Why?

[jasper]

Why the debate?
I new to traveller. Even when I listen and try to get into a game from the early 80's, there was a feeling I got from the players which was,
There is the Offical Traveller Universe( some supplements I disagree with), and the my universe. We are playing in my universe.
Traveller to always seem to be here the rules and the Campaign setting. You don't have to follow either.

When Gary was talking you not playing official D&d unless you follow the rules. The article was talking about game play at tourneys so every one was on an even play field at cons.
My group read it. Said we can't go to cons and ignored it. Of course considering how many rules conflict in the dmg. We were amused.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
He says it himself - he hates the setting.

So he says. He hates the setting. Not the authors. How can you manage to conflate the two? I hate broccoli. That doesn't mean I hate farmers.

He hates that his nice shiny Imperium has become "a grey paint smear with a big black blotch in the middle of it". He harps on about how the formerly intelligent CT universe has become a place scrabbled over by savages and man-eating computers. (as if it's not possible to have intelligent adventures in the TNE universe). He claims that it wasn't necessary to destroy CT (as if he knows what's best for the game).[

But he doesn't claim that TNE has ruined his life (just his enjoyment of his hobby) and he doesn't say that he hates the authors of TNE. How can you possibly not get the difference?

And while he appreciates at least that Survival Margin was well written, he is "saddened by the fact that the emotions [DN] evoked were those of revulsion, disgust, and yes, even hatred.". All this over a goddamned game?!

A hobby.

Frankly, I think if that's their attitude then the community is much better off without them. It's a game, for crying out loud, not a personal affront. If you don't agree with that, Hans, then fine - I don't see it the way you do, but I think I'm 2 for 2 there.

If you had just expressed an opinion, Constantine, I might have said that I disagreed with you or I might have just ignored it, but you made two factual statement that were both wrong. False. Untrue. Counterfactual. Erroneous, Inaccurate. Incorrect.

Moving on to your opinions, you also, apparently, fail to realize that the word 'hate' does not express an extreme absolute. You can hate getting up in the morning, you can hate broccoli, you can hate telemarketers, you can hate the professor who gave you a 'D' and ruined your chances of going to college, and you can hate the guy who smashed your spine and put you in a wheelchair. The emotions associated with each of these iterations of the word 'hate' are different in degree and, in some cases, even in kind. You apprear to think that Mike's 'hate' is the last kind. I'm at a loss to understand why you jump to that conclusion. Personally I'd put it somewhere between the telemarketers and the professor, which, IMO, is a perfectly reasonable response to having an enjoyable hobby ruined for you.

As for Mike being melodramatic, sure he is. So what? That wasn't what you complained about at first.


Hans

 

[Psion]

Originally posted by jasper:
Why the debate?
I new to traveller. Even when I listen and try to get into a game from the early 80's, there was a feeling I got from the players which was,
There is the Offical Traveller Universe( some supplements I disagree with), and the my universe. We are playing in my universe.
Traveller to always seem to be here the rules and the Campaign setting. You don't have to follow either.

That's all well and good.

But, as with any long adored setting, people don't like change, especially change that is uncomfortable or inconvenient for their campaigns. Sure you can ignore the change. But when you do so, you lose support. You may have enjoyed reading every new adventure and supplement coming out and expanding on the universe, but when the authors take it in a direction fundamentally unappealing to you and you sever that support, then major aspects of the hobby you enjoy -- reading and integrating the new material into your game -- is lost.

For a lot of us, TNE was a big deal. I actually did keep running my Rebellion Era game in my handcrafted Reaver's Deep sector (not the official sector, but one with the own personalities and polities). Despite the fact I was not running a canon game, I still found the setting material useful, supporting, and interesting.

I think the course of post-TNE products emphasize how big a deal it was to a big segment of the audience. T4, GT, and T20 have all made their games in eras previous to the rebellion or ignored it (and thus the virus and its effects.)

Now TNE, though widely rued, has its share of adherents. But those adherents like Mal probably got fed up with all the discontent with TNE. I can understand that, but then, I think that we had every reason to be discontent.

