Classic Traveller vs Traveller T20?

[Flynn]

Larsen,

I mean no disrespect, but have you ever tried to play T20? I like it. It works for me. Yeah, it has levels and the other D&D-isms that people like to parade around as their reason to hate it. But have you ever played it? In my experience, T20 feels more like CT than D&D, by far, and it gets me players that will stick around for a long-term campaign, to boot. No other Traveller system has had the staying power for face-to-face gaming in my own personal experience. YMMV, and probably does, for I am not one of the fortunate few who have been playing CT since the day before it came out.

You have a right to your opinion, and you've as much as said you have that opinion without playing the system. But as you've pointed out on other topics on other matters, opinions are just that. When it comes to personal choice, my opinion works for me and yours works for you. This is ultimately a matter of personal choice, right?

In Service,
Flynn

 

[Colin]

Actually, Larsen (Bill), I do believe all weapons potentially deal Lifeblood damage. I may be mistaken on this, though, but it's how I would run it. However, fists, etc only do stamina damage. So a sword, or even a club, could easily kill someone in T20. Stamina comes into play in a slightly different way, as even attacks that don't penerae armo do stamina damage (bruising, shock, surprise, etc).

D20, T20 whatever, it's all just a game, and the idea is to have fun. If you would prefer to use CT, which I think is kinda clunky, go right ahead. Or MegaTraveller. Or TNE. Or Fuzion. Or whatever.

Colin

 

[Whipsnade]

Flynn asked: I mean no disrespect, but have you ever tried to play T20?

Flynn,

I don't know if you've had a chance to read my last post in the What Version thread over at the Lone Star. We're both active in those threads and the threads are discussing the same thing really. Here's what I wrote there in response to one of your post:

I happen to agree with nearly everything you say and T20 is the best thing to happen to Traveller since the demise of GDW. (Sorry GURPS, more people collect your stuff than play it.)

If anything thing else seemed to implied in my last posts, please blame it on poor prose on my part.

Thanks to T20, we've got oodles of new products, great adventures being published monthly (get a TA subscription if you already haven't folks, nary a clunker in the lot), and a vibrant fan base again. What's not to like?

All that follows is IMEHO:

It's just that d20 for Traveller isn't for me. That's all. It's the bee knees for other folks and more power to them. It just isn't Traveller for me that's all.

If I had a Heroic-Fantasy-Cinematic campaign going; and I'm toying with the background for one, d20 would be the ticket. That's what it was developed over thirty years for and this sudden spate of retcons and slapdash rules addendums to create M20, T20, and all the rest can't change that.

d20 isn't bad; far from it, it's damn good, but like any other RPG system it can be applied badly. By taking d20 out of its genre - no matter what tweaks you apply - you are applying d20 badly.

As a looonnngg time grognard (how does '71/'72 grab yah?) I'm baffled by folks' resistence to learn new rules. It's mind boggling. It's like trying to play blackjack but steadfastly refusing to let an ace be counted as one 'cause you learned it as eleven and don't care to learn anything else. It's parochial, it's narrow minded, and it's intellectually LAZY.

With wargames you learned new rules with nearly every purchase. There were enough commonalities between rule systems that knowing one system let you learn the next more quickly. The same holds true for RPGs, once you've played one you have a pretty good handle on the idea and can more quickly learn the others.

What I'm trying to say is 'horses for courses', 'the right tool for the right job', and 'one size does not fit all'. Different RPG genres are better handled by RPG different rules, just as in wargames different rules are used to handle different genres and different scales.

(SPI published a universal wargame in the 70s whose name escapes me. You could supposedly play out Marathon, Jutland, strategic bombing, NATO/Pact, Waterloo and all the rest with the same rules, map, and counters. Why does the name escape me? Because the game was a freakin' waste of paper and ink! By trying to be everything, it was nothing!)

I have another theory as to why people are resistant to learning new rules; latent munchkinism. You can be a munchkin with any RPG system once you learn how to 'hack' the system in question. (You can hack wargame rules too; after 30+ years AH's Afrikacorps resembles chess with players resigning in two or three moves once their opening gambit fails) d20, due to it's basic Heroic-Fantasy nature, rewards borderline munchkin behavior with levels and XPs. That makes d20 easier to 'hack'. Some folk's reticence about learning or using another system than d20 arises from the fact that they've 'hacked' that system and do not want to give up that unfair edge. They'd rather use RPG system that may be poorly suited for the genre at hand so they can continue using the 'hacks' they've already learned.

Here's one to muse over; Are all the cheat codes in every computer game the same? Why should they be?

You are right, I am griping. But am I not anti-d20 nor have I ever been. However, I am saddened to see the Windows business model come to gaming, I'm saddened to see people being too lazy to explore other systems that might suit a particular genre better, and I'm saddened to see people holding on to a poorly suited system just so they can employ the 'cheat codes' they're familiar with.

