GURPS Traveller - any new books? is 4e required?

[john]

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.gurps (More info?)

I used to buy the GURPS Traveller books as they came out, just because
I was an old Traveller player from the black box on up and I liked
reading the GURPS versions. Then it seemed like they screeched to a
halt - GURPS Traveller projects got stuck in "in production" mode and
never seemed to make it to the store. Did the Imperial Navy book ever
get published?

Anyway, I'm kinda wondering if all of that is now being done over
again for GURPS 4e - which I don't have yet - and if this is pushing
me further away from ever actually running a game with these books,
without having to win the lottery in order to finance it all.

John

 

[Guest]

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On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:23:04 -0600, John <reply@newsgroup.please.com>
wrote:

>I used to buy the GURPS Traveller books as they came out, just because
>I was an old Traveller player from the black box on up and I liked
>reading the GURPS versions. Then it seemed like they screeched to a
>halt - GURPS Traveller projects got stuck in "in production" mode and
>never seemed to make it to the store. Did the Imperial Navy book ever
>get published?
>
>Anyway, I'm kinda wondering if all of that is now being done over
>again for GURPS 4e - which I don't have yet - and if this is pushing
>me further away from ever actually running a game with these books,
>without having to win the lottery in order to finance it all.
>
>John
>

It seems to me that the only thing that would need updating to 4th
edition is weapon damage.

>

 

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John wrote:
>
> Anyway, I'm kinda wondering if all of that is now being done over
> again for GURPS 4e - which I don't have yet - and if this is pushing
> me further away from ever actually running a game with these books,
> without having to win the lottery in order to finance it all.

AFAK, there are no plans to redo the 3e GT books as 4e books.

There will, however, be a 4e book on the Interstellar Wars period that
will include 4e basic rules (Powered By GURPS) that won't require you
to buy the 4e basic set. I don't know anything about the Traveller line
beyond that, although it is possible that 3e Traveller material may be
published through e23.

Brandon

 

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>>>>> "J" == John <reply@newsgroup.please.com> writes:

J> Anyway, I'm kinda wondering if all of that is now being done
J> over again for GURPS 4e - which I don't have yet - and if this
J> is pushing me further away from ever actually running a game
J> with these books, without having to win the lottery in order to
J> finance it all.

New material will be produced for GURPS 4, but the old material will
stay just the way it is. You won't have to buy GURPS Traveller books
all over again, but you might have to do a bit of work with any
character templates to get them translated to 4e with accurate point
values.

As far as running a game -- depending on how much rules-system
crunchiness you want and how important it is to you to play in the
latest version of the rules, you have a couple of options.

You could run Traveller with the Lite version of either edition of the
rules, which you can get for free. This won't give you much in the
way of character options or fiddly technical stuff, but it will be
enough to get the game off the ground.

You could pick up some 3e books. There were enough flaws in the
system to justify a fourth edition, certainly, but the third edition
still makes for a very playable game, especially if you keep starting
point values below about 200. To go this route, you'd need the Basic
Set for sure, and Compendium I would be good to have as well.
If you want to *try* this route, you can always start with GURPS Lite
for 3e and add books one at a time if it seems to be working.

You could pick up the 4e books. Oddly enough, this is probably the
*most* cost-effective, but only if you plan to pick up several books.
Think of it as the Costco plan: you save by buying in volume. The two
core 4e books cost less than the three core 3e books, and the
forthcoming GURPS 4 Ultra-Tech will most likely cost less than the two
volumes of 3e Ultra-Tech and Bio-Tech. There's also a new edition of
GURPS Space coming out (which is in playtest now), and a new Traveller
book, _Interstellar Wars_.

Or you could adapt the whole thing to a different game system (though
if you choose d20, I'd strongly advise starting with d20 Modern/d20
Future and rolling your own adaptation rather than using the
"official" d20 adaptation -- you'll run into so many broken rules that
you'll find yourself referring to d20 Modern most of the time anyway).

