What is Traveller?

[tbeard1999]

"All cargos are carried at Cr1,000 per ton." - LBB2

Still not seeing the part about price fixing.

Most costs in CT/MGT are listed as a fixed price. Do we assume that these are all due to price fixing? Is there an Imperial Firearms Commission that sets the price of a Shotgun at the exact price listed in CT/MGT?

I'd add that I think it's highly unlikely that an interstellar state like the Third Imperium would resort to price fixing and other clumsy interventions on the market (acknowledging that we're talking about Traveller, not necessarily the OTU).* Enforcement would be a major challenge for a far-flung empire that grants local autonomy. In addition, the Imperium has a strong interest in the benefits of trade. And government interventions in trade almost universally have the effect of making trade more expensive (and less economically profitable). Presumably they have economists in the far future...

Note that this is NOT necessarily true of all interstellar states -- just the kind implied by Traveller. For instance, Dune's Imperium has a primary goal of ensuring the survival of a feudal political system along with an agrarian economy. Its economic system is therefore heavily restricted to this end -- it grants a monopoly on space travel to the Spacing Guild and a monopoly on interstellar trade to CHOAM, a megacorporation owned by the Great Houses and the Emperor.

*Traveller assumes some kind of government that grants member systems significant local authority (few randomly generated systems are Captive Governments).

 

[CosmicGamer]

My friend has an inport business and although he sells online, little of his purchasing is done on line. Some of reasons I am aware of, and they may or may not apply to Traveller and FTLC:
1) Some of his suppliers do not have web sites due to a variety of legitimate reasons and buying/selling things on middleman websites, like ebay, is nowhere near free and cuts into profits so that you are not as competitive as buyers and sellers that deal direct.
2) Often web sites are not updated regularly with the right prices, quantities, or new products.
3) When dealing in the volumes my friend does, he can usually negotiate a discount which is not available on the web site.
4) My friend often needs to send money orders. Credit cards take a percentage and a percentage of a six figure deal is quite a bit. My friend would like that to be in his pocket, not the credit card companies.

Often deals are done via slower emails. Businesses generally have lots of emails and rarely read and respond to emails in an 'instant' fashion. A few hours wait is not uncommon even if you are in the same country. With Chinese companies, it's not uncommon to have to wait a day due to time zone differences.

Even with a web site, over 20% of my friends sales are still mail order (some customers pay by check) and phone orders.

 

[tbeard1999]

My friend has an inport business and although he sells online, little of his purchasing is done on line. Some of reasons I am aware of, and they may or may not apply to Traveller and FTLC: ... Often deals are done via slower emails. Businesses generally have lots of emails and rarely read and respond to emails in an 'instant' fashion. A few hours wait is not uncommon even if you are in the same country. With Chinese companies, it's not uncommon to have to wait a day due to time zone differences.

I'd consider email to be "nearly instantaneous", compared with an XBoat message.

I think that the most important feature of nearly instantaneous FTL communication -- besides enabling the fast dissemination of pricing information -- is in facilitating fund transfers. The ability to wire money and have it clear that same day (or at the latest, the next morning) allows for serious economic efficiency. Any modern instantaneous communication system would allow funds to be wired at least as quickly as they can be wired today.

 

[Jason]

It's as self evident as apples are red because oranges are round. :devil: Sorry, I have a low Int stat due to lack of sleep last night, you need to explain further.

Well, let's look at the Book 2 system first.
When you want to buy a cargo, the Referee rolls a d66 roll with a modifier for population. There is no modifier at all for Tech level, so if you have a high population, low TL world you might still be able to buy cybernetic parts there.

The quantity of the goods is fixed. A high population world will produce exactly the same quantity of firearms, for instance, as a low-population world - 2d6.

You will only find one type of cargo per week for sale too.
And then the price varies by as much as 400% from what is shown on the table, based on another 2d6 roll.

What determines if you make a profit? What cargo you roll, how much of it you roll, and what you roll on the value table when you buy and sell it. You can stack some modifiers but the rolls are really how you make money.

No provision is made for the tech level or starports of the worlds involved. No provision is made for the distance the goods came or how long you've had them in your hold either.

