Traveller as a Universal Game System

[Wothbora]

Just checking in... I haven't posted since April (but have been reading daily and keeping up with the group). I've played OD&D with my son several times, but caught the "Traveller Fever" after buying the PDF's of the first 3 Little Black Books.

As much as I like OD&D I am finding that Classic Traveller is something equally as great. I've discovered that Classic Traveller (CT from here on out) really packs a punch and is an elegant little system that really works (and is also great for homebrewing). I can mix and match Technology Levels without creating an unbalanced system of resolution and also use the statistical aspect of characters for saving rolls with a bit of modification (subtracting Stats from the F base [F being the equivalent of 15 using the Base 16 method of numbering] and trying to roll over the result with Damage Modifiers.

I recently ran a Cthuhlu World War II one-shot with my son. It worked better than CoC or BRP and was less intrusive of a system than just about anything I've run (except OD&D). Oh, and the horror in my son's eleven year old eyes when he discovered the child that the Nazi's had locked away in a monastery was really a horrid tentacled beast that could only be killed by the self sacrifice by one of the NPCs who he'd really grown to depend upon. Honestly, probably one of the best one-shots we've had together.

I haven't really gotten into the Sci-Fi apsect of CT as much as using it as a mechanism to run modern, 1700's and mixed technology settings. Long story short, I am finding that I am turning to using CT for one-shots with my son and using OD&D for our campaigns.

That being, I am working on using various SRD's and awaiting the upcoming Mongoose Traveller SRD to create a Gritty Medieval Setting (sorry, no magic). I'll post a link on this thread once I'm "legal" with using only SRD's and not inserting anything that'd be considered a violation of copyright. I'm not developing a Magic System with what I'm working on, but the whole thing will be OGL so you'll be able to modify it and use it however you see fit (heck, you can even package and sell what you make when your done with OGL). I am including ancient guns, cannons and such so it'll be more realistic (and yes, life is cheap as there aren't character "levels" and character's depends more on CON or Endurance Stats for HP's).

Character creation is similar to CT and "older and more mature" characters are created with backgrounds. For those who like more control there is a "Buy" system of acquiring skills, and even an option for "pick-n-choose." Still, a lot of this aspect must wait until the final Mongoose Traveller SRD is released and depends on what makes the SRD and what doesn't.. Although it includes "Classes" of a sort, it still is more skill based like CT was.

It's a Skill Based System so it won't be everyone's thing, but still, it'll be a freebie that you can add to your PDF collection (once the SRD's finalize and my project is finished). Oh yeah, it is entirely 2d6 (except for damage when variations of d6's come into play).

Ha, like anyone who's read my posts would have to ask if it is 2d6 or not...

[makofan]

I had a magic/D&D character generation for Traveller I posted here (at least the outline of it) but it looks like the post was deleted

[coffee]

So, when you say Classic Traveller, are you talking about the 3 books, or do you include later rules?

Always seemed to me that Traveller jumped the shark with Book 4, Mercenary. (But that's just me.)

[makofan]

Yah, Book 4 and Book 5 basically are like adding Greyhawk to OD&D

[Finarvyn]

Jun 24, 2008 13:52:36 GMT -6 makofan said:

I had a magic/D&D character generation for Traveller I posted here (at least the outline of it) but it looks like the post was deleted

Strange. I don't recall deleting anything like that. Indeed, I can't imagine why I would delete anything like that. And I am quite sorry if I did so.

As far as "Fantasy Traveller" goes, there is a Fantasy Traveller thread where some gamers are discussing this very topic.

I'm not sure if they were inspired by this image, but a guy in Germany created a fake "Fantasy Traveller" box and book covers he called Wanderer. Apparently, he owns a game store in Germany and was hoping to generate some interest in Traveller, so he made up a dummy box and books and put them on the shelf next to the Traveller stuff. He says that nobody ever asked about it or said "hey, a fantasy version of Traveller!"

I'd love to have one of those!

I even played with a graphic I created that looks like what he did, and everything!

ALERT: There is no such game!

[busman]

Jun 24, 2008 14:44:28 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

ALERT: There is no such game!

WANT!

[jrients]

Jun 24, 2008 14:33:51 GMT -6 coffee said:

So, when you say Classic Traveller, are you talking about the 3 books, or do you include later rules?

Always seemed to me that Traveller jumped the shark with Book 4, Mercenary. (But that's just me.)

