M
Malenfant
Guest
Split from the TBR thread:
I'd like to see some proof of this.
For example: Changing systems like Regina so that they orbit a single star (not a close binary with a white dwarf that should have fried any planets nearby when it was a red giant), or with gas giants in stable orbits, and so on absolutely does NOT make it "not Traveller". You can have the same people on Regina, the same history of the system, the same importance of the system etc. Nothing changes for the purposes of actual game play or setting.
Another example: If you had rarer habitable worlds, would it really make much of a difference to the setting? Most of the major worlds in the OTU are habitable anyway. Anything else doesn't need to be - those adventures that you have on the backwater vaguely habitable worlds can still be done on backwater uninhabitable worlds, in domes or underground caverns or whatever. The setting may change a bit, but the adventures and history etc can largely stay the same.
Another example: If you got rid of all the aliens, would Traveller really change much in practice? Not really, I think. You have enough variants of Humaniti running around as it is - most of the history of the Imperium just depends on the Vilani, Solomani and Zhodani being around. Given that most of the aliens are humans in funny suits, you can easily ditch the suits. Vargr don't need to be uplifted dogs, they can just be a specific species of humaniti (or just a bunch of people with their own unique social code, like Reavers in Firefly). Aslan could just be a race of noble warrior humans with a different social code. Hivers could be a more advanced race of human who like tinkering with other races. KKree and Droyne are more problematic, but then there's nothing really distinctive about the Droyne anyway, and the K'Kree could just be replaced with any ultra-xenophobic human race anyway. Heck, just replace Droyne with devolved humans anyway, seeded across space by a long-gone Precursor race. Or if you're being really wacky you could say that the "droyne" were a race of humans who existed on Earth before our current civilisations but who headed off into space (call em Atlanteans, I dunno
).
Either way, would making all the aliens human change anything in practice? I don't really think it would. So long as they acted the same as the existing races, the history of the setting would just be identical. Minor details would be different but you could still run exactly the same games as before.
another example: Would making the setting more realistic change the history? By which I don't mean changing how jump drive works or anything, I mean having a yellow sunlike star instead of a blue supergiant around this planet, or making the economics work properly in general or whatever. I don't think it would affect anything at all - you still have your empire in space, the psionics suppressions still happen, frontier wars happen exactly the same way...
So how exactly does making these changes suddenly make the game "Not Traveller" if those changes would have very little effect on the setting in practical terms? Is this just down to some peoples' impression that Traveller is just the rules (which never made sense to me in the first place, given that the setting is what's remained constant over the last 30 years, whereas the rules have changed frequently).
There's many people who claim that changing the world distribution or how systems are generated etc would make the game "not Traveller".
I'd like to see some proof of this.
For example: Changing systems like Regina so that they orbit a single star (not a close binary with a white dwarf that should have fried any planets nearby when it was a red giant), or with gas giants in stable orbits, and so on absolutely does NOT make it "not Traveller". You can have the same people on Regina, the same history of the system, the same importance of the system etc. Nothing changes for the purposes of actual game play or setting.
Another example: If you had rarer habitable worlds, would it really make much of a difference to the setting? Most of the major worlds in the OTU are habitable anyway. Anything else doesn't need to be - those adventures that you have on the backwater vaguely habitable worlds can still be done on backwater uninhabitable worlds, in domes or underground caverns or whatever. The setting may change a bit, but the adventures and history etc can largely stay the same.
Another example: If you got rid of all the aliens, would Traveller really change much in practice? Not really, I think. You have enough variants of Humaniti running around as it is - most of the history of the Imperium just depends on the Vilani, Solomani and Zhodani being around. Given that most of the aliens are humans in funny suits, you can easily ditch the suits. Vargr don't need to be uplifted dogs, they can just be a specific species of humaniti (or just a bunch of people with their own unique social code, like Reavers in Firefly). Aslan could just be a race of noble warrior humans with a different social code. Hivers could be a more advanced race of human who like tinkering with other races. KKree and Droyne are more problematic, but then there's nothing really distinctive about the Droyne anyway, and the K'Kree could just be replaced with any ultra-xenophobic human race anyway. Heck, just replace Droyne with devolved humans anyway, seeded across space by a long-gone Precursor race. Or if you're being really wacky you could say that the "droyne" were a race of humans who existed on Earth before our current civilisations but who headed off into space (call em Atlanteans, I dunno
Either way, would making all the aliens human change anything in practice? I don't really think it would. So long as they acted the same as the existing races, the history of the setting would just be identical. Minor details would be different but you could still run exactly the same games as before.
another example: Would making the setting more realistic change the history? By which I don't mean changing how jump drive works or anything, I mean having a yellow sunlike star instead of a blue supergiant around this planet, or making the economics work properly in general or whatever. I don't think it would affect anything at all - you still have your empire in space, the psionics suppressions still happen, frontier wars happen exactly the same way...
So how exactly does making these changes suddenly make the game "Not Traveller" if those changes would have very little effect on the setting in practical terms? Is this just down to some peoples' impression that Traveller is just the rules (which never made sense to me in the first place, given that the setting is what's remained constant over the last 30 years, whereas the rules have changed frequently).
, and (b) it doesn't actually change the OTU. 
