Lets Just write it already
- Thread starter Dynamo
- Start date
Gallowglass
SOC-12
Lets be honest: with a little organisational ingenuity and a clear definintion of roles, responsibilities and controls, we (as in the traveller community here at CoTI) could write it AND sell it (in PDF) via QLI\RPGNow very easily... IF that's the model MWM wants to work to and he was prepared to give permission. It may be more sensible than holding out for a licensee to step forward, and could be funded in so far as it would require funding by fan subscription (a suggestion I made in another T5 thread). But it's MWM's call.
Ok, ok I know it really isn't that simple... but I guess whats frustrating is that I see a few creative people who appear to be advancing the cause of T5 (that beautiful binder set of LBBS for example) and others who are just looking to pick nits.
We should be discussing the mission statement of T5 and asnwering the questions below.
1. Why do we need T5?
2. When do we want it?
3. Is there enough fan base to support 3 traveller games?
4.How do we build on Traveller without overly complicating it?
6. What does Marc want?
Obviously setting T5 in a specific Milieu wont satisfy anyone, mainly because no one plays Vanilla Traveller, so lets just give it a general setting, address the prior settings of the game and worry about specifics later. Marc has a good system lined up, so lets build on it and make it into a full fledged game.
We should be discussing the mission statement of T5 and asnwering the questions below.
1. Why do we need T5?
2. When do we want it?
3. Is there enough fan base to support 3 traveller games?
4.How do we build on Traveller without overly complicating it?
6. What does Marc want?
Obviously setting T5 in a specific Milieu wont satisfy anyone, mainly because no one plays Vanilla Traveller, so lets just give it a general setting, address the prior settings of the game and worry about specifics later. Marc has a good system lined up, so lets build on it and make it into a full fledged game.
Quite frankly, I don't have a good feeling about projects handled by comitees. Also, there are too many house rules available already. The inumerous contradictory views would be a hell to mesh. Therefore, a project such as this would have to be coordinated by MWM or another editor apointed by him. The editor would have so much work that it would probably better to let one author, or a small team of authors to take care of it.
Some chapters of T4, such as starship design was written by a colaborator. As such, it is not unlikely that Mr. Miller will invite other designers to handle specific parts of the T5 project.
Finally, we shouldn't propose projects such as this, as it is MWM call, not ours.
Some chapters of T4, such as starship design was written by a colaborator. As such, it is not unlikely that Mr. Miller will invite other designers to handle specific parts of the T5 project.
Finally, we shouldn't propose projects such as this, as it is MWM call, not ours.
Gallowglass
SOC-12
A Camel is a horse designed by a committee!
Seriously, whilst segmenting a large project (of any sort) to allow parrallel development can be very efficient, keeping things in step and ensuring all parts cohere into a single whole (that matches the original requirements!) can be a real challenge and (all the project management jargon in the world aside) a tight focal group with ultimate "go/No-Go" approval and control as custodians of the vision is I think essential. My personal bias would be for a group of three as it allows for debate, but not deadlock, and is sufficiently small to avoid interminable discussion.
BUT this is all irrelevant unless MWM is interested in doing T5 this way. On the whole, I think MWM selecting a small core team (from here or elsewhere) to develop subsystems under his oversight, which are then pushed out to a _controlled_ playtest (simlar to QLI's T20) and leading to a PDF or POD version is emminently workable and appealing in the current financial climate and given teh nature of the Traveller market and the wider RPG market. But it's not my decision and I'm certainly not in possession or hard data (T20 sales, FFE reprint sales, SJG GT sales, actual production costs etc) on which MWM will have to make that decision.
But boy am I curious as to what he will eventually decide to do!
Seriously, whilst segmenting a large project (of any sort) to allow parrallel development can be very efficient, keeping things in step and ensuring all parts cohere into a single whole (that matches the original requirements!) can be a real challenge and (all the project management jargon in the world aside) a tight focal group with ultimate "go/No-Go" approval and control as custodians of the vision is I think essential. My personal bias would be for a group of three as it allows for debate, but not deadlock, and is sufficiently small to avoid interminable discussion.
