Originally posted by Aramis:
[QB]i said that D&D3E isn't AD&D3; mechanically it's too far removed. Mechanically, it's derivative more from Classic D&D; the implication of which you were either too antagonistic or dense to catch.
You're still wrong. I know classic D&D - hell, I started on that - and D&D3e is nothing like it. It's about as dissimilar to it as it is to subsequent versions of it.
What is it that D&D3 has in common with classic D&D, but not AD&D? I sure can't see whatever similarities you see. Classic D&D didn't even separate races from classes.
I'd also said that GT and T20 are really VERSIONS of traveller, but PORTS of traveller, a different thing.
if you're being pedantic, then maybe. In practice though, it's not different. Either way, you are playing a version of Traveller with different rules to CT. But then, MT and TNE and T4 are different rules to CT too. The fact that they may be more closely related to it than GT or T20 is pretty much irrelevant in practice.
All of these are VERSIONS of Traveller. All of these are PORTS of Traveller to different systems too though. GT and T20 are nothing special in that regard, the only difference is that in those cases Marc Miller didn't have a direct hand in designing the system. This doesn't really mean anything special in practice though.
And the GTU is NOT the same as the OTU. but this isn't really the place for that argument, which you have always been either too dense, too closed minded, or too antagonistic to respond to in any meaningful way.
I'm well aware of your arguments, I just don't think they're valid. The only real reason in my mind that the GTU is not the same as the OTU is that the assassination didn't happen. Beyond that, it's an straight, logical extension of the CT timeline. Most of the differences arise from squeezing Traveller into GURPS and are from differences in tech assumptions and so on. But broadly speaking it's the same universe; it's blindingly obvious that it is. There are the same emperors in the history, the same events in the history up to the assassination, the same spaceships, the same races (plus a few new ones, but so what, there are plenty of uncatalogued alien races in Traveller). So a few tiny tech details are different, whooopee. So it has jump masking (which wasn't explicitly specified in CT, but was implied in Marc's Jumpspace article in JTAS). But you are arguing from very shaky ground if you claim that those details make the GTU a wildly different alternate universe to that presented in CT.
The whole point of GT was that it was to present a continuation of the universe that the older fans preferred to play in - i.e. not the one where the assassination, civil war, and collapse and Virus happened. It succeeded in that goal admirably, I think. It's just sad that people insist on getting hung up over the conversion details and miss the big picture.
The differences in the nature of character's relationship to the universe established by GURPS rules may not affect you, but it does affect many GURPS players.
I don't think it does. I've certainly not heard of anyone having that experience either here or on JTAS.
Of course, you seem more a casual RPGer and full time agitator, than a serious RPGer with passion about the subject.
*snort*.
Did you actually read what my experience in roleplaying is? I'm probably a more serious RPGer and have more passion about it than you do. And do you really think I'd be discussing and arguing about it so much if I didn't give a damn or was just a 'casual RPGer'?
And there ARE people waiting upon T5, wanting a T5. Random CG and all.
Yes, and I'd be surprised if there was more than about 50 of them. That, effectively, is as good as 'nobody'.
There are more people who may want another system to use, but they tend to just crack on and come up with something themselves.
It's just than many of them don't want what MWM seems to be portraying as the T5 he's developing.
Well, he doesn't seem to be listening to their complaints and criticisms and suggestions.
The problems are not unique to traveller.
Nobody said they were.
Just my opinion, of course. But it leads on to my next assertion: for T5 to be a commercial success, GT and T20 NEED to be stopped. Not per se killed, but no product for a year or so so that T5 can grab shares of shelf space.
If that decision were to be made, then damn straight I'd fight that. And a lot of others would too.
Marc would have to be mad to stop development of those. T5 isn't remotely going to be able to grab shelf space. Hell, Marc probably wouldn't even be able to release it in hardcopy form.
I can state that the goal was to grab D20 players with T20, not to be the "Ultimate Traveller Incarnation".
But it's turning out to be that way. One of Marc's stated goals with T5 is to bring Traveller to more new players. If he can think of a better way to do that than to convert it to two of the most popular systems around, then I think a lot of people in the RPG industry would like to talk to him.
Frankly, I think you've got to be stupid, pig-stubborn, or delusional to think that more people would pick up T5 than have picked up T20 or GT. There's no conceivable way that Marc bring the game to more new players than those.
It is also clear from MWM's calling it T5 that he doesn't count GT nor T20, 2300, nor any of the other GDW traveller-derived game engines.
I'd put that more down to sheer stubbornness on his part than any kind of common sense.
Personally, I don't know why Marc doesn't just stop fighting the way things are and start embracing it. He could be churning out stuff for T20 and GT instead of wasting his time on a system that nobody - sorry, 'very few people' - are interested in or that could obstruct the successful versions that are already out there. Why doesn't he do that?
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