Traveller/3I Problem

[Lord Kruge]

There's been a lot of confusion as to whether black cover/color stripe MGT products are a generic Traveller or Third Imperium Traveller. The answer so far has been 3I supplements are labeled Third Imperium, where other black cover/color stripe Traveller books are generic...

Except they're not. All the "generic" Traveller books are still tied to the 3I simply by virtue of not allowing for non-3I technology in the core of all space games - space travel.

Gravity technology is ubiquitous and the primary handwavium used, ships are half filled with liquid hydrogen, etc... Traveller can't be truly considered a generic sci-fi ruleset unless they separate 3I tech assumptions from the core rules. There's a sidebar here and there about non-3I tech, but not a real alternate rules option.

As long as some books labelled Traveller are based on 3I and other books labelled Traveller contain a mixture of 3I and non-3I stuff, it's going to look more confusing then it probably needs to be for people new to MGT who aren't CT veterans.

Not sure how you fix it. Should CSC have had a 3I section and a "Other technologies" section? I don't know. I think Mongoose has done a good job of tying Traveller and Runequest to long-standing, well-loved settings, yet at the same time trying to expand the rulesets, and the different setting books are very well done, it's the branding of the generic content that doesn't tie to any particular setting that I think can be problematic.

 

[BP]

I've never Ref'ed a 3I setting - and pretty much ignore it. To me, the core books represent generic Traveller tech. Tech that was later adopted into the 3I. The two, of course, becoming more intertwined as more content was added.

Traveller is basically the 3I minus the history, politics, and known space mapping. A sort of setting basis. In this sense it's mechanics can be used generically to faciliate any Sci Fi adventure setting.

MGT has done a decent job of compatibly updating the tech without breaking everything that made it the basis for the 3I setting. There is additional flexibility, but it is not a generic system - just an expanded setting basis.

For most settings this means modifying, adding to, or taking away various core parts. For instance, Hivers don't really fit in most other settings.

 

[alex_greene]

In the generic books, if something specific to the 3I crops up, the difference between the 3I and the generic tends to be explained in a sidebar or separate paragraph; e.g. in Book 3, the use of graviton forcefields is established as TL 15 - except in the 3I, where it's TL 18 because the Imperium does not have the requisite knowledge of how to direct gravitons.

Similarly, if a piece of technology was developed specifically for a 3I race it would be explained as such - for the most part, though, generic books seem to want to avoid naming specific names, e.g. "This potent Psi-drug is found throughout the Zhodani Consulate," "This pistol is shaped for the Hiver handless manipulator" and so on. Instead, a generic item would just say "aliens," and specify which ones in a following sidebar or paragraph.

And, having said that, check out the Adventure Prison Planet. Completely refutes my words.

 

[rust]

Except they're not. All the "generic" Traveller books are still tied to the 3I simply by virtue of not allowing for non-3I technology in the core of all space games - space travel.

Well, my setting uses the hyperdrive instead of the jump drive, fission re-
actors instead of fusion reactors, railguns instead of lasers, and almost no
gravitics at all - and all this with Mongoose Traveller's core rules. :wink:

Besides, every generic science fiction game I know has something like a
preferred mainstream technology and treats other technologies as optio-
nal.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Did you not look in the Core Rule Book. There is almost a page on alternate FTL drives. There are also large sections of HG dealing with Reaction Drives etc.

CSC has a LOT of stuff that would not be appropriate in a 3I setting.

Sure most of the stuff in the black books ties to the 3I, but that doesn't mean the black books REQUIRE a 3I kind of setting.

Sure Artificial Gravity is ubiquitous, but that is true for most SF RPGs (and TV shows for that matter). Star Wars has ubiquitous Gravity Control, so does the TV shows Stargate (all of the incarnations) and Star Trek. It is a lot easier to just handwave away all of the issues with low/zero Gravity than it is to come up with pages and pages of rules that most people don't care about anyway.

I don't mean to make this sound like a rant, but every one of the Black Books has stuff in them that doesn't apply to the 3I. As the books have progressed, they have moved farther and farther away from the 3I.

Also, there are things in the 3I setting that are not in any of the books and go with the Setting.

 

[Matian]

Pretty much what everyone else said. There's generic Traveller tech, and then there's 3I tech, and 3I tech is BASED ON Traveller tech, by virtue of Traveller coming first, and the setting coming later.

I can't do this argument anymore. This thread is now about cookies. My favourite are reverse chocolate chip.

 

[BP]

Peanut Butter - Crispy.

 

[rust]

Vanillekipferln, made with butter, almonds and vanilla, taste great with
a nice cup of coffee.

Ah, and now I am hungry ...

 

[Sturn]

Those Girl Scout chocolate mint cookies, whatever their true name is.

 

[Charakan]

Peanut Butter - Crispy.

Wonders if Crispy Peanut Butter is the same as Crunchy in the UK.

