Classic 2300AD Gripes

[rgrove0172]

What are your three biggest problems with the classic 2300AD rules? What would you have to change to be happy playing it? Do you have a solution?

Ill throw mine in

Personal Damage System - unecessarily detailed and clunky, difficult to apply and attribute to other forms of trauma - dont know of a solution except to scrap it in favor of another that uses the same damage values etc.

Starship Construction (Star Cruiser) A math jungle and tough to just throw together a new ship on the fly - again, I dont know how to simplify whats there except to perhaps design a number of shells that can be tweaked a bit, detailed rules aside.

Vehicle and Ship Damage - overly simpified to my mind, no color at all. Im thinking some extended damage tables with the main damage effect of course but also including some colorful details like hull breaches, life support failures, intemittent power fluxuations, temporary weapon failures, control problems, etc.

 

[shaunhilburn]

What are your three biggest problems with the classic 2300AD rules? What would you have to change to be happy playing it? Do you have a solution?

Way too many problems to list here. I just correct them with a long list of house rules and tweaks.
Planet generation sucks (I use the planet type nomenclature and discard the rest)
Aircraft skill and Ground Vehicle skills are too vague (I cascade them like T:2K)
Sea Military characters get no development points for Swim skill
Hovercraft skill too widely available
A game featuring combat walkers without combat walker skill
30-second combat turn allows two actions? Seriously? (use 10 second rounds)
Lions and elephants have the same Life Level
Biocontacts are just "laugh out loud" stupid.
Grossly overpowered laser weapons (I mentioned this previously)
Fuel economy figures are way out of whack

Just a few examples, not even scratching the surface.

Ill throw mine in

Personal Damage System - unecessarily detailed and clunky, difficult to apply and attribute to other forms of trauma - dont know of a solution except to scrap it in favor of another that uses the same damage values etc.

But it doesn't base wounding on stats like classic Traveller. It's a more realistic wounding system based on hit location and body mass. I like it.

Starship Construction (Star Cruiser) A math jungle and tough to just throw together a new ship on the fly - again, I dont know how to simplify whats there except to perhaps design a number of shells that can be tweaked a bit, detailed rules aside.

Take the time to plug the rules into a spreadsheet, then run "what-if" scenarios 'till your heart's content. I think there's at least one in the files section over at Yahoo's 2300NonCanon.

Vehicle and Ship Damage - overly simpified to my mind, no color at all.

To speed combat resolution, I suppose.

 

[rgrove0172]

Ill look for that spreadsheet, that would be an awesome time saver.

 

[McPerth]

Personal Damage System - unecessarily detailed and clunky, difficult to apply and attribute to other forms of trauma - dont know of a solution except to scrap it in favor of another that uses the same damage values etc.

I agree the personal damage system is flawled. BY assigning maximum damage per area, it avoids being seriously damaged by a hit (to give an example) in an arm. If you're hit by a plasma gun (DP 4 as tapered explosión), you still only risk a light wound, while the most likely result would be an amputed arm.

Starship Construction (Star Cruiser) A math jungle and tough to just throw together a new ship on the fly - again, I dont know how to simplify whats there except to perhaps design a number of shells that can be tweaked a bit, detailed rules aside.

Don't know it enough, but I guess I'll like it, as I like this kind of design systems (hey, I liked MT's )

Vehicle and Ship Damage - overly simpified to my mind, no color at all. Im thinking some extended damage tables with the main damage effect of course but also including some colorful details like hull breaches, life support failures, intemittent power fluxuations, temporary weapon failures, control problems, etc.

Agree with shaunhilburn here.

Way too many problems to list here. I just correct them with a long list of house rules and tweaks.
Planet generation sucks (I use the planet type nomenclature and discard the rest)

I disagree here. I like the system generation, and is the only one I know about that doesn't use the Bode-Titus law. I guess that's moe a matter of personal preference (after all, we have in RL only one system to take as reference, and that's not a stadistically significant number )

That does not mean it has no flaws. E.g.: you cannot end with a garden GG satellite, while Aurora is just so in canon. In fact, many canon planets are not posible with that sysem (no mention to tidaly locked worlds, while there are some in Colonial Atlas, no mention to left/right aminoacids, while is one of the major features in CA...)

Aircraft skill and Ground Vehicle skills are too vague (I cascade them like T:2K)

Sea Military characters get no development points for Swim skill

Agreed

Hovercraft skill too widely available

That's setting dependent. If hovercraft is assumed to be as usual as today are 4x4 cars, I see no reason for it not to be available.

A game featuring combat walkers without combat walker skill

Again agreed. BTW, are combat walkers used as armor or as vehicles in combat? (see that if used as vehicles, a hit by a plasma gun is easier to kill you if in a Combat Walker tan if unarmored, as most hits in personal combat cannot kill you, except for shock points).

