Joined: Jul 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 65 Location: Corpus Christi, TX Karma: 7
Traveller online game, any interest? « Thread Started on Mar 3, 2010, 11:34pm »
Hi, just thought I'd fire a shot over the bow (is that the right metaphor?) and see if there's any interest around here in an online Traveller game. I've got photocopies of the first 3 books and a bunch of auto-generated subsectors from Isomage's website, and I'd like to try out some planet-hopping adventure, at the very least just to be able to say I've played Traveller. Maybe on Google Wave (I've got a ton of unused invites). Anyone interested, or have an opinion about whether it's even workable?
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"
Teleleli; the people, places, gods and monsters of the great city of Teleleli and the islands around.
chgowiz Guest
Re: Traveller online game, any interest? « Reply #3 on Mar 4, 2010, 9:12am »
@coffee - I've been doing an AD&D wave game and it's worked out well. I keep the waves neat and clean and it's somewhat more flexible than a forum based PbP.
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"
@coffee - I've been doing an AD&D wave game and it's worked out well. I keep the waves neat and clean and it's somewhat more flexible than a forum based PbP.
You're just bound and determined to drag me, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century, aren't you?
Oh, well. If I have to do it, it's best that I do it for Science Fiction.
Hey, Billhooks, which edition do you have? There were two, one from 1977 and one from 1981. (I'm just curious; I have both myself and there isn't much difference between them.)
Joined: Jul 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 65 Location: Corpus Christi, TX Karma: 7
Re: Traveller online game, any interest? « Reply #10 on Mar 5, 2010, 3:21pm »
@coffee: Looks like I've got the '81 edition. Any interesting differences?
@greentongue: Nice deck plans! I might could use those.
In any case, I can probably get the ball rolling seriously next week. This may be a bit amateur hour, since I'm new to both Traveller AND Google Wave, so I'll ask for a little patience and indulgence. Anyone who's still interested, email me at danderroons@gmail.com and let me know if you need a Google Wave invite.
In the meantime, feel free to make up characters, either the hard way or with the extremely convenient online character generator: http://www.signalgk.com/cgi-bin/ctcg.pl Set the "Career" selector to "Any Book 1", make as many as you like and pick one who isn't dead. If you don't own the game, feel free to post your character here and ask any questions you may have about what on earth all those numbers mean. (As a starting hint, the six-digit code is Strength-Dexterity-Endurance-Intelligence-Education-Social Standing. Higher is better, 'A' is 10 and 'B' is 11)
The setting is a galactic Empire of Man that is decaying into disconnection and barbarism, tenuously held together by the esprit-de-corps of an Imperial military service and the class feeling of an aristocratic system like that of pre-industrial Europe. Long ago, there was an "Age of the Gods" in which mankind spread to the stars, indulging in widespread genetic alteration, at first to adapt human beings and animals to different life conditions, then increasingly for ideological and even frivolous purposes. The result is a Star Wars-esque variety of humanoid and animaloid "aliens", most of which don't need any particular special rules. What this boils down to is that if you want your guy to have blue skin and horns or something -- that's fine, he does, no biggie. If you want to have some kind of distinctive alien ability, ask about it -- it might could replace one of your rolled skills.
The default mode of adventure is travelling from planet to planet, taking dangerous jobs to get enough money to finance a ship, at which point you've got a whole new thing going on. You might sound off as to whether it's important to you to get to the "we've got a ship" stage quickly, or if you don't care so much about that.
That should be enough to give people the idea. Any questions, ask away!
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"
@coffee: Looks like I've got the '81 edition. Any interesting differences?
Bits and bobs, really. There are no references to the Imperium, for one. Weapons tended to do dice plus adds, instead of whole dice (they changed that to better conform to the combat system, I believe). In Book 3, there's a table to determine the trade routes between systems that was left out of the second edition. Starship and small craft are changed somewhat, but not really significantly.
Anyway, you can expect an email from me asking for the google wave invite.
Joined: Jul 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 65 Location: Corpus Christi, TX Karma: 7
Re: Traveller online game, any interest? « Reply #12 on Mar 6, 2010, 12:18am »
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.
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: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 505 Karma: 15
Re: Traveller online game, any interest? « Reply #13 on Mar 7, 2010, 1:26am »
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.
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