Travellers Needed! Traveller's 50th

[alex_greene]

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

Traveller and the OTU have been rewritten so many times, between Martin J, Marc W Miller (peace be unto him), Steve Jackson, Matthew, Marc, Martin again ... We are playing in the TU of Theseus.
Everything I have said has come from the core rulebooks. All it'll take will be for one kid down the line to suddenly write stuff and it gets published, and you'll no longer be here to see what Traveller will look like.

I'm just beating them to the punch.

Alex.
Why are your ideas better than those of anyone else?

Oh, how lovely. Thank you. I eat a lot of carrots.

 

[alex_greene]

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.

We are going wild. You can't stop whinging about it.
I dare you to imagine better, but all you can do is tell Matthew you want more of what other people have done in the past.
So look at the past. There are almost fifty years of changes already. Everything's changed, and it's going to keep changing.
It'll have to, to catch up with bigger games with a bigger draw - Mythras 4e and 5e, the Hasbro game's 6e and 7e, the Hasbro answer to Traveller, you name it. FATE Traveller. Berin Kinsman's Lightspress Media's Traveller.

 

[GabrielGABFonseca]

Okay, I think it'd do good for everyone to take a step back and drink a nice hot beverage and then revisit the thread a bit later.

But, given I'm here and I'm a (comparatively) unblemished, freshly-faced babe to Traveller (the game) and Traveller (the OTU setting) and Traveller (the Meta-narrative) and Traveller (the other games/settings using the same game engine), I think I'm in a privileged position to offer one or two stray thoughts to this discussion.

For starters, there's clearly a problem of semantics because the label "Traveller" means different things to different people. Vormaerin has a point: the divorce of Traveller The Game Engine and Traveller The Setting needs to happen sooner or later, and sooner is best. If the upcoming Core Rulebook is one that teaches prospective Referees how to create their own, awesome universes and settings, that'll be amazing. It'll also be exactly what Marc W. Miller wanted when he created the LBBs back in '77.

But after Marc did, people started asking for a standard setting, because truth is not everyone has the time to create a brand new setting to play a TTRPG. So they went and created the Spinward Marches and thus planted were the seeds of the OTU. Does that mean that the toolbox approach is now invalidated? No, not in the slightest! It's not an or situation, it's an and situation and that's amazing!

And speaking of amazing, that's precisely what I think the OTU is, as a setting. That seed planted back with '79 with Supplement 3: The Spinward Marches, over the course of nearly five decades, has become this huge, beautiful, some might even say imposing tree that casts an impressive shadow — including, unfortunately, over Traveller the Game.
But the reason why I like the OTU so much is not only how rich it is, what with the benefit of a lot of smart people writing some very interesting things over some forty years for it, it also affords freedom.

There's a structure, yes, but it's not rock-solid. No, it's a weave: there are gaps, masterfully planned gaps where a Referee can take this proto-tapestry and within this scaffold create, together with their players, something of their own. And that's beautiful! That's amazing!

The way I feel, as a newcomer to the game and setting, is that the tree analogy of the OTU from before is also a great model of where to take it going forward, too: a strong, sturdy trunk upon which countless branches can stem from, and their leaves that give the tree its beauty.
Have a history, a world that extends to that golden, so-beloved era that is 1105, and from there? Countless branches!
Fifth Frontier war? No Frontier War? Rebellion? Lorenverse? The second coming of Yaskoydray? The ruination of the Imperium at the hand of piratical overlords from Drinax?
It's all up to you, all valid, all supported by official products.

But that doesn't mean someone can't come along and plant a new seed, and an universe of their own. One can't grow so enamoured to the tree that they loose sight of the forest, for it is beautiful too.
... and yes, you could fell down that old growth tree and chop it up and make something radically different from it, but I, for one, think the forest would be lesser for it.

At least, that's my take on all of this.

 

[Vormaerin]

No, Alex, you aren't listening. You seem to think that Charted Space = Traveller. That any evolution of Traveller requires changes to Charted Space. That's nonsense. In fact, it it worse than nonsense. It is actively destructive to the brand.

Traveller can and should make additional rulebooks and additional materials for other settings. That does NOT require messing with existing published material.

 

[Fulcs]

It's not quite the same situation, but it kind of reminds me when D&D 4e came out and threw away a lot of what made D&D, D&D. It's probably the most disliked and least played edition but fortunately they realised they'd fluffed it and 5e more than saved the day.

Change can be a good thing or a bad thing, but it makes sense to know your players. The guys at Mongoose are in a much better place than me to do that, but I do wonder whether this is a 4e step that's being suggested. Only time will tell, I guess, assuming it does go that way.

