Why don't new people play Traveller?

[Evo Plurion]

Originally posted by Paraquat Johnson:
As a quick aside, I find it interesting that fantasy is so popular in book and videogame form, yet scifi is vastly more popular in movie and TV form. I wonder why?

IMHO much of what is called science fiction in films and TV isn't really science fiction. 2001: A Space Odyssey, THX-1138, Blade Runner, Solaris and Minority Report are SF films, but many others (Star Wars, the Alien series, The Terminator, etc.) are fantasy, horror or action films disguised as SF. Many of what I consider the poorer Star Trek episodes are really just fantsy or soap opera in SF-form.

So while these films are very popular and appear to be more numerous than pure fantasy films - the inevitable Tolkien bandwagon notwithstanding - they are perhaps more fantasy than SF. Taking Paraquat Johnson's point and applying the aforementioned examples of real SF, we see that this kind of entertainment is less popular and certainly less common than its fantasy brethren.

Similarly, many RPGs presented as SF games are more fantasy than SF. I was looking at D20 Modern a few weeks ago and was astonished at how arbitrary and unscientific it seemed. There appeared to be little consideration for the workings of technology or science, especially compared to a game like Traveller.

Traveller and TransHuman Space (I assume, for I do not own or play it) are harder-SF games than most if not all other SFRPGs. I don't know how popular or successful THS is, but Traveller's supposed lack of appeal to young gamers may be explained by its hard-SF roots.

BTW, please don't think me a snob regarding fantasy versus SF. I merely object to the tendency in entertainment media to package the former as the latter.

 

[BetterThanLife]

The Deckplans are out there. All you have to do is look for them. There is a Deckplans webring and a Deckplans Yahoo group. And while I am sure there probably as many plans for Star Wars and Star Trek, that would be about your only choices in terms of getting close to volume available for Traveller.

As for being aware of other systems. I have seen them. GURPS never impressed me, but I will admit that it has been a while since I looked at it and I have never played it.

The Hero System, yes I have played their modern espionage version of the game, again it has been a while and I wasn't impressed with it either.

Building Mechs in Traveller? Sure why not. Without even owning a copy of Fire Fusion and Steel. MT and T20 both have the capability of building mechs. What is a Mech besides a large walking tank with lots of guns. And if you look at the T20 definition and Treatment of Battledress it is a Mech, writ small. Or a Mech is Battledress writ large. Your call.

Why would giving me so many choices for running a Traveller campaign, in the OTU, either in distance, or time, or both be a drawback? Especially for a newbie? Just because there are choices doesn't mean a newbie has to use all of them at once or even be aware of all the different settings. If I want to run a campaign in the early 1100s in the Spinward Marches and you want to run a campaign in the Gateway sector in 998 and someone else wants to run a campaign in the Solomani Rim in 1248 and we are all using Traveller and this newbie happens to find and want to play in all three campaigns, how is that a bad thing? How would that scare off a person from playing in the first place?

Now what might scare off a newbie is I am using the MT rules, you are using the Gurps rules and someone else is using the T20 rules and it is all still Traveller because everything doesn't quite work the same. But if all three of us are using the T20 rules then it would be seemless for the Newbie to play all three. Matter of fact they could use the same character.

So please, explain to me how having more choices is bad?

You have, apparently, a problem with Traveller. YOU, by your own admission, DON'T PLAY and YOU DON'T GM. What did someone decide they didn't want you participating in their campaign so you hold a grudge?

Get a copy of your favorite set of rules. I would guess GURPS but I would recommend T20, find some people that would allow you to GM a game, though with your abrasivve personality I think that would be difficult no matter what game you wanted to run, and spend a while setting up a campaign and run one. Once you have done that, gotten a feel for actually using the system, instead of complaining how the system appears to work then you might have a leg to stand on in terms of why people might not want to get into Traveller instead of inferences and anectodal evidence.

