Really, from the very early references in the TNE rulebook there's indications that history will judge the Star Vikings harshly.

They are pioneers and liberators and evangelists and in the end they're all too willing to go too far to achieve their ends.

I've always wanted to run a campaign where the PCs start to realize that there's a decent number of their comrades out there that are just as dirty as the Guild claims.

Quote from: David JohansenReally, from the very early references in the TNE rulebook there's indications that history will judge the Star Vikings harshly.

Gawd, don't get me started. Dave Nilson himself said that was just an excuse to bash limp wristed libruls living in safe times who don't understand what Real Men have to do when the going is tough(complaints about the Greatest Generation killing a few Germans when saving the world from the Nazis, frex)...

That said, you want moral ambiguity its certainly there.

But the Core Story is good. Classic traveller has its kinda adventurers find an ancient site and investigate it as a Core Story, and Star Vikings has 'kill it and take its stuff and sell it at auction' as a Core Story.

And the Virus is a lot like the melding plague of revelation space. At least if you squint.

A new version could see the vikings as kinda normal humans left after a singularity event cleaning up all the weird transhuman stuff left in its wake.

It'd be ace.

Quote from: Erik BoielleAnd the Virus is a lot like the melding plague of revelation space. At least if you squint.

A new version could see the vikings as kinda normal humans left after a singularity event cleaning up all the weird transhuman stuff left in its wake.

It'd be ace.

you've given me a new perspective on that.  love revelation space (read & loved the second, didn't finish the third).  thanks, erik!

of course this means i'll have to look for TNE shit on ebay, now

Quote from: beeberof course this means i'll have to look for TNE shit on ebay, now

If you PDF you can get it from DriveThru:-

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?cPath=21_26

I reckon you'd need the core, Path of Tears and Smash and Grab because it doesn't really get going until the supplements. And Vampire Fleets, but for some reason that aint there.

Path of Tears is in the running for best roleplaying sourcebook evar.

(And rememeber, I think it has great potential and could update really well, but its a bit of a fixer upper oppertunity.)

Shit. The term Reformation Coalition Exploration Service Hot Recovery Operation (aka Star Viking Smash and Grab raid) still excites me.

Path of Tears was great.  Quite possibly the best sfrpg supplement setting ever published.  Star Vikings was pretty good too.  That said, there is a decent chunck of ideology in there.  I sometimes think Dave Nielson gets off on pissing off the fans and holds some lingering resentment over the way things turned out.

The flavour text for the first scenario in Striker II is absolutely brilliant.

I've often said that TNE would have done better if they'd ditched the other settings and adventures and integrated Path of Tears.  The core book really doesn't have the breadth and tragedy of the Star Vikings properly presented.  I think a lot of people never followed it far enough to see.

QuoteThat said, there is a decent chunck of ideology in there.

Its certainly hard not to see it as having something to do with the Iraq war (which was a textbook decapitation operation followed by, well, bungled uplift/bootstrap? uplift/bootstrap in progress? shows whats wrong with the right wing fantasy of the Star Vikings?)

Either way, its cool as fuck, and deep with it.

A+

QuoteI've often said that TNE would have done better if they'd ditched the other settings and adventures and integrated Path of Tears. The core book really doesn't have the breadth and tragedy of the Star Vikings properly presented. I think a lot of people never followed it far enough to see.

Yeah. The core book really doesn't have enough material to show the potential. Which is a shame because they obviously had it, they just didn't print it (there are pictures in the core book of Clippers (Star Viking longships) and RCES trademark body gloves etc. but they never say what they are frex).





Do you know I never got Striker II?

Not surprisingly it's a bit of an editing mess.  You need a lot of figures and vehicles.  But it's actually pretty good.  Just not really consistant on whether it uses metric or imperial units.

I think the Star Vikings core story is too limited. It´s okay, but Traveller´s strentgh lies in letting you play with and in complex modern societies. Bringng it back to iron age mode of behaviour, the staple of D&D, is too limiting to be interesting or even idosyncratic.

Now, I´m not a T:NE hater. I really think it´s good. But it sacrifices complex modern societies for a coherent core story. It´s focus is it´s downfall.

Quote from: Erik BoielleClassic traveller has its kinda adventurers find an ancient site and investigate it as a Core Story, and Star Vikings has 'kill it and take its stuff and sell it at auction' as a Core Story.

And that is the main reason that I didn't want anything to do with TNE- the core story changed.  You can't change the expected mode of play of an rpg without losing its audience.  I want Traveller to be about space trucking ala Firefly.  CT was all about this.  TNE tried to be more like D&D in space.  Imagine if WOTC had made the core story of D&D 3 to be all about playing fantasy merchants involved in guild politics.  While that would appeal to some people, most of their audience would be pissed off.

No, it wasn´t D&D in space. it was Twilight:2000 in space, most definitely.

Quote from: SettembriniNo, it wasn´t D&D in space. it was Twilight:2000 in space, most definitely.

NTTIAWWT

Not at all.
It´s just not Traveller´s strength.

Again, I´m thankful for every incarnation of Traveller, as every single one added another dimension to it. It´s non-zero sum.

I know the Traveller-verse has a large setting and background, but did Traveller, in any of its incarnations suffer from the 90's metaplot problem?  What I mean is, it's one thing to have a ton of supplements expanding and detailing the world as it is, but it's another thing to have each supplement move the world forward.  Did Traveller suffer from the latter?

Quote from: PeteI know the Traveller-verse has a large setting and background, but did Traveller, in any of its incarnations suffer from the 90's metaplot problem?

Yea, that was part of the problem with TNE and the stuff immediately previous.  They decided that the emperor got assassinated and the entired imperium was wracked by civil war.  It had cool stuff but if you had an ongoing campaign and didn't want to go in that direction, all new material became less useful.  Then they had a virus take over almost all ship navigation systems and wipe out most interstellar travel for a long time and moved the setting to a rebuilding theme.

It seems to me that Mongoose is going on the right path by developing on Traveller the brand, rather than Traveller the setting; which is what they've done with Runequest.  

Release a sci-fi game with your usual sci-fi trappings: starships, star systems, technology, etc.  Keep some Traveller sacred cows, I'm thinking lifepath character generation and star system generation, but for all intents an purposes make it a generic game -- however a generic game with the Traveller brand label which carries a lot of weight in RPG circles.  Then release the detailed settings like Traveller 5, Starship Troopers, and so on.  Ideally these settings would focus on the various types of sci-fi from space opera, military, transhuman and perhaps even cyberpunk to name a few.

I think this could be an excellent strategy and the announcement has me interested.  But I hope they avoid what happened to Mongoose Runequest: scant, overpriced and under-tested rulebooks.  Apparently MRQ is doing very well for Mongoose, but other player's concerns of poor quality control has kept me from buying into it.