Played some Classic Traveller today

[pemerton]

Overall though, I think the Mongoose version is very close to the original, from my brief readings. There are a few minor tweaks, but it seems to retain versions of all the same subsystems and whatnot. Hopefully they have been tweaked some, because a lot of them were not all that solid to start with. All of them, like the trade system, WORK as story-generators, but if you actually try to, for instance, have a PC build a trading business using the trading rules, you will soon find out that they are unworkable as an actual system. I think various later editions 'fixed' those issues in different ways.
The only other real issue I ever had with Classic Traveler is that the space combat system is not really all that workable. Again, it is not bad as a story generator, but you can't actually play 'space combat' with it. Its more good for describing how your scout ship got into a huge jam when the navy patrol cruiser shot a hole in the maneuver drive...

There are some nuance level differences with the alien species that I cant really speak to. Some classic fans can be pretty negative about them. I dont think too much of them myself, but find them workable. Alien species are the weak point of Traveller (any edition) for me.

I've never used the classic Alien Modules. In our current game there are no aliens (as far as we know) other than the mysterious ones the PCs are investigating.

We have used the trade system once - the Merchant Prince version - and it seemed fine. I have no idea how it would work on a longer term basis.

We have had three episodes of space combat. Once the PCs lost their ship. Once they defeated an enemy ship. And once they took a hit which cost them millions of credits to repair. It doesn't support Star Wars-type space combat, that's for sure!

the later character gen which goes year-by-year instead of in 4-year blocks was a little more fun and produces better rounded characters

It's a lot of work to build advanced character gen systems for every servcie.

Andy Slack's solution for standard characters (which I know from Best of White Dwarf v1) is to throw one die for each term: on a 1 to 4 get that many additional skills, on a 5 choose a skill, a 6 is a bust. I think the Special Duty line on the chart is a good option: throw to get an extra skill throw, and the way we work it (which I guess I took from MegaTraveller, but maybe I made it up) is that a throw of 4 more than needed is two extra skill throws or choose a skill. This gives well-rounded characters but keeps PC gen reasonably quick. I think it's a good approach.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, a LOT of things are 'weak points' in Traveler. In fact it is a bit odd that it is really so successful a game when it really doesn't do much to address a LOT of the themes of sci-fi at all. Aliens are sort of an afterthought, AI and really anything to do with the sorts of technology which often show up in sci-fi related to it are basically entirely missing. Basically its future is a sort of a slightly tweaked version of the Foundation universe, basically just 20th Century with a superficial gloss of anti-gravity, fusion, and jump drives. It works well, but I have always wanted more.
If I were going to create a new Traveler campaign I think I would include some rules for alternate attributes and maybe giving each PC one or two 'traits' and a rule to allow them to be leveraged by players. Things like cybernetics, aliens, etc. can be handled that way. So maybe a new strange sort of alien would have a persuasiveness attribute, or a persuasive trait, or a 'wings' trait, or whatever. A PC with a cybernetic arm might have a 'cybernetic strength' trait that they can invoke where it would be appropriate in the story.
These things can then be included in chargen and some of the other subsystems as things that you can invoke there too.

 

[payn]

I like the simplicity of Traveller. It does hard sci-fi really well. My favorite kind of setting too. A golden age of piracy 1650; but in space. I also like characters being skill driven and not mechanically complicated. The system does great for these needs. I definitely get why some sci-fi fans want a lot more from it though.

 

[pemerton]

Well, a LOT of things are 'weak points' in Traveler.

Mechanically, we've hit two.

There's the point about space combat that you mention: it's not very Star Wars pew-pew or even Star Trek "lower the cloaking device and raise the shields".

And the system for onworld exploration doesn't produce finality of resolution, and so ultimately depends on GM fiat.

In fact it is a bit odd that it is really so successful a game when it really doesn't do much to address a LOT of the themes of sci-fi at all. Aliens are sort of an afterthought, AI and really anything to do with the sorts of technology which often show up in sci-fi related to it are basically entirely missing. Basically its future is a sort of a slightly tweaked version of the Foundation universe, basically just 20th Century with a superficial gloss of anti-gravity, fusion, and jump drives. It works well, but I have always wanted more.

