Classic Traveller - session report with reflections on the system [long]

[Water Bob]

In CT as originally published Scouts got one skill per term. By the time of the Traveller Book, they get two per term. Even the designers recognised that the tables in the original books produced characters who are rather light on for skills.

Are you looking at the old 1977 first edition rules? You must be. It's a rare set of CT rules.

I have the 1981 "second edition" LBB1, which is what most people refer to when speaking of the original Little Black Books. Scouts, in that book, do, indeed, get two skills per term. It's on page 11.

If you have the old, rare first edition, then there are a lot of things that are different about that rule set.




Hey man, just forget I said anything. You seem hot under the collar and defensive. I wasn't looking to take the conversation in that direction. Let's just drop this, and you can continue telling us about your game. I enjoy the read.

 

[pemerton]

Are you looking at the old 1977 first edition rules? You must be. It's a rare set of CT rules.

I have the 1981 "second edition" LBB1, which is what most people refer to when speaking of the original Little Black Books. Scouts, in that book, do, indeed, get two skills per term. It's on page 11.

Which printing & copyright date - it makes a difference.

I haven't got it in front of me, but I'm pretty sure it's 1977 and I imagine it's a first printing - it was purchased in Australia in the late 70s (at a guess, 1978, though it could have been 79).

The first time I ever generated a Traveller character was around 1980

Like I posted upthread, my copy of Books 1 to 3 has a 1977 copyright date, and was purchased in the late 70s.

If you have the old, rare first edition, then there are a lot of things that are different about that rule set.

One of those differences is one that I posted about upthread, namely, a -3 rather than -1 DM to the misjump check when using unrefined fuel.

Another is the rule for Scout skills. As I posted upthread, rather than using the two skills per term variant, the tables we used had a special duty entry of 3+(7+) for Scouts - the most generous special duty line on the charts.

 

[chaochou]

I have a mix of books, starting with a first edition box (books 1-3) other classic Traveller (books 4-6, a few supplements, and three or four adventures) as well as some of the more recent Mongoose releases (specifically their two rulebooks, as well as High Guard, Agent, Scoundrel and Merchant Prince).

I probably prefer Classic, partly for nostalgia and also because I value that it is clean and simple. Sparse even. Mongoose all feels a bit overwrought and overthought, as if they tried to create new content to add value, but ended up subtracting a little value with fuss and complication. I'd still play it happily, though.

Some MGT ideas for lifepaths (spies, pirates, cops, intelligence analysts, smugglers, mobsters etc) are nice, although the system tends to produce characters with a much broader range of skills than classic - the two really aren't compatible at all despite the similarities in look.

 

[pemerton]

Mongoose all feels a bit overwrought and overthought, as if they tried to create new content to add value, but ended up subtracting a little value with fuss and complication.

I don't know anything about the MG version other than that it exists. Is it similar in its basic approach (2D6 as the default roll, random PC gen, etc)?

Some MGT ideas for lifepaths (spies, pirates, cops, intelligence analysts, smugglers, mobsters etc) are nice

For my PC gen tables I kept the classics (renaming "Other" as "Drifter"), plus the 12 from Supplement 4 - but renaming Scientist "Tech", which I think is a better fit - and added a "Face" option modelled on the Journalist in a Mega-Traveller supplement I have.

Mega-Traveller has a Law Enforcement Officer but I didn't adapt that over, as it didn't seem very compelling.

My main concern with some of the later options is bloat in the skill list, which is a problem in a system of random generation and fairly limited skills per PC. Merchant Prince has Legal and Trader, for instance - I don't think Legal adds anything useful to Admin, nor Trader to Broker. The journalist adds Interview, but I think Interrogation is fine for that.

MegaTraveller adds even more skills that, in my view, are unnecessary/redundant - what does Persuasion add to Liaison/Carousing? and all the academic-type skills (science, history, etc) seem to add nothing but a devaluation of the Education attribute.

 

[chaochou]

I don't know anything about the MG version other than that it exists. Is it similar in its basic approach (2D6 as the default roll, random PC gen, etc)?

Yes, basically. Skill rolls are 2d6 +- stat modifier +- difficulty +- skill, with a target of 8.

Difficulty can range from -6 to +6, but not having a skill is a -3 penalty. Blah. Bloat for the sake of it almost.

Character generation is by random rolls for UPP, lifepaths with skill tables, survival, advancement and re-enlistment rolls. Except failing survival causes 'mishaps' instead of ending the process, so it softens down the hard choices in character creation, for good and ill.

MegaTraveller adds even more skills that, in my view, are unnecessary/redundant - what does Persuasion add to Liaison/Carousing? and all the academic-type skills (science, history, etc) seem to add nothing but a devaluation of the Education attribute.

And this is basically the problem in Mongoose. Why do I need 'Advocate' 'Diplomat' and 'Persuade' (as well as the orthogonal 'Deception') instead of Liason? Unless I'm getting a really complex Duel of Wits type social resolution system, there's really no functional difference.

