Give me a break.
Is the pope Catholic?
Does a bear *BLANK* in the woods?
Come on.
Is the pope Catholic?
Does a bear *BLANK* in the woods?
Come on.
Should DGP articles stay canon? Would you buy DGP Cdrom?
- Thread starter savage
- Start date
Try my comments here:
http://members.tip.net.au/~davidjw/libdata/indexes/refmt_ix.htm#Aliens Books
BTW, my vote is that the DGP stuff is some of the best Traveller stuff ever, and I would buy a CD-ROM in a heartbeat.
I'm currently running CotI's own "Duke Craig", "Spaceresearcher", my old mate Gnoll, and one of my sons through DGP's Grand Tour. We've only reached Wal-ta-ka so far (ep 2), which doesn't sound like a long way. However, I did cheat and detour them through "The Possession Ball" from Digest #19, plus another side adventure involving striking sewer/recycling workers in a floating city on Vincennes (that I stole from an old s-f short story).
Sadly, I don't have paper copies of Digest #1 & #2, only the reprint of #1 to #4, so there's some stuff missing. Encounter tables for Jode, for example. Still, it's been really fun so far. And I'm looking forward to all those doggies in #3...
There's one other thing that could be thrown into the mix, and that's Loren's comments 'way back in JTAS #22's Editorial:
(WISEMAN, Loren K., "Editorial", JTAS #22, GDW , 1985, p3)
Marc, of course, trumps everything.
To fully understand Mr. Solomon's comments about "no movie interest in Traveller, so no license rights for DGP", it was in the context that nothing DGP brought to the table improved the chances for a Traveller movie.
In other words, if any potential licensee didn't somehow enhance the chance of a Traveller movie, all they would ever be was "potential".
And I view Courtney Solomon as Uwe Boll's brother from a different mother when it comes to movie franchises. Free Dungeon Siege!
In other words, if any potential licensee didn't somehow enhance the chance of a Traveller movie, all they would ever be was "potential".
And I view Courtney Solomon as Uwe Boll's brother from a different mother when it comes to movie franchises. Free Dungeon Siege!
Movies is my forte', so let me don my would-be producer's cap to give the low down.
Traveller is a niche of a niche of a niche audience, and has a lot of property development potential, but doesn't have a market base big enough to risk significant capitol into a project. At least not from the lay producer's standpoint.
Even an indy might entertain it, or, if gutsy enough, maybe try to make a 20 minute trailer / teaser to wet the appetite of would be investors, but it had better be pretty compelling. Otherwise they're going to look at the past history of games translated to the big and small screen format.
The two D&D movies didn't do so great, "Kingdom of Badassdom" I think did okay, the D&D morning cartoon show was popular for the target audience (kids), and the D&D-ish Tolkien films, though not based on games but formed the basis for the fantasy game genre, did exceptionally well. There's a few others I can't think of right now...Mortal Kombat, Mario Brothers, "Clue" from the 80s.
All those films were aimed mostly at kids, or kids at heart, and I think recouped their losses, but were big risks, and didn't warrant sequels because of the risk. Traveller has a built in fan base, but it is minuscule compared to the fantasy game base, and the overall gaming schemes of things, in spite of its stalworthyness over the years.
Films are driven by emotional stories that revolve around a plot. Traveller and other RPGs are all about plot. The dramas that comes out of them are generated by the players. Ergo there's some retrofitting that goes on when translating something like a comic book or novel (or in our case, an RPG) to the big screen. You need to come up with characters that the audience will like and identify with as they go through the motions and turmoil of the story.
It's easy and hard all at once. Easy in that you can easily go the Central Casting 101 route, by sticking in the big burly strong character, the cutesy girl and/or kid character, the handsome hero, and then the brainiac who knows everything, and let the chips fly where they may. That lends to a boring formulaic story, but it's one that producers can contend with, see how the box office and ancillary takes are, then decide whether or not to go from there with another project. And remember, this is all just to get one project off the ground.
This is to say nothing of an actual feature film or TV series.
The other route is the "George Lucas" route, where he and a few other scholars ferreted and disected the common psychological threads in various cultures, distilled them to some basic common themes and formulas, and, instead of casting the stereotypes, used the "new stereotypes" in terms of story and themes that they discovered, and put in another set of Central Casting characters; i.e. Carrie Fisher's comment on "They took a Princess, a Pirate, and a Farmboy, and put them all into one film...", with some homages to WW2 films and swashbuckling.
Traveller doesn't have much of any of that because it's mostly set dressing for stories that the referee tells "his audience"; i.e. players. But, a good creative team could derive good characters from Traveller milieu, and "generate characters" (so to speak) for a unique dramatic situation to be presented on a Traveller stage to a mainstream audience.
