Whitman was wrong

[GameBuddah]

Its funny, when Ken Whitman was forming up Imperium games, Jim Cambias (Star Hero) and I sat him down at Origins and detailed what Traveller: 4th Edition would have to be in order to succeed. He then proceded to do almost the opposite. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Traveller: 4th Edition is the only version of the game that I don't own gobs of materials for. I just couldn't see putting money into the poorly produced and written material.

Despite my dislike for the virus, I have to give TNE its due for the quality of the writing.

 

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by GameBuddah:
Its funny, when Ken Whitman was forming up Imperium games, Jim Cambias (Star Hero) and I sat him down at Origins and detailed what Traveller: 4th Edition would have to be in order to succeed. He then proceded to do almost the opposite. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Traveller: 4th Edition is the only version of the game that I don't own gobs of materials for. I just couldn't see putting money into the poorly produced and written material.

Despite my dislike for the virus, I have to give TNE its due for the quality of the writing.

Ermm, I wouldn't give prizes (other than of the booby variety) to the limited T:TNE stuff I have read, and I actually quite liked the writing for the T4 book and Milieu 0 (teh only T4 stuff I have). Each to their own, although leaving aside rules problems and production values, the intention for T4 didn't look bad and was derailed as I understand by a combination of corporate parent finance woes and MWM's (justified) unhappines with the treatment of the licensed material.

Mind, this is the same Ken Whitman I believe who picked up Dark Conspiracy, dusted it off and re-issued it, raised fan hopes, got bored and dropped it all in the space of about three years...

 

[MJD]

Almost from the start, T4 suffered from a complete lack of quality control and canon compliance.

Some fan-written books were really very good. Some converted starwars or startrek books were, umm, not.

 

[AllenS]

Originally posted by MJD:
Almost from the start, T4 suffered from a complete lack of quality control and canon compliance.

Some fan-written books were really very good. Some converted starwars or startrek books were, umm, not.

This is quite interesting

what books did you see as "converted starwars or startrek books"?

I hope you don't mean Starships...no self-respecting Star Trek fan would have tolerated that dreck

Allen

 

[AllenS]

Originally posted by GameBuddah:
Its funny, when Ken Whitman was forming up Imperium games, Jim Cambias (Star Hero) and I sat him down at Origins and detailed what Traveller: 4th Edition would have to be in order to succeed. He then proceded to do almost the opposite. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Traveller: 4th Edition is the only version of the game that I don't own gobs of materials for. I just couldn't see putting money into the poorly produced and written material.

Despite my dislike for the virus, I have to give TNE its due for the quality of the writing.

At the time, I was quite vocal about wanting Whitman, Smith and co, ousted.

In my view, what came after them was far worse and was what actually killed Imperium Games. Not Stu or Joe; their stuff was pretty good. No, that would be Courtney Solomon. Many of IG's business practices got...shall we say..questionable during that period, and the product quality was highly uneven.

In the long run, the original IG crew were better than what came after them, in my view.

Allen

 

[T. Foster]

Originally posted by AllenS:
This is quite interesting

what books did you see as "converted starwars or startrek books"?

Those would be the adventures from Anomalies and The Annililik Run (and, presumably, also that other book that I never bought) that included things like references to sub-space radio. Yeah, sure, that fits with Traveller canon real well!

Ken Whitman I think honestly meant well but was just way out of his depth. I'm not sure what Tim Brown's excuse was (he actually worked for GDW during the CT/early-MT era -- you'd think something would've stuck!). And Courtney Solomon, of course, has no excuse.

 

[AllenS]

Originally posted by T. Foster:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by AllenS:
This is quite interesting

what books did you see as "converted starwars or startrek books"?

Those would be the adventures from Anomalies and The Annililik Run (and, presumably, also that other book that I never bought) that included things like references to sub-space radio. Yeah, sure, that fits with Traveller canon real well!

Ken Whitman I think honestly meant well but was just way out of his depth. I'm not sure what Tim Brown's excuse was (he actually worked for GDW during the CT/early-MT era -- you'd think something would've stuck!). And Courtney Solomon, of course, has no excuse.</font>[/QUOTE]lol..I had forgotten about those

Didn't one of the adventures expect the characters to USE some 2,000 year old battle dress they found or something? I remember that causing a major row on the TML at the time

Allen

 

[MJD]

SOlomon still owes me money, despite a "renegotiated" contract he forced on us and then welshed on.

I worked with Whitman a second time. He, too, owes me money for work I did for him.

Whitman then approached me AGAIN about a project, but when I inquired about outstanding fees he went away.

This was the sort of thing that killed IG.
That, and letting people write whatwever crap they wanted with no quality control.

 

[AllenS]

Solomon probably figures he can get away with that stuff because no one who writes game supplements could possibly have enough money to sue him. It's too bad; maybe if you guys had been able to sue him, he never would have made that terrible D&D movie....

 

[AndreaV]

Originally posted by AllenS:
lol..I had forgotten about those

Didn't one of the adventures expect the characters to USE some 2,000 year old battle dress they found or something? I remember that causing a major row on the TML at the time

Allen

It was the giant mutant space fungi that got me

 

[AndreaV]

Originally posted by MJD:
Almost from the start, T4 suffered from a complete lack of quality control and canon compliance.

