Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Ok. Now, we're talking. That's a decent penalty. I'd say that's another "good" point for MGT.
First Impressions from MGT
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Ok. Now, we're talking. That's a decent penalty. I'd say that's another "good" point for MGT.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Given that this has been a standard feature of my Traveller campaigns for, oh, 28 years or so, I don't think that "ship shares" are necessary to enable it. Nor do I think that they add much to the exercise.
In my experience the vast majority of adventuring groups in most RPGs tend to operate as some kind of joint venture. Details vary, but the idea generally is that everyone gets a fair share of the loot and the group can purchase assets together. Seems pointless to me to invent a rule to solve a nonexistent problem. Especially when that rule complicates other aspects of the game like determining payments.
In any case, MTU has a Standard Exploration Company Agreement that can be bought from the Shipmaster's Guild for Cr50. A Company is formed on any Law Level 3+ world by filing Company formation documents. The default settings work for 99% of companies. Changes can be made by paying an Admiralty lawyer Cr500 (cr100 for a Guild lawyer). Filing fees vary, but usually run (1D+Law Level) * Cr100.
Companies initially issue 100 shares of stock (this can be varied to make the initial number evenly divisible by the number of PCs). Initial shareholders receive this stock in proportion for their contribution of cash or assets. Each share gets one vote. Company activities must be approved by a majority of shares.
Players can sell stock to each other, but must obtain unanimous consent to sell to outsiders. If a new investor (usually a new PC) comes along, he can buy shares from other players or the Company can issue new shares and sell them to him for whatever the shareholders think is a fair price. The difference is that in the first case, money goes to the individual shareholder selling the stock, and the other shareholders are unaffected. In the second case, money goes to the company, and all shareholders are "diluted" (i.e., they'll receive a smaller percentage of the profits going forward).
As an aside, when a PC dies, his heirs inherit his shares. I do not allow PCs to leave shares to other PCs. The Company agreement provides that the Company can redeem these shares for a per-share price equal to the value of the Company divided by the total number of issued shares. "Company value" is defined as the value of its assets (including cash), less debt. If the Company cannot redeem the shares within 1 month of the PC's death, the heirs can do what they wish with them. This provides an easy way to let new PCs buy into the venture. It also eliminates the RPG phenomenon of "Survivors Get Richer and Richer Just By Surviving."
The Company operates like an individual (legally, it is a separate party). It buys the starship and pays expenses. Profits (if any) are paid out prorata each quarter (or more frequently if the shareholders can agree). Unless there is UNANIMOUS agreement, all payments must be prorata -- each share of stock gets the same amount.
Just like in the vast majority of cases in the Real World, this approach divorces ownership in the venture from ownership of any particular assets. This approach is certainly less of a hassle than shares, and requires no special accounting rules. The Company pays the same price as individuals for stuff.
(Since I'm a business attorney, I can handle any complications that might arise in player dealings. If enough folks like this approach, I could probably flesh it out and do a Q&A as to how common problems are handled).
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tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
That's what happens already in a TL4+ stock market. Shipping company stock can be traded on a stock exchange like any other business.
I hate to be a buzz kill, but the problem is that investors in individual ships will almost certainly require a hallucinatory return on investment to offset the risk inherent in operating one ship. In addition, most worlds will have considerable restrictions on offering investments to the public. These restrictions typically require that the company start with VERY significant financial reserves and all kinds of expensive legal compliance that will make such ventures impossible for normal folks to set up on their own. Those that don't will probably have more scams than legitimate ventures.
Now, you *could* have a campaign in which the PCs work for a group of wealthy NPC investors. This would allow the PCs to own a ship that they could never buy themselves. They might even be minority shareholders. And as long as they return a healthy profit to the investors, the venture will continue. When profits disappear, the investors may "get nervous" and even liquidate the company's assets. It also provides a source of motivation for the PCs (and a source of extra financing if the referee finds it useful).
Hmmn. Good idea you have there...
It is a neat idea, but I don't think that it's very plausible. But the idea of an investment market is good. Something like a stock market could be a way to absorb extra cash for PCs without depriving them of the benefit.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
The stock market has already been done. It's an article in the JTAS.
I dunno about what you say about the implausibility of the ship share, though. My idea needs more thought, I agree. But, I don't think the idea is dead.
For one thing, ship shares could be spread over several Tramps, not just one vessel. That would be an effort to minimize risk and keep the return high enough to warrant investors.
