Subject: TRAVELLER digest 256
To: Kagehira
From: traveller@mpgn.com
Sender: traveller@mpgn.com
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To: traveller@mpgn.com (Multiple recipients of list)

			    TRAVELLER Digest 256

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Wanted: Starship Designs	by Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
  2) Re: Hiver & Ithklur	by bonn0015@flipper.itlabs.umn.edu (STEVEN M BONNEVILLE)
  3) Re:  TRAVELLER digest 250	by Derek Wildstar <wildstar@qrc.com>

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Date: 14 Apr 1995 20:13:58 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Wanted: Starship Designs
Message-ID: <328462334.11605819@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca>

I've got a need for a few starship designs for my campaign, but don't have the
time to do them myself.  Could some kind soul give me a hand?

- Type S Scout/Courier, tech 10 and 12 versions

- Type A Free Trader, tech 10 and 12 versions

- Type A2 Far Trader, tech 10 and 12 versions

- Any of the starships from FASA's series of deck plans.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 00:38:36 -0500
From: bonn0015@flipper.itlabs.umn.edu (STEVEN M BONNEVILLE)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Hiver & Ithklur
Message-ID: <199504150538.AAA09333@starfish.itlabs.umn.edu>

Mark Clark <markc@brahms.udel.edu> wrote:

[first two lines are Loren, methinks]
> Hmmm...a few more reviews like this and I might be put off
> writing Traveller stuff completely.
>
>PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gee, there's one unhappy customer....

I hate to say this, Mark, but I'm going to side with Rob on this one
and agree that _Hiver & Ithklur_ is, IMHO, getting a bit more flack 
than it really deserves.  Clearly, you disagree.  :)

I admit, it has problems.  The rather badly handled so-called "joke"
about Scot regiments on page 51 should never have left the building,
disclaimer or no -- I mean, it was questionable and also needed an 
*explanation*, for goodness sake!  IMHO, it should have been locked
in a filing cabinet and plasma-torched with a FGMP-15.  Be free. :)
The sort of decrease in...I don't know exactly what, seriousness?...
that that represents is not cool.  Others may read that differently.
The section on Ithklur "Friendliness" on page 62 goes a bit over 
the top with the 20th century references, which can be grating.  
And the disinformation can really mess up the coherence of the book 
-- but it can be viewed as a liability or as an asset for the ref.

However, I actually think that I like the Ithklur design.  If they
show up in my campaign, the characters will be expected to fail to
understand a lot of the references they're making.  It looks to me
like the Ithklur have a sophisticated and obscure sense of humor.
I suspect that they're being both deliberately obscure, and playing
"games" with the humans, too, but it's a different sort of "game"
than they play with their patrons, the Hiver.  They seem to like
fishing for reactions...the typical human reaction on hearing what
they call K'kree must be priceless, and possibly worth it to the 
Ithklur to change their language to keep things honest.  Besides,
I don't think the Hiver have much of a sense of humor from a human,
and possibly Ithklur point of view.  Other oddities can be explained
away with forgotten Solomani influences from before the human Long
Night, actual quirks of Ithklur culture, and so on as appropriate.

In any case, they could be fun to have around for role-playing 
purposes, to play off the characters.  Some comic relief, too.
Probably is part of the point, after all.

One interesting thing about Ithklur characters is that they are
*smarter* than the average human, and can beat the human maximum
INT in character generation by two points....

As for the Hiver, well, I like the Hiver.  I like the K'kree, too.
They both tend to work best as NPCs, but they're still fun.  And
Hiver equipment is just funky -- the hexoculars are nicely done.

Anyway, that's my opinion.  I think the new supplement is worth 
checking out, and there's certainly plenty in there that I can use.

  Steve Bonneville
  <bonn0015@starfish.itlabs.umn.edu>


------------------------------

Date: Sat, 15 Apr 95 17:35:55 -0400
From: Derek Wildstar <wildstar@qrc.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re:  TRAVELLER digest 250
Message-ID: <9504152135.AA22062@qrc.com>

Sorry for the delay in posting this ...

gdw.support@genie.geis.com (Loren Wiseman) wrote:
> >I said:
> >> Anybody who's worked in the field of computer hardware architecture,
> >> networkdesign, or computer security can poke many holes in the
> >> pseudo-technical gobbedygook behind GDW's Virus. So we're left
> >> having to accept the virus as a "magic" item which defies logical
> >> explanation or prediction (and therefore ruins the basis of a hard-SF
> >> roleplaying game, just as surely as if someone had written Alladin's
> >> Magic Lamp into _The Hunt for Red October_)
>  
> To which Rob Replied
> > Possibly, but you seem to have ignored what I was trying to point out,
> > which is that an expert will find problems in the rules no matter what
> > they are.