BUT this is all irrelevant unless MWM is interested in doing T5 this way. On the whole, I think MWM selecting a small core team (from here or elsewhere) to develop subsystems under his oversight, which are then pushed out to a _controlled_ playtest (simlar to QLI's T20) and leading to a PDF or POD version is emminently workable and appealing in the current financial climate and given teh nature of the Traveller market and the wider RPG market. But it's not my decision and I'm certainly not in possession or hard data (T20 sales, FFE reprint sales, SJG GT sales, actual production costs etc) on which MWM will have to make that decision.
But boy am I curious as to what he will eventually decide to do!
I believe there's a Middle Path.
Treat the process like a gaming session. There's one referee: the guy who calls the shots and can create, read, update, or delete anything and everything. Marc Miller.
Then there's the player group.
I believe the Middle Path consists of a group of Traveller players who coordinate their efforts and submit their 'moves' to the referee via an elected spokesperson.
The spokesperson, in this case, will have to have editing power over the body of work -- the ability to say "fix it better" with minimal bias, and yet to appropriately take feedback. That's why an election is important. And an election implies a smallish, exclusive group, otherwise how can it organize?
Do you really want to do this? It requires a sense of humor, maturity, humility, compromise and the risk of total rejection by Mr. Miller. In other words, the work has to drive you beyond yourself. I'm not sure if I can do that, but I'd like to try.
Treat the process like a gaming session. There's one referee: the guy who calls the shots and can create, read, update, or delete anything and everything. Marc Miller.
Then there's the player group.
I believe the Middle Path consists of a group of Traveller players who coordinate their efforts and submit their 'moves' to the referee via an elected spokesperson.
The spokesperson, in this case, will have to have editing power over the body of work -- the ability to say "fix it better" with minimal bias, and yet to appropriately take feedback. That's why an election is important. And an election implies a smallish, exclusive group, otherwise how can it organize?
Do you really want to do this? It requires a sense of humor, maturity, humility, compromise and the risk of total rejection by Mr. Miller. In other words, the work has to drive you beyond yourself. I'm not sure if I can do that, but I'd like to try.
Ganidirsii O'Flynn
SOC-12
Comes to the end of it gents, T20, which I play and like, is still just a variant set of rules, just like G:T, which I don't play. The Traveller Problem is twofold:
Firstly, the "official" sets of Traveller rules are a mess. CT has been modified, adjusted, tweaked, spun, and redone to the extent that, even with reprinted material, a referee needs to have 4-5 books open at any given time. Megatraveller was confusing in several basic areas (like combat). Most of us cherry-picked it for good ideas and generally stayed with CT, so no help there. TNE was, well, TNE. Editing was a problem, the art was not really up to snuff, and the setting was, by and large, a turn-off. T4 had editing issues, was poorly organized and presented, and the art was still awful.
Secondly, most of the Traveller buying public are, well, old farts like me. We remember the great early days of Traveller and how much fun it was. This gets FFE printing reprints, but not much new stuff. If Mr. Sanger were to open up with the DGP licensed stuff, we'd all snap that up too, out of auld lang syne. To put it another way, game design has come a long, long way since the "Little Brown Books" of D&D fame. While everyone else has moved along, we're still reminiscing about "White Plume Mountain" and our characters are still in Hommlet waiting for the Temple of Elemental Evil to make a move.
I submit that under these conditions, a T5 IS needed.
So, for these two very important reasons, we need a T5 with, get this, ERA SOURCEBOOKS. Once the main rules are published, we could then get collaborators onboard supporting the different eras, with Mr. Miller acting as the continuity nazi/mavin/authority. This is one area that the Star Wars and Babylon 5 milieus were always far more consistent with than the Star Trek milieu.
Whatever comes out for T5, I would suggest several features to attract the expanded audience we need:
a) A slick, appealing overall presentation;
b) Consistent color and b/w line art, and lots of it;
c) Game mechanics that allow for the full range of character actions, from cinematic to tactical;
d) Character generation that gets the player involved with his character from the start. Make the character more than a set of numbers;
e) Include EVERYTHING you need to run an adventure in the basic set. Animals, opponents, starship deckplans for at least two ships characters might muster out with, and so on should be included;
f) Include two adventures: one a solo adventure that teaches players the mechanics, the other a full length adventure for a party of four to six, one that is fairly non-specific in era.
I might add that these last two points could be set on one world that has been detailed on the Imperial Fringe somewhere. I would suggest a world with the background of similar to Tarsus/Dist 268 for those two adventures.
