Traveller based games.

[mlooney 3,605]

1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Assembly language was very popular at the time because it could fit code into a tight package.

Of course this is what C was originally designed to be.  Then things got weird with C++ and tight code went out the window.

[mlooney 3,605]

Taken from a Traveller Discord server:

Quote

"Are you a man or a woman?"
"Im an officer."
"What is your gender?"
"Captain."
"Yeah but what is in your pants?"
"Six successful advancement rolls."

 

[mlooney 3,605]

Today is Traveller's 47 birthday.  And the most popular current version (Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition) is compatible enough with the Classic version that adventures written for one can be used by the other.  D&D sure can't say that.  I'll grant that combat rules are a bit different (particularly armor) but combat isn't really what Traveller is about.

[mlooney 3,605]

I can't sleep after waking up to pay my rent and cable bills. Time to watch Seth Skorkowsky's Traveller overview. I should fall asleep about half way through character creation.

Despite me using it some nights as a sleep aid, it's the best overview of a RPG I've watched in a long time.

[Darth Fluffy 339]

12 hours ago, mlooney said:

I can't sleep after waking up to pay my rent and cable bills. Time to watch Seth Skorkowsky's Traveller overview. I should fall asleep about half way through character creation.

Despite me using it some nights as a sleep aid, it's the best overview of a RPG I've watched in a long time.

Lower impact than sleeping pills! It's a medical breakthrough!

[mlooney 3,605]

18 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Lower impact than sleeping pills! It's a medical breakthrough!

No hang over either.  Sleeping pills tend  to give me a worse one than mid level getting drunk.

[mlooney 3,605]

Some more about Traveller TTRPG being transferred to Mongoose Publishing. Still not sure how I feel about this, but tending towards it being a good thing over all.

https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/traveller-changing-hands-q-a.124929/

[mlooney 3,605]

Due to the whole "The OGL is unstable" thing, plus some weirdness of the Mongoose licensing, I'm gonna be basing my space fantasy game on "Faster than Light:Nomad", which has a SRD licensed under the CC:4, instead of the Traveller SRD.  Gonna take some work.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/479380/faster-than-light-nomad

[Darth Fluffy 339]

9 hours ago, mlooney said:

Due to the whole "The OGL is unstable" thing, plus some weirdness of the Mongoose licensing, I'm gonna be basing my space fantasy game on "Faster than Light:Nomad", which has a SRD licensed under the CC:4, instead of the Traveller SRD.  Gonna take some work.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/479380/faster-than-light-nomad

What is weird about Mongoose licensing? Very curious.

[mlooney 3,605]

Well, they right now have 4 license in effect.  The OGL, left over from 1st editions SRD, the "Traveller's Aid Society / Community Content License,(https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/cc/5/Travellers-Aid-Society) which is for things on DriveThruRPG, where they take 50% of your sales money, a license for using the words Traveller in you product (and is separate from the Community Content) that they currently are only offering to "established" companies and the Fair Use policy, which is for free fan stuff on the web.  The Fair Use Policy was established by Marc Miller himself and was specifically carried over when he transferred Traveller to Mongoose. None of these apply to my product, other than the OGL, which is flaky given that WotC tried to drop it once before.  Having a product that depends on the good will of Hasbro doesn't strike me as a good idea.  Now WotC released the 5.1 SRD https://www.dndbeyond.com/resources/1781-systems-reference-document-srd) under the CC BY-SA 4 license with is what Stellagama Publishing did with "Faster Than Light:Nomad" (https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/479380/Faster-Than-Light-Nomad) and their Sword and Sorcery game "Barbaric:2nd Ed" (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/450864/barbaric-2nd-edition) means I have all source I need to make "Edge of Imperial Space".  However character creation is gonna need a major revamp.  Basic game mechanic is the same, more or less.

[mlooney 3,605]

I have high hopes of starting on my space fantasy game as the heat dies down, which looks like it starts next week.  The major question I've got is which license do I use?  OGL 1.a or CC-BY-4.0?  Both have their up sides and down sides.  The D&D 5.1 SRD has been released under both.  I've got other material for both space and "sword and sorcery" in both.  The CC-BY-4.0 stuff will require a complete write of character, monster and star system creation, but it license is safe from Hasbo getting a wild hair up it's ass again.  The OGL version would not require a full rewrite (even though I'm gonna do a major revision) and would take less work.  But it's license is dependent of Hasbro not doing something stupid again.  

[ijuin 596]

I would lean toward stupid-proofing it, myself.

[mlooney 3,605]

Yeah, L'm about 60% that way.  Gonna read over the relevant source materials this weekend and make a decision Monday morning, hopefully when it's not so beastly hot.

[mlooney 3,605]

I've decided that I'm gonna go with the OGL license, despite it depending on Hasbro's good will.  They have seemed to back down from dumb mistakes when given push back of late and they seemed to have completely rolled over for Open Game stuff.    I've looked at ORC but I have a minor face twitch when ever I read Pathfinder 2e rules and lore, which is the major game using the ORC license.  There just isn't, quite, enough source material under the CCL for my needs.

I was part of the mailing list that designed the OGL, so I have 24 some odd years of dealing with it's weirdness. 

[Darth Fluffy 339]

2 hours ago, mlooney said:

I've decided that I'm gonna go with the OGL license, despite it depending on Hasbro's good will.  They have seemed to back down from dumb mistakes when given push back of late and they seemed to have completely rolled over for Open Game stuff.    I've looked at ORC but I have a minor face twitch when ever I read Pathfinder 2e rules and lore, which is the major game using the ORC license.  There just isn't, quite, enough source material under the CCL for my needs.

I was part of the mailing list that designed the OGL, so I have 24 some odd years of dealing with it's weirdness. 

There's a Starfinder rule set that might meet your needs; OTOH, I'm pretty sure you're aware of that. Still thought it's worth a mention. I think it's OGL.

[mlooney 3,605]

33 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

There's a Starfinder rule set that might meet your needs; OTOH, I'm pretty sure you're aware of that. Still thought it's worth a mention. I think it's OGL.

Starfinder is rather tightly tied to the lore of Pathfinders.   While I'm making a "space fantasy", the main thrust is "space" not "fantasy".  Plus there is a difference between the Traveller philosophy vs D&D (and its descendants) of being normal people in abnormal circumstances vs being heroes that are better than most people.  While not quite as gritty as some games, Traveller is very much "normal people" not demigods.

[mlooney 3,605]

Mongoose has just opened up their Community Content License (AKA TAS) to include "Classic Traveller" (1st published 1977).  This is exactly like if WotC was to make Original D&D an option on The Dungeon Master's Guild.  The major difference being there are still a lot of "Classic Traveller" players out there.

I may need to look at some of my older stuff and refactor it for CT.  I'm hyped.

[Darth Fluffy 339]

5 hours ago, mlooney said:

Mongoose has just opened up their Community Content License (AKA TAS) to include "Classic Traveller" (1st published 1977).  This is exactly like if WotC was to make Original D&D an option on The Dungeon Master's Guild.  The major difference being there are still a lot of "Classic Traveller" players out there.

I may need to look at some of my older stuff and refactor it for CT.  I'm hyped.

I still have my Classic Traveller books. It's better than many of its successors, and you gotta love a game in which you can die before you start playing. Take that, Paranoia!

[mlooney 3,605]

If some one wants to start Classic Traveller the current price of entry is $0 for PDF or $9 for printed.  I recommend getting the PDF even if you have dead tree versions for the errata is nothing else.

 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/355200/classic-traveller-facsimile-edition