Torches and Pitchforks?

[LeperColony]

When TNE came out, I was in Jr. High and the internet wasn't what it is today (I'm the last generation that can remember a time before the internet!), so I would have no way of knowing, so my question is, when it came out was it as bad as Dave makes it sound? Were there torches, pitchforks, etc... Or does Dave have a bit of a persecution complex?

 

[Dragoner]

I remember with us feeling it was changing Traveller into some wild west game and being in engineering school with many friends in computer science, virus was embarassing. No more big ships or anything? Fighting a computer virus? It seemed a very Luddite move. All of us playing were still 90% playing CT rules, just because MT rules added complexity without any actual gain like easier starship combat, TNE was a clean break from Traveller is how it felt. I moved over to computer gaming, others I remember playing Rifts or Deadlands, I never saw a TNE game being played and then GDW folded amidst that CCG madness.

 

[Uxi]

More than a few flame wars I participated in on the old TML, but there were many defenders to clash with the old school grognards, as well. Most of us moved away to TNE-RCES to avoid the noise and the stuff that just wasn't relevant though usually had dual membership on both lists since we could data mine some of the stuff the old timers were doing. I always thought the original Traveller LBB's were quaint but decent while MT was a disaster that I avoided but jumped in with TNE, so was always partisan to it.

Of course, criticism is always seen more readily than acceptance since the former are more likely to be vocal. Dave did notice some of us, though.

 

[Dragoner]

I avoided the TML and Listservs etc. just because I didn't care to argue over jump torps, death shuttles and piracy; TNE was like a whole brand new game. Same thing happened with T2K when the USSR fell apart and then they moved T2K to another system, a lot of players either kept playing the old stuff or moved on to other games.

 

[DonM]

I abandoned the TML and went over to the Xboat list. The later (T4) forced re-integration of Xboat with the TML is what spawned the creation of the ct-starships yahoo group...

Ok, so I'm a curmudgeonly old warhorse, ok? And yes, I'm the guy at the GDW seminar at Gen Con who walked out after shouting to Loren, "you've made yourself the greatest mass murderer ever". And others walked out too.

Not one of my prouder moments, but I have apologized several times since to Loren, who is a very nice guy. And Frank.

I was an excitable person at times in the early 90s. I hope I've mellowed some since.

 

[robject]

And I was a CT grognard untimely born, not finding Traveller until 1994, and then in The Traveller Book. I loved the x-boat mailing list, and had difficulty integrating with the FFS-minded TML and T4 crowd.

 

[atpollard]

I played Classic Traveller and liked the rules enough that MT, TNE and T4 largely came and went without my ever taking notice. If I had taken notice, I would probably have shrugged and simply ignored them anyway (like AD&D 2 ed, 3ed, 4 ed...).

Discovering MT, and TNE via the FFE CDs, I find them interesting, but frankly, there is a lot to hate for anyone playing an older version when the new version comes out.

MegaTraveller asks you to pay for what is more of a recompilation of CT from a rules standpoint and a radical different setting. If you liked CT, you probably liked the integrated tasks and vehicle design rules (and hated the need for internal corrections).

TNE shreads the old Imperium, something that fans of the imperium must have found intolerable and critics of the Imperium probably welcomed with open arms. The Starship design rules are (IMO) a full order of magnitide too complex to be either usable or fun. I have personal doubts that any vehicle can be created 100% per the rules with absolutely no errors or deviations from the rules. Apparent internal contradictions abound.

The TNE game rules require any CT/MT player to completely relearn a new system - that also must have earned them some enemies.

Overall, I found the TNE setting (ignoring the Virus 'how we got here') more interesting than the rules ... but both were clearly a bitter pill to swallow for any pre-TNE Traveller fan.

 

[Uxi]

The Starship design rules are (IMO) a full order of magnitide too complex to be either usable or fun.

I had great amounts of fun once I tweaked Annti's spreadsheets to my liking. Many hours doing fighters, gigantic cruisers, smaller destroyers and optimizing the designs, tweaking systems, etc. Doing it with pencil, paper, and calculator was a bit too much like my College Physics, though, if only it had calculus in it.

Had great fun with the Battle Rider system, too. Not as complex as Brilliant Lances and let you decent sized fleet actions.

 

[Dragoner]

I abandoned the TML and went over to the Xboat list. The later (T4) forced re-integration of Xboat with the TML is what spawned the creation of the ct-starships yahoo group...

