Campaign discussion

[ffilz]

I will be using Classic Traveller 1981 Books 1-3 (with some text taken from 1977), though I am seriously considering the range band space combat from Starter Traveller.

I have been taking a lot of Christopher Kubasik's ideas to mind (and the other folks who have also been posting in the same vein), so reading his blog will be useful for getting a feel for where I cam coming from.

I have in progress, reasonably happy with, modified skill tables for Supplement 4 which I am open to discussion with players about.

Setting will be my own, currently working on a 2 subsector area somewhat inspired by the Seven Sisters and District-268 subsectors of the Spinward Marches that is at the frontier and beyond of "the imperium" (whatever that is...). The encounter tables and procedures in the books (and more tables I pull from other places or just flat out make up) provide a lot of implicit setting. I've posted a map here in this board.

My concept within the setting is that the PCs are mostly ex-military (with Merchants and Other thrown in of course, plus possibly the odd Supplement 4 career or two) all having mustered out on the same world, or having made their way there. I will leave it up to the players to add more definition as to why they know each other, but I think that should be a given (or if someone is unknown the the group, the players have primed things so we don't play the "we all meet in the bar and get into a fight). I'm assuming someone will muster out with a ship and the group has an interest in exploring the sandbox and figuring out what they can make of it (trade, trying to find a world to exploit, just wandering, whatever).

But it's a sandbox, and it's your game as much as mine, so ultimately we will work together and I hope something exciting will emerge from play.

[foxroe]

I've always played CT BTB, with very little in the way of house rules, so this sounds right up my alley. I have the Traveller Book, and the FFE release of all of the CT material on CDROM (so 1981 rules more or less), so let me know if there is anything you don't want me to look at.

[ffilz]

Nov 30, 2016 3:31:40 GMT -6 foxroe said:

I've always played CT BTB, with very little in the way of house rules, so this sounds right up my alley. I have the Traveller Book, and the FFE release of all of the CT material on CDROM (so 1981 rules more or less), so let me know if there is anything you don't want me to look at.

I have the FFE Classic Traveller CD-ROM. I need to put up a new document for house rules. I had started this document:

docs.google.com/document/d/1YEPiaXQZoWbvnrHohrB5U7iLrzmT4HGplGrLxusIhl0/edit?usp=sharing

but I've since retreated on some of the new skills. Mostly that document is fine except for replacing the discussion of additional skills and careers with this document:

docs.google.com/document/d/1kS3h7JgF6CniH851034zBX0aPT-MhIggUO0yE_y0Jao/edit#heading=h.yl3l81iynnhh

The two bits on skills I will keep from the first document is the notes on Admin and Bow Combat.

I also need to pull in the revised damage charts Makofan and I came up with (the conversion to plain dice with no mods from 1977 to 1981 messed up some weapon damages).

[foxroe]

Hmmm. The errata link in the first doc doesn't work. Also, I don't see SS4 on my CDROM.

[ffilz]

Dec 1, 2016 0:43:57 GMT -6 foxroe said:

Hmmm. The errata link in the first doc doesn't work. Also, I don't see SS4 on my CDROM.

Ah when did you get your CD-ROM? You can email Marc and get an update for cost of shipping.

I will make the eratta available.

My comparison document covers more differences than SS4 and anywhere anyone needs the actual text I am using compared to the Traveller version I have I'll post the text somewhere.

[foxroe]

Dec 1, 2016 0:57:29 GMT -6 ffilz said:

Dec 1, 2016 0:43:57 GMT -6 foxroe said:

Hmmm. The errata link in the first doc doesn't work. Also, I don't see SS4 on my CDROM.

Ah when did you get your CD-ROM? You can email Marc and get an update for cost of shipping.

Thanks, good to know. I've had the CD forever - looks like they updated it at some point.

[ffilz]

Dec 1, 2016 1:05:18 GMT -6 foxroe said:

Dec 1, 2016 0:57:29 GMT -6 ffilz said:

Ah when did you get your CD-ROM? You can email Marc and get an update for cost of shipping.

Thanks, good to know. I've had the CD forever - looks like they updated it at some point.

Do you have both 1977 and 1981 rules on your CD?

I got an update several years ago, I don't know if there is an even more recent update.

SS4 can also be purchased at RPGNow etc (but it's probably worth the $5 for shipping an updated CD).

[ffilz]

I have uploaded the errata to my Google Drive, you can find it here:

drive.google.com/file/d/0B8WsyeCmQRx0SDhkc3pKdF9QWkk/view?usp=sharing

[ffilz]

And I've updated my house rules document.

[ffilz]

Chris Kubasik's most recent blog post talestoastound.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/traveller-out-of-the-box-an-approach-to-refereeing-and-throws-in-original-traveller-part-i/ is a good introduction to how I hope to run this campaign. His blog is quite the inspiration.

[eris]

Jan 8, 2017 16:08:26 GMT -6 ffilz said:

Chris Kubasik's most recent blog post talestoastound.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/traveller-out-of-the-box-an-approach-to-refereeing-and-throws-in-original-traveller-part-i/ is a good introduction to how I hope to run this campaign. His blog is quite the inspiration.

