Traveller: Tips For A New GM

[MarkB]

I recently ran my first Traveller game (a one-shot, at a con). Here are a couple of rules observations:
1. The rules specify that you often don't need to make a check if you're skilled and doing a routine task. It is essential that you follow this rule if you want to avoid Keystone Kops komedy. Characters often have low skill levels--a total DM of +2 is pretty common in skills that characters are pretty good at (level 1 skill plus a +1 stat modifier, or level 2 skill plus a 0). If you force the players to make routine checks ("I hail the other ship." "Roll me Comms + Edu."), they will frequently fail utterly routine checks, and it will be frustrating all around. Handing out substantial DM based on task difficulty can eliminate this, of course, but why bother? Only make the PCs roll if they are unskilled, doing something hard, or under serious pressure.

I agree with not making them roll for routine tasks, but I wouldn't recommend against applying Dice Modifiers based on the difficulty of the task. Being able to hand out positive or negative DMs based on the difficulty of a task gives a much more reasonable set of outcomes than having every task you attempt with a given skill be equally difficult.

2. If you let the PCs buy even reasonable armor (flak jacket or armored cloth), I did not find that combat was as deadly as people make it out to be (unless of course you're hitting the PCs with artillery.) If you have an armor of 5 or 6, pistols doing in the ballpark of 3d6 only average 4 or 5 damage. That means that a character with average stats can take something like 4 hits before going down, and when brought down has very low risks of being killed outright unless they both carefully spread the damage and are unlucky. However, I did find that it was deadly boring. I would use combat sparingly in most Traveller games.

Bear in mind that you add the Effect of the die roll to the damage in combat - so if someone rolls a total of 12 on their attack, they've exceeded the target number of 8 by 4 points, and their damage becomes 3d6+4. Combine that with a lucky roll on 3d6, and you can blow through a character's physical stats quite easily.

Combat in Traveller isn't so much especially deadly as it is especially swingy. It's fairly easy to get a string of misses, or a couple of especially good hits, and if those are distributed in the party's disfavour, it can turn the encounter around very quickly.

It gets worse in space combat, where happening to get a couple of consecutive hits against the same system can suddenly leave a ship crippled or blind.

3. Traveller supports lots of different aspects of vaguely hard scifi play. Make sure you get a handle on what your players want, and give them that. That could be exploration, discovery, and weird aliens; it could be weird supertech of the Ancients; it could be politics and interstellar intrigue; it could be buy low, sell high in a tramp freighter. If you tailor your game to your players' interests, it will be better. If you don't know, aim for a mix of all of the common elements. Get the PCs a spaceship, set up some commercial opportunities, spice it up with some interactions with a strange culture on an alien world, throw in some rumors of the Ancients, and have interstellar intrigue interfering with their plans. Then follow their lead as to which elements are important.

I'll second this, and add that being mindful of the level of science-ficton 'hardness' your players expect is important. I've occasionally come to a Traveller game expecting a hard-SF setting, only to find the referee playing fast-and-loose with things like orbital dynamics or the effects of zero-gee, and found it annoying, but others in the same group either took it in stride or preferred it. These days, I just relax and go with the flow.

 

[Korgoth]

I guess combat in Mongoose Traveller must be different from combat in Classic Traveller. My first one shot I ran, the evil ecoterrorist took one shot at a PC with a body pistol and dropped him. And then was promptly splattered by a shotgun from the other side (fight in the engine room).

In Classic, armor is a DM (usually a malus) to your hit roll. If you hit, you penetrated the armor and do damage. The damage of even a small pistol can be devastating.

On the other hand, in the second one I ran I had a former Combine Marine (homebrew setting) with Cutlass-4. In melee your skill is a bonus to your hit roll and a malus to the enemy. He was basically Duncan Idaho. When the boarding action with the space pirates happened he ended up chopping through them like some kind of anime hero.

The effectiveness of melee weapons is really only due to the extremely confined quarters of most shipboard combat. A swordmaster that you get the drop on with a shotgun is going to be conversing with St. Peter in short order.

 

[clip]

Sorry, no positives here.

I used to love Traveller back in the 80s, now I find it pretty much unplayable. This is less to do with the original ruleset (which I find to be one of the most elegant out there), and more to do with the "philosophy" of the Traveller game. The games I've played recently have been very much "the future as it was perceived from the 1980s", and many sessions broke down into technology arguments. We also had problems with weapon/armour balance where parties were armoured better than they were armed, which turned into drawn out battles with combatants unable to wound one another.

What killed it for me in the end was the space travel mechanics. We had one character - a scout - who did all the piloting etc everytime we travelled between planets. As per the rules he made loads of rolls to take off, navigate, screw with the engines - whatever, and at the end - we'd jump. My question was - what's the point? If he fails any of those rolls do we end up in the middle of a star? Is there a side plot? Does the ship blow up? The whole thing seemed far to Asimov "hard" scifi and not enough zapping stormtroopers for me.

