Classic vs Mongoose vs 5th ed

[rancke]

If you need rules to add depth to your roleplaying experience, then you're not roleplaying.

Smile when you say that.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

The main failing of CT is the characters have NO DEPTH compared to more modern systems released later. CT characters are a bare bones string of numbers only.

Britti Lover,

Character have all the depth their players bring to them and not what a system of rules designed primarily to inflate skills give them, no more and no less. You can play a character anyway you wish in CT as there's no list of phobias to cramp your style.

Quirks, advantages, and disadvantages are just regularized munchkinism in my opinion. You take "chronic urinary infection" for five points so you can then boost your skills in temporal unicycle and battle kazoo.

GURPS allows for TRUE role-playing characters, with advantages, disadvantages and quirks - just like REAL people.

Your imagination should suffice and does suffice. Advantages, disadvantages, and quirks are just a excuse for inflating a character's abilities; for example Well, I wanted to play a character who is lactose intolerant and the rules say it's worth 5 points so I HAD to spend those on something. That's why she's a marksman with a bazooka, see?

If you really wanted to roleplay various character traits, you'd do so without them also providing points for the skills your character will use. Unless you're really just min-maxing in the best tradition of munchkinism, that is.

Mongoose Traveller adds desperately needed detail to the CT bare bones string of numbers.

You should be able to add that detail yourself. As Dean so wisely stated:

If you need rules to add depth to your roleplaying experience, then you're not roleplaying.


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

If you need rules to add depth to your roleplaying experience, then you're not roleplaying.

That's like saying that if you need spice to flavor your food, you're not really eating. Use inappropriate types and/or amounts of spice and you ruin the food; use inappropriate types and/or amount of rules and you ruin the game. But if you don't use any rules at all, or too few, you get a bland, tasteless mess.

Some GMs are lucky enough to be able to provide just the right amount of guidance on their own, and those lucky stiffs can do just fine with a minimalist rules set. But to assume that anyone who needs more is "not really roleplaying" is something which I can't describe adequately without falling afoul of the moderators.


Hans

 

[robject]

That's one thing that sorta blows me away about CT. It was never portrayed as a kludgey glommed together mess. The rules are pretty much what the authors intended as they stand. They printed them practically unchanged from the very beginning several times-- LBB's 1-3, Starter Traveller, The Traveller Book. (MegaTraveller was not the same sort of jump as OD&D to AD&D was... and T4 is basically Marc saying... "I pretty much meant what I said the first time.")

I'm getting off topic, and starting to sound like a fanboy, but I'm seeing this in T5 as well. It has more tools than The Traveller Book had, but Marc has stated that he wanted these sorts of things way back when, even if he didn't have a clear vision of them; but he also wants the same resulting things that we see in CT... so "I pretty much meant what I said the first time" is still close to his basic attitude. That's one reason the most iconic things in Traveller change the least, perhaps.

 

[Jeffr0]

I'm getting off topic, and starting to sound like a fanboy,

No, please. We need more fanboys around here.

I'd rather hear the positive stuff than wade through the usual polite flame wars over system versions.

 

[rancke]

I'd rather hear the positive stuff than wade through the usual polite flame wars over system versions.

Yeah, because debates over system versions are SO nugatory. What's important is the OTU setting :devil:.


Hans

 

[spinwardpirate]

If you really wanted to roleplay various character traits, you'd do so without them also providing points for the skills your character will use. Unless you're really just min-maxing in the best tradition of munchkinism, that is.

I've been tempted to say to my GURPS players, "just make up a character. Take advantages and disadvantages and skills that you want to roleplay. I don't care about points." If I ever do, I'll let you know the results.

 

[Jeffr0]

Okay... this is what I like about Traveller.

It is "The Beatles" of rpg's.

The Beatles were greater than the sum of the parts. Paul's optimism, John's depression and politics, George's spirituality, and Ringo's goofiness... they all balanced and complemented each other where alone they would have been insufferable.

Traveller combines Chadwick's multi-level mega-crunch wargames with Miller's spare sci-fi vision... then there's the "sciency stuff" of extended system generation and animal tables... and the all around verve of a prolific writer like Keith. The conglomeration of game-types that are addressed along with the varying mileaux... it's just awesome.

 

[spinwardpirate]

Reminds me of a lecture I once attended at a Trek convention. Bruce Hyde (Kevin Riley) gave a lecture on character personalities types and Trek. In his view, the reason Star Trek worked so well was because of the balancing of Kirk vs Scotty and McCoy vs Spock.

