Traveller renaissance

[kilemall]

I think you are missing the point kilemall or defending ours without accepting the other sides viewpoint. Specifically, since a "modern" trope enjoyed and expected by younger people is not in a book, they will move on. Your solution is correct, but if you have access to those multiple books.

If a kid or young adult (pre-30s) is going to buy and have general access to ONE and only one sci-fi rulebook, what will that be? The one with the bad rep that my dad likes, or the one the other gamers talks about with where I can have my trope (look its right there on page xx!)?

But I get the idea of the older tropes. I personally have issues with transhumanist "I wanna be a butterlfly". But I see where they are coming from.

Hmm, I've already said in this thread that I steer Reddit people towards the Mongeese if their interests go towards a modern package, quite consistently. I'm very much about anything we do here not being 'wrong', just entertainment tastes and choices.

But a little bit of cyborg weaponry and transhumanism seems a smallish barrier to me. The lack of 'do it yourself' ethos for a game that is ALL about imagination bothers me far more.

I brought up the other games to point out that a lot of what is supposed to be 'fresh' about the MgTs has existed for quite some time and is not new- as you pointed out, the value proposition is it's conveniently packaged and ready to go.

 

[creativehum]

Again, back to reality -- up until 1981 Traveller would have taken up a HUGE portion of market share of RPGs given the total number of RPGs on the market at the time. (Not many at all.) Of course Traveller was given prominent shelf space!

Compare to today -- almost ANY game is a drop in the bucket in light of the great number of RPGs made and played.

But here is the real question: at the con did you submit a Traveller game to Referee? If not, why not? If not I'm afraid this conversation is suspect to me.

 

[kilemall]

Killemall; your PM box is full.


Back to the scout ship.

It often is, I have a tendency to squirrel away cherished communications.

Cleared- for now...

 

[Blue Ghost]

Again, back to reality -- up until 1981 Traveller would have taken up a HUGE portion of market share of RPGs given the total number of RPGs on the market at the time. (Not many at all.) Of course Traveller was given prominent shelf space!

Compare to today -- almost ANY game is a drop in the bucket in light of the great number of RPGs made and played.

But here is the real question: at the con did you submit a Traveller game to Referee? If not, why not? If not I'm afraid this conversation is suspect to me.

I went to the cons to gauge the current climate of gaming. I hadn't been to won since ... 2007 or so, and then it was a mix of young and older gamers.

But when I went to both Kublacon and Dundracon last year, I was really blown away. Particularly with Kublacon, which I had not been to since ... I can't remember. But the Hyatt Regency in Burlingame, a few minutes south of SFO, was packed. I mean gamers with their families, as far as the eye could see. I was intimidated. I truly was scared. In my day it was maybe a few hundred people. But this was thousands.

So, again, where I understand I'm not in high school anymore, rolling up characters on weekends, watching late night scifi movies, or reading the latest LBB or other scifi book, to me, Traveller was D&D's lesser known high-tech brother. But where D&D, the prodigal son, and it's illegitimate "out of wedlock" child Pathfinder, blazed mega-highways (not just trails) for new gamers, it's like Traveller went the way of Starfire, the old James Bond RPG, and all those pocket games that used to hang out at the game store.

I remember Invasion Earth, Imperium, Frontier War, Azhanti High Lightening ... Tarsus ... all that stuff, some of which I still have. And I started coming here at first to reminisce and exchange cool thoughts and stories, but then had this notion that I might be able to contribute and perhaps pursue some old dreams related to Traveller.

And that's why I went.

I still like Traveller for what it is. But I'm kind of burnt out on it, though I still like to talk about it. It sure would be nice to play a game or two again.

And that's why I went.

What I also discovered at the cons is that scifi is now a very small section of gaming.

My very fist exposure to scifi warsims / RPGs was the old boxed ""Starship Troopers" game, prominently displayed at "The Tin Goose" in Ghiradelli Square, San Francisco. Both store and game have gone the way of the dinosaur, but next to Star Trek, Star Wars and the old Star Fleet Technical Manual, it struck me as being really cool. In the world of interactivity, there were people who liked the genre.

And that's why I went.

I hope this conversation is not suspect to you anymore.

*back to the scout ship*

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

So this isn't 1985, nor even 1979. Fine. But at the last couple of cons I went to there was barely any mention of the game that used to be the staple of the scifi crowd.

I find that new players that are interested in Traveller are also new to tabletop RPGing in general. They don't go to conventions. They hear about Traveller from YouTube because they are searching for an RPG that does sci-fi in some fashion.

Make YouTube videos, Blue Ghost. And they will come. You will have players that want to be in your games that you can pick from.