The system is obviously geared towards quick resolution without a lot of modifiers, which is also its strength.

 

[Imperial Planetologist]

When you want to buy a cargo, the Referee rolls a d66 roll with a modifier for population. There is no modifier at all for Tech level, so if you have a high population, low TL world you might still be able to buy cybernetic parts there.

"I dunno what he was thinking, buying this stuff and shipping it here. Locals got no use for it. Gonna lose his shirt on it, but he'll take what he can get for these parts, just to get some liquidity again."

The quantity of the goods is fixed. A high population world will produce exactly the same quantity of firearms, for instance, as a low-population world - 2d6.

"Yeah, the Sharurshid factor bought something like a hundered tons. Only a handful of these babies left over."

You will only find one type of cargo per week for sale too.

"Y'know, you free traders need to hire a factor. You spend half y'r ground time just filling out SPA forms and hustling passengers. Get yourself a regular factor on planet, with nothin' to do but look for cargo, and you'll get a much better selection, and more of it t' boot."

And then the price varies by as much as 400% from what is shown on the table, based on another 2d6 roll.

"That's the best price I can get you. Before that subbie showed up last week with eighty tons of this stuff to sell, I coulda got you three times this. Mebbe four."

What determines if you make a profit? What cargo you roll, how much of it you roll, and what you roll on the value table when you buy and sell it. You can stack some modifiers but the rolls are really how you make money.

"Yeah, if I was in your boots, I'd hold onto this stuff 'til I reach Noscitur. Oh, and look up a broker named Strangwys. Tell 'im you know me, and he'll make sure you get a good deal, for his percentage, o' course."

No provision is made for the tech level or starports of the worlds involved.

"The SPA says when they finish the new yard, this place will go from a class C to a class B. We should see a jump in the local technology bleeding out of the repair bays, which will be good for everyone."

No provision is made for the distance the goods came or how long you've had them in your hold either.

"Good thing they dry those out before they ship 'em, or your hold would stink like . . . well, it would stink. Those LSP containers do good job locking in the freshness. Not like anyone on this rockball would care. Even dried dates are better than purple yeast with a laxative added, if y' follow my meanin'."

(And if I can step out of my broker persona for a moment, there is a reason this game has a referee. Got fresh vegetables on an Ag world? Assign a percentage value for how much of it rots with each successive jump: 1D% the first jump, 2D% the second jump, and so on.)

The system is obviously geared towards quick resolution without a lot of modifiers, which is also its strength.

It's also a system that with a little thought provides all sorts of setting-consistent rationales for the results.

I know another referee who worked out a whole big table of trade modifiers, to reflect shortages, abundances, finance woes, regulations, and what not, to affect that roll. But the way I look at it, I just roll, and decide from the results if there's a shortage or a lack of speculative capital reflected in the price.

Different strokes and all that.

 

[rancke]

"I dunno what he was thinking, buying this stuff and shipping it here. Locals got no use for it. Gonna lose his shirt on it, but he'll take what he can get for these parts, just to get some liquidity again."

Just because something is possible doesn't mean it's equally likely regardless of population size and tech level. Realistically you'd be more likely to find a load of electronics on a world that manufactures electronics in bulk than on a low-population low-tech world (where the GWP is less than the value of the load).

"Yeah, the Sharurshid factor bought something like a hundered tons. Only a handful of these babies left over."

That's a good reason for not making the number of available loads directly proportional to the population level. It's still going to be more likely that there're "a few of these babies left over" on a high-population world where they're manufactured than on a low-population world where no sane speculator would ever dream of importing them.

"Y'know, you free traders need to hire a factor. You spend half y'r ground time just filling out SPA forms and hustling passengers. Get yourself a regular factor on planet, with nothin' to do but look for cargo, and you'll get a much better selection, and more of it t' boot."

It's still belief-breakingly unlikely that there will be just precisely exactly one interesting good for sale every week regardless of the world.

"That's the best price I can get you. Before that subbie showed up last week with eighty tons of this stuff to sell, I coulda got you three times this. Mebbe four."

"You have 61 multimegacredit computers for sale? You're in luck. The 20,000 people on this world have just become aware of a huge, immediate need for computers, so we're willing to pay 400% of nominal value, and we'll take all 61 of them. As luck would have it, we've saved up our money for the last couple of centuries, so we can pay cash."

