Traveller 5

[GypsyComet]

Yeah, the TML has been much less useful since then.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

A lot of my old Traveller software is kept on dead mailing list servers and EDU sites somewhere. Back in the X(Y,Z)-Modem days and early HyperTerm. About the time FIDONET was around also.

 

[Wil Mireu]

So the real test will to see whom is still playing this game ten years from now.

Even if Marc prevents all sales of every other version, people will still be playing what they prefer, and unless T5 becomes a hell of a lot more accessible I seriously doubt that many people will be playing T5.

 

[Wil Mireu]

So go ahead and bash me for saying all products are of value and help out the Traveller hobby as a whole.

Nobody's "bashing you" for that - they're "bashing you" for your continuing misrepresentation of their opinions (as you are doing here), and your assumption that somehow your opinion is more valid than anyone else's. You assume that people don't know anything about T5, you assume that anyone criticising it hasn't seen it either, but there is actually quite a lot of information out there about it - certainly enough to formulate informed opinions.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Even if Marc prevents all sales of every other version, people will still be playing what they prefer, and unless T5 becomes a hell of a lot more accessible I seriously doubt that many people will be playing T5.

That's what I say to people who are afraid of older versions going bye bye.

Far Future sells previous (and playable editions) of Traveller for less than Traveller 5, and they come with tons of supplement content. If they sell the previous games still, they're not old or dead/orphaned games in my book.

 

[Old timer]

I just want to know - can I create Traveller universes where we have such things as really big ships (kilometres across, more than 1 million dtons, probably closer to the billion dton ranges), ships with semiorganic hulls, jump drives which allow for intergalactic travel and drives (with inertial damper systems) able to pull off accelerations of 600g?

Do I get rules which allow me to shuffle items on the TL table so that, for example, AI can appear as early as TL 9, teleportation at TL 13 etc?

I think in the case of such a large ship, you dont need design rules, as a ship that size is a setting in itself, and would just be pure handwavium (and sound like a really interesting setting to place a traveller game). For you second question, i would say that nothing stops you from shuffling the tech level assumptions around anyway, so no need for rules for that, if you want AI at TL9, then so be it, it is your game to do as you wish with, something that seems to have been forgotten judging by some of these post on this thread.

 

[alex_greene]

Well I must say, it would appear that this posting forum has tuned into a click of folks that only think that their main version/ flavor at the current time is the best thing since sliced bread and the rest of the world is wrong.

Now that sounds eerily familiar ...

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

He should do a YouTube video saying how great T5 is. Otherwise, the game being great and all is just theory.

 

[lordmalachdrim]

Backed it on Kickstarter, paid Mark extra shipping to have the book shipped as soon as it came in with out waiting for the extras because I was just that excited and hopeful. Got the book and spent the better part of 2 weeks trying to figure out how the hell to run it as it is written and failed multiple times.

Went back to running Palladium since those books are sleek, clean, and just pure common sense in comparison.

Again as mentioned in a prior post if you are in the Utica, NY area and want to look at the Mythos tome known as T5 just let me know.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

What kind of Palladium? Games that Kevin wrote?

 

[lordmalachdrim]

Palladium Fantasy, starting a 1st ed campaign in the next couple of weeks to run on the off weeks of our HackMaster 4th ed game.

I mentioned it basiclly to let people know the complex, poorly organized, and confusing games are ones that I normally enjoy/run so that when I say I don't get T5 people will have a better idea of just how messy it is.

 

[2330ADUSA1]

So go ahead and bash me for saying all products are of value and help out the Traveller hobby as a whole.

Nobody's "bashing you" for that - they're "bashing you" for your continuing misrepresentation of their opinions (as you are doing here), and your assumption that somehow your opinion is more valid than anyone else's. You assume that people don't know anything about T5, you assume that anyone criticising it hasn't seen it either, but there is actually quite a lot of information out there about it - certainly enough to formulate informed opinions.

Well until you have read it yourself, honestly how can you seriously comment on the value of a product? I guess it is pointless to keep trying to get folks to at least read the product themselves first, before saying it's bad based on other's thoughts that may or mat not have read it themselves too. Now I have read a few pages last night as I paged through the book and I liked some of what I have seen. Is it perfect ...NO. I do believe everyone can and does complain about every product that way, BUT I feel people should be a least a little more open to it.

Also I find it hard to believe that one can't find some elements in that book that they could use with Mongoose rules to help make a better game for them.

As to the Traveller Wars, man lets NOT relive that again. I was there and lived through all of that garbage, one version sect/click fighting with another over the smallest of stupid details. People wonder why I created my own In-House rules set....!?!

