Differences in Classic Traveller Versions

[Stan Shinn]

I am about to fire up a Classic Traveller campaign. I am thinking about using the boxed set Starter Set PDFs as the core rules, but some folks have the original LBBs or The Traveller Book. Which makes me wonder -- what (if any) rules differences or changes are there between the editions? Here is what I know about -- but are there other rules differences, like maybe subtle difference in combat rules, initiative, and stuff like that?

Box Set, first edition (1977)
Book 1-3. Core Rules.
Books 4-7 Mercenary for army stuff, High Guard for navy and space battles, Scout for scouts and system generation. Merchant Prince should be self-explanatory)
Supplement 4 (character creation for civilian types)

Box Set, Revised Edition (1981)
Other than being better written, what rules did the Revised Edition change or add?

Starter Traveller (1983)
Description from http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/50635/traveller-starter-edition

"The most significant difference (other than book size and organization) is in starship movement and combat. There are no vectors in Starter Traveller. Instead, combat between starships is conducted much like man-to-man combat, using range bands.
Missing from the rules are:
* Archaic Firearms
* Ship Construction Forms (TAS Form 3: Ship's Papers, TAS Form 4: (Ship Paragraph Description), World Format (TAS Form 7: Subsector Data)
* Experience
* Drugs
Newly added:
* Expanded information on the following encounters: wirebushes, cold snap, tornado, volcano, radiation area, quicksand.
* Expanded descriptions of the following equipment: handcuffs, wristwatch, shotgun microphone, chainsaw, disguise kit, wheeled AFV, tracked AFV, dirtmover, small steamship, destroyer."

What does it have or is missing from it compared to the LBBs?

The Traveller Book (1982)
Incorporates the first three original rule books, plus additional material.

What does it have or is missing from it compared to the LBBs?

 

[whulorigan]

Special Supplement 4: The Lost Rules

On the Classic Traveller CD-ROM from FFE, there is a PDF by DonM called Special Supplement 4: The Lost Rules. It has all the info you are asking for spelled out in detail.

 

[mike wightman]

The description from RPGgeek is wrong on one respect - Starter edition has the same experience rules that all the CT versions do.

The only noteworthy difference is the range band ship combat system and the missing drugs section.

 

[Carlobrand]

...The Traveller Book (1982)
Incorporates the first three original rule books, plus additional material.

What does it have or is missing from it compared to the LBBs?

As near as I can tell, The Traveller Book has all the info from the LBBs. Some rewording, rephrasing and such, a little easier to understand, better tables in some cases - for example, Traveller Book's travel time table for space travel tells you what some of those distances could be used for, so it's a bit handier as a reference. The Traveller Book has a couple of ready-to use adventures: Shadows from the first double adventure, and Exit Visa, which I'm not sure if it exists in another publication or not. Also has a bunch of other useful information like a quick run-down on the Imperium, megacorps, and the Spinward Marches, a subsector map of the Regina subsector, a list of pregenerated characters and a quickie animal encounter table. Works well for having everything you need to get things started in one package.

 

[robject]

As near as I can tell, The Traveller Book has all the info from the LBBs. Some rewording, rephrasing and such, a little easier to understand, better tables in some cases [...]

...and is missing the Pulse Laser's distinctive mods. It also propagates an early error in UWP generation (that's not unique to The Traveller Book, however).

 

[Carlobrand]

...and is missing the Pulse Laser's distinctive mods...

...which are likewise missing in the original Book 2. Proofreading has never been the game's strong point.

 

[GypsyComet]

...which are likewise missing in the original Book 2. Proofreading has never been the game's strong point.

1977 edition, Book 2, page 30, in the table. -1 to hit (which is to say, a bonus to hit). It doesn't appear to have any effect on damage, however.
The 1981 edition mentions the difference on page 16, but never quantifies it.

 

[mpoles]

As near as I can tell, The Traveller Book has... a couple of ready-to use adventures: Shadows from the first double adventure, and Exit Visa, which I'm not sure if it exists in another publication or not. Also has a bunch of other useful information like a quick run-down on the Imperium, megacorps, and the Spinward Marches, a subsector map of the Regina subsector, a list of pregenerated characters and a quickie animal encounter table.

Also a selection of patron encounters in the 'Into the Subsector' chapter. It's possibly my favourite edition of the Traveller rules, although this might be nostalgia because it's what I started with.

