COLOR TEXT: Sophont Resources Handbook

[robject]

Added in images and short descriptions for the Scout, Beowulf, Marava, Fat Trader, Safari Ship, Liner, Corsair, Lab Ship, and Corvette. Lacking Ian's images for Merc Cruiser, Yacht, and Armed Packet.


Added pages introducing non-human sophonts and how to use them with the rules: Amindii, Aslan, Bwap, Droyne, Llellewyloly, Vargr, and robots.


Abbreviated equipment list (sans weapons and armor) added. Have to reformat it, and put the summary lists into true tables. And I think we need art.


Page count jumped to 51 pages.


Haven't tackled Education, let alone Careers. But then they might have errata against them, so there's no harm in waiting. On the Gripping Hand, it would be a GOOD idea to proof one career out (say, Scouts) to see how I should lay it out on 6x9 pages.

Haven't added notes on adventuring on worlds (nor personal combat, nor animal encounters).

Haven't added notes on adventuring in space (nor space combat).

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Is there a target for number of pages?

... and I'd forgotten about 'Carouse', 'Query', 'Persuade' and 'Command' numbers for different NPCs. That does make a Personals section more practical in an abbreviated handbook such as this.

I am interested in the character commenting on the Vargr's charisma and later succeeding in a Command personal. A low charisma would be consistent with being susceptible to an angry demand from someone asserting their superiority and in my mind the mechanics should be linked somehow ... but that's probably a whole other discussion.

I'll just say here that I've started playing a SOLO campaign using the Cepheus Engine and it's central idea is roll the dice and make sense of it by making connections between events to develop the story. That's what has happened here with your scene and that is its strength.

 

[robject]

Jonathan, the target is more like "what sections should be included?" as in, is this EXACTLY ONLY a player's book, or is it more like The Traveller Book?

I would like to keep the page count lower, and not try to push the maximum size for 6x9 books. Scope creep happens; I will resist it. Marc tends to say "this is a PDF; size is not a concern." But I still like to print things. Meh - we can have two versions. Short version FIRST!

- chargen & example(s)
- tasks & examples
- skills & talents
- interactions & examples
- personal combat & examples
- psionics
- nonhuman characters & examples
- adventuring on worlds
-- animals
- adventuring in space
-- starship ops & combat
-- interstellar travel, starports, etc
- equipment
- guns and armor
- starship list

I left out starship design on purpose: it can be added later if it seems to be the right thing to do. I defer the decision. I do have an abbreviated ACS after all.

I left out world creation, and in fact omitted the UWP altogether, even though it is central to Traveller. I defer the decision.

 

[robject]

My color text needs to communicate the basics of Traveller

Here are some very specific basics that I plan to communicate in the color text:

• The Jump Drive (100+ tons, one week's time) is the key to interstellar communication and travel.
  
• No two bases are alike. Starports, Naval bases, and Scout bases are like Deep Water Ports.
  
• Wilderness refueling is worth the risk.
  
• The universe is cosmopolitan, understandable, and consistent.
  
• No two worlds are alike. There is high-tech, atavism, and anachronism (shotguns and cutlasses) that defies SF conventions.
  
• Mercenaries and Tickets.
  
• Social Stratification (High Passage, Mid Passage, Low Berths) -- but player characters break stratification almost by definition.
  
• Patrons, Factors, and Referees mediate between the setting and players' goals via Push, Pull, Enigma, and Gimmicks.
  
• Combat is deadly.
  
• Material rewards. No "experience points" or leveling up.
  
• 2D hex maps and empty hexes.

 

[mike wightman]

Devil's advocate time - a couple of those are contradictory, how can you have "The universe is cosmopolitan, understandable, and consistent" while at the same time you state:
"No two bases are alike. Starports, Naval bases, and Scout bases are like Deep Water Ports."
and
"No two worlds are alike. There is high-tech, atavism, and anachronism (shotguns and cutlasses) that defies SF conventions."

Also I just ran a word count. You have less words per page than are in a typical LBB from CT. A better layout and font size and you could cut the size of the book in half at a stroke. I know you have said upthread that layout etc is still a work in progress but layout and editing are critical to a book like this.

Great work, by the way, I like what you are doing.

How about adding some 'setting mysteries' to the colour text too?

 

[robject]

Working draft. I've already shortened it; I'll probably shorten this further, mining it for ideas elsewhere.


The Jakrand, an aging Scout-owned Merchant Cruiser, NOT mine, on loan from the Service, smelled. It smelled bad. Mr. Ikrand had waved three of his arms in a strange manner when I signed it out, as if he was trying to tell me something but was prevented from doing so by some byzantine Scout Service policy. He did give us extra air filters, though. I didn't think about it at the time.

For that matter, Hefry kind of smelled, too. Well, it's an airless rock of a world, so maybe it's more correct to say the Scout Service owned-and-operated starport smelled. But it smelled in a different way. Like unfamiliar food, cooked improperly. But then I'm Vilani: to me every non-Vilani food is unfamiliar and cooked wrong.