 

[creativehum]

I honestly don't know what you want.
But then it isn't really my place to know, or your obligation to explain.
So there it is.

 

[Spinward Scout]

As to roll vs role play...

First, I've come to dislike that phrase. Ultimately, my feeling is if dice aren't hitting the table, I'm not sure we're playing a game. On the flip side, I don't like the style of play a couple folks have pointed out here where the rolls dominate the game and it feels like some sort of board game. I also feel like role playing can actually look like different things. It isn't just speaking in character, and in fact, I believe role playing can occur with almost no 1st person in character speech.

I had a conversation with someone online about this recently. One guy was discussing the D&D game he ran. He was talking about 'punishing' his Player for not telling exactly what his Character did (or didn't do) during the game.

I explained it like this: the Player doesn't really live in that world, the Character does. The Player doesn't have to know or remember that you need torches to go into a dungeon, but that's where Wisdom and Knowledge checks come in. That tells you what the Character knows, and if the Character would do something properly.

Why have a character sheet if you aren't going to use it?

 

[Blue Ghost]

I honestly don't know what you want.
But then it isn't really my place to know, or your obligation to explain.
So there it is.

I started this thread because the video, to me, seemed to gybe with my thoughts and feelings on something I've enjoyed since I was a pre-teen. So I posted the link and started this thread.

 

[David Johansen]

I think science fiction has been lying fallow for a few years now. The nineties were thick with it and we certainly get some better science fiction movies here and there.

But I think in Gaming, Warhammer 40000 has somewhat cleared the field. There's a variety of reasons but I think the biggest one is that it doesn't make people feel dumb. There's no real depth to it, not even decent technobabble. Nobody in the setting understands science anyhow. It's Bugs Bunny physics all around.

When we hear people saying GURPS is too hard or Traveller has Calculus in it what we're hearing is partially a demographic shift. Gamers used to be readers but now there's a broader market. Presentation is a huge deal in modern gaming.

Traveller got neglected by GDW, there were some figures on rpg.net that indicated that Star Frontiers really hurt Traveller sales so maybe GDW just had to pursue new customers. But Megatraveller got farmed off to some great writers who weren't necessarily great game designers and then Traveller the New Era just went off and dumped just about everything but the UWPs. T4 was tragically flawed and T5 is still awaiting a desperately needed update. So, Mongoose carries the line forward because everyone else who ever touched Traveller dropped the damn ball.:rant:

 

[aramis]

The OSR crowd prefer their RPGs to be presented in the old adventure gaming rules style. The 1st-Gen games like The Traveller Book, and AD&D 1st Edition.

Mongoose Traveller 1st and 2nd Editions are more of a 2nd-Gen RPG style.

Not 2nd gen - more like the late 80's to early 90's 3rd gen...

3rd gen, where the skill systems are unified, and the combat systems use them. Much like MT and TNE do. Options for, or moves entirely to, point build or choice driven lifepaths also show up in many of them. Many go to an armor reduces damage model, too.

The Second Gen includes Palladium, Rolemaster, The Atlantean Trillogy (best known by the corebook title: The Arcanum), and several others - Skill driven, but multiple resolution systems - usually one for combat, one for non-combat, Classes determine skills available, and most have climbing HP. A few in this mode are point-build, rather than class based - Like Hero System - where there are two different mechanics, one for combat, one for non-combat, and still a lot of rules-by-exceptions. And most of these still used random generation, and most still used armor makes one harder to hit... but a few followed RQ's lead, and instead had armor reduce damage.

In many ways, FFG's Star Wars is a throwback to that transition - a unified mechanic, but lots of emphasis on combat vs non-combat, and class determines skills available cheaply...

I started in 81 with D&D; in 83, I discovered other games, and my favorites in HS were the early 3rd gen games - T2K 1E, James Bond, RuneQuest 3E (which did away with almost all the RQ 1E/2E special case rules in the skill list), ElfQuest (same core as RQ). I also played a lot of Palladium games - because my friends liked them.

I also loved TFT - which was essentially still 1st gen - Lots of special case rules in the "Talent" list, combat with one mechanic, skills with a second, and some talents with simply always on custom effects.

GURPS is the 3rd Gen chlld of TFT - switched to one unified mechanic, eliminated most of the special case rules in the skills, and reduced a lot of the random in Char Gen. Same designer, too...

Mongoose Traveller, like MT, has the single unified mechanic, almost no special cases in the skills list, point buy as an option, and makes death a little less likely, too,

 

[aramis]

Again, back to reality -- up until 1981 Traveller would have taken up a HUGE portion of market share of RPGs given the total number of RPGs on the market at the time. (Not many at all.) Of course Traveller was given prominent shelf space!

