Why don't new people play Traveller?

[Malenfant]

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=147859

I started the aforementioned thread on rpg.net, based on the discussions going on in the Random Static thread here about why it's so hard to get people to play Traveller nowadays. (it seems more relevant here, so this thread is in Lone Star).

I wanted to know why new people aren't really finding Traveller interesting enough to start playing it, or why they're turned off it.

There's a lot of interesting responses there. I'm noticing a lot of people saying that they think Traveller is "bland" or "mundane", for example.

Now, doubtless a lot of people here will leap to the game's defence and say that those folks are wrong. But you know what? It doesn't matter what you think.

Fact is, the reasons in that thread - ranging from "don't like that kind of scifi" to "it's too boring" to "don't like the systems" to "the fanbase scare me" - are why new people aren't being attracted to the game.

So my question is - is there anything we can do to change Traveller to MAKE it more attractive and attract new people? (because new people = more sales = more people to play with = more people with new ideas for the game = A Good Thing) Or would all such efforts be for naught because more people like the game the way it is and don't care about attracting new people?

Thoughts, gentlesophonts?

 

[Michael Taylor]

Perhaps it's the OTU. I reckon the OTU is too big. It takes 4 years to jump around the border of the Imperium at Jump-6. The OTU is not focussed enough (which is no doubt why the classic stuff concentrated on 2 Sectors only).

I dont think the system (whichever one you use) is broken at all.

So, we have the OTU and are stuck with it. Perhaps it's time, as other people have stated, to redefine the OTU to a "New Traveller" setting, in addition to all the other settings QLI are putting out.
The "New Traveller" setting should be small - no more than a sector in size, but have clearly defined systems and polities, and lots of them - perhaps 4 major and 4 minor with borders between each.
The new setting could, IMHO, be close the Terra, and have the starmaps redone to match more closely what is actually out there, and use the same names as present day.

It could perhaps a variant timeline to the traditional trav timeline but branching off after the invention of Jump Drive and having an extra 500 years of exploration tacked on. Perhaps the polities near to Earth could have some of the traditional aliens in Traveller, but their "Empires" are only a subsector in size (Aslan, Vargr, Zhodani, perhaps a K'Kree "empire" as well).

And limit the sizes of ships to 10,000 tons or something.

Keep it a small traveller universe.

These are just musings of course.

 

[Michael Taylor]

Oh, and for people who like exploring new frontiers, have the space outside of the defined sector as "wilds" - brave new worlds, new frotniers etc etc etc.

 

[RainOfSteel]

I dunno, big starships (regardless of the number of worlds involved) are a must with me.

The more "millions" in their tonnage, the better I like them.

 

[Michael Taylor]

Well, we keep the trav ship rules as they are then - ships up to 1m tons.

 

[Malenfant]

Y'know... I think actually the OTU is exactly the problem. I really don't think that making it smaller or fiddling around with ship sizes would make any of the issues go away.

 

[Michael Taylor]

Find out what is attractive about other sci fi games - and apply them to a "new" small, more well defined traveller universe...

 

[hunter]

In the midst of all of this 'why don't people play Traveller' may I point out that CotI is one of THE largest communities dedicated to a single game line? Lets also remember that Traveller has a large enough fan base to currently help support 3 seperate companies.

Please point to me any games other than say WotC or WW products that can make similar claims?

While getting more 'new' people playing the game is always a great idea, I think folks are greatly discounting just how popular the game remains.

Now back to how we can make it MORE popular!

Hunter

 

[MR TEK]

The problem might be exactly the OTU.

The gearheads are rumbling mightily about Tech levels needing to be adjusted, the swashbuckers feel too constrained, and everybody is concerned about upsetting canon.

The LBBs were set to be used to create any setting imaginable, but now everybody is either trying to fit in the otu, or reshape it to fit themselvs.

QLI and hunter seem to be onto something, by throwing red meat to the old timers to get us excited again, and slipping in other, unrelated, settings.

Once you can play in the setting you like, I think many will come to Traveller. (yes I was pushing a game online that would go the opposite way, and require locking everything in to the "canon", but only to facilitae planning in a massive multiplayer, or massive game master setting.) Getting other settings out, and eventually getting people creating their OWN could really make traveller into what we always dreamed it could be.

Peace

Mr Tek

 

[Malenfant]

Well, for starters, lets just look at the typical character options of a few games:

Transhuman Space: the sky's the limit. Wanna play an engineer who uploaded himself into a digital mind, and who can download himself into a shiny spidery cybershell to do repairs while the ship's in flight? Check.

Heavy Gear: Mecha pilot from a frontier world on the front line of a rebellion against the invading tyrannical earth forces? Check. Or a Liberati infiltrator into the largest human city, crawling with occupying earth forces? Check.