"The SPA says when they finish the new yard, this place will go from a class C to a class B. We should see a jump in the local technology bleeding out of the repair bays, which will be good for everyone."

?

"Good thing they dry those out before they ship 'em, or your hold would stink like . . . well, it would stink. Those LSP containers do good job locking in the freshness. Not like anyone on this rockball would care. Even dried dates are better than purple yeast with a laxative added, if y' follow my meanin'."

"Hey, don't worry. Copperfish garum can keep for centuries. Which is about the time it'll take a population your size to eat four dT worth of it."

(And if I can step out of my broker persona for a moment, there is a reason this game has a referee. Got fresh vegetables on an Ag world? Assign a percentage value for how much of it rots with each successive jump: 1D% the first jump, 2D% the second jump, and so on.) It's also a system that with a little thought provides all sorts of setting-consistent rationales for the results.

The fact that a good referee can compensate for the shortcomings of a system doesn't mean the shortcomings aren't there, nor does it excuse them. Game rules are supposed to help not-so-good referees. The good ones can manage on their own.


Hans

 

[MongooseMatt]

The fact that a good referee can compensate for the shortcomings of a system doesn't mean the shortcomings aren't there, nor does it excuse them. Game rules are supposed to help not-so-good referees. The good ones can manage on their own.

IP's rationales are good, and entirely consistent with how Traveller is supposed to be run (Marc's idea, I am led to believe, is to create 'odd' results in random creation, be it trade, characters or worlds, and have players come up with reasons _why_ those results are valid - a creativity exercise).

The current system is for part-time free traders _alone_. Those who dabble here and there, who like the odd speculation, so they will be on the fringes, finding (or losing) good deals, trading in cast-offs and leftovers.

The big boys use a completely different system. And that is what we will be covering in Merchant Prince.

 

[rancke]

IP's rationales are good,

IP's rationales works in some situations, no argument there. They do not work in all cases.

...and entirely consistent with how Traveller is supposed to be run (Marc's idea, I am led to believe, is to create 'odd' results in random creation, be it trade, characters or worlds, and have players come up with reasons _why_ those results are valid - a creativity exercise).

Lovely. But what Mark Miller sees as a feature, I see as a bug. Don't get me wrong, I like random creation, I agree that they're great opportunities for creative exercises. But I don't agree that each and every situation should be like that. When the abnormal becomes the norm, belief gets stretched beyond the breaking point. For me, anyway.

The current system is for part-time free traders _alone_. Those who dabble here and there, who like the odd speculation, so they will be on the fringes, finding (or losing) good deals, trading in cast-offs and leftovers.

I'm glad to see you say so. That's what I've been arguing for years. However, that doesn't refute the comments I made above -- I already assumed as much.

The big boys use a completely different system. And that is what we will be covering in Merchant Prince.

That sounds very interesting. I look forward to finding out more.


Hans

 

[rust]

IP's rationales works in some situations, no argument there. They do not work in all cases.

Random tables and inventing explanations for their results ...

When we switched a previous campaign from GURPS Traveller to Mongoose
Traveller, I handed the new rules to the player who played the free trader
captain who owned the ship that supplied the small water world colony and
asked him what his character wanted to do next.

He told me that his character would immediately leave the planet to travel
to the sector capital and ask the navy for a battalion of Marines for an in-
tervention on the colony world.

When asked why his character might do something that extreme, he poin-
ted at the random trade tables and remarked that the colony obviously had
been taken over by organized crime because, despite its very low population,
as a water world it was exporting hundred of tons of illegal biochemicals, ille-
gal drugs and illegal luxury goods each year ...

 

[Jason]

(And if I can step out of my broker persona for a moment, there is a reason this game has a referee. Got fresh vegetables on an Ag world? Assign a percentage value for how much of it rots with each successive jump: 1D% the first jump, 2D% the second jump, and so on.)It's also a system that with a little thought provides all sorts of setting-consistent rationales for the results.

Nice rationales, but it's you coming up with them, not the system.

I think my point is made - the system requires so much rationalization already to explain the results that you can't really say that STL communication is built into it.