If I were to do another scifi game, I would make sure it was out of the context of a retro-game - just to avoid the problems we encountered.

 

[hopeless]

Mongoose Traveller

Ran an introduction game where I made the mistake of generating up characters instead of using pre gens like those listed in the book.

Gave them a choice of a number of characters so they ran two each with one group consisting of a Lanth Senator with a bodyguard supported by a trio of Marines head to a meeting aboard a massive ship only for it to turn into an ambush.

The other half consisted of the ship boat's crew and the senators two aides (a physican and a assistant).

I pretty much stole from Phantom Menace's opening sequence except the ship's boat was equipped with screens, a single pulse laser and missile launchers which spent most of the game with its screens up to deflect the three cannons located in the mothership's bay before using its laser to blast those turrets to bits and pretty much kept one half of the characters safe from harm.

The other half pretty much fought their way back to the ship's boat and then escaped the mothership only to have its fightercraft launched in pursuit ending in a massive fight between the ship they arrived in releasing its fighters before they managed to get back aboard their own mothership only losing their screens albeit taking out three of the fighters that pursued them and losing one marine and another left hospitalised in the fight back to the ship's boat.

The Marines had battle dress but whilst one was from the Support Marines the other two were enlisted with one a former arms dealer (npc killed in the fight) and the other a former pirate evading arrest (PC and was the one hospitalised).

Yes the combat was deadly had to have the adversaries switch to carbines otherwise it could have been easily a TPK otherwise.

Still planning on running this as a campaign but they're still designing their characters so far one's completed their character as a scholar who had some scout training who owns a modified lab ship and a mining vessel he inherited the others are still designing their although one was starting out as an Psion Adept and the other two are from the Sword Worlds.

Inspired by the Lost Fleet book series I turned the x-boat route into a Stellar Gate Network that blew up 14 years previously decimating the Spinward Marches with the Solomani Empire (better known as the Sol Empire) barely holding sway as the rest of the Marches is in uproar with the Sword Worlds League being the main rival with the Consulate as the Empire's original foe but eventually adding a variation of the Darrian's and Arden to the mix once they get to the part of designing their characters background after all I'd rather not start up a Star wars centric campaign when all they want is a Firefly or Starhunters campaign.

Still best of luck with your game let us know how it develop!

 

[Psion]

Greetings!

Hey folks! I'm going to be running a game of Traveller with my current group. The game's had a bit of a rocky reception thus far, but my group has agreed to give it a go. So I want to run a really, really solid session.

So for those of you who are familiar with Traveller (We're playing the Mongoose edition), what are some tips and tricks for making things flow smoothly? What are some pitfalls to avoid? How can I give my group the best possible Traveller experience?

By way of gaming resume, I'm an old Traveller hand that started playing back in Classic. I also picked up Mongoose Traveller (MongT for short, please, as MT implies MegaTraveller! Great game, but a different game!) and ran a very successful campaign under it. Here's a summary I wrote up over on the Citizens of the Imperium forum:

Mongoose Traveller Mini-AP - Citizens of the Imperium

It was a lot of fun. It did drive one thing home though (as you will understand if you read the log): the combat strength of the group varies HIGHLY with makeup of the group, which is why I let the players make a second group of characters once I knew that some fierce combat was in the offing.

I'd decide up front what sort of game you wish to play, the playstyles targeted by the skill package you gave the characters under the skill package rules to make sure you don't overwhelm them.

Traveller characters have a variety of skills but are rarely omni-competent. I think the best way to handle this is to provide multiple "paths to success" for any problem you throw in their way.

The adventure path did touch on some points earlier posters touch on:

Traveller combat is deadly. keep that in mind. Encourage your players to use cover and other tactics as well as surprise; and allow them to avoid some of the combat encounters if they are careful or resourceful enough. This isn't D&D; you don't get any experience for killing things, so if you can complete your objective or defeat/neutralize your opponents without a shot being fired, it should be the preferable option. Think of Traveller combat in real-world terms, not in D&D terms, as a gunshot (or, for the very least, a few gunshots) can kill you in Traveller. Also, encourage your players to get the best armor they can get their hands on. It saves lives.

2. If you let the PCs buy even reasonable armor (flak jacket or armored cloth), I did not find that combat was as deadly as people make it out to be (unless of course you're hitting the PCs with artillery.)

My experience is that Combat Armor is where armor starts to get too good for most readily available weapons in MongT. However, I think the balance between armor and weapons gets a bit better if you pick up the Central Supply Catalog. (While I'm recommending books, let me say 760 patrons is another great book, loaded with NPC ideas and plot seeds.)

Grenades can be pretty deadly as well; be aware of the "dive out of the way" rule.

