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Classic Traveller: An Adult Game/Attitude

Originally posted by daryen:
At the risk of starting a flame war, which is not my objective, I will point out that this is probably the biggest reason some people have such negative feelings for D20/T20. No matter how many times the claim "D20 isn't D&D" is put forth, there are always lots of people trying to put D&D into every form of D20.
Somewhat agreed. I suspect that many who object to T20 are seeing "sudden influx of D&D players who are used to heroics and dungeon crawls, lured into traveller by the availability of a D20 version" and calling it "the D20/T20 rules are for heroics and dungeon crawls". [If you read them, they very clearly aren't.]

IMHO there are a couple of very subtle underlying mechanisms in T20 that push you in a heroic direction, but they're subtle to the point of irrelevance.

The real issue is that D&D players have been brought up to expect a certain style of game. If T20 didn't exist but Gary Gygax, Rob Salvatore and Monte Cook all said "I love that Megatraveller thang" and caused a sudden influx of D&Ders into the game, then I reckon pretty much the same thing would be happening.

##

Now the real problem with T20 is that it ties BAB (combat prowess) to class. By the book you can't play a non-miltary martial arts instructor who's good at unarmed combat, because the Professional class has lousy BAB.

Discuss. ;)
 
Originally posted by daryen:
At the risk of starting a flame war, which is not my objective, I will point out that this is probably the biggest reason some people have such negative feelings for D20/T20. No matter how many times the claim "D20 isn't D&D" is put forth, there are always lots of people trying to put D&D into every form of D20.
Somewhat agreed. I suspect that many who object to T20 are seeing "sudden influx of D&D players who are used to heroics and dungeon crawls, lured into traveller by the availability of a D20 version" and calling it "the D20/T20 rules are for heroics and dungeon crawls". [If you read them, they very clearly aren't.]

IMHO there are a couple of very subtle underlying mechanisms in T20 that push you in a heroic direction, but they're subtle to the point of irrelevance.

The real issue is that D&D players have been brought up to expect a certain style of game. If T20 didn't exist but Gary Gygax, Rob Salvatore and Monte Cook all said "I love that Megatraveller thang" and caused a sudden influx of D&Ders into the game, then I reckon pretty much the same thing would be happening.

##

Now the real problem with T20 is that it ties BAB (combat prowess) to class. By the book you can't play a non-miltary martial arts instructor who's good at unarmed combat, because the Professional class has lousy BAB.

Discuss. ;)
 
Morte wrote:

"Now the real problem with T20 is that it ties BAB (combat prowess) to class. By the book you can't play a non-miltary martial arts instructor who's good at unarmed combat, because the Professional class has lousy BAB."

"Discuss. ;) "


Mr. Morte,

Discuss? Sure!

So T20, and its sire d20 and its grandsire D&D, tie combat prowess to BAB. That in turn means that members of the Professional class cannot be good at unarmed combat. Thus T20 cannot even recreate the career and accomplishments of one of its own authors, Mr. Martin J. Dougherty.

He's a freelance journalist, an author, an unarmed combat instructor, and fencing master. And he can't be recreated as a Traveller PC with T20 without breaking the rules.

How's that for a discussion? ;)


Sincerely,
Larsen
 
Morte wrote:

"Now the real problem with T20 is that it ties BAB (combat prowess) to class. By the book you can't play a non-miltary martial arts instructor who's good at unarmed combat, because the Professional class has lousy BAB."

"Discuss. ;) "


Mr. Morte,

Discuss? Sure!

So T20, and its sire d20 and its grandsire D&D, tie combat prowess to BAB. That in turn means that members of the Professional class cannot be good at unarmed combat. Thus T20 cannot even recreate the career and accomplishments of one of its own authors, Mr. Martin J. Dougherty.

He's a freelance journalist, an author, an unarmed combat instructor, and fencing master. And he can't be recreated as a Traveller PC with T20 without breaking the rules.

