Joined: Jun 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 537 Karma: 14
Re: Traveller online game, any interest? « Reply #16 on Mar 7, 2010, 11:54am »
Anticipating acceptance into the game, here's a character. Hopefully I've rolled him correctly. I've never played Traveller and only recently got the books.
Alright, a potential overachiever who crapped out and got an average education; let's call him...
Name: Sir Vincent Odysseus Xavier Age: 18 Gender: Male Race: Caucasian Human
Sir Vincet attempts to enlist in the Navy (6 rolled, +1 for intelligence, equals 7), but is rejected. He then enters
the draft!
(5) He's drafted into the Merchant career.
First term of service: Survival roll 11+2=13. He lives! (Not that being a merchant is all that dangerous...) Commission: Not this time since Sir Vincent was drafted. Promotion: Same as above. Skills (Personal Development): 5 = Blade Cbt (Bayonet) Skills (Service Skills): 6 = Gun Cbt (Rifle) Re-enlistment: 5 (and he'll re-enlist) Age: 22
Second term of service: Survival: 9+2=11. No problem here. Commission: 6+1=7. Sir Vincent is now a 4th Officer! Promotion: 7+1=8. He gets no promotion this term. Skills (Personal Development): 6 = Bribery. Since he got ranked this term, Skills (Advanced Edu): 1 = Streetwise Re-enlistment: 10 (and he'll re-enlist) Age: 26
Third term of service: Survival: 6+2=8. Still alive! Promotion: 2+1=3. No promotion. Skills (Personal Development): 1 = +1 Strength Re-enlistment: 11 (and he'll re-enlist) Age: 30 UPP: A7AA7B
Fourth term of service: Survival: 4+2=6 (Whew!!!! Thank goodness for his intelligence.) Promotion: 6 Rats. Skills (Service Skills): 6 = Gun Cbt (Rifle-2) Re-enlistment: 6 (and he'll re-enlist Age: 34 Aging: 7, 2, 8 UPP: 96AA7B
Fifth term of service: Survival: 7+2=9 Survived. Promotion: 10+1=11 Yay! Sir Vincent is promoted to 3rd Officer. Skills (Personal Development): 3 = +1 Endurance Skills from promotion (Service Skills): 2 = Vacc Suit Re-enlistment: 6 (still going onward) Age: 38 Aging: 7, 11, 7 UPP: 869A7B
Sixth term of service: Survival: 7+2=9 Done. Promotion: 6+1=7 Not this time. Skills (Personal Development): Blade Cbt (Dagger) Re-enlistment: 3. Looks like the end of the road! Age: 42 Aging: 7, 7, 8 UPP: 769A7B
Mustering Out (6+1=7 total): Four benefits: 1 = Low Psg, 3 = +1 Edu, 4 = Gun (Gimme a rifle!), 2 = +1 Int Three cash: 6 = 40,000; 6 = 40,000; 6 = 40,000 (Holy crap!!!) UPP: 769B8B
Retirement: Cr6000
It looks like Sir Vincent is quite the moneybags!
Here's the summary:
Sir Vincent Odysseus Xavier (3rd Officer), 769B8B, Age 42, 6 terms, Cr 120,000 (Plus 6000 from retirement this year) Skills: Dagger-1, Bayonet-1, Rifle-2, Vacc Suit-1, Streetwise-1, Bribery-1 Possessions: Rifle, Low Psg ticket
Do you want us to go ahead and buy the rest of our equipment, or would you rather play that out in-game?
*edit* It looks like in term five I forgot to add the +1 Endurance. That makes his UPP 76AB8B.
Is there anywhere I could go to learn more about how to play traveler?
Edit: I could also ago ahead and play a very inexperienced play, anyways looking to his superiors for advice. That sounds like fun, too.
You can find the classic rulebooks reprinted brand new from Far Future Enterprises, or just hit up eBay for the old box set. (I simply traded my 3E books for a collection of Traveller.)
I imagine that just using an online character generator and having played any RPG before, that should be enough to get going.
