Kelly,
I'd sure miss you if you left.
That said, I won't blame you for taking a break. I've had to do that from this list, COTI, and other lists at times. Sometimes it was things happening on the lists, sometimes it was the stuff happening in the real world that made extra 'active discussions' just a bit too much.
I find this pandemic with all the uncertainty, isolation, and the latest stream of tough news (numbers up, piles of scientists wanting WHO guidelines changed because it is more airborne than WHO is focusing on, a really good NY Times article showing exactly how incredibly insane it will be if we can actually get a vaccine by 2021 or 2022... historical examples have run in the ten+ years range for others and some not at all, etc).... it all just piles up.
Like Catherine, I had been playing some games (Stellaris which I find amazing, Civ V, and Cities:Skylines, Elder Scrolls:Skyrim) that I just can't touch right now because the struggle in each of them is just too much like the struggle to keep safe and fed my partially-disabled wife (who has been out of work 5 years), my 86 year old disabled shingles-in-the-eye mother (with bones that are see-through and lots of hardware from a 10 wheeler impact in 2003), my 85 year old diabetic father-in-law who just lost his driver's license, 3 cats, and my half-time amazing redhead who just suffered 4 months of school online in grade 7 and missing her peers.
And due to my wife having 3 major surgeries in the past 5 years with long cycles (over 14 months each), and my mom being disabled (and my Dad was, but we lost him to lung cancer 25 Dec 2017 after a summer and fall of illness)... I've been in the caretaker mode for 5 years with the last 3 intenselly. So the pandemic was about the time I was supposed to get interviewing and boning up to try to get back to programming/software design and I was thinking my wife's second hip surgery would end up as well as the first, but no physio has her in a mess now, my daughter needs me to help her make up deficits because online IS NOT equivalent to regular classes and because I do all of the going out (regularly, to feed 5 people, fresh home made meals at least 2 meals out of 3 and now a major gardening effort to add 50% to our existing 160 sq ft up to about 240 sq ft. And interviewing? Good luck. And help from the government? Literal zero here in Ontario/Canada for us.
I've had to retreat into playing zombie shooters (not high stress zombie suspense survival stuff) and Ticket To Ride, Terraforming Mars, and D&D Lords Of Waterdeep. Or watching a movie with my wife and child. Or trying to sort out the leftovers of the insane 6 month move in from my parent's country property which concluded just before Xmas 2019 with mom getting a shingles flare up in the first month... which may take a year to be declared in remission (and the med schedules for 3-4 months was every hour... not kidding...).
I've played or GMed a bit, but it's been hard to sustain with the real world being so demanding. And other folk are going through similar battles so getting a regular schedule up and running is tough. And sometimes, the day just takes it out of you.
This pandemic is beating us all up in one way or another - physical, emotional, mental health, financial wellbeing, sense of hope (where?), sense of despair when you see the idiocy and the mean-ness in some instances, and so on... we're all getting frayed... we look like tattered versions of ourselves. And I and my family have the incredible luck to live in an amazing country with mostly smart folks (Canada) - Our infection totals are just over 100K for 37M people and just over 8K deaths. Our US neighbour, usually similar to us (or vice versa) in most regards, has 25x the case count and up over 130K (as of a day or two ago) deaths (which would be around 70K if they were at the same per-capita rate we have). I'm living in one of the safer jurisdictions and it's still rough.
And what you said, Kelly, about the arguments and re-statements and so on... all true, but not the entire truth. There's some as like the flavour of the early game and the source material it was drawn from. There's some that want from the game the potential one sometimes gets a glimpse of, but that can't really materialize due to past canon and contradictions unless one is willing to toss them out or change them. And some like it as it was (fine for them, no argument).
I just see in Traveller, in my past experiences of same, some systems (2d6, careers, task system, skill list) that are useful to play games I'd like to play. The OTU... it lost its luster for me long ago (interesting, but I've done the parts I wanted to do) and the clunky and heavy parts of the system (vehicle construction, most of the combat stuff for vehicles, system generation that produces patchwork empires, etc) I'm not looking to save. I'll take what is good for me and for those that will give them a try with me, and I'll try to give people adventures that aren't buried into criminality, scams, taking out the natives and looting them, or piracy. Even military campaigns are not something my core group from the old days would play (most have done their time in the real services). But the idea of a bunch of friends bouncing around together and exploring, getting in jams, and helping one another get out.... that's something I can work with.
I'm glad you've been here, I'm sorry you're at a rough place now, and I'll continue to enjoy your input until you decide otherwise. And though I hope you'll consider a sabbatical and return, you need to do what you need to do in order to get through this time. We all do. If that means you need to go a different path, I will wish you 'fair stars, calm jumps' and hope you can find what you do need if this isn't it.
For every one on this list, I want to thank you for your participation, even where I disagree or perhaps argue with you about a topic. This list is a safe haven because whatever happens here, nobody actually dies. My characters may go bust, but that's not like my real world imminent concern.
Take care, Kelly. Take care of you.
And to the rest, likewise.
Sincerely,
TomB (kaladorn)