As I said, too, ship shares in tramps would be a very risky venture. Shares would be cheap with low expectation of return. But, if they hit, they hit big.
What I'm thinking is that, if a character (or a group of characters) has the resources to go the traditional route (they have the ability to raise 10% downpayment for their vessel), then that should be the way to go.
If they don't have the contacts to raise that kind of cash (which is almost MCr4 for a Free Trader), then the Issum may be an option.
From a game perspective, the player would have to agree to higher ship payments (higher payments are required for the higher rate of return needed with the Issum market and share holders). This could be a handy tool for GMs who think the players' resources need to be whittled down a bit.
Plus, raising money via the Issum market to buy a ship may not be a viable option for some vessel, due to the thin margins these ships run on. A ship owner could easily get into a situation where it is impossible to make money due to the ship's monthly payment.
So, using the market is an option, but not always a good one.
Investors could look at the investment as a long term annuity--it's a loan being paid back with interest. Interest with ship shares should be higher than interest with the standard loan.
Raising money through the Issum for a ship might only be profitable if the vessel is destined to be successful with speculative trade.
And, again, we're back to role-playing.
So, I think the idea might have more merit than you're giving it credit for.
The Hinterworlds Rambler
SOC-14 5K
I find the MGT character generation system fun and interesting with all the Event tables. Spices stuff up a bit, and breaks up the often too mechanical nature of rolling up a Traveller character.
This is not to say that there is some elegance to a CT character, and it has its charms. MGT presents a system that looks good for someone that is new to Traveller as well as someone that is old to Traveller.
For the new, it's adds enough background events to aid in assembling a good backstory, which is great.
Ship Shares, warts and all, makes sense to me. In the 57th century or whenever, It's the only thing I can think of that could be a viable economic entity that could be applied to people that travel the universe.
I'm still getting into that part of the book, but the concept makes sense, and a lot of players have been doing something like it for years, where multiple muster ship rolls equal a payment on a ship, etc.
From a GM perspective, the whole ship share thing is subplot gold.
This is not to say that there is some elegance to a CT character, and it has its charms. MGT presents a system that looks good for someone that is new to Traveller as well as someone that is old to Traveller.
For the new, it's adds enough background events to aid in assembling a good backstory, which is great.
Ship Shares, warts and all, makes sense to me. In the 57th century or whenever, It's the only thing I can think of that could be a viable economic entity that could be applied to people that travel the universe.
I'm still getting into that part of the book, but the concept makes sense, and a lot of players have been doing something like it for years, where multiple muster ship rolls equal a payment on a ship, etc.
From a GM perspective, the whole ship share thing is subplot gold.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
That is a surprising statement, given that joint stock companies -- the Grownup alternative to "ship shares" -- have existed for about 400 years. Indeed, they evolved to meet the needs of the 17th century trading economy, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Traveller's trading economy. The very first company (two companies, actually) was chartered to colonize North America and shipping was a major corporate activity. Maybe you've heard of the Honourable East India Company, another early JSC. Seems to me that shipping was a pretty important part of its operations as well.
You might as well say that oil lamps appear to be the only viable tools for providing light in the 57th century.
Ship shares are a needless attempt to describe a fairly useless business structure that is so intuitive that it hardly needs to be explained. As I said earlier, anyone who needs elaborate rules to explain how to split ownership in a starship is probably too witless to play Traveller.
For a typical business venture like owning a starship, the corporation -- a simple, effective and useful tool for 400+ years -- is a far better option. It handles many things that the ship shares rules don't handle. And it doesn't require a parallel economic system in the game to operate properly.
I see *nothing* in the ship shares system that isn't already there in the way PCs have acted for decades. As a GM, the system is pointlessly fiddly and introduces needless complexity.
Understand, I don't care if you play with shares. My point is that they needlessly complicate something that isn't that complex. And worse, they complicate a number of things that shouldn't be complicated. Finally, they are patently implausible if we are to assume a modern economic system.
I am skeptical that this was the best -- or even a decent -- use of the designer's time. I'm also troubled by what appears to me to be a pattern of fawning over comparatively mediocre mechanics (without offering specifics as to why they are so fabulously, wonderfully fabulous). And I note that such fawning tends to ignore alternatives for the fabulously wonderfully fabulous mechanic. Maybe I'm just grumpy...
