Known space as traveller

[Madarin Dude]

Well I was thinking after reading Ringworld and Ringworld engineers and neutron Star Niven's known space is better known to me than traveller. I could play a puppeteer pretty well but really don't have a clue with the K'kree and will only try to make an attempt at a Hiver.

So thinking of what it would take to bring known space to traveller. I like some of the worlds in it like a venus like planet with a large plateau that is the only place habitable.

General products hulls are to big a handwave to me though.

 

[Whipsnade]

Well I was thinking after reading Ringworld and Ringworld engineers and neutron Star Niven's known space is better known to me than traveller. I could play a puppeteer pretty well but really don't have a clue with the K'kree and will only try to make an attempt at a Hiver.

Mandarin Dude,

Well, from a behavior standpoint, a Hiver is a Puppeteer. And don't even get me started about the Kzin and Aslan. The development of each over the last 40 years has obviously effected the other.

So thinking of what it would take to bring known space to traveller.

You'd have to seriously fiddle with jump drive, Known Space's hyperspace drive is very different. It would be doable, but you'd be throwing out fuel requirements, speed, ranges, and other basic stuff. Working in your favor is the fact that all hyperdrives operate at the same speeds while "jump" endurance is based on your power plant and life support needs alone. Niven has people spending years in hyperspace.

So, you'd have a power plant aboard running both your maneuvering systems and your hyperdrive. His reactionless thrusters are the standard CT m-drives and MT's thruster plates. His fusion drives can be put together using HGone, TNE's HEPlaR, or either version of FF&S.

There's a hyperspace radio too, so you've FTL comms that don't rely on ships.

The Quantum II drive would just be a faster version of the original hyper drive.

I like some of the worlds in it like a venus like planet with a large plateau that is the only place habitable.

Little or no fiddling here. LBB:3 easily covers nearly all of Niven's odd worlds, CT's Victoria is a riff on Known Space's Plateau for example, and LBB:6 Scouts added atmosphere codes that described worlds like Jinx.

General products hulls are to big a handwave to me though.

Oddly enough, GP hulls could be the "reason" behind LBB:2's hull table! Rather than have the half dozen(?) shapes and size Niven suggests, you could have more variety.

Looking it another way, you could designate a handful of hulls from the table as GP hulls and say the rest are versions made by someone other than the Puppeteers. Niven does imply there are other hulls out there. The "true" GP hulls would have some sort of fantastic damage resistance, which is perfect up to a point, and the others would be treated normally.

IIRC in one or more Ringworld novels the GP survives insane amounts of damage while all the equipment extending beyond the hull is completely lost. In a short story, Borderland of Sol(?), the heroes arrive in an armed GP hull disguised as a more prosaic, non-GP hulled, liner.

Good luck and let us know how things turn out!


Regards,
Bill

 

[epicenter00]

There are other makers, even in Niven-canon (I'm personally not a big fan of Man-Kzin Wars stuff - too many liberties). Louis Wu in Ringworld (I believe) is looking at a Sinclair yacht that isn't made from a GP hull and how he thinks it's pretty but he'd never fly in one.

GP hulls basically exist in Niven's world because he needed a reason for the Puppeteers to have this massive economic dominance of Known Space. However, there's a few interesting tidbits about GP hulls - the hulls themselves are nearly indestructible as they're on the principle of a strengthened molecule - such technology already exists in Traveller canon. I believe "bonded" materials work on this principle - the Puppeteer materials are just a superior form of it. However, one very important thing to remember if you're interested in starship combat is that just because the hulls are indestructible doesn't mean the ship (the interior and crew) are. I think GP hulls would make Traveller just as interesting - in fact moreso in some ways.

While GP hulls are advertised as indestructible to most stuff in the cosmos and thus the Puppeteer guarantee, the Puppeteers only cover against disasters stemming from hull failure. They don't cover the rest of the ship - including the passengers. The Puppeteers knew their hulls are susceptible to antimatter which I think shows up around standard Traveller TL16 or 17 or so? While how well the hull stands up to antimatter compared to other materials is up for debate, what isn't is that at some point, the hull literally suffers a catastrophic failure and for all intents and purposes disintegrates and Beowulf Schaeffer and a friend have to return to known space in a naked ship interior.

