the target market

[Malenfant]

Well, the fact that all the editions are currently available makes it very difficult for T5 to stand alone. Which brings us back to the point at hand

I mean, take trade. You've got the CT model and the GTFT model. Is there room for another one?

Take systems. You've got CT, MT, TNE, T4, GURPS, and T20. Do we need yet another system to run Traveller in? Is six different ones not enough (and let's not forget the houserules that people cobble together too)?!

People have been playing Traveller for what, up to 27 years now? Chances are, they're settled into whatever system they've been using. Now things like GURPS and T20 - no matter what you think of them - have been able to bring people into the game by tacking it on to an existing, popular system.

Like it or not, nowadays most people don't really want to learn new systems any more - they want something they can get into straight away without a lot of effort. Call it lazy, call it lack of time, but that's the way the hobby is now. So if T5 comes along with a complicated, arcane system chockfull of tables and weird dice systems, you can be pretty sure that it ain't going to sell - people just don't want that sort of thing anymore.

Personally, I think T20 is the ultimate incarnation of Traveller. Not in the sense that it's the best, more like the sense of 'the last'. It's designed to bring Traveller to the biggest RPG market on the planet, and it does that pretty well. No other version of Traveller is going to come close to being that popular. And before you mention that CT sold 240,000 copies or whatever, I'd bet that CT's popularity was basically largely due to the fact that for a long time, there just wasn't anything else in a similar vein to compete with it (plus, it has had 27 years to sell that amount. Still doesn't come close to D&D though, and it certainly isn't doesn't even show up on the sales radar today). If CT had come out with as much competition as it has today, I think it would have sold (at least) an order of magnitude less than it did.

So T5 obviously isn't going to bring the game to more people than T20 (or to a lesser extent GT) has. It just won't happen - and that would be even less likely to happen if it sticks with its current approach.

So what really is the point of T5? Who is Marc aiming to satisfy with it (other than himself)? Given that it's so divergent from what people have been wanting to see for all these years, it's hard to figure this out. There's no demand for T5 whatsoever outside the Traveller community - as far as the general gaming public is concerned there's GT and T20 and that's enough for them. So far it looks like the only people who are going to pick up Traveller are the obsessive collectors or the people who are just curious to see what Marc comes up with. That's not going to be a lot of people.

 

[Jeffr0]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
I mean, take trade. You've got the CT model and the GTFT model. Is there room for another one?

Yes.

Both are inadequate for complementary reasons.

Surely there's some sort of brilliant "German Game" approach to this that can transcend the weaknesses of both systems.

Is there a game designer in the house?

I was thinking the ship record sheet would have a cargo hold on it that the players fill up with pentomino shapes. Instead of a top down or bottoms up approach... there'd be this weird system from which facinating economic situations emerge. A refereed single player M.U.L.E. game that your wife and kids would play with you but that integrates into Traveller beautifully.

 

[Malenfant]

Is there a NEED for another trade system though?

I mean really. How many people actually use the trade systems in their games? How many people have their whole game revolve around how much profit the PCs make from their cargoes? How many games centre on PCs making deals with merchants and haggling prices and figuring out mortgages and taxes? Some do, sure - but most games probably don't. On the one hand you have a broken system in CT, on the other you have a very detailed one in GT:FT. Between those two, there's enough for anyone who wants to dabble in trade to use.

If you're just going to base a game on trade then you might as well turn it into a wargame or some other abstractified thing. It'd be much more meaningful then (and this is possibly why other RPGs don't cover trade). Then you really could have counters moving around from one planet to the next trading commodities. Or better still, stick it on a computer and play Elite or EVE Online. Either way, remember that Traveller is a roleplaying game, not a wargame.

But still, two different systems is at least one more - and more likely two more - than other games have. And yet you still want more?

(The same goes for world generation actually. We've got two system generators - the CT type and the GT:FI type. the former is simplified and unrealistic, the other is fairly detailed and realistic. Do we need another variety? Not really. Most people are happy with either version - those that aren't would make versions that they are happy with.)

 

[Jeffr0]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
If you're just going to base a game on trade then you might as well turn it into a wargame or some other abstractified thing. It'd be much more meaningful then (and this is possibly why other RPGs don't cover trade). Then you really could have counters moving around from one planet to the next trading commodities.

Sounds good. That's exactly what I have in mind. (You obviously haven't visited the Traveller Wargames section of the board in a while.

