Susan (or is it Allan?) M. Shock said:
> I'm a little ticked off at the TNE rules, but I have no beef with
> the setting.
> What I DO get annoyed with is people who seem to forget that
> this is FICTION.
So what if Virus is scientifically impossible?
> JUMP DRIVES are impossible! The
damn thruster plates are impossible!
Sure it's fiction. But remember that little trait of fiction
called "SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF"? What would your reaction be
to a scenario where the players' ship has a drive failure during
gas giant refuelling, and they crash-land on a solid surface,
with a breathable atmosphere, and meet inhabitants that seem strangely
like the denizens of Flash Gordon's planet Mongo?
Either you're goining to say to yourself "ok, this is THAT kind of
campaign" (which doesn't pretend to any degree of realism), or you're
going to say "Bulls**t!". For some people, the Virus hits their
"B.S.!" buttons and wrecks their suspension of disbelief. They play
Traveller for a campaign that to them seems at least mostly
realistic, and to them, the Virus is as out of place as
Voltan's Hawkmen.
> All of the best science-fiction I've ever
read was about PEOPLE,
> not things;
Actually, they weren't about PEOPLE either. Personnel files are
about PEOPLE.
All the best fiction (science and otherwise) is about people AND
the CHOICES they make, the ACTIONS they take, and how they deal
with the CONSEQUENCES of those actions...
>things work just because they work.
...and often, those choices and actions are determined by what
their equipement can do, which can in turn depend on HOW it works.
Can you use the HEPlaR thrusters on a grav-bike as a makeshift
plasma gun? Enquiring players are going to want to know, and
GMs sometimes have to think things through before they decide
which way to go. {By the way, No, they can't use it that way}
Another thing is the effective endurance of maneuver drives.
Either it's practically unlimited (thruster plates, house-rules
modified HEPlaRs) or not (GDW-standard HEPlaRs). Whichever
one you pick, it's going to have an effect on combat, refuelling,
system defense, a host of issues where it can become important.
And if you DON'T pick one and stick with it, the players are going
to start asking how it is that they can zip all over a system to
their hearts' content, but whenever another ship shows up
they suddenly have a fuel limit.
> Also, a lot of people have been complaining that TNE is just
> T:2000 in space
and I submit that this has to do with emphasis
> placed by the players and the GM
in the campaign. In my campaign,
> the Star Vikings are an EXPLORATORY force.
They view themselves
> as descendants of the IISS. They are combat-trained, yes,
and
> they aren't afraid to use that training, especially when pursuing
> their
secondary goal of recovering lost technology, but
> reexploration and rediscovery
is the primary emphasis.
Fair enough, but please admit your version is a tad different
from how the RCES were presented in SURVIVAL MARGIN and the
TNE rulebook. Admittedly this is a caricature, but the Star Vikings
have come across more like:
"Once upon a time, there was the Dawn League, who sent out
twelve ships to recontact the worlds cut off since the Collapse.
"The brave captain smiled a great big grin. 'Hi there' he said,
'I'm Captain Bernard Kirk of the Dawn League Starship Enterprise.
Can you and I be friends?' **BLAM!!!** was the response.
"When word got back to the DL, they cracked their knucles,
tightened their headbands, stuck BIIIIIG knives in their sheathes,
locked and loaded their ACRs, picked their nifty call signs, and
said 'OK, if that's the way you want it....' and now they're on
a mission from God recover old Imperial technology, because they
can use it better than the people who own it."
And that last part isn't a caricature at all. Reread all the
first-person "atmosphere" passages and the "historical commentary."
Historian 1: "They were killers, MURDERERS, Ravagers!"
Historian 2: "True, but so what? They won, didn't they?"
If the RCES saw themselves as the heirs to the legacy of the
Imperial (spit on ground) scout service, would they view the
Wilds as "diseased", to be cured with "star-hot plasma, RAM
grenades, and coherent light"?
What's the title of the first TNE published adventure (slated for
release next month)? "Smash and Grab" Real idealistic, real heroic.
What was the name of the RC sourcebook BEFORE they changed it to
"Path of Tears"? According to the promotional flyers from last year,
it was originally going to be called "REAVERS". You remember
who the Reavers were, don't you? Organized raiders plundering
the leftovers of an interstellar collapse (the Long Night), vultures
feeding off the carcass of a dead civilization.
So don't point to PoT and say "see, I was right and you were wrong".
I'd be willing to put money down that the year's worth of grumbling-
to-outright-hostility woke GDW up to the fact that the RCES had
a wee bit of an image problem, and that had some effect on how
things were presented in PoT. They sure as hell changed to
title to something less bloodthirsty.
> I think the griping about the changes in the Traveller
> universe tech is
about 50% legit and 50% simple complaining by
> people who can't tolerate change.
I think the ratio is more like 80-90% legit and 20-10% carping.
A lot of these changes have been done through some pretty
ham-handed rewriting of some tried-and-true Traveller concepts,
like the absolutely, positively, 100% unbeatable and unforgable
Deyo circut transponders, which even powers antagonistic to the
Imperium bought and installed on their ships, without a clue
as to how they worked.
For people who LIKED the Imperial setting, the number and sheer
scale of the changes gave the feeling of a bull in a china shop.
The was a LOT for people to complain about.
However, some of us out here are trying to find reasonable
ways to mesh the old and new concepts together in a palatable
fashion. With the TNE, FF&S, and BL rules as they stand I
don't think there are any fundamentally insurmountable hurdles to
that goal, but there are many, many, MANY niggling little points
that have to be looked at an clarified to figure out the best
way to that in a way that WORKS in ANY era, not just the New one.
And that, my friend, is why a lot of us are wondering about things
like if B class starports can make microjump drives, system defense
arangements with limited-thrust ships, and how the bloody HEPlaRs
work.
> I am annoyed with some of the rules glitches (and some things that
> aren't
glitches, such as firearms skills being based off STR and the
> autofire rules)
but I don't give a rip about changes to maneuver
> drives. Reactionless thusters,
HEPlar fusion drives...hell, I
> wouldn't care if they had to get out and PUSH if
it made a good
> story.
That may be fine for you, but that's not true for everyone.
I know the people I game with, and even if I don't care how
the maneuver drives work, eventually the players are going
to try something that will MAKE me care about it.
If you have a problem with that, tough.
> All I know is that the New Era background lets me tell the
> kind of stories I
like to tell. That's why I like the background.
And for a lot of people, it cuts off the kind of stories THEY
like to tell. That's why they DON'T like it. Again, if you
think that's just obstinate griping, well, they don't like
your attitude either. To each their own.
John H Bogan