Otherwise you are at the point of being a waste of bandwidth.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />YOu can pull, literally thousands of Deckplans and starship designs, thousands of vehicles off the Internet if you don't want to do all the work yourself.

Well, you can pull about a thousand designs off one Traveller resource that IIRC Robert Prior produced. But I strongly doubt that there are literally "thousands" of deckplans and vehicles specifically produced for Traveller. But you can find a hell of a lot of designs and deckplans for Star Wars and Star Trek at least.

What other game gives you all that?

With the exception of animal encounter tables - GURPS and HERO can.

IF I am going to do generic Sci-Fi gaming why would I choose anything else?

Because you're aware of is Traveller and you haven't looked at all the other options?

Now if I am going to chose the OTU as a background for my Campaign, what other RPG is as developed with as rich a history. Greyhawk never got this much treatment. Forgotten Realms might have. But that is about it. There is a bigger fan base for Star Trek but the Star Trek Universe is even more contradictory than the OTU.

if it's rich history you want, try Empire of the Petal Throne/Tekumel (soon to be rereleased by GoO). Or Skyrealms of Jorune. Or Runequest (which IIRC, has actually been around for at least as long - if not longer - than Traveller has). There are several games with a much deeper, more detailed in-game history than Traveller has.

But I like playing in the OTU. And as a GM the history is rich enough, the terrain is varied enough that I can run 7 campaigns and never be in the same place. Or I can run several campaigns in teh same place with different settings. (IE. THe Spinward Marches, during the early days of the Third Imperium, during the fourth Frontier/Solomani Rim wars, during the 5th Frontier War, During the Rebellion, During the early 1200s, and during the mid 1200s. Or I could run one campaign that can span almost 1300 years. (though I doubt I would be able to keep a gaming group together that long.

That, I suspect, is more a problem for new players. Where should they start? Plus, even if they find Traveller players, they've all got their own preferred era. If a new player fancies running in the TNE era, I bet any Traveller player he finds will instead scoff and lecture him about how awful they thought it was rather than play his game.

I can build Gears and/or Mechs and Drop Heinlein's Starship troopers all over them and see who comes out ahead.

Mecha design rules have been produced for Traveller?

The only rules missing are the rules for hyperdrives other than jump drives.

Those were in TNE: Fire Fusion and Steel, but that's not available for current versions of Traveller (though DTRPG murkies this issue somewhat now). While GURPS Vehicles and/or Space can handle those options for GURPS Traveller, there's no tech design book like that available for d20 or T20 yet.

You can even build buggers (ENder's game) or Arachnids (Starship Troopers).

Using the animal generators? I guess you could.

Is there Demon Creation Rules in 3.5E? Or even monster creation rules? (there wasn't in AD&D)

Not that I know of.

As for your generic games, d20 Future for example, what specific settings do they have? I haven't seen any in stores.

They have settings for bughunters, crossdimensional travel, the old Alternity Stardrive setting, a Space Cops setting, Cyberpunk with genetically engineered warriors, and a post-nuclear apocalypse Mad Max type thing in the book. I think some of those (including probably Star Drive, and perhaps Star Frontiers) will be getting their own books later on.

But I am still tryuing to figure out which side you are on? Are you saying you want something more specific and less vague or are you saying it is too specific and not generic enough? YOu are claiming both again.

I'd like Traveller to make up its mind which side it's on. I think ideally Traveller should become a truly generic and fully adaptable sf toolkit like GURPS Space/Star Hero and have the OTU as a complete setting separate to the rules. The only problem with that though is that GURPS Space and Star HERO are established generic systems, and a generic Traveller wouldn't really add anything to the pot that they already have. </font>[/QUOTE]

 

[BetterThanLife]

Actually yes. But the illustration was the more impressive Special Effects. I am sorry I didn't make that clear. In The Matrix Trilogy they blew more stuff up.

