Harold--
Somewhere Loren is smiling at your admirable use of "Corrigenda."
> Don's saying, I think, that TNE was a bad idea. My own personal take on
> Traveller versions, not to get all ranty but I will, is....
>
> Classic Traveller's mechanics were pretty dated and everyone knew it,
> though the fan base loved the setting and still does. If you want to give
> me a lecture on why there was nothing wrong with classic Traveller, I can
> hand you some of my notes for workarounds, or you can simply take a page
> count of T5, which I'm told was written by classic Traveller fans.
>
> MegaTraveller attempted to update the mechanics (or that is to say,
> adopted the system developed by DGP), and in that effort it was largely
> successful. However, it was absolutely plagued with errata and
> corrigenda, its best publications were outsourced and not GDW property
> (and we see where that has led...), and few people were actually fans of
> the setting, which frankly was never satisfactorily justified. Civil
> war...cool. Civil war that results in multiple factions that spring up
> out of thin air, not cool. The Rebellion should have been Dulinor versus
> Lucan, with large parts of the Imperium being neutral and untouched by
> war. The moment the Solomani invade, the civil war gets wrapped up
> quickly (either Dulinor or Lucan gets assassinated, perhaps both) and the
> new conflict gets resolved. The Third Imperium is a bit chaotic in places
> for a while afterward, but eventually settles down. Players have fun
> helping to restore order or taking advantage of the lack of proper order
> for a time. But I digress....
>
> So someone got the bright idea to in-house everything, including the game
> mechanics (with the idea of creating a house system) and the result was an
> award winning version of the game that quite possibly, had the resources
> existed and the money not run out, been the next GURPS. Oh yeah, and the
> Rebellion was ended, not with a whimper, but with a bang. Insert picture
> of Charlton Heston pounding the sand on the beach lamenting as we see the
> Statute of Liberty in the foreground. Cue the Vikings and their odd
> friends.
>
> TNE should have been the game mechanics behind Traveller until well...it
> still should be the game mechanics behind Traveller, though on probably
> it's 3rd revision by now, even with multiple changes in publisher.
> Selling product by creating new settings and new sourcebooks for new
> settings, not 3 completely different sets of game mechanics in 4 years
> (1992-1996) is the way to successfully keep your fan base, or at least
> ensure that it didn't splinter into hostile factions. But hey, maybe SJG
> is doing it wrong. *shrug*
>
> But as long as we're talking about least favorite Traveller version, that
> for me would have to be T4. I said a lot of negative things about T4 (like
> it didn't deserve to have Marc Miller's name on it) when it came out and
> 19 years later I still treat it, both as a Traveller player/referee and
> writer, like toxic waste--smells bad, best to be avoided, not particularly
> useful, if you tell me I have touch it, I'm getting out some gear to wear
> and I'm not going to happy about it. That people (no doubt at least a few
> members of this list) put a lot of time into it to try to get it right,
> put a brave face on it and talked about it in terms of "getting Fire,
> Fusion & Steel right", etc. and saw that effort go for nothing was
> profoundly sad. Really though, the biggest problem with T4 wasn't the
> deviations from canon, it wasn't the errata and corrigenda though it was
> extensive (almost MT extensive), nor was it that it was "rushed into
> publication" as someone once said, it was that it even existed at all.
>
> Everything since has been an attempt to recapture to the "glory of
> Traveller", however you define that.
Somewhere Loren is smiling at your admirable use of "Corrigenda."
> Don's saying, I think, that TNE was a bad idea. My own personal take on
> Traveller versions, not to get all ranty but I will, is....
>
> Classic Traveller's mechanics were pretty dated and everyone knew it,
> though the fan base loved the setting and still does. If you want to give
> me a lecture on why there was nothing wrong with classic Traveller, I can
> hand you some of my notes for workarounds, or you can simply take a page
> count of T5, which I'm told was written by classic Traveller fans.
>
> MegaTraveller attempted to update the mechanics (or that is to say,
> adopted the system developed by DGP), and in that effort it was largely
> successful. However, it was absolutely plagued with errata and
> corrigenda, its best publications were outsourced and not GDW property
> (and we see where that has led...), and few people were actually fans of
> the setting, which frankly was never satisfactorily justified. Civil
> war...cool. Civil war that results in multiple factions that spring up
> out of thin air, not cool. The Rebellion should have been Dulinor versus
> Lucan, with large parts of the Imperium being neutral and untouched by
> war. The moment the Solomani invade, the civil war gets wrapped up
> quickly (either Dulinor or Lucan gets assassinated, perhaps both) and the
> new conflict gets resolved. The Third Imperium is a bit chaotic in places
> for a while afterward, but eventually settles down. Players have fun
> helping to restore order or taking advantage of the lack of proper order
> for a time. But I digress....
>
> So someone got the bright idea to in-house everything, including the game
> mechanics (with the idea of creating a house system) and the result was an
> award winning version of the game that quite possibly, had the resources
> existed and the money not run out, been the next GURPS. Oh yeah, and the
> Rebellion was ended, not with a whimper, but with a bang. Insert picture
> of Charlton Heston pounding the sand on the beach lamenting as we see the
> Statute of Liberty in the foreground. Cue the Vikings and their odd
> friends.
>
> TNE should have been the game mechanics behind Traveller until well...it
> still should be the game mechanics behind Traveller, though on probably
> it's 3rd revision by now, even with multiple changes in publisher.
> Selling product by creating new settings and new sourcebooks for new
> settings, not 3 completely different sets of game mechanics in 4 years
> (1992-1996) is the way to successfully keep your fan base, or at least
> ensure that it didn't splinter into hostile factions. But hey, maybe SJG
> is doing it wrong. *shrug*
>
> But as long as we're talking about least favorite Traveller version, that
> for me would have to be T4. I said a lot of negative things about T4 (like
> it didn't deserve to have Marc Miller's name on it) when it came out and
> 19 years later I still treat it, both as a Traveller player/referee and
> writer, like toxic waste--smells bad, best to be avoided, not particularly
> useful, if you tell me I have touch it, I'm getting out some gear to wear
> and I'm not going to happy about it. That people (no doubt at least a few
> members of this list) put a lot of time into it to try to get it right,
> put a brave face on it and talked about it in terms of "getting Fire,
> Fusion & Steel right", etc. and saw that effort go for nothing was
> profoundly sad. Really though, the biggest problem with T4 wasn't the
> deviations from canon, it wasn't the errata and corrigenda though it was
> extensive (almost MT extensive), nor was it that it was "rushed into
> publication" as someone once said, it was that it even existed at all.
>
> Everything since has been an attempt to recapture to the "glory of
> Traveller", however you define that.