M
Malenfant
Guest
He didn't even seem interested in talking to anyone directly on the playtest for his own damn game...
the target market
- Thread starter jackleg
- Start date
Raphael,
Check out www.farfuture.net which is his Traveller website. I think you'll find contact information there. I don't think he'll respond, though, as he keeps himself pretty busy. I'm now a few months and two issues into publishing a fanzine for Traveller and I've yet to hear back from him regarding my initial email letting him know I was creating one (as required by the Fair Use Policy).
If you don't mind me asking, why are you looking to get in touch with Mr. Miller?
Hope this helps,
Flynn
Check out www.farfuture.net which is his Traveller website. I think you'll find contact information there. I don't think he'll respond, though, as he keeps himself pretty busy. I'm now a few months and two issues into publishing a fanzine for Traveller and I've yet to hear back from him regarding my initial email letting him know I was creating one (as required by the Fair Use Policy).
If you don't mind me asking, why are you looking to get in touch with Mr. Miller?
Hope this helps,
Flynn
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
Ahhh! The return of robject!
RobertFisher
SOC-12
I don't know that anyone who is happy with GT or T20 can be convinced there's a sizeable market for T5 done the way that GT or T20 fans think it should be done to reach a sizable market.
Lord Iron Wolf
SOC-12
Slugline to kill a game:
"Traveller 5: Science Fiction Adventure in the Distant Past of the Far Future!
Am I the only one who thinks this sounds idiotic. You're telling the younger gamers that the game they have in their hands is lesser advanced than the one their fathers played in the late 70's and early to mid 80's.
No matter what you do, the future is fixed and you and your characters' actions/deaths won't count for nothing in the future history of the 3rd Imperium. That's a hell of a metaplot to try to sell a game on. When the game comes out that fact will be posted on every rpg board within 5 days-tops.
I've ranted on this before but it bears repeating: "There has to be a future civilization beyond the impact of the Virus." Continously going backwards does nothing for a Science Fiction Game--especially one derived from books that looked to the future with hope! Another simple assumption was that mankind could overcome any thing thrown his way by brains, courage and persistance (blood, sweat & tears if you prefer.) With Traveller right now Mankind is stopped or descending to the caves. Wonders are in the past and the future looks bleak. Another dark age is upon us and we are the puppets of an alien intelligence (Hivers) if we are to rise again at all.
Something is very wrong with that as an attractive background. It sounds like mankind is a backwards child who is lucky someone more wise and intelligent came along. I would not play a game with a condescending attitude like that.
Lord Iron Wolf
"Traveller 5: Science Fiction Adventure in the Distant Past of the Far Future!
Am I the only one who thinks this sounds idiotic. You're telling the younger gamers that the game they have in their hands is lesser advanced than the one their fathers played in the late 70's and early to mid 80's.
No matter what you do, the future is fixed and you and your characters' actions/deaths won't count for nothing in the future history of the 3rd Imperium. That's a hell of a metaplot to try to sell a game on. When the game comes out that fact will be posted on every rpg board within 5 days-tops.
I've ranted on this before but it bears repeating: "There has to be a future civilization beyond the impact of the Virus." Continously going backwards does nothing for a Science Fiction Game--especially one derived from books that looked to the future with hope! Another simple assumption was that mankind could overcome any thing thrown his way by brains, courage and persistance (blood, sweat & tears if you prefer.) With Traveller right now Mankind is stopped or descending to the caves. Wonders are in the past and the future looks bleak. Another dark age is upon us and we are the puppets of an alien intelligence (Hivers) if we are to rise again at all.
Something is very wrong with that as an attractive background. It sounds like mankind is a backwards child who is lucky someone more wise and intelligent came along. I would not play a game with a condescending attitude like that.
Lord Iron Wolf
M
Malenfant
Guest
TNE:1248 (or Bearers of the Flame, or whatever it ends up being called) that QLI should be releasing this year (I hope) is set in the future of TNE, and basically clears the way for a future civilisation.
Your tagline could equally be applied to T4 or T20 or GT:Interstelllar Wars though (has T5 even got a setting yet? I did hear something about it being set, for some pointless reason, about 300 years after the founding of the 3I).
But yeah, the "constantly going backwards (or staying around the CT era)" has annoyed me about Traveller. That's why I'm looking forward to TNE:1248.
Your tagline could equally be applied to T4 or T20 or GT:Interstelllar Wars though (has T5 even got a setting yet? I did hear something about it being set, for some pointless reason, about 300 years after the founding of the 3I).
But yeah, the "constantly going backwards (or staying around the CT era)" has annoyed me about Traveller. That's why I'm looking forward to TNE:1248.
I just looked over some stuff at the traveller 5 website and it looks like the target market is CT/MT players with an emphasis towards CT. The rules look like an updated rehash of CT.
Translation: it's going to be outdated when it hits shelves.
The biggest problem with Traveller has been that it has totally ignored the impact of current technologies. Part of good science fiction is to take current trends, socially and technologically, and extrapolate them into the future.
T5 is going to repeat the same mistakes in character aging, for that matter all biotech, computers, weapons, and armor.
T20 makes some of the same mistakes, but the fact that it is setting independent allows for ignoring the OTU if needed. And since T20 uses the OGL, higher tech alternatives can be easier to incorporate into the system.
Translation: it's going to be outdated when it hits shelves.
The biggest problem with Traveller has been that it has totally ignored the impact of current technologies. Part of good science fiction is to take current trends, socially and technologically, and extrapolate them into the future.
