Since I was a teenager when I saw that, I really don't remember anything except Matilda May.
Travellers Needed! Traveller's 50th
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
- Start date
I like the top hats idea. Every Intendant gets one. When they make it to noble, they also get a monocle, and the right to wear a thin curly mustache.
alex_greene
Guest
How did you know that I based the Zhodani on the British Empire? Guys, looks like we've got ourselves a psion here!
alex_greene
Guest
Everybody remembers Mathilda May. (Didn't they name "Agent May" in Marvel's Agents of SHIELD after the actress?)Since I was a teenager when I saw that, I really don't remember anything except Matilda May.
Nobody remembers Patrick Stewart kissing a dude from that same movie.
But I do remember that ship with its Collectors. Hence my Rift Runners - an idea that's been brewing in my head since 1e High Guard.
alex_greene
Guest
Make one more assumption about High Guard. Ramscoops and Collectors should be available for Starships in the main ship design chapter, not in some optional "exotic technology" chapter.
Rifts should not be the uncrossable domains they are in "standard" Traveller. Ships could be designed to routinely cross the deepest of voids.
Rift Runners should be up there alongside Free Traders, Subbies, and Type S Scouts. If Rift Runners become part of "standard" Adventure class ship rosters, and there are the equivalent of Traders, Medical Ships, Lab Ships, and Capital Ships all rigged for rift running, I would happily consider that to be my contribution to Traveller 2027.
You would not believe how much my fingers were trying to type "Traveller 2077" there.
Rifts should not be the uncrossable domains they are in "standard" Traveller. Ships could be designed to routinely cross the deepest of voids.
Rift Runners should be up there alongside Free Traders, Subbies, and Type S Scouts. If Rift Runners become part of "standard" Adventure class ship rosters, and there are the equivalent of Traders, Medical Ships, Lab Ships, and Capital Ships all rigged for rift running, I would happily consider that to be my contribution to Traveller 2027.
You would not believe how much my fingers were trying to type "Traveller 2077" there.
alex_greene
Guest
How about I join them and rewrite from the inside?
alex_greene
Guest
We need to rewrite the Starships so much.
OTU assumptions about ship design are based on what was hot in 1977, which was that cars were gas guzzlers and that there was an oil crisis going on, with "greedy evil Eastern people" putting the thumb on the pipelines of both oil supply and the trade in vehicles.
Back then, anybody could own a home, and travel around in a big silver Airstream which you could buy from your pocket change. The only restriction was the supply of gasoline.
And it turned out that the "oil crisis" was nonexistent, because the companies were artificially setting the prices of gas and oil at obscene levels just to gouge the customers, and it wasn't long before the real evil came along - a wage freeze, combined with a sharp increase in the cost of living which is still ongoing, fifty years on.
If we rewrote the ships available to Travellers to include rift running, self-sufficiency, collectors, ramscoops which can be closed off to allow ships to fly in atmospheres, biospheres as standard as part of "common spaces," and a thousand other changes, we could remake Traveller into something even better - something for grand sweeping adventure in the deepest unexplored cosmos, not this grasping grubbing around for credits, hopping around one parsec at a time, and having to pay a mortgage because "we've got to keep Travellers lean and hungry or they'll sit around," which is basically capitalism, and I think we need to kick capitalism into a deep grave in the woods in 2027.
OTU assumptions about ship design are based on what was hot in 1977, which was that cars were gas guzzlers and that there was an oil crisis going on, with "greedy evil Eastern people" putting the thumb on the pipelines of both oil supply and the trade in vehicles.
Back then, anybody could own a home, and travel around in a big silver Airstream which you could buy from your pocket change. The only restriction was the supply of gasoline.
And it turned out that the "oil crisis" was nonexistent, because the companies were artificially setting the prices of gas and oil at obscene levels just to gouge the customers, and it wasn't long before the real evil came along - a wage freeze, combined with a sharp increase in the cost of living which is still ongoing, fifty years on.
