Quote from: horsesoldier on March 09, 2021, 11:37:40 AM
Care to dish out on the playtest, for those that missed it?

Sprange is going to take the easy way out and only do superficial fixes. Like pronouns.

So much crap happened, that it is now difficult to know where to begin.....

Several of us went and did a line by line proofread of the text and supplied Sprange with a list of spelling and punctuation errors months before the books saw print, none of them were corrected.

The playtesters were promised discounted print books and PDFs of the finished product, and were given printed books of the lowest possible quality with warped pages that had ink smears on them.

The animal encounters section was a clusterfuck, Sprange was told how to fix it, and the fixes were ignored. The "new" example creatures could not even be replicated by the rules.

Splitting the starship creation rules off into its own book was seen as a cash grab by the playtesters and caused a headache because rules that were needed in the core rule book to use the pregenerated ships there, could not be found except in the High Guard book which was released months later.

The power allocation rules for starships first appeared in the playtest for Mongoose Traveller 1e, but were dropped because they did not add enough to actual game play. They got resurrected and shoved into 2e to pad the book.

The 3D starship maps were fucked. Not very many people liked them and told Sprange that they were useless in actual play - especially with miniatures. We were ignored. To look at the worst example of this, go find the 3D deck plans for the Azhanti High Lightning class cruiser and compare them to the fulll color deckplans put out by GDW back in the day.

(Which leads to my favorite commentary by Shawn Driscoll, who was in charge of a significant portion of the playtest. When it was pointed out how fucked up the starship rules were looking, he responded with, "Nobody uses the starship rules. If you need them then you can create your own or use the ones in MgT 1e." This begs the question, "Why am I paying for a rulebook that doesn't have the rules I want or need?")

The artwork, particularly for the equipment, was a source of contention. Since MgT 2e was supposed to appeal to new gamers and get them into the hobby, having a 1940s Flash Gordon look would not attract a generation who grew up with HALO and Star Wars. Sprange had found a bunch of artists who would work for cheap and it showed.

The biggest bone of contention was how the 3PP licensing was handled. The 3PP, who were eagerly involved with the playtest and wanted to see a solid game, if not a better Official Traveller Universe come out of it, instead found the work of 8 years using the Traveller OGL threatened by the new TAS license. The TAS license states that any material made with it becomes the IP of the Traveller game line and setting - regardless of whether or not it is part of the OTU. It was pointed out to Sprange that this was the same kind of situation that WotC did with 4e D&D and the GSL which ended up birthing Pathfinder, he didn't care. Thus, to protect their IP, the 3PP created Cepheus Engine and moved all of their IP over to that system. Along with some of the best material for Traveller as a game.

Now, I haven't in good conscience purchased anything from MgT 2e since that clusterfuck of a playtest. I have noted that the writing has vastly improved since they got Martin J Dougherty involved with the line and the artwork has gotten steadily better. Mongoose still will not get my money.

I will advocate for MgT 1e, because it is a greater value for the gamer's money IMHO, but if you want complete freedom with the same feel as CT or MgT 1e then Cepheus Engine is your best bet.

Man, what a mess. Thank you for the story.

I played quite a bit of 1e and am now playing a bastardized 2e/1e and CE game. I really regret backing the mercenary kickstarter; I guess it was the idea of what it could be rather than what it's probably going to be. The awful art, with the clear SJW influences visible, is making me think that money would have been better spent on lotto tickets.

Why have a prosthetic leg after all? Is it some kind of awesome alien artifact? Perhaps. If it's just a plain prosthetic, why does she have one, with total limb replacement being a thing?

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 10, 2021, 05:01:59 PM


So much crap happened, that it is now difficult to know where to begin.....

[cut for brevity]

This explains so much of why Cepheus Engine sprang into being so quickly, and why there was no small amount of controversy about it on various forums and boards. At the time, I was just getting involved with Stellagama, and the whole thing just exploded in my inbox one day. Good to know! 

What I find most baffling is how people argue the text of 2e, as if it is gospel on high. That is clear just by reading it with a critical eye. With this playtest stuff being public knowledge, it's doubly worse.

Quote from: horsesoldier on March 12, 2021, 11:19:56 AM
What I find most baffling is how people argue the text of 2e, as if it is gospel on high. That is clear just by reading it with a critical eye. With this playtest stuff being public knowledge, it's doubly worse.

One of the most exasperating aspects is that MgT 1e was a fantastic Core Rulebook. There were some minor glitches, but they were being fixed. MgT 2e is most of the MgT 1e supplements crammed together with pieces rearranged via copy/paste and filled out with excess. Case in point, the "new" Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society books that were Kickstartered are the old JTAS original articles updated to the new rules with new artwork - not a lot is original.

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 10, 2021, 05:01:59 PM

So much crap happened, that it is now difficult to know where to begin.....

