The Grognard Problem
- Thread starter aramis
- Start date
Malenfant,
Just curious. It's mentioned somewhere up-thread that you don't and haven't actually played Traveller in any form. Do you actually play any of the various games you talk about? As in sitting around the table with others, dice at hand, playing the role of your character?
This is not intended as flamebait. I'm genuinely curious. Same question goes for others, I suppose. I know that some of us (raises hand) still actually play the game, but there are others who only play with the game. It leads to differences in perspective.
Speaking of different perspective, you made a comment about "Traveller being the setting, not the rules". I have a somewhat different take. There are, IMHO, two settings for Traveller: what I call the implied setting which is defined by the rules, i.e., the concept of prior history, communications speed = ship speed, the mechanics of jump, etc. Then there is the canonical setting, to wit the 3I universe. There are those who are afficiandos of the latter, and those of us (and not all creaky grognards) who prefer the former. Neither is better or superior to the other, except in the matter of taste of the referee and players of a particular group.
I'll also point out that RPG players come in a variety of types. (See "Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering" from SJG for an excellent discussion of this.) What appeals to one may cause another to flee in horror. Within the subgroup of Traveller fans, there are even further subdivisions - the gearheads, the canonistas, those who prefer merc/active duty campaigns, the wargamers, etc. Borrowing a phrase from Walter Jon Williams, "Like all populist religions, it was prone to schism."
What is impressive about Traveller is that it's actually able to support these various sub-cultures under a relatively consistent umbrella, and that is one aspect I'd like to see continue.
I will also submit that D20's dominance, just like that of MS Windows, VHS video format, and a host of other non-game related examples is not due to the system being inherently superior to others, but rather to being good enough for most people and backed by tremendous marketing and production resources. Your points about the various D20 games that do away with levels and such are well-made, but I seem to recall that the interpretation Hunter/Martin et. al. were under at the time was that these things were required by the OGL. I could easily be wrong or misinformed.
Lastly, good looks (art) and catchy production will only get you so far. The early adopters, the fanbois and some GMs may purchase the books initially, but the real money is in those players who buy the books because the game plays well enough that GMs will keep running it. You also have to make it possible for people to get into the game with a relatively small investment in both cash and time.
This doesn't mean you're stuck writing your game as a sourcebook for someone else's engine necessarily. New players are more willing to accept a complex system (if they can be eased into it) than you might think. I point to Advanced Squad Leader in the wargaming realm as an example. ASL is a phenomally complex tactical wargame, with a 2" thick rule book, dozens of boards and many thousands of counters in a complete set. That community, like much of the rest of the wargaming community, was in decline when MMP released their Starter ASL kits a year or so ago, featuring programmed instruction and small scenarios expressly geared to new players. They've actually managed to bring new people into their segment of the hobby, some of whom had never been gamers before! IMHO if this can be done with a wargame, it ought to be possible with Traveller, but it requires careful thought and implementation.
EDIT: fixed a UBB Code typo.
- John
Just curious. It's mentioned somewhere up-thread that you don't and haven't actually played Traveller in any form. Do you actually play any of the various games you talk about? As in sitting around the table with others, dice at hand, playing the role of your character?
This is not intended as flamebait. I'm genuinely curious. Same question goes for others, I suppose. I know that some of us (raises hand) still actually play the game, but there are others who only play with the game. It leads to differences in perspective.
Speaking of different perspective, you made a comment about "Traveller being the setting, not the rules". I have a somewhat different take. There are, IMHO, two settings for Traveller: what I call the implied setting which is defined by the rules, i.e., the concept of prior history, communications speed = ship speed, the mechanics of jump, etc. Then there is the canonical setting, to wit the 3I universe. There are those who are afficiandos of the latter, and those of us (and not all creaky grognards) who prefer the former. Neither is better or superior to the other, except in the matter of taste of the referee and players of a particular group.
