Why do you hate the Virus
- Thread starter Adam Dray
- Start date
The Referee's Overview of Hard Times opens with this:
They knew they were flipping the table.
If you thought the Rebellion was going to wreak havoc on
your campaign, hang onto your hat. The carnage wrought by
several years of warfare has only set in motion forces that will
continue to tear down worlds that never heard a shot fired in
anger.
your campaign, hang onto your hat. The carnage wrought by
several years of warfare has only set in motion forces that will
continue to tear down worlds that never heard a shot fired in
anger.
They knew they were flipping the table.
Hard Times could only flip the table if one used it, no?
Has anyone here ever adopted all this GDW metaplot and big setting change stuff in his own Traveller campaign out of a sense of obligation to closely follow " official" developments?
I am not judging, but just curious. For my part, I simply alter or ignore any unwelcome changes in a published setting I might be making use of in a game. And of course, I feel perfectly free to make any initial changes I would like, too.
I am much more interested in what some guys here call " ProtoTraveller", and in other settings, than in the OTU as it developed over the Eighties and Nineties.
Elements of what became the OTU interest me more than the full package.
But Virus is an exception, which is why this thread caught my eye. I owned TNE before any other Trav stuff, and the sentient machine rebellion/menace stuff struck me as fun and interesting.
Has anyone here ever adopted all this GDW metaplot and big setting change stuff in his own Traveller campaign out of a sense of obligation to closely follow " official" developments?
I am not judging, but just curious. For my part, I simply alter or ignore any unwelcome changes in a published setting I might be making use of in a game. And of course, I feel perfectly free to make any initial changes I would like, too.
I am much more interested in what some guys here call " ProtoTraveller", and in other settings, than in the OTU as it developed over the Eighties and Nineties.
Elements of what became the OTU interest me more than the full package.
But Virus is an exception, which is why this thread caught my eye. I owned TNE before any other Trav stuff, and the sentient machine rebellion/menace stuff struck me as fun and interesting.
I never run OTU anyway, but I had seen so much hostility about the Virus that I wanted to talk about it. (I totally get it, but I wasn't a player when it happened, so it didn't ever get the chance to tick me off.)
I personally think Virus stuff is cool, but not the way MT implemented it. I've toyed with virus problems in my ATU games, which tend to include more post-cyberpunk and transhumanist elements than the 80's-based Traveller.
I personally think Virus stuff is cool, but not the way MT implemented it. I've toyed with virus problems in my ATU games, which tend to include more post-cyberpunk and transhumanist elements than the 80's-based Traveller.
Meta-game reason: maybe DGP were still running things, and GDW hadn't taken back control of the timeline at this point? Subsequently GDW decided to make Strephon the real one, and pull the rug out from under the IRIS guys. But the timeline had progressed, so a belated investigation was required, thus, _Arrival Vengeance_.
In-game reason: maybe Norris had tried contacting Strephon, but couldn't get anyone through due to the Vargr Incursions and Vilani Imperium. (Now THERE"s an adventure hook for PC's if anyone wants to take it up). Then he decided to contact ALL of the Imperial leaders at once - and the failed expeditions had shown him you needed more firepower to get through - thus, _Arrival Vengeance_ (Greg Videll, with help from Dave Nilsen).
(And referees, make sure you take the PCs from the failed contact attempt - having shown them that it's impossible to go that way - and stick them on the AV for it's reverse Grand Tour of the shattered Imperium. That should nicely dovetail a whole bunch of storylines...)
"That's my theory, anyway. If you don't like it, well, I have others." ;-)
The stats and the areas of habitation, including the Roth Thokken, are in the Mongoose Vargr AM.
epicenter00
SOC-13
That's the odd part. Strephon was based on Usdiki. Right across the Rift is the Spinward Marches. Both Norris and Strephon had to be aware of the calibration points that cris-cross the Rift and the idea establishing them. Strephon probably wouldn't immediately know of the precise paths but it's pretty likely someone could find out for him. Norris could ask some Admiral and get the information within a week or two, likely. For both leaders, it'd be a hop-skip-and-a-(few) Jumps to contact the other. Even if the old paths were gone, someone as powerful as Strephon or Norris could surely spare like 3-4 J-2 ships for the few months it'd take to establish a new CP route across the Rift.
It's difficult to say. I really didn't get into Traveller until well into the MT days (too young for original Trav). I'm not even sure I can say our group followed GDW's plan with the kind of intent your loaded language uses.
The TL;DR version:
My group did adopt TNE from MT. We followed it because many of us thought it was interesting, the others were willing to give it a try even if they had some doubts about the bodysuits. Some stated they didn't really like TNE but were going along because MT wouldn't be supported by GDW anymore and these older players had memories of playing those niche Flying Buffalo RPGs or something and hated how you couldn't find players for games that weren't well supported or widely marketed, so they jumped on the TNE movement just so they could play a game that had players.
The long-winded version:
I wasn't part of all of these BBSes or mailing lists until I stumbled on CotI years after the fact. In fact, I wasn't even aware of them. To this day I admit I find the violent, polarized feelings players have when the subject of Virus and so on comes up to be kind of mystifying. I guess I should give some background.
My group and I actually got into GDW games as some of the older members of the group were avid wargamers who played GDW's die-cut wargames. Myself and younger wing were players of games like D&D then GDW's Twilight: 2000 (so as a result, post-apoc settings and the breakdown of familiar societies and so on was okay with us). One of the older guys said GDW had a sci-fi game (black box Trav) that apparently had a new edition so we all decided to get together to try it out. As someone who got into Traveller in MT, I was a Rebellion-era Trav player as was my group. Having grown up on Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, my groups biggest complaint about MT was: "Where's the war?"
