Why don't new people play Traveller?

[signless]

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.

That's actually a pretty intriguing idea, Mal. It's also one that might kill two birds with one stone. How about a book/supplement/TA that focuses on cyber/bio/whatever modified characters and how they have to "live" in the Imperium (or elsewhere...). It wouldn't be as GOOD as a TU that allowed those things implicitly, but it would go a long way toward opening the door...
I think you may be on to something (or maybe we're both ON something... )

 

[signless]

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

Nah. Not really. The REAL work came with the frustration of "re-setting" my entire campaign to remove it from all the "development" that was happening. Without the Atlas (and the Map), I was able to comfortably slide my setting into an adjacent slot next to the OTU. Now, I'm waaaay out in the boonies of the Theron sector...where nobody seems to have any "official" interest in expanding the already-bloated Imperium. Now, if my characters want to fool around in the neat new "Glimmerdrift" setting...it's a hassle and a half to come up with a reason for them to trek all the way to the OTHER side of charted space.
That's one of the reasons I really like the idea of a compressed Imperium...one that's only a few sectors in size...and that my characters can reach, if they choose to head in that direction.
My group has always liked keeping their characters alive...the same merry band of misfit PC's has been together for a LONG time. They, like many other RPGer's, develop a real attachment to their creations. They have "family trees" that stretch aaaalll the way back to the Twilight War, T:2300, CT and through MT and TNE.
Some of our Traveller sessions have been nothing but cracker-barrell gatherings where we all bring new sci-fi to the party and talk about how it can be worked in to our universe. They wanted to explore cool new ideas, but without the hassle of moving to yet another gaming system, and abandoning their cherished character creations.
Traveller is more than just a labor of love for a GM...it's the same kind of investment for a player, especially one that works HARD at developing their character...and yearns for perhaps a little more out of the gaming experience than playing "accountants in space" or "soldiers in space". Most of our group have some military background, mortages, and taxes to pay...we wanted a little more than the drudgery of "real life" in a science fiction role-playing game.
IMHO, make ships a *little* less-expensive, make the Imperium smaller with "preserves" permanently set-aside for independent GM creation, and start telling people that Traveller really IS whatever they want it to be...
Man, THEN you'd have a game.

 

[flykiller]

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.

interesting. games and adventures are irrelevant, but I'm the one who's missing the point.

 

[flykiller]

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />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.

So the players should have nothing?</font>[/QUOTE]ah, that is stupid of me. yes, for the players too. but the major thrust should be to the referee.

 

[flykiller]

My group has always liked keeping their characters alive...the same merry band of misfit PC's has been together for a LONG time. They, like many other RPGer's, develop a real attachment to their creations. They have "family trees" that stretch aaaalll the way back to the Twilight War, T:2300, CT and through MT and TNE.
Some of our Traveller sessions have been nothing but cracker-barrell gatherings where we all bring new sci-fi to the party and talk about how it can be worked in to our universe. They wanted to explore cool new ideas,

stop man, you're making me jealous.

hope to achieve something like that someday.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />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.

interesting. games and adventures are irrelevant, but I'm the one who's missing the point. </font>[/QUOTE]Are you deliberately being obtuse? Not to mention warping everything I say?

MY games and MY adventures are irrelevant to this discussion. I've never remotely said that all games and adventures are irrelevant. This isn't about me, or any other individual who either plays - or plays with - the game for that matter.

If Traveller were to change, then of course it would still be made to be playable. DUH!! Nobody's ever implied anything else. I mean, that's the whole bloody point of an RPG isn't it! The whole POINT of changing it would be to make it MORE playable. To have MORE hooks to fire up the imagination and to bring people into it. To have MORE consistency to allow GMs to come up with ideas without getting headaches over what obscure book said what to contradict what something more recent said.

