Calling all TAS Publishers and Fans!

[MongooseMatt]

The TAS programme on Drivethru has been enjoying a lot of success since its launch. Next year, we would like to take a serious look at it, and improve things for those brave Travellers who toil away to provide others with gaming material.

So, from the point of view of both publisher and customer... what can we do to make things better? Easier? More worthwhile?

All ideas and comments are welcome. Let us know, and we will see what we can do for you all in 2024!

 

[Anstett]

What I would like to see out of a re-imagined TAS:

The ability to publish the same material as: PDF, physical dead tree (Print on Demand) perhaps*, and also VTT version for FG, Forge, Roll20, etc.

Mongoose takes the current percentage from a sale, then the various stores get their cut, the remainder to the Creator all similar to what people get now.

New option could be Mongoose requiring any VTT module to have an equivalent PDF version available to keep the material available in a format that is agnostic so will be available for future players/designers.



*PoD is a different acronym in these parts

 

[Spenser TR]

Link to the current program for the lazy or curious

Updated templates would be sweet.

 

[fvcoulter]

I'd like to see a license for translation of existing Mongoose material to VTT programs. I don't have a problem with Mongoose getting a piece of the action. However, if someone translates an existing module for a specific program, they should be able to share it with other users.

 

[MongooseMatt]

I'd like to see a license for translation of existing Mongoose material to VTT programs. I don't have a problem with Mongoose getting a piece of the action. However, if someone translates an existing module for a specific program, they should be able to share it with other users.

We are just starting a proper venture into the territory of VTTs - please bear with us, as soon as we have a proper lay of the land we will be taking a look at this.

 

[alex_greene]

Guidelines on creating user-based settings, and customising the 3I setting with your own way of playing the game. The OTU as just another ATU.

 

[Nelphine]

Ive got a document for a star trek conversion to mongoose 2e. I'm not sure if that could ever apply, because of the star trek side, but its something id like to share properly. (Although i want to update to high guard 2022 first.)

 

[alex_greene]

Ive got a document for a star trek conversion to mongoose 2e. I'm not sure if that could ever apply, because of the star trek side, but its something id like to share properly. (Although i want to update to high guard 2022 first.)

I've got ideas for entirely original settings. No IP issues, and no Paramount, Disney, or other TV studios breathing down my neck.

 

[ottarrus]

I'm hoping that creators are going to support the Fifth Frontier War.
This is a great opportunity to get the community involved with one of the bedrock events of the OTU and I hope it's taken advantage of.
In addition, I hope that there is some Naval Campaign [from Element-Class Cruisers] support.

 

[alex_greene]

What I would like to see coming out of the FFW is some sort of campaign where the Travellers are instrumental in bringing the Zhodani and the Imperium together around the peace table and bring a permanent end to hostilities between the polities, because there's something really bad coming and they need to work together to stop it. I would pay real money for a supplement where someone says "give peace a chance" and changes the face of the whole core / spinward region of Charted Space.
I mean, the FFW is far-reaching. Wrath of The Ancients is going to be far-reaching. The Pirates of Drinax is far-reaching. And so too were the Rebellion and Hard Times.
And every storm ends.

I would love to see a scenario where the Travellers step out of their beautiful, snazzy TL 15 ship with all the trimmings, possibly that fancy 1000-ton Starborn Wanderer Cruiser, and when they get back from their adventure it's gone. The berth is empty.
The Imperium has just commandeered the whole thing for the war effort. His Imperial Majesty Strephon thanks you for your service in a form standard letter they hand out to all the ship Captains whose vessels now belong to the Crown.
And then, as they're standing around wondering what to do next, they're all handed draft notices by the Government Draft Board. And anyone who burns their draft card gets visited by some grim, stern, self-righteous, stuck-up karens handing these "conchie cowards" a white feather, naming and shaming them in public.

Because war is not glamour. War is misery.

 

[alex_greene]

The most fun thing about the FFW is that it can affect the characters' chargen, trade tables, and even butt into adventures which have nothing to do with the War, such as a heist scenario or some sort of trade-heavy campaign.
The Events Tables can be replaced by a Wartime Events Table, with something similar being given to the Referee for use in play, and a Wartime Trade chapter replacing the regular Trade chapter. Instead of having your cargo seized by pirates, they could have their whole ship commandeered, cargo and all, for the war effort - which is worse than anything pirates can do to you.

 

[ottarrus]

What I would like to see coming out of the FFW is some sort of campaign where the Travellers are instrumental in bringing the Zhodani and the Imperium together around the peace table and bring a permanent end to hostilities between the polities, because there's something really bad coming and they need to work together to stop it. I would pay real money for a supplement where someone says "give peace a chance" and changes the face of the whole core / spinward region of Charted Space.
I mean, the FFW is far-reaching. Wrath of The Ancients is going to be far-reaching. The Pirates of Drinax is far-reaching. And so too were the Rebellion and Hard Times.
And every storm ends.