The bloat isn't terrible, but one thing I liked about CT is that it was reasonably sparse, and yet seemed to have most things covered. The same way the basic moves list in the Apocalypse games is pretty sparse, but you can still do an awful lot.

 

[pemerton]

one thing I liked about CT is that it was reasonably sparse, and yet seemed to have most things covered.

That sparseness is occasionally punctuated by stuff that didn't always make sense to me 30 years ago, but now seems to be an interesting contribution to implied setting and focus. Eg a system that lumps all vehicles of a given class together (ATV, Ship's Boat, etc) calls out a separate Forward Observer skill - that suggests that space ships blowing up planetary locations from orbit is meant to be a relatively core part of the game experience. Or the "Other" PC gen chart, which has Forgery called out, as a skill distinct from the other technical-type skills, on 3 of 4 skill tables - clearly this is a game about (among other things) passports, cheques, and starport landing permits!

Is there another mainstream RPG that has tried to make dealing with bureaucracy a core element of the play experience?

 

[chaochou]

That sparseness is occasionally punctuated by stuff that didn't always make sense to me 30 years ago, but now seems to be an interesting contribution to implied setting and focus.

I agree wholeheartedly, in that my friends and I didn't quite understand Traveller when we were 13. Thinking back to the early 80s I struggle to think where we might have found the cultural points of contact to make sense of it - because it isn't coming from Star Wars or Star Trek or Alien, or from Battlestar Galactica or Neuromancer or Blade Runner.

But it's certainly an rpg that I've become more and more fond of over time, and have a great admiration for. It's the only game of that era I think more highly of now than I did then.

Is there another mainstream RPG that has tried to make dealing with bureaucracy a core element of the play experience?

Ha - Paranoia, perhaps! It seems to me that your character role in Traveller is 'to make a living'. Not save the world, or the universe, or solve the mystery or rescue the princess, just to get by in a big universe that doesn't care. That's a pretty rare thing in itself, and Traveller can make the experience recognisably banale (in a brilliant way) while Paranoia satirises it (in a brilliant way).

 

[billd91]

That sparseness is occasionally punctuated by stuff that didn't always make sense to me 30 years ago, but now seems to be an interesting contribution to implied setting and focus. Eg a system that lumps all vehicles of a given class together (ATV, Ship's Boat, etc) calls out a separate Forward Observer skill - that suggests that space ships blowing up planetary locations from orbit is meant to be a relatively core part of the game experience.

I wouldn't make too many assumptions along those lines. That kind of thinking leads to the same assumptions people have made about D&D - that because the combat rules are so extensive, the game's all about combat when its conceit has always been beyond that. Calling down fire from a spaceship, starship, or from artillery would be a fairly core part of certain kinds of campaigns that were intended to be supported by the core game's vision, but certainly not all of them. The Traveller game was pretty well positioned for playing at least 3-4 different kinds of campaigns. Space Merchants (with a little adventuring on the side), Adventurers (with probably a little commerce on the side), Star Trek-influenced Scouts, and, particularly relevant to the Forward Obs skill, Mercenaries. All of those could overlap at least a little bit, but still be highly differentiated.

 

[pemerton]

I wouldn't make too many assumptions along those lines.

I wouldn"t say I'm making an assumption. I'm making an observation. If you don't intend indirect/called-in fire to be a relatively core part of the game experience, then you don't include a Forward Observer skill on your relatively sparse skill list.

Whether any given game includes such happenings is a separate matter - despite the undoubted plethora of AD&D games which have not included dungeons, its nevertheless the case that (given the original DMGs rules for doors and for encounters, the starting adventure example, etc) dungeoneering was intended to be a relatively core part of the game experience. Which contrasts with (say) Traveller, which lacks such rules.

Or to give another example: neither AD&D nor Traveller has rules or skills for needlework (and surgery, as opposed to medicine, is simply bundled up by Traveller into the Dexterity attribute).

But if I roll up a Traveller PC, there's a reasonable chance I'll be a trained forward observer; and if I'm an "Other", there's a better chance that I'll be an experienced forger. This tells me something about what I can expect to be doing with my character.

 

[chaochou]

If you don't intend indirect/called-in fire to be a relatively core part of the game experience, then you don't include a Forward Observer skill on your relatively sparse skill list.

There's something very refreshing about building the universe outward from the characters, and what the skill lists say about the places they inhabit.

The acquired skills table in Book 1 (1st ed, p11) shows 24 possible improvements across 6 services, for 144 possible outcomes. Of those, 10 are gun combat. But 10 are blade combat, and 5 are brawling! Sixty per cent of our characters' collective combat experiences are hand-to-hand. It seems to me this must have major implications for how the universe is envisaged.

Forward Observer is actually very rare (2), telling us that artillery and orbital strikes happen infrequently, but they are part of the gamespace. But, just as interesting is Tactics (6) - which suggests the players might expect to be employed in small unit combat (up to 1,000 men) and space combat of small numbers of ships.

Admin (4) looks like a waste of a skill roll if you're just wanting to play murder hobos in space. But that - as well as Bribery and Forgery - says that red tape, officialdom and bureaucracy are an intrinsic part of the universe and game.