FFE Spinward Marches map (not MGT!)

[rust]

Also a question that so far hasnt raised it head.
So what are the offical UWP's for the Spinward Marches now, these new ones or the MGT Spinward Marches sourcebook ?

For me, it can only be the Mongoose Traveller sourcebook, because other-
wise one would introduce additional contradictions into the Mongoose Tra-
veller "canon", and Mongoose Traveller has already "inherited" more than
enough "canon problems" from the earlier versions.

 

[EDG]

For me, it can only be the Mongoose Traveller sourcebook, because otherwise one would introduce additional contradictions into the Mongoose Traveller "canon", and Mongoose Traveller has already "inherited" more than enough "canon problems" from the earlier versions.

Yeah, that's my feeling too - MGT books are MGT canon, GT books are GT canon, etc. That just keeps it nice and simple. Trying to bring everything together to make sense is an exercise in futility and madness .

 

[qstor]

Thanks. There's no preformated subsector maps. I've seen unofficial ones from the Net with subsector so I don't think this is worth getting. Just my two cents..

Mike

 

[Charakan]

For me, it can only be the Mongoose Traveller sourcebook, because otherwise one would introduce additional contradictions into the Mongoose Traveller "canon", and Mongoose Traveller has already "inherited" more than enough "canon problems" from the earlier versions.

Yeah, that's my feeling too - MGT books are MGT canon, GT books are GT canon, etc. That just keeps it nice and simple. Trying to bring everything together to make sense is an exercise in futility and madness .

These happen to be the most sensible answers to the whole canon/non-canon debate I've seen in years.

Just my 0.2 cr.

 

[EDG]

These happen to be the most sensible answers to the whole canon/non-canon debate I've seen in years.

Just my 0.2 cr.

Thanks, it amazes me that people haven't thought of it before. I guess they just don't want to hear that the best answer to the question of "how do we make all the various Traveller editions work together?" is "Don't try."

 

[FreeTrav]

These happen to be the most sensible answers to the whole canon/non-canon debate I've seen in years.

Just my 0.2 cr.

Thanks, it amazes me that people haven't thought of it before. I guess they just don't want to hear that the best answer to the question of "how do we make all the various Traveller editions work together?" is "Don't try."

It also gets back to my thrice-rant about Canon on the TML (and once on these forums, I think - either here or SFRPG); the point is that for players and referees, Canon is irrelevant, and all the worrying about Canon and what is and isn't is (I'm being polite) psychoautoeroticism.

If I'm writing something for Traveller, I might care what Canon is. If I'm writing something for Traveller for pay from a publisher, I damn well BETTER care what Canon is - or rather, what the publisher I'm writing for THINKS Canon is. But if I'm playing, I'm going to take what I like from where I like and use it the way I like. That applies to rules as well as setting; does anyone actually play strictly Book As Written? If I say I'm playing Traveller, I'm still doing it if, as, and how I like; what distinguishes "I'm playing Traveller" from "I'm playing BRP" or "I'm playing D20" is the baseline of the rules I'm using - if my baseline is 2D, roll 8+ to succeed, chances are "I'm playing (Classic) Traveller". If my baseline involves handfuls of dice of varying shapes, and terms like "Armor Class" and "Levels" and "THAC0", then it's likely that I won't say "I'm playing Traveller"; I'll be more likely to say "I'm playing deeyindee". Even if the setting I'm doing it in involves a Sylean Federation engaging in economic imperialism and forming a new empire after a long depression that saw the collapse of a previous interstellar government formed in the aftermath of a bunch of late-bloomers from a planet out toward the rim defeating a sclerotic and arthritic bureaucratic empire.

I'm happy that there are people who have licenses signed by Marc Miller; I happen to like the core idea and the setting. But in the end, Traveller is my game, not Marc's or QLI's or Mongoose's or... mine. And yours, if you're a referee or a player. Because that's what gaming is - the taking of ideas, and making them our own, interactively and with malice aforethought. And the only way you can prevent that is to keep the idea locked up in the head that came up with it, and don't share it - not even with your teddy bear.

I'm glad that the people who write and publish Traveller material do so. I like stealing their ideas and making them mine and sharing them further (that's what Freelance Traveller is ultimately all about...). I'll thank them by acknowledging that they're good ideas and sharing them on, and never deny that that's where I got the ideas that I'm sharing on. But I'm not really up for worshiping them or the material, nor the Talmudic debates on which material is "correct" and what it means. It's a game, after all - not a religion. And I like it better that way.

 

[EDG]

It's a game, after all - not a religion. And I like it better that way.

Exactly. I think religious terms like "canon" don't help when it comes to keeping one's perspective on that sort of thing .

Mongoose is doing its own thing now, and more power to 'em.

 

[andrew boulton]

If I was reading a book about or involving a real person, place, or event, I would expect the writer to do their research and get the facts right. Just because the OTU is fictional doesn't mean it should be treated with any less respect.

