Saving T5 or How to make an old Traveller actually accept and like T5?

[rancke]

...none of my players are interested in reading the corpus of "Traveller Lore" either from my Library or from what they can find online (and then have to sort through canon and non-canon material). Plus they'd have to figure out what time I'm setting it in, then find the right materials.

Why should they feel they have to? You'll tell them what they need to know, as gamemasters always have to, and who cares how many things they don't need to know that has been published?

Then, beyond that, I don't know many players that are that interested in playing a game with a "foregone" (sp?) conclusion - that's the real problem with TNE, who cares about the 5FW when everything is going to wiped clean in less than a hundred years anyways...

Every player I know is willing to adventure in historical settings despite the "spoilers" that Real World history can provide. For one thing, they never know for sure if I'm going to stick to history or will let things develop out along a tangent. Perhaps the PCs can prevent the War of 64 from turning out so disastrously for Denmark.

Mostly, though, the adventure will be on a scale where historical knowledge will just provide interesting background. Who cares if the Swedes are besieging Copenhagen? What does it matter that the players know that the siege won't be successful and that the PCs won't make a difference to that? It's the half-company of Swedish dragoons stationed in the local manor house that is the problem to be overcome.

The OTU, as portrayed, as succeeded in doing the one thing that every campaign should strive to avoid - make players feel like what they are doing is utterly irrelevant to the good of the setting.

I vehemently disagree that this has to be a problem. Regina Starport, the beginner campaign I and some other people wrote for JTAS Online, is set in one small (albeit very populated) part of one huge metroplex on one single planet in one single subsector in one single sector in one single domain in one single Imperium in Charted Space. And there are plenty of ways for the PCs to make a difference. In Regina Starport, that is. Why is it a problem that what they do don't make a difference to the rest of Regina, the Duchy of Regina, the Spinward Marches, the Domain of Deneb, the Imperium, and Charted Space?


Hans

 

[Supplement Four]

The OTU, as portrayed, as succeeded in doing the one thing that every campaign should strive to avoid - make players feel like what they are doing is utterly irrelevant to the good of the setting.

Hmm...

I've run CT games in the OTU where the players were just typical crewers of a tramp freighter, getting into all kinds of mischief, none of it universe-shattering. It was quite fun.

I've run CT games in the OTU where the players stumbled onto some pretty important discoveries that involved governments and the Empire. Those were quite fun.

I've run the Traveller Adventure more than once, and at it's core, it's really just about a trade war between two MegaCorps, with the players caught in the middle. Each time I ran it, it was quite fun.

I've run CT games where the PCs were just average joes--nothing special about them at all. And, I've run games where the PCs were genetically growing into the next evolution of the human race, where psionics and mental time travel were innate to these particular beings. Both types of game...quite fun.

 

[Hemdian]

So tell your players that TNE (or even MT) isn't going to happen IYTU. There, problem solved, the future is now unknown.

Or ... one campaign idea I've wanted to do for a long time was have the PCs live through the assassination of Strephon and the immediate aftermath but then through them back in time to several years before (by misjump, Ancient device, handwave, whatever). They now have an opportunity to work towards changing the future, perhaps shifting the timeline from TNE to GT. Of course they'll have no proof and no one will believe them.

I had that idea a long time ago but have since seen it used in a short-lived TV series 'Odyssey 5'. Too bad that series only had one season.

 

[Quint]

I don't think players need to know the whole published background of the OTU, or any other setting. Sure, if I was a player I would want to know as much background as I could for full immersion in my PC, but not everyone wants or needs to do that...

Bingo.

And the OTU makes this very difficult task. My experience is that most (not all) good players want as much info as possible. The chaotic mass of the OTU has them looking elsewhere, or at least at other settings. MGT actually allowed a "Traveller-system" game to be a bit of a draw where before, Traveller-the-engine was linked pretty hard with the OTU.

It was a crazy hard sell in the 90's when I managed game stores, at this point my experience is only as a GM with players.

D.

 

[Quint]

Or ... one campaign idea I've wanted to do for a long time was have the PCs live through the assassination of Strephon and the immediate aftermath but then through them back in time to several years before (by misjump, Ancient device, handwave, whatever). They now have an opportunity to work towards changing the future, perhaps shifting the timeline from TNE to GT. Of course they'll have no proof and no one will believe them.

