T5: A Modest Proposal for the Designers

[Border Reiver]

Although I have to agree wholeheartedly with Mal here, it all depends on what the marketing plan is for T5.

If the plan is to get it into retailers and try and compete with the big boys then folders ain't worth spit.

If you want to go down a more underground route with plenty of pdfs, sheet packs and mail order then why not go the binder route. It has worked quite happily with Harn for years. But this route isn't really the way to attract new blood and the much vaunted "10 year old kid" paradigm being touted should be thought again.

 

[parmasson]

Hello,

I am seeing some interest in a “translation guide” between the editions to those who may use T5. Is this the case or am I reading my own wishes into the conversation?

To address format,
If it is a PDF then anything is possible. For those interested in binders inexpensive cardboard faceplates (?) in a number of designs could be possible.

 

[Herodotus]

I'm not a big fan of the PDF format for games. It limits my ability to take it with me when I travel and need to take my books with me (please don't suggest printing it up, I don't have the resources to do that with three hundred plus pages of rules). I do not always game in my own home and, lacking a lap top, I could not bring it with me.

Another consideration is, PDF format would limit its accessibility to the general gaming community. Someone is unlikely to find the game on-line unless they all ready know about it and are interested enough to go looking for it. That is a lot different than just walking into a hobby store and seeing an interesting, well designed, book cover.

Say what you want about "eye-candy" on book covers, it can catch a person's eye and make them curious enough about the story behind the art to pick up the book to see what it is about. Good art work (both inside and out) can go a long way to promoting sales of a game.

 

[Malenfant]

PDF isn't particularly limiting - you just go to a big online store lik DrivethruRPG and browse around. The real problem with PDF I think is that it's hard to make one that looks professional - there a lot of crap out as PDF that looks incredibly amateur.

 

[davidm]

Originally posted by Kurega Gikur:
Hello,
I am seeing some interest in a “translation guide” between the editions to those who may use T5. Is this the case or am I reading my own wishes into the conversation?

Yeah, I raised the point because I'd like to crib bits from various versions of Traveller (and currently use GURPS 4e) and would like some pointers about conversions (mainly vehicles & ships really, personal gear can be figured by comparison most of the time).

The big problem I see, conversion wise is TNE->anything else, as all other versions appear to me to adhere mostly to CT universe conventions.

Ideally, a conversion guide would discuss the tech assumptions of each version of Traveller, and notable differences, so you could 'feel' your way through the conversions more easily (as direct reconstruction from one version to another can often end up with impractical designs).

For core T5 vehicles & ships, I'd like to see a modular system, like GT's where you just pick the parts in fixed modules and hence throw away some precision to get fast, simple designs (er, like CT really). Then you could write conversions on a module-by-module basis...right?

A sort of Traveller vehicle compatibility layer, to borrow a software term

 

[epicenter00]

Originally posted by Rhialto the Marvelous:
That last aspect is especially important. I know a lot of Traveller grognards like starship and world design. But starship and world design is not part of actual play. It's what you do before and after. And T5 needs to be all about what happens in-between before and after. It needs to be a game first, and a simulation second.

I've long watched T5 development with a lump in my throat. I love Traveller, and I think it's particularly painful for me because I do love the game. I personally don't think that T5 is going in the right direction - mostly for the reasons that the review covers.

Now I am probably going to offend some of you who read this post, and for that I apologize in advance. My big problem with T5 is that I am getting an impression that Mr. Miller is writing the game for a closed (and shrinking audience) of Traveller grognards many of whom don't even play the game as an RPG anymore. Instead, T5 feels more like a nostalgic collector's item for former Traveller players - a "remember when" product to be shelved with "let's remember the 1950s" music collections. It's like he's written off Traveller and indeed RPG games as a dying hobby, and he's writing T5 as a swan song for a specialized (and shrinking) segment as Traveller fades gracefully into the darkness along with poodle skirts or Duran Duran albums.

Instead of being a neat, accessible rules system presented along with a plenty of narrative fluff to give prospective players a real feeling of what the 3I is like, and to make returning players remember what they loved about Traveller and similar people who want to play the game as an RPG, it seems to be T5 seems to be designed as a single-player game, with plenty of charts, tables, and random die rolls to give former players something to do while they produce characters, ships, equipment, and sectors for games that will never be run.

I've always wanted to tell Mr. Miller, "Traveller is not dead, and it doesn't need to be this way" - but the way T5 is heading, with its procrustean layout, lack of appeal to new players*, and what I see as a slavish need to feed to LBB Traveller nostalgia, T5 is going to be a collector's item, that's it.


* The most damning incident happened just a few weeks before. I had printed out the T5 chargen since I was playing around with it. The wives of one of my longtime players, who plays in the Star Wars RPG game I run happened to see chargen lying on my desk. She flipped through it and I invited her to play in my upcoming Traveller game and she just sort of eyed the rules and told me that she and her husband hire a tax return company to do file their taxes so they don't have to deal with stuff like this.

 

[Malenfant]

I think that's a pretty accurate summary of where Marc is taking T5. Which is exactly why I think he should either stop right now or give it to someone else to do. Which'll never happen of course...

 

[Jeffr0]

Don't pull any punches, guys.

Just say what you really think.

