Trade and multiple worlds in the same system

[EDG]

Why? Jobs.

People will always live in hard areas as long as they have a job. People always have and always will. Put a job there and someone will come to it.

Venus ain't New Jersey or a war zone. There is no valid comparison whatsoever between a place that just isn't nice to live in on Earth and a genuinely hostile environment (like Venus, space, underwater, a vacuum world etc).

The closest we have to that on Earth right now is Antarctica. And you know what, billions of people don't live there - hundreds or thousands do, at most - and they only live there in shifts at that. You know why? Because if they step outside, they die. There's no arable land. There's no reason to be there beyond research or mining or whatever. People won't raise families there and settle there because it's a frozen wasteland, and there's easier places to live elsewhere. So sure, an outpost in such an environment is fine, but a full-blown colony with billions of people? I don't think so, somehow.

But that all goes back to the idiocy of having billions of people on rockballs and insidious hell worlds while the next system over has a garden world with only thousands of people. There's no reason for it, it's entirely an artifact of a badly designed random world generation system where the population roll was a straight 2d-2 roll that wasn't influenced by any factors at all. One can pretend that there's a deeper justification for it, but there really isn't.

 

[GypsyComet]

But that all goes back to the idiocy of having billions of people on rockballs and insidious hell worlds while the next system over has a garden world with only thousands of people. There's no reason for it, it's entirely an artifact of a badly designed random world generation system where the population roll was a straight 2d-2 roll that wasn't influenced by any factors at all. One can pretend that there's a deeper justification for it, but there really isn't.

Broken or not, it is published Traveller, which is what this forum is about. If you want to replace the default random systems, please do so. Some of us would probably like to see it. BUT (and this is a big one) you must also make some effort to understand that your magnum opus is going to be attacked, derided, and ignored once you make it public, and you can't do anything about that.

 

[EDG]

Broken or not, it is published Traveller, which is what this forum is about. If you want to replace the default random systems, please do so. Some of us would probably like to see it. BUT (and this is a big one) you must also make some effort to understand that your magnum opus is going to be attacked, derided, and ignored once you make it public, and you can't do anything about that.

That's the point though. If people want to come up with justifications for bad design purely because that's what's there and they don't want to change it, then they are wasting everyone's time (including their own), because it's impossible to come a sensible explanation for it. Maybe one can come up with a ridiculously contrived answer for these things and then bash oneself on the head until one thinks it's actually reasonable, but at the end of the day it's still like that because it's broken. That's true for the economics and the world building and the distribution of population and a lot of things about Traveller.

A lot of things in Traveller weren't thought out very well at all during its initial design, and as a result of that we've been lumbered with a load of nonsensical, inconsistent rubbish clogging up the system for the past 30 years which is why people keep having endless arguments about pirates, rocks, economics, worldbuilding, and how this or that could possibly work in the Charted Space setting.

The OP was asking how trade could work between planets in the same system. As far as I can see (if thought about with a modicum of realism), it should work damn well in a lot of cases - better than interstellar trade in fact. If that's the case then that exposes another flaw in the assumptions that Traveller makes which is that in-system trade isn't worth it. If people want to come up with reasons why in-system trade isn't profitable then they have to change the way that trade works in Traveller because it seems clear that nobody bothered to think about that when the trade rules were being designed. But at the end of the day you'd have a system that is mostly made up of wacky exceptions, which ultimately will collapse under their weight.

Me, I'd rather not waste my time trying to rationalise something that doesn't and can't make sense just for the sake of "tradition" - I'd rather just change things as necessary so that they make sense right from the start. But if people want to heap derision on those who try to do that or attack them then I think that's pretty sad - you can't really have a useful discussion based on broken assumptions.

 

[GypsyComet]

But if people want to heap derision on those who try to do that or attack them then I think that's pretty sad - you can't really have a useful discussion based on broken assumptions.

And you still came into this discussion with that firmly in mind?