You are not alone. Expanded careers and High Guard 300 kiloton warships do nothing for me.

Wanderer might not exist, but there was a licensed fantasy game based upon MegaTraveller's mechanics. It was called Aldreth and I've seen a free PDF available somewhere on the net.

[dwayanu]

That's a cool image!

Although this is explicitly a board for OD&D fanatics, I'm not afraid to admit that Traveller eclipsed the original RPG in my interest right away, and continued to do so for years.

I think the appeal of the Third Imperium setting came to obscure the game's tremendous flexibility. IIRC, when someone wrote an article for Different Worlds magazine on the "alternate universes" campaign scheme later treated in Fringeworthy -- Traveller was the primary recommendation as a rules basis.

The overall scheme of the game actually strikes me as more faithful to classic "sword and sorcery" fiction series than D&D's "getting better all the time" (which at the time evoked for me nothing so much as video games).

[Finarvyn]

I wish I was familiar enough with CT or the new Mongoose Traveller to put together a fantasy version. Maybe if someone gives it a shot they would post their stuff here for us to play with.

Hmmm. Maybe if I get bored after my current project is finished.... :-)

[kesher]

Hey, Makofan. I remember your thread quite well; I think I even commented on it. Is it written up anywhere else? Any chance you could post it again in this thread? I think it spoke pretty clearly to the "universal" (hey! it's a pun!) nature of the core Traveller system.

[makofan]

I really wish I could find my 30 handwritten pages on it when I developed it. ^Maybe I'll work on it this summer

[dwayanu]

I still have (sans box) Chaosium's Thieves' World set based on the seminal "shared world" fantasy anthology series.

The Traveller write-ups served as a meet reminder that literary magic is not made up of pigeons fit for rigidly defined game-mechanical boxes.

(TW is also the only memory jogger I have left as to what Arneson's "other" published RPG was like.)

[Finarvyn]

I think that Sieg on Dragonsfoot did a Traveller-style character creation for either AD&D or C&C. I'll bet if I hunt around on DF I can find it...


EDIT:

Ha!

I found the reference on DF by Sieg, in which he links to another site where his rules are posted. Of course, it turns out that the link led me to an "error" message, but I was determined and eventually I found the appropriate thread here on this thread in Grognard's Tavern.

I win!

[makofan]

Ah yes, he did the detailed (Book4/5) style in a highly original way. Well done! I'll attempt to resurrect my Classic Traveller one also

[Thorulfr]

Jun 24, 2008 13:13:59 GMT -6 Wothbora said:

I haven't really gotten into the Sci-Fi apsect of CT as much as using it as a mechanism to run modern, 1700's and mixed technology settings.

This is actually very appropriate. Over on the TML, it has been noted that the 'universe' setting implied by the CT rules is very akin to the "Age of Sail" in an 'island hopping' area like the Carribean. Even the 'flat', 2-D star array reinforces this.

(Was an avid Traveller player/referee back in the day. While I never really got into High Guard, my group and I loved Mercenary. I guess we were all ground-pounders at heart.)

[jrmapes]

Jun 25, 2008 1:23:06 GMT -6 dwayanu said:

I still have (sans box) Chaosium's Thieves' World set based on the seminal "shared world" fantasy anthology series.

The Traveller write-ups served as a meet reminder that literary magic is not made up of pigeons fit for rigidly defined game-mechanical boxes.

In the TW set, either 1st ed or 2nd ed boxset there were a number of pages of how to convert back and forth between Traveller and TW which in combo with the ingame tech levels and wide range of weapon data, by adding TW you could according to the material, play your traveller character in a fantasy holographic enviorment.

But nothing ever limited it to a holoworld. with a little tinkering you could easily have a full blown game in any time period or genre with traveller - with or sans magic.

gotta love the Traveller openess like OD&D, especially the the LBB 1-3 - just as OD&D.

It is no wonder that OD&D and Traveller are tied for #1 in my favorite games of all times.

Jerry

[Thorulfr]

By the way - Finarvyn:

1) You have way too much time on your hands, a fact for which we are all extremely grateful.

2) If anyone ever DOES put together an OGL version like this, I'll bet you could sell a few of the box-and-book-cover sets so we can all staple the pages into them.
...just a thought, now... No pressure...

Edit: Dang, checking the image properties, I see it links to a blog in Germany...
...OK, I wonder if he plans to actually sell those mockups.

