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MadBeardMan
December 2nd, 2018, 14:24
Greetings All,

I've been away far too long. I travelled to the frontiers and lost communication.....

Being honest, I've been ill with a tooth from hell, plus another close family member has been far too close to the frontier as well, but we're all better now.

When I created the ruleset I never imagined people would be interested in a game that's not D&D. I love Traveller, I can (and hope until I die) remember playing it, having characters die during char gen, and dying whilst our ship was destroyed in space combat. It's just awesome and it lives again.

There's a lot of talk about 1E and 2E and can both be played together, forgive me if I'm missing anything but from my pov it's the following:

In 2E you have

difficulty numbers, rather than modifiers against a single target number
animals/creatures have hit points rather than the wound track


So this is what I've been thinking of doing. Adding 2E as an extension to the 1E ruleset, and that 2E extension would come with a new theme plus the Core rulebook for 2E.

The Core Rulebook is converted, the theme needs finishing and Mongoose were meant to be doing that (I need to chase them).

This means that 1E still needs all the core stuff adding to it, and 2E will override parts of it.

Now this is where you the players come in.

I'm taking a large amount of time off over Xmas, I'm self employed so can do this though the wife isn't too happy as she thinks that I'm playing on my computer!

So let's create a list of what you the players want, and then let's create it all. Post here what you want next and I'll commit to what's here rather than promisng stuff that gets pushed to to the back of many lists.

I will also let you know I've been working on the ruleset to Vampire 5th Edition but once that completes (soon I hope) Traveller is my only ruleset focus for the short term.

Thanks
Colin aka MBM

Talyn
December 2nd, 2018, 14:41
What if 2E were a smaller .pak that layered over top of 1E? Then it could have 2E-specific content if needed, and the GMs wouldn't need to remember to enable an extension?

MadBeardMan
December 2nd, 2018, 14:44
What if 2E were a smaller .pak that layered over top of 1E? Then it could have 2E-specific content if needed, and the GMs wouldn't need to remember to enable an extension?

I'll have to look into it, but a 2E pak means an almost duplicated code source, I could branch/fork but it gets messy.

Though I'll do whatever folks want.

Cheers

Talyn
December 2nd, 2018, 14:49
I meant kinda like PFRPG layers over 35E and only includes the Pathfinder changes. For that matter, you could have 2E automatically accept 1E DLC too, maybe whip up some functions to handle the math differences like CoC7E does with the older CoC6E DLC?

We were considering doing that for Amazing Adventures, layering it over Castles & Crusades since it's the same core RPG engine, but I hesitate to essentially force people to buy one product in order to play a different product. But that concept might work great for Traveller like it has for Call of Cthulhu.

MadBeardMan
December 2nd, 2018, 14:56
I meant kinda like PFRPG layers over 35E and only includes the Pathfinder changes. For that matter, you could have 2E automatically accept 1E DLC too, maybe whip up some functions to handle the math differences like CoC7E does with the older CoC6E DLC?

We were considering doing that for Amazing Adventures, layering it over Castles & Crusades since it's the same core RPG engine, but I hesitate to essentially force people to buy one product in order to play a different product. But that concept might work great for Traveller like it has for Call of Cthulhu.

I'll email JPG and see what he suggests. What I don't want it two code bases.

I do like the idea of the flag and so if it's not marked as 2E then do the sums automatically to bring them in-line, that's a great idea.

Now 2E is a much more polished edition, there's a noticeable difference in the quality and I know Mongoose are very keen for it to be 'seen' to be the newer edition.

Cheers, you've given me some ideas and a way to convert the older content that's still ace, but use it in the newest edition!

MBM

LordNanoc
December 2nd, 2018, 19:09
Great to hear you and your loved ones passed the End check with bravour! It is so nice to have you back.

For my part, I would like to see ships and ship combat implemented as I will put my campaign in that tight spot, soon. ��

Not sure yet, if I'll switch to 2E. I find 1E quite refined tbh and a single target number with modifiers is a great way to play imho. But ofc this is always a matter of taste, habit and preference i assume.

My players and I love what you have done so far and we all are releaved to have you back!
Cya

Valyar
December 2nd, 2018, 20:03
Will this Traveller 2E ruleset be based on the “newest” traveller by Mongoose?
https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/rpgs/traveller-1.html

esmdev
December 2nd, 2018, 20:42
My personal thinking is that 2E is much more consistent across the board compared to 1E which gets less and less consistent the more books you look at. I'd much rather see a focus on 2E than 1E, but that's just a preference. To be honest, more people likely use 2E these days than 1E. I actually had to dig up my 1E books to use the ruleset and have mostly been waiting around for an actual 2E ruleset.

