Traveller as a Universal Game System

[Thorulfr]

Taking a look at me tattered copies of Book 1 and Supplement 4 (Citizens of the Imperium), what about something like this?:

Book 1 professions:
Warrior
Soldier
Sailor
Merchant
Hunter
Thief

In addition, we need some of the more mystical classes:

Shaman
Temple Priest
Wizard




Supplement 4 professions:

Engineer
Bureaucrat
Farmer
Drover
Senator/Politician
Nobleman
Philosopher
Slaver
Knight
Explorer
Brigand (?)
Diplomat (?)
Alchemist (?)

Looking at the original COTI, one of the professions listed was the 'Barbarian' (someone from a low-tech world), which would give a good template to consider.

I'm not sure what to do about the stat 'Education'; should this be interpreted as 'formal education', or a general indication of 'wisdom' and 'life experience'? If the former, then it's scale would either have to be radically re-interpreted (and then what to do with characters like the Priest, Philosopher, or Alchemist, whose "book learning" would be off the chart compared to almost everyone else in society?), or the roll would have to depend on the tech level and type of society (maybe 2d6-9, and the only plusses come during the rolls on the skill chart )?

Here is a first stab at an expanded Tech Level chart that runs from 0-12:

0 - No tech. No use of fire, no modifying objects to make them tools.
1 - Paleolithic. Simple use of stone tools.
2 - Neolithic. Flake tools, microliths. Horticulture; the beginnings of agriculture.
3 - Copper age. Egypt. Metal found in free deposits, beginnings of smelting. Full agriculture, irrigation.
4 - Early Bronze Age. Crete, Homeric Greece. Early smelting and alloys.
5 - Late Bronze Age. Classical/Late Greece
6 - Early iron Age. Early Rome, late Celts, early 'Dark Ages'
7 - Iron Age. Early Medieval. Steel
8 - Iron Age. Rome at its height.
9 - Medieval
10 - 'High Middle Ages' (ca. 1300)
11 - Early Renaissance (ca. 1450)
12 - Late Renaissance (ca. 1500-600?). Gunpowder? Rapier

Let me poke around a bit and start plugging different inventions in to get a better feel. I apologise for the Eurocentric feel, but that's the region of history with which I am most familiar.

[Thorulfr]

Jun 27, 2008 15:58:49 GMT -6 dwayanu said:

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.

The classic 'magician/wizard' was apprenticed young and studied long and hard. Having a set 'profession' for magic users would let them make the roll at the start. The "-1 per term" rule would then only apply to characters that are trying to learn magic when coming to it later in life.

Speakign of which, the starting age would need to be changed - more likely to 14, rather than 18. Remember that Traveller was a product of the Vietnam era, when everyone was in high school until they were 18, and then if you weren't in college, you were probably going to get drafted by the time you were 19.

[dwayanu]

It is very much to the point of my suggestion that sorcerers should not simply be "rolled up" as player-characters. They are rare in S&S fiction, and rarer still as protagonists. Nor are they of a "cookie cutter" mould, being more faithfully represented as unique in their powers -- which can be vastly greater than those of a swordsman.

I believe most strongly that it should be incumbent upon any player desiring such an exotic and significant role to attain it the hard way, through apprenticeship and quests.

[Thorulfr]

Jun 27, 2008 18:04:39 GMT -6 dwayanu said:

They are rare in S&S fiction, and rarer still as protagonists. Nor are they of a "cookie cutter" mould, being more faithfully represented as unique in their powers -- which can be vastly greater than those of a swordsman.

I believe most strongly that it should be incumbent upon any player desiring such an exotic and significant role to attain it the hard way, through apprenticeship and quests.

That is inherent in the CT rules, with the 'enlistment' roll. Put the number very high, and only a lucky few with good enough stats to get bonuses will be able to start their careers being apprenticed to the local hedge wizard or alchemist. If they fail that, then they are faced with the option of staying in another career to gain useful skills, hoping to find training later, but every term weakens any magical ability they might have had.
This aspect can really be chalked up to the feel of the game that the referee wants. Remember, the idea here is to create a toolkit that the referee can use to customize the game he wants to play. Wizards rare? Nudge the enlistment roll higher, or eliminate it entirely. Wizards that adopt their pupils young and foster their skills? Keep the enlistment roll in the realm of possibility.

[dwayanu]

I guess I don't see the point of that exercise in the context of "Traveller as a universal game system." Why ignore the magic (i.e. psionics) rules already there? That's an unnecessary step away from respecting the distinctive character of the game.

Perhaps it's a misunderstanding on my part in thinking that the experiment focused on the conceit of Traveller having actually been issued by GDW as a fantasy game. If that is the intent, then it seems meet to reflect the actual designers' choices as far as possible.

