Does Classic Traveller need an update?

[mike wightman]

CT has a "task system", it is just hidden rather than explicitly stated.

The first thing is to get rid of the notion that the examples of how skills are used are to be used every single time that skill comes up.
Let's call the examples rule 1.
Rule 2 is this:

Skills and the Referee: It is impossible for any table of information to cover all aspects of every potential situation, and the above listing is by no means complete in its coverage of the effects of skills. This is where the referee becomes an important part of the game process. The above listing of skills and game effects must necessarily be taken as a guide, and followed, altered, or ignored as the actual situation dictates.

Rule 3. If as a referee you can not decide on a situation target number then MWM suggests:

Situation Throws: In the absence of any other guidance, the referee may always resort to the situation throw. When an incident first occurs, throw two dice to determine its relative severity. A low roll means that it is easy, a high roll means comparative difficulty. The number achieved is now the situation number. The player characters involved, when they attempt to deal with the situation, must roll the situation number or higher on two dice. They are, of course, allowed DMs based on any appropriate skills. Tools, assistance, and equipment may also provide beneficial DMs; weather, haste, adverse environment, or other handicaps may impose negative DMs. It is even possible for a referee to make the situation number greater than 12, thus making success impossible unless the players can provide necessary skills or tools with DMs to get their throw also above 12.

The two bit I highlighted are where role playing can come in, if the player wants the DM they have to make an attempt to say how the character earns the DM or mitigate the negative (if possible).

Now in the spirit or rule 2 I would suggest that if the referee is unhappy with the situation throw they generate on the roll of 2d roll another die and pick the highest two die results to sum in order to generate the situation throw. For a really challenging situation sum the 3d, and if the number is still not high enough roll a fourth (choose the highest three to sum)

 

[daryen]

An open CT would be sweet.

If we had an Open CT, I would immediately rewrite The Traveller Book twice!

The first one would be to include the official expanded skill list, the CotI careers, a couple missing ships, additional PC-relevant weapons, and any known errata into a revised, but still totally official CT base system. It would keep the simple career generation and Bk2 ship building.

The second one would be with my "corrected" (i.e. house) rules. So, include enlisted ranks in the simple career generation, modfied Bk2 ship building (with my changed drive tables), rationalized PP fuel, modified in-game training, and a couple things like that. I might switch combat to use AHL-style rules.

Alas, such an opportunity will never arrive for me ...

 

[whulorigan]

If we had an Open CT, I would immediately rewrite The Traveller Book . . .

The first one would be to include the official expanded skill list, the CotI careers, a couple missing ships, additional PC-relevant weapons, and any known errata into a revised, but still totally official CT base system. It would keep the simple career generation and Bk2 ship building.

THIS I would love to see FFE Publish (with perhaps the SS3 Missiles Rules included in the Starship Combat section as well).

 

[mike wightman]

For Characters and Combat I would embrace the inclusion of CotI careers, and keep Other so player can invent their own career if nothing else fits their character concept.
In addition I would be happy to see careers with no rank structure get 2 skills per term and for careers with a rank structure to have enlisted rank promotion being rolled for and granting a skill if successful.

 

[daryen]

THIS I would love to see FFE Publish (with perhaps the SS3 Missiles Rules included in the Starship Combat section as well).

Everyone's line on what to include and what to not include is going to be different. I personally don't care about the SS3 missile rules and would gleefully not include them. Someone else doing it would include them. I gave my list of what I would do.

But FFE isn't interested in doing this. I have asked. Politely and at least three times over the years. I haven't even ever received a response on those requests. (And I have received prompt responses on other things.) At a minimum, FFE isn't intersted in me doing this.

 

[daryen]

For Characters and Combat I would embrace the inclusion of CotI careers, and keep Other so player can invent their own career if nothing else fits their character concept.
In addition I would be happy to see careers with no rank structure get 2 skills per term and for careers with a rank structure to have enlisted rank promotion being rolled for and granting a skill if successful.

