Prime Directive Traveller

[daddystabz]

I'm not bashing and haven't read every page in this thread so I may not be up and up on all the circumstances. I am thrilled this is coming out at all. I was just excited when I read the possible estimate of having the first book by the holiday season this year. Spring is not too bad.

 

[LimeyDragon]

Has anyone made a Klingon D7 (or any Star Fleet ship) in the traveller Star Ship creation rules set yet.?

 

[Darzoni]

I'm actually looking forward to the Traveller version of Prime Directive. Mostly because it's always interesting to me to read/watch new mutations of the Star Trek franchise. (I also look forward to blowing up Klingons and Feddies in ACTA, but that's another forum entirely).

The legal discussion was also really interesting in this thread. I'd love to see Mongoose and ADB get the license for full-on Star Trek, but I think that might cost everybody a kidney in payment...

 

[AKAmra]

The "legal discussion" pissed me off and dampened my interest in the product. IMO the ADB staff that post on this forum would be better off in ignoring the topic completely and to tread lightly. Their position will only drive potential customers away and kill interest in this product line. If that's not workable they should just take their precious IP, mount their high horse and ride away.

 

[tneva82]

The "legal discussion" pissed me off and dampened my interest in the product. IMO the ADB staff that post on this forum would be better off in ignoring the topic completely and to tread lightly. Their position will only drive potential customers away and kill interest in this product line. If that's not workable they should just take their precious IP, mount their high horse and ride away.

So you would like them to lose their license and consequently lose future products? Interesting.

 

[captainquirk]

The "legal discussion" pissed me off and dampened my interest in the product. IMO the ADB staff that post on this forum would be better off in ignoring the topic completely and to tread lightly. Their position will only drive potential customers away and kill interest in this product line. If that's not workable they should just take their precious IP, mount their high horse and ride away.

Not exactly a constructive position, is it? ADB know exactly what their legal position is because they've gone through the courts.

You might want to consider that they've managed to keep, maintain and expand this product line for three decades. Every other company which has had a Trek franchise has not lasted more than a few years.

Maybe ADB are doing something right?

 

[dreamingbadger]

The "legal discussion" pissed me off and dampened my interest in the product. IMO the ADB staff that post on this forum would be better off in ignoring the topic completely and to tread lightly. Their position will only drive potential customers away and kill interest in this product line. If that's not workable they should just take their precious IP, mount their high horse and ride away.

Not exactly a constructive position, is it? ADB know exactly what their legal position is because they've gone through the courts.

You might want to consider that they've managed to keep, maintain and expand this product line for three decades. Every other company which has had a Trek franchise has not lasted more than a few years.

Maybe ADB are doing something right?

Damn right!

 

[AKAmra]

The "legal discussion" pissed me off and dampened my interest in the product. IMO the ADB staff that post on this forum would be better off in ignoring the topic completely and to tread lightly. Their position will only drive potential customers away and kill interest in this product line. If that's not workable they should just take their precious IP, mount their high horse and ride away.

Not exactly a constructive position, is it? ADB know exactly what their legal position is because they've gone through the courts.

You might want to consider that they've managed to keep, maintain and expand this product line for three decades. Every other company which has had a Trek franchise has not lasted more than a few years.

Maybe ADB are doing something right?

I stand by what I said. I would rather have the freedom to discuss and share ideas about using the Traveller rule set in the Star Trek setting than have a Traveller version of SFB.

If ADB feels compelled to act as a watchdog and censor the Mongoose forums; then the price for their product is too high.

The only draw SFB has for me is its usefulness in running a Traveller Star Trek game; I'm sure I'm not alone in this and would be surprised if I was in the minority.

If ADB can't leave Traveller players alone then they should stay out of our playground. I'd happily wish them success using some system I'm not interested in.

Hopefully I've made my point more clear since your response had nothing to do with it. This is my opinion of course; others are free to differ.

 

[Jean]

AKAmra, I am sorry that you feel that way. I have tried to tread lightly, but since Mongoose agreed to this joint venture, they are bound by contractual law to honor the terms of ADB, Inc.'s license. At this point, I am the highest-ranking ADB staff member who frequents this board, carrying assorted titles such as Director of Marketing, Editor of the RPG Line, and Vice-President of Proofreading and Product Professionalization. I can speak with some authority regarding licensing issues, so being here is part of my duties. Doing so, I keep Mongoose and ADB out of hot water. That means that neither one is likely to end up in legal trouble as I try to keep us both within the terms of the license.

If I were NOT here and if people were doing things that were outside of our license, then what would happen is that Paramount could break the joint agreement, Mongoose would most likely take a loss on ACTASF, and both companies would be hurt financially -- I don't think anyone here wants that to happen as it would adversely affect Mongoose and ADB.

