Some Folks Were Looking Forward To It

[flykiller]

And so, it seems that Traveller needs a single unified rules set based on CT but updated, cleaned up and adapted to contain the best ideas from the past 30 years without becoming overcomplex.

is that what makes people take a game seriously?

does "single unified rules set" include a setting?

and "best ideas" are determined - how? by vote? copyright holder decree?

suppose you had a massive vote on various rule subsystems, and got a contiguous 50% of the existing market to accept a common body of rules. would that be enough? and for the setting too?

and if this were successful and everyone went "huzzah", would that attract new players?

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

Are these rhetorical questions?

As for the vote, it happened already. Check out the poll.

 

[Pickles]

Originally posted by MJD:
Sell enough exisitng players on this rules set, enforce a policy that all licensed products use it as well as whatever rules they are designed for, and there may be a chance to reunify the Traveller fan community somewhat -

It worked wonders for RuneQuest III, while it lasted. Provide a quality rules set and support it with good supplements and adventures, and the game keeps going. If there had been publishers continuing with RQII lines, I and many other grognards would never have made the switch and the already small community would have split into two. And now, with the availability of out-of-print material and lots of different publishers doing their own thing, nobody knows what RQ means anymore. Kind of like Traveller. CT, MT, TNE, T4, T20, T5 - it's all too much.

Warhammer FRP, Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer/Elric, on the other hand, have managed to remain as 'one game' despite numerous editions, because they carried their fanbase with them as the rules evolved.

 

[flykiller]

Are these rhetorical questions?

no. they seem basic to me, and I'm sure there are more that need to be asked.

As for the vote, it happened already. Check out the poll.

need a lot more questions than just that. and a lot more people participating.

 

[Merxiless]

Martin, right on target. Bingo.

That's how my whole group, and every current Traveller player I know feels.

We all expected MT to be the one true rules set, and it wasn't, and we've been seeking the grail ever since, mostly through house rules.

Very well said.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />As for the vote, it happened already. Check out the poll.

need a lot more questions than just that. and a lot more people participating. [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]Polls are meaningless on discussion boards anyway - you'd be lucky if 1% of the total membership voted on them.

There are many questions that any publisher worth his salt should be actively asking and finding answers to in a situation like this. It doesn't look like that is happening here though.

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Are these rhetorical questions?

no. they seem basic to me, and I'm sure there are more that need to be asked.

As for the vote, it happened already. Check out the poll.

need a lot more questions than just that. and a lot more people participating. </font>[/QUOTE]What questions did you find missing?

The participating number is not so small, considering how few people on rpg.net (and in general gamerdom) care for Traveller.

Do you think the result would be different if we did a poll on CotI? Why?

 

[flykiller]

What questions did you find missing?

where to begin ....

skills: light, medium, heavy? 0 level skills? characteristic mods? how much? equal weight or weighted?

chargen: continuous or mixed careers? random, choice, or mixed (and if mixed, how?)? referee fiat? schools? colleges? nobility in range or out of range of normal chargen? aging, how much and when? or start at the beginning of the game and acquire skills in-game like T20?

task system - base 3 or 4 or 5 or 6? characteristics divided by 3 or 4 or 5 for mod? skill or characteristic heavy?

combat: points or initiative? deadly or cinematic? levels and bab, or realistic, or striker? hit locations? called-shots? battledress or battlepods?

ship combat: small ship or big? wargame or pc level? missiles as fast as lasers? how many salvos from a missile bay? vector movement - if so, how do we play it on anything less than a basketball court? sensor rules - infinite cheap and all-knowing, or limited range and detection? time-based or one-shot? high guard or power projection or brilliant lances or mayday or tne?

I'm sure there are lots more.

don't know how many people would have to participate to get a valid poll. personally I'd say 200 minimum, but that may be more than we could get.

 

[Malenfant]

You know where the answer to those questions can be found?

Ask the people that want the game.

The market will tell a designer what it wants, and any designer that actually wants to make money after spending years on designing a game will do well to be influenced by the market.

Of course, the designer can also choose to completely ignore the market, and come up with something that has pretty much everyone scratching their heads and not buying the game. Maybe what's important to him is that he produces something he wants... but at the end of the day it's still not going to make him money.

