Answer to Dave Johnson: TNE Background Opinion

David Johnson writes:
>Is there anyone else who thinks
>discussions about weapon penetration, craft design, and planetary
>science is a little moot in a two-dimensional universe?

GDW changed a LOT of minutiae in the MT-TNE switch.  Since each of these
changes impinge on some aspect of someone's campaign, they come up for a
lot of discussion.  Also, you need a much wider sample.  Since all we had
to discuss most of last year was the background, it was talked to death
then.  All the discussion (nor any of the discussion here while TNE came
out) had much effect on GDW.  BL and FF&S came out this year, bringing
lots of minutiae to discuss.  Including how to get BL, FF&S, and TNE to
jibe.  Or how to get TNE to feel like CT or MT.

It's like having to cross a field freshly used by cattle - there's no
clean way across.


He further asks:
>is there to recommend TNE (vs. MT or CT) from a `background' point of
>view?  Forget the new rules and such, is the new campaign an improvement
>over the ante-Rebellion, Rebellion and Hard Times eras?

No. (IMHO.)
It offers too much that makes no sense, and offers much less than say CT
offered.  Or MT, for that matter (though I thought the Rebellion was pretty
stupid as a marketting ploy; GDW apparently felt different).

1. Virus makes no sense.
   - From a story telling viewpoint, it was not necessary (Hard Times was
     enough to kill of any siable chunks of the Imperium).
   - The ship identifiers make no sense.  Too much of the devastated area
     is filled with ships that would not have needed or wanted them -
     including a good number of vessels within the Imperium.  As
     described, they are too easy to fool (TL7 comps can do a good job at
     fooling humans as to what they are; TL14s should have no problem
     folling the chips which are not as smart.  So, bye-bye vector.
   - "Duh, the siftware reburns the chips" and "duh, the chips move
     themselves from computer to computer" are the lamest excuses I have
     ever heard; beyond my suspended belief.  Want to kill the Virus? Use
     a good magnet.
   - Actually, i can go on for several pages describing what's wrong with
     the Virus (all of which i do not like), but it has been done before
     and been done better, so I'll spare you all that.

2. Given the Virus, the Regency's existence makes no sense.
    - There were not enough military ships to fully cover a perimeter
      six parsecs deep thick enough to stop EVERY ship that came in.
      unless they pulled back to something one quarter the size of the
      Domain of Deneb.  In such a case, of course, the Virus would have
      swept around the shrunken Domain and killed off the neighbors.
    - If they did not do so, then Regency history should include the
      planets they had to sterilize in order to save the Regency.
      (Norris's press agent annouces a permanent end to the Efate
      Rebellion... :-)
    - The Virus would have swept north around teh Vargr Extents and into
      Zho space and then hit the Regency from the other side.
    - The Zho have no reason not to sweep over the Regency and show the
      poor humans there a "Better Way of Life."  That certainly fits the
      character of the Zho GDW so carefully crafted and they certainly
      have the resources now (not to mention a whole bunch of the Deneb
      military is out guarding against Vampires.)
    - Someone here had suggested that the quarantine line is not as tight
      as it appears, allowing smugglers in and out at will; if it is not,
      "airtight" the Virus would have leaked in, so by-bye Regency.  If it
      is airtight, they waste a LOT of economic resources by destroying
      incoming ships rather than cleaning them.

3. RCES campaigns seem designed to turn the PCs into cynical fascisti.  Or
   mutineers.  "OK, lads, we're going to go and remove the obstacles near
   the last working fusion plant on this planet so it can be used by our
   Corporate sponsors on Aubaine.  Intel reports that none of the obstacles
   has anything worse than an LMG..."  Seriously folks, raiding ailing
   planets to take away assets to your own ailing planet doesn't have much
   in common with some of the CT adventures I enjoyed so much.  From the
   descriptions of the planets that make up RCES, these folks ain't about to
   save any minor (much less major) chunk of universe anytime soon - nor
   support the military machine big enough to dominate it!

   RCES seem to me to make much better bad guys than good guys. While it
   makes an interesting change to play bad guys once in a while, it is not
   a good campaign basis (IMHO).

4. The large empty spaces.... Consider the billions of programmers in known
   (Impie + Solomani + K'Kree + Aslan + Vargr + Zho + Hiver + many, many
   minors) - No one found a cure for the Virus?  Ridiculous.
   What of all those TL7 worlds with hardcopy libraries of imperial tech?
   Too easy to have not fallen.  Blank space should not be there.

   However, that said, the best hope I can see for a capaign that would
   interest me is a pocket campaign, or to wander on one of those few
   surviving interstellar traders.

5. Given the Virus + Hard times crash as described, 70 years is about 100
   to 200 years too soon to position TNE. (That's something else I can
   lecture on for several pages but I'll spare you; its been done better
   elsewhere).

6. If this was a new game set in an unrelated universe (as Traveller:2300
   was), I'd probably like it much more.  However, for something related to
   Traveller, I find the disconnects both in the background and in teh rules
   too severe.  I know you wanted to limit the discussion to rules only, but
   some of teh rule changes have severe effects on the feel of the game.
   Ships handle MUCH differently - in all too many cases, a same ship has
   gone through some radical shape changes.

Now, while my original Traveller campign took place in a universe of my own
devising and while I could easily enough change the rules to TNE and re-use
that universe, your question was "how does this background compare"

Beyond my general bitching (items I can't swallow, above), I find TNE FAR
more limited.  In CT (or even MT, away from teh rebellion), you could select a
variety of settings for the SAME campaign.  Go to the Imperial edges for a
while, trade, get involved in a brushfire war, come back within the imperium
for some more civilized adventures, brush shoulders with some high mucketies
for some intrigue adventures - rather wide choice.  Now you are forced to
choose ONE or TWO basic styles and shift between them.  The places where the
styles can mix are too wide apart:

You can be raiders/commando for RCES (I presume there will be wrangling
within RCES govt)
	OR
You can be traders within the Regency (or adventures on civilized planets,
but if you want that, why not just stay with CT?)
	OR
Traders outside the regency (If you leave you can't really go back)
        OR
Start as barbarians and re-learn what technology is
        OR
Start within an expanding pcoket universe - BUT that will last only until
GDW chooses to trod over your work (pick an area out by the edge; you'll
last longer).

I see a lot of OR, but very little AND.

I will state for the record that I generally have not bothered bitching in
TML.  I chose to vote with my pocketbook.  I did not buy TNE nor do I plan
to.  Which is really a shame as I own an awful lot of GDW products.  Nor
did I buy MT (I did not like the rebellion; I thought it was a dumb idea.
By now, GDW does too, apparently.)

Well, i guess that's enough of a rant.  But you asked, Dave!

					Ted7