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Played some Classic Traveller today
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8094478" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>The thing is, I LIKE what Traveler has, I was always just running a bit out of options at some point. They did sort of touch on a lot of stuff in later supplements, but the treatments were generally very dry, technical, and the gist of most of it was "you can't really do this" or "it doesn't do much for you", or "this is so forbidden that you're an outlaw now." etc. Like with psionics, clearly the idea was "this will change society, so we'll banish it to the dark corners of the Empire." Likewise AI and even computer tech. Of course, a lot of it is just a 1970's view of things. Computers were hulking things that were useful, but super expensive, huge, and specialized. I mean, stock Traveler cannot even do HAL 9000...</p><p></p><p>Classic Traveler is basically Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe, except travel times are much longer in Traveler (hyperdrive in Foundation could take you 100's or 1000's of light years, a journey to Trantor from the edge of the Galaxy is time consuming, but quite feasible and fairly routine, at least in the days of the Empire). Foundation is a universe without ANY aliens, robots don't exist, there is no AI, nothing. Technology seems to be 1960's Earth, except for hyperdrives. There are hints that there is more, at times, but it never appears in very meaningful ways (there are holograms). Weapons seem to be basically firearms, or else large shipboard missiles and perhaps lasers (space combat doesn't really figure in any of the books much IIRC). Later on (in the 1980s) Asimov wrote some prequels and sequels which sort of addressed WHY this was true, but it was definitely a sort of retcon, an attempt to make 1950's future tech seem logical in the light of ACTUAL 1980's tech. It is actually kind of odd that Miller took this 50's view of future tech and went with it in 1977, when the alternatives were Gamma World/Metamorphosis Alpha, etc. </p><p></p><p>I like the somewhat hard tech aspect, but weirdly it is undermined a lot by the simplifications and omissions. Space craft don't work at all like they would in the real world, despite being (jump aside) justified by hard science. Travel times and accelerations are ludicrous for example, and mass and fuel requirements trivialized, and all papered over with the oddly out of place magic of 'anti-gravity'. </p><p></p><p>But it is still a compelling game system. I've always just wished to marry it to more interesting material!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8094478, member: 82106"] The thing is, I LIKE what Traveler has, I was always just running a bit out of options at some point. They did sort of touch on a lot of stuff in later supplements, but the treatments were generally very dry, technical, and the gist of most of it was "you can't really do this" or "it doesn't do much for you", or "this is so forbidden that you're an outlaw now." etc. Like with psionics, clearly the idea was "this will change society, so we'll banish it to the dark corners of the Empire." Likewise AI and even computer tech. Of course, a lot of it is just a 1970's view of things. Computers were hulking things that were useful, but super expensive, huge, and specialized. I mean, stock Traveler cannot even do HAL 9000... Classic Traveler is basically Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe, except travel times are much longer in Traveler (hyperdrive in Foundation could take you 100's or 1000's of light years, a journey to Trantor from the edge of the Galaxy is time consuming, but quite feasible and fairly routine, at least in the days of the Empire). Foundation is a universe without ANY aliens, robots don't exist, there is no AI, nothing. Technology seems to be 1960's Earth, except for hyperdrives. There are hints that there is more, at times, but it never appears in very meaningful ways (there are holograms). Weapons seem to be basically firearms, or else large shipboard missiles and perhaps lasers (space combat doesn't really figure in any of the books much IIRC). Later on (in the 1980s) Asimov wrote some prequels and sequels which sort of addressed WHY this was true, but it was definitely a sort of retcon, an attempt to make 1950's future tech seem logical in the light of ACTUAL 1980's tech. It is actually kind of odd that Miller took this 50's view of future tech and went with it in 1977, when the alternatives were Gamma World/Metamorphosis Alpha, etc. I like the somewhat hard tech aspect, but weirdly it is undermined a lot by the simplifications and omissions. Space craft don't work at all like they would in the real world, despite being (jump aside) justified by hard science. Travel times and accelerations are ludicrous for example, and mass and fuel requirements trivialized, and all papered over with the oddly out of place magic of 'anti-gravity'. But it is still a compelling game system. I've always just wished to marry it to more interesting material! [/QUOTE]
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