Perhaps you and Rob missed MY point, although Rob's quote (above) says it
fairly well: I AM an expert in that field, and I DO find problems with it.

Loren wrote:
>  There _are_ "magic lamps" in _Hunt for Red October_.  Its just
>  such a good read that most people don't notice, and those who
>  notice don't care.

Other people (including Rob, I believe) wrote similar posts, too.

That's not exactly what I meant.  As Rob (and I and the original poster)
pointed out, there are factual problems in _Red October_ that any nuc would
be able to point out to you.  For them, I'm sure, the story was less
enjoyable than it might have been because of this. 

My point was, that because I DO see the holes in the Virus, I personally
(and most emphatically NOT speaking for anyone else) have as much
difficulty swallowing the Official New Era timeline as most of Clancy's
readers would have IF he had written "Captain Ramius carefully polished the
old brass lamp with a handful of cotton waste.  Soon, a misty smoke issued
from the lamp, and coalesced into a blue genie, hanging in the stale air
before him ..."

Clear?

> Traveller is a game.

True enough.  It's also a product that someone (you? Dave? Frank?) would
like me to buy.  If I have a problem with the quality of the products I
purchase, I'll certainly tell you.

Depending on how big the problem is, it may or may not lose you the sale.  

In the case of the T:TNE rules, the asking price is still reasonable even
when I disregard the hundred-odd pages of background material that I don't
care for and didn't particularly want included in the rules.  Similarly,
Fire, Fusion and Steel delivers useful material at a reasonable price.

Brilliant Lances was more problematic: the price was high for that game,
particularly when you consider how much of the rules included with it
should have been in the T:TNE rulebook, or were revised and republished
in FF&S.  For this and other reasons, I refrained from purchasing Battle
Rider.

The more specialized New Era suppliments are increasingly less useful to me,
and so I'm increasingly less likely to spend my money on them.  After having
read the designers' notes in H&I, I sure don't want to spend my money on
it.  It's just a game, sure.  And it's just my money.  If you want me to
spend the latter on the former, expect to work for it.

Think about this for a bit: T:TNE, plus FF&S, the Path of Tears and
Equipment books, plus the Aliens book, comes to a total over $60.
For that you can buy in paperback more than ten SF books - say some
of Cherryh's "Chanur" books, Niven's "Known Space", or others from
Asimov, Clarke, Dickson, Anderson and so on; plus rent the entire
Star Wars movie series for a night.

Do I, as a customer, deserve less for my entertainment dollar because
it's "just a game"?  I certainly realize that no game publisher has 
the economies of scale and vertical integration that book publishers
or movie studios have, but that's no reason to settle for less in the
realm of storytelling, research, and the level of creative effort put
into the product.  I vote with my wallet (and this is one election
in which you can vote early and vote often - legally!).

> If it were as realistic as "real life" it would
> take as long to play and require as many PCs.

Nobody's asking for "real life" here.  On the other hand, what's the
point of writing something like FF&S when the same effort isn't put
into the other areas of the game?  Or are guns the real stars of the
game, and all else just meaningless fluff, filler and comic relief?

> Eric B. Smith wrote:
> > Marc Miller [...] designed a game that could be set into any
> > time period with any magic system you want. That's the glory
> > of the Traveller universe!
>  
> That was certainly the original notion [...]  We rapidly found
> that the vast majority of our customers wanted a background [...]

In my (not so) humble opinion, T:TNE should have been designed the
same way, and (if that's what the distributors demanded) also made
in a boxed set with a background booklet.  The current T:TNE rulebook
is at least 100 pages too long to be used comfortably (and the extra
weight isn't doing the binding much good, either) and I understand
that the distributors have complained about bulk of T:TNE, too.

It's worth noting that one game system that gets a LOT more shelf
space in my local game store than all of GDW's products combined
is designed around just such a concept.  From everything that I've
seen and read, it has been a very successful product.

It's a game that can be set in any time period, with just about
any magic system that you want.  It doesn't come with any background
built into the rules, although there are plenty of suppliments
available that provide this to those that want it.

I am, of course, referring to Steve Jackson Games' GURPS.


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End of TRAVELLER Digest 256
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