dmccoy1693
Cosmic Mongoose
captainjack23 said:
One of the posters syncinctly states that he does not plan to pick up Traveller stuff because the setting and the system are two different books. My only thought on that stance is "Wa."
Official Traveller Universe or Original Traveller Universe
- Thread starter kafka
- Start date
One of the posters syncinctly states that he does not plan to pick up Traveller stuff because the setting and the system are two different books. My only thought on that stance is "Wa."
There have been years of Traveller fandom....
There has been much tooing and froing over OTU.....
Every game I have ever run, or played in has had a base in the OTU. But none of them have ever been ruled by it.
There is the official timeline that GDW put out, and that effectively stopped evolving more than a decade ago.
I'm not saying that material hasn't been produced in that time, I am saying that the timeline quit being something anyone should worry about.
If you are a fan of the CT setting (at best a realativly thin one) one only needs to look at Steve Jackson Games, they have moved a timeline.
For the "official" timeline including TNE, we had Comstar/Avenger. Their extension of that fork was a credible effort.
Two forks, neither has been embraced as anything other than Alternate Traveller Universes by either the fans or the IP owners.
Much has been said here about the OTU, but it hasn't been defined other than in the barest framework. (Note there is only one Universe book out from mongoose and it is basically a retread of what has been produced before). There is a bunch of legalistic wording about what is and isn't with direct detail, which leads to a frozen meaningless thing called OTU.
So I ask once again will someone define OTU. Which timeline which detailed sectors which under detailed sectors. Right now as I see it the only OTU is the Spinward Marches and by relation Forevan, vaguely in the 1100+ period. The rest is an amorphous unknown.
But this isn't all bad, like the classic period of Traveller there is a vast amount of room for expansion. Traditionally in the "golden" days of Traveller many groups of separate fans made their own spaces within Traveller. Some of these where adopted into the infamous "cannon" Some of these forever languish as variants. But the those spaces existed along side what would become known as OTU.
What I am really saying is, we have been given license to write Traveller, why don't we go out and do so?
There has been much tooing and froing over OTU.....
Every game I have ever run, or played in has had a base in the OTU. But none of them have ever been ruled by it.
There is the official timeline that GDW put out, and that effectively stopped evolving more than a decade ago.
I'm not saying that material hasn't been produced in that time, I am saying that the timeline quit being something anyone should worry about.
If you are a fan of the CT setting (at best a realativly thin one) one only needs to look at Steve Jackson Games, they have moved a timeline.
For the "official" timeline including TNE, we had Comstar/Avenger. Their extension of that fork was a credible effort.
Two forks, neither has been embraced as anything other than Alternate Traveller Universes by either the fans or the IP owners.
Much has been said here about the OTU, but it hasn't been defined other than in the barest framework. (Note there is only one Universe book out from mongoose and it is basically a retread of what has been produced before). There is a bunch of legalistic wording about what is and isn't with direct detail, which leads to a frozen meaningless thing called OTU.
So I ask once again will someone define OTU. Which timeline which detailed sectors which under detailed sectors. Right now as I see it the only OTU is the Spinward Marches and by relation Forevan, vaguely in the 1100+ period. The rest is an amorphous unknown.
But this isn't all bad, like the classic period of Traveller there is a vast amount of room for expansion. Traditionally in the "golden" days of Traveller many groups of separate fans made their own spaces within Traveller. Some of these where adopted into the infamous "cannon" Some of these forever languish as variants. But the those spaces existed along side what would become known as OTU.
What I am really saying is, we have been given license to write Traveller, why don't we go out and do so?
BenGunn said:
Ok, I think I specified this in terms of GDW, Mongoose on the other hand hasn't described what is or isn't within their documentation. Or in effect OTU is meaningless outside of what Mongoose has published.
But that really isn't the point. The point is instead of waiting for Mongoose and/or Marc's vapor-ware project, the best direction we has the fan market/writers can take is to build our own setting material just like we did in the old days. After that the Powers-that-be and the fan base can decide what they want.
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
BenGunn said:
Yeah, theres a specific list in the CD/reprint books that basically say that. They also say, interestingly enough, that the boardgames are a representation of the OTU in game form, which as far as I can tell, is a wargame created in the OTU, about the OTU....for OTUers ? :?: . Pretty twisty....
Indeed, from what I recall, Marc's take on that is that MJD is now the one to talk to for TNE and Post issues. Pretty accomodating. And I know that they both are less concerned with canon than some fans.
