What's Traveller5 like?

[ShawnDriscoll]

Not sure about the Wiki but Traveller Map already has some data posted. In the drop down menu where you can select map style, etc, you can also select the Milieu or era and the map displays it. The Marches in 1900 look very, very different.

Alell is still Amber Zoned. That's harsh.

 

[HalC]

Not sure about the Wiki but Traveller Map already has some data posted. In the drop down menu where you can select map style, etc, you can also select the Milieu or era and the map displays it. The Marches in 1900 look very, very different.

Alell is still Amber Zoned. That's harsh.

The "Fly in amber" effect of Traveller I'm afraid. GMs should determine what worlds get what ratings as they see fit. For example, during one campaign, "terrorists" attacked Imperium Nobles on the surface of Adibicci. This coupled with other attacks and such, caused the Starport Govenor to declare the entire starport off limits and a red zone for the entire world pending investigation into multiple attacks. Seems that after several attempts earlier to hit the Baron of Lunion's son with an attack, then a poisoning attempt on the Baron at Lunion by agents of ASP (Adibicci Secret Police) - the multiple missile attack plus an explosives laden air-raft attack that damaged multiple starships in the area - prompted the shut down.

The effects were immediate - since ships couldn't lift off nor land at the starport during the declared shut down, many commercial contracts were delayed or even outright cancelled. Trade dropped immediately as the Imperial ships stationed at Adibicci began to enforce the Red zone edit.

After a time, the world went back to amber, then to Green. Imperial Special Forces landed mulitple missions using TL 15 armed troops, to "drop in" and leave dead severed pig's heads inside the homes of each of the Ruling members of the Adibicci Government. They got the message and the special forces withdrew in good order. Sadly, the Hog's heads were necessary, but the Special Forces hammed it up appropriately with their dinner parties thereafter.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I figured Alell's Amber Zone rating was ordered for a thousand years is all.

 

[qstor]

What is it that makes T5 unplayable?

In the original T5 edition, the book was littered with partial explanations of ideas, littered with errors and it was, in any case, difficult to digest as everything operated through coded acronyms and mathematical formula. It also tended to provide multiple systems to run things, or define things, or whatever - almost like 'choose your own system' in affect. There was no index, critically important for a large reference book, and the general organisation of the book was not intuitive.

Now, I'm a scientist, so I like mathematical formula and the like, but when you actually tried to do something with the rules - like generate a character or run a combat it proved genuinely difficult to do so with the rules as written. It wasn't honestly fun to be frustrated either.

Now, I also own the most recent T5.09 PDF edition, and while I cannot honestly call it anything other than a complex system (and certainly a lot more complex than Mongoose Traveller), it is playable. Some systems are very detailed, however, and others left quite abstract. It won't be to everybody's taste, although it could be for some - and especially for those wanting some form of 'advanced Traveller' or at least, those wanting to see Marc Miller's final vision of the game he first created.

I think a LOT of those issues can be solved with a professional editor. Marc is a great designer but someone needs to sit down and go over the whole game fix all the issues, find what's missing, add a table of contents and pare down the manuscript.

 

[Old School]

Well, sure. Professional editing, just like professional layout and professional artwork, costs money. Playtesting takes time. Marc choose to release a product with none of these.

 

[Reynard]

Marc created a gorgeous Traveller rules textbook and detailed information guide which is what I wanted when I looked it over and ultimately bought. I assumed there would be a later player supplement coordinating it into a game itself including ships, vehicles, playable alien PCs, alternative PCs (robots, clones and chimeras, etc.), opponent NPCs and fleshed out worlds. Still hoping though I have used T5 as an expansion to MgT.

 

[phavoc]

I dunno about a 'gorgeous' set of rules. The artwork isn't all that gorgeous. It's actually rather substandard compared to many of it's peers. And it's been how many years and we've yet to get anything other than a re-release of a poor product?

I am gobsmacked at how people continue to heap praise on a product they have yet to see, that the previous one was equally hyped and turned out to be a massive disappointment. Like the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The colour art in the back of the original Traveller 5 book is some of the best art to ever see print in Traveller.

 

[Yatima]

The colour art in the back of the original Traveller 5 book is some of the best art to ever see print in Traveller.