I had that idea a long time ago but have since seen it used in a short-lived TV series 'Odyssey 5'. Too bad that series only had one season.

Amusingly enough, the big game I was talking about I ran four times for roughly a year-plus each time, each starting at the same beginning point with varying different characters and versions of characters because there was a whole time-travel element to it.... It was a great set of interlinked campaigns.

But again, I wasn't really playing in the OTU and neither would the anyone else at that point - because sans any word from MM on the topic, the timeline for the OTU is fixed.

D.

 

[Quint]

...I vehemently disagree that this has to be a problem...

Hans

Ultimately, it doesn't. It really depends upon the players you have (and the GM that you are). I have players for whom this is an issue and as a GM I find it irksome at times. All that said, I think that what we've seen in RPG's over the last thirty years is that the games that remove player agency by providing metaplot can thrive if people are willing to buy things to read the metaplot (especially if it is metaplot that the audience likes). But games that where that is not the case don't do so well.

Traveller has a hardcore group of folks interested in the metaplot (and I count myself among them), but this metaplot doesn't make it attractive to new players and the sheer size and scope of it, in my opinion, turns new players off. To my understanding, that at least part of the reason why White Wolf rebooted their games, the same analysis seems at face value to be applicable to things like the various settings or even the whole kit-and-caboodle of D&D.

Metaplot is a two-edged sword for a game. IMO, Traveller is bleeding rather badly from it's.

D.

 

[David Johansen]

I'd argue that Traveller has history rather than a meta-plot but you'd likely counter argue distinction without difference.

 

[aramis]

I'd argue that Traveller has history rather than a meta-plot but you'd likely counter argue distinction without difference.

Actually, it has both. Or, more correctly, from 1984 to 1996, it had both. There were events unfolding, and at least some player feedback altered the direction the metaplot headed.

 

[Almuric]

Almuric; what if Traveller went the classic D&D route; different modules had different "settings" or "milieus"?

Well, to some extent that is what Mongoose is doing with its rules.

But my experience is that a SINGLE "setting" that has lots of depth and history and detail (like the Imperium) is in some ways richer and more welcoming, because it allows everyone participating to speak the same language.

Moreover, it is valuable because all participants are "playing the same game" and scenarios/adventures/etc. can be easily used by everyone.

The more separate milleus and settings you have the more diffuse Traveller becomes. This also affects the various publishers and writers and fan magazines and such by fragmenting the audience. Traveller already has enough trouble surviving with multiple different rules systems!

A huge strength of Traveller _is_ the unified Imperium setting, a force that binds us together. I believe an Imperium that that encompasses almost all its existing professional, canon, and fan history and detail is a great good.

I feel that this would be enhanced if steps were, at some point, taken to rectify the one or two decisions that GDW made back in the 1980s that constrained people's visions of the Imperium. (I believe that much of this came from GDW seeing itself as a wargame company - and wargamers LOVE big campaign maps!)

 

[Almuric]

I'd argue that Traveller has history rather than a meta-plot but you'd likely counter argue distinction without difference.

Traveller has always had history, and this is a major appeal of it.

Traveller has during a _few_ stages of its existence also had meta-plot:

These stages were:
(a) the Fifth Frontier War era (with three linked adventures and a couple of supporting ones for the war, and extensive quarter-by-quarter accounts of the war in JTAS)
(b) portions of the Rebellion, with regular accounts as-it-happens of the war and support in Challenge magazine and other publications for this.

(New Era was mostly history rather than meta-plot. Meta-plot saw the revelation at a regular rate of campaign-shaking events that occurred in the "present" rather than in the past.)

Both instances of meta-plot also tended to coincide with significant expansions of astrographical detail (so these plots could be followed).

 

[Quint]

*chuckle*

I would tend to argue that history vs. metaplot is a difference without distinction - unless one is playing a game that picks up here canon history ends and you are essentially writing your own (now it's the Referee's metaplot not the game designers). That's actually where much of the White Wolf "metaplot" sat as far as game material (rather than fiction) for much of the first run - lots of history, an occasional concrete piece of something, and then the last year or whatever it was where they blew up the WoD in order to sell everyone the games over again. I think it was way more enjoyable that GDW's attempt to do so because it actually gave everyone some closure and didn't blink at giving everyone the end that had been threatened/promised.