It's pointed out that the GP hulls are made to be transparent to the wavelengths of radiation visible to their clients. Beowulf Schaeffer (I think) tries to remember at some point if one of the Puppeteer's clients can see X-Rays or not. It'd already mean that at the price of some diffusion visible light lasers could burn things inside the hull. In Ringworld there's a pretty good description of the idea of "hull scraping" as Bill pointed out. Less obvious to most readers is that Louis Wu muses at some point about how there was someplace in the life support system which was as "hot as a star and only getting hotter" because they're flying around in the life zone (this is even before they're hit by the "meteorite defense system", I think). This means that a hull might be impervious to heat, but you could still incinerate everything inside of the hull and long before that, cook the passengers. You could certainly argue that a Meson gun could destroy the interior of a GP-hull starship but leave the hull intact. An impact on a planet would leave the GP hull intact, but the interior (including the crew) would be paste.

Piracy and warfare could be very interesting in such a universe. Niven through various characters states it's not really possible - I think Wu and Schaeffer both state in different stories that any man smart enough to make piracy work could make many times more speculating on the stock market. However, tactics, if you don't have a mason gun would involve destroying/disabling the manuever drive then threatening to cook the crew unless they surrender. Boarding actions would become a lot more common - something that'd give players plenty to do as opposed to just the captain and everyone else being a dice caddy.

 

[aramis]

ISTR that Louis Wu also mentions that once you pierce it, The GP hull tends to unravel.

 

[Peter Newman]

The biggest difference I see is that the Imperium has thousands of worlds, and Niven's space seems to have far fewer. There are less than 20 named human worlds and Ringworld establishes that there aren't many others when Nessus comments that Lois Wu has lived on every human world long enough to count as a native. Most of the non-human races seem to have fewer worlds than the humans do [1], so we're probably talking about less than 100 significant planets.

This is probably a good thing in terms of players understanding the setting, and I don't think that it hurts the referee's ability to create new stuff too much because 'the unknown' is just a sufficiently long (or very short Quantum II hyperdrive) ride away. Nivens known space is still growing, and Travellers universe is more static.

Niven's technology is a bit much though, so Traveller's more conservative technology may be more playable. Boosterspice immortality also raises serious questions of play balance, just how many skills would the 300 year old Lois Wu have if we rolled him up as a player character? I'd say that known Space characters should probably be built on a point-buy system, so that we can fairly balance things like 'I'm 330 years old and I've learned a lot along the way' with 'I'm a quarter ton of sentient carnivore, and boy can I fight' and "I'm the luckiest person in the world'. [2] If we start allowing some of the weirder non-humans as characters we've got even worse problems - I don't think I'd let anyone play a Bandersnatch in my campaign for instance, and even Grogs are problematic.

[1] The outsiders are a notable exception, but their worlds are unlikely to be visited by humans. The Outsiders are just too powerful and too vulnerable to human temperatures to let that happen without a very good reason.

[2] I think the unbalanced characters were a flaw in Chaosium's old Ringworld system - when human characters earn X skill points per year a 25 year old just can't compete with a 425 year old and unless that 25 year old is from Earth, she's got no chance of getting Teela Brown like luck to compensate.

 

[Madarin Dude]

Some great ideas. I think after reading the posts that maybe the GP hulls might be workable. I think the story was Neutron star where Beowulf Schaeffer admired the hull of the ship but said he would never fly it.

Aliens argh don't get me started. I agree about booster spice and humans that are hundreds of years old and have no aging rolls. But it could be interesting. Maybe you could work a system where if you have not used a skill in 50 years you lose a point. Also humans would have to have a luck stat to play in known space. Although Teela Brown would be a GM's worst nightmare.

One of the things that might be interesting is playing a variety of humans. A Jinxian would have higher strength. A Wonderlander might be more attractive but weaker there are things like that to consider too.

Playable aliens might be hard to come by. A grog would not be a good player character. I think if someone is a good roleplayer and read the books they might be able to play a Kzinti or a Puppeteer but i think it woudl be better to just not allow as PC's maybe kzin outcasts might work.

I know that known space is just such a rich environment and would make for a fun game. slaver artifacts and sunflowers and odd worlds.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Whipsnade]

ISTR that Louis Wu also mentions that once you pierce it, The GP hull tends to unravel.

Aramis,

He actually collects a warranty on one, doesn't he? Or is it Beowulf Schaeffer?