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mbrinkhues
SOC-14 1K
TBeard1999: Could it be something that is easy and clear for you due to your profession and to me since I write the programs that control stock/bond traders but not to others? 
Mongoose targets this game at new players as much as at the Grognards and an 18-20 year old might not have the knowledge (school's not that great anymore)
Mongoose targets this game at new players as much as at the Grognards and an 18-20 year old might not have the knowledge (school's not that great anymore)
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Oh, I didn't mean to suggest it was dead. Rather, I found the idea of a public market for shares in small operations to be very dubious. Most governments would restrict such a market so that only large operations would be viable. Of course, there might be some small, backward markets whose stock exchanges might allow for small operators. But even there I'm skeptical. Small starship operations are extremely risky from an investor's point of view. I just don't think that this is a good fit for a stock market model.
However, small starship operations might well be attractive to private equity groups (i.e. "venture capitalists"). Those groups are far more willing to invest in risky ventures than the investing public at large. And I can see a very good campaign in that. The PCs are 20% minority shareholders in the Rim Worlds Trading Company, which currently owns their 800 ton starship. Due to some bad breaks, there have been no profits for awhile and the investors are getting nervous. However, there's this little job on Arcturus that will turn things around...
I'd also note that the MGT ship shares rules would be inappropriate for either my venture capitalist idea or your stock market idea. A joint stock company (like my Standard Exploration Company) would be a far more sensible approach.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
TBeard1999: Could it be something that is easy and clear for you due to your profession and to me since I write the programs that control stock/bond traders but not to others?
Mongoose targets this game at new players as much as at the Grognards and an 18-20 year old might not have the knowledge (school's not that great anymore)
Yeah, probably so. However, my chief annoyances with the ship shares mechanic -- besides the empty fawning over it -- are that there was so little need for it and that it requires you to have a parallel economic system. A needless rule that creates complexity will not be greeted with enthusiasm by me.
Now, there probably is a need for a more robust system of handling business ventures than the ad-hoc joint ventures that PCs normally default to. Ship shares don't get it done. They are just more fiddly. They don't solve (or even address) the normal problems that occur in business ventures all the time (both in Traveller and in the Real World).
Fortunately, these problem can be addressed with a standard corporation. And while its true that RPG designers can't be expected to be business attorneys, they should be expected to put some effort into resolving the problem. They aren't gunsmiths, but we expect them to write reasonable combat rules. And of course, the internet is a great thing. Why not ask if any players are business attorneys (or venture capitalists, or stock brokers) and get their opinion?
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
I do see your point. But, as was just mentioned in the other thread on this topic in the Classic Traveller forum http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=262497&postcount=7, the idea harkens back to the way the East India Company sometimes operated.
And that "flavor" seems to fit Traveller very well, I think.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Agreed. In fact there's an analogue to the Honourable East India Company in my Commonwealth campaign (along with analogues to less well known companies).
But the British and Dutch East India Companies were large companies that had the resources to mitigate risk and so we shouldn't be surprised if their stock was widely traded. Traveller starship operations are gonna be extremely small by comparison and I just don't think that they would be viable in a public investment market.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
But, I think you're thinking too small. OK, so a single ship would not be a vialable public investment. I can see that.
What would it take to make a single ship a viable investement? I've already suggested that single ship owners enter into combines where the investment risk is spread over several ships, not just one. Is that so much different than what the East India Company did?
The question is: What would it take for a single ship to be a viable investment? What are the rules? How would it work?
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
I can think of three major problems with single-ship ventures.
The biggest problem (IMHO) is risk volatility -- the possibility that a single ship venture can lose its ship and the whole venture wiped out. This can be addressed by assuming that insurance is available to cover such a risk. However, this insurance will be expensive in a typical Traveller universe. I'd guess a minimum of 1% of the ship's value per month. In frontier areas, at least double that. And worse (from an RPG standpoint), the policy will exclude coverage for risky and/or illegal ventures. So there's unlikely to be insurance available for the kinds of adventures PCs generally enjoy.
The second problem is capitalization. To meet the typical regulatory requirements for a public offering, a company will have to be well-capitalized. This would mean a venture with, say, a minimum of Cr100 million in assets (net of liabilities). Smaller companies simply wouldn't be able to meet the regulatory requirements. And even if they did, I don't think that their stock would be highly traded.
