What area would you like to see T5 set in.

[robject]

Of course, there is material out there already that can be used with T5. MJD's book on the Third Imperium for Mongoose is reasonably rules-neutral, or enough of it is. Why not just reference it? Voila, instant setting, and both T5 and Mongoose profit. Win-win.

For that matter, his 1248 material is reasonably rules-neutral as well.

For that matter, a pile of material from GDW and FASA can be cribbed and cobbled into rules-neutral versions for several settings. Then hire a writer to cohese (is that a verb?) the parts into a readable unit.

 

[Fovean]

I'd love to see T5 walk away from the OTU completely. There is so much potential in the rules even now that to limit what a person can do with them seems... short-sighted. And since the OTU is essentially written in stone, placing a new rules set there would indeed limit what new players can do with those rules. Like T5 Scouts - how do we reconcile a Land Grant or a Discovery when everything's already been granted and discovered?

If T5 picks an area/era of the Imperium as its setting, will T8 follow suit?

And thinking about T8 (an idea I really, really love) being set in the Imperium is saddening - the Imperium's history is essentially rife with war and T8 should be about exploration and discovery, not conquest and domination.

At the very least, it would be great to see the game setting - if any - happen at a "lower level" than the Imperium... keep it far in the background and let the individual worlds take the spotlight and dictate the point-of-view. Preferably in some earlier period of history when there were still areas to be explored and things to be discovered.

Besides, you can always redo your OTU for the T5 rules if you like.

 

[Sturn]

Terran Dawn?

Terran Dawn?

(shameless re-plug)

 

[Dragoner]

From a business stand point, the rules really need a setting. This is something to be sold to new players, they will want both a setting and adventures, at least to set the tone to the milieu for their own adventures.

 

[Fovean]

From a business stand point, the rules really need a setting. This is something to be sold to new players, they will want both a setting and adventures, at least to set the tone to the milieu for their own adventures.

Fair enough. And to offer a less-than-complete setting would probably put off more people than intrigue them.

But I think the T5 rules (warts and all, we know they need some work) have the potential to be something really very different and really very cool. Every major iteration of Traveller has given us a new period of history to accompany a new rules set, T5 should be no different.

If we can't go back in time, why not go forward? What happens in 1693 'Third Imperial' reckoning? Or a few centuries later?

 

[Dragoner]

Kafka47 stating this might be MWM's last hurrah is important, any new setting would most likely add time to release. The future sounds interesting for sure, though are we speaking a vastly different tech level?

It is hard to discount the fact of the enormous amount of OTU material, which could easily be made into adventures and world books.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

The current plan AIUI:

1. T5 will be useable with any setting.

2. In order for it to be playable out of the box, a setting needs to be included. Spinward Marches 1105 is the most popular and well supported, so it makes sense to use this as the default.

3. Details on using other settings will be included.

 

[HG_B]

The current plan AIUI:

1. T5 will be useable with any setting.

2. In order for it to be playable out of the box, a setting needs to be included. Spinward Marches 1105 is the most popular and well supported, so it makes sense to use this as the default.

3. Details on using other settings will be included.

Sounds like a good way to go.

 

[BardicHeart]

My vote, if I were to get one, would be...

Make T5 setting neutral (which apparently seems to be the plan, wow... you do listen... an before I even said it... excuse me while I report Marc to the Psi Police ), able to handle all the previous settings that have gone before, whether that be the Spinward Marches, the Imperium of HardTimes, even Virus (maybe with a better explanation and handling) and Milieu 0, as well as others (like RoM if someone wanted to try that, or going further into the future to 2500 and Tech 20). To me this is the biggest challenge because the rules need to be both solid and really comprehensive across a broad range of tech levels.

As a default setting, I'd be fine with the Spinward Marches or the Core Sector at the height of the 3I. I'd really rather see some of the undeveloped areas left undeveloped specifically so individual GMs can develop them for their own TUs however they want.

As follow on publications I'd like to see source books for different Milieu settings, which is apparently what Marc intended to do with T4. I think it was a good idea that just needs better execution. Source books for Milieu 0, 200, 3I, Hard Times, 1201, RoM could all be interesting projects. I realize there's already material out there but many of us don't have it all and new players (of which technically I'm one) may not have any of it (I wouldn't if it weren't for DriveThruRPG). It would be nice to see it brought back into print, cleaned up, some new art, maybe reconcile a few conflicts here an there and I think doing so would help boost the game's popularity in the gaming market.

