The Grognard Problem

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Casey:
Well in that case I guess I'm not playing Traveller these days and Hunter and Steve Jackson should send their licenses back to MWM and save themselves some cash 'cos they aren't making valid I'll have fun but it won't be in Traveller it seems.

Casey,

You're playing Traveller. Most importantly, you're playing your Traveller.

What was that quote from Barker about Tekumel you made earlier? “-but we cannot keep your Tekumel from drifting away from mine. This is as it should be. You have just bought MY Tekumel. Now make it YOUR Tekumel.”

That's what you've done, you've made Traveller your Traveller and that is how it should be.

However, you what haven't done and what T20 and GURPS haven't done is make your Traveller my Traveller.

That's the rub.

I and the others like me are routinely lambasted for playing our Traveller. We're described as clueless stick in the muds, holding on to outdated and broken systems, existing in dwindling numbers until we gather into nursing homes to roll our final dice. Check out the various posts here, you'll read every description I just wrote and much worse.

We're grognards, a word derived from the French word for 'grumbling'. First used by Napoleon as a pet name for his army, the wargaming community took it up as a title to denote experienced players. Here at COTI it has become an insult heaped upon we who will not stop playing our Traveller our way. Not GURPS' way, not T20's way, but our way.

Yes, some here have bashed T20 and d20. That's just plain silly. d20 is a fine RPG system for what is was designed for and it wasn't designed for Traveller. People can use the OGL to kit bash d20 every which way, but the results will still be d20 at their heart and the heart is what counts.

It is much the same with GURPS. No matter what sourcebook comes out, GURPS will be GURPS at its heart. And GURPS isn't Traveller either.

When I try and point out how GT and T20 aren't Traveller, I'm accused of hating either Stee Jackson or D&D. I don't hate Steve Jackson. I owned his wargames before GURPS was a glint in his eye. I don't hate D&D either. I played D&D for years.

GT and T20 are not my Traveller. As Daryen pointed out, there are significant mechanical and setting differences at their very hearts. GT and T20 can be someone else's Traveller, just not my Traveller. And I don't need to continually defend my choice in the matter.

You use your system and let me use mine. Don't question my intelligence because I don't use the 'latest and greatest' system. Don't sniff that I should get with the times. Don't imply I'm some old semi-senile fogey too wedded to my false memories of a dead RPG system to realize that T20 or GT are great. I know what T20 is, I know what GT is, and what there are not is my Traveller.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[RickA]

I can sympathize with the grognards here. I don't mean to bash them utterly, for I am one of you as well.

I play Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu and consider the d20 variant an obscenity.

So, I can understand (when I take a moment to attempt empathy) and agree with the gist of what is being said by the grognards. Mechanics can affect the feel of a game, they aren't utterly irrelevant, you're right. I feel for Traveller they aren't AS important as the OTU but that's me.

Part of the grognard bashing may come from defensive reflex when you see your Traveller being misrepresented or misunderstood. The utter deadliness of T20 combat for example. Higher level characters are no more resistant to a bullet than a low level character. I LIKE that. Hell, I'm thinking about using it in my DnD campaign as well!

In MMORPG's I'm not a fan of the level based systems (such as Everquest, Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot) but prefer the skill based systems used in Ultima Online and even to an extent Asheron's Call. So I can understand the allergy to "levels" in Pen and Paper. It's just that my experience with Pen and Paper games tells me that what is "bad" in an MMORPG isn't neccesarily bad in PnP.

Bah. Lots of yelling and hoohaa in this thread. It's been some very interesting reading though, reflecting, imho, the unrest and unhappiness of gamers from across the spectrum.

Me? I want to see T20 done better. But, I understand that that POV isn't the "right" one or the "wrong" one.

 

[parmasson]

Eh? Yelling, what? Let me turn up my hearing aid.

“... We're described as clueless stick in the muds, holding on to outdated and broken systems, existing in dwindling numbers until we gather into nursing homes to roll our final dice.”

Yeah well if that is true then so be it. If we can get a regular gaming group together in the retirement home that will be the most impressive freaking thing in the universe. I don’t’ really want to spend my final years playing bridge! I want to be 96, playing CT and sitting around talking about these damn kids and what is wrong with the world today.

Referee and current chairman of the Illinois Grognard Union: DuPage County Chapter

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
However, you what haven't done and what T20 and GURPS haven't done is make your Traveller my Traveller.

That's the rub.

