Retclone critical situation throw

[creativehum]

Noting that KB comes away from the same text with different approaches.

I think you mean Keith Brothers?
I'm not familiar with their adventures. Can you describe how they handled Situation Throws? Can you point me at something that describes it?

Thanks!

 

[aramis]

I think you mean Keith Brothers?
I'm not familiar with their adventures. Can you describe how they handled Situation Throws? Can you point me at something that describes it?

Thanks!

Nope. Ken B, IIRC, known round here as Supplement 4...
He finds a prototype task system in the CT rules.

RULE 68A - A Ref's Guide to the Classic Traveller Task System (COTI thread)

 

[creativehum]

Nope. Ken B, IIRC, known round here as Supplement 4...
He finds a prototype task system in the CT rules.

RULE 68A - A Ref's Guide to the Classic Traveller Task System (COTI thread)

Thanks. Yes. I'm familiar with it.

 

[kilemall]

My objection was strictly with the term retroclone, Aramis already covered the issue in his post. Otherwise, please carry on.

Oh, and I haven't posted it yet, but I think I am going to an 8CG-critical system. This is where most routine tasks don't get a roll, or roll only to see if a natural 2 is rolled for some sort of glitch/error/part failure etc. If it's more then routine or the character doesn't have applicable skill, it goes to the appropriate level of roll.

 

[creativehum]

Aramis' definition is precise for him and that's great. It is also more narrow than anything else I've seen in the hobby. This does not mean he's wrong -- especially for his needs and concerns. But I know that per his definition a game like Lamentations of the Flame Princess would not be considered a retroclone of Basic D&D. Nonetheless, it is called a retroclone in every list of D&D retroclones I've seen. More importantly, the discussion of the labels bores me. What matters to me is what is in the box, rarely the word on top of the box.

To that end, here is the passage from The Traveller Adventure Mike referenced:

Situation Throws: In the absence of any other guidance, the referee may always resort to the situation throw. When an incident first occurs, throw two dice to determine its relative severity. A low roll means that it is easy, a high roll means comparative difficulty. The number achieved is now the situation number. The player characters involved, when they attempt to deal with the situation, must roll the situation number or higher on two dice, They are, of course, allowed DMs based on any appropriate skills. Tools, assistance, and equipment may also provide beneficial DMs; weather, haste, adverse environment, or other handicaps may impose negative DMs. It is even possible for a referee to make the situation number greater than 12, thus making success impossible unless the players can provide necessary skills or tools with DMs to get their throw also above 12.

Example of Throws: An adventurer (46797A) has experienced a malfunction in the drive room of her vessel. The situation seems hopeless at the moment, and she is forced to abandon ship. The air lock hatch, however, is warped shut. A quick resolution to the problem is to state that she must roll strength or less to force it open. After several unsuccessful rolls, she casts about for a pry bar to help her.

The referee arbitrarily rules that the bar allows -4 on the die roll (the referee could guess or roll one die for the result).

On the next roll, the adventurer is successful; then she makes her way to the ship's locker for her vacc suit. Grabbing a survival pack, she proceeds to abandon ship. She knows that the drives cannot stand the strain much longer, and that she must get out immediately. The referee decides that the drives will explode on 9+ in the current turn, 8+ in the next turn, and so on, The referee decides that the character's last minute repair attempts have been partially successful, and he increases the needed roll by her level of engineering skill (Engineering-2) to 11+.

The adventurer needs to find a survival kit before she leaves the ship, but one extra turn will be needed to gather it up. The referee rolls to see if the ship explodes this turn (11+). It does not, and she grabs the survival kit.

On the second turn, she cycles through the airlock while the referee checks for an explosion again (10+ this time); once more the ship remains intact.

On the third turn, while the character is drifting away from the ship, the referee rolls 11 and the drives explode (9+ was needed).

The distress call from her radio attracts a local asteroid miner. He is required by custom and law to pick her up, but may net like being diverted to an unprofitable rescue mission.

