Quote from: Grognard GM on August 13, 2023, 06:00:51 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 13, 2023, 01:56:29 PM"Traveller is stuck in 1970s technology and science", shows that the person saying that hasn't watched how the game has evolved with advances in science and technology (just compare the equipment available in Classic Traveller to Mongoose Traveller).

Why would it being a retro-tech future be a bad thing, and why would changing it to suit the modern mores be a plus? I love concepts where parts of technology advance while others remain backward (look at the Chinese empire and optics for example), and have a real fond spot for spaceships with big computer banks covered in blinking lights.

Hell, the retro-futurism of Cyberpunk 2020/Shadowrun 1st-3rd is beautiful, I have no time at all for the modern iterations that just look like our world but a bit more advanced.

If retrotech floats your boat, great. Just don't assume that your preferences match everybody else's or make sense in creating an immersive environment for medium-hard science fiction.

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 13, 2023, 07:47:18 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 13, 2023, 06:00:51 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 13, 2023, 01:56:29 PM"Traveller is stuck in 1970s technology and science", shows that the person saying that hasn't watched how the game has evolved with advances in science and technology (just compare the equipment available in Classic Traveller to Mongoose Traveller).

Why would it being a retro-tech future be a bad thing, and why would changing it to suit the modern mores be a plus? I love concepts where parts of technology advance while others remain backward (look at the Chinese empire and optics for example), and have a real fond spot for spaceships with big computer banks covered in blinking lights.

Hell, the retro-futurism of Cyberpunk 2020/Shadowrun 1st-3rd is beautiful, I have no time at all for the modern iterations that just look like our world but a bit more advanced.

If retrotech floats your boat, great. Just don't assume that your preferences match everybody else's or make sense in creating an immersive environment for medium-hard science fiction.

That's fine, but then the fandom will tend to split by editions. Much like the OSR vs Modern split in D&D.

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 13, 2023, 08:18:11 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 13, 2023, 07:47:18 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 13, 2023, 06:00:51 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 13, 2023, 01:56:29 PM"Traveller is stuck in 1970s technology and science", shows that the person saying that hasn't watched how the game has evolved with advances in science and technology (just compare the equipment available in Classic Traveller to Mongoose Traveller).

Why would it being a retro-tech future be a bad thing, and why would changing it to suit the modern mores be a plus? I love concepts where parts of technology advance while others remain backward (look at the Chinese empire and optics for example), and have a real fond spot for spaceships with big computer banks covered in blinking lights.

Hell, the retro-futurism of Cyberpunk 2020/Shadowrun 1st-3rd is beautiful, I have no time at all for the modern iterations that just look like our world but a bit more advanced.

If retrotech floats your boat, great. Just don't assume that your preferences match everybody else's or make sense in creating an immersive environment for medium-hard science fiction.

That's fine, but then the fandom will tend to split by editions. Much like the OSR vs Modern split in D&D.

The fandom ALWAYS splits by edition!

Now, are you trying to assign some kind of substance to that in order to support your subjective opinion?

The fact is, that there are hard core fan boys that will scream that this edition or that is better.  I have never played any edition RAW and always as either a GM or a player end up with a good chunk of alternate rules or house rules being thrown in.  Many times, the GM will blend editions as well. 

Also, since it so easy to do, much of the written stats for equipment either get reskinned or rewritten for what ever level of tech the GM wants.  T1 - T5, Mongoose Traveller 1 &2, and Cepheus Engine are so similar to each other that a lot of material written for one will work with another.  (there are exceptions)

I have never used the official setting either and I'm baffled by anyone that would judge Traveller by the tech or setting as that's the easiest parts to change.

Quote from: BadApple on August 14, 2023, 11:39:37 AM
Also, since it so easy to do, much of the written stats for equipment either get reskinned or rewritten for what ever level of tech the GM wants.  T1 - T5, Mongoose Traveller 1 &2, and Cepheus Engine are so similar to each other that a lot of material written for one will work with another.  (there are exceptions)

I have never used the official setting either and I'm baffled by anyone that would judge Traveller by the tech or setting as that's the easiest parts to change.

The Cepheus designer said they purposely built it so that one could use much of T1 adventures and supplements  with the game.  So true about setting.  I've always (except maybe my first handful of times) used my own setting for Trav.  Takes only a few minutes to create entire sectors and then tweak them for your own setting.

