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Re: Traveller as a Universal Game System « Reply #45 on Jun 28, 2008, 10:12pm »
Indeed, the Dwarves seem more akin to the Alfar as usually portrayed. The Elves may be closer to the Vanir.
Of course, the profoundest effect of Tolkien's work may be the assumption of such clear distinctions!
I think the Celtic influence is strong in Tolkien's Elves. The realm of Faerie seems to be an echo of the old Gods, explicitly (at least in Irish myth) banished from the surface world by conquering Men. Yet the Gods, and later the Fairies, were respected and feared.
As Tolkien's work was consciously English, a synthesis of British and Anglo-Saxon traditions seems quite appropriate. He may have been influenced by earlier writers (Dunsany, for example) in bringing Elfland closer to the Fields We Know.
Tolkien's Elves seem indeed to have lost much of their glamour -- relative not only to Earthly tales but also to their former place in Arda. Middle Earth's "thinning" is a theme throughout TLOTR.
I gather that in his view, he was restoring nobility to beings that had in popular imagination been reduced to the ilk of tiny butterfly winged pixies or Santa's little helpers.
All told, the result is quite powerful and understandably has become the definitive treatment of Elves in many minds. Terry Pratchett plays on that in Lords and Ladies.
Joined: Nov 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 245 Location: Behind the Orange Curtain Karma: 10
Re: Traveller as a Universal Game System « Reply #46 on Jun 29, 2008, 12:16am »
Here is a list of the Traveller (Book 1, plus some of 4 and 5) skills, and how they can be converted (taking cues from that Dragonsfoot article):
Administration - the same (I think the Sumerians invented bureaucracy. Air/Raft - probably no equivalent (unless there is some winged riding beast, and even so, the skill would be pretty rare) ATV - Riding (horses, camels, giant domesticated lizards) Bribery - Same. Once you invent bureaucracy, someone is going to invent graft. Computer - Literacy? Math? Electronics - Lock picking (The Romans, the Egyptians, and the Vikings all had locks; some of them would be pretty hard to pick without the right tools.) Engineer - Civil Engineering...roads, buildings, castles, aqueducts... Forgery - Same...would also need to reproduce seals and cylinder seals. Forward Observer - Siege engines? Gambling - Same Gunnery - Siege Engines. Jack-o-T - Same. Leader - Same. Mechanical - Fixing stuff - the guy to run to when the wagon's axle breaks (did you know the Celts invented the roller bearing?) Medical - Healer. Navigation - Land and sea...what do you think: one skill, or two? Pilot - Commanding large, ocean-going vessels. We can probably keep the Pilot-2 = effective Ship's Boat skill rule. Ship's Boat - Operating small boats. Steward - Etiquette. Knowing how to announce a visiting potentate, for example Streetwise - Same. Tactics - Rules say up to 1000 - should it be that big? That's about 1/4 of a legion, IIRC Vehicle - Animal-drawn wagons. Vacc Suit - Armor? Light Armor? Might include maintaining, repairing, donning, moving in, and fighting in cloth and leather armor. Blade Cbt - Melee Weapons Gun Cbt - Missile Weapons (the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune)
Book 4 Battle Dress - Heavy Armor? Combat Engineering - Siege craft? (Making gabions and fascines; reveting trenches) Demolitions - Making/using gunpowder if the TL is high enough? (Meal powder would separate during shipment, so the ingredients were stored separately and blended on site. Yeah, that's a job I'd really like to do in the middle of a siege with open flames and flying sparks everywhere... ) FA Gunnery/Heavy Weapons - Cannons (If TL is maxed)? Instruction - Same. Interrogation - Same. Improvising thumbscrews with household implements. Gun Combat - Firearms (If TL is maxed)? Recon - Same, but there should be more role-play and less rolling, I'd say... Recruiting - Same. Ditto on the comment. Survival - Now this one would be useful. Vehicle - Animal-drawn wagons.
Book 5 Carousing - (Segue to the clip in Conan the Barbarian where Arnie falls face-down in his porridge.) Communication - Maybe no equivalent - Signal flags and fires? Ciphers? Ship Tactics - Same. Fleet Tactics - Same. Liaison - Diplomacy?
Joined: Sept 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 942 Karma: 27
Re: Traveller as a Universal Game System « Reply #47 on Jun 29, 2008, 12:57am »
Looks good!
To accommodate settings with and without gunpowder, one might provide for substitutions.
For instance, the same roll might yield either Bow (or even Blade) Combat or Gun Combat. A general Artillery skill might break down into TL-appropriate variations. Demolition without explosives would involve the ancient techniques of mining.
Joined: Nov 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 245 Location: Behind the Orange Curtain Karma: 10
Re: Traveller as a Universal Game System « Reply #48 on Jun 29, 2008, 10:18pm »
OK, Here's my initial thought on EDUcation: Make the rolls in the following order (all 2D6):
STR DEX END SOC INT
Now: EDU is 2d6-8 (Minimum for PCs is 1, min for NPCs is 0) Then if: SOC= 7-9: +1 SOC=10-11: +2 SOC=12: +3
The EDU would range between 0 and 7, clustered heavily at the bottom of the range. The minimum for the 'Advanced Education' skill tables would be 3+ (one step above the average, as 8+ is on a straight 2D6 roll)
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Re: Traveller as a Universal Game System « Reply #50 on Jun 30, 2008, 12:43pm »
I think people use LBB to represent "Little Brown Books" (OD&D) and "Little Black Books" (Traveller). I'm pretty sure I've seen LBB used on Traveller boards.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
I think people use LBB to represent "Little Brown Books" (OD&D) and "Little Black Books" (Traveller). I'm pretty sure I've seen LBB used on Traveller boards.