Charlton


--
cwilbur at chromatico dot net
cwilbur at mac dot com

 

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>>>>> "DJ" == David Johnston <rgorman@telusplanet.net> writes:

DJ> It seems to me that the only thing that would need updating to
DJ> 4th edition is weapon damage.

All those templates are probably way off -- skill costs changed,
attribute costs changed, advantage and disadvantage costs changed,
language rules changed....

Charlton



--
cwilbur at chromatico dot net
cwilbur at mac dot com

 

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Douglas Berry wrote:

>
> Not done over, but GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars is on the
> release schedule. This takes place in the Terran Confederation v.
the
> Vilani Imperium era. I had a small part in writing this (very small
> part) and was on the playtest. This book is excellent.
> --
>

Doutless.

The basic premise however....
"One planet, with less than two centuries of space travel behind them,
defeats a several millenia old, multi-sector star empire--but once they
get it, they can't keep it, and civilized space collapeses into a dark
age."

Puh-leeze.
I realize Traveller is space opera, but does it have to be *bad* space
opera?

--
C.

 

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David Johnston wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:23:04 -0600, John <reply@newsgroup.please.com>
> wrote:
[...]
>>Anyway, I'm kinda wondering if all of that is now being done over
>>again for GURPS 4e - which I don't have yet - and if this is pushing
>>me further away from ever actually running a game with these books,
>>without having to win the lottery in order to finance it all.
>
> It seems to me that the only thing that would need updating to 4th
> edition is weapon damage.

Also the many occupational templates, and species templates,
will need to be updated. GURPS 4E changes a lot of
Advantages, and also some skills.

But there's no need for SJ Games to re-publish all the old
Traveller supplements in 4E versions. It should be fairly
easy, for people who understand both GURPS 3E and 4E, to
convert the templates.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

 

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John wrote:
> I used to buy the GURPS Traveller books as they came out, just because
> I was an old Traveller player from the black box on up and I liked
> reading the GURPS versions. Then it seemed like they screeched to a
> halt - GURPS Traveller projects got stuck in "in production" mode and

Perhaps SJ Games found out, in a *very* sudden way, that the
line was rather less profitable than they assumed it would be.

I don't know, I'm just guessing.

> never seemed to make it to the store. Did the Imperial Navy book ever
> get published?

I'm fairly sure it didn't.

> Anyway, I'm kinda wondering if all of that is now being done over
> again for GURPS 4e - which I don't have yet - and if this is pushing

No. Most of the material in the books can still be used with
GURPS 4E.

David Johnston points out that hand weapon damage needs to
be updated.

Apart from that, I'd point to the occupational and species
templates in the books. GURPS 4E is sufficiently different
from 3E for these to need to be updated, but that's not a
good excuse for SJ Games to re-publish all the books from
the 3E era. You can do it yourself. Maybe get help from
someone more experienced with both GURPS 3E and 4E.

One thing SJ Games could do would be to publish template
collections via e23. They wouldn't have to cost a lot.

> me further away from ever actually running a game with these books,
> without having to win the lottery in order to finance it all.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

 

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On 13 Feb 2005 11:45:24 -0800, chaos_israel@antisocial.com wrote:

>Douglas Berry wrote:
>
>>
>> Not done over, but GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars is on the
>> release schedule. This takes place in the Terran Confederation v. the
>> Vilani Imperium era. I had a small part in writing this (very small
>> part) and was on the playtest. This book is excellent.
>> --
>>
>
>Doutless.
>
>The basic premise however....
>"One planet, with less than two centuries of space travel behind them,
>defeats a several millenia old, multi-sector star empire--but once they
>get it, they can't keep it, and civilized space collapeses into a dark
>age."
>
>Puh-leeze.
>I realize Traveller is space opera, but does it have to be *bad* space
>opera?

What's so bad about the premise? It's just "The Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire" with the Vilani taking the role of the Romans and the
Solomani taking the role of the Goths, and the fall of the Roman Empire
was real history.

