Thread: Re: Hey

Clay was a short balding guy. One of the nicest persons I ever met.
He took me under his wings when I was a new HIWG member. Hadn’t it been for him and a few other HIWG member, I would never ben so involved in Traveller as I ended up being. I never got published, but my name made it to the HIWG rulebook at least =0)

When Mongoose Traveller came out. I decided that I had seen enough Traveller editions and opted out. The irony is that some of my HIWG works has made it to MgT in one form or the other and I have been credited in at least 2 MgT books (Vargr and Zhodani). Now they notices me, almost 20 years after I wrote the material (sigh).

The TNE rules are quite good and very user friendly. They may need some polishing after 20 odd years.
What I particularly like is the way Initative stat/skill affects the combat. Even a big brute with a lot of STR and CON can be reduced to a sobbing whimp after a minor wound if he got just an initiative of 1, while the combat trained grasshopper with initative 6 can sustain a lot of punishment before he breaks. This of course helps with the less deadly aspect of the game.

I still play Traveller with pretty much the same guys I started out with some twenty odd years ago.

It is time for me to hit the sack. It is approaching morning here in Norway, and I need to be a part of the daily routine of the family, and not the skulking goblin hunching over the monitor in the dark basement =0)

--
Roger Malmstein a.k.a Roger Myhre
www.travellerfreeport.com

Hi, Davis!

Well I HAVE been busy with being an Army contractor! Geez! :-)

However, I have to admit that being a "Robert E. Lee," and an "absent
watchmaker" are quite flattering. If I had known that my self-imposed exile
was turning me into a god-like martyr to The Cause, rather than just a
maligned putz, I might have...Idunno, enjoyed it more. :-) Significantly,
on this list, I may in fact be a member of "The Cause," rather than just
that no-good, rebel traitor Bobby Lee.

And for long periods of time, I did not want to be drawn back into
discussions, for reasons that I alluded to in my messages earlier today,
all of which are very real (but could slog through again if it helps people
to understand why I did it, and perhaps dispel some of the bad feeling).
Something that occurred to me about a month ago that I think fed into all
of that was the supposed "vow of silence" that I had imposed on others.
That was actually a "white lie" come up with by someone else that I agreed
to go along with. While I would still probably go along with it again, as
it provided aid to a friend of mine who deserved that aid, let this be
another lesson, as if one were needed, that there are no such things as
"white" lies. They all come back to bite you and do wickedness.

"Besides, I was busy with real-world stuff."

See, it happens!

No, I don't fear "fan-boy gushing." I look at this as a reunion of some
people that had a shared love for something that made sense to us, if not
others.

I'm sorry to have been gone for so long. I had to get Washington-Lee
University running again, you know.

Dave

On Sat, 9 Jun 2012 16:55:49 -0700 (PDT), Davis Andrews
<> wrote:
> Wow. I'm going through a major paradigm shift in my head right now. For
> so many years, TNE was this lost cause that I was obsessed with, and its
> Robert E. Lee was Dave Nilsen, who was too busy being an Armor
> Contractor, and had made statements that he didn't want to be drawn back
> into any RPG discussions. When I was stationed at the Pentagon, I even
> considered crossing over to an Army contact to see if you could be
> tracked down, but that was in the days where word on the mailing lists
> was that you were never coming back. Besides, I was busy with real-world
> stuff.
>
> It was such a tenet that "Dave is the Absent Watchmaker" that when I saw
> your first message, I thought to myself-- now here is a particularly
> cruel internet troll that somehow wants to trick the few remaining loyal
> fans. But your subsequent messages contain enough detail for me to know
> that it is "the real Dave". So I'm thrilled to see you back again, and
> hope our fanboy gushing doesn't drive you away.
>
> Oh my gosh, am I actually thinking of closing this email with "To Absent
> Friends"? No, definitely not. That would be way too much. And also a
> little fruity.
>
> So, then, Cheers, Dave, and welcome back! I don't post here much because
> we've pretty much said it all over the years, but I can already think of
> several questions and ideas sprouting up. Thanks for revitalizing our
> group.
>
> Davis
>
> (Particularly looking forward to talking-- to everyone-- about MJD and
> 1248 if anyone is interested, but don't want to overdo it now. Also,
very
> taken with the idea sparked by the statement that "White City" explains
> the RCIS , because I have always had my own ideas there-- to wit (and
you
> have to be a certain age to probably get this) but to me, my thinking
> about Reformation Coalition snapped into place when I realized that they
> were basically Rhodesians in space suits)
>
>
>

Yeah, I think that the TNE/House combat rules were better than they were
given credit for. People would often focus on how a hit wouldn't kill a
person instantly dead, but they were not paying attention to the
knock-down, stun (I can't remember the words) effects that went along with
it which made the whole big picture. And like I said, I was in that
conversation a million times.

I'm sorry that I didn't know a lot of the HIWG guys like Clay better than
I did. There are just only so many hours in a day, and you can't pay
attention to all of the things wanting your attention. And unfortunately,
the guys that push the hardest and loudest, like HIWG sometimes, are the
guys that you feel you have to fend off the hardest. I'm not proud of that,
but there is a LOT to do in a 16-hour day when you are a designer/line
manager/chief of design. That's not an excuse, it's just what happens.

I'm very glad to hear from you again, Roger. I think you knew this, that
I'm a Norwegian as well, but with a Danish/Swedish last name overwritten on
my original family name of Anderson.

Fram!

Dave

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 02:15:12 +0200, "Roger Malmstein"
<> wrote:
> Clay was a short balding guy. One of the nicest persons I ever met.
> He took me under his wings when I was a new HIWG member. Hadn’t it been
> for him and a few other HIWG member, I would never ben so involved in
> Traveller as I ended up being. I never got published, but my name made
it
> to the HIWG rulebook at least =0) When Mongoose Traveller came out. I
> decided that I had seen enough Traveller editions and opted out. The
> irony is that some of my HIWG works has made it to MgT in one form or
the
> other and I have been credited in at least 2 MgT books (Vargr and
> Zhodani). Now they notices me, almost 20 years after I wrote the
material
> (sigh). The TNE rules are quite good and very user friendly. They may
> need some polishing after 20 odd years. What I particularly like is the
> way Initative stat/skill affects the combat. Even a big brute with a lot
> of STR and CON can be reduced to a sobbing whimp after a minor wound if
> he got just an initiative of 1, while the combat trained grasshopper
with
> initative 6 can sustain a lot of punishment before he breaks. This of
> course helps with the less deadly aspect of the game. I still play
> Traveller with pretty much the same guys I started out with some twenty
> odd years ago. It is time for me to hit the sack. It is approaching
> morning here in Norway, and I need to be a part of the daily routine of
> the family, and not the skulking goblin hunching over the monitor in the
> dark basement =0) --
> Roger Malmstein a.k.a Roger Myhre
> www.travellerfreepo

> Eventually I may ask some as well, like what MJD did with 1248.
> Although part of me doesn't want to know, as it's kind of nice to just
> remember what we were going to do, and not get it tangled up with decisions
> other people made after me.

If you ever want to know, please just ask. I can tell you at whatever
level of detail you want. I got to help him some (especially with the Regency)
and can pretty much answer any questions on it.

Also, it is available from FFE in the "TNE Part 2 CD-ROM" collection.

Many of the broad strokes you mentioned were included. (As you mentioned,
I believe he tried to consult with you to at least see where you were headed.)
His Empress Wave is totally different than yours, but there are a lot of
similarities in many other details. For example:
- The RC and Regency did but heads. (It was because of the RC's use of Virus,
but the other way it was the Regency's use of psionics.)
- The RC did "grow up" and develop on its own, independent of the 4th Imperium
and the Hivers.
- The Black Imperium did explode out of the Black Curtain. His version was
lead by a viral version of a then insane Lucan.

He did go in other directions though. He had a very "epic" scale to the
emergency of the 4th Imperium. Also, the "big bads" were Virus enhanced
K'kree, the "Gods of Thunder". The Regency fell apart, but its legacy was
untainted, though its successors were not.

Anyway, I can help with any questions on TNE:1248.

On a totally and completely different subject, I will always thank you
for the Hiver and Ithklur supplement. How you took the written canon for
the Hivers and turned it totally on its head, and how you really put
dimension into the Ithklur was brilliant. That is still one of my favorite
Traveller supplements.

Mike West

Thanks for the 1248 info, because you reminded me of something!

But first, you, Mr. West, may be my favorite person of the month for
loving H&I. As you know, that is the most reviled of my reviled TNE
efforts, but I still maintain there's something to it. I'm glad to have
found a kindred spirit. That was another one of those projects where I got
an MS full of....NOTHING, and had to write the whole thing by myself at
high speed and great expense to my sanity. Since they say, "write what you
know," I based it on my on-going divorce. Of the things about TNE that I
miss the most, I would say that being able to complete the H&I story is the
one that hurts the worst, as there is all sorts of weirdness in there that
I just had to leave hanging and never finish, because I never got to write
the "Into the Belly of the Beast" epic adventure. Boo-hoo. That's why Loren
got me involved in the GT H&I book, but that turned into a disaster,
proving to me that I could not keep a foot in Traveller and still do right
by the US Army. I didn't let the Army down, but I let Loren down. I loved
subverting the Hiver mythology, and had a million ideas of places to take
that, including the epic adventure. Strangely, it was relatively easy to
subvert the Hiver mythology, because if you just looked at the existing
material as an editor, it was simply dishonest, tautological, pap. So
putting the conspiracy spin on it almost wrote itself. And I say this with
all sincerity, of the things I learned about Marc in my limited contact
with him, the thing that he loved the most about Traveller was the way that
in-game "facts" could be turned around and interpreted 180 degrees out, but
it was still "true," because it was what the characters inside the game
believed. He loved that, the stuff about major/minor races, etc., and loved
to talk about how it's all been in there all along. So in many cases where
I think people think I was betraying Marc, I was actually being faithful to
his true spirit of showing that the Traveller world was full of surprises.
But what do I know, I'm just a traitor.

Also, did you notice that H&I is the prettiest TNE ever put out? It was
the only one submitted to the printer 100% electronically, which I know
because I did all the paste-up, being also a de facto art
director/typesetter

--- In , "David" <dcndcn13@...> wrote:
>
> I was feeling kind of retrospective lately, and Googled "I love Traveller the New Era," mostly just to see if anyone ever said that, which led me to "Tales of an Old School Gamer," which led me to BARD, which led me here.
>
> So I thought I'd say, "Hi," and also, I'm glad that what we did so long ago still pleases some people. Sorry we weren't able to stay around to finish what we started.
>
> Dave Nilsen
>

Holy crap, it's Dave Freakin' Nilsen! It's very good to hear from you again! :)

I've been wondering what happened to you ever since I coaxed you into posting all that stuff on CotI all those years ago (I've never been sure whether to apologise to you for that or not. It seemed to shut your critics up at least ;) ).

