M
Malenfant
Guest
Well, I wish Marc would leave it to the licensees (who have ably handled the line better than he ever could) instead of insisting on inflicting T5 on us. 
the target market
- Thread starter jackleg
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Agreed, Mal. (Geeze, Twice in one day. Yp, the world is still out there...)
There is clearly room for more rulesets.. due to the differing GNS issues, and especially rules issues, but the question becomes how many?
Should the extant lines be cleaned up, and rereleased?
There is clearly room for more rulesets.. due to the differing GNS issues, and especially rules issues, but the question becomes how many?
Should the extant lines be cleaned up, and rereleased?
P
Pickles
Guest
Agreed, for purely selfish reasons. But sourcebooks are only sold to those who already have the rules, so you give up on expanding your market. Although I'm sure GT and T20 are already doing that.
Agreed, for purely selfish reasons. But sourcebooks are only sold to those who already have the rules, so you give up on expanding your market. Although I'm sure GT and T20 are already doing that. </font>[/QUOTE]True, but I have bought source books for games, that I did not have the system for to run with the system I did have. A great sourcebook,imho, is worth more than a new system.
M
Malenfant
Guest
Agreed, for purely selfish reasons. But sourcebooks are only sold to those who already have the rules, so you give up on expanding your market. Although I'm sure GT and T20 are already doing that. </font>[/QUOTE]T5 isn't going to expand the market though (especially not with the system it has) - the same people who blindly buy Traveller just because it's Traveller will buy it. Everyone else will either buy GT or T20, or buy something non-Traveller.
I found a game store about a half-an-hour from me and on my first visit I talk to the guy working there about GT. He had a lot of good things to say about GT. After getting it and working up a short adventure, I must agree. Any way, I mentioned MT and the shuttered. You know, that kind of death passing through kind of shutter. At that point, he said it was the game that ultimately doomed GDW. I mentioned TNE and he agreed that GDW hung around a few more years, but was sent into the ever decreasing concentric circles because of how bad MT was as a ruleset.
After reviewing MT, I must agree with him again. Now, here comes T5. This baby is going to take CT and MT and update them for today. Could this lead MWM's Far Future Enterprises down the same path?
Just food for thought.
By the way, I think every observation in this thread by Malenfant is spot on.
After reviewing MT, I must agree with him again. Now, here comes T5. This baby is going to take CT and MT and update them for today. Could this lead MWM's Far Future Enterprises down the same path?
Just food for thought.
By the way, I think every observation in this thread by Malenfant is spot on.
M
Malenfant
Guest
Most people round here seem to think that MT was one of the better rulesets for Traveller.
And GDW's demise certainly wasn't caused by MT or TNE. That's been known to be true for quite a while.
So I wouldn't put too much weight on what a random guy in an FLGS says.
In our dreams, perhaps.
However, given the playtest draft, it's actually going to do exactly the opposite. The system is very out of line with what is being done in RPGs today.
This will sound horrible, but I hope it does. Ideally, SJG and QLI/Avenger should be the only companies producing Traveller. Everything else should be limited license - let SJG/QLI carry on moving the OTU forward, and hand the rest of the game over to the fans.
I wouldn't be sorry to see FFE disappear at all.
Thanks!
No, MWM should step back, and let the licensees do th work, and simply stay the hell out of the way. He's catering neither to the fans nor the non-fan potential sales bases.
He's going with a modality of tasks (assuming we don't succeed in berating him off it) that uses mechanics that have NEVER been popular: Dice by difficulty. It was one of the big flaws of TFT, and of TFFV.
He's got a skill-a-year mentality for CG. Not bad, about the most popular bit of T4... but it's tied to the task system's numbers, due to the nature of things, and is NOT well balanced.
He's got a fixation on stupidly high levels of skill. There is no mechanical benefit to a skill at 10 and an attribute 5 over skill 6 and attribute 9, since skill 6 gets you past the TIH rule.
He's got to pick from 6 broken design sequences (Bk2, Bk5, MT, TNE/FF&S/BL, FF&S2/T4, and T20), and all of them are broken in different ways. T20 is probably the most playable; no matter which he choses, he'll piss off some fans. Chosing multiples will annoy the newbs.
In any case, he's got 6 engines already in print. Engines which could, in most cases, use some consolidation and editing, but which really don't call for a new EDITION of the rules.
There's support for both a CT/T20 hybrid, and a MT revision.
He's going with a modality of tasks (assuming we don't succeed in berating him off it) that uses mechanics that have NEVER been popular: Dice by difficulty. It was one of the big flaws of TFT, and of TFFV.
He's got a skill-a-year mentality for CG. Not bad, about the most popular bit of T4... but it's tied to the task system's numbers, due to the nature of things, and is NOT well balanced.
He's got a fixation on stupidly high levels of skill. There is no mechanical benefit to a skill at 10 and an attribute 5 over skill 6 and attribute 9, since skill 6 gets you past the TIH rule.
