New Paizo SF RPG: Competitor with Traveller?

[fusor]

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.

You mean the same "backward compatibility" that has caused so many arguments about canon contradicting eachother between editions ?

Also Eclipse Phase is a Platinum Seller too, and that is harder and more modern in a lot of ways than Traveller is. Transhuman Space would probably be one too, if it was sold on DTRPG. Mindjammer is a Gold seller at least too.

 

[rust2]

Also Eclipse Phase is a Platinum Seller too, and that is harder and more modern in a lot of ways than Traveller is. Transhuman Space would probably be one too, if it was sold on DTRPG. Mindjammer is a Gold seller at least too.

Whether one considers these games as hard science fiction depends entirely on one's opinion concerning the fictional "transhumanist" technologies at their focus, like braintaping and uploading, and so on. Sorry, but in my opinion these fictional technologies are pure fantasy with no base at all in real world biology and medical technology.

 

[fusor]

Also Eclipse Phase is a Platinum Seller too, and that is harder and more modern in a lot of ways than Traveller is. Transhuman Space would probably be one too, if it was sold on DTRPG. Mindjammer is a Gold seller at least too.

Whether one considers these games as hard science fiction depends entirely on one's opinion concerning the fictional "transhumanist" technologies at their focus, like braintaping and uploading, and so on. Sorry, but in my opinion these fictional technologies are pure fantasy with no base at all in real world biology and medical technology.

I don't think "hard science fiction" is just about realism - it's also about asking questions and going where the consequences take you, and in that regard, EP and TS are far harder science fiction than Traveller, which barely asks any questions at all and assumes that humans will still be the same thousands of years in the future when it's patently obvious that they won't be (our society has changed immensely even over the past 100-200 years, and the technological rollercoaster has only just begun). And as far as I can see the physical science in TS and EP is still more realistic than Traveller (yes, there are oddities like Psi in EP, but on the whole it's a pretty realistic setting).

FWIW, I think you're wrong about transhumanism being fantasy. We're getting there even today. Soon we'll have (and in some cases we already do) things like technological unemployment, AI agents, driverless cars, cloning, and genetic engineering, and later I'm pretty sure we'll find a way to simulate human brains on computers.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

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).

No, Hard Science Fiction does have an absolute definition; that being minimalist application of broken physics; which, in essence, puts it firmly within “realism”, to the extent it can still be called “Science Fiction”.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

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.

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.

Since the original Little Black Books implementing orbital physics as a gameplay mechanic. Today, that can all be done with fairly trivial gameplay aides. There have even been more efficient orbital maneuvers developed since Traveller was first published. Traveller started as Hard Science Fiction, but as the science and technology moved on, Traveller allowed itself to be left behind.

I want Traveller to be more realistic, like it used to be, not less; therefore, comparison with other RPGs is completely useless, as those don’t meet the stated criteria either (with the possible exception of GURPS, in only some places). The only advantage in comparing Traveller to other Space Opera RPGs is in illustrating how far it has yet to go to resume being what it once was; and that advantage is mine, not yours. You’re trying to peg my argument as being about the wrong end of the realism spectrum, and I’ll have none of it.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Hard Science Fiction does have an absolute definition; that being minimalist application of broken physics; which, in essence, puts it firmly within “realism”, to the extent it can still be called “Science Fiction”.

Riot.

Minimalist application of broken physics means realism.

Probably the worst explanation I've seen in years. Hard sci-fi is marketing. That's all. Been looking at the novels that Traveller is based on. None of them are hard sci-fi. Hard sci-fi is a red herring these days, if one thinks they can find it. Even The Martian has its faults.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

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.

You are gravely misunderstanding my point... I’m not complaining that Traveller stuff is too unrealistic; I’m complaining that modern advances haven’t been incorporated into the books, which in turn makes them unrealistic, because only a cave-dwelling luddite could then think technology based around assumptions that were obsolete 25 years ago could still be futuristic.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Hard Science Fiction does have an absolute definition; that being minimalist application of broken physics; which, in essence, puts it firmly within “realism”, to the extent it can still be called “Science Fiction”.

Riot.

Minimalist application of broken physics means realism.

Probably the worst explanation I've seen in years. Hard sci-fi is marketing. That's all. Been looking at the novels that Traveller is based on. None of them are hard sci-fi. Hard sci-fi is a red herring these days, if one thinks they can find it. Even The Martian has its faults.

No, it isn’t marketing; it’s a market. Which means money. Of course “The Martian” has its faults; that’s not the point. The point is that “The Martian” wasn’t made with assumptions about space travel made 30 years ago that have long since been demonstrated as invalid. If the science and technology in Traveller were as up-to-date as what was in “The Martian” and anything we can find in any Barnes and Noble Science Section or Home Electronics store, neither one of us would be having this conversation; we’d just be playing a better version of Traveller.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

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.

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.

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.

Bring this up again when Traveller makes a significant showing on Roll20’s metrics. I don’t care how well it does on some website that caters solely to Tabletop RPG fandom.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

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.

You mean the same "backward compatibility" that has caused so many arguments about canon contradicting eachother between editions ?

