the target market

[RainOfSteel]

Well, I said my bit.

I largely agree with most of what you're saying, anyway (I just wind up saying it differently).

As I mentioned a few days ago in the T5 Playtest forums, I've been getting an itchy typing instinct to write out a point by point comparison against my own "Vision for T5 Success" post and current events so far. As I also said, I can't see what it would do other than paint a less than pretty picture, so I just avoided it.






I somehow wonder, is this some vaguely twisted echo of what happened in the Traveller fan community when TNE was announced? Is new development in the "main line" of Traveller doomed to experience negative online reaction?

 

[Malenfant]

Well, I wouldn't know what you said a few days ago there, since I got kicked off the T5 playtest for complaining about the way it was run (and after I said I wasn't going to take part in it anymore anyway). That's a great way to run a playtest, to boot off people who want to help but are totally fed up with the incompetent way it's being run. Go figure. I'm guessing things haven't improved.

Though personally, I'd suggest you paint the less than pretty picture if that's how you think it is. The more people pipe up and tell Marc that he needs to seriously rethink where T5 is going if it's going to be even remotely worthwhile, the better. I'm not entirely sure that would make him change his mind, but at least it'd be out there.

Is new development in the "main line" of Traveller doomed to experience negative online reaction?

Not really. TNE was some people complaining about the background that they didn't like. T5 is some people complaining that the system is an overcomplicated, unusable nightmare that is totally irrelevant to today's RPG market. Slight difference there.

 

[aramis]

T5 is NOT unusable. Cumbersome, basically T4.2, and not up to modern standards, yes.

Then again, I've told MWM in several surveys exactly what I want for a new traveller edition: MT rules sans errata.


And Mal, don't gripe too much... the WFRP2E Playtest had a post by a moderator (and corporate rep) complaining that the designer should not be reading the playtest boards. Also, they deleted posts which either questioned or harshly criticised the rules mechanics. (I know because I and another playtester both had posts of ours and the others we read shortly after posting, and gone by noon zulu....

Oh, and TNE had as many complaints at release time about the system as the setting... and I DO remember the flame wars.... mostly because the mechanics were not directly compatible with CT and MT, which were directly inter-compatible .

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Aramis:
[QB] T5 is NOT unusable. Cumbersome, basically T4.2, and not up to modern standards, yes.

And T4 was such a roaring success, wasn't it...

Right now we can't tell if it's unusable because there's so little of it to see. But what is there is a pain, and is not particularly encouraging.

The alien design system is extremely cumbersome. The one alien species that I rolled up to actually playtest it must have required something between 30 and 50 dicerolls to make! I sure didn't want to make another one after that until the system was made a lot more streamlined (and now I don't want to make another one at all anyway).

Then again, I've told MWM in several surveys exactly what I want for a new traveller edition: MT rules sans errata.

And I think that'd probably be a good thing - I'm sure so would a lot of other people too. I liked the MT task system, it was pretty decent and elegant.

I know Traveller fans can't agree on a lot of things, but you'd think that MWM would actually be listening to the people who have been playing his games for 25+ years when it comes to putting T5 together. But it sounds like he's been completely ignoring everything that people have been talking about. Hell, it looks like he's completely out of touch with today's gaming market.

That said, when I was kicked off the playtest, Marc was asking people to check through skill lists and how to define the task system. I thought that was mind-boggling - these are questions that the designer should be sorting out, not getting playtesters to figure out for him. That's taking it too far.

And Mal, don't gripe too much... the WFRP2E Playtest had a post by a moderator (and corporate rep) complaining that the designer should not be reading the playtest boards. Also, they deleted posts which either questioned or harshly criticised the rules mechanics. (I know because I and another playtester both had posts of ours and the others we read shortly after posting, and gone by noon zulu....

Huh, well that's just barmy. I can imagine that in a playtest you don't want to go in completely different directions to what the designer has in mind, but if the mechanics that the designer comes up with are just flat out impractical or unnecessarily obtuse (like they are in T5) then playtesters MUST be allowed to criticise them and the designer should damn well change them. That's what playtesters do!

Oh, and TNE had as many complaints at release time about the system as the setting... and I DO remember the flame wars.... mostly because the mechanics were not directly compatible with CT and MT, which were directly inter-compatible .

Well OK, I'll grant it that. But at least the mechanics there made sense, even if they were different. With T5, we're presented with a gonzo dice system that is totally counter-intuitive just for its own sake.