 

[robject]

The Traveller Book has a couple of ready-to use adventures: Shadows from the first double adventure, and Exit Visa, which I'm not sure if it exists in another publication or not.

I recommend The Traveller Book (just don't forget to add in the pulse laser to-hit and damage notes, and correct the HYD calculation in world generation).

Exit Visa is elsewhere known as Stranded on Arden. It's not a great adventure unless you flesh it out with a LOT of interpersonal interactions of all kinds -- role-playing bribery, diplomacy, tit-for-tat, a little thug-bashing, maybe a bit of Watergate, honest deal-making, and on-world travel.

 

[creativehum]

Don McKinney has put together a full errata for every edition of the Classic Traveller Rules.

Consolidated CT Errata.

If you go through it, you can mark the changes in whatever C edition you're working from and bring each one of them into alignment. Everything about the Pulse Lasers for Starship combat gets fixed, and so on.

Like you, when I started digging back into CT, I was curious which was the best to work from. I finally realized there's not much difference and the errata will pretty much take care of any differences.

I'm working from the LBBs. It was easy enough to mark up the errata into the books themselves. The only sticky-bit was the "Special Considerations" for combat. It's a lot of text. I ended up copy it into a new doc, printing it, trimming the page, and slipping it into my book.

As others have mentioned, there are more bells and whistles in both Starter Traveller and The Traveller Book. I have those editions, and can mine them at will for ideas and adventures.

But I have to admit, the digest sized LBBs do it for me. Moreover, I'm working form "Less-Imperium, more Classic Traveller." For me it's all about
* LBB 1-3 as the base rules
* Supplements 1-4
* The skills from Mercenary and High Guard (so I can used Supplement 4 Citizens of the Imperium)

... and that's pretty much it. Starter Traveller and The Traveller Book assume a lot about the Third Imperium as setting. I'm interested in using the bare bones of Supplement 2 Spinward Marches as a springboard for ideas, but not at all worrying about playing in GDW's official Imperium. Basically, my approach is, "It's 1981. There are a limited number of books and GDW's Imperium as an example of a setting. Now, what do me and my players do?"

You've already dug up the main differences, rules-wise, between Starter Traveller and other editions, so I won't repeat them here. (I think using the range bands for Starship combat is a good idea, and I'll be using that.)

Honestly, the only difference I've found rules-wise digging through the books is:

1) In the LBBs one can't attack if one is closing or opening range while running, and in Starter Traveller and The Traveller Book it seems one can. I prefer the not-attacking rule (it makes the choices of what action to take in a combat round starker) so I'll stick with that.

2) Optional rules for not-dying in Character Creation in later editions. I think it's a HUGE mistake to take that out. As others have posted here, the threat of death for a PC in the middle of creation is part of the decision making process. Each term you add on is a gamble. Do you get him out now, or take the risk to improve him. It's a function of training players how almost every aspect of Traveller play is going to work in the future. (It's clear in the phrasing of the LBBs that play begins when you first sit down to make a character, not once character creation is finished.)

But, again, once you bring Don's Consolidated CT Errata into play, all CT editions pretty much become the same game.

 

[Frankymole]

The description from RPGgeek is wrong on one respect - Starter edition has the same experience rules that all the CT versions do.

The only noteworthy difference is the range band ship combat system and the missing drugs section.

Yes, Starter Traveller was missing the Drugs, also Psionics. Otherwise it's pretty much The Traveller Book in content (even the illustrations), although the separate booklet of charts and tables can be useful.

 

[mike wightman]

Starter Traveller has the Psionics rules.

It is only missing drugs and vector movement, which is replaced by range band ship combat.

 

[mike wightman]

There are a few differences between original 77 edition and 81 revised.

Option of death on a failed survival roll, slight changes to the skill tables, scouts getting 2 skills per term, re-write for some skill resolution effects, removal of the DMs to damage.

The setting changing element is hidden in LBB2 - ships need to have a power plant for a jump drive in 81 edition, in 77 edition they didn't. Ships had to use all their jump fuel regardless of the distance jumped in 77, in 81 a jump 2 ship jumping 1 parsec or less would only use the fuel for a jump 1.

 

[mike wightman]

I'm interested in using the bare bones of Supplement 3 Spinward Marches as a springboard for ideas, but not at all worrying about playing in GDW's official Imperium. Basically, my approach is, "It's 1981. There are a limited number of books and GDW's Imperium as an example of a setting. Now, what do me and my players do?"