In contrast to D&D, which (at my first thought, anyhow) offers no clear analog to a space-travel approach, Traveller presents a clear analog to sorcery. It also has precedents in seminal fiction, the influence of which upon the SF concepts in Traveller is profound. The fellows in GDW had their own tastes; should not such a hypothetical product reflect those as best we can extrapolate them?

[Thorulfr]

Jun 27, 2008 19:17:02 GMT -6 dwayanu said:

I guess I don't see the point of that exercise in the context of "Traveller as a universal game system." Why ignore the magic (i.e. psionics) rules already there? That's an unnecessary step away from respecting the distinctive character of the game.

Quite the contrary, I am assuming that the magic rules will be based upon the Traveller psionics rules - the only difference is that I am positing a universe (or the possibility of a universe), where that training is available to a select few from a young age...

...just like the Zhodani.

So I am not stepping away from Traveller at all.

edit:
The reason the psionics rules are set up the way they are was because of a conscious decision early on at GDW to limit them as much as possible, because if they were at all common, it would inevitably produce drastic changes in society - changes that would make adventuring (with all its attendant lying, cheating, and subterfuge) very difficult. Since we are going to be playing in a world where magic already exists, the imperative to limit it is only a stylistic one.

[dwayanu]

I am sure that what you produce shall be interesting!

[sham]

This is a great thread so far. I skimmed it a few days ago, and went and found my Traveller LBB, grabbing C&C to look it over.

I had forgotten how great the Traveller character creation system is. The rules are very concise and sensible, and I must admit it never crossed my mind to use Traveller as a S&S game.

This is such a worthy idea, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this shakes out.

It might be the perfect system for my post cataclysm, man-stands-alone, second bronze age fantasy setting. Please keep it going. I don't have the time right now to go through those LBB, but I plan to do so next week.

I prefer Dwayanu's suggestion of human only, and no (possibly rare) magic using characters, but the details could be fine tuned once a basic system was sorted out.

Awesome stuff; this board never ceases to inspire me.

[makofan]

I actually started work on recreating my notes from 25 years ago. They should be done sometime in July

[Thorulfr]

Jun 27, 2008 20:13:04 GMT -6 dwayanu said:

I am sure that what you produce shall be interesting!

Does this mean that you see my point, or merely that you weary of the argument?

What this touches on is the whole "high magic/low magic" question, but there really are two dimensions to the scale: a) How common is magic?, and b) How powerful is magic?
By restricting magic to characters AFTER creation, not only are you limiting the number of magic users, you are also severely limiting the power of that magic.
The only problem is that given Traveller's rather anemic experience system (another design decision on GDW's part; and while they softened their stance in later editions, I think they went too far the other way. I mean, if I think of my own self, I graduated from college with maybe a Computer-1. After 9 years of working in the field, I'm probably at Computer-2 [on the other hand, I've also picked up Makeup-1, Airbrushing-1, Art(Sculpting)-1, and Animal Care(Dog Grooming)-1, much to the dismay of my boss]) OK, wandering back from that tangent, the problem is that magic users would begin the game at near their maximum level pf power. Let me re-read the LBBs and ruminate on this...

[dwayanu]

Both!

In the same nonexclusive spirit, I don't think it follows that character development in play need mean lack of development. I don't know how you picture a magician's development in the "prior service" scheme -- but why is it applicable only in that context?

There's no need to get stuck in a mechanical approach that does not produce the results you desire. "Design for effect" is a sound maxim, and one I think the designers at GDW took to heart. Traveller departs in many ways from notions of "how an RPG should be" that have since become fairly rigid.

I do not think a GDW fantasy game in 1977 would have as its goal duplication of the "feel" of D&D. It certainly would not have been influenced by games or other works published after 1976!

What, then, would be the starting point? What else but fantasy fiction?

Considering the period and the main SF influences on Traveller, my own first (and not carefully ordered) guesses at probable primary sources are:

Conan (probably the Howard/DeCamp/Carter version, although a 1974-76 series cut accretions)
Bran Mak Morn, Cormac Mac Art, Turlogh Dubh, Solomon Kane, Kull, Almuric
Carter's and DeCamp's own works, and anthologies they edited
Moorcock
Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser
Karl Edward Wagner's Kane
Vance's Dying Earth (and perhaps some more SFal works as well)
Saberhagen's Empire of the East
Farmer's World of Tiers
Zelazny's Dilvish and early Amber
Tanith Lee's The Birthgrave
Jakes's Brak, Gavin Black, and The Last Magician
E.R. Burroughs
Kenneth Bulmer, John Norman, Gardner F. Fox, Leigh Brackett, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Andre Norton
Poul Anderson
C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner, Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, Fletcher Pratt, E.R. Eddison, Alexandre Dumas, et al
Greek mythology

I think it at least plausible and interesting to downplay Tolkien and the Nordic mythology that so influenced him, as well as Lewis's Narnia (and "high" or "epic" fantasy in general). Some "planetary romance" influence is implied above, as this was -- especially in the '60s and '70s -- often little distinguished from S&S.