 

[rancke]

I think my point is made - the system requires so much rationalization already to explain the results that you can't really say that STL communication is built into it.

No, but you can tell by the fact that the authors mentioned it up front in the introduction to the rules that it was their intention that the rules should describe a situation similar to Earth in the eighteenth century, where communication is limited to the speed of travel. It's the mission statement, as it were.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

I think my point is made...

Jason,

I'm sorry, but you've made no point whatsoever.

... the system requires so much rationalization already to explain the results that you can't really say that STL communication is built into it.

ONCE AGAIN here are the FIRST TWO LINES on the FIRST PAGE of the FIRST PUBLISHED BOOK of Traveller rules:

Traveller deals with a common theme of science-fiction: the concept that an expanding technology will enable us to reach the stars and to populate the worlds which orbit them. The major problem, however, will be that communication, be it political, diplomatic, commercial, or private, will be reduced to the level of the 18th century, reduced to the speed of transportation. (the bold is mine)

Communication is reduced to the speed of transportation. Period. Everything else in the Traveller rules flows in part from that concept.

The statement is perfectly clear and, quite frankly, continuing to claim otherwise is nothing more than willful ignorance on your part. You're wrong, you know you're wrong, and you somehow can't bring yourself to admit it.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Jason]

Jason,
The statement is perfectly clear and, quite frankly, continuing to claim otherwise is nothing more than willful ignorance on your part. You're wrong, you know you're wrong, and you somehow can't bring yourself to admit it.

Wow. Why don't you tell me how you really feel, Bill?

The statement that communication is limited to STL speeds is in the text of the rulebook, but the trade system in no way takes this basic assumption into account, and would work exactly the same (with the same random results) if the statement earlier on in the rulebook were not there.
Therefore the idea that there is no FTJ communication is not in fact integral to the trade rules.

That's all I'm saying.

 

[Jason]

No, but you can tell by the fact that the authors mentioned it up front in the introduction to the rules that it was their intention that the rules should describe a situation similar to Earth in the eighteenth century, where communication is limited to the speed of travel. It's the mission statement, as it were.

A mission statement is not policy. If you have a company that has a specific mission statement, but then the policies and procedures completely ignore it, then your mission statement is in fact not integral or fundamental to how your company actually works.

 

[Jason]

By the way, it's not always a bad thing when an author makes a plan of what he or she wants to do and then the actual work turns out to not follow the plan at all. The best example I can think of is The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien set out to create a sequal to The Hobbit - essentially a light, enjoyable fantasy suitable for children to read and enjoy. What he finally created was something quite different from what his initial "mission statement" had envisioned. By the judgement of most people it was also something vastly superior to his original goal.

 

[robject]

B5 has FTL comms, as does the Slammers universe as described in Drake's novels and stories, thus they cannot be Traveller no matter what Mongoose may choose to believe. However, that doesn't mean those settings can't use Traveller-derived rules in the same way my non-Traveller Pulp/Chaco War setting used Traveller rules.

If Mongoose had come up with something akin to SJGame's "Powered By GURPS" labeling, we'd be spared a lot of this confusion. B5: Powered By Traveller is far more descriptive and accurate than B5: Traveller.

These are fascinating discussions. The jump drive, and that the fastest rate of travel is the "speed of jump", are rules that the Third Imperium setting relies on, and is iconic of Traveller as a game.

However, I haven't seen any topic here that doesn't also apply to TNE, which is a Traveller ruleset, folded into GDW's house system. TNE seems clear that its rules do not all apply to the OTU.

Therefore, this discussion is currently about succession.

Does MT trump CT?
Does TNE trump MT and CT?
Does T4 trump TNE, MT, and CT? What about the bits of TNE which weren't explicitly replaced by T4?
Does T20 trump anything?

And therefore,

Does MGT trump all of the above?

 

[Whipsnade]

Wow. Why don't you tell me how you really feel, Bill?

Jason,

Okay, I will.

You're trolling us, you're being deliberately argumentative, and your analogies are either laughable, false, or have been repeatedly refuted.

Therefore the idea that there is no FTJ communication is not in fact integral to the trade rules.