--
Rob Kelk <http://robkelk.ottawa-anime.org/> robkelk -at- gmail -dot- com
"And really, you think people who watch Japanese cartoons would be a
little more understanding of the seemingly odd hobbies of other fringe
groups." - Chris "Blade" McNeil on rec.arts.anime.misc, 20 Jan 2004

 

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On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:08:35 +0100, Peter Knutsen
<peter@sagatafl.invalid> wrote:

>
>John wrote:
>> I used to buy the GURPS Traveller books as they came out, just because
>> I was an old Traveller player from the black box on up and I liked
>> reading the GURPS versions. Then it seemed like they screeched to a
>> halt - GURPS Traveller projects got stuck in "in production" mode and
>
>Perhaps SJ Games found out, in a *very* sudden way, that the
>line was rather less profitable than they assumed it would be.
>
>I don't know, I'm just guessing.

I don't believe this is correct. SJ Games still has a dedicated "GURPS
Traveller" editor on staff; they wouldn't waste money on someone whose
product line wasn't at least breaking even without a very good reason.
(They don't currently have a "GURPS WWII" editor or a "Powered by GURPS"
specialist.) The current "GURPS Traveller" editor has shown in the past
that he knows how to do other game-related work, so he could be
re-assigned if SJ thought that that was better for the company.

<snip>
--
Rob Kelk <http://robkelk.ottawa-anime.org/> robkelk -at- gmail -dot- com
"And really, you think people who watch Japanese cartoons would be a
little more understanding of the seemingly odd hobbies of other fringe
groups." - Chris "Blade" McNeil on rec.arts.anime.misc, 20 Jan 2004

 

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On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:23:04 -0600, John <reply@newsgroup.please.com>
drained his beer, leaned back in the rec.games.frp.gurps beanbag and
drunkenly proclaimed the following

>I used to buy the GURPS Traveller books as they came out, just because
>I was an old Traveller player from the black box on up and I liked
>reading the GURPS versions. Then it seemed like they screeched to a
>halt - GURPS Traveller projects got stuck in "in production" mode and
>never seemed to make it to the store. Did the Imperial Navy book ever
>get published?

Imperial Navy is still in limbo. If it ever comes out, it will be an
e23 release.

>Anyway, I'm kinda wondering if all of that is now being done over
>again for GURPS 4e - which I don't have yet - and if this is pushing
>me further away from ever actually running a game with these books,
>without having to win the lottery in order to finance it all.

Not done over, but GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars is on the
release schedule. This takes place in the Terran Confederation v. the
Vilani Imperium era. I had a small part in writing this (very small
part) and was on the playtest. This book is excellent.
--

Douglas E. Berry Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as
when they do it from religious conviction."
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pense'es, #894.

 

[Guest]

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On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 10:59:22 GMT, Charlton Wilbur
<cwilbur@mithril.chromatico.net> wrote:

>>>>>> "DJ" == David Johnston <rgorman@telusplanet.net> writes:
>
> DJ> It seems to me that the only thing that would need updating to
> DJ> 4th edition is weapon damage.
>
>All those templates are probably way off -- skill costs changed,
>attribute costs changed, advantage and disadvantage costs changed,
>language rules changed....

Well, yes, but I find that trivial.

 

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On 13 Feb 2005 11:45:24 -0800, chaos_israel@antisocial.com wrote:

>
>Douglas Berry wrote:
>
>>
>> Not done over, but GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars is on the
>> release schedule. This takes place in the Terran Confederation v.
>the
>> Vilani Imperium era. I had a small part in writing this (very small
>> part) and was on the playtest. This book is excellent.
>> --
>>
>
>Doutless.
>
>The basic premise however....
>"One planet, with less than two centuries of space travel behind them,
>defeats a several millenia old, multi-sector star empire--but once they
>get it, they can't keep it, and civilized space collapeses into a dark
>age."
>
>Puh-leeze.
>I realize Traveller is space opera, but does it have to be *bad* space
>opera?

Well, first all, if they are calling it the "Terran Confederation"
that doesn't sound at all like it is just one planet. And I've read
the original books from which they got the idea, and they were quite
good space opera.