As an aside, head out to your used book store that carries used games. Look of a Star Wars RPG hardback from West End Games called "Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Revised and Expanded". This and the "RuneQuest, 3rd edition" books are two examples of what I'm talking about, presentation-wise.
To sum up, yeah, I really do think we need a new Traveller from FFE. I really like the guys at QLI, and I like the work that SJG is doing in support of G:T, but we all want a new, official Traveller. Traveller needs a new audience who will love it like we do. And whatever comes out, I'll undoubtedly still buy it. I'm still a fan
.
Firstly, the "official" sets of Traveller rules are a mess. CT has been modified, adjusted, tweaked, spun, and redone to the extent that, even with reprinted material, a referee needs to have 4-5 books open at any given time. Megatraveller was confusing in several basic areas (like combat). Most of us cherry-picked it for good ideas and generally stayed with CT, so no help there. TNE was, well, TNE. Editing was a problem, the art was not really up to snuff, and the setting was, by and large, a turn-off. T4 had editing issues, was poorly organized and presented, and the art was still awful.
Secondly, most of the Traveller buying public are, well, old farts like me. We remember the great early days of Traveller and how much fun it was. This gets FFE printing reprints, but not much new stuff. If Mr. Sanger were to open up with the DGP licensed stuff, we'd all snap that up too, out of auld lang syne. To put it another way, game design has come a long, long way since the "Little Brown Books" of D&D fame. While everyone else has moved along, we're still reminiscing about "White Plume Mountain" and our characters are still in Hommlet waiting for the Temple of Elemental Evil to make a move.
I submit that under these conditions, a T5 IS needed.
So, for these two very important reasons, we need a T5 with, get this, ERA SOURCEBOOKS. Once the main rules are published, we could then get collaborators onboard supporting the different eras, with Mr. Miller acting as the continuity nazi/mavin/authority. This is one area that the Star Wars and Babylon 5 milieus were always far more consistent with than the Star Trek milieu.
Whatever comes out for T5, I would suggest several features to attract the expanded audience we need:
a) A slick, appealing overall presentation;
b) Consistent color and b/w line art, and lots of it;
c) Game mechanics that allow for the full range of character actions, from cinematic to tactical;
d) Character generation that gets the player involved with his character from the start. Make the character more than a set of numbers;
e) Include EVERYTHING you need to run an adventure in the basic set. Animals, opponents, starship deckplans for at least two ships characters might muster out with, and so on should be included;
f) Include two adventures: one a solo adventure that teaches players the mechanics, the other a full length adventure for a party of four to six, one that is fairly non-specific in era.
I might add that these last two points could be set on one world that has been detailed on the Imperial Fringe somewhere. I would suggest a world with the background of similar to Tarsus/Dist 268 for those two adventures.
As an aside, head out to your used book store that carries used games. Look of a Star Wars RPG hardback from West End Games called "Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Revised and Expanded". This and the "RuneQuest, 3rd edition" books are two examples of what I'm talking about, presentation-wise.
To sum up, yeah, I really do think we need a new Traveller from FFE. I really like the guys at QLI, and I like the work that SJG is doing in support of G:T, but we all want a new, official Traveller. Traveller needs a new audience who will love it like we do. And whatever comes out, I'll undoubtedly still buy it. I'm still a fan
.Ganidirsii O'Flynn
SOC-12
Nope, hadn't thought of it. Thanks for the complement, though. **bow**
E
EvilDrGanymede
Guest
Nonsense. Why are the rules so damn important? Are you saying it's more important that characters be made a certain way than the fact that the game is set in the Travellerr setting?The implication of statements like the one you made here is that GT and T20 are somehow 'inferior' or 'unofficial' because they use different rules from CT, MT, TNE and T4. I'm heartily sick of this snobbish BS from CT and T5 nuts.
Yes, they use different rules. This does not make them less valid versions of Traveller.
I'd say Traveller's biggest problem is that it has a hardcore of fans who will never be satisfied with what they have, despite the fact that there have now been SIX versions of the game.
No personal bias there, I see
. Of the GDW systems, MT and TNE were probably the most consistent ones of the lot. Honestly, if you and the other T5 nuts think CT is the only system that actually worked to your satisfaction (albeit with a bit of tweaking), why don't you just stick to it and stop harping on about new versions of Traveller?