Several of us went and did a line by line proofread of the text and supplied Sprange with a list of spelling and punctuation errors months before the books saw print, none of them were corrected.

The playtesters were promised discounted print books and PDFs of the finished product, and were given printed books of the lowest possible quality with warped pages that had ink smears on them.

The animal encounters section was a clusterfuck, Sprange was told how to fix it, and the fixes were ignored. The "new" example creatures could not even be replicated by the rules.

Splitting the starship creation rules off into its own book was seen as a cash grab by the playtesters and caused a headache because rules that were needed in the core rule book to use the pregenerated ships there, could not be found except in the High Guard book which was released months later.

The power allocation rules for starships first appeared in the playtest for Mongoose Traveller 1e, but were dropped because they did not add enough to actual game play. They got resurrected and shoved into 2e to pad the book.

The 3D starship maps were fucked. Not very many people liked them and told Sprange that they were useless in actual play - especially with miniatures. We were ignored. To look at the worst example of this, go find the 3D deck plans for the Azhanti High Lightning class cruiser and compare them to the fulll color deckplans put out by GDW back in the day.

(Which leads to my favorite commentary by Shawn Driscoll, who was in charge of a significant portion of the playtest. When it was pointed out how fucked up the starship rules were looking, he responded with, "Nobody uses the starship rules. If you need them then you can create your own or use the ones in MgT 1e." This begs the question, "Why am I paying for a rulebook that doesn't have the rules I want or need?")

The artwork, particularly for the equipment, was a source of contention. Since MgT 2e was supposed to appeal to new gamers and get them into the hobby, having a 1940s Flash Gordon look would not attract a generation who grew up with HALO and Star Wars. Sprange had found a bunch of artists who would work for cheap and it showed.

The biggest bone of contention was how the 3PP licensing was handled. The 3PP, who were eagerly involved with the playtest and wanted to see a solid game, if not a better Official Traveller Universe come out of it, instead found the work of 8 years using the Traveller OGL threatened by the new TAS license. The TAS license states that any material made with it becomes the IP of the Traveller game line and setting - regardless of whether or not it is part of the OTU. It was pointed out to Sprange that this was the same kind of situation that WotC did with 4e D&D and the GSL which ended up birthing Pathfinder, he didn't care. Thus, to protect their IP, the 3PP created Cepheus Engine and moved all of their IP over to that system. Along with some of the best material for Traveller as a game.

Now, I haven't in good conscience purchased anything from MgT 2e since that clusterfuck of a playtest. I have noted that the writing has vastly improved since they got Martin J Dougherty involved with the line and the artwork has gotten steadily better. Mongoose still will not get my money.

I will advocate for MgT 1e, because it is a greater value for the gamer's money IMHO, but if you want complete freedom with the same feel as CT or MgT 1e then Cepheus Engine is your best bet.

Says the guy that is still butt-hurt because Mongoose wouldn't pay him to be a professional Traveller Referee at conventions.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll on March 13, 2021, 01:36:50 AM
Says the guy that is still butt-hurt because Mongoose wouldn't pay him to be a professional Traveller Referee at conventions.

Thank you! That lie made me laugh so loud that I spooked the cats!

Please, please produce evidence that I fucking ever wanted to be a paid professional Traveller Referee! Or even that paid professional Traveller Referees even exist!

Hmmmm, what's this?
....
At least I've still got Classic Traveller.

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 13, 2021, 12:21:37 AMOne of the most exasperating aspects is that MgT 1e was a fantastic Core Rulebook.

Probably my favorite version of the game. I also like Gurps Trav. I have mixed feelings about the 2E line. The cover logo looks sharp, and the cover art looks generally good. But I would have preferred B&W interiors with line art.

The thing I dislike about Cepheus is there are no random events. Stuff like "You are approached by a crime boss. Accept his offer and gain X. Report him and gain Y and he is an Enemy."  The character supplements (Agent, Scoundrel, Psion, etc.) offer even more.

Can anyone sum up the changes between 1E and 2E? I heard rules-wise there weren't that many.

Quote from: Aglondir on March 13, 2021, 07:59:47 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 13, 2021, 12:21:37 AMOne of the most exasperating aspects is that MgT 1e was a fantastic Core Rulebook.

Probably my favorite version of the game. I also like Gurps Trav. I have mixed feelings about the 2E line. The cover logo looks sharp, and the cover art looks generally good. But I would have preferred B&W interiors with line art.

The thing I dislike about Cepheus is there are no random events. Stuff like "You are approached by a crime boss. Accept his offer and gain X. Report him and gain Y and he is an Enemy."  The character supplements (Agent, Scoundrel, Psion, etc.) offer even more.

Can anyone sum up the changes between 1E and 2E? I heard rules-wise there weren't that many.