Compare to today -- almost ANY game is a drop in the bucket in light of the great number of RPGs made and played.

But here is the real question: at the con did you submit a Traveller game to Referee? If not, why not? If not I'm afraid this conversation is suspect to me.

By 81, there were a dozen or more in print...

1. D&D Classic (Still in print until 82)
2. D&D basic (Holmes)
3. AD&D (all three core books)
4. RuneQuest (on its second edition)
5. Tunnels & Trolls (1979 was the release of 5th ed)
6. Dallas (based upon the TV show. Yes. Really.)
7. Boot Hill (1979)
8. Starfaring (1976)
9. Metamorphosis Alpha
10. Empire of the Petal Throne
11. Gamma World
12. Bunnies & Burrows
13. Morrow Project
14. Arduin
15. Bushido
16. Land of the Rising Sun
17. Top Secret
18. DragonQuest
19. Space Opera
20. En Garde!
21. Superhero 2044
22. Bifrost
23. Skull & Crossbones
24. Space Patrol
25. K.A.B.A.L.
26. Adventures in Fantasy
27. Monsters! Monsters!
28. Crimson Cutlass
29. Space Quest
30. Gangster
31. High Fantasy
32. Simian Conquest
33. The Realm of Yolmi
34. Villains and Vigilantes
35. Beasts, Men and Gods
36. Melanda: Land of Mystery
37. Lord of the Dice
38. Flash Gordon & the Warriors of Mongo
39. Laserburn
40. Empires of Magira
41. The Infinity System
42. Ysgarth

(Thanks to RPGGeek.com for their advanced search, which I used to round out the list. All the above were published between 1974 and 1980 inclusive.)

 

[Blue Ghost]

I find that new players that are interested in Traveller are also new to tabletop RPGing in general. They don't go to conventions. They hear about Traveller from YouTube because they are searching for an RPG that does sci-fi in some fashion.

Make YouTube videos, Blue Ghost. And they will come. You will have players that want to be in your games that you can pick from.

I think ultimately, to me anyway, it sounds like Matt's effort at Mongoose seems to have made Traveller a thriving property among a new brood of Traveller fans. And perhaps the game's reached its post-80s peak in popularity.

On YouTube; I had planned on making a series of shorts (mostly non-Traveller), but am just kind of burnt out right now. I hope other people keep making stuff. Maybe the next time I cruise meetup.com there'll be a local group of Traveller players my age I can game with. Who know?

 

[Blue Ghost]

I think science fiction has been lying fallow for a few years now. The nineties were thick with it and we certainly get some better science fiction movies here and there.

But I think in Gaming, Warhammer 40000 has somewhat cleared the field. There's a variety of reasons but I think the biggest one is that it doesn't make people feel dumb. There's no real depth to it, not even decent technobabble. Nobody in the setting understands science anyhow. It's Bugs Bunny physics all around.

When we hear people saying GURPS is too hard or Traveller has Calculus in it what we're hearing is partially a demographic shift. Gamers used to be readers but now there's a broader market. Presentation is a huge deal in modern gaming.

Traveller got neglected by GDW, there were some figures on rpg.net that indicated that Star Frontiers really hurt Traveller sales so maybe GDW just had to pursue new customers. But Megatraveller got farmed off to some great writers who weren't necessarily great game designers and then Traveller the New Era just went off and dumped just about everything but the UWPs. T4 was tragically flawed and T5 is still awaiting a desperately needed update. So, Mongoose carries the line forward because everyone else who ever touched Traveller dropped the damn ball.:rant:

*nods*

Yeah, I've posted similar thoughts on other forums. Growing up as a Trekkie and scifi fan in general, several hundred people would attend conventions or film festivals and so forth. People who were well read or had some kind of education in some field. Then when Star Wars hit the scene in 77 there was a brief "bubble" of more scifi fans who were just regular people.

I think there's a lot of people wanting to cash in on Lucas's model, and so they make stuff like Warhammer 40K (and no, I have not played it) that have that Bugs Bunny animated world physics, and is more designed as a product of market research than as a vision by an artist who puts his writing, sculpting, painting, what-not, up for public scrutiny. And I guess that's why I stuck with Traveller, because to me it seems very original, very authentic, and where perhaps portions of it (the official fictional background itself) are the result of a kind of market research, the entire game itself isn't the result of a marketing team trying to bring a product to market.

So yeah, I agree with your assessment. I think there's a marketing model that's more in line with offering a less sophisticated product to a larger gaming consumer base.

