Re: The best thing about Traveller

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"