[FONT=arial,helvetica]Happy April Fool's Day. [/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica]The original gag article is here.
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[/FONT]Today brought the official announcement that many of us in the FFE and Mongoose communities had been awaiting and expecting for some time now: the culmination of the year-long collaboration between Marc Miller and Matthew Sprange, and the establishment of a period of joint development between the designers of the Traveller RPG.
It's my pleasure and privilege to bring you an exclusive interview with Marc and Matt, where we discuss this exciting announcement.
When did you decide to embark on this idea, and what prompted it?
Matt: We first discussed the idea back in March last year at SXSW. I was thinking about the changes we'd need in Mongoose Traveller 3e...
Marc: ..and I was very aware that we needed a big shake-up in Traveller and the Traveller community. Traveller needed to be completely rethought, the mechanics redesigned from scratch. A lot of that happened when we started work on Traveller5. We completely reorganised the development structure, and I was elected to go away and redesign the game.
Matt: So we got together and started talking about the changes that both needed for our games, and we decided we should try to help each other out, and that's really where the idea for joint development came from.
When you talk about "joint development", what do you mean?
Marc: Initially, we thought we could swap mechanics in the games themselves. The Traveller5 game's got some really great features: we've got a comprehensive task system, we've got a complete toolset, and we've got a lot of things that could help Mongoose out. Mongoose Traveller, on the other hand, has got a great team and a straightforward, canny structure. I liked the way it was written, and it had a lot of other technical things right that we needed: fast character generation, genre-spanning options, and so on.
Matt: We also got talking about D&D5's class system, and its fantastic production values; we agreed it would be a really good idea to try and push our systems closer together, so that eventually you'd be able to run either ruleset with characters from either game.
Marc: But then when I collected together the playtest results and change requests - we called them RFCs - for Traveller5, I just couldn't help thinking "Hey, Mongoose Traveller's already got a lot of this sorted out".
Matt: Right, and I found that I needed to bring in some things to Mongoose Traveller that Traveller5 has had for years, such as robot character rules. So we just brought the ideas together, and we came up with the design of a brand new game.
What about the name of the new game?
Matt: Well, that was my idea. We went over lots of possible names: Chimera, Pylon, Marava, before finally coming up with Trammeller. We had a few basic ideas: we wanted it to begin with "T"; it had to resemble the word "Traveller".
Marc: We also wanted a movement-related name, to represent the travel aspect of the game. It's also about the same length as the word Traveller.
Matt: Eventually, I came up with Trammeller after thinking about Monty Python's finest hour, the Parrot sketch. But we use "T6" as shorthand.
Marc: Yeah... I don't get that, but it just sounded right - dynamic, colourful, exotic. I love it!
How did you approach the design?
Matt: We wanted something that all Traveller gamers would be right at home with. It had to pull together the best parts of each version of the rules. It had to flexible, extensible and elegant.
Marc: I think it was quite easy to come up with most of the ideas for the game design; after all, we've both had a lot of experience designing games and we know what works and what doesn't. The Traveller 5 RFCs were also a great help, as an indication of what I thought would work but what actually didn't.
Matt: Fundamentally, a lot of the concepts we had in our games were identical; it was just a question of deciding on the best ways to put them all together.
Show us some T6 Trammeller.
Matt: Obviously there aren't any full Trammeller rules available at the moment, just pieces of examples. This is an example written by Bob James:
Earl Dumarest (Paladin 4) STR 12 DEX 20 CON 12 INT 10 EDU 8 CHA 4
Smallcraft A, Blade B, Gun Combat A, Vacc Suit A
Dagger
Cr 100
Marc: I think this shows exactly what we were trying to achieve: it's immediately obvious to all Traveller players what that character can do. We've got a great compromise between Traveller's skill levels and a dead-simple task mechanic; we've replaced the character generation drudgery with a modified in-game lifepath system we call "experience"; we've merged careers and characteristics with those of the fabulously popular D&D series in an elegant way; we've kept the idea of skills being of primary importance, but we've combined that with a task system decoupled from numbers.