Enough people have interest in this project that I feel encouraged to continue working on it. Traveller PD (as well as Romulans PD20M) will be the focus of my time in Texas this Christmas. I feel strongly enough about getting this done that I am spending from the 23rd of December until the 3rd of January in Amarillo, working on RPG books. Last time I was out there, we nearly finished GURPS Federation and did finalize it a bit later. We did well enough that Steve Jackson only found three errors to be corrected and that is probably some sort of record!

One thing -- we have always been careful of our license and never had to go to court. That is because we obey the terms of our contract and have a lawyer who advises us about what we must do. That is why I am here: these boards are sponsored by our partner and that means it falls within the terms of our license. No reasonable person would expect a company where the president posts on the forums to NOT know what is going on, especially if the law is being broken. Both Matthew and Steve have better things to do (such as create new products for everyone to enjoy) than to explain things here and so it falls to me to make sure we don't end up in court.

I hope this explains why I am here, why the discussions were held, why Mongoose cannot ignore any legal issues, and why we don't intend to take our toys and go home. Our "play partner" is Mongoose and they would have to dis-invite us.

With respect,

Jean

 

[AKAmra]

AKAmra, I am sorry that you feel that way. I have tried to tread lightly, but since Mongoose agreed to this joint venture, they are bound by contractual law to honor the terms of ADB, Inc.'s license. At this point, I am the highest-ranking ADB staff member who frequents this board, carrying assorted titles such as Director of Marketing, Editor of the RPG Line, and Vice-President of Proofreading and Product Professionalization. I can speak with some authority regarding licensing issues, so being here is part of my duties. Doing so, I keep Mongoose and ADB out of hot water. That means that neither one is likely to end up in legal trouble as I try to keep us both within the terms of the license.

If I were NOT here and if people were doing things that were outside of our license, then what would happen is that Paramount could break the joint agreement, Mongoose would most likely take a loss on ACTASF, and both companies would be hurt financially -- I don't think anyone here wants that to happen as it would adversely affect Mongoose and ADB.

Enough people have interest in this project that I feel encouraged to continue working on it. Traveller PD (as well as Romulans PD20M) will be the focus of my time in Texas this Christmas. I feel strongly enough about getting this done that I am spending from the 23rd of December until the 3rd of January in Amarillo, working on RPG books. Last time I was out there, we nearly finished GURPS Federation and did finalize it a bit later. We did well enough that Steve Jackson only found three errors to be corrected and that is probably some sort of record!

One thing -- we have always been careful of our license and never had to go to court. That is because we obey the terms of our contract and have a lawyer who advises us about what we must do. That is why I am here: these boards are sponsored by our partner and that means it falls within the terms of our license. No reasonable person would expect a company where the president posts on the forums to NOT know what is going on, especially if the law is being broken. Both Matthew and Steve have better things to do (such as create new products for everyone to enjoy) than to explain things here and so it falls to me to make sure we don't end up in court.

I hope this explains why I am here, why the discussions were held, why Mongoose cannot ignore any legal issues, and why we don't intend to take our toys and go home. Our "play partner" is Mongoose and they would have to dis-invite us.

With respect,

Jean

I understand your position. It'll be sad to see the fall out when you start censoring posts here for things like iconic Star Trek ships and characters stated up by extrapolating from the Traveller PD rules - which will happen as soon as players get the books; it's what gamers do, like breathing.

Done is done, I'm in no position to change it; I still stand by my post.

 

[mechascorpio]

The "legal discussion" pissed me off and dampened my interest in the product. IMO the ADB staff that post on this forum would be better off in ignoring the topic completely and to tread lightly. Their position will only drive potential customers away and kill interest in this product line.

Color me not just dampened, but driven away. A weird place to find myself as someone who has so much vested in decades of Trek adventure gaming, but then again it's about as close to Trek as Galaxy Quest anyway. There are plenty of ways we can make TD the kind of game we want, but the anti-customer attitude and legal posturing finally left me with no interest in financing this line (including ACTA). It's sad to see how much this sub-forum has started to resemble ADB's own boards, and there isn't even a TD product that has yet seen the light of day.

(FWIW, I don't blame Matt, and I'm happy to buy plenty of Mongoose's other great products)

Your post will be met with a flurry of the usual canned responses from TPTB and SFU fans, so I'll just say that I stand by your post as well. You're not alone.

