1st Time GM

[Thanos]

So..... My DnD group has decided to give Traveller a try. I'm pretty good with the rules I just need some help with a few things.... (I'm sure my "pretty good with the rules" will fall apart on contact with the enemy but nothing ventured nothing gained).

The less work they have to do the better. We meet once a week. I'll have 2 to 3 months to run this. With that in mind...

1) What book has the best character sheet or where can I find a good one on line?

2) What adventure is the most like, and I hate to say this, Fire Fly? It was a selling point.

3)Where can I find "paper" miniatures SF or Traveller specific?

I would love to over throw the DnD mind set by showing them how awesome Traveller is so any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Supplement Four]

1) What book has the best character sheet or where can I find a good one on line?

With CT, you don't really need a character sheet. All you really need is an entry on a sheet of notebook paper like this:

Joe Traveller 557AF7 Navy 4-Terms Age 30 Cr1,000
Computer-1, Gunnery-1, Vacc-1
TAS Member

Shotgun, 4 mags, Short-Range Comm



That tells you all you need to know. But, there is a traditional character sheet, called TAS Form 2. You'll see it in different places, such as page 32 of the Traveller Book.

Use your Google-fu, and you'll find this and other Traveller character sheets.

2) What adventure is the most like, and I hate to say this, Fire Fly? It was a selling point.

Several adventures feature adventure class vessels getting into trouble. I've always liked the Traveller Adventure, but that's a huge campaign--maybe too much for your needs, especially if this is the first time you've run Traveller.

Be wary of older GDW adventures. Typically, those require a lot of Ref prep.

3)Where can I find "paper" miniatures SF or Traveller specific?

Dunno. Never used such.

I would love to over throw the DnD mind set by showing them how awesome Traveller is so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Concentrate on making the game cool and fun, and you'll do just that. It's more about presentation and story-telling than it is getting the rules "right".

 

[Timerover51]

So..... My DnD group has decided to give Traveller a try. I'm pretty good with the rules I just need some help with a few things.... (I'm sure my "pretty good with the rules" will fall apart on contact with the enemy but nothing ventured nothing gained).

The less work they have to do the better. We meet once a week. I'll have 2 to 3 months to run this. With that in mind...

1) What book has the best character sheet or where can I find a good one on line?

2) What adventure is the most like, and I hate to say this, Fire Fly? It was a selling point.

3)Where can I find "paper" miniatures SF or Traveller specific?

I would love to over throw the DnD mind set by showing them how awesome Traveller is so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Safari Limited makes a tube of Astronauts if you would like to use those. Otherwise, I have played around with using Lego Astronauts with other Lego equipment as well. You could always fall back on some of the Warhammer 40K stuff too.

Nice thing about the Legos is being able to change how they look easily, and also you have both men and women.

For outdoor adventures involving animals, Safari Limited tubes of various kinds as quite useful. I used a lot of their stuff in my summer game design class. They have tubes of vehicles and buildings as well, and some of vegetation.

Note: Neither I nor any of my immediate or extended family work for Safari Limited or Legos.

 

[BlackBat242]

In CT there was Supplement 12: Forms & Charts which included a character info form (character sheet), "TAS form 2".

Like most CT material it was two pages of a booklet (front & back), pages 8 & 9.

 

[Timerover51]

You can look in the File Library under Forms and Charts and find a lot of stuff. I found a file that had about all of the forms and charts in it from Supplement 12, but I have not the foggiest idea of where I found it. I thought that I found it in the files library.

 

[whulorigan]

3)Where can I find "paper" miniatures SF or Traveller specific?

Dunno. Never used such.

What about the "character-chits" used and supplied in some of the GDW Boxed Games, like Snapshot? They are also reproduced in the respective PDFs on the FarFuture CD-ROMs, IIRC.

 

[CosmicGamer]

3)Where can I find "paper" miniatures SF or Traveller specific?

There is this thread: http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=15212

Or just search the internet for "sci fi paper miniatures"

 

[ShapeShifter]

pure CT

 

[Timerover51]

With respect to paper miniatures, I downloaded the Space: 1889 rules for Cloudships and Gunboats/Sky Galleons of Mars from Drive Thru, and discovered that at the end of the Sky Galleon rules are all of the paper miniatures that came with the original game. That also included the deck layouts for the various ships, and all are in color. That would be another option for you as well, although the figures are clearly Victorian Age and also Martians.

I will have to keep this in mind. I use whatever is handy to get a 3-D effect. One inch graph paper makes for excellent miniature deck plans. I normally do typical sections of corridor, and then layouts of the various rooms that will probably be entered. If you use a scale of 1 inch equals one deck plan square of 1.5 meters, it works nicely, and keeps your figures spread out as well.

 

[aramis]

the original for Sky Galleons wasn't paper minis... it was plastic minis. None of the line included paper minis, so those are Heliograph's value-add.

making me tempted to run and 1889 game again.

 

[Timerover51]

the original for Sky Galleons wasn't paper minis... it was plastic minis. None of the line included paper minis, so those are Heliograph's value-add.

making me tempted to run and 1889 game again.