We jumped out from Victoria, into empty hex 1718. It was a short jump for this ship, just one parsec. Like any jump, the trip took a week. We spent it the best ways we could. I practiced the finer arts of shugilii cooking. Don argued with whomever was available. Hans changed the air filters, again. And so on. Boring.

Arrival was NOT boring. We followed the map to the exact coordinates; the ship was there, floating cold, canopy extended.

 

[robject]

Devil's advocate time - a couple of those are contradictory, how can you have "The universe is cosmopolitan, understandable, and consistent" while at the same time you state:
"No two bases are alike. Starports, Naval bases, and Scout bases are like Deep Water Ports."
and
"No two worlds are alike. There is high-tech, atavism, and anachronism (shotguns and cutlasses) that defies SF conventions."

As long as they're consistently different? I can toss out the word "consistent" if that's a problem, and of course I know you're advocating the Devil. Consistently follows rules of course, but that's not really saying anything. So, good point. Well I'm not including THAT text in the book anyway.

Also I just ran a word count. You have less words per page than are in a typical LBB from CT.

A better layout and font size and you could cut the size of the book in half at a stroke. I know you have said upthread that layout etc is still a work in progress but layout and editing are critical to a book like this.

Oh gosh, layout and editing ARE critical.

But I'm pretty sure that font size is not going to shrink, because old fogeys like me have the eyes of old fogies.

But oh gosh yes, layout and editing, layout and editing, I can't repeat that enough.

Thank you for the encouraging words too! And yes, mysteries must be added.

 

[mike wightman]

Take out animals - stick them in the ref's book where they belong.
There will be a ref's book I hope... and for book three - makers.

 

[robject]

Take out animals - stick them in the ref's book where they belong.
There will be a ref's book I hope... and for book three - makers.

We can do that.
It kind of helps to set shorter goals, too, if you can't already tell by my inability to write 120 pages of text at one time.

 

[Ulsyus]

Take out animals - stick them in the ref's book where they belong.
There will be a ref's book I hope... and for book three - makers.

Seconded. It also makes sense that, of the vessel that's most likely to be the one gained in mustering out is a Scout Service vessel, then if only one career is included it'd be Scouts.

That said, given that there's generally one career per page, had you considered how many pages you could afford to spend on careers?

Arrival was NOT boring. We followed the map to the exact coordinates; the ship was there, floating cold, canopy extended.

Really nice colour, keep it going.

 

[robject]

...given that there's generally one career per page, had you considered how many pages you could afford to spend on careers?

I think there's plenty of space to make it as usable as need be. The T5 Core Rules pages feel cramped. I don't want cramped in the Handbook. I want them to be a Pull.

 

[robject]

If I followed Mongoose's layout, I'd do it like this:

* Two pages: career flow table for the careers in the book (enlist, branch selection, risk & reward, promotion/commission rolls, continuation roll).

* Essentially two to three pages of tables for each career:
- a brief explanation and enlistment requirements
- branch selection, if any
- skill eligibility table
- skills table
- mustering out tables
- table/s of ranks and automatic skills
- special tables (for military, military school knowledges; for entertainer, fame and talent; for scholar, publications and tenure; for craftsman, masterpiece value; for citizen, the citizen skill table; and so on)

 

[Ulsyus]

If the extra space is used for explanations, some colour, adding some clarity to ambiguous elements, that'd be a great use of the additional page/s

 

[AsenRG]

](As always, for advanced rules, please refer to the Oberlindes Technical Reference, also known as the Traveller5 Core Rules).

OK, that's actually a great description!

 

[robject]

If the extra space is used for explanations, some colour, adding some clarity to ambiguous elements, that'd be a great use of the additional page/s

Yes, I had the clarity bit in mind. That also helps focus my otherwise rambling writing style.

 

[robject]

She sipped happakala and considered the ruin of a star system. These are the correct coordinates on the map. And yet, where there was once a thriving system, there was only rubble.

And now there are so many people gone. Laadira malakali, laadira malakali. Scouts these days didn't do deep surveys. There were no accolades, no awards. It was just dangerous and not worth it.

Eddek Four's voice brought her back. "Gathering groatle again, Nala?"

"Yeah. Thinking about what to write on the report."

"You created the assignment."

"Yeah."

"Then you volunteered for it."

"Yeah. Then YOU volunteered to be co-pilot."

Eddek shrugged. "True. Then the Navy shoved in their oar..."

She snorted contempt.

"...but the report is entirely what you make it."

"No. No, it isn't. Because the Navy will want reports from that kiss-up boot-licking regulation empty-headed..."

A voice from the back cut in. "You know I can hear you back here, right?"

Nala ignored the voice and continued her pejorative litany for an impressive thirty seconds longer.

A man in Navy uniform appeared in the bridge doorway. "Hey, they ordered me here, ok? I'm just following orders."

