After Some Thought On MGT...

First - as a long time trav player I am very pleased with mongtrav in general. It is a pretty good, elegant system which retains enough of the original game and improves on it in some areas.

I have no problem with the less "hard sci-fi" aspects to the rules as long as they are optional and they can be bypassed so I can still run my game where "everything makes sense". It is good that they are as options as they can draw more people in

BUT -
I think the choice of published adventures is way off beam. There needs to be a "conventional" trav adventure with planet-hopping/plot/sidebars/patrons etc.

Having struggled with beltstrike I actually gave up on running it as it didn't make sense as a Trav adventure. I tried to adjust it, but it just doesn't work unless you want something like an old-school D&D "zoo-dungeon" where baddies wait for you in their rooms rather than behave in rational ways with motivations etc.
There are too many anomalies (details can be provided - I don't want to write spoilers). Put it this way - if my players find something that doesn't add up they go looking for reasons and this would take them away from the adventure. And the deckplans basically need to be completely redrawn. If it was just the plans, I would do it but with the other issues...

Its a shame because there is some really really good stuff in there too.

I am now reluctant to buy Prison Planet for fear of more of the same...
 
hirch_duckfinder said:
I think the choice of published adventures is way off beam. There needs to be a "conventional" trav adventure with planet-hopping/plot/sidebars/patrons etc.
Click to expand...

Tripwire is the adventure you are waiting for :)
 
Great. I'll look out for it .
Does it have an "epic system" narrative? For me the adventures which have worked best in recent years have worked like that.
 
Gruffty the Hiver said:
OK, so Spica wil put out "Tripewire: Adventures in Animal Husbandry and Buthcery" :lol:
Click to expand...
If you include the animal husbandry of vikunjas and the butchery of
yaks, I will preorder it. :lol:
 
rust said:
Gruffty the Hiver said:
OK, so Spica wil put out "Tripewire: Adventures in Animal Husbandry and Buthcery" :lol:
Click to expand...
If you include the animal husbandry of vikunjas and the butchery of
yaks, I will preorder it. :lol:
Click to expand...


Heh. Running subtitle: "your name in Lights"
 
I would like to point out something opposite of what EDG mentioned about T5 not being relevant to MgT products.

It is interesting to note that some of the new things that MgT has placed or referred to in their products is what is found (or will be found) in T5 material that is under development.

I have no proof of this but, I believe that T5 may be that extra something that some players feel is missing from Mongooses Traveller and are wanting a Traveller only game feel.

MgT I believe will be the new SciFi game of multiple playing a bit of this, add a bit of that and create this part and now you have Your Traveller Universe (YTU).

Both will be good and both will be bought. I do not think that all that buy T5 will buy all of MgT and I don't think that all that bought MgT will buy all of T5. They will be compatible but different products that will not require the other in order to be playible.

That being said, I have to fully concur with EDG and others. IMO, MgT will be the defining point of what Traveller is now because it will be supported, new material coming out regularly and will have other SciFi material readily adaptable to Traveller.

Dave Chase
 
Umm, I'm a bit puzzled about that comment in the first post - the misunderstanding about how to write for Traveller one.

I wasn't aware that there was a 'right' way. Or who defined it for that matter. Is this a suggestion that we should all write in the style of the LBB books? I ask because some of the prose has, well, a style that hasn't aged well. Fragmentary sentences. And information presented in the style of 'here's a twig and a root... and there's a leaf over there; now go work out what a forest might look like'.

I have a certain nostalgia for the old 1980s Traveller, but it's almost 2010 now. Where we're at now is where we're at now, if you take my meaning.
 
No doubt MJD did a good job with MGT:SM, but ... I'd rather have the CT Spinward Marches supplement (no, I don't have it; I was barely-a-newborn-yes-literally when it was published, and haven't seen a copy of the supplements book) first; it seems necessary for MGT:SM to be useful for me.

Supplement 3 was the source of the raw data for SM and everything in it is in SM. You don't need 30-year-old out of print supplements to use Spinward Marches. What makes you think you do?
 
Don't worry about it Martin, some people just like to hear them-selves talk. How can someone whom states they have never even seen the original book complain any about your version of SM? I have them both and think yours is a awesome expansion on the first book.

Furthermore I like all the MGT stuff so far. I have bought it all. Now I own most if not all the other stuff that has come out for Traveller over the past 30+ years and will continue to collect all that continues to come out for it. Sadly and strangly the only stuff that I never bought was any of the Traveller Gurps stuff, and that was because I don't care for the Gurps system. I know I am going stright to Hades for that, but oh well<VBG>!!!

The MGT stuff is fine and if they keep going on strong like they are, they will out shine all other versions in time.

Penn



MJD said:
No doubt MJD did a good job with MGT:SM, but ... I'd rather have the CT Spinward Marches supplement (no, I don't have it; I was barely-a-newborn-yes-literally when it was published, and haven't seen a copy of the supplements book) first; it seems necessary for MGT:SM to be useful for me.