If we rewrote the ships available to Travellers to include rift running, self-sufficiency, collectors, ramscoops which can be closed off to allow ships to fly in atmospheres, biospheres as standard as part of "common spaces," and a thousand other changes, we could remake Traveller into something even better - something for grand sweeping adventure in the deepest unexplored cosmos, not this grasping grubbing around for credits, hopping around one parsec at a time, and having to pay a mortgage because "we've got to keep Travellers lean and hungry or they'll sit around," which is basically capitalism, and I think we need to kick capitalism into a deep grave in the woods in 2027.
GabrielGABFonseca
Cosmic Mongoose
As part of a new generation of Traveller and a huge fan of the setting, I definitely second (third?) the notion of an Atlas of Charted Space, though I do realise that pulling that off in just three years' time is no easy feat.
Another thing I've been aching for is some sort of book on the Vilani, which are so core to the identity of the OTU setting, and yet have had (comparatively) little written about them. As far as I can recall, the only real treatments on the Vilani as a cultural body were the ones in Digest Group Publications products, and a bit on GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars.
Speaking of Digest Group Publications; given Mongoose has shown itself willing to dig into that veritable gold mine that's been locked away from us commoners, what with the new Starship Operators' Manual and World Builders' Handbook, I am strongly in favour of taking the idea of The Travellers' Digest and modernising it to a new age and a new public. They really were foundational in creating what we understand as the OTU as a setting nowadays.
And I do think some sort of re-print of the LBBs in a nice metal box could very much be a great idea, though the realist in me does wonder on the market viability of doing so, when it comes to cost-of-production versus number-of-sales and the profitability of that endeavour, which is a bit of a bummer.
I guess the TL;DR is "i dunno, i just want more Traveller"!
Another thing I've been aching for is some sort of book on the Vilani, which are so core to the identity of the OTU setting, and yet have had (comparatively) little written about them. As far as I can recall, the only real treatments on the Vilani as a cultural body were the ones in Digest Group Publications products, and a bit on GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars.
Speaking of Digest Group Publications; given Mongoose has shown itself willing to dig into that veritable gold mine that's been locked away from us commoners, what with the new Starship Operators' Manual and World Builders' Handbook, I am strongly in favour of taking the idea of The Travellers' Digest and modernising it to a new age and a new public. They really were foundational in creating what we understand as the OTU as a setting nowadays.
And I do think some sort of re-print of the LBBs in a nice metal box could very much be a great idea, though the realist in me does wonder on the market viability of doing so, when it comes to cost-of-production versus number-of-sales and the profitability of that endeavour, which is a bit of a bummer.
I guess the TL;DR is "i dunno, i just want more Traveller"!
alex_greene
Guest
We can't.
I do believe that fuel scoops and fuel processors were not standard equipment for Free Traders and Scouts back in v 1.0 of the LBBs. They are standard now, because someone worked out the mathematics of it and realised that Free Traders could only go so far, and then they would be forced to stop if they came across a gap in space they could not cross.
So remountable tanks, collapsible tanks, and fuel caches were invented, but then I think it was GURPS which made fuel scoops and processors the standard for small Starships, which stuck.
Guess what? Those were meant to be ramscoops, out of Larry Niven. The same ones now in MgT2e High Guard. By the time MgT3e or 4e High Guard comes along, I expect traders and scouts will automatically be rigged for rift running at standard, incorporating collectors and ditching the Jump fuel tanks for cargo space forever.
And I say that in confidence, because that is what I'm planning on telling Matthew Sprange tonight.
WHULorigan
Cosmic Mongoose
This depiction goes back to the very beginning of CT artwork (WH Keith) and associated text descriptions. Zhodani Nobles wear turbans (or turban-like headwear). If you can find the Zhodani-language term for the article of clothing, feel free to post.
I'm all in favor of making additional settings with different tech assumptions. I am NOT in favor of changing the tech assumptions of an existing setting willy-nilly. You'd have to functionally rewrite the whole setting, because many things are predicated on the tech as designed. If you are going to do that anyway, just make the whole setting from scratch instead of trying to find all the things that would be different in the published material.