I don't expect that. However saying any particular published version of Traveller isn't valid...that goes beyond talking about your and my Traveller. If you meant valid for you it certainly didn’t come across like that with your tone and words. As stated it said to me that one version is right and one is wrong and that I’m playing the wrong one, that I’m not playing Traveller at all. Statements like that put forth by anyone tend to drive people to another game, especially the newly converted or potential converts and intensify divisions.

Divisive attitudes (and I’ve seen it from all sides except for T4 ^_^ ) have about put me off Traveller again after coming back when T20 was released. I’ve never understood the minute arguments I see sometimes about Traveller (this line is a general rant), the differences are so small to me in gameplay especially with the detail of the OTU material useable by any version that I see far more in common than different, esp. over a game. I wonder how much a factor that Traveller has arguably more fans who “play at” Traveller as opposed to playing Traveller has on its fandom being so divisive.

I do my share of nitpicking at times I’ll admit but when it comes down to it, roll the dice, play your character, argue about it after game. I’d rather be playing a game than mincing over what are to me minute differences in the equivalent of digitally playing with my navel, Characters are still gritty, they get killed by a shotgun no matter how experienced, they age (T20 does have aging rolls FWIW), jump still takes a frelling week, people still use swords…

Unlike seemingly many Traveller fans I’ve played Traveller recently. I’ve been in 4 Traveller campaigns since T20 came out, one was MT, the rest T20. Honestly I didn’t really notice much difference in play between the two except for dice used and that the MT character had slightly fewer “hooks” for me to roleplay from at the start but less to track. Certainly not enough to not play due to version used. It was a good group for all of them (the ole Ursula crew mostly) though, which always helps. I do recall a player leaving IMO over Canon issues. It wasn’t that that game used T20, it was that we were flexible with canon when it suited the session, resulted from player action, and above all when it made for a fun game!

We're grognards

I'm quite familiar with the term, having both studied the Napoleonic period and gamed it. My Austrians will always rise again no matter how badly generaled!

I started gaming in the early 80's and played CT a few times back in the day. Never owned it then due to the sheer depth of the CT catalog by then and Star Frontiers being in a big box, in local bookstores, and heavily illustrated with maps and counters.

T4 I had hoped would be my ideal Traveller set but it didn't come close to the concept I pictured. For me to buy T5 it'd have to be so amazingly good I don't expect it to happen. Like a Pagan Publishing edition of Call of Cthulhu written by Bruce Baugh, Luke Crane, Kenneth Hite, Sandy Peterson, and divers others in Morpheus’ library with a free Cuban cigar, porterhouse steak, and a French maid serving me fine brandy out of a glass slipper along with backstage passes to a Suicide Girls show amazingly good. That T4 had a sort of “dream team” (hey that’s what it says on the inside cover ) and still failed disappointingly makes it even worse for me. I've tried to go back and run CT/MT lately but T20 runs out of the "box" much better for me. I'd have to patch CT and fix MT to the extent that I might as well either run Risus Traveller instead

or write my own complete homebrew.

So in some ways I'm a grognard too. New editions seem to be a catch 22, not change things really at all and you lose sales to current players and having to rely on new players who at the same time may not be interested when there are plenty of used copies or who see it as not worth getting. Change things too much and the current players won’t buy it and again you’re relying on new players except this time they have several versions to choose from, all of a mature game.

Yes, some here have bashed T20 and d20. That's just plain silly. d20 is a fine RPG system for what is was designed for and it wasn't designed for Traveller. People can use the OGL to kit bash d20 every which way, but the results will still be d20 at their heart and the heart is what counts.

By the same token TNE should be CT at its heart then. If D&D3E isn’t valid AD&D (from the same post by Aramis where T20 isn’t valid Traveller) then d20 and by extension T20 aren’t valid AD&D. The heart of d20 is still roll a d20 high. Everything else is changeable IMO esp. for an OGL game. Oh well I already knew I was silly.

When I try and point out how GT and T20 aren't Traveller, I'm accused of hating either Stee Jackson or D&D. I don't hate Steve Jackson. I owned his wargames before GURPS was a glint in his eye. I don't hate D&D either. I played D&D for years.

GT and T20 are not my Traveller. As Daryen pointed out, there are significant mechanical and setting differences at their very hearts. GT and T20 can be someone else's Traveller, just not my Traveller. And I don't need to continually defend my choice in the matter.