It's damn good to know that you're still around anyway!
Consty

Thanks.

No, you don't need to apologize for the COTI thing. I think it was
worthwhile, but only so much it would be able to accomplish after so much
time had already passed. And MJD was in the middle of his stuff, and
anything that looked like I was trying to second-guess him would have just
been wrong.

Did it shut up my critics? That would surprise me, as a True Traveller Fan
is never shut up by anything. It just never happened IMTU. :-)

I actually went back to COTI a few weeks ago, thinking to correct a
misconception, but then kind of changed my mind. And I couldn't remember my
old user ID and password, so created a new account, and that's about the
time I decided, "naah, never mind."

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 02:23:50 -0000, "constantine_

--- In , <dcndcn13@...> wrote:

> No, you don't need to apologize for the COTI thing. I think it was
> worthwhile, but only so much it would be able to accomplish after so much
> time had already passed. And MJD was in the middle of his stuff, and
> anything that looked like I was trying to second-guess him would have just
> been wrong.

Hopefully you're cool with this, but Loren Wiseman collected all your points on his website... I've been pointing people to that whenever anyone asks about the story behind TNE:
http://www.cgi101.com/~lkw/AskDave.txt

> Did it shut up my critics? That would surprise me, as a True
> Traveller Fan is never shut up by anything.

This is true. But when they one has facts from the man himself to counter their hyperbolic vitriol, it tends to make them less enthusiastic about ranting ;).

> I actually went back to COTI a few weeks ago, thinking to correct a
> misconception, but then kind of changed my mind. And I couldn't
> remember my old user ID and password, so created a new account, and
> that's about the time I decided, "naah, never mind."

I think that's a good reaction to have with CotI in general ;)
Consty

David,

I'm introducing 4 new players to Traveller tomorrow afternoon (there are 5 players, but one has played Traveller:TNE before) and it will be a New Era campaign. 

Through the magic of Ebay (before i found out about FFE and their CDs), i assembled most of the New Era materials n the last two months and have sketched out a 30,000 foot view of the campaign i want to run.  Love the setting, and its great to hear you are alive and well.

Regards,
Tim

That's cool. I've noticed a number of things on the web written by me
re-posted and cross-posted, so it's par for the course. And of course since
it's Loren, that's doubly okay with me, as a former GDW foxhole buddy. I
need to get in touch with him. I've seen stuff about his latest medical
issues, and I'll bet my old Army e-mail addresses are all he had to get in
touch with me if he had wanted to, and they've all been dead for a year.

> I decided, "naah, never mind."
>
> I think that's a good reaction to have with CotI in general ;)

Which is precisely why I'm here, and not there! :-)

I do miss my little Flyin' Dog avatar, though. Thanks for doing that for
me.

"David Freakin' Nilsen," was that my handle on COTI?

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 02:44:46 -0000, "constantine_

Thank you very much, Tim.

If there is anything I can do to help make your campaign more fun, please
let me know. I mentioned to Blase (who is aboard the Starship Roxy Music!)
on this list earlier today that if you
are doing an RCES/Star Viking campaign, you might want to use Pete
Townshend's "White City" album to set the mood. When I was doing the early
development of TNE, that was my emotional touchstone for how the Star
Vikings saw themselves, their challenge, their place in the universe. And
yes, it does have a happy ending. Listen to the last song.

Sadly, "White City" does not appear to be available digitally on Amazon or
iTunes.

But seriously, let me know if you have any questions, I would love to
help.

Dave

On Sat, 9 Jun 2012 19:53:57 -0700 (PDT), Bardbear <>
wrote:
> David,
> I'm introducing 4 new players to Traveller tomorrow afternoon (there are
> 5 players, but one has played Traveller:TNE before) and it will be a New
> Era campaign.
>
> Through the magic of Ebay (before i found out about FFE and their CDs),
> i assembled most of the New Era materials n the last two months and have
> sketched out a 30,000 foot view of the campaign i want to run. Love the
> setting, and its great to hear you are alive and well.
> Regards,Tim
>

> But first, you, Mr. West, may be my favorite person of the month for
> loving H&I. As you know, that is the most reviled of my reviled TNE
> efforts, but I still maintain there's something to it.

If it makes you feel any better, one of my favorite parts of H&I is
probably the one thing that your detractors hated the most: your
"rubber mask" aliens essay. It was a beautiful treatment of the subject
and helped me truly put a framework around the issue in a way I had
not been able to before. And explaining why it is *required* also spelled
out something I was not able to fully verbalize before, too. I have
actually used the essence of what you wrote there both in discussions
on Traveller aliens and in other genres on their aliens.

Also, I forgot to mention, that I also loved the Regency book. Martin
allowed me the privilege of writing the Spinward States book for 1248.
While I now know (because of your appearance on CotI back whenever) that
Martin and I went in a different direction than you would have, the
whole of the effort was totally grounded in the Regency Sourcebook. I
read it so many times for my effort that I was able to start "reading
between the lines" for even more meanings. From the hidden possibilities
you set up for Norris, to the way you carefully crafted Caranda to be
the perfect blank slate for the setting. I liked the last item so much
that I took the idea and did it for the "future heir" of the 1248 setting.
(Though I didn't pull it off with the same skill. You left it to the
reader to figure out what you were doing. I was blatantly transparent
and overt.)

Irrespective of all else, I respect you for your skill and ability in
pulling off those two books.

Mike West

--- In , <dcndcn13@...> wrote:
>
> That's cool. I've noticed a number of things on the web written by me
> re-posted and cross-posted, so it's par for the course. And of course since
> it's Loren, that's doubly okay with me, as a former GDW foxhole buddy. I
> need to get in touch with him. I've seen stuff about his latest medical
> issues, and I'll bet my old Army e-mail addresses are all he had to get in
> touch with me if he had wanted to, and they've all been dead for a year.

Yeah, he's still around as far as I know. I haven't seen him much on the SJG boards since his medical troubles, I guess he's had more important stuff to worry about!

> I do miss my little Flyin' Dog avatar, though. Thanks for doing that for
> me.

Hrm, I don't *think* I made your avatar! :)

> "David Freakin' Nilsen," was that my handle on COTI?

No, I think it's how you introduced yourself a couple of times though ;)

Thanks again, Mike.

The "rubber suit" speech just made a lot of sense to me at the time. I
think as part of the process of updating all of the legacy Traveller
content into TNE I was poring over a lot of old GDW product and seeing
things that made me think, "that isn't true." And if GDW wrote it, can't
GDW take it back? (Note to self: apparently NOT!) But seriously, what more
can you aspire to than being a HUMAN BEING using your HUMAN faculties to
do
things in a different way? Besides, it's just only true. We ARE "only"
people, we aren't aliens, else the word "alien" really doesn't mean
anything except like Canadians are aliens in the US, which doesn't mean
much at all. Maybe I could have chosen softer words, but whatever. And
trust me, I've been punished for it. "Let me up, I've had enough."

Another one people didn't like was the thing about "so long as they have
white officers." Well, that was a real quote from the real British Army
about Scottish regiments, and the people who knew anything about that era
understood it as the unconcious self-parody it was.

Did you know I had such a thin skin? Man, I was in the wrong line of work.

Thank you for the remarks about RSB, KotF. (You know what's one of the
things I enjoy? The people that hate TNE, who call themselves keepers of
the flame, they're using the line I wrote over my 1992 Christmas
"vacation.") RSB is one of the things I was very proud of, but it was HARD
to write, because there was SO much information to cram into it, and I
mean
CRAM. But I really knew that anything that got cut out might not see the
light of day the way things were going, and we could not expand the page
count because of cost, so I kept driving the point size down. And any
errors in the maps was mine, because by then, we no longer had an art
department to do that. I'd just move over to the next room to the art
department's Mac and plunk away. Thanks for noticing the little subtle
things being saved for later. You probably realize this, but one of the
places I put most of my cool, secret idears to save for later was in those
appendices/glossary things, because they didn't really fit into the
narrative, but we needed to get the readers thinking about the reality of
these things. And I got to design brand-new starships to fit new RAFM
miniatures they sent me.

And, you've probably read me say this before, RSB showed one of the
symptoms of the decline of GDW and the hobby during the CCG dementia.
Although it was one of the densest, crunchiest, sourcebooks we'd put out,
and thereby showed our commitment to Traveller, lots of people never saw
it. We were getting letters and phone calls months later saying, "how come
you never put this out? Why aren't you supporting Traveller?" We did, but
the hobby industry was just not paying attention to traditional games,
because the volume of CCG that they could pump through much more
efficiently was just dwarfing our traditional stuff, and we got drowned
out. Frank was president of GAMA at the time, and he was getting stories
constantly about distributors who were spending their time moving pallets
of MTG cards from truck to truck, and stores moving cases of MTG carts
outside their front doors from truck to car trunk, and not even bothering
to worry about 12 copies of a new sourcebook, because why bother? Granted,
this was anecdotal and doesn't "prove" a trend statistically, but it did
show that something was happening that had not happened before. The hobby
was changing, and change happens.

God, I do go on, don't I? Apparently I'm dying or something, and some
voice inside me is saying, "get this all off your chest while you still
can."

Hopefully some of this is interesting.

So, when you said the "rubber suit" rant helped you crystallize some
thoughts about that, what do you mean? Is it the kind of stuff you were
trying to figure out for yourself, or stuff you were trying to explain to
your players? I know that different RPG groups have different styles in
what they are trying to accomplish, and one of them is the aesthetic of
role-playing and staying in character, which I think is very interesting.
In my groups we were kind of a bit more "Method," like when a guy would get
mad or excited and blurt something out we all felt, "Yes! THAT'S what your
character would really say!" After one long harangue among the crew, the
captain quietly observed, "The ebb and flow of command."

On Sat, 9 Jun 2012 22:40:50 -0500, "Mike West" <>
wrote:
>> But first, you, Mr. West, may be my favorite person of the month for
> > loving H&I. As you know, that is the most reviled of my reviled TNE
> > efforts, but I still maintain there's something to it.
>
> If it makes you feel any better, one of my favorite parts of H height:
> 0;">
>

> Hrm, I don't *think* I made your avatar! :)

I provided the picture, but I think you had to do some system voodoo to
allow me to use a custom avatar instead of the stock ones, which I really
appreciated.

> "David Freakin' Nilsen," was that my handle on COTI?

