The T5 Line (Draft)

[Avery]

Basic Books
Core Rules (Milieu 200) Basic Reference
Game Master's Companion (Used with any era)
Technical Design Reference (Used with any era)
Starships and Vehicles
Equipment and Weapons
Stellar Atlas Basic Reference

Other Core Books (probably not all these)
The Ancient War (Grandfather's conflict with his children).
First Contact (The Solar System before jump drive)
The Interstellar Wars (space war)
The Rule of Man (the wonders of the collapsed First Empire).
The Golden Age (the mature Imperium).
The Plague (the Virus Era).
The Border Wars (Human Aslan conflict)
The New Era.
The Far Far Future (thousands of years after the Imperium).

Boxed Games/ Products
Ships and Troops
Signal GK (tactical like Mayday)
Squadrons (operational)
Vanguard (starship miniatures)
Snapfire (tactical like Snapshot)
Regiments (operational)
Striker (military miniatures)
Theater of War (strategic like IE and FFW)

Game Support
Faraway Sector (custom and personalized sectors)
Yard 9 (starship deck plans)
Other Things
Ships Papers Annic Nova, Far Trader, Scout
Patents of Nobility Baron, Count, Marquis, Duke, etc
Calendars 2002 and Beyond
Tee Shirts and Caps
Fiction
Novels
Anthologies

 

[Richard]

What about published adventures? Any planned for T5? It might be good to produce campaign packs rather than single adventures - the Traveller Adventure would be a good model to follow. Perhaps an exploration campaign, something along the nature of the old Levithan? It could follow a sponsored expedition ( by the military or by a megacorp ), or as a result of a misjump ( shades of Voyager ).

 

[Vicente]

Are you sure there is a market for all these products?
Some products that sold in the 80's and the 90's will not sell in the internet age.
Some products will have to be adapted to this new midia.
Other should be given for free since Information products have increasing returns, that is, they are worth more the more people use it, remember D&D back in the 80's and CT itself. While more and more players used it, it was the obvious choice for new players.
Internet is the new medium for doing this sort of marketing strategy.
Best regards

------------------
Vicente

 

[Richard]

I think there is still a market for such items - look at how well the Traveller reprints have sold - all made in the 70s and 80s, and selling well today, even to people who had never before played Traveller. It might be a mistake, however, to spread out too much around the eras of Traveller. Supporting just one time might be best, rather than spreading around so many. I'd love to read the other books, mind, but they may only sell to Traveller fanatics. I'd like to take this oppotunity to plug the Rebellion - there was a setting with promise. Forget about Virus, and move the timeline forward a decade or so - all the conflict you could want, but pockets of stability for other types of adventures as well.

 

[MJD]

About Adventures... what do folks think - is there a market? Say for an adventure that's actually mostly sourcebook and remains useful after playing through the adventure???

 

[MBitrick]

I like the idea of multiple millieu with a single core rules set. That way, everybody gets to build thier own campaign around whichever time frame they prefer. It also allows more flexibility when designing adventures.

As far as a market for single adventures...I think single adventures might sell well, but I think a better approach would be the campaign style "adventure" (like The Traveller Adventure). This type of adventure would be expandable to different millieu also (i.e. an exploration campaign for circa 200, a piracy campaign for the Long Night, etc.).

Another adventure packaging idea would be the inclusion of one or two "short" adventures with various sourcebooks and materials.

 

[lucasdigital]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MBitrick:
I like the idea of multiple millieu with a single core rules set. That way, everybody gets to build thier own campaign around whichever time frame they prefer. It also allows more flexibility when designing adventures.
<SNIP>
.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Very true.
I would observe though that the strategy that is suggested by the provisional list of publications would leave support for each millieu quite thin.
Where CT built up a very rich source of official material for the last decades of the third Imperium, T5 would be hard pressed to support all the suggested millieu.

Given that it takes a pretty damn dedicated (or fickle) group of players to campaign in more than one millieu at a time, I would think that this would dilute the market for material for a particular era.

