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Prometheus
Guest
Okay your in as #00008 ...Velcome Comrade 
(note the cheesy russian accent!)
(note the cheesy russian accent!)
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Prometheus
Guest
First I would like to thank Evil Dr... for his opinions and well supported arguements. I would like to encourage him to continue to come back and express his views. I personally have found the debate over T5 educational. I entend to futher explore ( jezz sound like the politicans gearing up for 2004)the idea of T5 in LBB. I am going to admit I am nostalgic about CT, it was and is still a vehicle of very magical moments for me.
THx
Spiff
THx
Spiff
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EvilDrGanymede
Guest
I'm not necessarily against a T5, but there are two things to bear in mind:
1) T5 will certainly never be printed today, while there are *three* versions of Traveller currently in circulation. Given that the G:T license has been extended til 2005, and presumably QLI will be around for a good few years (one hopes), I wouldn't expect to see another version of Traveller in any form until the latter half of this decade, if it ever happens at all. Not that this stops people from talking about it - but reality should creep into your discussions when you're saying "hey, let's see if we can get hold of a T5 draft and playtest it!". Even if you could do that, it wouldn't be out for ages because in all likelihood it won't survive on the current market.
2) Understand how the RPG market works. I'm no RPG economist, but I think I've picked up enough from talking and listening to people who work in the industry on Pyramid and rpg.net over the years to get a basic handle on how things work in it. Assuming that anyone who is in a position to work on T5 is listening to you - if they have any business sense at all then they are going to market the product in a way that's going to make it sell to the general RPG audience - not in the way that a handful of enthusiasts with little or no experience in the RPG market would like to see it sold to them. Unless some hugely rich person with money to burn comes along, then whoever makes T5 will be wanting to make money from it!
By all means, dream on about T5, but do temper those dreams with a dose of reality.
1) T5 will certainly never be printed today, while there are *three* versions of Traveller currently in circulation. Given that the G:T license has been extended til 2005, and presumably QLI will be around for a good few years (one hopes), I wouldn't expect to see another version of Traveller in any form until the latter half of this decade, if it ever happens at all. Not that this stops people from talking about it - but reality should creep into your discussions when you're saying "hey, let's see if we can get hold of a T5 draft and playtest it!". Even if you could do that, it wouldn't be out for ages because in all likelihood it won't survive on the current market.
2) Understand how the RPG market works. I'm no RPG economist, but I think I've picked up enough from talking and listening to people who work in the industry on Pyramid and rpg.net over the years to get a basic handle on how things work in it. Assuming that anyone who is in a position to work on T5 is listening to you - if they have any business sense at all then they are going to market the product in a way that's going to make it sell to the general RPG audience - not in the way that a handful of enthusiasts with little or no experience in the RPG market would like to see it sold to them. Unless some hugely rich person with money to burn comes along, then whoever makes T5 will be wanting to make money from it!
By all means, dream on about T5, but do temper those dreams with a dose of reality.
Gallowglass
SOC-12
Originally posted by Evil Dr Ganymede:
I'm not necessarily against a T5, but there are two things to bear in mind:
1) T5 will certainly never be printed today, while there are *three* versions of Traveller currently in circulation. Given that the G:T license has been extended til 2005, and presumably QLI will be around for a good few years (one hopes), I wouldn't expect to see another version of Traveller in any form until the latter half of this decade, if it ever happens at all. Not that this stops people from talking about it - but reality should creep into your discussions when you're saying "hey, let's see if we can get hold of a T5 draft and playtest it!". Even if you could do that, it wouldn't be out for ages because in all likelihood it won't survive on the current market.
Funnily enough, when I (and others) have previously made this point on these very boards some fairly serious heavy hitters told us we were wrong. Subsequently (in theSmoek and Mirors discussion), both MJD and Hunter appeared to concede that T5 launching whilst GT, T20 and the CT reprints.
To quote myself from that thread: "If T5 has a future, then I think it will be in either electronic form or by subscription support, not as a conventionally published game where it would have to compete with GT, T20 and the CT reprints."