 

[alex_greene]

We could ditch Charted Space, you know. Hand back the IP rights to FFE. And when they decide to change things up to spruce up the game for the 50th, you know, you'll have no say in their decisions at all. I'm sure that'll make you all really happy.
And imagining a generation of kids finding this after we're gone, and seeing a game you wouldn't recognise, and not knowing any different, and calling it Traveller, and being right in doing so, would make me even happier.

The last twenty years have seen massive changes to Traveller, to Charted Space, to the whole setting. They're all canon. They're all OTU. You might not be able to handle there being a Deepnight Entity at the rim of space, but it's there. You might not like uplifted humans trawling around in super advanced ships commanding fleets of TL 25+ vessels, but it's official and your Travellers can go around with INT 24 and PSI 36+, commanding world-shattering psionic powers.
Traveller's already changed, often beyond recognition to what it was back in 1977. If you tried to shoehorn the game back into its original tin box, it is going to look as vintage as black & white seaside postcards from 1901. Unplayable by modern standards.

Face it. You may be the Old Guard, but the days when the grogs held the reins of canon like the Medieval Catholic Church are gone. Call off the Inquisition. Galileo won after all. Here come Copernicus and Arabic numerals.

 

[alex_greene]

You're right. It won't be the Traveller you know. Tough. That's the point.
We cannot play the Traveller you want it to be. Nobody is playing the game with those old rules any more, because come on - have you ever played a character (they never used to call them "Travellers" back then either) with "two terms Marine, four terms Other?" They don't even have the rule that if you fail your survival roll, your character dies. That's a rule that is never coming back.

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

You might be on to something there, Alex. I’m strongly opposed to making too drastic changes to the Third Imperium/Charted Space setting at its core, there’s degrees of change.

Tweak character generation, expand the setting and introduce new stuff (like the Deepnight Entity) sure, but FTL comms or hyperdrives changes everything, invalidating everything that’s come before.

But how about a “Setting Companion”?
A book of “what if?” Based on the Charted Space we all know and love, but each chapter makes some tweaks and explores how this changes the setting.

A Stargate chapter, where instantaneous travel makes the X Boat network obsolete, infantry and small vehicles get an upswing, trains (track or grav propelled) largely replace spacecraft for freight shipping, and so on…

Another chapter could even remove a Major Race, have the Empress Wave hit and devastate parts of Charted Space, and so on…

A setting tweak anthology, sort of.

 

[OriginalCaruso]

A book of non-canon options - and I stress “options” would prove useful to some. I would purchase out of both interest and completeness. But to officially extend OTU by including options would IMHO be a mistake. I accept the need to move Traveller forward, but incrementally and slowly

One major mistake TSR made with D&D was the plethora of worlds, TSR were cannibalising their market leading to a fragmented and unsustainable product line. The lesson is clear: Keep the main thing, the main thing. Options are great and welcomed with open arms, but extending into canon is entirely another thing

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

A book of non-canon options - and I stress “options” would prove useful to some. I would purchase out of both interest and completeness. But to officially extend OTU by including options would IMHO be a mistake. I accept the need to move Traveller forward, but incrementally and slowly

One major mistake TSR made with D&D was the plethora of worlds, TSR were cannibalising their market leading to a fragmented and unsustainable product line. The lesson is clear: Keep the main thing, the main thing. Options are great and welcomed with open arms, but extending into canon is entirely another thing

Exactly, that’s what I was going for. Optional changes to the Third Imperium, and an analysis of what they’d mean for the setting.

There is non-3I tech in the books already, since Traveller is both a rule set and a a setting, but I was thinking go deeper, explore what they mean and how they change the existing setting.

There’s a huge difference between making a Stargate SG1 setting/sourcebook and having Imperial Marines in Battledress travel through Stargate to attack the Zhodani capital, for instance.



Think along the lines of the difference between having a stat block for a ship compared to a ten page write up and a stat block.

 

[Fulcs]

I think what I'm struggling with is what comes across as a "Tough, get used to it" message, especially when I watch the One D&D broadcasts where Jeremy Crawford has been constantly reaching out to the players to test the new material and asking for feedback to shape the next version.

They've been acting on the player's feedback, both good and bad, so that it feels like the players and the 'owners' of the game are working together in a collaborative way to shape the next edition into something that appeals to the vast majority of the D&D community.
I guess I just feel valued by that interest in my opinion I suppose. Maybe I'm just a bit spoiled by that experience?

 

[Culture-pig]

Two up front declarations - 1) I have not read all these posts - I think I have got the gist, but heh ? 2) I may be a dinosaur and I played Traveller pretty much from when it arrived in the UK.

Bearing those declarations in mind - this thread, for me, has begun to resemble the old rules lawyer archetype - arguing for hours about whether a rule applies and/or what the rule means and/or what the rule writer meant the rule to mean.