Supplement 3 was the source of the raw data for SM and everything in it is in SM. You don't need 30-year-old out of print supplements to use Spinward Marches. What makes you think you do?
Click to expand...
 
MJD said:
No doubt MJD did a good job with MGT:SM, but ... I'd rather have the CT Spinward Marches supplement (no, I don't have it; I was barely-a-newborn-yes-literally when it was published, and haven't seen a copy of the supplements book) first; it seems necessary for MGT:SM to be useful for me.

Supplement 3 was the source of the raw data for SM and everything in it is in SM. You don't need 30-year-old out of print supplements to use Spinward Marches. What makes you think you do?
Click to expand...

IMNHO, it seems a lot more simply presented than the MGT:SM book is.

Of course, I think you overlooked one important word: I never said I wasn't going to get MGT:SM at all, I just said I merely want the 30 year old book first. :P
 
Jame Rowe said:
MJD said:
No doubt MJD did a good job with MGT:SM, but ... I'd rather have the CT Spinward Marches supplement (no, I don't have it; I was barely-a-newborn-yes-literally when it was published, and haven't seen a copy of the supplements book) first; it seems necessary for MGT:SM to be useful for me.

Supplement 3 was the source of the raw data for SM and everything in it is in SM. You don't need 30-year-old out of print supplements to use Spinward Marches. What makes you think you do?
Click to expand...

IMNHO, it seems a lot more simply presented than the MGT:SM book is.

Of course, I think you overlooked one important word: I never said I wasn't going to get MGT:SM at all, I just said I merely want the 30 year old book first. :P
Click to expand...
A couple of things ...

First, lamenting on the unavailability of anything from Classic Traveller that was produced by GDW makes no sense. In particular, you can get Supplement 3 in the Supplements reprint in book form. Or, if you can tolerate PDF, you can get it (and the second presentation in Imperial Fringe, a PDF of the four-color map, and the third presentation in Spinward Marches Campaign) on the Classic Traveller CD-ROM. Both are still available on the Far Future Enterprises website.

Second, of course Supplement 3 was "more simply present". I had almost no information! It was a simple UWP listing and two incredibly short paragraphs per subsector. The only context on just about every world was never provided until much later.

Supplement 3 doesn't tell you that Andor and Candory are Droyne worlds. It doesn't tell you that Rushu is controlled by Vargr. It doesn't tell you that Mora is the sector capital. It doesn't tell you anything about the Darrian Confederation. In fact it doesn't tell you much of anything.

In fact, it is the equivalent of a 22 page book, with each subsector completely contained on a single 8.5x11 page, and the balance consisting of index and UWP explanations. Martin's book is 141 pages (sorry, don't count the full page ad at the end), and each subsector is four pages of information with a page-long subsector description and two world writeups. In addition there is 26 pages of general overview (compared to S3's eight or so paragraphs), and another 23 pages of sector overview (compared to two sentences).

And, as Martin also said, his book was completely based on S3. There are some differences (necessitated by the additions to canon over the years), but fundamentally, his version of the Spinward Marches is closer to S3 than any other rendition ever done, including all following ones done by GDW.

I have S3. And, except as an historical footnote, it isn't that useful unless 1) writing your own book on the Spinward Marches or 2) proof reading someone else's book on the Spinward Marches. Unless you are doing one of those two activities, S3 isn't of any real use and will provide no useful context to Martin's book.

And, if you just completely don't believe any of this, you can get S3 right now from Far Future. It will cost you $35 for the hardcopy Supplements reprint, or $35 for the CD-ROM with the PDF. (Plus shipping, of course.) And you will probably have it in a week or so.
 
daryen said:
Supplement 3 doesn't tell you that Andor and Candory are Droyne worlds. It doesn't tell you that Rushu is controlled by Vargr. It doesn't tell you that Mora is the sector capital. It doesn't tell you anything about the Darrian Confederation. In fact it doesn't tell you much of anything.
Click to expand...

Nor does The Spinward Marches from Mongoose Publishing tell you that Mora is the sector capital, because it isn't the actual capital as their isn't one. The Spinward Marches has no sector duke.
 
I have played Traveller since there has been Traveller and .............................I dig Mongoose Traveller it keeps the good of CT and improves it Mt is a keeper in my opinion ( that and a dollar will get you a large coffee at the local convenience store ) hope it stays around a long while .
 
I see a lot of people putting MgT down as to not having something they consider essential to Traveller. Some of these people have valid concerns, some are just blowing hot air, most are just disappointed that it didn't 100% match their vision of Traveller.

But regardless of all these complaints, and what you do/do not like about Mongoose's version, there is a factor that everyone really needs to remember.

MgT is making Traveller popular again.

Five and ten years ago, recruiting people to play in a Traveller game was a much more difficult process than it's been in the last year or so.

Whether you love MgT or hate it, any version of Traveller becoming popular is a good thing for ALL Traveller fans.
 
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