Most Traveller fans are 'old farts', eh? Do you actually know the demographic breakdown, or are you just making assumptions here? Do you know the age range of the T20 fans? Or the GT fans?Secondly, most of the Traveller buying public are, well, old farts like me. We remember the great early days of Traveller and how much fun it was. This gets FFE printing reprints, but not much new stuff. If Mr. Sanger were to open up with the DGP licensed stuff, we'd all snap that up too, out of auld lang syne. To put it another way, game design has come a long, long way since the "Little Brown Books" of D&D fame. While everyone else has moved along, we're still reminiscing about "White Plume Mountain" and our characters are still in Hommlet waiting for the Temple of Elemental Evil to make a move.
I'd guess that most of the fans who want to see a T5 are 'old farts' who were into the game since CT and still dream of some fabled and unattainable 'perfect system' for Traveller - and that they're a small but vocal minority in the current Traveller community. I think that most Traveller fans are actually happy enough with the systems that they use to play their games, and don't want to fork out more money for yet another system that isn't going to add much to their games.
And you sound like you're advocating a return to primitive 1970s gaming standards. Well, good luck to you, but 'retro' isn't necessarily good in the gaming world. Even D&D was updated to more modern gaming standards, and has done very well as a result.
This I agree with you on. However, we do have two currently actively developed main rulesets to base settings on - GT and T20 (I'm not counting CT, since nothing new is being produced for it). If QLI actually get round to producing settings books, they have a good selection planned - IY 1000 and TNE:1248 at least. GT also has the Interstellar Wars era on the cards.
What I would like to see however is the timeline to advance. I'm sick to death of bland rehashes of some previous era of the Imperium, which is why I'm excited about the TNE:1248 book planned by QLI. The only reason I'm interested in the GT IW setting is that it's close enough to the current era to make it somewhat familiar, and it centres around Earth - it'd be very different in feel to normal Traveller.
The important point however, is that these settings books should be easily adaptable to whatever system the GM wants to use - lots of fluff, and little crunch.
There goes your precious T5-LBB rehash out of the window then. Very few people in the modern RPG market are going to be attracted by that sort of layout.
All very well if we want an art book, but we want a roleplaying product, surely.
How do current systems fail in this? Hell the d20 system used in T20 certainly has that range.
What, you mean "set it up so it takes forever to make a character, and there's a chance that they can die in character generation"? No thanks.
Besides,players are what give life to their characters, no amount of rules is going to help with this.
Doesn't T20 do this?
The one thing I didn't like about the TNE corebook was that a good chunk of it was taken up by adventures. I don't need that in a corebook, I need rules and setting. Adventures can come later.
We certainly don't 'all want a new, official Traveller', and I don't think it's remotely necessary anyway. For one thing (to borrow a comment that someone posted on JTAS) T20 and GT are just as official as any other version of Traveller - if they're not, SJG and QLI would be in a lot of legal trouble. You're just being snobbish about what you think is 'real Traveller' and what isn't.To sum up, yeah, I really do think we need a new Traveller from FFE. I really like the guys at QLI, and I like the work that SJG is doing in support of G:T, but we all want a new, official Traveller. Traveller needs a new audience who will love it like we do. And whatever comes out, I'll undoubtedly still buy it. I'm still a fan
Traveller also has a new audience in T20 and with GT. It sounds like d20 fans have welcomed T20 quite enthusiastically, regardless of its flaws, and that's a good thing. Rather than ignore them and pretend they never happened, why not take a closer look at GT and T20?
I think this is the crux of Dr. Ganymede's argument. And this quote actually encourages me: if true, then I don't have to worry about T5 being a commercial success; I can put time into helping figure out what it might be. In short, Traveller won't stand or fall with T5. That's a relief.
This, probably, is the entire context of Mr. O'Flynn's post. It's a good idea to take his post with huge grains of salt, too. But the essence is probably correct.
Many veterans like the look and feel of CT, and want it updated without losing its distinctiveness. Might be impossible to do.
If we mutter in this forum, then maybe we can chalk it up to clubbery. Many gamers are rules snobs, so it stands to reason that 'CT Perfectionists' will all be rules snobs. Hence our efforts. Harping is when it's in the other forums, and is counterproductive -- a waste of everyone's time and energy. We should know the boundaries of our conceits and stay within them.
