CT Only: Book 4 Lessons

[Supplement Four]

I really never bought into the Mercenary rules in Book 4 at all. I have a very hard time visualizing the Imperium allowing private military units with very High Tech levels of equipment to exist. I can see too many Imperial Nobles looking at the local mercenary unit and realizing that they could put every one of his household troops in body bags without breaking a sweat or loosing a man.

Interesting, that's how Hammer's Slammers was created. Friesland needed extra firepower when they cracked down to control the bluebright trade, so the created the Auxiliary Regiment. Hammer left the elite Friesland Guards to command the unit. But, when they were done, Secretary Tromp, the elected leader of the Republic, decided that he couldn't have the Mercs back on the capital of Friesland. And, he couldn't have them roaming the stars, either taking contracts.

So, he attempted to murder them all--all 4,000 of them, at the end of the engagement.

Of course, Colonel Hammer had other plans.

Hammer's Slammers, the merc outfit, was born from Friesland's Auxiliary Regiment.

And, once there was one merc outfit, others grew up in its wake.





BTW, Book 4 covers low and high tech. There is a big section on TL in the back of the book, running from TL 5 through TL 15.



Also, remember that the Imperium is a vast, big, grande thing. It takes years and decades to cross it, depending on your jump drive. Because of the way communication is in Traveller, it is likely that mercs could be outlawed in one subsector, but there may be other subsectors where mercs are commonplace.





Plus, look at what happens in The Traveller Adventure. Aramanx is balkanized. MegaCorps have their hands behind the scenes to influence what is going on that world.

Merc Companies seem to fall right into place, given that.

Tukera's Vemene organization is basically a secret merc company loyal to Tukera.

 

[aramis]

I really never bought into the Mercenary rules in Book 4 at all. I have a very hard time visualizing the Imperium allowing private military units with very High Tech levels of equipment to exist. I can see too many Imperial Nobles looking at the local mercenary unit and realizing that they could put every one of his household troops in body bags without breaking a sweat or loosing a man.

It's actually a trope common in a lot of military sci-fi. Most notable for Drake's Hammer's Slammers and Pournelle's Falkenberg's Legion. It also appears in Asprin's Phule's Company series, and Cole & Bunch's Sten Series. (Those latter two, it's incidental to the stories.)

Also, it's a canon trope in the OTU - introduced in Suplement 11: Library Data N-Z, under Rules of War. The Imperium leaves its member worlds to their own devices. Mercenaries are allowed, and can radically alter the outcome of much larger wars.

Further, despite being "outlawed" by almost all of the "superpowers" - most of the superpowers have both used and generated mercenary units. The most notable are the French Legion Etrangier and the US WWII era Polish Air Force and American Volunteer Group, the 1915-1930 American Expeditionary Force, and modern "Private Military Contractor." To be blunt: a PMC is a mercenary by another name. Not part of the hiring country's military, engaged in military actions, and paid no worse than the country's soldiers for the same region...

Fundamentally, since the rise of nation-states, mercenaries have existed, whether or not they've been officially sanctioned, and even where and when banned, they still have existed, often in the form of organized crime.

Wherever there is war, there is the potential for mercenaries to be used.

 

[Condottiere]

Differing models of the mercenary trope exist.

Falkenberg's Legion mirrors current use of private military contractors to subvert troop limitations and government oversight, ironically financed using the drug trade.

My take on the Solomani Confederation limits permanent mercenary companies to a roster of less than three hundred sophonts, though they can be temporarily brigaded together under a Captain General. Each would be infiltrated by at least one Solomani Security agent and a Commissar would be assigned to a Captain General.

You could take the post colonial trope where highly trained veterans are hired as cadre, specialists and/or decapitation commandos.

Security and/or pseudo praetorian guards for regimes that don't quite trust their citizens.

 

[Timerover51]

It's actually a trope common in a lot of military sci-fi. Most notable for Drake's Hammer's Slammers and Pournelle's Falkenberg's Legion. It also appears in Asprin's Phule's Company series, and Cole & Bunch's Sten Series. (Those latter two, it's incidental to the stories.)

Also, it's a canon trope in the OTU - introduced in Suplement 11: Library Data N-Z, under Rules of War. The Imperium leaves its member worlds to their own devices. Mercenaries are allowed, and can radically alter the outcome of much larger wars.