As for maintaining two different code sets, if you do something like celestian's AD&D ruleset built on top of 5E where your 2E ruleset would be built on top of 1E then once 1E is pretty much done and in maintenance you can switch to full 2E development and not worry about it too much either way. If 1E gets finished you'll have a lot of basics already done for 2E and then once 2E is done you can sell it as an upgrade or something. They key would be to finish 1E first regardless of how badly people like me want 2E cause that would be best for everyone in the long run (I think).

In a perfect world, the list of things that I'd like to see goes something like this:

Starships


Full Stat Card
Full Ship building would be awesome but hard I'm sure
Cargo Volume & Carried Information
Crew Names with Link to NPCs
Passenger information (# of high, mid, low)




Psionics


Psionics added as abilities OR
Psionics added as skills
Second Psi column for psi usage



Trade


Full implementation of the trade system OR
At least set up trade in tables



These combined with the features currently present would just about round out the 1E Core Rules.

MadBeardMan
December 2nd, 2018, 22:09
Will this Traveller 2E ruleset be based on the “newest” traveller by Mongoose?
https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/rpgs/traveller-1.html

Yes, it will be based on the latest version from Mongoose. Most of the books are all 'done', just need to make the data and finish the ruleset for Starships etc.

Cheers

MadBeardMan
December 2nd, 2018, 22:35
My personal thinking is that 2E is much more consistent across the board compared to 1E which gets less and less consistent the more books you look at. I'd much rather see a focus on 2E than 1E, but that's just a preference. To be honest, more people likely use 2E these days than 1E. I actually had to dig up my 1E books to use the ruleset and have mostly been waiting around for an actual 2E ruleset.

As for maintaining two different code sets, if you do something like celestian's AD&D ruleset built on top of 5E where your 2E ruleset would be built on top of 1E then once 1E is pretty much done and in maintenance you can switch to full 2E development and not worry about it too much either way. If 1E gets finished you'll have a lot of basics already done for 2E and then once 2E is done you can sell it as an upgrade or something. They key would be to finish 1E first regardless of how badly people like me want 2E cause that would be best for everyone in the long run (I think).

In a perfect world, the list of things that I'd like to see goes something like this:

Starships


Full Stat Card
Full Ship building would be awesome but hard I'm sure
Cargo Volume & Carried Information
Crew Names with Link to NPCs
Passenger information (# of high, mid, low)




Psionics


Psionics added as abilities OR
Psionics added as skills
Second Psi column for psi usage



Trade


Full implementation of the trade system OR
At least set up trade in tables



These combined with the features currently present would just about round out the 1E Core Rules.

Hello,

I wanted to finish 1E off first, as 2E is based on it, just Mongoose want me to finish 2E these days.

I've emailed FG to find out if Starfinder has finished the develop for Starships, if they have then I can start added that into Traveller/WOiN. If not, then I need a bit more time to start on it, but it's going to happen as some time as I need the Starships myself.

About Psionics, I plan on adding them as 'Skills/Power', the issue is that in Traveller you get all the skills/powers within one Talent, and the Talent has the total DM for each skill/power. So I could look at added them as 'Talents' which if you drag to your character it adds all of the 'skills/powers' for each Talent.

About Trading. I'd like to add the Trade in Tables, but if you think we can create a system for trade, then let me know more. I do most of this by hand (still) from the books and in advance if I think my players will be trading.

So let me know about these thinks, and thanks for the reply.

Cheers,
MBM

MadBeardMan
December 2nd, 2018, 22:50
Great to hear you and your loved ones passed the End check with bravour! It is so nice to have you back.

For my part, I would like to see ships and ship combat implemented as I will put my campaign in that tight spot, soon. ��

Not sure yet, if I'll switch to 2E. I find 1E quite refined tbh and a single target number with modifiers is a great way to play imho. But ofc this is always a matter of taste, habit and preference i assume.

My players and I love what you have done so far and we all are releaved to have you back!
Cya

Hey Lord,

Thanks for your work.

I love 1E as well myself, soooooooo much old stuff out there, I would love to bring to FG (ie The Third Imperium).

Cheers,
MBM

esmdev
December 2nd, 2018, 22:59
Hello,

I wanted to finish 1E off first, as 2E is based on it, just Mongoose want me to finish 2E these days.

I've emailed FG to find out if Starfinder has finished the develop for Starships, if they have then I can start added that into Traveller/WOiN. If not, then I need a bit more time to start on it, but it's going to happen as some time as I need the Starships myself.

