Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
I disagree that it will buy into sales. Not enough content and only ship builders would be interested.
Travellers Needed - The Future of Traveller
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
- Start date
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
At the moment, I want to dissect and design missiles and torpedoes.
And, I suppose, launch systems.
And, I suppose, launch systems.
You might refuse but you’re very much in the minority. In general gamers like supplements that have both crunch and background/story in them. That 3 pages of a book is part of an Adventure/setting book which is the primary selling point. No one buys those books for the crunch they buy in for use in their campaigns if it adds some tech great that a bonus.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
I very much doubt I am in the minority in refusing to pay £40 for three pages of a book. The rest of your argument is therefore a moot point.
If I want the tech that is in a three pages of a book, I have to pay for 120 pages of stuff I'm not interested in and will never use. What a load of tosh and piffle. I am not in the minority on this matter.
If I want the tech that is in a three pages of a book, I have to pay for 120 pages of stuff I'm not interested in and will never use. What a load of tosh and piffle. I am not in the minority on this matter.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Personally, if I want only 3 pages out of a book, I pirate it. If it is a 100-page book and I only want 3% of it, yeah, not buying it.
I would also say that "shipbuilders" are not the minority. I only have one person that I have gamed with over the last 20 years that doesn't like to "build things" so just plays with whatever pre-built stuff anyone gives them.
If you have a book that is the definitive book on building ships in the Traveller Universe and then to not include all of the shipbuilding rules makes calling High Guard, the shipbuilding book disingenuous. It's not. High Guard is clickbait. Oh? You like building ships? Here. We have this wonderful book that covers shipbuilding in Traveller. Oh? What's that? You want to know where the rules are for using TL-16 components on your design? Sorry. Wrong book. For that you need the book Behind the Claw. Pay up! You want to design a ship to travel past the 1,000D limit, sorry, that is not in this book either. It's clickbait so shipbuilders will buy their books. Just like hundreds of other examples that have been pointed out by others on these forums.
ross
Banded Mongoose
All printed materiel is temporary, but we have PDFs now and they can be updated.
Perhaps the logical solution here is some kind of officially curated digital resource? I know Paizo has had great success with the Archives of Nethys. They officially post all the mechanical elements of their game there; feats, equipment, rules and statblocks from all their supplements and adventures and then they treat that as a core resource for the community. The fact that its all free online helps players and GMs get into the system easily and once people are in love with the game and playing it, they are going to want to buy books or show support. Another reason, I suppose, for buying the pdfs and hardcopies is that's where all the fluff, art, and worldbuilding is. The 'adventure' part of the adventures also requires you to buy the book, even if the subclasses and items introduced in that adventure are posted. Given they do a new $20 ~90 page adventure every month, that's probably big business for them. It seems to me like having a resource like the Archives to keep rules all in one place might be useful to have as Traveller grows, but it would probably be a very big business decision if Mongoose was to go down that road.
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Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
The Oort Cloud
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
There should be a High Guard appendix pdf download on the free downloads.
Every time a new ship technology or building rule is added in an adventure or supplement the pdf should be updated.
This will also help the next author of the next High Guard ensure that all rule options are included in the core book.
Every time a new ship technology or building rule is added in an adventure or supplement the pdf should be updated.
This will also help the next author of the next High Guard ensure that all rule options are included in the core book.
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Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
The Jump Limit
CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
ObPedant: What sort of limit, analytic, topological, or categorical?
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Call it Reference.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
Leave it up to the reader to make that call.
The vast majority of people don’t buy book for the tech otherwise books without tech would not sell so wrong. There’s no tech in most of the adventures yet they sell so well they are being reprinted in a combination format, otherwise they wouldn’t be reprinted at all. So your statement is at best misleading. Most supplements don’t have tech in them yet they still sell.
This is a false argument since many people still prefer printed media otherwise they go to strictly POD formats.
While I would love this and I use articles of Nethys all the time D&D (with the open contact) and Patgfinder are in a vastly different position than mongoose with Traveller. Those two are two of the top three RPGs by a huge margin which gives them options as far as content and publication that smaller games like Traveller does not. I just don’t see this as a viable move by mongoose if we want the company to be around In 10 years.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
Where have I ever claimed that people buy the books just for the tech? My argument is that not many would do so.
There are sourcebooks, supplements, and adventures I have absolutely no interest in. If I were still rich enough I may get them for collector purchases, but I am now of the age when I am contemplating everything I own going in the skip once my daughter has to clear the house, so I only buy what I am interested in. I will therefor not spend £40 on a book that only has 3 pages that are of interest to me.
I think many of you are missing the long view on this. Mongoose survives on product sales every time you remove one of the selling points you cut into the product margins, if you remove enough of these you kill mongoose and therefore kill Traveller. Despite your complaints the current publication system is growing the game and the company, look at the increasing number of products and the different games they have acquired for prof of this. What your are proposing is a major change that there is absolutely no sign that it’s needed or that it would improve Mongoose’s sales. That the bottom line
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
The only reason I ever buy adventures is for the setting material. Adventures should never have rules in them. Rules are for rulebooks, not adventure books. I could give a crap about the adventure. I run sandbox games, so most of the "adventures" that My parties tend to go on are home-made. So, I am likely in the minority on this.