Well I for one don’t think you hate SJ, SJG, or D&D. However, to people that do play GT or T20 I'd wager it's just as frustrating when someone says their game isn’t Traveller as when someone calls CT not a valid game anymore. Pointing out that GT and T20 aren’t for you is one thing. Saying they’re not Traveller (for everyone) seems to me to be a different thing entirely.

You use your system and let me use mine. Don't question my intelligence because I don't use the 'latest and greatest' system. Don't sniff that I should get with the times. Don't imply I'm some old semi-senile fogey too wedded to my false memories of a dead RPG system to realize that T20 or GT are great. I know what T20 is, I know what GT is, and what there are not is my Traveller.

My post on CoCd20 is a good reply to this. In general for internet conversation I also try at least use a carrot with the stick.

Finally, as I said recently, "In the end the play's the thing. Game what you will."

Have fun,
Bill

You as well,
Kevin

More than enough digital fiddling of the navel from me. Off to tour with my illegitimate Traveller punk band, the Outie Bastids!

(post soundtrack by Head Automatica)

 

[BrennanHawkwood]

Well I for one don’t think you hate SJ, SJG, or D&D. However, to people that do play GT or T20 I'd wager it's just as frustrating when someone says their game isn’t Traveller as when someone calls CT not a valid game anymore. Pointing out that GT and T20 aren’t for you is one thing. Saying they’re not Traveller (for everyone) seems to me to be a different thing entirely.

As a someone who primarily uses T20 or GT, I agree. I know that they don't play quite the same as CT or MT or whatever, but the game setting is the same and I'll bet the differences in game theme are no greater than between any two CT games.

I have no problem at all with the statement that my traveller is not your Traveller, but telling me that my Traveller isn't even a valid version of Traveller is very arrogant, elitist and obnoxious. IMO, the very existance of this attitude is a good example of one of the things about Traveller that drive away new players.

My gaming group has almost ZERO experience with Traveller beyond what I have provided them. They don't care what rule system I use (barring ones that are downright clunky and hard to play with ). All they care about is that it is a cool and interesting setting and that they are having fun. Now take someone out of this environment, envision them getting online (or going to the local gaming store) to find out more about this neat game their GM introduced them to and they run into this type of opinion being spouted by the established 'old guard' of the game...doesn't make the community seem particularly friendly or supportive (and believe me, that will impact their impression of the game and their willingness to spend money on it).

 

[BrennanHawkwood]

But NONE of that invalidates the need to have some form of official setting assumptions, even if not a full blown setting. Traveller is best defined by these assumptions: Jump Drive, no FTL-comms, excessive habitable worlds, artificial gravity, and adventurers who are basically different from Joe Normal only in deciding not to retire, but to seek fame and fortune amongst the stars. Those elements are enshrined in the CT, MT, TNE, and T4 rules. One of these is actually directly counter to GURPS: that adventurers differ ONLY in motivation; GURPS implicitly states that normals are 25 point characters (3rd ed revised).

(Emphasis by me.)

I agree that the characters start from the same point and there is no inherant specialness that destines them to be better than those around them. The difference conceptually is based more in the character's willingness to become involved in a different way of life.

On the other hand, given many of the Traveller characters I have built and seen other people build, those characters are far from being Average Joes. The difference is based in experience and background rather than them inherantly being a hero or not, but there is still a difference. Some guy with 20 years of military experience including combat duty is not completely equivelent to someone who has spent 20 years working at a fast food joint.

While some d20 mechanics are oriented towards 'heroes' being something special (d20 Modern's Ordinary vs. Hero character types) there is no reason that has to be used in a d20-based game and IIRC it was not used in T20...everyone uses the same classes and the only inherant difference between a PC who is 'adventuring' is that, well, they are adventuring and the other guy isn't.

GURPS to my mind works the same way. A 'normal' (25 point character) is a total zeroed baseline who has never done anything particularly interesting with his life. Heck, I don't think anyone I really know could be built in GURPS terms on only 25 points. PCs being built on more points is just a recognition that even those PCs who come from more mundane backgrounds will need to be more detailed than can be done with only 25 points. It is also a recognition that while (again) there is no inherent 'heroeness' about them, most players are going to want PCs that are more experienced than your run-of-the-mill Average Joe. Nothing says you couldn't play one, players just usually don't.

Edited for spelling...

 

[RickA]

Yah, not sure where the idea that T20 characters are "heroic" comes from. They use the same rules for making an NPC as making a PC.

Got into a disagreement with one of my players last week on that subject when we were trying to come up with a viable trade/barter system for T20. The Merchant took exception to the fact that I was working so hard to make a system that "fit on both feet" so to say. The PC's and NPC's all work with the same set of rules.