Other things to watch out for/consider:
1) The "Mercantile Player": Some players quickly discover that with some good skills and shrewd deals, their character can earn cash quickly through the trade system. The problem is that flying around playing Papers & Paychecks is boring for the rest of the group.

In my group, I insist that all trade calculations be done away from the table. Other things you can do is make every trade a chance for adventure.

If players start spending most of their time trading, make the adventure about the trading, and add complications EVERYWHERE. Have players run into teamsters when offloading their cargo. Have passengers that cause problems or raise suspicions (a good tool here: http://enworld.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=20573&it=1 , check out their other offerings, too), etc.

2) Making your own worlds? Meh. Depends on your tastes. I would at least consider starting out with the published Traveller setting unless you are already jazzed about rolling and interpreting worlds.

Personally, I really like Gateway to Destiny (for Traveller d20), but it's probably a bit hard to find in print these days, as I beleive QLI no longer has a license to put out Travellr stuff.

But Spinward Marches is a classic, and there is a Mongoose book for it. It's by Martin Dougherty, who IMHO is the best Traveller designer out there right now. I'm not real fond of the subsector maps in the book, but I understand there is a map pack for it which may be better (I don't have it):

Spinward Marches - Mongoose | EN World PDF Store
Spinward Marches Map Pack - Mongoose | EN World PDF Store

3) Maps

Maps can be loads of fun in Traveller and help players to visualize the situation (and for you to create scenarios).

One type of map I think players find particularly cool is the ship map. It gives them something tactile that gives them a sense of ownership.

Unless you like making maps yourself or scrounging stores/websites for old Steve Jackson and other vendor floorplans, I'm not necessarily talking about full mini-scale maps. On trick I did is to get the Traders and Gunboats supplement and printed out ship maps (8 1/2 x 11 size) for players to scrutinize and roam around in, and laminated them so we could draw on them with wet-erase marker:

Supplement Two: Traders & Gunboats - Mongoose | EN World PDF Store

4) Old materials

One advantage of Traveller is it has a long history and a pretty high level of compatibility. With the exception of The New Era, most editions have a pretty good level of compatibility with MongT. Even T20 is highly compatible except for the characters. So once you've examined the basics, if something interests you, there is a lot of extra material you can plug into out there.

5) Other supplements.

The base book is a good starting point that should keep you in good stead for a while. As mentioned above, the first supplements you may want to plug into are:
Central Supply Catalog
Spinward Marches
760 Patrons
Traders and Gunboats

The "Book X" books are overall pretty mixed, but get better as they go along. High Guard and Mercenary frustrated me the most, but if you want to play the sorts of game targeted by the book (High Guard for Navy, Mercenary for Mercenaries, Agent for Espionage, etc.), there is still useful info in there.

Overall, you have less to fear from letting players make characters from supplements than you would in D&D.

I'll go on record saying that the large ship combat rules in High Guard are really not good compared to predecessors. Ug!



Well, I've rambled on enough. Traveller is an old favorite and I could say lots about it. But that should get you started. Have fun and good look.

In closing, I'd say pay special attention to point #1. Seriously. It's the #1 complaint I hear from people who have had bad experiences in Traveller.

 

[Water Bob]

What are some pitfalls to avoid? How can I give my group the best possible Traveller experience?

First off, I'd go with Classic Traveller instead of Mongoose's version. Among many (in my estimation, most) of the long-time Traveller players play CT. MGT seems to be drawing new players, but CT is where "it's at".

Second - a piece of general advice no matter which Traveller edition you use. Be ready with more technical explanations than you are used to with fantasy games.

I found this out the hard way, many, many years ago. I was used to players coming up with stuff like, "Hey, we'll throw a rope over the tree brance, tie the end of it onto the toppled monolith, then use the leverage to turn it over and read the other side."

Simple. That's they was low-tech fantasy gaming is, by design.

With Traveller, you've got to be prepared to know about real-world science and physics. I remember the power getting shut down in the player's ship one time. The hatch wouldn't open. So, one of the players said, "Hey, there's got to be a manual over-ride, probably mechanical."

I wasn't prepared for that. I didn't want them getting through the door when I prepared the adventure. But, I didn't think it through well enough. It made sense that there would be an emergecy over-ride, so I had a panel in the wall open to reaveal a socket and a manual wrench, not unlike the jack and accessories we all have in the backs of our cars for when we have flats.

In another game, the PCs were fighting invaders on their ship. The PCs had managed to take the bridge, but the bad guys had the rest of the ship. Everything is can be controlled from the bridge, so I had an NPC in an access cabinet trying to cut into the bridge's connection and disable bridge contol. I thought it was cool that the players, on the bridge, could see the bad guy working on what they knew would be a major problem for them.

