A Farewell to Traveller

[rust]

It took me a while, but I finally realized that Traveller is no longer my game, the more I
have worked on the details of my settings, the more Traveller's limitations and strange
assumptions have got in the way of the settings' consistency and plausibility. I have
already spent too much time and effort for "saving the phenomena" with house rules
and imports of systems from other games, and meanwhile I have reached the point
where any further attempt to modify Traveller for my purposes breaks what is left of
Traveller's system. I am not sure whether this is Traveller's problem or my problem, but
it is obvious that I have to move on and to continue the work on my settings with some
other system. Moving away from Traveller also means that I will spend less time on this
forum, which is certainly no loss, since all I did over the last months was to complain
about Traveller's shortcomings.

Have fun, I will drop by occasionally.

 

[zero]

This is a shame, rust, as I have found your posts in giving me advice as I have stumbled round Traveller for many months concise, friendly and when you havent answered my questions (of which there were few times ), you inspired me to go my own way.

I may be jumping the gun by saying this, but I will miss your posts that are not patronising in any way to me, despite how sometimes I have a simplistic view on how things may work.

Whatever system you adopt into your game, they are gaining a real benefit

Good Luck,

Zero

 

[hdan]

Bummer, but the whole point of playing a game is to have fun, and if you're not having fun....

I hope to see you around.

 

[Treebore]

Good luck finding a system that does what you want.

 

[Jak Nazryth]

Traveller after all is a sci-fantasy/fiction game created in the 1970's.
I have problems with a lot of the game mechanics myself, but I still like to general setting invented by Marc. (Yes have always hated laser pistols with extension cords!) You can't have a jump drive in a ship that is 99.99 tons...won't work... physics says so.... You can only have 1 hard point per every 100 tons... because it creates too much stress on the hull.... energy weapons have too big a kick I guess.... fill in the the blank with your favorite silly rule.
And as was mentioned before... its just a freaking game. Having fun is the point, so go have fun and drop in from time to time.
Who knows, your game mechanics might be much better to the point you can purchase the rights one day and publish your own set of Traveller rules. 8)

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

I hear where you're coming from. When I 1st heard about T5, and later Mongoose Traveller, it kind of got me excited eventhough I hadn't played Traveller (in any form in years). However, over time I've begun to realize that eventhough I still have fond memories of my previous experiences with Traveller related stuff, and eventhough I think Mongoose has done a good job with what they have put out, in a lot of ways I realize that the whole Traveller setting and basic Traveller assumptions throughout the books and source guides, etc just aren't really consistent with my current interests.

As such, although I still occasionally buy some of the products (for ideas and such) and I still review some of these Traveller boards, in the end I too have kind of moved on to other stuff.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think its an issue of "whether this is Traveller's problem or my[/or your] problem" at all, its just that sometimes interests and points of view change, and there's nothing wrong with going a different direction if that's what works for you.

Anyway good luck with your future endeavors.

Regards

Pat

 

[far-trader]

Well, I'm saddened to see the community lose any member, a solid contributor like yourself even more so...

...but I'm not too surprised. If I'm recalling some posts correctly attributed you suffer from a common shared condition. Reality intrusion. Too many experts, too much factual information.

When most of us began/begin playing this type of game, RPGs in general, Traveller maybe more so, we were young enough and perhaps naive enough or at least willing to play along that issues vis-a-vis reality could be handwaved or ignored for the sake of fun. The story and imagination (more fantasy than sci-fi) trumped rules and reality. It was about escaping our perhaps mundane lives for a taste of what could be.

Farewell traveller, the road will always lead you back should you want to return

 

[DFW]

I'll miss you rust. You have a keen mind.

 

[AndrewW]

It is sad to see you go, you will be missed. But understandable, the Traveller system just isn't working for you. I hope you find something more to your liking.

You can always jump into a handy Type S and find your way back.

 

[apoc527]

Indeed, I echo everyone else. You may not find the system you are looking for, but hopefully you find something close enough. For my purposes right now, MGT is proving to be the best thing since sliced bread, but if it becomes stale, I'll move on.

 

[locarno24]

Fair enough; as noted, traveller is designed for a certain setting and you've constantly been pushing it into areas it's not been intended for (was there any piece of equipment for your pandora setting you didn't have to create yourself?)

That said, I to am going to miss your contributions; you've been well informed about the game, have a good grasp of the holy trinity of actual science, actually having fun in the game, and common sense, and I've not seen you get snarky with anyone.

Moving away from Traveller also means that I will spend less time on this
forum, which is certainly no loss, since all I did over the last months was to complain
about Traveller's shortcomings.

Your various 'setting' posts show straight away that that's not true.

Out of interest, did you have a new rule-set in mind? Or are you still looking?

 

[rust]

Thank you all very much for yout friendly words.

Out of interest, did you have a new rule-set in mind? Or are you still looking?

I think I will use GURPS for the technology of the setting, it has a lot of material for water
world settings in its various supplements (Atlantis, Blue Planet, Transhuman Space - Un-
der Pressure ...) and a good technology design system, especially the somewhat simpli-
fied version in the Transhuman Space books.

For the game mechanics I intend to use the Basic Roleplaying System, most probably in
either the Ringworld or the Call of Cthulhu (without the Mythos, of course) version. The
system is very flexible and as a d100 system a little "deeper" than a 2d6 system, and it
makes it comparatively easy to design a skill list for a specific setting and all the subsys-
tems I want for my setting, like Prospecting or Research and Development.

With GURPS and BRP as the base, I will certainly add ideas from other games, too, in-
cluding for example Spacemaster and (GURPS) Traveller.

 

[locarno24]

the Call of Cthulhu (without the Mythos, of course) version

Pah. All ocean colonies should have to deal with Cthulu at some point!

 

[rust]

Pah. All ocean colonies should have to deal with Cthulu at some point!

There will be tentacles ... :twisted:

 

[zozotroll]

Gonna miss you man, you are consistantly a great poster.

I would say no stay with Traveller, but, qwell RQ has always been my favorite system with rolemaster/spacemaster close to thatand then eitherr cyberpunk or Traveller next. So it is not like you are going to use something horrid.

But still dont be a stranger, we can always use a bit of sane insight around here.

Owen

 

[Treebore]

Are you aware there is a BRP book out that is just the system? So you don't have to use a CoC book and rip out the mythos. IIRC it cost me around $20, so not too bad to get.

 

[rust]

Are you aware there is a BRP book out that is just the system?

Thank you very much, I have the book. However, while I will use some of BRP's op-
tions, the system also includes some mechanics I do not need for my setting, like for
example the skill category bonuses and hit locations. What I am looking for is more
similar to the system used for the science fiction campaigns for Call of Cthulhu, for
example Cthulhu End Time or Cthulhu Rising.

By the way, John Ossoway, who wrote the Cthulhu Rising material, now has also
written a new BRP-close science fiction setting, River of Heaven, which will most
probably be published this year by D101 Games. I think this could be very close to
the kind of system I would like to have for my setting.

 

[IanBruntlett]

It took me a while, but I finally realized that Traveller is no longer my game...

Will miss you. Have fun in whatever dimension you find yourself in

 

[crazy_cat]

.....John Ossoway, who wrote the Cthulhu Rising material, now has also
written a new BRP-close science fiction setting, River of Heaven, which will most
probably be published this year by D101 Games.....

That looks interesting

 

[Liam Devlin]

Auf wiedersehen, Herr Rust.