Campaign Postmortem: Help?

[kilemall]

With regards to that last issue... PCs feeling hyper-specialized because of the enormous skill table... I think I would introduce a house rule if I ran MegaTraveller again.

Namely, I would read all "cascade" skills as "includes" skills. This would allow more min-maxed characters with high skills, but the experience limit is already a way to discourage that. You could even make skills gained in character creation start as “0-level” skills (instead of starting at level 1), if you wanted to tone that down. Since most skills are cascade skills, it would allow you to spread out into new skill areas, perhaps even change professions (as you can, if I recall correctly, in Mongoose Traveller).

Another good reason to do the 'cascade collapse'.

 

[kilemall]

It's been a long time, but I do remember a transition my players made BITD where they had come from D&D and were used to lots of little rewards.

D&D is constantly giving the players new levels, new equipment, more money, and lots of experience points.

Sometimes when players come to Traveller, they feel like their characters aren't growing--and all the little rewards for adventuring are gone.

In Traveller, there certainly is't a +2 Laser Pistol hidden under the seat of the pilot's station in the abandoned spacecraft, so that the player who finds it, can then discard his +1 Laser Pistol and move on with the better weapon.

The Ref can add things like this to his game, but I would caution to add this stuff sparingly.

Traveller is more about the exploring and not so much about the getting.

Though, the players can work to upgrade their ship for better laser turrets or to refill the missile magazines.

TOYS.

 

[Ahmad Romanov]

Everyone knows that a CT target to hit is 8+. In MT, we all know the difficulty numbers.

How is it that players don't know the difficulty?

And...I've always thought that Uncertain Tasks with the UTP don't work well--too fiddly.

It works smashingly when it's all automated on the tabletop with a macro!

In real life... yeah, I am not too sure what I think about doing that with actual dice.

If anyone runs MegaTraveller on Roll20, I would be happy to share the macros I made. It allows you to run the game effortlessly without a character sheet.

 

[flykiller]

So I think they wanted powers, abilities, feats, moves, spells and magic items that let them interact with the game in unique ways. They wanted a stronger mechanical definition for their characters in the game world.

they wanted powers, abilities, feats, moves, spells, and high-tech items that let them dominate the game in unique ways. they wanted stronger mechanics for their characters in the game world.

 

[aramis]

Everyone knows that a CT target to hit is 8+. In MT, we all know the difficulty numbers.

How is it that players don't know the difficulty?

And...I've always thought that Uncertain Tasks with the UTP don't work well--too fiddly.

Because the "CT to hit is always 8+" is a lie. Not a big one, and only by omission but a lie nonetheless. "CT to Hit is almost always 8+ after all modifiers" - Coup d'grace is the reason for almost always, as it auto-hits.

Players often won't know the modifiers, and hence, some uncertainty.
For non-combat, all bets are off. One published task is 3d for combined STR or less. Several are roll low, many are roll high, skill adds mods at various points (one published task is no bonus until level 2, but a hefty non-climbing one thereafter.

MT uncertain tasks are "Do I know my result" on the player facing side, and did I succeed on the GM side... but they're not for "you don't know how hard it is"... they are for "can you see the effects before they are fixed?"

For MT "You don't know how hard it is," that's really simple: Declare which player facing switches are on, roll the dice, and tell the GM the total. So simple that it didn't make the rulebook.

Speaking of which:
CT, the process has one player input: the P's statement.
MT, the process has two player inputs: the P's statement, and the level of caution (Hasty, normal, Cautious).
In combat, there's also Aimed (which is literally cautious) vs snapfire vs autofire instead of the usual caution level.

CT is more flexible.
MT is more regularized, but in a very open ended way. Of all the codified task systems I've used, it's the best as a general task system. Enough, but not too much, structure.

I make the players roll the time dice. They learn up front what their options are. And I do use "timed threats" from time to time.

I often let players suggest the assets, and then set the difficulty based upon their choices... Open that door with Dex and mechanical but no tools? Formidable. High Energy Weapons and Engineer, with a fusion cutter? Routine if the door can go away, or formidable if you want to be able to close it again.

 

[McPerth]

Everyone knows that a CT target to hit is 8+. In MT, we all know the difficulty numbers.

First point, I was not talking (as I understood it was the discussion) just about hiting (combat), but about the task system as a whole.

How is it that players don't know the difficulty?

I almost never tell the players what dificulty they are rolling against. They can guess it, and some times this will be an educated guess (lacking spare parts is almost certain to raise de dificulty), others a wild one, but they never know what factors are affecting the task, so they can never know the exact dificulty. Yes, it's as simple as this.

Your players must repair the jump drive. Are they sure about its dificutly if they cannot be sure about what happens to it? There can not be some hiden difficutlies (or lack of them) due to referee imposed plans (or others' actions, as sabotage, etc.)?