The third problem is profit volatility. A public starship company would have to have a business plan that justifies a reasonably sure chance of making a decent return on investment. In the Traveller universe, I'd say this would be 5-10% net profit (after all expenses) per year. Starship operations seem to me to be more akin to drilling for oil -- many failures with a few big hits. A company with 200 oil wells (or starships) can handle this because the overall venture will be predictable due to the law of big numbers. But a company with 1 oil well (or starship) will be way too ricky for normal investors and will tend to be financed by private investment groups/individuals with high risk tolerance.
So IMHO your company will need (a) probably 5+ ships (or very expensive insurance if you have fewer ships); (b) a minimum investment of Cr100m; (c) a reasonable expectation of consistently making Cr5-10m profit per year per Cr100m invested.
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Well, let's see... at the start of a standard mortgage, the financing entity can be considered to have about 20% equity in the ship. Fifteen Type A Traders under this consideration would amount to a little over MCr90 in capital, plus around MCr10 in operating capital would meet your MCr100 figure. So a decently outfitted starting company would field a fleet of 15 Free Traders - that's not a bad model, actually.
Or you could go with 10 Type As and a MCr40 operations account, which would allow for ground-based facilities (company factors based at regular ports of call, warehousing facilities, and so forth). The first example would be more of a "gentleman-adventurer" trading venture; the second is actually more of a true business concern.
Or you could go with 10 Type As and a MCr40 operations account, which would allow for ground-based facilities (company factors based at regular ports of call, warehousing facilities, and so forth). The first example would be more of a "gentleman-adventurer" trading venture; the second is actually more of a true business concern.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
What I'm thinking of are companies who set up these sorts of ventures. You're a trader looking to buy a ship. You don't have contacts, and you can't raise the 4 million it will cost you to get the 10% downpayment to finance a Free Trader the normal way.
Normally, you'd be out of luck until you could raise the cash.
But, you find out there is a company who looks for good investments like you. What the company does is interview 15 or so independent traders, just like yourself. The company evaluates the "risk" you present (Are you a flight risk? Are you business savy enough to make money with your vessel? What are your plans for speculative trade? Where will you operate? Etc.) and picks the best candidates to form the combine.
The combine is traded as if it were a 15-ship trading company, except all 15 traders are independents.
Now, this is more expensive to you, in the long run, than going the normal route of raising 10% cash and financing a ship normally. But, it's also a method where ship owners will get backing when they don't have the contacts to raise that kind of money. Ship payments through the combine are both higher and longer than normal financing.
If one of the 15 indies skips, there are still 14 other ships to cover that risk. This combined with the company's preselection process keeps the risk as low as it can be.
The company makes a fee from the deal for its service, of course, and the company manages the account for the combine for the life of the deal (which is measured in decades).
So, this deal can be good for the indie captain without funds (albeit it is a more expensive route to go than regular financing). It's a good deal for the company that manages the combine, because of the fees it makes in managing the deal at both start-up and during the life of the deal. And, it's a decent deal for investors who will potentially make more on their money than they would if they had loaned it for a normal starship financing deal.
That's how I'm looking at this.
Impression from the Tasks and Skills
MGT uses a task system not unlike the CT combat system - roll 2d6+DMs, 8+ is a success. The most common DMs are characteristic DMs, skill DMs and difficulty DMs (yes, difficulty is a DM to the roll). Characteristic DMs usually range from -1 to +1, unless the character has extreme characteristics (2 or less or 12 or more) - this is a good thing as the 2d6 curve is very sensitive to DMs. This also means that a professional (skill 2+) would usually benefit much more from his skill than from his characteristics, which is in accord with the basic Traveller assumptions. A sidebar in this chapter gives the probabilities of success with various total DMs.
It is noted in two places in this chapter that you don't have to make rolls unless either the task at hand is risky or when failure is interesting. In routine day-to-day operations a character with a skill usually succeeds.This rule-of-a-thumb means that you usually don't roll for landing in nice weather at a good starport with a working ship, but you'll have to roll a task when the weather is significantly bad or when landing under fire. In other words, use a task only when relevant to the drama. I like that approach.
You could use the same skill with different characteristic DMs at different occasions - for example, while shooting uses the appropriate Gun Combat specialization and the Dexterity DM, identifying the brand of a gun in a weapon bazaar would use the appropriate Gun Combat specialization and the Education DM. This is nice, intuitive and flexible.