 

[Jeffr0]

You green blooded... inhuman...

 

[rancke]

"Imagination may be required to explain a tech level 4 civilization in an asteroid belt, or a high population world with a participating democracy for a government." -- Book 3

"The problem is that the amount of imagination required to explain multiple tech level 4 societies in asteroid belts rises expontentailly with the number." -- Me.


Hans

 

[dean]

That's like saying that if you need spice to flavor your food, you're not really eating. Use inappropriate types and/or amounts of spice and you ruin the food; use inappropriate types and/or amount of rules and you ruin the game. But if you don't use any rules at all, or too few, you get a bland, tasteless mess.

Some GMs are lucky enough to be able to provide just the right amount of guidance on their own, and those lucky stiffs can do just fine with a minimalist rules set. But to assume that anyone who needs more is "not really roleplaying" is something which I can't describe adequately without falling afoul of the moderators.


Hans

I think your analogy is lacking; adding spices is to cooking (not eating), is as adding rules is to RPGs. If done properly, it makes the experience enjoyable. Too much spice (or rules) may be liked by some and not others...and yes, too few may be unenjoyable to other people. At the same time, it's hard to ruin the delicious flavor of a perfectly ripe peach by leaving it alone, and quite easy to ruin it by smothering it in steak sauce.

No; what I am saying is if you NEED the rules to play a roleplaying game, then you're not really roleplaying. You're kowtowing to the rule set. Maybe your method-acting playing, but it's not roleplay. Certainly, rulesets like GURPS can provide players with a structure and framework to guide them in their motivation, but doesn't add depth to the roleplaying experience, IMO.

 

[Whipsnade]

That's like saying that if you need spice to flavor your food, you're not really eating.

Hans,

A more accurately analogy would be someone cooking for years without spices and then only realizing that spices were "allowed" and added to the flavor of food once a cookbook told them.

How can one say they're roleplaying if they've never roleplayed a personality other than their own? How can they say they didn't already know that physical attributes, personal traits, and personality quirks were always part of a player-character? Why did it take a rule book to open their eyes? Why should it have taken a rule book?

My first ever RPG character was a low IQ fighter in three book D&D. I didn't need rules to tell me that playing him as a helpful, eager, and sadly dimwitted trouble magnet would make for great sessions. Rather than waiting for some rules to tell me what to do, I used my imagination instead.

I don't know about the others here, but I found Britti Lover's post rather sad. Imagine having to wait for rules to tell you something so basic to rolepaying that it was always presumed to be blatantly obvious.

GURPS didn't introduce advantages, disadvantages, and quirk to let gamers roleplay better, those things were introduced to allow gamers to use the points associated with them and build more munchkin-like characters. As one poster in this thread already pointed out, GMs rarely hold players to full effect of the disadvantages they choose. As for quirks, there are regular thread at SJGames discussing whether proposed quirks are "quirky" enough or whether they're just another way to pad a character's point total.


Regards,
Bill

 

[spinwardpirate]

"Imagination may be required to explain a tech level 4 civilization in an asteroid belt, or a high population world with a participating democracy for a government." -- Book 3

"The problem is that the amount of imagination required to explain multiple tech level 4 societies in asteroid belts rises expontentailly with the number." -- Me.

Some people just need more imagination.

 

[aramis]

"Imagination may be required to explain a tech level 4 civilization in an asteroid belt, or a high population world with a participating democracy for a government." -- Book 3

"The problem is that the amount of imagination required to explain multiple tech level 4 societies in asteroid belts rises expontentailly with the number." -- Me.

Some people just need more imagination.

Only to understand what TL4 really means... they don't produce much, and what they do produce is sheet iron, cast iron, and simple non-IC electronics...

 

[spinwardpirate]

Are we drifting into a discussion of "what exactly does TL mean?"
If so, I'm outta here man!

 

[Jeffr0]

As for quirks, there are regular thread at SJGames discussing whether proposed quirks are "quirky" enough or whether they're just another way to pad a character's point total.

-1 Likes Green
-1 Prefers Redheads
-1 Eats raw garlic by the clove
-1 Hates being interrupted
-1 Always brings his pet debate topics up in unrelated conversations

I think a good GM should be able to say "No" to quirks that don't add anything to the character concept. But have you seen the character examples that came with 4th edition...? Who can keep up with all those skills and advantages during play...? I could maybe run it, but I'd have to compress it all down to something about like a CT character just to keep up with everything.