<Humuour ON>Sorry, but judging from my last visit apart from learning how to act appallingly in public, I doubt anyone ever learnt much of use at RPG.net.<Humuour OFF>
2) Understand how the RPG market works. I'm no RPG economist, but I think I've picked up enough from talking and listening to people who work in the industry on Pyramid and rpg.net over the years to get a basic handle on how things work in it. Assuming that anyone who is in a position to work on T5 is listening to you - if they have any business sense at all then they are going to market the product in a way that's going to make it sell to the general RPG audience - not in the way that a handful of enthusiasts with little or no experience in the RPG market would like to see it sold to them. Unless some hugely rich person with money to burn comes along, then whoever makes T5 will be wanting to make money from it!
By all means, dream on about T5, but do temper those dreams with a dose of reality.
No one, but no one enters the RPG market to make money (apart from corporations like Hasbro, and they were after Magic and Pokemon, not D&D). There are a number of models (like the subscription idea I mentioned above) that could make T5 viable, but not as a mainstream commercial game and with the (OTU)Traveller market as well served as it appears (two eras at SJG, two at QLI, CT reprints, rumuours of MT to follow...) even as a specialist prodcut for the core fans I think this would be a poor time to launch T5. On the other hand, the history of FFE's CT reprints and such small companies as the UK's Hogshead Publishing shows that other models CAN work...
So I like the idea of LBB's, especially in LucasDigitals' conceptual Pic, but I suspect that it will only ever see production (let alone print) with some sort of subscription or fan supprt (rather like the Gloranthan Trading Association that helps support Issaries Inc' less commercial output).
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EvilDrGanymede
Guest
That's a possibillity, I'll grant you. PDF publication would certainly be cheaper and require less manpower, and it won't be directly competing with anything on the RPG shelves.
They don't have to necessarily make a *vast* (ie. normal by anyone outside the industry
As an aside, while that conceptual pix is very nicely done and all, aren't people going to get confuse it with the old LBBs? It looks pretty much identical to those after all - at least make the colours different or something!
D&D (WOTC), Chaosium, White Wolf, Decipher/Last Unicorn Games. These are the sellers in the marketplace.
23% interest rates?
End of a failed war?
I remember 1975 sir, this is no 1975.
Yes, unfortunately the RPG market is not what it was in the mid 1980's (the golden age
) "Marketed to poor college students." ? The hordes of college students playing RPG's is over. Plus, market to a "poor" demographic. Doesn't make much sense to me. Market to "doing-ok" middle age men? Yes.Dedicated gamers? Are not ALL role-playing games marketed to dedicated gamers? How many RPG's do you see in Wal-mart being bought on a lark by soccer moms?
Keeping production costs low, creating a good if not great product and finding a reasonable price point for the consumer, are always keys to success in business. With that said, if you want to be successful You need to appeal to more than a niche crowd, unless that niche crowd has a lot of spending power. And gamers, as I pointed out before, usually do not. So, your game needs to stand out on the shelf, have a great setting (people buy settings more than rules.). And hopefully be well written.
Now, something interesting that has been brought up are PDF's. PDF's, I think, are the future. This allows you to do what you want. Have little overhead, low visual impact
It seems to boil down to this:
Booklet with simple graphic design. Proven history with a number of games in the 1970s. The lower selling price can turn a profit from relatively few sales, but may or may not appeal to buyers educated by the graphic excess of the 90s. OTOH, the low price is impulse buying friendly.
"A" format, lavishly illustrated. Appeals to the taste of the modern gamer, of whom there are not as many as there used to be. Costs are high, requires many more sales to turn a profit, but it might get them.
I do not think we will resolve this without serious market research.
Booklet with simple graphic design. Proven history with a number of games in the 1970s. The lower selling price can turn a profit from relatively few sales, but may or may not appeal to buyers educated by the graphic excess of the 90s. OTOH, the low price is impulse buying friendly.
"A" format, lavishly illustrated. Appeals to the taste of the modern gamer, of whom there are not as many as there used to be. Costs are high, requires many more sales to turn a profit, but it might get them.
I do not think we will resolve this without serious market research.
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EvilDrGanymede
Guest
That sort of niche is filled quite nicely today by PDF products. The production cost is generally MUCH lower for those than for any printed product. And the selling price may be low per LBB (let's be generous and say $5 each)? But then you have to buy several LBBs to make the game complete, so that brings it up to $15 at least. If you throw a box in, you're adding another cost, and the price is around $20. If you put *six* LBBs in a box like that conjectural T5 design showed, then that's going to push up the price more. You may be talking about selling that incarnation of T5 for up to $25 or $30 today.
