First Impressions from T4

[Golan2072]

I've downloaded T4 from DTRPG when it was free; I'm now going to read through it seriously for the first time (I've read it once, but only in a very causual way) and post my comments here. I'm probably going to use it as a resource for CT and as a source of inspiration for house-rules instead of playing it directly.

So, let's start.

First I must say that I like the illustrated scenes (such as on p.6 saying "The future of the Imperium rests on the shoulders of capable, trustworthy individuals....". These convey the spirit of the setting in words as well as in graphics. This is a very good idea about introducing the OTU - I think that it offers one potential (and very good) answer to the question raised by this thread.

The following overview of Traveller (basic game assumptions and themes, as well as OTU timeline overview) on pp.7-9 is also a very good attempt at such a thing - it conveys the important things in a nutshell and in merely two and a half pages. Sure, it's a recap of LBB0 and the "what is traveller" booklet in most part, but it's quite good nonetheless.

More later.

 

[Golan2072]

I've downloaded T4 from DTRPG when it was free; I'm now going to read through it seriously for the first time (I've read it once, but only in a very causual way) and post my comments here. I'm probably going to use it as a resource for CT and as a source of inspiration for house-rules instead of playing it directly.

So, let's start.

First I must say that I like the illustrated scenes (such as on p.6 saying "The future of the Imperium rests on the shoulders of capable, trustworthy individuals....". These convey the spirit of the setting in words as well as in graphics. This is a very good idea about introducing the OTU - I think that it offers one potential (and very good) answer to the question raised by this thread.

The following overview of Traveller (basic game assumptions and themes, as well as OTU timeline overview) on pp.7-9 is also a very good attempt at such a thing - it conveys the important things in a nutshell and in merely two and a half pages. Sure, it's a recap of LBB0 and the "what is traveller" booklet in most part, but it's quite good nonetheless.

More later.

 

[Cymew]

Hmm... So that summary is from LBB0? Interesting. I really liked it as well, and have copied it for showing potential players.

 

[Cymew]

Hmm... So that summary is from LBB0? Interesting. I really liked it as well, and have copied it for showing potential players.

 

[Golan2072]

It's a combination of LBB0 material with the "Introduction to Traveller"/"What is Traveller" pamphlet with some historical data added on.

 

[Golan2072]

It's a combination of LBB0 material with the "Introduction to Traveller"/"What is Traveller" pamphlet with some historical data added on.

 

[Golan2072]

Comments about the T4 CharGen system - Part 1

First and foremost, it seems that Mark Miller has decided to somewhat "demilitarize" Traveller - instead of 50% of the basic careers being military ones (as in CT), T4 has 30% - without going to the vast amount of careers available in MT.

Hmmm... No mention of getting the Referee's permission when choosing between the three characteristic-generation methods? My favorite is the second one (some choice, but not much room for serious minmaxing); however, each system generates characters with a different power level, so it's probably the referee's call.

Endurance includes determination (i.e. willpower) as well? An interesting idea!

It seems from the tables that any character from amy homeworld may receive skills of any tech level (i.e. the roll of 1D to select the Background Skill table); I'd prefer the table to be chosen instead according to the homeworld's TL.

Wait... You get a Computer skill for free at TL5+? TL7+ seems more appropriate.

The "Breathing Life into your Character" box is a very good idea - it shows new players how to convert the semi-random CharGen results into a character's background.

The pre-enlistment system is probably one of T4's strong points; it is (relatively) simple, flexible and quasi-realistic. I'll probably get some inspiration from it to my own preenlistment house-rules (though I won't steal anything - just apply a few - not all - of the basic concepts to the systems presented in CT's LBBs 5-7). I also like their formatting as "cards" on pp.27-28.

The "Preferential Enrollment" rule is also a good idea by itself - and is quite realistic.

Hmmm... It seems that the pre-enlistment options give alot to the Army and Navy and ignore the Marines

Wait! Why roll (in the preenlistment phase) BELOW numbers rather than ABOVE them? I know, statistics could be similar, but it somehow violates my Traveller logic. Oh no! It applies to all "Target Numbers"!

