What do you HATE about CT?

[signless]

Actually, I was one of those who DID use Traveller for cross-genre gaming - the simple d6 and chargen rules were easily adaptable for practically everything. My group and I were constantly haunting game shops for indie sci-fi/sci-fan material, and whatever we stumbled across eventually ended up as part of our shared TU. Once we started playing Traveller, everything else seemed to be far too constrained.
The only thing I disliked was the way Traveller evolved into something constrained itself - by developing its own canonical history.

 

[RandyT0001]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
The tenacity of a game's fans is not a sign of how good a system is. It's just a sign of how obsessive the fans are .

IMO how obsessive game fans are about a system is a reflection on how good a game is, at least to those fans that like it.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
So there's very few systems other than the ones that are really big that you're choosing to ignore?

D20 has an enormous following. As does Exalted. And the World of Darkness games. And GURPS. And HERO. Your statement is inaccurate, to say the least.

I was trying to refer to and compare fan loyalty of those games from the same time frame of the late 70's and early 80's and not to today's fan base of more current game systems. I should have been more precise.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
So, if we take a Model T Ford, strip the chassis and put a new one in, upgrade the engine, install comfortable seats, rebuild the suspension, and beef up the transmission we'll have something that will be competetive on the market today!"

Just might within the next decade if it gets good gas mileage and the price of gas keeps going up (and it will.)

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Randy Tyler:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Malenfant:
The tenacity of a game's fans is not a sign of how good a system is. It's just a sign of how obsessive the fans are .

IMO how obsessive game fans are about a system is a reflection on how good a game is, at least to those fans that like it. </font>[/QUOTE]Well that's the thing, it's entirely subjective - but the obsessives' point of view isn't any more valid than that of someone outside it. In fact, one can argue that it's LESS valid since they don't see the big picture - they just see the good parts and gloss over the bad.

 

[clementk]

I'm pretty sure you can still at least edit the original post if not the title...

As is it’s what you hate, not what wasn’t so bad about CT at the time compared to other game systems or what you like or love about it.

Originally posted by Murph:
Ok, its nit-pick time, what do you HATE about Classic Traveller?

Off the top of my head coming off a sugar/starch high:

(Revised list of picked nits)

No Advanced or Rules Cyclopedia version. There never was anything like AD&D <- OD&D or Rules Cyclopedia <- BECMI with Classic Traveller. The Traveller Book is just a compilation of the basics, not a collation of the best extant material with options into one or a series of comprehensive rulebooks. MT added in too many new systems or changed too much and put in a default setting in the core book that also dramatically changed the setting material that had come before it. It also eliminated several options while making the game general more difficult or complex to play and use. Unlike AD&D and OD&D MT is generally harder to use to play CT, usually requiring whole sub-systems to be used as there’s that much difference.

On a related note: Sure CT does this, but you need 3 books and 2 JTAS articles and a FASA magazine to do it.

Another related note: House-rule syndrome. I doubt anyone plays CT BtB anymore except as a lark or just starting out. Like OD&D that makes for a custom feel of play but it makes common ground fleeting as campaigns drift from each other.

Lack of vehicle integration with personal or ship combat. Sure I can wing it but that can always be done and doesn’t require CT to do.

Combat matrixes. A few are ok for a board wargame. Oddly, Snapshot’s tables, which use base to hit numbers and not modifiers, work better for me than base CT tables. So I think the large number of modifiers presented over several pages bothers me as much as the finicky detail.

Locked in assumptions about Technology development, robotics, AI, biotech, etc. and about the types of communication, FTL, and interstellar governments. In other words little room built in if you wanted to do something that wasn’t similar to the OTU. Again you can tweak it, but I can make Adventure! run just about anything if I squint hard and long enough. Generic it may be (at least initially) but a generic sci-fi toolkit it’s not.

No support for alien sentient species either as NPCs or PCs in the core rules. Little support for creating new ones in other books.

Tasks aren’t just roll an 8+. I’ve heard CT described as the simplest skill-based rules out there. I don’t buy it. I can make an on the fly target number in any system. Even AD&D makes more sense than Traveller pre-UTP.

So I put the tape in, adjust the vector, and OH SHI- there’s no armor!. Ship combat. Cool but that was a bit too wargamey even back then and it doesn’t allow for any ship armor and little room for PC action.

