This is true, but while it was theoretically possible doing that with CT there was absolutely no published support for it. AFAIK all the published sector maps, adventures, and so forth were in charted space and centered around being merchants or mercenaries. There wasn't really anything to help out a GM that wanted to do a real exploration campaign, and I think that was a weakness in the original. It's definitely one of the things I like about TNE.
-JTD
"If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane."
-Jimmy Buffet
On Oct 21, 2011, at 8:26 PM, John Potter wrote:
> I would only disagree slightly with this sentiment.
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> The cannon only covered a fraction of the territory the Milky Way galaxy covers.
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> Diameter: ~100k light years
> Thickness: ~1,000 light years
> Volume: ~7.85 billion light years
> Stars: ~200-400 billion stars
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> If players really wanted to explore it was there but the GM had to work at it.
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> However I realize that like myself most GMs have limits to how much prep work their willing or have time to do.
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> On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 4:51 PM, allen carpenter <> wrote:
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> I also started my "travelling" in '79, but with CT, I always felt that the milieu was missing something critical, beyond simple game mechanics, it was missing a frontier. everywhere the characters went in canon traveller, pretty much, someone else had gone before.
> TNE didn't rectify that per se, but put a more exploratory spin on things, someone else had certainly been there before, but the pieces where so broken, EVERYWHERE was a frontier.
> And with the pieces so thoroughly broken, any group of PCs could quite literally see themselves as movers and shakers.
> I have had the pleasure of GMing the same people in both CT and TNE. and by far, they had more fun with TNE. 'people' are understandable enemies, and Virus, though difficult at first to conceptualize for the average joe, was NOT the average NPC. it was not a Vargr or a Virushi or a Vilani!
> well played, virus was a potential for unique and memorable encounters.
> for all my attempts to make vampires memorable encounters, for whatever reason, the PCs liked 'The Warden' most 8-)
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> On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 4:47 PM, Evyn MacDude <> wrote:
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> On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 09:51, Ewan Quibell <> wrote:
> On 21/10/2011 01:55, Matt wrote:
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> > It's really unfortunate about the split in the Traveller community over TNE.
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> I agree. It's what started the fragmentation of the Traveller community.
> And now it's completely fragmented.
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> Well, IMHO TNE was the final nail for a number of reasons, not just virus.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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)
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> 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).
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> 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.
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> Evyn
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> "Here at Ortillery Command we have at our diposal hundred megawatt laser beams, mach 20 titanium rods and guided thermonuclear bombs. Some people say we think that we're God. We're not God. We just borrowed his SMITE button for our fire control system."
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> If the world was fair then every bad thing that has ever happened to you would have been deserved.
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