> No, I think it's how you introduced yourself a couple of times though ;)

Sometimes I AM clever.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 03:49:17 -0000, "constantine_

> So, when you said the "rubber suit" rant helped you crystallize some
> thoughts about that, what do you mean? Is it the kind of stuff you were
> trying to figure out for yourself, or stuff you were trying to explain to
> your players?

Mostly for myself so I could write them. It really helped in two ways.

For some initial context, do know that I did not get the book back when
it came out, but much, much later. I had to do some hunting on eBay before
I was able to find it. (At the time I was looking, that was pretty much
the only avenue. Marc wasn't doing those reprints yet, so it was either
used hard copy or nothing.)

First, it let me move past the desire to create truly alien aliens. I had
already figured out just about every alien wasn't really alien. In fact,
they were *worse* than alien, as they were just humans with a whole bunch
of options taken away. So, for example, humans can behave however they want,
but Aslan have to obey a whole bunch of restrictions, many of which are
quite ridiculous. A human can think any though an Aslan can, but many areas
of human thought are unavailable to an Aslan. I was trying to figure out
how to make aliens that really could have thoughts that a human couldn't,
or do things a human couldn't (not powers or abilities, but ideas and
ways of thinking or doing). That article really helped turn how I was
approaching the problem by letting me realize that was a futile activity
for the most part.

Second, it helped me when I was dealing with writing the 1248 Spinward
States book. For most of the aliens, I was good with them and just went
with what was already written. (Though, I did "promote" one very minor
alien to a multi-planet presence. [The Dandies. They realized their
species could easily be snuffed out by the Vargr, so they worked with
the Regency to make sure they had some colonies on other worlds as a
hedge against that.]) But I was having trouble with the Aslan. Quite
simply, the Aslan don't make a whole lot of sense. It isn't because
they are truly "alien", but because they have stupid restrictions on
what they can do that severely handicap them. (This is ignoring their
broken history. I am just talking about their culture.)

Going back and doing some of that "reading between the lines" thing again,
I decided that, really, all of these social and gender limitations are
really just learned behaviors, not innate. So, I decided that the only
real limitation on the Aslan was the male "need for land". And even that
is a misdirection, as they don't actually have a "need for land", but
just a "need for confirmation of status". It isn't the land; it is the
status the land grants. In effect, I was willing to let the Aslan become
"more human" because the only thing making them "alien" was their
stupid self-imposed limitations.

Then, just to have fun with the whole idea, I made the most successful
Aslan pocket empire a "barbarian" empire lead by a unique Aslan that
figure all of this crap out. He intentionally reworked his empire's
society to reduce or eliminate the most stupid parts so that the
Aslan could be freed to be more successful. As they became more
successful, more Aslan started to join because, barbarian or not,
they weren't going hungry and their empire was expanding. Even some
human worlds joined the empire.

Mike West

--- In , B³a¿ej Mazur <blase2@...> wrote:
>>
> From: []
> On Behalf Of David
> Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2012 8:18 PM
> To:
> Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Hey
>
>
> I was feeling kind of retrospective lately, and Googled "I love Traveller the New Era," mostly just to see if anyone ever said that, which led me to "Tales of an Old School Gamer," which led me to BARD, which led me here.
>
> So I thought I'd say, "Hi," and also, I'm glad that what we did so long ago still pleases some people. Sorry we weren't able to stay around to finish what we started.
>
> Dave Nilsen
>

Welcome to this board Dave, we are doing our best to keep the Flame. A friend is setting up a TNE game over on one of the online boards (RPOL) and I'm eagerly using the Aliens of the Rim supplement to set up an Ithklur. I would have to say the presentation of both the Hivers and Ithklur are by far my favorite write-ups of aliens in a sci-fi game.

Matt

Wow! This group woke up today and I see it is because of Dave Nilsen. THE Dave Nilsen!?

Funny I was thinking about the TNE years and you the other day. Drop me an email if you like ().

Cheers,
Kris

--- In , "David" <dcndcn13@...> wrote:
>
> I was feeling kind of retrospective lately, and Googled "I love Traveller the New Era," mostly just to see if anyone ever said that, which led me to "Tales of an Old School Gamer," which led me to BARD, which led me here.
>
> So I thought I'd say, "Hi," and also, I'm glad that what we did so long ago still pleases some people. Sorry we weren't able to stay around to finish what we started.
>
> Dave Nilsen
>

That's really cool. I like what you did with the Aslan insight, and I'm
glad that I did something that could help with that.

Yeah, you're right about the "humans minus" idea, because any way of
thinking we can't conceive of...we can't conceive of, so where does that
leave us? Taking stuff away.

That, plus the Aslan were too often ST:TNG Klingons, running around
bellowing, "You have no honor!" Geez, gift it a rest, Worf. Look, it's that
Gypsy fortune-teller counselor.

Getting yourself backed into the corner all the time over small issues of
honor isn't an adaptive trait. Are you aware of the recent research that
shows that one of the most adaptive reproductive traits in real Earth
animals is sneaky males that run in and impregnate the females while the
dominant males are off bellowing and pawing turf? That would throw the
Aslan for a loop.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 00:31:05 -0500, "Mike West" <>
wrote:
>> So, when you said the "rubber suit" rant helped you crystallize some
> > thoughts about that, what do you mean? Is it the kind of stuff you
> were
> > trying to figure out for yourself, or stuff you were trying to
> explain to
> > your players?
>
> Mostly for myself so I could write them. It really helped in two ways.
>
> For some initial context, do know that I did not get the book back when
> it came out, but much, much later. I had to do some hunting on eBay
> before
> I was able to find it. (At the time I was looking, that was pretty much
> the only avenue. Marc wasn't doing those reprints yet, so it was either
> used hard copy or nothing.)
>
> First, it let me move past the desire to create truly alien aliens. I
> had
> already figured out just about every alien wasn't really alien. In
> fact,
> they were *worse* than alien, as they were just humans with a whole
> bunch
> of options taken away. So, for example, humans can behave however they
> want,
> but Aslan have to obey a whole bunch of restrictions, many of which are
> quite ridiculous. A human can think any though an Aslan can, but many
> areas
> of human thought are unavailable to an Aslan. I was trying to figure
> out
> how to make aliens that really could have thoughts that a human
> couldn't,
> or do things a human couldn't (not powers or abilities, but ideas and
> ways of thinking or doing). That article really helped turn how I was
> approaching the problem by letting me realize that was a futile
> activity
> for the most part.
>
> Second, it helped me when I was dealing with writing the 1248 Spinward
> States book. For most of the aliens, I was good with them and just went
> with what was already written. (Though, I did "promote" one very minor
> alien to a multi-planet presence. [The Dandies. They realized their
> species could easily be snuffed out by the Vargr, so they worked with
> the Regency to make sure they had some colonies on other worlds as a
> hedge against that.]) But I was having trouble with the Aslan. Quite
> simply, the Aslan don't make a whole lot of sense. It isn't because
> they are truly "alien", but because they have stupid restrictions on
> what they can do that severely handicap them. (This is ignoring their
> broken history. I am just talking about their culture.)
>
> Going back and doing some of that "reading between the lines" thing
> again,
> I decided that, really, all of these social and gender limitations are
> really just learned behaviors, not innate. So, I decided that the only
> real limitation on the Aslan was the male "need for land". And even
> that
> is a misdirection, as they don't actually have a "need for land", but
> just a "need for confirmation of status". It isn't the land; it is the
> status the land grants. In effect, I was willing to let the Aslan
> become
> "more human" because the only thing making them "alien" was their
> stupid self-imposed limitations.
>
> Then, just to have fun with the whole idea, I made the most successful
> Aslan pocket empire a "barbarian" empire lead by a unique Aslan that
> figure all of this crap out. He intentionally reworked his empire's
> society to reduce or eliminate the most stupid parts so that the
> Aslan could be freed to be more successful. As they became more
> successful, more Aslan started to join because, barbarian or not,
> they weren't going hungry and their empire was expanding. Even some
> human worlds joined the empire.
>
> Mike West
> [1]
>
>
>

Hi,
I think you told me once before, and I’ll repeat. If you ever come to Norway, look me up and I’ll buy you a beer =0)

--
Roger Malmstein
www.travellerfreeport.com

From:
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2012 3:03 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Hey

I'm very glad to hear from you again, Roger. I think you knew this, that
I'm a Norwegian as well, but with a Danish/Swedish last name overwritten on
my original family name of Anderson.

Fram!

Dave

--- In , <dcndcn13@...> wrote:
>
> Oops, sorry, I ended that e-mail prematurely.
>
> I'm sorry to hear about your GM. I'm not the first one to notice this, but losses seem to come in clusters.
>
> I can tell you what was supposed to come out of Guilded Lilly and Sandman, but I don't remember anything at GDW about Derek Stanley clones appearing on every planet! :-)
>
> "...the bitterness of an unfinished tale." I'll let that stand on its own.
>

Dave,
Despite the fact that TNE officially ended as an 'unfinished tale' I think that those of us here on this board are all doing our part to not so much finish it as the journey will never end but rather continue it. I think I speak for all of us when we say that we are pleased and honored to have you back in the TNE fold.

I would love to hear what was planned for the Guilded Lilly as well as Sandman. Also, would you care to answer some questions I have regarding the Ithklur and their past and future?

Of course the burning question is what is inside the Black Curtain!

Matt

Hi, Matt!

You are now my #2 favorite person of the month, for liking H&I. The
Ithklur have a glorious future, exposing Hiver anti-human deceit, and then
clobbering the mecha-K'kree when they come stampeding out from the Black
Curtain!

One of the things I wanted to do, but didn't, in TNE and H&I, and failed
to to in GT H&I was give them a traits-based innate advantage in combat. In
TNE I didn't have the time to make sure I could do it right without dorking
up play balance, and in GT I was just far too under the gun and unfamiliar
with the intricacies of the GT system. My bad.

I hope you have fun, and please let me know how it goes.

Dave

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 06:13:26 -0000, "helvorn" <> wrote:
> --- In [1], B³a¿ej Mazur wrote:
> >>
> > From: [2]
> [ [3]]
> > On Behalf Of David
> > Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2012 8:18 PM
> > To: [4]
> > Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Hey
> >
> >
> > I was feeling kind of retrospective lately, and Googled "I love
> Traveller the New Era," mostly just to see if anyone ever said that,
> which led me to "Tales of an Old School Gamer," which led me to BARD,
> which led me here.
> >
> > So I thought I'd say, "Hi," and also, I'm glad that what we did so
> long ago still pleases some people. Sorry we weren't able to stay around
> to finish what we started.
> >
> > Dave Nilsen
> >
>
> Welcome to this board Dave, we are doing our best to keep the Flame. A
> friend is setting up a TNE game over on one of the online boards (RPOL)
> and I'm eagerly using the Aliens of the Rim supplement to set up an
> Ithklur. I would have to say the presentation of both the Hivers and
> Ithklur are by far my favorite write-ups of aliens in a sci-fi game.
>
> Matt
>
>
>

Naah, the other Dave Nilsen. THE Dave Nilsen is an a$$#ole.