I'll also point out that RPG players come in a variety of types. (See "Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering" from SJG for an excellent discussion of this.) What appeals to one may cause another to flee in horror. Within the subgroup of Traveller fans, there are even further subdivisions - the gearheads, the canonistas, those who prefer merc/active duty campaigns, the wargamers, etc. Borrowing a phrase from Walter Jon Williams, "Like all populist religions, it was prone to schism."
I will also submit that D20's dominance, just like that of MS Windows, VHS video format, and a host of other non-game related examples is not due to the system being inherently superior to others, but rather to being good enough for most people and backed by tremendous marketing and production resources. Your points about the various D20 games that do away with levels and such are well-made, but I seem to recall that the interpretation Hunter/Martin et. al. were under at the time was that these things were required by the OGL. I could easily be wrong or misinformed.
Lastly, good looks (art) and catchy production will only get you so far. The early adopters, the fanbois and some GMs may purchase the books initially, but the real money is in those players who buy the books because the game plays well enough that GMs will keep running it. You also have to make it possible for people to get into the game with a relatively small investment in both cash and time.
This doesn't mean you're stuck writing your game as a sourcebook for someone else's engine necessarily. New players are more willing to accept a complex system (if they can be eased into it) than you might think. I point to Advanced Squad Leader in the wargaming realm as an example. ASL is a phenomally complex tactical wargame, with a 2" thick rule book, dozens of boards and many thousands of counters in a complete set. That community, like much of the rest of the wargaming community, was in decline when MMP released their Starter ASL kits a year or so ago, featuring programmed instruction and small scenarios expressly geared to new players. They've actually managed to bring new people into their segment of the hobby, some of whom had never been gamers before! IMHO if this can be done with a wargame, it ought to be possible with Traveller, but it requires careful thought and implementation.
EDIT: fixed a UBB Code typo.
- John
I agree, John. Whatever is produced has to be made professionally, with a clear vision of not only the game mechanics, but of how it's going to be presented to the potential customer. A "game plan" for getting your product out there for gamers. Borrow a page from the Crack Dealers Guide to Marketting and give 'em the first dose free, or something!
I've spent too much money on T20 this year, and then too much money on Darwin's World from RPGObjects. I'm somewhat disapointed in the quality of both products because they aren't complete and stretches of the rules appear to have never been used by actual referee's and players.
But I'm not TOTALLY disapointed in them because they are d20 based so I CAN fill in the rough spots pretty easily and I also didn't have to invest a HUGE amount of effort learning the system only to find later that it was incomplete.
A poorly made stand alone product is much worse than a poorly made GURPs or d20 product. I think that's really the "fear" for T5. Maybe it's just me though.
I've spent too much money on T20 this year, and then too much money on Darwin's World from RPGObjects. I'm somewhat disapointed in the quality of both products because they aren't complete and stretches of the rules appear to have never been used by actual referee's and players.
But I'm not TOTALLY disapointed in them because they are d20 based so I CAN fill in the rough spots pretty easily and I also didn't have to invest a HUGE amount of effort learning the system only to find later that it was incomplete.A poorly made stand alone product is much worse than a poorly made GURPs or d20 product. I think that's really the "fear" for T5. Maybe it's just me though.
Yes, it is. I become angry with the game maker for selling me an incomplete system that wasted so much of my time.
If I wasted less time I'm less angry.
So, if it's a d20 addon such as T20 and I find out there are gaping holes all through it, I struggle through and make do. If I bought T5 and found the same thing I'd likely toss it in the trashbin and curse the company that wrote it. Maybe that's just me, like I said.
If I wasted less time I'm less angry.
So, if it's a d20 addon such as T20 and I find out there are gaping holes all through it, I struggle through and make do. If I bought T5 and found the same thing I'd likely toss it in the trashbin and curse the company that wrote it. Maybe that's just me, like I said.
I see.
a lot of us here got our start in gaming when games were never "complete". there were always gaping holes and inconsistencies in the rules and in the settings, and "now wait a minute" moments abounded. we never expected anything to be complete, and we didn't really care. we saw the rules and settings as tools. if we thought a tool was missing we thought up our own. if we didn't like a tool we tossed it aside and made up a better one. it was up to us to make our game work. we did.
one gets used to the independence of it all.