Traveller's never been 100% about running and playing the game as you claim it should be. If it was, then MWM wouldn't have put in all those little 'subgames' of world-building, character generation, and ship design would he? I know you seem to look down on anyone who doesn't actually play in a Traveller session with other people, but believe it or not the rest of it is still important for the game. People like talking about it. They like building things. That's just as valid as designing adventures or playing characters. Either way the game is being used to flex the imagination - and who the heck are you to think you're better than those people just because you're playing or running a game?

Now, do you think we could get back to the point here?

 

[Madarin Dude]

Here is my 2 cents. I do like traveller and first played it in 82 so I am an old timer.
1. Streamline design sequences. Think of CT starship design it took only a few minutes. Now you have to focus on minutae.
2. Do away with tech levels. Just keep it more generic pre steller etc. Thsi would make it easier to streamline all the design sequences.
3. Make some other kinds of adventures and support them. I ran a Navy campagn that was interesting where the characters were all stationed on a fleet carrier on the Zhodani frontier. Cool idea but there is no support for this kind of adventuring and it was scrapped after a few weeks. This is an example of a different kind of adventure that can be written adn played in Traveller.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Type of adventure? Here is one that I have used, and am planning on using again. It allows a little of several types in a contigous compaign. YOu don't need to play a Merchant Campaign, AN exploration campaign or a Merc campaign. This has all the elements plus some other neat choices as the campaign progressses.

The Characters are recruited by a Duke, possibly an Archduke or Sector Duke, into his Huscarles as a troubleshooting team. YOu can get them involved in Pirate hunting, as a Cadre for a Merc Unit, Commando Raids, Exploration, Court Intrigue, Espionage, Privateering, Transporting something important, couriers, whatever your black heart desires. I am sure there are hundreds of reasons that a great fuedal lord would want deniable assets around.

And if your party decides to skip with one of his Lordship's ships, well they have just ticked off one of the most powerful people in the area, even in the Imperium. (There aren't all that many Dukes running around after all.)

The best thing about this campaign is it is flexible.

The players are living in a Great Feudal Empire, use it.

Actually to make the OTU really useful, make things work better and easier for a new GM, or as I have always preferred Game Operations Director, (Though when he pisses off the Players he can also be known as THE Director Of Game.

) would be software that would generate world and system maps, encounter tables and local Fauna from the UPP, if it would also generate a stack of NPCs at the same time.....

I do agree the Imperial Encyclopedia might be re-written but making it available on CD-Rom, searchable and indexed might be pretty cool as well. Pop the disk in and let the players research what they need.

 

[TheEngineer]

Hey folks, we're awfully creative/narrative in this thread. Perhaps we should redirect time and energy in producing EPIC adventures and TAs.....

 

[spank]

I always enjoyed playing TNE. The reason I never liked playing "classic" Traveller was I never felt it made one bit of difference what I did. Part of a role playing game is the ability to have an effect, that's what made so many of the D&D campaigns cool, it was your world so you could have an impact, you could chase down Waldo the evil wizard and end his menace. But with others, Forgotten realms for example, everything big happened at arms length. Dark Sun on the other hand involved you in the actions that changed the world.

 

[spank]

If you are looking into designing a smaller, more compact Empire you might consider removing the jump drive, or atleast slowing it down dramaticly, and employing a Jump Gate system for faster travel in the empire. This would have the effect of slowing the expansion of the borders, while still allowing fairly rapid transit in the "core worlds". It would also create Frontier world where the gates where not yet operational I'd definately play that empire.

 

[hirch duckfinder]

Originally posted by Malenfant:


</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by hirch duckfinder:
the trouble with travellwer is it is GOOD . it requires thought and maturity .
that's why it can't attract quick - fix youngsters. which , in my book , is a good thing.

they'll grow into it.

Sorry, but that's 100% elitist nonsense. Traveller fans are not somehow "better" or "more mature" than any other gamer (older != more mature. And just look at how some of the arguments that have plagued this game have ended up. For one thing, mature people don't fling death threats at game designers for destroying the published universe...)