Check out the Counterstrike thread for more info.)


But wouldn't be great? Your wife and kids gathered around a beautiful map of the spinward marches? Each player pushing traders and freighters around the board-- but at the end of the game, only one will become the CEO of Oberlinde Lindes....

<Best Mobius Voice>
Isn't that worth fighting for?
<\Best Mobius Voice>

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:
Sounds good. That's exactly what I have in mind.

Except that Traveller is a roleplaying game. Demanding that people suddenly switch to wargaming to play out trade will not work. How would you integrate it into the roleplaying game? Do you want people to make room for giant sector maps and fiddle around with counters while they're trying to roleplay?

But wouldn't be great? Your wife and kids gathered around a beautiful map of the spinward marches? Each player pushing traders and freighters around the board-- but at the end of the game, only one will become the CEO of Oberlinde Lindes....

If you like that sort of thing, then sure. As a completely separate thing completely, then sure. As an integral part of the Traveller roleplaying game? No way in hell.

 

[Jeffr0]

Demanding? I'm not demanding anything. I just want more options on the table than Book 2, Book 7, and Far Trader. You act like the current body of Traveller material cannot be improved upon because it does everything it ought to. I'm not satisfied with it. I think it can be improved. In it's current state there's a very limited amount of people that I can share it with.

I'm talking about expanding the market beyond what T20 and GURPS target. At the very least, we can get some games that get our kids hooked on some form of Traveller so that there can be a generation of Travellers after us. What's wrong with that?

What can I say, Mal?

Do you just want to keep traveller as a cult secret that only you and your canonista cronies are hip to?

Take your "now way in hell" attitude far enough and we will end up being the last generation of Traveller players.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:
[QB] Demanding? I'm not demanding anything. I just want more options on the table than Book 2, Book 7, and Far Trader. You act like the current body of Traveller material cannot be improved upon because it does everything it ought to. I'm not satisfied with it. I think it can be improved. In it's current state there's a very limited amount of people that I can share it with.

Given the choices available, I think this is far more likely to be your fault than Traveller's. Have you actually tried to run a game of T20 or GT? It seems like you've shut those out - right there you've axed about 90% of the available player base. Do people that you 'share it with' not like the system, or do they not like the setting.

Or maybe the people around you aren't interested in playing it as a wargame?

I'm talking about expanding the market beyond what T20 and GURPS target.

Why? By doing that it's already appealing to two very major RPG systems. Any more people that come in outside of that are going to be much small numbers by comparison.

At the very least, we can get some games that get our kids hooked on some form of Traveller so that there can be a generation of Travellers after us. What's wrong with that?

If you want to hook another generation, then Traveller needs to be made RELEVANT to that generation. Have you looked at the scifi around today? Very little of that is the 70s style setting anymore. Today you just have to look at the likes of Greg Egan, Greg Bear, Iain M Banks, Alasdair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod - you've got transhumanism, nanotech, AI, genetic engineering, ideological conflicts, memetics, androids, mega-engineering, uploading intelligences... where are these in Traveller?

The problem is that Traveller panders to an older generation of roleplayers and scifi fans. So long as it does that, it'll never expand beyond its current market.

Do you just want to keep traveller as a cult secret that only you and your canonista cronies are hip to?

I love it when people call me a 'canonista'. I couldn't have more contempt for Traveller canon and the OTU if I tried.

Keeping Traveller stuck in the 70s is what's going to keep it as a cult secret - expanding its horizons and making it relevant to the modern market is the only thing that is going to be able to regenerate it. The GURPS and d20 versions have gone some way to doing that, but the setting is still mired in 'old school' scifi.

Take your "now way in hell" attitude far enough and we will end up being the last generation of Traveller players.

Now that's just grognardy doom-mongering. At least some new people have picked up GT and T20 - the game isn't going to keel over and die any time soon.

 

[RobertFisher]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Well, ebay isn't really a practical option for a lot of people. Without the CT reprints, I'd imagine that getting all the individual LBBs that you'd need would be rather expensive. (and QLI is also partly involved here, for keeping books 1-3 in circulation).

Well, I've actually found ebay quite affordable for getting what I need to play rather than collecting.

But, I do feel uncomfortable recommending a game that can only be had through ebay or similar sources.