 

[Rick]

I'm not a SFU gamer - although I've played the original PD and SFB many years ago. I also have copies of the LUG Star Trek series and FASA Star Trek game and like games set within those boundaries. What I'm most interested in about the new Traveller PD is that it will push back the 'TV Trek' boundaries, opening it up and expanding it exponentially! If I want to play a 'TV Trek' game with characters, ships or settings from the series, I'll use LUG - but if I want to play a game that takes me way beyond the narrow confines of what was shown in the series, I'll choose PD. The fact that it's going to be built on the firm Traveller foundation is a huge bonus! I see very few restrictions with the ADB/Mongoose licence.

 

[Traveller-61]

Color me not just dampened, but driven away. A weird place to find myself as someone who
Your post will be met with a flurry of the usual canned responses from TPTB and SFU fans, so I'll just say that I stand by your post as well. You're not alone.

Well I don't think that this is "canned" response, on the contrary it is quite spontaneous.

It is a pity that you are being driven away by the way things have to be, but when you have use of an IP it comes with strings attached. Now Mongoose has had more than a few problems with the various holders of IP's in the past (ask Matt about the B5 novels or the story behind the ST Troopers game) so having such a famous one as this I am not surprised that everyone will be treading very carefully.
Please just consider what they have - one of the most famous properties in all of SF to use for a miniatures game and RPG. And a licence that does not have a limited life. Talk about Holy Grail! And in these current hard times a property that should help both Mongoose and AFB whether the current economic storms.
So the price for this (as far as we are concerned) is that we must be only post about ST PD universe and not the other ST universes out there.
Do I like it? No, not particularly. Will I abide by it? Certainly. In my humble opinion it is a small price to pay.

DW

 

[IanBruntlett]

I've never played a Star Fleet game.

I do, however, have an interest in Traveller beyond the 3I (aim to get good running 3I stuff and then dabble in other TUs).

So the questions I have are:-
* How many TD books are needed to run a minimalist game?
* How much will they cost?
* When will they come out?

 

[IraShaine1972]

Its funny how some gamers get all indignant that things are legally bound to be a certain way and want things to be their way or the highway. Yet if it was left to be their way the legal hammer would sweep it all away and it wouldn't be there anyway. Funny paradox. These attitudes make me sometimes ashamed to be a gamer.

In this age of fast and easy and cheap ways of swapping data its so easy to start your own forums and whatnot if you want to do something outside of the conventions allowed on a certain forum then start your own. Its perfectly reasonable for a company to need to function within certain parameters in order to provide the properties it does at all.

If it wasn't for the legal agreements that make this possible then it would not happen at all. I for one really enjoy the expansion that we are seeing not only in the Traveller line but in the Star Fleet line as both of these properties hail back to those early days of gaming that I remember so well.

 

[Jean]

mechascorpio and AKAmra, it seems to me that we had this conversation much earlier. I don't believe anyone has changed viewpoints. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

IanBruntlett, I hope you will only need the main Traveller book and Traveller: PD. The sourcebooks should just enhance the game.

I won't know the price until we have the manuscript in-hand and know how many pages the book will be.

I hope the first will be out this spring. I had hoped to work more on it this fall, but the onslaught of ACTASF stuff piled on top of family issues made that not possible.

 

[Darzoni]

I apologize for opening old wounds. I meant that the discussion was interesting from the standpoint of understanding what kind of hoops that companies like ADB and Mongoose go through to obtain and retain popular licenses. As somebody who owns a business, I know from personal experience that staying in business is often an ugly process that makes me often wonder why I got into the whole mess in the first place.

The ban on fan conversions of popular items does not sit well with me either, but at the end of the day I'd rather be able to continue buy ACTA: Star Fleet than not. If Star Fleet does not have a license expiration like B5 did, then it would behoove the fan base to behave themselves. I remember the end of the B5 line and that hurt even though I understood the business reasons why it had to end.

 

[tneva82]

If ADB can't leave Traveller players alone then they should stay out of our playground.

Staying out of "our" playground(btw this is not our playground...) means also no official star trek traveller products. None. Zero. Zip. Nothing. They couldn't really release anything under the license if they wouldn't make sure that terms of license isn't broken...You DO know that breaking what you have signed for is big no-no? They would be badly hurt immediately + also who on their mind would sign ANYTHING with somebody who has already shown that they don't give a damn about what they have signed up...

 

[tneva82]

BTW what's the latest ETA on this one? I'm starting to get tad eager on trying this one Might be even more fun than playing in 3I afterall.

 

[Jean]

tneva82, the best I can say is I am hoping for spring 2012. I'll have a better feel after Christmas holidays, which will be a busman's holiday for me. I'll be spending them in Amarillo, working at least 12-hour days to try to get this to a near-finished state. I'll get off Christmas and maybe the 24th as I hope to spend some of that day fixing some traditional goodies that the Steves and Leanna may not be familiar with.

Jean