 

[BP]

No - I wrote crispy so as not to confuse with crunchy - which here on the other side of the pond means with noticeable peanut parts

By crispy I refer to the cookie not being soft - cause that's what milk is for!

 

[BP]

Hey - stop trying to hijack the thread! :evil:

(That's been done already!)

 

[FreeTrav]

Who cares about the cookies. There are more important questions:

+ Earl Grey or Ceylon?

+ Milk than tea or tea than milk

+ Single malt or blended

+ Scotch or Burbon

Cookies: Soft-bake chocolate chip. Soft bake double-chocolate chip is a good second, better if the chips are DARK chocolate rather than milk chocolate.

Tea: Depends on the time of day and the occasion: Morning, English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast. Lunch: Earl Grey. Midafternoon: Earl Grey. After Dinner: Lady Grey or Mint Verbena. Late-night gaming: Lapsang Souchong, sweetened with buckwheat honey. Having sushi: Green. Lipton, Tetley, and "Swee-Touch-Nee" (a favorite of Chinese take-outs) should be very carefully destroyed as toxic waste.

Tea with milk: Ruins a perfectly good tea, and a perfectly good bit of milk. What are you, some kind of Brit?

Single Malt, but let's not denigrate blends; there ARE some good ones.

Scotch. Bourbon is generally a little too harsh.

 

[iainjcoleman]

+ Single malt or blended

Is this even a question?

 

[Vile]

Assam must have milk. But I prefer green tea (the powdery sort you have to whisk up with a little bamboo thingy). It's kind of bitter, so it goes well with the sweeter types of bisquit* - almond, for example, or those jaffa-cake-like things (pimms, I think they were called) with raspberry jelly and white chocolate instead of the more traditional orange and dark, respectively. But those are really cakes, albeit in a pocketbook format.

For Assam (with milk), it's rich tea bisquits every time - a drink's too wet without one.

*bisquit = small disc of sweet crisp-baked dough, sold in rolls. Nothing to do with those scone-like aberrations.

 

[captainjack23]

Soft bake double-chocolate chip is a good second, better if the chips are DARK chocolate rather than milk chocolate.

True, but Dark chocolate chips are not supported by the Keebler Canon.

 

[Baron_Vulk_Morden]

Those Girl Scout chocolate mint cookies, whatever their true name is.

Girl Scout Thin Mints is the official name of the cookie brand. We have some in the kitchen right now, along with some "Lemonades" lemon-flavored shortbread cookies.

 

[highpriestrsw2]

Who cares about the cookies. There are more important questions:

+ Earl Grey or Ceylon?

+ Milk than tea or tea than milk

+ Single malt or blended

+ Scotch or Burbon

Cookies: Soft-bake chocolate chip. Soft bake double-chocolate chip is a good second, better if the chips are DARK chocolate rather than milk chocolate.

Tea: Depends on the time of day and the occasion: Morning, English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast. Lunch: Earl Grey. Midafternoon: Earl Grey. After Dinner: Lady Grey or Mint Verbena. Late-night gaming: Lapsang Souchong, sweetened with buckwheat honey. Having sushi: Green. Lipton, Tetley, and "Swee-Touch-Nee" (a favorite of Chinese take-outs) should be very carefully destroyed as toxic waste.

Tea with milk: Ruins a perfectly good tea, and a perfectly good bit of milk. What are you, some kind of Brit?

Single Malt, but let's not denigrate blends; there ARE some good ones.

Scotch. Bourbon is generally a little too harsh.

I'm guessing we have the same thoughts on these questions because we're from the same side of the pond?
If I had answered first those would've been my answers.
Bravo sir!

 

[Jon Brazer Enterprises]

To the OP:

I've done it with other systems (not Traveller) but it still works with Traveller. Call everything something else. Don't want to use a grav system to propel a ship, call them engines. The book might call the fuel hydrogen, but there's no reason to not call it engine fuel. Don't like to blink off the map and reappear parsecs away a week later, describe how it is different. There are several different possibilities: teleport (you blink off the map and instantly appear elsewhere), time/space shift (you blink off the map and appear a week or a month later you appear elsewhere, but it feels instantly to those on the ship), warp/hyperdrive (you travel through space itself at a speed faster than light, make each parsec 1 day's travel and prorate the fuel), etc.

The are only a few reasons to really change the crunch as well as the fluff (instead of just the fluff) in a homebrew setting: 1) if you're trying to achieve something that feels different mechanically (i.e. making a sonic weapon that decreases damage with range), 2) if you're simply not happy with the crunch as presented, or 3) there are multiple different types of technology in your setting and you want to emphasize the advantages of one over the other (i.e. the teleport drive in your setting consumes much more fuel than the standard jump drive, but it gets you there instantly instead of a week later).

Just my two cents.

 

[BP]

Well put!

(And with all the mention of crunchy - should we take that as a vote for crunchy peanut butter cookies? :lol