My opinion is that CT can't remotely compete against GT or T20 as a system that people coming into the game TODAY would want to use.

Once you get past the huge money & brand lead of WotC, there's an awful lot of gamers out there for whom GURPS & the d20 system are examples of exactly how not to design a roleplaying game.

CT has a lot in common with games that are out there & doing fine now. Sure, some updating could probably help it do even better, but my opinion is that a really serious marketing effort could make CT--even without changes--as successful as d6 Space. Probably even approaching T20's success.

I happen to like GURPS & d20, although they aren't my first choices anymore. If the CT reprints didn't exist, I'd mention GT & T20, but I'd recommend something else. Maybe TriStat or CODA or Fudge or d6 Space or Risus or...I dunno. Luckily the reprints are available.

Furthermore, if you want a generic scifi game to build your own background today then books like Star HERO, Lightspeed, GURPS Space, d6 Space, and d20 Future give you much better tools and much more options in which to do it than CT does. There is very little (if anything at all) to recommend CT over these other systems.

I agree. If I were going to build a sci-fi campaign completely divorced from Traveller, I'd go with GURPS Space or something else.

Heck, that's the reason GT doesn't appeal to me. If I'm playing GURPS Space, I don't want to play in the 3I or with any of the assumptions built into CT.

I play CT because...shocking...I like CT. Not the 3I. (I like the 3I, but I'd still be playing CT even if I wasn't using it.) Not its genericity. (Although, I've mistakenly expressed it that way before.) I like the mechanics & the built in assumptions.

Plus, more to the point, CT is not supported - the reprints are just a pretense of support. The only people actually putting out new material for Traveller are SJG and QLI, and they're doing that for their own versions of the game.

There are plenty of us who don't need a constant stream of new products to enjoy a game. Indeed, I tend to prefer games that don't have a constant stream of new products myself.

My ideal game would be one that remains in print but stays relatively constant after reaching maturity. Like chess or Monopoly or any other non-roleplaying game that manages to remain in print without constant supplement.

You know what, though. Those GURPS & QLI supplements are very rules-agnostic. Both companies are very good at separating rules from...setting--for lack of a better word. I can use their supplements with CODA or Fudge or--shockingly--CT. QLI even throws us CT fans an occasional additional bone like the CT stats in Personal weapons of charted space.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />If we think he's got it completely wrong & he ignores our advice, the only thing we can do is put up our own money & compete.

Well, we can't do that really. Since Marc holds the key to the licenses, he would just say "no, you can't do that".</font>[/QUOTE]

Oh, come on. Marc can't keep anyone from publishing another sci-fi RPG. If you steal his words or images or misuse his trademarks, he can do something. But those things aren't required to publish Traveller-done-right-but-under-a-different-name.

Also, I'm wondering where GT and T20 will be if T5 comes out.

Doesn't matter. You don't need GT to play GURPS 3I. (Just as people don't need a published book to play the James Bond RPG or Fudge or Risus in the 3I.) SJG can still publish ideas that would go into a GT book, they just can't be explicitly placed in the 3I.

Likewise, T20 would be just as fine a game if you ripped out or renamed anything Traveller specific.

I can't defend T5, but I can't manage to get too upset about Marc doing what he wants.

The more we talk about it, though, the more I like the idea of a CT+.

 

[RobertFisher]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
So far it looks like the only people who are going to pick up Traveller are the obsessive collectors or the people who are just curious to see what Marc comes up with. That's not going to be a lot of people.

That doesn't make it invalid. My company serves a niche market. Our customers are very glad that we're providing the products we are instead of chasing more lucrative markets. (Of course, the problem with "more lucrative markets" is that you've got stiffer competition. Not to mention one or more established vendors who are nigh impossible to compete with.) Likewise, we make a living.

 

[RobertFisher]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
But the point is that GURPS is built around roleplaying, not Wargaming.

Heh. I have a different perspective. I see GURPS as a wargamer's take on roleplaying.

The advanced combat system is a wargame. The basic combat system pretends to be a bone thrown to the roleplayers, but seems to be just a quick gutting of the advanced system with little thought applied. (Although, I haven't picked up 4/e yet to see how they might have improved this.)

The chargen, however, is where you really see the wargamer trying to fit roleplaying into his paradigm. Character points & formulae &c. It's as gearheaded as building a starship.