Started in '80 when 15 so I started back in the stone age too.
Back then I had plenty of time to develop fixes for game systems. Heck, back then a lot of us weren't bright enough to even realize a hole in a system when we saw it.
And, well, like it or not I have to admit my standards have risen, a lot, over the decades. I expect a certain quality from a commercial product that I pay my hard earned cash for. At least "seemingly playtested" is at the forefront of my expectations, lol.
Back then I had plenty of time to develop fixes for game systems. Heck, back then a lot of us weren't bright enough to even realize a hole in a system when we saw it.
And, well, like it or not I have to admit my standards have risen, a lot, over the decades. I expect a certain quality from a commercial product that I pay my hard earned cash for. At least "seemingly playtested" is at the forefront of my expectations, lol.
M
Malenfant
Guest
I have played Traveller. I tried running a pre-made adventure which turned out to be dull as hell (one from the DGP Early Adventures book, where the PCs get stuck in an Ancient facility on Antiquity).
Now I think of it, I also played in a GURPS Traveller one-shot at a gaming convention that was actually very good (set on Efate, IIRC), though it was more cyberpunky really.
As for other games, I've played and run lots of World of Darkness (Mage, Werewolf and Wraith), played and run lots of GURPS 3e games and Ars Magica, and played in Heavy Gear, Unknown Armies, SLA Industries and Call of Cthulhu and others, am currently playing in a D&D d20 game, have co-written a published GURPS book and am on playtest credits for several others, had two JTAS online articles published, and own and have read most of the major RPGs that have been released in the past 20 years.
And that's just what I can remember off the top of my head.
Yes, but some people seem to think that only one of those perspectives (the 'played the game' one, specifically) is valid. They'd be wrong in that presumption.
I wouldn't argue with that. Though people tend to forget that CT started as a 'generic scifi game' when in fact it wasn't because of that 'implied setting' you mention. Since CT came out, truly generic scifi games have been released such as GURPS Space or Star HERO that do not have these implicit assumptions to limit or hamstring anyone when they are creating their universes. They just present all the options and advice and leave it up to the user to decide how to put that all together.
I'm not sure it supports them all really, it just stuffs them all under one roof and leaves them to fight among eachother within a commonly shared framework
. Yes, but like all those other things, the key thing is that d20 works, and works sufficiently well that people don't tend to be interested in anything better unless they're really into the subject. Of course, people who are into alternatives like Linux, or DAT, or Traveller, tend to get all intellectually superior to those who just like the default. You hear that a lot from Linux fans who have this pathological habit of sneering at Windows users.
Close. QLI released T20 specifically as a 'd20' book, which meant that (a) it could have a big d20 badge slapped on the back to show it was compatible with D&D and (b) it supposedly couldn't have XP tables and how to generate ability scores in it. When T20 came out, having that D20 badge supposedly meant that you'd be able to get more sales because just going under the OGL without the badge meant you couldn't take advantage of the brand recognition of d20. In practise, T20 DOES have XP tables in it, and given all the other modifications to be honest I'm amazed that QLI got away with calling it a D20 book at all.
As it is, T20 is basically an OGL book released under the d20 banner. Nowadays, the d20 thing doesn't seem to be so important and most companies release their books as OGL, which means that they are free to concoct new ways of doing things within the d20 system, so long as they make some of that available as Open Content. I think it turned out that the 'Brand Recognition' thing didn't seem to be as big a deal as it first seemed.
The looks of the game are a pure marketing thing. Nowadays, people seem to expect and want big colour hardbacks. They expect these tomes to be well laid out and well edited too. Ideally you want to be releasing books both for players (since there's more of them) and for GMs - that's why you get all the 'splat books' for classes and races and so on in the successful d20 and WoD lines.
My experience says otherwise, as does a lot of people's. In roleplaying, people are definitely less willing now to learn a new system than they were before. Heck, my own group doesn't really want to learn new systems.