I don't really know sci-fi literature beyond a little bit of Arthur C Clarke and Dune. When I think of sci-fi films I think Classic Traveller can do Alien (recent and ongoing experience confirms this) and a certain sort of Blade Runner feel (though replicants really have to be dealt in if you want them - Book 8 Robots is in my view the weakest of the original rulebooks). With psionics, also a version of Minority Report. And also at least aspects of Total Recall.

The most striking thing in our group, setting-/tech-wise, has been the poor quality of computers/infotech. My explanation is that all the research money that in the real world was put into IT and miniaturisation has, in the Traveller universe, been spent on quantum gravity research, fusion and jump drives.

If I were going to create a new Traveler campaign I think I would include some rules for alternate attributes and maybe giving each PC one or two 'traits' and a rule to allow them to be leveraged by players. Things like cybernetics, aliens, etc. can be handled that way. So maybe a new strange sort of alien would have a persuasiveness attribute, or a persuasive trait, or a 'wings' trait, or whatever. A PC with a cybernetic arm might have a 'cybernetic strength' trait that they can invoke where it would be appropriate in the story.
These things can then be included in chargen and some of the other subsystems as things that you can invoke there too.

If I was going down this pathway I wouldn't use Classic Traveller at all. Over the Edge would be good for this.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I've always thought that with the various supplements (and JTAS articles, and White Dwarf articles; come on, it was the 70s) Traveller can do most sci-fi just fine, if you regard it as a toolkit; I think that sometimes the Third Imperium can bog it down, as various ideas from that campaign setting have intruded too far into the assumed "rules." That said, it's the minimalistic power of books 0-3 that impresses.

Traveller forces you to find solutions to apparent contradictions (how are 10 million people living on this lifeless rock with no atmosphere with Bronze Age technology? Ancient arcologies devastated by disease and nanotechnological war? Underground silos full of humans maintained by aliens as a food source?) There is a kind of perpetual emergent energy in its mechanics. You can literally encounter a world, invent it in 5 minutes, and - collectively, sometimes with a little effort - something quite amazing emerges which takes the game in a completely unexpected direction.

 

[pemerton]

it's the minimalistic power of books 0-3 that impresses.

100% agreed with this.

I think that sometimes the Third Imperium can bog it down, as various ideas from that campaign setting have intruded too far into the assumed "rules."

We use the implied setting - nobles suggests an Imperium - and hence an Imperial Navy and Imperial Marines. I have a one-page write up for the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service which combines bits of Book 6 with material from Andy Slack (including the Covert Survey Bureau) and from Bob McWilliams (including the Planetary Rescue Systems Inspectorate).

Beyond this, we make it up as we go along. The world generation and patron encounter systems are good for this

Traveller forces you to find solutions to apparent contradictions (how are 10 million people living on this lifeless rock with no atmosphere with Bronze Age technology? Ancient arcologies devastated by disease and nanotechnological war? Underground silos full of humans maintained by aliens as a food source?) There is a kind of perpetual emergent energy in its mechanics. You can literally encounter a world, invent it in 5 minutes, and - collectively, sometimes with a little effort - something quite amazing emerges which takes the game in a completely unexpected direction.

Yep.

When I rolled up a highly-populated low tech world with a tainted atmosphere, I decided on an endemic virus (this was before the current pandemic) and ultimately this led to the idea of the inhabitants as having mixed human/alien DNA and being linked to the mysterious psionic forces at work in the galaxy.

 

[MGibster]

It seems J-O-T is one skill that got a work over in Mongoose Traveller. It's no longer something you can self-improve. Though, it applies to all skills across the board and having a score that high would make a character pretty good at everything.

Rules-as-written, you can't have a Jack of All Trades higher than 3 in Mongoose's Traveller 2nd edition. Though given the low chances of getting 4 JoAT results during character generation I guess see why a Referee might let a player keep it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Mechanically, we've hit two.

There's the point about space combat that you mention: it's not very Star Wars pew-pew or even Star Trek "lower the cloaking device and raise the shields".

And the system for onworld exploration doesn't produce finality of resolution, and so ultimately depends on GM fiat.

I don't really know sci-fi literature beyond a little bit of Arthur C Clarke and Dune. When I think of sci-fi films I think Classic Traveller can do Alien (recent and ongoing experience confirms this) and a certain sort of Blade Runner feel (though replicants really have to be dealt in if you want them - Book 8 Robots is in my view the weakest of the original rulebooks). With psionics, also a version of Minority Report. And also at least aspects of Total Recall.

