The T20 system is basically tweaked High Guard. Personally, I think that the new computer rules unnecessarily increased complexity, but the vehicle design rules were a nice addition.Originally posted by RobertFisher:
I haven't seen the T20 systems, so that scares me a bit.But only a bit. It looks reasonable in pixels.
Revised CT?
- Thread starter Takei
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M
Malenfant
Guest
The conservatism here amazes me. I mean, the reason why CT doesn't attract new people is because it was designed using a wargaming-type mentality and using the game design fashions of the 70s. RPG design has moved on a LOT since then, and people have learned a hell of a lot about how people play their games and just about game design in general.
The whole point of a revision - and indeed of things like GT and T20 - is to bring the game up to date so that it at least could stand a chance in the modern market. You can't do that by keeping it the same as - or very similar to - what it always was.
Sometimes I think Traveller is like an old man who's been locked in his parents' basement all his life because his parents just don't want to let him go out and play with the other kids and grow and change as a result. And every time he does manage to slip out, the parents scream their heads off, drag him back, and slap him in chains again and get even more over-protective. Let the game breathe, for crying out loud.
And while I was being somewhat facetious earlier... come on people. You've spent god knows how many pages discussing things that would probably send bank clerks off to sleep
. It's no wonder this game ain't attracting people - I can't think of a single RPG (apart from some of the Travellers) where people actually either worry about or even care about this sort of thing. Hell, I can't even think of anyone who isn't in the money business who would actually consider that fun. Or do you really expect people to bring accounting books to the game?!
And if mortgages and repayments and interest is really that important, then why not just whack up some simple tables to simulate it and have done with it! You don't need to have 10 years experience in a bank and be paying off a mortgage of yoru own to be playing this game...!
The whole point of a revision - and indeed of things like GT and T20 - is to bring the game up to date so that it at least could stand a chance in the modern market. You can't do that by keeping it the same as - or very similar to - what it always was.
Sometimes I think Traveller is like an old man who's been locked in his parents' basement all his life because his parents just don't want to let him go out and play with the other kids and grow and change as a result. And every time he does manage to slip out, the parents scream their heads off, drag him back, and slap him in chains again and get even more over-protective. Let the game breathe, for crying out loud.
And while I was being somewhat facetious earlier... come on people. You've spent god knows how many pages discussing things that would probably send bank clerks off to sleep
And if mortgages and repayments and interest is really that important, then why not just whack up some simple tables to simulate it and have done with it! You don't need to have 10 years experience in a bank and be paying off a mortgage of yoru own to be playing this game...!
TheEngineer
SOC-14 1K
Malenfant, it should not surprise you, as we are in a forum with lots of people getting along with the things "as they are" or "as they are tweaked"
Take a look at the polls You created..
Guess we need a brainwash-program first. Hmm, perhaps two or three.
Take a look at the polls You created..
Guess we need a brainwash-program first. Hmm, perhaps two or three.
You're right. I was using the Book 2 discount of 10%, but HG2 says 80%.
Quite right. That was a mistake. I intended to use a Flattened Sphere.
Canon says a tramp ship makes 25 jumps a year and explains why (it has to scrounge around for passengers ad freight). AFAICR canon says nothing about regular liners. Do you find anything unreasonable in my explanation why regular liners should be able to do better?
It's a 10 day cycle. 10 times 35 is 350 days, leaving 15 days over for annual maintenance. It's two days in system and up to 8 days in jump, based on the assumption that a regularly scheduled ship has to assume that any jump may take extraordinarily long.
I actually find it more likely that tickets are sold with the proviso that the passenger will be notified when the ship comes out of jump, giving him so and so many hours to check in at the starport. This would allow an average save of a day or so per jump. But I don't want to get into too many side issues.
I think I assumed 1000/week for crew and 2000/jump for passengers. This, incidentally, is another place where the canon rules are shaky. If it really costs Cr143 per day to keep a crewman alive, then it should only cost Cr1430 to keep a passenger alive for the 10 days maximum a jump takes (starport to starport). And at the margins a CT ship operates at, Cr670 per passenger is a big enough chunk of money to be significant.