I can and will only speak for myself - my position is that the original section of the rules chimed with me - something about the rules are a tool for a good game, if you don't like them or they don't work for you then drop them or replace them, or if there is something you like not covered, add it.

So, for me, the Third Imperium setting was great - I loved creating MTU - but the sheer logistics and time of creating an analogue to what has become 'canon' became too much. Therefore I used and still use 'canon' material as a great time saver and I find the Third Imperium is a great shorthand for getting everyone on a similar page about the world(s) around them. But - in accordance with my reading of the early intentions behind Traveller - if I don't like something, I will ignore it. Oh dear, MTU is not 'canon' - I don't care - I was drawn to this hobby because I get to choose how I play, not have to use things that I don't like or don't agree with. I guess you could say I am surprised that every single referee does not have their own MTU - simply by ignoring some rules, or not insisting on something as too much trouble to track for too little gain (detailed encumberance anyone ?), or adding something that they find 'cool'. Consequently I have largely ignored canon as irrelevant - if that is how you want to play, go ahead, knock your socks off - but don't pretend you have the authority or capability to make me play that way.

So, I will carry on buying Traveller material, and enjoy reading it, but that does not mean I have to use it - 'canon' or not. Which brings me onto another aspect - because I am not bothered by canon, I do not have to square the circle of the rules as of 1977 (computers anyone ?) and the rules of 2024 based upon enourmous advanvces in science and understanding. It's a game - if the game works better with a 1977 rule I'll use it, if a 2024 rule works for me, I'll use it - does it square the circle - who cares - i'm having fun playing my game - my characters are unaware and in the unlikely event that such a revision of canon actuallty impacts play - I'm happy to explain it via research results, improving science/knowledge etc. in the game universe or even (shock) hand-wavium - in the interests of playing a game and not arguing over rules.

As I said, I am only speaking for myself, and I know there are plenty of people out there that do enjoy a detailed encumberance calculation - but that is my point - and for me Travellers point - one size does not fit all and the beauty of Traveller was always that it could accommodate all.
So, as I say, why would you not want to play in your own universe, even if it is only 0.01% different from canon ?
Thanks

 

[Sigtrygg]

We could ditch Charted Space, you know. Hand back the IP rights to FFE. And when they decide to change things up to spruce up the game for the 50th, you know, you'll have no say in their decisions at all. I'm sure that'll make you all really happy.
And imagining a generation of kids finding this after we're gone, and seeing a game you wouldn't recognise, and not knowing any different, and calling it Traveller, and being right in doing so, would make me even happier.

The last twenty years have seen massive changes to Traveller, to Charted Space, to the whole setting. They're all canon. They're all OTU. You might not be able to handle there being a Deepnight Entity at the rim of space, but it's there. You might not like uplifted humans trawling around in super advanced ships commanding fleets of TL 25+ vessels, but it's official and your Travellers can go around with INT 24 and PSI 36+, commanding world-shattering psionic powers.
Traveller's already changed, often beyond recognition to what it was back in 1977. If you tried to shoehorn the game back into its original tin box, it is going to look as vintage as black & white seaside postcards from 1901. Unplayable by modern standards.

Face it. You may be the Old Guard, but the days when the grogs held the reins of canon like the Medieval Catholic Church are gone. Call off the Inquisition. Galileo won after all. Here come Copernicus and Arabic numerals.

No, they haven't. The only items of significance to the Official Traveller Universe setting are T5 and Agent of the Imperium.
Many Mongoose products with Third Imperium on the cover are not canon compatible with OTU canon for a number of reasons and some of it is copy/pasted from GT which was also an ATU.

Canon is for authors, doing the research should be easy enough since you can get it all from FFE on one disk - read it instead of going by what you think is right. Once it hits the table it is mine to do with as I please.

I've made two consistent comments over the years.

1. Traveller was designed to be a sci fi rpg that allows you to use your imagination to play in the universe you design

2. Traveller is not the Third Imperium setting, which has become a giant albatross if you will.

The Ancients trilogy has set a new high jump record over the shark - don't get me wrong it is a well written great adventure, epic campaign, but why do the PCs not now intervene in the FFW, the Rebellion etc? How much of that campaign is known to the general public of the Spinward Marches? The first time I ran Twilight's Peek it took nearly three years of game time before the PCs finally made it to you know where.

Deep Night Revelation takes place over decades, starting in 1105 it could be well into the 1120s before the final encounter.

I still hope to see a follow up campaign set where they end up. If nothing official I will just make it up myself, using the Traveller rules.

 

[Vormaerin]

We could ditch Charted Space, you know. Hand back the IP rights to FFE. And when they decide to change things up to spruce up the game for the 50th, you know, you'll have no say in their decisions at all. I'm sure that'll make you all really happy.
And imagining a generation of kids finding this after we're gone, and seeing a game you wouldn't recognise, and not knowing any different, and calling it Traveller, and being right in doing so, would make me even happier.