Timing and Effect have been totally revised from the initial playtest concepts. Timing uses an additional (separate) 1d6, which is then multiplied by the time interval of the task at hand. You could also hasten a task (taking a negative DM) or take your time with it (which gives you a positive DM). Effect is no longer tied to a single die; instead, you take you task roll total (2d6+all DMs including difficulty) and subtract 8 from it. The result is your Effect. What you do with that number differs from task to task, but as a general rule an effect of 6 or more is a particularly great success and an effect of -6 or less is a particularly embarrassing failure.
A cool new concept in MGT is the idea of Task Chains. These are chains of inter-dependent tasks (usually taken by different PCs) in which the Effect of one task applies a DM on the next. For example, if character A is chatting with a guard in order to distract him so that character B could sneak by unnoticed, a particularly good success on character A's Deception roll would give a positive DM to character B's Stealth roll, and a particularly bad failure would give a negative DM.
There are 47 skills in total in MGT including four Science skills. This is about twice the amount of skills in CT-LBB1, but on the other hand there are also twice the number of careers (specializations not counted), some skills are not absolutely necessary in every game and are more a matter of flavor than anything else (Art for example or even Science skills if you're running, say, a Merc campaign), and some skills overlap (Deception, Persuasion, Admin, Advocate and even Diplomat or Streetwise could be used to solve similar problems from different angles). Most skills are ones from CT-LBBs 1-7, with some additions (such as Science, Art and Athletics) and some changes (Vehicle is now split into Drive, Flyer and Seafarer; Recon is mostly observation and Stealth is its own skill; Electronic is a specialization of Engineering rather than a separate skill, Gravities are subsumed in Engineering (M-Drive) and a few more changes).
Cascade skills are nominally gone. Instead, some skills (such as Engineering or Gun Combat) have Specializations. Each specialization is a skill on it's own, BUT having ranks (or even even Skill-0) in one specialization gives you Skill-0 in the other specialization of the same skill - for example, if you have Gun Combat (Slug Pistol)-1 you get Skill-0 in Gun Combat (Slug Rifle), Gun Combat (Energy Pistol) and Gun Combat (Energy Rifle). You could, of course, develop the other specializations as well (for example, get Skill-1 or more in both Slug Pistol and Slug Rifle).
There are now separate Engineering specializations for M-Drives, J-Drives, P-Plants, Electronics and Life Support. This means that many engineers would have Skill-0 in some of these fields.
A strange this - p.49 lists the difficulty of plotting a jump as Average while p.53 lists it as Easy. Which is correct?
Jack of Trades (JoT) now decreases the Unskilled penalty, so JoT-3 (the maximum) effectively means that you have Skill-0 in ALL skills. This feels a little overpowered, but on the other hand JoT is not a very common skill, Skill-3's are rare in any case, and you can't increase or even gain this skill after chargen.
MGT has a Trade (which means profession in this context) skill, covering various manufacturing and services professions such as hydroponics or polymer-productions. There is a simple mechanic for earning money from your Trade using a monthly task roll's Effect, but no Difficulty is given, and, furthermore, the amount of credits given seems VERY low in comparison with the cost of living table on p.87.
There is a very simple system for character advancement - you could increase your skills or even gain new skills simply by training, No costs are given, and it is not clear whether or not you could engage in other activities while training. The training time is measured in weeks, but could easily amount to months, and feels similar to the CT-LBB4 Instruction times. Also, the more skills in total you already have in MGT, the longer it takes you to learn new ones.
MGT uses a task system not unlike the CT combat system - roll 2d6+DMs, 8+ is a success. The most common DMs are characteristic DMs, skill DMs and difficulty DMs (yes, difficulty is a DM to the roll). Characteristic DMs usually range from -1 to +1, unless the character has extreme characteristics (2 or less or 12 or more) - this is a good thing as the 2d6 curve is very sensitive to DMs. This also means that a professional (skill 2+) would usually benefit much more from his skill than from his characteristics, which is in accord with the basic Traveller assumptions. A sidebar in this chapter gives the probabilities of success with various total DMs.
It is noted in two places in this chapter that you don't have to make rolls unless either the task at hand is risky or when failure is interesting. In routine day-to-day operations a character with a skill usually succeeds.This rule-of-a-thumb means that you usually don't roll for landing in nice weather at a good starport with a working ship, but you'll have to roll a task when the weather is significantly bad or when landing under fire. In other words, use a task only when relevant to the drama. I like that approach.
