Dear Folks -
Dave wrote:
>Yes, you make an excellent point, which kind of undermines the whole
bootstrap concept.
>There's a tendency in Traveller to think in terms of the map and worlds
when the keys are
>actually the Hi-Pop worlds. "Amateurs talk about worlds, Professionals talk
about Hi-Pop
>worlds." While that may be "smart," to bypass, island-hop, ignore the
low-pop worlds and
>focus all of the effort on the Hi-Pop worlds, it seems to be counter to the
spirit of SF
>gaming, where worlds matter.
In one game I ran of the _Fifth Frontier War_, I changed the rules because
of this problem. The original rules give points based on the tech level of
the worlds you conquer; I changed it to give more emphasis to the Hi-Pop AND
high-tech worlds. (Hmm, maybe full points for UWP Pop and only half points
for TL? Something like that, anyway.)
Makes for a different game, and more like the canonical 5FW - a war of
attrition - especially since those worlds generally have LOTS of SDBs and
local troops that an invader needs to subdue.
But I take your point about the "romantic" side of Traveller. (Why else do
you think we took over Tavonni IMTU? It _is_ right in the way of the SW
invasion... ;-)
----------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson ..at.. Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
Dave wrote:
>Yes, you make an excellent point, which kind of undermines the whole
bootstrap concept.
>There's a tendency in Traveller to think in terms of the map and worlds
when the keys are
>actually the Hi-Pop worlds. "Amateurs talk about worlds, Professionals talk
about Hi-Pop
>worlds." While that may be "smart," to bypass, island-hop, ignore the
low-pop worlds and
>focus all of the effort on the Hi-Pop worlds, it seems to be counter to the
spirit of SF
>gaming, where worlds matter.
In one game I ran of the _Fifth Frontier War_, I changed the rules because
of this problem. The original rules give points based on the tech level of
the worlds you conquer; I changed it to give more emphasis to the Hi-Pop AND
high-tech worlds. (Hmm, maybe full points for UWP Pop and only half points
for TL? Something like that, anyway.)
Makes for a different game, and more like the canonical 5FW - a war of
attrition - especially since those worlds generally have LOTS of SDBs and
local troops that an invader needs to subdue.
But I take your point about the "romantic" side of Traveller. (Why else do
you think we took over Tavonni IMTU? It _is_ right in the way of the SW
invasion... ;-)
----------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson ..at.. Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"