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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7731488" data-attributes="member: 42582">We've had a bit of recent discussion about Traveller, prompted by some actual play threads I posted: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?586642-Classic-Traveller-session-report-with-reflections-on-the-system-long" target="_blank">first</a>, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?602671-Classic-Traveller-more-actual-play" target="_blank">second</a>, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?605171-Classic-Traveller-a-dice-driven-game" target="_blank">third</a>.Personally I think that if you reread it with modern sensibilities it's not as "old school" as you'd expect. It has a lot of very tight resolution systems, which on the surface appear to be constrained/regulated only by the fiction, but when you actually play them out are mechanically self-constrained also:* Jump travel: roll for encounter, roll for misjump, roll for drive failure, arrive at destination, roll for encounter, knock of spent fuel. * Interstellar commerce: roll for goods available, pay for them, arrive at destination (see above sub-system), roll for brokerage service, roll for sale, increase credit tally. * Officialdom: roll (with law level as the DC) for encounter, roll (with Admin as a bonus) to avoid close inspection, if inspected roll Admin to pass the inspection [I've adapted this from Book 7 Merchant Prince, using Admin rather than Legal skill, which seemed redundant], and/or roll for Forgery if you're using forged papers, and/or roll for Bribery if you want to deal with the officials that way. * Vacc suit use: if a tricky manoeuvre is tried, roll to avoid difficulty, and if difficulty occurs then roll to rectify it before disaster ensue [I extended this to include other forms of protective suits].One thing that's missing is a rule for consequences - what happens if the officials don't like your papers? - but with our modern ways we can use "fail forward"-type resolution for that. I've also included a rule written by Andy Slack for his Expanded Universe series in early White Dwarf, where Social Standing is used to modify a check to find out what happens if you're arrested, charged and tried.Another thing that's missing (in my view quite notably) is a good system for planetary exploration. In our second session, the PCs were driving their ATV through a barren world with a corrosive atmosphere, trying to find an enemy base. There are rules for encounters, and for break downs, but no rules with the tightness of the jump travel sub-system, or a 4e skill challenge, for actually determining if/when they get to where they're going. It was a bit unsatisfactory.On the other hand, in our most recent session when they were fleeing that base trying to avoid being hit by fire from a ship in orbit shooting under the guidance of a forward observer, I adapted the small craft escape rules (printed in the Ship's Boat skill entry at least in the early editions of Book 1 - I think my copy is a second printing) and those worked pretty well to give a good resolution.I've also found the "oddball systems" for generating PCs and worlds paint an implicit but interesting picture of the milieu. There are nobles, who galavant about in pleasure yachts; there is also a steady market for low passages (as indicated via the commerce rules), despite the 1-in-12 to 1-in-6 chance of death for an ordinary healthy individual (depending on the quality of onboard medical care). And many worlds have crappy atmospheres and only modest populations. The impression I get from all this is that the world of Classic Traveller is one with a population living mostly in poor conditions, ready to take pretty desparate chances to survive or try and get ahead, while a small elite extracts wealth and leisure time from the system. (Ie it's basically the modern world outside of parts of Australasia, North America and West and Central Europe!) A very non-Star Wars and non-Star Trek implied setting, it seems to me.I think this game is very much worth playing, more-or-less as written but bringing some of those modern sensibilities to bear. I think it's a much more reliable generator of good RPG experiences than D&D 5e, for instance; and mechanically less demanding on both players and GM than 4e, although probably requiring them to work harder to get the fiction going due to the lack of such a clear default setting and starting situation. (The discussions of the game in the late 70s and early 80s show that this latter issue was really a very big difficulty people had with the game.)I think it's a pity that, from the mid-80s on, Traveller seems to have been captured mostly by the GURPS-type crowd, and so has generated a mixture of a more "universal" approach which dilutes many of the tight subsystems into a generic and largely unworkable universal resolution system (I'm thinking MegaTraveller here) while (as best I can tell) pushing actual play into yet another variant on a 2nd ed AD&D-style GM driven scenario-focused game, where the job of the mechanics is mostly to provide a bit of colour that gets incorporated into the GM's narration.That would be drifting towards a sci-fi version of Burning Wheel or similar (that already has a Circles stat which is something like notoriety/social standing, and a Resources stat). Could definitely be interesting, but I think also pretty different from Traveller in its original form. (Which I guess would be the point.)</blockquote>

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