Hello gentlemen,
A bit of rumour control needed, I fancy!
I kinda see what he's saying. Instead of a group of employees, tuned into every aspect of the game they are creating, with an agenda, creating stuff for a game vs. a fan being tapped to write for that game.
Two points here. In the Old Days, Mongoose employed full time writers. We now use freelancers from a variety of sources. However, you shouldl be aware that this is what the vast majority of RPG companies, big and small, do. Employing writers on a permanent basis is very, very rare, and when we were doing it, you could count the number of other companies doing the same thing on one hand.
In short, the days you pine for never really existed.
Second, Don and Rob are not exactly 'fans.' They are very much Marc's trusted gatekeepers to the OTU.
The development of the Traveller line has obviously ran its course and there isn't anywhere obvious to go. This was an obvious flaw due to the timeline not advancing as it has in previous editions.
Sorry, eh, what???
It fair boggles my mind that any game and/or setting like Traveller can possibly run its course in, well, ever really.
Advancing timelines have their own issues but even if it did not advance, there is so much scope out there...
I agree expanding the post TNE timeline could have been nice, but Mongoose chose to grow in another direction (which I think has worked well for them financially).
Doesn't mean we can't/won't look at other aspects of the timeline. However we would would want to effectively treat each new step as its own setting, with all the support that would entail.
Short version of that is that fan or pro doesn't matter so long as you deliver a solid product - but that requires writing like a pro for the duration of the project.
QFT.
the publisher sticking in all those space filling mini deckplans?
When we started Traveller, we made a promise to provide a deck plan for every ship we printed. Hardly space-filler, I feel...
MJD, keep in mind: Matthew has said on-line, repeatedly, "There is no Official Traveller Universe." He has used OTU to refer to the "Original Traveller Universe."
Actually, I always considered the two terms interchangeable. They are one and the same (they both refer to the 3I and spin-offs, after all).
There is an apparent institutional disdain at Mongoose for the OTU, and when the head of the company says at the outset that it is no longer the "official universe", but the universe is more known than the rules, there is an inherent disconnect from the fans.
I hink you read a little more into that than was intended. The intention was to be able to use Traveller for more than just the OTU (however you wish to say the O). _Nothing_ more. Just thought it would be cool to use the rules for other universes, and have the ability to mix and match if so desired.
Hasn't worked out so badly, I think.
Also, it's interesting that Matthew quite obviously intentionally leaked that someone else beat him to the draw on the SW license... Which we know now was FFG.
You say interesting as if there was some nefarious intent behind it. I mentioned it for no other reason than I thought people _would_ be interested.
I was at Gencon UK when Mongoose first got the Traveller licence. A press flyer came round announcing Traveller was coming back after being OOP for ten years. I remember looking at all the GT/T20/HT products on the BITS stand (plus supporting BITS products) and thinking, so what's all this, chopped liver?
Well, all the games you mentioned there were licensed settings, effectively. I think the point that we were bringing back the original Traveller was one that was understood. Surely?
Then I went to a Q and A session given by Mongoose where Matthew (I think it was him) told the room that Traveller was the rules and not the setting, and smugly announced that he "intended to drive a wedge" between them.
Smugly. Really. What mindset do you think someone would need to be smug about that?
The wedge I was talking about, and it was mentioned at the time, was simply an intention to allow official settings to be created using the same core Traveller rules between all of them. So, you could play Judge Dredd (say) with Traveller rules that you already knew, _and_ transport items between the two. So, you want mutants in 3I, use the Dredd rules. Need a quick merchant ship for JD, bring one in from the core Traveller rules.
That was _all_ that was intended.
So I guess GT, for example, is just a variant of GURPS for playing the OTU and not real Traveller in their eyes. Ditto T20 and HT.
If you wanted to look at things in the nastiest way possible, you could make a case for the above, yes. We don't publish GURPS or T20 or Hero, so they have nothing to do with us. The argument could be made that they licence the 3I, and that 'real' Traveller (as you put it, not I) also brings with it certain assumptions about the rules set - certainly the case if you go back to Classic Traveller, as we did.
But, it should also be noted, we do not really think in those terms, nor have we ever.
Sorry, but the great conspiracy just does not exist!
I'm not happy that my many attempts at submission were snubbed...
...I really don't like the way I was treated by Mongoose, and think it unprofessional to the core
I do not know what happened here and I can only say that I am very sorry you were treated that way, and that everyone involved in that treatment has since been fired.
Traveller submissions are now handled solely by myself and, via me, Marc's approval system. Drop me a line at
msprange@mongoosepublishing.com and we can talk. I'll go through with you the changes we have made for writers and you can discuss the kind of things you would like to write, 3I or no.
You'll have nothing to lose but a single email
T What surprised me was that it just looked like a modernized version of the Classic Traveller rules, which is what I think Traveller really needed for a the longest time.
In this, we are in complete agreement.
That is a question - how did those alien modules sell, and to whom?
Best selling 3I books after the Spinward Marches book, which we have always used as a kind of intro for the setting as a whole.
It _is_ okay not to like everything we do, even if you are a 3I die-hard! However, be aware that there are reasons for every change, and they are not done unilaterally.
That said, we are also always looking to improve, and if we were to re-do one of these books, it would be Sword Worlds.
a poorer task system, combat model, and writing than MegaTraveller.
You understand that is opinion, not fact, right?
And the errata for MT is mostly typos; for MgT, genuine flaw patching.
All four pages of it, all of which only affects the first printing of the book, not the vast majority of copies out there.
It really is a nice rulebook that does everything it set out to do, and I think most here might agree with that, even if they prefer another version of Traveller.