Further, despite being "outlawed" by almost all of the "superpowers" - most of the superpowers have both used and generated mercenary units. The most notable are the French Legion Etrangier and the US WWII era Polish Air Force and American Volunteer Group, the 1915-1930 American Expeditionary Force, and modern "Private Military Contractor." To be blunt: a PMC is a mercenary by another name. Not part of the hiring country's military, engaged in military actions, and paid no worse than the country's soldiers for the same region...

Fundamentally, since the rise of nation-states, mercenaries have existed, whether or not they've been officially sanctioned, and even where and when banned, they still have existed, often in the form of organized crime.

Wherever there is war, there is the potential for mercenaries to be used.

I fully understand that anytime there is a war, there is the possibility of mercenaries appearing, and I have read both Drake's book (I did not enjoy them and got rid of them) and also Pournelle's (I found them a bit boring), just personal preferences notes.

Probably as a result of reading so much military history over the years, starting in about 1960 or so, I am just not into a science fiction mercenary RPG. I am thinking about the idea of a Twilight 1960 sort of game, based on Warplan Dropshot, but that would be more very small units, not large military forces.

I have never gotten into large-scale miniature battles of any era, although I do have the SPI series of Ancient to Medieval board games, and enjoy them. I am more into what Don Featherstone called the skirmish level of games. Small numbers of troops, roughly squad or section level, trying to perform a mission. That is probably why I enjoy D&D so much, besides being able to play it while laying in a hospital bed.

My Space Viking raiders in my new sector are not going to be massive ships with large numbers of men, but more ships under a 1000 tons raiding planetary surfaces for portable loot. Not exactly Piper's idea, more what he might call "chicken stealing"/

 

[kilemall]

Differing models of the mercenary trope exist.

Falkenberg's Legion mirrors current use of private military contractors to subvert troop limitations and government oversight, ironically financed using the drug trade.

My take on the Solomani Confederation limits permanent mercenary companies to a roster of less than three hundred sophonts, though they can be temporarily brigaded together under a Captain General. Each would be infiltrated by at least one Solomani Security agent and a Commissar would be assigned to a Captain General.

You could take the post colonial trope where highly trained veterans are hired as cadre, specialists and/or decapitation commandos.

Security and/or pseudo praetorian guards for regimes that don't quite trust their citizens.

For my TC universe, it's small merc groups that do colonial and corporate work subcontracted from nation-states are too queasy/PR adverse to do it themselves and not trusting enough of the TC to delegate.

 

[ffilz]

It's actually a trope common in a lot of military sci-fi. Most notable for Drake's Hammer's Slammers and Pournelle's Falkenberg's Legion. It also appears in Asprin's Phule's Company series, and Cole & Bunch's Sten Series. (Those latter two, it's incidental to the stories.)

Also, it's a canon trope in the OTU - introduced in Suplement 11: Library Data N-Z, under Rules of War. The Imperium leaves its member worlds to their own devices. Mercenaries are allowed, and can radically alter the outcome of much larger wars.

Further, despite being "outlawed" by almost all of the "superpowers" - most of the superpowers have both used and generated mercenary units. The most notable are the French Legion Etrangier and the US WWII era Polish Air Force and American Volunteer Group, the 1915-1930 American Expeditionary Force, and modern "Private Military Contractor." To be blunt: a PMC is a mercenary by another name. Not part of the hiring country's military, engaged in military actions, and paid no worse than the country's soldiers for the same region...

Fundamentally, since the rise of nation-states, mercenaries have existed, whether or not they've been officially sanctioned, and even where and when banned, they still have existed, often in the form of organized crime.

Wherever there is war, there is the potential for mercenaries to be used.

It's also worth noting that in the 70s Mercenary themed magazines were on store shelves in the 70s. I best remember them being on the shelves at my FLGS, but I bet the corner news stand in my hometown where I remember looking at the True Crime genre magazines probably had them also.

The Mercenary trope is absolutely a solid thing that was informing Traveller, both in the official material and in people's actual play.

It may not make sense if we project out in every direction possible, but SFRPG is as much about playing out futuristic fantasy as playing out hard SF built from projections from the current day with as much "realism" as possible.

Frank

 

[ffilz]

True. I won't argue that.

