Traveller online game, any interest?

[billhooks]

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?

[coffee]

I'd be interested, but I'm kind of iffy on Google Wave. (It sounds good, but it also sounds like something that could spiral out of control.)

[apeloverage]

I'd like to play if it's turn-by-turn, rather than live.

[chgowiz]

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.

[makofan]

I like the idea, but no time right now

[billhooks]

It would definitely be turn-by-turn, not live.

@chgowiz - Any tips on wave organizing?

[tombowings]

I've never played Traveler, but I'd be up for giving it a go.

[chgowiz]

Mar 4, 2010 15:10:41 GMT -6 billhooks said:

It would definitely be turn-by-turn, not live.

@chgowiz - Any tips on wave organizing?

Tons - that's almost a blog post. Biggest thing, don't be afraid to edit and reedit and organize the blips and content into a narrative form.

If you are on Wave, my Dark Ages AD&D game Waves are public - you can search for them.

[coffee]

Mar 4, 2010 8:12:49 GMT -6 @chgowiz said:

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.)

[greentongue]

I was think of doing something along those lines (or Firefly) using this deck plan I put together.
home.earthlink.net/~djackson24/Crawfish.pdf

Has modular map parts to swap out as changes occured.
=

[billhooks]

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 [e-mail] 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:
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!

[coffee]

Mar 5, 2010 14:21:29 GMT -6 billhooks said:

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.

[billhooks]

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.

[ffilz]

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.

[apeloverage]

generation:

569A74
Start of career as Army.
Start of term 1.

[C 5+ =>(10 +1) = 11]
Received commission as Lieutenant.

Received promotion to Captain.
Eligible for 4 skills:
Skill: Mechanical
Skill: Gun Combat
Skill: Vehicle
Skill: Blade Combat
End of term 1.
[R 7+ =>( 6 +0) = 6]
Reenlist: failed.
Muster out.
Eligible for 2 benefits:
Credits: 10000
Benefit: Middle Passage

character:

Mark Reynard.
Army Captain 569A74 Age 22 1 Term Cr 10000
Blade Combat-1, Gun Combat-1, Mechanical-1, Rifle-1, SMG-1,
Vehicle-1
Middle Passage

[Random]

Traveller? Heck yeah.
I have no freaking clue how to use Google Wave though.

I have tons of papers to grade today, and some heavy duty homework, but I shall roll up a character in case you're still looking for players.

[Random]

Anticipating acceptance into the game, here's a character. Hopefully I've rolled him correctly. I've never played Traveller and only recently got the books.

---

Here we go...

Strength 3+6=9
Dexterity 5+2=7
Endurance 4+6=A
Intelligence 6+4=A
Education 1+6=7
Social Standing 6+5=B

UPP 97AA7B (d**n, my dice were hot!)

Alright, a potential overachiever who crapped out and got an average education; let's call him...

Name: Sir Vincent Odysseus Xavier
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Race: Caucasian Human

Sir Vincet attempts to enlist in the Navy (6 rolled, +1 for intelligence, equals 7), but is rejected. He then enters

the draft!

(5) He's drafted into the Merchant career.

First term of service:
Survival roll 11+2=13. He lives! (Not that being a merchant is all that dangerous...)
Commission: Not this time since Sir Vincent was drafted.
Promotion: Same as above.
Skills (Personal Development): 5 = Blade Cbt (Bayonet)
Skills (Service Skills): 6 = Gun Cbt (Rifle)
Re-enlistment: 5 (and he'll re-enlist)
Age: 22

Second term of service:
Survival: 9+2=11. No problem here.
Commission: 6+1=7. Sir Vincent is now a 4th Officer!
Promotion: 7+1=8. He gets no promotion this term.
Skills (Personal Development): 6 = Bribery.
Since he got ranked this term, Skills (Advanced Edu): 1 = Streetwise
Re-enlistment: 10 (and he'll re-enlist)
Age: 26

Third term of service:
Survival: 6+2=8. Still alive!
Promotion: 2+1=3. No promotion.
Skills (Personal Development): 1 = +1 Strength
Re-enlistment: 11 (and he'll re-enlist)
Age: 30
UPP: A7AA7B

Fourth term of service:
Survival: 4+2=6 (Whew!!!! Thank goodness for his intelligence.)
Promotion: 6 Rats.
Skills (Service Skills): 6 = Gun Cbt (Rifle-2)
Re-enlistment: 6 (and he'll re-enlist
Age: 34
Aging: 7, 2, 8
UPP: 96AA7B


Fifth term of service:
Survival: 7+2=9 Survived.
Promotion: 10+1=11 Yay! Sir Vincent is promoted to 3rd Officer.
Skills (Personal Development): 3 = +1 Endurance
Skills from promotion (Service Skills): 2 = Vacc Suit
Re-enlistment: 6 (still going onward)
Age: 38
Aging: 7, 11, 7
UPP: 869A7B