The referee rolls two dice for his reaction: the result is 4. She must now convince him to take her to the local starport so that she can arrange salvage of her ship. She may add any applicable skills, such as streetwise, bribery, even DM -1 for Intelligence 9+ if the referee thinks this appropriate.

Obviously, in a situation such as this, repeated requests will not be possible (or they may be allowed at DM -1 per additional request). Probably she only gets to try once.

Even with DMs totaling -3, she rolls an 8, which does not convince the miner to go out of his way to help her. She is stuck on his ship until he finishes his prospecting run of (the referee rolls one die) 4 months. Judging by his reaction roll to her, he'll probably make her pay for room and board as well.

And here is the paragraph I referenced from the 1977 edition of Book 1 that was cut from all later editions of Basic Traveller:

Skills and the Referee: It is impossible for any table of information to cover all aspects of every potential situation, and the above listing is by no means complete in its coverage of the effects of skills. This is where the referee becomes an important part of the game process. The above listing of skills and game effects must necessarily be taken as a guide, and followed, altered, or ignored as the actual situation dictates.

Now, when I read those passages back to back what I see is exactly what Mike wrote in the first post of this thread. What I don't see is Mike "essentially attempting recreate what may have been his misinterpretations from his youth..." as Aramis put it in his typical ridiculous manner.

Quick question: Per the passage from The Traveller Adventure, how many people here roll randomly to determine the value of the difficulty of a Throw? How many people use the Reaction Table? How many use the rolled value of the Reaction Table Throw to determine the difficulty of social interactions with an NPC? How many people went a whole session without concerning themselves with the example throws in the Skill descriptions? (Note that in the example from The Traveller Adventure not a single roll from those descriptions was used.)

My guess is very few people played Traveller the way the texts above suggest and very few people want to play that way now. And there's very good reason for this -- the most important one being that lots of people don't like it and don't want to play way. And so they shouldn't!

But that doesn't change the fact that what Mike describes in his first post on this thread is not some weird reading of the text.

If anyone wants to tell me specifically what he wrote that contradicts the actual text above (including the clause I've quoted that says to ignore the examples listed in the skill descriptions) I'd love to hear it because I'm really curious.

Short of that, as far as I can tell Mike is working to move back toward a certain kind of game play and rules application that would have been exactly what the original Traveller rules would depend on.

 

[aramis]

I got the use of the term "Pseudoclone" from several OSR-friendly discussion boards... at least one including the Author of LotFP.

True retros have little value. Which is why the distinction seems to have faded since it's early 2000's origins. But the term Retroclone still has numerous denotations as attempting to emulate a specific OOP ruleset, which is clearly NOT what Mike is aiming for - he's going for a play style reduced from that of the original. His changes change the scope of play. He's going for what looks to be a more narrative-driven, "Say yes or roll the dice" mode.

 

[BytePro]

For the purposes of discussion - the clone distinction seems relevant.

Mike, at least in his initial post (not to mention other recent threads) suggests a clone that changes the original mechanics in the sense of using a subset of the example throws (critical resolution only).

It might also be relevant to call out what 'version' of Classic is being cloned - i.e. 1977, or the revised?

 

[creativehum]

...he's going for a play style reduced from that of the original. His changes change the scope of play. He's going for what looks to be a more narrative-driven, "Say yes or roll the dice" mode.

Awesome.

Can you (or anyone) tell me specifically what you consider the original scope? Can you point to this scope as defined by the original rules?

Can you tell me specifically how Mike's first post changes the scope as defined in the rules?

And Mike, since I don't know yet exactly what you mean by "players should role play and the referee and players only turn to the dice to resolve a critical situation," could you talk about that? (I think I know what you mean, but I'm not sure.)

Thanks!

 

[BytePro]

...As for the other 9 without doubt the examples fall outside the need of crisis... but as a Referee I'm not sure why I would introduce rolls outside of a crisis.

Creativehum - your earlier post did, at least to me, address '... how Mike's first post changes the scope as defined in the rules?'. Mike's first post seems to leave those 9 rules out of a proposed 'clone' - thus reducing scope of play, as aramis posted.