You have to calculate with a profit on the original 20% investment too.
Once again you apply rules for tramp ships to regular ships. Those die rolls show the drips and draps that are left over after the regular liners have scooped up the lion's share. The basic assumption is that the ship won't be built if the passengers weren't there.
That was what I was trying to prove.
No, because you will have to find somewhere to stick 8 dT of luggage. This ship is a theoretical construct to help figure out what a reasonable price for a middle ticket would be. To figure out what a high ticket should cost I'd design a ship with extra cargo space and stewards enough to fill the ship with high passengers.
Replacement isn't enough. The ship must give a return on the total investment that is not too different from the return the bank gets. Otherwise it becomes a better deal to invest in someone else's ship and no one would ever invest in a ship for themself.
Hans
Evo Plurion
SOC-12
[Diving back into the "Traveller popularity" fray...]
CT and other Traveller iterations may inadvertently suffer from appearing to young gamers to be somewhat poorly defined. Many young people today aren't familiar with the works of Asimov, Piper, and Vance, so they may have difficulty visualizing the Traveller setting. Ours is a media-saturated society. We recognize the worlds of the Star Wars RPG and mecha games from movies and anime TV shows, many of us equating them with science fiction (a tenuous relationship, I agree) so why take a second look at Traveller?
Our interpretations of science fiction are very subjective. We can agree on what a subway, a mailman and a modern city look like because most of us are familiar with these things. But our visions of an imaginary far future depend on assumptions and ideas with which most of us are not familiar. Star Wars, being a pop-culture phenomenon, is familiar to almost everyone. When I'm running a SW campaign for my kids, I don't have to explain anything about the universe they're in. They've been there many times through the movies.
Traveller could be made more familiar - and perhaps more appealing to gamers - by enhancing its visual presentation and by offering more anecdotal examples of the use of its rules. And yes, Mal, including optional rules to handle concepts that have emerged since CT's creation would help. I was happy to discover robot rules in T20, though their absence wouldn't have stopped me from including robots in any Traveller campaign
.
CT and other Traveller iterations may inadvertently suffer from appearing to young gamers to be somewhat poorly defined. Many young people today aren't familiar with the works of Asimov, Piper, and Vance, so they may have difficulty visualizing the Traveller setting. Ours is a media-saturated society. We recognize the worlds of the Star Wars RPG and mecha games from movies and anime TV shows, many of us equating them with science fiction (a tenuous relationship, I agree) so why take a second look at Traveller?
Our interpretations of science fiction are very subjective. We can agree on what a subway, a mailman and a modern city look like because most of us are familiar with these things. But our visions of an imaginary far future depend on assumptions and ideas with which most of us are not familiar. Star Wars, being a pop-culture phenomenon, is familiar to almost everyone. When I'm running a SW campaign for my kids, I don't have to explain anything about the universe they're in. They've been there many times through the movies.
Traveller could be made more familiar - and perhaps more appealing to gamers - by enhancing its visual presentation and by offering more anecdotal examples of the use of its rules. And yes, Mal, including optional rules to handle concepts that have emerged since CT's creation would help. I was happy to discover robot rules in T20, though their absence wouldn't have stopped me from including robots in any Traveller campaign
RobertFisher
SOC-12
That's got to be a first. Someone calling me conservative.
On the one hand, you're so completely wrong. Look at the 3 CT books & the 3 OD&D books. Compare them to contemporary wargames. Everytime I do, I'm amazed by how EGG & MWM realized from the get-go that roleplaying games were a different beast.
Look at TFT & D&D3e. Those are roleplaying games created with a wargame mentality.
On the other hand, though, you are correct. The thing about designers like EGG & MWM is that they weren't "roleplaying game designers" or "wargame designers". They were "game designers".