So you can see, I dislike d20 for Traveller for the same reason you like it; personal ones. It's a simple matter of taste. I happen to believe different genres are best served by different rules and you want a game system that your player will use. Different strokes for different folks.

Have I played T20? No. Do I own it? Yes. And as a gamer for over thirty years I think I can get a pretty good feel of the game from studying the rules. I've designed a few ships, created a few PCs, run a few gunfights, etc. I see no reason to use T20 for my Traveller games, if I were ever so lucky as to run one again.

BUT...

If I fell in with a gaming group that roleplayed (my current group is exclusively wargames with a heavy emphasis of minis) and if that group was 'd20 only', I'd play d20. As you wisely point out, the game is the thing.

However, if I had a choice I would not use T20 for Traveller. It's that simple.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Malenfant]

As a looonnngg time grognard (how does '71/'72 grab yah?) I'm baffled by folks' resistence to learn new rules. It's mind boggling. It's like trying to play blackjack but steadfastly refusing to let an ace be counted as one 'cause you learned it as eleven and don't care to learn anything else. It's parochial, it's narrow minded, and it's intellectually LAZY.

I used to think that too. But in practise, people often just don't have TIME to learn new rules. And if you think a given ruleset works fine, why should you spend time learning another one that you might not like so much just for the sake of it? Plus that learning time eats up time that you could be enjoying the game in (because you're famililar with it already).

Personally, I'm interested in new rulesets just to see how different engines work. But players who just want to dive into a game probably won't be as interested in that.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
I used to think that too. But in practise, people often just don't have TIME to learn new rules.

Mal,

Well, there is a difference being knowing the rules well enopugh to play and knowing the rules well enough to GM. And the knowledge level past GM is knowing the rules well enough to hack them. Of course each of those knowledge levesl requires different amounts time to achieve.

I had a two, that's TWO, page handout for new players in my CT/MT hybrid game. What skills were, what stats were, UWPs, task rolls, and some other stuff. One piece of paper, front and back, and my players were off and running, learning as they played.

GURPS has a Lite version and that still has more stuff in it than players need to actually play. Other RPG systems have Lite versions too. Most of the stuff in the various handbooks, rulebooks, sourcebooks, and so on are for GMs - GMs and people who want to hack the system.

Learning to play a game and learning to hack a game are two very different things. The former is less than an hour in the company of other players. The latter is handbooks, close study, and lots of hours. It's take no time at all to learn how to play.

And if you think a given ruleset works fine, why should you spend time learning another one that you might not like so much just for the sake of it?

Why waste time reading a book if you might not like it by the end?

Plus that learning time eats up time that you could be enjoying the game in (because you're famililar with it already).

You can learn as you play. In fact, that's the best way to learn.

Personally, I'm interested in new rulesets just to see how different engines work.

Yup, you like to hack game systems. I like to hack game systems too, both RPGs and wargames.

But players who just want to dive into a game probably won't be as interested in that. [/QB]

Diving in and learning are not mutually exclusive. Actually, they're mutually supportive.

It seems to me that many of the people not interested in other RPG systems are either stick-in-muds, intellectually lazy, or fearful of giving up the 'cheat codes' they 'hacked' from the system.

YMM and should V.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Malenfant]

It seems to me that many of the people not interested in other RPG systems are either stick-in-muds, intellectually lazy, or fearful of giving up the 'cheat codes' they 'hacked' from the system.

Not everyone is a big fan of change. Especially not for its own sake.

The so-called 'hacks' you claim exist could be used for blatant munchkinism, but it's also a byproduct of understanding a system and just getting the most out of it. There's nothing wrong with that. And that is true of ANY system, not just d20.

You said you ran a 1930s game using CT. Why? Why didn't you go get an existing pulp RPG? Were you 'intellectually lazy' there by sticking to a system you knew?

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
... but it's also a byproduct of understanding a system and just getting the most out of it. There's nothing wrong with that. And that is true of ANY system, not just d20.

Mal,

Yup, which is why I wrote: You can be a munchkin with any RPG system once you learn how to 'hack' the system in question. (You can hack wargame rules too...

You said you ran a 1930s game using CT. Why? Why didn't you go get an existing pulp RPG? Were you 'intellectually lazy' there by sticking to a system you knew?

I didn't have another RPG system(1) that had guns at hand. You see, I was in the Indian Ocean, my FLGS was back in Alameda, California, and I had no way of getting a proper system in time. The Internet did exist then but only for a few university professors and DARPA sites. This was back in the Stone Age, you know.

If I had the choice, a more militarily focussed RPG with a better gun selection than Traveller; something like like Twilight:2000, would have fit the bill perfectly. As it was, I had left Striker back in Alameda too and had to wing it with regards to the tanks and aircraft Bolivia and Paraguay used. Fortunately, they didn't have many of either. I still think I blew it with the artillery though.