Also Eclipse Phase is a Platinum Seller too, and that is harder and more modern in a lot of ways than Traveller is. Transhuman Space would probably be one too, if it was sold on DTRPG. Mindjammer is a Gold seller at least too.

Honestly, I don’t consider Eclipse Phase all that Hard Science Fiction; the technological aspects of the setting are all-but ignored. It focuses entirely on implication, not implementation. It’s really more “Serious” Science Fiction than anything else, trying to talk about social impacts and whatnot. It’s a gross misuse of “Hard Science Fiction” in an attempt for people to take its serious philosophical tone seriously. Just ask yourself, “How much more scientific fact is there in these materials for players to leverage?”, and you’ll see that I’m right.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Also Eclipse Phase is a Platinum Seller too, and that is harder and more modern in a lot of ways than Traveller is. Transhuman Space would probably be one too, if it was sold on DTRPG. Mindjammer is a Gold seller at least too.

Whether one considers these games as hard science fiction depends entirely on one's opinion concerning the fictional "transhumanist" technologies at their focus, like braintaping and uploading, and so on. Sorry, but in my opinion these fictional technologies are pure fantasy with no base at all in real world biology and medical technology.

I actually agree with you on this point. Significant genetic modification is as unrealistic as cyberware. Both of which are only barely a thing, and certainly not anything off-the-shelf in any real form. While “brain uploading” is conceivably more practical than actual space travel if it can be done, there’s no reason to believe that it can, and actually plenty of good reasons to believe that it can’t.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Whether one considers these games as hard science fiction depends entirely on one's opinion concerning the fictional "transhumanist" technologies at their focus, like braintaping and uploading, and so on. Sorry, but in my opinion these fictional technologies are pure fantasy with no base at all in real world biology and medical technology.

I don't think "hard science fiction" is just about realism - it's also about asking questions and going where the consequences take you, and in that regard, EP and TS are far harder science fiction than Traveller, which barely asks any questions at all and assumes that humans will still be the same thousands of years in the future when it's patently obvious that they won't be (our society has changed immensely even over the past 100-200 years, and the technological rollercoaster has only just begun). And as far as I can see the physical science in TS and EP is still more realistic than Traveller (yes, there are oddities like Psi in EP, but on the whole it's a pretty realistic setting).

Actually, that’s exactly what it means; hard as in “as hard and physical as a rock, and not as soft and nebulous as an idea”; not as in “having meaningful hard-hitting impact on how we perceive ourselves and our role in the universe”; the latter is a gross misapplication of the term, and is a wholely incorrect use of it.

For the record, Transhumanism isn’t at all a significant part of my objections, regardless of how unrealistic I think it is; it’s important for people to play interesting characters, realistic or not, and, so long as they fit within the rules, whether to allow them into a given game is a GM question, not a system question. But, the requirements to play those characters should be realistic, at least for the given TLs involved.

 

[fusor]

Actually, that’s exactly what it means; hard as in “as hard and physical as a rock, and not as soft and nebulous as an idea”; not as in “having meaningful hard-hitting impact on how we perceive ourselves and our role in the universe”; the latter is a gross misapplication of the term, and is a wholely incorrect use of it.

I don't think it's as rigid a definition as you claim it to be. Realism is definitely a big part of it, as I said, but some people seem to take it to mean "if there's even a slightest deviation from reality then it's not hard science fiction" which is utter nonsense - 2001 is hard scifi even though it has Monoliths magically making apes intelligent. The point is, the effort must be made. If it tries to be realistic and maybe slips up in a couple of places for dramatic effect then who cares - it's still basically hard scifi. And whether that's "the realism is important and people must deal with the consequences" or "we're going to consider all the possible effects of this in the setting and make it as internally consistent as possible" doesn't really matter - maybe there's "hard physical scifi" and "hard social scifi".

What they have in common though is that they don't just armwave things away - they think things through and deal with the consequences.

 

[rust2]

I don't think it's as rigid a definition as you claim it to be.

Well, it actually is. The "hard" in "hard science fiction" refers to the realism or at least plausibility and verisimilitude of the use of science and technology in the fiction. What you describe could better be called "social fiction", and some authors indeed use this description for their works.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

I don't think it's as rigid a definition as you claim it to be. Realism is definitely a big part of it, as I said, but some people seem to take it to mean "if there's even a slightest deviation from reality then it's not hard science fiction" which is utter nonsense - 2001 is hard scifi even though it has Monoliths magically making apes intelligent. The point is, the effort must be made. If it tries to be realistic and maybe slips up in a couple of places for dramatic effect then who cares - it's still basically hard scifi. And whether that's "the realism is important and people must deal with the consequences" or "we're going to consider all the possible effects of this in the setting and make it as internally consistent as possible" doesn't really matter - maybe there's "hard physical scifi" and "hard social scifi".

What they have in common though is that they don't just armwave things away - they think things through and deal with the consequences.

“2001” was certainly Hard Science Fiction, at least for its day... However, evaluated in a modern context, it does have its problems.