 

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chaos_israel@antisocial.com writes:

>The basic premise however....
>"One planet, with less than two centuries of space travel behind them,
>defeats a several millenia old, multi-sector star empire--but once they
>get it, they can't keep it, and civilized space collapeses into a dark
>age."

>Puh-leeze.
>I realize Traveller is space opera, but does it have to be *bad* space
>opera?


Nothing bad about that. Nothing particularly implausible about it,
either -- consider both the rise of Rome against the Etruscans and the
Latin League, and then later the collapse of Rome under essentially
its own inertia, aided by the various barbarian groups. That's pretty
much the deal with the Vilani, I'd say -- the Solomani happened to
encounter them right when the empire was ready to start collapsing.


--
Joseph M. Bay Lamont Sanford Junior University
www.stanford.edu/~jmbay/ Program in Cancer Biology
The white zone is for loading and unloading only. If you have to load
or unload, go to the white zone. You'll love it. It's a way of life.

 

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copeab@yahoo.com wrote:
> AFAK, there are no plans to redo the 3e GT books as 4e books.
>
> There will, however, be a 4e book on the Interstellar Wars period that
> will include 4e basic rules (Powered By GURPS) that won't require you
> to buy the 4e basic set. I don't know anything about the Traveller line
> beyond that, although it is possible that 3e Traveller material may be
> published through e23.

I find it *very* difficult to imagine a Lite-powered GURPS
Traveller campaign, seeing as the setting is full of aliens
with weird Compendium'ish abilities. There is *no* way the
designers can cram all the necessary species Advantages into
a 32 page Lite, or even a 48 one.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

 

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In article <cuogh0$c99$1@news.Stanford.EDU> on Sun, 13 Feb 2005 21:23:44
+0000 (UTC), jmbay@Stanford.EDU (Joseph Michael Bay) wrote:

> chaos_israel@antisocial.com writes:
>
> >The basic premise however....
> >"One planet, with less than two centuries of space travel behind them,
> >defeats a several millenia old, multi-sector star empire--but once they
> >get it, they can't keep it, and civilized space collapeses into a dark
> >age."
>
> >Puh-leeze.
> >I realize Traveller is space opera, but does it have to be *bad* space
> >opera?
>
>
> Nothing bad about that. Nothing particularly implausible about it,
> either -- consider both the rise of Rome against the Etruscans and the
> Latin League, and then later the collapse of Rome under essentially
> its own inertia, aided by the various barbarian groups. That's pretty
> much the deal with the Vilani, I'd say -- the Solomani happened to
> encounter them right when the empire was ready to start collapsing.

For that matter, the Lombard League against the Holy Roman Empire and the
American War of Independence are comparable.

--
Richard Gadsden
"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death
your right to say it" - Attributed to Voltaire

 

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On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 00:00:03 +0100, Peter Knutsen
<peter@sagatafl.invalid> wrote:

>
>copeab@yahoo.com wrote:
>> AFAK, there are no plans to redo the 3e GT books as 4e books.
>>
>> There will, however, be a 4e book on the Interstellar Wars period that
>> will include 4e basic rules (Powered By GURPS) that won't require you
>> to buy the 4e basic set. I don't know anything about the Traveller line
>> beyond that, although it is possible that 3e Traveller material may be
>> published through e23.
>
>I find it *very* difficult to imagine a Lite-powered GURPS
>Traveller campaign, seeing as the setting is full of aliens
>with weird Compendium'ish abilities. There is *no* way the
>designers can cram all the necessary species Advantages into
>a 32 page Lite, or even a 48 one.
>
>--
>Peter Knutsen

Traveller got by for years without having stats for any alien species.
With the focus of Interstellar Wars being on a war between two human
subgroups, I don't think the species advantages are necessary although
they'd certainly be nice.

