Did the re-send work on the City program, btw?

The re-send was fine. It is just that if there is a way for me to break some piece of software, I find it.

My old Master Chief used to tell me that I was the only engineer who could fuck things up so badly they worked right.

Quote from: KenHR;286043Just playin', Shaman.

:thumbup:

Quote from: KenHRIMO, canon schmanon...I honestly dislike the 3I setting . . .

I really like the 3I setting, but I use the de-canonized Judges Guild Gateway Quadrant version of it, so I guess that could be interpreted in a number of ways.

Quote from: KenHR. . . and use the world creation systems to generate my own settings.

And I like the fact that the Gateway is located next to Fornast Sector (a referee's preserve) and other sectors that've never been detailed beyond star positions, 'cause world creation is one of the things about Traveller the rocks the absolute hardest.

Quote from: KenHRSpeaking of which, I finally finished my subsector generation spreadsheet.  Maps, encounter tables, cargo and passenger calcs, and star system generation in one crappily-programmed Excel file!  Still working out a few bugs and mis-directed references, but the important stuff works just fine.  If anyone wants to take a look, I have posted it here.

Thanks for sharing! My folder of Traveller resources is about to get larger.



(Wow, Koltar's image even mucked up the "Reply to Topic" page! I have to scroll to read the preview.)

Quote from: The Shaman;286109(Wow, Koltar's image even mucked up the "Reply to Topic" page! I have to scroll to read the preview.)

I know. I guess Koltar just got a little bitter about a thread not catering to him that involved Traveller and decided to let us know who was boss hog.

Spaceship-building and spaceship-combat were two areas of Traveller that never interested me in the least.

RPGPundit

Quote from: vomitbrown;286007you you guys think Traveller 20 was  a bad joke?

I have to side with "kinda."  I played in a fairly long d20 Traveller campaign, and though we had fun, it was a very weak d20 adaptation especially in terms of the combat rules.  We had to houserule a bunch to make things usable.   If you don't already know d20, it could verge on unusable - they really make a mess of natural weapons, flat-footedness, and all that stuff that people usually just cut and paste over from the SRD.  They didn't, and so it was a bit of a challenge (especially because there were some core things they deliberately changes, like armor and DEX instead of STR for melee attack bonuses) to figure out things tactically.  Healing rules, etc. were also quite weak.

And also, it was my first experience in the Traveller universe, and T20 is really really bad for that.  If you already know the terminology and tech and how things work, it's OK.  But if you don't know anything about the milieu, or what battledress or a grav belt are, this book is not going to help you.  Firstly, it has zero setting information, you have to get that somewhere else.  (QLI eventually came out with a setting book, but not till years after T20 came out and we were playing it).  It has almost zero art/illustrations or even infographics.  How to handle equipment between all the different TLs is also very confusing; there's no "that's better or smaller or whatnot at higher TLs" kind of thing so you tend to end up lugging 1980s style walkie talkies and binoculars around.

In the end, T20 had a lot of clever bits I wanted to steal for other SF games, like the prior history system, the world design system, and the design sequences, but as a game unto itself you need a) prior Traveller experience and b) prior d20 experience to make it viable.

D20 Traveller was absolutely excellent for hard SF. Still probably the best "Hard SF" D20 game around.  The main book had practically no setting info, and that's good, frankly. The old original Traveller books had no setting info either, the idea was mostly to make your own. It was only in the supplements that an "official" setting was designed and now people seem to think you can't play Traveller if it isn't in the Imperium.   Which sucks (edit: its not the imperium that sucks, but that idea that you can only play Traveller there).

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;286431The main book had practically no setting info, and that's good, frankly. The old original Traveller books had no setting info either, the idea was mostly to make your own. It was only in the supplements that an "official" setting was designed and now people seem to think you can't play Traveller if it isn't in the Imperium.   Which sucks (edit: its not the imperium that sucks, but that idea that you can only play Traveller there).

RPGPundit

This is something that I hope changes with Mongoose Traveller. I'd like to see people create their own settings for Traveller since it is now OGL and have as many settings done with the same variety and creativity that graced D&D 3.x over the last decade or so.

Yes! Imagine a wealth of possible settings, not bound by the conventions of the Imperium!

RPGPundit

This is linked from Freelance Traveller.

