Why Other Versions of Traveller Failed

[T. Foster]

I'm ambivalent about the importance of artwork. I'd rather see no artwork at all than bad artwork, but would still prefer good artwork.

I think it's important to have artwork as a visual reference for vehicles/ships, equipment, and aliens/creatures, in a 'realistic' (as opposed to cartoon) style. But anything else ('action scenes' and such) is purely optional to me; sure some flashy pictures might draw attention on crowded game-store shelves (aside: are game-store shelves still crowded?) but too much artwork (especially full-color glossy stuff) makes me feel like I'm paying more for the artwork than the content, and poor quality artwork (like T4's Milieu 0 Book) gives an impression of cheap second-ratedness that probably creates a worse impression on potential buyers than no art at all would.

And lastly, all artwork should be setting-appropriate and consistent with the equipment/vehicles/creatures detailed elsewhere in the system -- some of those Chris Foss paintings in T4 might've made great posters to hang in your dorm-room, but they had absolutely nothing to do with Traveller.

 

[jackleg]

Here are my thoughts on why the other versions of Traveller failed.

CT: Was too stagnant. There were plenty of ideas that were never explored. There should have been more adventures about the plotting among the nobles(just as they do in Fading Suns). Too many adventures were really close to cyberpunk adventures(you are hired by one corporation to raid another). There should have been more adventures that reflected an empire of 11,000 worlds. There should have been rebellions, assassinations, piracy raids,etc.

MT: Was too extreme in it's destruction of the Empire. It moved too fast. Plus the rules while a welcomed update were too complicated in some areas and too much errata. The adventures were top notch, those from GDW and DGP. The Rebellion shoud have been a true rebellion instead s struggle for the throne. Once again there should have been a lot of room for other adventures as nobles made multiple political moves to advance their houses power and influence.

Hard Times: Truthfully, I liked it. It should have lasted longer and could have been used as the time to set the stage for either resolving the Rebellion or the kickoff for T:TNE. i am also partial to it because a good friend of mine did a majority of the interior art work

.

T:TNE: Too depressing. So much death and destruction. There seemed to be so many things to keep from going beyind there system. Vampire fleets, TEDS, etc.

MMT: I looked at the book and there artwork did not fit is. Elmore's work was a waste of space and the other guy's stuff was of ships that were not in the book. Were was David Deitrick when you need him?

G:T Seems to be rolling along. They are releasing books on the Traveller universe on a regular basis.

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[aramis]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by n2s:
I have meet RS and we will never, ever see anything from him. Consider the DGP stuff gone until the copyright has expired.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

7-9 more years (assuming he forgets the 20 yeqar renwal).
On the other hand, Marc can use the concepts, just not the literal text.
I'll prolly still be playing MT, inless T5 has as much vertical integration WRT mechanics of damaging things and designing equipment. (I do suit comms for MT from the craft design tables....)

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-aramis
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Smith & Wesson: The Original Point and Click interface!

[This message has been edited by aramis (edited 02 June 2001).]

 

[Christopher Jennings]

I'm sure my experiances with Traveller developements over the years mirrors many others. When the first LBBs came out we jumped on it as an alturnative to D&D, which by the way came as a set of three "Little BROWN Books" in a white box. We welcomed the arival of the Imperium as it allowed us to concentrate on making adventures while giving us a structure that took care of the "cultural background" and on occasion even gave us obviose adventure seeds-like gun-running behind Zho lines.
Then came MT. While I agree that CT needed a rewrite and streamlining by this point I will admit to some disapointment when I realized that MT was almost too much revised- almost didn't recognize it at first. What I, and from what I'm hearing so do others, do is keep the simplicity of CT while using the better ideas that MT sometimes had- but I definatly kept High Guard.
There was that little "Traveller2300" incident-less said about that the better.
When I saw the first book for TNE I was afraid of what I was going to see but I still dropped good money for it. I was horrified when I saw that it wasn't Traveller at all anymore but a poorly exicuted mutation of Twilight 2000. Completely non-compatiple with anything that had gone before.
T4? Well by the time I was even aware of it's existance it was already withering on the vine. Didn't see anything it it to sway me from my CT/MT rules, and yes I hated alot of the artwork too.
GT is a strange animal as far as I'm concerned. While I have never liked the basic GURPS system I have always liked how well SJGames seems to provide informational suppliments for the game, and in a format that means that most of the information can truely be used in any system. And I"ll admit that I kind of liked the idea that the Rebellion never happened, though thats not what I run.
So getting to the heart of the matter-what would we like to see in yet another edition of Traveller. My vote would be a return to the spirit of the early days of Traveller where the system didn't get in the way of the play, and where the story to be told(or writen) was more important than figuring out just how much volume a crate of left-handed stembolts takes up.

