Kazei 5

[Susano]

Re: Kazei 5

 

Got linkage?

 

http://www.thegamesthething.com/episode-078-genghis-con-xxxii-wrap-up-part-1

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Kazei 5

 

This always puzzled me about discussions about Traveller, and I have read it on other forums as well as in person. Old Traveller doesn't have any 'canon' or 'baggage'. It never had any worlds built. Judges Guild put out a few adventures and there were a few bare bones sectors that were mostly just maps.

 

Later, they did go insane with all the world builds, but Traveller 77 to 86(?) gave you rules to build the universe, but never the universe. MegaTraveller, Traveller:TNE and Marc Millers Traveller threw the kitchen sink in and, IMO, ruined the feel that made Traveller fantastic.

 

I guess the best thing I loved about old Traveller was the absolute lack of an 'official' universe. Each GM had to build their own.

 

I really am just curious here. How did the new-fangled messes come to be considered 'old traveller' with everyone forgetting what 'old Traveller' was?

 

It's not the game -- it's the players. I hate saying that, but there it is. By the time it got to its third version (TNE) I couldn't run a Traveller game without a bunch of "fans" giving me the "Your favorite version of Traveller sucks" speech. And that particular crowd seems to call the shots about where Traveller is going -- which is why it's gone nowhere for 30 years. The only successful versions of the game have had new sets of rules, but with carbon-copies of the original 3rd Imperium setting, around the Fifth Frontier War. Those who tried to advance the timeline or -OMG!- introduce new ideas or plot-lines were met with an angry mob of "fans" shouting they changed it now it sucks! I got so sick of hearing it I just quit playing Traveller. The "fans" have made damn sure that their favorite game will never change, no matter how out-dated it gets. I say screw 'em; they can have it.

 

As for world building, the Third Imperium was the official setting for Traveller from the beginning, as far as I know. Unless all those Library Data entries in my "old" Traveller LBB's were very much in error....

[Tasha]

Re: Kazei 5

 

This always puzzled me about discussions about Traveller, and I have read it on other forums as well as in person. Old Traveller doesn't have any 'canon' or 'baggage'. It never had any worlds built. Judges Guild put out a few adventures and there were a few bare bones sectors that were mostly just maps.

 

Later, they did go insane with all the world builds, but Traveller 77 to 86(?) gave you rules to build the universe, but never the universe. MegaTraveller, Traveller:TNE and Marc Millers Traveller threw the kitchen sink in and, IMO, ruined the feel that made Traveller fantastic.

 

I guess the best thing I loved about old Traveller was the absolute lack of an 'official' universe. Each GM had to build their own.

 

I really am just curious here. How did the new-fangled messes come to be considered 'old traveller' with everyone forgetting what 'old Traveller' was?

 

No actually the 3rd Imperium was making it's appearance from the beginning. What most Traveller RPG players forget is how many Board games are built on the world. ie Imperium, Fifth Frontier War, Dark Nebula were all set in and expanded the CTU. Also JTAS and the many fan Magazines expanded the world quite a bit as well (Most of the Original articles for those magazines were written by the Keith Brothers under many different pen names). The adventures also included tidbits of setting info in the form of Library data. There was a ton of stuff if you knew where to look for it. Now you could make your own universe, and either add worlds that appear in the adventure to YTU or you could customize the 3i. In the early 80's they came out with Deluxe Traveller which included the 3 books, dice, a pretty map of the Spinward marches Sector, and an "Adventure" called the Imperial Fringe. In 1981 GDW printed a freebie Traveller map that showed all of the published sectors and the shape of the imperium and where all of the alien races lived.

 

One criticism of the 3i was how boring the place was. It was pretty settled, with no feeling of any frontier. So it was decided somehow to farm out Traveller Development to a small company that was making a huge splash printing high quality Supplements. Digest Group took over dev for the Game and system. They released MegaTraveller which did a great job of concentrating all of those little black books in 4 large letter sized books. They also decided to blow the universe up with a long running meta plot "The Rebellion/Civil War" which ran for way too long, and didn't really have any good player hooks for small group adventuring.

 

GDW hearing all of the grumbling and getting bored with the endless boring rebellion decided to really blow things up and reset the whole universe. They had a Super Intelligent Virus take over all of the technology and kill off a good percentage of the Imperium's population. This would have been a pretty good thing, but they also decided to change the rule system to something completely different. Making Traveller The New Era a whole new game. If your group played Twilight 2k or AD2300, they were set. If they played any of the older Traveller rulesets they had to completely relearn how to play. Needless to say the fans hated it. Adding insult to injury the TNE rulebook was badly edited leaving out many rules needed to play (unless you had a copy of T2K which had all of the missing bits).

 

So yeah, Traveller Grognards have their favorite version of the universe. For me my favorite setting is any Traveller setting that I am playing with great players and GM.

[Spence]

Re: Kazei 5

 

It's not the game -- it's the players. I hate saying that' date=' but there it is. By the time it got to its third version (TNE) I couldn't run a [i']Traveller[/i] game without a bunch of "fans" giving me the "Your favorite version of Traveller sucks" speech. ........

