MarcusIII
Cosmic Mongoose
Naw, CotI occasionally but not here. How strange
Traveller 5E
- Thread starter Sigtrygg
- Start date
Ill-informed mobs are, in the main, fairly stupid.
Hootenheimer
Banded Mongoose
The WotC OGL debacle is multilayered and it's partly about history (TSR, They Sue Regularly), memories, and risk appetite. Case law in the United States has established that you can't copyright "rules and mechanics" but that comes with some crucial caveats:
1) There just isn't that much established case law on the matter. There's DaVinci Editrice SRL v. Ziko Games, LLC and that's it. I maybe wouldn't take bets on it holding up in... say.... the Southern District of Texas with the current U.S Supreme court.
2) The state of what's called anti SLAPP in the United States is patchwork, and litigation that's expensive but has no basis in established law is a time honored tradition to silence individuals who don't keep lawyers on retainer (i.e., normal working class folks). Game mechanics probably wouldn't be covered under anti SLAAP anyway, which is chiefly concerned about civil litigation suppressing American First Amendment speech rights anyway.
Mongoose took flak and continues to take flak because it's current license terms aren't acceptable to some third party producers in the context of what WotC pulled back in 2023 with attempting to revoke and change its OGL. Mongoose has the right to have its license terms, but 3rd Party Publishers can nowadays point out that the largest TTRPG on the market has an SRD released under one of the most permissive license structures ever conceived, Creative Commons.
That leads to an interesting bit that, as it stands, Traveller 5E will have a more permissive license structure than what Mongoose currently offers because of that, assuming 3rd Party content producers use 5E SRDs to make their content and avoid using Mongoose IP (such as Charted Space and directly referencing Traveller).
Agreed. It is worth saying that the approach taken by Mongoose is highly restrictive. They talk a great game in terms of right-on, liberal politics but when it comes to a closed infrastructure and lack of openness they may be the worst and most restrictive of all of the (sort-of) major TTRPG companies*. Matt has made the excuse that it was intended to obfuscate the change of ownership from Marc to Mongoose but there's no excuse now that that secrecy has passed. They're just restrictive, and my own feeling, having seen the growth since 3e that an open approach has offered in the major companies, I also think it is foolish as well as unpleasant.
*OK, except GW.
CyborgPrime
Cosmic Mongoose
New Video Premiere: Traveller 5E — What’s REALLY Going On?**
Hey Travellers! I just released a brand-new video breaking down the big announcement everyone’s talking about — Traveller 5E.
There’s been a lot of excitement, worry, and confusion in the community, so I put together my take on this, an explanation of:
- What Traveller 5E actually is
- What it isn’t
- Why it exists
- Who it’s for
- And what it means for the future of Traveller
If you’ve seen the discussions flying around and want a straightforward breakdown without the drama (at least as I understand it currently), this video is for you.
Check it out and let me know your thoughts!
Until next time, my friends… happy travelling.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
I just spat out red wine...
"mongooses's involvement it to oversee lore and ensure consistency"
there are not enough rofl emoticons.
The 10 min video tells me no more than I learned from the announcement and looking at the company's web site.
Until someone at mongoose or WLRPG reveal more details all we know is it will be similar to the T20 concept but for 5e.
"it has never lost its identity"
no one can define what it is
it is not the setting, Traveller rules are used for many bespoke settings, not just charted space or the wider galaxy charted space is a very small part of,
it is not 2d6 resolution, see GT, TNE, T4, T5, T20
The closest I can get is Traveller is the tools to run sci fi games:
lifepath character generation
challenging combat
a trading mini game
starship construction
starship combat
planet generation
a range of TLs from stone age to Clarketech
animal encounters based on ecological niche
equipment for each TL
options include psionics, artificial gravity, robots, cybernetics, whatever you can imagine
Traveller can be set in a single system, or with an FTL drive capable of visiting any world in the galaxy, or any lesser tier of your imagination.
"mongooses's involvement it to oversee lore and ensure consistency"
there are not enough rofl emoticons.
The 10 min video tells me no more than I learned from the announcement and looking at the company's web site.
Until someone at mongoose or WLRPG reveal more details all we know is it will be similar to the T20 concept but for 5e.
"it has never lost its identity"
no one can define what it is
it is not the setting, Traveller rules are used for many bespoke settings, not just charted space or the wider galaxy charted space is a very small part of,
it is not 2d6 resolution, see GT, TNE, T4, T5, T20
The closest I can get is Traveller is the tools to run sci fi games:
lifepath character generation
challenging combat
a trading mini game
starship construction
starship combat
planet generation
a range of TLs from stone age to Clarketech
animal encounters based on ecological niche
equipment for each TL
options include psionics, artificial gravity, robots, cybernetics, whatever you can imagine
Traveller can be set in a single system, or with an FTL drive capable of visiting any world in the galaxy, or any lesser tier of your imagination.
Last edited:
CyborgPrime
Cosmic Mongoose
You weren't the target audience, and that's OK.
Just to clarify- the video is simply my explainer based on what we know so far.
