legozhodani
Banded Mongoose
Do people actually play RPGs in shops? Odd, never heard of that. Not something I've ever come across at all. 
New Paizo SF RPG: Competitor with Traveller?
- Thread starter l_c_jackson
- Start date
legozhodani said:Do people actually play RPGs in shops? Odd, never heard of that. Not something I've ever come across at all.
Yep, some shops offer gaming events, sometimes even once or twice each week, where players can meet to play their favourite games and take a first look at new ones.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
There are places I go to that don't always have just Warhammer wargaming.legozhodani said:Do people actually play RPGs in shops? Odd, never heard of that. Not something I've ever come across at all.
legozhodani
Banded Mongoose
So few game shops left near me it's always been house or pub for me as a venue.
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
The Philadelphia area has many game store plus comic stores that also feature games and many have tables for casual and sanctioned gaming events. My regular gaming store has mostly weekend gaming but some people get permission to host events during the week. What the stores get is publicity for their game wares.
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
A lot of perusing patrons walk around the tables going "What's this all about?" Free advertising for the cost of table space. I frequently drag down my Traveller stuff to build ships and sectors with all books displayed prominently and I can proudly say a few have picked up at least the core over time.
Tenacious-Techhunter said:
I have a couple of those that I see weekly. Exactly as Reynard indicated.
They find starwars great because it doesn't bother with silly explanations. Both those individuals have post secondary degrees (Physics and applied Physics - one an enthusiast and a Software Architect, one a professional in his field).
It is simply adhoc bias to be able to state "X" is plausible and "Y" is not. Starwars doesn't bother trying to explain what is plausible or what is not - Magic shields, weapons, force powers, faster than light-across-galaxy-communication etc, giant planet-ships with lasers that blast planets, etc... Traveller sometimes rather dips back and forth between handwavium and then trying to give serious explanations.
I prefer Traveller of course - but what is key to me is internal consistency. I like the approach of "establish handwavium, then apply logical consequence" - which is why I slightly prefer traveller .
Tenacious-Techhunter
Mongoose
Nerhesi said:
You two are talking about the opposite problem of what I am discussing. Over the course of technological and scientific progress, Traveller’s notions about realism have been made obsolete, and are, therefore, just as much fantasy as “Star Wars”; I’m not here complaining that Traveller doesn’t match my notions of fantasy... I’m complaining that it doesn’t match the cold hard facts of scientific and technological progress. Therefore, his effort to associate my point of view with that of the fans of some other form of Space Opera or Space Fantasy is outright character assassination, and a completely invalid argument.
Traveller needs to grow up, and renew its connection with Realism and Hard Science Fiction, and recognize that its foundation has met the limits of its longevity, and is badly in need of replacement. There’s nothing worse than Traveller winding up as “just another also-ran Space Opera” with no public-facing popular fiction supporting it, because then it’s 4 niches in (RPG>Science Fiction>Space Opera>Traveller), as opposed to only 3 niches in (RPG>Science Fiction>Hard Science Fiction with no competition). Traveller started out as Hard Science Fiction... but with scientific and technological progress, reality has set in... and, in order to be what it once was, it needs to adapt to reality... which it hasn’t. Stop focusing on what the problem isn’t, and actually take a look at what the problem is. Otherwise, modern kids are just going to look up planets on HabCat, assume the authors of Traveller are stupid, and not just old, and not want to play it.
The problem is that Hard Science fiction isn't an absolute definition. It is obvious by your bias here that you seem to connect Hard Science fiction with "Realism".
Hard Science fiction, just as equally, does not have to be realistic at all, just internally consistent. By definition, it needs something that is NOT realistic, hence the fiction aspect - and this is not just the story.
So error here is in your assumption that your personal defition of Hard Science fiction, isn't the only one, nor was it ever the one intended for traveler (which always had jump drives, meson guns, and a ton of other unrealistic handwavium).
Hard Science fiction, just as equally, does not have to be realistic at all, just internally consistent. By definition, it needs something that is NOT realistic, hence the fiction aspect - and this is not just the story.
So error here is in your assumption that your personal defition of Hard Science fiction, isn't the only one, nor was it ever the one intended for traveler (which always had jump drives, meson guns, and a ton of other unrealistic handwavium).
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
When was Traveller ever connected with Realism and Hard Science Fiction? And what rules have changed in it that disconnected it from what it was connected to? You want Traveller to be something it never was to begin with. Which means you actually want Traveller to be like ever other sci-fi RPG out there then. Read Agent of the Imperium. That is what Traveller is, and is going to continue to be, for a very long time.Tenacious-Techhunter said:
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
Why do people think Traveller was hard science fiction?