FWIW, I did run my Rebellion Era reavers deep game for years after TNE, T4, and GT came and I ignored them. That didn't mean that I didn't long for the time that I actually had good support and I would have preferred that Nilsen never typed a word for GDW.

 

[Malenfant]

But those adherents like Mal probably got fed up with all the discontent with TNE. I can understand that, but then, I think that we had every reason to be discontent.

Pretty much. IMO people like Mike should have said they didn't like it (in about as much words) and then shut up and left the game for other things that they found more fun. I have no problem with people not liking it, I do have a problem with people saying that it was wrong for GDW to do what they did, or that TNE isn't as a good a place to set adventures (which is a bare-faced lie) as CT was, or any other such drivel. They're so wrapped up in their hate of the product that they're actively mischaracterising it and becoming a liability.

See, most of the people who complained about TNE in the way Mike did had a critical misunderstanding about how gaming works, which is that if a company releases a product, you are not obliged to use it!. Oh, and also if a company releases something you don't like, there is absolutely no need to treat is as a personal affront and take it quite so darn personally!

This renders all of Mike's whinging irrelevant. If he didn't like it, he didn't have to use it. Nobody was stopping him from continuing to use and enjoy and write his own stuff for CT and ignoring MT/TNE. Nobody was forcing him to buy the new books either. He was perfectly free to leave TNE - a lot more quietly - and carry on with his own stuff.

And while in the end that's what he did, in the process everyone else had to endure this long diatribe about how much he resents that GDW wrecked his precious Imperium. So we get this long rant which probably started flame wars and stirred up emotions that could only serve to put more people off TNE. Either way, he quite clearly hates GDW for doing it (that whole "it makes no sense to me on an artistic level" paragraph amply illustrates this) and he quite clearly thinks that this move is a big, worldshaking event for him otherwise he wouldn't drown us in melodrama over it.

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Psion:
I think the course of post-TNE products emphasize how big a deal it was to a big segment of the audience. T4, GT, and T20 have all made their games in eras previous to the rebellion or ignored it (and thus the virus and its effects.)

Not ignored, just delayed. We will be supporting the New Era completely once 1248 is released.

Hunter

 

[etherflyer]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
IMO people like Mike should have said they didn't like it (in about as much words) and then shut up and left the game for other things that they found more fun.

At the risk of being offensive, the same might apply to your comments about Mike.

He said his piece, nicely if somewhat dramatically, and bowed out. Indeed, he took pains to point out all the things he liked about the new books, and emphasized that he was stating his opinion about the setting.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by hunter:

Originally posted by Psion:
[qb]I think the course of post-TNE products emphasize how big a deal it was to a big segment of the audience. T4, GT, and T20 have all made their games in eras previous to the rebellion or ignored it (and thus the virus and its effects.)

Yeah, and that pissed me off no end (though GT and T20 are fine products).

T4 was especially irritating. To randomly go from the year 1200... all the way back to the start of the 3I was a bit of an odd thing to do (especially considering that the timeline had been moving forward in all previous versions).

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why T20 was set in 993 and not in the 1115 CT era. It's a bit interesting in that you have the Solomani Rim War going on (though that's going on a bit far from Gateway), but in most other regards it's very similar to the CT era. I don't think it's a bad thing that T20 is set in 993, but I am curious as to why then and not say 1000 or 1050.

Not ignored, just delayed. We will be supporting the New Era completely once 1248 is released.

I've probably said it before, but I'd like to thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for picking up the torch on this one. The material was pretty good to start with, but I think that given the rigorous playtest/factcheck/proofread that the 1248 files have received, it's going to be one of the best Trav books ever written.

 

[etherflyer]

Constantine, I know you're a bright chap. Read his letter.

