On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 09:51, Ewan Quibell <> wrote:
> On 21/10/2011 01:55, Matt wrote:
>
> > It's really unfortunate about the split in the Traveller community over
> TNE.
>
> I agree. It's what started the fragmentation of the Traveller community.
> And now it's completely fragmented.
Well, IMHO TNE was the final nail for a number of reasons, not just virus.
1st off it was a radical edition change, from MT/DGP mechanics to the GDW
House System, this was huge. While a lot of people didn't particularly like
MT (I for one pretty much Loath it for how buggy and typo ridden it was), it
was a huge change from the kinda linear evolution that was CT/MT. Or to say
MT was backwards compatible with CT, TNE wasn't.
2nd was the reset, a lot of people where upset with the wiping away of the
Imperium, it sometimes amazes me how many Big Government fans there
is amongst the fan base. Another part of this was the
re-setting of technical assumptions, TL15 was no longer the requirement for
things to work. Roundabout is They fixed stuff that had been terminally
broken and people bitched about it. So really it was a change, and well a
lot of gamers don't like it.
3rd and last was Virus, which always surprised me, as the genesis of it was
in two separate CT/MT products, and it made sense in terms of the previous
setting. I think what it really did was piss off the Anti-AI faction, as it
allowed AI into Traveller at lower than the "cannon" TLs. Again this is my
opinion after 20 years of TML membership and related digital fandom. (For
the record it was sometime in the late 78-79 when acquired my 1st traveller
books, so in my heart CT is the only true edition)
Ok, I liked TNE both the setting and the rules. But to be honest if I where
going to run a game in the ERA I would use the 1248 books by Martin J.
Dougherty, with MgT's character generation and task resolution,
and technical details from CT/Striker/FF&S (Book2 for ship design, Book5 is
ok for fleet combat but doesn't scale to RPG levels ver well).
As for fragmentation of the fan base, there is too much choice for it not to
be fragmented, with at least seven versions available, and only 3 are
mechanically interchangeable CT, MT & MgT. Coupled with 3 or 4 active Era to
play in, it can't help but fragment. What gets me is the antagonism between
groups who titularly are fans of the same core thing.
--
Evyn