I’m not claiming to have insider info, just pulling together the official announcement and what Mongoose/WLRPG have said publicly.
From what I’ve seen on the FB and other discussion groups, the situation really isn’t clear to a lot of people. There was a ton of confusion- some thought Mongoose was replacing the current rules, some thought WLRPG was WotC, others thought this was T5 or MgT3.
That’s the main reason I made the video: to give people a straightforward summary until Mongoose or WLRPG release concrete details- like a video FAQ.
And yeah, Traveller’s ‘identity’ is one of those discussions where every edition and every fan has a different definition. That’s part of what makes this whole announcement so tricky to read.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
Sorry it was the mongoose ensuring consistency that got me, I am still laughing now. I went into it thinking you may know a little more than us plebs.
I think you video will help ease the confusion until we learn more. And you are right about the confusion, I had to read it a couple of times and then go find out about the worlds largest dungeon.
What I can say is if they release a similar amount of stuff for T5E as they did for that dungeon I better start saving now.
I think you video will help ease the confusion until we learn more. And you are right about the confusion, I had to read it a couple of times and then go find out about the worlds largest dungeon.
What I can say is if they release a similar amount of stuff for T5E as they did for that dungeon I better start saving now.
Hey, just felt I'd weigh in with my unrequested 5 cents. I'm a forever GM, started running games with 3.5, pathfinder, then to coc, traveller and whole bunch of other random systems (stormlight, shadowrun, 5e, mythras to name a few). While I think Traveller is overdue for a good mechanical refresh, this announcement immediately had me gagging, and it wasn't just the AI generated prose used to advertise the bespoke product.
Creating a 5e port is probably about as creatively bankrupt as you can go, from hamfisting archetypes to the eye rolling origin system (really? for traveller?), with a side of OGL issues, and a dose of this being outsourced to a company with (would you believe it) only one fairly low brow work (afaik they made a dungeon with every single monster in the OGL, that's their claim to fame). But lets assume that this has more creativity than the best that hazbro can produce in their official products, what does that mean for traveller going forward?
Creating a 5e port is probably about as creatively bankrupt as you can go, from hamfisting archetypes to the eye rolling origin system (really? for traveller?), with a side of OGL issues, and a dose of this being outsourced to a company with (would you believe it) only one fairly low brow work (afaik they made a dungeon with every single monster in the OGL, that's their claim to fame). But lets assume that this has more creativity than the best that hazbro can produce in their official products, what does that mean for traveller going forward?
- What CR is your spaceship? Ship creation and customisation will be boiled down to a chasis, space ships will now have challenge ratings. Players will now have explicit mechanics each class can do in space, and only them.
- The suit just doesn't fit. What purpose is a 5e styled tactical grid when combat takes place over kilometers? To maintain parity with base dnd HP, proficency etc MUST scale, does this mean a space barbarian could tank portable plasma gun shots? What about a beamer array from a ship?
- Bro, do I have proficiency with the +3 Relic Gauss Rifle? DND5e is notoriously awful when it comes to any form of monetary system, why their base game avoids pricing equipment and items intentionally.
- About dog, lion and cat people. 5E already has official cat people, dog people and the like. Will we see species and their tensions just cease to exist, just like how mindflayers lost their 'driven to do evil' identity? Are the Solomani now the good guys?
- My Zhodani ancestry starts with message as a cantrip. Once again a 5e-ism, rich traveller style character creation will be broken down into an origin, a species and a class. Your character no longer is unique mechanically, and is for all justifiable reasons the same as every other level 1 human engineer.
- The product flows where the money goes. The product sells well and mongoose will now be caught having to justify Traveller being its own system. Why not just print 5e content if it makes money?
Last edited:
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
What's true is true.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
I should keep my thoughts to myself, but I've never been one to listen to my better judgement.
Am I going to try Traveller 5e? Hell no.
Why?
- I despise 5e in all its forms. It's a poor ruleset, it's simply a poor quality game system. If I were going to play D&D I would choose any of its editions besides 4e and 5e.
- I don't enjoy level-based game systems, and I have severe criticisms of them for reasons detailed in prior posts.
- The only Traveller thing about Traveller 5e will be the Charted Space setting, which I already have in many versions.
Hopefully Traveller 5e will be commercially successful. Hopefully it will bring new players to MgT2e. But, the only reason people still care about D&D has nothing to do with 5e, it has to do with D&D being on Stranger Things and Critical Role. After all, some corporate spokesperson for Wizards of the Coast went on a podcast a few years ago and told us the original fanbase to go to hell.
@MongooseMatt , if I had the money, I'd hire funny voice actors to do a long term professional quality Traveller Let's Play series, like the youtube equivalent of a radio drama. There's got to be UK talent that would do it and not charge exorbitant fees. I apologize for tagging you on my posts as of late, I know you're busy.
- A Traveller Let's Play series on youtube.
- Teams playing Traveller at shops.
- Marketing blitz for Traveller's 50th anniversary
- Starter bundles with significant savings.
