Looking at T5's starship design rules, I guess not. It's been a while since I looked at CT.
Does Classic Traveller need an update?
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And for what it's worth, I thought T5 was going to be the definitive update of CT. But, I guess it's different in many respects.
Considering Marc himself wrote T4, I cannot fathom why people would think T5 would be CT++ instead of T4++.
casquilho
SOC-13
We have an incredible way of hoping for what we want regardless of reality. :rofl:
I think primarily because that seems to be the version people like most. It was easy to comprehend, easy to get into, had a few unaddressed and excessive things, but was otherwise solid. Did not Mister Miller author that himself as well?
20 years earlier.
Marc doesn't play CT, he played T4 at the time he wrote it, and now T5.
T4 was literally Marc's current house rules when he submitted then to IG for publication.
T5 is Marc's current set.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
And yet the game Marc runs, at least the ones we have a public record for, is about as far away from T5 as you can get...
closer to the simplicity of CT in fact (which he says is his favourite version in interviews on record too).
closer to the simplicity of CT in fact (which he says is his favourite version in interviews on record too).
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
Miller ran several games of Traveller at Gary Con this last March. How much he's played before or after I don't know.
After one of the sessions several,players hung out and asked Miler questions. One of these players summed up Miler's comments here.
The system seems to work in some ways like T5... roll under a value on dice. But no other mechanics details were offered.
However, his playstyle, at least according to the link above, is very loose and barely depends on mechanics and rolls, a style that I (and others) advocate using for running the original Traveller rules.
Whether this is really T5 or Classic Traveller I can't say. How many times Miller has played Traveller in the past decade I cannot say. But the interview is an interesting read.
After one of the sessions several,players hung out and asked Miler questions. One of these players summed up Miler's comments here.
The system seems to work in some ways like T5... roll under a value on dice. But no other mechanics details were offered.
However, his playstyle, at least according to the link above, is very loose and barely depends on mechanics and rolls, a style that I (and others) advocate using for running the original Traveller rules.
Whether this is really T5 or Classic Traveller I can't say. How many times Miller has played Traveller in the past decade I cannot say. But the interview is an interesting read.
"the systems, while there to aid us, could be completely ignored (and should be) in order to simply play the game." ("James the Geek" on his conversation with Marc at Garycon 2018).
Quoted for truth.
Marc has only played Traveller infrequently since the turn of the milennium.
1. CT is truly more like Marc's playing _style_, compared with T5.
2. T5 is truly more like Marc's thoughts on what Traveller _is_, compared with CT.
While CT is usually more spartan than T5, there are at least two areas where it is richer in certain ways than T5: personal combat and skills. The skill descriptions nuance CT in necessary ways to describe how low and few skill levels could be used effectively. Some skill descriptions are mini rule systems in and of themselves, just for the sake of illustration.
So CT might could use a facelift, informed by how Marc sees Traveller, but it wouldn't be CT any longer. Evidence:
#1, witness the Gencon Chargen Rules. They're spartan to the point of art: everything secondary to what chargen in Traveller *is*, was taken away, leaving very streamlined rules that are distinctly and obviously Traveller. Those rules could replace CT chargen, and could even be nudged in a CT direction, but they'll never fool a grognard into thinking he's playing CT.
#2, witness "ACS Zero" starship design rules. I poured T5's tables into The Traveller Book's starship design chapter, and it fit better than the Book 2 rules themselves. I had room to drop in stuff from CT that doesn't show up in Book2 _or_ High Guard. Elegant, seamless. It looks like Book 2, but it's not Book 2, and as a grognard I can feel the difference.
#3, witness weapons. Judges' Guild had to create a copy-proof screen with all the CT combat tables. Now, the tables have been distributed to the weapons' statistics themselves. Burden nicely replaces advantageous and disadvantageous DMs. The damage soak value of every piece of armor replaces to-hit mods based on armor types. CLEARLY NOT CT, though it (might) play in a CT context.