Then again, this may be part of the problem. If everyone else sees people with this sort of attitude in the Traveller community it's small wonder they don't want to be a part of it. </font>[/QUOTE]look , traveller is good . that's why it has survived 25 years and people are still updating it and producing for it now .

as a professional musician , i know that you can't spend too much time chasing the market without sacrificing integrity and quality .

times have changed . the gaming hobby is much reduced amongst younsters and sci-fi is unfashionable.

i had been away from traveller for many years and was delighted to find this forum and , even better, new material being produced.

as long as the market is big enough to sustain production , i am happy .

if you would like to attract people , stop talking about the problems and talk more about the great game that we have. it may grow , or not. still , we have it now.

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
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.
</font>[/QUOTE]There is a third point between setting and system that I am trying to bring out. I have already said that I don't care if the OTU is "rebooted". Setting is not the issue. We have six different systems. Obviously Traveller can handle system changes. Neither of those is what I am taking about.

To give it a term, what I am referring to is "assumptions". These are things about the games technology, tools, style, and so forth that color and direct the game.

Foremost amoung this is jump drive. Quite frankly, if you take away jump drive (whether it is stupid or not is irrelevant), then you have something other than Traveller. Are there different FTL systems? Sure. But Traveller has jump drive.

To a lesser extent, this also applies to many other items that have been mentioned before. Open-topped "air rafts". Contragravity. Shotguns in space. Swords in space. Things like that. Once you have eliminated all of these "problems", you end up with a new scifi RPG. I don't know what it is, but it sure ain't Traveller.

Let me give you an example. Is 2300AD really Traveller, or is a scifi RPG that was initially called Traveller. To me, the obvious answer is that it was not Traveller, and the producers eventually realized that and fixed the name. Is that to say 2300 was not any good? Certainly not. But when it shares absolutely no base assuptions with Traveller, it just isn't Traveller.

Another way to look at this. I see great praise for THS. (I haven't really taken a real look, so I can't say whether it is or not. The glimpses I have seen are quite good, though.) I have seen comment that Traveller needs to be more like THS, or at least take components from it. But at what point would such a fusion stop being Traveller with THS components and become THS with FTL? At that point, why not just play THS?

Same thing with Star Wars. If you start throwing in heavy-handed psionics (i.e. the Force), force swords, and an intergalactic knighthood into Traveller, you get a cheap imitation of Star Wars. I think that most people who want to play psionic force sword wielding knights want to play a Jedi, not a generic psionic force sword wielding knight. Why spend the effort to add these two Traveller, when Star Wars is what the player obviously wants?

I guess what I am trying to say is that I agree there are lots of things about Traveller that need to be fixed. I don't see where you can have any argument in that. But if you fix all of them, you don't have Traveller anymore. You now have a new scifi RPG.

And at that point, what is the attraction of "Traveller"? If someone wants to pay a Jedi, the should be playing Star Wars. If a group wants to play in the crew of a Constitution class cruiser, they should be playing a Star Trek game. Why is Traveller so important that it needs to be a poor imitation of everything, instead of being what it is?

So, I agree we need to either properly define the OTU, or reboot it and properly define the replacement. But please, let's not try to make the "one, true" scifi RPG. There are enough of those out there, now.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Bhoins:

<snip>

I do agree the Imperial Encyclopedia might be re-written but making it available on CD-Rom, searchable and indexed might be pretty cool as well. Pop the disk in and let the players research what they need.

Except that isn't likely to happen, at least around our games. We run our lives, each week, and show up on any particular day to play that game. After the game is over, it's either back to Real Life, or (for some of us) a jump to a new game. By the time some other game, a movie or two, and a few days of real life have gone by, it's, wow, time for the game again. Oops, some barely have time to spend XP on my character (or whatever). But do research? That just isn't going to happen. Somtimes the GM barely has time to do work on the campaign (and sometimes the adventures are just spontaneous winged-it jobs).

 

[etherflyer]

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.

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

That's probably it, yes.

And while I can see that you are wedded to the D20 system, I'd like these setting books to be as generic as possible WRT rules, so that I can use my prefered system (BESM) during a game.