 

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On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 02:21 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
richard@gadsden.name (Richard Gadsden) wrote:

>In article <cuogh0$c99$1@news.Stanford.EDU> on Sun, 13 Feb 2005 21:23:44
>+0000 (UTC), jmbay@Stanford.EDU (Joseph Michael Bay) wrote:
>
>> chaos_israel@antisocial.com writes:
>>
>> >The basic premise however....
>> >"One planet, with less than two centuries of space travel behind them,
>> >defeats a several millenia old, multi-sector star empire--but once they
>> >get it, they can't keep it, and civilized space collapeses into a dark
>> >age."
>>
>> >Puh-leeze.
>> >I realize Traveller is space opera, but does it have to be *bad* space
>> >opera?
>>
>>
>> Nothing bad about that. Nothing particularly implausible about it,
>> either -- consider both the rise of Rome against the Etruscans and the
>> Latin League, and then later the collapse of Rome under essentially
>> its own inertia, aided by the various barbarian groups. That's pretty
>> much the deal with the Vilani, I'd say -- the Solomani happened to
>> encounter them right when the empire was ready to start collapsing.
>
>For that matter, the Lombard League against the Holy Roman Empire and the
>American War of Independence are comparable.

I don't think so. The American War of Independance was just a
splinter group breaking away with the same technological base. The
issue with the Vilani Imperium, is that, given that they have been
technologically capable of faster than light travel for so very much
longer than the Terrans, it could be argued, if they'd continued to
advance for all that time, a confrontation between them and the
Confederation should be like a confrontation between the fleet that
the Americans had before World War II or even World War I and the
fleet that the Romans had when they defeated Carthage. Of course
Traveller has always assumed for convenience's sake that once one hits
about Tech Level 9...on their scale of course, technological
advancement seems to hit a bit of a plateau and can even significantly
reverse. That presumption is of course based on nothing but gaming
convenience but it does allow the Confederation to relatively rapidly
get within shooting range of the senescent Vilani fleets.

 

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On 13 Feb 2005 11:45:24 -0800, chaos_israel@antisocial.com drained his
beer, leaned back in the rec.games.frp.gurps beanbag and drunkenly
proclaimed the following
>
>Douglas Berry wrote:
>
>>
>> Not done over, but GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars is on the
>> release schedule. This takes place in the Terran Confederation v.
>the
>> Vilani Imperium era. I had a small part in writing this (very small
>> part) and was on the playtest. This book is excellent.
>> --
>>
>
>Doutless.
>
>The basic premise however....
>"One planet, with less than two centuries of space travel behind them,
>defeats a several millenia old, multi-sector star empire--but once they
>get it, they can't keep it, and civilized space collapeses into a dark
>age."
>
>Puh-leeze.
>I realize Traveller is space opera, but does it have to be *bad* space
>opera?

Well a few salient points.

1. The Vilani Empire at the time of contact is in decline.

2. The cultural mindset and political realities of the Vilani mean
that calling for help is out of the question for most of the local
governors.

3. We are far, far better at innovating than the Vilani. Their
technological base has been stagnant for centuries. They can't
imagine that anyone could develop the jump drive, let alone surpass
them.

4. In many places, the Terrans were greated as liberators.

To many, the Rule of Man was just a blip in the decline of the Vilani.
When the economic basis of the Empire shattered, it took trade with
it. Now this era has never been fully detailed, but when you have
large-scale economic collapse, wars follow.
--

Douglas E. Berry Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as
when they do it from religious conviction."
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pense'es, #894.

 

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On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 03:50:16 GMT, rgorman@telusplanet.net (David
Johnston) wrote:
> The
>issue with the Vilani Imperium, is that, given that they have been
>technologically capable of faster than light travel for so very much
>longer than the Terrans, it could be argued, if they'd continued to
>advance for all that time, a confrontation between them and the
>Confederation should be like a confrontation between the fleet that
>the Americans had before World War II or even World War I and the
>fleet that the Romans had when they defeated Carthage.

It's an established tenet of the *Traveller* universe that science and
technology *don't* continue to develop reliably once they've got
started. Even without collapses or dark ages, whole civilisations can
gum up solid for millennia.