"Wargames" were actually much more diverse than the name suggests. "Hobby games" was a better term. Even within the (large) subset of games that deal with war you've got a lot of diversity. Strategic level, tactical level; ancients, medieval, nepolianics, modern; infantry, tanks, naval, air; &c.
So, we shouldn't be surprised that CT & OD&D don't have overly complex combat rules even through they were designed by "wargame" designers.
I'd love to argue this point, but this isn't the thread for it.
When it comes right down to it, though: CT was a fun game in the 1970s, & it is a fun game today.
GT & T20 have different points than RCT. Indeed, GT & T20 have different points than each other. But that's another topic.
A few years ago, I seriously investigated every RPG on the market I could get my hands on. I happened to find the CT books at a 2nd hand bookstore & picked them up for nostalgia sake. (I'd played it years ago, but I never bought any of the books until MT was out.)
I was shocked as I read them. It was as good as anything currently on the market. It had all the qualities that the "rules-light" branch of modern games seemed to think they had so recently discovered.
So, yeah, I think the point of a revision is an unneeded point. Just put the marketing effort you'd put behind a revision behind the reprint.
Although a little polish around the edges couldn't hurt. I few touches to try & dispell some of the myths about the old game could be wise. Updating Book Zero to speak to a modern audience would be welcome.
You know, in many ways Hunter's description of RCT & mine aren't so far apart. (Which is why I'm excited & scared by it instead of only scared.
It's like Risk. The game is 99.9% exactly the same as it has been for decades. There's bits & rules for expanding the game, but its all optional. They added instead of changing. Why? Because it was a good game then, & it is a good game today.
I'm very happy we have GT & T20 & all the other options that we have today. I ecstatic that CT is actually in print, because it's an option that deserves to be in print. I'd rather see an effort at marketing a CT-ish option be devoted to the proven game that already exists instead of to a new game with some of the trappings of the old. (We've already got lots of new games with the trappings of the old.)
CT has been, as far as I can tell, the most successful version of Traveller ever.
(1) Not every CT fan is involved in those discussions.You've spent god knows how many pages discussing things that would probably send bank clerks off to sleep. It's no wonder this game ain't attracting people - I can't think of a single RPG (apart from some of the Travellers) where people actually either worry about or even care about this sort of thing.
(2) Obviously--evidenced by the discussion itself--there are people who find those topics interesting & fun. Wise up & realize that people actually have different preferences than you, & that their taste is just as valid as yours.
(3) Every RPG has areas that bore some people to tears. I know people who would run screaming from GURPS Vehicles long before Traveller economics would lose their interest. Likewise, the D&D3e power character building.
(4) CT is attracting new players.
M
Malenfant
Guest
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
Canon says a tramp ship makes 25 jumps a year and explains why (it has to scrounge around for passengers ad freight). AFAICR canon says nothing about regular liners. Do you find anything unreasonable in my explanation why regular liners should be able to do better? [/qb] </font>[/QUOTE]Only based on certain realities that people don't like being cooped up for so long on a ship. Unless you are reversing the Pony Express mentality and replacing the crews but keeping the horse. It would be like a jail sentence. Most of the time you can't even look out the windows.
It's a 10 day cycle. 10 times 35 is 350 days, leaving 15 days over for annual maintenance. It's two days in system and up to 8 days in jump, based on the assumption that a regularly scheduled ship has to assume that any jump may take extraordinarily long. [/qb] [/quote]
I must have been tired when I was working the calculator. Of course it is 10 days. DUH! Sorry.
Yes. But it isn't making the loan payments yet.
Once again you apply rules for tramp ships to regular ships. Those die rolls show the drips and draps that are left over after the regular liners have scooped up the lion's share. The basic assumption is that the ship won't be built if the passengers weren't there. </font>[/QUOTE]Well I have no other rules to fall back on.
That was what I was trying to prove. </font>[/QUOTE]I realized that after I posted it.
Ooops forgot the passenger 1 Ton of luggage allowance.
