TNE 1248 Sourcebook

[MJD]

As I remarked earlier, we're considering moving up 1248 on the shcedule. This raises a number of issues, and the bottom line is - it it worth us doing this? Will be 1248 book sell enough to pay its way in the product line?

We all know what Larsen thinks, and I believe him, but we need morer to go on. So, we're floating this idea - if the response is good enough we'll do it.

We're going to do a pre-release PDF veriosn of 1248. Those who pre-order it ($10) will get the full pDF version as soon as it's ready.

They'll also get a rough draft before art and layout, and access to the playtest as the book develops.

If enough people are interested, we can probably have a working manuscript by Janurary 1st. And of course if sales are good enough we'll start producing support materials.

This is a projwect we really want to do, but it's a risk. It means stepping out of our planned product sequence and tying up money that could go on other projects.

So: is it worth doing?

 

[Cymew]

Does it mean tying up resources that would have been used for producing the Gateway book, then I'm very much against. I had planned that book to be my first QLI purchase, since the T20 rules wasn't available.

Otherwise, go ahead.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Cymew:
Does it mean tying up resources that would have been used for producing the Gateway book, then I'm very much against. I had planned that book to be my first QLI purchase, since the T20 rules wasn't available.

Otherwise, go ahead.

I'd rather see TNE:1248 than Gateway - though ideally, neither one will get in the other's way. A new TNE setting that moves Traveller forward is vastly more preferable to me than yet another historical Traveller setting. I'm sure a lot of TNE fans are dying to see what comes next too.

But I know I'd love to see TNE:1248 pushed up the schedule. And I'd definitely pick up the PDF.

So hell yeah, I think it's worth doing!!

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Cymew:
Does it mean tying up resources that would have been used for producing the Gateway book, then I'm very much against. I had planned that book to be my first QLI purchase, since the T20 rules wasn't available.

Otherwise, go ahead.

No, Gateway is still the next major book on the list once we get the THB reprint and RefScreen situation with the printer settled out.

The TNE book hasn't even been written yet.

Hunter

 

[Morte]

I'd love to see a PDF of the 1248 book. The Gateway 995 PDF has been very useful. 1248 seems like my kind of setting -- less comfortable -- and I'm keen to see it. I'm especially keen to see it as soon as it's ready, not when the printers of this world feel like tossing me a bone.

I know a lot of people on this board have another material to fall back on, but I just started out and PDFs are what have made my game possible. Since I can't buy a rulebook at the moment, I'm running this game on the Lite rules, the sample PDF which gave half the scout class, and the Gateway PDF. I've got somebody who wants to join as some sort of ex-military character, maybe belter/marine, and no rules for that. I'll probably reverse engineer a PC using the 76 gunmen PDF and handwave prior history.

I'd never have gotten a group of RPG newbies together without pointing them at the T20 Lite PDF and saying "see what you think of this".

If you release a PDF of the main rulebook, just for the next month, I'll give you 45 bucks for it.

 

[notagoodusername]

Yep, I'd grab hold of 1248 with both hands! TNE was what got me into Traveller (yep, Shane's dark secret is he's a Traveller newbie who has *never* played CT...) and I can't wait to see it moving forward!


Shane

 

[alanb]

Yes, I would really like to see the 1248 sourcebook. It looks like tons of fun.

That said, I prefer my game products in dead tree format. I have a slight allergy to credit cards, and well, to date, haven't actually bought anything over the net. But of course, dead tree format costs money.

It also involves distribution networks, and this matters a lot if you live on the other side of the world from a publisher.

TNE was one of the best solo games ever. It had huge amounts of elbow room for designing pocket empires and all that. It was therefore a dream system for people who like writing "histories", crunching economic numbers, and generally carrying on like a complete, err, hobbyist.

On the other hand, the system wasn't wonderful for people like me who dislike learning rules. I probably could have adjusted to it if I had had someone else to GM for me, but as someone who would have had to GM it, it wasn't optimal. This is true of T20 as well. I like using rules I learned twenty years ago and have pretty much memorised. Not coincidentally, I have got back into the Hero System this year, because the core rules are the original Champions rules I learned back in 1982...

For all its faults, I liked the TNE storyline. It was probably a bit intrusive for campaigns set in and around the RC, but it was still a good yarn, and its pseudo-science was within limits that I consider acceptable.

I think the 1248 supplement would be a very entertaining read. I would be as likely to treat it as a novel of sorts as I would be to use it as a basis for a campaign. On the other hand, if there is sufficient room left for a pocket empire with my name on it, I might be tempted to consider it as a setting for my "next" Traveller campaign, which is likely to enter the planning stage after I get bored with masks, capes and spandex. All I would really want is for there to be no particular statements to the effect of "eventually all this area will be overrun by the 4th Imperium and anything you create will be negated". I dislike having the future predetermined.

It would be unlikely that any pocket empire I would introduce in my campaign would ever become powerful enough to be a serious rival to the Imperium or similar states, but I don't really want to know that. At least potentially, I want such a state to be a contender, if only it can resolve its current problems, and deal with the new and more difficult problems that will occur in the future, and get lucky, and have a government that doesn't shoot itself in the foot, and...

So yes, I would like a campaign setting that did that, and was an interesting read in its own right, and, I suppose, provide a framework that would allow me to grab my own little patch of space that I can daydream as being part of a larger universe inhabited by all the other little pocket empires and factions of larger empires created by all the other people who play Traveller.