How's that for a discussion? ;)


Sincerely,
Larsen
 
Originally posted by Morte:
Now the real problem with T20 is that it ties BAB (combat prowess) to class. By the book you can't play a non-miltary martial arts instructor who's good at unarmed combat, because the Professional class has lousy BAB.

Discuss. ;)
Well you can add weapon skills as non-class skills to those classes that don't follow the +1 BAB per level (to a max total of +1 per level). Or convert it to one of the point based d20 / OGL systems out there.

Casey
 
Originally posted by Morte:
Now the real problem with T20 is that it ties BAB (combat prowess) to class. By the book you can't play a non-miltary martial arts instructor who's good at unarmed combat, because the Professional class has lousy BAB.

Discuss. ;)
Well you can add weapon skills as non-class skills to those classes that don't follow the +1 BAB per level (to a max total of +1 per level). Or convert it to one of the point based d20 / OGL systems out there.

Casey
 
Originally posted by daryen:
When people mix genres in GURPS, for example, it can be anything. BioTech + Robots + Traveller. Or whatever. With D20, it always seems to be "how do I add D&D to this?"
Hmmm guess you've missed my posts on folding in Omega World, BESM d20, Mecha d20, Call of Cthulhu d20, Mutants & Masterminds, various martial arts schemes, D20 Modern, etc. into a T20 game. ;)
I only plunder D&D for some of the monsters and most of those are in the SRDs.

Casey
 
Originally posted by daryen:
When people mix genres in GURPS, for example, it can be anything. BioTech + Robots + Traveller. Or whatever. With D20, it always seems to be "how do I add D&D to this?"
Hmmm guess you've missed my posts on folding in Omega World, BESM d20, Mecha d20, Call of Cthulhu d20, Mutants & Masterminds, various martial arts schemes, D20 Modern, etc. into a T20 game. ;)
I only plunder D&D for some of the monsters and most of those are in the SRDs.

Casey
 
Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
So T20, and its sire d20 and its grandsire D&D, tie combat prowess to BAB. That in turn means that members of the Professional class cannot be good at unarmed combat. Thus T20 cannot even recreate the career and accomplishments of one of its own authors, Mr. Martin J. Dougherty.

He's a freelance journalist, an author, an unarmed combat instructor, and fencing master. And he can't be recreated as a Traveller PC with T20 without breaking the rules.
Sure, but d20 is MADE to break rules! It wasn't made generic, but it is made expandable.

Larsen, take a look at my sig, now click on the link there, then navigate your old self to the T20 Downloads page ... peruse the Sleeping Imperium martial arts rules (you're best off downloading the PDF and printing it). Another old rogue (Ken Hood), came up with that luverly skills-n-feats martial arts system that uses a SKILL to represent martial arts prowess, whilst not throwing away BAB.

Using those rules Martin could easily be a Professional with decent martial arts knowledge.

For that matter you could argue he should be a Mercenary/TA Journalist/Professional/Traveller in standard T20. More to the point, you could NOT end up with him as a character with any previous standard Traveller chargen system AFAIK. At least T20 lets you get close, and with the expandability of d20's core and prestige classes you can always create specific something you want if the need arises.

Anyway, who says Martin has a decent BAB in real life, just because he knows something about martial arts?


[EDIT: OK, I just noticed what area we're under ... CT rules, it is the best, I loved it (even if I couldn't game with manga large robots using it back in the 80s - I did try) it still rules!*]

* except for the fact that I'm not currently using it and have lost most of my books ... and always needed the supplements to get it to work even halfway near what I required.
 
Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
So T20, and its sire d20 and its grandsire D&D, tie combat prowess to BAB. That in turn means that members of the Professional class cannot be good at unarmed combat. Thus T20 cannot even recreate the career and accomplishments of one of its own authors, Mr. Martin J. Dougherty.

He's a freelance journalist, an author, an unarmed combat instructor, and fencing master. And he can't be recreated as a Traveller PC with T20 without breaking the rules.
Sure, but d20 is MADE to break rules! It wasn't made generic, but it is made expandable.

