RuneQuest and Traveller

[smug]

I prefer the AH RQ, myself. As a bonus, they purged that nasty Glorantha nonsense.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I prefer the AH RQ, myself. As a bonus, they purged that nasty Glorantha nonsense.

Coming in here and making a comment like that when people clearly enjoyed Glorantha? Well, that's basically threadcrapping, which nets you a warning.

By all means join in with a substantive comment - your post would have been better if you had said "I prefer the AH RQ myself, because..." and then went on to explain what were the positive elements you enjoyed.

 

[The Shaman]

The Mongoose Traveller system (or MGT for short) lies closest to original Traveller in its design, but it has been streamlined for a more modern design.

Huh?

The game that lies closest to the original design is the original design, and it's still in print.

Its been updated to reflect a more modern sense of how the future will look (i.e. computers no longer take up tons of space).

Will this myth never die?

A "one displacement ton computer," which is the Model/1 you find on the ubiquitous Beowulf-class free trader, consists of a desk with a workstation and a chair. That's a "ton" of computer in Traveller.

And you can buy a hand computer with the same performance, but less withable to stand a hit from a 250 megawatt laser or a high-explosive missle, which is something a starship computer can manage.

The reprints of "classic" Traveller from Far Future Enterprises / Marc Miller are the old Traveller books, just like they were in the old days. The game still holds up exceedingly well after all these years and the other editions that I've seen (Mega, T4, D20 and Gurps... I haven't looked over the others) just don't hold a candle to the original. The original is a rules light, adaptable sci fi game that you can use for anything.

Yes.

I own roughly a displacement ton of original Traveller books (to me calling it "classic" is superfluous), supplements and so forth, and I also have the Mongoose edition core rules. The only reason I can see to buy the Mongoose version is if you insist on having a system which is presently supported by newly published material.

My recommendation is to get the two "classic" CD-ROMs: one disc contains the complete GDW canon (every rulebook, adventure, supplement, even every board game produced for Traveller) and the other disc contains the complete run of the Journal of the Travellers Aid Society, the Traveller magazine, which is also full of adventures, equipment, rules variants, and so forth. Each disc is U.S.$35.00, so for $70.00 (less than the Mongoose core rules plus one supplement) you can have roughly ten years of published material. I don't think there's a better deal in gaming, myself.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The only reason I can see to buy the Mongoose version is if you insist on having a system which is presently supported by newly published material.

I could suggest another reason for getting the Mongoose rules (which is the reason I bought them) - the extended 'character generation' which gives more events, flavour, background NPCs and such. It is a great enhancement to the original traveller chargen IMO.

Cheers

 

[The Shaman]

I could suggest another reason for getting the Mongoose rules (which is the reason I bought them) - the extended 'character generation' which gives more events, flavour, background NPCs and such. It is a great enhancement to the original traveller chargen IMO.

I find it repetitive and a bit bland myself, and I don't like how skills are handled compared to "classic" Traveller - Mongoose both devalues skills (characters earn lower skill levels) while simultaneously pumping up the number of skills learned.

I've also used house rules since, oh, 1980 or thereabouts, that allow characters to serve together and share assignments and I've long assigned zero-level skills for homeworld or branch of service, so Mongoose didn't really offer me anything that I didn't have already.

IMHO, YMMV, yadda, yadda, et cetera ad infinitum . . .

 

[smug]

Coming in here and making a comment like that when people clearly enjoyed Glorantha? Well, that's basically threadcrapping, which nets you a warning.

By all means join in with a substantive comment - your post would have been better if you had said "I prefer the AH RQ myself, because..." and then went on to explain what were the positive elements you enjoyed.

Yeah, I wasn't very clear. Purging Glorantha was actually a big reason I preferred RQ3; it was obviously always possible to ignore the Glorantha tie, so it's only a matter of flavour, but I didn't and don't like Glorantha and I do think that 'fantasy Europe' is the best setting for RQ. The way I posted it makes it appear to be incidental, but it actually wasn't (to me).

In addition, I liked the Sorcery stuff and I like 1d6-1.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Yeah, I wasn't very clear. Purging Glorantha was actually a big reason I preferred RQ3; it was obviously always possible to ignore the Glorantha tie, so it's only a matter of flavour, but I didn't and don't like Glorantha and I do think that 'fantasy Europe' is the best setting for RQ. The way I posted it makes it appear to be incidental, but it actually wasn't (to me).

In addition, I liked the Sorcery stuff and I like 1d6-1.

Thanks for the clarification.

I liked the RQ2 system so much that I did conversions for Dark Sun, for a sci-fi setting, for Empire of the Petal Throne (and others). I loved it!

Personally the 1d6-1 was one of the things that I heartily disliked in RQ3 for a couple of reasons. One was the anticlimax (Great, I've de-ticked! Darn it, rolled a 1 so I don't go up at all), the other was that it slowed the rate of increase even more (since you typically went up 2-3% rather than 5%) and thirdly that two people could use their skills equally successfully over three adventures, both successfully de-tick and then one person ends up +15% up and the other is at nothing or +1% or something, which didn't seem fair).

Those were the reasons I disliked it - what did you like about the 1d6-1% for advancement?

Cheers

 

[Psion]

I could suggest another reason for getting the Mongoose rules (which is the reason I bought them) - the extended 'character generation' which gives more events, flavour, background NPCs and such. It is a great enhancement to the original traveller chargen IMO.

Indeed. And to a lesser extent the unified skill system and much improved combat system.

There are other things I could take or leave... but I'm free to do so.

 

[smug]

Personally the 1d6-1 was one of the things that I heartily disliked in RQ3 for a couple of reasons. One was the anticlimax (Great, I've de-ticked! Darn it, rolled a 1 so I don't go up at all), the other was that it slowed the rate of increase even more (since you typically went up 2-3% rather than 5%) and thirdly that two people could use their skills equally successfully over three adventures, both successfully de-tick and then one person ends up +15% up and the other is at nothing or +1% or something, which didn't seem fair).

Those were the reasons I disliked it - what did you like about the 1d6-1% for advancement?

Cheers

I liked the fact that it was slower, actually, although it obviously depends on when your GM decided it was time to try to increase the skills and it may be that we were more generous in that regard than were some. Also I'm a bit of a sucker for random elements (which is why, for example, I've never really liked point-buy for stats in most systems). I imagine it would have been a bigger deal to go from playing a lot of RQ2 to playing RQ3, but I mostly dabbled with RQ2 and was attracted into RQ3 (in part by the GW repackaging, although I already owned the AH version too). Also, I guess I was in AD&D 1e mode to some extent at the time and progression there was very slow in any case.