Replacement isn't enough. The ship must give a return on the total investment that is not too different from the return the bank gets. Otherwise it becomes a better deal to invest in someone else's ship and no one would ever invest in a ship for themself. </font>[/QUOTE]And taking almost 35 years at 100% recapitialization is quite a long time just to get a return on your investment. Of course if you are willing to wait that long and the ship has a longer life cycle than 40 years then at least you atart making profits at that point!
Yeah I can see investors jumping on that bandwagon! It makes the Dot Bomb fiasco look tame.
It makes more sense to put your money in your mattress. At least it won't skip on you, though you could get robbed. Pirates won't shoot it up, but you could lose it in a fire. Perhaps investing in this kind of venture is as good as sticking your money in a mattress.
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
OK Aramis. Pick the ship and lets see if we can do it. The one in the thread at 100% recapitilization on standard rates takes 34.5 years to earn 100% of the ship's cost. (And it is an extremely efficeint ship in terms of expected revenue per ton.)
Setting aside 1/480th of the purchase price of the ship, in most cases on a J-3 merchant amounts to >100% of net receipts. And you still aren't actually making a profit.
And as I said in the other (and more on topic) thread: it's possible to make back in under a year with a good broker.
Only subbies will service backwater worlds... that's why subbies exist.
Lines are not ALWAYS big craft operators... it is entirely possible that much of the megacorporate shipping runs on smaller ships than we think of normally; the HG design sequence has no economies of scale, unlike the real world, (Ton for Ton, bigger ships tend to cost slightly less for the same features, as one can have more parts premade. Lesser cost per ton means less payment share and/or recapitalization per ton.)
It's obvious MWM was no econ major. But, that being said, when the real cost of operations is examined, most merchantmen would still be J1, as there is loads of profit to be made, and some J2 and even J3 private operators would make it.
The more I look at CT and MT's trade systems, the more I like the fixed cost as a government methodology for encouraging tourism. </font>[/QUOTE]
Setting aside 1/480th of the purchase price of the ship, in most cases on a J-3 merchant amounts to >100% of net receipts. And you still aren't actually making a profit.
1/480th, assuming every thirteenth month is down for annual maintenance, is fourty years. Same as a mortage.
And as I said in the other (and more on topic) thread: it's possible to make back in under a year with a good broker.
Only subbies will service backwater worlds... that's why subbies exist.
Lines are not ALWAYS big craft operators... it is entirely possible that much of the megacorporate shipping runs on smaller ships than we think of normally; the HG design sequence has no economies of scale, unlike the real world, (Ton for Ton, bigger ships tend to cost slightly less for the same features, as one can have more parts premade. Lesser cost per ton means less payment share and/or recapitalization per ton.)
It's obvious MWM was no econ major. But, that being said, when the real cost of operations is examined, most merchantmen would still be J1, as there is loads of profit to be made, and some J2 and even J3 private operators would make it.
The more I look at CT and MT's trade systems, the more I like the fixed cost as a government methodology for encouraging tourism. </font>[/QUOTE]
Malenfant,
Despite your criticisms to the contrary, T20 is attracting new people to Traveller. In the games at Cons that I've run, as well as my home game, I know that I'm directly responsible for no less than ten people taking the plunge to get into Traveller, and QLI's subsequent sale of at least five THBs among those gamers.
Now, I can't comment on GT or CT, but I can comment on T20, from personal experience.
Sadly, for all your statements of opinion on the matter of playing Traveller in any form, you don't actually play the game with other people (by your own admission), so it's hard for you to tell one way or the other, save through potentially biased discussions on boards such as these. Have you ever considered trying to start your own game sometime, or join a PBEM? I really wish you'd try the actual game part of Traveller sometime.
And if you did, I might be able to say that I've attracted no less than eleven to Traveller!