The discriminating palette of the grognard is not the issue, of course. We already have our bliss. Revisions are for those for whom Traveller is a nostalgic memory, or to those new to the game. And such people only need clear rules. Rules neither have to be simple nor comprehensive. They don't even have to work particularly well with other rules, except for one reasonable condition:
For Marc, these rules would need to produce the same effects as Traveller5, but they can get there from novel directions. That's what I think of when I think of a reformulated CT. That's also what I think of when I think of the Traveller5 Player's Handbook (of which only my 200 page, 6x9" Proof Of Concept exists). They're not the same thing, but the one could be clear, useful, and reminiscent of CT without _being_ CT.
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But doesn't it often, at the least, come down to the narrative and organisational style of the ref and the interaction of the players? More involvement, descriptive narrative from both side and emphasis on outcomes and efforts can lead to less need to test mechanically for outcomes if that's the sort of game a ref wants to play. I for one found CT not to be rules-light due what seemed to be a range of stand-alone rules for different skills.
The ruleset tends to encourage certain levels of mechanics; most of the time, novices use a large subset of mechanics, and a portion wrong. Houserules often are simple misunderstood rules that worked fine in the misinterpreted version, so when the real meaning was grasped, the decision was made not to fix it.
Some peoples house rules eventually rise to a point where they clearly are a different edition... and others to the point of a whole new game.
I, for one, immediately tossed the skills chapter special cases for standard tasks the moment I saw the DGP/MT task system (first in 2300AD, then in Traveller's Digest #8)...
That's actually the most common reaction to CT I've seen: hidden complexity in the skills chapter. In play, I've found that, for me, MT is actually a much more rules-light feel.
Almost right. The rules (specifically the introduction by Digest Group Publications of their easily understandable universal task system) were excellent, and reasonably coherent (barring the required fixes by errata, of course!).
The shattered Imperium setting, not so much (in fact, not at all. I utterly hated it. I LIKE the 3i setting from CT (and extended by the Lorenverse additions).
There were problems with it; the CT and Book 5 ship design systems tended to argue with each other, so a re-write would have been necessary come what may with MT.
I LOVED the additional detail in system/world design that came along with the WBH; it improved on book 6 immensely. It would have been great if SS1-3 (Merchant Prince, Atmospheres, and Missiles, respectively) could have been incorporated more fully into MT, but that wasn't to be, sadly.
Likewise, equipment/vehicle design that finally found its way into the T4 "Fire Fusion & Steel" should have made it to MT, for a more coherent design system.
Still, while there's no arguing that we live in an imperfect universe, a combination of the DGP UTS, and the Lorenverse extensions to the CT setting, would have led to my preferred Traveller game system, had it been published in one lump.
As it is, this is what I've had to cobble together for MTU gaming preferences, so there y'go
Flattened Sphere
SOC-5
I think it all depends on your starting point.
If you came into RPG through Dungeons & Dragons then you may find CT a little bit light on clear directions, and feel that the LBBs don't give you nearly enough of what you're after.
On the other hand if, like me, you came into RPG through Tunnels & Trolls, then you're used to a much looser framework and "rules" which are actually more in the nature of "guiding principles" only. IN that case you probably won't think there's anything that needs fixing.
I don't think there's anything seriously wrong or in need of fixing ... it's about the interactions between the players and the universe the referee has designed, not about proving the referee wrong by reference to a forensic dissection of the exact language of the rule book ...
If you came into RPG through Dungeons & Dragons then you may find CT a little bit light on clear directions, and feel that the LBBs don't give you nearly enough of what you're after.
On the other hand if, like me, you came into RPG through Tunnels & Trolls, then you're used to a much looser framework and "rules" which are actually more in the nature of "guiding principles" only. IN that case you probably won't think there's anything that needs fixing.
I don't think there's anything seriously wrong or in need of fixing ... it's about the interactions between the players and the universe the referee has designed, not about proving the referee wrong by reference to a forensic dissection of the exact language of the rule book ...
I'm old enough to remember when Dungeons & Dragons was light on clear direction.
So, which edition prior to 4th?
Back when ELF was a Class.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Don't you have the Darrians book?
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