aramis erak
Legend
A rather well done and somewhat different interview of Traveller creator Marc W. Miller.
lukegearing.blot.im
One of the interesting tidbits is discussion of the mindset of play for En Garde!, to wit, generate characters, play one session, and done with that set of characters, repeat next week...
A bit on the nature of Traveller...
"I read all of the science fiction [...] and I wanted Traveller to do all of that. But the truth is. Traveller was trying to give us all the details of daily life in some star travelling future that those novels did not tell us. I mean... the stories of classic science fiction don't really tell us how spaceships work, or how much it cost to go from here to there; they just say, “I went there,” and they name a star, and half the time, they don't even know which star they're naming, or it doesn't matter. Um. And Traveller told us how day to day life worked. In addition to how Combat works, and conflict works, and all that, but it told us that it costs this much to eat, and a spaceship costs this much and passage costs this much. And they didn't really mesh well with all of those novels." -MWM (circa 27:30)
"When I was making things up, I'd look at America or “the World,” as my inspiration... each country becomes a world." -MWM (circa 34:00)
In re UWPs "The dice have just told you something that you wouldn't make up yourself. That's one of the Joys of Traveller." MWM (41:00)
In my many (weekly or more) text interactions, I've found Marc to be very parsimonious with his verbiage... it's very odd for me to listen to him expounding verbally. (For those who don't know, I lead the team running the Citizens of the Imperium boards. So I'm in regular contact with Marc.)
The discussion of the intended nature of Traveller is amusing to me... I'd gravitated to that style of play.
The discussions of his social activities is also enlightening.
Marc Miller Interview & Transcript - Luke Gearing
Below is an edited transcript of the conversation I had with Marc Miller. The edits mostly cut out interstitial material and are for clarity. This
lukegearing.blot.im
One of the interesting tidbits is discussion of the mindset of play for En Garde!, to wit, generate characters, play one session, and done with that set of characters, repeat next week...
A bit on the nature of Traveller...
"I read all of the science fiction [...] and I wanted Traveller to do all of that. But the truth is. Traveller was trying to give us all the details of daily life in some star travelling future that those novels did not tell us. I mean... the stories of classic science fiction don't really tell us how spaceships work, or how much it cost to go from here to there; they just say, “I went there,” and they name a star, and half the time, they don't even know which star they're naming, or it doesn't matter. Um. And Traveller told us how day to day life worked. In addition to how Combat works, and conflict works, and all that, but it told us that it costs this much to eat, and a spaceship costs this much and passage costs this much. And they didn't really mesh well with all of those novels." -MWM (circa 27:30)
"When I was making things up, I'd look at America or “the World,” as my inspiration... each country becomes a world." -MWM (circa 34:00)
In re UWPs "The dice have just told you something that you wouldn't make up yourself. That's one of the Joys of Traveller." MWM (41:00)
In my many (weekly or more) text interactions, I've found Marc to be very parsimonious with his verbiage... it's very odd for me to listen to him expounding verbally. (For those who don't know, I lead the team running the Citizens of the Imperium boards. So I'm in regular contact with Marc.)
The discussion of the intended nature of Traveller is amusing to me... I'd gravitated to that style of play.
The discussions of his social activities is also enlightening.