A focus on real world detail and statistics. Admirable and in some ways desirable for a game like this, but it soon went into a downward spiral and became the default over time, arguably to the determent of gameplay, especially out of the box.

Evil Loonie Solomani from the Alien Module. I prefer the writeups in the Rim supplement, Rim of Fire, or best of all GT:ISW where they aren't Loonie at all.

Evil Loonie K'Kree from the Alien Module. I prefer the writeup in JTAS, GT : Alien Races, or freshly grilled with extra Hiver Joe Hot Sauce on the side.

- from Bill Coffin

 

[aramis]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />"Thread Crapping" occurs when a person comes into a thread and posts something contrary to the intent of the thread, often derailing the discussion or turning it into an argument.

It seems to me that you're the one that's thread-crapping here, BGG... </font>[/QUOTE]Malenfant, Please BEHAVE. You griped, they countergriped. Please let it drop. You've a lot of good knowledge to share, there is no need to be a jerk.

I may disagree with the "Nothing" answer, but I do feel it has its place.

As for me, CT always felt "Half Finished."

I don't like Bk 1 combat.
I don't like advanced CG.
I don't like Bk 5 combat; I'm no fan of critical-hit centered systems.
I don't like Bk 2 ship design.
I don't like having to fake an interface between Striker and CT.
I don't like the lack of a task system.

MT solved many of these for me.

 

[mike wightman]

Two things:

having to look up each skill to find out how to apply it (we gave up on this and defaulted to roll 8+ or roll 12+),

the condradictions between books.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Malenfant, Please BEHAVE. You griped, they countergriped. Please let it drop. You've a lot of good knowledge to share, there is no need to be a jerk.

I've let it drop. Don't try to start it up again.

I'm also not the one who was actually hysterical enough to start a thread specifically to goad me out while continuing to hurl insults about my intelligence, education, and behaviour (which I will not lower myself to respond to)... yet funnily enough, I don't see you telling BGG to "behave" when he does that, and you don't seem to be calling him a "jerk" for it either.

Double-standards, much?

I may disagree with the "Nothing" answer, but I do feel it has its place.

Sure it does. That place just isn't here.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Ok, its nit-pick time, what do you HATE about Classic Traveller?--Murph

Well...
honestly, 'Out of the box' it was a little dry, like uncooked oatmeal. Until those first couple of adventures came out, my former roomate at college lost sleep rolling up ships and characters. Admittedly, I got to guinea-pig all the designs, and learned starship combat while losing MY sleep!

The computer sizes-yes, ridiculous (murph's argument-agreed!)

The game rulebook searching on checks. Losing game time hunting the answers.(Sigg's complaint--agreed!)

The arguments...Ed & the frelling RULES vs. what we knew to be scientific FACT already. I don't miss those one iota. Nope.

Kinda reminds me of here & now actually.

 

[Berg]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
CT may have been an gaming marvel for its time, but it's not remotely appealing to the current RPG market nowadays

Actually one aspect is making a resurgence as of late... rules lite systems

People are finding even 3.5 is having rules bloat, and so out comes True 20 and others (for fantasy, I like Castles and Crusades

).

Even Flynn is going to make a lite version of his UCS system

What do I hate...

Just some of the inconsistencies, but I can houserule and that's what these forums are for...

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Berg:
Actually one aspect is making a resurgence as of late... rules lite systems

People are finding even 3.5 is having rules bloat, and so out comes True 20 and others (for fantasy, I like Castles and Crusades

).

Even Flynn is going to make a lite version of his UCS system

See I'm not sure I'd call CT as published rules lite in the current sense, nor would I really call True 20 rules lite. CT as published isn't near as streamlined/unified as it could be (UTP + AHL/Striker combat + Starter Traveller space combat - a bunch of stuff and a lot of situational and detailed exceptions, modifiers, and spot rules even ignoring the advanced systems). True20 is lighter than full bore D&D 3.x but it's still level/class based with skills & feats. True 20's ancestor Mutants & Masterminds is lighter IMO.

UCS Lite sounds instead more like a GURPS Lite freebie intro to the game, which may or may not be "rules lite" by itself.

C&C, even with its throwbacks to before TETSNBN, is more streamlined and unified than those editions while also not having a skill system (it has a task system but no skills) or feats and few spot rules and modifiers.

