What's YOUR Core Rulebook Reboot?

[saundby]

So we're about halfway through Mongoose's Traveller license period. Hard to believe it's been that long already! While T5 is getting a lot of eyeballs right now, based on my own experience with it so far (I'm in the beta), I expect that MGT is going to be my core rule set for the foreseeable future. I'm expecting to use T5 as a ref's Lego box, while still running a game that's core MGT with CT and some other MongTrav stuff.

What I'm running right now is MGT core book with bits from other MGT books and a whole lot of CT setting and material in my own TU.

If you had carte blanche to put together a core rulebook reboot, without any of those pesky real world restrictions like schedule and money and availability of the talent, what would you do?

Here are some of my ideas:

Author: Gareth Hanrahan, again.
Book Format: Same as present; hardback full and pocket size.
Cover: Move down the "Traveller Core Rulebook" to just above the "Science Fiction Adventure in the Far Future" (drop the hyphen), change the font to the original LBB font. Then, to differentiate things a bit, put a stripe of illustration about 3/4" from the top edge, 1-1/4" wide, like a window into a larger illo, wraps around the spine and back cover.

Interior design would have the look and feel of a technical trade journal like Semiconductor Engineering, Avionics, or Circuit Cellar.

Rules: as they are now, incorporating all current errata. Some fixes to Psionics.
Add the following to the core rules:
Vehicle and small craft design system
Civilian ships up to 20K with a design system that's a direct subset of HG
Expanded star system/world design (perhaps a simplified version of T5's)
A sample adventure
Some pages of sample patrons, and statted out animal encounters.
Rules quick references on the endleaves--all-inclusive skill list, combat flowchart, task flowchart

Art:
Character Creation: David Redington
Spacecraft: Winchell Chung
Incidental art:Nik Kraakenes
And some others. But high quality stuff.
Include some full page color plates.

That's what comes off the top of my head.

What's would you do?

 

[IanBruntlett]

I would have a chapter or two from Dominic Wasch's Gamemastering book.

 

[Treebore]

I am just fine with all the aforementioned suggestions, except I would like to go full color. Again, depending on price. Price may make me be happy with some color plates rather than a full treatment.

 

[saundby]

Yeah, full color or not is something I've gone back and forth on in my own mind. I like the rules themselves printed on non-glossy pages. But I'd be good with it if the pages themselves aren't too glossy.

After all, most of the trade journals I read for hours and hours each week are full color (for the sake of the advertising), but they're plenty readable. Aviation Week, Avionics, Electronic Evaluation, Design News, etc. The main problem I have there is the thickness of the paper. It's too thin, making the printing on the other side of the page a distraction.

But the fact that it's full color doesn't put me off the way it does when I think of full color associated with a game book (which immediately makes me think of something I need to hold at odd angles for different part of the page to move the glare from the room lighting to a part of the page I'm not presently reading.)

Anyway, yeah, I think full color is doable. And as to price, well, Paizo's books aren't out of the ballpark, and they're full color. As are Hammer's Slammers, the B5 books from Mongoose, and so on. Though there were problems with those (backgrounds behind the text, and the ink smearing on the main B5 Traveller book.)

So long as the designers don't succumb to the temptation to fill the text background with swirly garbage or hash (text background should be WHITE, no diapering or other nonsense!) then I'm good with full color that:

doesn't reflect glare,
doesn't come off on my hands and smear,
doesn't have designs or art underneath text.

 

[torus]

Things I would like to see:

Break the connection to the OTU; perhaps include rules ideas from other settings like Strontium Dog.
Rules for world and setting generation (including star system generation, but not just rehashing CT on this; more like Stars Without Number).

Appearance-wise: keep a clean look; not bothered about full colour but would like to lose the bad art (e.g. the infamous Scholar picture).

 

[domingojs23]

Bringing back the Optima font !

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I don't think my players would want to re-buy any Traveller. They have a lot of the Mongoose books. I ref Mongoose Traveller only because that is what we all have.

I am the only one with a copy of Traveller 5 beta. But I will stick to gaming with Mongoose because it is supported.

 

[Prime_Evil]

Things I would like to see:

Break the connection to the OTU; perhaps include rules ideas from other settings like Strontium Dog.
Rules for world and setting generation (including star system generation, but not just rehashing CT on this; more like Stars Without Number).

Appearance-wise: keep a clean look; not bothered about full colour but would like to lose the bad art (e.g. the infamous Scholar picture).

I think it's a good idea to separate the generic rules content from the material specific to the OTU setting, but I think there is value in presenting the OTU as an example of what a universe created with the ruleset looks like. Go back to the earliest versions of the game and present the rule system as a toolkit for creating your own SF universe - with the OTU as an example of a universe created with the rules. This approach allows you to integrate SF tropes that don't work with the OTU into the core rules (e.g. warp drive and portable energy weapons) without weakening the focus of the game.

The rulebook also needs a Recommended Reading List to draw the attention of new players to the fact that the game doesn't set out to emulate Star Wars and Star Trek, but rather the literary SF of the 1950s and 1960s. I'd expect to see Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry series, Bertram Chandler's Commodore Grimes series, and E.C. Tubb's Dumarest saga on the reading list.

Also, find a way to update the tech progression to reflect recent developments without breaking canon. There are many assumptions about technological progress built into the game that are starting to look dated - for example, the Advanced Combat Rifle doesn't look as impressive in 2012 as it did back in 1978. And the game stats for computers still look a bit funky, reflecting the assumptions of the 1970s. Mongoose could use clever artwork to update the look and feel of the technology without radically changing its game stats - there has already been some movement in that direction in the depiction of battledress, which has moved from early depictions based on Heinlein's power armour to something that shows the clear influence of anime and has a more contemporary feel.