 

[Herodotus]

I'm afraid they may be right. There use to be a maxim in game design, KISS... Keep it simple, Stupid. Lots of charts are not bad, Lots of charts you need to constently check are. As are build rules that require huge number of charts, combined with involved balancing fifteen different facets of your desgined. Nothing like spending two hours figuring out your ship, only to find that you have two numbers that don't work. Ideally, it should take about fifteen minutes to design a ship.

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

In D&D terms, what shall it be:

1. D&D 3.x (crunch playtested to perfection);

2. Castles & Crusades (crunch stripped down so as to appeal to older persons like out fine selves; this is what ACT or CT+ could have become);

3. A hypothetic AD&D 3rd edition (convolution taken to the next level).

Option 1 is unaffordable. Option 3 is sheer terror. Option 2 is the way to go.

 

[flykiller]

y'all are so 1980's, don't know why everyone is all stuck on rolling dice by hand. all this could be computerized. have as much complexity as you want, get an answer as soon as you tell the gui generally what you want and press the enter key.

 

[Stainless]

Originally posted by flykiller:
y'all are so 1980's, don't know why everyone is all stuck on rolling dice by hand. all this could be computerized. have as much complexity as you want, get an answer as soon as you tell the gui generally what you want and press the enter key.

True enough, but with Marc's past demonstrations of attention to detail and accuracy (i.e., little attention at all), my hair stands on end to think of him trying to produce software that actually works.

 

[Jeffr0]

Regardless of how much data you can get from the computer, you still have to be able to apply it to a game session in a reasonable way.

Automation doesn't exempt you from playability issues. Every stat has to be relevant.

 

[Paulsnow]

Originally posted by flykiller:
y'all are so 1980's, don't know why everyone is all stuck on rolling dice by hand. all this could be computerized. have as much complexity as you want, get an answer as soon as you tell the gui generally what you want and press the enter key.

But that's twice the work and at least twice the expense; first you write the rules and then you code them. Do you really want to pay for that - even assuming you'd trust the code to correctly represent the rules?

 

[Border Reiver]

Codings not so bad with some java knowledge (or even javascript) if you've got something decent to hang it on. GRiP was nice, Kloogewerks and OpenRPG are good too.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:
Don't pull any punches, guys.

Just say what you really think.

People say this like it's a bad thing...

 

[Jeffr0]

No... Paul Snow's right. That's what I hated about GT. I pick up a book and think, I better start coding...!

So then I get most of the way through coding some tools for designing starships (GT2e and GURPS:Starships), designing worlds (First In), and doing Trade (Far Trader.)

Kick out the data and... now what? I have no idea what do do with this &^%&#%*&!

I look back and think, man was I naive... but why wouldn't someone expect the technical details to be relevant to a game? Every other 80's game I'd played worked that way.

The whole modern trend of all tools and no adventures/scenarios is pretty silly in my mind. Too often it leaves the bulk of the actual game design and testing as the responsibility of the Referee.

 

[Jeffr0]

Check out this post to see how things have played out in an entirely different culture.

There's too much focus in western gaming on "mad scientist" gamemasters crafting the masterpiece ongoing campaign. RPG's need more one shots, scenarios, session transcripts, and even pictures of people actually playing the game. In Traveller's case, you need to provide evidence that ordinary people can actually play the game.

 

[Paulsnow]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:
No... Paul Snow's right. That's what I hated about GT. I pick up a book and think, I better start coding...!

So then I get most of the way through coding some tools for designing starships (GT2e and GURPS:Starships), designing worlds (First In), and doing Trade (Far Trader.)

Kick out the data and... now what? I have no idea what do do with this &^%&#%*&!

I look back and think, man was I naive... but why wouldn't someone expect the technical details to be relevant to a game? Every other 80's game I'd played worked that way.

And more to the point perhaps, a game that appeals to those who will/could/might code isn't exactly apealing to the widest gaming demographic.

That's why T5 as recipe book sounds like a death knell to be tolled.

 

[flykiller]

True enough, but with Marc's past demonstrations of attention to detail and accuracy

there are people who can do it.

you still have to be able to apply it to a game session in a reasonable way.

not a problem, especially for chargen and shipyard work.

But that's twice the work and at least twice the expense

and ten times the gaming speed.

In Traveller's case, you need to provide evidence that ordinary people can actually play the game

and it would. the computer would handle all the chart lookups and realism concerns, leaving the players free to make decisions according to their common game sense.

a game that appeals to those who will/could/might code isn't exactly apealing to the widest gaming demographic

no need, the properly written and beta-tested code could come with the game.

c'mon guys, think point-and-click. the player calls up the program, sees the menu, clicks on chargen. ruleset: CT/MT/TNE/T5/etc, clicks on CT. career: scout/marine/merchant/army/etc, clicks on scout. skills: random/pseudo-random/choice/etc, clicks on choice. assignment: comms/exploration/etc. etc. when he's all done the player enters the character's name and the data is stored. next character.

combat. click on ruleset, target type, armor type, facing, cover options, whatever. select shooter - his chargen data is already stored, add in weapon, distance, etc. when the shot is done save it as combat_01 and move on to the next player. when all turns done just call up combat_01 again until it's through. imagine a graphic with a zho in combat armor taking aim, and the player says he wants to shoot at a specific point - the referee simply clicks at that point and the machine computes where that character's round hits and its effects. initiative, distance mods, penetration mods, armor, snap shots, called shots, all will be point-and-click, with as much complexity as you want in the backgroud and as much speed as you desire upfront. piece of cake.