 

[Golan2072]

The two main problems of CT are, IMHO:

1) Technological backwardness and/or conservatism (computers are OK by 1977 standards, but the limits on gengineering, AIs and cybertech are pretty stiff).

2) The lack of a task sytem, leading to very confused action-resolution rules; the one-page UGM solves this.

 

[Ptah]

Hate? Not much. Hate is such a strong word as there is little I'd flat out refuse to use EXCEPT LBB2 vector combat with ruler and lines. I'm embaressed to admit it, being one for complex wargames, but it slowed starship combat down way too much for my taste. Also, it is a test of the players ability to plot vector movement (which may also be it's strength) but in a RPG where my character has skills, it annoys me that a Pilot-5 would consitently oveshoot the target etc. But hey, what I love about Traveller is you can change this to range bands very, very, easily.

For its time (and I think that this is very important to remember) CT was IMHO the best laid out RPG on the market (not that there were many). The technology inconsistencies were not inconsistent with 1977 knowledge so I really can't fault CT for that. Of all the games from the dawn of RPGs I'd say CT and TFT were those I had the least to dislike and were the most internally consistent. It may also help that the respective companies didn't take it upon themselves to snidely disparage other games or those who would question certain game mechanics. Ahhhhh but this is turning into why I love Traveller .

I also never bought many of the setting aspects, but that I divorce from the game system itself, especially since CT was very good in the beginning with keeping the two separate.

 

[Malenfant]

You know, I don't think I actually hate CT itself... I hate the CT Reprints.

Before the reprints came out CT was just some forgotten old game that had had its day in the sun, replaced by more relevant and better designed editions. When the reprints came out though, it brought this antiquated 1970s game back into the modern arena where it didn't belong and really had no place. But since it's here now, the context has changed and that means I'm going to compare and contrast it to other games that are around today instead of what was around in 1977. And in that respect, it's sorely lacking compared to what else is on the market now that it is in direct competition with.

Also, the reprints were produced with pretty much no effort or thought at all. They were produced in an awkward landscape format, were quite obviously all the books photocopied and slapped together, and didn't even get new page numbers and an index and table of contents so that one could easily find things in the collected volumes. In this age of glossy hardbacks and good layout and design, they are a glaring anachronism.

 

[Whipsnade]

What did I hate about CT? Interesting question...

I really can't complain about the various nuts and bolts like chargen, sysgen, computers, no nano and/or bio tech. CT is from 1978. Holding it to 1986, 1996, or 2006 standards is just plain silly. Might as well complain that your cassette deck isn't as good as your iPod.

When I got it in 1978 and compared to 'all' the other choices then available; D&D, En Garde, Tunnels & Trolls(?), and the tiny RPG rules in Chainmail, Traveller was breathtaking. If it doesn't look so shiny thirty years later it's just like everything else.

So what did I hate? Three things off the top of my pointy head:

- No vehicle construction rules aside from Striker. Ditto vehicle combat. I either could either use the few vehicles from the LBBs or 'JTAS' articles along with a very few rules OR I could use the uber-detailed, uber-time consuming designs and rules from Striker. Nothing in between either extreme and I hated that.

- This one sort of ties in with the vehicles above, but I consider it separate. Robots. No science fiction RPG should wait eight years to give me basic robot rules. And suggesting that I should rework the few examples in A2:RSG doesn't count.

- My biggest peeve and the one that has grown over the years. GDW failed to separate the official setting from the rules. That never should have happened.

We all know the progression; the First Three LBBs don't even mention the Third Imperium, LBB:4 drops a few hints, and by LBB:5 the rules and the setting are so snarled around each other that it is next to impossible to separate the two.

Maybe it's because I was a wargamer first. I was used to basic rules, advanced rules, scenarios using their own specific rules, and all that. Traveller was originally setting free and the official setting should have remained separate from the game's rules. It wouldn't have required separate books, separate sections naturally but not separate books.

And that's what I hated about CT.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
When the reprints came out though, it brought this antiquated 1970s game back into the modern arena where it didn't belong and really had no place. But since it's here now, the context has changed and that means I'm going to compare and contrast it to other games that are around today instead of what was around in 1977. And in that respect, it's sorely lacking compared to what else is on the market now that it is in direct competition with.

Minor nitpick here - the reprints are of the 1981 revised version, and not the original 1977 version

Likewise, first edition High Guard is missing from the reprints.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Robots. No science fiction RPG should wait eight years to give me basic robot rules. And suggesting that I should rework the few examples in A2:RSG doesn't count.