 

ah.. I understand. That makes sense.

 

 

As for world building, the Third Imperium was the official setting for Traveller from the beginning, as far as I know. Unless all those Library Data entries in my "old" Traveller LBB's were very much in error....

 

No actually the 3rd Imperium was making it's appearance from the beginning.

 

One criticism of the 3i was how boring the place was. It was pretty settled, with no feeling of any frontier.

 

About 3rd I. I never even considered it detailed. I have all the original rule books and all of the original supplements and none then really fleshed anything out IMO. The sectors are literally 2 pages, small pamphlet sized pages, not 8x11.. A list of basic system data (by systems data I mean Horoni 0101 B6449B9 8 Industrial that's it) and a map. The two library data books contain the vast majority of the 'setting data' and they only have a about 40 modern pages of information across 4 (5?) supplements. And most of that is bare bones nothing.

 

The write up may say that an area was highly populated and industrialized, but the GM had to actually write up 99% of everything.

 

It is like me writing a book called the comprehensive guide to Star Trek containing:

 

Klingons, nasty warrior guys with brow-ridges.

Vulcans, green smart logical guys with pointy ears.

 

Done! Pay me....

 

When I pick up the books and go through them, I see a lot of how to build 'things' (ships, stats, etc) and a lot of general broad brush (a sector map with a list of worlds in it), but nothing that can actually be used in a live game without a ton of work.

 

 

Anyway, I see and understand what you are both saying. I just can't wrap my pea brain around the idea of the original T setting being anything more than a half finished outline.

 

All of our games were very frontier explorer oriented because the GM was having to create everything each session.

[Barwickian]

Re: Kazei 5

 

The new version of Kazei 5 is still on my wishlist. I have the 5e PDF, and have read many of the associated stories on Susano's website. It's a great setting, and the fiction provides a great backdrop into the world. But I still haven't used it in a live gaming environment.

 

As far as Traveller goes, I think it was my second RPG. I played Classic Trav and MT extensively, though avoided much of the rebellion stuff by using MT rules in the CT era. Didn't think much of the TNE rules at all. Loved GT, and have as-yet-unused PDFs of the Traveller Hero books Comstar put out.

 

If I do run Traveller Hero, it'll be in the Classic Traveller era again. There's still so much to explore in that setting, and I have the advantage of players who didn't start gaming until the late-90s. It's all new to them. I can update the setting as I see fit. I can run Twilight's Peak/Secrets of the Ancients and The Traveller Adventure, and I'm sure they'll enjoy it.

 

But for now, back to the Pulp game. In a way, it has a Traveller connection - Firefly on a tramp steamer. You can't watch Firefly and tell me Joss Wheedon never played Traveller. And I know I'll be reworking some of my old Trav ideas to suit a coal-burning tramp rather than a starship.

[Tasha]

Re: Kazei 5

 

But for now' date=' back to the Pulp game. In a way, it has a Traveller connection - Firefly on a tramp steamer. You can't watch Firefly and tell me Joss Wheedon never played Traveller. And I know I'll be reworking some of my old Trav ideas to suit a coal-burning tramp rather than a starship.[/quote']

 

It was pointed out to Joss, how Firefly was just like most Traveller RPG adventuring groups. He said that he had never played and was unaware of the game. I think he has played since then, but I can't remember.

 

Funny, how starship design has changed for RPG's. In the pre Firefly days, Starships tended to look like Star Wars Ships and most player ships resembled the Millennium Falcon. Now all of the starship designs are clearly based on Firefly/Serenity esp Player ships.

 

Perhaps Mongoose will get ahold of the Serenity Licence (Fox won't licence Firefly) and turn it into one of their Other Universe Traveller Titles. That would really get the Traveller and Serenity Fanboys all sweaty. Perhaps it will also force someone to finally work out how the Serenity Verse offically works. Are all of the ships STL, and adventures taking place in a 4 or 5 sun System on terraformed moons? or are all of the different suns in different systems that are within a parsec of the core worlds?

[Spence]

Re: Kazei 5

 

Isn't there already a Firefly/Serenity RPG?

[Susano]

Re: Kazei 5

 

Isn't there already a Firefly/Serenity RPG?

 

Yes there is. But it's not all that great (it's missing ship-to-ship combat, for example.)

 

It was pointed out to Joss, how Firefly was just like most Traveller RPG adventuring groups. He said that he had never played and was unaware of the game. I think he has played since then, but I can't remember.

 

Funny, how starship design has changed for RPG's. In the pre Firefly days, Starships tended to look like Star Wars Ships and most player ships resembled the Millennium Falcon. Now all of the starship designs are clearly based on Firefly/Serenity esp Player ships.

 

Perhaps Mongoose will get ahold of the Serenity Licence (Fox won't licence Firefly) and turn it into one of their Other Universe Traveller Titles. That would really get the Traveller and Serenity Fanboys all sweaty. Perhaps it will also force someone to finally work out how the Serenity Verse offically works. Are all of the ships STL, and adventures taking place in a 4 or 5 sun System on terraformed moons? or are all of the different suns in different systems that are within a parsec of the core worlds?