Just a thought



------------------
Mark Lucas
Lucas-digital.com

 

[Unreal John]

(looks dubiously at list)
I never bought T4 because it was not possible to run my universe in those rules. I think you are doing the same thing here again. CT was a set of core rules for the Third Imperium, year 1100. It covered the highest common tech levels met in any official Milieu. CT was the system around which I built my game. A set of rules which does not go up to TL-15 for planetary generation as well as ship and vehicle construction is of no use to me. If they do, but are so complicated as to be unusable (think FFS, which I could only follow well enough to establish that GDW's house designers were not much less confused about it than I was) they are of no use to me. If the "Golden Age" is not available at the start, I may never have all the money together to play catch-up when it finally does.

When MT came out with the Rebellion, I was already looking forward to the Six Empires Milieu (although numbers from Four up seemed possible,) which would have provided the largest variety of adventure possibilities I can think of, from the protected, high-tech core worlds of the empires to the recolonization efforts in the devastated areas between. Too bad it never happened.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Avery:
Basic Books
Core Rules (Milieu 200) Basic Reference
Game Master's Companion (Used with any era)
Technical Design Reference (Used with any era)
Starships and Vehicles
Equipment and Weapons
Stellar Atlas Basic Reference

Other Core Books (probably not all these)
The Ancient War (Grandfather's conflict with his children).
First Contact (The Solar System before jump drive)
The Interstellar Wars (space war)
The Rule of Man (the wonders of the collapsed First Empire).
The Golden Age (the mature Imperium).
The Plague (the Virus Era).
The Border Wars (Human Aslan conflict)
The New Era.
The Far Far Future (thousands of years after the Imperium).

Boxed Games/ Products
Ships and Troops
Signal GK (tactical like Mayday)
Squadrons (operational)
Vanguard (starship miniatures)
Snapfire (tactical like Snapshot)
Regiments (operational)
Striker (military miniatures)
Theater of War (strategic like IE and FFW)

Game Support
Faraway Sector (custom and personalized sectors)
Yard 9 (starship deck plans)
Other Things
Ships Papers Annic Nova, Far Trader, Scout
Patents of Nobility Baron, Count, Marquis, Duke, etc
Calendars 2002 and Beyond
Tee Shirts and Caps
Fiction
Novels
Anthologies<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[T. Foster]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Unreal John:
I never bought T4 because it was not possible to run my universe in those rules. I think you are doing the same thing here again. CT was a set of core rules for the Third Imperium, year 1100. It covered the highest common tech levels met in any official Milieu. CT was the system around which I built my game. A set of rules which does not go up to TL-15 for planetary generation as well as ship and vehicle construction is of no use to me<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

For maximum diversity and utility I'd suggest the Core design sequences follow the lead of MT (and FF&S?) by going all the way up to TL-21. Which isn't to say that I want a repeat of T4 where canonical TL limits were bulldozed over and/or ignored (TL-14/15 'relics' from the RoM and so forth) -- indeed, Common and Maximum allowable TLs should be clearly spelled out in each Milieu and rigorously enforced. But, for the Core rules, I think a maximum variety of options should be presented -- straightjacketing players from the outset within the coventions of a single Milieu, or even set of milieux, is surely a bad move.

 

[MBitrick]

I don't see any coverage of aliens (both major and minor races) included in the T5 line. Was this an oversight?

Are there any plans for updated and expanded alien modules to be included in the T5 line? I know the CT reprints have this info for the Major races, but I for one, would like to see more info on the minor races.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[T. Foster]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MBitrick:
Are there any plans for updated and expanded alien modules to be included in the T5 line? I know the CT reprints have this info for the Major races, but I for one, would like to see more info on the minor races.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don't forget about GURPS: Traveller, which presumably isn't going to just fold up and go away once T5 materializes. There have already been 3 Aliens sourcebooks for G:T, and at least 2 more are upcoming. IMO it wouldn't be in T5's best interests to re-hash this material and end up competing against itself. A better idea would be to provide detailed conversion notes, allowing source material for either system to be used with the other. Then, rather than trying to re-invent the wheel yet again, both companies can concentrate on exploring new areas and producing complementary - not competitive - source material.

