Ah ... Babylon 5 is a Mongoose Traveller universe now ...
What is Traveller?
- Thread starter Colin
- Start date
Classic Traveller had rules that allowed the character with Trader skill to 'know' half of the price die rolls for a sale BEFORE the ship jumped (exactly as you suggest, a guess at where the market will be in a week). By the way, what will the price of oil be next week? Feel free to call anybody in the world that you might know?
From a meta-game standpoint, instantaneous communications will have one of two impacts:
Option 1: one interplanetary market where the price THERE is the same as the price HERE.
Option 2: some meta-game force causes local prices to be different and unpredictable.
Either option leaves the trade rules intact.
A third option (Create new trade rules for whatever reason tickles your fancy) exists with or without FTL communication.
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
I have no clue what all the proper terminology should be but based on the book title: Universe of Babylon 5, I'm not sure if calling it a Traveller universe is correct.Ah ... Babylon 5 is a Mongoose Traveller universe now ...
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
Option 1: If nothing else, wouldn't a product produced at location THERE cost more at location HERE due to transportation costs?
Option 2: forces such as government regulations, local 'trade codes' ~ local supply and demand, local union strikes, local civil war, and so on?
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Just take a look at the text on the back cover:
"To use this supplement, a referee will require the Traveller core rules."
So it is obviously a Mongoose Traveller supplement, and a universe described
in a Traveller supplement can hardly be anything else but a Traveller universe,
I think.
However, since there are now three official Traveller universes (Babylon 5, Ham-
mer's Slammers, Third Imperium), it is obviously not the Traveller universe -
I think the times where one could write of the Traveller universe are over.
Ah ... Babylon 5 is a Mongoose Traveller universe now ...
Yes, but it would still be changed if the status of FTJ commo was changed, wouldn't it? The presence or lack of it would still make a large difference.
Jason,
No. I. Am. Not. Understand?
What I'm doing is trying - and failing - to explain to you that the TEXT and the RULES are the same damn thing. They're two parts of a whole, two complimentary aspects of the same theme. Each supports the other, one does not exist without the other, one cannot exist without the other.
Good Sweet Strephon, of course not! The text is a type of rules and the rules are a type of text. They're parts of the same thing.
In your reductionist fervor, you've parsed the question to such a point where you've completely lost the context. It's as if you're examining mitochondria while forgetting that they belongs to the animal you're actually supposed to be examining.
Let's me try again to explain this to you and use LBB:1 gun combat as an example. I used and modified LBB:1 gun combat in my 1930s Pulp - Chaco War setting. How did I modify LBB:1 gun combat? I removed the specific rules dealing with guns and other equipment that were invented after 1930. I also removed the specific text that placed the guns and other equipment within the Traveller science-fiction setting.
That means when I used the modified LBB:1 gun combat rules and equipment descriptions I wasn't using Traveller and I wasn't using Traveller because I'd modified both the rules and the text.
Stepping out of the game here, I'm beginning to suspect that your continued questions in the face of repeated explanations by several people mask a certain motive. When we in this thread stated that settings with FTL comms such as B5 and Slammers cannot be thought of as Traveller, you suddenly appeared asking about what specific rules depend on the presumption of no FTL comms.
Apparently, what you're trying to accomplish here is to develop some excuse that will bolster Mongoose's claims that Traveller was/is a generic sci-fi rules set and then use that excuse to "prove" that B5 or Slammers are Traveller settings rather than just being settings powered by Traveller.
Traveller was never a generic sci-fi rules set. The quotes from LBB:1 and the technological constraints prove that beyond a doubt, leaving only those who wish to quibble. Traveller, indeed any RPG, is a mixture of descriptive text and specific rules. Rules can migrate from one game to another and descriptions can be shared between game too, but when the both are combined the result is a specific game that is constrained to a specific setting or range of settings.
Let me repeat that because it's point we've all been trying to explain to you: A game's setting or range of settings is constrained by both the text and the rules. Each are of equal importance, each cannot exist without the other.
No FTL Comms is a fundamental aspect of Traveller and any setting that contains FTL comms may be using other parts of Traveller as my Pulp - Chaco War setting does, but that setting isn't Traveller.
Regards,
Bill
Yep, agreed.
Sorry, but to use a definition that directly contradicts the definition of the
publisher of the game, and that will contradict the definitions of the players
who play other versions of Traveller than the Third Imperium, is confusing
in the short run and self-defeating in the long run.
And if someone bought a basset hound and insisted it was a fox, would the fact that he owned the critter prove that he was right?Ah ... Babylon 5 is a Mongoose Traveller universe now ...
Hans
That has to be wrong for a start. If the book gives a decent description of the Babylon 5 universe, I can't imagine not being able to use it to run a campaign using Basic Roleplaying or GURPS or Heltesagaerne (my own house rules) for the mechanics.
