I think the original black books did a good job of trying to get across the idea that something like the UWP was a jumping off point used to spur the imagination and not rigidly codify everything. I think MegaTraveller went wrong in part because too many people doing the writing wanted to leave their mark on the game by locking down too much detail, which set the stage for many of the revisions to follow.
I think the original black books did a good job of trying to get across the idea that something like the UWP was a jumping off point used to spur the imagination and not rigidly codify everything. I think MegaTraveller went wrong in part because too many people doing the writing wanted to leave their mark on the game by locking down too much detail, which set the stage for many of the revisions to follow.
I agree completely with you as to the problems, but I think they're due to something else: A failure to vet the randomly generated UWPs before publishing and a failure to fix the inconsistencies as soon as possible after they're detected. You have a class A starport on a pop 1 world? Look at the neighboring worlds, the trade routes, the habitability of the world, the history of the subsector, and either change the starport or the population level. You have a garden world with a low population? Look around and see if there's a surfeit of garden worlds in the neighborhood and an interstellar government with the will to keep trespassers off. If not, change the population to something big enough to fend off landgrabbers. You have a hell-hole with a population in the billions? Roll a die and on a 6, keep it. Otherwise, reduce the population to an outpost and move the billions to that low-pop garden world next to it. You have a Class E starport on a major main used by jump-2 traffic[*]? Change it to a Class C+ (refined fuel available, but no other facilities associated with Class A and B starports) run by outsiders from that high-population world two parsecs away.
[*] Jump-1 traffic is not really a problem. There isn't going to be any anyway -- over any distance greater than one parsec, jump-2 or jump-3 is cheaper than jump-1.
That said, I agree that the starport definitions could do with a tweak. Recently I've been advocating changing Class A to mean ship OR boatyards and B to mean anything you can get on a Class A except ships and/or boats. But now that you've pointed it out, I agree that Class D and Class E could do with a tweak too. I'd say that the defining feature of Class E ought to be the lack of personnel. If it happens to be built near a natural source of water, unrefined fuel is available; otherwise not.
Yeah. If the rules don't fit the setting, change the rules, not the setting. One of the sins GT committed.
Still, there's nothing unreasonable about the notion of a rating agency (be it the Scouts or TAS or whatever) that award starport classifications according to quite rigid specifications. You just need to make sure your UWP generation process takes it into account.
Hans
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Disagree. Which is why I tend to treat each edition as a separate canon and universe.
I don't play the fluff text; I play the codified setting as expressed in total by a ruleset.
mbrinkhues
SOC-14 1K
There is a rational base for not liking an edition of Traveller. If it does not fullfil ones demands while other editions do than one does not like/use it.
Nor is there any rational basis for accusing anyone of hating Mongoose. Disliking some parts of it, sure[*]. Expressing that dislike too forcefully, yes, on occasions in the past. Hating MGT, bashing MGT... not so much and not lately.
Hans
[*] Note that personally I've made my peace with the new stuff. There are parts I dislike, sure, but no more than in any previous version. And there are bits that I quite approve of.
My impression was that, for a long time, these boards were very tolerant of what certainly came over as 'mongoose-hate', some of which was less than rational.
I'm not talking about 'I don't like this aspect because', more the sort of screaming fanboy hate that I've been on the receiving end of a few times.
When GT came out I received orders (yes, that's what i said) from people telling me not to write for GT.
When I did write for GT I got sniped at for years over the same tired old subjects. In some cases this included real nasty rants about how stupid my creations like the Dandelions were. Mere facts (like 'uh, you do know that Marc Miller invented those, not me, they're in the Traveller Adventure...') didn't seem to dissuade those who'd decided that I was the ultimate bad guy for 'creating' something like that.
Having received death threats (yes, really) more than once as well as extensive hate mail, I'm kinda more sensitive to version-hate than some, and I certainly perceived a lot of it around here.
That's largely dissipated now, but there was a real hatefest for a good while.
I'm not talking about 'I don't like this aspect because', more the sort of screaming fanboy hate that I've been on the receiving end of a few times.
When GT came out I received orders (yes, that's what i said) from people telling me not to write for GT.
When I did write for GT I got sniped at for years over the same tired old subjects. In some cases this included real nasty rants about how stupid my creations like the Dandelions were. Mere facts (like 'uh, you do know that Marc Miller invented those, not me, they're in the Traveller Adventure...') didn't seem to dissuade those who'd decided that I was the ultimate bad guy for 'creating' something like that.
Having received death threats (yes, really) more than once as well as extensive hate mail, I'm kinda more sensitive to version-hate than some, and I certainly perceived a lot of it around here.
That's largely dissipated now, but there was a real hatefest for a good while.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
They (MGT fans) gave as good as they got (or better) in bile and volume, to my recollection of the whole stupid scene. And they continue to carry the torch long long after the so called MGT Haters have dropped it as this thread shows.