Individual GMs can use as much or as little as they like, but anyone publishing OTU material has a duty to their customers to do it right.

 

[Dave Chase]

If I was reading a book about or involving a real person, place, or event, I would expect the writer to do their research and get the facts right. Just because the OTU is fictional doesn't mean it should be treated with any less respect.

Individual GMs can use as much or as little as they like, but anyone publishing OTU material has a duty to their customers to do it right.

You must really hate all those true stores (movies, books) that include 'artistic license' when they were made. Which is about every movie or book written.

LOL

But, I would like to see OTU background material be consistent in relation to other OTU material.

At the same time, if the authors or publisher wants to include other options then please do so. As either notes, option blocks or a seperate section of the book.

Unless the book is part of the 'What If ...' Series.

Dave Chase

 

[Ishmael]

It seems to me that the OTU is like an old computer program.
Originally written in FORTRAN and is was great...then it was patched by many many others without having a set list of coding conventions to follow. Languages changed with each version of Trav..... MT was VB, TNE was C, etc*. Every player uses his own private fork.
Noone can do very much with the OTU without clobbering some other part of it.
Now Mongoose is attempting another rewrite and the old user base and patchers get upset.
Personally, I'd like to see a rewrite complete from scratch that uses only the biggest most sweeping aspects that are recognizable from Traveller.

* if only there were a version done in FORTH!

 

[EDG]

If I was reading a book about or involving a real person, place, or event, I would expect the writer to do their research and get the facts right. Just because the OTU is fictional doesn't mean it should be treated with any less respect.

And if the OTU had anything near the consistency of real-life, then I would expect the same... but it doesn't. For all that you and others on CotI go on about sticking to canon, you seem to keep forgetting that no edition of Traveller has ever been consistent with whatever came before it, even the ones with Marc Miller's name on.


For the Vargr book for example, I would expect Mongoose to stick to the basic principles - Vargr are evolved from canines taken from Earth, they're currently based coreward of the Imperium in a bunch of splintered states called the Vargr Extents, their society is based on Charisma, they're a very varied bunch, some of them raid the Imperium quite a lot, there have been a few historically important skirmishes with them, and some of them have risen up the ranks of nobility.

That's about all I'd expect. I am quite happy for any of the details to be rewritten, because most of the time those details don't even matter.

Thing is, you people seem to complain based solely on who is producing the material. Hell, on the Native Intelligent Life thread on CotI, Whipsnade pointed out that T5 generates loads of intelligent races per sector, and even noted that this was way beyond the numbers present in the OTU... and then promptly made excuses that it was OK because it was Marc Miller doing it. If Mongoose had done the same thing then I absolutely guarantee that a vicious 30 page flame war would have erupted over it in no time, with people like him bullying people and declaring that Mongoose were destroying "their game" and how it wasn't "real Traveller". But nooo, because it's Marc doing it, the self-declared Guardians of Traveller have declared that it must be OK :roll:.

Same applied to the FFE Spinward Marches map. Marc changed the UWPs, and nobody complained at all (or even noticed) on CotI. Martin just thought about changing the UWPs for Mongoose previously, and the people on CotI tore him to shreds and shut him down before he could even get anywhere with it.

It's quite pathetic, really.

 

[EDG]

Originally written in FORTRAN and is was great...then it was patched by many many others without having a set list of coding conventions to follow. Languages changed with each version of Trav..... MT was VB, TNE was C, etc*. Every player uses his own private fork.

I think T5 must be COBOL then

 

[AndrewW]

For the Vargr book for example, I would expect Mongoose to stick to the basic principles - Vargr are evolved from canines taken from Earth, they're currently based coreward of the Imperium in a bunch of splintered states called the Vargr Extents, their society is based on Charisma, they're a very varied bunch, some of them raid the Imperium quite a lot, there have been a few historically important skirmishes with them, and some of them have risen up the ranks of nobility.

Yup that pretty much describes the Vargr in the upcoming Alien Module 2.

 

[MJD]

EDG has a fair point. *I* have been sniped at for a decade because I exceeded the number of minor races per sector quota that was mentioned somewhere, even though Marc Miller exceeded it in The Traveller Adventure (and extrapolating from his canonical 3 per subsector in TTA, my distribution was LOOOOOOOWWWW).

Likewise, I considered the possibility of putting forward some UWP cleanup and several people on COTI went into meltdown. Some dickhead went off and convinced Marc to shut me down without bothering to ask what was actually going on. And now Marc W Miller has gone and published the same sort of UWP changes we might have made... and nobody has even commented on it.

Short version is... it seems to be WHO, not merit, that determines whether the self-appointed Canon Police get into a tizzy.

 

[MJD]

EDG also has an excellent sig line, which I just noticed.

 

[Charakan]

Yours aint to bad either MJD .