I don't want to get too sidetracked on T5, but are you saying that it might have been a better step to have gone back to CT in function and form?
Okay, I'll try to do this and not hijack the thread:
I'm not sure that I'm saying anything. However, my main point is that T5 isn't a "live" system, as shadowcat calls it. It has had what I would call an abortive launch. It is now out of print. People like me (Traveller die hards with something of an interest) are waiting a revision before we put any money down. There's no clear evidence in my mind that that revision will bring many people into or back to Traveller. The community hasn't seemed to embrace it as "THE" Traveller rules. It also has no additional books coming out for it. Creativehum here is doing a good job of showcasing on these boards that you can create an entire game never using anything other than the core rulebook(s), but if the company that owns the property isn't putting anything out, it really doesn't seem 'live' to me.
As to going back to CT in function and form, well that's pretty close to what Mongoose has done. I'm sure I'll get some flack for saying it, but CT and MgT are how I conceive of two "editions" of the same game (very similar to the changes between 1E and 2E AD&D). There are significant changes to the rules, and certain builds are either no longer playable or no longer advisable, but the game plays out very much the same.
T5 is different. Very similar to the difference between AD&D and D&D 5.0. A good comparison because the task system and the new dis/advantage mechanics do the same thing (simplify determining the difficulty mechanic in exchange for decreased granularity by replacing it with more dice rolled. It is a choice. If T5 ever gets out of the revision hole with something that resembles a book I would thumb through at a game store and buy, I'll buy it, learn it, make some characters and ships with it, and see if my group wants to play it. In the meantime, I'm glad that Mongoose has put something out there that keeps gamers who need their game to be "in print" or "live" willing to play my favorite RPG.
I'm curious about this:
What would you wanted added that isn't already printed and available for Classic Traveller in one form or another? I mean, between the Books, the Supplements, and the first 24 issues of the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society, is there anything else to say?
I'm not saying there isn't. Or maybe you want it improved. I have no idea. I'd just love to hear more.
I'm not that there's anything else that needs to be said, but there's certainly more that can be said. Especially if you accept the mindset that things like modules and write-ups of ships that other people have built might be worth picking up, even though you could do it yourself. As you've done a good job of pointing out, the game can be played quite well with just Bks 1-3, but additional Sourcebooks can also be nice. I'm not sure what I'd like to see so much as wary of the idea that there's nothing left to say on the matter. CT and JTAS 1-24 are a slice in time bounded between 1977 and 1987 or so, lots of things have changed about how we view the sci-fi universe since then. There must be some way it influences how we look at our games.
Over on Dragonsfoot, there was a thread about OSRIC and why it exists (if you don't know, it is a AD&D 1E clone, under the banner of which you can publish new material "for" 1E AD&D). The thread poster seemed not just perplexed, but almost personally agitated that this product and modules existed. Their initial argument was that 1E material was still readily available. After much refutation (not everywhere, not in non-English countries, shipping an ebay purchase to Perth, Australia can cost more than buying the product, the ruleset came out before WotC started producing legal pdfs of 1E material) it was determined that he was really saying "why buy this when 1E material is readily available because we all download illegal copies off the internet, right? right? C'mon, you know you do. C'mon, I need some public support to self-justify this. Still, he kept making the argument that all the great adventures and stuff from the 70s and 80s still existed so nothing else should ever be put out. While I'm now a capable enough DM/GM that I don't need many modules, I disagree with the logic that because something was published for the game back when I first discovered it, that that makes it inherently better than any new adventures that someone might want to put out there.
An example of what I might like to see: I do like that the robot book was put out. What would be fun (in my mind), would be a CT:Traveller--Robot adventures sourcebook. Include 20-40 robot designs, an example or two of societies with a different relationship with robots (maybe one just uses robotws in place of human labor, and what that does to the economy/how people go about life, another either treats robots as sophonts, or makes effectively sentient robots, but then treats them like slaves. Then two adventures, one you can toss into your absolutely normal campaign, and one that works in one of these alternate communities. As long as the whole thing is optional, I think it's a nice idea to make this kind of thing available.
