the target market

[robject]

That's the feeling I get, too. I think he wants to improve what's been done in two ways: redaction and addition.

He wants to improve* existing chunks of Traveller, preferably by taking lessons learned from them. And it seems like he's got ideas for growing Traveller in ways it hasn't been grown, but make sense, as well.

And he's not interactive much at all. Impatient types would tear their hair out.

I don't think it can be an improved CT, or streamlined MT, or a prettied up T4 (looks like it's veering farther from T4 as we go). It feels like each are influencing the design, though.


*improve: Yes, he listens to constructive criticism, even if it's hard to tell.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by robject:
[QB]He wants to improve* existing chunks of Traveller, preferably by taking lessons learned from them.

I didn't see evidence of that at all, it seemed he just ignored everything that had been done since CT.

And he's not interactive much at all. Impatient types would tear their hair out.

You can't playtest something without that interaction though. Otherwise you may as well just be talking to a brick wall when you make your comments and criticisms.

I have no idea why Marc insists on being so damn elusive. That playtest is the one place where he should be stuck right in there and listening to what people have to say and talking to them. If he did that, he'd realise that where he wants to take Traveller is not where the fans want it to go. Instead, he ignores everyone's ideas unless they're modifications of something he's written.

*improve: Yes, he listens to constructive criticism, even if it's hard to tell.

He listens to constructive criticism only if it's involved with fixing the statistics of his rules. He's not interested in realism or playability. Again, he made that explicitly clear to me in a PM - he believes that the only purpose of playtesters is to fix the rules he provides that are broken, not to suggest anything new or different.

 

[flykiller]

Is the Traveller community a tough crowd?

nah, just noisy. if they were as tough as they were noisy they'd be churning out their own material by the boatload.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Is the Traveller community a tough crowd?

nah, just noisy. if they were as tough as they were noisy they'd be churning out their own material by the boatload. </font>[/QUOTE]Thanks to the web, a lot of us ARE...

 

[flykiller]

Thanks to the web, a lot of us ARE...

my page should be ready to post in about a year.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Thanks to the web, a lot of us ARE...

my page should be ready to post in about a year. </font>[/QUOTE]Why wait? Personal Webpages are pretty much supposed to be works in progress.

 

[aramis]

The traveller community is, and has been since the 80's, fractious.

There is very little that isn't disagreed with by some significant vocal minority.

Not to mention 6 rulesets in either print or e-dist.

 

[robject]

[...] He listens to constructive criticism only if it's involved with fixing the statistics of his rules. He's not interested in realism or playability.

Yes, I think you've hit it right on the head.

His interest is in tuning the existing mechanics, which he thinks would build the best T5. If they turn out to be un-tunable, they get put on the backburner, recycled, or thrown away. I'm pretty sure he was 100% wrong in one area, and Hunter talked him out of it in May. Thank goodness.

There was plenty of frustration with the focus of T5 playtest. The material wasn't setting- or background- related. And he didn't start giving us a core facet (the skill list) to fiddle with until May.

As far as I could tell he's never been averse to changing certain systems within the game; it just doesn't seem to be a priority. For example, I'd been beating the drum of Revised Stellar Gen Rules to Marc ever since Mal finished it, and Marc has been distracted, to say the least. He sounded like that kind of stuff just didn't fire his imagination -- which says to me that lots of this stuff can be updated without him caring too much. It's just a matter of someone reminding him at the right times.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by robject:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />He listens to constructive criticism only if it's involved with fixing the statistics of his rules. He's not interested in realism or playability.

Yes, I think you've hit it right on the head.</font>[/QUOTE]Unfortunately if he's not interested in playability, then T5 is dead before it's been started. With that attitude I can't imagine why anyone thinks he's even a capable game designer, let alone a good one.

Game design has changed a lot since the 70s, and Marc clearly hasn't kept up. It's a lot more than just an exercise in statistics now.

There was plenty of frustration with the focus of T5 playtest. The material wasn't setting- or background- related. And he didn't start giving us a core facet (the skill list) to fiddle with until May.

Yes, but he shouldn't be giving that to playtesters to sort out. When I left/was booted from the playtest, he was attempting to get the playtesters to figure out the task system and what skills to use. That's ridiculous - that's HIS job! It's not up to playtesters to design the core of the game for him! And yet, when it comes to the parts that playtesters ARE important for - giving their opinion on the systems he comes up with - he ignores them. The man simply does not have a clue how to run a playtest.