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 14, 2023, 07:24:08 AM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 13, 2023, 08:18:11 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 13, 2023, 07:47:18 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 13, 2023, 06:00:51 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 13, 2023, 01:56:29 PM"Traveller is stuck in 1970s technology and science", shows that the person saying that hasn't watched how the game has evolved with advances in science and technology (just compare the equipment available in Classic Traveller to Mongoose Traveller).

Why would it being a retro-tech future be a bad thing, and why would changing it to suit the modern mores be a plus? I love concepts where parts of technology advance while others remain backward (look at the Chinese empire and optics for example), and have a real fond spot for spaceships with big computer banks covered in blinking lights.

Hell, the retro-futurism of Cyberpunk 2020/Shadowrun 1st-3rd is beautiful, I have no time at all for the modern iterations that just look like our world but a bit more advanced.

If retrotech floats your boat, great. Just don't assume that your preferences match everybody else's or make sense in creating an immersive environment for medium-hard science fiction.

That's fine, but then the fandom will tend to split by editions. Much like the OSR vs Modern split in D&D.

The fandom ALWAYS splits by edition!

Now, are you trying to assign some kind of substance to that in order to support your subjective opinion?

Yes, the fanbase will always split a little by edition because rule mechanics shift. What I mean is, making substantial changes to the look and feel of the universe REALLY splits fandoms. It's the difference between "I prefer 2nd ed, but any ed is fine" (Most CoC fans) and "I don't play anything after 2nd, because it doesn't feel like the same game" (lots of D&D fans.)

Quote from: Shaldlay on August 02, 2023, 05:03:08 PM
I've always considered lethality a crucial part of D&D. I consider it so important that I find games that don't risk character death nearly unplayable. What good is "winning" a game if there is no way that I can "lose"? I would think it's very safe to assume that this sort of thought process is shared in this community and in much of the OSR, which makes this contradiction I've come across all that more confusing.

Many OSR/ OSR-adjacent games feature a "background" feature, either Lion and Dragon's Background Events Tables or Deathbringer's Random Misery Table. I actually really like this idea, as I like the characters to be more than just "hero man" and "magic girl," yet, it seems incompatible with the notion of having a deadlier game. If you have a deadlier game, but the characters have backgrounds that the players get attached to, then it can really cause a schism when that character dies and can result in apathy and resentment, something that I very much would want to avoid.

For example, if Joe the Fighter dies from a random stray arrow from a failed search for traps roll, no big deal; Tim the Fighter can replace him. But if Joe, the champion blacksmith of Nottingdale, older brother to Celia, the party Cleric, Son of Peter, and Qwen, Brother of 6, and father of young Andrew (who he is adventuring to gain money to help raise), dies because the thief fucked up a roll, that can cause Joe's player to have a bitter taste in his mouth, and likely not care nearly as much when Tim the brother of Joe shows up. I was being a bit hyperbolic with the background of Joe, but the idea is still there. By having more to them, the character and player become more attached, and death becomes much more bitter between the DM and players and can lead to players just not caring anymore.

Am I missing a key ingredient in how this needs to be balanced? Am I just stupid and worrying too much? How do y'all go about this? Any advice would be appreciated.

I want the fear of death to be present and the understanding that it can come for you at any time, but I also don't want it just to become a board game of rotating characters. I've thought of having a negative HP system, where you have an amount equal to your Con, and every round after the first, you lose 1d4 HP, but I don't know how well that would work.

I consider this a feature, not a bug. You care about the character and it makes death hurt. Shouldn't death be important and painful? If you don't really care it's no different than hitting the reset button on a video game.

Even in a game with no backgrounds, you will get attached to your long-lived characters by the sheer amount of experiences you have attached to them.

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 14, 2023, 03:27:26 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 14, 2023, 07:24:08 AM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 13, 2023, 08:18:11 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 13, 2023, 07:47:18 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 13, 2023, 06:00:51 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 13, 2023, 01:56:29 PM"Traveller is stuck in 1970s technology and science", shows that the person saying that hasn't watched how the game has evolved with advances in science and technology (just compare the equipment available in Classic Traveller to Mongoose Traveller).

Why would it being a retro-tech future be a bad thing, and why would changing it to suit the modern mores be a plus? I love concepts where parts of technology advance while others remain backward (look at the Chinese empire and optics for example), and have a real fond spot for spaceships with big computer banks covered in blinking lights.

