T
The Shaman
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You're right. Feeding a troll only encourages him.
Some Folks Were Looking Forward To It
- Thread starter Jeffr0
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This reminds me of the much used (mis)quote of the statistician George Box in 1987:
"Essentially all models are wrong, but some can be useful."
One thing I really like about RPGs is that they are in many ways just mathematical modelling; granted the parameters, probabilities and random number generating is rather basic. But I digress...
Perhaps there's something we can all agree on, no RPG is a perfect model. All are wrong in one way or another. What a lot of the argument is in fact about is, which RPG is *most* useful for <insert your particular purpose here>? The problem is, everyone has a different purpose that they use to guage the usefulness of their particular model (RPG system/background). This makes for great party-conversation material, and I wish I had beer & popcorn while reading these posts, but it's never going to 'solve' anything.
So I ask, what's there to solve? What exactly is the problem?
For *me*, the problems have been, i) an embarrasement of 'riches' in so many systems and backgrounds, ii) not as much material relevant to the system/background I was FORCED to choose (due to i) above), and iii) poor quality control of the product (usually expressing itself as errata).
If Traveller had been unified, the only embarrasement of riches would be in what adventure or supplement to purchase from the entire range on offer (solving points i) and ii)). If Traveller had been more professionaly produced, there would have been limited or even no errata (plus some more ergonomic layout) (solving point iii)).
I can't help thinking that would have meant more people interested, so more profits for the likes of MJD, so more material on offer, so more people,...
Look at GURPS. One set of rules progressively REFINED, not DIVIDED. Very nicely produced. Large and constantly supported material. The net result has been a very profitable line for Steve Jackson Games, and a fairly coherent and somewhat self-contained community of fans. Compare this to the FFE web pages, and everyone should understand the sense of foreboding about what T5 will be.
"Essentially all models are wrong, but some can be useful."
One thing I really like about RPGs is that they are in many ways just mathematical modelling; granted the parameters, probabilities and random number generating is rather basic. But I digress...
Perhaps there's something we can all agree on, no RPG is a perfect model. All are wrong in one way or another. What a lot of the argument is in fact about is, which RPG is *most* useful for <insert your particular purpose here>? The problem is, everyone has a different purpose that they use to guage the usefulness of their particular model (RPG system/background). This makes for great party-conversation material, and I wish I had beer & popcorn while reading these posts, but it's never going to 'solve' anything.
So I ask, what's there to solve? What exactly is the problem?
For *me*, the problems have been, i) an embarrasement of 'riches' in so many systems and backgrounds, ii) not as much material relevant to the system/background I was FORCED to choose (due to i) above), and iii) poor quality control of the product (usually expressing itself as errata).
If Traveller had been unified, the only embarrasement of riches would be in what adventure or supplement to purchase from the entire range on offer (solving points i) and ii)). If Traveller had been more professionaly produced, there would have been limited or even no errata (plus some more ergonomic layout) (solving point iii)).
I can't help thinking that would have meant more people interested, so more profits for the likes of MJD, so more material on offer, so more people,...
Look at GURPS. One set of rules progressively REFINED, not DIVIDED. Very nicely produced. Large and constantly supported material. The net result has been a very profitable line for Steve Jackson Games, and a fairly coherent and somewhat self-contained community of fans. Compare this to the FFE web pages, and everyone should understand the sense of foreboding about what T5 will be.
R
Roger Calver
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You're right. Feeding a troll only encourages him.
</font>[/QUOTE]Also keeps the mods away from you with their big sticks 
The problem with diversity is that Traveller fandom is already small. The game has little appeal outside our community (partly, I'm told, because there are so many versions). And any given product is ignored by a large segment of the fans becuase it's the 'wrong sort'.
That's the problem - it's viable at present to bring out new products, but that may not always be the case. What I'm saying is that the internal divisions reduce the market for any given product, tending towards a situation where it's just not viable to do any more.....
