Re: Jo's Ranting and other things

[Arrived at traveller-request mailbox, forwarded on to
[email removed] by hand -- James]

To some extent I suppose my response here is redundant with Brent's, which
is that the background is something the GMs devise.  Even if you use the
background provided by a company the game material is still subject to
individual GMs interpretation and the needs of their game.  Frankly I have
always found the TNS to be a bit of a laugh since almost nothing published
in it should ever affect a game.  So, if you don't like TNE background
don't use it.  If you don't like a TNS story rewrite it.  Yes the GM will
have to be a little bit more creative about where things are going, but
that should be part of his job.

Frankly the people at GDW don't, won't and shouldn't care how you
use/modify their products.  To them the background is an example of how to
use their system, not the system.  Because of this "the example" will vary
widely to match their current views of the product line.  If they care
about anything it is the system and how it works.  Still they want you to
feel comfortable about using that system and if that means modifying rules
to suit your needs, so what?  Do you think that we would have anything but
Classic Traveller if they didn't tinker with the rules continually?  You
think pinning them down on Traveller is bad, try to pin them down on a
Command Decision point.  Anyhow this year was the first time I have ever
run a Traveller game that even claimed to be inside their background (and
I started playing the system before it was published) and that was only
because I was running a game at their booth at Gen-Con to support TNE.

Actually I like the TNE background better than either classic Traveller or
Mega-Traveller.  I don't particularly like how they got there, but this is
the first background that seems to feel like H. Beam Piper, Heinlein or
Starwars.  The universe is not wide open and movement requires great
will.  It is a people based background not "tech".  To me it is the
characters that count and games where all the problems are solved by
technology are not as exciting as those that require human innovation.
It is a background where characters can actually influence the course of
history.  It may be darker than the old Imperium, but it doesn't have to
be any bloodier (that is up to the GM).  I like rickety old space hulks
plodding around from planet to planet trying to make a living.  Captains
finding innovative ways to get that part to keep the engine going.  I like
being able to explore planets as a player (something lacking in the
previous versions) and being able to do anything I want with planets as a
GM.  Of course if I were to run a game I would probably let several
hundred years or even several thousand pass.  This would really allow me
to experiment with planetary societies (sigh, once an Anthropologist
always...).  My own classic Traveller campaign was not set in the Imperium
because I thought the Imperium was too "homo sapien".  I wanted a very
much more Starwars type universe (or should I say Star Trek like since the
show was probably a bigger influence than the movies which were just being
made, but I knew I wanted lots of aliens in the game).  I also wanted to
be able to create cultures on various planets for the characters to
explore, something you just couldn't do in the Imperium with its big
monolithic society.

To set the record straight, Mark Miller was not booted out (he was an owner
after all, not an employee), from everything I have heard his leaving was
his idea.  As far as I know he did not leave in anger either, in fact he
stopped by the GDW booth at Gen-Con this year and it was obvious that
everyone was still friends.  (He went with the company to Gen-Con the year
before as part of the company).  I actually get the impression that he
wanted something more than being a game designer for the rest of his
life.  Certainly a person with Mark's reputation could get another a job
inside the hobby if he wanted one.  Currently I've been told he is selling
insurance.  As far as spelling and mistakes go, everyone seems to be
forgetting that Megatraveller was done under Mark's direction.  Actually
the person who seemed to have the best control over errors and spelling
was actually Rich Banner (who ran the back end of game production
[i.e. art and text] at the time Classic Traveller was put out).  This is
not to say that Rich had a particular talent at text processing, but that
his gaming experience made him a better proof reader for game related
errors than the art-professional/non-gamers who replaced him.

					Tom Harris