 

[Pickles]

Perhaps there inevitably comes a point when a designer and his system go their seperate ways, when the players' version no longer has anything in common with the designer's evolving (mutating?) vision.

Gygax <> AD&D, Stafford <> Runequest ... Miller <> Traveller?

 

[Jeffr0]

Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
I will go ahead and post another reference to my "Vision for T5 Success."

See: *Another* System?: Post 000072

"Continuity Break: A clear and cognizant explanation of all continuity error solutions and rules decisions, with all whys and wherefores, and links to the online posts for and against and what the eventual decisions were. This will help all existing fans understand what happened to produce the T5 setting. It will contain the complete summary of the developer's blog and the online monthly formal reports on the game's progress."

That's one thing I hated about GT. GT was my first exposure to Traveller and I turned my brain inside out trying to understand Jump Masking-- how it worked and what the tactical and strategic consequences of it were. I got so exasperated... and then I find out that it isn't necessarily Traveller. That was the first of many rude awakenings...

Whatever happens... decent designers notes are essential. There's all kinds of stuff in GT that I look at and think... why did they make it work that way? Sometimes it was changed just to make Traveller fit in with GURPS (ie Missiles...) other times things were changed for plain old common sense reasons. Other changes were made in order to shift the focus away from wargaming to roleplaying. Other changes were made to reconcile conflicting canon.

(Wah. You'd have to be crazy to try to sell stuff to hard core Traveller fans. It's just such a huge thing.)

Anyways. Developers Notes = Good. Tuck 'em into the web site somewhere. Developer's Blog is good, too. Though I don't expect the Traveller community to treat Marc Miller as good as the SFB community treats Steve Cole.... Might not be a good idea to make Marc accessible.

Speaking of Steve Cole.... Whenever someone starts hashing out a really dumb idea for his games, he ends up wandering into the thread and mumbling, "this way lies madness."

Nobody seems to do this job in the Traveller world as far as I can tell...

 

[Malenfant]

I know that GURPS books usually have extensive designers notes associated with them (though they might be tucked away on JTAS or Pyramid).

Personally, I think MWM is irrationally hero-worshipped by Traveller fans. As far as I can see, he simply isn't a good game designer (I thought this before T5 came out, but that just cemented the thought). Maybe I'm way out in left-field here, but IMO a "good game designer" is someone who not only understands probabilities but also understands how to make an internally consistent system that does the job and present it in a way that is as uncomplicated and elegant as possible. Personally, I can see this in some elements of CT, but I do not see this in T5.

IMO, he's kinda like George Lucas. He did something good back in the 70s, but anything he does now can't come close to that and actually isn't all that great.

It's clear from the playtest that he also isn't interested in being "accessible" (and how many times have you seen him chip in on a discussion here?).

My perception is that he's done sod-all in practise for Traveller since MT came out - while other people have taken his game and turned them into something relevant in the RPG market (i.e. TNE, GURPS Traveller and T20), all he's done is photocopy his old CT books and re-released them.

This is what amazes me, he's supposedly been working on T5 for years, and yet when the playtest starts and presents the opportunity to show us what he's been up to, it turns out that all he's done that's remotely usable is a half-written, over-complicated alien generation chapter? He hasn't even got a task system or character generation sorted out? What the hell has he been doing all this time???!

Don't get me wrong, I'd love it if Marc took a more active, dynamic (and open-minded) role in the Traveller community, instead of just ignoring everyone as he seems to have done. There are many, many questions about inconsistencies in the background and many aspects of the existing game that need to be resolved and that could have done with his input. However, I do not think that T5 would do anything to resolve them, and in fact would only make those issues worse by releasing another game that has different assumptions from previous versions.

 

[Jeffr0]

Oh dear.

Look... if he was a George Lucas he'd have released "improved" versions of CT instead of copies.

"The Complete Games" Everytime I thumb through it I still get chills. Whatta book!

But really.... For me... in space gaming... there's just three names: Steve Cole, Steve Jackson, and Marc Miller. If you could combine Cole's consistency and fastidiousness with Jackson's playability and Miller's scope, then you'd have one heck of a game designer....

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:
If you could combine Cole's consistency and fastidiousness with Jackson's playability and Miller's scope, then you'd have one heck of a game designer....

Hmm...

Mad scientist wanted. Cloning and genetic manipulation expertise required.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:
Look... if he was a George Lucas he'd have released "improved" versions of CT instead of copies.

Good point

.

But then, that could have been better than releasing CT reprints that serve only to pull people away from GT and T20.

