Travellers Needed - Core Rulebook Reprint

[MongooseMatt]

Yeah, no love for fights here too . I'm simply hoping Mongoose doesn't stick EXCESSIVELY close to those "(definitely-not-quite-)general social expectations" in name of £Profit£.
You know, "broad cultural changes and expected social cues" are more fickle than the wind, but certain things (good and bad alike) are eternal, in my opinion.
For a quick example:

It is not being done for profits - most of the people working at Mongoose HQ are female and we believe it is the right thing to do.

Also worth pointing out that if you have been picking up our books for the past 2... 3 (more?) years, we have already been doing this

Finally... I don't think this particular issuer will prove to be fickle. Think this one is here to stay!

 

[nerfherder]

5. This book will have a new SKU and ISBN, and is currently being referred to as Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022. Happy to accept suggestions for something else!

Will the current CRB PDF continue to be updated with the 2022 revisions, or will it be frozen as it is, and there be a new CRB2022 PDF which would require purchasing if we wanted the 2022 revisions?

 

[MongooseMatt]

Will the current CRB PDF continue to be updated with the 2022 revisions, or will it be frozen as it is, and there be a new CRB2022 PDF which would require purchasing if we wanted the 2022 revisions?

The Update 2022 will be the new Core Rulebook.

 

[nerfherder]

Will the current CRB PDF continue to be updated with the 2022 revisions, or will it be frozen as it is, and there be a new CRB2022 PDF which would require purchasing if we wanted the 2022 revisions?

The Update 2022 will be the new Core Rulebook.

Sorry, I'm still not clear what you mean.

I bought a copy of the CRB 2nd Edition in PDF format. Earlier this year it got updated with some revisions. I received those for free by simply re-downloading the PDF.

In order to receive the 2022 revisions, will I:
a) receive them for free, like I did for this year's revisions, or
b) need to buy a new PDF?

Either way, it's good news that you are continuing to look at ways to improve the quality.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Sorry, you will need to pick up the new PDF - we will not be updating the existing one (this is effectively a new book).

 

[alex_greene]

Since when? Traveller is more-or-less-realistic SF, not Heroic Fantasy :wink: :lol: .

Since the moment we signed up for the terms and conditions which were a prerequisite to joining the forum.
Since we started putting a 2 at the start of the year.
Since we began living in the future, and realised that we can, and should, put the past behind us because it no longer fits well with the way people do things nowadays.
Since a mod turned up in the thread to keep an eye out, to make sure things don't get heated. Hello.
Let's all be nice. There are women, trans, and non-binary Traveller players and Referees out there now, and our money is as valid as the old guard's.

 

[alex_greene]

I've a question.
Once this edition is out, if it's still a version of Second Edition, would it be applicable to call it "Traveller Revised Second Edition" or "Traveller Updated Second Edition?"

 

[MongooseMatt]

I've a question.
Once this edition is out, if it's still a version of Second Edition, would it be applicable to call it "Traveller Revised Second Edition" or "Traveller Updated Second Edition?"

At the moment, we are going with Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022, but we will see how that floats.

 

[Old School]

It will have an official name given by Matt, but here on the interwebs, we'll probably call it MgT2.1, or something like that.

 

[alex_greene]

That's all cool to me. The name can be changed right at the last minute if necessary: "Blue Harvest," "Torchwood," and TDM's "Project Rose Garden" spring to mind.

 

[Ursus Maior]

That's all cool to me. The name can be changed right at the last minute if necessary: "Blue Harvest," "Torchwood," and TDM's "Project Rose Garden" spring to mind.

Let's make it a very British Rainbow Code, shall we? Blue Danube springs to mind.

 

[agentwigggles]

The Traveller Discord suggest that it should be called Mongoose Second Edition Traveller BIS.

 

[alex_greene]

The Traveller Discord suggest that it should be called Mongoose Second Edition Traveller BIS.

Let's hope the new CRB doesn't cost Cr 20000000 and weigh 8 tons.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceship innards, outside of major components, are somewhat of a mystery.

In theory, bulkheads should be constructed of the best material available; in practice that would only be confirmed by differing armour values.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Traveller has to sell into the future, and not die out with the grognards as younger people dismiss it feeling it hasn't adapted to broad cultural changes and expected social cues.

Such people won't buy Traveller. Period. What happens is that existing customers go away. They find another game company.

 

[RogerMc]

Re the supply of future grognards...

Back in the before the before time I was something of a dilettante sovietologist and remember a story from the old USSR where the Orthodox church was not totally suppressed but identifying as a believer would get you expelled from the Communist Party and also render you unemployable pretty much anywhere worth working.

So as a result until the fall of the USSR most Orthodox congregations consisted entirely of indomitable babushkas - little old ladies who had no nice jobs to lose and didn't GAF about what the Party thought.

And so the story goes, a western visitor attends a sparsely attended such service in one such church and rather tactlessly asks the priest 'but what happens to your church here when all these babushkas die off'.

The priest replies 'ah - but God will always send us more babushkas'.

And thus it is I believe with us grognards - sadly we are indeed dying off one by one and yet our fanaticism is such that we can still sustain a hobby and a subculture that may not be what it once was but has nevertheless still survived everything that the world has thrown at it.

And somehow there will always be more babushkas - not that many but just enough to replace those of us who die off.

 

[Ursus Maior]

Spaceship innards, outside of major components, are somewhat of a mystery.

In theory, bulkheads should be constructed of the best material available; in practice that would only be confirmed by differing armour values.

Good point. One could expect a base armour value of some sort, which derives itself from TL or base construction materials repsectively. Not a very high AV, certainly, and probably modified for light and reinforced hulls.

 

[alex_greene]

Traveller has to sell into the future, and not die out with the grognards as younger people dismiss it feeling it hasn't adapted to broad cultural changes and expected social cues.

Such people won't buy Traveller. Period. What happens is that existing customers go away. They find another game company.

Capitalism sucks. But that's why people in IRL businesses learn about marketing, and branding, and brand loyalty, and all that seemingly-unutterably boring stuff they don't teach kids in school.

Traveller is no longer the only SFRPG on the market - it has to compete against Star Trek Adventures, The Expanse RPG, Cyberpunk, Cortex System, Cepheus Engine, TSAO, SWN, and of course the only other serious competition, M-Space. Different generations: different tastes and expectations. And Traveller has got to establish its brand to appeal to the younger generations of customers, by giving them what they want.

 

[Ursus Maior]

And somehow there will always be more babushkas - not that many but just enough to replace those of us who die off.

The thing is, I don't see the future for Traveller that bleak. I could see that the most adamant grognards do not draw many new players into the hobby. But the game itself might very well. Chaosium certainly revived Call of Cthulhu in an admirable way over the past five years, and the way they are handling diversity absolutely helped. Three issues I recognized happening under their new (actually: old) management are: adressing gender and race as a topic upfront, actively creating specific content by rewriting established material and buying new material on the market, as well as licensing third parties, which dig into the topic even deeper.

I see, Mongoose have changed the pronouns they use some time ago already. That is the right way to go, I think. English is much more gender-agnostic than most other European languages. Why not push the rudder further into that direction? Unless one mimes a Soviet style business model, grognards are not a ressource of the future. And how could that be achieved: Actively excluding any non-white male heterosexual players? That sound so not like this company or the community here. There was always a place for everything imaginable in Traveller. Why change that?

 

[alex_greene]

So.

Right.

Where are we up to with the wishlist of updates for the core rulebook? Retool the character generation flowchart, check. Index, check. Trade game revamp? Dogfighting? Something about possibly removing the subsector and replacing it with stuff? Er, firearms which look like firearms?