And, it was officially designated as such - and includes the proviso that nothing in GT can be used to invalidate anything in the OTU. [/code]
Dismissing other peoples' points as "non-starters" and "strawmen" just because you have a different opinion (and most of the time don't actually know what's been going on behind the scenes either) isn't a very good way to discuss things, CJ - this is why trying to talk to you is generally so tiresome. You seem very keen on elbowing other people out of the way so that you can make your points, and as usual you seem to be very keen on claiming that I'm saying or thinking things that I'm not, and I'm long since through playing your trollish games.
You also aren't very clued into what's going on now. Marc hasn't said that MJD is now "the one to talk to for TNE and Post issues". The fact is that TNE/1248 license has now sunset and that stuff isn't available anymore from Avenger, period. Whether or not it will become available later on is unknown. But he's certainly not been "accommodating" about it, and there's not really much point in anyone talking to Martin about it because it can't go anywhere.
TBH I'm rather pissed off that Avenger's material isn't available anymore. I could understand saying "don't make more of it", but pulling it all from sale completely is robbing the fanbase of some of the best material ever written for the game, as well as making a whole era of the setting unavailable for purchase now. That particularly annoys me given that every other version of Traveller is still available for purchase.
You also aren't very clued into what's going on now. Marc hasn't said that MJD is now "the one to talk to for TNE and Post issues". The fact is that TNE/1248 license has now sunset and that stuff isn't available anymore from Avenger, period. Whether or not it will become available later on is unknown. But he's certainly not been "accommodating" about it, and there's not really much point in anyone talking to Martin about it because it can't go anywhere.
TBH I'm rather pissed off that Avenger's material isn't available anymore. I could understand saying "don't make more of it", but pulling it all from sale completely is robbing the fanbase of some of the best material ever written for the game, as well as making a whole era of the setting unavailable for purchase now. That particularly annoys me given that every other version of Traveller is still available for purchase.
Infojunky said:
Where? And are we talking about the 1000 page unedited PDF that's still actually a playtest version?
(not that it really matters though... Guns 'n' Roses still managed to release Chinese Democracy before Marc released T5, and that still hasn't happened yet anyway...
).
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
EDG said:
Pretty stern admonishment coming from you. I particulalry like the way you repond to the specific question, of "where is this backlash", and "where is the substance in your point" in such a direct and forthright manner. Good ways all to address the argument and not the person, as you always insist on.
Lets see. Now I'm a troll, tiresome, AND clueless, this for suggesting that I disagee with you, and that I'm uncomfortable taking your word as a given when it seems at contradiction with the facts, and in what is an obviously an emotion-laden situation for you. Nice, that. Now, remind me, where did I start slagging you ? Was it when I said specifically that you weren't a troll ? Or is it just my termerity in posting in response to you on your personal forum ?
I'll leave the field to you at this point, as that seems your main goal. I
guess you win, by virtue of starting insults first, and devastaingly dismissing all my points as tiresome... <assumes submissive posture> Oook Ooook.
edit: spelling
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Is that a hedge trimmer I hear?
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
Allensh said:
[looks over there... :shock: ] Whew ! Yeah , that's ...uh rancorous. I do have to admit that you ended up looking like Wiley Coyote for suggesting that three or four people were being ostentatiously hypercritical. But again, it's "the three or five usual suspects"; and mostly about their specific rules shibboleths. The SMG, the Task Resolution, the Inititiative system, The Space Combat System: match each to the poster you know and love ! Plus, they regulary savage each other, so perhaps its all good fun. But no ATU/OTU tirades that I could see.
Still, I appreciate identifying the source of your comment. Moves your observation out of gossipy innuendo and into a pretty good point.
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
GypsyComet said:
I hope not. It should be possible to disagree over a topic, and discuss this issue without rancor. It's a shame if the old "tantrum and escalate until a thread you dislike is deleted or locked " strategy works here - as I've seen over and over on COTI, ironically enough.
Athough, the whole ingroup/outgroup effect* does seem to be spreading, which is a shame.
*defining ones identity by crapping on another, similar group. Often used by political splitoff movements.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
BenGunn said:
"Just don't care" fandom is the single best reason for Mongoose to have decided to not pander to the "old guard". Too many "fans" deeply entrenched in their own views with little or no actual play to add that necessary dash of original thought or respected second opinion. Too many people for whom "science FICTION" and "SCIENCE fiction" have no meeting point. Too many people who cling to one edition so strongly that nothing else is even worth wasting paper on.