Hmm, now that I think of it, you are correct, and I have both sets stashed away. I will simply say that they are very well done, and it does include the maps in color for Sky Galleons of Mars. I was very impressed by it. Now I just need a color printer.

 

[Dagrill]

2) What adventure is the most like, and I hate to say this, Fire Fly? It was a selling point.
I would love to over throw the DnD mind set by showing them how awesome Traveller is so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Hi,

I would recommend QLI Epic Adventure 1 the Forgotten War set in the 5FW
with the characters crewing a Far Trader as part of the naval reserve, it has a dark atmosphere with an Imperial corporation involved in murky stuff & the Imperium itself not looking too good, which isn't quite like Firefly, but could be adapted, it details several worlds in D268 just outside the border.

Regards

David

 

[Thanos]

the original for Sky Galleons wasn't paper minis... it was plastic minis. None of the line included paper minis, so those are Heliograph's value-add.

making me tempted to run and 1889 game again.

Dear Aramis,

I have been a very good boy this year and do everything mom and dad tell me to. I even take out the garbage with out being asked. Please (very much) would you run a Space 1889 game? Would you make it pbp and if I could play in it I would be the best behavied boy in the world. I promise!

Thanks for all the help guys but this fell through. The highlights were one guy didn't like the way the charicter sheet looked and another doesn't like games that use guns. I sh*t you not. Everyone else just bailed to spend time with their familys for two months until we go back to D. N. Fuc*ing. D.

So my reading of this was "If we can't play DnD, we don't want to play". I could be wrong. I'm a little pissed right now.

 

[McPerth]

the original for Sky Galleons wasn't paper minis... it was plastic minis. None of the line included paper minis, so those are Heliograph's value-add.

making me tempted to run and 1889 game again.

I'm not sure now, but ITTR that paper miniatures were on the 1889 game Cloudships and Gunboats, just to play boardings over ship planes...

 

[robject]

Thanks for all the help guys but this fell through. The highlights were one guy didn't like the way the charicter sheet looked and another doesn't like games that use guns. [...]

So my reading of this was "If we can't play DnD, we don't want to play". I could be wrong. I'm a little pissed right now.

Something to think about for the future: Wanderer.

For now: don't sweat it. Gaming is gaming, and there's always a chance that Traveller will come back into your scope. In the meantime you can glance over the various house rules that sprung up a few years ago for Wanderer -- a low-tech fantasy setting using Traveller rules (it typically looks Conanic, Tolkienesque, or Argonautic, or Sinbad-like).

 

[Timerover51]

Dear Aramis,

I have been a very good boy this year and do everything mom and dad tell me to. I even take out the garbage with out being asked. Please (very much) would you run a Space 1889 game? Would you make it pbp and if I could play in it I would be the best behavied boy in the world. I promise!

Thanks for all the help guys but this fell through. The highlights were one guy didn't like the way the charicter sheet looked and another doesn't like games that use guns. I sh*t you not. Everyone else just bailed to spend time with their familys for two months until we go back to D. N. Fuc*ing. D.

So my reading of this was "If we can't play DnD, we don't want to play". I could be wrong. I'm a little pissed right now.

Hmm, another Space: 1889 fan. Could we play by post here? I have a bunch of ideas for a game. For a while I was working on a scenario of a bunch of ex-Confederates pooling their knowledge and money and building what amounted to a flying Merrimac(Virginia)/Albemarle/Tennessee/Atlanta ironclad, mounting an 11 inch Dalhgren gun and some Whitworth breech-loading rifles, plus a couple of Gatling Guns, and hiring as mercenaries to the British on Mars, or whatever Martian city was paying enough. Still have all of the miniature guns for that. You can have a lot of fun with that game.

 

[Thanos]

Jesus man! I had a very similar scenario when I first picked up the book all the way back in '88. Right they had they're own little town. The air ship Jefferson Davis commanded by Captain John Carter. Damn. Now I'm really jonesin' for some Space:1889!

 

[SpaceBadger]

Hmm, another Space: 1889 fan. Could we play by post here? I have a bunch of ideas for a game. For a while I was working on a scenario of a bunch of ex-Confederates pooling their knowledge and money and building what amounted to a flying Merrimac(Virginia)/Albemarle/Tennessee/Atlanta ironclad, mounting an 11 inch Dalhgren gun and some Whitworth breech-loading rifles, plus a couple of Gatling Guns, and hiring as mercenaries to the British on Mars, or whatever Martian city was paying enough. Still have all of the miniature guns for that. You can have a lot of fun with that game.

If one of you guys wants to run a Space:1889 PbP, I would love to play in it.

If whoever ends up GMing this likes the stuff I have been able to do in the Traveller Wiki for SBRD after tjoneslo set up our campaign section, I will be happy to advise on how to do any of that.

 

[Thanos]

Would the let us play here as it's not Traveller?

 

[Timerover51]

Would the let us play here as it's not Traveller?

Ask.