Brainstorm: Resurrect JTAS?

[Daddicus]

In another thread, the idea of creating a format similar to the old Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society (JTAS) for modern audiences. Please use this thread to brainstorm what such a beast would look like in the Internet era.

How would it be structured? How can FFE make money off of it? Rules? etc.

Also, and especially for anybody "officially" linked to FFE, make note of things we would have to concern ourselves with regarding intellectual property. I know other game companies don't like having forums for generating new ideas, because they're afraid of getting sued.

 

[Ulsyus]

You mean a printed version and not like the eJTAS that SJG publishes?

 

[SpaceBadger]

You mean a printed version and not like the eJTAS that SJG publishes?

I'm not in the forums at SJG. Can you tell us a bit more about their version?

Is it free, or by subscription?

Is it for all versions of Traveller, or only the GT/Lorenverse?

 

[Daddicus]

I actually was thinking electronic, but I didn't know there was one still around. Got a link?

 

[rancke]

I'm not in the forums at SJG. Can you tell us a bit more about their version?

Is it free, or by subscription?

It costs $20 for a two-year subscription. This includes access to the archive which by now features 1500 articles.

Is it for all versions of Traveller, or only the GT/Lorenverse?

It's not just for the GT/Marc Millerverse. All versions are featured, depending only on what people submit.


Hans

 

[Vargas]

For JTAS to be successful you consistently need a steady stream of quality submissions, for some value of "quality". That's hard to do over the long haul.

 

[aramis]

While the license for GT continues, JTAS is SJG's.

 

[rancke]

While the license for GT continues, JTAS is SJG's.

Such a magazine could be called something else, like for instance The Emperor's Eye.


Hans

 

[exedore6]

Wouldn't another zine dilute the ones we've currently got (Freelance Traveller comes to mind), makibg it harder for everyone?

 

[Vargas]

I think what made the original JTAS so successful initially was because it was a window into the TI setting at a time when there was no other source of information.

 

[Daddicus]

Wow, there's a wealth of stuff I didn't know about. Does there happen to be a location (perhaps on the wiki) that has links to these?

 

[GypsyComet]

The SJG JTAS is a subscription, and can be found at http://jtas.sjgames.com/

Freelance Traveller is at http://www.freelancetraveller.com/

 

[lspitz]

Just my personal opinion, but dilution is not what the market needs right now. Freelance Traveller and SJG's online JTAS already compete for more or less the same audience (and writers).

Sort of. JTAS's glory days are behind it and SJG doesn't promote it- it's impossible to stumble across on their website unless you already know it exists and are actively searching for it, so it will never reach new potential readers. Don't know exactly why they're hiding it; it used to appear quite plainly on their "Our Zines" page. So nowadays it's more or less secret, and, as previously mentioned, it's paywalled. I maintain my subscription out of habit (and for access to the archives; in previous years, it ran a lot of great stuff). The past two or three years, its issues have been tiny (a short editorial and two articles has been the norm recently, sometimes both by the same writer), and the content not of much interest to me. Your mileage may vary.

Freelance Traveller, on the other hand, is very much alive and kicking, and seems to have captured some of the authors who used to write regularly for JTAS. If you want to promote a zine for Traveller, you could do worse than to support Freelance Traveller. And by "support", I mean "write for".

I wouldn't be opposed to seeing another Traveller zine, but judging by what I see with the existing ones, the market is saturated and there aren't enough writers to fill the pages of both zines as it is.

 

[Ulsyus]

I think what made the original JTAS so successful initially was because it was a window into the TI setting at a time when there was no other source of information.

Absolutely. I remember waiting for it to come out so I could find out what was happening at the front, what those perfidious Joes were doing to our boys in uniform...

 

[aramis]

Just my personal opinion, but dilution is not what the market needs right now. Freelance Traveller and SJG's online JTAS already compete for more or less the same audience (and writers).

And Mongoose's Skills & Portents is also in competition for authors.

There are two "official venues" -
Skills & Portents - which will take MGT stuff.
JTAS Online - Which takes anything Traveller

Freelance Traveller isn't official, but it's pretty much The Traveller Fanzine...

If anything, Jeff's work on FT has killed any real share for general traveller unpaid-submission fanzines. Between the Internet's "instant distribution" and the "Any Traveller Edition gleefully supported" mentality, there's almost no niche left...

 

[mike wightman]

Do you mean Signs and Portents by any chance?

It's been a few years since an issue of that was published.

 

[Daddicus]

I should clarify: Once you guys informed me that other vehicles exist, I'm no longer interested in pursuing a "new" mag.

However, I certainly intend to check into both of those and the new one as well. Our community is far too small for any more fragmentation of fans or authors and artists.

But, I AM interested in pushing to see some T5 stuff there.

Thanks for all the tips!

Jim