Sixth term of service:
Survival: 7+2=9 Done.
Promotion: 6+1=7 Not this time.
Skills (Personal Development): Blade Cbt (Dagger)
Re-enlistment: 3. Looks like the end of the road!
Age: 42
Aging: 7, 7, 8
UPP: 769A7B

Mustering Out (6+1=7 total):
Four benefits: 1 = Low Psg, 3 = +1 Edu, 4 = Gun (Gimme a rifle!), 2 = +1 Int
Three cash: 6 = 40,000; 6 = 40,000; 6 = 40,000 (Holy crap!!!)
UPP: 769B8B

Retirement: Cr6000

It looks like Sir Vincent is quite the moneybags!

Here's the summary:

Sir Vincent Odysseus Xavier (3rd Officer), 769B8B, Age 42, 6 terms, Cr 120,000 (Plus 6000 from retirement this year)
Skills: Dagger-1, Bayonet-1, Rifle-2, Vacc Suit-1, Streetwise-1, Bribery-1
Possessions: Rifle, Low Psg ticket

Do you want us to go ahead and buy the rest of our equipment, or would you rather play that out in-game?

*edit* It looks like in term five I forgot to add the +1 Endurance.
That makes his UPP 76AB8B.

[tombowings]

Is there anywhere I could go to learn more about how to play traveler?

Edit: I could also ago ahead and play a very inexperienced play, anyways looking to his superiors for advice. That sounds like fun, too.

[Random]

Mar 7, 2010 15:52:19 GMT -6 tombowings said:

Is there anywhere I could go to learn more about how to play traveler?

Edit: I could also ago ahead and play a very inexperienced play, anyways looking to his superiors for advice. That sounds like fun, too.

You can find the classic rulebooks reprinted brand new from Far Future Enterprises, or just hit up eBay for the old box set. (I simply traded my 3E books for a collection of Traveller.)

I imagine that just using an online character generator and having played any RPG before, that should be enough to get going.

[billhooks]

Tom, it shouldn't be too difficult -- I'll try to explain rules and lay out choices clearly as we go. As I mentioned before, it's a learning process for me, too.

I've got four, so I'll go ahead and, er . . . initiate launch sequence, so to speak. I'll start a Game Introduction on Google Wave and invite everyone. Anyone who's participated in this thread but hasn't gotten a Google Wave invite (or given me your Google Wave contact info if you're already on), please do so. I'll keep following this thread.

[Random]

This Google Wave stuff is pretty wild, but I'm familiar with the other Google software so I'm sure I can figure it out.

What are we doing for dice? I've been throwing a couple of casino dice atop my Traveller reprints so far, but I may not always be at home.

I also must warn you that I'm a graduate student (and hence have a stressful schedule), but I will try to warn if I'm to be away for more than a day.

---

Ah I see the dice bot; nice. Anyways, I'm off to do some homework. I'll start checking the waves in the morning and in the afternoon probably.

[coffee]

Okay, here's mine:

Jake Hewer

Strength : 8
Dexterity : 6
Endurance : 7
Intelligence : 10
Education : 7
Social : 7

Scouts DMs:

Intelligence 6+ = +1
Strength 8+ = +2
Total = +3

Enlistment roll 10+3=13 -- success

Term 1

Survival (7+): 10
Reenlistment (3+): 7

Auto Skill: Pilot - 1
Skill 1 - Table 1: 6 - Gun Combat (Shotgun) - 1
Skill 2 - Table 2: 4 - Navigation - 1


Term 2

Survival (7+): 10
Reenlistment (3+): 4

Skill 1 - Table 1: 5 - Education +1
Skill 2 - Table 4: 6 - Jack of all Trades - 1


Term 3

Survival (7+): 7
Reenlistment (3+): 4

Skill 1 - Table 3: 5 - Gunnery - 1
Skill 2 - Table 4: 6 - Jack of all Trades - 2


Term 4

Survival (7+): 7
Reenlistment (3+): 3

Skill 1 - Table 4: 2 - Navigation - 2
Skill 2 - Table 4: 6 - Jack of all Trades - 3

Aging rolls:

Strength (8+): 2 (-1)
Dexterity (7+): 11
Endurance (8+): 7 (-1)

Mustering Out:

Benefits: 6 - Scout Ship

Cash: 4 - 30000
3 - 30000
5 - 50000


Jake Hewer, ex Scout 767A87 Cr 110000
JoT - 3, Nav - 2, Pilot - 1, Shotgun - 1, Gunnery - 1 Ship



(Needless to say, if me having a ship cramps your style, we can negotiate.)

[eris]

Mar 5, 2010 23:18:43 GMT -6 billhooks said:

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.

Personally, I much prefer the original weapon damages to the later whole dice version.

