CT House Rules for Skills and Combat

[creativehum]

First, I want to thank everyone for all the help and thoughts I've read here about the CT task resolution system. Working from all the folks here has let me get something that -- while not perfect (no system is!) -- will let me have some fun running the game relatively quickly. (We all want different things from a game system. Low handling time with rules is one of mine.)

Some notes:
While I love the idea of the freewheeling nature of Throws found in The Traveller Book (Throw Numbers made up by the Referee on the spot, random DMs made up on the spot, rolling above a number or under Characteristics back and forth...) it all ended up being too chaotic for me. The Players never had a sense of how what would be mattering and what wouldn't. And I'm not fond of systems that alternate rolling over and rolling under in the same game -- it's one more bit of cognitive dissonance the Players have to deal with every time they pick up the dice.

The hack below is really Mike Wightman's hack from another thread. So, thanks Mike!

The real difference is in how I handle damage. I really wanted to get rid of the ablative damage bookkeeping shenanigans. In this system, you roll to hit. If you hit, you roll to see if the guy is still a problem or knocked out of the fight (incapacitated or dead). The damage roll has no modifiers to deal with and the roll is very clear: Roll higher than the target's Armor Value, he's out. Roll the target's Amor Value or less and he's still in the fight.

The way I want it to work is that odds are you will punch through with a debilitating shot if you hit. But there is a risk you won't. So we get a weighted roll that will generally end with a fist pump in the air, but on occasion with some frustration to finally "Bring that guy down." Laser weapons don't need special rules since their Damage Dice already weights them to a penetration. Armor Piercing rounds are effective because it gives them the same Damage Value of Laser weapons.

I understand that since only higher damage values will be the one's to hit someone. Exactly. In this system you either miss, hit and the guy is still coming at you, or he's down. That's how I want it... and it's in keeping with the spirit of the CT First Blood rules.

Note that hits against NPCs and PCs are handled differently.
***

Skill Resolution
The Player states the Result he wants,
The Result may be automatic, no roll is required.
If a roll is required, the Player describes how he is going about working to get that result, what Skill he is using, and how he is using it.

Roll 2D
Typical Task is 8+
Really Hard Task is 12+

Really Hard Task includes the following definitions:
• Physically or Mentally Difficult in General
• Detrimental Circumstances/Bad Conditions (weather, under fire, lack of proper tools…)
• Lack of Vital Skill
If two or more Detrimental Circumstances are in play, the roll is impossible. A Jack-of-All-Trades removes this penalty and allows a roll.
Note: The Referee may declare that a given Result is impossible.

Bonuses
• +1DM per Skill Level or more for specialized skill in specific situation
• +1DM for roleplaying the event well
• +1DM if they have a specialist 'tool for the job'
• If a case can be made for a High Attribute being particularly effective, as judged by Referee, 9+ will gain a +1DM, 11+ will gain a +2DM
• If one character has a pertinent Characteristic value 2x the value of the opposition's Characteristic value, the character gets a +1


Combat Resolution
Roll 2D6
Weapon at Effective Range 8+
Weapon out of Effective Range, doing a snap shot, moving while firing, or fighting in Detrimental Circumstances 12+

Bonuses
• +1DM per Skill Level or more for specialized skill in specific situation
• +1DM for roleplaying the event well
• +/-DM per Classic Traveller rules for Attributes per weapon
• +/-DM per terrain (cover, darkness, etc.)

Roll damage Dice for Damage Value (DV) as per Classic Traveller Rules.
Compare Roll to Armor Value (AV)
Type..................................................AV
Jack..................................................(3)
Mesh..................................................5
Cloth..................................................8
Flak jacket ..........................................6
Ablat..................................................3 [9]
Reflec.................................................[13]
Combat environmental suit TL10.............9
Combat armor TL11.............................11
Combat armor TL12.............................13
Battle dress TL13................................13
Combat armor TL14.............................18
Battle dress TL14................................18

Values in ( ) apply only in melee. [ ] apply only to Laser Weapons.
Armor Piercing rounds add +1D to Damage Value.

If the Damage Value is less than the Armor Value, Damage does not apply
If the Damage Value is greater than the Armor Value, then:
1) If Damage is against an NPC, the NPC is out of combat
2) If the Damage is against a PC or Boss NPC, apply damager per CT rules

 

[creativehum]

Last night at a local game convention I ran a heavily modified version of ACROSS THE BRIGHT FACE using the rules above. (I removed the "hex-crawl" aspect of the module and made it a straight up shoot out toward the starport; I also filled out the situation's backstory with the miners getting their weapons and training from an off-world noble looking to forget trouble for a noble house.)

It went really, really well. One of the Players said, "What I really like about this is how simple the game is." I then walked them through how the game normally works and the jaws of the Players hit the floor.

