Why don't new people play Traveller?

[flykiller]

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Space fantasy (Star Wars, Star Trek, and others) make it easier on the playing end, because like it or not, its a simple fact that not everyone feels the need to know base physics and deep sciences to play a game

Exactly. Traveller shouldn't strive so much to be a "model" of the physical universe...but a "model" of what science fiction is, in general.</font>[/QUOTE]if traveller tries to imitate and accomodate star trek or star wars, why would anyone play it when they have star trek and star wars?

traveller's primary differentiation from the fantasy games is that it tries at all to model ordinary people in a real-world universe. CT, MT, TNE, GURPS traveller, all share that orientation. if it gallops off in "exciting new directions" (again) I hope it keeps that orientation.

perhaps traveller is naturally limited in its fan base and number of players.

 

[bryan gibson]

if traveller tries to imitate and accomodate star trek or star wars, why would anyone play it when they have star trek and star wars?

...................

who said anything about modelling either one?

Exactly. Traveller shouldn't strive so much to be a "model" of the physical universe...but a "model" of what science fiction is, in general.

this is much more the meaning of the statement, as SF isn'y merely Traveller, or SW and ST, although they are a part of it...Science Fiction allows a whole host of paradigms. Often, ones not explored in Traveller.

This isn't to say that they can't be...but that perhaps they SHOULD be.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by bryan gibson:
IMO, the OTU is far too grand, and the herd of canonistas that infest its boards and forums (yep, they're out there all right) scare away , annoy or just plain offend newcomers. If its not OTU, canon or what they narrowly define as canon, then they not merely actively discourage but insult, bray and berate those new players, missing the one vital line in the CT rules that made Traveller what it was - the simple statement
that the rules were to let one do as they would.

I've been posting here for almost two years now. I've never seen this happen, not even once . . . the specific case of grognards beating up on newbies.

Even "spirited" discussions here are fairly rare (although they do happen, in fact, I was just part of one . . . still, even that discussion was fairly tame by the standards of the flamewar).

But of course, I don't read every thread, in fact, I miss quite a few, so I'd like to ask for some catch-up help.

Can someone point me at the case of some grognards, here on CotI, belittling the thoughts or statements of a newbie.

 

[savage]

openly hostile to newbees really? I think Traveller is tough to ref and there are too many distractions for younger players...online games are hot and the new norm.

Traveller refs need an understanding of space science (fiction and non-fiction) and the game system. Not everyone has that or can adapt to making it entertaining. This as the fun part of WEG Star Wars ...scene to scene...fast and furious...less science necessary.

I never tried Grip but it's probably the direction that's necesasry. I started with 10 interested people in Tampa. We lost 4 without blinking or running...another 2 because they wanted to dicate how my game was run. And so the group continued self-destruction.

I'm thinking online might be the best option...

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Robert Prior:
That's the adventure you said you wanted, though. [/QB]

Oh, so a halfbaked idea that I came up with on the spur of the moment in a discussion is suddenly what I want Traveller to be? Even as I was concocting it I was figuring it's fairly lame

Besides, it's nothing to do with "what adventure do you want to run". Frankly, I don't really want to run ANYTHING in the OTU. It's more down to "what campaign setting do I want that I can set adventures in?"

I don't want a setting in which characters make no difference, in which every plot is basically some variant of "you arrive in a starport, you find a patron, he tells you to do stuff", in which everything is all cut and dried and known.

The TNE setting is the closest that Traveller has ever come to something that would interest me. There, characters could make a difference. The universe was full of risks and unknowns. Morality was grey as heck. Ruins abounded. You didn't have a clue what you'd find on the next planet. Virus was a fickle, alien thing evolving into true sapience, and nobody quite knew what it'd do next. There was plenty to investigate and explore, plus an overarching organisation (the Star Vikings) to drive it all. And characters would believe in something too - the restructuring of what fell before into something new, and they were at the vanguard of that effort. Heck, there's a zillion hooks right there to pique the interest. That's why I have high hopes for TNE:1248 - it'll reinject some of that into Traveller.

