Originally posted by thrash:
Roleplaying metaplots are a bad idea in general, I think: they cast the players as spectators in a drama, rather than actors.
First, I think that's a sweeping generalization and therefore inherently fallacious. Several groups I've played with really enjoyed playing in the Rebellion and found the fact that DGP left the ending unspecified (in the original game box...) as really enjoyable - they were getting to 'do their part' without having the feeling they were being dragged along. Their were big historical events, but the eventual future, at least of their areas, were shaped by their actions.
There will always be history in large scale games. Some groups like it to be weak and vague and don't pay much attention to it, wanting to do their own thing. Other groups want to have a hand in shaping it on the Grand Stage. Still others, like the groups I played with, realize they are small players in a large and dynamic universe, and simply look at it as backdrop - important that it be there for detail/colour, something which defines the shape and nature of the universe, but not something they themselves will manipulate or change.
I don't see that there was anything inherently bad about the Rebellion millieu, and the fact that you could choose to ignore the factions and do your own thing (but the Rebellion would still move along) or you could join a faction and impact your local region made it quite exciting. Lots of potential for intrigue and adventure. Certainly far more than even the CT universe.... far less staid.... a place where Great Things Were Afoot.
With the prescience to foresee that result, I would instead use the Rebellion (past tense) as a device to reshape the Official Traveller Universe to whatever I thought would best promote adventuring.
Myself and my players would have said that was exactly what was done in the original MT release.
Some subsequently released products in that series went along and told us how things went, and those felt more like what you are saying - dragging people along. The original product left unsettled factions, unknown endings, and ambiguity - always a great place for a referee to put his own stamp on things.
Play the war out to a conclusion using in-house rules (a la 2300 AD and "The Great Game"). Use that data to create a coherent but diverse and dynamic set of roleplaying settings, without the need to wipe the slate and start from scratch (i.e., Virus).
Too simplistic. If you start from the CT 3I, you're already starting with something with so many broken parts (re economics, politics, settlement patterns, military techniques and tactics, etc) that you're going to have a hard time managing coherence.
If this kind of approach was taken to populating the universe originally, things would probably have come out much more interestingly and with greater sense and verisimilitude.
The narrative of the war would still be available to referees who wanted to game out specific operations, or run "alternate history" campaigns based on changes in their outcome. The "official" answers would be on the table from the beginning, though, so that everyone else could get on with their own campaigns without fear of subsequent metaplot developments over-writing something they've worked hard to create.
And by putting out the "official" answer, you'd provide a tacit constraint many people would be unhappy with. I think this is one of the worst approaches to the problem, and I think it typifies exactly what they started to do later with the Rebellion Sourcebook, etc. that was what hurt (IMO) the MT concept. Removing the ambiguity, providing resolution, etc. was the antithesis of what made MT a great product.
As for the fear you talk about, I think the problem is MT seemed to say "You decide how you want it to end or who was real and who was not etc." and then it later said "Well, here's how we think it should really all go...". I guess for an on-going product line, the latter wa inevitable. But if they'd just stopped after releasing the MT boxed set, it would be up to the *refs* to decide how things went in their universe and there would be NO fear of being overwritten. It's the fact that, like many movies which spawn sequels where there should not have been, they tried to follow the basic MT set with more product.
I for one think MT was brilliant and right after it was released (well, maybe delay that six months while they fixed the errata!) would have been a good time to fold up shop 'historywise' and let the players and referees move things forward. Or spawn off a whole pile of different threads, each given equal canonical weight, but with enough variety to make most GMs have ease of integration. Thus there would be no *one* canon answer.
I think 'canon' is one of the greatest lodestones around the necks of traveller referees now and in the future. The bulk of the past acts as a drag-anchor to the progress into the future....
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