Why Traveller was different

[beowulf2044]

I forgot to add that for me, every other game out there seemed to have the (for the time) compleatly amateur artwork that I as a twenty-something didn't want to be seen with. Traveller's approach and appearence was far more 'adult'.

 

[aramis]

Skyth,

You're actually right in that opinion...

... just not in the way you think.

You see, character advancement in the Super Mario Brothers vein was always an option in early RPGs. You could play D&D1e and take a fighting man up to "Level 9" or "lord", a magic user up to "Level 11" or "wizard", and a cleric up to "Level 8" or "patriarch". You could also play the games in the manner that we did, where the journey was the goal. Both options were equally valid and both options were equally supported.

Then the Super Mario Brothers mindset won out.

Now if a RPG doesn't have something resembling D&D style character advancement, doesn't have something resembling D&D style levels, and doesn't have something resembling D&D style XP points, people think something is wrong with it.

It's not that the other style of play isn't supported, it's that the other style of play isn't even contemplated.

So, when you say the problem is "Too many people having the 'right' way to have fun" you're absolutely correct.

Too many people think the "right" way - the only way - to have fun is through character advancement and they can't even comprehend any other method.


Regards,
Bill

Sorry Bill, but your analogy fails bigtime; Super Mario Bros, for example, has no character advancemet to speak of. In fact, for "power-levelling", it's about the worst possible analogy... for Mario and Luigi have 5 states: small, Big, Fire, Racoon, and Swimmer. And every advancement except from small to Big is a swap, and one hit takes you back to small...

Further, Traveller was chided as early as 1984 for the lack of advancement rules outside a one-time sabbatical for 1 skill level; perhaps earlier... after all, I know that it was the #1 grouse of my fellow players.

EVERY other game on the market at the time that I saw was built upon the Hero's Journey model: Start weak, build up, and eventually overcome the big bad. D&D, T&T, C&S, V&V, MSPE, M!M!, Star Frontiers, Rolemaster, Spacemaster, RuneQuest, Palladium FRP... All based upon the common motifs in Star Wars, LOTR, Dune, Doc Smith's Lensman, and other such staples... Even Bill the Galactic Hero and Sten show the Hero's Journey.

And yet, Traveller didn't. It's the one game that took the Asimov & Heinlein approach of skill trumping youth.

The paradigm of leveling up was there from the start, and inherent in the source literature.

Traveller was late to the party, and it had nothing to do with videogames.

 

[Whipsnade]

Sorry Bill, but your analogy fails bigtime...

Aramis,

You're right, it really does fail on a epic level and not the least reason is that I've never played Super Mario Brothers or any other computer RPG!

In 1977 when I first saw Traveller, my gaming group had seen precisely two other RPGs, D&D1e and Chainmail. (And I'm stretching things when I call Chainmail a RPG.)

Traveller didn't use the "Hero's Journey" model D&D1e did and nearly all of the follow-up RPGs you listed did. That's what made it different and that's what continues to make it different.

I'll still stand by the same observation Gygax and Arneson made over the last decade or so; the game mechanisms used to model the "Hero's Journey" have taken over RPGs to nearly the exclusion of all else and many people's desire for that type of play has been fueled in great part by their experiences with computer RPGs.


Regards,
Bill

 

[aramis]

Calling Super Mario Bro's a CRPG is a stretch, even... it's just a platformer.

Ironically, the first real CRPG, collossal caves, is about 1976... Which gives rise to the whole interactive fiction genre, using text based interfaces and lots of prose... And no advancement of note. Heck, not even RPGish stats.

Ultima really launches the hybrids... in 1980... tho' I'm not certain it is the first. It was, however, one of the best, and one of the most D&D like.

Thing is, the computer games of the era took almost as much play time to level as my FTF games. (Not quite monty haul, but definitely Kids Going Over the Top.)

 

[the angle]

The other thing that really set Traveller apart from other RPGs was that it was written clearly and the rules worked as written. Reading it even now, it surprises me with its clarity.

Steve

 

[Jason]

Yeah, Super Mario Brothers would not be my first choice as an iconic early CRPG. Ultima is a better choice, or Bard's Tale. Colossal Cave Adventure was an interactive fiction game more than what we call a CRPG today.
I do think it was a big mistake to re-work the 4th edition of D&D to be more like a CRPG, but not because I think it's "the wrong way" to play CRPGs - I think people who want to play CRPGs will go play CRPGs rather than the paper & pencil version.

 

[aramis]

Jason: Infocom games have been a better recruiting source for me over the years than so-called CRPGs, since they are closer to what we do in play anyway.