Larsen, take a look at my sig, now click on the link there, then navigate your old self to the T20 Downloads page ... peruse the Sleeping Imperium martial arts rules (you're best off downloading the PDF and printing it). Another old rogue (Ken Hood), came up with that luverly skills-n-feats martial arts system that uses a SKILL to represent martial arts prowess, whilst not throwing away BAB.

Using those rules Martin could easily be a Professional with decent martial arts knowledge.

For that matter you could argue he should be a Mercenary/TA Journalist/Professional/Traveller in standard T20. More to the point, you could NOT end up with him as a character with any previous standard Traveller chargen system AFAIK. At least T20 lets you get close, and with the expandability of d20's core and prestige classes you can always create specific something you want if the need arises.

Anyway, who says Martin has a decent BAB in real life, just because he knows something about martial arts?


[EDIT: OK, I just noticed what area we're under ... CT rules, it is the best, I loved it (even if I couldn't game with manga large robots using it back in the 80s - I did try) it still rules!*]

* except for the fact that I'm not currently using it and have lost most of my books ... and always needed the supplements to get it to work even halfway near what I required.
 
Morte wrote:

...Now the real problem with T20 is that it ties BAB (combat prowess) to class...


Larsen E. Whipsnade wrote:

...So T20, and its sire d20 and its grandsire D&D, tie combat prowess to BAB...
The confusion seems to be in the above two sentences. The second quote (from LEW) conflates the d20 rules with their incarnations in D&D and T20. But it is not an inheirant feature of the d20 rules that BAB MUST be linked to class. T20 COULD have dissociated BAB from class.

Hell it could have abolished BAB (and classes and levels in any familiar sense#) completely and made every weapon a separate skill: these are the design choices that the designers made. Lord knows that I am not d20 biggest fan (I run/play 3e D&D but none of my other gaming uses d20 because I have yet to find a d20 based design that has done the adaptation work to my satisfaction) but it does seem unreasonable to criticise a system for a feature that was only included because of a design decision.

d20, as a rules system is a large flexible tool box - everything in the SRD and ever published as Open Game Content is there to be used or ignored, at the designers discretion. d20 as an RPG marketing tool is, it appears, a commercial straightjacket which is (consciously or not ) constraining RPG game designers to stick as close as possible to the D&D implementation in order to lure in the maximum number of D&D players. Which is, IMO, a shame.

But for commercially published games, the reality is that attempting to lead a market (i.e. launch products that change or just don't fit the target audiences perception of what they want) rather than service it (i.e. launch products that conform to the target audiences perception of what they want) is risky.

Ah well, I think the original argument (that part of what makes Traveller Traveller is that it is tales of experience) is true in so far as that was one (if not the major) gift of Traveller to our RPG'ing heritage. And every game since that has focused on a band of adults, with many years life experience behind them, thrown suddenly in to a crisis, owes Traveller a debt. But I don't think one can say that style of game can't be done in any particular rule system. Although I could see it being more difficult in Toon... :D

Cheers,

Nick Middleton


# I have a thumbnail sketch of a d20 system that does most of these things, and also DR's armour, ditches the power escalaltion in feats as well. I must write it up properly some time.
 
Morte wrote:

...Now the real problem with T20 is that it ties BAB (combat prowess) to class...


Larsen E. Whipsnade wrote:

...So T20, and its sire d20 and its grandsire D&D, tie combat prowess to BAB...
The confusion seems to be in the above two sentences. The second quote (from LEW) conflates the d20 rules with their incarnations in D&D and T20. But it is not an inheirant feature of the d20 rules that BAB MUST be linked to class. T20 COULD have dissociated BAB from class.

