Well
I have posted a few times, and read much, and one thing is obvious so far, and that is theat the T20 audience has attracted two groups of people.
The Lifers, those who have played traveller in all versions, since bygone days long since gone, who want it preserved, untouched, and left as is to preserve the "Feel", "uniqueness" and so on.
And The Short Termers or Newbies, who may have played one of the versions a few times, or never played it at all, and like most Roleplayers have been desperately hoping for a Science Fiction Roleplaying game, with a system and all the trimmings to boot that they can finally play, and want Traveller to lose some of the original unbending nostaliga and include a few new things and ideas, or at least make it a little bit more generic than fixed.
So Whose right.... well i imagine both are in thier own ways..
Personally i hated the system of the MegaTraveller New Era version, though spent many an evening reading the book, enjoying the content and other neat things included, like the system generation and subsector charts, the trading rules and so forth, and especially the character generation rules which unlike most games allowed you to build your characters history prior to play, and select skills, and benefits based on your tours of duty... it was great. And although i have never personally played the original Version, i have heard from many people that the original little black book Traveller was excellent.
But one thing for Traveller seems to have remained constant, and that is that the audience, has never been Huge like some game,s but does consist of many diehard and loyal players, but regardless of this each version has disappeared and failed to attract enough peoples interest.
why? it had a great and developed history, many interesting factions, established timelines and wars, shifts in borders, discovery of new factions, and the unravelling mass of plots and gritty theme, many Sci Fi authors only wish they could cram into a novel.
So wheres the problem, what didn;t appeal?
I rather suspect this question is different for every person.
For me it was system, and lack of artwork, i'm a bit of a stickler for artwork, if i'm using a laser pistol i don;t just want to read about it, i want to see it, if i'm flying a survey ship aagain i want to see it, if i meet Mr Handy the Maintenance droid again what does he look like, for me a description just doesn;t hit the spot, and not through any lack of imagination, but simply because pictures draw you in and keep you looking, a page of simple text does not.
for others i imagine it was Travellers tendency to not change anything, it was established, and things all had a proper place in the big Traveller scheme of things and shouldn;t be changed, for fear of losing some feel or stylew of the game.
this sort of opinion i have seen displayed here on some of the topics many times. And i can;t help wondering if it's a good or a bad thing
sure nothing changes everything remains the same, and then surely all you technically have is an old version of traveller with a new system, nothing new, nothing unique, no new selling points, just the same old same old.....nothing to draw new eyes in except the addition of a new system, and depending on how the conversion has gone that may be good or bad.
The Theme is preserved, there is no new tech, no new races, even the maps are the same style and layout and content, no new additions in the form of optional addtions like Mechs as suggested on one list, or anything else.
And again i ask myself is this a good thing... well i have put my group forward for playtesting and i hope i am given the chance to prove myself wrong.
But my intial reacctions, is dubious, yet hopeful at best, fearful that all a T20 will achieve is having the diehards pick up a copy for novelty value, to place with the other versions on thier shelf, and the new players to buy and conclude that it's just the same as all the other versions and put it away in thier cupboards never to look at again.
For me Traveller has always appealed, but the RPg market is and has always been finicky for lack of a better word, with people being very particular about what they are after, if the system isn;t good, then it's the Setting thats bad, if it's not the setting or system, then it's the character generation or lack of additional or relevant info etc...
Games have made it and gone bust on these and a lot less... i'm thinking of Fasa's Earthdawn system a fantastic system, which somehow managed to get perhaps the worst cover and lack of PR in the business and disappear into anonymity....
There is easily nothing as choosy as a Roleplayer.
So i keep asking myself, what new and un-presetned so far additions in the Traveller series will there be to draw us in to play T20, what new and appealing additions can we expect to look forward too?
Or are we simply talking Revamp? of the old with this new system, and a hope that people will see what they didn;t see before?
Traveller has many redeeming qualities, but anyone who has heard of it, will be expecting something new, something different, surely somewhere a compromise can be found to keep the Lifer and the Newbie both happy.
For myself i'll buy traveller regardless, as i like it, and the D20 system.. but if all we are getting as mentioned before is an old game with a new system, and nothing else, then i can't help wondering if it will be worth the money in the scheme of things.
------------------
Neo
"Et semel emissum volat ireevocabile verbum".
I have posted a few times, and read much, and one thing is obvious so far, and that is theat the T20 audience has attracted two groups of people.