That's the problem - it's viable at present to bring out new products, but that may not always be the case. What I'm saying is that the internal divisions reduce the market for any given product, tending towards a situation where it's just not viable to do any more.....
Rhialto the Marvelous
SOC-13
Last time I saw market shares mentioned (I've lost the link, but I think Ken Hite was talking about it) I thought it was more that the Top 5 (WotC, WW, Palladium, and I think Mongoose and SJG?) accounted for about 90% of the market, and everyone else was the other 10%. </font>[/QUOTE]I read that too, and it boils down to pretty much the same thing: Wizards 50, WW 25, Palladium &c. 15, Rest 10. What's shocking to me is how marginal Gurps has become, and how d20 didn't take over the world after all (ok, "shocked" is not the word I'm looking for).
Re. the N/WoD reboot, there's some applicability here, but it's limited. The WoD was always more about the metaplot than about the rules. And so far as I know (not being a WoD player), people were always basically fine with it, so the challenge was simply to come up with a new one that would find an equally broad consensus.
Our fine selves, otoh, are at least at face value a pretty fractured lot. We're not arguing about the metaplot (i.e., history of the Imperium)--because a) we don't care, b) we're way too busy arguing about whether and to what extent Traveller is a setting, and of course about the rules.
Thing is, though, if one looks closely at the discussions, there's a certain consensus here too as to what the TU *basically* is (i.e., an open setting, a single scifi Greyhawk, and not, as I suggested might happen, a set of separately published TUs); and what the rules *basically* should look like (CT/MT hybrid), etc.
I'll predict this: If T5 meets those two requirements AND if it is well-written and well-tested, then people (including me and possibly, gasp, you!) will respond to it much more positively than we sometimes think.
And if not, not.
Rhialto the Marvelous
SOC-13
Near death? When? How did he explain it?Originally posted by Jeffr0:
You sound just like Andrew Hackard when he was explaining the near-death of GT.
Rhialto the Marvelous
SOC-13
OK, just as a PS:
Martin, I think the only major faultline is between the CT/MT fans (the vast majority) and the TNE/T4 fans.
I don't want T4 task resolution, and I don't want a strong metaplot, but everything else is tolerable, i.e. house-ruleable.
Martin, I think the only major faultline is between the CT/MT fans (the vast majority) and the TNE/T4 fans.
I don't want T4 task resolution, and I don't want a strong metaplot, but everything else is tolerable, i.e. house-ruleable.
then you know how much work it is to run traveller. I spent years getting ready to play, and when I started, I found I wasn't ready at all. deckplans, cities, starports, npc's by the hundreds. ports, submarines, agriculture, transportation systems. are imperial marines always in battle dress or are they more like cops? and how are the cops armed anyway? robots, nobility (who are these people?), law levels. try to run a game, you make up half of it as you go and hope it all fits later on. do you go with book 4's description of a sparse imperial naval presence, or by TCS budget numbers that can put 10 battleships in each and every system? near-C rocks, yes or no, and why. piracy, yes or no, and how. cinematic or realistic. heroic or gritty.
I'm sure from the developer side the various game systems look nice and complete, but from the referee's side the game settings are all pretty sparse. by the time you make all these decisions and fill them in and make a game - you're on your own.
and so people who decide to do all this, do go out on their own. they put out the effort, they justify their decisions in their own minds, and they make it work. they fit it all into what works for them.
thus, the divisions are inevitable. they are normal. they are part of the game. they are the way it works.
they are why it works.
R
Roger Calver
Guest
But thats just how RPG's work, you take a game and then as you play it evolves. The issue is not what the gamers do to the game but what the game does for the gamer and with all of the various versions of Traveller around all its doing is splinting us up into factions, we need a rule system that everyone can use and enjoy and a new version of CT is it but with the problems sorted out.
Near death? When? How did he explain it? </font>[/QUOTE]This was back when we found out GT for 3e was basically over and the only printed book in the near future would be GT:IW.Originally posted by Rhialto the Marvelous:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Jeffr0:
You sound just like Andrew Hackard when he was explaining the near-death of GT.