My 1981 (second edition) Bk 1 specifically calls throws 'Saving Throws' - though it doesn't use the critical situation only concept. I do seem to recall a Mongoose Traveller book referring to using throws as such. Personally, I have *always* played very much like Mike is proposing (and how your - most excellent thank you! - blogs relate to the 1977 rules).

 

[aramis]

Awesome.

Can you (or anyone) tell me specifically what you consider the original scope? Can you point to this scope as defined by the original rules?

Can you tell me specifically how Mike's first post changes the scope as defined in the rules?

And Mike, since I don't know yet exactly what you mean by "players should role play and the referee and players only turn to the dice to resolve a critical situation," could you talk about that? (I think I know what you mean, but I'm not sure.)

Thanks!

The original scope appears to be largely procedural. There is a presumption of a narrative (but it's not called out in Bks 1-2-3), and a lot of procedural code to execute in specific situations.

Need a setting? Here's a procedure to generate one.
Need a character? Here's a procedure to generate one.
Need to know if he's being obvious cheating, here's the procedure for determining that. (Note that the gambling suspicion of cheating check doesn't get modded for the observer skill... only for the actual gambling skill used. There is an inherent implication that skill 5+ is cheating.

In D&D of the era, we have very few procedural bits: Combat, casting, character gen, castle building, experience/leveling. We instead have a raft of monsters, and a smallish bunch of assets for use in Char Gen. And a lot of blustery text with limited game application.

Traveller, by comparison, has procedures for
Character generation
Most skills have procedural chunks to use in certain (fairly common) situations
World Generation
Animal Encounter Table Generation
Random Encounters in overland mode
Law Enforcement Encounters in urban mode
Magic (aka Psionics)
Combat, Personal
Combat, Ships
Healing
Ship construction
Speculative trade
Shipping (from the carrier's POV)

Everything in Bk1 to Bk4 is procedural. Bk5 and Sup4 get out of procedural mode a bit; Bks 5-6-7-8 have very clear chunks of setting fluff.

Sups 1, 2, 9 & 13 are procedural output -
Sup 3 & 10 are massaged heavily from the procedural system;
Sups 5, 8, 11, and 12: pure fluff.
Sup 6 is procedural - "here's a process to generate short adventures on the fly via this procedure"
Sup 7 is maps for use with the combat procedural stuff.

 

[BytePro]

Thanks - Excellent synopsis aramis!

Helps put in perspective how much was crammed into those LBBs.

(P.S. - You could also add Ship traveling, operations & encounters.)

 

[creativehum]

The original scope appears to be largely procedural...

And excellent post. I agree with all of it. It's a terrific examination of one of things I love about Books 1-3.

Can you talk about how this connects to Mike's original post, and specifically in the context of the quotes I posted earlier.

Thanks!

 

[aramis]

And excellent post. I agree with all of it. It's a terrific examination of one of things I love about Books 1-3.

Can you talk about how this connects to Mike's original post, and specifically in the context of the quotes I posted earlier.

Thanks!

Simply put, Mike's reducing it from "If X then Y" to "If X in a critical situation, then Y."

 

[Clone95]

Simply put, Mike's reducing it from "If X then Y" to "If X in a critical situation, then Y."

I still fail to see the difference.

Do referees/game masters do otherwise? Make you roll every single action? No.

You roll when you're trying to do something aka resolve a critical situation. How is what Mike's suggesting literally any different from a roleplaying game's usual dice resolution mechanic?

 

[aramis]

I still fail to see the difference.

Do referees/game masters do otherwise? Make you roll every single action? No.

You roll when you're trying to do something aka resolve a critical situation. How is what Mike's suggesting literally any different from a roleplaying game's usual dice resolution mechanic?

Many of the rolls called for in the Traveller rules are not "critical situations". Gambling is not a critical situation... but it calls for rolls regularly.

Finding last minute cargos is not a critical situation, but it's a specified procedural roll.