 

[Golan2072]

Comments about the T4 CharGen system - Part 1

First and foremost, it seems that Mark Miller has decided to somewhat "demilitarize" Traveller - instead of 50% of the basic careers being military ones (as in CT), T4 has 30% - without going to the vast amount of careers available in MT.

Hmmm... No mention of getting the Referee's permission when choosing between the three characteristic-generation methods? My favorite is the second one (some choice, but not much room for serious minmaxing); however, each system generates characters with a different power level, so it's probably the referee's call.

Endurance includes determination (i.e. willpower) as well? An interesting idea!

It seems from the tables that any character from amy homeworld may receive skills of any tech level (i.e. the roll of 1D to select the Background Skill table); I'd prefer the table to be chosen instead according to the homeworld's TL.

Wait... You get a Computer skill for free at TL5+? TL7+ seems more appropriate.

The "Breathing Life into your Character" box is a very good idea - it shows new players how to convert the semi-random CharGen results into a character's background.

The pre-enlistment system is probably one of T4's strong points; it is (relatively) simple, flexible and quasi-realistic. I'll probably get some inspiration from it to my own preenlistment house-rules (though I won't steal anything - just apply a few - not all - of the basic concepts to the systems presented in CT's LBBs 5-7). I also like their formatting as "cards" on pp.27-28.

The "Preferential Enrollment" rule is also a good idea by itself - and is quite realistic.

Hmmm... It seems that the pre-enlistment options give alot to the Army and Navy and ignore the Marines

Wait! Why roll (in the preenlistment phase) BELOW numbers rather than ABOVE them? I know, statistics could be similar, but it somehow violates my Traveller logic. Oh no! It applies to all "Target Numbers"!

 

[Golan2072]

Comments about the T4 CharGen system - Part 2

Again, the "roll below the Difficulty Number" method rather than rolling the target number or above, is quite contradictory to the standard practice of many RPGs - and it might confuse newcomers.

And why change the terminology from the CT/MT conventions (i.e. "Injury" rather than "Survival", "Continuance" rather than "Re-Enlistment" and so on)? It confuses the old fans...

Once again, "preferential enlistment" is a good idea - it speeds up the chargen system, allows players to choose (within limits) a career by arranging their charaacteristics in a desired way (using characteristic generation methods 2 or 3), and it sometimes highlights the in-game theme of "haves" vs. "have nots".

Automatic Draft if you roll EXTACTLY 12 on your Enlistment throw - a good idea to keep things interesting (in the more standard Traveller "roll below" mechanic, that'll be 2, not 12).

The Injury (i.e. Survival) rule is well-made and well defined and follows the CT optional rule quite closely.

The way Enlisted Ranks are handled is quite logical (is it realistic?); it also gives something to all those non-comissioned men to put in their resume's.

Is freely selecting skills from tables such a good idea for PCs? I mean, it speeds up NPC generation, but it might lead to a certain degree of minmaxing.

Changing between careers is a great idea, which I already incorporate in my CT CharGen variant (it was inpired by my previous and less thorough reading of T4).

Aging (p.22) is somewhat reduced in severity when compared to CT - now the chances to suffer from characteristic losses in the 30's and 40's of ones life are very slim. But still, why isn't aging and life expectancy dependant on TL? even now (TL7-8) we start aging seriously at a far later age than in the Dark Ages (TL1-3), but I guess this was omitted for the sake of simplicity. And i don't like the fact that aging goes in 5-year intervals - it doesn't fit too well with the Terms of Service (CT's aging is checked in 4-year intervals IIRC).

Scouts (and non-military personnel?) do not receive Retirement Pay (p.24)? It seems that the Milieu-Zero Imperium had quite a "flexible labor market" (read: good conditions for the employers, life sucks for the employee)... For the Scout it's probably replaced in some cases by a Type-S, but still...

Common Skills (p.26): Grav Craft at TL7 and Computer at TL5? Isn't it a bit too low?

Oh, and I see there IS some effect of TL on Background Skills; but it seems that this effect is only partial, so it probably assumes that the low-TL world has some outside contact.

Equestrian listed as a high-tech skill (p.26)???