He said basically the same sort of thing MJD said, but Andrew not being a fan of Traveller made it sting a bit at the time.
Actually... we now know that the shortcomings of the Traveller community had a direct impact on the design of 4e GURPS: the core system was shifted away from a "hard"/realistic/wargame-ish/gearhead focus and more towards being a foundation for GURPS Powers. (I can document that last bit if you're interested.)
M
Malenfant
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I'm not even sure it is viable at present to bring out new systems at all, given all this variety and division.
Instead of taking this prime opportunity to pull everything together and give the fanbase what it wants, Marc's producing something that is totally different and that very few people want at all. It's just utterly baffling as to why anyone would do this given the history of the game (in which every kind of event and decision that could fracture the community further seems to have actually happened), since it's quite clearly only going to cause even more division - particularly while all the other versions of the game are still available too. And as Martin said, all of this is just making it harder and harder for people to produce viable new material.
This is why I keep espousing a total reboot of the setting. Sweep aside everything that came before, and start anew with a system that most people will agree on (i.e. a tarted up, refined CT/MT hybrid) and a setting that everyone wants to play in (which in most cases is Known Space around 1100-ish).
Marc should be taking this golden opportunity to fill in the holes, remove the inconsistencies, patch the flaws, and make everything nice and shiny and presentable to today's market, because I doubt that the chance to do this will ever happen again. But that's not what he's doing.
Instead of taking this prime opportunity to pull everything together and give the fanbase what it wants, Marc's producing something that is totally different and that very few people want at all. It's just utterly baffling as to why anyone would do this given the history of the game (in which every kind of event and decision that could fracture the community further seems to have actually happened), since it's quite clearly only going to cause even more division - particularly while all the other versions of the game are still available too. And as Martin said, all of this is just making it harder and harder for people to produce viable new material.
This is why I keep espousing a total reboot of the setting. Sweep aside everything that came before, and start anew with a system that most people will agree on (i.e. a tarted up, refined CT/MT hybrid) and a setting that everyone wants to play in (which in most cases is Known Space around 1100-ish).
Marc should be taking this golden opportunity to fill in the holes, remove the inconsistencies, patch the flaws, and make everything nice and shiny and presentable to today's market, because I doubt that the chance to do this will ever happen again. But that's not what he's doing.
M
Malenfant
Guest
Please do, I'd be interested to hear more about this. (it also might explain why G4e has (to me at least) become largely indistiguishable from HERO system).
M
Malenfant
Guest
I don't think this is said enough, but a lot of kudos is due to Martin for having his head screwed on properly when it comes to this market. He knows what people want - they want more adventures that can run in the CT/T20 time period (which is largely indistinguishable anyway), and more supplemental material that people can put in those adventures. He's takes his business seriously and he's giving people what they want to see, which means Avenger is doing pretty well as a result.
SJG did the same thing - they recognised who their market was, and aimed squarely at that, and were successful as a result.
I really wish I could say the same about what Marc is doing with T5, but I can't.
Rhialto the Marvelous
SOC-13
Near death? When? How did he explain it? </font>[/QUOTE]This was back when we found out GT for 3e was basically over and the only printed book in the near future would be GT:IW.Originally posted by Jeffr0:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Rhialto the Marvelous:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Jeffr0:
[qb]
You sound just like Andrew Hackard when he was explaining the near-death of GT.
He said basically the same sort of thing MJD said, but Andrew not being a fan of Traveller made it sting a bit at the time.</font>[/QUOTE]Here's the thing, though--it seems to me GT's ailing is a function of GURPS-in-general's ailing. Look at their production schedule: 2 books a year (plus pdfs, I know: in other words, books that won't sell enough for a print run).
Nowadays, SJG is--not quite, but almost--Munchkin plus X. Which, again, doesn't make them a special case. So many middle-tier publishers have stopped their RPG lines altogether, or nearly so, or they simply went out of business (Atlas, Fantasy Flight, DP9, Holistic, AEG...).