Yep, that's pretty much the way Classic Traveller was run..by me, at least. The dice weren't rolled, outside of combat...or similar dicey situations (if you'll pardon the pun), very much at all. The players, just said what they wanted their characters to do and the Ref told them what happened. The Skill Levels were used more as markers than as actual DM's. By that, I mean, if your PC had...let's say Pilot-3...he was going to handle a spaceship well in almost any situation, no roll required, only if there was a hole in the avionics unit, power was down and he was making a dead stick landing did we roll. A PC with a Bribery skill was going to be good at bribery...even if the player was terrible at trying to role play it and a call to roll would be an "Oh! Oh!" moment where the players knew something has gone wrong here and make the roll was getting out of it. 

However, in Classic Traveller, there were some rolls that were Game Mechanics that had little to do with any sort of skill. Things like rolls on the Spec Trade Table, the Price Table, or for Freight and Passengers. Skills like Broker and later Streetwise, Steward, and Admin modified those rolls, but there was no roleplaying...they were just modifiers to what happened. 

If your saying you want us to trust you and not worry about rolls and skill levels and such. I'm all in!

[ffilz]

Jan 10, 2017 0:29:41 GMT -6 eris said:

Jan 8, 2017 16:08:26 GMT -6 ffilz said:

Chris Kubasik's most recent blog post talestoastound.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/traveller-out-of-the-box-an-approach-to-refereeing-and-throws-in-original-traveller-part-i/ is a good introduction to how I hope to run this campaign. His blog is quite the inspiration.

Yep, that's pretty much the way Classic Traveller was run..by me, at least. The dice weren't rolled, outside of combat...or similar dicey situations (if you'll pardon the pun), very much at all. The players, just said what they wanted their characters to do and the Ref told them what happened. The Skill Levels were used more as markers than as actual DM's. By that, I mean, if your PC had...let's say Pilot-3...he was going to handle a spaceship well in almost any situation, no roll required, only if there was a hole in the avionics unit, power was down and he was making a dead stick landing did we roll. A PC with a Bribery skill was going to be good at bribery...even if the player was terrible at trying to role play it and a call to roll would be an "Oh! Oh!" moment where the players knew something has gone wrong here and make the roll was getting out of it. 

However, in Classic Traveller, there were some rolls that were Game Mechanics that had little to do with any sort of skill. Things like rolls on the Spec Trade Table, the Price Table, or for Freight and Passengers. Skills like Broker and later Streetwise, Steward, and Admin modified those rolls, but there was no roleplaying...they were just modifiers to what happened. 

If your saying you want us to trust you and not worry about rolls and skill levels and such. I'm all in!

Well, the skill levels are important, and one thing I don't want to do is what I have seen some games devolve to where a session might go by without any rolls. The idea is not to not roll, but to only roll when it's meaningful, when a failure would be meaningful, or when I really don't have an idea which way things should go. But yea, there will also be plenty of situations where "hey, the PC has level-x in the skill, he just does what he needs to do."

[eris]

Developing New Skills

OOG: Some ideas from games I've been in.

Ideas on getting a 0 Level skill: 

• Take a course (tbd: time, cost, etc; generally can be done "online" so PC stays in game)
• Take a pill (an SF trope if tech is high enough) 
• Apprentice (work under a Level 1+ for some time; unless a PC/NPC is the teacher this generally takes the PC out of the game)
• Perform tasks using that skill with -DM's until you figure it out (tbd: some number of times to get rid of -DM's, ie. raise to Level 0)

Going from Level 0 to Level 1+:

• Perform tasks using that skill (tbd: time, number of times)
• Take another course (tbd: time, cost, etc)

[ffilz]

Feb 22, 2017 15:26:16 GMT -6 eris said:

Developing New Skills

OOG: Some ideas from games I've been in.

Ideas on getting a 0 Level skill: 

• Take a course (tbd: time, cost, etc; generally can be done "online" so PC stays in game)
• Take a pill (an SF trope if tech is high enough) 
• Apprentice (work under a Level 1+ for some time; unless a PC/NPC is the teacher this generally takes the PC out of the game)
• Perform tasks using that skill with -DM's until you figure it out (tbd: some number of times to get rid of -DM's, ie. raise to Level 0)

Going from Level 0 to Level 1+:

• Perform tasks using that skill (tbd: time, number of times)
• Take another course (tbd: time, cost, etc)

Definitely ideas that make sense, though I want to stick with something close to the RAW, learning new skills or improving old ones should be hard given the context of what PCs start with for skills. I think Traveller made it very hard for a reason. I'm choosing to make it a bit easier, while keeping the general idea of the Book 2 experience system.

[foxroe]

Feb 22, 2017 18:00:15 GMT -6 ffilz said:

...learning new skills or improving old ones should be hard given the context of what PCs start with for skills. I think Traveller made it very hard for a reason. I'm choosing to make it a bit easier, while keeping the general idea of the Book 2 experience system.

