(rpg) Traveller -- tell me why you like it?

[Kid Charlemagne]

I concur with the observation that Firefly is very Traveller-like. It's the low-tech space merchant aspect of it, with most folks still using low-tech gear that is the biggest similarity. There are obvious big differences, too - Traveller has multiple systems, lots of alien races, and so on.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Could someone detail out the various iterations of Traveller and their pluses and minuses? Also, would a T20/D&D Modern/Future hybrid be a workable idea?

 

[WizarDru]

Actually, part of the reason I could never get into Firefly is because it wasn't like Traveller. Firefly seemed more like Cowboy Bebop, but with 3 times as many characters, which confused me as I could never remember who was who (I mostly tell people apart by hair color, everyone on Firefly has brown hair).

I'm not sure if that means you hadn't watched much Bebop or much Firefly. There are similarities, but they're very different. In Firefly, you had HUNDREDS of terra-formed worlds, from tiny moons to huge inner-system planets. The only reason they were in a single solar system was that there was no FTL capabilities shown...at least not for the common man. They may have had access to it, but we'd never see much of the remaining technology from Earth-that-Was, except as ancient artifacts. Heck, one of the later episodes has them stealing just such an artifact, a handheld energy blaster.

The characters in Firefly were freebooters who often took jobs on the wrong side of the law. They usually were almost broke and short on supplies and fuel. They travelled from planet-to-planet, trading goods and dodging the strong central government of the Alliance.

As to hair color....ummm. Let's see, Alan Tudyk is blond, Jewel Staite is a redhead, Morena Baccarin has black hair and Ron Glass had white hair. Gina Torres is the only black woman on the cast, so I'm not sure how you had so much trouble.

Bebop was fun, but it was a completely different vibe.

 

[painandgreed]

A good Traveller-like computer game would be Escape Velocity by Ambrosia Software. You're a lone pilot of a ship trading from world to world taking odd jobs and carrying freight while fighting (or becoming) pirates.

It was sort of rough to referee Traveller because one or two jumps and the PCs would be in an entirely new area of space surounded by different systems. You either had a to do lots and lots of prep or have generic adventures that could be put anywhere. This happened a good deal when trading because trading is a major way of making money and a few jumps and trades could take only a few minutes game time. Of course, the referee could always get the PCs just about anywhere he wanted by having a patron offer them money to go there. "Here's 20,000 credits. Ignore that Kinunir cruiser and get me to Regina."

My favorite campaign was the one that came in the Traveller Deluxe Boxed Set which was to make sure one of the party was a Scout in good standing and then give him the job of doing the Spinward Marches survey. Surveying each planet in the sector paid enough money to keep the campaign going, offered a Deux Ex Machina to save the characters as the Scout service moved in, gave an excuse to give a ship to a shipless party, and meant they would visit every planet in the system so you could set up adventures where you wanted and skip over the other planets.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

We played a GURPS Traveller campaign, and the DM (Sir Brennan on these boards) created a program to automatically generate worlds for it. It was very slick.

 

[Psion]

Could someone detail out the various iterations of Traveller and their pluses and minuses?

Awright. Plusses and minuses are entirely IMO

Classic Traveller
Basics:

• Originally appeared as 3 "little black books" that lacked a setting (but elements were inspired by the Imperium boardgame, and were later expanded on to become the setting of the game). The three books were numbered "Book 1-3". There were later supplemental books up to 8 (but the most populare were Book 4 mercenary and book 5 high guard, which featured army/marine and navy characters respectively.
• Other printings included a harbound edition, a boxed set with full sized books, and the so called reprints which are recent and still in distribution, but somewhat expensive.
• There was also a numbered line of supplements and adventures, also in "little black book" format, though they featured different colored banners. There were other full sized supplements and boxed sets and a full sized adventure book, "The Traveller Adventure".
• The setting was the Imperium, principally detailed in the adventures and some of the supplement, particularly Spinward Marches, Solomani Rim, and Library Data. The imperium was in our far future.
• The setting featured the "Ancients" as a continually recurring setting element. This race of beings had a war that predated the imperium by 300000 years. An interesting setting element is that not all humans in it trace their lineage back to Earth, but to other worlds. It turns out that the Ancients "seeded" other worlds with humans. Ancients also genetically engineered carnivores into sapient upright beings; these are the "Vargr" alien race.
• There were also some minigames that were based on traveller and worked in with/supported it: snapshot, azhanti high lightning, mayday, and striker. Of these, striker probably had the most drastic impact on the game, as it expanded upon the military background of the game and added lots of potential for vehicle based system.
• The skill/resolution system was 2d6 + modifiers. Usually, you got a + 1 per rank in a skill (character ranks ranged from 0-5+; there was really no cap, but if you made your character fairly, seeing ranks above 5 was rare), and a +1 or 2 if a selected attribute was higher than an arbitrary number.
• Had losts of third party support. In fact this is where FASA got its start, though DGP probably had the biggest long term impact on the game.
• Unique nature of the ship design had jump and (sublight) manuever drived rated from 1-6. Manuever drive ratings were in G's. Jump drive ratings were how many parsecs the ship jumped in one jump. All jumps took exactly one week regardless of distance, during which you were in jump space. Jumps took a tremendous amount of fuel, and ships often refueled by scooping the atmosphere of gas giants. So in a way, though there were few implicit setting elements, the nature of ships in Traveller is one of its central signatures.
• Another major point of the setting is that there IS no superluminal comms. All messages must be carried by courier ship between systems. This becomes a major setting element. I think this also really contributed to the feel of the adventures. There is nobody to bail you out when things go wrong in remote corners of the universe.

Plusses:

• Nice lifepath based chargen. Gave you a history and some depth of character.
• Fairly light, flexible system.
• Cool gear and cool characters.
• Neat adventures and settings.
• Strong basic campaign model.
• Pays respect to some basic principles of physics and astronomy.
• Construction sequences (esp in book 5 and 6) had gearhead appeal.
• Where it all began.

Minuses:

• The skill system was a little ad hoc. The kept it flexible, but made it very inconsistant.
• The power level of characters varied widely.
• The combat system was "armor makes you harder to hit" model like D&D, but with a extensive cross reference chart for weapon types.
• Art content was pretty tepid. Many early books had no art at all.

MegaTraveller
Basics:

• Late in the Classic Traveller era, a company called Digest Group Publications put out a magazine that featured adventures, equipment, etc. Their adventures included a skill system that standardized the existing skill system and added to it. Eventually, the DGP designers (principally Joe Fugate) were pulled on board the Traveller design team and the system they were using became part of the megatraveller core.
• MegaTraveller refined a number of other things about the system, for better, or worse. IMO, primarily for the better (see below).
• MegaTraveller also featured a metaplot shift. By this time, the setting had become more central to the game, and the designers decided that the Imperium was a little placid, so decided to shake things up a bit by having the Emperor assassinated and a civil war result. It was a big change, but it did have the intended purpose of creating the possibility of adventure.
• Featured many campaign sized adventrures, and a few supplements.

Plusses:

• Cleaned up the core generation system and made character power more even.
• Adopted DGPs skill system. I still beleive it to be one of the robust, flexible skill/task systems ever conceived.
• The rebellion did create more adventure possibilities.

Minuses:

• The old ship design sequences were scrapped, and replaced with a system inspired by the Stiker wargame. It was very odious to design things with (but things got worse).
• More than a little errata.
• The Rebellion proved an intrusive metaplot for some.