Once you take acknowledged errata into consideration, it is the case that every single rank-less simple career, with the sole exception of Other, do get 2 skills per term. Obviously, I would extend that to the Other career as well.

And do note that to get a fully correct version of the CotI careers, you have to do the following:
- Use the skills tables from Supplement 4, and include the acknowledge errata.
- Use everything except the skills tables from the Spinward Marches Campaign annex.
The SMC information and charts outside the skills tables was updated with good information. They just completely botched the skills tables. For the record, I have a simple PDF of these pages with all of the corrects in them that I would be happy to provide to the files section of this website. I just need to know it is OK to provide. I want no compensation for this and don't even request acknowledgement for it. I just want to be able to make it available without getting into trouble when doing so.

 

[Dragoner]

If we had an Open CT, I would immediately rewrite The Traveller Book twice!

The first one would be to include the official expanded skill list, the CotI careers, a couple missing ships, additional PC-relevant weapons, and any known errata into a revised, but still totally official CT base system. It would keep the simple career generation and Bk2 ship building.

The second one would be with my "corrected" (i.e. house) rules. So, include enlisted ranks in the simple career generation, modfied Bk2 ship building (with my changed drive tables), rationalized PP fuel, modified in-game training, and a couple things like that. I might switch combat to use AHL-style rules.

Alas, such an opportunity will never arrive for me ...

lol

I would probably buy them too. I'd change armor to damage reduction type, and add some bits other places, like chargen, and to LBB2 style spacecraft; rules light sort of changes though, and to bring in line with more modern sci-fi.

Edit: though also tbh I could live with it no changes.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Honestly, the only changes I would make (structurally) to skills for LBB1/LBB S4 careers would be to stipulate that a character can earn up to 4 skills per term of service. Automatic skills earned earned during a single term "count" against this (up to) 4 skills per term limit.

So after the number of automatic skills earned per term (0-3 usually) is determined, simply subtract that number from 4 and that's how many throws you get (roll the career threshold) you get that term.

That way, it's possible with basic chargen to earn 4 skills every single term, but you have to roll successfully for that result.

 

[daryen]

I'm gonna be honest on skills. I just want to add the extra skills to the existing skill tables to give slightly more options for the "basic six" careers. But I actually like the "two skills" per term thing. I like the skill scarcity. It helps make the party more interdependent and maybe force them to include NPC crew members to fill out missing skills. Maybe offer an optional rule for extra skills if the party is small. (Like the Mongoose skill packages to make sure critical skills are held by someone, or just adding a "free" skill or two per term like Spinward says.)

But the first version I want to do is specifically the first one I mentioned: no new rules; no house rules. Just the consolidated information in the same format.

 

[mike wightman]

That would necessitate adding the stuff cut from the 81 revision that is present in the 77 original and giving the option to use whichever suits.
Differences in the career tables
The missing paragraph explaining how to use skill saving throws
The drive table is different, the power plant requirements are different
Trade lanes, tech level tables

 

[daryen]

Remember, I am working from The Traveller Book. I don't care about that 77 stuff.

Also, if I am changing drive tables, I am using my own rationalized tables I have posted elsewhere on this site. But that would be for my second version. The first, primary version sticks with the standard, published rules (and errata) based on TTB and a few other items.

 

[mike wightman]

It already exists - the Facsimile Edition.

I prefer the 77 rules, the only things I would take from 81 are decimalization, the revised drive table, the additional ships and the additional equipment.

If I were re-writing I would use my own drive table too that I posted in 2005, although I have updated it a bit since then.

 

[mike wightman]

If Classic Traveller were to be updated and become the 6th version of Traveller I would step back from T5, take a look at every edition, and then write it with some clear design goals from the outset.

