On Moving Planets and other Impossible Projects

[captainjack23]

As I have seen and experienced it, it's an apallingly unpleasant setting -what with genetically programmed slavery, absolute dehumanization, etc.

One particularly vocal Traveller grognard who shall remain nameless once accused me of being an inhuman monster (among other things) because I didn't see TS in the utterly negative way that he did -

Just to be clear, and I know you know it's the case, but for all and sundry -- that wasn't me.

It is a matter of taste, even more than perspective. And I'm not going to antievangelize an RPG just becuase I don't like the mood it sets, so lets not get into that; nor should you feel that you have to defend it. The thing was, what I was saying was that I didn't like it because of its well thought out background, NOT becuase I found it's science unrealistic.

Its an example of "well thought through" not invariably equaling a better game from some players perspectives.

I mean, and I'm not trying to start a fight, lets say the OTU iscontradictory and unrealistic. Why is that a bad thing ?

Some of us at least like our SF to be consistent and realistic, and would like to see what the OTU would be like if it was consistent and realistic (and make their own settings consistent and realistic too). I guess what really irks me isn't the fact that the OTU is contradictory and unrealistic - it's the excuses that some people come up with to justify the contradictions and unrealism, which more often than not they just make it worse. What annoys me even more is when people claim that realism and consistency somehow come at the expense of "fun" or that it "stifles the imagination" - that's demonstrably nonsense.

[/quote]

While I agree about science and fun, I fear the demonstration will be harder than you imagine -or could find; and since you point out its the peoples opinions about this kind of discussion that irk you, it'll be orders of magnitude harder to demonstarte. But do try, and I mean that in good faith.

If Traveller is a generic SF game, it should be able to run anything from crazy Space Opera to realistic Hard SF. As such, there's room for both in its portfolio, and it doesn't have to be at the expense of the other.

No, it doesn't. In fact, as long as you accept that that goes both ways, we are in agreement.

The interesting question is, I think this: I understand that you think the OTU is (for you) broken as somewhere to play in. Do you think the rules are less so ? And if so, could they support a diamond hard science background and not inherently muck it up ?

 

[EDG]

What annoys me even more is when people claim that realism and consistency somehow come at the expense of "fun" or that it "stifles the imagination" - that's demonstrably nonsense.

While I agree about science and fun, I fear the demonstration will be harder than you imagine -or could find; and since you point out its the peoples opinions about this kind of discussion that irk you, it'll be orders of magnitude harder to demonstarte. But do try, and I mean that in good faith.

The "fun" part is down to individual tastes, yes. But the "stifles the imagination" part is demonstrably nonsense because figuring out something realistically can open doors as well as close them. Sure, you may not be able to use your wacky gonzo crazy unrealistic idea, but when you look at it realistically you can find other stuff to make things interesting in different ways. I don't really see a net loss there.

e.g. you could say "OK, I have a habitable planet around a red dwarf star, its day is 20 hours long and it has two moons and it's an earthlike environment." and just leave it at that.

But look at it realistically. The red dwarf may be a flare star. The planet has to be tidelocked if it's in a habitable orbit around the red dwarf. If it's tidelocked, it has no moons. Tidelocking means that the environment is distinctively polarised into hot and cold poles. Habitability is best around the twilight band, where the sun is low in the sky (at most) and may be periodically hidden by mountains due to libration, making a pseudo-day/night cycle in some locations. Plants may be dark-leaved to absorb more IR/red light from the star. Lifeforms will be adapted to the tidelocked conditions. Weather would be more extreme. And so on.

Now, you could make all sorts of (unrealistic) details for the first case too. But my point is that you can just swap the unrealistic details for realistic ones, and still have an interesting place to be in - but that also happens to be realistic too.

No, it doesn't. In fact, as long as you accept that that goes both ways, we are in agreement.

It does go both ways. Problem is, I think it's very strongly biased toward unrealistic space opera right now.

The interesting question is, I think this: I understand that you think the OTU is (for you) broken as somewhere to play in. Do you think the rules are less so ? And if so, could they support a diamond hard science background and not inherently muck it up ?

What rules? MGT? Or other versions? I don't know. I suspect GT or TNE could probably support a harder science background (heck, they were harder science backgrounds) better than CT or MGT.

 

[Tobias]

On the other hand, Tobiases reaction is also part of the issue- apparently the problems with somthing he's familiar with, submarines, wreck the setting for him.

I wouldn't go that far - after all it's just a few numbers one can easily correct - but the physically impossible submarines were kind of a letdown in what people described to me as the be-all, end-all of realistic "Hard SF".

