Hey folx,
To Mr. Wiseman & GDW welcome.
About updating Trav:
Well, the feel for the game comes from the era in which it was written.
Take a look at the old Tech level advancement charts. The original
appeared in '77 (25 Years ago), and to be frank, it shows. IMO, the
feel for the game comes from it's view of technology. ie. Computers
are less important than human (player) input. Aiming and firing a gun
is not much less difficult at TL 15 than it is at TL 4. The gun just
has more hitting power. Maybe these things are not such great ideas
in now that we've had more and more influence from computers than we
did in '77. Maybe these things gotta change.
The old TL chart (Book 3: p14-15 :-) Sez: Artificial Intelligence
is TL 17. BOO!!! So much of Science Fiction (especially right now)
has A.I. much more common than that. There's only ONE planet in the
Entire Trav/MegaTrav universe that has Artificial Intelligent Robots,
(other than the Cymbiot chips) and they're in a Red Zone.
Ok, now maybe the 'Virus' will change all that. We have a retroactive
convention (or as Metlay sez 'retcon') saying that the chips have been
used all around the Trav universe as transponders. Well, to me and
several others, it sounds a bit silly that that would be their Only use.
Seems ta me that they would get used EVERYWHERE if they were available.
And their self reproducing capabilities make them awfully cheap.
Frankly, I would not mind seeing a 'retcon' that artificial intelligent
robots are a lot more common in Trav than they have been seen to be
previously. After all, we have all the stuff from book 8 onward saying
that robots are ALL OVER the Imperium and its surroundings. We see that
At tech level 10, the maximum intelligence of a robot brain is average
human intelligence (7) So why is it such a strain that A.I. robots have
been around since the beginning, but just aren't very important?
Robots are quite important in Science Fiction. Take a look at what is
out there. Robots are popular. Star Wars --> Terminator etc. etc.
Trav is a bit out of step with more popular stuff by making the robots
so rare. Why not use the cymballine chips & descendants in LOTS of
things OTHER than just the transponders. After all there are a LOT of
good applications for them. When handed a chip like that, AI & all,
one of the LAST applications I would have in mind would be a
transponder.
I wouldn't mind if TNE used A.I. much more extensively. It would broaden
the base appeal of the game, and if done carefully, wouldn't change it
too much. Let's face it. We don't want EVERYTHING to be AI. I don't
want MY characters to be less intelligent than the smart sights of their
guns. I wanna have the Character do the thinking, not his gun. (Many
games/science fiction genres have a habit of letting the guns do all the
planning/thinking/talking, but I don't think Anyone out there wants Trav
to change into just a shootemup. :-P)
I don't like the idea of having a player hand over the facts to a
computer & have the computer come up with the solution. Trav is
not like that. Trav is a 'hands-on' game. But there is still a
good deal of room for AI.
What other things have become popular in Science Fiction that
should be incorporated to make Trav sell?
Cyborgs? Sure! Why not? One of the things I like about Trav is it is
pretty versatile. The incusion of cyborg rules won't change the flavor
of the game unless it becomes the selling point of the game. As it is
NOT the flavor of the game, it Won't change anything we don't want.
But cyborgs are popular & all the cyber punk stuff is selling, so put it
in!
Neural feeds? Cyberspace? I don't know enough about it to comment, but
I don't think it's inclusion will change trav much. It isn't the Selling
point of the game, so it won't change it. There is some rudimentary
stuff on neural connections in Trav, but it could use some fleshing out.
Nano-technology? Well, that's tricky. As Bertil pointed out, if you've
got Nano-tech, why bother walking around in Battle Dress with a fusion
gun when you can just send a cloud of nanotech thingies out to do all
that nasty fighting for you? But, if it is done carefully, and limited
enough, I think it could be included without changing the feel of the game.
Matter transportation? Urf. I don't like it. But if it were sufficiently
limited, it MIGHT be doable. If handled like it is in some of Niven's
stories, it could be done: designated booths as transmitter & reciever.
NOT like Star Trek. A trasporter like Star Trek's would be out of control.
If the players got a hold of one it would be utterly rediculous. And any
opponant with one would be unstoppable.
Matter manipulation/replication? Just don't. It would be worse than
a trasporter by a longshot.
Anti-matter? Why not? It's not that much more powerful than any other
weapon in Trav. Also, we're much closer to having anti-matter stuff now
than we are to having artificial grav. To those who say that the players
could destroy an entire planet with anti-matter, I gotta point out that
a crew in a scoutship could destroy an entire planet with a cargo hold of
pebbles. (Accelerate to 1/10 speed of light {18 days @ 2G's} and drop
the rocks on the planet. @ speeds like that, a 10 gram pebble has the
kinetic energy equivalent of a 1 kiloton atomic bomb.)
Ok, those are just some of the things Trav is light on that might
work for TNE. I've probably left out a bunch. What do you all think?
And remember, Trav is a TL 7 game after all. It needs an update: it
had Air/Rafts & other grav transportation listed as tech level 8.
(Not to mention fusion... laser carbines... interplanetary spacecraft...)
Scott 2G Kellogg
Speaking of A.I. & nano-tech, anybody heard anything outta
DGP lately? What happened? Did they make it or give up?