I wish I could play now, but I'm pretty much "full up" on games right now. I'm in 3 here and a Traveller game on Yahoogroups, as well as Reffing a Traveller and D&D game by email on my own mailing list.

Wave games don't really appeal to me...from the ones I've seen so far anyway. Call me old fashion, but I prefer running online games by email using a dedicated mailing-list. Running a game on a forum is my second choice. Something like Yahoogroups (email and/or forum) is good too, but I hate the ads/interface.

Eris

[eris]

Mar 7, 2010 0:26:23 GMT -6 ffilz said:

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.

I do it by subtracting from highest die...but only from the highest die down to zero. So, with a Body Pistol (I think) with a damage of something like 2d-5, I'd have the player (or I'd) roll 2d6 getting, forex, 4 & 3, subtract 5 from the 4 making it 0 and call that 3 points was done to 1 attribute. That way *some* damage was done on all "hits."

[ffilz]

Mar 8, 2010 16:55:01 GMT -6 eris said:

Mar 7, 2010 0:26:23 GMT -6 ffilz said:

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.

I do it by subtracting from highest die...but only from the highest die down to zero. So, with a Body Pistol (I think) with a damage of something like 2d-5, I'd have the player (or I'd) roll 2d6 getting, forex, 4 & 3, subtract 5 from the 4 making it 0 and call that 3 points was done to 1 attribute. That way *some* damage was done on all "hits."

Body Pistol is 3D-8. (and Carbine is 4D-8). How would you handle that? Also, Hooves at 2D-6 might as well be simplified to 1D (and Stinger at 3D-6 to 2D).

Frank

[billhooks]

Just as a general advisory to anyone who might read this thread, I'm calling the game full at 4 players. (Apeloverage, if you're out there, I sent you a PM. Basically, I need your contact info to add you to the game wave.) We'll see how it goes.

As for the weapon damage debate that has sprouted up separately, I definitely wouldn't touch subtractions. I wonder if anyone has tried using different die types for damage? d4s would be an easy way to handle low-damage weapons. The higher die types could make even the toughest characters susceptible to one-hit takedowns -- good or bad?

[coffee]

Or you could just go with the second edition, where each weapon is listed with its damage as a whole number of dice. That seems to me to work the best.

(Not that I'm trying to dissuade anyone from playing the original version, of course. It's just that for the purposes of this game, the discussion is moot.)

[billhooks]

Yeah, that's what I'm planning on -- it's kind of an interesting discussion though.

[eris]

Mar 8, 2010 18:24:13 GMT -6 ffilz said:

Body Pistol is 3D-8. (and Carbine is 4D-8). How would you handle that? Also, Hooves at 2D-6 might as well be simplified to 1D (and Stinger at 3D-6 to 2D).

Frank

Yeah, that's right...my 1st edition books are at home stored away.

Hum, I don't know. I guess I'd take the 8 or 6 or whatever from the total before applying it...I can't remember what I actually did back in 1977, 78. I do remember I re-did the tables and dropped the minus numbers, but kept some plus numbers, fairly soon after we started playing.

One thing I've often wondered about is whether Marc and Frank didn't originally intend for the 3 Physical Characteristics to be added together and used like Hit Points, and then changed their minds halfway through writing the book. I know Traveller often gets house-ruled to work somewhat like that.

Eris

[Thorulfr]

Mar 9, 2010 14:01:02 GMT -6 eris said:

Mar 8, 2010 18:24:13 GMT -6 ffilz said:

Body Pistol is 3D-8. (and Carbine is 4D-8). How would you handle that? Also, Hooves at 2D-6 might as well be simplified to 1D (and Stinger at 3D-6 to 2D).

Frank

Yeah, that's right...my 1st edition books are at home stored away.

Hum, I don't know. I guess I'd take the 8 or 6 or whatever from the total before applying it...I can't remember what I actually did back in 1977, 78. I do remember I re-did the tables and dropped the minus numbers, but kept some plus numbers, fairly soon after we started playing.

I think the idea was that most of the time the weapon does almost no damage at all, but sometimes it does quite a bit. Unfortunately, the implementation was a bit buggy.

I recall subtracting 8 pips from the dice, starting from the lowest die. For example, if the shooter rolled 5, 4, 3, I'd eliminate the 3 and 4 die, and take one from the 5. I think I may also have houseruled that the weapon did a minimum of 1, but it would depend on how "rules lawyer-y" I was feeling at the time.
You could also subtract the pips from the top down (giving a 1 and a 3 in the above example, and thus less liable to put any one stat to zero), but I'd prefer to keep SOME "bite" to the weapon.

As in real life, Body Pistols are best suited as a threat toward opponents that are aware, sober, and at least reasonably acquainted with the twin ideas of firearms and that poking holes in the anatomy, even small ones, is generally a bad idea.