What do you think of side bars in Traveller books?

[Gruffty]

Some Traveller books (i.e. GURPS, MT, TNE) have sidebars in them; others don't (CT, T4). I'd like to hear what people think of sidebars, and whether they're useful or not.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Since so far they either contained useful "fluff" or interesting data, I liked them.

 

[Whipsnade]

Gruffty,

I'll strongly 'ditto' Michael here.

So far, they've either contained 'hard' information, nifty 'tidbits', or 'fluff' that let me add chrome to my setting. I'd be hard pressed to remember one that made me exclaim What a waste of space! so it seems like the good sidebars have far outnumbered the bad ones in my perception.

Now, if a product contained sidebars that were nothing but - in my perception - useless filler, I'd be miffed. But it's going to take a lot of really poisonous sidebars to sink a book.

IMHO.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Golan2072]

I agree with Michael and Bill - most sidebars I've encountered so far in Traveller books were useful and/or interesting. It's a good way to insert comments and additional information without overloading the "core" text.

 

[kafka47]

Sometimes. Whilst, I like to be entertained whilst reading sometimes dry rules, sidebars sometimes leave wanting more without any recourse. What I am a big fan of, is those RPGs that have a story segment at the beginning of the sourcebook/chapter that evokes the atmosphere that rules are meant to capture. But, then again, I would be happy with sourcebooks that were rules lite and tend to be a storyteller in my games, anyhow.

What I found most interesting was when I mounted that poll, so many others fell into the same camp. So, maybe, it is the future to adopt more storytelling techniques.

 

[Pickles]

Gorram, nobody agrees with me.

 

[Liam Devlin]

I've seldom found them useless, and often, a year later when I go back, I read something that I missed first time through.

sorry brom.

 

[Pickles]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
... and often, a year later when I go back, I read something that I missed first time through.

Aha! Misleading and confusing! The conclusion is obvious.

 

[aramis]

I missed voting...

I like the sidebars in MT and TNE. They were excellent ways of presenting data that is related but not part of the text in an area.

MT abused a few of them.

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

Theoretically, I think they're great - they can be used to detail some tidbit that doesn't quite fit the main text, and they make for interesting visual layout.

However, I always cringe when they put stuff in a narrative voice - the content is often fluffy and the writing almost always horrid. (In my perception, of course.)