30-second combat turn allows two actions? Seriously? (use 10 second rounds)

As any game, it has to put the limits somewhere, but I agree turns are too long to represent tactical combat.

Grossly overpowered laser weapons (I mentioned this previously)

As you say, already discussed on another thread

But it doesn't base wounding on stats like classic Traveller. It's a more realistic wounding system based on hit location and body mass. I like it.

In fact, characteristics are (IMHO) underplayed. The use of body mass for shock points makes an obese character more resistent that a thin one, and endurance has no influence on it...

My crithicisms (aside from those commented above):

Rules dependent:

Size too important in charGen (strength dependent on size, instead of being an independent stat, as in T2K 1^st edition, and shock points dependent on size too, as specified above).

No skill for interface piloting (it's assumed that is aircraft, but I guess they are different tings, not having ever piloted an aircraft nor an interface vehicle).

No Rank in chargen, nor possibility to have more/less money (or other benefits), being exclusively year dependent.

Use of a single die in task resolution, giving no gauss bell results.

Setting dependent:

Impossibility (or near so) for the players to own a ship. This is one of the most argeable, as the setting represents a ship scarce universo, and I guess many players like as it is.

No trading system (related to impossibility to own a ship, I guess).

Too militry/exploration oriented (related to those above, and an inheritance of T2K, I guess).

 

[epicenter00]

What are your three biggest problems with the classic 2300AD rules? What would you have to change to be happy playing it? Do you have a solution?

Top 3? Oh that's good one. Hmm. Can I cheat and use broad categories?

1. Chargen There's a few screwy things in Chargen. Size matters too much in 2300 (yeah, I had to say that, but it really does). Size factors into strength and it factors into Life Levels. Being bigger is simply too good. It's fairly simply to de-link size or just get rid of the stat though. Throw Range is too long (reduce it to like 2x STR). Make the GM look at all careers before being allowed into play (if you don't believe me, compare Aurore Sourcebook's "Bounty Hunter" to "Ground Military" in the original game).

2. Combat System 30 seconds is too long of a turn (make it 10 seconds). It's entirely too easy to hit - some characters can't miss. Weapons are too long ranged given the range of the average roleplaying game firefight (making it too easy to hit and DPVs are always doubled).

3. Player Out-of-the-Loop Systems This is just my personal pet peeve, but I dislike systems with results that can do things like kill the entire party without the skill system entering into it once. I also dislike systems where an entire skill can be replaced by a system like this. Both of these occur in 2300.

In the first case, missile combat in 2300. Someone shoots a missile at the player's vehicle. It's the missile's Homing Value - target's Evasion Value. Roll under that with a d10 to hit. Most players are in lightly-armored civilian vehicle equivalents. A single missile can wipe out the entire player party and not one of the players is able to do a thing about it.

In the second case, Autofire in 2300. Anything with a high Area Fire Value and a decent burst speed means you don't need to have the relevant skill. Just let the AFV do the talking because skills don't matter. Remember, a lot of Roleplaying game combat occurs in pretty tight quarters, so with 2300's long weapon ranges you're doubling AFV.

Honorable Mention Autoinjector Gun. DPV: 3 (Stun Only). This thing is the deadliest weapon in known space. Sure it can't kill people, but you don't need to kill people, just take them out of combat, which DPV3 does quite well. You can "stun" people inside of cars, through walls, through body armor ...

Personal Damage System - unecessarily detailed and clunky, difficult to apply and attribute to other forms of trauma - dont know of a solution except to scrap it in favor of another that uses the same damage values etc.

Seriously? I find 2300's damage system to be really fast. It's not "hit points" fast, but it's really fast.

Starship Construction (Star Cruiser) A math jungle and tough to just throw together a new ship on the fly - again, I dont know how to simplify whats there except to perhaps design a number of shells that can be tweaked a bit, detailed rules aside.

Starships aren't supposed to be constructed on the fly, they're supposed to be made inbetween games. At least that's what they'd tell you. If you reverse engineer any Kafer ship or some of the other ships in Star Cruiser you'll realize that GDW had this consistent problem: They wrote rules that were so stupidly complex ... they didn't even use their own rules. How's that for bad rules writing? (My favorite example was how they didn't use their own rules was TNE's version of FF&S. GDW didn't use FF&S to make the starships in TNE. Which basically validated my belief that FF&S was not written for gamers - how can you expect players to use the rules when they're too fiddly and time consuming for the authors?).

Vehicle and Ship Damage - overly simpified to my mind, no color at all. Im thinking some extended damage tables with the main damage effect of course but also including some colorful details like hull breaches, life support failures, intemittent power fluxuations, temporary weapon failures, control problems, etc.

I admit I'm sort of perplexed about how you want personal damage to be really simple but you want more complexity in vehicle damage.