Life goes on...as will the game...hopefully! I will continue to buy all the Mongoose Traveller and related stuff, heck I love Judge Dredd as well too. I will also buy that absurb Traveller 2300 AD line as well too...LOL!!! Also I will buy T5 line too, if there is ever any more of it. As well as I will continue to pick up other lines of gaming stuff too. For me it is my hobby. I love playing and GMing Space and Fantasy. I also enjoy table top Resin Minis wargaming too...Space Fleet Battles, and different minis of other fantasy lines too. It all relates to my hobby and it is what I enjoy.

So I guess we all have our fun hobbies to pursue, in my case my kids are off to college and now I can finally build that 2nd floor over my garage that will have a heated large den with 1/2 bath that will be dad's gaming den. I have wanted to do that for a few years but that will start this summer. A den where all my gaming products can be displayed with a huge gaming table in the middle of the room. My wife will not be bothered by my gamers making lots of noise or in the main house anymore. That to me is a dream come true, I call it my gaming hall. A place that I will have and enjoy and use for the next 20+ years and can display all my hundreds of painted Lead figures, and resin minis, and have displayed my massive RPG gaming library. I have the means to do so and am proud of it too.

 

[Dave Chase]

To me Traveller base rules are toolbox

CT LBB 1-3
Mongoose Traveller core book
T5

I like some of the other Traveller versions too.

Only on some of the Traveller forums (in PbP) have I run a true Traveller game (core mechanics)
Rest of the time in college and later, it was a SciFi game that used bits and pieces of what every I wanted or what the players could talk me into allowing.

For a while when Heavy Metal and Epic (Graphic magazines) where new and popular, it was not uncommon for a player to see something on one of those and say, Hey, I want that for my character and off on another 'adventure' he/she went possibly dragging a few others along for the ride.

To me mechanics is only for having a solid foundation for the game to work upon, beyond that it is important to have a game that is fun, challenging at times, and entertaining to run or play. Otherwise, might as well sit around a coffee shop and complain about everything.

Dave Chase

 

[Wil Mireu]

Well until you have read it yourself, honestly how can you seriously comment on the value of a product?

The same way I can comment on the value of everything else. By looking at previews, reviews, snippets, extracts, examples etc. There's plenty of that around - on the Coti T5 board people are making example ships and characters and so on (doing Marc's work for him since in his "wisdom" he didn't include much in the way of examples, if he included any at all), and I can see from those that the system is far too detailed and complex for my tastes.

QREBS is one example. This is basically a ridiculously overcomplicated system for saying "this item is better/worse than the norm". In any other game a GM could just pull a number off the top of his head for that - "you find a beaten up gun - it works but it's not terribly reliable, so it's +1 on a roll to jam". But no, that's not good enough for T5, since there you're expected to fiddle with this silly QREBS system and describe it in terms of Quality, Reliability, and whatever else the "EBS" means to figure out all its' bonuses and penalties. Or, you just make up a number and carry on like in any other game. It's just additional complexity that adds little or nothing to the game that couldn't be added with a simple GM decision.

I have seen enough from all these reviews etc to know that T5 is less of a game and more of a toolkit of systems to use. It even says in one part that Marc expects that there will be more 'solitaire play' using T5, and it certainly appears to be something that isn't really designed to be a proper RPG (which requires other people to play). I've also seen enough to know that the level of detail is inane and anal-retentive, and the writing style is dry, uninteresting, and unevocative.

All of that I can glean from the information that is already out there. I don't need to waste $75 or $35 to buy the book or PDF (whenever they come out for the rest of us mere mortals) to know that T5 is a bloated, disorganised mess with a totally unappealing, out-dated, over-complicated design philosophy.

If it's crap, it deserves to be labelled as such, and not supported. We already have better versions of the game available, we should support the ones we like and ignore the rest, and hopefully they will wither on the vine. Obsessive collecting of sub-standard material does not give the author the clear signal that he needs to do better.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

QREBS is one example. This is basically a ridiculously overcomplicated system for saying "this item is better/worse than the norm". In any other game a GM could just pull a number off the top of his head for that - "you find a beaten up gun - it works but it's not terribly reliable, so it's +1 on a roll to jam". But no, that's not good enough for T5, since there you're expected to fiddle with this silly QREBS system and describe it in terms of Quality, Reliability, and whatever else the "EBS" means to figure out all its' bonuses and penalties. Or, you just make up a number and carry on like in any other game. It's just additional complexity that adds little or nothing to the game that couldn't be added with a simple GM decision.

It also figures out if a TL5 sword is better quality than if it was made in a TL8 shop. Rules I will never use or open the book to look for.

 

[Wil Mireu]

It also figures out if a TL5 sword is better quality than if it was made in a TL8 shop. Rules I will never use or open the book to look for.