Originally posted by Malenfant:

he quite clearly hates GDW for doing it

From Mike's letter:

I am not saying that GDW produced yet another substandard piece of Traveller material. Far from it; I think that SM was excellently put together, clearly organized, and accomplished its task, namely as a bridge from MegaTraveller to TNE, eloquently and effectively. Its reprinting of previously published material meshed very well with the newly written pieces and produced a coherent and useful whole that was a very worthwhile read. The behind-the-scenes journals and extra data filled in a lot of holes that I had wondered about, and finally removed IRIS as a de jure (if not de facto) force in the Imperium, a move which alone is worth the price of the book. I will ignore for the moment my personal disgust at the utterly pointless annihilation of the Antares Regency (my own favorite spot in the MegaTraveller milieu), and simply say that if future releases hold to this level of quality, I will gladly give GDW my business and encourage others to do so as well. I am also not saying, although some mean-spirited part of me would LIKE to, that this is the final nail in Traveller's coffin as a rules system. I think that in the light of the current market trends in RPGs, GDW is making a very wise move here in updating Traveller from its admittedly long-in-the-tooth beginnings and attempting to compete on a fundamental level with the heavy hitters like GURPS and Shadowrun. If the prior problems of poor proofreading and unprofessional artwork are licked, and it looks as good as SM reads, then I think that GDW will have a solid competitor on its hands, and I wish them well.

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why T20 was set in 993 and not in the 1115 CT era. It's a bit interesting in that you have the Solomani Rim War going on (though that's going on a bit far from Gateway), but in most other regards it's very similar to the CT era. I don't think it's a bad thing that T20 is set in 993, but I am curious as to why then and not say 1000 or 1050.

The Spinward Marches have been done to death frankly and we wanted to develop new material. I already owned the rights to the old JG material so Gateway was a natural area to develop. It gave us a huge frontier area to play with as well as a sizable but reasonable Imperial presence. The timeframe was Marc's suggestion.

Hunter

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Robert Prior:
He said his piece, nicely if somewhat dramatically, and bowed out. Indeed, he took pains to point out all the things he liked about the new books, and emphasized that he was stating his opinion about the setting. [/QB]

Yeah, he explained what he thought was good about it in one paragraph. The rest of the post was pure diatribe against it though. I'm not entirely sure what he hoped to achieve by saying what he did. It's one thing to say "it's great quality stuff, but I hate it" and then shut up but it's another to say that and then get all over-theatric about mourning the loss of what was once so glorious. That's where he loses all credibility for me.

And there were so many more TNE-haters who phrased things a lot less nicely...

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Robert Prior:
[QB] Constantine, I know you're a bright chap. Read his letter.

I have, several times over. Now you read the paragraph further down about hating the artistic direction that GDW was going in. How can he say that he thinks it's a good idea from a commercial point of view in one paragraph and then turn around and say he hates it and he doesn't see the point of breaking his precious Imperium later on?! Why should GDW make a totally new setting to do that when they've got a perfectly good one to take down that path? (and what amuses me more is that one of the major influences of the game - Asimov's Foundation - was all about a big collapse of the interstellar empire. So you'd think people would have seen this coming.)

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by hunter:
The Spinward Marches have been done to death frankly and we wanted to develop new material. I already owned the rights to the old JG material so Gateway was a natural area to develop. It gave us a huge frontier area to play with as well as a sizable but reasonable Imperial presence. The timeframe was Marc's suggestion.

I can certainly understand avoiding the Marches. Was the 993 timeframe suggested just for the Rim War? Was 1115 avoided just to avoid treading on GURPS Traveller's toes?

 

[etherflyer]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
How can he say that he thinks it's a good idea from a commercial point of view in one paragraph and then turn around and say he hates it and he doesn't see the point of breaking his precious Imperium later on?!

Because they are two different things?

What he said was that it was a fine product, well written and produced, and he hoped it would do well. Indeed, he was planning on buying it, and was recommending it to his friends.

But what it changed was what he liked about Traveller: the star-spanning empire. And he hated this change.

I don't see the contradiction.


In any case, it's pointless arguing this with you.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by hunter:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Malenfant:
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why T20 was set in 993 and not in the 1115 CT era. It's a bit interesting in that you have the Solomani Rim War going on (though that's going on a bit far from Gateway), but in most other regards it's very similar to the CT era. I don't think it's a bad thing that T20 is set in 993, but I am curious as to why then and not say 1000 or 1050.

