The path least traveller-ed

[flykiller]

But that's what Proto and/or 4-4-4 are, Fly. They're ways to quickly and succinctly set delimiters.

heh. lbb1-3 set 90% of the background. the imperium sets 95%.

Unless the adventure or campaign specifically require such information there's no real need to detail the IN's budget

you can wing that kind of info, sure. but it helps to have detailed it out. for example I spent quite a bit of time detailing out budgets, construction, then design and deployment of in forces - then just set it aside. a payoff comes when my players arrived on pax rulin I was able to detail a base, it's mission, why the navy and naval personnel responed to the players the way they did, and the consequences to the pc's passing through and probable return - in fact it was at the base of the entire adventure. this allowed me to respond in a coherent manner and grow the adventure across two years of game time.

Now Wil's "high level" campaigns (which I greatly envy)

as do I, that sounds great!

required information on how the nobility runs the Imperium

well ... yeah. when you're running a multi-MCr boat past naval forces and trading between polities who may be on the edge of overt warfare and trading between corporations that probably are engaging in covert warfare and exploring worlds that have economic and political impact on the imperial then yeah, it helps to know how the imperial owners are organized and what their goals are, for both player character and referee. and if it's not imperial nobility then it's some other level of ownership - raj, prelate, patriarch, whatever, if you do something they don't like then you'll have problems, and I don't see how that's any less restrictive or intrusive than 3i.

Traveller for me has always been the Third Imperium

me too. not that it has to be, but it seems the most efficient way to accomodate a game westerners will play.

heh. imagine telling players they have to do what their parents tell them or no-one will let them dock, or that the local raj wants 50% of their profits for the crown, or they have to pay a cut to the local mafia boss, or that half their crew has to be political appointees and/or political officers (heh - like in doughert's book, if the political officer doesn't like the captain's decision he can remove or just shoot the captain). no, they want to do what they want, within a system of rule-of-law, that mostly leaves them alone. the 3i fits the bill.

 

[aramis]

Traveller for me has always been the Third Imperium, and the rules tend to evolve in trying to make the game playable.

The 3I setting really begins with Bk5 in 1979...

Hi Wil,

First, I too am always envious and in awe of the high level campaigns you design and play. They always sound great.

Second, I didn't mean to say the list from Supplement 1 was an "inspirational" list for Classic Traveller. All I was saying is that when Miller grabbed a bunch of fiction off the top of his head, that was the list he grabbed. I think it's telling. Others might not.

Third, yes, Asimov and other others you name are certainly influential for the Official Traveller Universe. But as I, others, and even you have noted, there's no straight line from LBBs 1-3 to the OTU. This isn't to say there's anything wrong with the OTU or it shouldn't exist. The entire point of LBBs 1-3 is to serve as a toolkit to build whatever setting someone wanted. GDW wanted the Third Imperium, and the expanded and altered ideas from the toolkit to make what they wanted.

Fourth, when I do talk about inspirational fiction for LBBs 1-3, I simply go to what Miller said himself in a Space Gamer interview from 1981 and other interviews.

In these interviews Miller always makes it clear:
a) there was never any assumption GDW would be producing an official setting when the gang was working on Traveller (everyone assumed the purpose of an RPG rules set was for the Referee to build his own setting for his friends to explore)
b) he seldom names the books and authors most people who love the OTU name when describing the OTU. (In the interview linked to above the first names out of his mouth are The Demon Princes series, the Flandry series, and the Dumarest series.

Now, those book are fun entertaining pulp adventure stories. But anyone reading them with an eye toward "real" or "speculative fiction" would have to dismiss them.

I'm not sure of what you think of them, though. What do you think of them?

I haven't read the first series, and disliked the bits of Dumarest and Flandry.

The most important interview is the one where the timing is mentioned. Marc started writing it in very late 1976 or early 1977. Right about the time Star Wars advertising began. It was sent to the printer just before Star Wars hit the screen.

Marcs sources appear to include the local newspaper, Popular Mechanics, and Popular science. All the TL 6-7 tech prices are in 1976 prices, including Bk2 trade goods (those are rounded, but really close to 1976 spot price averages). The ground car appears to be a Ford Pinto or Chevy Nova...

I do know you recently posted about how you received an email from Miller clarifying that LBBs 1-3 were not striving to be Hard SF, but, instead, the pulp tales he mentions in interviews. So, I'm not exactly sure how what I'm saying is particularly controversial or worthy of argument.

Not quite an accurate poratrayal of Marc's comments, there - Marc claimed it was never intended to be "Hard Sci Fi", but was always intended to be (and remain) Sci-Fi. emphasis on the Hard vs not-hard.

The Niven, Pournelle, and Asimov influences are dead clear by the publication of Bk 4 & 5.

The heinlein influence is clear in Bk 1 - Read the description of battle dress. I can't think of any earlier source with powered armor vacuum suits.

The Traveller Jump Drive is a pretty close pastiche of the Alderson drive, but with the limits on navigation being swapped for massive fuel consumption.

Traveller as written was generic Sci-Fi in the same way D&D was generic Fantasy - a bold faced lie of a claim in both cases, because neither genre actually has any "generic" to be.