So your warning is well taken. But if you read the Traveller5 forum, know that we're all a bit goofy in here when it comes to rules.
Rob
Pierce_Inverarity
SOC-9
E
EvilDrGanymede
Guest
You do realise that polls of online communities provide no useful indication at all of what's really going on, right? Only a small proportion of roleplayers take part in online discussion boards, and they are not representative of the entire roleplaying population. So I'd take any polls on any online site with a considerable pinch of salt.
What annoys me so much about T5 discussions is that the people discussing it by and large have no idea how the current RPG market works. For example - on the one hand, they say 'we have to make a version of Traveller that'll really grab people today' and then they proceed to discuss presenting it as a load of LBBs and in file folders and so on, that will completely *fail* to grab people because everyone's long since moved on from that. They also fail to grasp that another version of Traveller released today will simply disappear - who ever heard of a single game existing in FOUR different forms at the same time?! It'd just split the fanbase even further. Yet they still continue to discuss it as if there's any chance it can be released in the near future.
Furthermore, I don't believe that the community that wants a T5 is anywhere near large enough to make the effort to produce it worthwhile (ie profitable). It might work if it's done as a small PDF release, but that doesn't seem to be what people want - they want it to be a major thing that will revolutionise Traveller, and bring everything back into a single fold (and cure cancer, and bring world peace too
). I don't think that's possible to achieve, because not enough people see the need for that to happen.I've said it before here - I think the T5 community is in desperate need of heavy dose of realism in its discussions if they're to be taken seriously by anyone outside.
Some people see Traveller as a specific setting/universe (the OTU), others as a set of technological, sociological, and scientific assumptions (jump-drive, no FTL communications, supply-and-demand-based economics), and still others as simply a mindset or style of play ('hard space opera,' free traders, scouts and mercenaries). All of these interpretations are valid. But there's a fourth group of us who also (and in a few cases even primarily) see Traveller as a rules paradigm, who consider notions like random (or at least semi-random) career-based chargen, slow in-game character improvement independent of 'story' goals, 'realistic' (as opposed to 'heroic' or 'cinematic') task resolution and combat, and the universality of 2 six-sided dice to be just as fundamental and important to "Traveller" as jump drive, free traders, and the Third Imperium.
The first three groups are well served by GT and T20, but the fourth definitely is not -- GT and T20 may be set in the Traveller Universe and do their best to replicate the Traveller Feel, but they are in undeniably fundamental ways (GURPS' point-balancing paradigm, d20's class/level/XP paradigm) NOT the Traveller rules paradigm (TRP henceforth). It's not nostalgia and grognardism alone that cause people to prefer the TRP over GURPS or d20 -- there are real and substantial differences between the three and some of us actually find that for our prefered styles of game/campaign the TRP is simply better than the alternatives.
But unlike GURPS and d20 with their glossy hardbacks, top-of-the-line production, and constant revisions (D&D 3.5, coming soon!), the TRP is currently only represented in the marketplace by the 1981 vintage Classic Traveller reprints, which, while pretty good in and of themselves, are wholly insufficient to present the fully-developed TRP to the public/marketplace as a viable alternative to GURPS and d20. D20 isn't limited to white-box D&D, nor GURPS to The Fantasy Trip, so there should also be a place for an expression of the TRP beyond the CT reprints.
Those who are satisfied with GURPS or d20, who don't think rules matter, or who really think there's absolutely no room for improvement -- even presentation-wise -- over the TRP as depicted in the reprint volumes, won't see a need for T5. But those of us who don't like GURPS or d20, who do care about rules, and who recognize the insufficiency of the CT reprints in the modern marketplace (while still appreciating their core paradigmatic concepts) still hope to see a T5 that will allow the TRP to compete on equal footing against GURPS and d20 (and BRP and White Wolf and all the other rpg rules paradigms) in the marketplace of ideas.