But as Aramis stated--and his point comes at this sideways--some of the skills a character gets in Book 4 are not very useful for a general adventurer.

How useful is having VRF Gauss Gun-2, like Odam has, if the character is to be used as a general adventurer? And, that's Odam's highest skill.

As an adventurer, Odam would be better served to have those two points put into SMG or some other useful skill for typical Traveller adventurers.





That's another point about Advanced Characters. Yes, they have more skills, but some of the skills are specific rather than general.

Here is Odam:

457776
VRF Gauss Gun-2, SMG-1, Grav Vehicle-1, Gambling-1, Vacc Suit-1, Zero-G Combat-1, Electronics-1


Skills Generally Useful to a typical Traveller adventurer:

SMG-1, Grav Vehicle-1, Gambling-1, Vacc Suit-1, Electronics-1



More specific skills more useful to a Mercenary focused character:

VRF Gauss Gun-2, Zero-G Combat-1*



*Zero-G Combat could be useful to a typical Traveller adventurer, but, for all practical purposes, the Vacc Suit skill will do just as well.





This is another compatibility issue with Basic and Advanced characters. You can think of Advanced characters as Basic character with additional, specific skills that speak to the advanced focus.

The rules do give a real advantage to Zero-G Combat over just having Vacc Suit. And this is the problem I have with Book 4 (or even Supplement 4), the introduction of skills that should be available to the original 6 basic careers as much as the additional skills. Books 4-7 introduce a definite expansion of the skill list and implications on what a skill means.

 

[aramis]

The skill issue you mention, ffilz, is why MT went to lots of cascades, vs only a few in CT.
This also made MT play quite differently, by allowing much more control over the Character.

Which leads to the other big lesson of Bk4/5/6/7: unintended consequences are inherent when one changes subsets of processes.

 

[BlackBat242]

It's actually a trope common in a lot of military sci-fi. Most notable for Drake's Hammer's Slammers and Pournelle's Falkenberg's Legion. It also appears in Asprin's Phule's Company series, and Cole & Bunch's Sten Series. (Those latter two, it's incidental to the stories.)

Also, it's a canon trope in the OTU - introduced in Suplement 11: Library Data N-Z, under Rules of War. The Imperium leaves its member worlds to their own devices. Mercenaries are allowed, and can radically alter the outcome of much larger wars.

.....

Wherever there is war, there is the potential for mercenaries to be used.

Andre Norton: Star Guard (1955). Terrans sent out as mercenary groups - the tech allowed for each contract is governed by the tech of their opponents.

 

[Supplement Four]

I actually don't mind all the different skills. In real life, people learn in different ways. CT is not about synchronization and conformity. Skill levels aren't standardized at +1 DM per level.

If I know is the PC from my use of it at home, that's one skill.

If my friends knows a ton more about computers, programming, with both Macs and PCs, then his skill is different from mine but also includes mine.

That's why I'm way OK with having...

A Revolver skill.

A Pistol skill that covers more than one type of weapon.

And a Handgun skill that covers not quite the same array of skills as does the Pistol skill.

And, I'm OK with having the Engineering skill cover something on the ship that could also be covered with the Electronics skill.

 

[aramis]

I actually don't mind all the different skills. In real life, people learn in different ways. CT is not about synchronization and conformity. Skill levels aren't standardized at +1 DM per level.

If I know is the PC from my use of it at home, that's one skill.

If my friends knows a ton more about computers, programming, with both Macs and PCs, then his skill is different from mine but also includes mine.

That's why I'm way OK with having...

A Revolver skill.

A Pistol skill that covers more than one type of weapon.

And a Handgun skill that covers not quite the same array of skills as does the Pistol skill.

And, I'm OK with having the Engineering skill cover something on the ship that could also be covered with the Electronics skill.

And that's a pretty unusual view of it...

 

[GypsyComet]

And that's a pretty unusual view of it...

And yet the CT skill list was obviously intended to have overlaps, subsets, and professional variation awarded to different careers. That was clear from the outset with Pilot vs Ship's Boat.

What bugs me is that some of those subsets are terribly imbalanced once we hit Books 4-7. One Gun Combat award in Book 1 was for a single specific type of weapon, while a single award in Mercenary from the same service could cover a third of the ironmongery list. It drove players toward the Advanced careers to the detriment of any career not found in them.