Granted there was an awful lot of Special effects in THe Lord of The Rings Trilogy it didn't look as impressive. Movies are a visual thing. That is why Sci Fi has traditionally garnered a wider fan base in Movies and Television than Fantasy. And since Sci-Fi is more visual why the Fantasy Books appear to sell better.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bhoins:
[QB]Fantasy has always been second place. the Matrix series vs. THe Lord of the Rings.

Um, you do know that a hell of a lot more people went to see the Lord of the Rings trilogy than saw the Matrix trilogy, right? </font>[/QUOTE]

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
I have been in sales for 20 years now. If you want to increase sales there is only one solution. See more people. Seeing the right people is always nice but seeing more people is always a better choice. Hell Traveller products already targets people who have been playing Traveller. Now we need to get it in other people's hands. Getting it on the shelves in Game Stores and in Gaming Sections of stores like B. Daltons and Borders is hitting your target audience. The problem is it isn't consistently there.

I found T20 by accident and I have been playing Traveller off and on for over 20 years. It should be there when I am strolling through the store. That is how you sell it.

I don't believe it's just a case of that. If I saw something I didn't like everywhere I went, it doesn't change the fact that I don't want to buy it.

The problem is that as you say Traveller targets people who are already into it. That's great, but the problem is that this creates a more closed community, more likely to stagnate with time.

But to appeal to a new crowd, it's clear that the game has to change dramatically for the new market. Hence I think TNE:1248 is the best hope for bringing in new people.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
[QB] The Deckplans are out there. All you have to do is look for them. There is a Deckplans webring and a Deckplans Yahoo group. And while I am sure there probably as many plans for Star Wars and Star Trek, that would be about your only choices in terms of getting close to volume available for Traveller.

I suspect you still over exaggerate when you say there are "thousands" of different deckplans. I've seen the Deckplans yahoo group and it didn't have THAT many in its archives.

As for being aware of other systems. I have seen them. GURPS never impressed me, but I will admit that it has been a while since I looked at it and I have never played it.

The Hero System, yes I have played their modern espionage version of the game, again it has been a while and I wasn't impressed with it either.

Whether you're impressed with them or not is not the issue. Fact is, they're there, and they are much more useful for creating a sf background than Traveller is because they're more versatile and adaptable.

Why would giving me so many choices for running a Traveller campaign, in the OTU, either in distance, or time, or both be a drawback? Especially for a newbie? Just because there are choices doesn't mean a newbie has to use all of them at once or even be aware of all the different settings.

Because there's no point in having the overarching OTU background then, is there? If all you're going to do is ignore it and make your own thing, you don't NEED the OTU there or any of its assumptions.

If I want to run a campaign in the early 1100s in the Spinward Marches and you want to run a campaign in the Gateway sector in 998 and someone else wants to run a campaign in the Solomani Rim in 1248 and we are all using Traveller and this newbie happens to find and want to play in all three campaigns, how is that a bad thing? How would that scare off a person from playing in the first place?

Because he wouldn't do that. He'd be much more likely to play in one campaign. And he'd have to find a group that is playing what he prefers. And if he can't then he's either going to have to change his preferences or start his own game which he's going to have a lot of trouble finding players for (unless he somehow persuades a bunch of new people to try it out).

So please, explain to me how having more choices is bad?

For all those choices, people sure seem to have a hard time finding players. Because one group is playing CT, another is playing GURPS Traveller, and another is playing IMTU, and you're interested in playing T20. And you ain't going to find all those groups in your vicinity anyway.

You have, apparently, a problem with Traveller. YOU, by your own admission, DON'T PLAY and YOU DON'T GM.

Oh yes, I forgot that makes me inferior somehow, doesn't it. Never mind that I've written a fair amount of material for the line (some of which has actually been published), know the background inside out, and have been running and playing in a wide variety of RPGs for over 20 years. Plus I have actually used the game to create parts of my own background (see below). I probably know a damn sight more about the game than you do.