I'm the nice one. :-)

Are you a Kris that I know? I apologize for asking, but some memories from
that far back are fuzzier than I might wish.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 06:15:55 -0000, "Kristian" <> wrote:
> Wow! This group woke up today and I see it is because of Dave Nilsen.
> THE Dave Nilsen!?
>
> Funny I was thinking about the TNE years and you the other day. Drop me
> an email if you like ( [1]).
>
> Cheers,
> Kris
>
> --- In [2], "David" wrote:
> >
> > I was feeling kind of retrospective lately, and Googled "I love
> Traveller the New Era," mostly just to see if anyone ever said that,
> which led me to "Tales of an Old School Gamer," which led me to BARD,
> which led me here.
> >
> > So I thought I'd say, "Hi," and also, I'm glad that what we did so
> long ago still pleases some people. Sorry we weren't able to stay around
> to finish what we started.
> >
> > Dave Nilsen
> >
>
>
>

I would be happy to do that. There's some possibility of my doing work for
NATO, so maybe on my way to or from Bavaria, if that happens. Although
honestly I think that is a very long shot.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 08:23:27 +0200, "Roger Malmstein"
<> wrote:
> Hi, I think you told me once before, and I’ll repeat. If you ever
> come to Norway, look me up and I’ll buy you a beer =0) --
> Roger Malmstein
> Sunday, June 10, 2012 3:03 AM Re: [Traveller_TNE] Hey
>
>
> I'm very glad to hear from you again, Roger. I think you knew this, that
> I'm a Norwegian as well, but with a Danish/Swedish last name overwritten
> on
> my original family name of Anderson.
>
> Fram!
>
> Dave
>
>
>

Yes, absolutely, I will answer your questions.

However, please read the other messages I've sent today, several of which
talk about Guilded Lilly, Sandman, Ithklur, and Black Curtain to see what
I've already put out, and then get back to me with any holes you'd like
filled in.

Dave

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 06:25:19 -0000, "helvorn" <> wrote:
> --- In [1], wrote:
> >
> > Oops, sorry, I ended that e-mail prematurely.
> >
> > I'm sorry to hear about your GM. I'm not the first one to notice
> this, but losses seem to come in clusters.
> >
> > I can tell you what was supposed to come out of Guilded Lilly and
> Sandman, but I don't remember anything at GDW about Derek Stanley clones
> appearing on every planet! :-)
> >
> > "...the bitterness of an unfinished tale." I'll let that stand on its
> own.
> >
>
> Dave,
> Despite the fact that TNE officially ended as an 'unfinished tale' I
> think that those of us here on this board are all doing our part to not
> so much finish it as the journey will never end but rather continue it.
I
> think I speak for all of us when we say that we are pleased and honored
> to have you back in the TNE fold.
>
> I would love to hear what was planned for the Guilded Lilly as well as
> Sandman. Also, would you care to answer some questions I have regarding
> the Ithklur and their past and future?
>
> Of course the burning question is what is inside the Black Curtain!
>
> Matt
>
>
>

--- In , <dcndcn13@...> wrote:
>
> Don't know how well "White City" refers to meta-identities. As I felt it, it is a meditation on the tension between love and violence and despair and crushing alienation and dehumanization, and how the love for humanity in the aggregate sometimes requires you to do things that dishonors love for humanity on the individual level. And the point is that even when you have to do unpleasant things for the greater good, which the RC did, good, honest, decent people still carry the scars of the cost.
>
> God, I'm a downer.
>
> But I'll bet Mr. Townshend's music has applicabilities I had not
> considered.

Dave,
I always thought that the underlying tension and angst caused by the choices that had to be made in the RC made it much more 'real' for me. The setting let you head out into the darkness and make a difference even at a tremendous personal cost. Not so much a downer as a story of life in this imperfect world.

Matt

> > I was feeling kind of retrospective lately, and Googled "I love Traveller the New Era," mostly just to see if anyone ever said that, which led me to "Tales of an Old School Gamer," which led me to BARD, which led me here.
> >
> > So I thought I'd say, "Hi," and also, I'm glad that what we did so long ago still pleases some people. Sorry we weren't able to stay around to finish what we started.
> >
> > Dave Nilsen
> >
>
> Welcome to this board Dave, we are doing our best to keep the Flame. A friend is setting up a TNE game over on one of the online boards (RPOL) and I'm eagerly using the Aliens of the Rim supplement to set up an Ithklur. I would have to say the presentation of both the Hivers and Ithklur are by far my favorite write-ups of aliens in a sci-fi game.
>
> Matt
>

Hi Dave,

I'm the friend Matt is talking about. I started playing Traveller back in the late 80s, but when the owner of the books moved away in the early 90s plus leaving university, getting a job and getting married meant my RPG games were over for a while. Means I missed the whole MegaTraveller, TNE and even T4 series of releases.

It was actually the TV series "Firefly" that started me thinking about Traveller again, so I purchased the classic reprints of the LBBs and supplements for a gaming store here in Australia and played some solo games. Traveller players in Australia are basically non-existent. After a little while I decided, like you, to see what I could find online, as I have fond memories of the Keith Brother's supplements. Low and behold I find a thriving online community.

So I start a Play-by-Email game set in the Reavers' Deep. Been going 3 and a half years now with a good group of players. Any way, how I got to here. I started to purchase the FFE CDs last year since Traveller stuff on the local eBay is few and far between. I read some of the MT stuff, Meh, but what I read in TNE got me hooked. Even in Reavers' Deep the history is some-what there, but TNE allows me to reset the area and start afresh with some of the ideas and secret history I have been toying with for the area.

Real life doesn't allow too much gaming time but I'm keen to see what the players can make of the story going forward.

>From the newbie,

Brett.

I'm glad to hear you say that.

It was important to me to try to invest TNE with something of a "heart."
Not like that makes me unique, or anything, it was just something that I
was conciously trying to do.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 06:46:35 -0000, "helvorn" <> wrote:
> --- In [1], wrote:
> >
> > Don't know how well "White City" refers to meta-identities. As I felt
> it, it is a meditation on the tension between love and violence and
> despair and crushing alienation and dehumanization, and how the love for
> humanity in the aggregate sometimes requires you to do things that
> dishonors love for humanity on the individual level. And the point is
> that even when you have to do unpleasant things for the greater good,
> which the RC did, good, honest, decent people still carry the scars of
> the cost.
> >
> > God, I'm a downer.
> >
> > But I'll bet Mr. Townshend's music has applicabilities I had not
> > considered.
>
> Dave,
> I always thought that the underlying tension and angst caused by the
> choices that had to be made in the RC made it much more 'real' for me.
> The setting let you head out into the darkness and make a difference
even
> at a tremendous personal cost. Not so much a downer as a story of life
in
> this imperfect world.
>
> Matt
>
>
>

That's really cool. I have to admit, though, that I have no idea what a
PBeM game would be like. Even though I develop online training and mobile
apps for the Army, I am in fact probably a closet Luddite.

How does PBeM work?

By the way, I'm glad you mentioned "Firefly."

You can't watch that show without thinking, "Joss Whedon has played
Traveller," but I have never seen him admit that anywhere. Has he ever
admitted it? Has anyone even asked him?

ALSO, I can't watch the recent Battlestar Galactica reboot without
thinking, "they've played TNE," especially the first episodes. It's eerie.
Has anyone seen them admit to that?

Dave

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 06:53:37 -0000, "krugerbf" <>
wrote:
>> > I was feeling kind of retrospective lately, and Googled "I love
> Traveller the New Era," mostly just to see if anyone ever said that,
> which led me to "Tales of an Old School Gamer," which led me to BARD,
> which led me here.
> > >
> > > So I thought I'd say, "Hi," and also, I'm glad that what we did so
> long ago still pleases some people. Sorry we weren't able to stay around
> to finish what we started.
> > >
> > > Dave Nilsen
> > >
> >
> > Welcome to this board Dave, we are doing our best to keep the Flame.
> A friend is setting up a TNE game over on one of the online boards
(RPOL)
> and I'm eagerly using the Aliens of the Rim supplement to set up an
> Ithklur. I would have to say the presentation of both the Hivers and
> Ithklur are by far my favorite write-ups of aliens in a sci-fi game.
> >
> > Matt
> >
>
> Hi Dave,
>
> I'm the friend Matt is talking about. I started playing Traveller back
> in the late 80s, but when the owner of the books moved away in the early
> 90s plus leaving university, getting a job and getting married meant my
> RPG games were over for a while. Means I missed the whole MegaTraveller,
> TNE and even T4 series of releases.
>
> It was actually the TV series "Firefly" that started me thinking about
> Traveller again, so I purchased the classic reprints of the LBBs and
> supplements for a gaming store here in Australia and played some solo
> games. Traveller players in Australia are basically non-existent. After
a
> little while I decided, like you, to see what I could find online, as I
> have fond memories of the Keith Brother's supplements. Low and behold I
> find a thriving online community.
>
> So I start a Play-by-Email game set in the Reavers' Deep. Been going 3
> and a half years now with a good group of players. Any way, how I got to
> here. I started to purchase the FFE CDs last year since Traveller stuff
> on the local eBay is few and far between. I read some of the MT stuff,
> Meh, but what I read in TNE got me hooked. Even in Reavers' Deep the
> history is some-what there, but TNE allows me to reset the area and
start
> afresh with some of the ideas and secret history I have been toying with
> for the area.
>
> Real life doesn't allow too much gaming time but I'm keen to see what
> the players can make of the story going forward.
>
> From the newbie,
>
> Brett.
>
>
>

That would be just sweet. And if you need a bunk, I got a spare bedroom.
And I could introduce you to my son. I am breaking him into RPG games these days with some of his friends.

--
Roger Malmstein
www.travellerfreeport.com

From:
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2012 8:34 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Hey

I would be happy to do that. There's some possibility of my doing work for
NATO, so maybe on my way to or from Bavaria, if that happens. Although
honestly I think that is a very long shot.