 

[Gallowglass]

Absolutely bang on the money, I'd say.

T5 needs to recapture the simplicity and elegance that CT had at the time. It needs to build on the core achievements of MT (Task system, codified interpersonal Tasks). And it needs to garuntee enjoyable games in any milieux, without intimidating novices away from the game or the OTU. Easy!

Seriously, a combination of CT's elegant simplicity, MT's core mechanic and a level of support which supplies players and refs with material which helps tham play (i.e. Scenarios, Deck plans, Detailed sector info that helps the ref improvise) rahter than weighing them down with detailed continuity (they can always come here and be barracked by us old timers for that

).

The key question: is T5 going to be generic (a la LBB's) or OTU based? With T20 AND GT around, I'd suggest that the cunning ploy would be to go generic with T5 itself (IMO - I am biased enough to think that some generic version of CT/MT is a better generic Hard SF system than ANY version of d20). FFE could produce OTU supplements for T5, set in miliux 200 (and put d20 AND GT stats in as well!) but also do generic supplements and possibly look at licensing specific settings (B5, Honour Harrington spring instantly to mind...). In this (rather idealistic) scenario GT, T20 and T5 end up reinforcing each others presence in the Market place because there is lots of cross compatibility between the _setting_ and Traveller makes a resurgence as a system, because it's the game people see as tailored to SF.

Oh dear, far to optimistic. Must go and take my cynicism pilss...

 

[The Gneech]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Gallowglass:
I'm with lostpict on this one:

Traveller (irrelevant of version) was / is successful when people want to play against that (thank you Andy Slack

) "Backdrop of Stars..." that was the official Traveller Universe. You could adapt much of the supplementary and scanrio material into your own game, but we all had, in the middle distance "behind" our games, the Imperium and its politics and rivals. The fatal flaw IMO of MT, TNE and possibly T4 (yep, disliked 1/2 dice so much I never bought it!) was that that Background became foreground: the published material started pushing itself into your game. Yes, people could ignore it, but in the _market_ what succeeds is what keeps the consumer in their comfort zone (hence the D&D juggernaut's success).

So I would suggest that T5 needs to be a flexible, adaptable system that keeps the consumer in their comfort zone (i.e. ready to run scenarios, _useful_ background material and supplements) whilst minimizing the intrusion of canon into their games.

Think 76 Patrons, Shadows, Kinnunir NOT 250 page supplements on the finer points of Domain of Deneb politics.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Allow me to second that. I have my own SF universe which, while hardly the most original thing on the block, is what I like and want to stick with. What I need are adventures, adventures, adventures, miniatures, and more adventures.

Let me follow that up with a little caveat ... the adventures do need to have something _happening_ in them. I remember the first time I read Shadows: "Nice map ... but where's the adventure that goes with it?"

-The Gneech


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--

http://www.suburbanjungle.com - The life, loves, and career of aspiring supermodel and ferocious predator, Tiffany Tiger

"I pity da fool, thug, or soul who tries to take over the world and then goes home cryin' to his momma!" -Mr. T

 

[MT++]

SPELLCHECKING AND PROOFREADING!!!

Although I love MT best (DUH!, MT++) I really was P.O.'d with all the errata

T4. I won a 4518 unit badge for helping to collect and collate the errata.

TNE, many little mistakes.

At least White Wolf only had those annoying see page XX errors (generally)

It became a running gag, what SJ Games product had the most errata? TRAVELLER

Next. DON'T PROMISE WHAT YOU CANNOT DELIVER.

Then you have to rush and the orangutan that did the spellchecking will miss stuff.

Go for a more modest run, say a core rules book, a background book and an adventure book. As much as I love Traveller, it is not D&D. It does not have the market.

Set the sights to a reasonable level, get the stuff out on time, as error free as you can (I spell check websites and debug others' javascript. I am quite good. I may have made mistakes here but this is a more casual forum)

Don't be promising a half dozen milieux, massive boardgames and supplements. You cannot do it. It will fail again if you try to aim too high.