[coffee]

Jun 25, 2008 14:27:22 GMT -6 Thorulfr said:

By the way - Finarvyn:

1) You have way too much time on your hands, a fact for which we are all extremely grateful.

2) If anyone ever DOES put together an OGL version like this, I'll bet you could sell a few of the box-and-book-cover sets so we can all staple the pages into them.
...just a thought, now... No pressure...

Edit: Dang, checking the image properties, I see it links to a blog in Germany...
...OK, I wonder if he plans to actually sell those mockups.

We could ask him. Anybody speak German?

[Thorulfr]

Jun 25, 2008 16:00:39 GMT -6 coffee said:

We could ask him. Anybody speak German?

Nur ein bißchen (just a little)
Of course - judging from the text in the mockup, I'll wager his English is pretty good.

[doc]

That Wanderer mock-up just blows me away. It just screams old School coolness. I found (on the same thread that Fin found the photo) a link to a set of rules for making fantasy characters with Traveller rules, so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put together Wanderer, a 70's style sword & sorcery game with the Traveller rules set and mentality.

The game will focus on characters that are older, wiser, and more experienced than starting characters found in games like D&D. The world will be darker and more gritty as befits a true S&S backdrop. I'm thinking that it's going to look something like the Black Company novel series.

And yes, it will be possible for characters to die during CharGen. Survival in a bleak and godless world is never a sure thing.

I'm going to run it by my players tomorrow night and see if I can have an adventure ready to go by the July 4th holiday.

Doc

[Finarvyn]

Jun 25, 2008 19:28:22 GMT -6 doc said:

That Wanderer mock-up just blows me away. It just screams old School coolness. I found (on the same thread that Fin found the photo) a link to a set of rules for making fantasy characters with Traveller rules, so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put together Wanderer, a 70's style sword & sorcery game with the Traveller rules set and mentality.

I put together a 15-page rules set similar to what you suggest (probably using the same fantasy rules from the thread) and using my Wanderer graphic. Problem is that I'm not familiar enough with Traveller to really know what it's lacking in order to be somewhat complete.

Have to dig out the little black books...

[dwayanu]

In my experience, the main thing is to come up with appropriate skills (because you'll be cutting a number from the list), and then to draw up career tables.

Slings, bows and crossbows are defined in Supplement 4. There was an article (part of a scenario series) in Challenge magazine listing additional weapons and armor for medieval TLs, but I think it was for MegaTraveller. I have simply substituted similar things (e.g., mesh for mail), sometimes with a 1- or 2-point DM.

I liked Striker a lot, but generally found it more work than it was worth to design vehicles. On the rare occasions when tanks or the like figured in a role-playing scenario, I "eyeballed" the odds of different results. Mostly I looked for 20th-century functional equivalents and then factored in TL differences.

That kind of approach generally works well for me. Great detail in rules tends to create an expectation that new things should be just as carefully defined. That can greatly slow down the game if new things (or even a wide variety of things) come up often. That really came home to me in "universe hopping" (a la Heinlein's Glory Road, for example) games!

[Thorulfr]

The first question to ask about this (hopefully soon NOT to be-) hypothetical game 'Wanderer', is "what is the setting to be?"

The box art and the title of the 'Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society' stand-in "The Scrolls of Skelos" clearly imply a Conan-esque Hyborean setting, though the titles of some of the later 'Skelos' issues hint more at late-medieval.

Perhaps we should assume that the original 'Wanderer', like the black box Traveller, was a setting-free toolkit for creating any sort of fantasy campaign, and it was only later that the "Hyborea" really started to solidify.

So, should this be broadly compatible with Classic Traveller, or should it be more focused on possible fantasy backgrounds? In other words, do we leave the range of 'Tech Level' intact, or do we alter the range to fit the fantasy theme?

In CT, Tech Level (TL) 0 is the stone age; TL1 is about the level of Ancient Rome; TL2 is the late Medieval to the early Renaissance; TL3 is the late Renaissance through the 'Age of Enlightenment', TL4 is the Steam Age (mid 19th century); TL5 goes through WWI to the 1930s ('Full Metal Alchemist' territory)... and after that any application to fantasy starts to break down (unless you want to have modern or near-future campaigns like "Buffy" or "The Dresden Files", which admittedly could be interesting.)

