Everyone has been throwing in their two (or more) cents' worth in about
the latest Traveller revision, and I figure that its about time for Marty the
TML Spectator to transform himself into Marty the TML Contributor. So here
goes....
I'm not going to go into which parts of the rule should be kept and
which parts should be scrapped. Enough has been said about this by countless
others. Oh well, what the hell; I'll keep it short. Keep MT task system and
character generation rules. Scrap ship design and ship combat rules. As far
as the rest of the system, I'm not too concerned.
What really needs work in my opinion is *format*. I'm not talking
about the sloppy way the MT books were put together; that's more of a tech-
nical boo-boo, rather than a philosophical problem. (Nevertheless, get it
*right* this time!) What I want to see most is a division of all new
Traveller materials into one of two topics: rules-related information (ie
character generation, tasks, combat, world design, and so on), and official
campaign-related materials (for example, Imperial Encyclopedia info, maps
and UWP's for the Imperium, Aslan/Vargr/Vilani/Solomani sourcebooks, and
info on the Rebellion). KEEP THESE MATERIALS SEPARATE. I hate to shout it,
but if neccessary, I'll yodel it from the top of Stone Mountain (the closest
mountain I know of). I run my own alternate campaign universe and have almost
no need for the official universe. I might sprinkle in bits of it that
pop up in magazines like The Megatraveller Journal, but I don't want to shell
out bucks for sourcebooks which are half-full of useless information. Two
examples are The Imperial Encyclopedia and The Referee's Companion. Both of
them have some useful info, but they have just as much junk (at least, for me
its junk). Why not mix 'n match the two books to make the IE and the RC just
what their names imply?
An avid fan of the official universe might not mind, and perhaps that
puts me in the minority. But it really chaps my buttocks (if you'll permit
me a colorful colloqial expression) to have to buy stuff I don't want just
because its mated up with something useful. I'm a bit upset with GDW in this
respect--it seems like they're trying to get that extra buck out of those of
us who operate outside the official universe. Maybe that judgement is too
harsh, maybe nobody at GDW ever though to look at it from an maverick's point
of view. But they should. It certainly wouldn't hurt the aficionados of the
official universe if the two topics were kept separate, and it would surely
increase my likelyhood of investing more cash in Traveller products. The
big question here is: am I a minority of one? I hope not!
JARRIO,MARTIN MICHAEL | Everyone's out to get me, and frankly,
Demented Physicist | its starting to make me paraniod.
Georgia Institute of Technology |
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