So, to break it down; sell the project. Either sell the merits of the game, or come up with a pretty compelling script, and present it to a producer. The game angle will fall flat on its face unless backed up by a good script. But a good script can be set in any setting, therefore it's better to pitch the script and express the setting as an after thought, or present it as an organic construct out of the script; i.e. "I came up with this story, but it really works well in this setting..." kind of thing.
I actually wrote a couple of "Traveller" scripts, and posted them up on Francis Ford Coppola's website for critiques (sorry to all parties concerned). The response was positive, but I kept the Traveller aspect as very general sci-fi territory, without bringing up the game. Now, if I had brought up the game, and then said something like "Okay, here's a script based off of it..." I don' think I would have gotten very good critiques.
Disney, as another example, knows the ins and outs of translating games to movies and back again. They don't do RPGs or FPSes, but that doesn't limit their creative game design team (I think mostly Japanese, from what I recall) from borrowing from the Mickey Mouse films to generate incredible games for various platforms. But here people are familiar with the characters, and it's the characters and personalities that people are interested in, with the backgrounds as an interesting (and sometimes compelling) after thought.
If Traveller opens up a little on the adventure front, and garnishes a D&D sized following from the sci-fi community, then I think there will (or could) be some serious interest from mainstream producers to create a visual piece based on the game. Otherwise it's a non-starter for the reasons I mentioned, but not impossible if a good case is made for developing a story concept, or series of concepts, that would work well with the Traveller property.
In short, Traveller is just not that big. And I think a lot of the "homages" and other blatant rip-offs of the game system that you see in the computer gaming industry are generic takes on the game with a new and unique twist to aim for a more mainstream audience. Traveller bends towards hard science, minus the aliens and the few handwaves expressed in the rules. Therefore its potential audience is limited to maybe 1000 X the number of members on this board, and that's only potential ticket sales a viewers, that's not box office take, nor bonafide ratings.
So;
Script
Game property
Let the chips fall where they may.
Then, once you get the greenlight, you then have to decide what will work, and what wont. I.E. does shooting the interior of a Type-S set, one with no windows and a very confined a linear space, make for good shot design and story telling, or will the design need to be reworked to make it more visually appealing. That's where stuff will get mucked up a bit, and intentionally so. Then there will be modifications to the Traveller universe to make things work in the script and so forth. Then, once you get that done, you have cast and shoot the thing. Shot design, costumes, locations, makeup for actors and prosthetics or rubber suits for aliens, CGI and/or model shots, music...the list goes on. Then you edit the thing, loop it with the addition of SFX, screen it to the crew, your mom, friends, get their feedback, then go back and tweak it. Then shuffle off a copy to the network that purchased your project, and cross your fingers ... or go on a vacation to Hawaii or Tahoe or some place, and stick your fingers in your ears until the reviews hit the papers.
Does this help any?
Traveller is a niche of a niche of a niche audience, and has a lot of property development potential, but doesn't have a market base big enough to risk significant capitol into a project. At least not from the lay producer's standpoint.
Even an indy might entertain it, or, if gutsy enough, maybe try to make a 20 minute trailer / teaser to wet the appetite of would be investors, but it had better be pretty compelling. Otherwise they're going to look at the past history of games translated to the big and small screen format.
The two D&D movies didn't do so great, "Kingdom of Badassdom" I think did okay, the D&D morning cartoon show was popular for the target audience (kids), and the D&D-ish Tolkien films, though not based on games but formed the basis for the fantasy game genre, did exceptionally well. There's a few others I can't think of right now...Mortal Kombat, Mario Brothers, "Clue" from the 80s.
All those films were aimed mostly at kids, or kids at heart, and I think recouped their losses, but were big risks, and didn't warrant sequels because of the risk. Traveller has a built in fan base, but it is minuscule compared to the fantasy game base, and the overall gaming schemes of things, in spite of its stalworthyness over the years.
Films are driven by emotional stories that revolve around a plot. Traveller and other RPGs are all about plot. The dramas that comes out of them are generated by the players. Ergo there's some retrofitting that goes on when translating something like a comic book or novel (or in our case, an RPG) to the big screen. You need to come up with characters that the audience will like and identify with as they go through the motions and turmoil of the story.
It's easy and hard all at once. Easy in that you can easily go the Central Casting 101 route, by sticking in the big burly strong character, the cutesy girl and/or kid character, the handsome hero, and then the brainiac who knows everything, and let the chips fly where they may. That lends to a boring formulaic story, but it's one that producers can contend with, see how the box office and ancillary takes are, then decide whether or not to go from there with another project. And remember, this is all just to get one project off the ground.