It would not be too difficult to apply the traveller stats for star systems to villages, towns, and city-states: just ditch the first three stats ('size', 'atmosphere', and 'hydrographic percentage'), and tweak the Government Type and Law Level a bit, but by how much should Tech Level be adjusted? What sort of stories/settings are you going to eliminate? Full Metal Alchemist? Deadlands? "Pirates of the Caribbean"?

[Finarvyn]

Ah, and I see a game like Wanderer as a setting-free thing, much the way that OD&D was setting-free.

My thought would be to include the generic races (elf, dwarf, hob---afling) amd basic classes (fighter, thief, cleric, magic-user) but not to try to tie it to a specific setting. That way anyone could use it for their own campaigns.

[Thorulfr]

Jun 26, 2008 12:21:08 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Ah, and I see a game like Wanderer as a setting-free thing, much the way that OD&D was setting-free.

Ahh, I see the thrust of my questions got lost amongst the wool-gathering. My main question is 'what limits do we put on "Fantasy"?' Do we limit the rules to CT's TL 3, possibly stretching that range out so it fits a 0-12 or even 0-15 range; or do we leave the full sweep of technologies intact, letting referees use the 'fantasy' rules in "magitech" space-age settings if they so desire?

[coffee]

Clarke's Law springs to mind...

[Thorulfr]

Jun 26, 2008 13:14:36 GMT -6 coffee said:

Clarke's Law springs to mind...

Traveller Tech level 15-16 is starting to seriously bump up against Clarke's Law.

I seem to recall that one of the published adventures - "Divine Intervention" - required the players to impersonate gods, using high tech wizardry and effects to convince the locals... I forget what they were trying to acomplish, though.

[Finarvyn]

Oh, I'd probably cut it off with TL3, as a general rule. While I love "age of steam" stuff, it doesn't usually fit in the generic fantasy environment most of the time.

[doc]

I would definitely keep it at a maximum of TL3.

It would be very important to have a system that would allow you to create fully-fleshed commulites from tiny villages, to towns, to cities and city-states, all the way up to (cruel and oppressive) empires, all with equal style and detail, much like the world-builder system they had in Traveller.

You would definitely need to expand the weapons selection, although not to a staggering degree. You would need to show exactly what weapons are available in what areas. Detailing the weapons in terms of damage and capability should come second: in most S&S fantasy, a skilled warrior can do about as much damage with a sword, spear, or mace. As a matter of fact, the amount of damage a character can do should be more a reflection of the character's level and melee skill than a funciton of the weapon itself. This would balance out character choices a bit: a character who keeps rolling on the profession table might end up with a character who is skilled enough to do more damage with his weapons, but at the cost of starting play as an older hero with significantly less life ahead of him.

I would make the classes reflect sword & sorcery character tropes. You would be looking at:

Assassin: Skilled in the arts of sudden death, the assassin might be a guilded professional, or a rogue with a Death Mark on his head.

Noble: Belonging to an influential house or order, the noble adventures either at the behest of his family or to further his own ends.

Savage: A character skilled at surviving in the wild and far tougher than civilized folk. He might be a barbarian, or raised by wolves.

Sellsword: A travelling (wandering) warrior who makes his living by the skill of his blades. He rarely stays in one place long.

Sorcerer: Having entered into a pact to gain great arcane powers, the sorcerer might be good or evil, but will be feared wherever he treads.

Thief: The ultimate freebooter who lives off his wits and agility. The thief is streetwise and well-connected, living his life one step ahead of the Law.

Just some ideas that I'm kicking around.

Doc

[dwayanu]

Why add dwarves, elves and hobbits? The basic Traveller set does not specify nonhuman characters! As it's not a "Star Trek" game, the fantasy version should not be a "Middle Earth" game IMO.

Six "services," as in the original, seems a proper number. Remember that particular skills define the character's expertise -- so "classes" a la D&D may not be such a good fit.

Classic S&S fiction overwhelmingly pits swordsmen against sorcerers. I suggest treating "magic" much as "psionics" are in Traveller. If you want be a magician, pursue that course (by entering the game) while young. It's not something to take for granted.

As S&S protagonists tend to be "jacks of many trades," such distinctions as mercenary vs. thief vs. assassin in the "services" might be counter-productive.

An alternative might be different geographic / cultural origins. A Northern Barbarian, a Civilized man, a Jungle Savage, and Nomads of the Steppes and of the Deserts might all have different spreads of skill results. Whether one is a noble or a commoner properly depends on the Social Standing characteristic.