Hell, the retro-futurism of Cyberpunk 2020/Shadowrun 1st-3rd is beautiful, I have no time at all for the modern iterations that just look like our world but a bit more advanced.

If retrotech floats your boat, great. Just don't assume that your preferences match everybody else's or make sense in creating an immersive environment for medium-hard science fiction.

That's fine, but then the fandom will tend to split by editions. Much like the OSR vs Modern split in D&D.

The fandom ALWAYS splits by edition!

Now, are you trying to assign some kind of substance to that in order to support your subjective opinion?

Yes, the fanbase will always split a little by edition because rule mechanics shift. What I mean is, making substantial changes to the look and feel of the universe REALLY splits fandoms. It's the difference between "I prefer 2nd ed, but any ed is fine" (Most CoC fans) and "I don't play anything after 2nd, because it doesn't feel like the same game" (lots of D&D fans.)

Which is why the current most popular versions of Traveller are Classic Traveller, Mongoose Traveller (1 & 2), and Cepheus Engine with T5 as the Grand Unified Traveller according to Marc Miller. You rarely hear about Megatraveller, The New Era, T4, d20 Traveller, GURPS Traveller, or Hero Traveller. The top spots are those mentioned above because they are the easiest to transfer things around from one to the other due to the fact that the rules are very similar to each other, which is what is most important.

Your preference for retrotech is not a rule, but an aesthetic style. The mark of how you play and run your own Traveller games. Retrotech isn't baked in to the setting or the rules. The look and feel of the Official Traveller Universe is pretty much the same as it has always been since its inception.

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 14, 2023, 08:48:25 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 14, 2023, 03:27:26 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 14, 2023, 07:24:08 AM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 13, 2023, 08:18:11 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 13, 2023, 07:47:18 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on August 13, 2023, 06:00:51 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 13, 2023, 01:56:29 PM"Traveller is stuck in 1970s technology and science", shows that the person saying that hasn't watched how the game has evolved with advances in science and technology (just compare the equipment available in Classic Traveller to Mongoose Traveller).

Why would it being a retro-tech future be a bad thing, and why would changing it to suit the modern mores be a plus? I love concepts where parts of technology advance while others remain backward (look at the Chinese empire and optics for example), and have a real fond spot for spaceships with big computer banks covered in blinking lights.

Hell, the retro-futurism of Cyberpunk 2020/Shadowrun 1st-3rd is beautiful, I have no time at all for the modern iterations that just look like our world but a bit more advanced.

If retrotech floats your boat, great. Just don't assume that your preferences match everybody else's or make sense in creating an immersive environment for medium-hard science fiction.

That's fine, but then the fandom will tend to split by editions. Much like the OSR vs Modern split in D&D.

The fandom ALWAYS splits by edition!

Now, are you trying to assign some kind of substance to that in order to support your subjective opinion?

Yes, the fanbase will always split a little by edition because rule mechanics shift. What I mean is, making substantial changes to the look and feel of the universe REALLY splits fandoms. It's the difference between "I prefer 2nd ed, but any ed is fine" (Most CoC fans) and "I don't play anything after 2nd, because it doesn't feel like the same game" (lots of D&D fans.)

Which is why the current most popular versions of Traveller are Classic Traveller, Mongoose Traveller (1 & 2), and Cepheus Engine with T5 as the Grand Unified Traveller according to Marc Miller. You rarely hear about Megatraveller, The New Era, T4, d20 Traveller, GURPS Traveller, or Hero Traveller. The top spots are those mentioned above because they are the easiest to transfer things around from one to the other due to the fact that the rules are very similar to each other, which is what is most important.

Your preference for retrotech is not a rule, but an aesthetic style. The mark of how you play and run your own Traveller games. Retrotech isn't baked in to the setting or the rules. The look and feel of the Official Traveller Universe is pretty much the same as it has always been since its inception.

To be clear, my original comment wasn't arguing that Traveller SHOULD be stuck in its original form (like a fly in amber) but rather that I see no problem personally with a hard-science setting where technology didn't follow the same path as our own world. So for instance the physics can be realistic, but maybe the ship computers (while powerful) fill a room.

It was me musing on a tendency with RPG's setting in the future (or what was the future) feeling the need to always modernize. Shadowrun going from "data can't be protected if hooked to networks, so secure servers have to be physically hacked" to "everything is wireless in current day, so it'll look weird not to have everything be wireless."