About Psionics, I plan on adding them as 'Skills/Power', the issue is that in Traveller you get all the skills/powers within one Talent, and the Talent has the total DM for each skill/power. So I could look at added them as 'Talents' which if you drag to your character it adds all of the 'skills/powers' for each Talent.

About Trading. I'd like to add the Trade in Tables, but if you think we can create a system for trade, then let me know more. I do most of this by hand (still) from the books and in advance if I think my players will be trading.

So let me know about these thinks, and thanks for the reply.

However it works out I'm just happy to hear from you that it's not the end... merely a brief pause. :)

Cheers,
MBM

Hi.

I can totally see Mongoose wanting 2E over 1E as they likely want to support their existing product. Would it be possible to take your 1E code and update it to 2E functionality and then add a secondary .pak or extension to downgrade it (sort of like what they are doing with Savage World). That actually might be the optimal, as 2E really should be the main ruleset and 1E just a legacy support (imho). I'd pay for a 2E upgrade, not sure about everyone else but I'd rather be using 2E in the first place.

I'd be happy with a ship sheet, ship combat can wait. I don't think they are any further with starships in Starfinder than they were 6 months ago. I don't do a whole lot of ship to ship combat but a lot of things do take place on the ship. Another thing might be porting the starship deckplans from the core rules into the set.

I figured that psionics might need to come from multiple angles cause that is sort of how they do it in Traveller these days. However it works best.

I was thinking that a full featured trading system would be the end of the rainbow sort of request, but I prefaced my lists with in a perfect world requests. :) I'd be more than happy with rollable tables.

LordNanoc
December 3rd, 2018, 07:41
Well, if Mongoose wants 2E done and if it's a PIA to build on both rulesets, I personally would bow to that decision and switch to the new ruleset.
Because I'ld rather have one full ruleset without compromises, polished and finished, than two half rulesets and a poor programmer being torn inbetween...

Just my thoughts on that.

mac40k
December 3rd, 2018, 12:28
May want to talk to Ikael about it. He's doing the new edition of Savage Worlds (SWADE) as the base ruleset with the current ruleset (SWD) being a new layered ruleset on top. That seems to be the preferred route these days.

MadBeardMan
December 3rd, 2018, 18:35
May want to talk to Ikael about it. He's doing the new edition of Savage Worlds (SWADE) as the base ruleset with the current ruleset (SWD) being a new layered ruleset on top. That seems to be the preferred route these days.

I spoke to Doug about it, going to do the same as CoC6e and CoC7e, a bit more work for me, but I'm ok with that.

Cheers
MBM

Talyn
December 3rd, 2018, 21:00
By all means, talk to Ikael about it, that's essentially how he's handling SWADE as well, and it will have some functions so that it will be able to use all the existing SWD DLC so that we're not panicking trying to upgrade everything. Pop by the FG Discord, any of us will be happy to chat and help out and Ikael is always willing to help out.

backwardoracle
December 4th, 2018, 13:01
Great to see you back at the Helm so to speak, Solving the various niggles is a high priority, once done can be quickly to the other system as they are only minor differences. Personally I prefer 1E over 2E.

As there is currently more 1E material I would have thought that Mongoose would prefer that material first as extra sales (cash is cash, after all) which they could then pump into 2nd ed, but I don't move in those lofty circles.

esmdev
December 4th, 2018, 13:15
Great to see you back at the Helm so to speak, Solving the various niggles is a high priority, once done can be quickly to the other system as they are only minor differences. Personally I prefer 1E over 2E.

As there is currently more 1E material I would have thought that Mongoose would prefer that material first as extra sales (cash is cash, after all) which they could then pump into 2nd ed, but I don't move in those lofty circles.

I'm pretty sure that if given an option Mongoose will always go with support for their current product first and legacy second.

backwardoracle
December 4th, 2018, 13:56
With a lot of products I'd agree wholeheartedly, but think about it this way, old product line has 50 items to sell, new product line has 10, we are using a new format so the "old" established line will be familiar and sell again, to the same audience. So if there are more products to sell in a new format which will generate more revenue?

Essentially you have access to a new market stream, with many products to support it, as 1E has those products already, establish the market then upgrade, simple volume sales.

esmdev
December 4th, 2018, 15:16
With a lot of products I'd agree wholeheartedly, but think about it this way, old product line has 50 items to sell, new product line has 10, we are using a new format so the "old" established line will be familiar and sell again, to the same audience. So if there are more products to sell in a new format which will generate more revenue?

Essentially you have access to a new market stream, with many products to support it, as 1E has those products already, establish the market then upgrade, simple volume sales.