He's got to pick from 6 broken design sequences (Bk2, Bk5, MT, TNE/FF&S/BL, FF&S2/T4, and T20), and all of them are broken in different ways. T20 is probably the most playable; no matter which he choses, he'll piss off some fans. Chosing multiples will annoy the newbs.
In any case, he's got 6 engines already in print. Engines which could, in most cases, use some consolidation and editing, but which really don't call for a new EDITION of the rules.
There's support for both a CT/T20 hybrid, and a MT revision.
M
Malenfant
Guest
Unfortunately he seems to be too stubborn (or wilfully oblivious) to realise this...
How very depressing.
I've always been quite fond of Traveller, though I had not played it for years (decades?) until T20 came out. I had planned on running a GURPs Traveller game but like all the SJG books there was/is virtually no support from the company in the form of adventures published.
The few adventures available for T20 from rpgnow.com convinced me to buy T20. While I'm not a huge fan of the D20 mechanics (hit points are STUPID) T20 addressed my biggest complaint (yea Lifeblood!) and made it easy for my group of experienced DnD players to jump into Traveller.
I hate the idea of yet another edition of Traveller. It'll pull resources that otherwise would go to producing materials for T20 into producing materials for T5, and why? Because there is a screaming need for T5? No, not at all.
I'd give anything to see T20 seriously and actively supported and revised as THE Traveller platform (nothing against GURPs, it's just not what I'm playing, heh). This broad spectrum of erratically published and poorly edited rules sets/campaign settings/adventures doesn't help Traveller.
If not for the almost fanatic following by the fans of Traveller this product would have died of natural causes long ago, imho.
I've always been quite fond of Traveller, though I had not played it for years (decades?) until T20 came out. I had planned on running a GURPs Traveller game but like all the SJG books there was/is virtually no support from the company in the form of adventures published.
The few adventures available for T20 from rpgnow.com convinced me to buy T20. While I'm not a huge fan of the D20 mechanics (hit points are STUPID) T20 addressed my biggest complaint (yea Lifeblood!) and made it easy for my group of experienced DnD players to jump into Traveller.
I hate the idea of yet another edition of Traveller. It'll pull resources that otherwise would go to producing materials for T20 into producing materials for T5, and why? Because there is a screaming need for T5? No, not at all.
I'd give anything to see T20 seriously and actively supported and revised as THE Traveller platform (nothing against GURPs, it's just not what I'm playing, heh). This broad spectrum of erratically published and poorly edited rules sets/campaign settings/adventures doesn't help Traveller.
If not for the almost fanatic following by the fans of Traveller this product would have died of natural causes long ago, imho.
Is the Traveller community a tough crowd? I really don't know, as I'm a noobnoobnoob member of that community myself.
Me, I've got what I think are high standards for any pen and paper game I invest time and money in (especially my time, at 40 years old I just don't have the sort of leisure time to waste as I did as a college age geek).
I expect a game system to be smooth. I expect good character generation rules with the ability to make a wide variety of character types. I expect combat rules that are both realistic and simple in execution. I demand a rulebook that is well edited and which as been reviewed by folks who DIDN'T write it so that glaring weaknesses in the rule system and layout of the manual can be pointed out.
I expect that the publisher won't waste my money by filling significant page count in the manual with nonsense that I could easily generate myself (Standard Design chapter of T20, for example?).
Most of all, I expect a game that is well playtested and demonstrated to work well mechanically.
And... well, I expect the game to be actively supported and nutured by it's publisher in the form of additional rules supplements, source books, and professionally written adventures.
Is that too tough a bar to clear? I really don't know. Lots of games do a good job of it (DnD 3e for example) and I pay a premium fee for their rule books and whatnot.
Me, I've got what I think are high standards for any pen and paper game I invest time and money in (especially my time, at 40 years old I just don't have the sort of leisure time to waste as I did as a college age geek).
I expect a game system to be smooth. I expect good character generation rules with the ability to make a wide variety of character types. I expect combat rules that are both realistic and simple in execution. I demand a rulebook that is well edited and which as been reviewed by folks who DIDN'T write it so that glaring weaknesses in the rule system and layout of the manual can be pointed out.
I expect that the publisher won't waste my money by filling significant page count in the manual with nonsense that I could easily generate myself (Standard Design chapter of T20, for example?).
Most of all, I expect a game that is well playtested and demonstrated to work well mechanically.
And... well, I expect the game to be actively supported and nutured by it's publisher in the form of additional rules supplements, source books, and professionally written adventures.
Is that too tough a bar to clear? I really don't know. Lots of games do a good job of it (DnD 3e for example) and I pay a premium fee for their rule books and whatnot.
M
Malenfant
Guest
Well, given you don't have the time you used to have, you'll find that such 'nonsense' is actually quite useful - it means you don't have to spend your time generating things for your adventures, you can just go straight into running them yourself.
Aside from that, I don't think your expectations are too unreasonable.