1. Options.
There should be options for everything whenever possible to give referees and players choice and allow them to use Traveller for what it was intended, bespoke setting sci fi gaming rather than tied to the OTU (the OTU can be detailed in supplement 1)
Characters: options off the top of my head
death during generation, points buy, more than one career, enlisted promotion, bennies - either earned or a given amount, number of skills per term variable for type of campaign

2. Keep it simple
2d6 for saving throws/tasks, armour as damage reduction (TNE and T4 show how this can be scalesd from personal armour all the way to BBs)

3. Technolgy
keep the LBB3 tech chart but add stuff - makers, wafers, synthetics, bioengineering, cybernetics, bioaugmentation, nanotech
put another way add the stuff that has appeared in sci fi literature over the last four decades

 

[daryen]

It already exists - the Facsimile Edition.

Uh, what I am asking for most certainly does NOT exist. The Facsimile Edition is just a small piece. I want the updated, errata'ed CotI careers, the CotI ships and skills, and the missing "standard" weapons. Plus, I want the rest of TTB, and all of it integrated into a coherent volume.

That absolutely, most certainly, does not in any way exist at this time. I don't want an updated LBB set. I want an updated TTB. That is a much different thing. (Though, functionally, TTB is a superset of LBB.)

 

[Tobias]

I'm gonna be honest on skills. I just want to add the extra skills to the existing skill tables to give slightly more options for the "basic six" careers. But I actually like the "two skills" per term thing. I like the skill scarcity. It helps make the party more interdependent and maybe force them to include NPC crew members to fill out missing skills. Maybe offer an optional rule for extra skills if the party is small. (Like the Mongoose skill packages to make sure critical skills are held by someone, or just adding a "free" skill or two per term like Spinward says.)

The thing ist: If you keep the skill supply for basic character generation as-is, it is way too attractive to used advanced (B4-7) character generation. Basically, those render basic character generation (including Citizens) obsolete - which is exactly the way it happened in every single campaign I've run.
The careers in those books average ~3 skills per term. So either you can ditch/forbid those or you can make more skills available to basic. I'd opt for, and with my own variant rules have already implemented, the latter. (As did MegaTraveller.) As a bonus, you can also rebalance the basic careers for skills a bit, so that Army is no longer uneqivocally better than Marines for example.

It also stands to reason that if you add more different skills, characters should receive a higher total allotment of skill levels, because there are more areas to cover.

 

[daryen]

Thats fine. To each their own.

As I've already said, I have no permission to do what I want, and I won't be getting it, so it's all irrelevant, anyway.

 

[aramis]

My CT 3E would look like MT...
MT has:

• the CT core and the S4 Basic careers, with basic characters being able to get almost every advanced skills
• A modified striker damage system (tho' I'd set the math better)
• The unified task system (what Mike describes is neither unified nor providing the benefits of a unified task mechanic)
• Striker Vehicle Design Rules

I'd make some changes to the above -
Add contacts cribbed from TTNE.
Task steps adjusted to mesh with striker's 8/11
different Pen vs AV table. To hit margin adds directly to Pen

Pen+Margin is ...	<= AV-10	> AV-10 && <= AV-5	> AV-5 && <= AV	> AV && <= AV+5	> AV+5 && <= AV+10	>AV+10
Damage Multiplier	×0.0	×0.3 vs Soft	×0.5	×1	×2	×3

The benefit missing from the CT sections Mike quoth is that makes DGP's task mechanic so useful as a GM: a reference based upon a common median attribute and skill system. To wit, the levels in the DGP system fit very nicely for Stat 5-9, skill 1...
Such a character, in a stat+skill task, the labels make perfect sense:
Simple (3+) DM+2 means autosuccess. Rolling is only important for margin or time effects
Routine (7+) DM+2 is nat 5+ (5/6 chance at normal, automatic at extra time)
Difficult (11+) DM+2 is nat 9+, (10/36, or 5/18; extra time is 5/6
Formidable (15+) DM+2 is no chance, needing nat 13+ on 2d6, but in extra time, 5/18.
Impossible (19+) DM+2 cannot, even with extra time, get this done.