You could use the same skill with different characteristic DMs at different occasions - for example, while shooting uses the appropriate Gun Combat specialization and the Dexterity DM, identifying the brand of a gun in a weapon bazaar would use the appropriate Gun Combat specialization and the Education DM. This is nice, intuitive and flexible.
Timing and Effect have been totally revised from the initial playtest concepts. Timing uses an additional (separate) 1d6, which is then multiplied by the time interval of the task at hand. You could also hasten a task (taking a negative DM) or take your time with it (which gives you a positive DM). Effect is no longer tied to a single die; instead, you take you task roll total (2d6+all DMs including difficulty) and subtract 8 from it. The result is your Effect. What you do with that number differs from task to task, but as a general rule an effect of 6 or more is a particularly great success and an effect of -6 or less is a particularly embarrassing failure.
A cool new concept in MGT is the idea of Task Chains. These are chains of inter-dependent tasks (usually taken by different PCs) in which the Effect of one task applies a DM on the next. For example, if character A is chatting with a guard in order to distract him so that character B could sneak by unnoticed, a particularly good success on character A's Deception roll would give a positive DM to character B's Stealth roll, and a particularly bad failure would give a negative DM.
There are 47 skills in total in MGT including four Science skills. This is about twice the amount of skills in CT-LBB1, but on the other hand there are also twice the number of careers (specializations not counted), some skills are not absolutely necessary in every game and are more a matter of flavor than anything else (Art for example or even Science skills if you're running, say, a Merc campaign), and some skills overlap (Deception, Persuasion, Admin, Advocate and even Diplomat or Streetwise could be used to solve similar problems from different angles). Most skills are ones from CT-LBBs 1-7, with some additions (such as Science, Art and Athletics) and some changes (Vehicle is now split into Drive, Flyer and Seafarer; Recon is mostly observation and Stealth is its own skill; Electronic is a specialization of Engineering rather than a separate skill, Gravities are subsumed in Engineering (M-Drive) and a few more changes).
Cascade skills are nominally gone. Instead, some skills (such as Engineering or Gun Combat) have Specializations. Each specialization is a skill on it's own, BUT having ranks (or even even Skill-0) in one specialization gives you Skill-0 in the other specialization of the same skill - for example, if you have Gun Combat (Slug Pistol)-1 you get Skill-0 in Gun Combat (Slug Rifle), Gun Combat (Energy Pistol) and Gun Combat (Energy Rifle). You could, of course, develop the other specializations as well (for example, get Skill-1 or more in both Slug Pistol and Slug Rifle).
There are now separate Engineering specializations for M-Drives, J-Drives, P-Plants, Electronics and Life Support. This means that many engineers would have Skill-0 in some of these fields.
A strange this - p.49 lists the difficulty of plotting a jump as Average while p.53 lists it as Easy. Which is correct?
Jack of Trades (JoT) now decreases the Unskilled penalty, so JoT-3 (the maximum) effectively means that you have Skill-0 in ALL skills. This feels a little overpowered, but on the other hand JoT is not a very common skill, Skill-3's are rare in any case, and you can't increase or even gain this skill after chargen.
MGT has a Trade (which means profession in this context) skill, covering various manufacturing and services professions such as hydroponics or polymer-productions. There is a simple mechanic for earning money from your Trade using a monthly task roll's Effect, but no Difficulty is given, and, furthermore, the amount of credits given seems VERY low in comparison with the cost of living table on p.87.
There is a very simple system for character advancement - you could increase your skills or even gain new skills simply by training, No costs are given, and it is not clear whether or not you could engage in other activities while training. The training time is measured in weeks, but could easily amount to months, and feels similar to the CT-LBB4 Instruction times. Also, the more skills in total you already have in MGT, the longer it takes you to learn new ones.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Not unlike the Universal Game Mechanic.
My biggest gripe in the playtest was the stat bloat due to DMs. Have they minimized those? If so, I'll put another point on the "plus" side of the MGT opinion.
Can you list the exact DMs they went with?
That's a good thing, too. I saw somewhere that "professional" level skill is Skill-2, instead of Skill-3, as it is in CT. I think the exampe was for a doctor, being a Medical-2 instead of a Medical-3.
Can you confirm?
Interesting they say that, but isn't that RPG 101? Doesn't everybody, without exception, already play that way?
This is nice. I started doing this on my own years ago. CT does it, of course, with its loose task system.