The last twenty years have seen massive changes to Traveller, to Charted Space, to the whole setting. They're all canon. They're all OTU. You might not be able to handle there being a Deepnight Entity at the rim of space, but it's there. You might not like uplifted humans trawling around in super advanced ships commanding fleets of TL 25+ vessels, but it's official and your Travellers can go around with INT 24 and PSI 36+, commanding world-shattering psionic powers.
Traveller's already changed, often beyond recognition to what it was back in 1977. If you tried to shoehorn the game back into its original tin box, it is going to look as vintage as black & white seaside postcards from 1901. Unplayable by modern standards.

Face it. You may be the Old Guard, but the days when the grogs held the reins of canon like the Medieval Catholic Church are gone. Call off the Inquisition. Galileo won after all. Here come Copernicus and Arabic numerals.

You flat out don't get it. Charted Space and TRAVELLER are NOT THE SAME THING. Forgotten Realms is NOT D&D, just by far the most popular setting.

If they stop making Charted Space stuff, so what? Go ahead. Traveller will still exist. You have this obsession with changing the Charted Space setting somehow being essential to expanding Traveller. It isn't. Adding more to the Traveller rules does no violence to any of the Traveller settings. It just enables more settings, published or homebrew.

There is a huge difference between a publisher providing cool possible story lines in their adventures and a publisher thinking they should make some kind of metaplot and inflict it on everyone.

Deepnight Entity? Great! Ancients? Great! 5th FW? Great! Drinax? Singularity? All great. Trying to write future published books as if they ALL happened (and thus giving them a defined outcome?) Completely the opposite of great. And completely unnecessary.

The same with alternative techs. Warp drive? Stargates? Hyperspace? All fun. All in the same setting? NOPE.

No one that I've seen objects to expanding the RULES of TRAVELLER. But that has nothing to do with Charted Space. Any more than Jump Drive has to do with 2300 or Pioneer, both of which are also TRAVELLER.

 

[Sigtrygg]

A lot of people also don't understand that the general in game population of the Third Imperium are unaware of things like the Droyne being the Ancients, Grandfather etc.

 

[Sigtrygg]

When I ran Twilight's Peek it usually ended with a TPK. So while the player's found out stuff, they could not use that in game knowledge with their new characters (without a MIB device I would love to know how that is achieved).

No one in charted space is going to learn of the final act in DNR, the Ancients trilogy is more of an issue.

The PCs at the end could decide to conquer the Imperium, or they could work behind the scenes and the Third Imperium will be unaware of events...

 

[Vormaerin]

Yeah, but that's no big deal. Because that's the type of campaign you chose to run when you decided to use that material instead of some other material. There are people who do like that kind of game play and offering it isn't bad, IMHO. I have no problem with a game designer publishing a bunch of possible campaign styles from a common starting point. I don't want them thinking they should be telling me or any other player what happens, or which options are "official future."

I think it would be pretty cool if they published a Rebellion campaign that was all about court politics, intrigue, and skullduggery between the factions. And maybe Strephon dies, maybe Dulinor dies, maybe they reconcile, maybe Ciencia becomes Empress, whatever. Depending on how it played out at the table. I would totally not think it was cool if Mongoose reprised the GDW thing and said "oh, hey, we changed the setting. Keep up with events or get out."

Anyway, I didn't buy Charted Space: The Roleplaying Game. So I'm fine with Traveller publishing rulebooks that let groups use Traveller for their off label Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune, or Mass Effect games. A High Guard supplement on alternate ship techs would be pretty cool. But that wouldn't intrinsically change Charted Space or 2300. It would just allow other kinds of gameplay.

 

[OriginalCaruso]

Gosh that “ignore” button works well

 

[Vormaerin]

No, I want people to stop thinking that Traveller = Charted Space. Because it doesn't. Is Charted Space the most popular Traveller setting? Yes. Is it the only one? Nope. There's already three "Official" Traveller settings. There's another one coming out this year. You want to publish rules for even more, different settings? Great. The more the merrier as far as I am concerned.

I don't see any reason to think that changing the Charted Space setting has anything to do with the future viability of Traveller. If anything, furthering the misconception that Traveller and Charted Space are the same thing is the more likely to be a problem.

As for people still making jokes about rules that haven't been in place for 30 years, not much you can do about that.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Classic Traveller will still be played long after Mongoose Traveller sunsets.

If you don't like MT then Traveller will be dead in a generation, if you don't like TNE Traveller will be dead in a generation...
and yet apost T20, GT, TH here we still are.

I actively dislike the T4 and T5 rule systems, but their adoption would not maintain Traveller for a generation.

If Mongoose releases a new setting I will take a look, but will continue to use CT as the basis for my gaming.