Adjusting for expected attribute, and deriving from Striker... Works like DGP's, but different break points, remember that extra time is a diff shift, and rushing is a diff shift, in the other direction. Likewise, there is no minimum failure chance,,,

Assuming the same Stat 5-9 = +1, skill 1 is +1, for net +2

TN	Label	Odds Std	Odds Extra Time	Odds, Hurried	Notes
3+	Simple	100
6+	Routine	N4+ 33/36	100	N7+ 21/36
9+	Moderate	N7+ 21/36	N4+ 33/36	N10+ 6/36	Striker 8+ assumes +0 from skill, but this is +1. This preserves striker odds
12+	Difficult	N10+ 6/36	N7+ 21/36	NP	Also matches striker
15+	Formidable	N13+ NP	N10+ 6/36	NP	Only doable with Extra Time
18+	Impossible	N16+ NP	N13+ NP	NP	Can't be done with extra time.

I'd keep the Pen values from Striker, but, as with MT, use the hits abstraction during combat, Figured differently, tho...
HTU would be lowest att/3, while HTK is other two physicals summed, then divided by 3. Round normal. Convert to att damage "when the adrenaline wears off" as MT does.
Damage Points would match CT 2E number of dice for damage,
Likewise, keeping the simpler striker mode 3 ranges and 3 pens, rather than the more math on the fly MT Pen/Atten system,
This allows doing the larger scales as per MT.


Striker's design system is too complex, especially when blended with High Guard. Switch to Bk2 extracted formula, rather than lettered drives, but keep the tons per hit.

One complexity add: customize hit locations in ship combat. Also, include Mayday movement mechanics. Divide ranges for lasers considerably.

 

[mike wightman]

To my mind a CT "task system" has to be based on 2d, but I would keep the freeform nature rather than a rigidly defined task structure.
PbtA and the Y0E are available as OGL (and revised versions are on the way), but I would look to designing a new bespoke system that:
1- maintains the free form CT way of doing things
2- offers some of the bells an whistles the more modern systems grant you
3- encourages role playing, at the very least describe you character's actions rather than "play to the skill roll"

Armour as damage reduction or damage dice reduction is by far the most popular choice for damage resolution, penetration is more easily handled with "tags" (low pen double AV, high pen halve AV), the design process could use pen/att to rate weapons, but in play the maths has to be simple.

One addendum - damage, healing and recovery, especially high tech medicine, needs to be included.

 

[mike wightman]

Thinking out loud here,

On the subject of skills to me there are two main models:

a limited number of broad skills

lots of narrow skills.

Broad is Engineering

narrow would be jump drive engineer, m-drive engineer, life support engineer, pp engineer, gravitics engineer

One of the flaws with CT is it mixes the broad with the narrow.

So broad or skill tree? Broad means less skill points awarded per term, narrow means a lot more skill points per term.

 

[Tobias]

Thinking out loud here,

On the subject of skills to me there are two main models:

a limited number of broad skills

lots of narrow skills.

Broad is Engineering

narrow would be jump drive engineer, m-drive engineer, life support engineer, pp engineer, gravitics engineer

One of the flaws with CT is it mixes the broad with the narrow.

So broad or skill tree? Broad means less skill points awarded per term, narrow means a lot more skill points per term.

That is one of CT's idosyncracies that I'd rather just run with. On the one hand, you have a broad skill like Pilot. On the other hand, you have something like Forward Observer, where most players won't even know what it is. Short of remaking the skill list from scratch, there is little to be done.

I would point out, though, that you can have both broad and narrow skills in a game depending on where the focus is to be, or what you want to emulate. For example, a level in a single weapon potentially is more relevant than a level in an extremely broad skill such as Admin.
OTOH, Traveller also had what I would call an unforgiving aspect of realism. Skills, like many other things, were not created equal. The military gave you Combat Rifleman skill in the same time that a civilian career would give you just the much more narrow Carbine skill. Battle Dress skill was just Vacc Suit skill, but better. Pilot was better than Ship's Boat almost always - but more difficult to be taught.