This is to say nothing of an actual feature film or TV series.
The other route is the "George Lucas" route, where he and a few other scholars ferreted and disected the common psychological threads in various cultures, distilled them to some basic common themes and formulas, and, instead of casting the stereotypes, used the "new stereotypes" in terms of story and themes that they discovered, and put in another set of Central Casting characters; i.e. Carrie Fisher's comment on "They took a Princess, a Pirate, and a Farmboy, and put them all into one film...", with some homages to WW2 films and swashbuckling.
Traveller doesn't have much of any of that because it's mostly set dressing for stories that the referee tells "his audience"; i.e. players. But, a good creative team could derive good characters from Traveller milieu, and "generate characters" (so to speak) for a unique dramatic situation to be presented on a Traveller stage to a mainstream audience.
So, to break it down; sell the project. Either sell the merits of the game, or come up with a pretty compelling script, and present it to a producer. The game angle will fall flat on its face unless backed up by a good script. But a good script can be set in any setting, therefore it's better to pitch the script and express the setting as an after thought, or present it as an organic construct out of the script; i.e. "I came up with this story, but it really works well in this setting..." kind of thing.
I actually wrote a couple of "Traveller" scripts, and posted them up on Francis Ford Coppola's website for critiques (sorry to all parties concerned). The response was positive, but I kept the Traveller aspect as very general sci-fi territory, without bringing up the game. Now, if I had brought up the game, and then said something like "Okay, here's a script based off of it..." I don' think I would have gotten very good critiques.
Disney, as another example, knows the ins and outs of translating games to movies and back again. They don't do RPGs or FPSes, but that doesn't limit their creative game design team (I think mostly Japanese, from what I recall) from borrowing from the Mickey Mouse films to generate incredible games for various platforms. But here people are familiar with the characters, and it's the characters and personalities that people are interested in, with the backgrounds as an interesting (and sometimes compelling) after thought.
If Traveller opens up a little on the adventure front, and garnishes a D&D sized following from the sci-fi community, then I think there will (or could) be some serious interest from mainstream producers to create a visual piece based on the game. Otherwise it's a non-starter for the reasons I mentioned, but not impossible if a good case is made for developing a story concept, or series of concepts, that would work well with the Traveller property.
In short, Traveller is just not that big. And I think a lot of the "homages" and other blatant rip-offs of the game system that you see in the computer gaming industry are generic takes on the game with a new and unique twist to aim for a more mainstream audience. Traveller bends towards hard science, minus the aliens and the few handwaves expressed in the rules. Therefore its potential audience is limited to maybe 1000 X the number of members on this board, and that's only potential ticket sales a viewers, that's not box office take, nor bonafide ratings.
So;
Script
Game property
Let the chips fall where they may.
Then, once you get the greenlight, you then have to decide what will work, and what wont. I.E. does shooting the interior of a Type-S set, one with no windows and a very confined a linear space, make for good shot design and story telling, or will the design need to be reworked to make it more visually appealing. That's where stuff will get mucked up a bit, and intentionally so. Then there will be modifications to the Traveller universe to make things work in the script and so forth. Then, once you get that done, you have cast and shoot the thing. Shot design, costumes, locations, makeup for actors and prosthetics or rubber suits for aliens, CGI and/or model shots, music...the list goes on. Then you edit the thing, loop it with the addition of SFX, screen it to the crew, your mom, friends, get their feedback, then go back and tweak it. Then shuffle off a copy to the network that purchased your project, and cross your fingers ... or go on a vacation to Hawaii or Tahoe or some place, and stick your fingers in your ears until the reviews hit the papers.
Does this help any?
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
I wouldn't sell it as a movie of a game, like the D&D movies. I'd sell it as a science fiction movie. The fact that it originated in a game would be secondary and not be part of the pitch at all.
Write a good science fiction movie, based on Traveller, just don't sell it as "based on Traveller". Sell it as if it were an original script.
Drakon
SOC-14 1K
What he said. That is the only way it will work. As a franchise, Traveller has too small a fan base to support a "Traveller Movie" as such. But a good sci fi movie, that just happens to take place in the 3rd Imperium will work.
Well...take an extreme example. Say "Die Hard" for example. Strip away the 1980s LA setting, throw some arcology megastructures, air rafts, ACRs instead of MP5s and M16s, and you got a Traveller movie.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
A true Traveller movie wouldn't be generic scifi. You'd have to include those things that are very distinctive about Traveller.