 

[Supplement Four]

And that's a pretty unusual view of it...

I can see why you'd say that, but I think it is an accepting view of what CT gives us. It also seems to be a more realistic view.

People learn skills in different ways. Skills overlap.

And, I think the non-standardization in CT is a feature.

 

[aramis]

I can see why you'd say that, but I think it is an accepting view of what CT gives us. It also seems to be a more realistic view.

People learn skills in different ways. Skills overlap.

And, I think the non-standardization in CT is a feature.

During the day, most of my acquaintances took a much more narrow understanding. Which is why we (largely) never adopted advanced gen. We did add some skills into cascades - specific skills for the plasma and fusion guns, the ACR, the GG, etc.
Note that, at the time, the only other games I had played were Star Frontiers, D&D (Moldvay/Cook), and AD&D.
SF skills are all collections of subskills - and excepting a few, subskills advance with the skill, in lockstep. Like the CT Core, each weapon type was its own skill.

The different skill widths in SF felt reasonable - because they had different costs.

The different widths in Bk4 skills felt wrong as hell... because they were inconsistent with Bk1

 

[whartung]

The Mercenary trope is rampant not just in Sci-Fi, but through adventure fiction in general.

Most of it is at a more personal level, or small groups. But, in the end mercenary anyway. Whether they're working for an intelligence agency, robbing a bank, retrieving a book from the City of the Dead. Private Dick working for a client.

Hard men, paid to potentially do unspeakable things, on the payroll.

Westerns, Noir, military fiction, Sci-Fi. Indy Jones less so, as a stand out contrast. He's simply a thief .

The entire "murder hobo" genre in Traveller is mercenary in nature.

And, don't forget The Dorsai, from sci-fi literature. An entire planet and culture of mercenaries.

 

[Timerover51]

No one has mentioned Andre Norton's Star Guard, where Earth is turned into the Galaxy's mercenary provider by a Galactic organization called "Central Control". The Archs with the hand weapons and the Mechs with the high-tech equipment. That story does make an interesting read, as it is not the typical mercenary tale.

I have no problems with the mercenary genre per se, but the way it is presented in Traveller just is not something that I am excited about.

The other problem with Books 4, 5. 6, and 7 is that they massively unbalanced the game with respect to straight Book 1 or Supplement 4 characters.

 

[Supplement Four]

If you think about it, a broad stance almost needs to be taken with any CT skill. Let them overlap.

Reason: CT characters get so few skills. So, with the skill they do get, those few should be applied liberally.

What does a skill like Engineering cover, anyway? TTB says it designates the individual as skilled in the operation and maintenance of starship M-Drives, J-Drives, and powerplants.

So...isn't it reasonable that the operation and maintenance of starship J-Drives include some things covered by the Computer skill? The Mechanical skill? The Electronics skill? The Gravitics skill? And so on...

 

[BlackBat242]

No one has mentioned Andre Norton's Star Guard, where Earth is turned into the Galaxy's mercenary provider by a Galactic organization called "Central Control". The Archs with the hand weapons and the Mechs with the high-tech equipment. That story does make an interesting read, as it is not the typical mercenary tale.

I mentioned it in post #29 of this very thread - 14 hours and 35 minutes before your post: http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=596500&postcount=29

 

[rhialto]

If you think about it, a broad stance almost needs to be taken with any CT skill. Let them overlap.

Reason: CT characters get so few skills. So, with the skill they do get, those few should be applied liberally.

What does a skill like Engineering cover, anyway? TTB says it designates the individual as skilled in the operation and maintenance of starship M-Drives, J-Drives, and powerplants.

So...isn't it reasonable that the operation and maintenance of starship J-Drives include some things covered by the Computer skill? The Mechanical skill? The Electronics skill? The Gravitics skill? And so on...

Yes, I find it very reasonable; but the additional skills and the increasing number of overlaps is what convinced me to subsume all skills after LBB1 under one of the LBB1 skills.

 

[Supplement Four]

Yes, I find it very reasonable; but the additional skills and the increasing number of overlaps is what convinced me to subsume all skills after LBB1 under one of the LBB1 skills.

I can see limiting skills to the books that were used to create the PCs. If only Book 1 was used, then only skills from that book are used in the game.

If a merc company is created, then only Book 1 and Book 4 skills are used, etc.