Enjoy your Wraith campaign, my friend, and please consider Traveller for the next one you run,
Flynn
Despite your criticisms to the contrary, T20 is attracting new people to Traveller. In the games at Cons that I've run, as well as my home game, I know that I'm directly responsible for no less than ten people taking the plunge to get into Traveller, and QLI's subsequent sale of at least five THBs among those gamers.
Now, I can't comment on GT or CT, but I can comment on T20, from personal experience.
Sadly, for all your statements of opinion on the matter of playing Traveller in any form, you don't actually play the game with other people (by your own admission), so it's hard for you to tell one way or the other, save through potentially biased discussions on boards such as these. Have you ever considered trying to start your own game sometime, or join a PBEM? I really wish you'd try the actual game part of Traveller sometime.
And if you did, I might be able to say that I've attracted no less than eleven to Traveller!
Enjoy your Wraith campaign, my friend, and please consider Traveller for the next one you run,
Flynn
M
Malenfant
Guest
I never said that T20 wasn't attracted any new people, just that it wasn't attracting many new people. Of all the incarnations of the game around, T20 is the most likely to be attracting new people
I have used Traveller to make my own scifi background (admittedly I use GURPS Space for the core of that, but I used something based on the Traveller UWP system and FF&S for the worlds and tech). Books like WBH and FF&S are the only ones that truly support Traveller as a generic sf system, after all. Does that count as playing Traveller, given Traveller was supposed to be a toolkit for making your own sf universes? Or do I have to use the chargen too for it to qualify?Sadly, for all your statements of opinion on the matter of playing Traveller in any form, you don't actually play the game with other people (by your own admission), so it's hard for you to tell one way or the other, save through potentially biased discussions on boards such as these. Have you ever considered trying to start your own game sometime, or join a PBEM? I really wish you'd try the actual game part of Traveller sometime.
And if you did, I might be able to say that I've attracted no less than eleven to Traveller!
And I did run a Traveller game once - the Antiquity adventure, which I and everyone who played found to be incredibly dull. All the adventures I've read since then haven't seemed any more exciting than that was.
Wraith is done, I'm playing D&D now
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
I am in the process of organizing a local campaign here. I have two committed so far. Neither of them has ever played Traveller before, and neither of them had actually heard of Traveller before I mentioned it. As for demographics, I may be 42 but both of them are under 30. (And I am looking for a few more players.
)
I am in the process of ironing out the MTU rules as applied to T20 and seeing what gets kept and what gets thrown out from my own CT days rules and the bone I have to pick with T20 and Starship combat.
I am in the process of ironing out the MTU rules as applied to T20 and seeing what gets kept and what gets thrown out from my own CT days rules and the bone I have to pick with T20 and Starship combat.
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Conservatives? Absolutely! Hold on to the old, tried, and true, and it will come around again! Just look at the clothes today - I still have some of those things in boxes....
Evo: As far as youngsters not being into CT, well, what do you expect when everything SF that they know comes with a tie-in to X-box/PS2/etc.? Which I find really funny, as I remember tie-in RPGs never did well back in the day. Now, those seem to be the ones that do well.
Madarin: One of the reasons for loving CT was that you didn't have to go buy a bunch of colored duodeca- and deca- and quad- and whatever-sided dice. You never had to ask which dice to use, just how many. And a yatzhee game gave you enough dice to avoid rolling multiple times for one "roll".
Evo: As far as youngsters not being into CT, well, what do you expect when everything SF that they know comes with a tie-in to X-box/PS2/etc.? Which I find really funny, as I remember tie-in RPGs never did well back in the day. Now, those seem to be the ones that do well.
Madarin: One of the reasons for loving CT was that you didn't have to go buy a bunch of colored duodeca- and deca- and quad- and whatever-sided dice. You never had to ask which dice to use, just how many. And a yatzhee game gave you enough dice to avoid rolling multiple times for one "roll".
