Les:
Thanks for your recent letter. I wasn't able to respond before this, as
my feed from GEnie to the TML was slacking off and actually SPENDING TIME
WITH HIS FAMILY FOR THANKSGIVING! The bum. I'm having him shot, of course.
|->
Regarding my emotional outbursts, well, I'm an emotional guy at the core.
It makes me a better scientist, a better gamer, and a MUCH better musician.
If I can't throw myself into a game with a reasonable amount of intensity,
then I won't bother with it at all-- there are better pastimes out there,
like Traveller, or composing, or (for that matter) kissing my wife. |->
My misgivings remain, and I am unsoothed by your reassurances. But even as
no one can make me support a game I hate, no one can make me castigate a
game that I like. So I want to see whether I like NeoTraveller....
Now, on to substantive matters. From the recent post on the task system,
which (on the face of it) seems workable, I've divined that the very
basics of character generation will be altered. Well, whatever. But there
are a few problems that should be addressed. First of all, as was mentioned
before here, an "escape clause" should be included that allows not only
unskilled characters to default to Intelligence-based rolls, but also anyone
whose training can't give them as high a plus as the default roll can. It's
silly to lower your chances of success by getting trained. Second, the
bell curve aspet of the task system in MT was one of its best points, because
it more closely resembles reality than a flat continuum. However, with a d20
roll (POLYHEDRA in TRAVELLER?! My HEART! |-> ), at least there's enougreh
resolution for reasonable skill shadings. In the interest of simplicity,
I would concede the flat scale, but not entirely happily. (My vote would bwe
for a 2d10 system, which is what my home-brewed rules use for skills.)
The statement that the future of Traveller is part of a larger timeline
that is not as ultimately "futile" as DC or T2K2 heartened me somewhat,
but the fact that y'all are unwilling to budge on the supervirus despite
a welter of less-than-enthusiastic, and well-reasoned, responses is still
a major source of worry for me. You might convince me otherwise when I see
what you're doing, but it really does sound ill-thought-out and highly
impractical. So many better ideas have been put forth here....
I am also still awaiting an answer on my offer to playtest the rules. The
surest way to get me on your side is to let me see what you're planning
to push while I still have a chance to improve it. Not necessarily wrench
it around to my point of view; IMPROVE IT. What are the odds that I'll
get that chance?
metlay
Loren:
A couple of years ago I approached you and Marc about the possibility of
a Traveller novel. Well, I'm still sitting on the manuscript, never having
heard whether or not a deal was struck between GDW and a publishing house.
Now that the Rebellion and the pre-Rebellion years are no longer going to
be supported, I doubt that my current work would be publishable, so I'll
probably make it available on GEnie or the TML in installments. But I *am*
still interested in writing Traveller fiction, so if novels are in the
works, I'd like a crack at one....
metlay