Traveller: The New Era
Basics:

• At the end of the MT era, there was a major chageover of the design team at GDW. GDW had a hit on its hand with Twilight 2000 and had made a few other forays into gaming. They decided to scrap the 2d6 based system that went into Traveller/MegaTraveller and replace it with a d20 based system.
• The metaplot changes in MT were nothing compared to those that were about to come about in TNE. With the rebellion winding down, one of the factions of the rebellion unleashed a patently unplausible virus that physically mutates computers over a distance with radio waves (yes, there is some handwaving behind this that its few stalwarts insist make sense; I differ with this.) The result is a devastated imperium crawling out of the rubble, a mass of disconnected technologially regressed worlds. The campaign model shifted to one of everpresent explortation and survival, and later, psuedo-fascist empire building.

Plusses:

• It had some decent supplement. For gearhead appeal, Fire, Fusion, and Steel has a degree of fame plus providing the merciful out of positing other non-Imperium settings.

Minuses:

• The metaplot sucked. Lacked all plausibility, broke the fourth wall, and pretty much scrapped entire campaigns as well as the utility of existing material.
• The system was not my favorite, either. Greatly over-emphasized ability scores over skills.

"Marc Miller's Traveller", AKA Traveller 4 AKA T4
Basics:

• TNE lost a lot of fans, and soon after that, GDW went out of business (not entirely due to TNE, but it had to be a factor.) Marc Miller retained the rights, and a company called Imperium Games eventually took up the license and published a new edition.
• Since TNE basically screwed up the setting, the setting here went BACKWARDS in time till the birth of the imperium as a burgeoning republic.
• Went back to a d6 based mechanic, with some similarities to classic/megatraveller. It jumped on the dice pool bandwagon, but instead of rollnig dice according to your abilities, you rolls a number of dice according to the difficulty.

Plusses:

• The chargen system was a lot cleaned up from the MT iteration, though it did sort of strip out some of its charm.

Minuses:

• The task/skill system stank. Like TNE, it over-emphasized ability scores. It also made "impossible" tasks laughably easy and to grade the different degrees of difficulty, it used clunky half-dice steps.
• Though it tried to skirt around the sins of TNE by going into the past, the authors of some of the adventures did not have a grip on Traveller canon. Some of the adventures disregarded canon and, frankly, read more like Star Trek adventures.

GURPS Traveller
Basics:

• Well, I am not a big fan of GURPS, but if there is one thing that it can do, it's hard SF.
• The GURPS Traveller crew decided (wisely) that the metaplot directions weren't working. The basically decided that the assassination of the emperor and the rebellion never happened, and basically continued on in the classic vein.

Plusses:

• "Fixed" the canon. Way to go!
• Probably the best (most realistic) take on planetology. No matter what edition of traveller you are playing, if realistic worlds are a concern, GET GT: First In
• Some other great supplements adding some nice detail and collecting lots of setting elements.

Minuses:

• GURPS is still GURPS, with all its warts.
• GURPS chargen lacks the charm and built in history of Traveller chargen. This, more than anything else, makes it not traveller.
• MT starship construction was odious, but it had nothing on GT's. This makes the aspect of GT as "gearhead appeal" and "tricking out" your ship that much less accessible to the average player.
• Future is uncertain. Though they have some recent releases, little has been said about the future of the line past their next big release.

Traveller d20
Basics:

• Well, d20 came along and many games saw ports. Traveller was no exception. A company called quiklink, that was making online gaming modules to allow you to play CT online, took on the challenge of creating a d20 version.
• The setting goes back a few hundred years, during the last major war, the Solomani Rim war. There was a setting book, Gateway to Destiny, that details the Gateway Sector.

Plusses:

• It's d20. You should be able to find someone who understands the basics of the game, and the d20 skill system is strong enough to handle many things in the traveller style (Traveller has always been strongly skill based)
• Unlike GT, they didn't throw out lifepath generation. They layer it on top of d20 style chargen.
• Can plug in many d20 supplements (and I have).
• Best starship combat system ever, because the system lets most of your crew/party have a meaningful input to combat.
• The way that vehicle proficiencies are handled addresses many of the eccentricities of classic and mega traveller with respect to vehicles.
• Can plug in most Traveller and MegaTraveller ship and world statistics with little need for conversion.
• Simplified but keeps some general detail of some classic and mega traveller generation sequences.