 

There's already a Serenity RPG. It uses the Cortex System as a basis and thus uses the same system as the Battlestar Galactica RPG (IIRC.)

 

The universe of Serenity is one solar system with at least two suns and multiple planets with dozens and dozens of moons. It is presumed extensive terraforming went on in the early days, and it's possible human technology was sufficient (since they have artificial gravity) to possibly turn one gas giant into a second sun (but I'm not sure.)

 

Technically, the K5 RPG does mention humanity getting into space. Shion Nys, for example, becomes Madame President of Genesis Station, an L5 colony with a population of around 350,000 people. But the details are fuzzy (i.e. up to the GM) after that. It can be inferred that things get very transhumanism, however.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Kazei 5

 

Yes there is. But it's not all that great (it's missing ship-to-ship combat, for example.)

 

 

 

There's already a Serenity RPG. It uses the Cortex System as a basis and thus uses the same system as the Battlestar Galactica RPG (IIRC.)

 

The universe of Serenity is one solar system with at least two suns and multiple planets with dozens and dozens of moons. It is presumed extensive terraforming went on in the early days, and it's possible human technology was sufficient (since they have artificial gravity) to possibly turn one gas giant into a second sun (but I'm not sure.)

 

Technically, the K5 RPG does mention humanity getting into space. Shion Nys, for example, becomes Madame President of Genesis Station, an L5 colony with a population of around 350,000 people. But the details are fuzzy (i.e. up to the GM) after that. It can be inferred that things get very transhumanism, however.

 

I forgot about that. I may have to give the 'future' of K5 a second look before I submit this year's events for GenCon.

[Susano]

Re: Kazei 5

 

I forgot about that. I may have to give the 'future' of K5 a second look before I submit this year's events for GenCon.

 

Oh great, 1,000-point esper weapons in Terracide.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Kazei 5

 

Oh great' date=' 1,000-point esper weapons in Terracide.[/quote']

 

Not likely! You know how "psi" powers work in Terracide: anyone can learn psionics! Just deposit $19.95 in our PayPal account to receive your self-instruction starter kit!

 

Individual results may vary, depending on actual psi potential.

[Spence]

Re: Kazei 5

 

 

Funny, how starship design has changed for RPG's. In the pre Firefly days, Starships tended to look like Star Wars Ships and most player ships resembled the Millennium Falcon. Now all of the starship designs are clearly based on Firefly/Serenity esp Player ships.

 

 

I for one am not sad to see the SW influence die down a bit. For ship design I lean toward either the 30's horizontal rocketships or the 50's tail sitter rocketships. Even if they are not actually powered by rockets. Small too. I like the idea of ship sizes and crew sizes to mimic the era of the tramp cargo liner of the 20-40's.

 

I guess just like Firefly except more rocket'ey....

[Barwickian]

Re: Kazei 5

 

Yes there is. But it's not all that great (it's missing ship-to-ship combat' date=' for example.)[/quote']

 

Which is in keeping with the source, at least. Serenity is unarmed. Though there are a couple of nice chase scenes and the use of its engines to wreck a reaver ship. And then the claimx of the movie: I am a leaf on the wind.

 

There's already a Serenity RPG. It uses the Cortex System as a basis and thus uses the same system as the Battlestar Galactica RPG (IIRC.)

 

Yes, it does. I haven't played the Serenity RPG, but I have played BSG. Not a bad system for cinematic play, with some nice metagaming elements (the system's equivalent of heroic action points can be used to provide nice plot elements - Player: "I take cover behind the crates." GM: "What crates?" Player spends hero points. GM: "Ah, those crates!")

 

BSG does have starship combat rules, though I don't know how easy they'd be to use with Serenity.

[Tasha]

Re: Kazei 5

 

Isn't there already a Firefly/Serenity RPG?

 

Yes, but their licence just lapsed or is just about to. As a gearheaded gamer Cortex was quite frustrating with little to no technical details about any of the tech.

 

Yep, just checked http://www.margaretweis.com/ and they aren't selling any of the books anymore.

[Susano]

Re: Kazei 5

 

Which is in keeping with the source' date=' at least. Serenity is unarmed. Though there are a couple of nice chase scenes and the use of its engines to wreck a reaver ship. And then the claimx of the movie: I am a leaf on the wind.[/quote']

 

And when people asked about such rules they were told to buy the BSG book.

[Starcloud]

Re: Kazei 5

 

For anyone wanting to pick up the 6e version; Kazei 5 for 6e is, in my opinion, considerably more polished than the original sourcebook. I like the layout much better and the text and sidebars are cleaner, more focused.

[Spence]

Re: Kazei 5

 

For anyone wanting to pick up the 6e version; Kazei 5 for 6e is' date=' in my opinion, considerably more polished than the original sourcebook. I like the layout much better and the text and sidebars are cleaner, more focused.[/quote']

 

I'll agree with that. K5's presentation is very well done. Easy on the eyes and the layout flows....

[mattingly]

Re: Kazei 5

 

Kazei 5 is discussed on the latest The Game's The Thing podcast, at http://thegamesthething.com/episode-079-genghis-con-wrap-up-part-2.