If Traveller - as in the OTU outside the collapse - could rediscover some of that, then I'd be happy. And I think a lot of other gamers would become interested too - a lot of gamers like stories where characters are "heroes" that can have some kind of effect on the world, and aren't just uttterly inconsequential to the universe. They like settings that are on the cusp of something, where games are run in the pregnant pause between stability and chaos. The OTU as it stands is far, far too stable for anything like that. Even though it's in the same era, in the Gateway book the Solomani Rim war is still far away.

 

[Malenfant]

Can someone point me at the case of some grognards, here on CotI, belittling the thoughts or statements of a newbie.

I think it'd be more useful for someone to actually point out somebody who is a "newbie"

 

[hunter]

So pretty much what I see is that Traveller needs to be a core set of rules defining how various things work. Not everything may necessarily be used in a given campaign, but the rules should allow for as much range of possibilities as is feasible.

This should be followed with various campaign settings of varying flavor. Some campaigns might use most of the concepts presented in the rulebook, others would only use certain specific concepts and ignore others.

These should then be supplemented with adventure material of some form. Whether these should be as detailed as possible or as lite as possible remains a completely different debate.

Does that just about cover it? Basically SciFi GURPS with adventures. Being serious here. That is what is being described.

Funnily enough if you look around at what we are doing, I tend to agree.


Hunter

 

[Malenfant]

this is much more the meaning of the statement, as SF isn'y merely Traveller, or SW and ST, although they are a part of it...Science Fiction allows a whole host of paradigms. Often, ones not explored in Traveller.

This isn't to say that they can't be...but that perhaps they SHOULD be.

That's the thing though - Traveller doesn't know what the hell it is.

1) Is it a generic scifi game? Or is it a scifi game set in the Third Imperium at various stages of its history (past and future)?

2) Is it hard sf? Or is it space opera?


If the answer to the first question is that it's a generic scifi game, then it should be presented as such. But it isn't. Its halfway there, but there are still too many limiting features that make it something specific rather than generic. T20 has a load of predefined, OTU alien races in the corebook, for example. The techonological architecture is rather fixed at the moment (jump drives, thruster plates, clunky computers).

But Traveller HAS produced several books that would fit right into the release schedule of a truly generic scifi game like GURPS Space or Star HERO. The original Fire Fusion and Steel, for example, is (IMO) hands down the most useful book ever written for a scifi GM (similar to, but better and more informative than GURPS Ultratech, I think). It's got all the options you'll ever need right there. DGP's World BUilders Handbook and GT:First In gave you all you needed to know to make worlds in a scifi setting. But those books were released when the Traveller line was getting pretty specific - MT and TNE clearly had rigidly defined background settings.

So Traveller's been somewhat schizophrenic. On the one hand, you get Traveller books that present specific settings, like the MT Imperial Encyclopaedia, or the Traveller Adventure, or Rim of Fire, or Gateway Domain. On the other hand, you get books like WBH and FF&S which are built for a generic game. So make up your mind, Traveller - which are you, specific or generic??!

GDW, oddly enough, missed an opportunity. If CT was truly a generic scifi rules set, then why on earth didn't they use it as the backbone for T2K, Traveller 2300, and all the other RPGs they ever produced?!

QLI's approach of publishing different settings for the same rules is interesting - but I don't think it went far enough at the start. Ideally, the Traveller corebook should have been full of generic scifi rules. General character generation, combat/game engine, technological architecture, world design, suggestions for making your own scifi universes. All the alien races and technology and history and specific assumptions and details that relate to the OTU should have been split off into the Gateway Setting book.

Right now, QLI have got three setting books on the way, but from what I've seen so far it doesn't look like they're going to be using the rules in the T20 corebook as they are - there's a fair bit of modification going on in some cases, which shouldn't be necessary if the T20 corebook was truly generic. Ideally the core rules should be the solid framework over which the setting is built - one shouldn't really have to change that skeleton for each setting. But that has to happen because T20 was a bit too specific in its execution.