Matt: Of course, this is just one way you could write that character. There's more than one way to do it, right, Marc?
Marc: Sure. I'd probably write him like this:
Earl Dumarest (P4) 122012100804 SCa Bb GCa VSa Dagger Cr 100
What does this mean for the future of Traveller5 and Mongoose Traveller development?
Marc: This is the future of T5 and MgT development!
Matt: Exactly. We're going to be getting our development teams to work together on the game system details. Gareth Hanrahan and Rob Eaglestone are sitting down now to work out how to go forward, how to merge the text that we've already got; we hope to have some results for you by this year's GenCon this August.
What do you think will be the reaction from players of current Traveller rules?
Marc: I think T5 people will really go for it. All along, T5 has been about taking the best ideas from other rulesets; we've borrowed from CT, MT, TNE and T4, so why should we ignore the most successful of our competitors? It's a perfectly natural move for T5 and for the T5 community, and I'm sure that once they start seriously playing Trammeller, they won't go back. I know I can't.
Matt: I think it'll be a little harder for MgT people to accept than T5 people. But then, this is the direction we've been moving in for a while now. MgT2 has had to introduce some features that T5 has had for a long time, and there were many other changes I felt we needed to make, all of which were pushing us towards the best features of Traveller5. But I agree with Marc, I think once Mongoose players realise that this is a combination of the best parts of both game systems, they'll feel right at home playing Trammeller.
Have you heard any reaction from other gaming communities?
Marc: I got some email from Kevin Crawford, the creator of Stars Without Number; he said he was delighted, and he'd had a flood of new players as both T5 and MgT2 players were deciding to get into SWN.
Matt: Well, yeah; we were expecting some people to get scared off by the idea. It's only natural. Incidentally, Shane Lacy Hensley was very interested in what we were doing, but I haven't heard what the Savage Worlds guys think about this.
What do you say to the speculation that this move was influenced by your new employer, Wizards of the Coast?
Marc: (laughs) That's pure nonsense. Nonsense, nonsense.
Matt: I can't imagine what you're talking about. (Fnord.)
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***
[/FONT]Today brought the official announcement that many of us in the FFE and Mongoose communities had been awaiting and expecting for some time now: the culmination of the year-long collaboration between Marc Miller and Matthew Sprange, and the establishment of a period of joint development between the designers of the Traveller RPG.
It's my pleasure and privilege to bring you an exclusive interview with Marc and Matt, where we discuss this exciting announcement.
When did you decide to embark on this idea, and what prompted it?
Matt: We first discussed the idea back in March last year at SXSW. I was thinking about the changes we'd need in Mongoose Traveller 3e...
Marc: ..and I was very aware that we needed a big shake-up in Traveller and the Traveller community. Traveller needed to be completely rethought, the mechanics redesigned from scratch. A lot of that happened when we started work on Traveller5. We completely reorganised the development structure, and I was elected to go away and redesign the game.
Matt: So we got together and started talking about the changes that both needed for our games, and we decided we should try to help each other out, and that's really where the idea for joint development came from.
When you talk about "joint development", what do you mean?
Marc: Initially, we thought we could swap mechanics in the games themselves. The Traveller5 game's got some really great features: we've got a comprehensive task system, we've got a complete toolset, and we've got a lot of things that could help Mongoose out. Mongoose Traveller, on the other hand, has got a great team and a straightforward, canny structure. I liked the way it was written, and it had a lot of other technical things right that we needed: fast character generation, genre-spanning options, and so on.
Matt: We also got talking about D&D5's class system, and its fantastic production values; we agreed it would be a really good idea to try and push our systems closer together, so that eventually you'd be able to run either ruleset with characters from either game.
Marc: But then when I collected together the playtest results and change requests - we called them RFCs - for Traveller5, I just couldn't help thinking "Hey, Mongoose Traveller's already got a lot of this sorted out".
Matt: Right, and I found that I needed to bring in some things to Mongoose Traveller that Traveller5 has had for years, such as robot character rules. So we just brought the ideas together, and we came up with the design of a brand new game.