Something you might want to do is look at the MTU codes that were popular on the TML, as a short-hand way of describing someone's campaign setting. Might give you an idea which settings to develop first.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by hirch duckfinder:
look , traveller is good . that's why it has survived 25 years and people are still updating it and producing for it now .

Traveller has a big fanbase and persistent publishers. That's why it's survived 25 years. Whether it's "good" or not doesn't factor into it.

as a professional musician , i know that you can't spend too much time chasing the market without sacrificing integrity and quality .

Traveller's spent some time chasing the market with regard to the game engine - at least the current versions of the game use current, popular systems (GURPS and d20). But the setting? The setting's still stuck in the stone ages of scifi. And as the rpgnet thread illustrates amply, people just aren't that interested in that sort of scifi nowadays.

times have changed . the gaming hobby is much reduced amongst younsters and sci-fi is unfashionable.

Again, you know not of which you speak.
The gaming hobby is MASSIVE today. It's bigger than it ever has been, what with the CCGs and the OGL and miniatures. I've seen no evidence that the tabletop RPG gaming market has shrunk.

And sci-fi has always been unfashionable to an extent. It's never been as popular as fantasy.

as long as the market is big enough to sustain production , i am happy .

If you're happy with it, then what are you doing on this thread?

if you would like to attract people , stop talking about the problems and talk more about the great game that we have. it may grow , or not. still , we have it now.

Because people have been talking about this game for years, and it's not brought new people into it.

I don't think it's enough to just sit on your arses and say "well, I'm happy, who cares about the future?". That merely propagates the problem - new people will never become interested that way because they're not particularly interested in it now.

I don't want Traveller to become the exclusive domain of 40+ year olds who cling to nostalgia with an iron grip, who growl at anyone else who comes up with a new approach, and who never want it to change (it's not quite got to that stage yet, but it's getting there). I want new people to be welcomed with open arms, I want there to be room for their ideas and for them not to be stifled by canon priests, and I want to see something to make them say "hey, this game is cool".

 

[etherflyer]

Originally posted by daryen:
Let me give you an example. Is 2300AD really Traveller, or is a scifi RPG that was initially called Traveller. To me, the obvious answer is that it was not Traveller, and the producers eventually realized that and fixed the name. Is that to say 2300 was not any good? Certainly not. But when it shares absolutely no base assuptions with Traveller, it just isn't Traveller.

That is what GDW said, in one of the Challenge editorials. They changed the name because people were confusing 2300 with Traveller, when it was a different game.

So I think we can officially say the 2300 and Traveller are two different games, if the designers think they are two different games

 

[etherflyer]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
If you're happy with it, then what are you doing on this thread?

Same reason I'm here, maybe:

To argue against abandoning the things I like about the setting.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Robert Prior:
Same reason I'm here, maybe:

To argue against abandoning the things I like about the setting. [/QB]

That'd be great if he actually mentioned anything specific...

 

[aramis]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
Which brings up the worst part of the OTU: The fanboys. Me, Dave Golden (Say, how is Dave?), Hans Ranke, Malenfant, Blue, Chris and many others. We love our settings. Each of us sees a different OTU, and we tend to preach it at each other as if it were religion.

Er, what the heck am I doing on that list?! I'm probably one of the most ardent proponents of tearing it all down and throwing canon out of the window!!! I have absolutely no loyalty to the OTU whatsoever! </font>[/QUOTE]You're the opposite end of the spectrum from the rest of that list, but you, like me, love to argue the meaning of Traveller. For you, it apparenty is a clear set of rules, not a setting. For me, it's a setting, AND a set of rules. Both of us turn off some newbies with our ardent arguments. In short, the list is the "Scary Guru" crowd. Sorry I implied you to be an OTU fanboy...

The vocal and sometimes vehement nature of discussions of traveller are scary to newbs who casually pop over, and find heated debates... with references and a lot of historical type arguments.