The Third Imperium is in fact a deeply depressing setting. Science
barely exists, being limited to small handfuls of freaks who get
locked away in stations on remote worlds to keep them from worrying
people, while technology is mostly a matter of digging cookbooks out
of libraries. Whole aspects of the universe have never been even
faintly understood in any kind of fundamental way, despite being the
basis of civilisation (hyperspace), or have been prohibited and
anathematised as too frightening to contemplate (psionics - and note
that even the people who do permit themselves to study that don't seem
to *understand* it much better than anyone else). It's a
post-scientific culture, spinning along on inertia and intellectual
parasitism.

--
Phil Masters http://www.philm.demon.co.uk
Consternation: RPG Convention, Cambridge, 2005:
http://www.consternation.org.uk/

 

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>>>>> "RK" == Rob Kelk <robkelk@deadspam.com> writes:

RK> On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:08:35 +0100, Peter Knutsen
RK> <peter@sagatafl.invalid> wrote:

>> Perhaps SJ Games found out, in a *very* sudden way, that the
>> line was rather less profitable than they assumed it would be.
>>
>> I don't know, I'm just guessing.

RK> I don't believe this is correct. SJ Games still has a
RK> dedicated "GURPS Traveller" editor on staff; they wouldn't
RK> waste money on someone whose product line wasn't at least
RK> breaking even without a very good reason.

My suspicion (and I am not an outsider, just an observer) is that SJG
came to the conclusion that the 128-page black-and-white paperback
format for books was becoming less profitable. In the days when they
began with that format, GURPS books were on the high end of quality
compared to the rest of the market's offerings. As the rest of the
market progressed, GURPS books kept pace, until D&D3 set the latest
standard. As a result, GURPS started to look old and outdated.

So SJG looked at the increasing age of GURPS 3rd Edition and at the
current production standards in the market, and decided to produce the
new edition to different standards. The redesign of the system to 4th
Edition took a lot of resources, and producing 256-page hardcover
books on a monthly basis is harder than producing two 128-page
softcover books -- something that I think was only apparent to the SJG
staff after they had started trying to do it. They were also
hampered, I think, by the need to keep 4th Edition a secret until it
was announced, and by the lack of experienced 4th Edition players for
playtesting.

So the lack of new Traveller material seems to me to be a combination
of those factors: the new higher standards for printing and
production, the extra resources needed to produce 4th edition, and the
re-tooling of the production processes to publish larger books. SJG
made producing 128-page books seem very easy, because they had well
over a decade of experience doing it, and were routinely producing two
a month. Their new approach to production seems to be to produce one
high-quality hardcover that appeals to a substantial proportion of the
GURPS audience every month, and to steer the rest to e23 production,
so it wouldn't surprise me if most new Traveller material appeared on
e23 or if there were a hefty "GURPS Traveller Yearbook 2005." I don't
know what the size of the GURPS Traveller market is, though, so I
don't know if that sort of approach would make sense.

Charlton


--
cwilbur at chromatico dot net
cwilbur at mac dot com

 

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chaos_israel@antisocial.com wrote:
> Douglas Berry wrote:
>
>> Not done over, but GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars is on the
>> release schedule. This takes place in the Terran Confederation v.
> the
>> Vilani Imperium era. I had a small part in writing this (very small
>> part) and was on the playtest. This book is excellent.
>
> Doutless.
>
> The basic premise however....
> "One planet, with less than two centuries of space travel behind them,
> defeats a several millenia old, multi-sector star empire--but once they
> get it, they can't keep it, and civilized space collapeses into a dark
> age."
>
> Puh-leeze.
> I realize Traveller is space opera, but does it have to be *bad* space
> opera?