The Lifers, those who have played traveller in all versions, since bygone days long since gone, who want it preserved, untouched, and left as is to preserve the "Feel", "uniqueness" and so on.
And The Short Termers or Newbies, who may have played one of the versions a few times, or never played it at all, and like most Roleplayers have been desperately hoping for a Science Fiction Roleplaying game, with a system and all the trimmings to boot that they can finally play, and want Traveller to lose some of the original unbending nostaliga and include a few new things and ideas, or at least make it a little bit more generic than fixed.
So Whose right.... well i imagine both are in thier own ways..
Personally i hated the system of the MegaTraveller New Era version, though spent many an evening reading the book, enjoying the content and other neat things included, like the system generation and subsector charts, the trading rules and so forth, and especially the character generation rules which unlike most games allowed you to build your characters history prior to play, and select skills, and benefits based on your tours of duty... it was great. And although i have never personally played the original Version, i have heard from many people that the original little black book Traveller was excellent.
But one thing for Traveller seems to have remained constant, and that is that the audience, has never been Huge like some game,s but does consist of many diehard and loyal players, but regardless of this each version has disappeared and failed to attract enough peoples interest.
why? it had a great and developed history, many interesting factions, established timelines and wars, shifts in borders, discovery of new factions, and the unravelling mass of plots and gritty theme, many Sci Fi authors only wish they could cram into a novel.
So wheres the problem, what didn;t appeal?
I rather suspect this question is different for every person.
For me it was system, and lack of artwork, i'm a bit of a stickler for artwork, if i'm using a laser pistol i don;t just want to read about it, i want to see it, if i'm flying a survey ship aagain i want to see it, if i meet Mr Handy the Maintenance droid again what does he look like, for me a description just doesn;t hit the spot, and not through any lack of imagination, but simply because pictures draw you in and keep you looking, a page of simple text does not.
for others i imagine it was Travellers tendency to not change anything, it was established, and things all had a proper place in the big Traveller scheme of things and shouldn;t be changed, for fear of losing some feel or stylew of the game.
this sort of opinion i have seen displayed here on some of the topics many times. And i can;t help wondering if it's a good or a bad thing
sure nothing changes everything remains the same, and then surely all you technically have is an old version of traveller with a new system, nothing new, nothing unique, no new selling points, just the same old same old.....nothing to draw new eyes in except the addition of a new system, and depending on how the conversion has gone that may be good or bad.
The Theme is preserved, there is no new tech, no new races, even the maps are the same style and layout and content, no new additions in the form of optional addtions like Mechs as suggested on one list, or anything else.
And again i ask myself is this a good thing... well i have put my group forward for playtesting and i hope i am given the chance to prove myself wrong.
But my intial reacctions, is dubious, yet hopeful at best, fearful that all a T20 will achieve is having the diehards pick up a copy for novelty value, to place with the other versions on thier shelf, and the new players to buy and conclude that it's just the same as all the other versions and put it away in thier cupboards never to look at again.
For me Traveller has always appealed, but the RPg market is and has always been finicky for lack of a better word, with people being very particular about what they are after, if the system isn;t good, then it's the Setting thats bad, if it's not the setting or system, then it's the character generation or lack of additional or relevant info etc...
Games have made it and gone bust on these and a lot less... i'm thinking of Fasa's Earthdawn system a fantastic system, which somehow managed to get perhaps the worst cover and lack of PR in the business and disappear into anonymity....
There is easily nothing as choosy as a Roleplayer.
So i keep asking myself, what new and un-presetned so far additions in the Traveller series will there be to draw us in to play T20, what new and appealing additions can we expect to look forward too?
Or are we simply talking Revamp? of the old with this new system, and a hope that people will see what they didn;t see before?
Traveller has many redeeming qualities, but anyone who has heard of it, will be expecting something new, something different, surely somewhere a compromise can be found to keep the Lifer and the Newbie both happy.
For myself i'll buy traveller regardless, as i like it, and the D20 system.. but if all we are getting as mentioned before is an old game with a new system, and nothing else, then i can't help wondering if it will be worth the money in the scheme of things.
------------------
Neo
"Et semel emissum volat ireevocabile verbum".
, where n>1) hasn't worked out all that well in the past. and there are lots and lots of entertainment alternatives available now that did not exist when Traveller was first published. For those who do not enjoy the "classic" traveller style of play, there have been many alternatives in the last few years. Getting them to select T^20 over, say, Blue Planet, will be a toughie.