Your players being custoums patrol search a ship. They don't know exactly if there is something to search, how well hidden it can be, etc. In those conditions, do they know the difficulty?

And...I've always thought that Uncertain Tasks with the UTP don't work well--too fiddly.

Of course that can be argued...

With the uncertain task as it is, you have a loose idea of the result. If you rolled boxes, you're almost sure at least some truth is achieved, if you roll eyes, you are almost certain at most some truth is achieved, if you roll in between, you're not even sure about this.

Of course, it raises the dificulty of the task, as you must achieve two success (and one of them you don't know about) to have total truth, but it also makes misshap more difficult, as you must fail twice to have a no truth result.

And for things that are uncertain, you either do this or make the player roll hiden rolls (as otherwise the uncertain nature of the task is lost), and players don't use to like this second option.

 

[Supplement Four]

I almost never tell the players what dificulty they are rolling against.

Ah, I see. So, in MT, a player doesn't know if he's rolling an Easy task or a Difficult one?

Interesting.

 

[Supplement Four]

Players often won't know the modifiers, and hence, some uncertainty.

In CT, I've tried not providing all the Range and Armor modifiers to the players to get that uncertainty, but it puts a lot of work on the Ref having to keep up with that for every weapon and every type of armor.

I don't think its practical.

 

[kilemall]

Pretty easy to do in CT/Striker- they can know to hit and range and damage roll, either my system or the strict original, but they don't know the armor unless its obvious.

 

[kilemall]

A way to resolve the stat tank issue is to force the players to role play the character in order to get the DMs.

No role play, no bonus.

 

[Ahmad Romanov]

A way to resolve the stat tank issue is to force the players to role play the character in order to get the DMs.

No role play, no bonus.

The way I ran it during the campaign was that role-play determined the difficulty, not the DMs. So the DMs were fixed... a character with good persuasion was always going to be the most persuasive. But if they were trying to persuade someone to risk his life, then the difficulty would be much higher than if they were just trying to persuade him to look the other way. This applied to everything, so the players had to sit and think of the BEST way to accomplish their goals in order to get a good difficulty (i.e. safe and not hazardous, routine and not difficult/formidable, quick and not time-consuming).

Again though, my players are not super into roleplaying. They seem to enjoy a good story setup, but they would rather resolve things with their character sheet and thinking-caps, not funny voices and emotions. Making one of my players role-play to get the bonuses that are written in dried ink on their character sheets would be a good way to kill the game, fast, and probably permanently lose a player in the process. That might just be my players, though!

As far as telling them the difficulty or not... I don't really see the difference. You can have tension whether or not you know what your target number is. If I need to roll a 20 on a 20-sided die, I think I'd want to know that... it would be a lot more tense than simply "uh, you need to roll high." For the record, I DID always tell them the difficulty during my game. In any case, situations where you shouldn't know the precise result of the test are handled with "uncertain" tasks in MegaTraveller. Works great when it is all automated by macros! We had a number of uncertain tasks and I personally really enjoyed them. I had fun seeing the players look for other ways to confirm what they heard from one informant, or what their sensors reported back to them... the way my macro worked is that the players would take a task roll as normal and then it would automatically append a line that said "The outcome is uncertain..." to let them know that they should be rightfully paranoid about what I tell them next...

Again, the problem I think is that all the fun mechanical stuff was on my side (and the lack of any incremental advancement, which is true for all Traveller games). I really do want to qualify all these complaints that I had more fun running MegaTraveller than any other game in recent memory. It's an absolutely terrific game. It just didn't gel with my players and so sadly I doubt I will get another chance to run it.

 

[flykiller]

So, in MT, a player doesn't know if he's rolling an Easy task or a Difficult one?

should they?

 

[Ahmad Romanov]

So, in MT, a player doesn't know if he's rolling an Easy task or a Difficult one?

should they?

Well, according to the rulebook, they do...

Of course, if you paid for the game, you have every right to play it as you please.

 

[aramis]

should they?

IMO, most of the time. Not always.

 

[flykiller]

should they?

Well, according to the rulebook, they do...

sometimes telling the players the exact difficulty level gives away an important background point. letting them struggle with something for a bit allows thought and discovery.

player with character with bribery 2* vs traffic cop: "routine, can't fail, I got this."

cop: "you're under arrest sir."

player etc: "what! what is this! ref!"

referee: "no no, you don't deal with me, your character deals with the cop."

 

[aramis]

sometimes telling the players the exact difficulty level gives away an important background point. letting them struggle with something for a bit allows thought and discovery.

player with character with bribery 2* vs traffic cop: "routine, can't fail, I got this."

cop: "you're under arrest sir."

player etc: "what! what is this! ref!"

referee: "no no, you don't deal with me, your character deals with the cop."

Great example!