The best thing about Traveller

> From: Hans Rancke-Madsen [email removed]
> Chuck McKnight writes:
> >               ... if the Task system in Traveller was so horrid, how
> > could it have last 15 years?
>
> The background. The detailed painstakingly-worked-on-for-15-years
> background that GDW now feels is too intimidating for new players.
> I dunno. Maybe it is.

  If it was, then TSR wouldn't sell any Forgotten Realms gameworlds and
accessories. It is well known that I think that the background is the best
part of Traveller, and I'll reinforce that statement and say that Traveller has
the *best* background measured in consistency and amount of background
available for *any* SFRPG that I know of.

  The trouble has been that there has never been any proper compilation of it.
No one source were you could go to find out if the stats for Norris had been
defined, or if the UPP for Deneb had been produced. So confusion and internal
consistency went down over time (IMHO, it started with MegaTraveller).

  For a good example of this, look up the UPP for Deneb in the Imperial
Encyclopedia. I think it is under 'Travellers Digest' or 'Digest'. Compare
with the UPP given in the sector data from GEnie or in Digest the realworld
paper...

> The Traveller universe
> were just approaching a reasonable level of information (at least
> in a few select sectors). And now they're going to 1) not fill out
> what's missing, and 2) invalidate half of what's already there...

  The tactics adopted by the Traveller General Command seems to be "Make
internal inconsistency the normal state" which looks to me as making morals
out of necessity (That was a poorly translated Swedish proverb:)

- -bertil-
- --
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
 strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
 exercise for your kill-file."

Bertil writes:
>
>               It is well known that I think that the background is the best
>part of Traveller, and I'll reinforce that statement and say that Traveller
>has the *best* background measured in consistency and amount of background
>available for *any* SFRPG that I know of.

>  The trouble has been that there has never been any proper compilation of
>it. No one source were you could go to find out if the stats for Norris had
>been defined, or if the UPP for Deneb had been produced. So confusion and

You mean confusion went UP, don't you?

>internal consistency went down over time (IMHO, it started with
>MegaTraveller).

Not quite. There were a number of early Traveller ideas that were later
changed retroactively. One example is the scale of Imperial warships
that I've mentioned before. Another is the concept of The Spinward Marches
being on the very edge of explored space (remember the mysterious unknown
Outrim Void mentioned in _Leviathan_? That turned out to have a sector-full
of aslans, some of them long-time trading partners, on the other side.)

>  For a good example of this, look up the UPP for Deneb in the Imperial
>Encyclopedia. I think it is under 'Travellers Digest' or 'Digest'. Compare
>with the UPP given in the sector data from GEnie or in Digest the realworld
>paper...

Another example is the two sub-sectors of Trojan Reach published in
_Leviathan_. Whoever later generated the complete Trojan Reach apparently
couldn't be bothered to incorporate them properly but just generated
completely new stats for them. :-P

Btw. wouldn't that be an interesting project: A complete, collected-in-one-
place set of all published library data? Corrected for inconsistencies, of
course (except for such inconsistencies as might actually be in a library
data pack). I've produced a number of library data for my players, some
corrections of existing (inconsistent) data, others completely new. We
might produce something really useful there. Hmmm... perhaps two sets:
One ca. 1110 for Old Traveller refs and one ca. 1120.

>Me:
>>The Traveller universe
>>were just approaching a reasonable level of information (at least
>>in a few select sectors). And now they're going to 1) not fill out
>>what's missing, and 2) invalidate half of what's already there...
>
>  The tactics adopted by the Traveller General Command seems to be "Make
>internal inconsistency the normal state" which looks to me as making morals
>out of necessity (That was a poorly translated Swedish proverb:)

In this case I think that "dyd" should be translated as virtue, not morals.

> From: Hans Rancke-Madsen [email removed]
> Subject: (3383) Re: The best thing about Traveller
>
> >internal consistency went down over time (IMHO, it started with
> >MegaTraveller).
>
> Not quite. There were a number of early Traveller ideas that were later
> changed retroactively. One example is the scale of Imperial warships
> that I've mentioned before.

  I am under the impression that there were a period of a few years, in
gameterms(*) just before and after the 5th FW, when the universe were stable
and established. I can write off any inconsitencies before that as 'childhood
problems' for the game. But to step off this stable platform and jump into
self-inconsistency is not a good move.

> >  The tactics adopted by the Traveller General Command seems to be "Make
> >internal inconsistency the normal state" which looks to me as making morals
> >out of necessity (That was a poorly translated Swedish proverb:)
>
> In this case I think that "dyd" should be translated as virtue, not morals.

  Thanks. 'Virtue' is the right word.

- -bertil-
- --
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
 strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
 exercise for your kill-file."

Bertil writes:

>[I write:]
>>[He writes:]
>>>internal consistency went down over time (IMHO, it started with
>>>MegaTraveller).
>>
>>Not quite. There were a number of early Traveller ideas that were later
>>changed retroactively. One example is the scale of Imperial warships
>>that I've mentioned before.
>
>  I am under the impression that there were a period of a few years, in
>gameterms(*) just before and after the 5th FW, when the universe were stable
>and established. I can write off any inconsistencies before that as
>'childhood problems' for the game.

I still say, not quite. The fleet tonnage rose to reflect the
billions and billions of people in the universe, but GDW
failed to realize that this would apply to civilian shipping
too. The starports continued to accomodate mere scores of
ships, and the major shipping line in Aramis Subsector still
piddled around with a paltry 100.000 tons worth of ships. You
had mighty 100.000 tons warships protecting mighthy 5000 tons
freighters from deadly 400 tons corsairs. Tourists travelled
between planets with population level A in scores instead of
millions and the encounter tables let you meet several other
ships each week regardless of the of the population size of the
system you were in. No, I was forgetting: In MegaTraveller you'd
add 1 to the encounter table if the system had population A...

Of course, the problem with making civilian shipping realistic
is that player characters drown in the crowd. They'd have the
same chance of getting a cargo for their 200 T Free Trader that
you and I have of getting a cargo for the family car. Pirates
(in their 20.000 T Corsairs) would laugh themselves silly at
the thought of wasting time on capturing them.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     [email removed]
- ------------
"I used to argue the matter at first, but I'm wiser now. Facts
are stubborn things, but not half so stubborn as fallacies."
                - Stella Maynard in "Anne of the Island"