I agree that there are more 1E books than 2E but I found 1E books to be so uneven and inconsistent that I eventually stopped playing MGT and wrote my own system. I like 2E though, so far they've managed to keep all the rules fairly even and consistent.

I'm pretty sure that Mongoose wants to focus on 2E which is why the older books aren't in print anymore. They can still be gotten via DTRPG and such but that is just free money without any time or effort. If they get behind an expansion of the 1E FG system into all those other books it would take so much time they'd be on 3E before they even got started on 2E.

If they start now with 2E and get it solid it supports their flagship where all their development money is going. Especially with what appears to be the plan which is to develop a core 2E ruleset that has a reverse option to 1E compatibility. That gives the best of both worlds and allows for development by other developers in either edition they choose to support.

Talyn
December 4th, 2018, 16:39
With a lot of products I'd agree wholeheartedly, but think about it this way, old product line has 50 items to sell, new product line has 10, we are using a new format so the "old" established line will be familiar and sell again, to the same audience. So if there are more products to sell in a new format which will generate more revenue?

Look at Wizards of the Coast. They've only licensed 5E because that's their current property, despite literal truckloads of books existing from previous editions which at this point is just free money for them. Doesn't matter. Publishers have to focus on the now, not the past. We're fortunate that Mongoose bothered to license 1E at all, because it's obvious (and flatly stated by MBM) that they want the focus to be on 2E.

backwardoracle
December 4th, 2018, 17:44
So your actually saying buy our shiny new product, because we we changed the old one a bit, rather than buy truckloads of old stuff because we have flogged the same stuff 3 times before, is a sound financial plan?, WOTC being the exception rather than the rule.

Remember we are dealing with a totally different medium than hordes of rulebooks to carry round or players buying different third party sourcebooks

Yes, reselling the truckloads of previous material works, is "free money" thats my point, 1E mongoose is "free money" bucketloads rather than truckloads perhaps, but free money is free money.

I'm sure all the 1E. 2E, 3E DnD stuff available on sale now garners WOTC a sizeable paycheck, that they can use to pay new designers to produce new material for the current incarnation.

Ok, imagine if all the Traveller career sourcebooks (for example) for 1E were available on FG, now, how much extra revenue would that make? the supplements, the race books, how much free money would that get the company?

Yes Publishers have to look to future sales, but ignoring the recent (in game terms) material in favour of all new shiny stuff, seems a bit short sighted, as there is a lot of material that could be sold now, today, rather than down the line.

So which would you prefer 10 bucks for the next 12 months or possibly 150 bucks next year?

esmdev
December 4th, 2018, 18:08
Actually what we are saying is that going the direction we are going we get both and not just one or the other. That seems better to me. :)

The other thing to consider is at the moment the only thing we are getting is the core rules. The other books and supplements have not been discussed yet to my knowledge. With 1E and 2E on the table it is likely that we will see more adventure books that rulebook because modules are easier and faster to write than rulesets.

As an FYI I recently read a post in another forum where a fairly well known FG developer stated a professional ruleset could eat up about 1,000 development hours and if that is the case I am certain that Mongoose would push for the current system hands down.

Talyn
December 4th, 2018, 18:34
I'm simply stating reality. Most publishers (and authors, and designers, and...) don't know squat about the digital world and even less about virtual tabletops. They deal in paper (and PDFs).
Yes, these things take a lot of development time. I've spent ~200 hours on certain DLC products I've done, and typically we just get the commission. If that "certain well-known developer" managed to convince his client to front him $75k to develop the 13th Age ruleset, good on him, because his client is likely to never to make that back. Rulesets are monsters, they easily take 1,000 hours to develop, and that's not counting playtesting and future support (SmiteWorks does require 12 months support for any product we develop).

What Mongoose could have done is license only the 2E ruleset but license the 1E products and require the ruleset have backward-compatibility. So, again, we're very fortunate they allowed a 1E ruleset at all when they want the focus to be on the current property 2E.

backwardoracle
December 4th, 2018, 21:54
Well of course they want to push the latest, newest, shiny thats just common sense to the average bean counter, however selling something you have already paid for, and received an income, then have the opportunity to sell it again with no additional cost sounds like free money, looked at in the right light.

As I said, not my decision, yes if they had said from the start, 2E and anything previously published make compatible would make a lot more sense, but then of course whoever they hand over the update to the printed material would that be compatible with a FG version produced in the meantime

I am actually very impressed (not a word I throw around lightly) with the community builds & the loyalty of the community I've seen here.

LordNanoc
December 5th, 2018, 07:10
Mongoose does, what Mongoose does.

