Actually an Ancient race isn't a limitation it is a feature. They don't play a major role in the actual game just a minor role in the background.
Neither is having defined races. Just because there are 6 "major" races and lots of specific minor ones doesn't mean you can't have others.
Of all the campaign settings none of them are wholly within the Imperium. Lets see. Spinward Marches. A Peninsula in Imperial space with the Vargr Border just off the Coreward/Training end of the map, The Zhodani Consulate Spinward/Coreward of the map and actually on the map, The Sword Worlds, on the map, The Darian Confederation, on the Map, Wild unexplored space Rimward of the map (Specifically the Eglin Subsector), Independent worlds, District 268 and areas between the major nations. Yes just over half of the map is 3I but the rest of it and the areas around it certainly aren't.
OK Lets look at the second campaign setting. Solomani Rim. Hmmm Older more settled area. 33% of the map is beyond the Imperium Borders. New race in control of an area within the Imperium. A tamer place than the Wild West feel of the Spinward Marches but still with Intrigue, espionage and other things to keep it interesting.
So much for CT. Now MT. Hmmmm There is no more 3rd Imperium. It implodes. The wild west is now the safer pocket of the region. (The Regency) You can run all sorts of wartime scenarios, probably because of the successful Twilight 2000.
TNE. Never played it but there is definitely no 3rd Imperium.
T4: Never played it but it is taking place in the opening stages of the 3rd Imperium, which isn't settled or even fully explored.
GT, an extension of CT, see above. (Never played it but that is what it seems like.)
T20: Gateway. The majority of the campaign setting is independent worlds and Pocket empires with influence from 4 major empires.
Sorry I don't see your complaints about the 3rd Imperium being a limitation holding any water.
Playing a retired something: Well actually there is no reason you had to retire to play the game. Granted most characters in CT had some experience in one of the branches of service but the OTU originally was defined as having a Draft. There was never any obligation to serve more than 4 years in one of the classes.
T20 you can start as some kid fresh out of highschool if you want to. You can start as a first level character if you want, but it has always been my experience that the first 4-6 levels in most FRPG are boring. Your characters start off afraid of everything and totally inexperienced at doing anything. In Traveller you can start with an experienced character(and a background as to why you have that experience) but there has always been the concept in Traveller that no matter how powerful you are a gun shot wound can still kill or incapitate you. That concept has always balanced out the characters.
You will find that in history, as opposed to hollywood, most fights fought with lethal weapons begin and end with one shot/slash/thrust. That is how Traveller is set up. One of the most frustrating things I found with D&D with moderately high level characters against moderately high level opponents that fights tended to last hours without serious damage being done. (And that is hours of game time, forget about how long it took in real time.) Chipping away at your opponent for hours always bothered me.
Of course D&D players that migrated to Traveller were in for a shock and vice versa, but the one shot, one hit, one kill motto of the Marine Snipers is actually possible in Traveller. (And well it should be.)
I have seen you complain that it is too generic and not specific enough then I have seen you complain that it is too specific. (Sometimes, like now, in the same post.) You aren't asking a question you are complaining one way or the other or both. You still can't have it both ways! Which is it?
I don't see why some worlds might not have Gears. But I can think of a good reason why they didn't catch on across the know universe. They weren't developed all across the Known Universe.
If the US and the Confederacy didn't deploy Ironclads during the Civil War (And AFAIK one was developed because the other side found out about the other.) Would anyone else have developed armored shiping? It still took several years before the Wooden Ships and Iron men disappeared from the high seas regardless of the immunity the Ironclads had to the state of the art weapons of then current Naval technology. Or a more modern comparison. The whole world is arming Fixed wing aircraft for ground attack missions but the US Army, hampered by the creation of the Air Force, developes Attack Helicopters. Everyone else that developes Attack Helicopters in response to the US Army use of them.
Today we have the ability to build walking armored vehicles. We have the ability to build wheeled tanks and even tanks based on a cross between an M-1 and an AH-64, yet tanks are still Tracked, heavily armored, and only mount one main gun in the 100 to 120mm range. Generally in a 60 ton chassis range. Because that is what everyone else is using and until someone comes up with something that will beat it on a regular basis then it will stay that way.