In any case, once you settle on the main stories shaping the basic concept and style of the game -- in terms of magic, among other things -- then you can shape the rules to reflect them.

[Thorulfr]

WooHoo! Another Tanith Lee fan...

[dwayanu]

Indeed, although I am only now getting around to that book! (don't even have the sequels yet)

Recall that The Sword of Shannara was not published until 1977. There was not yet much "Tolkienesque" apart from (the admittedly very popular) Tolkien. The Middle-Earth (and medieval) referents were even more explicit in Chivalry & Sorcery than in D&D.

One thing worth taking from Tolkien -- because of its game value -- is the concept of a fellowship of adventurers (the "party" in RPGs). It appears elsewhere in fiction, nearly always (as in Tolkien) to the end of a particular quest. On the other hand, one need not treat that exclusively as the default mode. GDW's En Garde is about conflicts among PCs, a more common form of interaction among adventurers in S&S. "Going back" to 1977, one can justifiably break game stereotypes taken for granted today. OD&D itself seems to me not so locked in to one approach as later versions.

One topic that occurs to me as perhaps worthy of more treatment than in Traveller's basic set is NPC allies. In much S&S, the hero (typically just the one, in a fiction series) is at various times commander of armed forces. Something like the simple battle-resolution (and some other) rules in Book 4 would probably be worth including.

Trade and commerce figure little in S&S (no Nicholas Van Rijn equivalent), and starships of course not at all. Nautical adventures are common, though.

Oh, and the Bulmer reference above is chiefly to his Dray Prescot/Scorpio series under the name of Alan Burt Akers.

[dwayanu]

Some more sources:

Shardik by Richard Adams
the first two Horseclans novels by Robert Adams
Jane Gaskell's Atlan series
M. John Harrison's The Pastel City
Silverlock by John Myers Myers
H. Rider Haggard and Talbot Mundy
H. Warner Munn's "Arthurian" spinoffs


It might be a nice touch to include distinctive magics and monsters inspired by classic works.

[Thorulfr]

On the subject of non-human races, 'Elves' as Tolkien portrayed them have pretty much become the default...but where did he get the idea? They bear little resemblance to either the Fair Folk of Celtic myth, or the Huldafolk of Norse folklore... it looks like ideas were lifted from both, but the 'Elves' as we have them now are pretty much Tolkien's creation...does anyone have more information on that? (maybe discussed ad naseum in a different thread?)
If one were to go back to the Celtic myths, you really couldn't have a PC as an elf...maybe a changeling or a half-elf/faerie (which would probably be more akin to the Planescape 'Tiefling' than AD&D's Half Elves...)


EDIT: Just fixed an italics problem. - Fin.

[dwayanu]

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.

[Thorulfr]

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?

[dwayanu]

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.

[Thorulfr]

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)

You like?

[Thorulfr]

So, should we start referring to the 'original edition' of Wanderer as the LPBs? (Little Parchment Books)

[Finarvyn]

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.

[dwayanu]

That's Little Parchment Codices, as opposed the Scrolls of the earliest campaigns!

[Thorulfr]

Jun 30, 2008 11:43:18 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

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>

[Thorulfr]

Jun 30, 2008 11:54:42 GMT -6 dwayanu said:

That's Little Parchment Codices, as opposed the Scrolls of the earliest campaigns!

We could call them the PMSs, for Parchment Manuscripts....

OK, I'm going off my nut now. Is it time for lunch yet?


[second the motion for LPC, all in favor say aye...]

[Thorulfr]

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.

OK, on to the Character Creation Tables...

[Thorulfr]

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...)

[dwayanu]

Please pardon the dearth of feedback; I am keenly interested in the unfolding of your ideas!

[Thorulfr]

OK, here's a stab at the rank titles: The 'Soldier' and 'Sailor' are Roman, the 'Warrior' incorporates Gothic:

Warrior:
0. Ga-drauhts (spearman)
1. Sturiliggs (swordsman)
2. Warrior
3. Leader
4. Fraujinonds (master)
5. Reiks (ruler)
6. Praizbytairei (Elder)

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.

[Thorulfr]

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...

[greentongue]

Combining those ideas with some from here {www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=221970#post221970} may speed progress.
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