We've all known such people, or "met" them on the net. The many mixtures and degrees of these attitudes are why Traveller has more Yahoo Groups and other MLs for subsets of the rules than it does campaign lists. They are why you have to visit specific fora to have any hope of finding a particular group of fans and/or players. And they are why a newcomer to Traveller will be rudely handled and shown the door for asking about the wrong edition in the wrong place.
"Traveller Community" is a sad misnomer.
GypsyComet said:
TBH if they really weren't pandering to the "old guard" then they wouldn't have based MGT on CT as much as they did. The end result is definitely more modern, but not as divorced from CT as I'd have liked it to have been.
But I agree with your general point
. Whether anyone actually plays a game or not doesn't make their opinion any more or less valid though - I think that sort of distinction is unnecessarily divisive.
That's another unnecessarily divisive distinction. Science fiction isn't something that's "one or the other" - it's just fiction with a scientific base. Take out the science, and you simply don't have Scifi - take out the fiction, and you've got a physics book
. They've got a right to do that, even if they are closing their minds to other opportunities. What I think is wrong though is when they tell other people that they're wrong for playing their preferred editions.
Sad but true.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
EDG said:
Play is the closest thing to "live fire experience" the RPG hobby has. Without it, all a reader has is his own impressions. No cross-checking, no reality checks, no playability issues revealed.
The "G" in "RPG" stands for "game". I've said it before and I'll say it again: "Play the game".
Because speaking from experience IS more valid than speaking from first and unchecked impression.
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
GypsyComet said:
Given the sales, it's at least a possibility that a fair number of "silent" traveller players are buying the new product; way more than the basement trolls espousing "no change" or their own personal vision of "correct traveller" with no compromise.
Do you really think that the vocal jerks really define the community ? I know they say they do, but....
Honestly, there are lots of threads other than the one on COTI and on other sites where this is a non-issue. I put to you that the arguers, and I include both sides of the issues, are their own subgroup one of whose hobbies is arguing about traveller with the same people for the last ten to 15 years. With a few exceptions, its pretty easy to avoid them in any kind of rationally moderated group.
I've been doing this since it started, and what I see is asmall but inevitable accumulation of crusty old arguers claiming ownership, and being believed by some very well meaning people. Every community that doesn't actively blackball and has been around for more that a couple of years, internet or social, accumulates this kind of toxic material.
Yeah there's a thread pissing on MGT at COTI. and, theoretically there's one here pissing on CT, Marc and MGT for kowtowing to the same. And so what ?
During the same time, I've posted two stupid jokes, a clarification on weaponry and a discusson of modern equivilents and had a very nice discussion with two other Travellers around the globe. But here, in the mosh pit, of course it looks like hell. Particulalry when it's steered that way sheerly by habit.
I know there are those who want to demonize traveller fans, or have been harassed into assuming the same, but as Rust pointed out to me earlier, "That is a shoe I shall not wear". (It probably sounds wiser in german..). If you hate traveller fans, why post ? And if you post, have you been savaged ?
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
GypsyComet said:
Huzzah. Experiment PLUS theory.
And thanks again for the ships. Now thats proof of a crappy community that entices me to buy more lead...
GypsyComet said:
That's a completely unfounded assertion though (at least when it comes to gaming). Is the opinion of someone who's read or watched a play somehow less valid than someone who's acted in it? Of course it isn't. Active participation isn't required, which is why it's an artificial and unnecessary distinction. (and this sort of thing pissed me off when I first saw it on rpgnet being touted by the likes of Bruce Baugh. It just gives people another excuse to sneer at other peoples' opinions).
You don't need to play the game to understand if something in the setting doesn't make sense.
You also don't need to play the game to be able to do the stats to figure out if a system is broken.
The only thing you miss by not playing the game is the ability to say "I've played the game and..." - but that "live fire experience" really adds nothing except the ability to tell "war stories" about it and to say how you felt about actually playing it.
Not that I'm suggesting that "first and unchecked impression" is good though - but the only thing that I think anyone needs to do to have a valid opinion of the game is to have read through the thing properly and analysed what they're saying about it before they say it.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
captainjack23 said:
Good points.
The "crusty old arguers" are, sadly, in positions that get them noticed. So yes, they do "represent" the community, at least online, to more than a trivial extent.
As for being savaged, well, I am an early casualty of the TNE war that took place on the TML back in 1990-1. I see the side effects of that war to this day.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
EDG said:
:lol: This IS the internet, and these ARE gamers we're talking about. :lol:
More to the point, a recent "lively" discussion on CotI involved the assertion that many of the old fans defend their interpretation of the game, often loudly and at great length, without them having actually read the books in ~20 years. This assertion was shown correct in more than a few cases.