Thank you, that would be fun. I will let you know if it happens.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 09:01:24 +0200, "Roger Malmstein"
<> wrote:
> That would be just sweet. And if you need a bunk, I got a spare
> bedroom. And I could introduce you to my son. I am breaking him into RPG
> games these days with some of his friends. --
> Roger Malmstein
> www.travellerfreepo

> That's really cool. I have to admit, though, that I have no idea what a PBeM game would be like. Even though I develop online training and mobile apps for the Army, I am in fact probably a closet Luddite.
>
> How does PBeM work?
>
> By the way, I'm glad you mentioned "Firefly."
>
> You can't watch that show without thinking, "Joss Whedon has played Traveller," but I have never seen him admit that anywhere. Has he ever admitted it? Has anyone even asked him?
>
> ALSO, I can't watch the recent Battlestar Galactica reboot without thinking, "they've played TNE," especially the first episodes. It's eerie.
> Has anyone seen them admit to that?
>
> Dave
>

PBeM is the closest to face to face I can get. All my local mates are interested in is the board game "Axis & Allies", which I also enjoy, and various computer games like "Settlers" and "Call of Duty", which I don't enjoy as I think the scope of play is too limited.

PBeM mostly works like face to face games, except over a longer time frame. This does sometimes lead to issues of crossed timelines and confusion as to where different characters are in game terms. This is why I'm trying out RPOL for my TNE game, I can keep groups of players in different threads.

Yes, I thought the same about "Firefly". I haven't yet played enough TNE or watched enough of the BG reboot to be able to compare.

Brett.

PBeM makes sense to me for turn-based games like A&A, but RPGing is so
real-time, it's hard for me to picture how that translates.

BSG had a couple of episodes that focused on the Cylon computer virus,
that made me think, "man, that's just like what I wrote." The difference
was that the Cylon virus came in through the Nav system instead of the IFF
system.

THAT was my mistake in TNE, I didn't use the Nav system, which is much
more plausible. Did BSG get lots of ugly letters about that?

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 07:09:00 -0000, "krugerbf" <>
wrote:
>> That's really cool. I have to admit, though, that I have no idea what
> a PBeM game would be like. Even though I develop online training and
> mobile apps for the Army, I am in fact probably a closet Luddite.
> >
> > How does PBeM work?
> >
> > By the way, I'm glad you mentioned "Firefly."
> >
> > You can't watch that show without thinking, "Joss Whedon has played
> Traveller," but I have never seen him admit that anywhere. Has he ever
> admitted it? Has anyone even asked him?
> >
> > ALSO, I can't watch the recent Battlestar Galactica reboot without
> thinking, "they've played TNE," especially the first episodes. It's
> eerie.
> > Has anyone seen them admit to that?
> >
> > Dave
> >
>
> PBeM is the closest to face to face I can get. All my local mates are
> interested in is the board game "Axis height: 0;">
>

> PBeM makes sense to me for turn-based games like A&A, but RPGing is so real-time, it's hard for me to picture how that translates.
>
> BSG had a couple of episodes that focused on the Cylon computer virus, that made me think, "man, that's just like what I wrote." The difference was that the Cylon virus came in through the Nav system instead of the IFF system.
>
> THAT was my mistake in TNE, I didn't use the Nav system, which is much more plausible. Did BSG get lots of ugly letters about that?
>

A friend of mine has the boxed set, I'll have to see if I can borrow those episodes.

--- In , <dcndcn13@...> wrote:
>
> Are you a Kris that I know? I apologize for asking, but some memories from
> that far back are fuzzier than I might wish.

Hi Dave,

I'm the Kris listed in the credits of TNE for "Helpful Comments" or something like that, who years ago worked on the DUMAND neutrino telescope, and was there at DragonCon when Steve Bryant... Well, what happens at DragonCon stays at DragonCon. :-)

Wow, it has been a long time.

Kris

I think the key virus-focused episodes are the original mini-series and
the first episode of Season 2, "Scattered."

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 07:32:00 -0000, "krugerbf" <>
wrote:
>> PBeM makes sense to me for turn-based games like A height:
> 0;">
>

Yes, that's what I was thinking. You're the guy that told as that a
neutrino detector could not detect a starship fusion drive, because that is
a low-order proton-proton chain, and only the more exotic fusion processes
at the heart of a star that build heavier nuclei were energetic enough to
produce detectable neutrons.

How the heck are you? I remember you fondly a lot. Didn't you have a
shaved head?

What happened with Steve Bryant at DragonCon? I don't like forgetting fun
things that happened in my life.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 07:56:47 -0000, "Kristian" <> wrote:
> --- In [1], wrote:
> >
> > Are you a Kris that I know? I apologize for asking, but some memories
> from
> > that far back are fuzzier than I might wish.
>
> Hi Dave,
>
> I'm the Kris listed in the credits of TNE for "Helpful Comments" or
> something like that, who years ago worked on the DUMAND neutrino
> telescope, and was there at DragonCon when Steve Bryant... Well, what
> happens at DragonCon stays at DragonCon. :-)
>
> Wow, it has been a long time.
>
> Kris
>
>
>

Hi Dave,
You don't know me but I would like to express my thanks and appreciation
for TNE and your contributions to it.

I had played many RPGs before we wandered into TNE (MERP, DnD, Earthdawn,
Cyberpunk, Elric) but TNE was the RPG that coiled itself around my
brainstem and never let go.

I think it was FFS that really made it so memorable, you could make your
own toys for this universe rather than just fudge it. As a child raised on
Lego this was like a dream come true :-)

Sadly it's been over a decade since I played, but damn the memories are
good!
Regards,
Brendan

On 9 June 2012 20:17, David <> wrote:

> **
>
>
> I was feeling kind of retrospective lately, and Googled "I love Traveller
> the New Era," mostly just to see if anyone ever said that, which led me to
> "Tales of an Old School Gamer," which led me to BARD, which led me here.
>
> So I thought I'd say, "Hi," and also, I'm glad that what we did so long
> ago still pleases some people. Sorry we weren't able to stay around to
> finish what we started.
>
> Dave Nilsen
>
>
>

On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 5:15 PM, Roger Malmstein <
> wrote:

>
>
> When Mongoose Traveller came out. I decided that I had seen enough
> Traveller editions and opted out. The irony is that some of my HIWG works
> has made it to MgT in one form or the other and I have been credited in at
> least 2 MgT books (Vargr and Zhodani). Now they notices me, almost 20 years
> after I wrote the material (sigh).
>

I'll let the Gents Know you noticed..... One of them is in my Traveller
Group.

--
Evyn

On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Mike West <> wrote:

>
>
> On a totally and completely different subject, I will always thank you
> for the Hiver and Ithklur supplement. How you took the written canon for
> the Hivers and turned it totally on its head, and how you really put
> dimension into the Ithklur was brilliant. That is still one of my favorite
> Traveller supplements.

I am so Glad I am not the only one to Love that One. Everytime I read it I
come away wanting to play both, or a pair at the same time.

--
Evyn

The material is used with my permission. DonM from CotI, which also are involved with T5 asked me for permission before it saw print.

In the Vargr book, the world names and the subsector names I came up with are being kept. Allthough many of the original UWP stats from the original vargr module has been changed. Oruelaen, a psionic security force I made for the Thirz Empire made it into the Vargr book too though. But not much information is given about them. You can read more about them in my take on the Gvurrdon Sector. Found in the Gvurrdon Sector Campaign Book, which you may download from my site.

In the Zhodani book I was asked to read the stuff about Vargr and make sure that it was coherent.

I am not bitter, but it is ironic that all the work I did in the late 80ies and early 90ies did not get published. I tried, but I think at the time of MT GDW had very little in the way of vision to were they wanted to go, thus explaining the mess MT ended up with as no one at GDW was really paying attention to the product line at all. Hadn’t it been for DGP, Traveller may have died long before TNE came out. Even though the material DGP gave out wasn’t supporting the Rebellion setting, it at least kept Traveller in every ones minds as their writing for most part was great.

--
Roger Malmstein
www.travellerfreeport.com

From: Evyn MacDude
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2012 12:11 PM
To:
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Hey

I'll let the Gents Know you noticed..... One of them is in my Traveller Group.

--

.

On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 3:38 AM, Roger Malmstein <
> wrote:

>
>
> The material is used with my permission. DonM from CotI, which also are
> involved with T5 asked me for permission before it saw print.
>
> In the Vargr book, the world names and the subsector names I came up with
> are being kept. Allthough many of the original UWP stats from the original
> vargr module has been changed. Oruelaen, a psionic security force I made
> for the Thirz Empire made it into the Vargr book too though. But not much
> information is given about them. You can read more about them in my take on
> the Gvurrdon Sector. Found in the Gvurrdon Sector Campaign Book, which you
> may download from my site.
>
> In the Zhodani book I was asked to read the stuff about Vargr and make
> sure that it was coherent.
>
> I am not bitter, but it is ironic that all the work I did in the late
> 80ies and early 90ies did not get published. I tried, but I think at the
> time of MT GDW had very little in the way of vision to were they wanted to
> go, thus explaining the mess MT ended up with as no one at GDW was really
> paying attention to the product line at all. Hadn�t it been for DGP,
> Traveller may have died long before TNE came out. Even though the material
> DGP gave out wasn�t supporting the Rebellion setting, it at least kept
> Traveller in every ones minds as their writing for most part was great.
>

I knew you and Jim corresponded over the years, you where always a unseen
3rd party when I was beating together campaign backgrounds with Him. I
wasn't sure how much you had seen prior to publication as Jim moved out to
the valley and our "traveller centric" conversations have thinned over the
years as neither of us is running the current game in our 20+ year
Traveller Group. (Said Group was started with the news of the Playtest for
TNE).
--
Evyn

Jim Vassilikos you mean? I had some correspodence with him for a while. He was working on a DOS based sector mapping program early 90ies.
--
Roger Malmstein
www.travellerfreeport.com

From: Evyn MacDude
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2012 12:51 PM
To:
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Hey

I knew you and Jim corresponded over the years, you where always a unseen 3rd party when I was beating together campaign backgrounds with Him. I wasn't sure how much you had seen prior to publication as Jim moved out to the valley and our "traveller centric" conversations have thinned over the years as neither of us is running the current game in our 20+ year Traveller Group. (Said Group was started with the news of the Playtest for TNE).
--
Evyn

We aren't a group of ex-military types, we are all nerds (One lifetime [25+ years] IBM'er, one Cisco veteran, two guys from yet another software company [both in QA], one from healthcare, and the last in tech support).  I think our campaign won't be as much "Oo-Rah!" and more "Can we hack a Virus system"?"

I will probably have questions after this afternoon's game, but right now i'm just trying not to have jitters: i haven't ran a RPG game in about 15 years (though i have played a fair amount in that time).  I think i have a good starting scenario "out of frying pan into fire" with fire == "pick your poison: the crazy xenophobic/technophobic TL 2 culture OR the abandoned scout base that just shot down one of the life boats"

Great to see you back, Dave. We interacted briefly while you were at COTI, and it's good to see you resurface.