Traveller as written isn't like Trek, it isn't like Asimov, it isn't like the Niven/Pournelle/Stirling CoDoVerse, it isn't like Lost In Space, it's not like the Flandry (more properly Technic) Universe, it's not like Doc Smith (lensman nor fuzzy)... but it's got dribs and drabs of all of them.

Traveller TL15 speeds are pretty close to Trek TOS warp speeds...
It's got the Technic universe's emphasis on merchants.
It's got the Lens and Psi from Doc Smith.
It's got the continuous speed drives from the CoDo.

It's even got illos in later books inspired by UFO, Lost In Space, and Space 1999....

Marc may not have intended expand CT, but they did. And then it took off.

Sometimes, bigger isn't better, and for Traveller, for many, the 4-4-4 paradigm is better than the later big ship universe.

One key thing about a realistic Hard-Space-Opera/Soft-Sci-Fi game is that it's easily adapted to do planetary romance or pulp fiction almost effortlessly.

 

[flykiller]

so. it was cobbled together ad hoc from the very beginning.

Sometimes, bigger isn't better, and for Traveller, for many, the 4-4-4 paradigm is better than the later big ship universe.

iirc lbb2 goes up to 5000 dtons - on what basis would larger ships/guns be disallowed? "we just don't do that?"

 

[creativehum]

Aramis, I honestly think we're agreeing on any points of significance. Thank you for the conversation.

iirc lbb2 goes up to 5000 dtons - on what basis would larger ships/guns be disallowed? "we just don't do that?"

Leaving aside any of the University of Handwavium justifications that came after Books 1-3, I assumed that Jump Drive technology and engineering (like lots of technologies and engineering) had limits. In this case Jump Drives could move a certain, maximum volume of material safely into and through jump space and no more.

Non-jump drive ships could be built much larger, of course. The 1977 edition of the rules discussion Dyson Spheres and Ringwolrds as possible environments. I'm sure there could be massive, non-jump battle platforms bristling with weaponry.

 

[flykiller]

Jump Drive technology and engineering (like lots of technologies and engineering) had limits.

so, 100dtons min, 5000dtons max. as good a limitation as any, and has the benefit of being coherent and not entirely arbitrary.

heh. but you know some players will push for 6k, then 7k ....

Non-jump drive ships could be built much larger, of course.

and that would lock out any notion of large empire. yeah, could work.

(until someone gets the idea of modular ships - jump the pieces in, assemble them, attack ....)

 

[aramis]

so, 100dtons min, 5000dtons max. as good a limitation as any, and has the benefit of being coherent and not entirely arbitrary.

heh. but you know some players will push for 6k, then 7k ....



and that would lock out any notion of large empire. yeah, could work.

(until someone gets the idea of modular ships - jump the pieces in, assemble them, attack ....)

Ton for ton, modular is less effective than single built. Add to that the need for even more pieces due to a higher needed systems proportion per weapon for jump craft...

 

[mike wightman]

so. it was cobbled together ad hoc from the very beginning.



iirc lbb2 goes up to 5000 dtons - on what basis would larger ships/guns be disallowed? "we just don't do that?"

The maneuver drive field and the jump drive field have a maximum ship volume they can affect...

 

[mike wightman]

so, 100dtons min, 5000dtons max. as good a limitation as any, and has the benefit of being coherent and not entirely arbitrary.

heh. but you know some players will push for 6k, then 7k ....

12,000 is the very limit of Z drives

and that would lock out any notion of large empire. yeah, could work.

12000t jump 1 ships can carry a lot of stuff,

(until someone gets the idea of modular ships - jump the pieces in, assemble them, attack ....)

You are still limited to maneuver drive fields only scaling to a certain size. You could assemble a big modular ship but it would have fractional g performance.

 

[mike wightman]

The proto-Imperium as a setting begins with A:1 - that is where we get the Regina subsector and library data for the setting, not to mention rumours of events elsewhere in the setting.

79HG was where proto-Imperium undergoes quantum collapse and re-interprets itself with a new drive TL paradigm, big ships etc. - the beginning of the end for the proto-Imperium.

Powered armour is also to be found in the Lensmen series by the way.

 

[flykiller]

The 3I setting really begins with Bk5 in 1979...

heh. thought I remembered something, looked up lbb4 page 1 -

"Traveller assumes a remote centralized government (referred to in this volume as the Imperium) possessed of great industrial and technological might, but unable, due to the sheer distances and travel times involved, to exert total control at all levels everywhere within its star-spanning realm. On the frontiers, extensive home rule provisions allow planetary populations to choose their own form of government, raise and maintain armed forces for local security, pass and enforce laws governing local conduct, and regulate (within limits) commerce. Defense of the frontier is mostly provided by local indigenous forces, stiffened by scattered imperial naval bases manned by small but extremely sophisiticated forces. Conflicting local interests often settle their differences by force of arms, with Imperial forces quietly looking the other way, unable to effectively intervene as a police force in any but the most wide-spread of conflicts without jeapordizing their primary mission of defense of the realm."

considering lbb1-3 in light of this thread, I've been tempted to write that lbb1-3 were written with the imperium in mind, but unnamed, all along.

