Tom Barclay <
xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
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~.)
We were approaching a discussion of ship systems (Jump Drives). Given how much ink the game has spent (from the basic first release, through the rest of CT, then off into MT, TNE and so on.... there has been a clear focus on some attempt at realistic construction. It isn't an abstract point build system or some such thing - it has volumes, it has costs, etc.
In the respect of how travel around space goes in systems, it was equation heavy (even though they avoided notes on how painful orbital insertion math could be...). Also heavy were the vehicle/ship design elements with all of their tables, errata and options. This also feels very hard sci or at least very crunchy which I associate with hard sci fi.
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"?
I don't think that's the space the rest of the ruleset around system travel and ship combat seems to address.
If it isn't explained, yet it's effects are seen, then it pretty much is black magic for all intents and purposes.
How do you deal with it in a way that is 'game play' focused and feel consistent with all the other crunch and calculation? How can it not feel out of place there?
The 2D space thing has drawn a lot of comment over the years too, to be fair.