Haven't seen those plates - bunging them in the back of the book is another symptom of a badly planned, badly laid out book. The reused art from other Traveller books of old and the awful filler art that looks like an amateur edited a tiny line drawing of a Zhodani in MS Paint to create some variants were off putting in the extreme.

J

 

[Reynard]

Ah, that was my problem. I was more captivated by the detail of information I can use rather than drooling over pictures merely because they decorate the insides. I prefer substance over style.

 

[Condottiere]

Pretty pictures attracts nubes; intuitive rules expands the base; settings retains them.

 

[Anonymous]

Ah, that was my problem. I was more captivated by the detail of information I can use rather than drooling over pictures merely because they decorate the insides. I prefer substance over style.

What you probably want is a technical diagram of a space travelling thing.

 

[Yatima]

Pretty pictures attracts nubes; intuitive rules expands the base; settings retains them.

Such a shame, then, that the setting was absent and the rules were a mish-mash of overly complex systems, seemingly created by someone with a drive to impose a design sequence and a UPP on everything, whether it was useful or not. Traveller 5 fans don’t seem to be gamers, but rather a cult, obsessed with mentioning Marc as if he was a personal friend and an infallible god-like being.

Maybe I’m wrong and T5 was brilliant, not a hot mess. But if I am, I’m wrong with most of the gaming community, who were objective enough to point out that this emperor had no clothes.

J

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Pretty pictures attracts nubes

D&D is played by nubes then.

 

[Reynard]

I have regular experience with D&D at a game store and yes they are nubes no matter how long they (we) have been playing. Some actually own the books rather than beg to borrow to make characters so I'm not sure how much they're getting off on the pretty pictures. Maybe they're looking over the pictures as they constantly borrow one from other people during game sessions to look up rules they barely know. Nice pretty picture you glance over the first time then concentrate on the rules so you actually play the game. Pretty pictures might explain the price of the books and accessories.

 

[Anonymous]

I shouldn't comment on things like prices as I don't understand RPG publishing but I will say that I get a lot of enjoyment from the art in RPG books.

But if I was going to buy an RPG company, I would value it based on the size and health of its player community, and its intellectual property, and not on the rules it wrote.

What's the defining thing that makes Traveller what it is? Not the UPP, not the 2D dice system, but the 3rd Imperium and the Jump Drive. That thing is what your art and fiction define, and that's where the value in Traveller is. This considers "rules" that define the universe - like jump and communication speeds, spinal mounts on ships - as part of the "fiction".

That's not to say that the mechanical (dice) rules have no value, but that one can swap these out and not lose the core of what the game is.

I feel this is why MWM Traveller sells despite the rules being what they are, and why art and fiction (including fictional constraints enforced by rules) are very important for an RPG.

 

[phavoc]

The colour art in the back of the original Traveller 5 book is some of the best art to ever see print in Traveller.

The images are very nice (about 10pgs worth).

I still hold the GURPS books as the gold standard for how to do Traveller. The production values are just superb and the art is plentiful and appropriate. For the T5 book the problem with the art is that the few pages of color images at the back don't make up for the rest of the very minimal and low production quality in the rest of the book.

And those images aren't new for T5. They have been floating around for a while in various other places. It's like the cover artwork for the T4 series - that was recycled from Stewart Cowley books, which recycled the art from various places and artists to make the books. Again, not opposed to something like that, but just throwing some pretty stills in the back of a book does not make up for the dearth of it in the previous 5-600 pages.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I shouldn't comment on things like prices as I don't understand RPG publishing

Just think book publishing. Because we're buying books is all.

 

[Condottiere]

Illustrations give the ambiance of any particular literary work, and God knows, Classic certainly benefitted from them.

For better or worse, Dungeons and Dragons illustrations grew more sophisticated and serious from the rather more parodies from the early days, where it seems that the neither the illustrators or the writers didn't take it too seriously. which Warhammer seems to have a parallel evolution.

I suspect the true strength of GURPS, is the writing, with sidenotes giving clarifications or examples.

 

[Gamerguy]

Ok, let’s say 5.10 is cool. It needs support material. The background of the game needs supplements. All the versions of Traveller I own have lots of them. And they are all a hoot to read.