 

[Flynn]

The beauty of the D20 OGL is that, now that a rules set is in print, others can take the OGL parts and use them in a game of their own design. The starship and vehicle construction systems aren't OGL (even if the results are), and the world gen system isn't OGL (even if the UWPs are). There are a number of open source variants on these that can be modified to create your own game, with the elements of Traveller T20 you wanted.

Publishing your own sci-fi game is doable, but in all actuality, it's a lot harder than it looks.

Given the title of this particular thread, I still maintain my original assumption regarding the actual target audience of T5: Marc W. Miller. If I were him, I wouldn't write it for the fans, or the hopes of attracting a bigger market share, or anything so mundane as that. I'd write it for me, myself and I, because I wanted to write it. I'd write it because it fulfills me to do so. And frankly, whether or not it was successful for others wouldn't even enter into the equation, because they aren't paying the bills for it to be printed. I am, and I'm doing it because I love what I have created and am building on it in a way that pleases me.

That's what I would do if I were Marc W. Miller, and why I'd be publishing T5.

Mal, you can bitch all you want, for whatever reasons you feel are justified, but in the end, the only person whose opinion matters in this is the man himself, Marc W. Miller. The rest of us can vote with our dollars, and we either will or we won't. He's going to do it for his own reasons, and threads like this won't change that future.

Personally, do we need T5? No. I actually gave up on it. Will I play T5? Probably once, just to say I did, but that's about it. I haven't seen anything that excites me about it yet, but I'll probably buy it just to support Traveller.

The world doesn't answer to me, so I'm not going to bemoan the presence of T5 on the horizon. All I can hope for is that it leads to another slew of interesting products, rather than T5 versions of the ones we've seen before. (Thank goodness T20 hasn't done the Scouts, Merchants and Mercenaries guidebooks that a number of other Traveller systems have seen...)

My two credits, for what they're worth,
Flynn

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Today you just have to look at the likes of Greg Egan, Greg Bear, Iain M Banks, Alasdair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod - you've got transhumanism, nanotech, AI, genetic engineering, ideological conflicts, memetics, androids, mega-engineering, uploading intelligences... where are these in Traveller?

They can all be added to CT easily enough, and hopefully they will be in T5 in some form or other...


and you missed out Peter F.Hamilton

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by RobertFisher:
That doesn't make it invalid. My company serves a niche market. Our customers are very glad that we're providing the products we are instead of chasing more lucrative markets. (Of course, the problem with "more lucrative markets" is that you've got stiffer competition. Not to mention one or more established vendors who are nigh impossible to compete with.) Likewise, we make a living. [/QB]

Yes, but one of Marc's stated goals in the T5 intro is to bring the game to a wider audience. Problem is, he's doing exactly the opposite - he's keeping it tied down to the same archaic random generation/lots of tables/poor explanation/unecessary complexity principles that CT had. These just aren't relevant today, so that "wider audience" that he claims to be after is simply not going to be interested in the game.

If he just said straight out - "OK, this is a vanity project aimed squarely at the few people who still only play CT and who hang on every word Isay" then there wouldn't be an issue. But he's supposedly trying to get Traveller played by a wider audience - which is impossible, since T20 already caters to that wider audience and succeeds in doing so.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by RobertFisher:
Heh. I have a different perspective. I see GURPS as a wargamer's take on roleplaying.

I'd disagree. Maybe it was in its earliest editions, but now with 3e and 4e it is quite squarely aimed at roleplayers.

Heck, D&D is more like a wargame now than GURPS ever was.

The advanced combat system is a wargame. The basic combat system pretends to be a bone thrown to the roleplayers, but seems to be just a quick gutting of the advanced system with little thought applied. (Although, I haven't picked up 4/e yet to see how they might have improved this.)

Again, I disagree. If you want a combat system like a wargame, check out D&D now

. I don't think the GURPS combat systenm is any more like a wargame than any other simulationist system out there. Would you consider HERO's combat system to be wargamish too? Or Dream Pod 9's? Yes, they can be complex and detailed but that doesn't necessarily imply "wargame".

The chargen, however, is where you really see the wargamer trying to fit roleplaying into his paradigm. Character points & formulae &c. It's as gearheaded as building a starship.

Yet again, I disagree (three strikes, yer out!

). I can't for the life of me see anything wargamish about a point-based chargen system with a lot of options - unless you're just considering that the fact that it's point-based is kinda like picking an army or something based on a point limit? But that's a fairly broad (and consequently meaningless and diluted) definition of "wargame-ish" I think.