Either character accompanies an adventurous flatlander on some sort of a bet. They visit the Outsiders and pay for the location of a strange world, then travel to that world which they name "Cueball". They're still travelling inward towards the world from Niven's version of the 100D limit when their GP hull disappears in a puff of dust. It seems the world is made up of anti-matter and there's lots of the stuff at the atomic-level floating around in the system. The GP hull had been undergoing an atomic-level bombardment and destruction the entire time they were in normal space. Once a certain level of damage was reached, the "strengthened" or "controlled" molecules unravel and the hull turned into dust.

Wu/Schaeffer collect the warranty on the hull and, IIRC, one of those lovely legally binding bribes the Puppeteers use to keep things quiet.

Mandarin Dude is right about the sociological implications of what is essentially immortality. Niven has said he can't write stories after a certain point in the Known Space timeline because immortal, supernaturally lucky (aka the Teela Brown gene) people don't make for good stories. He wrote a single example of about some guy and his grav car being swallowed by a roc. After being ingested, the car keeps flying on course and hits a mountain because it's sensors are masked by the bird "wrapped around it". The guy decides he'll have to wait until the carcass decays enough to get out and settled down to play some sort of solitaire for the next 6 months or so! I found that kind of thinking more alien than Niven's Kzinti, Puppeteers, or Trinocs.

Just remembered, Schaeffer is Louis Wu's father. That is, Schaeffer raised Louis Wu. Carlos Wu is Louis' biological father and Carlos has/had one of those genius exemptions from the fertility laws. Beowulf fell in love with a woman with flatlander phobia, rather odd when you consider his wanderlust, and he can't have children on Earth because of his We Made It genotype. Somehow or another, Beowulf convinces Carlos Wu to father a child that he and the phobic woman can then raise.

Finally, I must agree with Epicenter about the Man-Kzin Wars stuff. Aside from being mostly tripe, those "shared universe" stories change too much many things about the setting.


Regards,
Bill

 

[epicenter00]

He actually collects a warranty on one, doesn't he? Or is it Beowulf Schaeffer?

Either character accompanies an adventurous flatlander on some sort of a bet. They visit the Outsiders and pay for the location of a strange world, then travel to that world which they name "Cueball". They're still travelling inward towards the world from Niven's version of the 100D limit when their GP hull disappears in a puff of dust. It seems the world is made up of anti-matter and there's lots of the stuff at the atomic-level floating around in the system. The GP hull had been undergoing an atomic-level bombardment and destruction the entire time they were in normal space. Once a certain level of damage was reached, the "strengthened" or "controlled" molecules unravel and the hull turned into dust.

Wu/Schaeffer collect the warranty on the hull and, IIRC, one of those lovely legally binding bribes the Puppeteers use to keep things quiet.

This is the aforementioned catastrophic failure. It's Beowulf Schaeffer and Elephant (I'm not sure on the second part, I know it's Beo).

Mandarin Dude is right about the sociological implications of what is essentially immortality. Niven has said he can't write stories after a certain point in the Known Space timeline because immortal, supernaturally lucky (aka the Teela Brown gene) people don't make for good stories. He wrote a single example of about some guy and his grav car being swallowed by a roc. After being ingested, the car keeps flying on course and hits a mountain because it's sensors are masked by the bird "wrapped around it". The guy decides he'll have to wait until the carcass decays enough to get out and settled down to play some sort of solitaire for the next 6 months or so! I found that kind of thinking more alien than Niven's Kzinti, Puppeteers, or Trinocs.

One thing to remember is that besides cost, boosterspice isn't really that different from CT/MT era Anagathics - boosterspice is expensive, apparently poorer people can't afford it as Nessus points out that Louis Wu is smart enough to be rich enough to continually take the stuff so is physically young - it'd appear a lot of other people aren't so rich. IIRC, the side-effects of Anagathics was something introduced in the TNE era, at least in GDW-made materials (I don't keep up with the rest of it).

Another point that I think that Traveller has never really gotten into is the possibility of limits to human memory capacity. Human beings actually forget things at a prodigious rate while we don't even remember most things at all. It's possible we "reach our limits" long before we die even today. A 300-year old character might not necessarily have ten pages of skills. I think that's the sci-fi munchkin in us all speaking. Niven himself speaks of someone nearing his memory capacity in one of his short stories - you could have that happen and still be "in canon." More realistically, I think people would just forget skills or their skills wouldn't be up-to-date anymore. If the last time you stripped a rifle was 100 years ago, how much are you really going to remember? And even if you do remember, how much of that is going to apply to the weapons being used 100 years later? Given that, I don't see anything wrong with introducing some sort of cap on skill levels. We see the same effect even today. Even given a sound mind, a 65 year old guy can find a 30 year old good competition - a lot of the 65-year old's information is out of date and no longer really applicable.