But really.... For me... in space gaming... there's just three names: Steve Cole, Steve Jackson, and Marc Miller. If you could combine Cole's consistency and fastidiousness with Jackson's playability and Miller's scope, then you'd have one heck of a game designer.... [/qb]

Well, all I know about SFB is that it took me about 4 hours to do one turn when I used to play it years ago. But then I never was a war-gamer

.

Steve Jackson? Well, I don't like the guy personally, but the GURPS 3e products at least are well written and well produced and well edited and professionally produced to a high standard (even if they can't stick to schedules to save their lives). But then, most GURPS books are written by other people, not by SJ. IIRC, even GURPS4e was written mostly by David Pulver and Sean Punch (Dr Kromm). I've seen little evidence that SJ himself is still a good writer of RPGs though.

Marc Miller? Sorry, I'm not seeing it. What is this "scope" of which you speak? Anyone can throw together a big multi-polity Charted Space, and can probably do it a lot more consistency than MWM has.

 

[Jeffr0]

Best and/or most Definitive Traveller Product of all time?

I'd say Books 1-3 and Twilight's Peak. Maybe add in another 'book' or 'supplement' or two. (I'll tell you which ones after I get 'em.) It's a little rough around the edges, but like the Millenium Falcon, it's got it where it counts.

Does it get any better than that?


Oh... and Mal... do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Ogre/G.E.V.

 

[Malenfant]

Oh... and Mal... do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Ogre/G.E.V.

Oh, I already have a copy. I'm not impressed with it (not least because it's full of bloody small cardboard counters that get lost easily). The rules aren't really that inspiring either IMO.

Plus, this is a very old game. I'm not interested in what designers came up with decades ago, I rate them based on what they can come up with now.

 

[Jeffr0]

Excellent!

Our gaming "value systems" are sufficiently different that I may end up enjoying T5 a lot more than you might have led me to believe.

 

[Malenfant]

Well, if you like games that use unecessarily complex dice systems and that require you to break your wrist rolling dice, then have a ball

But more seriously, there's a lot of stuff in the MWM's 'vision for T5' document that has a lot of people scratching their heads. There are some truly bizarre, totally impractical ideas in there - and they have absolutely nothing to do with what any fans want to see in a T5. That is a much bigger problem, I think - that Marc's vision for the game is severely divergent from those of its fans.

 

[Jeffr0]

Well...

I rolled up a CT character last night. The first two died. (The second was a killer scout that had kewl attributes, too! Grr....)

It was flat out fun, too.

Come on Mal. Lighten up. Have you seen the binders? The whole neo-classical look? It rocks man! It's T5. Written by Marc Miller.

Ooo. If it comes in a binder I can slip my houserules into it and nobody will know the difference....

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:
[QB]I rolled up a CT character last night. The first two died. (The second was a killer scout that had kewl attributes, too! Grr....)

It was flat out fun, too.

If you like wasting your time rolling up characters that are cripples or die halfway, I'm sure it is.

I however prefer to just make the character I want and get stuck into the game in a little time and with as little frustration as possible.

Come on Mal. Lighten up. Have you seen the binders? The whole neo-classical look? It rocks man! It's T5. Written by Marc Miller.

Well, the binders are just an idea. Frankly, I'd laugh it out of the gaming store and I'm sure a lot of game store owners wouldn't want to stock an awkwardly sized and shaped package like that - hell they don't even like stocking half-sized books much either.

I mean for cryin' out loud, we're in the 21st century here. Gaming has gone far beyond sheets in binders (that can easily get torn or damaged or lost, as well). We don't even have box sets anymore, really. Get with the beat, people!

And so what if it's "T5 by Marc Miller"? I don't care if it's D&D4e by Gary Gygax, if it's crap, it's still crap.

The question remains: what will T5 bring to the market that hasn't already been done by T20 or GT or any other form of Traveller? And the answer, it seems, is yet another tweaked version of the game rules to confuse people, a whole bunch of unnecessarily overcomplicated, pointless rules, and possibly a setting that nobody would want to play in because it's so different from what Traveller is today.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Binders are good for things that need reproducing, though. But, Mal, you are right - they are kind of pre-laptop. How about an included CD that has the "reproducible" parts on it in a couple of formats, like PDF?

 

[Malenfant]

How about just a straight, normal RPG book a la Gateway Domain or T20?

 

[far-trader]

"Bound printing? How quaint."

 

[Michael Taylor]

Quote from Mal: "How about just a straight, normal RPG book a la Gateway Domain or T20?"

Hear hear. It's the ONLY way to go!