That's when one player said, "Hey, there's a lot of machinery in there, right? What if it catches fire? What's the fire retardent system like? Dunno? It's probably halon, a gas that sucks up all the oxygen and kills the fire. I'm going to use the bridge controls to fire the halon system in that access compartment."

GM: "Whaaa? Halon, you say? Now, what does it do?

So, this is my point: be ready for a lot of high tech lingo and jargon. Think your players throw your curve balls in a low-tech, fantasy game? Wait until you're thinking about how fast the oils on a standard shotgun will freeze when a PC uses it out in Zero-G.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

I agree with not making them roll for routine tasks, but I wouldn't recommend against applying Dice Modifiers based on the difficulty of the task. Being able to hand out positive or negative DMs based on the difficulty of a task gives a much more reasonable set of outcomes than having every task you attempt with a given skill be equally difficult.

Oh, I totally agree. Modifying difficulties with DMs is part of the system, and for a good reason. My point was merely with regard to not rolling at all for routine checks by characters with the skill. 2d6 forms a bell, but really low rolls aren't that uncommon, which can lead to stupidity even with a DM for ease.

 

[Psion]

First off, I'd go with Classic Traveller instead of Mongoose's version. Among many (in my estimation, most) of the long-time Traveller players play CT. MGT seems to be drawing new players, but CT is where "it's at".

I wouldn't. And I have been playing since classic as well.

The OP is not a longtime player. He does not have the acquired adoration for things like the ad hoc tasks and weapon-versus-armor chart look ups. These things are not a benefit for a new player; the easy to use unified skill system and the slicker combat system are a bona fide advantage for a new player. As are events and skill packages in chargen.

Which is not to say that MongT is perfect in every way or that Classic Traveller doesn't have its advantages. As I have already said, I really hate large ship combat rules in high guard.

Fortunately, the system is backwards compatible enough as-is to plug in great classic stuff!

 

[MortalPlague]

Thanks to everyone for the great Traveller advice! I'll be taking lots of this to heart while prepping my little campaign. I think my first step will be to investigate some of those adventures, either to mine them for ideas or to use them outright!

I've put together a sector map already, and I've generated a few worlds. I'm quite pleased with a few of them, although my favorite was this:

It was rolled with the following stats: Size 7, Atmosphere 6, Temperature 8. So basically, it's a world slightly smaller than earth (so with lighter gravity), an earth-like atmosphere, and a warm climate. A paradise world, I decided. Then I rolled for hydrology and wound up with 10! A water world! The population also wound up at 10! And the government, against all odds, became a Feudal Technocracy.

So... billions of people living on a water world under a feudal technocracy. How to interpret it? I decided that the vast majority of people work in underwater mining cities and giant city-barges that float along the surface to support the upper crust, who live in fabulous flying cities. The planet's chief industry is building technological wonders, like their flying cities (but also, with a class A starport, they handle all sorts of ship building as well).

I have a few other worlds which are really interesting, though that one's definitely my favorite. I have to say, world building is a lot of fun so far. I just hope the campaign turns out to be equally interesting!

 

[hopeless]

Interesting

Thanks to everyone for the great Traveller advice! I'll be taking lots of this to heart while prepping my little campaign. I think my first step will be to investigate some of those adventures, either to mine them for ideas or to use them outright!

I've put together a sector map already, and I've generated a few worlds. I'm quite pleased with a few of them, although my favorite was this:

It was rolled with the following stats: Size 7, Atmosphere 6, Temperature 8. So basically, it's a world slightly smaller than earth (so with lighter gravity), an earth-like atmosphere, and a warm climate. A paradise world, I decided. Then I rolled for hydrology and wound up with 10! A water world! The population also wound up at 10! And the government, against all odds, became a Feudal Technocracy.

So... billions of people living on a water world under a feudal technocracy. How to interpret it? I decided that the vast majority of people work in underwater mining cities and giant city-barges that float along the surface to support the upper crust, who live in fabulous flying cities. The planet's chief industry is building technological wonders, like their flying cities (but also, with a class A starport, they handle all sorts of ship building as well).

I have a few other worlds which are really interesting, though that one's definitely my favorite. I have to say, world building is a lot of fun so far. I just hope the campaign turns out to be equally interesting!

Hmm reminds me of a Stargate episode where the upper class had all the lower classes kept underground and believing the surface above was toxic and uninhabitable so they worked literally to stay alive.

A feudal society would work especially if they were led to believe that the surface had become extremely hostile to them and their only hope was to help maintain their habitats as their work was largely being used to supply materials needed to keep them alive and possibly trade between other habitats also underwater (as far as they know) who have the stuff they can't manufacture or grow meanwhile the lion share is being sent to the floating cities where the upper class enjoy the easy life and act as the intermediaries with visitors from other systems keeping the true nature of their apparently extravagant lifestyle to themselves.

I think I might have to use that idea!

Thanks!