Travellers Needed! Traveller's 50th

[Vormaerin]

You still haven't explained why that requires changing the existing material instead of creating new material. I love the Mindjammer setting. I like the 2300 setting. I like the Charted Space setting. Pioneer sounds interesting. I am sure that if Mongoose created a different tech setting it would probably be equally interesting.

What I don't see is any advantage in destroying existing material to do that. You make Traveller last another 50 years by finishing the divorce between the rules of Traveller and any specific setting. The rule books can and should have an array of technologies supporting a wide range of sci fi playstyles. Charted Space supports a particular tech paradigm. Make your new tech paradigm in a new setting that is built around that.

 

[alex_greene]

So is there anybody else who wants to go back to the Gregorian Calendar, horse and cart, counting in Roman numerals and adopting Latin as the official language of this forum?

 

[CordwainerFish]

wooden hulled ships

Space: 1889 is over there.

 

[alex_greene]

I'm struggling to see a valid reason to change the classic setting, and using all those other things from that era as association with Traveller doesn't really help to explain the reasons. Can you help me with that?

It has already changed.
It changed before GURPS bought the license for Traveller. It changed again when Mongoose got the license, and FFE changed it and gave it a complete makeover already.
We are none of us playing our Daddy's Traveller any more, and the newcomers of 2027 won't be playing our Traveller.

 

[alex_greene]

Space: 1889 is over there.

Right next to Annic Nova and those 2300 ships.

 

[alex_greene]

What I don't see is any advantage in destroying existing material to do that. You make Traveller last another 50 years by finishing the divorce between the rules of Traveller and any specific setting. The rule books can and should have an array of technologies supporting a wide range of sci fi playstyles. Charted Space supports a particular tech paradigm. Make your new tech paradigm in a new setting that is built around that.

So you aren't interested in playing the Ancients Trilogy or the Fifth Frontier War, then?

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

There’s evolve and there’s evolve. Some changes to the setting are good, to keep the setting alive.

A new edition that fundamentally changes everything about Traveller, in effect turning it into a whole new setting and most importantly invalidating every previous book I’ve ever bought on the other hand would have me sticking to my old books tbh.

Alternate means of travel, FTL communications or such can make for an interesting setting, but it wouldn’t be the Charted Space we know and love.

It’s possible to renew without destroying and invalidating.

Or handle it like dogfights. I know there are varied opinions on dogfighting, but they have their own sub-chapter and can easily be ignored by those who don’t favor them.

Changing the fuel/jump/ship design process completely on the other hand, would mean any new material would clash with existing material too much. That’s not something to simply handwave away for those that don’t prefer it, unless the alternate tech miraculously occupies the same tonnage as the traditional systems so we can swap at will

 

[Fulcs]

It has already changed.
It changed before GURPS bought the license for Traveller. It changed again when Mongoose got the license, and FFE changed it and gave it a complete makeover already.
We are none of us playing our Daddy's Traveller any more, and the newcomers of 2027 won't be playing our Traveller.

To be fair, I played the game back when it came out so it's not really my dad's, god rest his soul. He never did get why we played these games.

 

[Vormaerin]

So you aren't interested in playing the Ancients Trilogy or the Fifth Frontier War, then?

I probably won't play Ancients because I get my fill of that playstyle in fantasy campaigns, though I'll steal some stuff from Mysteries I think. FFW sounds interesting and I'll likely use some of that, as well. My campaign isn't set on the Zhodani frontier, but it'll hopefully have some fun stuff to adapt to other locations and other wars.

But the point is that this is material that is being provided for the GM to use or not use. Providing options for how your campaign develops is fine. If Mongoose starts writing all future sourcebooks as if the Ancients are back and some particular outcome of Wrath is "fact", then that is not fine with me. It just makes the sourcebooks increasingly less useful to buy, because it'll have an ever increasing detachment from anything else I own or wish to use.

The Harn method of "Everything we make is set in this year and you can pick whichever path forward without the devs invalidating it" is my preference. I don't feel it is the job of the game designers to tell the GMs what the story of their campaign is. It is to provide tools for the GMs to tell their own stories.

Traveller: The New Era is a pretty cool setting. The fact that the developers felt they had to destroy the existing setting to publish it greatly damaged it unnecessarily.

 

[AndrewW]

There is this from the State of the Mongoose:

A New Rulebook: Don’t panic, the Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022 will remain the frontline book in 2024 and well beyond. This new book is for… a different type of Traveller. For different types of Travellers. In different types of universes.

So it is possible for changes to be made without any effect on the OTU. Not to mention the existing 2300AD and Pioneer.

 

[Vormaerin]

To be fair, I played the game back when it came out so it's not really my dad's, god rest his soul. He never did get why we played these games.

