Transparantly Bogus Rationale

[Border Reiver]

I recently read about this on d_fuses livejournal and felt it particularly appropriate to some of the topics that come up with Traveller.

The term was coined by Costikyan in Paranoia, a game wherein players get the equivalent of extra lives in a video game, because the game is so lethal. This is achieved by PCs being generated in clone banks, and there being additional copies made (every good scientist makes back ups). In the GM's section, they discuss the nature of the clone family in detail. Why, the text asks rhetorically, are all members of a clone family the same?

The text then provides the following:

The Real Answer
It's easier.

The Transparently Bogus Rationale
(three paragraphs of setting info providing a hard, setting-based reason why it must be so that is, however, transparently bogus and after-the-fact)

I think it's important for people to understand that a great deal of gaming involves TBRs. That is to say, we decide what is best for the game first, and then justify it.

This applies to both game designers and players. It is certainly how I play, fun first then reasoning.

d_fuses then goes on to explain about a recently unpleasant thread on the Warhammer forums I witnessed where they were trying to rationalise why the Warhammer Old World is less sexist than real 17th Century Europe, that if they couldn't come up with a rationale then make Warhammer more sexist. So wrong, it is good for the game so create a TBR.

Traveller is full of TBR's that we are constantly either defending or trying to pull down for the sake of "realism." Why not decide whether it is a fun part of the game and get over it, perhaps even play the game instead of trying to run it down?

 

[Malenfant]

Traveller is full of TBR's that we are constantly either defending or trying to pull down for the sake of "realism." Why not decide whether it is a fun part of the game and get over it, perhaps even play the game instead of trying to run it down?

Because in Traveller's case, that's not all there is. Prime example - book 6 has a whole section on astronomical data. If planetary systems are supposed to not care a jot about realism, then why bother to present data on luminosities and temperature formulae and star sizes and types and so on in the first place?

Traveller's schizophrenic like this. It tries to make tech sound realistic when it's not, it tries to make planets and stars sound realistic when they're actually not, it tries to make trade and economics sound realistic when they're not... if it's one then it shouldn't pretend it's the other - that's what causes the dissonance here.

 

[Border Reiver]

Meh!

Mal that's the point of a TBR. It makes claims that are bogus, it comes up with explanations that are not real, shoddy data and false premises. It takes nothing away from the fun of sitting around with a group of friends pretending to be a first contact team.

If you want a simulation buy a simulator.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Honestly, I've never seen Traveller claim it was anything more than a role-playing game, so why read all the extra crap into it?

Just play the game and enjoy it for what it is, a game.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

You're being unfair, Mal. Traveller honestly tries harder than almost any other game to be scientifically accurate, and does a reasonable job IMHO. When it fails, it's usually because of

a) an honest mistake, or

b) for game reasons.

 

[Malenfant]

I don't think I'm being unfair. On one side it gives us all this realistic stuff in book 6, and then makes no attempt to explain why things aren't realistic. At best it says "the Ancients did it" (which may be your TBR), and then promptly fills the universe with exceptions that ignore the rules it just defined. Not to mention that most of the UWPs generated in things like Sunbane don't even follow the game's own rules. Plus the stargen table is badly designed in the first place since it puts pregenerated habitable worlds preferentially around subdwarfs and white dwarfs.

What gets me is that over 30 years, there's been little movement to officially correct these errors.

The fun people have playing the game is completely unrelated to all this though, so I'm not certain why people are getting all prickly about it as if I'm saying you shouldn't be enjoying it. My point is that from a design perspective Traveller is schizophrenic on this front, and often doesn't even adhere to its own TBRs.

 

[Jeffr0]

One more reason to stay with Book 3...

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:
One more reason to stay with Book 3...

To be honest, yes! If Traveller was just book 3, then we wouldn't have this problem - there's no attempt there to add realism or astronomical data or anything like that. If that's all there was it'd be no more realistic than D20 future or fading suns or any other space opera type thing.

But adding all that astronomical stuff in book 6 is what raised the bar IMO, and pushed it from pure space opera to realistic simulation. Except since then the game has never really decided which one it actually is.

 

[flykiller]

That is to say, we decide what is best for the game first, and then justify it.

in traveller, deliberate realism is intended to be incorporated into the game. that's supposed to be its primary draw and what sets it apart from the "because I say so" magic of d&d and the endless wonder widgets of star trek and "the force" of star wars.

now of course there are unavoidable referee, player, and game limits to the realism, therefore the inclusion of realism may be regulated with three tests. one, is it acceptably believable to the referee and players? two, is there time for it? three, does it affect the game? if the answer to any one of these is "no" then one may reasonably limit dealing with a realism - and if the answer to all three is "yes" then it certainly should be fully included. but traveller isn't meant to contain totally bogus rationales, and it isn't traveller if it does.

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by flykiller:
... but traveller isn't meant to contain totally bogus rationales, and it isn't traveller if it does.

Mostly True,
except for jump drives, reactionless drives and the gravity "everything" semi-TBR which in the end are pretty much 100 percent game mechanic driven plot devices.

Is there such a thing as a quasi-bogus rationale?

 

[flykiller]

except for jump drives, reactionless drives and the gravity "everything" semi-TBR which in the end are pretty much 100 percent game mechanic driven plot devices.

(laugh) most people are able to accept these things, saying to themselves, "maybe in the future we will be able to manipulate space and gravity in just such ways." they don't say to themselves, "this is impossible horse hockey forever, but I'm going to pretend it isn't."

or am I only speaking for myself?