I would love to see a scenario where the Travellers step out of their beautiful, snazzy TL 15 ship with all the trimmings, possibly that fancy 1000-ton Starborn Wanderer Cruiser, and when they get back from their adventure it's gone. The berth is empty.
The Imperium has just commandeered the whole thing for the war effort. His Imperial Majesty Strephon thanks you for your service in a form standard letter they hand out to all the ship Captains whose vessels now belong to the Crown.
And then, as they're standing around wondering what to do next, they're all handed draft notices by the Government Draft Board. And anyone who burns their draft card gets visited by some grim, stern, self-righteous, stuck-up karens handing these "conchie cowards" a white feather, naming and shaming them in public.

Because war is not glamour. War is misery.

There were some JTAS notes about a 'patrol' type service meant to keep the peace in the Metal Worlds post-5FW. That would make a GREAT campaign.
As for the IN commandeering ships, I'm not seeing the Imperium outright taking a ship. I CAN see them 'taking up' a ship [using Royal Navy terminology] where the ship is made a Naval Auxiliary and the crew are given Volunteer Reserve commissions. And, of course, if any of them are Scouts, well, that was a done deal since Basic Training.
Getting 'drafted' would happen on Regina, Jewell, Efate, or any of the other worlds under direct threat to bolster militia reserves. It would be a VERY interesting campaign to put PCs in a 'Civil Affairs' battalion, where they weren't shooters, but were engineers restoring vital services, truckers transporting food, aid workers helping refugees, lawyers trying restoring government, etc. In a campaign like that the PCs would have struggle mightily to resist the urge to solve problems with a gun and try solving them with a shovel instead. And these two ideas could work together. In the initial year of the war they're drafted into planetary army of, say, Efate and given Support branch roles [thereby freeing younger and fitter sophonts for combat roles]. That battalion then gets donated to the Subsector United Army and they move with it to one of the worlds that hit pretty hard and they have to try and put society back together.

 

[alex_greene]

The game's focus on war puts the spotlight on professional men of violence.
Like I said, I'd like to see non-professionals, women, and people of science and peace, making a difference, bringing the world one step backwards at a time from the brink of madness and destruction, where all the world is in the grip of hot blood lust, gnashing at the teeth, veins popping out on foreheads, foaming at the mouth for more and more blood, blood, blood, fire, fire, fire ...
Rabies as a cultural norm, and people who fight for a cure.

 

[ottarrus]

Well, being philosophical about it, conflict is the natural state of humans. That goes all the way back to monkey troops we are all descended from. Humans divide the universe into two camps: 'Us' and 'Them'. And if it ever comes down to a vote, most people vote for 'Us' about 99.999% of the time.
What's more, everything is finite. Even Sol will burn out one day. And the more I have the less you get. We have a basic, primal need to acquire the necessities of life and a greed to acquire the luxuries. And we will do whatever it takes to fill those needs, up to and including violence on personal level and war on a national one.
Sociologically this is called a 'conflict-based society'. And humanity has been that way since we first developed agriculture.
So, if war is rabies on a mass population scale, I'm afraid there is no cure. There will always be wars, but rational people try to make them as few as possible and with fewer repercussions as possible. But that's never been easy.
And it doesn't look like things have changed much 3200 years in the future....

 

[Condottiere]

You'd have to loosen up character creation.

Even the less militant (modernish) characters I create, tend to have some form of firearm skill.

 

[alex_greene]

Bear in mind that war is not the normal state of things for people. I don't care about what looks like warfare among non-sapient animal species. Perhaps that's due to the species being non-sapient, rather than it being some imaginary "immutable" law of biology?
In any case, we're not telling stories about the Far Future when we're roleplaying science fiction. We are telling stories about ourselves in the here and now.
And I can get mighty sick of people who think that war is the be all and end all of Traveller, when there are so many other kinds of campaigns you could run, such as the exploratory campaign, the trade campaign, the diplomacy campaign, the career criminal Stainless Steel Rat campaign, the science campaign, the investigative campaign, the rescue campaign ...

 

[alex_greene]

You'd have to loosen up character creation.

Even the less militant (modernish) characters I create, tend to have some form of firearm skill.

I know. It isn't the characters' fault. They need it if every Referee insists on making every encounter a combat one.

 

[Condottiere]

You don't want to be deadweight.

Martial (arts) skill gives you agency; or at least, appears to.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I do not like active duty campaigns where the PCs are members of some sort of military, paramilitary, or even government controlled civilian service.

Traveller from its inception is about people moving on from their prior career and finding their own way to fortune, or die trying.

Resolving situations as they arise rather than combat after combat after combat...

 

[IanBruntlett]

I do not like active duty campaigns where the PCs are members of some sort of military, paramilitary, or even government controlled civilian service.

Traveller from its inception is about people moving on from their prior career and finding their own way to fortune, or die trying.

Resolving situations as they arise rather than combat after combat after combat...

To deter gun bunnies, I tell all players that combat is utterly lethal. Then I eventually/usually run a side adventure which demonstrates that. Last time I did that, the reaction was along the lines of "How could you be so mean to my character? This is unfair".