[Foghorn Leghorn voice] It's a joke, son, a JOKE; I'm too fast for 'ya! [/Foghorn Leghorn voice]
Yes, LBB is frequently used on the TML (thus 'LFB' is sometimes used to indicate the 'Large Floppy Books' Marc Miller put out under Far Future Enterprises) I was making a slightly tongue-in-cheek suggestion to differentiate the abbreviation for 'Wanderer' from both CT and OD&D, since as we know, what a new game truly needs is a clever TLA (Three Letter Acronym).
<I see that the stress levels at work must be rising, due to my apparently continued insistance of typing with my tongue in my cheek>
Joined: Nov 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 245 Location: Behind the Orange Curtain Karma: 10
Re: Traveller as a Universal Game System « Reply #54 on Jun 30, 2008, 5:44pm »
OK, whipping out the calculator and playing around with numbers for the moment, the distribution of EDU in the PCs is this: 1 - 34.7% 2 - 38.2% 3 - 17.4% 4 - 6.96% 5 - 2.17% 6 - 0.541% 7 - 0.077%
Mean EDU = 2.06, Mode = 2. Median in the real population would fall somewhere between 1 and 2.
This is in huge contrast to CT Traveller, but that was written in the early 70s about a 'future' that felt, if not looked, quite a lot like the present-at-the-time, where the average person in the US was a high school graduate, about people in this future who were running off into the wild blue yonder at the age of 18.
So if we assume that '7' is the equivalent of a high-school diploma, we have only three options for 'Wanderer': either make the stat roll reflect a population where the vast majority couldn't read a sentence to save their lives <insert appropriate joking asides about the "Neck Verse" here>, but a privileged minority were every bit as educated as the most erudite post-doc of today (and cracks about whether the information known by the Galens or Avicenas or Michael Scotts of the past was "correct" or not can only be made once you prove to me that the information crammed in said post-doc's head is 'correct' or not...or will be considered correct in ten or fifty or a hundred years)...
OR make '7' reflect the "average" formal education of the day (problematic because of the very lopsided distribution)...
OR make 'EDU' a reflection of general knowledge and life experience, rather than formal learning and literacy.
While the first and third options probably have equal merit, I would favor the first - tinkering with the roll and keeping EDU as gauging the formal education. This is because in Character Creation, the EDU gives the option of rolling on the 'Advanced Education' table, and putting myself in the position of a Legion recruiter, I would tend to think that if I were looking for a likely miles to be a junior clerk for the quartermaster, I would tend to pick the boy that could actually write and add, over the lad with an encyclopedic knowledge of the best times to sow the barley crop.
Joined: Nov 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 245 Location: Behind the Orange Curtain Karma: 10
Re: Traveller as a Universal Game System « Reply #55 on Jul 1, 2008, 12:26pm »
I used the 'Surface Navy' template in COTI for the 'Sailor' in Wanderer...I don't know about the rest of you, but modern rank titles just look WRONG. I did a little wiki-research and found some Roman naval rank titles, but they seem almost too alien. I'll have to ruminate on it a bit...maybe see how the Roman legionary ranks look in the 'Soldier' profession. (Similarly, some of the titles from MegaTraveller for the 'Barbarian' profession, which I thought would make a good template for the 'Warrior' profession seem far to dime-novel AmerIndian: "Brave" and "Chief"... maybe Gaulish or Gothic would yield better terms...)
Soldier: 1. Decurion ('tent'/squad leader) 2. Optio (2nd-in-command to a centurion) 3. Centurion (leader of a 'century' - 60-100 men) 4. Pilus Prior (centurion of first century in a cohort) 5. Primus Pilus (centurion of first century in a legion) 6. Legatus Legionis (commander of legion)
Sailor: 1. Principales (junior officer) 2. Nautus (senior officer) 3. Trierarchus (Captain) 4. Nauarchus (squadron commander) 5. Nauarchus Princeps (fleet commander) 6. Praefectus Classis (admiral)
The approximate translations are in the parentheses. Are the titles too outré, or do you like the feel? They are beginning to grow on me.
Joined: Nov 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 245 Location: Behind the Orange Curtain Karma: 10
Re: Traveller as a Universal Game System « Reply #58 on Jul 3, 2008, 11:49pm »
I'm thinking that instead of Starports, cities could be rated by the size and frequency of their markets. 'A' is a huge market bringing in goods from half a continent away, open every day; 'F' is just a little "Farmer's Market" for the locals, meeting only one day a week. Though it seems a bit strange to roll for the market first, then work out trade routes, etc... it might make more sense to roll for markets last.
Population has to be tweaked - settlement size ranged from the German 'dorf' (where 3 or 4 families build their homes on adjacent corners of their land), to Rome, which had between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people, the largest city in the west until the industrial revolution. Maybe go up like: 1 - 5 2 - 10 3 - 50 4 - 100 5 - 500 6 - 1,000 7 - 5,000 8 - 10,000 9 - 50,000 10 - 100,000 11 - 500,000 12 - 1,000,000
Government is tough - I'm working on a list of appropriate government types, but it was a lot easier in Traveller, since each of the star systems were little autonomous units. On land, travel is easier (for armies, too), so there is going to be a lot more interconnectedness. Any 'overarching' government is going to depend on the overall tech level of the area...maybe: in our own history, up through the Bronze Age and we had city states, while empires came later. We would make things easier on ourself if we stated by fiat that the landscape was littered with city-states, alternately allied with or at war with one another, but that might put too much restrictions on the referee...
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