I would actually argue that Traveller pioneered the idea of metaplot with the inclusion of the Traveller News Service. That started well before the 5FW (what, 79ish?) at that time the only things remotely like the idea of an overarcing developing storyline (no matter how minor) for a campaign world that I can recall was the occasional articles that Gygax would release about what was happening in Greyhawk (and these started much later IIRC) as well as the old Minarian Legends column in the Dragon (for whatever game it was, and much of that was "history" rather "news" IIRC). GDW (and then DGP) sold everyone on the idea of "the living Imperium" and that is part of what created such a (still) rabid fanbase.

D.

 

[Quint]

The more separate milleus and settings you have the more diffuse Traveller becomes.

That depends - is Traveller the OTU or is Traveller the game engine. Mongoose really tends to take the perspective that Traveller is the game engine. If you want to make the argument (as many people do) that Traveller is a great generic scifi game then it cannot be tied to an OTU because then it will be constrained by its OTU.

Personally, I believe that there is plenty of room for multiple Traveller "settings" - that's why people have ATU's obviously. Personally I like being able to see how Hammer's Slammers or Judge Dredd work in Traveller terms because it makes my own game richer. I like having more sourcebooks of technology and different tech trees because it sparks my imagination. D&D has not been hurt by multiple settings, there are people screaming for Mystara and Spelljammer to be brought back for 5E of all things.

What kills games are confusing rules and a lack of any setting - I can't think of a major game that has survived sans the support of a campaign setting. That said, setting alone is also not enough to carry a game engine.

Nobody, but nobody, can complain that there isn't enough canon OTU information and resources out there. We can complain that it's buggy and contradictory, we can complain that it doesn't cover some eras well or at all, we can complain that some our favorite parts have been decanonized (I'm looking at Paranoia Press and Judges Guild...), we can complain that it doesn't make any sense in parts - but nobody can complain with a straight face that there is a "lack" of it...

D.

P.S. I'm actually curious, not snarky, can anyone think of a decently successful game that has thrived or prospered without a relatively well supported campaign setting? I can't but I'm interested in there is an exception that proves the rule...

 

[aramis]

P.S. I'm actually curious, not snarky, can anyone think of a decently successful game that has thrived or prospered without a relatively well supported campaign setting? I can't but I'm interested in there is an exception that proves the rule...

Tunnels and Trolls. Even then, the Deluxe (9th) Ed is supposed to more setting information than any prior edition. (There is no official 6E, and 8E was french-only.) The extensive solos, however, sketch out a setting that's both extremely gonzo and very loose.

The Fantasy Trip. Technically, it had a setting... described in a single page. It's a collection of gate connected worlds. If Howard Thompson hadn't gone sideways, the second edition would likely have continued to sell well. Like T&T, it's success was built strongly upon solo modules.

And the new generation....
Fiasco, Dogs in the Vinyard, Diaspora, Sorcerer. Three storygames with strong setting tropes, but no actual setting, and no setting expansions. Fiasco playbooks change the setting tropes slightly, but the actual setting is developed in session. DITV is vague - it clearly evokes a Deseret Territory Period vibe, but the actual setting is built by the players in session 1. And Diaspora, again, strong setting tropes, this time hard sci-fi with hyperdrives, and setting specifics are built as the first half of session 1 (with char gen being the second half). Sorcerer has no setting, and only one key setting trope - it's magic system - with the expansions being guides to applying it into other settings.

But this new generation works VERY differently. The Storygames movement generally leaves setting up to group building within the tropes laid out in the game premise.

 

[Carlobrand]

...
The Fantasy Trip. Technically, it had a setting... described in a single page. It's a collection of gate connected worlds. If Howard Thompson hadn't gone sideways, the second edition would likely have continued to sell well. Like T&T, it's success was built strongly upon solo modules.
...

Ah, the memories that one brings. I still have that set.

 

[mike wightman]

The only thing that will make me start to like T5 is the Galaxiad.

Move the setting forward again so that a lot of the new stuff in T5 can be used in the OTU.