 

[Whipsnade]

This is the aforementioned catastrophic failure. It's Beowulf Schaeffer and Elephant (I'm not sure on the second part, I know it's Beo).

Epicenter,

That's the name! Schaeffer meets him aboard a liner, they become drinking buddies, and it's only after they arrive on Earth that he realizes "elephant" is actually on of the five or so richest men on the planet.

When Elephant decides he wants to "have an adventure" Schaeffer is dragged in as sort of a human "Reality Check". He keeps Elephant from doing too many stupid things and constantly grouses about how flatlanders are too stupid to keep from getting themselves killed.

One thing to remember is that besides cost, boosterspice isn't really that different from CT/MT era Anagathics - boosterspice is expensive, apparently poorer people can't afford it as Nessus points out that Louis Wu is smart enough to be rich enough to continually take the stuff so is physically young - it'd appear a lot of other people aren't so rich.

Yup. There are a few characters in the short stories who have been poor and show a few effects of aging. One had a job for a time changing batteries in flying cars and the other is Wunderlander who is writing a book about the Slavers when some pirates grab him.

IIRC, the side-effects of Anagathics was something introduced in the TNE era, at least in GDW-made materials (I don't keep up with the rest of it).

I believe you're right there. It's either late MT or TNE, something about cancers, growths, hair loss, and the like. Niven's boosterspice seems to have no side effects though. (Wasn't boosterspice developed on Jinx from ragweed?)

Another point that I think that Traveller has never really gotten into is the possibility of limits to human memory capacity. Human beings actually forget things at a prodigious rate while we don't even remember most things at all.

Agreed, especially now that I'm in my late 40s.

A 300-year old character might not necessarily have ten pages of skills. I think that's the sci-fi munchkin in us all speaking.

Agreed, definitely munchkin wishes at work here.

More realistically, I think people would just forget skills or their skills wouldn't be up-to-date anymore. If the last time you stripped a rifle was 100 years ago, how much are you really going to remember? And even if you do remember, how much of that is going to apply to the weapons being used 100 years later? Given that, I don't see anything wrong with introducing some sort of cap on skill levels.

Agreed. However the GM wants to model it, there should be skill limits regardless of age.


Regards,
Bill

 

[BlackBat242]

The groups I've played in (CT) always had a limit on learnable skills/levels based on Int+2Edu (BTB says Int+Edu) for total levels... no matter how many terms you serve before starting play, or how old you get.

We also always allowed you to continue learning past that total... as long as you "forgot" your already-learned skills/levels to keep your total within your limit.

But then, we really didn't use any of the "free skills" that I have learned about here... we all missed those lines in the rules, and applied skills known/unknown fairly strongly.


I've been considering toning it back to Int+1.5Edu and allowing some limited "free skills", but haven't made up my mind about just how to do that yet.

 

[Peter Schutze]

>If the last time you stripped a rifle was 100 years ago, how much are you really going to remember?

a simple change to the rules ... require a roll against the base stat to determine how many levels you can actually use eg your edu is 7 and you roll 4 thus a max 3 levels is applicable even if over 300 years you've got to level 25 in that skill.

would only kick in once you get to a certain total level (like int+edu) or age limit (say double the juvie age for a species) but would also require other players voluntarily limiting their skills sometimes eg a musket era rifleman decides he hasnt used the m16 he just picked up but does know the ak47 that the party doesnt have any ammo for

 

[aramis]

No, the simplest is to keep the MT (and late-CT) Int+Edu Limit. Perhaps adding 1 per 25 or 50 years of age, to represent things that have become ingrained and nearly hard-wired.

Also note that MT anagathics only make 2 of your saves for you, not all three or four... MT PM page 16, Left col.... Eventually, you will die.

Now, a vilani with a line purity of +5 (see DGP's SSOM) has base age 34 saves of 3+/2+/3+/–.... going eventually to 4+/4+/4+/4+

 

[Qstor2]

There's actully a Ringworld RPG by Choasium but its out of print.

I didn't know about it till I started reading Man Kzin Wars a few weeks ago. There's also two newer books about the Fleet of Worlds/Puppters that might have a few more worlds in them.

