Why'd we stop having Traveller, Shadowrun and Eclipse Phase threads?
We're too busy running games or dealing with irl issues to post.
>>98865155Traveller still has semi regular threads and by its nature gets discussed in some othe other scifi ones.The old Shadowrun threads lost alot of steam when the regular posters realized they were replying to Dumpshock posts older than the board.Eclipse phase was a response to post FASA/Fanpro Catalyst and their assfucking of FASAs legacy. There's still an odd EP thread that comes up every once and a while. 2E was pretty bad compared to 1E which is why theres not much interest.
>>98865269The post TwoDee Shadowrun Storytime version of Shadowrun general also got kneecaped by 6e being a disappointment that provided nothing new and interesting worth talking about, we still get an occasional thread about Shadowrun at least with some even digging up the old links and such.
>>98865324Cyberpunk & Shadowruns Second Editions were both great.Their Third editions were shit, and absolute abominations after.
>>98865324I reread Shadowrun Storytime sometimes. What a classic.
>>98865155There is a problem with those systems that you actually need to play them in order to discuss them; unlike D&D, OSR or warhammer where you can get by in a conversation by simply screaming at each other about your opinions on surface level themes and concepts.
>>98865155The same reason why this board is dead
>>98865155Not enough people play them, and you do have to play them to have a discussion worth having. Like anon said >>98865420It's also an issue that we're halfway between the IRL date that Shadowrun launched and the fictional near future it portrays. A solid chunk of the SR timeline is therefore alternate history now, and it gets increasingly difficult to believe in the setting as we see our own society moving down a very different path. Cyberpunk and its fantasy spin off are both products of a specific era, and are not really the kind of future people envision today.>>98865352The 4th edition of shadowrun came out over 20 years ago, so I think it's fair to say that slow threads these days isn't solely caused by a disappointing 3rd ed.
>>98865155Because there's no edition wars or arguments to be had about Traveller.People will ask a question and then get their answer, someone will share about their setting and get "oohhh" or "but that's stupid" in answer, it stops there and then the thread dies.
>>98865155>TravellerNever that popular here>ShadowrunPost-porchgate CGL killed it after 5e, and SR6 put the nail in the coffin. Not even the HBS games can drive excitement for modern SR.>Eclipse PhaseMuch like Cthulhutech, also a CGL published system, it had a very evocative setting and a high quality pdf in an era where high quality free pdfs were nonexistent. And people realized the crunch was kinda ass.
>>98866653Shadowrun has that 90s RPG salience of American Indian issues, like Werewolf and Cyberpunk, that really dates it
>>98866653The SR timeline was always explicitly an alternate history.
>>98868011nta, having grown up with the 90s romanticism of it and then having to actually be around them for work much later I can say I prefer the fictional part and think its a lot more fun.
>>98868001There's the fan edition Shadowrun X which I've heard is good
I'm wondering if Anarchy 2.0 might rekindle some SR love. I'm tentatively excited about it, the hard copy will be out next month and I'll probably pick it up.
>>98865155They're big enough that people actually play them but small and old enough to fly under the tourist's radar for the most part.
>>98865155Im busy worrying about where the drawthread went
>>98871437Fewer posters overall, and drawfags were always a minority, so there's probably not enough to actually keep a thread alive. It would just be anons shouting requests into the void. And the slop thread probably captured some of the guys that just needed something really specific, and didn't care too much about quality. Honestly I'm more surprised that the drawthreads worked out for as long as they did, good job from the draw anons.>>98871361Did you play SR anarchy 1? I completely skipped it since it looked like trash.
>>98871518We played a few games of 1e a couple of years ago, and it was trash. No actual rules for magic, or matrix shit, or anything really. It was a dice mechanic with some (in my opinion, very bad) story game mechanics kind of stapled together.I read the PDF of anarchy 2.0 last year when it first came out, it fixes all of those things. It's still crunchy enough to be an actual ruleset, but seems simple enough that I could run it and my players would enjoy it. I haven't yet, so I can't speak specifically to it, but I'm pretty hopeful. Black Book (the French company making it) already have 2 more sourcebooks funded and in the pipeline for next year, so it seems like SR might have a good year in 2027.
>>98871518The fact that the draw thread was usurped by the slop thread is actually a perfect metaphor for what has happened to this board as whole.
>>98871518>It would just be anons shouting requests into the voidSo... the draw thread for the past two years or so?