When MT came around, it seems that tasks were tied to specific stats and skills. Sometimes, there were two choices of stat per skill, but most were one stat married to one skill. Other editions of Traveller followed this idea.
I'm glad to see the flexibility put back into the game. That's another "plus".
I'd like to see an example played out so that I can understand the change better.
I like this too. If its done well, it's a great additon to the game. I do this already in my CT game.
For example, in CT, let's say one character is tossing a pistol to his comrade during a fight. I'll have the tossing character make a roll, rolling high. Then, the character catching the gun will need to roll low, below the tosser's number, in order to catch it. This way the quality of the toss affects the chance of the catch.
Can you give me a specific example of how this mechanic works in MGT?
Maybe one is under combat conditions, thus it's harder?
Yeah, I've seen that before. DGP experimented with this in a CT magazine article. Upon first glance, it looks like a good idea. But, upon closer inspection, it's not a good game design. The designer should have known that. It is too overpowered.
And, there are better ways of handling JOT.
NOTE: Isn't it strange how almost every edition of Traveller re-defines how JOT works? It seems that no one has been able to come up with something that is universally accepted.
In my game, what I do is this: When a task is failed by exactly 1 point, a JOT attempt can be made. Roll 1D, and if the roll is equal to or lower than the JOT skill, then the character is allowed to re-roll the task.
This give the character another chance at the task because he's got the JOT skill. It's not overpowered, because you can only use it when you fail by 1 point. And, if a task is hard, it still remains hard--you just get another attempt at it.
I like that much better than what is implemented in MGT.
BTW, what happens if you've got a high JOT skill and a low penalty on the task? If you're JOT-3 and -2 on the task, does that mean you're +1 on the task?
Sounds interesting but not well-thought-out or implemented.
I hope this, indeed, requires a long "learning" time. Many players are used to the d20 (and other) system where experience points and advancement happen each game session.
Traveller's 2D task system base cannot take too many modifiers, so character improvement needs to be very, very slow. CT had it about right (I'm referring to LBB4 Instruction).
I caution people to look at this and not house-rule it to make it quicker (and I hope to gawd that the designer was aware of what fast advancement in MGT will do to games) because you'll end up having a game soon where no dice rolls are required--everybody always succeeds.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
You have quite a set of blind spots there.
Consider that MT was pretty much the only game of its time to decouple the skill and stat pairs seen in other skill-based rule sets. The ties you see are more an artifact of the DGP Task Library than the underlying mechanic.
If the "unskilled" penalty is only -2 for a given task, then that last rank of JOT is of no use for that task.
JOT has been defined differently with each edition precisely because it is a sanctioned "break" of the core mechanics. Each time the core mechanics change, the "break" has to change to match. In addition, not everyone thinks about meta-rules the same way. Your own posts, looked at in the context of every edition of Traveller, prove this without having to look for external examples.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Yeah, I think you're looking at the venture capitalist model in which a group of private investors back various business deals in exchange for equity and a significant profit. The thing is, VCs tend to require a *very* high rate of return to offset the fact that many of their deals don't work out. VCs will usually take a very thick equity percentage. The reality is that venture capital is the most expensive capital there is; bank financing is the cheapest. Your banker will charge you interest; a VC or partner will take a piece of the action. But sometimes VC money is the only option.
Anyhow, it's easy to imagine a wealthy group of investors, comprised of retired shipping company executives, former Naval and Scout officers, etc., that look for potential ship owners/crews with "potential" -- i.e., the ability to undertake risky ventures that can generate BIG profits.
S4:
in three months of play giving experience at the rate in the playtest (1 per session plus 1 per character-month; seesions weekly, and covering a year of character time), few leveled any skills, and none gained more than one level.
Had we a 1st term character (all but one were 3rd or 4th term), they probably would have leveled up two or three levels... as did the 1st term NPC.
As to finding support for the down... that's a patron encounter, OR, if you have about KCr100, you can speculate sans ship.
in three months of play giving experience at the rate in the playtest (1 per session plus 1 per character-month; seesions weekly, and covering a year of character time), few leveled any skills, and none gained more than one level.
Had we a 1st term character (all but one were 3rd or 4th term), they probably would have leveled up two or three levels... as did the 1st term NPC.
As to finding support for the down... that's a patron encounter, OR, if you have about KCr100, you can speculate sans ship.
- Status