Minuses:

• Chargen is somewhat complex, since you have a lifepath system layered on top of a standard d20 style chargen.
• Reverted a bit too far into the conventions of classic traveller. Frex, there have been many more realistic takes on worlds in Traveller and weaknesses in the theory exposed and discussed at length. Get GT First In...

Also, would a T20/D&D Modern/Future hybrid be a workable idea?

Possible, depending upon what you want to hybrid. Ship, vehicle, world, and advanced class stuff should be pretty easy to work in. It wouldn't be too hard to make T20 core classes into advanced classes if that is what you wanted (in fact, it could address a few issues I have with the classes). T20 has two extra stats, though Thomas Jones-Lowe proposed new "Social Hero" and "Educated Hero" archetypes on the CotI boards (see www.travellerrpg.com) if that is the way you want to go.

 

[rgard]

What is it about the Traveller game that you liked so much?

And to be fair, were there things you did not like about it?

Be as specific as possible please.


~Le

This is based on my experience with original Traveller (little black books.)

Besides Fusion Gun 15?

1. The world building and trade tables were fun. Using the tables, our characters once ended up selling F-16 fighter aircraft at a 400% mark-up to farmers on an airless planet. Not sure if we were reading the charts right but it was fun.

2. Traveller has the potential for a very dark campaign. Our characters ended up being scum bags in just about every campaign. We were mercs usually and there was always some bad guy with money who needed something nasty done. Probably more a reflection of the GM and players than the system.

3. I like rolling up experienced characters (prior service). It was a nice change from rolling up 1st level plebes.

4. Not getting experience and not getting better at what you do was not fun. That may have had an effect on point 2 above. You spent your time staying alive and collecting wealth and cool gizmos as opposed to going on heroic quests.

T20 (D20 version of Traveller) took care of what I didn't like about the game. You can still start with a veteran player, but that character if he/she survives can still increase in ability via the level system adopted from D20.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[WizarDru]

Wow. That was hardcore, Alan. That fills in some gaps in my knowledge and seems pretty spot-on, to me. Thanks.

 

[Turanil]

What is it about the Traveller game that you liked so much?

And to be fair, were there things you did not like about it?

I have both the old boxed set of Classic Traveller, and T20. I really like this game but I really don't know why, especially since I never got the opportunity to play it.

Nonetheless, what I dislike in T20 is:
-- Complicated hit-points / wounds procedure.
-- The classes are not very exciting (I would rather use d20 Future).
-- This sci-fi has an obsolete feel (about some 80s style of sci-fi), especially due to the art, but also that it doesn't take into account future technologies that are foreseen today (nanotechnology, pervasive electronics and virtual reality, really advanced medicine, etc.)

 

[jasper]

Dislike
Didn’t keep a group together so we can play.
Computer rules out date.

Like
NO ALIGNMENT. Good bad I have gun and you don't! give me your wallet.

You can have the death sentence in seven systems. Hope the ship in from Vulcan is not bringing in their latest Most Wanted posters.
A good source of background matter in which you can freely ignore.
The bar maid with a full mag in her shotgun will make the most “I am pc I have immunity” player calm down especially after the first pc bites the dust in one shot. Or the little girly man sixteen year old punk with the dagger could a hurt on your Arnold “conan” character who retired as major general of Marines but he left his battle armour on the ship.

You could have Jedi, a calm Krinizti, a thief, a jarhead all in the same group.


And from talking with my players who played under various refs and systems. You could do anything just give the ref some notice so he can make maps. You could have Piratecat spending 3 weeks laying out the map and stats of your ship, while Diaglo was happy just rolling a dice to see how many berths and cargo he got.