>>98871622It has been a while since I've been here, but I was kind if surprised how few threads actually seem to be threads and not just seemingly bot posts meant to troll other people off of the board.
>>98865155There was this one autist with too much time on his hands that used to dedicate his life to driving the Shadowrun generals into the ground and at some point all the other regulars just gave up and moved on.
>>98866653>A solid chunk of the SR timeline is therefore alternate history nowI wish they committed to this instead of trying to mix real world tech in with SR4/SR5.Shadowrun veered off from real world history 5000 years ago, but more noticeably in the mid 1900s tech took a different turn, leading to massive changes in internet and computer infrastructure in the 00s.Also most of India died from VITAS, but I heard in 6th edition that's been retconned.The SR writers really should have committed to the fact that the setting is not a reflection of reality and never could be.
In Shadowrun >All of the arab stats teamed up to try to fight Israel, but Israel through hardwork and the grace of god beat them all back!>New York keeps suffering cruel jihadi attacks, where jewish wizards have to defend the cityEven for back when that shit was written that's cringe as fuck.
>>98865155There's no Shadowrun threads because the game is dead, thanks to CGL.>>98876654>but I heard in 6th edition that's been retconned.iirc 6th edition retconned a lot of shit, including metahumans (orcs, humans, dwarves, etc.) having different lifespans
>>98865155Certain groups who desperately want to be the cool kids keep trying to colonize this place and see no reason why they should talk about any of those things. They are parasocial nogames losers you see.
>>98865155Traveller is such a good system. Unfortunately I was never able to convince my group to give it a try. They didn't like the randomness of character creation. I did have a couple weeks of fun randomly generating a sector though.
>>98880629The first bullet happened irl though. Ymmv on the grace of God part.
>>98865155because all the smart people left.
>>98865352jesus fuck how old are you? were those editions ever even widely distributed?
>>98866653Eclipse Phase did a much better job capturing the feel of modern dystopia. Everything is neat and clean and orderly.
>>98885193traveler just feels like off brand star wars. i like the system but the setting blows, it may have been the first but space opera tropes have been done to death, there is literally no room for originality, its all retreading the same ground.Why would you want a grittier star wars? does that defeat the purpose of star wars?
>>98886152cont.if you remember the old star wars rpg, traveler is somewhat similiar, it uses 2d6, but it doesn't have all the fun stuff like random character creation and the like.I once rolled a really good character for traveler, but the game ended up falling through, which is too bad cause i rolled luetenant, had all kind of great stats and skills, even managed to be a minor noble, was Navy i think.I was pissed that game fell through, think it was a scheduling conflict or something, and i couldn't make the new date.
>>98886152Aside from the fact that 3i is nothing like Star wars beyond "takes place in space," if you don't like the 3i, just don't use it?
>>98886152>Traveler just feels like off brand star wars.That's because it was originally a setting agonistic system, only for players to beg them to add more of their own setting to it, which grew into the Imperial setting.That aside; Traveller is the single best system to run Star Wars in. It fucks like a panther on bath salts for doing so.Traveller with increased Psi/Jedi training giving bonuses to Psi and Psi-points only being deducted for Margin failures runs Star Wars better than any of the systems designed exclusively for Star Wars.
Why isn't Traveller more popular?
>>98891634Scifi rpgs are less popular in general. It has a higher mental buy in than fantasy. Traveller specifically has clunky character generation as the most widespread nerd knowledge of it so that's not going to help. Its not as clunky as the memes but lifepath generation is time consuming enough in ways it discourages engagement compared to contemporary ttrpg focus on >FAST & EASY CHARACTER GENERATION! The mode of exploring worlds is also largely fallen out of fashion but maybe the mtg startrek set will help with that a bit.
>>98891673It's honestly telling how cozy fantasy and romantasy wiped out most other fiction.
>>98891751Telling what?
>>98886119For Shadowrun he could just be German.
>>98865155Shadowrun kind of just lost steam and stopped being relevant, 6E flopped hard.
>>98891751Not for me. Ultimate cozy is a couple of dudes in a spaceship running errands for money.
>>98886119Yeah, exactly. If a game isn't good by its Second Edition, it'll never be good.When a game peaks at its Second Edition, its only downhill from there.
>>98893682I agree.What's the best system for playing a found-family of space gofers though?