Still the PCs did stop the bad guys from digging up and selling all the Jesuit artifacts. Well, most of them anyway.


Have fun,
Bill

1 - Besides Traveller, we had D&D with us too and used it regularly for campaigns in other genres. Horses for courses.

 

[davidvanwie]

Larsen,

One of the reasons why I prefer RPGs to wargames is the GM. A good GM "prevents" hacking by breathing life into the rules. Admittedly, there is a fine line between allowing characters to develop into exceptional (sometimes even heroic) game elements and acting like what we used to call "Monty Hall DMs" in the old days. Still, that is our role in the roleplaying...

IMTU, it is hard to find the T/Medical training you'd need in order to "always" stabilize serious combat injuries, even if you've PMOSed the skill and dedicated every available skill point. That level of training just doesn't exist, even though there is a box for it on the character sheet. Wargames with "fixed" rulebooks are harder. It is asking a lot of a game designer to prevent the Afrikacorps problem you describe, no? 20 years is a long time....

The reason I've started building my latest Traveller campaign around T20 instead of CT is that it gives me mechanics that facilitate a wider range of storylines within a Traveller universe. Pure d20 is too fantastic, and pure CT is too deadly for the stories I currently think are most interesting.

If characters can't get killed, the adventure has no edge, if they die all the time it has no depth. A nest of dragons is usually enough to humble even the highest level D&D characters, and it fits the genre (as you've pointed out). The challenge I've had as a CT GM is that the system has these wonderful histories and storylines of nobility with fabulous starships that have amazing capabilities; and I can't really get my characters into that higher level of the game without simply injecting them. It is hard for them to "earn it" and help me build the story and evolve it over time. It isn't theoretically impossible, of course, it is just that the game mechanics fight me. Bluntly, the character tend to die off just as things are getting to a higher level.

Obviously, not every GM has these stories in mind. T20 opens up new campaign possibilities. As a practical matter, players rapidly discover that D&D style play is foolish in a world with shotguns and Lifeblood. I don't mean just the munchkin elements, but the roleplaying itself. An NPC with a shotgun under the counter requires a different kind of roleplaying, no matter your level. Taking magic and magical items off the table is also huge. It's not sci-fi D&D.

Anyway, a question of taste. I think that having the T20 dial to twirl is great. It opens up a fresh avenue for me as a GM. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I needed one!

Best,
David

 

[jwdh71]

I'm pretty much an old coot myself, started gaming in the mid 70's. But I disagree wholeheartedly with Bill about CT and T20 (sorry Bill ).
I love the T20 system, much more than I did any of the Traveller iterations in between it and CT (MT was too heavy with errata for me to like TNE never caught my interest, and GURPS Traveller, while having great background material has always been way too complex for me to run effectively). I can run as pretty damn good T20 game right after picking up the book (and did so), without needing to make up a lot of houserules or modifications to the basic system (which we always had to do for CT BTW). I love GDW, and appreciate Marc and companies efforts to give us an interesting universe to play in, but CT definitely shows that as RPG designers, they were pretty good wargame designers.
It is, as Bill has said, horses for courses, but I for one like the system, and that's the Traveller system that I will use in the future. Especially since no one I know personally, from all my years of playing Traveller, still plays CT. It's dead Jim...

 

[Flynn]

There's a CT group that plays every Monday less than fifteen miles from my house, but alas, I can't take another day to dedicate to gaming, or I'd ask the Ref to let me give it a whirl. (It's been some 3 years since the last time I played CT, and that was at a local Game Day, where I ran the session.)

It's not dead, but the folks that play CT tend to be diehards.

I see it much more active online in PBEMs than in FTF games though.

-Flynn

 

[jwdh71]

What I mean is, that it's not attracting new players. CT is, for all intents and purposes, a dead system. Yes there are the reprints, yes there are still diehards playing it, but as I said, my gaming groups of the past all played Traveller, of one form or another, and of those who I am still in contact with, not one even games anymore, much less plays Traveller.
I still talk to my old GM, who ran the best Traveller campaigns I've ever had the priviledge of playing in, he's no longer role-playing, only playing the occasional wargame, and that over the internet, not FTF. All of his campaign materials have disappeared over time, including dozens of hand drawn deckplans of the various ships we used. Sad really...

 

[Flynn]

I agree. I think Traveller T20 succeeded dramatically in what Hunter stated it's purpose was back in 2001. If you want to read it, do a search on the forums and you'll probably dig it up. Hunter described T20 as being designed not to take away from CT or any other Traveller system, but to attract new gamers to Traveller, and in my experience, it does this well. Regardless of what some naysayers might say about the system, it has met this one basic goal of Hunter's.

CT may be here to stay, but T20 has a growing fan base and will likely be here just as long.