I will only plug Cepheus Light--we have just released a short Non-Random Character Generation Rules set, which includes (ironically) some random event tables for the basic careers in Cepheus Engine. You could use it for baseline Cepheus Engine with a little bit of noodling around with the skills.

Here's the link, it goes for less than $2. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/342060/NonRandom-Character-Generation-for-Cepheus-Light

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 13, 2021, 12:21:37 AM

Quote from: horsesoldier on March 12, 2021, 11:19:56 AM
What I find most baffling is how people argue the text of 2e, as if it is gospel on high. That is clear just by reading it with a critical eye. With this playtest stuff being public knowledge, it's doubly worse.

One of the most exasperating aspects is that MgT 1e was a fantastic Core Rulebook. There were some minor glitches, but they were being fixed. MgT 2e is most of the MgT 1e supplements crammed together with pieces rearranged via copy/paste and filled out with excess. Case in point, the "new" Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society books that were Kickstartered are the old JTAS original articles updated to the new rules with new artwork - not a lot is original.

It does indeed have fantastic core book. Even the printing was better in the 1e book. The only thing 2e adds is gloss, and I don't really consider that much of a plus.

Quote from: Aglondir on March 13, 2021, 07:59:47 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 13, 2021, 12:21:37 AMOne of the most exasperating aspects is that MgT 1e was a fantastic Core Rulebook.

Probably my favorite version of the game. I also like Gurps Trav. I have mixed feelings about the 2E line. The cover logo looks sharp, and the cover art looks generally good. But I would have preferred B&W interiors with line art.

The thing I dislike about Cepheus is there are no random events. Stuff like "You are approached by a crime boss. Accept his offer and gain X. Report him and gain Y and he is an Enemy."  The character supplements (Agent, Scoundrel, Psion, etc.) offer even more.

Can anyone sum up the changes between 1E and 2E? I heard rules-wise there weren't that many.

This isn't exhaustive, just what I've noticed.

Advantage/disadvantage: There are times when the referee/rules call for adding a d6 to the roll, and you take either the highest 2 or the lowest 2 of the rolls. In game this has an effect of +2/-2 to the roll and to me doesn't do anything that changing the difficulty wouldn't do.

Took stuff out of the CRB, like aliens, ship building, point buy chargen.

Weird, unexplained changes, such as increasing armor.

A dubious reworking of ship combat.

University/military academy is added as a pre-career option. Doesn't do anything that 1e didn't.

No index.

I can tell you psionics is literally a word for word copy/paste.

Connections are done differently.

I'm sure there's other minor stuff.

Quote from: horsesoldier on March 15, 2021, 12:22:17 PM

This isn't exhaustive, just what I've noticed.

Advantage/disadvantage: There are times when the referee/rules call for adding a d6 to the roll, and you take either the highest 2 or the lowest 2 of the rolls. In game this has an effect of +2/-2 to the roll and to me doesn't do anything that changing the difficulty wouldn't do.

Took stuff out of the CRB, like aliens, ship building, point buy chargen.

Weird, unexplained changes, such as increasing armor.

A dubious reworking of ship combat.

University/military academy is added as a pre-career option. Doesn't do anything that 1e didn't.

No index.

I can tell you psionics is literally a word for word copy/paste.

Connections are done differently.

I'm sure there's other minor stuff.

I am glad I wasn't the only one who was wondering about the University/Military Academy pre-career option...

Ship combat is a mess in 2e. It's not great in 1e, but it's manageable.

You're right about the Boon/Bane mechanic. It can work really really well--Barbarians of Lemuria and games that use its system (Honor+Intrigue among them) for example--but you have to reduce the number of modifiers otherwise, and keep difficulties more static. I know they went for the Advantage/Disadvantage D&D5e route, and that's fine, but they only went halfway. The other half is eliminating a lot of modifiers and making Boon/Bane the standard way of accounting for increased difficulty.

So quick question for the Traveller people...I have Mongoose 1st and 2nd, old school black box Traveller, the Traveller Book, Megatraveller, 4th, 5th, Cepheus Engine. Which of those would be the best to play, especially with someone unfamiliar with the system? I'll already state I hate 5th...

Quote from: Brad on March 15, 2021, 09:10:44 PM
So quick question for the Traveller people...I have Mongoose 1st and 2nd, old school black box Traveller, the Traveller Book, Megatraveller, 4th, 5th, Cepheus Engine. Which of those would be the best to play, especially with someone unfamiliar with the system? I'll already state I hate 5th...

For me, it is an even tie between The Traveller Book (CT) and Mongoose Traveller 1e. The Traveller Book (CT) has a step-by-step cookbook type example for everything in there. Not only does it give you rules, but it shows you how to use them. Mongoose Traveller 1e has a preferred streamlined approach for the rules which gives it a whole game better approach for Actual Play.

I hope that helps. A lot depends on what you are going to use the game for.