Some fan-written books were really very good. Some converted starwars or startrek books were, umm, not.

The real shame about T4 and IG is that underneith it all there was a rather good game system trying to get out .

Some of the material (Psionic Institutes, Pocket Empires, much of M0, even some of Anomalies and Missions of State) was really good. Its just that some (<cough>Annililik Run</cough>, <cough>Emperors Vehicles</cough>) was total dreck.

 

[MJD]

I agree.

 

[jalexandratos]

Originally posted by Andrewmv:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by MJD:
Almost from the start, T4 suffered from a complete lack of quality control and canon compliance.

The real shame about T4 and IG is that underneith it all there was a rather good game system trying to get out .
</font>[/QUOTE]I think these are the two points that most accurately hit the nail on the head. If your core rulebook has more errors that TypoTraveller (or MT if you prefer -- it's okay if I pick on it, it's still my personal favorite

), then you've got serious problems.

And why ask for fan input if you're gonna ignore it?

And for the love of Arbellatra why use 1/2 dice?

 

[Psion]

Originally posted by Andrewmv:

The real shame about T4 and IG is that underneith it all there was a rather good game system trying to get out .

Not to be snarky but: where? The chargen was okay, but the task resolution system was ridiculous.

 

[rmiracle]

Traveller and GDW have always been plagued by a lack of editing. Mega Traveller could have been a huge hit, but there were so many errors, typos, mis-spellings, and crud that just didn't jive that no one wanted it.

T:NE was just wrong. The art stank. The fonts and printing stank. I couldn't read the stuff. When we did try and play it, I really didn't like the whole post-apocolypse envronment.

Every thing kept pulling back to CT.

We had hoped that the Traveller gang would have gotten it right with T4, bact to CT, adding in a reasonable task system. However T4 came out right about the time we quit playing role playing games. I've got GT and one supplement and I've got T4 and one supplement, but I have just about every GDW published CT item.

As I await my T20 to show up (and now that we are activally playing games again), I'm hoping that quality control is high and that the books will be an easy read.

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

They aren't perfect. and you'll see a lot of nitpicking here.

But they are DAMN GOOD.

 

[William]

Originally posted by Andrewmv:
The real shame about T4 and IG is that underneith it all there was a rather good game system trying to get out .

Actually I keep my "fixed" copy on my bookshelf because of this. Fixed in my case means the task chapter ripped out (1/2 dice? ) with the one page summary that DGP used to put on the cover of it's products put in its place and with the most recent version of QSDS in place of the one that shipped. Those two things turn it into a very servicable rule set. But IG tainted it forever.

William

 

[T. Foster]

When I was working up my House Traveller I lifted a lot of the char-gen material from T4 (which, although IMO it gives out too many skill-points, is still the most complete and best organized Traveller char-gen system to date). I'm also a big fan of the "Foundations of the Traveller Universe" essay, which I refer to frequently and think should've been included in the T20 rulebook in place of the 'lite' version lifted off the FarFuture website.

But other than those two chapters the T4 book never leaves my shelf. I hated the task system (for reasons I've gone into at great length elsewhere), I didn't like the combat system or QSDS, I was very dubious of the "experience" system, and pretty much everything else was just a straight cut-and-paste from The Traveller Book, only with uglier layout and more typos.

When it was in-print and being supported it enjoyed something of a de facto pride of place, but now that it's part of "the past" I really see nothing about this book to recommend it above the equally out-of-print Traveller Book or MegaTraveller box, not to mention the currently in-print Classic Books or Traveller's Handbook. IMO, YMMV, etc. etc.

 

[DrSkull]

I played and liked T4 when it was current. I must admitr I also hated the 1/2 die, rather a lot. I thought the main book was good (or good enough), I really liked Milieu 0 and the Emperor's Arsenal, and still look through those two books now and again. Central Supply Catalogue wasn't too bad either.

Lord almighty, how much did I feel ripped-off by Starships, Emperor's Vehicles and First Survey, on the other hand. These books still make me grind my teeth.

THe fact that the armor ratings listed on the vehicles in the vehicle book bore no relation to the figures you needed for the combat system was enough to make me scream.

There were things about the background that really had my head swimming. Some places it gave you the impression that there were lots of space pirates, pocket empire vessels and tramp merchants wandering about during the Long Night, and other places it was meant to seem that there were no starships at all outside of the Sylean sphere. Milieu 0 paints a picture of a Vilani trading sphere, for example, but First Survey makes Vland itself almost uninhabited and has the only class A star port in known space be at Sylea.

But, I liked the idea of playing the foundation of the Third Imp. so much I managed to muddle through.

 

[AllenS]

if the day ever comes when Mileau 0 gets revisited, whether by QLI or some other licensee, I would like to see the problems with the world stats fixed (like actually giving them law levels, among other things), and some of the inconsistencies that DrSkull mentioned ironed out. But in principle, I think the dawn of the Imperium would be a truly fascinating setting to adventure in, and I did enjoy my Mileau 0 game which started in T4 and migrated to GURPS later. I am seriously considering d20izing The Long Way Home and having another go at it.

Allen