Traveller, that is CT, to me, had a needlessly complicated interplanetary travel formula that I rarely saw referenced in any of the follow on pubications ... in fact I don't recall any adventures or other modules that had players travelling from one world to the next to accomplish a mission or goal, unless it was to skim fuel from a gas giant. And that kind of thing, again just my impression, possibly filtered out a lot of space opera folks who didn't want to be bothered with math and science in a game, but were more into the high adventure and soap opera aspects.

Very interesting observation, David. I agree with about all of it.

*back to the scout ship*

 

[atpollard]

Traveller got neglected by GDW, there were some figures on rpg.net that indicated that Star Frontiers really hurt Traveller sales so maybe GDW just had to pursue new customers. But Megatraveller got farmed off to some great writers who weren't necessarily great game designers and then Traveller the New Era just went off and dumped just about everything but the UWPs. T4 was tragically flawed and T5 is still awaiting a desperately needed update. So, Mongoose carries the line forward because everyone else who ever touched Traveller dropped the damn ball.:rant:

I like your attitude.

T20 did a good job if you like the D20 core mechanic (I prefer roll 8+ on 2d6.)

 

[Terquem]

a great range of perspectives here. For what it's worth, I bought my Traveller box set in 1978. I've drifted back and forth through many different RPGs, but I always come back to CT. Why? Because it speaks to me. I like the combination of simplicity in mechanical rules and complexity of Starship Design.

As far as any renaissance is concerned. I am of the opinion that gaming, as a hobby (in all forms) is in a revitalized sort of "golden age" and I for one consider myself lucky to and grateful to see my favorite games being talked about once again. But, as then again I typically don't get asked my opinion very often, and that's alright as well. I like playing CT, when I can, and I don't think I'll ever give it up no matter what other changes occur in the product line.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Not 2nd gen - more like the late 80's to early 90's 3rd gen...

3rd-Gen RPGs for me would be World of Darkness. 4th-Gen RPGs would be FATE and Burning Wheel.

(A)D&D from 1984 to present: 2nd-Gen
Pathfinder, Rifts, GURPS, The Morrow Project 4th-Ed, current Gamma World: 2nd-Gen.
Most of the later editions of licensed Traveller RPGs (non-FFE): 2nd-Gen

 

[creativehum]

By 81, there were a dozen or more in print...

1. D&D Classic (Still in print until 82)
2. D&D basic (Holmes)
3. AD&D (all three core books)
4. RuneQuest (on its second edition)
5. Tunnels & Trolls (1979 was the release of 5th ed)
6. Dallas (based upon the TV show. Yes. Really.)
7. Boot Hill (1979)
8. Starfaring (1976)
9. Metamorphosis Alpha
10. Empire of the Petal Throne
11. Gamma World
12. Bunnies & Burrows
13. Morrow Project
14. Arduin
15. Bushido
16. Land of the Rising Sun
17. Top Secret
18. DragonQuest
19. Space Opera
20. En Garde!
21. Superhero 2044
22. Bifrost
23. Skull & Crossbones
24. Space Patrol
25. K.A.B.A.L.
26. Adventures in Fantasy
27. Monsters! Monsters!
28. Crimson Cutlass
29. Space Quest
30. Gangster
31. High Fantasy
32. Simian Conquest
33. The Realm of Yolmi
34. Villains and Vigilantes
35. Beasts, Men and Gods
36. Melanda: Land of Mystery
37. Lord of the Dice
38. Flash Gordon & the Warriors of Mongo
39. Laserburn
40. Empires of Magira
41. The Infinity System
42. Ysgarth

(Thanks to RPGGeek.com for their advanced search, which I used to round out the list. All the above were published between 1974 and 1980 inclusive.)

Is your point of this post to contradict my point? Or to confirm that relative to today there were not many RPGs on the market? Or simply to provide information?

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I think ultimately, to me anyway, it sounds like Matt's effort at Mongoose seems to have made Traveller a thriving property among a new brood of Traveller fans. And perhaps the game's reached its post-80s peak in popularity.

On YouTube; I had planned on making a series of shorts (mostly non-Traveller), but am just kind of burnt out right now. I hope other people keep making stuff. Maybe the next time I cruise meetup.com there'll be a local group of Traveller players my age I can game with. Who know?

Most players asking me about Traveller have no idea what the '80s were. They bought Mongoose, and that's what they're using. I see a lot of them as future referees. Maybe not all of them Traveller referees, but at least they'll have the basic skills for GMing.

 

[Barsanuphius]

Most players asking me about Traveller have no idea what the '80s were. They bought Mongoose, and that's what they're using. I see a lot of them as future referees. Maybe not all of them Traveller referees, but at least they'll have the basic skills for GMing.

Wow, we are pathetic.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Wow, we are pathetic.

Were you born in the '90s or later? Such people have an excuse for not knowing the '80s.