It's funny. Only played TNE briefly, but the RC is a setting I just keep coming back to over and over again. There's just something about a civilization looking the devastation over, spitting on their hands, and setting themselves to push back the darkness because it's the right thing to do that I can't get away from. Because they believe.

So thanks for the memories, and a lot of good times.

-JTD

P.S. I loved H&I as soon as I twigged to the reference to Scandal's "The Warrior" in it. One of my favorite songs. Don't anyone dare judge me. ;)

Pbem is fun but its fraught with problems, its slow and you're relying on people to post regularly and every so often you'll get some one, usually me, who has a free few minutes who pushes the storyline forward in major jumps and the rest of the crew are completely left in the lurch because they were in a meeting or unable to post. You also run into issues with cross posts moving the story thread backwards forwards and sideways at the same time.

About a decade ago I ran a pbIRC that forced us all to sit down at our computers for 3 hours on a sunday and it was brilliant like f2f gaming. It lasted about a year and a half and we had a ton of fun.

Derek Stanley
Sent from my iPhone...

On 2012-06-10, at 0:09, "krugerbf" <> wrote:

> > That's really cool. I have to admit, though, that I have no idea what a PBeM game would be like. Even though I develop online training and mobile apps for the Army, I am in fact probably a closet Luddite.
> >
> > How does PBeM work?
> >
> > By the way, I'm glad you mentioned "Firefly."
> >
> > You can't watch that show without thinking, "Joss Whedon has played Traveller," but I have never seen him admit that anywhere. Has he ever admitted it? Has anyone even asked him?
> >
> > ALSO, I can't watch the recent Battlestar Galactica reboot without thinking, "they've played TNE," especially the first episodes. It's eerie.
> > Has anyone seen them admit to that?
> >
> > Dave
> >
>
> PBeM is the closest to face to face I can get. All my local mates are interested in is the board game "Axis & Allies", which I also enjoy, and various computer games like "Settlers" and "Call of Duty", which I don't enjoy as I think the scope of play is too limited.
>
> PBeM mostly works like face to face games, except over a longer time frame. This does sometimes lead to issues of crossed timelines and confusion as to where different characters are in game terms. This is why I'm trying out RPOL for my TNE game, I can keep groups of players in different threads.
>
> Yes, I thought the same about "Firefly". I haven't yet played enough TNE or watched enough of the BG reboot to be able to compare.
>
> Brett.
>
>

I think computer gaming is the way to go rather than pbem. I
remember hoping Neverwinter Nights was the start of a new trend
but sadly hadn't been so


___
>From my Galaxy SII

-------- Original message --------
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Re: Hey
From: DEREK STANLEY




Pbem is fun but its fraught with problems, its slow and you're
relying on people to post regularly and every so often you'll get
some one, usually me, who has a free few minutes who pushes the
storyline forward in major jumps and the rest of the crew are
completely left in the lurch because they were in a meeting or
unable to post. You also run into issues with cross posts moving
the story thread backwards forwards and sideways at the same
time.
About a decade ago I ran a pbIRC that forced us all to sit down
at our computers for 3 hours on a sunday and it was brilliant
like f2f gaming. It lasted about a year and a half and we had a
ton of fun.

Derek StanleySent from my iPhone...
On 2012-06-10, at 0:09, "krugerbf" <
<> > wrote:


> That's really cool. I have to admit, though, that I have no
idea what a PBeM game would be like. Even though I develop online
training and mobile apps for the Army, I am in fact probably a
closet Luddite.
>
> How does PBeM work?
>
> By the way, I'm glad you mentioned "Firefly."
>
> You can't watch that show without thinking, "Joss Whedon has
played Traveller," but I have never seen him admit that anywhere.
Has he ever admitted it? Has anyone even asked him?
>
> ALSO, I can't watch the recent Battlestar Galactica reboot
without thinking, "they've played TNE," especially the first
episodes. It's eerie.
> Has anyone seen them admit to that?
>
> Dave
>

PBeM is the closest to face to face I can get. All my local
mates are interested in is the board game "Axis & Allies", which
I also enjoy, and various computer games like "Settlers" and
"Call of Duty", which I don't enjoy as I think the scope of play
is too limited.

PBeM mostly works like face to face games, except over a longer
time frame. This does sometimes lead to issues of crossed
timelines and confusion as to where different characters are in
game terms. This is why I'm trying out RPOL for my TNE game, I
can keep groups of players in different threads.

Yes, I thought the same about "Firefly". I haven't yet played
enough TNE or watched enough of the BG reboot to be able to
compare.

Brett.

Hi Dave,

When I saw your application to the ml, I was wondering if you were just
going to lurk in anonymity or engage. Considering how quiet this list
has been over the last few years, I wasn't sure how you'd react.

Then I check in this morning and find over a hundred messages posted. My
first thought was, "Oh no, flame war. Did Tim (our moderator) get
overwhelmed?" Then I saw that it was the exact opposite. Phew!

Glad to see your arrival on this list is a good one, Dave.

\_/
DED
TNE @ Yahoo ml Admin

=======================================

Posted by: "David"
<?Subject=%20Re%3A%20Hey> dcnilsen13
<http://profiles.yahoo.com/dcnilsen13>
Sat Jun 9, 2012 11:17 am (PDT)

I was feeling kind of retrospective lately, and Googled "I love
Traveller the New Era," mostly just to see if anyone ever said that,
which led me to "Tales of an Old School Gamer," which led me to BARD,
which led me here.

So I thought I'd say, "Hi," and also, I'm glad that what we did so long
ago still pleases some people. Sorry we weren't able to stay around to
finish what we started.

Dave Nilsen

Thank you, Brendan, I'm really glad to hear that.

TNE is the RPG that coiled itself around my brainstem and never let go as
well. :-)

FF&S was definitely a big deal. We were very proud of it, but we did do a
typical GDW thing with it, in trying to put in design elements for SO many
disparate things that some errata crept in, and they couldn't all be dealt
with to the same level of detail. All we left out was wet navies and
choo-choo trains. Those got into World Tamers, but it wasn't really
satisfactory as it didn't get into tractive effort, etc. The number of
driver wheels was purely aesthetic.

While in terms of raw amount of errata FF&S may have been high, in terms
of percentage of errata compared to how much stuff we tried to do in there,
I think it wasn't too bad.

Dave

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 11:53:21 +0200, Ben Greene <>
wrote:
> Hi Dave,You don't know me but I would like to express my thanks and
> appreciation for TNE and your contributions to it.
> I had played many RPGs before we wandered into TNE (MERP, DnD,
> Earthdawn, Cyberpunk, Elric) but TNE was the RPG that coiled itself
> around my brainstem and never let go.
> I think it was FFS that really made it so memorable, you could make your
> own toys for this universe rather than just fudge it. As a child raised
> on Lego this was like a dream come true :-)
> Sadly it's been over a decade since I played, but damn the memories are
> good!Regards,

Evyn--

You are now my official #3 favorite person of the month, as recounted in
previous messages.

Dave

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 03:18:21 -0700, Evyn MacDude <>
wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Mike West wrote:
>
> On a totally and completely different subject, I will always thank you
> for the Hiver and Ithklur supplement. How you took the written canon
> for
> the Hivers and turned it totally on its head, and how you really put
> dimension into the Ithklur was brilliant. That is still one of my
> favorite
> Traveller supplements.
> I am so Glad I am not the only one to Love that One. Everytime I read it
> I come away wanting to play both, or a pair at the same time. 

So you're an original TNE playtester? Cool.

How did we do that? For some reason the playtest that I really remember
was for DJ, where we knew there was a mole/leak in the system, and we had
to painstakingly distribute the playtest sets with strategic typos so we
could identify the leak. DJ was unlike everything else we did in that
cloak-and-dagger stuff, as only it had all of the licensing and legal
issues.

Good times.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 03:51:55 -0700, Evyn MacDude <>
wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 3:38 AM, Roger Malmstein wrote:
>
> The material is used with my permission. DonM from CotI, which also
> are involved with T5 asked me for permission before it saw print.   In
> the Vargr book, the world names and the subsector names I came up with
> are being kept. Allthough many of the original UWP stats from the
> original vargr module has been changed. Oruelaen, a psionic security
> force I made for the Thirz Empire made it into the Vargr book too
though.
> But not much information is given about them. You can read more about
> them in my take on the Gvurrdon Sector. Found in the Gvurrdon Sector
> Campaign Book, which you may download from my site.   In the Zhodani
> book I was asked to read the stuff about Vargr and make sure that it was
> coherent.   I am not bitter, but it is ironic that all the work I did in
> the late 80ies and early 90ies did not get published. I tried, but I
> think at the time of MT GDW had very little in the way of vision to were
> they wanted to go, thus explaining the mess MT ended up with as no one
at
> GDW was really paying attention to the product line at all. Hadn’t it
> been for DGP, Traveller may have died long before TNE came out. Even
> though the material DGP gave out wasn’t supporting the Rebellion
> setting, it at least kept Traveller in every ones minds as their writing
> for most part was great.
> I knew you and Jim corresponded 

Thanks, Jeff. Do I remember your name, or is it just the similarity to
MJD?

Believe. Always Believe.

And that makes you officially my #4 favorite person of the month.

Obviously I loved Scandal/Warrior as well, so I sure won't judge you. :-)

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 10:30:54 -0400, Jeff Dougherty
<> wrote:
> Great to see you back, Dave. We interacted briefly while you were at
> COTI, and it's good to see you resurface.
>
> It's funny. Only played TNE briefly, but the RC is a setting I just
> keep coming back to over and over again. There's just something about a
> civilization looking the devastation over, spitting on their hands, and
> setting themselves to push back the darkness because it's the right
thing
> to do that I can't get away from. Because they believe.
>
> So thanks for the memories, and a lot of good times.
>
> -JTD
>
> P.S. I loved H)
>
>

The asynchronous challenge you mention is kind of what I was thinking.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 08:48:26 -0600 (MDT), DEREK STANLEY <>
wrote:
> Pbem is fun but its fraught with problems, its slow and you're relying
> on people to post regularly and every so often you'll get some one,
> usually me, who has a free few minutes who pushes the storyline forward
> in major jumps and the rest of the crew are completely left in the lurch
> because they were in a meeting or unable to post. You also run into
> issues with cross posts moving the story thread backwards forwards and
> sideways at the same time.
> About a decade ago I ran a pbIRC that forced us all to sit down at our
> computers for 3 hours on a sunday and it was brilliant like f2f gaming.
> It lasted about a year and a half and we had a ton of fun.
>
> Derek StanleySent from my iPhone...
> On 2012-06-10, at 0:09, "krugerbf" wrote:
>
>> That's really cool. I have to admit, though, that I have no idea what
> a PBeM game would be like. Even though I develop online training and
> mobile apps for the Army, I am in fact probably a closet Luddite.
> >
> > How does PBeM work?
> >
> > By the way, I'm glad you mentioned "Firefly."
> >
> > You can't watch that show without thinking, "Joss Whedon has played
> Traveller," but I have never seen him admit that anywhere. Has he ever
> admitted it? Has anyone even asked him?
> >
> > ALSO, I can't watch the recent Battlestar Galactica reboot without
> thinking, "they've played TNE," especially the first episodes. It's
> eerie.
> > Has anyone seen them admit to that?
> >
> > Dave
> >
>
> PBeM is the closest to face to face I can get. All my local mates are
> interested in is the board game "Axis height: 0;">
>

Probably the similarity to MJD. I went by "ChaserCaffey" on the boards.