I got excited with all the ideas, I want them all too, but I also want Traveller to be alive again (and not just a d20 D&D in space)

The proposed box posted in this forum would be a good start. Aim for that in one year.

Let it build, work the market

Remember, most people don't remember Traveller. It has been too long, give the patient some time to recover before you make them run marathons against the WOTC olympic champion

 

[MT++]

Addendum to last post:

We keep the flame

 

[T. Foster]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MT++:
SPELLCHECKING AND PROOFREADING!!!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No kidding. I could've caught 80% of the errors in the T4 rulebook by spending a single evening with a proof-copy and a red pen (I know 'cause I did). The errors in MT were a little more subtle and pernicious (fouled up table-entries, missing blocks of text) but still well within the capabilities of a professional proofreader or three. This is a Traveller tradition I'd gladly see discontinued.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Next. DON'T PROMISE WHAT YOU CANNOT DELIVER.

Then you have to rush and the orangutan that did the spellchecking will miss stuff.

Go for a more modest run, say a core rules book, a background book and an adventure book. As much as I love Traveller, it is not D&D. It does not have the market.

Set the sights to a reasonable level, get the stuff out on time, as error free as you can (I spell check websites and debug others' javascript. I am quite good. I may have made mistakes here but this is a more casual forum)

Don't be promising a half dozen milieux, massive boardgames and supplements. You cannot do it. It will fail again if you try to aim too high.

I got excited with all the ideas, I want them all too, but I also want Traveller to be alive again (and not just a d20 D&D in space)

The proposed box posted in this forum would be a good start. Aim for that in one year.

Let it build, work the market

Remember, most people don't remember Traveller. It has been too long, give the patient some time to recover before you make them run marathons against the WOTC olympic champion<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Very good, reasonable suggestion. As T4 showed, the pool of professional, knowledgeable Traveller-writers at the present time just plain ain't big enough to produce a supplement a month (especially not with the additional talent-pool-drain caused by GT and T^20). A modest product-line of highest possible quality is surely the way to go, at least for the first year or two.

My suggestion for a realistic Trav-line (as opposed to my previously posted dream-line) would be something like this:

Initial Release: Traveller Starter Edition -- quick-start single-volume edition of the game giving the basisc of char-gen, tasks, and combat and a few sample scenarios. Introduces the concepts, allows play to begin immediately and can keep a group occupied for a couple weeks.

A month or so later: Traveller -- core edition of the rules, either a boxed set or a fancy hardback (either way is fine with me, as long as the content's there). Equivalent to Deluxe Traveller or The Traveller Book -- all the rules needed to play, plus an overview of the setting and a handful of ready-to-play adventures.

Within another month or two: Adventure 1 -- equivalent to The Traveller Adventure in scope and quality.

Two to three months later: Setting Sourcebook -- by this time everyone will be familiar enough with the game and setting that GMs will be wanting to develop their own campaigns, and this is the book that will provide the raw materials to do so.

Another two to three months: Adventure 2 -- something more mosdest than Adv. 1, possibly along the lines of one of the mini-anthologies TCHarrison suggested on another topic thread.

Two to three more months: Supplement 1 -- a book of gear, or starships, or some equivalent sort of chrome/filler.

And that should be more than enough to cover the first year. Assuming all goes well, the second year would add another major sourcebook of some kind, 1-2 more adventures, and 1-2 more chrome supplements (and, if demand is there, perhaps a board/computer-game of some kind).

With something like this, you're avoiding the extremes of either rushing out inferior product to fill an unrealistic schedule (and mostly non-existent demand: only munchkins and obsessives need new product every single month; those of us who value our time and money find it a hassle to keep up with and will probably end up skipping the majority of releases anyway, especially if the quality's not there), or leaving customers hanging for 6 months at a time, unable to play the game they just bought because you haven't given them the necessary materials.

 

[Takei]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by T. Foster:
A modest product-line of highest possible quality is surely the way to go, at least for the first year or two.

My suggestion for a realistic Trav-line (as opposed to my previously posted dream-line) would be something like this:

Initial Release: Traveller Starter Edition -- quick-start single-volume edition of the game giving the basisc of char-gen, tasks, and combat and a few sample scenarios. Introduces the concepts, allows play to begin immediately and can keep a group occupied for a couple weeks.