What if I say use the rules in JTAS 2&3

(abridged version in best of JTAS 1)

- My biggest peeve and the one that has grown over the years. GDW failed to separate the official setting from the rules. That never should have happened.

I couldn't agree more.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Minor nitpick here - the reprints are of the 1981 revised version, and not the original 1977 version

[/QB]

Well, they're still old

 

[DaveChase]

Every game world is only as good an the gamemaster/refree and the players whom wish to believe in that world as run by that gamemaster.

No matter what what system you use, if you hate being a refree or the parts of the game, your players will hate it also or not play.

Now, game systems are not flawless, you just have to convince players that they want to play that game.

In 1980 there were almost no SciFi games (as compared today's market). The few that were out there were not complete enough for all the college kids that I played with besides most said they were not interested in 'X' type theme but would play in a 'A,B,C,Y' theme system. So what do you do.

I created my own world/theme. Each player and I sat down for 3 hours and created their character, no chargen charts just what they wanted to play if they could choose. (No I did not allow people to play 'gods')
Then I designed ships (acually drew ships), bought lots of different scifi magazines (HeavyMetal, Epic and many different art books), and then would not tell any of the players any of the gearhead stuff of the designs/mechanics of the universe. If they played a gearhead character they only knew about their speciality and unless there was another gearhead character with the same speciality(which there never was, imagine that) they would never have to worry about the details.
(Because D&D was the most popular game around at the time, we used their character stats to keep it easier).

3 weeks after starting up this type of game play I had over 100 players trying to get involved. I ran once a week and had to put a limit to 20 people attending a game session ( could not keep everyone involved beyond that).
3 rules to play in the room
1. Unless you were talking directly to me, everything that you said was in character
2. If you and another group of characters(PC) wanted to discuss with out having X other listen you had to inform me so that I could insure that was played out
3. In the world things happen just like real life or you can make things happen, just like real life. SO, if you were not doing that which you wante, whose fault is it, yours. Ie. If you wanted to go buy something your character had to go and buy it, you could not just write down the item and subtract the cost from your sheet.

(Stepping down from soap box)

Every game has issues good and bad and ugly

You as the refree/player make or break the gameplay of the system.

Dave Chase

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:

What if I say use the rules in JTAS 2&3

Sigg,

If they had been available to me I would have used them. They weren't available to me however. I didn't even know they existed until years after their publication. A list of JTAS articles tipped me off.

We're looking at 1978-1987(1) through 2006 glasses again. Sales, marketing, and production have changed out of recognition. Leaving aside buying, even learning about which games and game products were available was very hard.

Thanks to ads in AH's The General, I knew of one actual FLGS in that period; The Compleat Strategist. It was and is in New York City. It wasn't exactly handy to get to.

I usually bought wargames in a chain toy store in a mall whose manager just happened to 1) be a wargamer and B) be allowed enough discretion by the home office to stock such items. He carried AH, SPI, magazines, some mini rules, and some of the RPGs. Sadly, he didn't stock JTAS. He knew about it, he didn't stock it and he knew no one who did.

I often bought games through the mail. AH and SPI had large mail order sales with order forms printed right in their magazines. Without access to JTAS or a GDW catalog, if such a thing existed in 1978-1980, I had no way of knowing what GDW was offering and no way of getting it if I did.

I saw my first issue of JTAS outside the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in 1981. I had been playing Traveller for three years by then. It was #7, the Champa starport issue. After that, I owned several issues, including the on 'Best of..." and saw several more. My collection of Challenges was far more extensive.

Putting basic rules, like those concerning robots, in a magazine with very limited circulation instead of on a rules book that stores would be more likely to stock was a mistake. Too many people never saw them. I never saw them until after I had LBB:8 and MT was out by then.

In 2006 with PayPal, 800 numbers, eBay, print-on-demand, .pdfs, DRMs, websites, downloads, FedEx, and all the rest, we forget what is was like trying to get hobby materials in the 1970s and 1980s.


Have fun,
Bill

1 - I picked 1987 out of thin air. It was the year I was discharged. I found it much easier to find games and gaming materials then. There were FLGS everywhere it seemed. A great change had occurred.

 

[Spinward Scout]

DaveChase, would you mind posting your ideas on GMing someplace? That sounded cool.