For example, I'd been beating the drum of Revised Stellar Gen Rules to Marc ever since Mal finished it, and Marc has been distracted, to say the least.

Frankly, I don't want him to use it now, and if I ever get that Revised UWP system of mine finished then I certainly don't want him to use that either. I don't want any of my material associated with T5 at all. I'd be happy for it to be associated with T20 or 2320AD or anything that QLI does, but not T5.

He sounded like that kind of stuff just didn't fire his imagination -- which says to me that lots of this stuff can be updated without him caring too much.

Well ISTR that he came up with lots of cockamamie excuses (all unrealistic and largely impossible) as to why aliens could come from homeworlds orbiting O and B V stars. He isn't interested in realism in that regard at all.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Unfortunately if he's not interested in playability, then T5 is dead before it's been started. With that attitude I can't imagine why anyone thinks he's even a capable game designer, let alone a good one.

You're right, playability is going to make or break T5.

As for skills, many of us have been itching to pare down the skills list "a bit". This is one area of feedback that I'm very happy with, actually, since he made most of the suggested changes, and I got to update the list as we went along.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />He sounded like that kind of stuff just didn't fire his imagination -- which says to me that lots of this stuff can be updated without him caring too much.

Well ISTR that he came up with lots of cockamamie excuses (all unrealistic and largely impossible) as to why aliens could come from homeworlds orbiting O and B V stars. He isn't interested in realism in that regard at all. </font>[/QUOTE]His space opera explanations for habitable worlds orbiting giant stars shows the kind of feel he wants in Traveller. However, I believe he can come halfway, and make such worlds less probable.

But you're right, he's not aiming for realism.

 

[Malenfant]

His space opera explanations for habitable worlds orbiting giant stars shows the kind of feel he wants in Traveller. However, I believe he can come halfway, and make such worlds less probable.

Well, this is one of the things that has always bugged me about Trav. Look at Book 6 - full of realistic-looking formulas (even if some of them are actually wrong) and astronomical data and detailed world building. It may have been incorrect in places, but the direction was obvious.

If all he wanted was space opera worlds then book 3 was sufficient for that. By adding all that realism in Book 6, that implies to me that he wanted to make worldbuilding more realistic. That's largely why I decided to take up the task of fixing the problems in book 6 and making a truly realistic world generation system out of it.

By saying it's OK to have habitable worlds (not just that, but alien homeworlds around O and B stars) that implies that realism is right out of the window. In which case, that just supports my case that none of the work I do should come anywhere near T5.

 

[aramis]

Mal:
you're overlooking one HUGELY important point:
During the CT era, Marc was not "In charge"; he was guiding the line but had to accede to the collective will of the GDW staff: Marc, Loren, and Frank, plus others.

There is little to suggest one way or the other how Marc felt about Bk 6. There is a lot to suggest that Marc did pretty well given the data he had available at the time. Likewise, Bk 6 credis LKW, Frank Chadwick, and John Harshman for "Technical and General Assistance". Based upon a variety of bits, it could very well be that Loren and John had more real design work on the systems side than the credits would indicate.

What is clear is that Marc's and Loren's views of the Imperium differed, and that shaped the product like a LOT.

Marc and Loren both got cut out of the control loop for MT, and Loren and Frank did much of TNE; Nilsen did most of the rest. Loren wrote for MT, but Marc didn't; control was in the collective, and mostly with DGP. (DGP wrote MT for GDW. Check the credits!)

Now, MWM is working without coercive collaborators... and is free to be as stubborn as he wants to be.

 

[Malenfant]

Which just reinforces my belief that Marc himself isn't the decent game designer - it's the other people you mentioned who were doing all the good stuff.

 

[robject]

That may be so, but I hope not. And I'm doing what I can to provide feedback.

And actually, Marc has one person who might come close to coercive collaborator: Hunter.

 

[aramis]

Mal, Rob: agree on both points.

Marc's wargames were excellent.
Loren's view of the CTU (expressed guite cogently as GT sans expansions) is, if anything, a very playable set. (I dislike loren's view, mind you. Especially making marines all BD troopies.)
Loren wrote prolifically and well.

John Harshman has worked for several companies, IIRC.
Frank Chadwick is, well, a great ideas man and writes good minis rules.

 

[kafka47]

Nope, John Harshman, was largely restricted to writing for GDW and was of the great minds behind Traveller that does not get as much credit as he ought to have. You just get scattered references in interviews here & there.

I wonder if he frequents these boards and what his opinion of Traveller is now?