What it comes down to is that I like the TRP, I think it's good -- better than GURPS and d20 -- and that if enough other people saw it they might also think it was good and might gain something from it. But if all they're ever exposed to is the rough-draft 1981 version -- if they have to hunt down out-of-print vendors and scour the web for house-rules, patches, and additions to see the whole picture -- they're probably not going to ascertain and appreciate its core goodness, and will most likely bypass it entirely, and we'll never know if, under different circumstances, they might have liked it and gained something from it. And I don't want that to happen. I don't want people to miss out on the TRP or to dismiss it prematurely because they've only seen incomplete or imperfect versions of it. I want them to be exposed to it on an equal footing with the other rules paradigms -- to compare and judge them all based on their respective merits as game-systems -- and were this to happen I firmly believe that at least a few (and perhaps a lot) of them would see that the TRP offers something good that's at least comparable if not preferable to what's offered by the other systems. Maybe I'm wrong, and probably there's no way we'll ever find out, but it's still my ideal, my dream and goal for the TRP, and if anything I can say or do will make it more likely to happen then I'll keep trying.
The first three groups are well served by GT and T20, but the fourth definitely is not -- GT and T20 may be set in the Traveller Universe and do their best to replicate the Traveller Feel, but they are in undeniably fundamental ways (GURPS' point-balancing paradigm, d20's class/level/XP paradigm) NOT the Traveller rules paradigm (TRP henceforth). It's not nostalgia and grognardism alone that cause people to prefer the TRP over GURPS or d20 -- there are real and substantial differences between the three and some of us actually find that for our prefered styles of game/campaign the TRP is simply better than the alternatives.
But unlike GURPS and d20 with their glossy hardbacks, top-of-the-line production, and constant revisions (D&D 3.5, coming soon!), the TRP is currently only represented in the marketplace by the 1981 vintage Classic Traveller reprints, which, while pretty good in and of themselves, are wholly insufficient to present the fully-developed TRP to the public/marketplace as a viable alternative to GURPS and d20. D20 isn't limited to white-box D&D, nor GURPS to The Fantasy Trip, so there should also be a place for an expression of the TRP beyond the CT reprints.
Those who are satisfied with GURPS or d20, who don't think rules matter, or who really think there's absolutely no room for improvement -- even presentation-wise -- over the TRP as depicted in the reprint volumes, won't see a need for T5. But those of us who don't like GURPS or d20, who do care about rules, and who recognize the insufficiency of the CT reprints in the modern marketplace (while still appreciating their core paradigmatic concepts) still hope to see a T5 that will allow the TRP to compete on equal footing against GURPS and d20 (and BRP and White Wolf and all the other rpg rules paradigms) in the marketplace of ideas.
What it comes down to is that I like the TRP, I think it's good -- better than GURPS and d20 -- and that if enough other people saw it they might also think it was good and might gain something from it. But if all they're ever exposed to is the rough-draft 1981 version -- if they have to hunt down out-of-print vendors and scour the web for house-rules, patches, and additions to see the whole picture -- they're probably not going to ascertain and appreciate its core goodness, and will most likely bypass it entirely, and we'll never know if, under different circumstances, they might have liked it and gained something from it. And I don't want that to happen. I don't want people to miss out on the TRP or to dismiss it prematurely because they've only seen incomplete or imperfect versions of it. I want them to be exposed to it on an equal footing with the other rules paradigms -- to compare and judge them all based on their respective merits as game-systems -- and were this to happen I firmly believe that at least a few (and perhaps a lot) of them would see that the TRP offers something good that's at least comparable if not preferable to what's offered by the other systems. Maybe I'm wrong, and probably there's no way we'll ever find out, but it's still my ideal, my dream and goal for the TRP, and if anything I can say or do will make it more likely to happen then I'll keep trying.
E
EvilDrGanymede
Guest
But let's look at what you say is so great about the TRP more closely:
random (or at least semi-random) career-based chargen.
Well, for starters, why is this such a good or desirable thing? It just means that players land up with characters that they don't want, because some random dice roll gave them a crappy stat, or forced them to muster out too soon. But anyway, T20 does this.
slow in-game character improvement independent of 'story' goals
GURPS certainly has this. T20 (AFAIK) doesn't because it uses the d20 XP system.
'realistic' (as opposed to 'heroic' or 'cinematic') task resolution and combat
GURPS certainly has realistic (non-cinematic) task resolution and combat. Though D20 is more towards the cinematic/heroic extreme.
the universality of 2 six-sided dice
GURPS uses d6s exclusively, for everthing - it just uses three of them instead of two. I hardly think that makes a critical difference.
So based on what you've said, I find that GURPS already has most of the aspects you're looking for in the TRP, and T20 has some of them.