I’m not going to argue the monoliths... those are a plot device, pure and simple. They may be baseless, but no one can say they are factually wrong; it’s factually wrong I have a problem with, not merely baseless.

The year of 2001 has long since passed. No Artificial Intelligences the likes of HAL exist or have existed. Siri may be quite impressive, but she’s no HAL. The scientific and technological basis for “2001” has been outright disproven; no massive roto-grav space stations, no manned missions even to Mars, and the approach to fulfilling the “2001” mission would have been done by semiautonomous rovers, delivered by ion drive, and managed by a ground-crew on Earth, like Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity were. Evaluated from a modern perspective, it’s initial “Hard”ness has eroded into mush; nothing about that movie lived up to the year 2001, and even if you pushed the “title date” of the movie into the future, we wouldn’t have done that mission that way anyway.

And that’s exactly the problem with Traveller. It’s assumptions about how science and technology would develop are outright obsolete, and need to be shot and left for dead in the cold hard ground. Just like a middleschooler might naively be annoyed at Stanley Kubrik for how “his version of NASA did that mission all wrong”, fresh new RPG gamers are going to look at Traveller and wonder, “What’s wrong with these authors??? How am I supposed to take this seriously?!?!?!”.

The “Hard”ness of “2001” when it was new should not be questioned by anyone; nor should its current “Hard”ness ever be defended; it’s a lovely movie, but, today, it’s as Soft as Star Trek.

 

[Reynard]

So, slightly back on topic of a competitive scifi RPGs, why has NO ONE created just such a Traveller killer RPG in 40 years purely up to date as of TODAY and all technology and science not yet proven (or imagined) is accurately presented in game terms?

Starfinder will need to compete based on playability and subject matter.

 

[fusor]

The year of 2001 has long since passed. No Artificial Intelligences the likes of HAL exist or have existed. Siri may be quite impressive, but she’s no HAL. The scientific and technological basis for “2001” has been outright disproven; no massive roto-grav space stations, no manned missions even to Mars, and the approach to fulfilling the “2001” mission would have been done by semiautonomous rovers, delivered by ion drive, and managed by a ground-crew on Earth, like Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity were. Evaluated from a modern perspective, it’s initial “Hard”ness has eroded into mush; nothing about that movie lived up to the year 2001, and even if you pushed the “title date” of the movie into the future, we wouldn’t have done that mission that way anyway.

Um... if we did 2001 the way we would today then (a) it most likely wouldn't happen due to congressional budget cuts and politics, (b) even if it did it'd be hugely delayed, and (c) we wouldn't send any people up there and therefore wouldn't have a story. Sure, maybe it's "quaint" by modern post-2010 standards (yep, Jupiter still hasn't turned into a star, sigh), but it's still hard scifi. The point of hard scifi is that it tries to be realistic, and given what was known at the time, it did that very well. Heck, HG Wells' War of the Worlds was and is still a great hard scifi story. It doesn't matter that we know better now, or have passed whatever year the story was set in.

So yes, while some things are out of date in 2001, I wouldn't dream of calling it "Soft scifi". It may be outdated hard scifi, but it's still hard scifi because "hard scifi" is a style, an approach, a writing methodology - it's not just a slavish adherence to realism and consequences.

 

[fusor]

So, slightly back on topic of a competitive scifi RPGs, why has NO ONE created just such a Traveller killer RPG in 40 years purely up to date as of TODAY and all technology and science not yet proven (or imagined) is accurately presented in game terms?

What is this obsession with "killing Traveller"? It's not some giant that needs to be felled in order for some other game to prove its worth. Scifi is a very niche market as it is, and for all of Traveller's legacy it's a small player in today's RPG market compared to D&D.

Other games have come and gone, the only reason Traveller's still around is that its designer insists on changing or allowing other people to change the damn thing every few years. I mean, you may as well ask why nobody has made anything that has "killed" Star Trek or Star Wars either - most likely it's because they were popular initially and stayed popular because they too kept getting revamped and re-released. Nowadays, the market's much more crowded and its harder for things to stand out - but that's not an indication of the quality of the games or shows. If Traveller was released today, I doubt anyone would really notice it - but it came out at a time when there was a gap in the market and it captured the imagination and grew from that.

So stop saying that new games have to "compete with Traveller" or "have to kill Traveller". They don't. They just have to work for the purpose that they're written for, and whether 10 people like it or a thousand makes no difference to anything.

Starfinder will need to compete based on playability and subject matter.

It doesn't need to compete at all. It's aimed at a different market.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

So yes, while some things are out of date in 2001, I wouldn't dream of calling it "Soft scifi". It may be outdated hard scifi, but it's still hard scifi because "hard scifi" is a style, an approach, a writing methodology - it's not just a slavish adherence to realism and consequences.

I would certainly concede the point that it perhaps should be correctly considered “Outdated Hard Sci Fi”.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

So stop saying that new games have to "compete with Traveller" or "have to kill Traveller". They don't. They just have to work for the purpose that they're written for, and whether 10 people like it or a thousand makes no difference to anything.

You make an excellent point. There’s only one game that has to kill Traveller to be successful, and that is Traveller itself.