Either way you can still just say "it's made of better material with better techniques, +1 to damage" without faffing around with QREBS.

 

[Lemnoc]

Well I must say, it would appear that this posting forum has tuned into a click of folks that only think that their main version/ flavor at the current time is the best thing since sliced bread and the rest of the world is wrong.

...

Well until you have read it yourself, honestly how can you seriously comment on the value of a product? I guess it is pointless to keep trying to get folks to at least read the product themselves first, before saying it's bad based on other's thoughts that may or mat not have read it themselves too. Now I have read a few pages last night as I paged through the book and I liked some of what I have seen. Is it perfect ...NO. I do believe everyone can and does complain about every product that way, BUT I feel people should be a least a little more open to it.

In my 37+ years of being on the highway system, 24+ of those years sitting in the driver’s seat, I have crossed many counties and even a couple of borders or two. I could tell you some stories about driving in Tijuana. I have developed my own rules of the road which I have developed from reading every driver’s manual that comes in a dead tree version and selecting the parts I most favor for my own set of driving habits that only I understand. Sometimes the American system works best on British roads! But I just can’t understand how, unless you have purchased a Yugo and driven it around for 10+ years, how you can conclude a Yugo is not a quality car. It is NOT a quality car, as I can tell you from my 37+ years of experience, but I can only conclude the attitude I am seeing against Yugos is that there’s a clique on this forum who just don’t like Europeans. And I think that is terrible. Europeans are decent people! You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

I once thought that smashing my hand with a rock would hurt. But until I went out and purchased the rock, I really did not know that rock would hurt my hand. I can tell you, it did hurt my hand. Boy, did I hurt my hand. But now I am an authority on crippling myself with a rock and can speak from experience about just how much that hurt. I am not a poser when it comes to having my hand smashed.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Some people might think the Yugo is a bad car. Others might choose not to own one. But I just don’t understand the hatred toward Europeans I am seeing on this forum. The coast of Dalmatia is beautiful at this time of year.

 

[rust]

Also I find it hard to believe that one can't find some elements in that book that they could use with Mongoose rules to help make a better game for them.

While this might be true, I do not see it as a sufficient reason to spend
what I consider a lot of money to buy an overall questionable product in
the hope that some little part of it could perhaps improve my game. Out
there are a lot of very good science fiction roleplaying games with inter-
esting ideas I can borrow for my game, games I can spend my money on
without the feeling to buy a lottery ticket for a lottery where the jackpot
is smaller than the cost of the ticket.

 

[dragoner]

If you are looking for a +1 sword, maybe one should look to another game ...

I actually like qrebs, moarn, the dice tables for probabilities, the social combat system of personals, the random list of cargos, the skill/knowledge cascade, the random makers, etc.; there are some things left to be desired, the xd6 task system with flux (at least the mechanic is unified), the armor values seem too high imo, etc. . But overall it has been a good experience, watching the development process, and the fact that a lot seems to be Marc's house rules, maybe if the original is canon, this is his exegesis. I don't find it complex, but then again I'm an engineer and build multimillion dollar structures, that probably influences much of my opinion, forex I have the LBB's memorized. Such as calling 300k or whatever a vast sum, in the real world it is a little over two years salary for a professional, and Marc has worked on it for over two years for sure, he has the right to profit from his ip, same as mong does or any business; project wise it's chicken feed in a business, I owned a hobby shop for racing automobiles in California and it crested nearly a million a year in receipts, even though the salary I took was way less. I didn't participate in the kickstarter, so price for me was $1 and I received a knighthood from him, pretty sweet deal, no complaints there, and same as it was open to anybody. I did pledge in the cirque kickstarter, as well as the obsidian portal one, the T5 kickstarter was tempting, but I'm electronic only, so even with the cirque, I'm only looking for the expanded pdf. I bought the new TCS when it came out, Luriani as well, very nice stuff and I wish more from mong along those lines, 13mann's Robots is very nice as well. I just wish I could get the pdf's unlocked, so I can pull them apart in photoshop, something I can do with the disks from FFE.

All in all it is do what you like, but honestly, the negativity is like a cancer on Traveller in general, mong, T5, whatever rules set you choose.

8)

 

[2330ADUSA1]

To the collective group...

I am sorry for trying to express my point of just wanting people to look for themselves at T5, and not base their feelings on what others have had to say.

I yield the point that this is a Mongoose Pub board and respect that most people here perfer to just use core Mongoose Pub rules. So that being said I am sorry for trying to express anything other than the Mongoose point of view. I will stop posting anything about T5, and anything not Mongoose Pub based.

So I yield the field to the collective and once again state that I am wrong and respectfully will stop!

Take care and enjoy the game that you want and play the way you wish to play too.