See how many favorite people you get when you sign on a TNE list? ;-) I always suspected the flak over H&I was more the product of a vocal minority than anything else, because every TNE player I've ever talked to either liked the book, or at least thought it was OK. I've yet to actually encounter a person who was part of the supposed tidal wave of rage over it. Of course, that's completely nonscientific, and this many years down the road I doubt we'll ever know for sure.

FF&S was a hoot. Some of my best college memories are of trying to come up with a TL-12 weapon that could seriously annoy a Trepida grav-tank for when the Regency came over the hill. My favorite was the grav sled mounting a 6" gun firing nuclear shells...hate to file the EIS on that baby.

-JTD

"There is a thin line between genius and insanity" - Anonymous

"I walk the line." - Johnny Cash

On Jun 10, 2012, at 1:17 PM, <> wrote:

> Thanks, Jeff. Do I remember your name, or is it just the similarity to
> MJD?
>
> Believe. Always Believe.
>
> And that makes you officially my #4 favorite person of the month.
>
> Obviously I loved Scandal/Warrior as well, so I sure won't judge you. :-)
>
> On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 10:30:54 -0400, Jeff Dougherty
> <> wrote:
> > Great to see you back, Dave. We interacted briefly while you were at
> > COTI, and it's good to see you resurface.
> >
> > It's funny. Only played TNE briefly, but the RC is a setting I just
> > keep coming back to over and over again. There's just something about a
> > civilization looking the devastation over, spitting on their hands, and
> > setting themselves to push back the darkness because it's the right
> thing
> > to do that I can't get away from. Because they believe.
> >
> > So thanks for the memories, and a lot of good times.
> >
> > -JTD
> >
> > P.S. I loved H)
> >
> >

Nope, he means me. I still have letters, that newsletter you did, and mostly fond memories of the HIWG days.

My HIWG vintage stuff for Ziafrplians is all over the MGT book. Twenty plus years, but the concept of HIWG has been paying off for Traveller. Sadly, after Clay is no longer around to see it happen. I have no idea if Mike Mikesh, Bryan, or Ed are still following any of this.

Jim Kundert
HIWG #200
Tienspevnekr Sector Analyst and General Zhodani Wonk

--- In , "Roger Malmstein" <starwolf@...> wrote:
>
> Jim Vassilikos you mean? I had some correspodence with him for a while. He was working on a DOS based sector mapping program early 90ies.
> --
> Roger Malmstein
> www.travellerfreeport.com
>
>
>
> From: Evyn MacDude
> Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2012 12:51 PM
> To:
> Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Hey
>
>
>
> I knew you and Jim corresponded over the years, you where always a unseen 3rd party when I was beating together campaign backgrounds with Him. I wasn't sure how much you had seen prior to publication as Jim moved out to the valley and our "traveller centric" conversations have thinned over the years as neither of us is running the current game in our 20+ year Traveller Group. (Said Group was started with the news of the Playtest for TNE).
> --
> Evyn
>

Obviously I momentarily wondered, "should I just lurk?" but really the
whole point was to jump in with both feet, and say "thank you," to all of
the folks that still like TNE after all these years.

Actually it IS a "flame" of sorts...but it's the keeping of the flame of
peace, and love, and brotherhood, and kindness to animals....Aw, wasn't
that cute?

I was being silly there, but really, this is a very nice community, and
keeping a nice community is a kind of keeping the flame.

Thanks, and you're welcome.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 12:27:22 -0400, DED <> wrote:
> Hi Dave,
>
> When I saw your application to the ml, I was wondering if you were just
>
> going to lurk in anonymity or engage. Considering how quiet this list
> has been over the last few years, I wasn't sure how you'd react.
>
> Then I check in this morning and find over a hundred messages posted.
> My
> first thought was, "Oh no, flame war. Did Tim (our moderator) get
> overwhelmed?

Okay, I do remember the "ChaserCaffey" handle, though.

When I was on the BARD page earlier, I saw the design--was it
Brutus?--that was a TL-12 attempt to counter Trepidas. Was that yours? That
made me think of that design I did for that monstrous looney vehicle in TNE
with the fission reactor in it, and the 120mm gatling gun. That one was
fun, and another example of seeing some fun-looking miniature someone had
made and trying to figure out what its ratings were in TNE. We published
that one in the Challenge technical updates, I think. We actually put a lot
of good technical designs into Challenge, in order to make Challenge more
valuable to the players. However, I remember it made it tough for me,
because a lot of them never got compiled into books, and I always had a
hard time remembering which issue they were in when I was trying to find
them again.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 13:21:29 -0400, Jeff Dougherty
<> wrote:
> Probably the similarity to MJD. I went by "ChaserCaffey" on the boards.
> See how many favorite people you get when you sign on a TNE list? ;-) I
> always suspected the flak over H&I was more the product of a vocal
> minority than anything else, because every TNE player I've ever talked
to
> either liked the book, or at least thought it was OK. I've yet to
> actually encounter a person who was part of the supposed tidal wave of
> rage over it. Of course, that's completely nonscientific, and this many
> years down the road I doubt we'll ever know for sure.
> FFcolor: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family: Helvetica;font-

Nope, innocent of that one. BARD seems to be more or less dead these days (which is sad), I don't think any of my stuff made it up there.

I've got the Challenge magazine with the "Monster" nuclear-powered tank in it. Always keep that one in my vest pocket. It makes absolutely no sense, but it's the perfect thing for an M. Bison style TED to pull out of his pocket to make the players realize exactly how insane he is. "It's...a nuclear powered tank. How does he- why would he- how do we stop this thing without forcing the evacuation of the entire province?" The last being the really pertinent question. Traditional methods of tank busting do not play well with highly enriched uranium.

-JTD

"If you can't be good, be colorful"

- Pete Conrad, Commander, Apollo 12

On Jun 10, 2012, at 2:24 PM, <> wrote:

> Okay, I do remember the "ChaserCaffey" handle, though.
>
> When I was on the BARD page earlier, I saw the design--was it
> Brutus?--that was a TL-12 attempt to counter Trepidas. Was that yours? That
> made me think of that design I did for that monstrous looney vehicle in TNE
> with the fission reactor in it, and the 120mm gatling gun. That one was
> fun, and another example of seeing some fun-looking miniature someone had
> made and trying to figure out what its ratings were in TNE. We published
> that one in the Challenge technical updates, I think. We actually put a lot
> of good technical designs into Challenge, in order to make Challenge more
> valuable to the players. However, I remember it made it tough for me,
> because a lot of them never got compiled into books, and I always had a
> hard time remembering which issue they were in when I was trying to find
> them again.
>
> On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 13:21:29 -0400, Jeff Dougherty
> <> wrote:
> > Probably the similarity to MJD. I went by "ChaserCaffey" on the boards.
> > See how many favorite people you get when you sign on a TNE list? ;-) I
> > always suspected the flak over H&I was more the product of a vocal
> > minority than anything else, because every TNE player I've ever talked
> to
> > either liked the book, or at least thought it was OK. I've yet to
> > actually encounter a person who was part of the supposed tidal wave of
> > rage over it. Of course, that's completely nonscientific, and this many
> > years down the road I doubt we'll ever know for sure.
> > FFcolor: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family: Helvetica;font-

Yeah, it was insanely stupid, but that was its charm.

Nice sig block. I use that Conrad quote a lot. It's a great Navy-ism.

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 14:28:35 -0400, Jeff Dougherty
<> wrote:
> Nope, innocent of that one. BARD seems to be more or less dead these
> days (which is sad), I don't think any of my stuff made it up there.
> I've got the Challenge magazine with the "Monster" nuclear-powered tank
> in it. Always keep that one in my vest pocket. It makes absolutely no
> sense, but it's the perfect thing for an M. Bison style TED to pull out
> of his pocket to make the players realize exactly how insane he is.
> "It's...a nuclear powered tank. How does he- why would he- how do we
stop
> this thing without forcing the evacuation of the entire province?" The
> last being the really pertinent question. Traditional methods of tank
> busting do not play well with highly enriched uranium.
> -JTD
> "If you can't be good, be colorful"
> - Pete Conrad, Commander, Apollo 12
>
> On Jun 10, 2012, at 2:24 PM, wrote:
>
> Okay, I do remember the "ChaserCaffey" handle, though.
>
> When I was on the BARD page earlier, I saw the design--was it
> Brutus?--that was a TL-12 attempt to counter Trepidas. Was that yours?
> That
> made me think of that design I did for that monstrous looney vehicle in
> TNE
> with the fission reactor in it, and the 120mm gatling gun. That one was
> fun, and another example of seeing some fun-looking miniature someone
> had
> made and trying to figure out what its ratings were in TNE. We
> published
> that one in the Challenge technical updates, I think. We actually put a
> lot
> of good technical designs into Challenge, in order to make Challenge
> more
> valuable to the players. However, I remember it made it tough for me,
> because a lot of them never got compiled into books, and I always had a
> hard time remembering which issue they were in when I was trying to
> find
> them again.
>
> On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 13:21:29 -0400, Jeff Dougherty
> wrote:
> > Probably the similarity to MJD. I went by "ChaserCaffey" on the
> boards.
> > See how many favorite people you get when you sign on a TNE list? ;-)
> I
> > always suspected the flak over Hfont-family: Helvetica;font-

Not to be a band wagon jumper but I will admit I also liked the H&I supplement but if I'm going to be honest Path of Tears with all the write ups of all the worlds in the AO was friggin awesome. I can't count how many times I reread that supplement, best Traveller product ever.

I always pondered the fate of Ashtabula.

Derek Stanley
Sent from my iPhone...