And it looks as if T4 characters have far more skills than their CT (even expanded system) counterparts - they recieve 4 skills per term AUTOMATICALLY, which CT characters (using LBB4-7 Expanded systems) have to roll each year to see if they recieve a skill.

The description of each career (pp.29-34) and the "Routine Tasks" are good ideas - they help the player develop a background for her character and get a "feel" for her.

 

[Golan2072]

Comments about the T4 CharGen system - Part 2

Again, the "roll below the Difficulty Number" method rather than rolling the target number or above, is quite contradictory to the standard practice of many RPGs - and it might confuse newcomers.

And why change the terminology from the CT/MT conventions (i.e. "Injury" rather than "Survival", "Continuance" rather than "Re-Enlistment" and so on)? It confuses the old fans...

Once again, "preferential enlistment" is a good idea - it speeds up the chargen system, allows players to choose (within limits) a career by arranging their charaacteristics in a desired way (using characteristic generation methods 2 or 3), and it sometimes highlights the in-game theme of "haves" vs. "have nots".

Automatic Draft if you roll EXTACTLY 12 on your Enlistment throw - a good idea to keep things interesting (in the more standard Traveller "roll below" mechanic, that'll be 2, not 12).

The Injury (i.e. Survival) rule is well-made and well defined and follows the CT optional rule quite closely.

The way Enlisted Ranks are handled is quite logical (is it realistic?); it also gives something to all those non-comissioned men to put in their resume's.

Is freely selecting skills from tables such a good idea for PCs? I mean, it speeds up NPC generation, but it might lead to a certain degree of minmaxing.

Changing between careers is a great idea, which I already incorporate in my CT CharGen variant (it was inpired by my previous and less thorough reading of T4).

Aging (p.22) is somewhat reduced in severity when compared to CT - now the chances to suffer from characteristic losses in the 30's and 40's of ones life are very slim. But still, why isn't aging and life expectancy dependant on TL? even now (TL7-8) we start aging seriously at a far later age than in the Dark Ages (TL1-3), but I guess this was omitted for the sake of simplicity. And i don't like the fact that aging goes in 5-year intervals - it doesn't fit too well with the Terms of Service (CT's aging is checked in 4-year intervals IIRC).

Scouts (and non-military personnel?) do not receive Retirement Pay (p.24)? It seems that the Milieu-Zero Imperium had quite a "flexible labor market" (read: good conditions for the employers, life sucks for the employee)... For the Scout it's probably replaced in some cases by a Type-S, but still...

Common Skills (p.26): Grav Craft at TL7 and Computer at TL5? Isn't it a bit too low?

Oh, and I see there IS some effect of TL on Background Skills; but it seems that this effect is only partial, so it probably assumes that the low-TL world has some outside contact.

Equestrian listed as a high-tech skill (p.26)???

And it looks as if T4 characters have far more skills than their CT (even expanded system) counterparts - they recieve 4 skills per term AUTOMATICALLY, which CT characters (using LBB4-7 Expanded systems) have to roll each year to see if they recieve a skill.

The description of each career (pp.29-34) and the "Routine Tasks" are good ideas - they help the player develop a background for her character and get a "feel" for her.

 

[Cymew]

Employee 2-4601,

I think that the change in terminology is a good thing. If the "Injury" determines if you're injured or not, it would be counter-intuitive to call it "Survival" regardless of what it was called in earlier games.

Frankly, I never understood why it wasn't thus renamed in MT as well. It is an optional rule to kill the PC after a failed Survival roll, after all.

 

[Cymew]

Employee 2-4601,

I think that the change in terminology is a good thing. If the "Injury" determines if you're injured or not, it would be counter-intuitive to call it "Survival" regardless of what it was called in earlier games.

Frankly, I never understood why it wasn't thus renamed in MT as well. It is an optional rule to kill the PC after a failed Survival roll, after all.

 

[Golan2072]

About Survival I agree, but what about Re-Enlistment? Why change that?

 

[Golan2072]

About Survival I agree, but what about Re-Enlistment? Why change that?

 

[Golan2072]

Comments about the T4 Skills

The explanation in the beginning of the chapter (p.37) about the reasons why chactaer stats is very well thought-out. Generally speaking, T4's non-game-mechanics writings are better than the game mechanics: alot of these writings I've read so far are excellent, the rules vary from very good to not-so-good.

