fighter from the Stewart Cowley books is one example. A Syd Mead panorama of a city scape used for FASA's hotel starport module is another one. Those are the two that leap out at me.

At the time when I first saw it I dismissed the drawings as amateurish kid stuff (which, at the time, I guessed was the reason for the plagurism), but now I know better and shake my head in dissapointment. The only Keith "sketch" that I remotely like is one of the Vargr drawings, but then one has to wonder if Keith didn't lift that one (or all the other sketches) from somewhere else.

For my money Steve Bryant is the Traveller artist of preference. I really like his box cover design for the old Starter Traveller game, among others.

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by whartung:
Just on a tangent, I think you're the first person I've ever heard of that didn't like Keiths art work. For me, it was a defining aspect of the flavor of the system. I always liked the stark nature of it, its clean lines, and its precision.

*raises hand*

Not a huge fan of the Keiths' here, either. Some of it's okay, most of it is rather blah.

Dave Dietrick - now there's a Traveller artist!

I played Traveller steadily until MegaTraveller was released, and then I stopped playing altogether - I didn't care for the Rebellion, and I didn't like what was done with the rules, and I grew increasingly frustrated with the anachronisms and oddities of Traveller (2-dimensional space? acceleration limited to 6Gs? huge computers with TAPES? oh, how STOOPID! ), so the game went by the wayside.

With a few years under my belt - well, a lot of years, actually! - I learned a whole new appreciation of Traveller and its quirks - what was a source of frustration in my early twenties has become the source of inspiration in my early forties.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Black Globe Generator:

[...] acceleration limited to 6Gs?

But, MegaTraveller is what got around that (as I learned for myself only around 2004).

Originally posted by Black Globe Generator:
huge computers with TAPES?

What canon reference is there for computer tapes (oh, I'm not saying there isn't one, I'm just interested in reading it)?

Just FYI, I myself was running magnetic reel tape between three different computer systems (IBM/MVS Mainframe, UNIX server, and PR1ME) between 1995 and 1997 as a computer room operator in a business that did well over a hundred million a year. This was ten years after MegaTraveller's introduction.

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
But, MegaTraveller is what got around that (as I learned for myself only around 2004).

Yeah, with the "Striker meets High Guard" rules mentioned earlier.

The MT construction rules were so tedious and buggy that my intrerest waned very quickly.

Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
What canon reference is there for computer tapes (oh, I'm not saying there isn't one, I'm just interested in reading it)?

Jump tapes and program cassettes are in Book 2.

 

[mike wightman]

Nope, cassettes are mentioned, but tapes aren't

They are mentioned in a MWM/LKW JTAS article about starship malfunctions though