But yeah, it's partly geek factor.

 

[Gaidheal]

I'm sure I've posted about four or five times now, in the short time I've been here, about: "different things break suspension of disbelief for different people", actually but, moving on.

If 'hard science' means 'no fun' for you, you're probably playing entirely the wrong genre, in my opinion. That's not to say that only exactingly accurate and completely possible science are the only choice for a scifi game but if you want handwaved magic solutions and physically impossible feats that can be easily identified as such, I think you'll be happier with Forgotten Realms or World of Darkness: Changeling (both of which are settings I'm fond of).

Bad arguments to justify obviously wrong 'facts' or anti-science rhetoric will just annoy me (and others) and ultimately they amount to burying your head in the sand rather than facing the reality; it's alright to enjoy the OTU, exactly as written, but you cannot pretend that it stands up to serious scrutiny.

 

[Gaidheal]

Incidentally, Transhuman Space sounds pretty cool to me. :¬)

 

[rust]

Incidentally, Transhuman Space sounds pretty cool to me. :¬)

It is very cool, although in a very different way than Traveller.

In my view, Traveller still has the somewhat "heroic" spirit of the Golden
Age science fiction, with an Empire and good guys and bad guys that can
almost be identified by the colours (in the case of the Zhodani: the shape)
of their headwear - think Heinlein, perhaps.

Transhuman Space was written after science fiction's New Wave and Cy-
berpunk, and accordingly it is significantly more "grey" than "black and
white", with the less pleasant tendencies of human societies more in the
foreground than in the background - think Dick, perhaps.

 

[Gaidheal]

Having checked it out in the interim, agreed, even your author choices are pretty good analogues, in my opinion.

I can see my group loving Transhuman and one of them was talking about buying up GURPS, too... :¬)

 

[EDG]

I really like TS (but then I'm biased, since I coauthored one of the books ). It's the most interesting SF RPG background by far, IMO.

 

[Gaidheal]

It looks it, actually. It's a pity it was GURPS, for me; I consciously avoided anything that used it as I had no intention of buying that system (purely because I figured there were enough already and plenty of material for them, so I was unlikely to miss out).

 

[captainjack23]

I'm sure I've posted about four or five times now, in the short time I've been here, about: "different things break suspension of disbelief for different people", actually but, moving on.

If 'hard science' means 'no fun' for you, you're probably playing entirely the wrong genre, in my opinion. That's not to say that only exactingly accurate and completely possible science are the only choice for a scifi game but if you want handwaved magic solutions and physically impossible feats that can be easily identified as such, I think you'll be happier with Forgotten Realms or World of Darkness: Changeling (both of which are settings I'm fond of).

In all honesty, I really don't see more "science =no fun" posts that I see "you R having Wrongbadfun" posts; in other words, very very few. SoI think this issue is waaaay overstated -and mostly driven by the annoyance of the extremer proponants (on both sides). Possibly part of the issue is the commonly held equation that setrious = not fun, perhaps...my those puritan ancestors have a lot to answer for. Part may also be that it's HARD to interest people in science, or to present it other than boringly and or scoldingly, such as in most educational systems. Its a problem, but one that two hundre years of sstrict lectures haven't solved yet; so I'm not sure if its the way to go here.
Besides, define Hard Science if you dare. Go on. I've tried.
:twisted:

Bad arguments to justify obviously wrong 'facts' or anti-science rhetoric will just annoy me (and others) and ultimately they amount to burying your head in the sand rather than facing the reality; it's alright to enjoy the OTU, exactly as written, but you cannot pretend that it stands up to serious scrutiny.

Well, if I was coming into your house and spouting bad science, you'd have cause for mentioning that it annoys you -but I don;t see where knowing what annoys you is an important issue here in a voluntary public venue. We all need to be responsible for our own annoyance expression, among other things. :wink:

That said, I think you are reading way too much pathology into simple taste or even just disagreement. Attempting to work out a story line issue in favor of a story that I like in a game, in a way that I also can use is not burying my head in the sand. Burying ones head in the sand is ignoring the dead certainty of a major earthquake in ones neighborhood -or the effects of a political coup, or a diagnosis of cancer....not deciding not to do things for relaxation that annoy me; like reading dark and gritty RPGS -you want dark and gritty ? Volunteer at the local community mental health center; if nothing else, you may come to understand why I don't like wallowing in ersatz grittiness on my day off.. .