So there. And I want it NOW!

Alan Bradley

 

[William]

Originally posted by MJD:
As I remarked earlier, we're considering moving up 1248 on the shcedule. This raises a number of issues, and the bottom line is - it it worth us doing this? Will be 1248 book sell enough to pay its way in the product line?
(snip)
So: is it worth doing?

Martin,

I believe so.

Traveller _needs_ desparatly to have a totally new era to explore and expand in. Only moving the timeline ahead beyond anything previously published can do that. It was one thing to be gaming in 1105 back in the day when the products were coming out and that was the timeline and it was advancing. It's quite another to be there and "know" that either the rebellion/hard times/new era or the GT timeline is coming. I have an even bigger problem with that issue, personally, with the 990 setting of T20. While the quality of the product is good, you just don't have the same feeling of being able to create history. This is not to say that individual GM's _can't_ have the Imperials march all the way to Home and end the Rim War that way; but I know very few who use the OTU and then do that kind of change.

IIUC, the 1248 book will be useful with all versions of the game and will present a snapshot; a moment in time that does not progress but does not have anything official out in front of it. This is one of the (many) strengths of Harn - all products are set at the same date. The timeline does not advance and the GM can take it anywhere the GM wants to.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I finally finished reading DP last night. That combined with the information in the "hints" thread gives me all I need to know about the scope of your vision for 1248. Give us the stars and let us take care of our P(c's)eople...

Oh, and if you'll take it, I'll send you my CC info today for that pre-order

Money where my mouth is and all that.

William

 

[Granpafishy]

I'ld go for it.

 

[far-trader]

Well as biased as your research audience here may be I'll add my own eager for The New TNE Era* material vote, with a caveat.

Exactly what in the queue will it be jumping? And how much will it likely delay the release of those projects? I think it would only be a bad idea if it were to steal any momentum from the T20 base line (in terms of meeting publication dates and keeping an active production of the line in stores).

That said I can hardly wait, like the rest, to throw my money at you for the preorder of the PDF

* Sorry, that was so funny when I first saw it I just had to use it too

 

[DED]

Originally posted by MJD:
As I remarked earlier, we're considering moving up 1248 on the shcedule. This raises a number of issues, and the bottom line is - it it worth us doing this? Will be 1248 book sell enough to pay its way in the product line?

<snip>

So: is it worth doing?

Yes. I would definitely go the pre-order route for it. I was tempted to with the Gateway book but as my campaign is still 1140's Regency, I decided I would just wait for that finished product.

And if you want, I can re-post this post to the TNE ml and see what kind of reaction surfaces there.

I think that the one thing that TNE fans and haters can agree on at this point in time is that the OT storyline needs to be advanced. I know TNE fans are hungry for a continuation of the 1202 TNE story. And TNE haters just want to move on past the 1202 TNE story and get to what's next. While I don't know how well your outline of 1248 has gone over with that crowd, perhaps it will be to their liking.

Obviously something like this shouldn't be rushed. As someone else said, we've waited this long, a few more months won't kill us. However, I can certainly be counted on to pre-order the pdf.

 

[mike wightman]

Maybe someone could set up a poll (I havn't a clue how to do it) to gauge the interest in the various upcoming releases and how many would go for the early pdf stuff.
You can count me in for the earliest possible release of the 1248 TNE guidebook.

 

[MJD]

By all means spread the word to RCES or TML lists.

If 1248 is advanced, it will be slotted in after Homecoming, the first Grad Adventure (which I'll be fniishing by end of Sept). Gateway, Starfall and the PLayers book are already done.

 

[TheDS]

Count me in too, and if you take Paypal I'll place my order now! This is something everyone who is still at all non-disillusioned with Traveller has been waiting for.

I've got no problem waiting a bit longer, as long as the wait is because you're making it a better product.

 

[saulweaver]

I am not putting any more money into a past with no future. I'll buy everything for 1248+ and nothing from any other prior mileu, including Gateway. I just see no point in trying to build a future for which you already know the (unhappy) ending.

So count me in on 1248, and out on everything else.

 

[daryen]

As soon as I know the 1248 pre-release PDF is on the shopping card, I will buy it.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Seeing as How I might be elsewhere when this does happen, I shall be weighted heavily towards an early pay-for, and read it when I get back<looks at calendar to Iraq, nods>..on Pdf available? Note to self--Self, Must get new ink cartridges!

 

[shield]

Yes, I will buy it, I would prefer a book but can live with a PDF. I think that most traveller players will be curious to see what happens in the 1200's (even if they did not like the Virus and TNE in general).

Just make sure moving it up the schedule does not hit the general expansion of the T20 world - no point in screwing up the cash flow for a few extra months. But if you can do it I would be very keen to see a TNE1248 sourcebook - sooner the better

Cheers
Richard

 

[Mergle]

I was drawn to these boards a short while back while desparately searching the web for any new new Era stuff. I thought it worth making my first posting to say I'll buy anything that comes out to move us beyond 1204. (And I'm delighted by what I've seen so far of the ideas for 1248). I've much less interest in filling in the "backstory" - which is all the prior milieus are to me.

 

[vutpakdi]

I'd place a pre-order for a 1248 sourcebook.

Ron