I was just thinking about this on the commuter train home. (Known Space as Traveller lol)

Mike

 

[Morninman]

I believe Mongoose actually approached Mr. Niven about Travellerizing Known Space and found he was very enthusiastic about the idea. Unfortunately, his agent reportedly felt that any deal involving game rights would jeopardize the far more lucrative movie and television rights to the universe, so an official adaptation won't be happening anytime soon.

The effective immortality provided by easy access to boosterspice and autodocs isn't a game breaker as long as the aforementioned skill cap is in place *and* the player party is made up of similarly skilled members. A group of hyper-competent characters just requires appropriate challenges, while one hyper-competent character matched with a group of "youngsters" is going to require a lot more IG and OOG finessing to handle. Even the problems raised by RNA learning injections, which I believe were developed on Plateau in canon, can be dealt with by requiring sufficient "space" in the subjects mind.

If things do get out of hand it's possible the characters will draw the attention of either the ARM or Brennan-monster. Drawing the attention of either would pretty much guarantee the characters face problems appropriate to their abilities.

 

[Whipsnade]

I believe Mongoose actually approached Mr. Niven about Travellerizing Known Space and found he was very enthusiastic about the idea. Unfortunately, his agent reportedly felt that any deal involving game rights would jeopardize the far more lucrative movie and television rights to the universe, so an official adaptation won't be happening anytime soon.

Morniman,

It could also be that Niven and his agent took a look at what Mongoose produces and decided to pass. I was at a convention panel in which Niven spoke in the early 90s and he briefly mentioned how disappointing Choasium's Ringworld release was for him.

The effective immortality provided by easy access to boosterspice and autodocs isn't a game breaker as long as the aforementioned skill cap is in place *and* the player party is made up of similarly skilled members.

Agreed.

Even the problems raised by RNA learning injections, which I believe were developed on Plateau in canon, can be dealt with by requiring sufficient "space" in the subjects mind.

I believe the RNA learning schtick is part of the World Out Of Time setting and not the Known Space setting.

If things do get out of hand it's possible the characters will draw the attention of either the ARM or Brennan-monster. Drawing the attention of either would pretty much guarantee the characters face problems appropriate to their abilities.

Agreed. Suitable villains and foils can be found in the setting. Whether a GM can effectively use such high powered NPCs in a campaign with high powered PCs is another question. I usually found the higher the campaign's power level the more difficult it was to run it. And...

Spoiler:

Of course the Brennan-monster is dead, but he left other human protectors alive. Niven hint's in one of the Ringworld sequels that the ARM may be run by a protector and there are all those protectors on Ringworld itself that now know about hyperdrive.

Regards,
Bill

 

[Morninman]

Morniman,

It could also be that Niven and his agent took a look at what Mongoose produces and decided to pass. I was at a convention panel in which Niven spoke in the early 90s and he briefly mentioned how disappointing Choasium's Ringworld release was for him.

Did he mention why? I've always thought it was a pretty impressive piece of work.

I believe the RNA learning schtick is part of the World Out Of Time setting and not the Known Space setting.

You're right. I don't know where I came up with the Plateau association.

Agreed. Suitable villains and foils can be found in the setting. Whether a GM can effectively use such high powered NPCs in a campaign with high powered PCs is another question. I usually found the higher the campaign's power level the more difficult it was to run it.

I have a feeling Niven ran into the same problem. Heh.

Spoiler:

Of course the Brennan-monster is dead, but he left other human protectors alive. Niven hint's in one of the Ringworld sequels that the ARM may be run by a protector and there are all those protectors on Ringworld itself that now know about hyperdrive.

I think the proliferation of protectors is one of the reasons it's a good idea to limit a Known Space game to before 2860. The popularity of the Man-Kzin War collections, as uneven as they are, would seem to make that time frame a natural one for a game. Lots of bang-bang shoot-em-up for the munchy players, while still having plenty of possibilities for exploration and adventuring.

The ARM seems tailor made as a sponsor group for characters- a massive, technologically sophisticated organization that has troubleshooters all over human space engaging in everything from subtle espionage to full-blown military actions. It doesn't hurt that they're the one bunch where typical munchkin behavior, like being a paranoid, dangerously violent psychotic, doesn't necessarily hurt your chances for employment.

The other alternative is to have the players play Kzinti. You get to avoid the whole boosterspice quandry while giving both gun bunnies and roleplayers some serious material to work with.