 

[flykiller]

The maneuver drive field and the jump drive field have a maximum ship volume they can affect...

yeah, that referee ruling could work. of course there are consequences ....

for example, this makes just about everyone - player characters, pirates, police, polities, religious organizations, et al - naval combat peers. this minimizes offensive capability but minimizes defensive capability even more, making criminal activity much more profitable and therefore more likely. this will greatly impact rule-of-law, continuity of government, trade success, etc.

"there is chaos under heaven and the situation is excellent"?

 

[aramis]

considering lbb1-3 in light of this thread, I've been tempted to write that lbb1-3 were written with the imperium in mind, but unnamed, all along.

I think they were written with AN imperium in mind... One more like that in the CoDoVerse... but then they saw Star Wars....

 

[flykiller]

but then they saw Star Wars....

eh, dunno. they didn't elevate psionics to magical powers, in fact the imperium was rendered somewhat more anti-psionic and "mind powers" were relegated to a remote hostile polity. no planet-busting weapons were implemented. no new rules appeared to allow a 200 dton merchant to continuously evade a 20000 dton destroyer or allow a <100dton fighter to detonate a 1Mdton deathstar.

while star wars is a heroic high-adventure mega-character setting, traveller (3i and otherwise) has always been mostly ordinary people in a mildly extrapolated scifi setting and has pretty much kept that orientation.

 

[aramis]

Star Wars is the inspiration for the big ship universe's ships.
Note: Marc and one or more other staffers went to see Star Wars just after putting CT-77 to press.

The Dragon mag article notes that they were aware it would influence later works.

I suspect CT would have been rather different if they had waited 2 months...

The impact on Bill Keith cannot be missed, if one knows what to look for.
The front of the Type A2 as drawn by Bill was heavily influenced by the Millennium Falcon.
He's gotten a Y-wing into print.

Vader and Luke are in Sup 4

Most importantly, it put huge ships into the minds of players and designers alike.

 

[flykiller]

it put huge ships into the minds of players and designers alike.

oh they would have thought of that anyway. lbb2 had no rational "upper limit" and 1) we all know what players (and referees who play with the game) do and 2) after doing lbb4 "army" it's unlikely that the lbb5 "navy" writers would not have included big ships. and anyway lbb5 ships don't seem to resemble sw ships other than the fact that both can be "big" and full of people and full of guns - not seeing any real "influence" there.

The front of the Type A2 as drawn by Bill was heavily influenced by the Millennium Falcon.

well, that explains a lot. I remember looking over the a2 and thinking, "who's responsible for this?" but even there 1) the a2 carries cargo, while the mf never seems to carry anything, and 2) the a2 can't even begin to outrun a police boat, let alone a "star destroyer" or whatever those ineffective things were.

The Dragon mag article notes that they were aware it would influence later works.

sure, everything influences everything - your list of where marc got his ideas for traveller makes it look like a buffet of ideas thrown together on a plate. but as the structure of lbb1-3 and the preface to lbb4 make clear, the "imperium" was presumed before marc saw star wars. and while the star wars empire was a big bad bad guy, the traveller imperium was kept largely neutral and in the background of the game - the players aren't fighting big heroic battles against the evil imperium, they're just people who live in the imperium and the imperium is their over-arching government with which they don't have all that much contact.

which, near as I can figure, is just the way most players like it most of the time (good job marc), so I'll bet most players who feel driven to create their own non-3i setting will wind up with 3i-lite, or else some kind of transhuman/starWars/lensman ... thing ....

 

[flykiller]

in fact, notice the big shining core presumption blazing like a star in the middle of star wars: 1) good guys and 2) bad guys 3) both with heroic magic mind powers 4) fighting. traveller has no such core. traveller itself has no core whatsoever, except whatever the referee and players bring to the game.

given that, I'd say that any influence by star wars on traveller is incidental.

 

[aramis]

oh they would have thought of that anyway. lbb2 had no rational "upper limit"

Actually, Bk 2 DOES have a rational upper limit.

• The game only firmly covers to TL15.
• Drives are limited in size by TL. ¹
• Drives take damage in steps ¹
• Increased Tech Level allows larger drives ²
• Drives only becomes irreparable 1 hit below A.³
• The Drive Table is nearly formulaic. ⁴

This puts the Z drive cap at About 10KTd. Increasing TL would continue to add steps, at about 500Td per step, and 2 steps per TL...

I find the Bk5 limits far less sensible, since maximum size is purely based upon computer tech, and computer tech is readily enhanced by parallelism and distribution.


¹ WHich implies that some indelicate component must be single cast as a whole piece, and reduced input from other elements of the JD and MD reduces its overall function. Something akin to the mirrors in the Vorkosiverse jump drives.
² Which implies that the singlecast component is increased in maximum single-casting size with increasing tech level
³ which implies some well protected indelicate component. And also implies that that component is what's represented by that last hit to destroy.
⁴ To find the maximum rating, multiply the rating @ tonnage by the tonnage. The drive table includes a couple of hiccups - entries that break formula - I suspect for copyright reasons.