So, thank you Mike Wrightman and Supplement Four and everyone else here who has offered up so much help on how to use the Classic Traveller rules. I showed up on the site a couple of years ago looking for clues on how to use the game's task resolution system after running it at a Retro-RPG game day. It's all been so helpful.

The Players got to make fun tactical decisions, get involved in tense, but engaging combat that didn't bog die, come up with quick ideas that got resolved without having to refer constantly to the rule book.

Classic Traveller has at its core a lovely 2D6 bell curve with +1DMs being really powerful. This stripped down version of resolution let the players really enjoy getting caught up in the situation, be clever, do terrific character bits, and keep moving toward a solution for the mission. A great time was had by all, and everyone on the site helped make that happen.

 

[mike wightman]

Glad to hear the game went well

One of the things that keeps me tinkering with Traveller is the core simplicity, with the potential for as much complexity as you want to develop. I've found it to be very amenable to house rules and hacks.

This is what this web site does at its best, allows for sharing of ideas and civilised discussion of possibilities

 

[Frankymole]

That looks to be an excellent system, creativehum! Could I borrow it for a solo adventure I intend to work up? With due acknowledgement of course!

It needs to be simple to allow clear results to indicate the routes to further events.

I might include a critical success and critical failure threshold if the rolls are way off the required number.

 

[creativehum]

Glad to hear the game went well

One of the things that keeps me tinkering with Traveller is the core simplicity, with the potential for as much complexity as you want to develop. I've found it to be very amenable to house rules and hacks.

This is what this web site does at its best, allows for sharing of ideas and civilised discussion of possibilities

Also, Mike, I read the players your description of what a Traveller is from the Toward a Philosophy of Traveller thread:

A Traveller in game is a person who has had the epiphany that what they have been doing with their lives so far is over and they have to head out on their own.

Their old career is gone, and the society they were part of no longer wants them in that role. Rather than lie down and wait for the end they break with society norms and begin to Travel. They adventure, seeking to gain rewards that actually matter:
a sense of worth, money, reputation (not social status since they are now living outside societal norms)... that sort of thing.

It worked like gangbusters to set the tone, get the Players into the spirit of the game. Thanks so much!

That looks to be an excellent system, creativehum! Could I borrow it for a solo adventure I intend to work up? With due acknowledgement of course!

It needs to be simple to allow clear results to indicate the routes to further events.

I might include a critical success and critical failure threshold if the rolls are way off the required number.

Hi Frankymole,

Thanks for the kind words. But note that in the first post I credit almost everything I wrote is based on Mike Wightman's notes on this board. If anyone should be getting credit for it, he should.

I tweaked it, refined it, made it more mine. But he laid down the foundation.

 

[Frankymole]

Well credit to you both then, Mike for the great ideas and to you for bringing them to my attention! I'm tinkering with a "gamebook" style solo adventure for my own amusement, and it would be madness to try to reinvent the wheel with another simplified task system designed from scratch when a couple of intelligent minds have already applied themselves to the, er, task.

I may of course modify slightly for certain situations in the different, solo, format (for example where exceptional failure or success gives an unexpectedly disastrous or spectacular result for the player), but this is much more intuitive than even some of the elegant post-DGP task resolution systems I've seen. Great stuff!

 

[creativehum]

I think Mike's real revelation was the binary difficulty (8+ or 12+).

If you look at the history of people trying to get a Traveller task resolution system to work, it always shaves off the complexity of the non-unified system from Book 1 (with each skill often having its own Throw number and unique DMs per skill level), but each attempt also adds in range of Throw numbers and Modifiers given the circumstances of the task.

If reducing handling time for the rules was the goal, almost every system created post-Classic Traveller fails to reduce the handling times after all. Because "unified" doesn't really mean simply when the Referee has to stop and pick one of five difficulties to assign to the Throw and sorting through a half dozen categories of modifiers.

In Mike's system, the Referee looks at the difficulty of the situation in toto (is the weapon being used at effective range? is the character moving and attacking at the same time? does the character have the required skill to make the required repairs) and then boiling that down to Typical or Really Hard things move along really fast. Choices are where things get complicated for the human brain, and this system reduces those options.

In my view, Typical and Really Hard are all a group of players need to concern themselves with. Too much refinement on this matter sends the whole thing spiraling into "What is Real?" when, in fact, a group of people sitting at a table eating pizza and rolling dice really will not be able to properly adjudicate with any refinement how precisely hard it is to get an airlock open.

The binary option provides enough of a range for everyone to know when things are typical or extraordinary -- so there is a sense of scale for when something out of the ordinary is attempted. And the DM options allow the Players to manipulate the Throw in their favor by adding bits of creative detail and fiction to the events at hand -- which always adds entertainment.

By stripping things down, rather than rearranging complexity, the game I ran at the convention focused on the PCs trying to 1) get things done; 2) coming up with a new plan if they didn't get that thing done. It just kept rolling forward. Which I believe was the focus of Mike's design.