Consider too, that one can easily argue that any dergree of involvement in roleplaying is having ones head stuck in the sand (or elsewhere), so it seems a rather unproductive attempt to parse varying degrees of "failing to face the facts". The facts are imaginary, and the consequences are trivial. Its a darn big hammer you are using on a tack, says I.

Finally, do you really want to equate holding a negative opinion about a literary gaming genre (such as, say, Hard science) as being the same thing as being antiscienc ? Or do you really think I'm an anti-evolultionist if I play D&D, and argue about how its magic works , or one of the flat earthers if I play the broken OTU ? This is intentional hyperbole; I know your answer is no. My point is, I think you're letting your keyboard mix up your arguments.


And finally, of course I can pretend I can pretend the OTU holds up -See, I'm roleplaying ! I'm roleplaying someone in an imaginary universe. Its what one has to do in every single RPG ever written -they all require "pretending that the game universe holds up to serious scrutiny" , right ? :lol: Its called "willing suspension of disbelief", and its what keeps us us in movies and plays instead of running to get an opthalmologist when Oedipus pokes out his eyes. Me, I just think he rolled a fumble.

 

[EDG]

In all honesty, I really don't see more "science =no fun" posts that I see "you R having Wrongbadfun" posts; in other words, very very few. SoI think this issue is waaaay overstated -and mostly driven by the annoyance of the extremer proponants (on both sides).

It's not overstated - you just haven't seen enough examples of it. I do find it interesting that if anyone states something that you personally haven't seen a lot of, then they must in your opinion be "overstating" things or just getting it wrong. The fact that you don't have much experience in this means that you've just missed it all (lucky you).

Part may also be that it's HARD to interest people in science, or to present it other than boringly and or scoldingly, such as in most educational systems.

It's easy to present it in an interesting and informative and entertaining way. It's just that some people have an initial assumption that it's boring, uninteresting, or too hard for them. That's not the fault of science, it's the fault of the people who have closed their minds to it.

Well, if I was coming into your house and spouting bad science, you'd have cause for mentioning that it annoys you -but I don;t see where knowing what annoys you is an important issue here in a voluntary public venue. We all need to be responsible for our own annoyance expression, among other things. :wink:

etc etc

I think you have seriously misinterpreted what he said (and also, I find it very hard to decipher your long dense, rambling monologues. Please spare us the "witty" waffle and just get to the point!).

The point, since you missed it, is that there's no real purpose served in trying to justify things that don't make sense to start with - they still don't make sense, no matter how you cut it. And the fact that people come up with really wacky exceptions and justifications for things that are very obviously broken in the OTU just adds to the already wobbly house of cards and makes it worse, as I said earlier. It's far better to just admit it's broken, and stop pretending that it isn't - as Gaidheal said - it just doesn't stand up to serious scrutiny, period. You seem to be all for saying "well, that's what the story demands and that's what is important" so why can't people just accept that and be done with it instead of coming up with the dodgy explanations?

If you're reading anything more into that, you're reading it wrong.

(I blame CT for this though. It all stems from the attitude that a nonsensical random result should be considered "interesting" and something to be explained instead of just discarded. The result is a universe full of exceptions and craziness, rather than one where it mostly makes sense and has a few exceptions. Repeat after me, kids - "exceptions should be exceptional, otherwise they're not exceptions".)

 

[The Chef]

ok i'm ready for a huge kicking. i think that there is plenty of room in traveller for both hard a not so hard science fiction.

i don't play traveller as hard science. i have enough science in it for my likeing, but i don't go overboard on it. if the science serves that story then it's present if not then it's in the background. and yes i make things up as i go along when necessary.

this is traveller to me. now let me explain a few things. 1. the reasons i play like this is not because i don't have the knowledge or the expirience of science and nor do my players. most are scientists in real life. my g/f and fellow gamer is a chemist in real life with a dabble in astrophysics. other people in my gaming group are huge science fiction (in all it's interpretations) fans. but hard science has never really come up.


however, from what i've read on these boards the universes that EDG and Rust create fill me with a sense of wonder and would happily game in them.

Chef

 

[EDG]

I think Traveller's schizophrenic nature is part of the problem here. It's swung from unrealistic/vague to more realistic/detailed in its incarnations - it's even done that within some editions too. And then its setting was developed over the years by people with different visions for how they think it worked, and interpreted by people in their own way too. There's a lot of baggage there, in other words.

I think the fact that there are and have been so many recurring arguments about the setting - about taxes, administration, planets, astrography, technology, economics, piracy, or whatever - implies that a sizeable group of people do actually want the OTU to make sense. They wouldn't argue over the details so much if they didn't - they'd just say "OK, whatever, it's just a game" (and some people do just that).

