I don't regularly get Challange but my partner got it the
other day as it was the 20th anniversary issue. Skimming through it
it looked more or less the same as always but reading it there was
definately a different tone.
The first thing I hit was _Ask Commodore Bwana_. "As a fictitious [sic]
amalgamation of numerous letters and phone calls, I would like to know..."
My eyebrow raised, and I thought about sticking my fingers down my throat.
"This is a bit patronising". It goes on with "Pseudo-reality is heck, isn't it.
I should know." and procedes to outline the release dates of products for
TNE that fall below critical on my interest to cost ratio. We all know we can
add six months to the release date for most of them anyway.
Maliszewski presents "Six Patrons" next in classical format. Reasonably
OK stuff, but as most of this could be plausibly set in modern Yugoslavia
it doesn't really fit my particular campaign.
Ditto for Clayton Bush's "Toraago" adventure which makes too many
assumptions. Sort of "Your plane crashes outside of Sverdelosk/Yekatrinaburg..."
The "Traveller News Service" really did make me puke. It was a full
page of complete gibberish. Sort of like typing an executable file. This
infuriated me. "How dare they!" So they killed the Imperium. Devoting a
*full page* in Challenge (and how much does a full page of advertisment in
that magazine cost?) to lampooning it was certainly onanastically dancing
on the grave.
Lastly we have "Signal GK and the Virus" by Dave "Bwana" Nilsen
himself. For those not in the know there was a Miller-Kieth module
"Signal GK" in which the players deal with intelligent microchips that,
somewhat implausably, evolved on this planet. If all goes as planned
it all remains secret. "So", say the players, "the virus couldn't have
happened in my universe because no-one knew about these chips."
Well "Darlin' Dave" (as he labels himself in the next piece of
pure wank about a postal quiz) quashes all this with some sort of
convoluted (implausable) story involving different branches of Imperial
espionage working at cross purposes which was the "real" cause fo the
promulgation of the virus. Sounds rather like the FBI, CIA, DEA, NSC, ...
Give me a bucket!
The conclusion I have gained from this whole sad episode is that
Dave Nilsen hates Mark Miller. When everyone at GDW lost interest in
Traveller, except faithful Mark, who got booted out, it looked like it
was landed in the lap of "Darlin' Dave Bwana" and told "We know you never
liked Mark. Take his creation and rub his face in it." So he got out
his little model paints, all in trendiest black and labled Nihilistic,
Fatalistic, World-weary, and so forth, and set to work with grim delight.
I came across this blurb in the back of an old Paranoia Press
supplement for Traveller:
For the science-fiction fan who finishes a
novel only to wonder what happens next...
For the fan who wishes they could be there,
if only for a few minutes...
When just reading isn't enough...
... there is Traveller
*That* is my Traveller. I could not better put it. Endless posibilities
in a limitless world. The bright joy and wonder. Shining spaceships,
dubious traders, mysterious aliens.
But then, that was then.
"Star Wars" was still new. "Close Encounters" just out. "E.T." a
coming attraction. We tried to not remember Vietnam and ignore the
Cold War. The Millenium Falcon bravely fought as the Empire Stuck Back.
What do we have now? Russia breaks into ever smaller and smaller
pieces, Yugoslavia crawls and eats itself like a maggot ridden course,
The New World Order/Era allows high-tech nations to kill five figures of people
while suffering only double digit casualties, Somalia remains at law level
zero dispite the Imperial Garrison.
Why has the game I so much respected come to look like the world of
the politicans I respect so little? Is The Great American Guilt Complex over
the State of the World more than just a myth? Does this represent how it is
being internalised even as far as the games industry?
I *don't* play Traveller for escapism. My world has its little
Lebanons, its Tianamen Squares. It also has its Eiffel Towers, its
Amsterdams, its Londons and its Stonehenges. It is easier to see in
Europe the whole variety of the tapestry of soceities rather than the
CNN-fed hackers in GDW who have forgotten how to paint in all but one
colour.
The blurb is right. You used to be able to user Traveller to explore
beyond the endings of books, to live out films past the happy ending and
see what problems being married to a princess entail. What can be done with
the New World Era?
Most Traveller players now were still on their first set of teeth when
Star Wars came out. Where do they look to now for their role models? Can you
now play The Sandman? The Terminator?