MGT Only: High Guard

[Olschoolgamer]

Hello,

Does MGP High Guard add much to the game?
I understand it is all about the ships in space but is the new ship design rules such that a non-gearhead could use them?
Does MGP High Guard make you want to design new ships?
I am not a big fan of the CT High Guard as the design sequence made my head hurt so I only used the CT LBB design rules.
Thanx for your feedback.

 

[aramis]

Hello,

Does MGP High Guard add much to the game?

Yes - New weapons, new defenses, small craft and capital ship design...

I understand it is all about the ships in space but is the new ship design rules such that a non-gearhead could use them?

No. I'm a grognard and gearhead, and have never made sense of the capital ship design sequences in MGT1E HG. And yet, for me, CT Bk 2, CT Bk 5, T20, and MT all made perfect sense.

Does MGP High Guard make you want to design new ships?

For me, kind of

I am not a big fan of the CT High Guard as the design sequence made my head hurt so I only used the CT LBB design rules.

Then MGT HG may be worse for you

Thanx for your feedback.

You're welcome.

 

[Condottiere]

There's supposedly a new edition in the works, so you want to keep your gun powder and paypal account dry.

 

[Brandon C]

I picked up MgT HG a couple of weeks ago, so I might be able to help.

Does MGP High Guard add much to the game?

In general, yes.

The advanced character rules are a bit wonky in places. For example, the Imperial Navy produces doctors more by luck than design and intelligence operatives are a minimum of 34 years old, even for first time field operatives. I think the minimum terms prerequisites are probably best replaced with minimum rank prerequisites (so a character who has gotten lucky and been promoted quickly doesn't have to wait three terms before he can enter Command).

I have not read much of the new starship combat rules (mostly on handling the hundreds of weapons of a capital ship and vector-based movement) and adventuring while still in the navy.

I understand it is all about the ships in space but is the new ship design rules such that a non-gearhead could use them?

]

This depends on how easy you find the starship design rules in the core rules. The Spacecraft Options chapter mostly just adds more options, but isn't too complicated. The chapter on small craft is really just a smaller-scale version of the regular starship design system. The capital ship designs system is mre gearheaded than the core rules and unfortunately applies to ships as small as 2,001 tons.

Does MGP High Guard make you want to design new ships?

I got it because I wanted to design small craft and ships larger than 2,000 tons

I am not a big fan of the CT High Guard as the design sequence made my head hurt so I only used the CT LBB design rules.

You can probably use the small craft design rules without needing aspirin. The additional starship options are mostly easy to use, although you might find the munitions types for missiles, torpedoes and railguns to be overkill (you can probably just stick with the standard warhead for each type). The capital ship rules ... well, I think they are more complicated than they need to be (with ships being divided into sections and making up hit locations tables specific for each design). It reinforces my small ship universe mindset and makes me prefer to just extend the hull and drives tables in the core rules up to 6,000 tons.

 

[Adam Dray]

What do people actually do with large ships in Traveller play? What kind of campaigns use them regularly?

 

[Brandon C]

What do people actually do with large ships in Traveller play? What kind of campaigns use them regularly?

My impression has always been that you just play an alternative to Star Fleet Battles

(that is, they are for wargaming, not roleplaying)

 

[Adam Dray]

Yeah, that was my impression, too.

 

[aramis]

What do people actually do with large ships in Traveller play? What kind of campaigns use them regularly?

I've run Trek using MegaTraveller in the past. It's actually pretty decent.

Big ships, you tend to either
1) play the command staff
or
2) use them mostly as set dressing.

That said, they're mostly there for universe building purposes - they can and will exist if the physical needs for a ship of that size and speed can be met with the materials. Given that, being able to build them in the system makes them consistent, even if all they are is a seldom encountered "boogieman" for your less scrupulous PCs to be worried about.

 

[nobby-w]

What do people actually do with large ships in Traveller play? What kind of campaigns use them regularly?

Practically, large ships aren't a lot of use for role playing, as you need an infeasibly large number of NPCs to make up the crew of a capital ship. The only things I can think of are:

• Your players are a party of red-shirts going on some sort of away mission and don't actually spend a lot of time on the ship.
  
• Your players are playing naval battles (i.e. Trillion Credit Squadron).
  
• Your party is exploring a derelict starship.
  
• You're having some sort of boarding action and your players are involved in the battle. This has the same caveats as any other combat-heavy Traveller game - be prepared to spend a lot of time rolling up new characters.

I don't see capital ships as being of much interest in a straightforward adventuring setting and I don't think I've ever seen any reference to doing a long-running campaign based on one. Not to say that it hasn't been done, but I suspect that sort of setting would be in the minority.