Originally posted by flykiller:
in summary, the divisions one sees in traveller are its assets....and new players like Stainless both show traveller still appeals and provide it with even more views as they build their new games.
Actually, when I started looking at Traveller again after all those years I was at first heartened that it was still here and people were still active with it (I was kind of surprised actually). I was then totally confused about what had happened in the 17-odd intervening years since I last ran a MT campaign. It took me a while to piece together the abbreviations and how the rules and OTU had evolved. I was then disapointed that the opportunity to evolve into a strong coherent system had been squandered. Instead of a single rules set and OTU, I found divisive rules, too many settings, inconsistencies, argument, etc. Far too confusing and far too much effort for a new player. Who wants to piece together all this info, study it, argue one against the other, etc.? I have a life. All I wanted was a good system and a good background to let me do some storytelling. Thus, I chose MT, the 3rd Imperium, and the Spinward Marches.
In short, for this 'new' player/GM, the diversity of Traveller material is a distinct turn-off. I groan inwardly at the thought of T5.
Now I'm sure some will say, "Well you don't need to consider all the rules/settings, just choose what you want." That's quite true, but I suppose it's a fault of human nature that one inevitably gets distracted by the other stuff, and it's simply a disapointment that all the creative effort that goes into adventures/supplements for different systems/versions of OTUs could have been directed to a unified whole. Basically, I would have had a much warmer fuzzier feeling about Traveller if it had been one monumental whole, and I greatly suspect many more new people would have been attracted as well.
Ramblings on 'old' systems versus 'new' systems
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I've been reading with interest the discussions that T5 has stimulated, and I started to reflect on MT and other things. Yes, the MT Task System is good, but I realised that even from day one (I bought and played CT way back when it was first released) I always used to give my players some 'free' dice rolls to help them with character generation. I often allowed them to *choose* the skills they wanted or that would better fit with the anticipated campaign. I almost always ignored rolling death during chargen (and always thought it was a totally ludicrous and pointless idea). Basically, I instinctively tried to make Traveller chargen into a points-buying type of system, before there were such systems. That's now what I see in current RPG systems and I now fully understand why they are done like that and are so successful. Maybe it's just me, but I don't really see chargen as part of the 'entertainment' factor of RPGs, and if it is, you can get pretty much the same experience from a points-buying system, and it's more likely to give you what you want in the end. Doesn't give you career background, you say? Well I use Mark-I Imagination(TM) for that.
I also read and tried to fully understand the star system generation and vehicle design rules, but after a few uses thought, "Why bother??" All the systems and startships I needed were already there in adventures, supplements &/or magazines. I could add this extra detail, but most likely it would add a few minutes of background to my players experience ("OK, OK, the number of moons is all very interesting, but now can we pleeeease get to the starport?"). I and my players want to *roleplay*, not take ages to design stuff that's then ignored or glossed over. I can anticipate protests that the detail can be very productively used directly in a game, but I can do that myself if I want to without the need for pages of rules.
In short, I've always either changed Traveller rules to my own tastes or ignored the vast majority of the rules since they don't really concern roleplaying to my mind.
This leads me back to T5. From what I've seen and heard about it, it looks like more of the same old stuff. Sorry, not interested. For me, my investment in RPG rules from now on will be put into GURPS. In the form of the 4th edition rules, it's far more extensible, is now unified, and is now consistently supported. As for the OTU, I think GURPS made a wise move by simply continuing the 3rd Imperium. Simple. There's more material for it and as a foundation it's a setting with more than enough for any type of scenario.
The bottom line *for me* is; I've grown up in the last 17 odd years, and what's important to me is STORY TELLING. Faffing about with what is the correct stellar class or what size power plant fits what sized hull ain't story telling. It's bean-counting. Leave it to the obsessive forum readers/posters
