Beginning Traveller

[Spinward Scout]

Hey Everybody!

Has anyone played the Alternity: Science Fiction Adventure Game before? It's a boxed set with an Adventure Guide, a Gamemaster Guide, pre-made Character Sheets, and a Ship Diagram.

The reason I'm asking is that after reading through it, I thought it was a great way to set up a good starter Traveller game. Say, half the complexity of the Traveller Adventure, leaving character generation for advanced play. All the main good guys and bad guys fleshed out. Each world with a different flavor and described thoroughly, not just numbers that correspond to a generic listing in the Ref book.

A mini-campaign you could run though in about a month or so.

I always thought one of the problems that Traveller had was in giving too much 'leeway' to start with, so to speak. Too many options and sometimes people just don't know where to start.

I think we might have covered this before, but what do you think?

Spinward Scout

 

[Jame]

I have the Star*Drive setting book, one of the supplements (Arms catalogue) and a few Dragon articles. It is notably Travelleresque, but for all that it's not as close as you'd think - e.g., there's a massive difference in power plants and stardrives.

My look through the original Alternity books, from 10 years ago, supports the Traveller-yet-not memory.

 

[Commander Drax]

I've got some alternity materials and they seem quite good, I've never really used them though, the tech is too soft for traveller

 

[aramis]

The task system's a bit cumbersome, but overall, it works... Ship design is pretty nice, and the Warships expansion is available as a download somewhere on-line for free.

Now, as for the ob-trav, yes, a starter kit type set isn't a bad idea, but it should be very basic. And the problem is that, in traveller, what is basic and what isn't besides how to resolve tasks?

 

[GypsyComet]

Ah Alternity. Wonderful fluff, passable task system, thoughtless implementation of technology, bleeping useless experience system.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Now, as for the ob-trav, yes, a starter kit type set isn't a bad idea, but it should be very basic. And the problem is that, in traveller, what is basic and what isn't besides how to resolve tasks?

Well, I guess it would be more of what activities of a Traveller would be basic. I think that might have been asked on a different thread. What are the basic activities? Starflight, space battles, a little bit of trade, a little exploration. Encounters with... well, that's where it starts to get complicated. Maybe 4 worlds, probably a maximum of 10. A couple of interlinked adventures.

I don't know - I think that's what I'm scratching my head about.

 

[whartung]

Well, I guess it would be more of what activities of a Traveller would be basic. I think that might have been asked on a different thread. What are the basic activities? Starflight, space battles, a little bit of trade, a little exploration. Encounters with... well, that's where it starts to get complicated. Maybe 4 worlds, probably a maximum of 10. A couple of interlinked adventures.

I don't know - I think that's what I'm scratching my head about.

Well, the other question is "Basic for who? The player or the Ref?". A fully fleshed out adventure with lots of narrative is easier for a beginning ref, but none of the above is particularly difficult for the beginning player, IMHO.

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

I guess my age is showing...

The first thing I think of is character generation.
Everyone has a fantasy character or alter-ego floating around in their heads. If you spend the first session creating characters, you can give your new players background information appropriate to what their characters should know.

Merchants would know shipping patterns, tariffs, etc; military people would have information pertaining to mercenaries, hot zones; rogues and pirates would know where to best ply their trades...

Now that you know what is in your players' minds, you can select an appropriate scenario.

 

[Spinward Scout]

What I was trying to say in the first post was bypassing the Character Generation portion and getting right to playing. I've heard people complain about that part of Traveller so, I figured that leaving it to Advanced Play instead of the first scenario would make it a lot easier for people to play the game. Streamlining the game, so to speak.

 

[Supplement Four]

What I was trying to say in the first post was bypassing the Character Generation portion and getting right to playing. I've heard people complain about that part of Traveller so, I figured that leaving it to Advanced Play instead of the first scenario would make it a lot easier for people to play the game. Streamlining the game, so to speak.

I absolutely love Traveller chargen. For most other games, chargen is a chore. With Traveller, it's fun.


When I run games, the first game session is character generation. I actually turn it into a game sessions, role playing years instead of seconds.