Joined: Jul 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 65 Location: Corpus Christi, TX Karma: 7
Re: Traveller online game, any interest? « Reply #19 on Mar 7, 2010, 6:01pm »
Tom, it shouldn't be too difficult -- I'll try to explain rules and lay out choices clearly as we go. As I mentioned before, it's a learning process for me, too.
I've got four, so I'll go ahead and, er . . . initiate launch sequence, so to speak. I'll start a Game Introduction on Google Wave and invite everyone. Anyone who's participated in this thread but hasn't gotten a Google Wave invite (or given me your Google Wave contact info if you're already on), please do so. I'll keep following this thread.
But as always in my strange and roving existence, wonder soon drove out fear; for the luminous abyss and what it might contain presented a problem worthy of the greatest explorer. -H.P. Lovecraft, "The Nameless City"
I can see dice plus adds giving a little more flexibility in assigning weapon damage. I guess the apparent problem would be how it interacts with the wounding system, but making the add a separate wound seems like it would work fine.
This reminds me that I might tweak some of the numbers on the weapons chart. I'll say something if I do.
Personally, I much prefer the original weapon damages to the later whole dice version.
I wish I could play now, but I'm pretty much "full up" on games right now. I'm in 3 here and a Traveller game on Yahoogroups, as well as Reffing a Traveller and D&D game by email on my own mailing list.
Wave games don't really appeal to me...from the ones I've seen so far anyway. Call me old fashion, but I prefer running online games by email using a dedicated mailing-list. Running a game on a forum is my second choice. Something like Yahoogroups (email and/or forum) is good too, but I hate the ads/interface.
Kelmult Dwarven Fgt-2 Olaf, the very lucky...so far! Human Fgt-2 Yusuf Kamal(Chainmail & Shield: AC 4, MV 6, HD 1, XP: 0, hp 6. #AT 1. 1d8 Sword, 1d6 Bow, 1d4 dagger x 2. Lucky Amulet, rations, waterskin x 2. GP: 0. [gold necklace & jewelry case with a few silver rings & bracelets...est. 70 gp])
The tricky part with dealing with the adds in wounding is how a subtraction works (there were a couple subtractions as I recall). An add is easy to treat as a die.
One could handle a subtraction of -N by subtracting one from each of the N highest (or lowest) dice and distributing as normal.
I do it by subtracting from highest die...but only from the highest die down to zero. So, with a Body Pistol (I think) with a damage of something like 2d-5, I'd have the player (or I'd) roll 2d6 getting, forex, 4 & 3, subtract 5 from the 4 making it 0 and call that 3 points was done to 1 attribute. That way *some* damage was done on all "hits."
Kelmult Dwarven Fgt-2 Olaf, the very lucky...so far! Human Fgt-2 Yusuf Kamal(Chainmail & Shield: AC 4, MV 6, HD 1, XP: 0, hp 6. #AT 1. 1d8 Sword, 1d6 Bow, 1d4 dagger x 2. Lucky Amulet, rations, waterskin x 2. GP: 0. [gold necklace & jewelry case with a few silver rings & bracelets...est. 70 gp])
The tricky part with dealing with the adds in wounding is how a subtraction works (there were a couple subtractions as I recall). An add is easy to treat as a die.
One could handle a subtraction of -N by subtracting one from each of the N highest (or lowest) dice and distributing as normal.
I do it by subtracting from highest die...but only from the highest die down to zero. So, with a Body Pistol (I think) with a damage of something like 2d-5, I'd have the player (or I'd) roll 2d6 getting, forex, 4 & 3, subtract 5 from the 4 making it 0 and call that 3 points was done to 1 attribute. That way *some* damage was done on all "hits."
Body Pistol is 3D-8. (and Carbine is 4D-8). How would you handle that? Also, Hooves at 2D-6 might as well be simplified to 1D (and Stinger at 3D-6 to 2D).