T5 is going to repeat the same mistakes in character aging, for that matter all biotech, computers, weapons, and armor.
T20 makes some of the same mistakes, but the fact that it is setting independent allows for ignoring the OTU if needed. And since T20 uses the OGL, higher tech alternatives can be easier to incorporate into the system.
M
Malenfant
Guest
That's one of the big problems, but I'd say that the biggest one is that MWM's completely ignored any developments in game design over the past 27 years. That's what is making it outdated before it even hits the shelves. T20 doesn't have that problem because it at least updates to the modern d20 system, which a lot of people use or are familiar with today.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
[puts on flame proof gold lame battle shorts]
Can you clone people in the OTU?
Can you regrow limbs, replace worn out organs, re-set aging?
Can you genetically modify humans?
Can you install enhanced prosthetics, or brain/computer interfaces?
Can you implant memories?
Can you use bio-enhancement drugs to produce super-human capabilities?
The answer by the way is yes, according to OTU canon. All of these things are possible, and some date back to CT first edition.
Where's the nanotech?
It's in the background, it is a manufacturing tool, an enabling technology.
The dividing line between nanotech and bio-tech is a fine one anyway - so see the above list and postulate some artificial nanites replacing the biological vectors used to produce those effects - although the chances are it will be some sort of fusion of bio and nano-tech. The referee can decide.
Where are the small computers in the OTU?
They are built into just about everything so that someone from a TL6 backwater world can quickly use TL15 equipment thanks to the ease of use built into the devices.
AI? Well it depends what you mean. TL12 robots and computers would be what we would consider to be AI today, true sentience comes at a much higher TL. Synthetic sentient devices may be a better term
Oh, and the latter are part of the OTU as well.
C3P0 and R2D2, are they AI?
Weapons and armour?
Bonded superdense, powered armour, grav stabilized/computer assisted man portable fusion guns, battlefield meson accelerators, black globes... what's missing?
Let the fun begin...
and I'll be deleting this post in ten minutes
Can you clone people in the OTU?
Can you regrow limbs, replace worn out organs, re-set aging?
Can you genetically modify humans?
Can you install enhanced prosthetics, or brain/computer interfaces?
Can you implant memories?
Can you use bio-enhancement drugs to produce super-human capabilities?
The answer by the way is yes, according to OTU canon. All of these things are possible, and some date back to CT first edition.
Where's the nanotech?
It's in the background, it is a manufacturing tool, an enabling technology.
The dividing line between nanotech and bio-tech is a fine one anyway - so see the above list and postulate some artificial nanites replacing the biological vectors used to produce those effects - although the chances are it will be some sort of fusion of bio and nano-tech. The referee can decide.
Where are the small computers in the OTU?
They are built into just about everything so that someone from a TL6 backwater world can quickly use TL15 equipment thanks to the ease of use built into the devices.
AI? Well it depends what you mean. TL12 robots and computers would be what we would consider to be AI today, true sentience comes at a much higher TL. Synthetic sentient devices may be a better term
Oh, and the latter are part of the OTU as well.
C3P0 and R2D2, are they AI?
Weapons and armour?
Bonded superdense, powered armour, grav stabilized/computer assisted man portable fusion guns, battlefield meson accelerators, black globes... what's missing?
Let the fun begin...
and I'll be deleting this post in ten minutes
M
Malenfant
Guest
Maybe they are all there, but I can't for the life of me recall where nanites and biotech and AI are mentioned (outside of TNE anyway). There aren't rules for them in CT are there?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Ah, but T5 gives us - well Marc - the opportunity to put all of these thing in there explicitely instead of by implication in a lot of cases (by the way I am counting GT as part of OTU where it doesn't contradict MT onward).
Biologically modified humans are mentioned as far back as Spinward Marches, thus the bio-technology is implied (helps explain the drugs, anagathics, RNA int. and edu. implants).
We do nanotech today, and AIs are part of LBB:8, although the early JTAS robot articles included many more options for synthetic beings.
Biologically modified humans are mentioned as far back as Spinward Marches, thus the bio-technology is implied (helps explain the drugs, anagathics, RNA int. and edu. implants).
We do nanotech today, and AIs are part of LBB:8, although the early JTAS robot articles included many more options for synthetic beings.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
And as an addendum, one of the thing I like about the TNE setting and the 1248 book are that a lot of these elements are included.
Perhaps the Imperium of the golden age was frightened of a lot of these technologies...
Perhaps the Imperium of the golden age was frightened of a lot of these technologies...
Well, that's kinda my point Sigg. The playtest files that I looked at on the T5 site had unassisted middle age starting at 34. In fact, the chargen doesn't look like it's changed from earlier versions.
Plus, there are tests for finding out your stats in Traveller. According to those, I have superhuman strength and dexterity and above average endurance. I haven't lifted weights in about a year, been mostly in front of a computer. If I'd been working out, my endurance would've been much higher. This tells me that the mechanic for chargen is just as broken as it has been since MT.
Plus, there are tests for finding out your stats in Traveller. According to those, I have superhuman strength and dexterity and above average endurance. I haven't lifted weights in about a year, been mostly in front of a computer. If I'd been working out, my endurance would've been much higher. This tells me that the mechanic for chargen is just as broken as it has been since MT.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I take your point, and agree
Perhaps more options are needed in character generation to bring it up to date - I've been looking at the Burning Wheel lifepath generation system (and so has Mal, I think) and wondering if something like it could be adapted.
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