-------------

As for what sort of scifi it caters to... I think it's fairly clear that it's generally supposed to be a realistic game with some unrealistic elements. The level of detail in the ship and star system design should illustrate that (especially in Book 6, FF&S and First In). But again, the schizophrenia shows through - you have realistic ship and world design, and people nitpicking over how much bloody taxes need to be paid to sustain fleets, but you have psionics and evil space empires and 1970s computers?! Again, there are conflicting foci, and that's shifted over each incarnation of the game (TNE and GURPS tend to be realistic, T20 is more cinematic in style).

If it really is a generic scifi game, then it does need to cater to both extremes. But if it's tied to a specific setting (the OTU) then that has to decide whether it's hard-sf or space opera in feel, and it has to stick to it. And if fans don't like which one it settles on, then they're evidently going to have to find another setting to play in that they're happier with.


So if Traveller could actually decide whether its supposed to be a specific scifi setting or a generic one that you can use to build settings, or if the OTU is supposed to be hard sf or space opera, then that would be a good start in nailing things down...

 

[daryen]

I have a question here.

I keep seeing some here continuously saying that Traveller needs to add dinky computers or robots or nanotech or sapient AI or brain taping or whatever. And then we need to remove contragrav because it's too superscience. Oh, and jump sucks, so let's make it work different or replace it with some type of hyperdrive system.

But if you make all of those changes, do you still have Traveller? At that point, doesn't this new system become something different? At what point does a modified Traveller stop being "Traveller"?

I am not arguing that these changes shouldn't be made or are "bad" or whatever. I am just curious as to when a modified Traveller ceases to be Traveller and becomes something else.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. I continuously see GURPS Traveller get hammered for being "not really Traveller". Many refuse to even give GT credit for being Traveller. Yet, in many ways, GT is far closer to CT than is TNE. )I am not talking about OTU v. GTU, but rather the underpinning technologies, assumptions, and limitations.)

[Please note I am not talking about setting or the OTU. The whole OTU can be blown up and recreated without preventing the results from being "Traveller".]

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by hunter:
Does that just about cover it? Basically SciFi GURPS with adventures. Being serious here. That is what is being described.

Exactly

. GURPS Space provided the generic ruleset, a load of general books (ultratech, biotech, aliens etc) but only a couple of campaign settings (Unnight and the Space Atlases).

What QLI seems to be doing is to provide a ruleset with a specific background in mind (the OTU) and a whole load of settings books. But you don't appear to be doing any general books like the tech books or general aliens books?

Funnily enough if you look around at what we are doing, I tend to agree.

Generally, that is what you're doing. The only problem, I think, is that you didn't make the corebook generic enough. I dunno if that's what you have in mind for the Guidebook though... (or for an offering that may come later that is for the GM?)

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by daryen:
I keep seeing some here continuously saying that Traveller needs to add dinky computers or robots or nanotech or sapient AI or brain taping or whatever. And then we need to remove contragrav because it's too superscience. Oh, and jump sucks, so let's make it work different or replace it with some type of hyperdrive system.

Well, you have to ask the question "why aren't hightech computers, robots, nanotech, biotech, AI, etc in the setting already?". Because it's based on 70s assumptions is why.

And why IS there only one kind of FTL travel? Who says that there's only one way around the lightspeed barrier? Why couldn't different races have different methods of FTL transport?

But if you make all of those changes, do you still have Traveller? At that point, doesn't this new system become something different? At what point does a modified Traveller stop being "Traveller"?

That all depends on what you define as Traveller - the setting or the system? If Traveller is a generic system, then all of the changes you mentioned should be an option in any Traveller game, and it'd still be "Traveller" as a result. If Traveller is the setting, then you'd need to change things and it would end up completely different.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. I continuously see GURPS Traveller get hammered for being "not really Traveller". Many refuse to even give GT credit for being Traveller. Yet, in many ways, GT is far closer to CT than is TNE. )I am not talking about OTU v. GTU, but rather the underpinning technologies, assumptions, and limitations.)