My "problem" with Traveller is largely with its "fans" who don't want to see it change. It's clear from the rpgnet thread that this is largely why the game doesn't interest new people.

What did someone decide they didn't want you participating in their campaign so you hold a grudge?

Not at all. But in all my years of gaming, I've never actually met anyone who played Traveller, and I never met anyone interested in it at any of the university gaming clubs I've been to every week for the past decade.

I've got some of the CT adventures and the DGP early adventures, and I tried running one (Antiquity) at school years ago, and I find them to be generally dull and unexciting, and EVERYONE - myself included - was bored to tears with the adventure I tried to run (what can I say, it looked like a fun game to start with, but then just nosedived into terminal dullness). I haven't really seen any Traveller adventures since then that were any more interesting (except in TNE).

Get a copy of your favorite set of rules. I would guess GURPS but I would recommend T20, find some people that would allow you to GM a game, though with your abrasivve personality I think that would be difficult no matter what game you wanted to run, and spend a while setting up a campaign and run one.

Resorted to direct personal insults now, have we? How pathetic.

FYI I just finished running a successful Wraith campaign, so you'll forgive me for saying "Screw you".

Once you have done that, gotten a feel for actually using the system, instead of complaining how the system appears to work then you might have a leg to stand on in terms of why people might not want to get into Traveller instead of inferences and anectodal evidence.

Who's being abrasive now? You think I don't understand how the system works in Traveller? Frankly, I'm probably in a better position than you to understand why people don't want to get into Traveller, because I don't find the pre-collapse OTU particularly interesting as a game setting myself and I can sympathise with their reasons for not liking it. In fact, given a choice, I'd enjoy playing in any other scifi setting than the pre-collapse OTU, precisely because it's so outdated, dull, rigid, unrealistic, and inconsistent.

Otherwise you are at the point of being a waste of bandwidth.

Don't like it? Don't read it.

 

[Malenfant]

See, from my point of view it sounds like you are playing Traveller: your science fiction assumptions about how the future looks and works are essentially Traveller's, with some inevitable tweaks to make the setting your own.

Actually, it's totally different

.

I actually have about 120 pages of re-written Technological Architecture for my game. I went through every section of FF&S and reworked it for my setting's assumptions. The FTL drive actually turned out to be nothing like any of the ones in the book. So while things are broadly the same (like there are Master Fire Directors, and turrets and meson guns and so on) the mor noticeable elements are quite different.

Also, there's no Imperium. In fact, there's not really any interstellar government at all, just individual alliances between races. No Traveller aliens are in my setting. And the TL of each world is about the same - no low-tech worlds. Plus (of course) the worlds are more realistic

I don't think that's really Traveller at all and I don't call it that myself - the assumptions are different across the board, all it really has in common with Travellar are some of the core design engines. If anything, I've used the generic elements of the game - the ones that you (and I) want separated from the background and ditched the setting completely.

Why did I use Traveller for any part of it instead of anything else? Well to be honest, at first it was because I didn't have the other games. And the tech design rules in FF&S are way better than anything else I've seen. Then I got GURPS Space, and ended up using GURPS as the "character-scale engine" for chargen and human-scale combat, then used FF&S to make the technology and WBH to make the planets (which I later modified to be more realistic). Nowadays I'm wanting to convert the character-scale engine from GURPS to Silhouette and keep the rest as is.

But I wouldn't want to convert it all to using one of the Traveller systems, largely because I don't like Traveller's chargen system at all (I made several characters using CT for kicks. While it can be fun as a game in itself, as a method for making characters you'd want to play I think it sucks completely).

 

[Malenfant]

In fact, I'm clearly not the only one who asks "why bother using Traveller"? Check out Moochava's post on pg 18 of the rpgnet thread (post #176) - unprompted, he just said exactly what I've been saying here.