 

[robject]

Make T5 setting neutral (which apparently seems to be the plan, wow... you do listen... an before I even said it... excuse me while I report Marc to the Psi Police ),

...or perhaps it is you, sir, who are psychic.

able to handle all the previous settings that have gone before, whether that be the Spinward Marches, the Imperium of HardTimes, even Virus (maybe with a better explanation and handling) and Milieu 0, as well as others (like RoM if someone wanted to try that, or going further into the future to 2500 and Tech 20). To me this is the biggest challenge because the rules need to be both solid and really comprehensive across a broad range of tech levels.

You said it -- that need to comprehend the whole (is that correct usage?) was an original goal of Marc's.

 

[BardicHeart]

Nah... I'm just Irish :rofl:

Hearing that about Marc's goals makes me feel more hopeful about the project. I think the term would be "encompass the whole", but why quibble (okay I would, but I'm a writer, we're like that )

Maybe once I get up to speed on all this stuff I might be more useful in my commentary.

 

[E.D.Quibell]

My sugestion would be to have the default setting of T5 being the Spinward Marches in 1300.

Progressing the OTU with underlying metaplots going forward, small wars, changing political landsacpes etc etc.

You could support this with a number of adventures/suppliments that take these metaplots and put the PCs right at the hart of change in the OTU.

If people want to paly in 1105 there is nothing stopping them, and of course they know what is going to happen in the next 140 odd years.

YMO.

Best regards,

Ewan

 

[Dragoner]

Yes, I'm starting a T5 adventure set in 1323 TL16 right now.

 

[Whipsnade]

I'm breaking a promise I made to myself, but this is a fundamental question involving a game I dearly love...

T5 should have no setting. The biggest mistake GDW made with Traveller was increasingly snaring the rules they wrote for the game around the OTU setting.

Instead of a setting, what T5 needs is an example. You're supposed to be able to use the rules to create any number of settings, right? Well then an example of how you create a setting from the rules should be part of T5 should be part of the materials.

SJGames has done this with their various core GURPS releases for years now. You open Magic 3e or 4e, for example, and you're shown how selected parts of those rules are used to create specific settings.

T5 should follow that example. Show people how the rules can be used to create the Classic Era Marches, the IW period, the TNE period, or any other setting. Show people an example and let them create their own settings.

 

[Dragoner]

My first thoughts on no setting, is that how does one sell adventures without a setting? For what it is worth though, the setting of T5 does seem to be the OTU.

 

[aramis]

I'm breaking a promise I made to myself, but this is a fundamental question involving a game I dearly love...

T5 should have no setting. The biggest mistake GDW made with Traveller was increasingly snaring the rules they wrote for the game around the OTU setting.

The Traveller name has been strongly associated with the OTU setting since the early 1980's. So much so that Traveller:2300 generated hate mail. (See the 2300AD introduction where it explains the name change.)

I think OTU 1100-1115 is probably the most expected setting.

And an explicit setting is a good thing. GURPS and Hero are the only major systems to successfully not include one; both have implicit defaults so strong that they may as well have have written it in - GURPS is a fantasy earth circa 1400, since that's what all the default examples seem to be set in for 1E to 3E, and Hero is Champions (to the point of the core rules being released as Champions for editions 1-4, and a separate settingless core only becoming available with 4th Ed).

 

[robject]

T5 should have no setting.

Instead of a setting, what T5 needs is an example. You're supposed to be able to use the rules to create any number of settings, right? Well then an example of how you create a setting from the rules should be part of T5 should be part of the materials.

[...]

T5 should follow that example. Show people how the rules can be used to create the Classic Era Marches, the IW period, the TNE period, or any other setting. Show people an example and let them create their own settings.

Seen from the other side of the fence, some of this appears to me to be a false dilemma. T5 uses examples from the 1105 era to explain how some things are done, because most Traveller players are familiar with 1105.

But the tools are relatively milieu-agnostic. In the original books, some tools have an implicit scope, and the players use those tools to build their settings. Many of the tools in T5 have a wider scope, capable of spanning Traveller's milieux.

Wide scope, 1105 examples.

But that doesn't mean we need only have Classic 1105 Milieu examples. I'd like to see a small Ziru Sirka warship. Hmmmm...

 

[Dragoner]

Warships are nice, are we going to see a T5 Highguard?

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Warships are nice, are we going to see a T5 Highguard?

Yes

 

[Dragoner]

Yes

Sweet.