"Oh I'm sorry, is His Grace on speaking terms with us now?" said Nala.

"Don't be angry for me pulling rank on this mission. It's a good mission, and you're still a critical part of it."

Nala hummed moodily to herself, remembering snatches of old songs. "Eddek, what did the jump drive say?"

Eddek shrugged again. "It's not telling me any more than it's telling Computer. Although I think my communication protocols must intrigue it a bit."

Months ago, Nala realized that Eddek had a limited inventory of expressions. He used the shrug for a lot of things.

Aneraa ben dila
Laadura bamalakali
Mina, mina
Laadira malakali.


At one time, Aki had billions of sophonts. Billions. She asked Computer about its sensor data so far.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

I'm loving it! Could you give us some context about where this fits into the book? Sensor ops? Character generation?

A dumb question: I'm taking it the other language is Vilani. Like many Traveller lovers I am familiar with the random word generators. But is there an attempt to actually construct a language in the traditions of Klingon or Dothraaki? Would love a shove in the right direction; Google just gives me Vilani random word generators.

 

[robject]

I'm loving it! Could you give us some context about where this fits into the book? Sensor ops? Character generation?

A dumb question: I'm taking it the other language is Vilani. Like many Traveller lovers I am familiar with the random word generators. But is there an attempt to actually construct a language in the traditions of Klingon or Dothraaki? Would love a shove in the right direction; Google just gives me Vilani random word generators.

(1) Thanks so much! You encourage me.

(2) I wanted to target a Scout in her third term. Scouts have opportunities to make discoveries during their careers; I see that as typically a bidding war of sorts for the best assignments, but you get what you can. In the Galaxiad setting, things are different, and Scouts take safe assignments. Venturing out into the unknown is dangerous enough that a Scout ship has a good chance of just not returning; in Classic Traveller I would call this "failing your survival roll", where the ship also vanishes. The Scout Service doesn't want to spend ships that way.

(3) That's not a dumb question. I Vilanicised the lyrics of a song by the Gipsy Kings (there's a Traveller riff for you). I know for a fact that there is some true Vilani in there, but I didn't take the time to actually form it into grammatically proper Vilani. Call it a Khal of Vilani; it's at least a Vilani-descended trade language.

To your question, though: the Vilani grammar exists but isn't on the tools page yet, but the Vilani lexicon is piggy-backed on Marc's website here: http://traveller5.net/tools.html

 

[Maksim-Smelchak]

She sipped happakala and considered the ruin of a star system. These are the correct coordinates on the map. And yet, where there was once a thriving system, there was only rubble.

And now there are so many people gone. Laadira malakali, laadira malakali. Scouts these days didn't do deep surveys. There were no accolades, no awards. It was just dangerous and not worth it.

Eddek Four's voice brought her back. "Gathering groatle again, Nala?"

"Yeah. Thinking about what to write on the report."

"You created the assignment."

"Yeah."

"Then you volunteered for it."

"Yeah. Then YOU volunteered to be co-pilot."

Eddek shrugged. "True. Then the Navy shoved in their oar..."

She snorted contempt.

"...but the report is entirely what you make it."

"No. No, it isn't. Because the Navy will want reports from that kiss-up boot-licking regulation empty-headed..."

A voice from the back cut in. "You know I can hear you back here, right?"

Nala ignored the voice and continued her pejorative litany for an impressive thirty seconds longer.

A man in Navy uniform appeared in the bridge doorway. "Hey, they ordered me here, ok? I'm just following orders."

"Oh I'm sorry, is His Grace on speaking terms with us now?" said Nala.

"Don't be angry for me pulling rank on this mission. It's a good mission, and you're still a critical part of it."

Nala hummed moodily to herself, remembering snatches of old songs. "Eddek, what did the jump drive say?"

Eddek shrugged again. "It's not telling me any more than it's telling Computer. Although I think my communication protocols must intrigue it a bit."

Months ago, Nala realized that Eddek had a limited inventory of expressions. He used the shrug for a lot of things.

Aneraa ben dila
Laadura bamalakali
Mina, mina
Laadira malakali.


At one time, Aki had billions of sophonts. Billions. She asked Computer about its sensor data so far.

Nice color text.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[khadaji2002]

All the color text I've read in this thread convinces me I want to own the final product. I like the layout, and the idea of setting up this book as an employee handbook creates a nice hook. Here are some of my thoughts as I read through the thread:

1) This has the feel of a players' handbook. If so, I would leave out ship-building, animal creation, and world creation. Those are important elements of the game, but not critical to new players. I believe that decision was already made, just adding my 0.2 creds worth.

2) As I too am in the 'older eyes need bigger font...please leave the size as is.

3) If page- and word-count allows, I would prefer a career layout similar to MgT, with two pages for each career. That allows for a bit of color text, skills chart, career steps and target numbers, and event tables.

4) Lastly, keep up the great work. I enjoyed reading the early drafts, and look forward to seeing the finished product!