It's probably the single thing in classic Traveller that I think modern RPG players have the hardest time with when they are introduced to the game. Games like D&D offer a clear path for characters: start of as a poorly equipped, underwhelming schlep and work your way to greatness. This establishes the "power curve" of the game and players expect continuous improvement in their characters because of it. In Traveller, your character has already started out as a galactic nobody and has already gone on to establish themselves before you even begin play. Sure, some characters will be "better" than others in stats and accumulated skills/skill levels, but it's really only superficially relevant to game-play. Traveller is most definitely a player-skill-centric game, rather than a character-skill-centric game. I think you've mentioned this before, but in CT, having a skill level of one means something. It's substantial and not "I only gots me one level in Brawlin'!?". I think that this is why the "advancement" system in Traveller is so slow and difficult. <<floats off of soapbox due to excessive hot air>>>

BTW, Frank, I read the blog post you linked to above and I'm completely on board. It's really the only way to play CT in my opinion. Otherwise, you'll go mad trying to "fix" things.

[eris]

Skills vs Computer Programs

Frank, I'm pretty sure you don't do this the way I do. I just thought I'd provide a take on how different people can interpret how CT works, differently.  

IMTU, some of the computer programs are substitutes for skills if the PC's don't have those skills. When I read CT, my thought was, "Oh, if the party doesn't have Nav or Pilot this is how they can still travel! They just buy some computer programs."

So, for example, the Generate program is needed to generate a jump plot only if the party doesn't have someone with the Navigation skill. If a PC  has the Navigation skill they can "generate" the course manually. My ruling was they needing Nav+2d6 >= 6+Jp#, uncertain, to succeed. The Generate program just gives the same DM as a PC with Nav-4 on the throw...why Nav-4? Because that was what was required to write Generate.  Party's with only Nav-1 or Nav-2, still might want that Generate program to be more certain they don't misjump, but they don't have to have it.

I do the same with the Maneuver programs. If the ship doesn't have anyone with the Pilot skill, you can substitute in the Maneuver program to act as Pilot-1. However, Maneuver/Evade do require a crew member with, at least, Pilot-1. So, a ship with the Maneuver program can land, lift, and fly around a system as if it had a Pilot-1 aboard. However, if there is a crew member with Pilot-1+ on the bridge you don't need the Maneuver program to fly at all.

OTOH, you need Jump-1 through Jump-6 programs to actually make the jump...no skill substitute for that. I thought about saying you could use Pilot-1 & Nav-1 in place of the Jump-1 program, but you had to have somebody with those skills on the bridge for the entire week in jump or you immediately started risking misjumps. I never ran a game with this ruling, but I've really thought about it! See, if the week in Jump Space isn't total isolation in a jump bubble, but you're actually flying through some other dimension, then maybe you do need a pilot and a navigator to dodge obstructions, make course corrections, and keep the ship on course so it emerges where you want it to. Hum...you know that might not be a bad idea after all. 

[ffilz]

May 18, 2017 15:18:59 GMT -6 eris said:

Skills vs Computer Programs

Frank, I'm pretty sure you don't do this the way I do. I just thought I'd provide a take on how different people can interpret how CT works, differently.  

IMTU, some of the computer programs are substitutes for skills if the PC's don't have those skills. When I read CT, my thought was, "Oh, if the party doesn't have Nav or Pilot this is how they can still travel! They just buy some computer programs."

So, for example, the Generate program is needed to generate a jump plot only if the party doesn't have someone with the Navigation skill. If a PC  has the Navigation skill they can "generate" the course manually. My ruling was they needing Nav+2d6 >= 6+Jp#, uncertain, to succeed. The Generate program just gives the same DM as a PC with Nav-4 on the throw...why Nav-4? Because that was what was required to write Generate.  Party's with only Nav-1 or Nav-2, still might want that Generate program to be more certain they don't misjump, but they don't have to have it.

I do the same with the Maneuver programs. If the ship doesn't have anyone with the Pilot skill, you can substitute in the Maneuver program to act as Pilot-1. However, Maneuver/Evade do require a crew member with, at least, Pilot-1. So, a ship with the Maneuver program can land, lift, and fly around a system as if it had a Pilot-1 aboard. However, if there is a crew member with Pilot-1+ on the bridge you don't need the Maneuver program to fly at all.

OTOH, you need Jump-1 through Jump-6 programs to actually make the jump...no skill substitute for that. I thought about saying you could use Pilot-1 & Nav-1 in place of the Jump-1 program, but you had to have somebody with those skills on the bridge for the entire week in jump or you immediately started risking misjumps. I never ran a game with this ruling, but I've really thought about it! See, if the week in Jump Space isn't total isolation in a jump bubble, but you're actually flying through some other dimension, then maybe you do need a pilot and a navigator to dodge obstructions, make course corrections, and keep the ship on course so it emerges where you want it to. Hum...you know that might not be a bad idea after all. 

Cool interpretation, definitely not that way I run it, but cool just the same.

Thanks for sharing.

I haven't thought about just what the various crew actually do, something to give some thought to...

Frank