2300AD, thoughts and wishes

[kermit]

Colin if you can reveal such information there are a few things I'd like to know. Since the license agreement is almost certainly already worked out how much lee way do you have with the setting?

I'm assuming you can fix many of the direct canon contradictions as you aptly did in the 2320AD source book. Are you going to include info from Challenge magazine? Are you going to cover the Invasion plotline or will that be saved for later?

Can you tweek the setting or is it basically just a re-do of the original 2300AD but with Mongoose Traveller rules? Is there anything major you will or want to change? Can you place a large joint American, Australian, Canadian, Indian (both Native American and sub-continent of Asia varieties), British, German states (not including Bavaria) colony at 70 Ophiuchi named after me?

Thank you,
Benjamin

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Outpost Kermit?

 

[Colin]

Colin if you can reveal such information there are a few things I'd like to know. Since the license agreement is almost certainly already worked out how much lee way do you have with the setting?

This is uncertain at this time, but I will likely have some leeway.

I'm assuming you can fix many of the direct canon contradictions as you aptly did in the 2320AD source book. Are you going to include info from Challenge magazine? Are you going to cover the Invasion plotline or will that be saved for later?

If they fit, and if we have the rights, Challenge material may make it in. As to the second, what invasion?

Can you tweek the setting or is it basically just a re-do of the original 2300AD but with Mongoose Traveller rules? Is there anything major you will or want to change?

Little from column A, a little from column B. As to the second question, well, yeah, but that would be telling. Some of the Earth-based political geography, maybe.

Can you place a large joint American, Australian, Canadian, Indian (both Native American and sub-continent of Asia varieties), British, German states (not including Bavaria) colony at 70 Ophiuchi named after me?

I'll get right on that. :roll:

Thank you,
Benjamin

 

[Colin]

I can't ditch Soc for humans, but I can for aliens. So for the Sung it becomes Caste, Ebers it's Lobe, Pentapods its Mod, and for Kafers its Control.

Dunno if the 2320 project is going to stray into rules engine tinkering, but I've thought that adding some low key mechanical support for pull, rep and the like would be a good extension to the Traveller ruleset (something like the Reputation, Panache and Prizes subsystem in FantasyCraft).

2300 AD attributes map fairly well to MgT:

Size – I'd discard this; no idea why you'd track this as an abstraction when you can list height, weight and body type.
Strength – Maps to MgT
Dexterity – Maps to MgT
Endurance – Maps to MgT
Determination – Maps to MgT End attribute
Intelligence – Maps to MgT
Eloquence – I'd consider replacing this.
Education - Maps to MgT

That leaves Determination and Eloquence. The Definition of Endurance in Traveller includes Mental as well as Physical endurance, so you could rule Determination is covered by End, and convert between systems by taking the average of a 2300 AD's End and Det for the MgT End attribute.

That leaves Eloquence, which I'd replace with an attribute like Presence, which is a mashup of physical appearance and charisma, similar to what you suggest. That'd give characters an attribute to test in social situations that is not tied to the rigid social stratification of the OTU.

There was an article in Challenge 44 on Social Class in 2300, by Andy Slack, so if you wanted to keep Soc there's some basis for doing so. But I'd prefer to ditch it.

John

 

[kermit]

@Colin - Don't roll your eyes at me young man!

Thank you for the quick reply. One major request though is that the book be light on rules and heavy on background setting.

As for the planetary systems I was just re-reading 2320AD and found a few orbital distances that seem off. Case in point is Dukou/Epsilon Eridani which is listed as being a cold world but having a "Distance from Primary: 0.24 AU" 2320AD, pg 152. This is a bit odd given that http://www.solstation.com lists the life zone for that star as .47 - .91 AU. There are a few others like that as well. I recommend changing a few of these, and it won't really hurt canon at all.

Also, adding a few of the real life extrasolar planets might be interesting. But this could be difficult to manage as these findings change a lot as more observations are made.

Good lick,
Benjamin

P.S. How about just an outpost with a few bored scientists?

 

[Colin]

We'll see. Young man? Heh. It's been a loong time since anyone's ever called me young. Been a long time since I've been young, for that matter.