That drove me nuts too. The darn game is practically a carbon copy of the OTU in CT. It's exactly what CT would be like if Strephon hadn't been killed. But because it's GURPS, because it's a different system with slightly different technological assumptions, it's "not really Traveller"?! It's especially weird considering that you'd think all the grogs who hated TNE and MT would be wishing that the universe where everything fell down around their ears would be the "alternate" and the GURPS Traveller universe - where everything isthe same as it ever was - would be the 'official continuation'. But that didn't happen.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
I don't want a setting in which characters make no difference, in which every plot is basically some variant of "you arrive in a starport, you find a patron, he tells you to do stuff", in which everything is all cut and dried and known.

I must say, the current campaign I'm plotting doesn't contain anything like that. But I'd agree, if that's all you had, it would be a bit boring.

 

[signless]

Originally posted by Malenfant:

I don't want a setting in which characters make no difference, in which every plot is basically some variant of "you arrive in a starport, you find a patron, he tells you to do stuff", in which everything is all cut and dried and known

And THAT's exactly what's been happening with the game (with the possible exception of TNE). When a company decides to continue supporting the creaking weight of its own background canon, then NOTHING any player or group of players do will EVER make a difference in the wider scheme of things. Oddly enough, this is directly at odds with the very first CT adventure published...The Kinunir. Just take a look at the consternation and constipation the whole "Imperial Warrant" issue has caused.
But Traveller seems to have taken the road of interactive literature, rather than a true game system. We can play in the front lawn...but we can't really ever make it ours...unless we move to a different neighborhood. In a different country. On a different continent.
What attracted ME to Traveller? Easy. It was the promise of a science-fiction universe filled with the inspirations of the giants of the field (Asimov, Heinlein, Pohl, Harrison, LeGuinn...the list goes on...). It wasn't until Twilight's Peak came out, that I started to feel "fenced-in" by the restrictive nature of what the TU became.
In MY mind, the OTU was a blank subsector map, filled with whatever I could imagine. I could live with a few of those being defined by GDW. Then came the big Map of the Imperium, and it started to become VERY difficult for MY TU to resemble anything being published. But my feeling of disenfranchisement was truly defined by the publication of the Atlas. I was then forced into making a difficult decision...either give up the game entirely, play along with whatever someone ELSE decided the universe needed to look like, or keep playing the game my way with NO support - and THAT was a helluva lot of work. I've got four milk-crates full of three-ring binders packed with information on MTU. 25 years of work. You think a new player isn't gonna look at that and say "MAN, what were YOU smokin'?"
On really objective days, sitting on the porch swing with my wife and daughter, I sometimes think about that. Then I quickly stop...because those kinds of thoughts lead me to believe I should be seriously medicated, and taken away to somewhere quiet for a long, long time. I mean 25 years...sheesh. And ME, the guy who laughs at people who can't miss Monday Night Football without entering some sort of dimented fugue-state.
I think perhaps the grognards are right. What's the use? I'll just conform and fear change. I'll drink domestic beer, stick my hand down the front of my pants and just be happy with what's put in front of me.
And then the phone rings, and one of my friends from 90 miles away asks..."Hey, man...when're we playing Trav, again?"
Someone else posted it (here, or over on rpg.net, I can't remember...)...he (and I) don't play Trav because we LOVE it. We play it because we can't let our buddies down.
They're on the Beowulf, somewhere, man. And they're in trouble...

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by hunter:
So pretty much what I see is that Traveller needs to be a core set of rules defining how various things work. Not everything may necessarily be used in a given campaign, but the rules should allow for as much range of possibilities as is feasible.

<snip>

Hunter

Well, I want to see the "core" rules book. Character Gen; Combat; main, i.e. OTU, Design Sequences (ships, worlds, etc.).

Then, I want to see the "main", i.e. OTU Worldbook. The OTU (in all its incarnations) will remain copyright and private. Region Books and sourcebooks and rules expansions next. Adventures dead last (I know, lots of others want Adventures at the front of the list).

The d20 rules are already OGL, and if that is combined with making the other mechanics equally OGL (including the jump drive; I figure it won't be copied far and wide in non-OTU settings, and so it won't matter if its OGL), then we have all we need. The Rules and the Setting. Others could come along and write their own settings using the mechanics (their is a track record of success with this format). Meanwhile, FFE & QLI keep pumping out setting books with OGL d20 rules and some non-OGL CT stats in them when desired).