The whole point of d20 and OGL was to reduce the number of systems available on the market - Ryan Dancey himself said that was the stated goal. And it's succeeded, for better or for worse. New systems are still out there but they're very much in the niches. The non-d20 companies that survived did so because they had a big enough fanbase that sticks with them (eg SJG, White Wolf, Palladium, Chaosium) - but even then most of those have branched out into d20 to supplement their income. A lot of companies just dropped their own systems entirely because they could get a lot more sales by converting over to d20. That may suck, but that's the market for you.
I think wargames are a somewhat different market to RPGs. For starters you don't have a single 'uber-system' that is Open Content in wargaming. Comparisons between the two aren't really all that valid, any more than comparing CCGs with RPGs or Wargaming with LARPs. They're very different markets.
M
Malenfant
Guest
That's my experience too roughly (I started in 83 when I was 11 with basic D&D).
Yes, things have changed a bit now, and roleplayers don't expect to do so much work to fill in the holes in systems that have been churned up in someone's garage anymore.
The playtesting is a critical thing. Nowadays you can get a lot of people to playtest a book online, before you only had one or two groups that you had to personally be in contact with to keep track of. A lot of the older systems were full of gaping holes and flaws. Traveller has some, that's for sure.
The fact that some people see this change as a BAD thing boggles me. You're not intellectually superior because you had to fix the holes yourself back in the day. Peoples' standards have RISEN since then, because they are paying more for their games now and they want a product that has been thoroughly tested and that requires them to do as little prep work (or at least, with as little difficulty as possible) so they can just cut to the chase and make their characters or design their adventures and start playing. People don't want to be wasting their time fixing the combat system or rearranging a badly balanced chargen system or whatever. As a result, RPGs are more complete and better playtested and designed than they've ever been. And this is a good thing.
M
Malenfant
Guest
It's a minor thing perhaps, but I ran into a glaring error in CT that hadn't been addressed til I fixed it.
This was in the star generation tables in Scouts. If a habitable (ie earthlike) world was already present, you had to add a DM of +4 to the primary star type and size roll.
Great, except this meant that most habitable worlds would end up orbiting type F subdwarfs and white dwarfs which isn't remotely possible.
I'm fairly sure that this was unintended and that what the designers were aiming for was what I ended up with in my Revised Stellar Generation Tables (see link in the sig) which was that habitable worlds would be more likely to orbit G or K main sequence stars. But evidently they didn't check their tables, and for the past 20-odd years this errant application of modifiers to produce physically ridiculous results went unaltered. (to cap it all, I'm not even entirely sure if it was fully incorporated into the various automatic system generators. Certainly most sectors churned out results that weren't remotely compatible with Book 6 in any way shape or form, as we discovered during the TNE:1248 sector designs).
This was in the star generation tables in Scouts. If a habitable (ie earthlike) world was already present, you had to add a DM of +4 to the primary star type and size roll.
Great, except this meant that most habitable worlds would end up orbiting type F subdwarfs and white dwarfs which isn't remotely possible.
I'm fairly sure that this was unintended and that what the designers were aiming for was what I ended up with in my Revised Stellar Generation Tables (see link in the sig) which was that habitable worlds would be more likely to orbit G or K main sequence stars. But evidently they didn't check their tables, and for the past 20-odd years this errant application of modifiers to produce physically ridiculous results went unaltered. (to cap it all, I'm not even entirely sure if it was fully incorporated into the various automatic system generators. Certainly most sectors churned out results that weren't remotely compatible with Book 6 in any way shape or form, as we discovered during the TNE:1248 sector designs).
M
Malenfant
Guest
yes. but we always thought the quality of a game came from us. </font>[/QUOTE]The quality of PLAYING the game came from the GMs and players.
The quality of the RULES of the game should come from the designers though.
Like it or not, things have changed now. People do not want to see games with gaping holes in them and do not expect to have to work for weeks to make it playable. You may have done that in the 70s and 80s, but not anymore - and expecting people to think that way now won't do you any favours at all.
Dr. Thomas,
That's an extensive list. I'm envious, my RPGtime has been spotty since the mid-90s.
Now for my question, no personal attacks intended, no hidden motives, nothing like that at all. I just want to read your answers. Okay?