On 2012-06-10, at 9:35, <> wrote:

> Evyn--
>
> You are now my official #3 favorite person of the month, as recounted in
> previous messages.
>
> Dave
>
> On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 03:18:21 -0700, Evyn MacDude <>
> wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Mike West wrote:
> >
> > On a totally and completely different subject, I will always thank you
> > for the Hiver and Ithklur supplement. How you took the written canon
> > for
> > the Hivers and turned it totally on its head, and how you really put
> > dimension into the Ithklur was brilliant. That is still one of my
> > favorite
> > Traveller supplements.
> > I am so Glad I am not the only one to Love that One. Everytime I read it
> > I come away wanting to play both, or a pair at the same time.
>

Jim, james. Those mixing of names really confuses me. I remember you, we tried to coordinate the borders between our two sectors.

Bryan and Mike are still around a year ago at least when I contacted them. Or rather just Bryan, I only managed to get in touch with Mikes wife as Mike always was busy when I called. I don’t think they follow traveller much these days. I don’t have their e-mail adresses any more. I think I still have their phone numbers. Ed Edwards I haven’t heard anything from directly since he left the chairsophont to Mike.

Mark “geo” gelinas is still active, but I am not sure he follows the Traveller community much. He has a website and a blog somewhere. I’ll try to find the URL later.

--
Roger Malmstein
www.travellerfreeport.com

From: James
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2012 7:41 PM
To:
Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Re: Hey

Nope, he means me. I still have letters, that newsletter you did, and mostly fond memories of the HIWG days.

My HIWG vintage stuff for Ziafrplians is all over the MGT book. Twenty plus years, but the concept of HIWG has been paying off for Traveller. Sadly, after Clay is no longer around to see it happen. I have no idea if Mike Mikesh, Bryan, or Ed are still following any of this.

Jim Kundert
HIWG #200
Tienspevnekr Sector Analyst and General Zhodani Wonk

We had two thoughts about Ashtabula.

First was, "we're going to leave this one alone, and allow it to be
something that GMs can write their own story for, so we'll never undermine
them."

Second was, "Yeah, but eventually, somehow someone will inevitably publish
the 'true story of Ashtabula,' probably after every GM out there finally
ran their own version, so that they'll all get screwed."

Our intent was #1.

> Not to be a band wagon jumper but I will admit I also liked the H&I
> supplement but if I'm going to be honest Path of Tears with all the write
> ups of all the worlds in the AO was friggin awesome. I can't count how
> many times I reread that supplement, best Traveller product ever.
>
> I always pondered the fate of Ashtabula.
>
> Derek Stanley
> Sent from my iPhone...
>
> On 2012-06-10, at 9:35, <> wrote:
>
>> Evyn--
>>
>> You are now my official #3 favorite person of the month, as recounted
>> in
>> previous messages.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>> On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 03:18:21 -0700, Evyn MacDude <>
>> wrote:
>> > On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Mike West wrote:
>> >
>> > On a totally and completely different subject, I will always thank
>> you
>> > for the Hiver and Ithklur supplement. How you took the written canon
>> > for
>> > the Hivers and turned it totally on its head, and how you really put
>> > dimension into the Ithklur was brilliant. That is still one of my
>> > favorite
>> > Traveller supplements.
>> > I am so Glad I am not the only one to Love that One. Everytime I read
>> it
>> > I come away wanting to play both, or a pair at the same time.
>>
>

So who was Pat Ritter based upon?

Jason

On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 4:40 PM, <> wrote:

> **
>
>
> We had two thoughts about Ashtabula.
>
> First was, "we're going to leave this one alone, and allow it to be
> something that GMs can write their own story for, so we'll never undermine
> them."
>
> Second was, "Yeah, but eventually, somehow someone will inevitably publish
> the 'true story of Ashtabula,' probably after every GM out there finally
> ran their own version, so that they'll all get screwed."
>
> Our intent was #1.
>
>
> > Not to be a band wagon jumper but I will admit I also liked the H&I
> > supplement but if I'm going to be honest Path of Tears with all the write
> > ups of all the worlds in the AO was friggin awesome. I can't count how
> > many times I reread that supplement, best Traveller product ever.
> >
> > I always pondered the fate of Ashtabula.
> >
> > Derek Stanley
> > Sent from my iPhone...
> >
> > On 2012-06-10, at 9:35, <> wrote:
> >
> >> Evyn--
> >>
> >> You are now my official #3 favorite person of the month, as recounted
> >> in
> >> previous messages.
> >>
> >> Dave
> >>
> >> On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 03:18:21 -0700, Evyn MacDude <>
> >> wrote:
> >> > On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Mike West wrote:
> >> >
> >> > On a totally and completely different subject, I will always thank
> >> you
> >> > for the Hiver and Ithklur supplement. How you took the written canon
> >> > for
> >> > the Hivers and turned it totally on its head, and how you really put
> >> > dimension into the Ithklur was brilliant. That is still one of my
> >> > favorite
> >> > Traveller supplements.
> >> > I am so Glad I am not the only one to Love that One. Everytime I read
> >> it
> >> > I come away wanting to play both, or a pair at the same time.
> >>
> >
>
>
>

Pat Ritter was based on LTC (later COL) Pat Ritter, commander of 1/34
Armor in Desert Storm. He was in Lon Maggart's brigade along with Greg
Fontenot, who command 2/34 AR.

Ritter was an advanced concepts guy at the Directorate of Force
Developments for a while, and then retired and did a lot of work in the
Battle Labs. I haven't spoken to him in years. He was a very focused guy,
always very aware of "what is the purpose, goal, and endstate of this
activity," so he wasn't easy to just hang out and shoot the $#!+ with. The
biggest thing he focused on in my portrayal of him was the survivor's
guilt, which he felt very strongly.

> So who was Pat Ritter based upon?
>
> Jason
>
> On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 4:40 PM, <> wrote:
>
>> **
>>
>>
>> We had two thoughts about Ashtabula.
>>
>> First was, "we're going to leave this one alone, and allow it to be
>> something that GMs can write their own story for, so we'll never
>> undermine
>> them."
>>
>> Second was, "Yeah, but eventually, somehow someone will inevitably
>> publish
>> the 'true story of Ashtabula,' probably after every GM out there finally
>> ran their own version, so that they'll all get screwed."
>>
>> Our intent was #1.
>>
>>
>> > Not to be a band wagon jumper but I will admit I also liked the H&I
>> > supplement but if I'm going to be honest Path of Tears with all the
>> write
>> > ups of all the worlds in the AO was friggin awesome. I can't count how
>> > many times I reread that supplement, best Traveller product ever.
>> >
>> > I always pondered the fate of Ashtabula.
>> >
>> > Derek Stanley
>> > Sent from my iPhone...
>> >
>> > On 2012-06-10, at 9:35, <> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Evyn--
>> >>
>> >> You are now my official #3 favorite person of the month, as recounted
>> >> in
>> >> previous messages.
>> >>
>> >> Dave
>> >>
>> >> On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 03:18:21 -0700, Evyn MacDude
>> <>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Mike West wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > On a totally and completely different subject, I will always thank
>> >> you
>> >> > for the Hiver and Ithklur supplement. How you took the written
>> canon
>> >> > for
>> >> > the Hivers and turned it totally on its head, and how you really
>> put
>> >> > dimension into the Ithklur was brilliant. That is still one of my
>> >> > favorite
>> >> > Traveller supplements.
>> >> > I am so Glad I am not the only one to Love that One. Everytime I
>> read
>> >> it
>> >> > I come away wanting to play both, or a pair at the same time.
>> >>
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>

I'll echo that. PoT is still one if my favorite RPG supplements
ever. hundreds if hours of material there


___
>From my Galaxy SII

-------- Original message --------
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Hey
From: DEREK STANLEY




Not to be a band wagon jumper but I will admit I also liked the
H&I supplement but if I'm going to be honest Path of Tears with
all the write ups of all the worlds in the AO was friggin
awesome. I can't count how many times I reread that supplement,
best Traveller product ever.
I always pondered the fate of Ashtabula.

Derek StanleySent from my iPhone...
On 2012-06-10, at 9:35, <
<> > wrote:


Evyn--

You are now my official #3 favorite person of the month, as
recounted in
previous messages.

Dave

On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 03:18:21 -0700, Evyn MacDude
< <> >
wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Mike West wrote:
>
> On a totally and completely different subject, I will always
thank you
> for the Hiver and Ithklur supplement. How you took the written
canon
> for
> the Hivers and turned it totally on its head, and how you
really put
> dimension into the Ithklur was brilliant. That is still one of
my
> favorite
> Traveller supplements.
> I am so Glad I am not the only one to Love that One. Everytime
I read it
> I come away wanting to play both, or a pair at the same time.

PoT was definitely a winner. I don't have a whole lot of clear
recollections of that, probably because I was checking and rechecking and
rechecking RCEG designs, or something else. Maybe the last two Dark Con
books, or Dangerous Journeys.

> Not to be a band wagon jumper but I will admit I also liked the H&I
> supplement but if I'm going to be honest Path of Tears with all the write
> ups of all the worlds in the AO was friggin awesome. I can't count how
> many times I reread that supplement, best Traveller product ever.
>
> I always pondered the fate of Ashtabula.
>
> Derek Stanley
> Sent from my iPhone...
>
> On 2012-06-10, at 9:35, <> wrote:
>
>> Evyn--
>>
>> You are now my official #3 favorite person of the month, as recounted
>> in
>> previous messages.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>> On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 03:18:21 -0700, Evyn MacDude <>
>> wrote:
>> > On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Mike West wrote:
>> >
>> > On a totally and completely different subject, I will always thank
>> you
>> > for the Hiver and Ithklur supplement. How you took the written canon
>> > for
>> > the Hivers and turned it totally on its head, and how you really put
>> > dimension into the Ithklur was brilliant. That is still one of my
>> > favorite
>> > Traveller supplements.
>> > I am so Glad I am not the only one to Love that One. Everytime I read
>> it
>> > I come away wanting to play both, or a pair at the same time.
>>
>

On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 5:14 AM, Roger Malmstein <
> wrote:

>
>
> Jim Vassilikos you mean? I had some correspodence with him for a while.
> He was working on a DOS based sector mapping program early 90ies.
>

Jim Kundert is who I mean, but Jim Vassilikos is still kicking around the
larger Traveller Community.

--
Evyn

Yes, it is a challenge. But being on the other side of the world from most of my players is a greater challenge. So PBeM is the only real option for me.

> The asynchronous challenge you mention is kind of what I was thinking.
>
> On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 08:48:26 -0600 (MDT), DEREK STANLEY <nightrim@..