Was CT any better than T5 when it first came out.

[aramis]

Didn't Games Workshop recently try to sue an author for using the term "Space Marine"?

And promptly dropped it as soon as people started pointing out the common prior use.

See, if they lose in court, they lose FOREVER. Failure to protect a direct challenge makes the trademark go away.

THey cannot afford to lose the trademark, so it's far safer for them to admit it's a separate field...

 

[Baltech Budapest]

And I don't think you need to abandon CT completely. As the T5 drafts developed, I was able to replace sections of The Traveller Book (and Merchant Prince, and the Environmental books by the Keith brothers, and Robots, and the MT Referee's Companion, and...). However, I still use the CT adventures and many of the modules, just as I still use some of MegaTraveller, etc.

That's good to know Rob. I'm running one of the Double Adventures in a week or so and was hoping to use the (very) basics of T5. It will be a good test for us. If all goes well then, with further reading of the big book I'd like to run one of the long adventures from CT.

 

[Baltech Budapest]

And promptly dropped it as soon as people started pointing out the common prior use.

See, if they lose in court, they lose FOREVER. Failure to protect a direct challenge makes the trademark go away.

THey cannot afford to lose the trademark, so it's far safer for them to admit it's a separate field...

I didn't know that Aramis. I didn't follow the story after I heard GW got all narky with some author.

I also read somewhere that Marvel and DC both 'own' the trademark to the term "Super Hero". Not sure if that is true or not?

 

[HG_B]

I also read somewhere that Marvel and DC both 'own' the trademark to the term "Super Hero". Not sure if that is true or not?

"Super Hero" is not currently owned. "Superhero" is a TM owned by IT Cosmetics of New Jersey.

 

[pennshome723]

BTW the best Super hero game system I think is Hero Systems Champions line and version 5R was the best version. V6 which I think is now dead was dumb down for the folks that couldn't count to ten on their fingers and toes...LOL!

 

[Baltech Budapest]

"Super Hero" is not currently owned. "Superhero" is a TM owned by IT Cosmetics of New Jersey.

Really? Why the heck did they need the name? That's crazy!

Funny how a space between the words can change the details though.

 

[HG_B]

Really? Why the heck did they need the name? That's crazy!

Where do you think Wonder Woman gets her makeup?

 

[Vladika]

Could we get this Trademark issue into a thread of it's own? I fail to see how the derailing of the OP is of benefit.

The Trademark may very well be important to many people who won't see this thread.

 

[Otto Harkaman]

Out of curiousity what was GDW's relationship with FASA?

I have a lot of old FASA stuff made for CT but I see looking through some of the Renegade Legion stuff that it seems like a continuation of Traveller. Actually some of the starship artwork in the Levithan briefing looks like the needle style patrol ship. Same artist I wonder?

 

[GamingGlen]

BTW the best Super hero game system I think is Hero Systems Champions line and version 5R was the best version. V6 which I think is now dead was dumb down for the folks that couldn't count to ten on their fingers and toes...LOL!

You didn't read V6 then. It was not dumbed down nor is it dead, and requires just as much math as any previous version.

 

[aramis]

You didn't read V6 then. It was not dumbed down nor is it dead, and requires just as much math as any previous version.

They deleted the figuring from the figured attributes. That alone shaves 2 minutes of math. (10 figured attributes), more for the "must have a calculator to do division" crowd.

 

[robject]

Out of curiousity what was GDW's relationship with FASA?

FASA started out as a licensee for Traveller, but it has not been a Traveller licensee for a looooong time.

The CT FASA material is available on CD through Far Future Enterprises.

 

[Otto Harkaman]

I was curious about the insider details about the license and relation between the two companies. Now that I look more at FASA's Renegade Legend stuff the more traveller it looks. Although this is quoted from wiki

During a panel at RedCon95, FASA President Sam Lewis stated that the Renegade Legion series of games were originally designed for use with the Star Wars license. Since the license was awarded to West End Games, FASA chose to use the systems with their own setting.

Anyways no big deal, I am glad I stumbled across this stuff though.

 

[Baltech Budapest]

Here's the Wikipedia entry for FASA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASA
I had no idea, until I read this, that they were back in business. Good to see

 

[Otto Harkaman]

Here's the Wikipedia entry for FASA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASA
I had no idea, until I read this, that they were back in business. Good to see

And don't forget William H. Keith's aka Ian Douglas, latest novel in his Star Carrier series! Got a copy yesterday at Barnes & Noble, going to be my evening reading.

 

[BytePro]

FASA stuff seems to have been included in other Traveller material for a while - like the Type T in MT/Gurps - so looks like GDW/Marc had some special arrangement or came to one quite some time ago.

As for Renegade Legion ... IP seems to have moved from FASA -> WizKids -> Topps -> now owned by an investment group with ties to former Disney CEO Michael Eisner!

 

[Otto Harkaman]

Yes crazy how so many things have been merged under one corporation. I think someone was joking on boardgamegeek that Disney could now make an Avalon Hill PanzerBlitz movie.

 

[esampson]

They deleted the figuring from the figured attributes. That alone shaves 2 minutes of math. (10 figured attributes), more for the "must have a calculator to do division" crowd.

Actually as I understand it the true reason for merging was because there were some balance issues with the figured characteristics system. Chief among these was Strength where 5 points spent on strength earned 5 1/2 points worth of figured characteristics (1 PD, 1 REC (worth 2 points), and 2 1/2 Stun).

 

[GamingGlen]

They deleted the figuring from the figured attributes. That alone shaves 2 minutes of math. (10 figured attributes), more for the "must have a calculator to do division" crowd.

And they split out OCV and DCV, and OMCV and DMCV (mental CV), so there's more math there just by adding points to those. COMliness was removed but a Handsome/Beautiful perk was added to replace it (I suppose there was always an "ugly" disadvantage one could take :smirk.

We almost had a V6 campaign around here, so I made up a character. She turned out to be a variant of my previous V4 Variable Power Pool character (different SFX) and was very similar. You could play either one without much trouble playing either of the two versions of the rules.

I had a negative attitude about V6 before I actually read the rules. I would not have any issue playing any version of Champions, as long as I get to play.

 

[pennshome723]

Honestly I felt V5 R was a pretty good system with tons of resources for, the only reason I think Steven went to V6 was because other game systems at the time were spinning up new versions and he was hoping to get folks to buy it all again, plus they had that connection to the online Champions game and those gamers just couldn't or wouldn't even try to get the game mechanics to play Champions for real and that crowd needed a dumb down version to be able to play the game as a RPG game instead of a online game.

I just was fed up and refused to buy another sub standard game system that was made easy for fools that couldn't count to ten with their two hands and two feet all together. I said enough and walked away, I did the same with D&D v4. I wanted nothing to do with figures table top leveling the playing field gaming, and said I will stick with buying Pathfinder v 3.75 of D&D.