Traveller's economics and trading rules are specifically built to support game play. They give the appearance of being a good approximation of real macro- and micro-economics, but that's all they do. Others before you have made the mistake of assuming those rules are close to properly modeling the Traveller reality and, as you have, found serious flaws that they lost sleep over. In at least one case, it took a public statement of disclaimer by one of the original designers to deal with the "problem".

Play the game, or don't play the game, but realize that real economics models are bookshelf fillers and eaters of vast amounts of computation power that *still* cannot handle the human factor (as evidenced by ongoing events IRL), and that, by comparison, eight pages written by a gamer is not going to answer all or even a significant fraction of the questions a vaguely rigorous economic model will ask.

Play the game, or try to run a simulation of Imperial trade. Its your choice, your time, your lost sleep, and your blood pressure. At this point, that's all the advice I can give you, or anyone else who follows that path of thought.

 

[EDG]

And you still came into this discussion with that firmly in mind?

Yes, because I thought the OP would be interested in a realistic answer.

Traveller's economics and trading rules are specifically built to support game play.

Which is great if all you're interested in is a gamist view of "rolling dice and winning", but useless if you're interesting in roleplaying in a scifi setting that you expect to make some degree of sense.

They give the appearance of being a good approximation of real macro- and micro-economics, but that's all they do.

No, they don't. They give the appearance of being written by someone who didn't have a clue what he was talking about, and bear no resemblance to any kind of sane economics at all that could apply to an interstellar, futuristic society. Heck, the oft-repeated goal of Traveller was to simulate the Age of Sail in space, which has absolutely no bearing on how a realistic interstellar society would work.

Others before you have made the mistake of assuming those rules are close to properly modeling the Traveller reality and, as you have, found serious flaws that they lost sleep over.

So your answer to these issues is to just ignore the gaping logical holes in the game?

Play the game, or don't play the game, but realize that real economics models are bookshelf fillers and eaters of vast amounts of computation power that *still* cannot handle the human factor (as evidenced by ongoing events IRL), and that, by comparison, eight pages written by a gamer is not going to answer all or even a significant fraction of the questions a vaguely rigorous economic model will ask.

Then the designer shouldn't have bothered trying to do so in the first place. The only reasonably well-researched and intelligent trade system written for Traveller was presented in GURPS: Far Trader, and that was written by someone who knew what he was talking about, and even then he's since admitted that if given free reign he would have ditched Traveller's assumptions (that still crippled his rules) and replaced them with something more sensible. Perhaps if any thought had been put into the trade system to start with in CT, we wouldn't have these problems now.

It's like the CT worldbuilding rules - they may look convincing to someone who doesn't know anything about the subject, but a cursory examination yields major flaws in both the statistics and the physical assumptions even for the time. The result is a nonsensical mess that's produced a universe full of unrealistic systems.

Play the game, or try to run a simulation of Imperial trade. Its your choice, your time, your lost sleep, and your blood pressure. At this point, that's all the advice I can give you, or anyone else who follows that path of thought.

If you're happy playing with nonsense, then by all means carry on playing it - but that's no reason whatsoever for anyone else to stop dissecting and deconstructing it and trying to come up with something better.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Just a thought EDG, what if you write your own campaign setting so it can be in a single tome and either publish it yourself or find a publisher to publish it for you. This way we could contrast Spinward Marches to your own setting.

 

[EDG]

Why do you keep saying that other people should write their own setting? That isn't the issue - the issue is that you're trying to explain things that don't make sense because they weren't designed to make sense in the first place.

The onus isn't on me to come up with an alternative, it's on you to rationalise an explanation that objectively makes sense (and we can do that here because this all boils down to numbers). Along the way you'll probably have to accept that some elements of Traveller are broken, so you'll have to discard them - so be it. But at least at the end you can come up with something that works consistently.

Don't just armwave and say "the real world is like that so Traveller must be too", because there's no evidence that this should be true at all. Throughout this discussion it seems that you haven't really attempted to follow the logic of how things actually get from A to B in Traveller and break it down into the costs and time along the way (even qualitatively, which is what I'm trying to do here), and that is the only way that we're going to come up with anything that actually adds up.