The Spinward Marches have been done to death frankly and we wanted to develop new material. I already owned the rights to the old JG material so Gateway was a natural area to develop. It gave us a huge frontier area to play with as well as a sizable but reasonable Imperial presence. The timeframe was Marc's suggestion.

Hunter </font>[/QUOTE]Personally, I think expanding on various eras only enhances the overall depth of the OTU. It provides extra information all the way around. Of course, it also provides a handful vexing contradictions, but hey, IMNSHO, that's what the CT "feel" is all about.

We can't be too certain about anything, otherwise we'll all agree, and hey, where will the Forum be after that?

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
I can certainly understand avoiding the Marches. Was the 993 timeframe suggested just for the Rim War? Was 1115 avoided just to avoid treading on GURPS Traveller's toes?

steps up on soapbox and waves

Well having co-gm'd a game set in 998 in the Gateway Domain for me it was a breath of fresh air. The area is basically brand new for players and GMs compared to the roughly 20 year old Marches in terms of real life time. While the Marches have that Cold War thing going on Gateway is a whole 4 sectors with a real "Colonial fringe" vibe for me at least with the next Big Power being a good sector plus away from the edge of Imperium. Personally I think not having a UWP for every world in the Domain ala some of the CT alien modules would have been very fun and give it a "There be stars here...mebbie" feel.

I like Client Stats and Pocket Empires and Gateway Domain has plenty of them. In a way Gateway Domain reminds me of say the eastern fringe of the Roman Empire and its client states before the rise of the Sassanid Persian Empire though i don't want to draw too much of a historical parallel. K'Kree are NOT Parthians for one thing.

Being set in a slightly earlier time period than CT's material has its advantages IMO. Different political figures and ones that haven't been analyzed for years now due to MT like Strephon & company have and a slightly lower overall TL. I for one like having more TL10-13 technology and worlds than having TL14-15 being almost onmipresent. The Rim War provides a source of tension, character background, and impetus/inspiration if desired but it's not taking place in the Gateway Domain unlike the 5FW which takes place largely in the Spinward Marches sector.

off soapbox

Casey

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Just a question: why is there such a move overall to Lower tech levels for Traveller settings?

I would have thought the opposite for a Sci Fi game... Higher tech doesnt imply "easier" does it?

 

[flykiller]

The Spinward Marches have been done to death frankly and we wanted to develop new material.

(sitting here bug-eyed and open-mouthed) new material is great, but the spinward marches done to death? five empires? four hundred and forty worlds? trin? mora? collace?

looking at this from a referee's perspective I'm overwhelmed by the demands of creating a handful of playable systems and major NPC's, let alone the possibilities of a subsector. far from being done to death, the spinward marches has just gotten started.

(sudden idea) hey, if you're done with it, can I have it?

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />The Spinward Marches have been done to death frankly and we wanted to develop new material.

(sitting here bug-eyed and open-mouthed) new material is great, but the spinward marches done to death? five empires? four hundred and forty worlds? trin? mora? collace?

looking at this from a referee's perspective I'm overwhelmed by the demands of creating a handful of playable systems and major NPC's, let alone the possibilities of a subsector. far from being done to death, the spinward marches has just gotten started.

(sudden idea) hey, if you're done with it, can I have it? </font>[/QUOTE]Off the top of my head:

Supplement 3 - Spinward Marches
The Spinward Marches Campaign
The Traveller Adventure
Tarsus
Behind the Claw
Sword Worlds

Not to mention all of the resources on the SM available in various other CT adventures and supplements, MT and TNE source materials for the region.

Compared to every other area of the Imperium? Yeah the SM have been done to death


Hunter

 

[Malenfant]

Gawd yes, I'd say it's been done to death, for the reasons that Hunter said. I'd much rather see new regions developed for new versions of Traveller than old ones endlessly rehashed.

The Marches themselves have been developed explicitly for CT, TNE (in the Regency Sourcebook, though that did add some extra stuff around the sector) and GT. I don't count the Sword Worlds book myself though, since that develops only a small part of the Marches.

That's certainly one reason I like the Gateway setting, because it *is* somewhere new.