Discussing about what Mongoose should do or might do is fruitless, if you are not the strategist of that company.

Time will tell, what is done. We can just wait and see.
Anybody liking 1e will always be able to play it, heck, you still can play classic Traveller if you like.

If I understood MBM right, Mongoose urges him towards coding the 2e ruleset for FG. So I recon that will have to happen and we will help MBM to get the pest possible product. Focusing on this is more fruitful imho, than discussimg the ifs and maybes of MGs product strategy.

My 2 cents

backwardoracle
December 5th, 2018, 11:52
:) agreed, getting the product to best options is the priority, speculation though, is a human trait :)

Trenloe
December 10th, 2018, 17:13
Especially with what appears to be the plan which is to develop a core 2E ruleset that has a reverse option to 1E compatibility.
That's not what MBM said in post #15. He said the plan is to be the same as CoC6e and CoC7e - which are completely separate rulesets. You can load CoC 6e material in the CoC 7e ruleset (and it does a quick conversion on the NPCs) but that's it. They're separate rulesets with no inter dependency (other than both running on top of CoreRPG).

esmdev
December 10th, 2018, 17:42
That's not what MBM said in post #15. He said the plan is to be the same as CoC6e and CoC7e - which are completely separate rulesets. You can load CoC 6e material in the CoC 7e ruleset (and it does a quick conversion on the NPCs) but that's it. They're separate rulesets with no inter dependency (other than both running on top of CoreRPG).

Um you just said exactly what I said in a different way. 2E as the core with a reverse option to 1E compatibility = You can load 1E material in the 2E ruleset. The specifics of how it is done doesn't change the fact that I was trying to point out to concerned people that they won't be left out in the cold because of a publisher requested emphasis on 2E development. I was simply trying to help others to see the roses rather than the thorns. I guess I won't bother in the future.

Trenloe
December 10th, 2018, 17:49
Um you just said exactly what I said in a different way. 2E as the core with a reverse option to 1E compatibility = You can load 1E material in the 2E ruleset. The specifics of how it is done doesn't change the fact that I was trying to point out to concerned people that they won't be left out in the cold because of a publisher requested emphasis on 2E development. I was simply trying to help others to see the roses rather than the thorns. I guess I won't bother in the future.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. It sounded like you were describing the way Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE) will work - 2 rulesets layered on top of each other, with the main development on SWADE and the legacy Savage Worlds being a ruleset layered on top of SWADE - this sounded like the "reverse option to 1E compatibility" you were mentioning. Others have mentioned SWADE in the thread and the wording you used led me to think you were referring to that. Again, sorry for the misunderstanding. Please continue to "bother in future". :)

donpaulo
December 11th, 2018, 05:01
I'll simply add that the whole concept of "Merchant Princes" or "Rogue Trader" is what attracted me to game system in the first place.

So I think anything having to do with cargo, trading and the like is very much appreciated.

Obviously zero G combat is critical as well but I suspect trade with pricing etc is going to be a sticky wicket.

best
dp

LordNanoc
December 19th, 2018, 07:31
Hi there.

As the last infos were from start December I wanna ask, if we can have a quick status update on the work and what deadlines we can expect.

TIA,
Nanoc

MadBeardMan
December 23rd, 2018, 12:15
Hi there.

As the last infos were from start December I wanna ask, if we can have a quick status update on the work and what deadlines we can expect.

TIA,
Nanoc

Hi Chap,

I've been working on PSI, it's almost complete. Once PSI is out in the wild, we'll do a post and decide on the next feature. Anything that works in 1E and 2E is a huge bonus as that's coming in Spring (hopefully).

DwightLee
December 26th, 2018, 12:17
I was very excited to see Traveller in the Fantasy Grounds store ( I am fairly new to FG ) . I subscribed to an ultimate licence for a D&D 5E game that I am running, but in my younger days Traveller 1E was one of my very favorite RP games. Somewhere deep in my garage are all the Traveler books, I remember The High Guard, and and world building well, and the absolute blast of rolling a character. ( the look on someones face when their character does not even survive rolling up, rolling a character is an adventure all its own ) My games were deep in the Spinward Marches, When I complete my Homebrew D&D 5E campaign, I am going to need to pick this up. I have nothing but fond memories of Traveller. Really digging into memory thinking about Traveller. Having a game like this played in FG would be really interesting.

backwardoracle
December 26th, 2018, 15:10
Welcome, remember that the ruleset here is Mongoose 1E which is pretty close to the original, traveller has been a favorite of mine for many many years, and yes my players are having a blast playing it.