PC's don't roll d20 to hit and NPC's roll d10. Everyone plays by the same rules, NPC and PC. This gives the world integrity, and allows the fictional construct of the RPG to be stable in the minds of the players and GM, imho.

Games in which the PC's are "special" heroes... well, lots of DnD games are like that. Then, there are many DnD games that aren't like that. It's all how you play it.

 

[flykiller]

... envision them getting online (or going to the local gaming store) to find out more about this neat game their GM introduced them to and they run into this type of opinion being spouted by the established 'old guard' of the game...doesn't make the community seem particularly friendly or supportive (and believe me, that will impact their impression of the game and their willingness to spend money on it).

(smile) why?

 

[mike wightman]

Topics like this stir emotions in people.

I would hope that anyone coming to this board for the first time would be welcomed and supported.

In my experience the CotI forums are amongst the most civilised I've come across.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Aramis:
[QB]T20 and GT: They are not valid versions of traveller for the same reason that 3E isn't AD&D3: lack of mechanical similarities.

Except that D&D3e IS still dungeons and dragons. I mean, it's bloody ridiculous to argue that it isn't. It's got "D&D" on the cover, it's got the same basic concepts, it's the same bloody game just with a few new mechanics and much streamlined. It has hp, AC, d20-based hit rolls, uses a variety of damage dice, saving throws, treasure tables, spell slots for magic, etc. Given all that, if you're honestly arguing that 3e is not 'dungeons and dragons' then I'd say you're somewhat detached from reality.

GURPS works for some, but it has very non-traveller ways of doing a lot of things. the OTU setting could be properly ported to a GTU universe

The GTU IS the OTU. Or at least, it's the same universe as in CT, but extended a few years. That, I thought, was the sort of background that people who disliked the Rebellion/collapse timeline wanted to play in.

The mechanical differences don't mean jack. You're not actually going to convert anything from one setting to another in practise, so why is it important?

T20 is likewise not mechanically similar; a lot more effort was put in initially (and thus far less needed later) to remain as mechanically Traveller as D20 players could handle. Characters are incompatible.

Again, why is that remotely important? People are going to make characters for GT or T20 from scratch.

Heck, TNE isn't the same system as MT or CT either.

One could see the mechanical and setting growth.

I don't really see how that's relevant to anything at all. You're basically dismissing perfectly good conversions of Traveller solely because of their 'pedigree'?

Heck, 2300 is more compatible than GT, and about on par with T20, in terms of mechanics. And t2300/2300AD is NOT usually considered a traveller edition.

That isn't even remotely true.

Based upon Mal's argument, HeroTraveller needs to be counted, too...

Why shouldn't it? It's still Traveller, it's got Marc's blessing. Why not start looking at the big picture instead of being obsessed with this ridiculous 'purity of system' idea? Because in practise that makes no real difference to anything at all.

Flat out, don't blame hunter for those decisions; we, the playtesters, guided his hand and like a good game designer should, Hunter Listened!

Maybe someone should point this process out to Marc Miller... oh wait, we did. And he didn't listen.

But NONE of that invalidates the need to have some form of official setting assumptions, even if not a full blown setting. Traveller is best defined by these assumptions: Jump Drive, no FTL-comms, excessive habitable worlds, artificial gravity, and adventurers who are basically different from Joe Normal only in deciding not to retire, but to seek fame and fortune amongst the stars. Those elements are enshrined in the CT, MT, TNE, and T4 rules. One of these is actually directly counter to GURPS: that adventurers differ ONLY in motivation; GURPS implicitly states that normals are 25 point characters (3rd ed revised).

Oh come off it. Those assumptions are fully enshrined in GT and T20 too. So GURPS Traveller characters are more points than default ones, whooptee-doo. That makes no difference at all to anything in practice.

And I don't see anything in T20 that goes counter to those assumptions either. If you look beyond the system, you're still playing in the same setting in both cases.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:

Originally posted by Casey:
However, you what haven't done and what T20 and GURPS haven't done is make your Traveller my Traveller.

I and the others like me are routinely lambasted for playing our Traveller. We're described as clueless stick in the muds, holding on to outdated and broken systems, existing in dwindling numbers until we gather into nursing homes to roll our final dice. Check out the various posts here, you'll read every description I just wrote and much worse.