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
By my definition of things you're playing Traveller
M
Malenfant
Guest
Licenses do seem to be the big thing lately. But then roleplaying has got a lot more respectable and mainstream lately too, and TV companies are starting to realise that it's a good thing. Hence why we have Buffy, Angel, Farscape, Star Wars, and Stargate. We did have Star Trek and Lord of the Rings recently too, but the companies behind the most recent versions fumbled those badly. And soon QLI will be releasing Honor Harrington and Aldenata RPGs too. The only RPGs I can think of that are tied to computer games are Everquest and Warcraft (both of which are fairly popular).
As for old licenses... MERP (Tolkein) did pretty well for itself, James Bond wasn't doing too badly either. The old FASA Star Trek game did pretty well, and the old WEG Star Wars game was very popular. So I'm not sure which "old licenses" you're talking about that didn't do well.
As for original scifi out today, there's Transhuman Space, Blue Planet, Cyberpunk 2020, Ex Machina, Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, Core Command... true, original scifi has never been anywhere near as popular as licenses, but that's always been the case.
If it all amounts to more people roleplaying, how is this a bad thing exactly?
Traveller as a whole has had a lot of wildly different editions, and it's got a hell of a lot of baggage associated with it too. I suspect more than anything else it's that baggage that's putting people off. T20's probably doing the best job of all the current versions of bringing new people into the game, and I don't think a revised CT would help in that regard - I'm not even convinced that old fans would embrace it either, given how fickle they are.
If the core mechanic used is GURPS, then no.
Several games in print used Traveller as a stepping off point. Space Opera, for one. So if you aren't using a preponderance of mechanics cribbed from one or more editions of traveller as opposed to Mechanics drawn from other games, AND are not playing in the OTU, No, you are not playing traveller.
What are the key concepts? For me, the key elements of Traveller are:
1) The travel assumptions (Including J-Drives and continuous thrust drives)
2) the terraformed and populated nature of the universe
3) The depth and alienness of aliens presented (At least for CT/MT)
4) Shotguns in space, aka The supremacy of Slug throwers over DFEW for personal combat.
5) the basic technological assumptions: Fusion, A-grav, and gravitic thrust.
6) the DGP-CT/MT/2300 task system.
These base assumptions provide most of the feel for me... in play, the task system is KEY for part of the traveller feel. (TNE/FF&S really blows chunks on #1, #3, #5, and #6 IMO.)
I want to put in my 2 CR worth too! I am not interested in a new Traveller version that involves hard copy rules etc. Don't get me wrong! I like the versions of Traveller I have played, but I don't have time to play as I once did. What I really want in an online version that rivals "Evercrack".
Traveller was the answer to D&D (in all its versions) for those of us who wanted the same kind of game without the fantacsy stuff. I want an online Traveller universe where I can play an hour or two when I have the time and not have to figure how to get someone else interested so I can have someone to play with. Somewhere I can work toward being my own character or submit an idea for a senario to the programmers but not be required to be at a certain place at a certain time in order to play.
That is what I really want from Traveller these days. Let me specify what kind of character I want to play and start at age 18 or what ever. Let me be able to reach a given point, say I check into the TAS hotel/or whatever and freeze my character until I have time to play again.
To lots of us Traveller was the answer to our role playing desires. Why can't it become the new answer in a new generation with new technology?
Traveller was the answer to D&D (in all its versions) for those of us who wanted the same kind of game without the fantacsy stuff. I want an online Traveller universe where I can play an hour or two when I have the time and not have to figure how to get someone else interested so I can have someone to play with. Somewhere I can work toward being my own character or submit an idea for a senario to the programmers but not be required to be at a certain place at a certain time in order to play.
That is what I really want from Traveller these days. Let me specify what kind of character I want to play and start at age 18 or what ever. Let me be able to reach a given point, say I check into the TAS hotel/or whatever and freeze my character until I have time to play again.
To lots of us Traveller was the answer to our role playing desires. Why can't it become the new answer in a new generation with new technology?
have you considered playing in a bulletin board format? </font>[/QUOTE]________________________________________________
Or consider Play By Mail (Or Email) where you play as fast as you desire to return your actions and answers.
