If I told you all that went down...
Oct. 22nd, 2003 07:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreI am flying to Denmark to kick someone in the balls. That's it. Just a boot in the happy fruit, and I'll leave.
There is another Traveller fan. Let's call him HRM. He has been playing for as long as I have, and has just as much knowledge of the game and the setting as I do. But he has a stick up his but so hard Vlad Tepes applauds the craftsmanship. HRM's problems is that he is convinced the he is right about everything. He was only a minor annoyance until I started writing for the game, then it started.
Let's go back to Ground Forces. Since this was my first big contract. I worked closely with the Line Editor, Loren Wiseman. Loren is one of the co-founders of Game Designers Workshop, and his name is everywhere in Traveller. He told me to use the most recently published material when determining the validity of material. This makes sense. Considering the Imperial Marines, an article in 1980 or so states that they are all trained to use, and equipped with, battledress (powered armor, like in Starship Troopers. HRM freaked over this, going back to an earlier publication and using the character generation system to "prove" that and Loren and I were wrong. He still sulks about this.
Recently, in the sjgames group concerning Traveller, there have been a number of threads that concerned battledress. Way back in 1977, when Traveller was first published, battledress was vulnerable to daggers. That's right, you could stab a man wearing advanced powered armor and wielding a powerful laser rifle. Later, in the first big overhaul of the game, battledress was made tougher. It has slowly escalated since then.
With Ground Forces, Anthony Jackson (who did the actual design work) and I saw a chance to really bring BD into it's full potential. After all, we are talking about a technology 3000 years in the future! So the battledress in Ground Forces can bounce bullets with ease, and don't even draw your dagger.
This has caused much whining among those who thought we should mimic everything in Classic Traveller down to the last detail. This ignores several facts. First off, the Imperium is much bigger and far more powerful than anybody even dreamed of when it was first written. Secondly, GURPS is a system with excellent design systems. If we hadn't built battledress to it's optimum level, we would have been crucified by the gear head lobby. Lastly.. it was my damn book, and every single world I wrote was approved by Loren, Marc Miller (original author of Traveller) and Steve Jackson himself!
So this argument has flared up and down, with some of the Classic Traveller whining about the parts of Ground Forces they hated. (With some of them, I wondered why they were bothering with GURPS at all.) Finally, sick of it, I wrote this:
Look, if you don't like the battledress in GF, don't use it. If you don't like the Marine in kilts, don't use that. I promise I will not come by with a goon squad, hold you down, and make you use every word I have written. It's your game, and you decide what elements you put in it..
To which, HRM posted a comment wondering if that meant that the writers could ignore what I had written. That really pissed me off. He's chipping away at old issues again. But trying to keep things light, I came back with:
Of course you can! Though I imagine Jon (the current Line Editor) and Loren might have something to say about it.
His reply? "So you're saying we can't change things"
He is either more ignorant and clueless than I can imagine, or he's a deliberate jerk. My comments were clearly addressed to people who are playing Traveller, not to the authors. Of course we have to pay attention what has been published before! It's in the bloody contracts! It's one of the things that gets looked at when they review your first draft and I can tell you from experience that play testers will point out the tiniest divergences from What Has Gone Before.. but they do it politely.
So I ranted a bit, and he got all hurt and announced I was getting personal and he was taking it to email. That was 24 hours ago. No email yet.
I swear, if I do get Imperial Navy and he shows up at the playtest, he's not getting a free copy.
There is another Traveller fan. Let's call him HRM. He has been playing for as long as I have, and has just as much knowledge of the game and the setting as I do. But he has a stick up his but so hard Vlad Tepes applauds the craftsmanship. HRM's problems is that he is convinced the he is right about everything. He was only a minor annoyance until I started writing for the game, then it started.
Let's go back to Ground Forces. Since this was my first big contract. I worked closely with the Line Editor, Loren Wiseman. Loren is one of the co-founders of Game Designers Workshop, and his name is everywhere in Traveller. He told me to use the most recently published material when determining the validity of material. This makes sense. Considering the Imperial Marines, an article in 1980 or so states that they are all trained to use, and equipped with, battledress (powered armor, like in Starship Troopers. HRM freaked over this, going back to an earlier publication and using the character generation system to "prove" that and Loren and I were wrong. He still sulks about this.
Recently, in the sjgames group concerning Traveller, there have been a number of threads that concerned battledress. Way back in 1977, when Traveller was first published, battledress was vulnerable to daggers. That's right, you could stab a man wearing advanced powered armor and wielding a powerful laser rifle. Later, in the first big overhaul of the game, battledress was made tougher. It has slowly escalated since then.
With Ground Forces, Anthony Jackson (who did the actual design work) and I saw a chance to really bring BD into it's full potential. After all, we are talking about a technology 3000 years in the future! So the battledress in Ground Forces can bounce bullets with ease, and don't even draw your dagger.
This has caused much whining among those who thought we should mimic everything in Classic Traveller down to the last detail. This ignores several facts. First off, the Imperium is much bigger and far more powerful than anybody even dreamed of when it was first written. Secondly, GURPS is a system with excellent design systems. If we hadn't built battledress to it's optimum level, we would have been crucified by the gear head lobby. Lastly.. it was my damn book, and every single world I wrote was approved by Loren, Marc Miller (original author of Traveller) and Steve Jackson himself!
So this argument has flared up and down, with some of the Classic Traveller whining about the parts of Ground Forces they hated. (With some of them, I wondered why they were bothering with GURPS at all.) Finally, sick of it, I wrote this:
Look, if you don't like the battledress in GF, don't use it. If you don't like the Marine in kilts, don't use that. I promise I will not come by with a goon squad, hold you down, and make you use every word I have written. It's your game, and you decide what elements you put in it..
To which, HRM posted a comment wondering if that meant that the writers could ignore what I had written. That really pissed me off. He's chipping away at old issues again. But trying to keep things light, I came back with:
Of course you can! Though I imagine Jon (the current Line Editor) and Loren might have something to say about it.
His reply? "So you're saying we can't change things"
He is either more ignorant and clueless than I can imagine, or he's a deliberate jerk. My comments were clearly addressed to people who are playing Traveller, not to the authors. Of course we have to pay attention what has been published before! It's in the bloody contracts! It's one of the things that gets looked at when they review your first draft and I can tell you from experience that play testers will point out the tiniest divergences from What Has Gone Before.. but they do it politely.
So I ranted a bit, and he got all hurt and announced I was getting personal and he was taking it to email. That was 24 hours ago. No email yet.
I swear, if I do get Imperial Navy and he shows up at the playtest, he's not getting a free copy.
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Hrmmm.
Date: 22 Oct 2003 08:14 (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 Oct 2003 08:37 (UTC)Not when I've been peeved at him myself, *and* could afford to pay for your trip if I really wanted to.
Luckily, I've got "better" things to do with it. But you shouldn't tempt me like that! :-)
no subject
Date: 22 Oct 2003 09:26 (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 Oct 2003 09:53 (UTC)Which isn't a bad thing, of course.
no subject
Date: 22 Oct 2003 11:45 (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 Oct 2003 09:16 (UTC)At the Customs counter..
Date: 22 Oct 2003 09:51 (UTC)"Vengence. Long overdue vengence."
blank stare
Re: At the Customs counter..
Date: 22 Oct 2003 09:54 (UTC)Re: At the Customs counter..
Date: 22 Oct 2003 10:51 (UTC)