I'll add that that the next morning at the convention I bumped into one of the Players from the game and she said, "I woke up thinking about that Traveller game last night and all I wanted to do was keep playing and find out what was going to happen next."

 

[salochin999]

I think Mike's real revelation was the binary difficulty (8+ or 12+).

Yes, I use that now.

Good system. It speaks to what I want in a game which is lots of player decisions but each resolved quickly so the game goes pop, pop, pop.

(As session time nowadays is like 2-3 hours instead of the 4-6 hour games we used to play.)

 

[creativehum]

Yes, I use that now.

Good system. It speaks to what I want in a game which is lots of player decisions but each resolved quickly so the game goes pop, pop, pop.

(As session time nowadays is like 2-3 hours instead of the 4-6 hour games we used to play.)

True, true.

 

[aramis]

I think Mike's real revelation was the binary difficulty (8+ or 12+).

If you look at the history of people trying to get a Traveller task resolution system to work, it always shaves off the complexity of the non-unified system from Book 1 (with each skill often having its own Throw number and unique DMs per skill level), but each attempt also adds in range of Throw numbers and Modifiers given the circumstances of the task.

If reducing handling time for the rules was the goal, almost every system created post-Classic Traveller fails to reduce the handling times after all. Because "unified" doesn't really mean simply when the Referee has to stop and pick one of five difficulties to assign to the Throw and sorting through a half dozen categories of modifiers.

It sounds like you either haven't read or didn't grasp the mechanics of the MT/DGP-CT/2300 Task system.

In MT, defining the task is picking difficulty and two assets - assets being attributes &/or skills. NOTHING ELSE IS ADDED. Anything else either is a difficulty shift or is ignored.It definitely reduces the handling time for anyone who actually uses rules-as-written.

no lists of die roll modifiers.

 

[creativehum]

It sounds like you either haven't read or didn't grasp the mechanics of the MT/DGP-CT/2300 Task system.

In MT, defining the task is picking difficulty and two assets - assets being attributes &/or skills. NOTHING ELSE IS ADDED. Anything else either is a difficulty shift or is ignored.It definitely reduces the handling time for anyone who actually uses rules-as-written.

no lists of die roll modifiers.

For MegaTraveller...

And modifiers for Hasty or Cautious tasks.

And choosing whether the applicable mods will be two skills or one skill and one attribute.

And then more rolls on the Mishap table...

That said, I shouldn't have used the term "half dozen." I was blurring the many aspects of the MT system into the phrase "DMs" and that was incorrect.

I think DGP's work was really a step in the right direction. But I'll still say Mike's system is even simpler in terms of handling across the board as it folds combat into the same system. I don't think anyone could read the pages in MT explaining the system and not come away with a sense that they are more involved than what is posted above.

But I was inaccurate about the DMs. Sorry bout that.

 

[hdan]

Very nice, even easier than "Rule 68A", and makes CT feel like a more modern game to me.

Question about damage resolution in this system:

What if the damage roll is equal to the armor factor? I'm assuming the armor factor is a "target number" - roll that number or higher to take out the opponent, right?

Mooks go "out of the fight" if you beat their armor. That's good. Reminds me of how Chamax are handled, and that has worked well in the past.

But for players/NPCs - do you apply damage dice to stats without reducing them, or does the armor block some of the damage?

And for animals - I'm presuming that their usual damage rules apply, once you beat their armor? (I only ask, because I'm perennially trying to get a safari trip together.)

 

[kilemall]

Would you be interested in my hack of the task and combat system? Or would you rather read about it in IMTU thread?

 

[aramis]

For MegaTraveller...

And modifiers for Hasty or Cautious tasks.

And choosing whether the applicable mods will be two skills or one skill and one attribute.

And then more rolls on the Mishap table...

That said, I shouldn't have used the term "half dozen." I was blurring the many aspects of the MT system into the phrase "DMs" and that was incorrect.

I think DGP's work was really a step in the right direction. But I'll still say Mike's system is even simpler in terms of handling across the board as it folds combat into the same system. I don't think anyone could read the pages in MT explaining the system and not come away with a sense that they are more involved than what is posted above.

But I was inaccurate about the DMs. Sorry bout that.

hasty and cautious are difficulty shifts.
the mishap table is only invoked on a failure.

Oh, and it has (with minor tweaks) been borrowd by a dozen othe published games.

you are being extreme in your anti-MT hyperbole

 

[creativehum]

hasty and cautious are difficulty shifts.
the mishap table is only invoked on a failure.

Oh, and it has (with minor tweaks) been borrowd by a dozen othe published games.

you are being extreme in your anti-MT hyperbole

What "anti-MT hyperbole"? Is that why you're coming in so aggressive? I just said it was good work from DGP. Dude. Slow. Down.