 

[Merxiless]

Seems like back in the Day, everyone wanted AD&D.

Nobody told Marc to design Traveller, at least not as far as I am aware.

Following the market means catering overblown comic book art splat books of feats and prestige classes to the world of the Console gamer via open license D&D 3.5, who all feel that intellectual property is for other people to pay for, that want to "try before they buy" via BitTorrent.

Regardless of the fractured and aging Traveller fan base, etc, and everything else you imply all over the place here, T5 won't make him money because Roleplaying games as a whole are being crushed by .pdf scan filesharing services like Kazaa, and moving from book to non-scannable miniatures games like Clicks, and Warhammer.

I personally don't think he's in it for the money, any more. I think it's more of a "This is what I've done with my life." And he wants to finish it, his way, his vision. That's my guess.

Clamoring for him to make his vision marketable...What are you worried about? You already hate it, before it's been released...What do you care, seriously, if it fails?

What will you, personally, lose?

It won't make money anyway. Correct me if I am wrong, but the Majority of people that like Traveller prefer Classic, and they found it somewhere between age 10 and 20 about 25 years ago, plus or minus.

Game systems have evolved since then, and sure, It might be Absolutely Grand if Marc produces something to rival TSR's Alternity, on his own, or with some assistance, but the Magic Genie can only be captured a few times, and perhaps Classic Traveller was it.

The fact that Marc is still around, says something about his spirit. For real.

If I had designed CT, and had to go through all the ups, and downs of all the different editions, market changes, trying to save Traveller...

CCG's killing hobby stores, and all along the people running WOTC making lists of Wargames Companies they are gonna Drive Out of Business This Year, and laughing about it... (because, let's recall GDW was a War Game business, when it started)

I personally would have quit, long ago.

I won't lie, I admire what MWM has done. As a gamer, as a person. As we speak, he's helping new companies get launched. I've talked to people that he's helping, and they greatly appreciate his efforts to mentor them.

For sure, Gygax has his own problems, he got kicked to the curb, he got a raw deal in the Dangerous Journeys thing, and he's somehow still hanging on, but it's not like it was in 1979.

I'm frankly still surprised that Steve Jackson is still around. Ditto for HERO Games.

R. Talsorian, I always thought they'd survive,since they grabbed a niche and held on tight.

West End Games is now mainly WOTC, or scattered to the winds.

Last Unicorn, Gone. A SHAME. What might have the DUNE RPG Wrought in sci-fi Gaming?

FASA, gone. Or, okay, it's WhizKids, I guess. But they aren't the same. Not by a mile.

Yaquinto, gone.

Leading Edge, Gone.

FGU, Gone.

ICE, gone, but back, just a few year to late to have missed the LOTR movies.

Times are changing. Traveller, being vested in pretty much one guy...it's up to him to change CT to T5, if he wants it to. Or not.

I'm not holding my breath on seeing Grand Survey 2.0, either, but I keep hoping.

Some things never change, and some people, also.

*shrug*

 

[MJD]

'Unified rules' made no mention of setting.

as to taking a game seriously, what I mean is that a large segment of the gaming community only knows traveller as:

1. That old SF Game

or

2. That game with three dozen rules sets

Traveller is not accessible to outsiders. Several rules sets, several settings. To bring in outsiders we need one rules set and maybe one or two backgrounds with regular product coming out.

Traveller is notorious for companies putting out a few products and failing, even though it isn't really true - GT and even T4 did a LOT of books. GT seems to be winding down now buit it didn't fail.

But the mud is sticking.

Traveller can't afford this image if it is to appeal to outsiders.


I think, though, that the exisitng Traveller player is the place to start. Problem is, the fan base is so fragmented that it's hard to please enough of the fans to make decent sales, and many will just ignore a lot of products that come out.

Traveller IS a viable entity, but there are some serious problems that need fixing and I'm not convinced that T5 is the answer. What I've seen of T5 isn't accessible to new players and existing ones already have their houseruled CT or whatnot.

Take the basic CT system, clean it up and update it a bit. Add some of the better new ideas from later editions. THAT is the best chance you have to produce a baseline rules set that enough of the fan base will like to actually use.