So instead of just giving up, why don't you try doing that?

 

[dmccoy1693]

Why do you keep saying that other people should write their own setting?

I encourage people to start being freelancers. I started freelancing because I felt I could do a better job then those that came before me and decided to put my money where my mouth was. And who better to write a new setting then someone that feels that the current setting has serious flaws or does not support the type of play they like or for whatever other reason are passionate about it.

Only way for the bar to be raised is if 1) people demand the bar being raised and 2) someone that does attempt to raise the bar is rewarded financially for it while those that do not are not rewarded for their trailing efforts. So if you feel there is something distinctly wrong with the way things are now, I encourage you to try your hand at raising the bar.

The onus isn't on me to come up with an alternative, it's on you to rationalise an explanation that objectively makes sense

No, it isn't. I didn't write the setting, I don't own the rights to it. Simple handwaving is good enough for me and my game.

So instead of just giving up, why don't you try doing that?

I'm not giving up. I'm delegating. I delegate to someone to feels that there is a problem to do something about it. Otherwise, it is possible that the problem will never be fixed to their satisfaction. The person to best handle it is the one that believes in it.

 

[EDG]

Well, I've already put my money where my mouth is when it comes to Traveller several times (and am currently involved in several projects too). But while I get your point, I don't need to write a whole new setting just to present my economic ideas - it's all very well encouraging the diversion of a discussion to freelancing but I'm not interested in doing that, I'm interested in discussing the subject and dissecting the problems here.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Well, I've already put my money where my mouth is when it comes to Traveller several times

I'm not familiar with your work (or maybe I am and am just not making the connection with your handle).

 

[Tipsy]

Why do you keep saying that other people should write their own setting? That isn't the issue - the issue is that you're trying to explain things that don't make sense because they weren't designed to make sense in the first place.

The onus isn't on me to come up with an alternative, it's on you to rationalise an explanation that objectively makes sense (and we can do that here because this all boils down to numbers).

Actually, the onus is on you. The Spinward Marches and the Third Imperium are established settings that have sold reasonably well for the past 30 years. So from a brand point of view it isnt' broken.

And in the periods where they haven't, well, I don't think it was economic and world generation models that were causing problems. So why fix non-issues?

I mean, I've played and run Traveller since the late 1980s and worrying about inter-system trade being realistic has never gotten in the way of my players and I using the Third Imperium to tell rip-roaring interstellar stories.

 

[EDG]

Well, I've already put my money where my mouth is when it comes to Traveller several times

I'm not familiar with your work (or maybe I am and am just not making the connection with your handle).

Two JTAS articles, numerous playtests, and helping with the world design on GT: Sword Worlds (and some of my worldgen tweaks made it into MGT).

 

[EDG]

So from a brand point of view it isnt' broken.

If you don't care about it then well... you don't care about it and it's not an issue for you. That doesn't mean the problem isn't there, it just means you're happy to ignore it.

 

[Tipsy]

So from a brand point of view it isnt' broken.

If you don't care about it then well... you don't care about it and it's not an issue for you. That doesn't mean the problem isn't there, it just means you're happy to ignore it.

Actually, it just means that realism does not equal a successful brand or a playable setting.

From these two, perfectly valid, perspectives the Spinward Marches are fine.

Unrealistic world building is only a problem if it is getting in the way of the ability of people to play the game or product sales.

From everything I've read--outside of your posts--the Marches seem to be doing fine... so why would anyone seriously rework an established setting that has sold decently for 30 years?

If you really feel that realistic star system and world generation would make a setting more economically competitive than the established Third Imperium settings, please go build it and stun the sci-fi rpg playing world.

Because the only obligation Mongoose, Marc Millar and any other for-profit Traveller content creators have is to make profitable and playable products.

 

[EDG]

Actually, it just means that realism does not equal a successful brand or a playable setting.

I never said it did. I don't know why you're even bringing it up here, it's nothing to do with the point that the setting has gaping holes in it.