Micky
Emperor Mongoose
Hah! Yeah the story of my life. 'It seemed like a good idea at the time'
Agreed naturally as I suspect most everyone here on this forum would. This game is not for 'us' but for them.
In the Redditt thread I honestly meant what I said. I hope this Frankenstein monster of a square peg/round hole game sells a 100k copies. The biggest problem Traveller probably has is the younger 5E D&D players aren't aware of this game. Complicated by the fact that Sci-Fi RPG's are heavily setting/IP based. They want to play 'x' or play 'y. We talk about marketing... well here we go.. and it isn't costing Mongoose a dime, or taking up the time of its creative staff. Let the other company that is doing this do the yeoman work of introducing Traveller, or more importantly its setting, to these new generations of players.
Is this game Traveller as we know it? Of course not, for one I'll be really curious to see how the actual mechanics and rules are. It will be a helluva design challenge to get a square peg into a round hole. Perhaps they can do it, find a way to do up a heroic based game yet keep the lethality of Traveller. I mean Traveller is the Australia of RPG games....
dude... you can die just by stepping out the front door. Find yourself out in the vacuum or a acidic atmosphere?... your character dies... doesn't matter how many hit points or skill points your 'leveled up' superhero character has. They are dead man...
And if this company (which I've never heard of. Any track record? Financials to market this product of theirs?) which is doing this actually manages to engineer a best of both worlds game and this thing sells. Mongoose can sit back and collect checks.. it is a Win/No-lose situation for them. And this has the added benefit of being pure (Free) marketing for Traveller, raising brand awareness in general. Perhaps this 5E based game sucks but the setting .. tickles their interest...and it bears repeating and emphasis... setting matters with Sci-Fi RPG games. Young players don't want our 1970's era generic setting neutral (whatever you want it to be) sci-fi toolbox game. It gets Charted Space in the minds of those who otherwise would have never heard of it and if only 100.. 50.. whatever new players come to discover Mongoose Traveller via this 5E game then that is a win, it is a start.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
Until somebody flips that X card.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
Completely true, and it's not going to affect any of us. It's a separate product line, assisted by Mongoose, but made by another publisher. It won't add a significant burden to Mongoose's workload. .
Completely true. People see something or read something and think, "I want to have adventures like that too. I don't want the story to end. What would've happened if the characters in the movie weren't incompetent?"
With games set in medieval fantasy, the IP is history, legends, mythology, folklore, and all the media based on it. Scifi games have to build a setting, or IP. They have to build a premise that grips people and inspires them, that makes them feel like they want to have adventures like that.
Building one's own setting is a fairly advanced activity that takes a lot of preparation. Play Charted Space, or detail hundreds of worlds, governments, political conflicts, trade systems, and wars yourself. Play Dune, or figure out centuries of scifi history and culture yourself. Some people, including me, like to do that. Most people just want to play. It's not fair to expect them to do months of preparation work when they don't have an interest in that. If we say, "Traveller is a toolbox to create any science fiction universe, so maybe Traveller isn't the game for them" then we're gatekeeping and creating a pretty big barrier to entry, when we could easily say, "here's Traveller, you can have all kinds of adventures in Charted Space, and Traveller also has a complete set of tools for you to create your own scifi settings when you have the inspiration to do so."
Most settings are Used Furniture anyway, to a greater or lesser degree, be it history or another IP.
"Use of a background out of Central Casting. Rather than invent a background and have to explain it, or risk re-inventing the wheel, let’s just steal one. We’ll set it in the Star Trek Universe, only we’ll call it the Empire instead of the Federation."
https://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/18/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for-sf-workshops/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RecycledWithAGimmick
Waaaaah, X-Card, waaaaaaaaah. Waah-medevac inbound.
What's true is true.
Almost no one advocates for for ending charted space or not advertising it. Just that it is a two edged sword. There are people who play Traveller explicitly because of Charted Space and a smaller number of people who won't play Traveller because all they know about it is Charted Space and that isn't their jam.
The whole thing doesn't bother me, and I wish it well. If they tune the scaling properly it doesn't need to be Noobs to Gods. Plenty of d20 games fixed that effect just by starting at L10 (Mutants and Masterminds springs to mind).
But not my thing. I have the game I want.
But not my thing. I have the game I want.
I stopped adopting D&D after AD&D (well, dabbled a little in 3 and 3.5). I was perfectly happy with the system as laid out in the original. Same reason I didn't bother with Traveller HERO or T20. I did invest in all the GURPS Traveller stuff just because it was so damn good - even if I didn't really get into the GURPS aspect of things.
I'd really like to see the high-level proposals of Traveller 5e before condemning or singing it's praises. After getting burned on T5 kickstarter and buying it sight unseen, I won't make that mistake again.
If it brings more gamers into Traveller, that's a plus. If they screw the pooch, well, it probably won't be my money they are taking.
I'd really like to see the high-level proposals of Traveller 5e before condemning or singing it's praises. After getting burned on T5 kickstarter and buying it sight unseen, I won't make that mistake again.
If it brings more gamers into Traveller, that's a plus. If they screw the pooch, well, it probably won't be my money they are taking.
