Hrm. If you're agreeing and pointing out other swipes in the setting, then yeah, there's clearly yet more in there. We'll put the Solar Queen novels to the west of the Arabain Nights setting, just north of the Aztecs.
If you're making a subtle reference to how all SF is in a constant conversation with itself, drawing on and borrowing from its predecessors with each new book, I can see that point too. The problem with Traveller is not that it draws on other SF, but that it draws on all of it at once to construct a setting that can be all things to all people.
I think one thing that draws me to V&V over other classic supers games is the lack of such a default omni-world: the rulebook suggests that you base the characters on yourselves and set your adventures in a nearby city, and then gives a single page of advice on other times and settings you might also try. Everyone got to make their own, which were, in my experience, more interesting then the X% Marvel, 100-X% DC fusion that is Champions. Much like the original Black Box Traveller didn't have a setting at all, so everyone had their "In My Traveller Universe". So if I did run Traveller, it would be in something very much not like the Imperium.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-02-07 09:49 am (UTC)If you're making a subtle reference to how all SF is in a constant conversation with itself, drawing on and borrowing from its predecessors with each new book, I can see that point too. The problem with Traveller is not that it draws on other SF, but that it draws on all of it at once to construct a setting that can be all things to all people.
I think one thing that draws me to V&V over other classic supers games is the lack of such a default omni-world: the rulebook suggests that you base the characters on yourselves and set your adventures in a nearby city, and then gives a single page of advice on other times and settings you might also try. Everyone got to make their own, which were, in my experience, more interesting then the X% Marvel, 100-X% DC fusion that is Champions. Much like the original Black Box Traveller didn't have a setting at all, so everyone had their "In My Traveller Universe". So if I did run Traveller, it would be in something very much not like the Imperium.