A month or so later: Traveller -- core edition of the rules, either a boxed set or a fancy hardback (either way is fine with me, as long as the content's there). Equivalent to Deluxe Traveller or The Traveller Book -- all the rules needed to play, plus an overview of the setting and a handful of ready-to-play adventures.

Within another month or two: Adventure 1 -- equivalent to The Traveller Adventure in scope and quality.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree completely. The 'T5 Line' thread is a nice dream but it has to actually start somewhere and sometime. T20 kicked off publicly a month or two ago and should see print by the end of the year. The discussion about T5 kicked off, what, two or three years ago? How far has it come? When, if ever, is it likely to see print?

------------------
Paul

 

[T. Foster]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Takei:
I agree completely. The 'T5 Line' thread is a nice dream but it has to actually start somewhere and sometime. T20 kicked off publicly a month or two ago and should see print by the end of the year. The discussion about T5 kicked off, what, two or three years ago? How far has it come? When, if ever, is it likely to see print?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Unfortunately, we're still stuck with some seemingly irreconcilable differences about how the actual rules of the game would work. One crowd (of which I'm an admittedly vocal member) wants to see in T^5 an update/expansion of CT that would be in many ways (particularly the task system) similar to an errata-and-Rebellion-free version of MegaTraveller. Another crowd (which is, I believe, somewhat smaller, but which happens to include Marc Miller as a member) wants an update/expansion of T4, dating back to T^5's origins as a revision of the T4 rulebook (T4.1 -- scheduled release date May 1997).

I, for one, am still reluctant to let this argument drop entirely, because while I'm very eager to see T^5 released, and to see it succeed (GT and T^20 don't do it for me), I think T4 was badly flawed and that building upon it would simply be compounding the error and not at all in the best interests of Traveller-as-game-system. However, much loud debate stretching over several years has accomplished all of nothing except, presumably, to annoy Marc Miller and help push publication of T^5 back even further (which IMO isn't Entirely a bad thing -- as long as it hasn't been released yet I can still hold onto some glimmer of hope that we'll eventually be able to change Marc's mind, but once it hits the shelves we're stuck with it, sink or swim -- for me right now no T^5 is still slightly preferable to 'bad' T^5).

Therefore, seeing no useful point to continuing that debate (at least for the time being), I've recently decided to bypass the issue altogether and instead focus on 'secondary' issues such as setting, layout/design, and product line. All quite masturbatory and meaningless without an actual game-engine (which is to say a game-engine that I find acceptable) but definitely less contentious and more fun to chat about.

(Of course this could just be all self-important delusion and the real reasons we haven't yet seen T^5 are entirely economic, but I like to think that the violent disagreements both here and elsewhere over the past few years are at least causing Marc to pause and reflect before blithely forging ahead with his 'T4.1' plan)

[This message has been edited by T. Foster (edited 13 July 2001).]

 

[Shadow Bear]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by T. Foster:

Another crowd (which is, I believe, somewhat smaller, but which happens to include Marc Miller as a member) wants an update/expansion of T4, dating back to T^5's origins as a revision of the T4 rulebook (T4.1 -- scheduled release date May 1997).


[This message has been edited by T. Foster (edited 13 July 2001).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I must state that if T5 is just a rehash of T4 I will NOT be interested, In stead I will use ebay to get copies of CT materials and use the CT rules.

I want something more like CT with detailed character generation like we saw in HG and Mercenary. Stick with the HG type rules for ship design with maybe some slight additions and stay away from the MT and T4 ship design chaos.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Me neither.

However, and sounding cliche here, "having said that"...I don't want to see a rehash of the boring themes that characterized the CT adventures; i.e. lack of gunplay, no real opposition, occasional eco-messages or pacifist adventureing.

I respect Marc Miller's ability to design a well thought out RPG, but to myself his politics are suspect, and I hope, probably beyond hope, that we won't see adventures where we're fighting evil corporations that are killing giant ocean going creatures, nor being asked to infiltrate a palace but are only allowed to use laser stun carbines. That kind of condescending crap really gets on my nreves. I mean, if someone's going to design an adventure game, and include things like ACRs, Grenade Launchers, and so forth, then why in the world should they expect people to like gaming moduals with no teeth in them?

On the reverse note, I don't want to see adventures that are merely bloodbaths, nor high tech versions of the (A)D&D eqiuvalent of hack-n-slash fests.