Use that for all suplements alongside whatever licensed system is in place and you have complete compatibility.

It maybe isn't the best possible Traveller rules set, but it's the one with the best chance at success.

 

[Merxiless]

I think it's a generation gap.

In 1994, I was known to the 20-somethings as "That Guy who sits in the lobby of Oelman Hall, making planets and rolling up characters for that old game that nobody plays anymore." They all played D&D, about 8 or 9 groups. I played Traveller.

I had a Traveller sign I made up. Over time, people showed up. But we all thought CT was dead, as a system, pretty much.

I still game weekly with 2 of those guys, 13 years later.

Every Year at the Wright State University Wintercon from 1994 to 1999, I ran Three Linked, Classic Traveller Scenarios, back to back.

People came from Cinncinati, and Indianapolis to play in them, yearly, amazed that "Someone still runs Traveller...Happy to see me each year. It was like an 8 hour reunion. Preet darn cool.

I've played two sessions in Harold Hale's game.

I'm friends with a wonderful gent named John from his campaign.

But, now, lo and behold we have T20, and Gurps:T and Gurps:IW

Traveller is gritty, character can die from a shotgun. No saving rolls in CT. From what I've heard of T20, it's a wake up to D&D players, but in a good way.

I read some T20 posts with interest as to how it doesn't allow players to "Wade in to combat" a la D&D.

Sadly, I am one of those house-rules type guys.

But I'll buy T5 anyway. I like getting the little scout ship cards and b/w ads for it, when I buy from Marc on Ebay.

It's that nice little touch that says, "Hey, we printed this for you, Free. Thanks for being a customer."

*crosses fingers for T5's success*

 

[Klaus]

The many rulesets is of course a problem, but for me, it's the many settings that are the big issue.

It's not just having stuff set indifferent eras. It's having stuff scattered all across known space. In terms of setting, Traveller probably has more pages of almost useless number strings (UWP) than it does of real, proper, and useful information, like how crime syndicates organise or how new colonies are founded.

The OTU is a very dilute setting, and what with more or less the whole 3I now mapped there is hardly a place for a ref to make up their own stuff.

Of all the published sectors, the Spinward Marches is the most interesting. Really this should have been the only sector done to detail. 20 years of published material for the SM would have given us a rich and detailed setting giving a novice ref all he needed to play, out of the box, while leaving adjoining sectors to his/her own discretion when he/she felt up to design for themselves.

SJG seemed to recognise this. I hate the GURPS system but I've bought alot of their support books.

And Avenger are doing what should have been done from the start. Their District 268 material is exactly what I'm after.

I just recently lost all my Traveller pdf's, due to a hard drive malfunction, and stupidly had forgotten to back up. I had all the QLI products, all T4, and most of the Avenger stuff. That's all gone, now. I've got some MT stuff that somehow was backed up. To be honest, I'm only really interested in the Spinward Marches now, the rest being more of the same elsewhere, so I'll be going back to Avenger and repurchasing those SM pdf's.

I don't want a load of charts and tables to produce a setting, as is what T5 looks like. Random rolls a setting does not create. It takes imagination and intelligence to produce a good setting, so I'll take MJD over a pair of dice any day.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by MJD:
The best thing that could happen for Traveller is for there to be a single rules set blessed by Marc Miller and to which all licensed material must adhere.

I just made that very same statement a month ago (HERE) , so it's no surprise when I say you are 100% correct here.

If Marc is smart, what he'll do is some market research to see if there is a particular version of Traveller more popular than the rest. I'm guessing it's CT, but MT would definitely be a contender. I doubt it's T20 or GT or T4 or TNE...but the point is, MARC SHOULD FIND OUT.

Then, what he should do is write his new game with THAT market in mind.

That way, you'll be publishing stuff that the biggest part of your market will like.

And, you do as you say above: All licensees will publish to the new rules set to maintain their licenses.

BTW, when I made this point a month ago on that other thread, more people disagreed with me than agreed.

They think the fractionalized nature of Traveller's market has been good for the game.

I think it's been killing it.

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

Merxiless, it's not a generation issue. I just got the Moldvay edition of Basic/Expert D&D off ebay, so I know all about nostalgia. But here's the thing.