 

[David Johansen]

Personally I'd argue that history differs from meta-plot in that history allows free-will and meta-plot denies it. It's true that the rebellion and new era have a scope that makes it nigh impossible to fight against the course of history but that's only realistic the pc's actions are drops in the ocean. A meta-plot tends to involve the player characters very directly in determining the course of history while denying them any actual ability to do so.

 

[Quint]

Tunnels and Trolls. Even then, the Deluxe (9th) Ed is supposed to more setting information than any prior edition. (There is no official 6E, and 8E was french-only.) The extensive solos, however, sketch out a setting that's both extremely gonzo and very loose.

The Fantasy Trip. Technically, it had a setting... described in a single page. It's a collection of gate connected worlds. If Howard Thompson hadn't gone sideways, the second edition would likely have continued to sell well. Like T&T, it's success was built strongly upon solo modules.

And the new generation....
Fiasco, Dogs in the Vinyard, Diaspora, Sorcerer. Three storygames with strong setting tropes, but no actual setting, and no setting expansions. Fiasco playbooks change the setting tropes slightly, but the actual setting is developed in session. DITV is vague - it clearly evokes a Deseret Territory Period vibe, but the actual setting is built by the players in session 1. And Diaspora, again, strong setting tropes, this time hard sci-fi with hyperdrives, and setting specifics are built as the first half of session 1 (with char gen being the second half). Sorcerer has no setting, and only one key setting trope - it's magic system - with the expansions being guides to applying it into other settings.

But this new generation works VERY differently. The Storygames movement generally leaves setting up to group building within the tropes laid out in the game premise.

Thank you, I guess that's my issue. Even T&T has a setting it supported (gonzo and loose as it is - and I still have the Arena of Khazan in my game world) But I see your point even if I'm not I agree 100%. I must admit that I have no clue about Fantasy Trip. I remember the ads from Dragon, but never played it, never saw it played, and I can actually remember ever seeing a copy of the game (even at GenCon when I went years ago, so memories may have faded).

The other games? Are those *major* games? I don't recall seeing any of them at any of my FLGS, and one of them is Games Plus which is kind of a monster when it comes to stocking obscure stuff. I had to look all of them up, and one of them is arguable one of a series of setting books for FATE. In any case, your point with the StoryTelling games having a different model is a reasonable one - but none of them seem to exactly be competing or operating at the same level as what I would tend to think of as a "major game".

D.

 

[aramis]

Thank you, I guess that's my issue. Even T&T has a setting it supported (gonzo and loose as it is - and I still have the Arena of Khazan in my game world) But I see your point even if I'm not I agree 100%. I must admit that I have no clue about Fantasy Trip. I remember the ads from Dragon, but never played it, never saw it played, and I can actually remember ever seeing a copy of the game (even at GenCon when I went years ago, so memories may have faded).

The other games? Are those *major* games? I don't recall seeing any of them at any of my FLGS, and one of them is Games Plus which is kind of a monster when it comes to stocking obscure stuff. I had to look all of them up, and one of them is arguable one of a series of setting books for FATE. In any case, your point with the StoryTelling games having a different model is a reasonable one - but none of them seem to exactly be competing or operating at the same level as what I would tend to think of as a "major game".

D.

Then, by implication, there are only 2-3 major games, and Traveller no longer really qualifies.

In looking at what's being played - Fiasco is probably the most frequently played storygame - noting that Fiasco mechanics turn the story, not resolve individual actions, and so it's a true storygame.

DITV has a conflict resolution, but it's pretty abstract; it's not resolving the actions, but the scene. And, amongst the storygames crowd, it's VERY well known.

Many of the storygames have much more popularity in Europe - moreover, many are written such that they do not support campaign play at all. Fiasco, for example, the whole point is to tell a story that winds up with a big nasty fiasco happening, and often, killing off the characters.

They are, generally, aiming for a one-shot play crowd - exploring a dynamic, rather than a setting.

And saying Diaspora is a setting for FATE is like saying T20 is a setting for D&D 3E - it shows a lack of general knowledge of both. Diaspora uses the Fate Engine, but tweaks it heavily. Plus, it really isn't a setting - it's 90% rules, and about 8% examples. It does include setting construction, but that's a VERY different thing from including a setting. CT-77 has as much or more setting in the core. The Sample Cluster is there as an example, not as a "play here" setting.