Blue Planet: GEO Marshalls enforcing the law on a hostile alien world? Check. Natives railing against the influx of new colonists who are slowly destroying your way of life? Check. Researchers trying to discover new alien lifeforms (and survive encountering them)? Check.

Traveller: Retired old guys ekeing out a living doing trading in a clapped-out old banger of a spaceship? Check. Grizzled mercenaries who hire themselves out to fight tinpot wars on godforsaken planets? Check. Explorers discovering new worlds and lifeforms? Check. Random people who seem to get into trouble every planet they jump to? Check.


I dunno. The other games do seem a bit more... interesting from that point of view. There's more room for making a difference in the others than in Traveller. (the big exception of course being TNE, where you play people who are bringing the light of civilisation back to the wilds... whether it wants it or not).

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by hunter:
While getting more 'new' people playing the game is always a great idea, I think folks are greatly discounting just how popular the game remains.

That's not the issue though. If it's popular, it's because it's selling to the same people and it's being played by the same people (which admittedly there are a lot of).

I'd like the Traveller fanbase to grow, not just get older.

 

[Michael Taylor]

Maybe people who dont play traveller dont understand that the T20 system doesn't lock you into the OTU? Maybe that needs to be clearly defined.

 

[Michael Taylor]

Quotes: Heavy Gear: Mecha pilot from a frontier world on the front line of a rebellion against the invading tyrannical earth forces?"
Check. Or a Liberati infiltrator into the largest human city, crawling with occupying earth forces? Check.
Blue Planet: GEO Marshalls enforcing the law on a hostile alien world? Check. Natives railing against the influx of new colonists who are slowly destroying your way of life? Check. Researchers trying to discover new alien lifeforms (and survive encountering them)? Check. "

In one way or another all of the above can be fitted into the OTU. Perhaps what is needed is a bit more definition of conflict points in the OTU.

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by hunter:
While getting more 'new' people playing the game is always a great idea, I think folks are greatly discounting just how popular the game remains.

That's not the issue though. If it's popular, it's because it's selling to the same people and it's being played by the same people (which admittedly there are a lot of).

I'd like the Traveller fanbase to grow, not just get older. </font>[/QUOTE]Check the last line of my post. I'm not disagreeing. Just pointing out that as it stands, Traveller is still more popular than a LOT of games out there. I don't want the impression coming across to those who aren't playing that Traveller is just this old game no one plays anymore.

I'm all for getting MORE people playing (for obvious reasons!)

Hunter

 

[savage]

Gee I like big ships and the OTU and T20... actually the other systems have there plus and minus too.

There are so many distractions in present society...people are busy and have to be very decisive about what they're choosing to do for gaming. On of my players is off securing hurricane disaster areas... etc.
Perhaps e need to be doing more online Traveller gaming...to get more people involved.

Savage

 

[signless]

As much as I rail on about my antipathy toward canon...there ARE some useful things about it.
I've always been attracted to a smaller TU, with several sectors marked "OFF LIMITS" for professional design. I think that would allow GM's and players to enjoy gaming in an easily-accessible part of the TU that could be uniquely their own...without worrying about some company coming along and "developing" canon in "their" sector.
A smaller TU would also lend a certain legitimacy to the IISS, which I always thought was kind of an anachronism in the OTU which was about as developed as a suburban shopping mall.
Develop a setting small enough for players to circumnavigate it in the space of say, one standard year perhaps, in a vessel capable of Jump-2. Then, publish supplements which explore ideas made popular in fiction and other games. A supplement that investigates world-building for specific types of "cliche" planets (water-worlds, low-gravity worlds, high-gravity worlds, etc.), and stress BIOLOGY rather than physics in those supplements. After all, encounters with strange, fanged/tentacled/slimy/fire-breathing life-forms would make play a helluva lot more interesting.
Provide more opportunity for confrontation with ANYONE other than the (oh-I'm-so-obviously-a-russian/middle-eastern-socialist-caricature) Zhodani. I think Berka's done more to really re-interpret and define the Zho's than practically anyone else.
I'm encouraged by the "systemless" tone of 1248's development, and think that's a step in the right direction, too.

 

[flykiller]

I don't want the impression coming across to those who aren't playing that Traveller is just this old game no one plays anymore.

new fans aside, how much of the existing "fan base" consists of players and referees? it's a bit more than an impression that not many people play.

 

[flykiller]

Perhaps e need to be doing more online Traveller gaming...to get more people involved.

http://www.mega-traveller.com

http://www.rpol.net

 

[flykiller]

After all, encounters with strange, fanged/tentacled/slimy/fire-breathing life-forms would make play a helluva lot more interesting.

d&d in space, eh?

 

[signless]

No. Adventure in space. I seem to recall an old OMNI magazine article that featured some biologists who "designed" a fire-breathing "dragon"...and then talked about why that creature would never exist...ON EARTH.
I'm talking about paying as much homage to exobiology as has been paid to physics and economics in the game.