 

[deniable]

What I was trying to say in the first post was bypassing the Character Generation portion and getting right to playing. I've heard people complain about that part of Traveller so, I figured that leaving it to Advanced Play instead of the first scenario would make it a lot easier for people to play the game. Streamlining the game, so to speak.

It sounds like you're looking for a very simple 'ready to run' game that can be handed to people new to Traveller to whet their appetites and give them a quick tour of the universe and game rules. Character generation for most versions is a beast if you haven't seen it before. Roll stats, roll or choose home-world, choose a career or choose to roll for the draft, roll for number of rolls per term, choose tables and roll for skills, and so on. At this point some of them will say "This isn't fun. Traveller sucks."

Giving people a tour of the high-points of the game without a lot of effort could help bring in new players. Pre-generated characters would help with this, especially if the 'sampler' adventure targets the abilities of the characters. Give them a simple version of the rules without swamping them with all of the rules.

I remember when D&D 3 came out, there was a boxed game that had an adventure with maps, characters, dice, necessary rules. You could read a few pages of rules and be ready to run. This looked like it would give new players a shallow learning curve to bring them in to the game.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Giving people a tour of the high-points of the game without a lot of effort could help bring in new players. Pre-generated characters would help with this, especially if the 'sampler' adventure targets the abilities of the characters. Give them a simple version of the rules without swamping them with all of the rules.

I remember when D&D 3 came out, there was a boxed game that had an adventure with maps, characters, dice, necessary rules. You could read a few pages of rules and be ready to run. This looked like it would give new players a shallow learning curve to bring them in to the game.

That's basically what I was talking about with the first post of the thread.

 

[aramis]

In general, the first run for total newbs from me is usually some form of mission-based scenario. Starting in media res. You already have the mission and the team (pregenerated) and are en route. Sometimes active duty military, some times a duke's troubleshooters, sometimes a megacorporate job.

 

[Merxiless]

I have everything in print or download for Alternity.

To me, it's like a fuzzy traveller, with 20 years of game design experience behind it at TSR, that Marc Miller didn't have access to in 1977.

A shame that 3rd ed, and WOTC killed it.

That doesn't stop us from planning to play it here in Ohio this summer.

I think, as I always have that the best route to go with an RPG, especially to new players is to gen up 20 characters, any number of which all fit together, and have players choose from the pile, based on history, and concept.

"I want to be the captain."

"I want the guy who's always in trouble."

"I want to play a smart female scientist, with a sharp tongue."

Then go from there. Don't involve them in the stats, numbers, or all of that, introduce it gradually.

I think the Alternity game did that admirably, and eased new players into it.

Using it, running it, is actually as fun as using Classic Traveller... just with a more character based than gear based, more setting then specific world feel.

To me, the styles lay out as follows:
Alternity is hip soft sci fi TV Show.
Traveller is hard edged, let's calculate the orbit or die Novel.
FASA Trek is Old school Kirk & Crew, fighting the gorn.
LUG Trek RPG is Star Trek Film.

There are, of course many other sci fi RPG systems out there, each bringing a different, and unique flavor. The above are the ones I've played the most, other than Mechwarrior / BattleTech.

 

[aramis]

well, since it is still available for d/l purchase, it's not "Dead-dead", just "Mostly Dead"...

many good games are still available, despite having either lost licenses or been discontinued. Alternity, Buffy, Serenity...

 

[robject]

I always thought one of the problems that Traveller had was in giving too much 'leeway' to start with, so to speak. Too many options and sometimes people just don't know where to start.

What comes to my mind is the sketchiness of many Traveller adventures, requiring a lot of work of the referee. I think the solution to this is something like The Traveller Adventure and Knightfall, where most of the work is done and ready.

It'd have pregenerated characters so you're ready to pick up and go, as well as a "Dramatis Personae" for NPCs. And each scene in the adventure would be described with supporting material. Floorplans, for instance, if there's going to be a barroom brawl or a break-in. Blueprints if there's espionage. (I've wondered if a Passport motif would be a neat way to model a character sheet).

And in some fantasy world, there'd also be a subsector supplement, with library data and a decent little map and writeup of each world. And, available separately, a PDF version of "Traders and Gunboats" with deckplan images large enough for miniatures.

I suppose an image library for every world in a sector is now do-able.