I'd have less trouble with this if we were playing epic space opera or high sci-fantasy, but Traveller really comes off (albeit not as much as Attack Vector...) as a hard-sci fi setting (or an attempt to be one). It was one of the harder ones for the time it was written too. So, how it was designed had ought to better take that setting into mind which means people will want to understand more of the nuts and bolts.

Well, I suppose there could be a discussion entirely about this point but it's not immediately obvious to me that Traveller's designers have ever been particularly focused on simulating "hard" science-fiction. I mean, the two-dimensional subsector hex grid printed in ~Book 3~ would seem to make it pretty clear that the folks at GDW were balancing a substantial "game play" perspective against "scientific realism." (It is perhaps relevant to note here that GDW shifted to a three-dimensional game space in the arguably "harder sci-fi" ~2300 AD~.)

On the other hand, Traveller portends to be more the sci-fi setting that has a bit more of a hard-sci feeling and DOES have very complex construction, trade, planet design, etc. so it takes itself seriously enough to invest a lot of time (and an assumption of validity and worth) into those systems. That tells me that there should also be a fair bit of thought into the mechanics of major systems used in those systems.

I agree with you: there is often a great deal of "complexity" in many parts of Traveller, but . . .

Why does it matter to calculate the fuel capacity and the mass and other factors for something that you don't even know how it works and it boils down to black magic? Why do you need the precision and complex accounting when you're going to blow off the main operating principles? That's inherently inconsistent.

. . . it seems to me like you're being a bit too quick to jump from "this is difficult to make sense of" (from a scientific perspective) to "it must be 'black magic' or 'inherently inconsistent.'" What seems to be missing in your framing here is a third, "orthogonal" perspective which asks "can we make sense of this from a ~game play~ perspective"?

Sure, that makes our efforts more difficult. I (like to believe I) know a bit more about "engineering" than I know about what the designer of some particular element of Traveller--and the collection of folks who have since added to or modified it along the way--"had in her head" about the intended effect upon ~game play~. More poignantly, an emphasis upon "engineering" seems to provide a more concrete way to distinguish between "my" impression of "how it works" and "your" impression which might be a bit different. It's easier to argue that my interpretation is "better engineered" than your interpretation than it is to argue that it "better supports game play."

Taken back even further, if we cannot establish a common framework of understanding, we can't even really develop arguments that have any rigour, comparability, etc. And some of the major frameworks are: mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc. plus logic (in process and in analysis of implications).

So 'engineering' and 'science' and 'math' all help create that common framework. Things with strictly 'magical' nature (no real vaguely satisfactory explanation exists) are going to automatically fall outside that framework and arguments about it are going to all boil down to 'how we think it should be' vs. anything debatable in a worthwhile way.

But it doesn't seem to me like that's the most appropriate or fruitful approach toward better ~game play~.

That has never bothered Traveller much ;0)

Do you need a big economic model to create a good game? Most don't.
Do you need vastly detailed ship construction rules for a game of small groups doing modest things? Most don't.
Do I need to know that the ship deck plans I'm using conform to the rules, if they are in fact just visual cues to run a role play? Probably not.
Does space combat need to be picky, calculation heavy, and crunchy if your goal is fast space combat scenes for the players? Probably should not.

So if you spent all this time working on the crunch and the detail and supposedly balance and other aspects that justify the accounting in some sense of a logical, balanced, coherent whole.... leaving big gaps where major subsystems are concerned is both inconsistent and frustrating to some extent.

Now, I'm all for a movement to render a 'PC group centric' version of the game that treats massive battlewagons, inter-polity relations and galactic trade as 'exist in exact proportion to their worth in a scene' vs. stand alone calculation engines.... but Traveller hasn't given us that in oh-so-many-ways... so why does the Jump Drive mechanics get a pass?

I'm willing to accept a McGuffin at the center of this, but when behaviours tied to that black box McGuffin aren't specified or seem to not make sense, then the McGuffin exceeds its scope and starts picking at the 'logical, consistent, thought out' aspect of the game that so many pages and errata have been spent on.

The macguffin works the way it needs to work to facilitate the sort of ~game play~ intended by the designers. Subsequent takes on the macguffin should also "work" in this way. Oftentimes, especially in (the two-dimensional macro-universe of) Traveller, this might end up being rather "unscientific" (but perhaps still quite "science-fictional").

The sterile beginnings were very hard science-ish. That's still been a big part of most iterations. Yes, it isn't hard science exactly, but it wears the veneers with some serious intention.

This also means that "how it works" IMTU might be ~different~ from "how it works" in yours, because the respective ~game play~ is different. Thus, before we can talk about "how it works" we may need to spend some time talking about the intended ~game play~ the macguffin is meant to facilitate.

That would either be a) our disparate notions or b) something the game designers never explained in sufficient detail (or have explained multiple times in seemingly contradictory ways).

That's the challenge here.

Sure, it can be fun to look at some bit of Traveller technology from an "engineering" perspective but in an important way that's sort of like using your Martian Metals 15-mm "Zhodani Strike Force" miniatures as replacement pawns for your chess set (or vice versa). . . .

Did that in D&D, not yet in sci-fi... ;)

Oh, BTW, big fan of Victoria!

Big fan of Ottawa too--at least time time of year. ;)

This time of OTHER years... sans Sars-Cov-2 virus and its attendant Covid-19 disease.

Ottawa is not bad except for about 3-4 weeks in the high summer and even then only if the weather is thunderstorms, turbulent air or dead calm stagnant air. Some summers get virtually none of that, others get weeks of it. I love spring and fall here and winter is bearable (and I could not live in a place without winter... it would feel too alien...).

Cheers,

David
--
Victoria, British Columbia
48° 29' N, 123° 20' W

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