And the cool part is: either way, we're all having fun.

-Flynn

 

[kafka47]

The greatest thing that has done wonders for Traveller is the acknowledgement of all milieus with a consistent well done product. The T20 rulebook gave me lots of ideas for enhancements that I would not have thought of before.

Gateway to Destiny could easily be plunked into a MT setting without too much difficulty.

QKL has been turning out consistently fine looking products and bring excitement back into Traveller. This website along is great accomplishment to which T20 plays a part but not a monopoly. Hunter has brought Traveller from what was a memory of fans set our forest ablaze, so that we isolated bearers of the flame can once again stand proud and marvel at the pyrotechnics. Thank you, Hunter, MJD & all.

BTW, this was someone who has owned all forms of Traveller loved MT and actually turned against GDW when they released TNE (as the vision was not in place when the initial products were hitting Canadian market).

 

[Psion]

Well, I haven't been of the forums for a bit, but I thought I'd throw in my two decicredits:

1) T20 chargen in a curious thing. I beleive it has both advantages and disadvantage compared to CT/MT.

1a) If there is anything bad that can be said about it that is more objective that "I hat levels", it is that it gets a bit tedious if you formally do PC style generation. I do no bother rolling careers for NPCs -- straight up classes and levels. That is, as I see it, the only BONA FIDE drawback to T20 chargen contrasted with CT/MT

1b) BAB is also curious aberration and I also would have made it a skill myself. That said, in play, it seems to work, and you do have an option that lets you improve your BAB, so AFAIAC, it's six of one, one half dozen of the other.

I toyed with the variant that would make attack skills (I still would not break it down to the level that CT/MT do; AFAIAC, there is only so much marksmanship you can learn that won't apply equally to different weapons) and pump up the skill points for military characters.

1c) I massively prefer the way vehicle skills are handled in T20 to that in CT/MT. Similar to weapon skills, I feel that there is only so much to the nuances of different vehicle type before the training and experience should overlap. I feel using common skills where appropraite and assigning proficiencies to them is a better approach.

1d) It has lifepath style chargen, which puts it worlds ahead of GURPS in the chargen department.

2) The d20 skill system strongly resembles the flexibility of MT, which is a good thing. After MT, I would never go back to CT's ad hoc system, and MT had almost everything I wanted from CT.

3) Okay, most of this discussions has revolved around ways in which T20 fails to live up to or otherwise chooses to do things differently than its predecessor. Let's talk about where it outshines both of its parents: starship combat. Yes, I know that at the capital ship level, starship combat is odd (and I have house rules for just that purpose.) But where it really counts -- i.e., for the size of ships that PCs typically run -- it both exceeds anything I have seen for Traveller or for d20.

This was not apparent to me until I ran a few games, but the beauty of it is this: anyone who has any shipboard skills can do something to contribute to combat. It keeps the players involved, and doesn't make half of the party spectators while the pilot and gunners shine when a ship combat breaks out.

4) T20 adds a bit to the classic worldgen system, and simplifies the tabulations you would have to do if you were using Scouts (or MT WBH). Still, if you want any realism in world generation, pick up GURPS First In and adapt it. I've also discussed some house rules on the forums here I used to make worlds generated by the classic rules a bit more realistic (example: read the size digit as "eigths of Earth mass" instead of "eights of earth diameter", and it eliminates many impossible atmospheres in existing UWPs. Still oxygen atmospsheres are too frequent for my taste, but I'll cope.)


Finally, if your criteria for "doing traveller right" is "doing it like CT", then it should come as no surprise that CT fulfills your criteria best.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Psion:
Let's talk about where it outshines both of its parents: starship combat... but where it really counts -- i.e., for the size of ships that PCs typically run -- it both exceeds anything I have seen for Traveller or for d20.


This was not apparent to me until I ran a few games, but the beauty of it is this: anyone who has any shipboard skills can do something to contribute to combat. It keeps the players involved, and doesn't make half of the party spectators while the pilot and gunners shine when a ship combat breaks out.

This is one of the highlight for the whole game for me, that you can have every player involved in what could easily have become a private two player game within a game.

 

[plop101]

From the begining of this thread,
way way back when, tcabril asks:

I guess what I am asking is what do others prefer? Do others just play Classic Traveller or do they like the T20 rendition.

I prefer CT, mostly CT/MT, though lately I've been on a real CT only kick. T20 is interesting, as is T4 and GT, but I always seem to come back to CT.

 

[parmasson]

I don't want to say that I use CT out of habit but, I guess I do. For me CT really does not have any technical superiority (moral yes tech. no ). It is just a familiar system for me and guys I play with. The dice system really doesn't matter, it is the setting I like. If we all had to turn in our LLBs tomorrow for d20 I would just shrug.

 

[aramis]

I'm fond of some elements of T20 (T&C, Ship design), but generally use MT, not CT.