Evyn--
I'm snipping out my parts and leaving your responses to reply to.
> See I don't get that as TNE was a Explorers game mostly. And like the Core
> of CT before it is was flexible enough to run all sorts of games. The core
> premise was society fell down and we are bravely rebuilding.
I agree. The fact that the background was a fallen Imperium was something
that came out of the Rebellion and the Black Wars and the Hard Times and
all of that, so was a given.
> In a lot of
> ways TNE was Twilight 2000 in Space.... Which is great for me as I am a
> huge Post Apocalypse fan. Punk is far more about the noir aspects of the
> game murky goals and answers, often with a dark forbidding static
> culture surrounding it....
I think some Traveller players didn't want a T2K parallel, as in their
minds, that in itself was their definition of "dark." Maybe it's a matter
of emphasis. Over the decades of "urban flight" as the upwardly mobile
left for the suburbs, the suburbs certainly had plenty of life and energy.
But for some, the loss of those vital urban centers was cause for
mourning. Maybe it's similar. Although only a little.
But as we've discussed earlier, there seems to be agreement that given the
in-game fact of Rebellion, Black Wars, Hard Times, there was no other way
to go.
> Shit to be honest, I have a hard time with Psionics, but mostly that was
> do
> to the players who gravitate towards them than their actual existence in
> the game.
That's an interesting observation, but related to my point about not
wanting to turn Traveller into an all psionics all the time game, because
if psionics did attract a certain time of player, that would, in fact,
change the personality of the game.
> I never got that, meaning that TNE was out to destroy Traveller. Traveller
> as a huge back story painted its self into a corner and TNE was a way out.
Yeah, like I said above, that's certainly the way we at GDW saw it. But
not everybody sees things the same way, obviously. Tomayto, Tomahto.
> As for NOT Traveller, all I can figure is it was the change in the rules
> system. Which took a lot of traveller previous tech and streamlined and
> unified the rough patches. It did eliminate al lot of the "DEEP SPACE"
> ethos that was assumed in earlier editions by getting ride
> of continuous thrust drives, which IMHO was a good thing as most games
> where less about the vast distance of space and more about the points of
> contacts...
Not to disagree with you, but I think for the people who were the most
outspoken about it (or at least the ones I'm thinking of), it was not the
rules, it was actually the grand, shining, noble Imperium they wanted to
go back to. And so it was really CT that they were thinking of, and what I
don't think they realized was that had already been going away in MT with
the Rebellion. So I think TNE got that blame when MT really started the
ball rolling. They could ignore it for a while in MT, but when TNE came
along it gave them an opportunity to draw a line they were unable to draw
in MT. But I think there were some people who thought 2D6 was really the
way God intended, so for them TNE was bad on that basis too.
It's such a personal thing. I know people who say only 1970s Aerosmith is
the real Aerosmith, and all their stuff in the '90s wasn't really
Aerosmith. It has to do with stuff that you fall in love with at a certain
time in your life, and that stuff will always be better for you. The heart
is a powerful thing.
My two cents.
Dave