This is my preferred setting as well

We have a name for it around here - proto-Traveller.

The setting described by the Library data in the early adventures and the introductory text to Mercenary and High Guard is a very different place to what the Imperium became.

 

[Baron]

The setting described by the Library data in the early adventures and the introductory text to Mercenary and High Guard is a very different place to what the Imperium became.

I never got that impression. And I was buying Traveller books as they came out.

What got published just seemed like more details, but always seemed like the same thing to me.

OTOH, any published setting or adventure is, to me, just a suggestion anyway. I come to the book with my own preferences, and the type of gaming my players enjoy. Then the published work goes in, and my own campaign comes out.

That all being said, my games certainly seem very, very close to how I understand pre-Megatraveller 3rd Imperium to be as-published. Of course, folks with different preferences probably look at the same material and pick up on different things, that I simply gloss over and disregard.

 

[creativehum]

We have a name for it around here - proto-Traveller.

I'm well aware -- I've been digging through the posts here. It's been very inspiring.

 

[Vladika]

The setting changing element is hidden in LBB2 - ships need to have a power plant for a jump drive in 81 edition, in 77 edition they didn't. Ships had to use all their jump fuel regardless of the distance jumped in 77, in 81 a jump 2 ship jumping 1 parsec or less would only use the fuel for a jump 1.

The change of "no power plant" for jump drives, to requiring it, was VERY significant. Mike, I'm surprised that you of all people failed to plug HG1 in that post!

HG1 came out with a "jump governor" that weighed one tonne (1dt) and allowed the use of only enough jump fuel to perform the jump range desired. It could be retrofitted into any '77 LBB design.

 

[creativehum]

The setting changing element is hidden in LBB2 - ships need to have a power plant for a jump drive in 81 edition, in 77 edition they didn't. Ships had to use all their jump fuel regardless of the distance jumped in 77, in 81 a jump 2 ship jumping 1 parsec or less would only use the fuel for a jump 1.

The change of "no power plant" for jump drives, to requiring it, was VERY significant. Mike, I'm surprised that you of all people failed to plug HG1 in that post!

HG1 came out with a "jump governor" that weighed one tonne (1dt) and allowed the use of only enough jump fuel to perform the jump range desired. It could be retrofitted into any '77 LBB design.

Could someone talk more about this?

Why is the change VERY significant? (I'm not saying it's not. I'm asking for more info.)

Can someone talk about the practical effect on the PCs and play in a) the need for the power plant for J-Drives and; b) the burning of a full fuel tanks for jumps compared to having the regulator available?

Thanks!

 

[mike wightman]

I didn't want to confuse the discussion about core rule differences by mentioning HG1

After all along with the jump governor it specifically states the CT manoeuvre drive is a fusion rocket (something hinted at in CT LBB2) :CoW:

 

[aramis]

Could someone talk more about this?

Why is the change VERY significant? (I'm not saying it's not. I'm asking for more info.)

Can someone talk about the practical effect on the PCs and play in a) the need for the power plant for J-Drives and; b) the burning of a full fuel tanks for jumps compared to having the regulator available?

Thanks!

The Jump Governor is only important in campaigns where PC's have a ship of J2+, but it provides a huge savings on the J2 ship doing J1 (not enough to make it less costly than using a J1, but enough that with a decent markup on J1 ship costs, J2 ships don't go broke doing J1.

The practical effect of the matching PP requirement is notable for 2 key standard designs...
The X-Boat and the A2 Far Trader

In the case of the X-Boat, it cannot be built as a stock design under CT 2E. There's not enough space aboard, because you need 40Td JFuel, and 40Td PPFuel, 20Td bridge, 20Td JDrive, 4Td Stateroom, Computer 4+, and 10Td PP,
Under 1E, however, it's 40Td JFuel, 20Td JDrive, Computer 3+, 2xSR 8Td, 20Td Bridge, and it still has cargo space or space for additional computers. Drop it to 1 SR and you can force in M1 (1) P1 (4) and 2 weeks fuel (5Td).

The A2 loses 13Td cargo in 2E, because it needs PP2 and fuel for PP2.

Oh, and this all highlights one other issue - CT1E didn't require a computer match, only that the computer can run JumpX.