No matter what you think of it though or what its origins were, GURPS is still fundamentally a roleplaying system. You don't move troops around a board or allocate energies or whatever and have objectives to capture with your forces and win the game - you make characters and you pretend to be them and you have health points and skills and advantages and disadvantages and you do scenarios and make friends and kill bad guys and get XP. That's what makes it a roleplaying system

.

 

[Jame]

My suggestion for making T5 more accessible: re-do the computers. Do something along the lines of what T4 did, but do it better.

My other sugestion - less insistent than the computers one - is to take at least a few careers from MegaTraveller (e.g. pirate and doctor), to expand the choices.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Jame:
My suggestion for making T5 more accessible: re-do the computers. Do something along the lines of what T4 did, but do it better.

Perhaps leave them out of the core book completely, assuming computers are ubiquitous and more or less invisible.

Leave things like hacking and neural augmentation for a later book.

 

[aramis]

Originally posted by thrash:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Aramis:
Bottom up: Figure out how much is trade available.

I don't see how CT does this, and I assure you that I've tried. Both Book 2 and 7 tell you how much trade is available for your ship, right now, at this port -- but there's no way to extrapolate this to anything more. If you have two ships landing together, there's twice as much trade. It's dumb.
</font>[/QUOTE]No, it's relatavist. The other ship is immaterial. They aren't (normally) run by PC's; they will get what you don't.

The whole point of bottom up is YOU ARE NOT SUPOSED TO WASTE YOUR TIME TRYING TO DERIVE THE UNIVERSE FROM THE STRUCTURE OF A PEA!!! (a paraphrase of S. Hawking, BTW)

Bottom up systems are designed around the idea that: it is fast, it is fun, it is NOT a simulation. It's just enough data to keep the story moving and no more.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />And Chris, it doesn't matter one whit what you guys intended, what matters is how people are using it... most references I've seen to it support a big fleet model (because, with your numbers, a sector trade flow is generating way more than enough to support more than the MT numbers.

Big Fleets are a natural consequence of an average population of more than a billion per world, an average technology and per capita GDP greater than our own, and an industrial/total war budget model. The trade system is irrelevant, except that FT at least depicts trade as comparable to military spending under these assumptions.

To fix this and recreate the Imperium on a more modest scale, you have only to alter one or more of these assumptions. I prefer lowering population density, but David Pulver's suggestion of basing budgets on trade tariffs instead also works.
</font>[/QUOTE]Or make a different assumption set about how much of a world's product is going to be traded.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />GTFT Takes a lot of time without assistance; most of it prepwork, done once and recorded. For me, it takes too much time, and is too much work for the added realism.

Your game, your call -- not an inherent flaw in the system.

Bk2 and T20 are FUN. every other RPG trade ruleset I know of is bottom up: generate only enough data to play, and don't worry about the big picture.

My standards of verisimilitude are higher than yours, apparently. Stupidly inconsistent results are a game-killer for me, and the pure Book 2 abounds with them.

I notice you never mention Book 7. Was that no fun, either? Yet MT and TNE both based their trade systems on Book 7, not Book 2. Seems to me there is virtually no difference in play between Book 7 and FT -- FT just produces results that are consistent with the rest of the game world, because the hard work has been done beforehand.
</font>[/QUOTE]I don't mention Bk 7 simply because I don't like Bk7. I use Bk 7 from time to time. It, too, it a bottom up approach, but unless the expansion tables in MT are used, it's not useful for adding anything to the stories I tell when I run traveller.

I do know quite a few people who consider Bk7 fun as a minigame (including myself), but I do most of my minigame stuff now by playing oolite, EV Nova, or Space Trader. Again, all bottom up designs, with random (usually three state Local norm, local high, local low) variation. But a Bk7 view of the universe is far less goods and far more materials movement... counter to my take on the 3I.

And Bk7 produces more stable results only because it has far less variation on density. As in most trade-centered scifi games, money ceases to be an issue if you play it well, and value density coupled to value variability becomes paramount, which in Oolite, Space Trader, Elite, and others leads to large ships hauling illegal goods to maximize profit per unit of cargo capacity.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Malenfant:
I mean, take trade. You've got the CT model and the GTFT model. Is there room for another one?