Joined: Jul 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 65 Location: Corpus Christi, TX Karma: 7
Re: Traveller online game, any interest? « Reply #25 on Mar 8, 2010, 10:46pm »
Just as a general advisory to anyone who might read this thread, I'm calling the game full at 4 players. (Apeloverage, if you're out there, I sent you a PM. Basically, I need your contact info to add you to the game wave.) We'll see how it goes.
As for the weapon damage debate that has sprouted up separately, I definitely wouldn't touch subtractions. I wonder if anyone has tried using different die types for damage? d4s would be an easy way to handle low-damage weapons. The higher die types could make even the toughest characters susceptible to one-hit takedowns -- good or bad?
But as always in my strange and roving existence, wonder soon drove out fear; for the luminous abyss and what it might contain presented a problem worthy of the greatest explorer. -H.P. Lovecraft, "The Nameless City"
Joined: Jul 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,503 Karma: 57
Re: Traveller online game, any interest? « Reply #26 on Mar 8, 2010, 11:35pm »
Or you could just go with the second edition, where each weapon is listed with its damage as a whole number of dice. That seems to me to work the best.
(Not that I'm trying to dissuade anyone from playing the original version, of course. It's just that for the purposes of this game, the discussion is moot.)
But as always in my strange and roving existence, wonder soon drove out fear; for the luminous abyss and what it might contain presented a problem worthy of the greatest explorer. -H.P. Lovecraft, "The Nameless City"
Body Pistol is 3D-8. (and Carbine is 4D-8). How would you handle that? Also, Hooves at 2D-6 might as well be simplified to 1D (and Stinger at 3D-6 to 2D).
Frank
Yeah, that's right...my 1st edition books are at home stored away.
Hum, I don't know. I guess I'd take the 8 or 6 or whatever from the total before applying it...I can't remember what I actually did back in 1977, 78. I do remember I re-did the tables and dropped the minus numbers, but kept some plus numbers, fairly soon after we started playing.
One thing I've often wondered about is whether Marc and Frank didn't originally intend for the 3 Physical Characteristics to be added together and used like Hit Points, and then changed their minds halfway through writing the book. I know Traveller often gets house-ruled to work somewhat like that.
Kelmult Dwarven Fgt-2 Olaf, the very lucky...so far! Human Fgt-2 Yusuf Kamal(Chainmail & Shield: AC 4, MV 6, HD 1, XP: 0, hp 6. #AT 1. 1d8 Sword, 1d6 Bow, 1d4 dagger x 2. Lucky Amulet, rations, waterskin x 2. GP: 0. [gold necklace & jewelry case with a few silver rings & bracelets...est. 70 gp])
Body Pistol is 3D-8. (and Carbine is 4D-8). How would you handle that? Also, Hooves at 2D-6 might as well be simplified to 1D (and Stinger at 3D-6 to 2D).
Frank
Yeah, that's right...my 1st edition books are at home stored away.
Hum, I don't know. I guess I'd take the 8 or 6 or whatever from the total before applying it...I can't remember what I actually did back in 1977, 78. I do remember I re-did the tables and dropped the minus numbers, but kept some plus numbers, fairly soon after we started playing.
I think the idea was that most of the time the weapon does almost no damage at all, but sometimes it does quite a bit. Unfortunately, the implementation was a bit buggy.
I recall subtracting 8 pips from the dice, starting from the lowest die. For example, if the shooter rolled 5, 4, 3, I'd eliminate the 3 and 4 die, and take one from the 5. I think I may also have houseruled that the weapon did a minimum of 1, but it would depend on how "rules lawyer-y" I was feeling at the time. You could also subtract the pips from the top down (giving a 1 and a 3 in the above example, and thus less liable to put any one stat to zero), but I'd prefer to keep SOME "bite" to the weapon.
As in real life, Body Pistols are best suited as a threat toward opponents that are aware, sober, and at least reasonably acquainted with the twin ideas of firearms and that poking holes in the anatomy, even small ones, is generally a bad idea.
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I do remember I re-did the tables and dropped the minus numbers, but kept some plus numbers, fairly soon after we started playing. 