The most striking thing in our group, setting-/tech-wise, has been the poor quality of computers/infotech. My explanation is that all the research money that in the real world was put into IT and miniaturisation has, in the Traveller universe, been spent on quantum gravity research, fusion and jump drives.

If I was going down this pathway I wouldn't use Classic Traveller at all. Over the Edge would be good for this.

The thing is, I LIKE what Traveler has, I was always just running a bit out of options at some point. They did sort of touch on a lot of stuff in later supplements, but the treatments were generally very dry, technical, and the gist of most of it was "you can't really do this" or "it doesn't do much for you", or "this is so forbidden that you're an outlaw now." etc. Like with psionics, clearly the idea was "this will change society, so we'll banish it to the dark corners of the Empire." Likewise AI and even computer tech. Of course, a lot of it is just a 1970's view of things. Computers were hulking things that were useful, but super expensive, huge, and specialized. I mean, stock Traveler cannot even do HAL 9000...

Classic Traveler is basically Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe, except travel times are much longer in Traveler (hyperdrive in Foundation could take you 100's or 1000's of light years, a journey to Trantor from the edge of the Galaxy is time consuming, but quite feasible and fairly routine, at least in the days of the Empire). Foundation is a universe without ANY aliens, robots don't exist, there is no AI, nothing. Technology seems to be 1960's Earth, except for hyperdrives. There are hints that there is more, at times, but it never appears in very meaningful ways (there are holograms). Weapons seem to be basically firearms, or else large shipboard missiles and perhaps lasers (space combat doesn't really figure in any of the books much IIRC). Later on (in the 1980s) Asimov wrote some prequels and sequels which sort of addressed WHY this was true, but it was definitely a sort of retcon, an attempt to make 1950's future tech seem logical in the light of ACTUAL 1980's tech. It is actually kind of odd that Miller took this 50's view of future tech and went with it in 1977, when the alternatives were Gamma World/Metamorphosis Alpha, etc.

I like the somewhat hard tech aspect, but weirdly it is undermined a lot by the simplifications and omissions. Space craft don't work at all like they would in the real world, despite being (jump aside) justified by hard science. Travel times and accelerations are ludicrous for example, and mass and fuel requirements trivialized, and all papered over with the oddly out of place magic of 'anti-gravity'.

But it is still a compelling game system. I've always just wished to marry it to more interesting material!

 

[pemerton]

Rules-as-written, you can't have a Jack of All Trades higher than 3 in Mongoose's Traveller 2nd edition. Though given the low chances of getting 4 JoAT results during character generation I guess see why a Referee might let a player keep it.

In Book 1, 1977 - which is the starting point for the tables we're using - J-o-T is the "6" result on the Merchant's Service Skills table. Rolling three 6 results on that table is not all that unlikely.

Pushing it from 3 to 4 via self-improvement requires making the 8+ throw to maintain dedication to one's program of study and practice.

There is no concept, in Classic Traveller, of the referee letting a player keep it.

 

[pemerton]

The thing is, I LIKE what Traveler has, I was always just running a bit out of options at some point. They did sort of touch on a lot of stuff in later supplements, but the treatments were generally very dry, technical, and the gist of most of it was "you can't really do this" or "it doesn't do much for you", or "this is so forbidden that you're an outlaw now." etc. Like with psionics

In our current game we've treated this approach to psionics as a feature rather than a bug.

Your description of "very dry and technical" is absolutely true of Book 8.

I like the somewhat hard tech aspect, but weirdly it is undermined a lot by the simplifications and omissions. Space craft don't work at all like they would in the real world, despite being (jump aside) justified by hard science. Travel times and accelerations are ludicrous for example, and mass and fuel requirements trivialized, and all papered over with the oddly out of place magic of 'anti-gravity'.

But it is still a compelling game system. I've always just wished to marry it to more interesting material!

For me, this is the sort of thing that goes to replay value. So given where I am in my life, how much time I have for RPGing, and how many other systems I want my group to try, it's probably not going to come up!

But that's not to deny that it might come up for others, especially when they were younger and had more free time on their hands.