The MT boxed set rules were replete with these references to this "Rebellion" going on, but we never had a solid feeling of what this actually meant. What was it really doing to the Imperium? It was some dramatic civil war, except there was no war, which seemed really dumb. After the Rebellion Sourcebook came out, we looked over the maps and realized we were in the Spinward Marches ... and there was literally no war anywhere nearby, it was all solidly in the realm of Norris so it was just trading, smuggling treesomething eggs, and assassinating/raiding/fighting for profit. So we started a new campaign towards Core because we actually wanted to go where the fighting was. It honestly still didn't feel that great because the war was simply too big. We couldn't make a difference in it and it'd just grind on without us. Eventually we fell back into same old Traveller stuff, plus piracy and salvaging war graves.
When Hard Times came out, it was very welcome so the group embraced it with a vengeance. Now we had better maps and it went into detail of what exactly it meant to live in the Safes, the borders, and no-man's lands and so on. It also described the wretched things that were happening to these worlds unfortunate enough not to have mailing addresses in the Spinward Marches (some of the older guys laughed that the Rebellion had made the Spinward Marches from the most dangerous, exciting area in the Trav Universe to the most boring and dubbed it the Safeword Marches). It was fun trying to find spare parts for an Arcology who's life support was failing, doing sometimes unsavory deals to get information on the parts, then getting them and flying back. It was tremendous fun using those really primitive starship rules to help some natives make a flotilla to try salvage war graves so they'd have a fleet-ish thing to fight off Reavers. Thinking about it now, I think our group was probably a lot different from the experiences of the people on this board because we were fans of Twilight: 2000, so we liked trying to build civilization or keep it running in environments where law, order, and civilization had broken down, so the worse the Rebellion got, the more interesting it was for us.
Then TNE came out. Obviously with all the Challenge articles and so on, we knew it was coming and we were excited.
The background didn't bug us, the rules didn't really bug us, the weird thing was ... it was the art and the RC's aesthetic that really bugged us. The skintight Flash Gordon bodysuits really turned us off, it's a really strange thing to have bugged us, but it really did. It bugged us far more than the Virus or anything else did. It felt like Traveller had changed from the gritty sci-fi game to ... a bad Saturday morning cartoon (back when they had Saturday morning cartoons). In fact, if anything really killed TNE's acceptance with new gamers, I think it was that awful bodysuit aesthetic and the RC's weird insistence on everyone having "cool" taccodes as nicknames.
We played it anyway, though and had some good times, though instead of going with some "cold sleep" option to bring our characters over, once a friend converted his Scout with Jack-of-all-Trades-4 and got massive stats boosts in TNE, we kinda all laughed and agreed just to make new characters and start a new game, though many of us chose to gen characters who were descendants of the original MT crew (we didn't use the rules for it in Survival Margin, just new characters that happened to have same last names or whatever).
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I place " official" in scare quotes because IMHO the Referee decides what is official at his table. YMMV
It sounds like you guys had a blast. Good times with Hard Times!
But you guys seem to have gone with changes in setting and edition that appealed to you. That was not what I meant.
What I mean to ask is, has anyone here ever felt obligated to make changes-- even unwanted and unappealing changes-- to his ongoing Traveller campaign because of something he read in a new (at the time) GDW product? If so, why?
Pressure from players? Demands of some sort of organized league of play, like the RPGA?
It is not a question about adopting stuff you like, or about stuff you just want to give a shot.
Let's get specific.
Has anyone used Virus in his campaign, who also hates Virus?
It sounds like you guys had a blast. Good times with Hard Times!
But you guys seem to have gone with changes in setting and edition that appealed to you. That was not what I meant.
What I mean to ask is, has anyone here ever felt obligated to make changes-- even unwanted and unappealing changes-- to his ongoing Traveller campaign because of something he read in a new (at the time) GDW product? If so, why?
Pressure from players? Demands of some sort of organized league of play, like the RPGA?
It is not a question about adopting stuff you like, or about stuff you just want to give a shot.
Let's get specific.
Has anyone used Virus in his campaign, who also hates Virus?
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At the start of hard times, my last MT storyline campaign followed right on into hard times... and the party headed to capital and pulled an Arbellatra... (Kill the barracks emperor lucan, but don't claim the throne.) Then sent word out to Dulinor to come claim his throne.
I've had 3 different parties all decide that Lucan must die. All three saw to it that he did. The other two ganked Lucan by 180-1117.
One party hired a Zhodani teleport marine, put him shipboard, had him strip down and carry a couple rifles... And went "to pay their fealty oaths in person"... and as they came in to swear their fealty (supposedly to Lucan), had the ZTPM bring them their guns. To execute the madman. They then publicly swore fealty to Dulinor.
Party 2 simply did a "Jump in with a 3 week vector" .... and made the needed rolls to get the jump just right.... Capital was under a glowing cloud on 172-1117.
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And what of the other factions? Some of them regardless will not be giving up their gains. The Vargr and Solomani, not contenders to the throne, would not be giving up newly (re)acquired territory.
"OK I see you got your act together. You can have Terra, even though it is ours."o:
Vland/Antares/Margaret/Duke Craig have been forging their path for years also? Or is it like a brutal Reconquista (hey, I'm Hispanic, don't judge me...)?
"OK I see you got your act together. You can have Terra, even though it is ours."
o:Vland/Antares/Margaret/Duke Craig have been forging their path for years also? Or is it like a brutal Reconquista (hey, I'm Hispanic, don't judge me...)?
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