But the OTU is a big place and if in some places the walking tank proves more effecient then it will be used. (The Imperial Marines already use it.) In other places design philosophy will dictate that Grav Tanks will be used. They serve the same purpose but each has their own advantages. I mean what is a Mech or a Gear or even a Titan but a suit of Battledress writ large?
But if you want to build your generic universe for your generic RPG then again go ahead. If you live within the limitations that there is no FTL coms and the Jump Drive is the way to FTL travel then you can use Traveller. If you want FTL coms you can fudge those easily enough. All you have to do now is design the physics of FTL travel for the way you want to play. Nothing else on your list is a limitation of the system it is a feature of the OTU and not even a limitation of the OTU.
Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bhoins:
[QB] And the problem with that is what, exactly? If you don't like the background write your own. If you don't like the game write your own. Mark, Hunter, Martin and a host of thousands have put lots of time, devotion, energy and love into this Universe, it works well as a backdrop for an SF-RPG. Funny that is what I thought it was! If you want to go play Star Wars then go play Starwars. If you want to be able to play Starwars style scenarios, and hunt Dinosaurs, and get involved in espionage, and a host of other things then play Traveller.
Yes, but that doesn't make it a generic sf game.
There is nothing provided in current editions of Traveller that say "here's what you can do to move outside of the OTU setting". What if you don't want an Imperium? What if you don't want six major races? What if you want a different FTL system? There is nothing that supports any alternative style of sf campaign, which is why I don't think anyone can convincingly argue that Traveller is supposed to be a "generic sf system". It's pretending to be by having a setting in which you can plonk just about anything in, but that doesn't make it truly generic because if you try to break outside of that setting you will receive no support whatsoever from the books.
And if that's the case, then people may as well stop trying to convince us that Traveller is a generic sf game when it clearly isn't.
The limitations to the OTU are as follows.
1. There is no FTL communications.
2. Interstellar travel is limited to no more than 6 parsecs at a time.
3. The imagination, or lack thereof, of the GM.
And 3 can mitigate the first 2.
You forgot:
4. An Ancient race that dumped humans on a range of planets and then died out.
5. Six specific major races and many specific minor races.
6. The main campaign setting is an Imperial government with all the associated bureaucracy.
7. The characters are assumed to all be retired ex-somethings who are doing their own thing in space.
The OTU is a LOT more specific than you give it credit for.
I really don't understand your comments, they are starting to sound like a certain political campaign. You can't have it both ways, either the OTU is too generic or vague or it is too specific to be a generic SFRPG.
Which is it?
Well, that's exactly what I'm asking isn't it? On the one hand, people say Traveller is a generic sf game that you can make any sf background with. But despite this claim, all the alien and tech and societal assumptions presented in the current versions are tied specifically to the OTU, which makes it a specific sf game.
So you can't sell it to people as a generic sf game when it isn't. Say I don't want the Imperium in my games - where's the support and advice and a list of alternative approaches to help me remove it? What if I want to add nanotechnology? Where's the advice and rules for that? What about if I want to make some new alien races? How am I supposed to do that? That's what people are after when they want generic games - they want toolkits with which to build their own universes from scratch, not a framework in which they can put anything they like.
You could run pretty any kind of adventure somewhere on Earth, with technologies ranging from TL0 to TL8 and all sorts of government types - but whatever you do it's still tied to planet Earth, and that's what makes it specific. A generic game would allow you to run something on any planet, with any society, with any tech level, with any assumptions, and Earth adventures would just be a subset of that.
You can't do that with Traveller, because there's too much specific detail embedded in the rules. So Traveller is a subset of generic scifi - admittedly a broad one - but it doesn't encompass the whole field.
Now, you may not have a problem with that, but from what has been said by those outside the game, others clearly do. They don't want to run adventures in that specific Traveller framework. </font>[/QUOTE]
) I tried to set up my own universe. It was just too much work and the project died in a couple of months. So I took existing OTU material.