You're stuck on the issue of DMs. The issue that matters to me are the issues of complications. Hasty and Cautious change the difficulty... another step in establishing the resolution of the Task. That's the the part I care about. And then the DMs from the Task roll are also applied to the Time roll. Again, more steps. I'll cop to the call on being hasty. I reviewed the chart in the MT Referee book -- but misread where the DMs apply. However, the DMs aren't the main issue for me. It's each system as a holistic system that I'm comparing.

I'm pointing out that the cleanups in the system (and the clean up from the DGP was good) added about as much handling time overall even thought they found a consistent system. I'm not attacking the MT system. I don't hate it. I have nothing against it. I'm not anti-anything -- except maybe folks who are down on the kind of gaming other people want to do. But that's it.

Seriously.

 

[creativehum]

Question about damage resolution in this system:

What if the damage roll is equal to the armor factor? I'm assuming the armor factor is a "target number" - roll that number or higher to take out the opponent, right?

But for players/NPCs - do you apply damage dice to stats without reducing them, or does the armor block some of the damage?

And for animals - I'm presuming that their usual damage rules apply, once you beat their armor? (I only ask, because I'm perennially trying to get a safari trip together.)

1) The way I played it, a PC had to beat the Armor Value (get higher than it) to do damage.

2) The way I played it:
For PCs -- once a damage value beats the Armor Value ALL damage on the roll applies to the Player Character's stats, as per the normal roll. The idea is that such a roll is a solid enough hit to do full damage. It isn't "realistic" -- but it is faster by taking out even the steps of doing ablative work.

For regular NPCs... again, once the Damage Value is greater than the AV, they go down. They're either dead or dying or incapacitated. A firefight usually only lasts a few minutes. Whether that NPC is revived won't matter for a while and can be decided by the Referee later.

For Major NPCs... damage is handled exactly like PCs -- which is exactly per the CT rules.

3) I actually like the animal rules as they are and would let them stand.

Would you be interested in my hack of the task and combat system? Or would you rather read about it in IMTU thread?

I'll read them anywhere you post them! I think the pertinent question is, "Where do you want to post them?" Do you want a separate thread so they don't get buried? Or do you want to collect them with your IMTU thread so it's all together?

 

[creativehum]

It speaks to what I want in a game which is lots of player decisions but each resolved quickly so the game goes pop, pop, pop.

I wanted to swing back to this quote. I think it addresses the kind of play I want. (Not the kind of play I presume others should have.)

Each RPG system is going to be a system of inputs and outputs that focus on different kinds of inputs and outputs. This is going to affect the kind of fictional details that get created at the table and the focus of play in sometimes obvious and subtle ways.

Many games work to build a kind of verisimilitude about physics or reality or "what would 'really' happen." Others do not. As an extreme example, I'd offer the difference between Runequest and HeroQuest, both set in the same game world of Glorantha, but each offering a very different focus of the kind of play. Runequest is there to help simulate the details of the world as a simulation. HeroQuest blatantly says in the rules, "We're not simulating reality with these worlds. We're helping you efficiently make story."

With the rules Mike came up with, and salochin999 nails it efficiently, the focus is on getting to the Player choices. One after another, as efficiently as possible. A focus on reality is sacrificed for adjudicating decisions the players make as efficiently as possible so that the next opportunity or obstacle or threat can be thrust before the players and they can make a decision again.

That's how the game played the other night at the convention and it went really well. I would always ask for clarity about what the PCs were doing. I would always be very clear in details of the situation at hand. We always knew what was at stake fictionally... but when the Players wanted his or her PC to do something it went off with such a narrow amount of calculation we barely paused before jumping into the results of the decision. For me -- it was a blast. Because getting to the decisions of the PCs is the fun part for me.

 

[kilemall]

Ill be posting in my IMTU anyway, this would be a first overview draft just for conversational comparison on your topic.

 

[kilemall]

Oh and a very relevant book I intend to take a look at, is matrix games- where you argue for the result you intend to occur, and there is a redonkulous simple resolution scheme.

It's intended for military/social conflict wargames, but the resolution system is clearly adapted from, and adaptable to, RPG tasking.

http://www.amazon.com/Wargaming-Developments-Professional-Educational-Innovations/dp/1291979654

http://www.mapsymbs.com/wdmatrix.html

 

[creativehum]

Oh and a very relevant book I intend to take a look at, is matrix games- where you argue for the result you intend to occur, and there is a redonkulous simple resolution scheme.

It's intended for military/social conflict wargames, but the resolution system is clearly adapted from, and adaptable to, RPG tasking.

http://www.amazon.com/Wargaming-Developments-Professional-Educational-Innovations/dp/1291979654

http://www.mapsymbs.com/wdmatrix.html

That's Chris Engle, right? I've been meaning to read that for years.