Yes, some here have bashed T20 and d20. That's just plain silly. d20 is a fine RPG system for what is was designed for and it wasn't designed for Traveller. People can use the OGL to kit bash d20 every which way, but the results will still be d20 at their heart and the heart is what counts.

It is much the same with GURPS. No matter what sourcebook comes out, GURPS will be GURPS at its heart. And GURPS isn't Traveller either.

When I try and point out how GT and T20 aren't Traveller, I'm accused of hating either Stee Jackson or D&D. I don't hate Steve Jackson. I owned his wargames before GURPS was a glint in his eye. I don't hate D&D either. I played D&D for years.

GT and T20 are not my Traveller. As Daryen pointed out, there are significant mechanical and setting differences at their very hearts. GT and T20 can be someone else's Traveller, just not my Traveller. And I don't need to continually defend my choice in the matter.

You use your system and let me use mine. Don't question my intelligence because I don't use the 'latest and greatest' system. Don't sniff that I should get with the times. Don't imply I'm some old semi-senile fogey too wedded to my false memories of a dead RPG system to realize that T20 or GT are great. I know what T20 is, I know what GT is, and what there are not is my Traveller.

This works both ways though.

You let it slip yourself here that "T20 isn't Traveller" and that "GURPS Traveller isn't Traveller". Well, hate to break it to you Bill, but it says right there on the cover that they are.

If you really are such a 'you use your system and let me use mine' kind of guy, then you'll practise what you preach.

Because as it is, you grognards come across as being intellectually superior, grumbling old men sneering at these upstarts who dare to use these heretical systems that aren't 'real traveller', bcause you have some ridiculous obsession with the pedigree of the system instead of just playing the damn game.

Maybe I have a different perspective, not being a regular player of the game and all (which apparently makes my opinion magically less valid) but from where I'm standing the system you use to play the game doesn't make the blindest bit of difference to the experience. You get a bunch of people who want to play in the Traveller setting using whatever system they're most comfortable with, you make up your characters, and off you go. Whether they're playing CT, MT, TNE, T4, GT, T20, Hero, FUDGE, BESM or some unholy combination of all those those is irrelevant. Traveller's already had 6 different sets of official mechanics for it anyway, the only thing that's stayed constant throughout is the setting itself (and no, I don't think that the fact that an air/raft is 2 tons heavier in GURPS than it should be, or that one has Jump masking and the others don't explicitly have it, or that GURPS has slightly different tech assumptions to TNE which has different assumptions to the other games or whatever other minor differences there are makes it a 'totally different universe').

Fact is, you're a bunch of people gathered round a table playing what you all agree on as being Traveller. Hell, there's probably more variation introduced by the GM himself than there is introduced by the different books he uses. If it really does become "IMTU" or "your Traveller" when you start playing, then you don't really have a leg to stand on when arguing for dismissing a system just because of its mechanical heritage and 'purity'.

There's no reason why everyone playing whatever version of the game they like can't do it without sniping at eachother over the choices they make. But you can't claim to be on the defensive when you yourself are suggesting that you should be allowed to do so while saying that GT and T20 'aren't Traveller'. They are Traveller. Get over it.

 

[mike wightman]

It says that Traveller 2300 is Traveller on that cover too

 

[Zparkz]

I have been following this thread for some time now. IMNHO Traveller is what you make it, regardless of rulesystem. I am delighted that Traveller has survived the demise of GDW and the T4 disaster.

T20 (I haven't read the rules, but are fairly familiar with the new D20 system, but not in detail as I am only a player and not GM) and GT has kept Traveller alive to other than the grognards. as it has made the game avaiable in the shelves with a supported system.

Personally I have not invested in GT (expet for a few sourcebooks like Nobles to complement the collection and material avaiable) or T20. Main reason for not buying the above mentioned rules are that I already got rules I am comfertable with, and that I don't see the point in buying a load of more rulebooks to learn.

My prefered rules are TNE. I liked MT when that came out. I never really understood the LBB, but that was prior to my time as a Traveller player (and roleplayer matter of fact). However I have managed to get most of the CT books from both GDW and DGP and find them valuable as sourcebooks.

- Will I buy T5?
- Sadly probably not.

- Why?
Firstly, because I am unsure if I'll spend a lot of money for something I already got. Second, most material has already been written. Do we need it again? Thirdly, will the history be advanced or will it copy Classic (static) History? And lastly, what has kept Traveller available for new players is D20 and GURPS. Now T5 has to compete against its licensees and that are two systems that are both popular and (from what I undertand) both advanced and easy to use.