If an d20 version of Ars Magica came out, would you use the orignal Ars Magica system or the d20 system?
Ditto for Call of Cthulu.
Ditto for the various GURPS 3e games.
Ditto for every non-d20 RPG you've played and liked.
Would you use the original or switch to the d20 version?
I guess what I want to know is; Can one size really fit all? Should one size really fit all?
Have fun,
Bill
M
Malenfant
Guest
Nope. I'd use the originals for most of those. Though in some cases the original system sucks and I'd switch to d20 (like for SLA Industries. Great setting, godawful system)
Of course not. In the case of conversions, more often than not the original systems works best because it was designed with that game in mind (there ARE many exceptions though. Sometimes the original system is so poorly designed or complicated that switching to another one is preferable).
However, if someone is coming into those games from outside who is familiar with d20 and is presented with a d20 version of it, then they're going to snap up the d20 version, not the original version. It means they have less to learn and can get into the game quicker.
If someone unfamiliar with Traveller comes along today who is familiar with GURPS or d20 (two very popular systems), you can bet your bottom dollar that they are vastly more likely to want to go for GT or T20, not with CT or MT or TNE or T4.
If that person wasn't familiar with GURPS or d20 then that opens things up somewhat, but there are many more arguments to sway them towards GURPS or d20 than towards the other systems. CT for example can't offer all the additional background material that GURPS or d20 can. The CT reprints are also much harder to find than T20 or GT now too. The CT reprints are also in an awkward physical format (landscape softcover), are unindexed and hard to find things in, and have very little in the way of pictures or fiction or anything else like that.
Dr. Thomas,
Yes, if designed properly, the original system is best. Please note that I said 'if designed properly'.
Sadly however, that is not what market forces will produce, for as you also write:
So, the d20 version which doesn't fit the setting as well as the original version did will be bought because of the purchasers familiarity with d20.
The viscious circle is now complete. Because d20 dominates the market, most people are familiar with d20. And because most people are familair with d20 and because most people do not want to learn other RPG systems even if they are properly designed, most people will buy d20 versions of setting even if the d20 version is inferior to the original.
I wonder what will happen to Ars Magica when someone finally gets around to doing a d20 version? Or Call of Cthulu?
It's Windows, QWERTY, rail gauges, IC engines, and every other example of 'industrial inertia' being played out in the RPG market and we all lose as our choices become more and more limited.
I am not saying that CT, MT, TNE, or T4 are better designed than d20. I am saying that T20 does not fit Traveller well and that, even if a well designed option to T20 existed, it wouldn't matter. T20 would still be bought because familiarity trumps content.
As well they should. GURPS and d20 are alive while Traveller as Traveller is dead.
Sadly, even if there was a well designed RPG system meant specifically for Traveller, people would still buy GURPS and d20 because they are too damn lazy to bother to learn anything else.
I'm glad this didn't happen in wargaming. SPI tried, but the buyers were savvy enough to demand different systems.
Windows and Gates have arrived in the RPG market, boys. The rest of us better get used to living off the crumbs.
And some see this all as a good thing...
Thank you for your thoughtful answer, Dr. Thomas.
Have fun,
Bill
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
Now I understand. You've never played anything other than DnD & D20, have you? </font>[/QUOTE]Either explain yourself or give up.
Honestly, I haven't got time for attempts to deflect the real discussion into the meaningless.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
Where in AD&D? Cite?</font>[/QUOTE]In AD&D 2nd ed. a number of the non-weapon proficiencies acted the ways that feats do in 3E; ie. they gave you a benefit that didn't require a skill roll. Some even had other NWPs as requirements. </font>[/QUOTE]AD&D 2nd Ed Proficiencies = 3rd Ed d20 Feats? Well . . . if we stretch things out, yeah, there is a similar feel there. I'm not sure I'd call them the source for Feats, though.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
Maybe for some it has.
There are many people in the world, and you cannot get more than three people to agree on where to eat dinner in most cases.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
The CT Reprints took years to sell out their print runs. I'm not sure all of them have sold out.
