SableWyvern
Mongoose
Dyrewulf said:
There are certainly reasonable arguments that can be made for making changes to the TL system. I just don't think that inter-operability with settings completely separate from the OTU is one of them.
Too close to the original
- Thread starter Libris
- Start date
There are certainly reasonable arguments that can be made for making changes to the TL system. I just don't think that inter-operability with settings completely separate from the OTU is one of them.
Dyrewulf said:
I am sorry, I respectfully but completely disagree with you. There are far more people out there who have never played Traveller than those who have. A significant portion of them never will, but some will, if they perceive the game as being fun and cool...and that involves the proper balance of "realism" and playability..and playability has to be considered strongly.
Having read the v3 manuscript, there is already a lot of updating that has gone on, and while the game is visibly descended from the original, there are some differences.
The PnP RPG hobby is shrinking as a whole these days, because games have done a poor job of getting new players involved. Traveller cannot survive as an active entity in the market (as opposed to a fond memory for aging gamers and/or piggybacking on someome else's game system such as T20/GT/TH) without attracting NEW players.
Allen
Allensh said:
I completely agree that Traveller needs a facelift...if you look at it, it really has not changed much from the 70's...which is great because it means that it's fan base loved the product and that the makers listened to the fan base and only really made tweaks where it was needed.
It is however the old timers Allensh that bring a lot of the fresh blood to the table to play. If you have been involved in PnP RPGing over the years, you have probably heard of Traveller in one of its forms...if you have never bothered to look at it, for one of many reasons (don't like the genre or system or something else) what would make you sit down now? A flashy new cover? a new rule to character generation? Someone in your group decides he/she wants to run a game and they've chosen Traveller?
You are right...PnP Rpgs are dying hard and fast...MMORPGs and Collectable Card Games have seen to that. There will always be a group of people that want to spend a lazy sunday indoors and sit around the table, drink soda and eating snacks and of course slaying the demon that their gm has put in front of them.
I'm looking forward to this product. Mongoose has never let me down with a title. I have read a lot of flame posts on some of these forums and I think we just need to let these guys do what they do best.
Gruffty the Hiver
Banded Mongoose
"Tragic: The Blathering"... :roll:Dyrewulf said:
There is nothing I hate worse than explaining PnP Rpging as NOT World of Warcraft the computer game or Magic the Gathering the card game...
Not that I am not a fan of a MMORPG...been playing them for years as well...but I really love just sitting down and rolling some dice and socializing with my friends.
It is nice (and easier) to just call all my friends up, all log onto Tabula Rasa or what ever other game we are playing, use the voice chat and spend a few hours runinng quests...very entertaining...but it still doesn't beat seeing everyone in person.
Not that I am not a fan of a MMORPG...been playing them for years as well...but I really love just sitting down and rolling some dice and socializing with my friends.
It is nice (and easier) to just call all my friends up, all log onto Tabula Rasa or what ever other game we are playing, use the voice chat and spend a few hours runinng quests...very entertaining...but it still doesn't beat seeing everyone in person.
I like the small ship-large ship dichotomy. Small ships are after all more interesting than large ships because of the things that don't scale. Then those differences sort of melt away as ships get big and by the time you're in the thousands of tons you're just playing with all percentages... i.e. High Guard.
So it makes sense to me, as long as the two mesh cleanly, and there aren't seriously hard limits to ship size. I mean, few in Travellerland make a million-ton ship, but someone is going to port this to a system that has multi-million-ton ships, billion-ton planetoid monitors, hand-built space stations, what-have-you, so open ended rules (like percentages for components of large ships) are helpful.
So it makes sense to me, as long as the two mesh cleanly, and there aren't seriously hard limits to ship size. I mean, few in Travellerland make a million-ton ship, but someone is going to port this to a system that has multi-million-ton ships, billion-ton planetoid monitors, hand-built space stations, what-have-you, so open ended rules (like percentages for components of large ships) are helpful.
It's not really a matter of "what player or GM makes million ton ships using High Guard?" - it's more a matter of "can the OTU actually function without million ton ships"? If the capacity isn't there to build them in the rules then there's also the implication that they don't exist in the setting (moreso if they're not even mentioned anywhere at all).
As I understand it, the trading and so on that the PCs do in their tiddly little free traders and all that isn't what keeps interstellar trade going - what does that are the massive superfreighters that the PCs don't usually serve on. The sort of behemoth that makes you go "wow" when you fly past them as you're coming in to dock that carry all the food and tech and imports and stuff that make the planet tick.
It's kinda like the PC Game "Frontier" (Elite 2), or the earlier iterations of the modern EVE Online MMORPG - in that the PCs could generally fly small ships, but every now and then you'd see some really massive freighters and convoys going past. To me they implied that yes, the PCs really were small fry, and that there were other things out there that really drove the universe along.
As I understand it, the trading and so on that the PCs do in their tiddly little free traders and all that isn't what keeps interstellar trade going - what does that are the massive superfreighters that the PCs don't usually serve on. The sort of behemoth that makes you go "wow" when you fly past them as you're coming in to dock that carry all the food and tech and imports and stuff that make the planet tick.
It's kinda like the PC Game "Frontier" (Elite 2), or the earlier iterations of the modern EVE Online MMORPG - in that the PCs could generally fly small ships, but every now and then you'd see some really massive freighters and convoys going past. To me they implied that yes, the PCs really were small fry, and that there were other things out there that really drove the universe along.
Golan2072
Cosmic Mongoose
The big question IMHO is why have two full-length ship-design systems in the final product set (one in the corebook, one in Mongoose High Guard [MHG]) - which would possibly be less than 100% compatible in terms of results and of combat-system usage. I mean, the CT-HG design system, with all examples, tables and forms is 17 LBB pages long; our current basic design system is 13 pages long including all tables, so a stripped-down and demilitarized version of MHG would fit perfectly into the core book even with the newer rules (such as electronics) added in.
So, basically, I suggest that the core book would include a version of MHG dealing with hull construction, drives/power-plants, computers/sensors, basic fittings (staterooms, low berths) and basic/civilian weapons; the MHG book would include expanded military-oriented rules dealing with screens, spinal weapons, large fighter-deployment systems and so on. This way you'll get:
1) A unified ship design, ship description and ship combat for all Mongoose Traveller products, which means less confusion to both players and designers who'll use the SRD.
2) Scalable, versatile hull and drive/PP design in the corebook rather than the restrictive standard hull/standard drives tables.
3) No redundant basic-hull/drive design rules taking up space in the MGH book, which leaves more space for other things useful for the naval-inclined player such as Trillion Credit Squadron style campaign rules or a mass naval combat system. For Mongoose, this means more selling points for MGH; for the prospective buyers of the whole series of RTT products (such as me), this means better value for money.
So, basically, I suggest that the core book would include a version of MHG dealing with hull construction, drives/power-plants, computers/sensors, basic fittings (staterooms, low berths) and basic/civilian weapons; the MHG book would include expanded military-oriented rules dealing with screens, spinal weapons, large fighter-deployment systems and so on. This way you'll get:
1) A unified ship design, ship description and ship combat for all Mongoose Traveller products, which means less confusion to both players and designers who'll use the SRD.
2) Scalable, versatile hull and drive/PP design in the corebook rather than the restrictive standard hull/standard drives tables.
3) No redundant basic-hull/drive design rules taking up space in the MGH book, which leaves more space for other things useful for the naval-inclined player such as Trillion Credit Squadron style campaign rules or a mass naval combat system. For Mongoose, this means more selling points for MGH; for the prospective buyers of the whole series of RTT products (such as me), this means better value for money.