M
Malenfant
Guest
Munchkin is what's making SJG money though. IIRC on the last 'stockholder report' that SJ wrote, he said that Munchkin products alone were over 50% of SJG's entire sales... so of course they're going to go with what's making them money.
It's sad that GURPS has dropped by the wayside, but then SJG was notoriously bad for missing its publishing schedules anyway - maybe by publishing less they can stay on the curve
But I do recall people like Jon Zeigler and Andrew saying that the thing with GT 3I was that it had pretty much naturally reached the end of its run anyway. Pretty much everything that anyone wanted for it was out by the end, the only thing remaining for it really were more sector books. So I would say it had a pretty good run and reached the end of its natural life.
Rhialto the Marvelous
SOC-13
On reflection, yes, that's true about GT.
An RPG that's... COMPLETE.
The horror!
Fortunately, it doesn't happen very often. Because what would there be left to argue about?
An RPG that's... COMPLETE.
The horror!
Fortunately, it doesn't happen very often. Because what would there be left to argue about?
do you think everyone will agree to enjoy one system? do you think even new incoming players will mostly agree to enjoy one system?
does their agreement matter? should it just be imposed?
not everyone agrees on what the problems are or what the fixes, if any, should be. and while CT has its advantages, it also (like any other system) has its disadvantages that may or may not be important to some people new and old.
if its the arguments themselves that cause problems then having multiple systems and settings creates the fewest arguments - people who disagree simply go play. if there is to be only one system and setting and people face losing what little official game support they have, I think you'd hear quite a howl - and the sound of many people just walking silently away. and the new players you'd hope to attract would not be presented with a traveller that was any easier to learn or play.
or would it be? I don't actually know.
Flykiller, you say the divisions are inevitable and good. Okay. I can see your point, so a point.
But.
Producing material for Traveller suffers from a serious problem. Y'see, the market is limited to start with.
So I do a CT/Marches/1110 adventure.
So the TNE, GT and T20 crowd ignore it. And some of the MT people too. And some of the CT people because they're playing in an alternate 1120 setting, or in 1104, or....
And some of the 1110 people ignore it because it doesn't fit their idea of what Marches/1110 is all about.
And finally I find myself selling to 1/20 of the actual Traveller marketplace. And THAT's not big. This is the problem with the divisions.
Now, there is a segment of the market (like me) that'll take any Traveller product for any era and mine it for whatever we can get from it. But equally there are plenty of people who won't touch a lot of new stuff. Traveller fans can be particularly rabid in their close focus.
So no, I don't think that Traveller needs more diversity.
But.
Producing material for Traveller suffers from a serious problem. Y'see, the market is limited to start with.
So I do a CT/Marches/1110 adventure.
So the TNE, GT and T20 crowd ignore it. And some of the MT people too. And some of the CT people because they're playing in an alternate 1120 setting, or in 1104, or....
And some of the 1110 people ignore it because it doesn't fit their idea of what Marches/1110 is all about.
And finally I find myself selling to 1/20 of the actual Traveller marketplace. And THAT's not big. This is the problem with the divisions.
Now, there is a segment of the market (like me) that'll take any Traveller product for any era and mine it for whatever we can get from it. But equally there are plenty of people who won't touch a lot of new stuff. Traveller fans can be particularly rabid in their close focus.
So no, I don't think that Traveller needs more diversity.
I think that Traveller needs a single rules system (and I think that rules system should be ACT, but I'm biased) and a Big Book Of Uber-Canon which irons out all the worst wrinkles of the OTU without distorting the setting too much.
Canon contains a number of things that were not thought through and also a few outright contradictions. What is needed is a consensus on a fix for those.
Of course, it will never happen.
This is after all, the same fan community that sent me death threats for writing for GURPS Traveller...
Canon contains a number of things that were not thought through and also a few outright contradictions. What is needed is a consensus on a fix for those.
Of course, it will never happen.
This is after all, the same fan community that sent me death threats for writing for GURPS Traveller...
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