It's one of the basic premises behind the original Traveller, and it's
really not as unlikely as it sounds. Apart from the comparisons to the
Roman Empire and other giant but collapsing empires, the Vilani empire
was completely stagnated and more interested in internal politics than
war with outsiders. And internal politics meant that asking for help to
defeat a single planet of warlike primitives was a sign of weakness and
therefore out of the question. So Terra was basically just fighting a
single sector whose leader seriously underestimated the threat. The
scientific progress on Earth from the 19th to 23nd (or thereabouts)
century was much faster than anything ever seen before or after in the
Traveller history. The only period coming close to that kind of
scientific progress was with the Darrians (triggered by the arrival of
Solomani). And then there was the fact that many worlds conquered by
the Solomani greeted them as liberators. It was this combination of
factors (and a bit of luck, I suppose) that allowed the Solomani to
catch up with the Vilani. But it was only when the Solomani developed
the Jump-3 drive (the Vilani had only Jump-2, and thought Jump-3 was
impossible), that they were able to defeat the Vilani. A rift in the
Sol sector could only be crossed with Jump-3, so the Vilani had to
take the long way around in order to fight the Solomani, while the
Solomani fleets could strike deep into the heart of the Vilani supply
lines.

Andthen there's the theory that the Vargr raiders actually played a
much bigger role in destabilising the Vilani empire. It's just that
the Solomani were able to found the Rule of Man (the Ramshackle Empire)
on top of the collapsing Vilani Empire, which allowed them to write the
history books. But it didn't stop the collapse of the Empire, and at
best postponed it a bit.


mcv.

 

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Douglas Berry <penguin_boy@mindobviousspring.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Not done over, but GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars is on the
> release schedule. This takes place in the Terran Confederation v. the
> Vilani Imperium era. I had a small part in writing this (very small
> part) and was on the playtest. This book is excellent.

My question is, will Interstellar Wars use GURPS 3ed or 4ed?
--
"LIFE: (noun) Any set of observables governed by Murphy's Law."
- Phillip Spencer

 

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>>>>> "CW" == Charlton Wilbur <cwilbur@mithril.chromatico.net> writes:

>>>>> "RK" == Rob Kelk <robkelk@deadspam.com> writes:
RK> On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:08:35 +0100, Peter Knutsen
RK> <peter@sagatafl.invalid> wrote:

>>> Perhaps SJ Games found out, in a *very* sudden way, that the
>>> line was rather less profitable than they assumed it would be.
>>>
>>> I don't know, I'm just guessing.

RK> I don't believe this is correct. SJ Games still has a
RK> dedicated "GURPS Traveller" editor on staff; they wouldn't
RK> waste money on someone whose product line wasn't at least
RK> breaking even without a very good reason.

CW> My suspicion (and I am not an outsider, just an observer) is

.... that I am not an *IN*sider, just an observer.

Charlton


--
cwilbur at chromatico dot net
cwilbur at mac dot com

 

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In article <mrfv01hhca02av0tcqrfvsbjlvgni8vh9o@4ax.com>,
Rob Kelk <robkelk@deadspam.com> wrote:
>On 13 Feb 2005 11:45:24 -0800, chaos_israel@antisocial.com wrote:
>
>>Douglas Berry wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Not done over, but GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars is on the
>>> release schedule. This takes place in the Terran Confederation v. the
>>> Vilani Imperium era. I had a small part in writing this (very small
>>> part) and was on the playtest. This book is excellent.
>>> --
>>>
>>
>>Doutless.
>>
>>The basic premise however....
>>"One planet, with less than two centuries of space travel behind them,
>>defeats a several millenia old, multi-sector star empire--but once they
>>get it, they can't keep it, and civilized space collapeses into a dark
>>age."
>>
>>Puh-leeze.
>>I realize Traveller is space opera, but does it have to be *bad* space
>>opera?
>
>What's so bad about the premise? It's just "The Decline and Fall of the
>Roman Empire" with the Vilani taking the role of the Romans and the
>Solomani taking the role of the Goths, and the fall of the Roman Empire
>was real history.

And look what happened to the United States in the 200 years from 1776 to
1976. Lots of changes in that time.

--
"The result of this experiment was inconclusive, so we had to use
statistics." (Overheard at international physics conference)