Re: [TML] Captain, the USS AMANA is in radar range Kurt Feltenberger 25 Jul 2015 03:59 UTC

On 7/24/2015 11:42 PM, Christopher Hilton wrote:
> I don't disagree, I do the same thing. I'm assuming that this thread is about some peoples need to neuter the tech in Traveller so the players can't do something really anti-social like run a Type S to 0.2c and then smack it into a world, or, to steal from Niven, start a fusion drive a tens of meters over an some sophant's inhabited home and hover for a few minutes. Is that the case?

If it should be possible, then it should be possible.  If the PCs want
to waste a world with a Type-S, and there's nothing in the rules that
say it can't be done, then it should be possible.  The very calculation
used to determine travel times pretty much codifies that this *can* be
done as there doesn't appear to be an upper limit on potential velocity.

The problem is that the rules were not written by scientists, but by a
couple guys who wanted to recreate the SF they'd been reading for
years.  Many of the issues that have been brought up were probably never
even considered when the rules were written.  I mean, look at where the
game started, three little black books, and then look at how those three
little ingots have been heated, beaten, quenched, heated some more,
beaten some more, and quenched some more until the rules for building a
starship consist of more words than the entire original game.

If the players are clever to use something in a novel way, I say let
them do it.  The rest of the world will adapt and they will need to
remember that whatever they can do, others can do and what they come up
with might be pretty damned nasty...

--
Kurt Feltenberger
xxxxxx@thepaw.org/xxxxxx@yahoo.com
“Before today, I was scared to live, after today, I'm scared I'm not
living enough." - Me