Hans
If he owned the dog breeding association that decided upon the definition
of a fox and if this association would change the official definition of a fox
accordingly, bad luck.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Assuming this statement is accurate...so what?
You can add lightsabers to Traveller as well, with no more additions than you've noted. (For CT, make it Cutlass +4). And you don't have to ignore explicit text in the rules.
So what? Does that make the case that plausible weaponry is somehow not a fundamental Traveller assumption? Does the fact that you can add lightsabers somehow make the case that lightsabers are a fundamental Traveller assumption?
Or does it merely highlight the fact that Traveller rules can often be easily changed (something I've certainly never disputed)?
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And of the two, the text is more important than the rules. You can change the rules without changing the text, but if you change the text, you usually have to change the rules to conform.
Hans
cyberknight
SOC-5
This long time Traveller player (1978) doesn't see what the controversy is even about. The OTU, then led to MT and the rebellion, followed by NE with the anarchy followed by T4 which I can only describe as and updated and retconned OTU.
Then there were the indivividual permutations of the very loose OTU in which one player became the chief advisor to the Emperor who was then assasinated by another and that negated the "canon" of the OTU anyway. I played Traveller campaigns based on Star Wars and the Marines from the movie "Aliens". IOW, all the versions of traveller had GMs who flavored their campaigns into something different from what others might consider original intent.
It seems to me that if one wants to have Mongoose preseve the OTU then a sharp GM should be able to do so easily enough.
Then there were the indivividual permutations of the very loose OTU in which one player became the chief advisor to the Emperor who was then assasinated by another and that negated the "canon" of the OTU anyway. I played Traveller campaigns based on Star Wars and the Marines from the movie "Aliens". IOW, all the versions of traveller had GMs who flavored their campaigns into something different from what others might consider original intent.
It seems to me that if one wants to have Mongoose preseve the OTU then a sharp GM should be able to do so easily enough.
You obviously do see there is a difference between prose descriptions and "raw game mechanic"-style rules. I'm not arguing here that you can have a game without one or the other, merely that they are in fact distinct. They serve different functions and have different applicability to an actual table-side gaming session.
My contention has been that "no FTJ communication" is indeed in the text but not so much in the rules. Atpollard understands my point.
I suppose you are free to believe whatever you want, no matter how outlandish or baseless.
I quite agree with you. I think I already mentioned that.
My point was simply that the "no FTJ communications" restriction is not as fundamental to the Traveller rules as everyone seems to assume, though it is fundamental to the OTU.
Sorry, but to use a definition that directly contradicts the definition of the
publisher of the game, and that will contradict the definitions of the players
who play other versions of Traveller than the Third Imperium, is confusing
in the short run and self-defeating in the long run.
Actually, in the case of Mongoose, for most of their settings, the definition is NOT theirs to make; the publisher is NOT the authority, the IP owner is.
For Glorantha, the definition is Greg Stafford's, not Mongooses.
For Traveller, it's Marc Miller. Marc's not contradicting them, nor is he openly endorsing their "Traveller is JUST a ruleset" mode.
For Judge Dredd, it's Rebellion; now that they a part of Rebellion,they are closer.
For Conan, it's the Howard Estate.
For Babylon 5, it is Babylonian Productions.
In all cases, the IP owner agrees to let them do a certain amount of deciding. Without reading the exact contracts, we can't know the exact details.
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tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Then perhaps you can tell us *why* this argument that you're flogging with such enthusiasm matters...
For some reason, you're stretching awfully hard to press an argument that most of us do not find convincing (and that requires a very dubious downgrading of plain statements in the first paragraph of the Traveller rules). Why?
I believe that you stated that you agreed that a lack of FTL communications was an underlying assumption of both Traveller and the OTU, just not of the rules (or more accurately, the carefully selected subset of material that you contend constitutes the "rules").
Because I find making an argument to be entertaining. What else are internet forums for?
I seem to have convinced at least one person that I was right, so I consider that a win.
And yes, my argument was sincere.
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One can usually safely assume that the publisher's definition and the IP ow-
ner's definition are identical, so for all practical purposes the definition used
by the publisher is the definition.
For example, my FLGS sells Babylon 5 and Hammer's Slammers as Traveller
books because Mongoose defines and sells them as Traveller books, and it
is meaningless what I think of the definition - if I want to buy those books,
I have to look among the Traveller stuff.
And as for my players ... sure, I can tell them that Babylon 5 is not Travel-
ler, and then I tell them that they need the Traveller core rules for their Ba-
bylon 5 characters' careers, and that we use rules from Traveller Book 2 and
Traveller Book 3 ...
Frankly, in any case I just prefer to "surrender", to accept Mongoose's defini-
tion (easy, since I do not care for the Third Imperium setting anyway), and
to concentrate on my setting and campaign.