Hell it could have abolished BAB (and classes and levels in any familiar sense#) completely and made every weapon a separate skill: these are the design choices that the designers made. Lord knows that I am not d20 biggest fan (I run/play 3e D&D but none of my other gaming uses d20 because I have yet to find a d20 based design that has done the adaptation work to my satisfaction) but it does seem unreasonable to criticise a system for a feature that was only included because of a design decision.

d20, as a rules system is a large flexible tool box - everything in the SRD and ever published as Open Game Content is there to be used or ignored, at the designers discretion. d20 as an RPG marketing tool is, it appears, a commercial straightjacket which is (consciously or not ) constraining RPG game designers to stick as close as possible to the D&D implementation in order to lure in the maximum number of D&D players. Which is, IMO, a shame.

But for commercially published games, the reality is that attempting to lead a market (i.e. launch products that change or just don't fit the target audiences perception of what they want) rather than service it (i.e. launch products that conform to the target audiences perception of what they want) is risky.

Ah well, I think the original argument (that part of what makes Traveller Traveller is that it is tales of experience) is true in so far as that was one (if not the major) gift of Traveller to our RPG'ing heritage. And every game since that has focused on a band of adults, with many years life experience behind them, thrown suddenly in to a crisis, owes Traveller a debt. But I don't think one can say that style of game can't be done in any particular rule system. Although I could see it being more difficult in Toon... :D

Cheers,

Nick Middleton


# I have a thumbnail sketch of a d20 system that does most of these things, and also DR's armour, ditches the power escalaltion in feats as well. I must write it up properly some time.
 
Another difference that makes or breaks a system is realism vs heroism. While they work fine alone they don't mix well. d20 combat is a primarily heroistic system, while CT combat is primarily realistic.

That is not to say that realistic combat is like a finite element computer model of what happens when a bullet hits flesh. Rather, realistic combat says that a weapon hits "you", not some abstract buffer of points which is then decrimented.

The damage is applied to a Stat which represents a physical characteristic of your body. Now any attempt to use that physical characteristic, Strength for lifting a wounded comrade into the Air/Raft for example, is impaired.

In its raw form, the d20 character is like a potato. No bones, nerves, tendons, or muscles that have to function. Whittle away at it, a potato it remains, until finally the whole potato is cut into fries. Sure, you can add critical hits that define damage, a broken and useless arm for example.

For hand weapon combat among armored opponents, the potato model actually works fairly well. Penetrating the armor robs the blow of energy, and a more experienced combatant may be able to roll with the impact to further reduce its effect.

Firearms are another matter entirely. You can't dodge, block, the bullet move faster than you can see or react. You can't roll with the blow, the bullet imparts its large kinetic energy to a very small area almost instantly.

Another difference is combat time. My experience with d20 is limited to reading the rules and I can't remember whether d20 keeps the old (A)D&D combat rounds of 1 minute. The idea was(is) that combatants attack and parry, feint and maneuver, until one or the other sees a prime opportunity to strike. Again, this works well with armored potatos heroically crossing swords for the camera.

Realism, on the other hand, is the fact that I can fire shots from my gun as fast as I can pull the trigger. At 25 yards a good portion of them will hit a torso-sized target. A crack shot can switch between targets in a moment, hitting several targets in as many seconds. There will be some ducking for cover and shifting positions, but the action will tend to be over shortly or reach a stalemate leading to an interval of tactical maneuvering.

I've seen some d20 rules for martial arts, and they superimpose a blow-by-blow resolution on top of the generalized combat round. But then any other kind of combat should have feats the character can call upon to interrupt the game mechanics with special attacks. And apparently these do exist: bull rushing, disarming, tripping, maybe even the Black Knight suddenly hurling his sword through the eyeslit of his opponent's helm.

This begs the question of what happens with general combat hits or misses. If I hit, a thrust with my longsword it will do a different kind of damage than a slash or a chop. A blow that landed but failed to penetrate armor is different from a swing that was dodged or parried.

Why is the whole combat round not choreographed with actions, feats and maneuvers? Because the combat system isn't designed for it.
 
Another difference that makes or breaks a system is realism vs heroism. While they work fine alone they don't mix well. d20 combat is a primarily heroistic system, while CT combat is primarily realistic.