I can understand that not everyone would like the GURPS or d20 game engines. But I think that's completely independent of whether or not those systems are like the TRP.
You've not explained what your 'preferred style of game/campaign' is though, and why GURPS or D20 Traveller fails to allow you to play in that style. It seems to me that a lot of your TRP can be covered using GURPS at least.
*snort*. 'Constant revisions'?! GURPS has been largely the same (3rd edition) for at least a decade, and d20 is getting its first major revision after a few years. Traveller on the other hand has gone through SIX different versions, albeit on a longer time scale.
While the CT re-release made it easier to get hold of all those LBBs again, I think it also pretty much killed any chance of T5 being produced in the near future. There's simply no point in doing it until all those reprints are sold and not being printed anymore, because it's going to be too similar. There's also the fact that all it would provide would be a new version of the CT system. I think most Traveller fans want to play in the TL 15 Third Imperium background, which is provided in GT and T20. If T5 comes with some obscure historical era in which to play Traveller, I think it will only appeal to a small minority of people.
Well, it's not like CT didn't ever get upgraded. The system was changed in MT, changed again in TNE, and again in T4. Am I remembering correctly that Marc himself said that he viewed the TNE system as the natural successor to the CT system?
CT's already *had* at least three upgrades. Are those really all so flawed that you'd not be satisfied with them? I'm surprised that nobody is keen to use the TNE system as a base rather than the CT.
It's not just rules that are going to make something compete successfully in the marketplace though. While d20 has shown that it's possible that a heavily modified version of a 1970s ruleset to succeed in the market, its success is largely powered by D&D's huge popularity and the OGL behind it. T20 has tapped into some of that, and is apparently doing quite well for it. GT has tapped into the existing GURPS fanbase too, which while nowhere near as big as the D20 fanbase is probably still larger than the CT fanbase.
The problem right now is that there are three versions of Traveller currently available. If you want a crunchy point-based system, go for GT. If you want something closer to the original feel, go for T20. If you want to play what you played in the 70s, go for CT. That's a wide spread of gaming systems right there. Until the CT reprints go away, it's going to be the sole representative of the TRP on the market.
Other people have already had 25 years to see it, and evidently they weren't sufficiently impressed to adopt it in their droves. GDW kept the system alive and evolving through MT and TNE, then they folded in the 90s. Since then, there was the abortive T4 attempt, and that was that. Now we have Traveller adopted into two very successful systems - d20 and GURPS - and people are complaining about it, or even resentful of it?
You do realise how fanatical you sound, right? Your implicit assumption is that the tweaked CT system is simply brilliant, that it's an inherently great system that's just been overlooked by everyone.
Well, everyone's entitled to like what they like, but don't make the mistake of assuming that everyone else is wrong or misled because they don't like the system that you love so much. Traveller's had three attempts to 'get it right' (MT, TNE, T4), and according to you all of those have failed - though in fact you totally ignored MT and TNE anyway. I don't think people are all that interested to see yet another Traveller system, given that there have been so many alraedy.
It will never be judged on an equal footing with the other paradigms though. Most of the current generation of gamers probably aren't even familiar with the old CT system (I doubt if many of them have picked up the CT reprints) - they're likely to have started with GURPS or T20. Right now, the CT system is probably looked upon as a quaint relic that really shouldn't be allowed out of the retirement home, rather than as a highly innovative, elegant rules system that is actually worthy of serious attention.
I don't think there is anything anyone can say or do now. A CT-based Traveller system has had its day, and it lasted from the late 70s to the early 90s. A pretty good run to be sure, but now it's going to have to start from scratch again, and in today's market - especially given that there are already two popular versions of the game around in the form of GT and T20 - starting from scratch by tweaking a system that's already died is not going to get anyone's attention.
Ganidirsii O'Flynn
SOC-12
Hey all.
Ganymede, let me respond to your input briefly. Respectfully, what all this comes down to is this: if you want to buy a T5 (in whatever form it takes) you will; if you don't, you won't.
There are some very valid arguements that you make. I am indeed a "Traveller Grog". I'm OK with that . But there is enough room on the "Subsidized Liner" (let's call it the "Star of Wisconsin") for us all. The price of entry is loving the milieu, no matter the rules you take to get there. Foster makes some good, valid arguements there too. He's got the stateroom closest to the bar .