>>98866653>Not enough people play them, and you do have to play them to have a discussion worth having.Every time I've tried to play Shadowrun it never got past the 'planning' stage because everyone was either huffing their own farts about how cool and badass their characters were or were super paranoid about the place we had to go and assumed it had literally every mechanical and magical security implement conceivable protecting it. Meanwhile I just wanted to pink mohawk it up.
>>98885130>including metahumans (orcs, humans, dwarves, etc.) having different lifespanswait, what?
>>98886152>traveler just feels like off brand star wars.Traveller predates Star Wars. GDW famously went to see the movie in 1977 the day they sent the final galley proofs of Traveller to the printers. It was originally setting free but, because Star Wars pretty much bulldozed sci-fi for the next decade or so, GDW slowly added setting details that morphed into the 3I. From a certain perspective, Star Wars poisoned Traveller.Of course you never needed to use the official setting but using published setting materials is less work and people understandably went in that direction.
>>98886152>>98895476i've never really seen the connection between traveller and star wars. i guess they both have imperial governments featured in the setting?
I actually came to /tg/ looking for a call of cthulu thread.recently started playing delta green run by my friends wife. she set it in the 90s so i played a young mormon cryptid hunter who just came back from his mission in the amazon and got recruited for this technical skills with cameras and recording monsters. we all died in a car crash, it was excellent. played a lot of eclipse phase, mainly running it. i ran a 4 campaigns back to back with the same characters. started with solving their own murder mystery, and ended with them being exiled to earth for being terrible agents and helping a seed AI escape through a pandora gate. never played traveller but would like to some day just because im a fake boomer and think old rpg's like that are kool.
>>98891770That people are completely blackpilled about the present and future.
>>98893966CoriolisThe engine is meant to run late game fallout which is pretty much putzing about the place and gathering stuff like a magpie
>>98865357Good manI have neckbeardia's TTS videos archived as a quasi-audiobook
>>98893966Possibly Scum and Villainy? I think it would work based on my experience with Blades in the Dark and homebrews, but I haven't actually played S&V.
>>98899282They aren’t connected per se. It’s more that Star Wars heavily influenced - or poisoned - Traveller after the game’s core rules were released. Traveller’s first three rules books, LBB 1 thru 3, don’t mention the 3I at all, or any other setting for that matter. LBB 4 covering mercenaries only mentions an imperium in the color text. After that people wanted to play in a setting either more like Star Wars or exactly like Star Wars so GDW provided the 3I setting and everything became BIG; big ships, big fleets, big armies, big populations, big empires, big budgets, etc. LBB 4 had mentioned an imperium distant from the frontier where the game occurred and one that was stretched thin to keep order and exert authority.By the time LBB 5 rolled out, the 3I was firmly embedded in the rules themselves and not just setting fluff. Naval charges in LBB 5 is explicitly for the 3I’s Imperial Navy with added rules for colonial and single world navies.With Star Wars influence a game that was supposed to be Tubb’s Dumerest, Anderson’s League traders, or Chandler’s Grimes had become more like Lucas’ films. That left the game’s official setting, for lack of a better phrase, “schizoid” and it’s never really recovered.
>>98891673I like lifepaths, because it at least makes session 0 a collaborative minigame instead of tedium.
What was FASA thinking with the classic (1e-3e) Shadowrun dice pool system?
>>98901003That's complete bullshit.The Traveller universe is nothing like Star Wars.The Traveller 3I has always been inspired by Dune, Asimov's Foundation Empire, and books like CJ Cherryh's space merchant books.
>>98865155Eclipse Phase is toxicShadowrun is just awful, rules-wise, lore-wise, and concept-wise (Cyberpunk, but with elves and magic! Ugh)Traveller is okay, but very niche. Too many retards out there who won't play anything that's not d20 based, so they play crap like Starfinder for Sci-fi.
>>98902614Don't forget H.Beam Piper's "Space Viking". I mean, where do you think the Sword Worlds in the Spinward Marches comes from?
>>98902630I used to hate the Shadowrun setting because I didn't want elves and dragons in my cyberpunk, but I actually found myself liking it from the HBS games. I think it's almost better to think of it as a high-tech urban fantasy setting than a cyberpunk setting.