 

[Ron]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by T. Foster:
Don't forget about GURPS: Traveller, which presumably isn't going to just fold up and go away once T5 materializes. There have already been 3 Aliens sourcebooks for G:T, and at least 2 more are upcoming. IMO it wouldn't be in T5's best interests to re-hash this material and end up competing against itself. A better idea would be to provide detailed conversion notes, allowing source material for either system to be used with the other. Then, rather than trying to re-invent the wheel yet again, both companies can concentrate on exploring new areas and producing complementary - not competitive - source material. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You're right about the proposed synergy between GURPS Traveller and the upcoming T5.

However, in the case of the alien books that might not be true. I found GT: Alien Races books basically a repacking (with GURPS rules) of the old Traveller Alien Modules that will be reprinted soon. If new alien modules became available, I hope that they will explore new facets of the alien species.

Best wishes,
Ron

 

[Gadrin]

these look the most interesting for me...

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Avery:
Game Master's Companion (Used with any era)
Technical Design Reference (Used with any era)

Starships and Vehicles
Equipment and Weapons

Other Core Books (probably not all these)
The Ancient War (Grandfather's conflict with his children).
The Golden Age (the mature Imperium).
The Far Far Future (thousands of years after the Imperium).

Game Support
Faraway Sector (custom and personalized sectors)
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[Gordon]

These sound really good:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Avery:
Basic Books
Stellar Atlas Basic Reference

Other Core Books (probably not all these)
First Contact (The Solar System before jump drive)
The Interstellar Wars (space war)
The Golden Age (the mature Imperium).
The Border Wars (Human Aslan conflict)
The Far Far Future (thousands of years after the Imperium).

Boxed Games/ Products
Vanguard (starship miniatures)
Theater of War (strategic like IE and FFW)
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The world needs more Traveller future history references, because this is what makes the Traveller setting so compelling - it's already rich background. An overview atlas of known space is long overdue since the old ones went out of print. Ideally I'd like to see areas to be developed in future publications and ones that will be left to individual GMs clearly marked, so that creative GMs can easily link their own creations into the canon Universe without having to revise them when new material is published. I'm also a fan of big, comlpex strategic wargames, so any such thing set in the Traveller Universe would be warmly received by me.

That's not to say that I wouldn't be interested in the rest of the suggested publications - I'd probably end up buying them all. I disagree with Vicente - I don't think that Internet publications devalue printed ones. It would perhaps be good to also publish some or all of the new T5 material as e-books (locked PDFs) since that may expand the audience, and it's a lot easier to cart a load of PDFs to a gaming session than a load of books. A laptop full of references can be a good thing.

 

[Richard]

I would like to strongly oppose releasing T% material in PDF format - not all of us have laptops, and it can be annoying to print out a 192 page book. Maybe short adventures could be released in this way, but nothing major, please!

 

[Since1977]

Whoo-hoo! "Theater of War!" Just like Fifth Frontier War! I say drop all of this role-playing stuff and work on that first. FFW was by far the best of the old Traveller games.

 

[Since1977]

What about the possibility of other parts of the line which reflect what gamers today do? Computer games, CCGs, and so forth. Even though I love wargames, it's likely that a bunch of wargames will not be a commercial success. Maybe the same for RPG stuff.

 

[Gordon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Richard:
I would like to strongly oppose releasing T% material in PDF format - not all of us have laptops, and it can be annoying to print out a 192 page book.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Surely you wouldn't object to them being released in this format _as well as_ in dead tree form? That was what I was trying to suggest.

 

[BitKnot]

Speaking of format: Just to cast my vote - how about T5 books in LLB size!!!!

My top ten reasons for LLB size T5 books :

1) They are small enough to squeeze just about anywhere!

2) Its easy to find the section one needs.

3) Referee can refer to a table under the table without players being the wiser!

4) They hold standard size index cards nicely!

5) Being about same depth as CDs they fit on my desk nicely!

6) Like paperbacks, they are convienent for single handed reading during lunch.

7) During play, I can hold my beer and an LLB at the same time!

8) They are easier to handle while on the throne!

9) They make you feel like you have a compact 'encyclopedia set' of Traveller material.

10) They can slide right into a small cooler with your beer!

So what do y'all think?

 

[Takei]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by BitKnot:
Speaking of format: Just to cast my vote - how about T5 books in LLB size!!!!
<SNIP>
So what do y'all think?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The deciding factor in my ordering GRIP Traveller was the LBB size reprint! I'd be more than happy if T5 appeared as an A5 book.

Paul