If I were writing a Traveller movie, I'd set it in the most well known sector, the Spinward Marches, just before the Zho's invade.
I'd feature a crew and a standard tramp freighter christened Beowulf as they try to stay legit but dip into extra-legal activity in order to make the ship's payment. The poster would show the ship, damaged and lost in space, alone, with the words below the movie's title, "This is the Beowulf calling. Mayday, mayday."
The space combat scenes would be tense, dramatic fair similar to the old WWII submarine movies, featuring missiles instead of torpedoes. This movie would have something no other film has featured: sandcasters.
The aliens in the film would be truly alien--not just humans in a funny suit. I might involve the first film with something about the Ancients, but I'd definitely have Zho spies and a pre-war feel to it all.
If the film is successful, the sequel would go a step farther into a full-out conflict, highlighting the communication problems in an interstellar conflict. I'd show the Imperial Marines and other forces at work on a planetary invasion, from oribit to ground (complete with forward observers and ortillery).
The first film would be called, simply, Traveller.
The second film would be called, Traveller: The Fifth Frontier War.
And, if we're lucky enough to get a third film, it might be called, Traveller: The Secret of the Ancients.
If I were writing a Traveller movie, I'd set it in the most well known sector, the Spinward Marches, just before the Zho's invade.
I'd feature a crew and a standard tramp freighter christened Beowulf as they try to stay legit but dip into extra-legal activity in order to make the ship's payment. The poster would show the ship, damaged and lost in space, alone, with the words below the movie's title, "This is the Beowulf calling. Mayday, mayday."
The space combat scenes would be tense, dramatic fair similar to the old WWII submarine movies, featuring missiles instead of torpedoes. This movie would have something no other film has featured: sandcasters.
The aliens in the film would be truly alien--not just humans in a funny suit. I might involve the first film with something about the Ancients, but I'd definitely have Zho spies and a pre-war feel to it all.
If the film is successful, the sequel would go a step farther into a full-out conflict, highlighting the communication problems in an interstellar conflict. I'd show the Imperial Marines and other forces at work on a planetary invasion, from oribit to ground (complete with forward observers and ortillery).
The first film would be called, simply, Traveller.
The second film would be called, Traveller: The Fifth Frontier War.
And, if we're lucky enough to get a third film, it might be called, Traveller: The Secret of the Ancients.
I (and another guy) once got a Traveller animated movie pitch in front of the development board at an interested studio. Thereby hanges a tale, and obviously it didn't get made, but we got that far.
Marc's input was fairly small, but important. He said:
No Cute Robots
Pretty much anything else was okay, but not that.
And rightly so....!
Marc's input was fairly small, but important. He said:
No Cute Robots
Pretty much anything else was okay, but not that.
And rightly so....!
Nice dream, but I'd hope for none of these. I think the story lines are too well known. There are so many things it could be based on.
Vaguely back on topic:
A copy of Travellers Digest #1 just sold for USD$256 on eBay. (I'm neither the buyer nor seller.) Make of that what you will.
A copy of Travellers Digest #1 just sold for USD$256 on eBay. (I'm neither the buyer nor seller.) Make of that what you will.
I was watching that auction hover at $7.50 for a while thinking, "I can come off $25 for that"; needless to say when it jumped to $100.01 I was a sad camper. I am only missing Digest #1 and #2.
While I would prefer to have the print versions I would gladly go for .pdf just to have the information they have.
While I would prefer to have the print versions I would gladly go for .pdf just to have the information they have.
To me this makes no sense. JTAS, unlike a comic, doesn't have dazzling art in it (not mostly anyway), nor have a portion of a story arc with well known characters, and is only valuable in terms of rule content to players of the game, or hobbyists. Ergo, even from a market standpoint, it makes no sense that it would shoot up that high, nor that anyone would even dish out that kind of cash.
But, well, there you have it. Shows you what I know.
If you play the issues with the provided characters, which are the same through the run... The grand tour runs through most of the run. And makes the PC's within the third tier of Traveller character familiarity - Tier 1 are the Alkhalikoi Dynasty and it's cadets (Strephon, Iolanthe, Norris, Lucan, Varian, Margaret); tier 2 are the rest of the Tukeras, Marc Haut-Oberlindes, and Gvoudzon, the PC's and NPC party members of The Traveller Adventure.
I feel compelled to mention that we're not talking JTAS here, but TD.
Amazon had a copy of Vilani and Vargr "available" for $300. I just can't see paying that kind of money ever for an RPG.
Yes Traveller's Digest, but I did not want to be specific. Without a detailed review there could be another product that was not reprinted in completion.