 

[Evo Plurion]

Mal, I must confess my admiration for the devotion with which you conduct your argument. I hope you're not feeling ganged up on - I just don't agree that Traveller is limited enough to repel prospective gamers seeking options for SFRPGing. If I want to model something that isn't covered in Traveller, I usually base my assumptions from science articles on the subject, science fiction sources and my own semi-educated assumptions. This is, afterall, where the designers of all these games get their information. I believe that many people attracted to hard SF role-playing in the first place would tend to have a workable knowledge of scientific matters through their reading, and would therefore find it relatively easy and enjoyable to invent their own worlds.

 

[Malenfant]

Well, I think the issue really is not that Traveller is limited enough to repel prospective gamers, but rather that I think it's hard to see what Traveller can offer above any other sf game around today.

The background of the default OTU doesn't seem to be something that attracts many people nowadays, as the rpgnet thread illustrates. And if they want a generic sf game to make their own setting, there's no reason why they shouldn't get one of those instead.

 

[hunter]

Folks, lets drop the snarkiness and personal attacks. You may not agree with each other, but at times the tone in this thread has gotten a little bitter. This is too good a thread for me to shut down because of something like that, but if it keeps up I will.

BTW, this applies to more than one person in this thread...

Hunter

 

[Pompe]

Honestly, I don't know if I think GURPS always is that superior. It is generic, sure, but often I think it lacks something, maybe some crisp depth which Traveller in its abstract empire-spanning way and its ability to call upon a specific setting does have. GURPS has sometimes more the feel of a stack of cool things presented in a fairly dull way.

That's one reason why I think Traveller should do generic resources with fairly small but still some amount of OTU (and other QLI settings) content, and separate OTU-only setting material. To provide both the Tone and the Stuff and use them to strengthen each other.

Pompes LJ

 

[Malenfant]

Well, GURPS Traveller is basically the same as the CT Traveller, barring minor tech differences and chargen. The background is pretty much identical. So I'm not sure what the difference you're seeing there is.

But even the GURPS version was a little mixed up about its presentation. "GT:First In" for example contains a fantastic world/star system for any scifi game. Yet the book is not presented as such - it's actually the Scouts book for the Traveller universe, that happens to have a World Design section in it (not unlike the original CT Scouts book). It's a bit odd, because someone who wants that world design system for their non Traveller game is lumbered with about half a book of Scouts material that they'll never need for their own setting.

I had a similar feeling about QLI's "Scout Cruiser" PDF. On the one hand, it's got lots of nice detail about a new spacecraft, that can be plonked into any scifi setting really. On the other, it's got this adventure in it that is a bit more specific to the OTU. Personally, I bought it solely for the deckplans and ship details so I could plonk them in my background, and really I wish there had either been more of that in the book instead of the adventure. Now, if QLI could do a book that just had the starship designs from these things without the adventures then that'd be much more useful from the POV of those of us who want these things for our own settings....

Admittedly, a background made yesterday using a generic system would lack a bit of depth compared to one that's been around for over 25 years, but that's hardly surprising .

 

[flykiller]

(passing thought, probably already dealt with.)

when a new gamer sees star trek or star wars on the shelf, he knows what it's about. a dozen movies have laid out those universes in up-front detail. when he plays a character in that game he knows what's going on, and so does the ref.

when a new gamer sees traveller on the shelf, he doesn't have a clue what it is, and the ref has to put everything together from scratch.

your average fourteen to twenty year old wants power, babes, and things that blow up. when he looks through star trek and star wars he sees powers, babes, and things that blow up. when he looks through traveller he sees algorithms, dot-matrix maps, and talking dogs.

tough sell.

 

[Pompe]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Well, GURPS Traveller is basically the same as the CT Traveller, barring minor tech differences and chargen. The background is pretty much identical. So I'm not sure what the difference you're seeing there is.