>>98902614>That's complete bullshit.Sorry, anon, but no. Remember, the post you're taking exception to was discussing Traveller's early days, specifically the first four LBBs. Traveller after LBB 5 was very different. Star Wars didn't suggest specific rules, technologies, or other fiddly bits, but Star Wars definitely inspired the setting's "inflation".LBB-4 was the first time any setting was mentioned and then it was a distant, over stretched, imperium which could barely keep order relying on local forces and mercs as much as imperial assets. From LBB-5 forward however, the setting featured huge governments and huge budgets with huge fleets of huge ships. The impetus for that came from Star Wars and it's huge popularity. You needn't believe me. Loren Wiseman said and wrote as much many times.>>The Traveller universe is nothing like Star Wars.Tech wise, yes. Star Wars influenced the game outside of fiddly details however.>>The Traveller 3I has always been inspired by Dune, Asimov's Foundation Empire, and books like CJ Cherryh's space merchant books.No. Neither Miller or Wiseman ever listed Dune in discussions of a possible Traveller "Appendix N" while Foundation only became an influence after Traveller was given huge empires with huge fleets of huge ships and not before. As for Cherryh, you seriously need to check to publication dates of her books. Her Faded Sun series came out one year after Traveller. Downbelow Station, first in the Merchanter series, came out four years after the game. Hell, Traveller's Aslan appeared in GDW's JTAS mag one year before Cherryh's Chanur series began.Traveller was originally inspired by Tubb's Dumerest series, Chandlers' Grimes novels, Pipers' works, and Anderson's Polesotechnic and van Rijn stories. That's what initially inspired the game's creation while other works influenced the game's later development.
>>98902995>Tech wise, yes. Star Wars influenced the game outside of fiddly details however.NTA but where? There's no mention of a galactic empire, the careers are things like navy, army, scout, merchant, the weapons are all things like revolves and bayonets except 2 laser weapon entries, the world generation has a huge variance of world types, the introduction says its for any sort of sci fi game, even the psychic powers have nothing to do with starwars. So if by >fiddly details you mean any words at all in the written language then yes, there are indeed no fiddly details about Star Wars.
>>98894146Later writers found it racist that different metatypes have different stats, life expectancy, etc. So it has all been retconned out of the setting slowly over time.
>>98904518>NTA but where?Again, Star Wars influenced the official setting GDW developed for Traveller starting from roughly 1980/81 onward. The game presented in the first 4 LBBs is very different than one from LBB5 onward, so much so that people refer to the former as proto-Traveller.Star Wars did not influence the game's creation because the game predates Star Wars. Star Wars did influence the game's subsequent development and men like Miller and Wiseman have said so.Quibble with them if you need to, although you'll need a Ouija board to talk with Wiseman.
>>98902841>I think it's almost better to think of it as a high-tech urban fantasy setting than a cyberpunk setting.I think that's part of what set it apart from cyberpunk settings. Shadowrun explicitly did not have the a huge "let's rebuild everything with Neon lights everywhere" event, outside of NYC which is such a corporate hell hole that the SR1 book says there are like a total of 20 runners there and each one is super rich/connected because you have to be to get away with doing ANYTHING there.The world is very much just a near future world where tech diverged so cyberware became a thing but computers didn't improve as fast, and also there's magic and weird shit.
>>98904644>Star Wars did not influence the game's creation because the game predates Star Wars. Star Wars did influence the game's subsequent development and men like Miller and Wiseman have said so.There we go. The quibble and fiddly detail is actually linear time. lmao.
>>98902630You sound miserable
>>98904645>Shadowrun explicitly did not have the a huge "let's rebuild everything with Neon lights everywhere" eventI don't think this is something that most cyberpunk does have, though.
>>98905163Which of your sacred cows did I happen to tip?
>>98906226He's a Paizotard, they really can't help but out themselves.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reBzU8E_Ajk
>>98893813why such a long face?
Meanwhile Cthulhutech's second edition came and went with fewer than a dozen threads in the past two years.Its crazy how some games that were once fire hardly end up having any interest in new releases after several years.Still funny though that nuGuardiansOfOrder / Dyskami sold more copies of the reRevised BESM 2e than all of their BESM 4e products combined.Almost like if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Nice, I've been waiting for a Traveller thread! (Or in this case an adjacent one, I guess.) What do you think the Third Imperium does to psions? Psionics are illegal and all that, but what -happens- to those they catch? The 3I doesn't strike me as the kind of outfit that would just go "shame you were born wrong, face the wall please" so do they just deport them to the Consulate? Is there some surgical procedure to essentially psionically geld someone?
>>98906804Just read the book, its right there in the primer