I'm hearing what sounds like panic. If you're worried about T5 then (1) give Marc your constructive criticism, if you haven't already, and/or (2) support QLI or GT, and/or (3) do something else equally constructive.
T5 is in a very, very raw stage, and the playtest has been informal to say the least. The constructive criticism has been productive so far.
There are lots of cool threads on COTI discussing various Layman Variants, or whatever you want to call them, and they've got productive information on them. Sort of like House Rules, only developed by several smart folks on COTI. Proto-Traveller. CT+. MT Revised. Etc. Contribute there.
Really, there are only three engines here -- and they're perhaps not incompatible, either. You've got the High Guard family, which includes Book 2*, MT, and T20. On the other hand, you have FFS and FFS2. I suggest that FFS could be used to create High-Guard friendly modules; however, for the sake of "in print" let's call the FFS family dead. Finally you have GT, which I assume is not usable by FFE or QLI, so let's set it aside.
That means there is one ship design system standing: T20. That's the Traveller ship design system -- from what I hear, it captures the spirit of Traveller nicely -- and I suspect T5 is going to be inter-compatible with it.
Since Marc wants to do T5, we should continue to offer our suggestions and constructive criticism, rather than freaking out from the raw material I asked him to post for playtest.
As Malenfant said, there's even gain in T5 dying a horrible death. As Aramis said, there is value gained in roping in the good material from his old systems -- CT, MT, and even T4 in my opinion -- and bringing them together. In other words, there's a narrow road, and suggestions should point toward it. Marc may listen to them or not, and his product may live or not.
* Granted, Book 2 is not High Guard; however, it is a modular view of a construction system that is most likely the immediate ancestor of High Guard. So it's not too much of a stretch to call Book 2 a simplification of High Guard.
T5 is in a very, very raw stage, and the playtest has been informal to say the least. The constructive criticism has been productive so far.
There are lots of cool threads on COTI discussing various Layman Variants, or whatever you want to call them, and they've got productive information on them. Sort of like House Rules, only developed by several smart folks on COTI. Proto-Traveller. CT+. MT Revised. Etc. Contribute there.
If they only require editing, then they're not broken. If they're broken they need to be fixed, recycled, or thrown away. But we know that HG has already been fixed.
Really, there are only three engines here -- and they're perhaps not incompatible, either. You've got the High Guard family, which includes Book 2*, MT, and T20. On the other hand, you have FFS and FFS2. I suggest that FFS could be used to create High-Guard friendly modules; however, for the sake of "in print" let's call the FFS family dead. Finally you have GT, which I assume is not usable by FFE or QLI, so let's set it aside.
That means there is one ship design system standing: T20. That's the Traveller ship design system -- from what I hear, it captures the spirit of Traveller nicely -- and I suspect T5 is going to be inter-compatible with it.
Since Marc wants to do T5, we should continue to offer our suggestions and constructive criticism, rather than freaking out from the raw material I asked him to post for playtest.
As Malenfant said, there's even gain in T5 dying a horrible death. As Aramis said, there is value gained in roping in the good material from his old systems -- CT, MT, and even T4 in my opinion -- and bringing them together. In other words, there's a narrow road, and suggestions should point toward it. Marc may listen to them or not, and his product may live or not.
* Granted, Book 2 is not High Guard; however, it is a modular view of a construction system that is most likely the immediate ancestor of High Guard. So it's not too much of a stretch to call Book 2 a simplification of High Guard.
M
Malenfant
Guest
Marc is clearly not interested in "constructive criticism" - he's Ok with it so long as it follows his "vision", but he is totally closed to any ideas beyond that. He made that very clear to me. He doesn't care that it'll bomb as a game because his vision is close-minded, outdated and anachronistic. I wasn't the only one who got that impression on the playtest board either.
I think, given all the very good arguments that many people have posted AGAINST the idea of T5, the most constructive thing that Traveller fans can do is to email Marc and tell him NOT to proceed with T5. T5 may have been a viable concept after T4 died, but now with GT and T20 around there is absolutely no need for it anymore and no purpose in the project. Problem is, Marc is too stubborn to realise that he's missed the boat. He is also too stubborn to realise that most Traveller fans just plain don't want T5 at all - they'd rather see CT+ instead if anything.
I like T20 a lot, and hope very much to see it move foward as THE Traveller platform. Really. I do.
If there was something I could do to help make it better, I'd consider it. Like everyone else my time is valuable to me, but I do like the game enough to spend some of that time to improve it, if at all possible.
Anyhow, about T5, I guess after reading 13 pages of posts about it my question really comes down to: why?
If there was something I could do to help make it better, I'd consider it. Like everyone else my time is valuable to me, but I do like the game enough to spend some of that time to improve it, if at all possible.
Anyhow, about T5, I guess after reading 13 pages of posts about it my question really comes down to: why?
M
Malenfant
Guest
I - and others - repeatedly asked that on the Playtest board. Marc wouldn't deign to respond.
It seems to me that the only reason he's doing it is because he wants to do it.
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