But even the GURPS version was a little mixed up about its presentation. "GT:First In" for example contains a fantastic world/star system for any scifi game. Yet the book is not presented as such - it's actually the Scouts book for the Traveller universe, that happens to have a World Design section in it (not unlike the original CT Scouts book). It's a bit odd, because someone who wants that world design system for their non Traveller game is lumbered with about half a book of Scouts material that they'll never need for their own setting.

I must apologize.

What I meant was GURPS Space, as a generic system, not GURPS Traveller. I though that was what you were comparing Traveller with, but I should have made that clear in my post. Old GURPS Space did feel a bit lifeless to me at times, yes.

I agree with you regarding First In. It is a very good book, but I think it would have been even better as a generic resource if is was / was presented as a world building / survey /exploration resource with some, but not as much, Traveller specific material and reference.

Then people who would bought it as "cool, a Survey And Worldbuilding Book for Any Setting" would be happy, the Traveller fans who want an updated worldbuilding system would be happy, and some of the first ones might take to Traveller after seeing those bits in the book.

I certainly would have bought First In faster (instead of having to order it in from overseas) if I knew just how generic and useful it was. But it looked at a glance like just another Traveller Book with deckplans of Donosevs and the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service. That might not draw new fans, although it makes the old ones happy.

Pompe's LJ

 

[Malenfant]

Oh, I see. Yeah, but that 'lifelessness' may be because GURPS Space doesn't have any sample settings in it. It's solely a toolkit, nothing else - you're not supposed to just look at GURPS Space and have a setting to play in - being a generic system, it's up to the GM to do the work to make the setting from the advice given there.

Though thinking about it, IIRC a lot of the worlds from the old GURPS Space Atlas series had a "bland" kind of feel to them... and funnily enough they'd fit in the OTU (which has also been called "bland").

In fact, I think that is part of the problem with the OTU - there's no consistent, specific "feel" to any of the worlds in it, because they can be absolutely anything and can be wildly different from eachother.

 

[Evo Plurion]

Originally posted by hunter:
Folks, lets drop the snarkiness and personal attacks. You may not agree with each other, but at times the tone in this thread has gotten a little bitter. This is too good a thread for me to shut down because of something like that, but if it keeps up I will.

BTW, this applies to more than one person in this thread...

Hunter

Thanks, Hunter, for keeping us civil and for your signature.

 

[Michael Taylor]

Quote: "when a new gamer sees star trek or star wars on the shelf, he knows what it's about. a dozen movies have laid out those universes in up-front detail. when he plays a character in that game he knows what's going on, and so does the ref.
when a new gamer sees traveller on the shelf, he doesn't have a clue what it is, and the ref has to put everything together from scratch."

Hit the nail on the head. That's why an "introduction to the trav universe" or something like that is needed. So people can see the flavour of the OTU. Now that's what the sorucebooks are suppsoed to do - Gateway introduces the "classic OTU" in, I believe the best way it can given the vast backstory of the OTU. 1248 will introduce the TNE setting in the best way it can. So if people want to learn about the OTU, there will be 2 consistent sourcebooks to fall back on. But perhaps we need a cheaper, shorter "intro to the OTU" type book...

 

[Michael Taylor]

Maybe in LBB format like CT Book 0 - and written in a prose style, not an encyclopedia style.

 

[Malenfant]

So what sort of thing would go into this "intro to the OTU" book? In particular, how could it be presented to make it more appealling to the new gamer? What aspects of Traveller would make someone looking at it from outside think "cool!! I must play this!".

 

[Michael Taylor]

Quote: "What aspects of Traveller would make someone looking at it from outside think "cool!! I must play this!".

This question has as many answers as people who currently play traveller, so my opinion on this question is uttetrly irrelevant.

For new players, as you have stated before and I agree with, the best hope is 1248. You could do perhaps an intro to the 1248 universe as well as an intro to the "classic (ie Gateway) universe.

We have to hope that 1248 will attract new players, because we sure as hell can't change the history of the OTU and the base assumptions behind it, as Hunter has said in this thread.