Ok, so I'm a curmudgeonly old warhorse, ok? And yes, I'm the guy at the GDW seminar at Gen Con who walked out after shouting to Loren, "you've made yourself the greatest mass murderer ever". And others walked out too.

Not one of my prouder moments, but I have apologized several times since to Loren, who is a very nice guy. And Frank.

I was an excitable person at times in the early 90s. I hope I've mellowed some since.

Nah, you aren't any older than the rest of us, I was the guy who took his deathrocky girlfriend to gen con in 1987, she wearing silver lipstick and had crowds of geeky guys following us and taking our picture, people even asked if we were movie stars, it was miserable. I met Gary Gygax though.

 

[aramis]

And I was a CT grognard untimely born, not finding Traveller until 1994, and then in The Traveller Book. I loved the x-boat mailing list, and had difficulty integrating with the FFS-minded TML and T4 crowd.

I was an MT grognard who was (in 1996) desperately trying to like TNE (because half my potential players did), and failing on both the setting and the rules.

I was opposed to the termination of the XBML into the TML, and when the flareups over T4 tasks and over FF&S2 got heated, basically, quit the TML in disgust. Right about the time this odd guy announced he was going to port Traveller over to D&D... Hunter something-or-other...


There definitely was hate-mail over TNE. My group sent a rather detailed "Please don't do this" after Survival Margin came out.

And Dave did get death threats.

 

[Zparkz]

Overall, I found the TNE setting (ignoring the Virus 'how we got here') more interesting than the rules ... but both were clearly a bitter pill to swallow for any pre-TNE Traveller fan.

If it hadn't been for TNE I might actually have dropped Traveller. I came late to Traveller. Almost 2 years after MT was released. For someone who was new to roleplaying games it was just sheer luck that I managed to connect the old CT material i found in my then local friendly game store.

At that time the journal was not available any more, Challenge had taken its place. It took me a year until I discovered Challenge and DGP after I bought MT. I was really struggling with the game. What was it about? How the heck did these starship combat rules work? The books contained a lot of hints about the universe, but nothing really to connect the bits.

It helped when I got in touch with someone who was selling his CT stuff early in early 90s. First then I managed to get some grip on the game, but the lack of support for MT did not help MT at al. GDW missed the opportunity to tie in MT related products like starship combat game, Rebellion board game and so on. What did come was late and not very coherent with the setting, until Hard Times.

TNE in my book fixed all that. it did not require prior knowledge about the setting, and it did get relevant support material from day one.

 

[FreeTrav]

However bad you can imagine it, it was worse. If Dave has a persecution complex, it was initiated by the furor over TNE. I've heard from reliable sources that he actually received death threats over it.

If I never see such a furor again, it will be exactly twenty minutes too soon.

 

[McPerth]

I've played CT back in the early 80's (or late 70's, I'm not sure when I began) and had just began to buy some CT material by myself when MT appeared.

When MT was released (or at least when I learned about it), my first comment was on the line DonM tells: ' this one Loren K Wiseman must be a chaos agent: first he destroyed the Earth, now the Imperium' (my knowledge about him by then was as one of the T2K editors).

Nonetheless, after reading some of it, I liked it, seeing as a developement of CT by unifying and standarizing most of unofficial or late release material, and the biggest true changes were personal combat and ship design (the former I used quite changed, and the latter I liked most than CTs'), but I recognized Traveller on it, and I liked it (I bought nearly, if not all, what arrived to Barcelona about MT, and some things that didn't, while buying also what I could find about CT, as both were usable together quite well).

This was good for those already in Traveller, but I understand Zparkz problems on MT, as it was quite dificult to understand MT if you didn't know about CT, and most of MT's inconsistences and errata (of wich there were too many) could be easily overcome with CT knowledge, but may bog your game down if you didn't.

With the release of TNE, things changed, though. The general impression in Barcelona (at least among those I knew, and by then I was in touch with several gaming clubs) was that it has not been an evolution, but killing (some said murdering) Traveller and offering a whole new game instead. Neither in the setting nor in the rules we recognized Traveller. I guess some people probably played TNE here, but I know none. As most of my relations, we kept playing MT or outright left Traveller. Although there were no torches nor pitchforks I know about, just mass desertion. I also must admit real life took precedence and I was no longer so in touch with the gaming community...

As an aftermath, when T4 was released, I didn't see either a mass return of old players nor many newcomers, as game system was too different to be recognized as 'true Traveller' by most people I know (about me, I was quite disapointed about it), and the release of MGT seems to have awakened some Traveller playing, for what I know.