So what? The idea that there is no FTJ commuincations is not in fact integral to the psionic rules either. The fact that no-FTL comms in integral to either subset of the rules doesn't obviate the fact that no-FTJ comms is stated clearly in the second sentence of the rules book.

And your quibble about mission statements not always equating policy is simply more trolling on your part.

That's all I'm saying.

That is not all you are saying.

You began your participation this thread by claiming that FTJ comms could be including in Traveller without injuring the setting. When that little brainstorm got shot down in flames, you retreated to this "FTJ doesn't effect the trade system" nonsense.

This thread is about what makes Traveller Traveller and communications at the speed of transport is one of the core aspects of the game. Not whether no-FTJ comms is expressed in the trade rules or any of the other contrarian quibbles you want to fashion, but the fact that no-FTJ comms is central the game itself.

You cannot deny that without either being willfully ignorant and/or splitting hairs at the subatomic level.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Jason]

Succession is not what I was arguing about, actually.

 

[Jason]

Jason,
That is not all you are saying.

You began your participation this thread by claiming that FTJ comms could be including in Traveller without injuring the setting.

Uh, no. I never argued that at all. No FTJ communication is definitely fundamental to the Third Imperium and the OTU (the setting), and I have never argued otherwise. And I wouldn't want it any other way.
It's the idea that it is written into the rules systems and mechanics themselves that I dispute.

When that little brainstorm got shot down in flames, you retreated to this "FTJ doesn't effect the trade system" nonsense.

My argument has always been that no FTJ communication is not fundamental to the rules. The Trade system was put forward by another poster as an example of something that would have to be radically altered if FTJ communication was included in the rules, and I demonstrated that the system in the Little Black Books doesn't have "no FTJ communications" as an underlying assumption, a point you apparently agree with.

This thread is about what makes Traveller Traveller and communications at the speed of transport is one of the core aspects of the game.

Of the OTU definitely. What I'm not so sure about is whether it is fundamental to the rules.

 

[Whipsnade]

By the way, it's not always a bad thing when an author makes a plan of what he or she wants to do and then the actual work turns out to not follow the plan at all. The best example I can think of is The Lord of the Rings.

Jason,

And that example is fundamentally wrong because you're unaware of what Tolkien was writing and when he was writing it.

Tolkien set out to create a sequal to The Hobbit...

He did no such thing. LOTR may be a narrative sequel to The Hobbit, just as The Silmarillion is a narrative prequel to both, but LOLTR is not an intellectual or physical sequel to The Hobbit.

Tolkien had been working on his mythos well before writing what became The Hobbit as a series of holiday letters to his children. He spun that light fantasy out of the same already extent materials that he would also use to create Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and all the rest. None intellectually preceded the rest because all were derived from the same already extent source materials, albeit at different times and for different reasons.

This is all becoming very tedious Jason and it's been going on for far too long. Let me remind everyone - and yourself - how you began this "discussion" with your first post to this thread:

Is "No FTL communications" really encoded in the rules, or is it just one of the fundamental elements of the Third Imperium's universe? Can you give me an example of where it's assumed in the rules?

It's been repeatedly explained to you that no-FTJ comms is both a fundamental aspect of the Traveller universe and is encoded in the rules as a theme. No-FTJ comms is woven throughout the game, its strands touch and effect ever aspect whether you choose to believe it or not.

You can quibble about a "No-FTJ comms" basis for the trade system or any other portion of the game you wish to use as an example. In a way, you're both partially right and utterly wrong. The "Roll 2D6 with these DMs" mechanism doesn't physically encode "No-FTJ comms", but the context in which that mechanism is used most certainly does. You're willfully ignoring the context involved, deliberately and knowingly examining certain portions of the game outside of the context in which they exist in order to "prove" that FTJ comms can somehow be part of Traveller without significantly changing Traveller.

I won't comment on your motives for continuing to insist that this willfully ignorant interpretation is correct. Your methods on the other hand, are repetitive, have been refuted, and are now reduced to nothing but quibbles and a deliberate examination of the rules outside of the context in which they were written.

You're wrong, Jason. We know it, you know it, we know that you know, and you know that we know. It's time that this farce was at an end.


Regards,
Bill