But let's clarify something here - the market is the way it is because gamers have made it that way. Production standards have gone up, and gamers have bought the new books, so the producers think they're onto a good thing by making bigger books, with better art and layout and editing and design. Lately we've had a spate of expensive products with extremely high production values (with excellent game material too), and many people have bought them. If people wanted products with no art and a basic, purely functional design (which describes the LBBs) - and also lower production and editing values in many cases - they'd have bought those in their droves instead of the fancy looking things - but they didn't. You can't really imply that today's market is wrong, it's just different to the way that you'd like it to be.
I can sympathise with your view in some ways - I used to wonder at the upward spiral in RPG book costs and whether or not these fancy extras were worth it. In some ways they're not... but they remain popular and indeed, anything new made today using 1970s standards would probably be labelled "unprofessional-looking". That's just how the market is.
Now, PDF files are possibly a different matter. I've not looked at RPG PDFs much, but there are many of them around. Your complete T5 would probably sell quite nicely as a $10 PDF, and would probably still look better than the LBBs ever did if you wanted it to.
Don't know where you got that idea from... Everything I've seen and heard gives the impression that there are many *more* gamers than there were in the 70s and 80s. The industry is pretty much thriving (not on a vast scale, sure, but it's doing pretty good).
Perhaps, but I think perhaps you should take a closer look at the RPG market today and see what's making it tick - you'll probably be surprised, if not shocked
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Prometheus
Guest
geezz you guys .. I thought 155's where thunderous.. important stuff to consider. anyway I read the entire t5 thread last night from whay back till the present.. Evil Dr. has many good points. Uncle Bob you da man! I am thankful for both of your inputs... gets the mind thinking.
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Prometheus
Guest
well has anybody and info as to where i should start looking for the fabled t4+ or T5 rule systems?
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Prometheus
Guest
THx Ron
WarriorKnight
SOC-12
Count me in as well.I'm a LBB fan from the beginning & loved the image of them.I've been looking over the T5 items at The Downport & like what I've been seeing. But I've a few things I'm very happy with & one day I'll set down & work my ideas up & send them into MWM ,but until then I'll keep playtesting what he's posted. Has anyone whose downloaded the playtest material, tryed the tests to rate yourselfs as a Traveller Character(I came out with these stats : Str:13,Dex.:9(12 in my 2nd test),End.:4,Int.:5,Edu.:9,SS:8,Psi.:8
UPP94598-9 (2nd test : DC4598-9); as I took the tests my Dex kept going up but my Str started going down.). its a fun little thing to play with.
UPP
94598-9 (2nd test : DC4598-9); as I took the tests my Dex kept going up but my Str started going down.). its a fun little thing to play with.Welcome to PVernon and WarriorKnight. Just be sure to put your numbers in your signature line.
I think that while PDFs are likely to become more common (QLI does it now) I prefer to get actual books that I go out, pick up out of a set of copies, take to the clerk and buy. This to me is what any form of T5 should be, whenever it comes out, to hold to the Traveller tradition of having books.
I think that while PDFs are likely to become more common (QLI does it now) I prefer to get actual books that I go out, pick up out of a set of copies, take to the clerk and buy. This to me is what any form of T5 should be, whenever it comes out, to hold to the Traveller tradition of having books.
The real issue is if Marc is able to ship a product that is qualitativly superior to the mess that was IG's T4. Untill that is certain, then the format (Letter, Legal, LBB, etc until you puke) is irrelevant. I have a copy of the currently released playtest material - I'd rather spend my time making sure that it actually _works_ rather than (do you want some cheese with that) whine about what format the books are in. 
If you really give a goddamn about a possible T5, then email Marc, get his current material (Which fixes a shitload of problems with T4), playtest it with your groups (you do have _groups_ don't you?) and give him useful feedback.
Otherwise this is just so much masturbation.
William
(Travelling since the 3 LBBs and happy to grow beyond them)
If you really give a goddamn about a possible T5, then email Marc, get his current material (Which fixes a shitload of problems with T4), playtest it with your groups (you do have _groups_ don't you?) and give him useful feedback.
Otherwise this is just so much masturbation.
William
(Travelling since the 3 LBBs and happy to grow beyond them)