Maybe I'll buy some sourcebooks if they are rules independent. Other than that I stay with what I got, which is more than enough to keep me going.

[edit: Trying to weed out some spelling errors.]

 

[Malenfant]

Really I think the way forward is something along the lines of the TNE:1248 book. System-less settings books, like the Milieu books proposed for T4.

Forget updating the system. Just provide more playgrounds for people to play in, and let them figure out how to fit it in their rule systems.

 

[mike wightman]

So I ask again, a setting book, or series of them, for D20 Future?

Plus a rulebook for all the bits T20 does better than d20F?

 

[RickA]

I am not a big fan of D20 Modern. I believe D20 Future is based from that?

The brain dead decision to eliminate money from the game and replace it with a DC to acquire something... what in the hell were they thinking? One of the biggest sellers on RPGNow.com is pdf's of D20 Modern and D20 Future Price lists with actual $ prices instead of DC's.

I'd like to see all this varied and hectic effort going into supporting one product. T20 is my choice, but you know, the Traveller community would be better served if it was ANY one product I think. If it's GURPs, so be it. T20? Great. But to come out with a T5 to compete with Traveller's most popular forms? What are they thinking? (Other than the obvious: not making enough money from the license agreement)

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
So I ask again, a setting book, or series of them, for D20 Future?

If it's me you're asking based on my previous post, then No. I mean a setting book without a system. Or perhaps with stat blocks or guidelines for CT, GT, and T20 only.

I don't know how TNE:1248 is going to turn out, I'm guessing it's possibly going to go the latter route there. But basically, however that turns out, I think that should be the way to go.

 

[jfetters]

Really I think the way forward is something along the lines of the TNE:1248 book. System-less settings books, like the Milieu books proposed for T4.

Forget updating the system. Just provide more playgrounds for people to play in, and let them figure out how to fit it in their rule systems.

This is something that Traveller should have always supported, IMHO. I would like to think, too, that GDW was tracking in that direction with TNE and FFS v1. I thought it would have been pretty cool to have a Babylon 5 sourcebook for Traveller, for example.

Traveller has always been marketed as a game that has a defined universe, but you were able to create your own provided that you had the time, imagination and means to do so.

But I think having Traveller as a core rules set, but having sci-fi sourcebooks that tie in with popular sci-fi settings would be killer. (like the current BSG, Firefly, etc...)

Unfortunately, that is a matter of licensing, marketing and lawyers, but it would be great if that would work.

 

[Zparkz]

I agree with Malefant. Forget releasing new rules, unless something really good comes out and SJG and QLI drops/looses their licenses.

Sourcebooks are the way to go.

I can understand Marc trying to release the game again. This is probably T H E game that gave him a name in the game industry and it is hard to see its baby die.

But if marc is really intended this to go well he must sell the game to the young audience and forget about the ever diminishing number of old-timers. We (I consider myself as an old-timer even though I was introduced into Traveller first when MT came out) are too set in our ways and want to see things our way. We have too many other commitments to have the time to spend on world defining, writing complex houserules, learn new rules.

The young ones aren't bright enough to understand that there are some holes in the system and they are eager enough to learn something new (if it is cool enough) to waste countless hours the above mentioned activities.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by RickA:
[QB] I am not a big fan of D20 Modern. I believe D20 Future is based from that?

Yep.

The brain dead decision to eliminate money from the game and replace it with a DC to acquire something... what in the hell were they thinking?

That's an abstraction that has been used in other games. It basically replaces the book-keeping of keeping track of money. You just roll against a difficulty and if you succeed then you can afford it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't .

D20F is in many ways IMO an inferior d20 scifi game to T20. I think the only place it is better is in the chargen, but that's because I think T20 chargen is far too complex and cludgy. But T20 beats easily D20F on world generation (green stars?!) and ship combat and ship/tech design.

I'd like to see all this varied and hectic effort going into supporting one product. T20 is my choice, but you know, the Traveller community would be better served if it was ANY one product I think. If it's GURPs, so be it. T20? Great. But to come out with a T5 to compete with Traveller's most popular forms? What are they thinking? (Other than the obvious: not making enough money from the license agreement)

I'm not sure money is a deciding factor here. I strongly doubt that T5 would make more money than the licensing and royalties from GT and/or T20.

But Marc hasn't provided any justification for T5's existence beyond it being something he's promised for a long time and that it's something he wants to do. The fact that nobody actually wants or needs it seems to have passed him by.