The distinction between "Skill Clusters" and "Cascade Skills" is an interesting one, though it complicates things a bit for the new player.

On the other hand, the "skill-0" system is a good compromise - while it is less detailed than the one I use for CT (player picks EDU/2 - rounded down - skill-0's at CharGen), it is very easy to use; just look at the skill table and see if you could "default" the skill.

Environment Combat (p.42) seems like a great idea - expand the Zero-G Combat skill to underwater situations as well (quite logical, as water is somwtimes used to simulate Zero-G in TL6-8 societies; so people who spend alot of time in groundside "Zero-G" excersizes in water pools would probably get a good "feel" of water).

It is also interesting to note that T4 has split the "Performance" skill into several skills...

 

[Golan2072]

Comments about the T4 Skills

The explanation in the beginning of the chapter (p.37) about the reasons why chactaer stats is very well thought-out. Generally speaking, T4's non-game-mechanics writings are better than the game mechanics: alot of these writings I've read so far are excellent, the rules vary from very good to not-so-good.

The distinction between "Skill Clusters" and "Cascade Skills" is an interesting one, though it complicates things a bit for the new player.

On the other hand, the "skill-0" system is a good compromise - while it is less detailed than the one I use for CT (player picks EDU/2 - rounded down - skill-0's at CharGen), it is very easy to use; just look at the skill table and see if you could "default" the skill.

Environment Combat (p.42) seems like a great idea - expand the Zero-G Combat skill to underwater situations as well (quite logical, as water is somwtimes used to simulate Zero-G in TL6-8 societies; so people who spend alot of time in groundside "Zero-G" excersizes in water pools would probably get a good "feel" of water).

It is also interesting to note that T4 has split the "Performance" skill into several skills...

 

[Golan2072]

Comments about the T4 Task System

First and foremost, I must say that I have a bad gut feeling about this system; the Skill+Characteristic being the Target Number and the die-roll being the difficulty is the reverse from many RPG systems out there, not to mention CT/MT, which might confuse new players.

So, if Skill+Characteristic is the target number, and skills are typically far lower than characteristics, the relative effect of skill are far lower than in CT/MT (were the characteristic either provires a +1 to +3 DM or is divided by four to give a DM).

The fact that Easy tasks require no die roll - unless defaulting, that is - is a good idea that speeds up play.

The mechanism for uncertain tasks (p.50) is interesting, but assumes that the player has a good ability of quickly grasping die probabilities; also, it encourages metagame thinking (that is, players considering die rolls rather than in-game results).

One big disadvantage of the T4 Task system is the fact that it is spread over several pages; a one-page summery (as in MT) would've made it far easier to use (annoying dice-mechanics aside).

 

[Golan2072]

Comments about the T4 Task System

First and foremost, I must say that I have a bad gut feeling about this system; the Skill+Characteristic being the Target Number and the die-roll being the difficulty is the reverse from many RPG systems out there, not to mention CT/MT, which might confuse new players.

So, if Skill+Characteristic is the target number, and skills are typically far lower than characteristics, the relative effect of skill are far lower than in CT/MT (were the characteristic either provires a +1 to +3 DM or is divided by four to give a DM).

The fact that Easy tasks require no die roll - unless defaulting, that is - is a good idea that speeds up play.

The mechanism for uncertain tasks (p.50) is interesting, but assumes that the player has a good ability of quickly grasping die probabilities; also, it encourages metagame thinking (that is, players considering die rolls rather than in-game results).

One big disadvantage of the T4 Task system is the fact that it is spread over several pages; a one-page summery (as in MT) would've made it far easier to use (annoying dice-mechanics aside).

 

[robject]

Also note that, standing by itself as written, the T4 task system hugely favors characteristics over skill levels. Once a character has skill level 1 he can focus on maxing out the characteristic. This is universally seen as a very bad thing.

 

[robject]

Also note that, standing by itself as written, the T4 task system hugely favors characteristics over skill levels. Once a character has skill level 1 he can focus on maxing out the characteristic. This is universally seen as a very bad thing.