What about the name of the new game?
Matt: Well, that was my idea. We went over lots of possible names: Chimera, Pylon, Marava, before finally coming up with Trammeller. We had a few basic ideas: we wanted it to begin with "T"; it had to resemble the word "Traveller".
Marc: We also wanted a movement-related name, to represent the travel aspect of the game. It's also about the same length as the word Traveller.
Matt: Eventually, I came up with Trammeller after thinking about Monty Python's finest hour, the Parrot sketch. But we use "T6" as shorthand.
Marc: Yeah... I don't get that, but it just sounded right - dynamic, colourful, exotic. I love it!
How did you approach the design?
Matt: We wanted something that all Traveller gamers would be right at home with. It had to pull together the best parts of each version of the rules. It had to flexible, extensible and elegant.
Marc: I think it was quite easy to come up with most of the ideas for the game design; after all, we've both had a lot of experience designing games and we know what works and what doesn't. The Traveller 5 RFCs were also a great help, as an indication of what I thought would work but what actually didn't.
Matt: Fundamentally, a lot of the concepts we had in our games were identical; it was just a question of deciding on the best ways to put them all together.
Show us some T6 Trammeller.
Matt: Obviously there aren't any full Trammeller rules available at the moment, just pieces of examples. This is an example written by Bob James:
Earl Dumarest (Paladin 4) STR 12 DEX 20 CON 12 INT 10 EDU 8 CHA 4
Smallcraft A, Blade B, Gun Combat A, Vacc Suit A
Dagger
Cr 100
Marc: I think this shows exactly what we were trying to achieve: it's immediately obvious to all Traveller players what that character can do. We've got a great compromise between Traveller's skill levels and a dead-simple task mechanic; we've replaced the character generation drudgery with a modified in-game lifepath system we call "experience"; we've merged careers and characteristics with those of the fabulously popular D&D series in an elegant way; we've kept the idea of skills being of primary importance, but we've combined that with a task system decoupled from numbers.
Matt: Of course, this is just one way you could write that character. There's more than one way to do it, right, Marc?
Marc: Sure. I'd probably write him like this:
Earl Dumarest (P4) 122012100804 SCa Bb GCa VSa Dagger Cr 100
What does this mean for the future of Traveller5 and Mongoose Traveller development?
Marc: This is the future of T5 and MgT development!
Matt: Exactly. We're going to be getting our development teams to work together on the game system details. Gareth Hanrahan and Rob Eaglestone are sitting down now to work out how to go forward, how to merge the text that we've already got; we hope to have some results for you by this year's GenCon this August.
What do you think will be the reaction from players of current Traveller rules?
Marc: I think T5 people will really go for it. All along, T5 has been about taking the best ideas from other rulesets; we've borrowed from CT, MT, TNE and T4, so why should we ignore the most successful of our competitors? It's a perfectly natural move for T5 and for the T5 community, and I'm sure that once they start seriously playing Trammeller, they won't go back. I know I can't.
Matt: I think it'll be a little harder for MgT people to accept than T5 people. But then, this is the direction we've been moving in for a while now. MgT2 has had to introduce some features that T5 has had for a long time, and there were many other changes I felt we needed to make, all of which were pushing us towards the best features of Traveller5. But I agree with Marc, I think once Mongoose players realise that this is a combination of the best parts of both game systems, they'll feel right at home playing Trammeller.
Have you heard any reaction from other gaming communities?
Marc: I got some email from Kevin Crawford, the creator of Stars Without Number; he said he was delighted, and he'd had a flood of new players as both T5 and MgT2 players were deciding to get into SWN.
Matt: Well, yeah; we were expecting some people to get scared off by the idea. It's only natural. Incidentally, Shane Lacy Hensley was very interested in what we were doing, but I haven't heard what the Savage Worlds guys think about this.
What do you say to the speculation that this move was influenced by your new employer, Wizards of the Coast?
Marc: (laughs) That's pure nonsense. Nonsense, nonsense.
Matt: I can't imagine what you're talking about. (Fnord.)
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