If T5, in whatever form it takes, is going to succede, then there's got to be room and a place for adventures that have action. Otherwise it will go the way of CT-asaurus.

 

[Murph]

Agreed, thats why the Keith Brother adventures were the very best out there. WHo can forget such classics as: The Sky Raiders Trilogy, Ordeal on Eschaar, Murder on Arcturus Station, etc. THOSE were adventures. I want an adventure that could be populated by such as Indiana Jones, Rick O'Connell (The Mummy), etc. High Adventure on the Far Frontiers of Space.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Blue Ghost:
Me neither.

However, and sounding cliche here, "having said that"...I don't want to see a rehash of the boring themes that characterized the CT adventures; i.e. lack of gunplay, no real opposition, occasional eco-messages or pacifist adventureing.

I respect Marc Miller's ability to design a well thought out RPG, but to myself his politics are suspect, and I hope, probably beyond hope, that we won't see adventures where we're fighting evil corporations that are killing giant ocean going creatures, nor being asked to infiltrate a palace but are only allowed to use laser stun carbines. That kind of condescending crap really gets on my nreves. I mean, if someone's going to design an adventure game, and include things like ACRs, Grenade Launchers, and so forth, then why in the world should they expect people to like gaming moduals with no teeth in them?

On the reverse note, I don't want to see adventures that are merely bloodbaths, nor high tech versions of the (A)D&D eqiuvalent of hack-n-slash fests.

If T5, in whatever form it takes, is going to succede, then there's got to be room and a place for adventures that have action. Otherwise it will go the way of CT-asaurus.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[Elliot]

I didn't think that the Divine Intervention mini adventure was all that bad (If a megacorp wanted to replace a nasty leader violently, why not send in a battledressed/FGMP-16'd starmerc platoon?)

As to nasty megacorps and eco disaster adventures - I don't think this shows MM to be a 'politically suspect' ageing hippy, rather it is a pervasive theme of hard sci-fi. Think 'The Town that Turned to Dust' and Johnny Mnemonic and countless other 70s and 80s sci fi novels and films.

In the post Seattle riot era, Mega Corps and eco warriors are very present themes in both science fiction and political reality. I personally would like to more faceless bureacracts causing havoc for the 3I than less.

 

[MT++]

I agree with the kind of dull adventures thing.

Many adventures are set up to only allow for thinking your way through.

Adventurers want more excitement.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Murph, I have their first "Far Traveller" publication. I still can't stand William Keith's sketches, but the content describing an Aslan world was first rate.

Elliot; Divine Intervention was one of the less boring ones. Primarily because I let my group keep a fireteam off in the woods, and during the escape some climatic action happened out there prior to their leaving system. But I think most of the adventures were lack luster; Annic Nova, Mission on Mithril, and the rest. Marc Miller may not be an aging hippy, but I think some of his remarks on the incarnation of T4 and the adventures for CT, for myself, clearly indicate what he wants.

MT++, yeah, hear hear!

 

[Murph]

I rather liked Mission on Mithril, but turned it into a more robust adventure with a nasty group of bad guys who were out to stop the group. A couple of good fire fights, etc and the adventure turned out rather nicely.

As for William Keith's art, I like it, and have corresponded with him for years. He really is a super nice guy, well worth dropping an email to.

Marc's adventures and the in house stuff was too much think your way out, rather than the stuff of High Adventure. Now with a little work you could turn them into decent little adventures, but it required work adding some bad guys.

The John Ford stuff in the Journal was always excellent.

I want a sense of High Adventure, larger than life, almost Space Operatic adventures. Mundanity is what I live day to day, I sure don't want it in my adventures.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Murph; the one sketch I did like of Keith's was the one where a Vargr is dressed in some kind of armor and holding an ACR.

With regards to the adventures; that's pretty much what our group did with all the Traveller adventures; toss in a few bad guys. Suddenly a mundane, "oooo, look at the mysterious technology/hyroglyph/ruins" turned into the stuff of legends.

 

[jalberti]

As a stand alone, my gaming group found the published CT Adventures lacking in a little adventure. Some "spicing up" on my part as a Referee was always needed.

I am very fond of Adventure 1: The Kinunir. The book provides plenty of details of the ship and crew and some basic plots, but it was up to the Referee to make it into an adventure. I continued to use it as a reference and idea generator during my MT Rebellion Era gaming. The HG Wells award was well deserved.