There are always a few people who go too far. My impression was that some people expressed their dislike of the new material forcefully, some people took offense of that -- warranted or not -- and expressed their disapproval forcefully, and the usual spiral of escalation kicked in. Whatever tolerance the moderators displayed towards Moongoose-bashers they also displayed towards Mongoose-basher-bashers. But, hey, maybe I'm misremembering. Maybe you are. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle and it's all down to selection bias.
But be that as it may, the original post implied existing, present-day Mongoose-hatery. As per September 19th, 2010. And that just isn't true. Maybe not ever, but certainly not recently. The last many times the subject has been raised, it has been out of the blue by Mongoose-basher-bashers with no provocation.
Let it go, already.
Hans
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Not liking something is a completely different thing than hating it (in the English language). Maybe true for Vilani society as well.
Whilst working on various games, I discovered that loose rules guidelines and common sense work better than a scientific/social science/legal tome that will still not work right in places.
I suspect the need to write strict rules dates all the way back to the wargaming roots of RPGs, where things had to be very clear because it was an adversarial game. An RPG has a lot more room for GM common sense.
I did at one point try to write munchkin-proof text. It's virtually impossible and ends up reading like a legal textbook. These days I prefer to go with a looser rules setup and let the GM have suitable leeway - ie it's closer to blues jamming than a concerto.
I suspect the need to write strict rules dates all the way back to the wargaming roots of RPGs, where things had to be very clear because it was an adversarial game. An RPG has a lot more room for GM common sense.
I did at one point try to write munchkin-proof text. It's virtually impossible and ends up reading like a legal textbook. These days I prefer to go with a looser rules setup and let the GM have suitable leeway - ie it's closer to blues jamming than a concerto.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
You know, I never saw this when I started playing way back, only after unvetted random UWPs were published as sourcebooks and after the swing in RPGs from "Ref creates game and adventures, players create characters, have fun." to the "Ref buys modules, players read rules, win the game."
UWPs are too generalized in my opinion to be taken as a hard exact description. And any attempt to make them more so is probably pointless as you noted with excellent points. Maybe worse, more scientifically accurate (meaning for what we know at the moment, likely to be out of date tommorrow), attempts is probably as pointless.
I don't think the UWP was ever meant to be anything other than an imagination trigger. It was never meant to be the imagination killer so many now seem to treat it as, feeling stuck with the results no matter how nonsensical.
The real problem is when something so obviously meant to be interpreted is used "as written" without interpretation and made canon (yes, I used The Word*). As much as you and others would like to fix it where it's been done wrong that's a harder thing than getting it right the first time. And getting it right the first time would have been a lot of work.
* Canon is not a curse, at least it should not be, it should be helpful but it needs to be properly vetted and followed by publishers to be so.
In short I agree with you that (at least some parts of) Traveller "rules" (all RPGs really) should be guides, loose, and subjected to interpretation before use. The thing is I've always felt they were just that originally and it's only later usage and publication that have gotten away from that. And I see that as largely market driven; refs and players now (and for years if not decades) seem to demand and/or expect it. Wanting to be able to jump right into the game and play. Not "waste" a bunch of time setting up and interpreting the rules with an attitude of "If I wanted to write the whole game myself... "
Someone who understands role-playing games.
I suspect you're right Dan. The original rules were a loose guideline (We at Avenger translated the traveller rules set into 'roll two dice, blow stuff up') which gradually became more and more entombed in attempts at precision.
What really needs to happen is to strip away the years of OCD and return to 'a class A port is probably like this and has these features. But they vary somewhat' rather than 'Class A port. Must have XY and Z features, not less than 12 Starbucks outlets, etc)
Any attempt to codify the whole universe must be loose and allow for interpretation, otherwise it breaks as soon as any variation is encountered. Unfortunately traveller has been going in the direction of more detail implied by any given code for a long, long time.
What really needs to happen is to strip away the years of OCD and return to 'a class A port is probably like this and has these features. But they vary somewhat' rather than 'Class A port. Must have XY and Z features, not less than 12 Starbucks outlets, etc)
Any attempt to codify the whole universe must be loose and allow for interpretation, otherwise it breaks as soon as any variation is encountered. Unfortunately traveller has been going in the direction of more detail implied by any given code for a long, long time.
spinwardpirate
SOC-13
I couldn't agree more. Don't get bogged down in the rules, no matter who published them, and don't be afraid to take ownership of the game and apply your own good judgment. Da Vinci was quoted as saying, "These rules are intended to help you to a free and good judgement: for good judgement proceeds from good understanding, and good understanding comes from reason trained by good rules, and good rules are the children of sound experience, which is the common mother of all the sciences and arts." And he ran a really great Traveller game.
Traveller has always suffered from that. I remember when I first picked up Scouts and saw where habitable planets could be and around which stars...at first, it took the Star Wars element away but as I chipped away at it...I used all these tables and charts as guidelines.
There is a school of role playing that believes in the Table & Chart approach - but I think, as Dan said, most seasoned players and referees merely use them as imagination triggers.
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