How to make Traveller more popular with TTRPG players

[rinku]

My big annoyance with GURPS has always been Imperial measurements. It's okay in pre-modern settings, but really jars in science based genres.

(Although, to be fair, SI units in a pre-modern setting are just as jarring.)

(Although decimal units as such aren't inherently an issue. The Ming dynasty used decimal units; their "inch" was roughly the same size as an Imperial inch, but their "foot" had ten of them. A fantasy setting that goes with ten knuckles to the Hilt is fine)

 

[MarcusIII]

There was so much "good but bad".

Megatraveller: Good, there's more Traveller. Good, there are some great sourcebooks. Good there's some good DGP books. Bad, they smashed the setting. Bad, they smashed the setting with a poorly thought out civil war that didn't make any sense, never resolved anything because there was nothing to resolve, and was this pointless upheaval, and for what?

TNE: Good, there's more Traveller. Good, FFS was great. Bad, they utterly destroyed the setting. Bad, the stupid virus. Bad, crappy art, worst Traveller art ever.

It's as if it never occurred the designers and so on that people might actually like CT's setting, and wouldn't want it vandalized, broken, and smashed by poorly thought out deus-ex-whatever flip the table excuses like magic computer viruses or empress waves or futile civil wars where nobody acts sensibly and nobody wins.

At least GURPS Traveller kept things going despite its problems. T4, whatever, I have it, but I forgot about it. T5... whatever.

I was in since '78 and basically feel the same. Mongoose 1 was the best edition since CT. I have a gut feeling that after MgT2 things are going to tail spin again. <sigh>

 

[rinku]

Nah. The fact that Mongoose took 8 years before issuing their revised edition (which for me was an across the board improvement in many small ways) and has stuck with that since (making a full 10 years of 2nd edition now) makes me confident we're good. The 2022 CRB update was almost all moving the ship construction rules back to CRB.

GDW revised in 1981 and radically changed editions in 1987. Mongoose 1st to 2nd is roughly about the same as GDW 1977 to 1981, in terms of change, so you could compare Classic Traveller's first four years to Mongoose's first eight, and CT's last 6 years to Mongoose's last 10. Except Mongoose has no reason not to stick with what we have. The rulebooks may get updated to fold in rules developed after they were published, trim back stuff better found in another book, or update the art when a new print run is needed, but I don't expect any major changes to CRB again.