Hi!
A few comments on Jerry's recent post to th TML:
Jerry ([email removed]) sez:
> First off all, to the guy who was upset that MegaTraveller doesn't
> transfer well into TNE terms.
The polite thing to do is to copy what the other fellow said. This
allows: 1) other people to see what they said and 2) prevents you from
misquoting them.
I wasn't upset. Anthony Neal said:
> Hmmm. Never considered the TNE thingy. I've been stuck in Mega for such
>a long time that TNE never crossed my mind. I guess anything I come up with
>will be cross-compatible. Either way, I'll post them when/if they ever work
>out.
and I replied:
>Ummmm.... from what I've seen of TNE and MT designs, I'd say they
>were pretty much incompatible. I didn't mean to suggest that you
>_shouldn't_ design MT rules. Sorry. I have publication on the brain.
You suggested that:
> Pick up a copy of Survival Margin. It's purpose is to provide a
> bridge between the two games. Now, this is only in respect to
> characters. It tells you how to convert MT characters into TNE
> characters
You answered yourself there :-) But I do have a copy of Survival Margin.
Then you said:
> As for vehicles, I'm afraid that you'll have to convert them all by
> hand by recreating them using the FF&S rules.
Right so far...
>Now, you said that ships transferred okay between Classic and MT, but
>that these designs are too radically different to be easily converted
>to TNE rules. That's a bunch of BS! The ship design rules between CT
>and MT were radically different.
Hmmm... I know I THINK this, but I couldn't find where I posted this
on this list, so I'm not sure if I'm being misquoted or not ;-)
Right, the RULES were different, but the results were largely the same:
everything still fit on the hull, so Kinunir and Broadsword conversions
left the ships with the same characteristics. Under TNE, things like
triple turrets and particle accelerator barbettes are gone, so if your
ship had them in CT and MT, how do you explain to your players that
they don't exist in TNE?
Other missing things that carried over from CT to MT but not to TNE are:
Effectively unlimited ship movement
Crew Sizes (they increased slightly with MT, but doubled with TNE)
How Nuclear Dampeners work
Anti-Grav devices providing thrust
etc.etc. Duplicating CT ship designs was easy in MT: nothing "disappeared".
This isn't the case with TNE.
Anyway, I'm recapping this stuff because you're new to the list. Most of the
other people on this list are bored to tears/sleep/death by this topic.
You go on to say:
>Ships in MT (and their creation rules) weren't compatible with High
>Guard and Trillion Credit Squadron. All of the CT ships had to be
>completely reworked to fit into MT.
Not really, see above. Redesigned, yes. Re-explained, no.
> Thats just the way it works. With each of these revisions, they've
> found a few more holes to plug, and a few more bugs to spray.
Nah. They majorly changed the game.
> But, in MT's defense I have grown accustommed to reactionless
> drives and multiple weapon turrets. It's a good thing that they put
> at least one of these back in FF&S (I can live with single weapon
> turrets).
But can your players?
You conclude:
>As for the rules of play, well, they're different enough that you need
>to learn them, but not different enough that they don't "feel" similar
>to the old rules.
Except that combat isn't as dangerous, you run out of fuel in
space combat, in system transit times are alot slowers, blah blah blah.
I _LIKE_ TNE, but I'm trying to convert an existing campaign. Had they
retained alot of the building blocks of CT and MT, they would have alienated
fewer long time players and made conversion MUCH easier.
> --Jerry
So in the future, if you're going to flame at someone, PLEASE use basic
courtesy and quote them, OK? We'll all be better internetters for it.
Of course, I'm only assuming you were flaming at me ;-)
Matt Goodman
[email removed]
- ------------------------------------------------------------
"Blondes and Jazz don't mix" -Cmdr. William Riker "101101101"