Many of the procedures are pretty bloody mundane, really... and in fact are pretty common. The Roll to avoid a law enforcement encounter is not a critical situation; it is a specified procedural.

Procedural play is rather simulationist. Mike is Not. Mike is reducing the process simulation extremely. I don't.

If you gamble, I roll the check to see if someone accuses you of cheating. Even if it's just, "I'm going to lose Cr50 over an hour on the Cr0.25 ante table to make it look like I belong in the hotel casino."

If you go into town, I roll a law check every 4 hours like clockwork. once a day if you stay in. Then the reaction roll to see if they're actually interested in you. But I don't tell you the reaction roll....
... which has lead paranoid players to take on local cops with no reason.
... which has lead to insufficiently paranoid players being exposed to Adv. 8.
... and has lead to some interesting sessions of players second guessing whether or not to interact or try to just pass on through.

Note that a "stay in" might be cops on your block, not after you, but just you becoming aware of them.

 

[creativehum]

Many of the rolls called for in the Traveller rules are not "critical situations". Gambling is not a critical situation... but it calls for rolls regularly.

Finding last minute cargos is not a critical situation, but it's a specified procedural roll.

Many of the procedures are pretty bloody mundane, really... and in fact are pretty common. The Roll to avoid a law enforcement encounter is not a critical situation; it is a specified procedural.

Procedural play is rather simulationist. Mike is Not. Mike is reducing the process simulation extremely. I don't.

If you gamble, I roll the check to see if someone accuses you of cheating. Even if it's just, "I'm going to lose Cr50 over an hour on the Cr0.25 ante table to make it look like I belong in the hotel casino."

If you go into town, I roll a law check every 4 hours like clockwork. once a day if you stay in. Then the reaction roll to see if they're actually interested in you. But I don't tell you the reaction roll....
... which has lead paranoid players to take on local cops with no reason.
... which has lead to insufficiently paranoid players being exposed to Adv. 8.
... and has lead to some interesting sessions of players second guessing whether or not to interact or try to just pass on through.

Note that a "stay in" might be cops on your block, not after you, but just you becoming aware of them.

Aramis...

Mike has used the word "situation" specifically.

The term has a specific use in the text of the Classic Traveller rules.

"The airlraft can be dangerous to operate in high speed situations or in bad weather."

"Specific throws for specific situations must be generated. Obviously, some throws will be harder than others, and many will be impossible without an accumulation of DMs based on expertise, education, dexterity, intelligence, and the availability of parts and tools."

"For example: one of a group of adventurers arrives at an aging crisis (page 8) while on an expedition into the wilds of a unsettled planet. No one has medical expertise. Jack of all trades can be applied as a substitute for medical skill in this situation..."

Skills and the Referee: It is impossible for any table of information to cover all aspects of every potential situation, and the above listing is by no means complete in its coverage of the effects of skills. This is where the referee becomes an important part of the game process. The above listing of skills and game effects must necessarily be taken as a guide, and followed, altered, or ignored as the actual situation dictates.

This use of the word "situation" is specifically echoes in the passage Mike reference and I quoted in full from The Traveller Adventure.

The passage begins:

Situation Throws: In the absence of any other guidance, the referee may always resort to the situation throw...

And then goes on to illustrate the Referee creating Throws for situations not covered at all in any of the Basic Traveller rules.

All of this is to make plain that when speaking of Situation Throws (per the title of this thread) no one would ever be speaking of looking for cargo or making a roll to avoid law enforcement. Those rolls are clearly, bluntly procedural.

The definition of the Situation Throw ("in the absence of any other guidelines") are clearly not procedural, and probably not covered by any of the finite procedures for skill use given in the rules compared to the infinite number of situations a Player Character might find himself engaged in.

Leaving aside any concerns for the word "critical" for the moment I want to see if can we remove any concern for rolls clearly outside the scope of what Mike was addressing.

 

[aramis]

CT still supports a proceduralist approach; I know (from years of discussions with him here, and via email) that Mike is not into procedural play. He put "critical" in the title for a reason — he doesn't like nor use procedural throws outside critical situations for the vast majority of things.