Sure -- there's the "don't bother me with trade" trade system I wrote up for JTAS: "Cash and Carry". Make one roll, collect your money, and move on.

It's also possible to tweak the Book 2 system until it's consistent with FT economics. Oddly enough, it's not that hard. All that is required is to balance the statistically expected profit against the actual operating costs of the vessel -- similar to the way FT balanced freight rates against costs. This hybrid Book 2/FT system is what was submitted for GT: Interstellar Wars.
</font>[/QUOTE]But it wasn't done for GTFT, Chris... which is where it SHOULD have been, if it was so easy... (I eventually, by multiple rereads wrapped my brain around GTFT.)

And, Mal, the idea of a "Single Roll Trade System" isn't a bad one... provided you're not playing merchants...

some snippage

In a similar vein, I suspect that most of us are comfortable with the version of Traveller we are currently using, whatever that may be, and there's very little incentive to ever learn a new system.

Actually, for the most part, I would disagree... most of the traveller players I know (admittedly, they are an invalid sample as n is lest than 30) are constantly adjusting their "Playset" of rules, usually by pulling bits and pieces.

I myself only make one real rules "Change"; I divide by 3 instead of 5 in MT, and up the Target numbers by 1 for ballance.

Using vehicle combat and not the ship combat system, well, that's just counting spacecraft as vehicles, which they are, and ignoring the other methodology in that ruleset.

But Psionics, I rip straight from T4. Trade from T20. Contacts from TNE. Not changes, but substitutions from other canonical rulesets....

There is really a LOT of good stuff out there already. Whether MWM, Aramis, Thrash and Malenfant will ever agree on which bits from each system, each of us has found bit of the various systems we liked.

T5 can find a niche. Either by finding a balance acceptable to a wide enough chunk of the fans (Which, due to the radical differences in approach, basically means ignoring the GT crowd, and for the most part the T20 crowd), or by being different enough (as are GT and T20 are) to create a new fanbase; but to do the latter, it needs to be at right angles to prior approaches... all of them...

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by lackey:

Perhaps leave them out of the core book completely, assuming computers are ubiquitous and more or less invisible.

Lackey,

Oddly enough, that's my take on robots too.

Robots are ubiquitous and more or less invisible. It isn't a case of I'm using a computer to get my mail or I'm telling the robot to clean the apartment. It's more like I'm getting my mail and I'm cleaning the apartment.

Robots are toasters in the 57th Century.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Malenfant]

T5 can find a niche. Either by finding a balance acceptable to a wide enough chunk of the fans (Which, due to the radical differences in approach, basically means ignoring the GT crowd, and for the most part the T20 crowd), or by being different enough (as are GT and T20 are) to create a new fanbase; but to do the latter, it needs to be at right angles to prior approaches... all of them...

Maybe you should go have a look at T5. Somehow I don't think what's on the playtest so far will be finding a niche that actually exists.

Like I said, it seems Marc is on an entirely different wavelength to even the Traveller fans who have been looking forward to T5. It also seems very anachronistic, and totally out of touch with the current gaming market.

Plus, again, what is really the NEED for yet another version of the game anyway?

 

[robject]

I find myself agreeing with a lot of the recent posts here.

Using vehicle combat and not the ship combat system, well, that's just counting spacecraft as vehicles, which they are, and ignoring the other methodology in that ruleset.

But Psionics, I rip straight from T4. Trade from T20. Contacts from TNE. Not changes, but substitutions from other canonical rulesets....

Yep, I suspect that happens a lot. Gems pulled from different places.

Robots are ubiquitous and more or less invisible.

This is reasonable.

it seems Marc is on an entirely different wavelength to even the Traveller fans who have been looking forward to T5. It also seems very anachronistic, and totally out of touch with the current gaming market.

Yep. Marc drafted his ideas in isolation, and is now finding out that his playtesters don't like things about it. He's going to have to make some choices.

In fact, this argues very strongly that the only thing long-time Traveller players will agree on about T5 is "we don't like it" -- but every one will have a different reason.

Perhaps the statement that troubles me most of all. Is it a no-win situation? Or can he add enough, improve enough, fix enough, and integrate (or be compatible with) enough of the "good material", that people are more satisfied than not?

What's the likelihood that a CT player will say "this does everything that CT does for me, and more?"

What's the likelihood that an MT player will say the same?