Traveller and Sorcerer blend

[Finarvyn]

I know that Sorcerer by Ron Edwards is a love-it-or-hate-it game, but I came across a thread on The Forge about a guy who is running a Traveller campaign based on the rules system for Sorcerer.

Part of what is interesting in this thread is a link to a 50-page PDF of his campaign rules that you can download. Of course, if you're not interested in Sorcerer these rules won't be that interesting to you, either.....

[coffee]

Goes to show how you can take any proper old school game and do anything you want with it!

[snorri]

I re-tead my old traveller a few days ago and was striked how close it is from chainmail. 2d6 basis, table to hit by weapons vs armor,... I was even asking myself if it couln't be done traveller-like career system for od&d, giving older characters with a few skills.... any idea about this?

[Deleted]

Doable. You could even extend a base skill set or two to level 1 players because characters in a fantasy conceivably started work earlier in life; whereas participants in a modern or post-modern milieu would have spent those same years in school.


Edited to include "level 1" in second sentence

[dwayanu]

The Forge site is down for maintenance, so I'll check it out later.

a guy who is running a Traveller campaign based on the rules system for Sorcerer
Goes to show how you can take any proper old school game and do anything you want with it!

This is either the first time I've seen Sorcerer called "old school," or yet another case of equating Traveller with setting. Would Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms mean a D&D campaign played with Sword & Sorcerer? Or would it be an S&S game set there?

It's an especially weird question of definitions when one early got used to playing in campaigns in which the rules were a hybrid of different sets.

The GURPS and d20 versions of Traveller emulate many sub-systems from the original game. I think the most significant procedural differences are in character creation, considering how many combat variants are in the Classic Trav line itself. A lot of the same basic concepts are there, expressed with different numbers. Yet the cumulative effect is to me non-Traveller.

Many, I expect, had a similar response to "3E" D&D and even more strongly to "4E." Sean K. Reynolds, who was involved with 3E and is involved with "retro-clone" Pathfinder, a while ago took 4E heavily to task for messing with monster names and descriptions and thus with 30 years of tradition. One of his beefs was with Eladrin, beings introduced in the 2E Planescape product line and so unfamiliar to one who had stopped caring about new D&D material by then. I can agree with him on such points, but hardly consider 3E innocent of similar charges and disagree with the notion that 3E was the same old game, only better.

Have we reached the point at which (to borrow new-school jargon) "fluff" means more than "crunch" in defining an RPG? I note that the former constitutes much more secure "intellectual property."

[snorri]

Feb 4, 2009 15:40:10 GMT -6 @dubeers said:

Doable. You could even extend a base skill set or two to players because characters in a fantasy conceivably started work earlier in life; whereas participants in a modern or post-modern milieu would have spent those same years in school.

Yep, I will tinker something soon...

[Finarvyn]

Feb 4, 2009 16:00:46 GMT -6 dwayanu said:

...another case of equating Traveller with setting. Would Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms mean a D&D campaign played with Sword & Sorcerer? Or would it be an S&S game set there?

It's an especially weird question of definitions when one early got used to playing in campaigns in which the rules were a hybrid of different sets.

An interesting point, since OD&D was originally a setting-less system and the original Traveller was as well. Only later did companies realize that they could sell you rules and setting together.

As far as the Sorcerer-Traveller hybrid goes, clearly the author is using Traveller as a setting since he is superimposing a different rules set onto the game environment.

But I don't see that Traveller has to be a single setting. More than that, to me Traveller is an attitude.
* Scifi ships and projectile guns.
* Buying a starship on credit, then taking years to pay it off.
* Occasional high-tech lasers to add flavor.
* Human-centered adventure without cheezy aliens.
* No magic and hardly any psionic powers. Maybe none at all.

Traveller is a lot like the new Battlestar Galactica in terms of gritty scifi instead of flashy rayguns as seen in the 1970's version of BSG. Traveller is Firefly. Traveller is a bunch of folks trying to carve a living in a futuristic but tough lifestyle.

For that reason, the specific rules used never really bothered me. I have the original black book set, the GURPS rules, and the new Mongoose book and all are "Traveller" to me in one form or another becasue they have those same "attitude" elements.

Just my two galactobucks.

[dwayanu]

Dog men, cat men, horse men, newt men, psychic powered commie Oriental looking villain men ... no, not "cheesy" at all!

A different "attitude" (Ron Edwards' rather than Marc Miller's), a different concept of what the game is "about," is the reason for the change to Sorcerer. ("I'm so falling in love with the fiction and details these guys have made up so far I'm almost afraid to play for fear of screwing it all up!")

When the character sheets have nothing in common except "name" and "age," I think it's fair enough to say we're talking about different games!

My view: Call FTL: 2448, or 2300 A.D., or any game, by its own name, and call a setting by its own name.

I really don't want to end up with original Traveller or original D&D being considered "less" or even "not" Traveller or D&D.

[Deleted]

I dunno. I just don't "get" Sorcerer at all, and can't see why it would make a good SciFi rules set. Traveller may be an "attitude" but it's an Old School thing and Sorcerer is about as non-OS as you get.

Thumbs down, I say. :-|