Perks are much more interesting... especially when combined with the various Martial Arts and Magical styles. Perks are very very small "unual background" thingies that allow for variations in the usual campaign systems... and allow for colorful "rule benders" that add flair to otherwise common skills and abilities.

The big strong point of GURPS is you can model anything you want with it and the system has so many options and dials you can turn it into exactly what you're trying to do. BUT... what if you don't know what you're trying to model? That's the case with Traveller-- for me anyway. I need a comprehensive set of rules and a quirky character generation system to help draw me into Marc Miller's universe.... In fact... the classic Traveller rules are so great because they enable you to explore something that you don't have full control over. If you're daunted by a galaxy of possibilities... Traveller somehow gives you just enough of a glimpse to fire your imagination. And for some reason, the weird and hard-to-explain results are often the must fun thing about it.

The TNE core rulebook is the BEST single volume of Traveller material ever produced, IMO. Here's what it says on this matter:

In order to understand how best to use the rules, you have to understand why we have rules at all. A roleplaying experience can be done, and done very easily, without any rules at all. The referee describes the world, the player or players describe their actions, the referee decides and communicates the results. That is roleplaying at its most basic level, and also at its very best. The free-form interaction between players and referees is what all good roleplaying concentrates on.

So why have rules at all?

Two reasons. First, players often want an objective means of predicting the results of certain familiar actions. They want the reassurance that their success or failure from one situation to another is based on something more concrete than the referee's mood or their own ability to come up with a glib explanation of why they ought to succeed.

Second, the referee has only so much mental energy to expend on decisions and descriptions. To the extent that that energy is expended on adjudicating routine, recurring events, there is that much left to make the unique and important events really sparkle.

Rules are the solution. Rules, such as combat, travel, task resolution, and so on, are provided to relieve the referee of the need to continually think about what is or is not important to their success and to give the players a sense of an objective reality. But that means that rules are here to liberate players and referees from mundane concerns and allow them to focus on the meat of roleplaying. Rules are never provided to limit the imagination or options of players or the referee. Always bear this in mind when using the rules.

For example, the world-generation rules provide extensive tables which will generate worlds and star systems which fit into some generally accepted norms of astronomy. How should you use them to generate a world? Start by deciding what kind of world you want. The tables will tell you the most important features which need to be defined, so go ahead and make up those values (like size, atmosphere, water, etc.) to be whatever best fits your view of the world. They don't even have to correspond to the individual entries on the table. If you decide that the world doesn't need to be all that exotic, though, and you don't feel like lavishing that much creative energy on it, pick values off the table that define the world you want. If you decide that you don't even care what the world is like at all, and just want a different world, any different world, then roll dice and consult the tables.

 

[spinwardpirate]

GURPS didn't introduce advantages, disadvantages, and quirk to let gamers roleplay better, those things were introduced to allow gamers to use the points associated with them and build more munchkin-like characters.

I'll disagree. GURPS introduced advantages and disadvantages as a way to create balanced characters. If I, as GM, tell my players to create 150 point character with 40 points of disads, they have a sense that their characters are equals.

 

[spinwardpirate]

The big strong point of GURPS is you can model anything you want with it and the system has so many options and dials you can turn it into exactly what you're trying to do.

Right. I have had a blast playing GURPS in every genre. It's my system of preference for most anything. But there are systems I prefer for other genres. I like D&D for fantasy. And while I have played GT, I find CT to be more enjoyable.

 

[aramis]

1) GURPS was not the first (nor even really close to the first) system with (a) Advantages and disadvantages, (b) point based CGen, (c) detailed tactical combat, (d) multiple setting books. Long and MacDonald beat them to the punch on every count, with Champions and the rest of the Hero System.

2) GURPS took an approach that was rare at the time: Long skill list, lots of advantages and disadvantages, give players what they want for a character.. Traveller had been the exact opposite approach: no ads/disads, short skill list, random CGen.

3) the vaunted GURPS balance exists only in your mind. it's not built out of extensive playtesting (cf Roleplayer Issue #1, GURPS designer's notes) but out of the idea of how long would it take to get professional level of skill in terms of 250 hours of instruction chunks called points. It does coincide to a great deal with balancing characters, but it's not a sure thing. A 100 point wizard is FAR more powerful than a 100 point psionicist or super, and both are far more dangerous than 100pt Egghead on Regina... and in a cyberpunk game, none of them is balanced with the netrunner.

4) fundamentally it's all about getting characters written up. Either way does so. Neither way is truly better, but both appeal to different sorts of people.