 

[McPerth]

3. Player Out-of-the-Loop Systems This is just my personal pet peeve, but I dislike systems with results that can do things like kill the entire party without the skill system entering into it once. I also dislike systems where an entire skill can be replaced by a system like this. Both of these occur in 2300.

In the first case, missile combat in 2300. Someone shoots a missile at the player's vehicle. It's the missile's Homing Value - target's Evasion Value. Roll under that with a d10 to hit. Most players are in lightly-armored civilian vehicle equivalents. A single missile can wipe out the entire player party and not one of the players is able to do a thing about it.

In the second case, Autofire in 2300. Anything with a high Area Fire Value and a decent burst speed means you don't need to have the relevant skill. Just let the AFV do the talking because skills don't matter. Remember, a lot of Roleplaying game combat occurs in pretty tight quarters, so with 2300's long weapon ranges you're doubling AFV.

Fully agreed here. In fact, I forgot mentioning it in my post, mostly about missile combat, where it soesn't matter if the missile shooter has skill on it or not.

Starships aren't supposed to be constructed on the fly, they're supposed to be made inbetween games. At least that's what they'd tell you. If you reverse engineer any Kafer ship or some of the other ships in Star Cruiser you'll realize that GDW had this consistent problem: They wrote rules that were so stupidly complex ... they didn't even use their own rules. How's that for bad rules writing? (My favorite example was how they didn't use their own rules was TNE's version of FF&S. GDW didn't use FF&S to make the starships in TNE. Which basically validated my belief that FF&S was not written for gamers - how can you expect players to use the rules when they're too fiddly and time consuming for the authors?).

This seems to be a recurring problem in GDW playing systems, as most ships (outside the most basic ones in CT:Bk2 cannot be reverese engineered or are found flawlty when tryied. MT:FS is the worst example on it.

 

[rgrove0172]

A couple of comments -

1. As to increasing the detail on ship/vehicle damage but simplifying personal damage - its the ease of providing GM-based color in one area over an another. We are pretty intimately familiar with our bodies and even if we have no medical training we can interpret the various possibilities when..oh falling off a building, being hit by a bullet or smashed in the face. When a x-ray laser slices into a starship or a vehicle is riddled with machinegun fire, its another story. There is a huge range of possibilities. Reducing this to a mere handful of extremely broad functional liabilities forces the GM to make some hasty judgements based on - well nothing. Its not a huge deal but I was a big fan of Iron Crown's Space Master.. that probably says it all.

2. TPK - Total Party Kills. Ill agree that from a roleplaying stand point, events that threaten a character and yet give him no power to affect the outcome are frustrating, but IMO completely realistic and encourage the players to be careful not only of what their characters do personally but also the situations they put themself in. Honestly, no amount of driving skill is going to save your bacon if somebody locks on to you with a homing missile. And when it hits, the only thing thats going to save you is luck. Those kinds of situations can occur, I dont have a problem with them but I have always utilized a "Fate Point" house rule that allows players to slowly accumulate and use a number of "cheats" if you will to pull off amazing hollywood style escapes when such incidents occur. (Finding themself close to an emergency airlock when some idiot throws a grenade in their ship's cargo hold or dodging behind a suddenly handy obstacle the moment the incoming missile is about to impact.)

 

[McPerth]

Another point I don't like about 2300 is the fact that, as in T2K (again) PCs are more thought tan NPCs just for the fact they are PCs (mostly shown in the rules to knock out characters, where PCs are usually more dificult to KO tan NPCs).

ANd one thing about 2300AD combat:

I suggest you to read (if you haven't already and you have access to it) the combat example for 2300AD in page 12 Challenge 31.

LKW is co-autor, and shows most of combat aspects, even when admiting they are not good decisions, but just to show how rules work.

 

[rgrove0172]

Another point I don't like about 2300 is the fact that, as in T2K (again) PCs are more thought tan NPCs just for the fact they are PCs (mostly shown in the rules to knock out characters, where PCs are usually more dificult to KO tan NPCs).

ANd one thing about 2300AD combat:

I suggest you to read (if you haven't already and you have access to it) the combat example for 2300AD in page 12 Challenge 31.

LKW is co-autor, and shows most of combat aspects, even when admiting they are not good decisions, but just to show how rules work.

A lot of systems give the PCs some sort of edge abstractly. Is a lean toward hollywood in my opinion, where the bad guys cant shoot, fight, see, or take a hit.

I actually have Challenge 31 and the only combat examples are for TW:2000

 

[McPerth]

I actually have Challenge 31 and the only combat examples are for TW:2000

In the index and page 7 there is example for T2K combat, but in page 12, left column, there's a subtitle saying Traveller 2300, and from there to page 14 the example is for T2300 rules.

I agree the index is mileading.

 

[Murph]

That is why I kept the universe, but went to Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 rules for characters and combat, Maximum Metal for powered armor. The rest is handwavium.....