There isn't any point to attacking each other. Being a gamer is hard enough by itself. Now, I appreciate the input and the debate. Facts are, all this is an opinion-fest anyway, and your soapbox is just the same one I got off of a minute ago. So, have a good game, nail the pirates, and may you get the license for the PGMP you capture .
Honor, Loyalty, and Clear Skies
Ganymede, let me respond to your input briefly. Respectfully, what all this comes down to is this: if you want to buy a T5 (in whatever form it takes) you will; if you don't, you won't.
There are some very valid arguements that you make. I am indeed a "Traveller Grog". I'm OK with that
. But there is enough room on the "Subsidized Liner" (let's call it the "Star of Wisconsin") for us all. The price of entry is loving the milieu, no matter the rules you take to get there. Foster makes some good, valid arguements there too. He's got the stateroom closest to the bar .There isn't any point to attacking each other. Being a gamer is hard enough by itself. Now, I appreciate the input and the debate. Facts are, all this is an opinion-fest anyway, and your soapbox is just the same one I got off of a minute ago. So, have a good game, nail the pirates, and may you get the license for the PGMP you capture
.Honor, Loyalty, and Clear Skies
E
EvilDrGanymede
Guest
That's not the issue though. The people here want to come up with a new version of Traveller that will be popular and reintroduce this 'Traveller Rules Paradigm' to the RPG market in an updated form, right? The problem is that nobody has suggested a practical way to do this. You're talking about presenting it using layouts and styles and systems that went out with the ark. You're ignoring the fact that the two successful Traveller systems are based on systems that are rather different from the original CT system and a whole lot more popular. You're ignoring the mores and desires of the market.
Now, if all you want to do is say 'if I had my way, I'd do Traveller like this', then fine - but that's not what you want. You want to see or produce an update of Traveller that will not only be able to compete with GT and T20 but to also become a major system on the market - but you present no practical way to make this happen.
So instead of actually addressing the issue and perhaps move to a serious, reality-based discussion about T5, you'd rather just shrug your shoulders and carry on dreaming as if none of those valid points that I made existed?There isn't any point to attacking each other. Being a gamer is hard enough by itself. Now, I appreciate the input and the debate. Facts are, all this is an opinion-fest anyway, and your soapbox is just the same one I got off of a minute ago. So, have a good game, nail the pirates, and may you get the license for the PGMP you capture
. That's all very well, so long as you realise that what you want to see will never come to pass.It seems to me that T5 is only 'necessary' to those people who (a) remember CT, (b) like CT to the point that they haven't acknowledged the existence of any other evolution of the system in the intervening decades, and (c) are still waiting to see the CT 'updated' to a more refined form that is to their satisfaction. There's also a (d) in that they're also people who have no interest in either of the currently successful and active versions of Traveller. This does not represent a large section of the roleplaying market, and I think you're deluding yourselves if you think that it is is a large enough portion to make the effort worthwhile and profitable. Wishful thinking will not change this - you need to come up with a way in which a T5 would even get noticed, and I don't think that will happen until GT, T20, and the CT reprints are long out of print. Or do you expect people to suddenly drop those and embrace T5 just because of its pedigree?
Anyway, I doubt that the T5 that people here want to see will ever happen. While I'm not averse to the general principle of a T5 (even if I don't see a reason for it), what irks me is that people are discussing it with no inkling of how the RPG market actually works, and that they have the vain hope that somehow people are going to suddenly think that T5 is going to be the best thing for roleplaying since the invention of the dice. For example, what exactly should be so great about the T5 system that it would cause people to adopt it? How should the mechanics work? Should it be based on an existing system (CT?), or should a new one be created from scratch?
Why don't you think about these things, rather than the look or the marketing or the moral imperative to produce it? Think about the practical things, and maybe people might take it seriously.
daryen
SOC-14 1K
The question I keep wondering about when I look at the various T5 arguments is this: Has anyone looked at the draft material?
I keep seeing people talk about CT, MT, and the rest, but the draft material is completely consistent on one important point: T5, if it ever appears, will be completely based on T4. You know, that one system I almost NEVER see mentioned in a T5 discussion?
I keep seeing people talk about CT, MT, and the rest, but the draft material is completely consistent on one important point: T5, if it ever appears, will be completely based on T4. You know, that one system I almost NEVER see mentioned in a T5 discussion?
Similar threads