That is not to say that realistic combat is like a finite element computer model of what happens when a bullet hits flesh. Rather, realistic combat says that a weapon hits "you", not some abstract buffer of points which is then decrimented.

The damage is applied to a Stat which represents a physical characteristic of your body. Now any attempt to use that physical characteristic, Strength for lifting a wounded comrade into the Air/Raft for example, is impaired.

In its raw form, the d20 character is like a potato. No bones, nerves, tendons, or muscles that have to function. Whittle away at it, a potato it remains, until finally the whole potato is cut into fries. Sure, you can add critical hits that define damage, a broken and useless arm for example.

For hand weapon combat among armored opponents, the potato model actually works fairly well. Penetrating the armor robs the blow of energy, and a more experienced combatant may be able to roll with the impact to further reduce its effect.

Firearms are another matter entirely. You can't dodge, block, the bullet move faster than you can see or react. You can't roll with the blow, the bullet imparts its large kinetic energy to a very small area almost instantly.

Another difference is combat time. My experience with d20 is limited to reading the rules and I can't remember whether d20 keeps the old (A)D&D combat rounds of 1 minute. The idea was(is) that combatants attack and parry, feint and maneuver, until one or the other sees a prime opportunity to strike. Again, this works well with armored potatos heroically crossing swords for the camera.

Realism, on the other hand, is the fact that I can fire shots from my gun as fast as I can pull the trigger. At 25 yards a good portion of them will hit a torso-sized target. A crack shot can switch between targets in a moment, hitting several targets in as many seconds. There will be some ducking for cover and shifting positions, but the action will tend to be over shortly or reach a stalemate leading to an interval of tactical maneuvering.

I've seen some d20 rules for martial arts, and they superimpose a blow-by-blow resolution on top of the generalized combat round. But then any other kind of combat should have feats the character can call upon to interrupt the game mechanics with special attacks. And apparently these do exist: bull rushing, disarming, tripping, maybe even the Black Knight suddenly hurling his sword through the eyeslit of his opponent's helm.

This begs the question of what happens with general combat hits or misses. If I hit, a thrust with my longsword it will do a different kind of damage than a slash or a chop. A blow that landed but failed to penetrate armor is different from a swing that was dodged or parried.

Why is the whole combat round not choreographed with actions, feats and maneuvers? Because the combat system isn't designed for it.
 
There's no such thing as a perfect system, and odly enough I generated a professional class character only yesterday, and was dissapointed to learn that he could have weapon proficiency in swords and daggers etc but not guns, which seemed odd, after all what's to stop him going to a shooting range in his time off and practising! By allowing multiclassing I could just about get around it! But the beauty of Classic Traveller and indeed its successor MegaTraveller was that a character could do anything that seemed realistic and of course feasible.

Gamers tend to remember that D&D was nothing more than a hack and slay combat system when first published and did little to promote a good roleplaying experience. Traveller by contrast promoted roleplay over combat, and as a result maintained a gritty and realistic feel to its adventures as player characters were not hit point factories and could be killed quickly and easily by even the lightest of opposition. Though its true to say that characteristics of both approaches can be found in T20, it's up to the Referee to reward good roleplaying and be a good enough story teller to promote a realistic gritty feel to the session reminding their players that the point of the experience is to experience something different to their everyday lives...

I tend to solve this problem through the use of house rules...
 
There's no such thing as a perfect system, and odly enough I generated a professional class character only yesterday, and was dissapointed to learn that he could have weapon proficiency in swords and daggers etc but not guns, which seemed odd, after all what's to stop him going to a shooting range in his time off and practising! By allowing multiclassing I could just about get around it! But the beauty of Classic Traveller and indeed its successor MegaTraveller was that a character could do anything that seemed realistic and of course feasible.