Mike and I both were extremely active in the T20 playtest, and while I respect him, and he seems to respect me, we come at CT from very different points of view.

Procedural play is also inherently a heavier feel than narrative with occasional critical situation rolls.

The term Mike chose implies "Saving Throws"... a term/concept from D&D. And it's a valid playstyle within the CT context, but it's not the way the CT rules are written, and it's not a method that will be able to support the procedural play.

The core of CT is a series of procedural rules. Marc was, like both Frank and Loren, a Wargames designer. Rules as procedures. Simulation via rules. A significant subset of players, however, treated it as a rules-lite set of exemplars. And others who saw it as a framework to expand upon with new procedures.

Mike - appologies for the digression dominating the thread.

 

[creativehum]

Can you please address the example Mike referenced in The Traveller Adventure regarding Situation Throws in the context of your statements.

When I look at what you are saying in the context of all the material I have quoted so far it makes sense. When I look at your statement in the context of the material from a different angle it looks utterly ridiculous.

So I think I'm close to understanding the stand you are taking. But looking for you to simply put it into the context of the specific example offered in The Traveller Adventure to make it make sense.

Thank you.

 

[aramis]

Can you please address the example Mike referenced in The Traveller Adventure regarding Situation Throws in the context of your statements.

When I look at what you are saying in the context of all the material I have quoted so far it makes sense. When I look at your statement in the context of the material from a different angle it looks utterly ridiculous.

So I think I'm close to understanding the stand you are taking. But looking for you to simply put it into the context of the specific example offered in The Traveller Adventure to make it make sense.

Thank you.

I'm a proceduralist. CT gives me an incomplete set. That passage is an example of new procedures to write and how to do so; it's by no means anywhere close to the core rules.

It's not even a "critical situation" ruleset. Restricting throws to "critical situations" is NOT CT.

CT, rules as written, throws are for resolving situations. Not just critical situations.

The examples given in TTA are task rolls, not critical situation rolls. The exemplar of crossing town... Fail the taxi, look for a bus, or hitchhike, or rent a bicycle, or even just walk... nothing critical about the taxi.

given the examples, not even all of them are interesting failures except in a resource management mindset. A taxi is less time than the bus or a bicycle, and those less time than walking; expense is inverse to time taken.

Throws are being used in CT rules in a non-critical situation just as much as a critical one. The GM is allowed to ignore them, but the rules are presented as a series of if-thens, and a proceduralist approach is that they are prescriptive and schematic: you can add more at any time, but the ones given are typical (and often mundane) uses.

 

[creativehum]

I'm a proceduralist. CT gives me an incomplete set. That passage is an example of new procedures to write and how to do so; it's by no means anywhere close to the core rules.

Even though the rules themselves (especially the 1977 edition) make it clear that creating new procedures is a core aspect of the rules?

From the 1977 rules:

Skills and the Referee: It is impossible for any table of information to cover all aspects of every potential situation, and the above listing is by no means complete in its coverage of the effects of skills. This is where the referee becomes an impor-tant part of the game process. The above listing of skills and game effects must necessarily be taken as a guide, and followed, altered, or ignored as the actual situ-ation dictates.

From both the 1977 and 1981 rules:

The referee must settle disputes about the rules (and may use his own imagination while doing so, rather than strictly adhering to the letter of the rules).

I'm honestly (and I mean honestly) baffled by how you Referee your game.

Do your players only do things that are covered in the Skill description guidelines? Do you discourage them from doing things that are not covered in the descriptions of the skills?

Do you consider the text quoted above that literally tell the Referee that he cannot use the letter of the rules to play the game successfully some sort of mistake, or not part of the core rules, or some sort of blustery bulls##t so you dismiss them as not very important?

(Again, I'm taking the "critical" element of the table right now. Let's assume for the moment "critical" is not on table. I'm simply trying to understand how you play the game in the context of -- well, either only playing out situations from the from the guidelines typed on the page... or not.)