Not to mention a lot of people like it the way it is and GDW has shown that imposing fiat changes on the setting is generally extremely unpopular, largely regardless of the quality of the new material.
Not to mention a lot of people like it the way it is and GDW has shown that imposing fiat changes on the setting is generally extremely unpopular, largely regardless of the quality of the new material.
alex_greene
Guest
We're already no longer playing your Daddy's Traveller.
I never heard of any LBB character who was "two terms Marine, four terms Other."
Doctor Who and Star Trek survived a reboot. Traveller already survived two reboots under Mongoose.
No going back. Only forward, to the generation of Traveller players who'll be coming to the game with totally different expectations to the 1977 "two terms Marine, four terms Other" crowd.
alex_greene
Guest
I did. Cosmopolite.
It's canon.
So will be Traveller 2027.
Leave the wooden hulled ships behind.
alex_greene
Guest
Imagine you're playing a game set in the old Age of Sail, and suddenly the naval ships are ironclads, with the promise of diesel-driven vessels rather than steam ships in the near future.
Imagine the OTU on the verge of developing brand new technologies. Rift running becoming a thing, because ship architects are adopting collectors and ramscoops as the latest trend. It might be a generation before your Imperium masters the Hop and Skip drives, but it's on its way, and wars like the Fifth will be the last wars fought.
Imagine Mongoose saying that all of this will be canon, and nobody will be able to say "In YTU" because that's not how things are done any more, and nobody's allowed to be a jag about it because they can't play Trav like it's 1977 any more.
Here's the thing. Nobody is playing Trav like it's 1977 any more.
Why do you feel the need to change existing material instead of creating new material? Traveller 2300 has its own setting and tech assumptions. Traveller Mindjammer has its own setting and tech assumptions. Pioneer will have its own setting and tech assumptions. Whatever it is that you want to play can have its own setting and tech assumptions.
There is no need to invalidate 50 years of setting material in order to have a new game setting with different tech assumptions. Literally, make a new setting. Easy peasy.
There is no need to invalidate 50 years of setting material in order to have a new game setting with different tech assumptions. Literally, make a new setting. Easy peasy.
Mongoose can say whatever it wants. And if it says something too divergent from what the audience wants, it'll not sell. That's what happened to GDW. Basically everyone since has pretended none of their setting changes happened.
That doesn't seem like a useful way to go when you can just write a setting that doesn't do that.
alex_greene
Guest
And yet the game is still selling and in vast numbers. They've experimented with exploration settings - The Great Rift, Deepnight Revelation, The Solomani Rim Expeditions. They've created an Ancients trilogy which drops an anvil into the millpond as far as character generation goes.
Mongoose can say whatever it wants. And whatever it says, is canon. And they've said that whatever the players do is also canon.
They could destroy Charted Space if they want. It won't be "YTU." If they wrote a book of AUs, each and every one of those Charted Space AUs would be canon. Maybe even interact with one another.
alex_greene
Guest
Mongoose want Traveller to last another fifty years. They want Traveller to outlive its creator. It's already outlived GDW.
And the way to do that is for the game to evolve. Not more of the same, or winding the clock back to 1977 with its racism, sexism, everybody worshipping Jimmy Savile, and everyone smoking.
And the way to do that is for the game to evolve. Not more of the same, or winding the clock back to 1977 with its racism, sexism, everybody worshipping Jimmy Savile, and everyone smoking.
Fulcs
Banded Mongoose
I
Hi Alex, associating Traveller with all those things from 1977 is a shade unfair. Star Wars came out around then too, but you wouldn't associate that with the things on your list, would you?
Personally, I'll take 1977 over a lot of what we have in all aspects of life today, but neither is relevant to the game of Traveller itself.
You have to look at Traveller for its own merits. I'm struggling to see a valid reason to change the classic setting, and using all those other things from that era as association with Traveller doesn't really help to explain the reasons. Can you help me with that?