The "technical arcitecture" behind all the OGL design sequences would also be OGL, and published as a separate book. People could extend or modify their campaigns by altering the design sequences or provide new components of the design sequences as desired, or even making entirely new design sequences (for those who wish to go to the trouble, and you know there will be a bunch).

Am I trumpeting a formula that's been used before? Why, yes I am. And guess what? That formula was and still is a success.

 

[RainOfSteel]

The above forumla would also fit in with the other licensed settings QLI has (HH, 2320AD, etc.)

With a technical arcitecture that produces any needed design sequence (or one that is extensible to allow architectural elements to be included that weren't originally forseen), the base CharGen and Combat mechanics remain the same, saving tons of work. Only the Design Sequences need to be reworked to support the different tech of each Setting.

Thus, more Setting Books come out.

 

[flykiller]

Frankly, I don't really want to run ANYTHING in the OTU. It's more down to "what campaign setting do I want that I can set adventures in?"

well, that's interesting. asked you what kind of adventure you would like, and you then set it in the OTU and knock it down because it's in the OTU.

that seems to be the adventure - knocking the OTU.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by flykiller:
well, that's interesting. asked you what kind of adventure you would like, and you then set it in the OTU and knock it down because it's in the OTU.

that seems to be the adventure - knocking the OTU.

Why are you so fixated with (a) getting me to run Traveller games, and (b) what adventures I'd like to run?! It's utterly irrelevant! You seem hellbent on missing the point completely.

Plenty of people here have opined that the OTU is flawed - I'm not the only one who thinks that, by any means. Plenty of people outside Traveller (who are the ones that really matter here, since the whole point of this is to try to see how to get new people into the game) have said so on rpgnet.

If you like the OTU and Traveller despite all its flaws, well, this discussion obviously isn't aimed at you - it's aimed at people who are willing to start looking at it as something that has to compete in today's RPG market and attract new people, and who want to figure out what needs to be done and how to help encourage that to happen.

 

[flykiller]

So pretty much what I see is that Traveller needs to be a core set of rules defining how various things work. Not everything may necessarily be used in a given campaign, but the rules should allow for as much range of possibilities as is feasible.

This should be followed with various campaign settings of varying flavor. Some campaigns might use most of the concepts presented in the rulebook, others would only use certain specific concepts and ignore others.

These should then be supplemented with adventure material of some form. Whether these should be as detailed as possible or as lite as possible remains a completely different debate.

Does that just about cover it? Basically SciFi GURPS with adventures. Being serious here. That is what is being described.

yes. not quite what I would do, but it sounds good.

in my mind all the rules, settings, and supplements exist for only one reason - to support a referee. the adventures should be the goal product and the culmination of all the background material. everything should lead to the game. this would allow good referees to pick and choose their own material, while other referees who need more guidance or support work would have more leading material.

'course, I'm not a businessman, nor do I play one in an rpg.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by flykiller:
in my mind all the rules, settings, and supplements exist for only one reason - to support a referee. the adventures should be the goal product and the culmination of all the background material. everything should lead to the game. this would allow good referees to pick and choose their own material, while other referees who need more guidance or support work would have more leading material.

'course, I'm not a businessman, nor do I play one in an rpg. [/QB]

So the players should have nothing? I guess you missed the fact that "splat books" for the White Wolf games and class books like the Complete Warrior book for D&D that focus on different character options are very popular then.

Players like having options. They especially like books that give them more options. And there are many more players than there are referees, which makes it a little unwise to ignore them as a market.

Of course, those books are harder to justify in a scifi game (unless you have lots of alien races as character options), though I guess QLI could try doing "class books" (or TA's?) for all the major character careers.

 

[flykiller]

But my feeling of disenfranchisement was truly defined by the publication of the Atlas. I was then forced into making a difficult decision...either give up the game entirely, play along with whatever someone ELSE decided the universe needed to look like, or keep playing the game my way with NO support - and THAT was a helluva lot of work.

in truth, if they hadn't come out with the atlas, wouldn't you have had to do all that work anyway?

They're on the Beowulf, somewhere, man. And they're in trouble...