Yeah, same.

I'm not wedded to Charted Space. I have used Traveller for a variety of campaign types. I've used it to play a Stargate style game, a single system no FTL game, a lot of Culture style games (before and after Mindjammer came out), and "standard" space opera stuff. I'm not particularly wedded to Charted Space and my version of it is heavily modified.

But I am very opposed to arbitrarily destroying existing material when it is entirely feasible to just make new material. Write new settings and new materials. That's awesome. But don't pin it to existing material in a way that invalidates it. That's just wasteful.

 

[alex_greene]

There is this from the State of the Mongoose:


So it is possible for changes to be made without any effect on the OTU.

And it's also possible for the Travellers to come along and make major canon changes to the OTU, just by using what's already canon in the OTU.
The Ancients Trilogy, Pirates of Drinax, Deepnight Revelation, Society of Prometheus, and FFW are all canon. Even if you only play one of them, they change the OTU forever.

 

[CordwainerFish]

But I am very opposed to arbitrarily destroying existing material when it is entirely feasible to just make new material.

And when the existing material already has what is desired. Want an Imperium in chaos? Set the Wayback Machine for the Civil War. Re-exploring and reconnecting to lost worlds? The end of the Long Night.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Alex.
Why are your ideas better than those of anyone else?
A lot of what you propose are due to your own personal biases.

Traveller 50 years ago was a game to design your own setting, you could repurpose just about any of the subsystems. You could rename the jump drive a warp drive and get rid of jump fuel because the power plant runs on antimatter.

It should be a game of options, not one person's biased re-write of someone else's setting.

This is what was said in 77

THE REFEREE
Crucial to the continuing campaign is the referee; he actually creates a universe, and then catalogs the creatures and societies which populate it.
In order to begin, the referee creates a star map and generates the specifics of the worlds noted on it (Book 3 gives details for this procedure). Initially, however, only clues (sometimes misleading or false) as to the nature of the universe will be available to the players.
The referee may also indicate possible quests for the characters, using rumor, barroom conversation, or so-called general knowledge. For example, rumor may indicate the sources of potential wealth or power; subtle or not-so-subtle clues might exist which could lead to devices or techniques to save the world from cataclysm. The possibilities are endless.
In any case, the referee can make or break a campaign, as it is his imagination which the other players use as a springboard to adventure.
The referee is responsible for maintaining the master maps and charts of the universe, and for determining the various effects of natural forces, chance, and non-player characters on the adventures. He must settle disputes concerning the rules (and may use his own imagination in doing so, rather than strictly adhering to the letter of the rules). He also acts as go-between when characters secretly or solitarily act against the world or their comrades.

 

[alex_greene]

The use of High Guard to create rift runners, and the invention of rift running, totally breaks the back of everything in The Great Rift and Deepnight Revelation. Who's to say that rift runners don't become a thing in 1100, only the first ones turn up at Trin in 1105 and enter the fray of the Fifth almost before the war even starts?

 

[WHULorigan]

And it's also possible for the Travellers to come along and make major canon changes to the OTU, just by using what's already canon in the OTU.
The Ancients Trilogy, Pirates of Drinax, Deepnight Revelation, Society of Prometheus, and FFW are all canon. Even if you only play one of them, they change the OTU forever.

No. They change YTU forever.

 

[alex_greene]

And when the existing material already has what is desired. Want an Imperium in chaos? Set the Wayback Machine for the Civil War. Re-exploring and reconnecting to lost worlds? The end of the Long Night.

This. ^^
Only, imagine this being caused by the Travellers. As canon.

 

[alex_greene]

No. They change YTU forever.

It's all canon. You can stop playing FFW or drop the Ancients in YTU.
The Trilogy, like Deepnight Revelation, is canon in the OTU.

 

[alex_greene]

If there is a conflict between the society of a setting and the player characters' actions, and the players' creativity, the society must give way to the players. If some kid next year starts playing Trav and tells the Ref they want to fit collectors and ramscoops to a Free Trader and give it Jump 4, just do it. It doesn't matter if it brings the Third Imperium to an end. GDW already did that, out of the players' hands.
This time around, the players can hold the fate of the known universe in their hands. That's the promise of the Ancients trilogy, Deepnight Revelation, The Great Rift, and the FFW.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yes, exactly. The *PLAYERS* should be determining the future of the campaign. Not Mongoose. No one needs them to tell us "This is what definitely happens". Publish all the possible futures you want. Create entirely new settings with different assumptions. Go wild.

DON'T mandate changes to published material for no particular reason. Again, FFW, Deepnight, Ancients, Singularity, etc are all awesome products. Requiring future supplements to act as if they had definitely happened? Not awesome.