There's D&D 3E, which is largely but not exclusively for younger gamers.

But there's also Castles & Crusades, which is *based on* 3E, and which is entirely aimed at older gamers. And it's a great success. It gives you the feel and the simplicity of Basic D&D or AD&D before the skillz & powerz creep of the later 80s and the 90s.

As such, C&C is an example for how to update a first-generation game using third-generation design principles.

So...

Basic D&D : C&C as CT : X

...where X is what we need.

What we DO NOT need is a mildly updated, badly edited equivalent of AD&D 2E, written in the equivalent of Gygaxspeak.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by MJD:
[QB] 'Unified rules' made no mention of setting.

as to taking a game seriously, what I mean is that a large segment of the gaming community only knows traveller as:

1. That old SF Game

or

2. That game with three dozen rules sets

or

3. "That game where you can die in character generation? *laugh*"

I hear that one a lot. Despite the fact that you can't die in chargen anymore, and couldn't in GURPS Traveller - that's probably the biggest baggage right there... 30 years on and it still hasn't shaken that issue.


Merx - When I said "ask the market" I meant primarily "ask the TRAVELLER market". When Marc created the game there wasn't much else in the way of scifi RPGs, so he could kick off the niche in his own way, and it proved popular.

You may admire Marc's "tenacity", but times have changed and he doesn't seem to have noticed. Sometimes having the same guy at the creative helm all the time just mires a product in stagnation, especially if he's just bimbling along in his own way, completely oblivious to what his actual core market want to see.

Sitting around saying "oh, it's all Marc's decision" and just letting him do whatever he wants doesn't achieve anything. There's a lot of people who think he's going down the wrong path here with T5, and a lot of evidence to show that very few people are even interested in what he's producing (and also to show that he's not even listening to people on his T5 playtest). Marc's never even shown any interest in CotI at all or in listening to what anyone has to say here, and this is where most of the Traveller fans are. It's like he's done no market research whatsoever.

So yeah, it may be all his decision in the end but don't you think that he should at least listen to the concerns of people who have invested a lot of time and energy into his game before he rewrites it into something they don't want to see?

EDIT: ...which is basically what Supplement Four just said.

 

[Merxiless]

People who want something different from what Marc Miller did with Traveller and what he is doing now and in future are more than free to write their own science fiction roleplaying game, to suit their own specific tastes.

I got a lot out of the people that said, Take T4 Chargen, insert QSDS, and MT Skills resolution, and similar things.

Solutions, not just "Marc Miller is lost."

Please, why don't we each write our own T5 as our own house rules and play, and Be Happy.

I mean, that's generally my plan, in any case.

But others, not satisfied with Traveller, or wanting to do their own thing produced:

SPI Universe
GURPS Space
Star Hero
Spacemaster
Star Aces
Blue Planet
D6 Space
High Colonies

..and many more.

I like Traveller, T4. My own house rules have many elements of other games from the above list not by GDW in it.

I want to see Malenfant Publishing's effort, because it's been explained at length that Marc isn't going in a direction that a lot of people seem to want.

I wish Malenfant, and his design team all the luck in the world.

In the meantime, I've got my house rules that work for me, and my small group, and I don't feel the need to change them.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Merxiless:
In the meantime, I've got my house rules that work for me, and my small group, and I don't feel the need to change them. [/QB]

So you won't be buying T5 then?

 

[Merxiless]

I'll be buying it, certainly.

I have faith.

I'll also be buying many other games.

This week, I picked up:

GURPS Ice Age for 10.00 water damaged, via ebay.

TSR 2nd Edition Legends and Lore, because some of my players want me to run Birthright again, and all I have are the TSR Core Rules 2.0 on CD-ROM.

A brand new copy of Gary Gygax's Cosmos Builder, and Insidae.

An old copy of Columbia Games' Harn.

I traded a complete set of Imperium Games T4, and a "Dragonbone" Electronic die roller to someone for a mint copy of Grand Census, and some old FASA Deckplans.

I collect games, I play them. I trade them, Make your point.

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

Uhm, before he makes his point, can I ask what yours is, again?

You buy, you sell, you play.

So...?