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by flykiller:
or am I only speaking for myself?

I agree. If anything, the reality is stranger than the fantasy.

Look at anything to do with quantum physics and tell me that Jules Verne was too strange to be believable. So what if we cannot shoot a man to the moon in a cannon shell, matter may actually be composed of strings of vibrating energy - does it get any more unlikely than that?

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

I just keep remembering that people once said that breaking the sound barrier was impossible and that man would never walk on the moon.

There's a lot of stuff that we just barely know, in regards to science and engineering.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
I just keep remembering that people once said that breaking the sound barrier was impossible and that man would never walk on the moon.

There's a lot of stuff that we just barely know, in regards to science and engineering.

People say this as if it means that "anything goes" - and that isn't true. Just becuse we don't know something doesn't mean you have carte blanche to declare that it behaves any way we please. There's also a lot of stuff we DO know quite a bit about in science and engineering, and we do know that reality has limits. I'm certainly not going to say that we'll never be able to control gravity, or nuclear forces, or go FTL... but there are still known physical limits to reality. And there are always going to be things that are exceptional, that form or work in unique circumstances, but the point is that they ARE exceptional. A universe where the exceptions outnumber the rule is a bit silly, but that's what the OTU is.


The classic Traveller example is the cannonball world - the tiny rockball in the habitable zone that's half the size of the moon but can still hold onto a dense N2/O2 atmosphere. To do that, it needs a density of tens of thousands of kg/m3, much higher than any natural planet-forming material could possibly have. Now, one or two exceptions total may be acceptable (the best I could come up with for the GT: Sword Worlds book for Enos was that it was the inner core of a larger world with unusual chemistry that got broken up in a giant impact), but if the OTU is to be believe there are dozens if not hundreds of worlds like this in the setting - which is just nuts.

Either way, you simply cannot have such a small world holding onto an atmosphere like that in the habitable zone unless it's either got a big shield/roof over it holding it all in, or it's completely artificial with a core made of superdense elements, or it's a normal rocky world with facilities on it that are permanently producing N2 and O2 at a tremendous rate to replace the gases that are lost - all of which are again highly exceptional.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Mal, have you ever considered that a person with a degree in Planetary Science shouldn't play Traveller if it offends their sensibilities so much?

 

[Malenfant]

And have you ever considered that a person who doesn't consider any of this to be a problem should just carry on and play their way and ignore posts where this sort of thing is raised? If you're content to carry on and use it as it is, then go right ahead, I'm not stopping anyone or getting in anyone's way here.

At least I can point to something and say "that's not right" and be backed up by a buttload of solid physical data (despite what the anti-science loons claim). The best you can do is say "I don't care" or "this doesn't matter to me" and carry on playing your way - which is fine, and is what you should do. But it does matter to some people, and they're not wrong for being bothered by it.

The point again is that people's fun or enjoyment of the game as it is isn't the issue. If the problems don't get in your way then great, have a ball - but that doesn't mean the problems aren't real or worth being bothered about.

 

[Hemdian]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
What gets me is that over 30 years, there's been little movement to officially correct these errors.

There's a simple explanation for that. Many, if not most, of the die-hard Traveller fans have been in this since nearly the beginning. We have large collections of published material plus all our personal TU notes ... this represents a substantial investment in time, money and effort. Every revision renders part of that investment worthless.

IMHO that was the real reason why TNE caused a great schism in the Traveller community: not the politics, or the different style of adventures, or whether or not Virus was plausible ... no, the real reason was that to embrace TNE was to consign most preveous Traveller material to a mere historical footnote. Most people would rather live with the problems.

That's not to say that there aren't those who want to fix things. Sure, you can label yourself as a heretic and construct YTU around the 2300AD star map and make loads of other changes. And I'd say "good for you, go for it!" But that path is not for everyone.

In fact in my experience many players don't even notice the problems. When they do we (as Referees) just need a quick handwave to paper over the crack and move on. Traveller may not be realistic (according to what we currently know) but to many laymen (of either gender) it feels realistic ... it has an air about it even now that many other SF RPGs lack.

So please don't 'correct' Traveller, just keep adding to it.

Regards PLST

 

[Malenfant]

I think the problem is that "Transparently Bogus Rationales" are often poorly constructed and often don't really solve anything. So long as you don't think about it, it's fine - but if you give it more than a cursory glance then problems start to appear, and Traveller is full of that.

For example, the prime one in Traveller is "The Ancients did it". Well, apparently they must have done a hell of a lot given all the crazy worlds and systems in the game - so much so that it renders the attempt at realism in book 6 largely redundant. The problems with trade and economics (ie they don't work) are largely armwaved away too, often not even with a TBR to cover the crack.

Every game has the same issues with the fanbase when it's revised - it's not unique to Traveller. What is unique is that the diehard Traveller fanbase seem peculiarly entrenched and don't seem to understand that any changes made to the official game don't affect the games they've spent all their time creating and running.

Traveller was never really built on solid foundations to start with - it was assembled piecemeal by lots of people over time, with no real direction until MT came along. If we just "keep adding to it", then all we're doing is building more and more on top of rickety foundations. At some point it's got to be better to just tear the whole thing down again and start again.

 

[Hemdian]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
At some point it's got to be better to just tear the whole thing down again and start again.

No.

Regards PLST

 

[Malenfant]

Well that's a robust, bulletproof defence if ever I heard one...