GT and TNE were the closest we've had to a more rational, sensible OTU, but they were still hamstrung by the fact that they had to build on the existing setting's flawed assumptions. GT trade is more detailed and realistic than CT trade, but doesn't make perfect economic sense because it still has the CT assumptions at its core instead of starting from scratch and working up from there.

Of course the OTU itself can only be one thing or another - it just needs to really decide what it actually is. But it'd be nice to have softer and harder options for creating one's own universes, at least.

 

[rust]

i think that there is plenty of room in traveller for both hard a not so hard science fiction.

I also think so.

In my view it is just a matter of taste, and while I prefer a more "hard"
approach to the science of a setting, I can well understand that others
prefer a different way of handling science in their games, and have no
problem at all with it.

Besides, in a way I am more interested in the depth of coherent and con-
sistent detail of a setting than in its scientific accuracy, but science hap-
pens to be a very good tool to make a lot of details coherent and consis-
tent - and thereby a setting plausible.

What I do not like in a setting are implausibilities and faulty logic, becau-
se they ruin my suspension of disbelief. And it does not really matter that
much for me whether it is "bad science" or "bad fantasy", badly designed
magic systems with lots of contradictions annoy me just as much.

In other words, I could happily play a setting where six legged pigs can
fly - until the moment when it is mentioned that each of those pigs gives
eight knuckles of pork ... :wink:

 

[Tobias]

If 'hard science' means 'no fun' for you, you're probably playing entirely the wrong genre, in my opinion. That's not to say that only exactingly accurate and completely possible science are the only choice for a scifi game but if you want handwaved magic solutions and physically impossible feats that can be easily identified as such, I think you'll be happier with Forgotten Realms or World of Darkness: Changeling (both of which are settings I'm fond of).

So, psionics are right out of the window in YTU? As is jump drive, or any other method of FTL? (I'll take it as a given that reactionless drives had to go as well.)

 

[Tobias]

GT and TNE were the closest we've had to a more rational, sensible OTU, but they were still hamstrung by the fact that they had to build on the existing setting's flawed assumptions.

TNE? With Virus and even worse, the Empress Wave? You're kidding, right?

 

[rust]

Well, TNE's "Fire, Fusion & Steel" was a first serious attempt to give the
OTU the basics of a coherent and comparatively plausible technology.

As for FTL drives, psionics, Virus and the Empress Wave, I see them as
phenomena that are not covered by science as we understand it, but
that are also not necessarily in direct open contradiction to that science.

Reactionless drives ... I really do not use them, the gravitic drives of my
setting now use thruster plates to accelerate the reaction mass ...

 

[Tobias]

As for FTL drives, psionics, Virus and the Empress Wave, I see them as phenomena that are not covered by science as we understand it, but
that are also not necessarily in direct open contradiction to that science.

Never mind the science. I wasn't talking about that. They are in open contradiction to common sense. Nay, they declare war on it.


Virus
Imperium: "Hey, we have this new technology for something which can easily be done by current technology - but it's really nifty. It's entirely black box - you have no idea how it works and are not allowed to figure it out. How about buying it and spreading it across known space - which usually takes several years to cross even once and normally spreads new technology at a positively glacial pace - in just a few decades? Even though some, if not most, of you are our long-time enemies and not economically or technologically dependent on us in any way?"

Everybody else: "Sounds good to us!"


Empress Wave
Zhodani scientist: "Sir, we've detected this 'wavefront' coming from the galactic core. The effect on our outposts suggests it could greatly disrupt our interstellar community, the security of which is your highest concern. However, we still have several centuries to prepare for this, and it's actually quite simple to bypass the 'wave' using jump-capable ships, if we, the best-organized and culturally most monolithic interstellar state, made an even halfway concerted effort. So what are we going to do?"

Zhodani government: "Err... is that a trick question? Nothing, of course. And you will get the same answer from all our successors over the next few hundred years. Nyahnyahnyah!"

 

[rust]

I agree about Virus, that story really was "subconvincing", but after tal-
king to citizens of Naples about living next to an active and extremely
dangerous volcano that will almost certainly erupt within their lifetime,
I would almost be tempted to accept the Zhodani reaction to the Em-
press Wave.

 

[EDG]

TNE? With Virus and even worse, the Empress Wave? You're kidding, right?

No, I'm not. FF&S was and still is the best damn tech guide ever written for any RPG IMO. As for Virus etc, I didn't have a problem with it.