 

[Whipsnade]

Did he mention why? I've always thought it was a pretty impressive piece of work.

Morniman,

It was a terse comment in response to someone asking him about licensing his work for "other media". I distinctly remember the fellow asking the question saying "other media" despite the fact that the Q&A session had drifted onto the topic of computer games. Niven replied he'd let someone create a Ringworld roleplaying game and the experience hadn't gone as well as he hoped. The way he said it you know he didn't want other questions on the topic.

Have you read N-Space and it's sequel? It both Niven gives a few glimpses into his thoughts, especially those concerning money. He practically rubs his hands together in glee when he describes the first time he realized he could sell his stories more than once. His family was relatively wealthy, he didn't have to support himself when beginning his writing career after college for example, but he is very much in touch with the monetary part of the writing business.

Maybe the Chaosium game didn't sell as well as he'd thought? Who knows?

I have a feeling Niven ran into the same problem. Heh.

He says as much in his introduction to the short story I mentioned in which the guy's aircar gets swallowed by a roc. He says something akin to "immortal people with supernatural luck don't make for interesting stories".

Spoiler:

I think the proliferation of protectors is one of the reasons it's a good idea to limit a Known Space game to before 2860.

Agreed.

The popularity of the Man-Kzin War collections, as uneven as they are, would seem to make that time frame a natural one for a game. Lots of bang-bang shoot-em-up for the munchy players, while still having plenty of possibilities for exploration and adventuring.

Agreed. The first book was mediocre and the rest simply got worse. The period would make for a good setting though, even if you know how it ends.

The ARM seems tailor made as a sponsor group for characters...

Agreed. While the ARM does seek out and hire psychotics, they also monitor them very carefully. Niven's latest book involves a career ARM psycho's attempts to "retire".

The other alternative is to have the players play Kzinti. You get to avoid the whole boosterspice quandry while giving both gun bunnies and roleplayers some serious material to work with.

While I have my doubts about humans playing aliens, the Kzinti would make for interesting PCs. Of course the question then becomes which Kzinti? Niven's or the schlock from the Man-Kzin Wars series?


Regards,
Bill

 

[aramis]

Several things to remember about the Chaosium Ringworld:
1) It wasn't very thorough
2) it wasn't well researched
3) it wasn't run for final approval past Niven.
4) it wasn't intended to cover anything but the Ringworld itself.

It was a poorly done (albeit not too bad, given the timeframe) adaptation. By that, I mean that it didn't capture what was special about the stories we have been given from Ringworld. It was certainly playable, but it neither made much money nor did it get good market penetration.

And the kind of guys running Mongoose make me think of the same kind of guys running Chaosium. (Heck, the Mongoose guys even sought the same licenses – Moorcock and Stafford! And while the didn't go for the Cthulu Mythos, they have equivalently iconic stuff: Conan.)

If someone is going to write a Known Space RPG, really, they need to do a really GOOD job, and pick the right rules. Back in the late 1980's, SJG approached several authors based upon player feedback. Several big names were sought; Anne McCaffrey and Larry Niven both were up there, and neither wanted to license.

To be honest, I'd be worried about Known SPace being done wrong, and turning people away from Niven's stuff, or worse, being grounded in MKW, and giving people the wrong idea about known space. Reminds me... I should dig out Integral Trees and Smoke Ring and reread them.

 

[epicenter00]

I remember seeing the Ringworld game in stores (I mean, back when they had gaming stores) back in the 80s. I was Middle School then, and I was really in love with Niven and Heinlein's writing at the time.

I remember thinking: What a horrible setting for a game.

This was when I thought shows like the A-Team, Miami Vice, Manimal were awesome and I still thought Ringworld would be a bad setting for a game.

I think Known Space would make a better setting for a game, though tbh, even Known Space lacks a certain kind of drama that makes good RPG settings. The technology, races, and some of the background is great. Put all together, the universe itself is a little so-so I think. I'm not really sure you could make a good, well-selling universe out of Known Space.

Out of Niven's stuff, I think his earlier universe with the STL ships, the Leshy worlds, and so on would make a better setting - there's more of that loony space opera 'anything can happen' feel to that universe.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

As a game, it's a little flawed (but which game isn't?), but even Niven thinks it's a good source of KS info.

Back in the day (maybe still) it was desired even more than AOTI. When I mentioned I'd picked up a 2nd hand copy for £10 I was worshipped as a god...