A Tribute to the Burgess Shale Period of Traveller
by Ken Pick

Quote from: Burgess ShaleKnow, O Travellers, that in the early days of GDW, before the rise of the Third Imperium, there was an age undreamed of, where unknown races and empires and federations strode among the stars, their ships sparkling through Jumpspace between worlds lost to our ken. Once there were many species of Traveller -- other worlds, other races, other galaxies, other times, other roads taken -- only to be eclipsed forever by the Imperium. From many Travellers to one, and when that One shattered and fell, so fell Traveller...

The Burgess Shale Effect
Do you remember when CT
Was only Books 1, 2, and 3
And a homespun setting that you wrote?
-- Doug & Kirsten Berry, "The Traveller Saga" (filk)

The Burgess Shale is a geologic formation in the Canadian Rockies, incredibly rich in fossils from Earth's early Cambrian period -- the earliest known (except possibly for the Edicara) muticellular life on Earth. Over 90% of these fossils are unclassifiable except as "Problematica" (unclassifiable weird ones), matching no known phylum.

Note: A Phylum (plural Phyla) is the next-to-largest step in the Linnaean System of biological classification. For example; all fish, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals -- anything with a spinal cord/backbone -- group into a single phylum: Vertebrates.

Apparently, when multicellular life first appeared (possibly spurred on by the DNA-shuffling effects of sexual reproduction), it exploded into a myriad of "experimental" forms (preserved in the Burgess Shale), followed later by an apparent mass extinction. Only the handful of phyla that survived that extinction left descendants; all life on Earth belongs to one of those remaining phyla -- maybe 10-20% of the phyla that lived at the period of the Burgess Shale.

The same phenomenon happened in FRP gaming. Early Traveller (as was typical in FRP games of the day) was a set of basic character rules, small starships, and basic worldbuilding, without any "official" background. As in D&D of the time, the game master had to make up his universe from scratch, filling in the holes and errata in the original ruleset. (Especially since except for the starships and gravs, early Traveller technology was pretty much contemporary; any "really futuristic" stuff had to be homebrewed.) In those days before the official GDW "Third Imperium" universe, each gamemaster built his Traveller universe differently, leading to a variety of star-spanning civilizations and high-tech that has not been seen since.

Just like the Problematica of the Burgess Shale.

...and that's what it's all about, folks.

Quote from: RPGPundit;286552Yes! Imagine a wealth of possible settings, not bound by the conventions of the Imperium!

RPGPundit

Well, here's the problem.  T20 didn't have any setting at all, for quite a while.  I don't mind the "traveller as a generic ruleset" approach, though ideally you would at least publish a setting guide to the Imperium (or something else, though why you'd call it Traveller in that case is a bit strange).

But T20 wasn't worth it as a generic ruleset; it was d20, already a generic ruleset, with stuff tacked on.  

I feel like T20, and as much as I've read so far of Mongoose Traveller, to be trying to be "generic" to the point where if you do want to play Imperium you have to "be a grognard" and already have all that stuff/an encyclopedic knowledge of the Imperium from some older version.  And that's bad, lazy design.  

Now, as for as Mongoose goes I haven't read The Spinward Marches yet, maybe it's the sourcebook with enough information to actually play in the Imperium.  But none of the others have.  There's a lot of "generic sci-fi RPGs" out there already, and one of the things that Traveller has going for it is the rich Imperium setting.

Quote from: mxyzplk;286854There's a lot of "generic sci-fi RPGs" out there already, and one of the things that Traveller has going for it is the rich Imperium setting.

I'm a big fan of the "Golden Age" Third Imperium, before the Rebellion and Virus nonsense.

Some gamers insist that it's boring or restrictive, but I find it's overflowing with opportunities for adventure.

Quote from: The Shaman;286868I'm a big fan of the "Golden Age" Third Imperium, before the Rebellion and Virus nonsense.

Some gamers insist that it's boring or restrictive, but I find it's overflowing with opportunities for adventure.

And THATS why I prefer GURPS: TRAVELLER. It continues that "Golden Age" as you refer to it. No damn Rebellion, no damn virus crap.

If there is going to be a 'rebellion' in a TRAVELLER campoaign or in my campaign - then its because the players decided to start it , NOT because its part of some meta-story the game company started and then foisted off on people.

- Ed C.