 

[Almuric]

P.S. I'm actually curious, not snarky, can anyone think of a decently successful game that has thrived or prospered without a relatively well supported campaign setting? I can't but I'm interested in there is an exception that proves the rule...

It's a tricky question, as any good RPG will lead to a desire to create and publish both adventures and campaign settings for it.

For many years HERO system lacked much in the way of a campaign setting (though adventures were published for it). FATE has spawned various campaign settings, but none are really "well supported" - the game's success is mostly as an engine for people to make up their own systems. GURPS is somewhat like that as well - SJ Games have produced multiple campaign settings, but with a few minor exceptions it generates most of its income from rules supplements and most of its GMs are "make your own setting" types

 

[Almuric]

That depends - is Traveller the OTU or is Traveller the game engine. Mongoose really tends to take the perspective that Traveller is the game engine. If you want to make the argument (as many people do) that Traveller is a great generic scifi game then it cannot be tied to an OTU because then it will be constrained by its OTU.

- I would certainly agree that game engine that Mongoose calls "Traveller" is an updated variant of the Classic Traveller rules, and that you can use it for many different settings both science fiction, historical, and even fantasy.

- I'd also argue that the primary appeal of Traveller is mostly not in these rules, which is why people - including Marc Miller - continue to tinker with them. (Although the life-path based character creation, general TL structure, jump drive spaceship mechanics, and simplified fast world/subsector design of Traveller are probably its core system elements, all of which have a lot of appeal.)

- What I believe is the primary appeal of Traveller are certain unifying "laws" of the Imperium based setting (jump drive mechanics, simplified subsector design, a certain set of technological/social assumptions) combined with the depth and nature of the Imperium background that makes it a good storytelling location

- These elements are the setting-wide institutions that provide the necessary structure and background (the Imperium, Nobility, megacorporations, Scouts, merchants, free traders, Marines, Navy, the main races) and very broad plots (Imperium vs. Zhodani/Solomani, Aslan/Vargr on the fringes, etc.). These are all painted with a broad enough brush to generate multiple scenarios, but on a large enough canvas to be flexible.

- At the same time the basic structure of the imperium, with individual worlds existing with a huge variety of tech levels and social types and the Imperium largely not interfering, allows every world to be "its own thing" to a great degree, giving referees a huge amount of ability to freely create stories within the large canon, drawing on elements from the external meta-background but free to discard them as need be in most cases.

- This is in many ways an ideal background and this is what Traveller means to me. However:

(A) I find some of the 1990s and later sourcebooks, while well meaning, attempting to add TOO MUCH detail to the setting at the macro large area level. Books should recognize the vastness of the imperium - rather than say "this is what the Imperial Marines ARE" they should say "this is would a particular division of the Imperium Marines is like" (for example). The Digest Group and GURPS books, while both excellent, are a bit guilty of this sort of over-specification. However, this is a minor issue and since Marc has not really declared this stuff canon, easily ignored anyway.

(B) As already stated, the over-specification of the Imperium's borders and the unfortunate decision of Atlas of the Imperium to try and map details of every subsector is a lot more serious and annoying. It does not really affect the individual referee in one sense - after all you can always declare what you like in your own universe - but if you wish to run something part of the core universe, it is, frankly, insanely stupid, as it makes the entire core canon game element of subsector generation rather pointless:

To whit:

(A) If most games are by default set in the Imperium

(B) And the Imperium is, by default, mapped out in Atlas of the Imperium and similar works that built on that, at the subsector level

then

(C) Why the Gehenna does the core books bother with subsector world placement and so on?

Well, okay, to make your own etc. etc. But the point is that making your own subsectors and so on WAS a key part of playing in the Imperium all through the 80s until they released that damn Atlas of the Imperium "mistake".

Now, this is of relatively minor import in some ways for the average referee who wishes to ignore all this stuff and keep rolling you own, but as a game designer who has written more than a half-dozen "official" Traveller books and dozens of magazine articles and adventures, this really bugs the heck out of me and is a huge headache.

Buggy rules issues aside, T5 would totally win me over if it opened up the Imperium map once again as it was in the 80s...