 

[Colin]

Blood Slivers are a parasitical infection native to the Manchurian colony world of Cold Mountain, and are another manifestation of that world’s hostility to Humanity. Blood Slivers are a parasitic worm injected by the glass mite, a smaller relative of the razorfly. After hatching under the skin, the worms make their way toward heat and motion, which will typically take them deeper into the body, usually entering the bloodstream. They will take up calcium and silicates from the blood as they grow, eventually becoming large enough, and sharp enough, to start cutting the host from within. Starting about 1 week from time of infection, the host will start taking damage from the blood slivers, a the rate of 1 point every three days for the first 2 weeks. After that, the blood sliver are large enough to start causing real damage, as they start to metamorphose into glass mites and attempt to make their way out of the blood stream. At this point, the host takes 1d6 points of Damage per day, for 1d6 days, until they have all cut their way free and take off. It is unknown what Cold Mountain animal is their usual host. Conventional antibiotics sometimes work (Difficult, medical), but medichine therapy is always successful if performed in the two weeks window after the eggs have hatched, but before the blood slivers start to dig.

 

[Colin]

@Colin - Don't roll your eyes at me young man!

Thank you for the quick reply. One major request though is that the book be light on rules and heavy on background setting.

That's the plan. Setting material and technology appropriate for the setting. Starships, starship design, vehicles, vehicle design, weapons, history, adventure seeds...

 

[Jame Rowe]

@Colin - Don't roll your eyes at me young man!

Thank you for the quick reply. One major request though is that the book be light on rules and heavy on background setting.

That's the plan. Setting material and technology appropriate for the setting. Starships, starship design, vehicles, vehicle design, weapons, history, adventure seeds...

For myself, I've written a variant equipment progression for MGT; if you'd like me to send it to you so you can see if there's anything you'd like to adopt (for a proper payment, of course! :twisted: ), just let me know.

 

[The Chef]

just give me an SK-19 and a P-11M and i'll be happy!

Chef

 

[Colin]

Rough (really rough) main book outline:
Introduction
History and Timeline
World Gazette
Characters
Technology (essays)
Cybernetics and subdermatech
DNA Mods
Equipment
Robots and Drones
Weapons
Armor
Walkers
Vehicles
Starships and spacecraft
Design systems
Characters and Aliens (NPCs)
Adventure seeds
+Many footnotes.

 

[captainjack23]

Congratulations, Colin.

You've actually gotten me interested in getting this !

I kind of passed on most of the earlier editions of the 2300 series, partly out of overload, partly out of enui; but this looks cool.

good work steering this to completion, too ....

 

[steffworthington]

Overload??

We talking about the same game? :wink:

 

[Yatima]

I like those alien stats, Colin, and the outline makes sense. Will there be an opportunity to playtest? If yes, can I volunteer?

John

 

[Colin]

There had better be playtest opportunities. I no longer have a gaming group to experiment on. It's too early to say how that will work out, though.

Aliens will statted-out, (some), but there will not be a chargen system for them in this book. PCs are human only.

Mongoose 2300AD is set in the year 2300AD. It will be more-or-less faithful to canon until that time. After that, it will develop on it's own. As far as aliens go, there will be Eber, Sung, Xiang, Pentapods and Kafers. Ylii can be inferred. The rest of the motley crew (Klaxun, Medusae, Enemy, Little Guys, AGRA) are a question mark. The Aquilans from 2320AD are gone.

Weapons, vehicles and equipment will be statted-out in a similar "real" style as the original 2300AD. Hovercraft will likely be still there, but de-emphasized. No jetpack, but maybe the ornithrider.

 

[captainjack23]

Overload??

We talking about the same game? :wink:

Games, RPG type, and gradschool kind of overload. No new games when one is learning neuroscience and K-means clustering analysis....brain was full.

 

[EDG]

The Aquilans from 2320AD are gone.

Pity, because they were pretty awesome.

I have to admit, I'm not interested in what is essentially a simple relaunch of 2300AD (though it's great that it's coming, and it's great that you'll finally get the recognition and treatment you deserve for writing it).

2320AD was a great product, and ultimately what I really wanted to see - it's just a shame it wasn't published by Mongoose (or anyone else who wasn't the people who actually published it) - otherwise we wouldn't even be having this discussion, because it would have been properly supported and you would have been treated correctly right from the start.

 

[Colin]

I like the Aquilans, and the idea of them, very much. I just can't use them.

Not as Aquilans, anyway.

They were so vaguely detailed, and so much was in my notes, that i could put them somewhere else.

 

[Talesian]

Colin, right, gotcha about the Arms. Is there a chance of running a trader campaign? My group really likes that style of play. Will there be enough background info to do a conspiracy play style as well? Like secret societies, and the power struggles between them?

 

[GamerDude]

Hopefully maybe one day we'll all be lucky and Matt will be able to snap up the line for Mongoose to put it's magic touch on and we'll all be dancing in the jump space!