Original '77 Traveller had:
Pros - 'shotguns in space', a bit of physics thrown in to ship movement and combat
Cons - maneuver drives, jump drives, null grav modules, man portable laser weapons.
The later rules and setting introduce:
Pros - none
Cons - acceleration compensators, artificial gravity, meson guns, meson screens, nuclear dampers, black globes, man portable gauss guns, man portable plasma guns, man portable fusion guns
That's an awful lot of magi-tech for a hard science game.
And I wish people would stop bleating on about the size of ship computers.
Modern ships are not run by a laptop or desktop, nor is a nuclear power station. Every single ship computer from a module 1 to a model 9 has to be able to control the environmental systems (air, gravity water recycling etc), while controlling a multi gigawatt fusion power plan,t while crunching data for avionics and flight controls and finally being able to solve a hyperdimensional n-body problem in real time. Every single ship computer is a super-computer equivalent - go look up the size of even the smallest of those - or go look at the server racks in a nuclear power station, or onboard a nuclear sub or aircraft carrior.
Original '77 Traveller had:
Pros - 'shotguns in space', a bit of physics thrown in to ship movement and combat
Cons - maneuver drives, jump drives, null grav modules, man portable laser weapons.
The later rules and setting introduce:
Pros - none
Cons - acceleration compensators, artificial gravity, meson guns, meson screens, nuclear dampers, black globes, man portable gauss guns, man portable plasma guns, man portable fusion guns
That's an awful lot of magi-tech for a hard science game.
And I wish people would stop bleating on about the size of ship computers.
Modern ships are not run by a laptop or desktop, nor is a nuclear power station. Every single ship computer from a module 1 to a model 9 has to be able to control the environmental systems (air, gravity water recycling etc), while controlling a multi gigawatt fusion power plan,t while crunching data for avionics and flight controls and finally being able to solve a hyperdimensional n-body problem in real time. Every single ship computer is a super-computer equivalent - go look up the size of even the smallest of those - or go look at the server racks in a nuclear power station, or onboard a nuclear sub or aircraft carrior.
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
First off, how do you know a lot of those items you mention can not, in the future, become reality? You're assuming because they don't exist today, they can't exist, period. A lot of our technology we take for granted now were impossible and inconceivable only decades, let alone centuries back.
Hard science fiction is not absolute. It's still fiction involving a bit of imagination. It conjectures and extrapolates possibilities from what we know and extends beyond without reverting to magic solves everything.
On that note, technology sufficiently advances is no different than magic as the saying goes. We see that on 21st century Earth when low tech cultures observe modern tech. Same holds for a person in current reality observing a higher tech that did it's research creating the impossible and performing miracles because we don't understand. Hard science fiction uses this to imagine the fantastic while still grounded in a sense of it could work. Robots are a perfect example.
Hard science fiction is a bit fluid and subjective. Some believe it must be what we know and see today such as the somewhat flawed 'The Martian' while others consider avoiding Godzilla and 'zapatron rays' allows for speculative hard science fiction.
Hard science fiction is not absolute. It's still fiction involving a bit of imagination. It conjectures and extrapolates possibilities from what we know and extends beyond without reverting to magic solves everything.
On that note, technology sufficiently advances is no different than magic as the saying goes. We see that on 21st century Earth when low tech cultures observe modern tech. Same holds for a person in current reality observing a higher tech that did it's research creating the impossible and performing miracles because we don't understand. Hard science fiction uses this to imagine the fantastic while still grounded in a sense of it could work. Robots are a perfect example.
Hard science fiction is a bit fluid and subjective. Some believe it must be what we know and see today such as the somewhat flawed 'The Martian' while others consider avoiding Godzilla and 'zapatron rays' allows for speculative hard science fiction.
Hmm...right now the Traveller Core Rulebook is a "Platinum Seller" on DTRPG, one of the 0,53% best selling of all titles on DTRPG. While I cannot foresee the future market performance of Traveller, right now it does rather well, with no evidence that it has somehow failed to convince potential buyers and players of its merits.Tenacious-Techhunter said:
Frankly, I very much doubt that more realism and a harder approach to science in Traveller's fictional universe would do any good, mainly because I do not see any comparatively successful hard science fiction roleplaying game on the market (in fact, Traveller is among the hardest of the successful ones), but also because for a roleplaying game with such a long history the backwards compatibility with the material of other versions is important.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
Plus, referees can always make their Traveller sessions use "hard sci-fi", if that's what they want, without needing rules to do it.rust2 said:
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