Gamers tend to remember that D&D was nothing more than a hack and slay combat system when first published and did little to promote a good roleplaying experience. Traveller by contrast promoted roleplay over combat, and as a result maintained a gritty and realistic feel to its adventures as player characters were not hit point factories and could be killed quickly and easily by even the lightest of opposition. Though its true to say that characteristics of both approaches can be found in T20, it's up to the Referee to reward good roleplaying and be a good enough story teller to promote a realistic gritty feel to the session reminding their players that the point of the experience is to experience something different to their everyday lives...

I tend to solve this problem through the use of house rules...
 
The problem with d20 anything is the system is built to "munchkinized" to produce a character who should be relegated to the comic books. I don't see Traveller ever being a good fit into the Dungeons & Dragons system. At best it is going to be shoehorned and squeezed into the d20 system.

The part that is the killer for me is the star/planet/ecology systems that are not covered by the OGL and come from Classic Traveller.

As I started the thread with Traveller is a system that uses a mature man at the height of his powers or where they are starting to wane. You start with a character who is deadly and competent for adventures. In most (all) systems now-a-days, if your referee doesn't custom make the adventures to wet nurse your character until they have gained some competence, your character is just X kilograms of protein waiting for a "monster" to harvest it.

The one thing I believe is missing is some form or reward system from Traveller. Most of the time the characters see no advancement in their situation from adventuring. It would be nice to see some form of influence, money or something tangible from adventuring. It's not built in the system and I believe that has always been a weak point for long term play.

As a side note, I'm having my local game shop look at their customer base. I'm having them look at the age of the customers and seeing what the older ones are buying. I'm curious what the returning gamers (35+) are purchasing. It should be interesting to see what comes out--if they are simply buying what they played years ago or if they are buying new games.

Lord Iron Wolf
 
The problem with d20 anything is the system is built to "munchkinized" to produce a character who should be relegated to the comic books. I don't see Traveller ever being a good fit into the Dungeons & Dragons system. At best it is going to be shoehorned and squeezed into the d20 system.

The part that is the killer for me is the star/planet/ecology systems that are not covered by the OGL and come from Classic Traveller.

As I started the thread with Traveller is a system that uses a mature man at the height of his powers or where they are starting to wane. You start with a character who is deadly and competent for adventures. In most (all) systems now-a-days, if your referee doesn't custom make the adventures to wet nurse your character until they have gained some competence, your character is just X kilograms of protein waiting for a "monster" to harvest it.

The one thing I believe is missing is some form or reward system from Traveller. Most of the time the characters see no advancement in their situation from adventuring. It would be nice to see some form of influence, money or something tangible from adventuring. It's not built in the system and I believe that has always been a weak point for long term play.

As a side note, I'm having my local game shop look at their customer base. I'm having them look at the age of the customers and seeing what the older ones are buying. I'm curious what the returning gamers (35+) are purchasing. It should be interesting to see what comes out--if they are simply buying what they played years ago or if they are buying new games.

Lord Iron Wolf
 
Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:

Mr. Morte,

Discuss? Sure!

So T20, and its sire d20 and its grandsire D&D, tie combat prowess to BAB. That in turn means that members of the Professional class cannot be good at unarmed combat. Thus T20 cannot even recreate the career and accomplishments of one of its own authors, Mr. Martin J. Dougherty.

He's a freelance journalist, an author, an unarmed combat instructor, and fencing master. And he can't be recreated as a Traveller PC with T20 without breaking the rules.

How's that for a discussion? ;)


Sincerely,
Larsen
Incorrect. All one has to do is multiclass into a more combat oriented class.

Hunter
 
Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:

Mr. Morte,

Discuss? Sure!

So T20, and its sire d20 and its grandsire D&D, tie combat prowess to BAB. That in turn means that members of the Professional class cannot be good at unarmed combat. Thus T20 cannot even recreate the career and accomplishments of one of its own authors, Mr. Martin J. Dougherty.

He's a freelance journalist, an author, an unarmed combat instructor, and fencing master. And he can't be recreated as a Traveller PC with T20 without breaking the rules.

How's that for a discussion? ;)


Sincerely,
Larsen
Incorrect. All one has to do is multiclass into a more combat oriented class.

Hunter
 
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