T4?

[Antichrist]

I guess T4 wasn't that popular, given it's brief run.I can't complain since I'm picking it up for a song, but why did it fail and how does it compare to CT? I'm getting it mainly to be able to understand CT stats and convert them to other systems. I'm surprised it's new traveller setting, the early days of the imperium, wasn't a seller given traveller's popularity. it seems that the last time a new setting was added, the interstellar wars period, it was a success even tho the dolts in charge of the company making it left out an equipment list! (And yes, I know they had reasons to do so, and I still say it was a stupid move even when you factor in their reasons.)

At least the Milieu 0 setting had an equipment list! I have one T4 product, emperor's arsenal, which I personally think is excellent and wondered why the T4 line failed.

 

[Border Reiver]

Do I detect yet more anti SJG sentiment? Only two posts and you've managed to let everyone know that you're no fan of the boys and girls at the pyramid.

T4. Lots of reasons for its failure, most of which can be found by searching these forums or google.

Some reasons given were;

1. the general failure of pen & paper rpg's at the time.
2. inconsistencies with previously published material eg maps
3. editorial decisions that "completely changed" an authors work
4. Chris Foss's art did not match most people's idea of Traveller
5. a reactionary dislike of the task system

and most importantly and I'll be careful here

6 allegations of mismanagement, fraud and theft within Imperium Games. What happened I do not know but there seems to be a lot of bad blood still about with regards the end of T4

i have a love/hate thing with T4 and tend to take my favourites and adapt them to CT/MT.

 

[mike wightman]

Yep, there are real gems hidden within the T4 line.
The core book itself is not bad - and it's no more errata ridden than MT, GT, or T20 were to begin with (trouble is that things got worse in certain later supplements...)
I still mine books like Emperor's Arsenal, CSC, Pocket Empires, Imperial Squadrons, Psionic Institures, and the hardback Milieu 0 Campaign book.

But the task system...

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Yeah, T4 was a strange mixture of brilliance and complete garbage.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
Yeah, T4 was a strange mixture of brilliance and complete garbage.

Exactly. I think that the main problem with it was quality-control; while it had many brilliant ideas, many of them were not fully implemented, not to mention the amount of "it seemed like a good idea at the time" type of not-so-good rules (such as combat pools, as well as outright bad stuff (task system, ship design). My general feeling about it (correct me if I'm wrong), was that it didn't have enough playtesting (an understatement), and thus the chaff (bad ideas) was not seperated from the grain (good ideas). add to this very bad editing, resulting in massive errata, and you'll get a tragic failure. tragic because it had so much potential to become the best version of Traveller ever, but, because of very weak and insufficient quality control, became one of the worst versions of Traveller.

Another reason for it failure could be the choice of Milieu-0, setting back the clock to the early days of the Imperium; too many people just didn't like to play in the imperial past. Settng it in the Classical era would have been better for its popularity IMHO.

My bottom line? T4 is a rich goldmine for house-rule ideas, and, if you like it and its milieu, you could also repair it to a far more usable version of Traveller by fixing its two major flaws - that is, replacing the task system and the ship design system.

 

[Border Reiver]

I've not played with the ship design except with FF&S 2. What were its problems?

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Border Reiver:
I've not played with the ship design except with FF&S 2. What were its problems?

Being quite obscure, having unneeded layers of complexity (such as calculating the ship's surface area), and being overy complex for a so-called "Quick Ship Design System". This is not to mention having unclear explanatory text and having major errata problems (missing tables, errors in tables and so on).

 

[Jamus]

you forgot missing j-drive charts from main book also.

 

[Antichrist]

Hmm, sounds like a rush job and some geeks changing the writer's material around inconsistently. Oh well, I'm not so much getting it for a game per se but as a source, and it's cheap enough.

I have arsenal, and I got Anomolies and Central catalogue at a con just now, I think anomolies is pretty weak but the supply catalogue is good.

I will get the main book and hopefully starships soon.

I guess I just need to pay attention to the errata. I'm surprised the millieu 0 didn't take off, it sounds like a good tie to adventure.

 

[Border Reiver]

Skip starships and go for FF&S v2, Psionic Institutes, Imperial Squadrons and Pocket Empires.

The vehicles, weapon and equipment guides are useful inspiration too.

 

[robject]

Definitely skip starships.