How Do We Improve T5?

[ovka]

We'll be together for a week with our families ... he and I are both going to run something.

I would love to be able to put a positive spin on T5. Unfortunately, the MgT rules seem to be closer to the d20/Pathfinder rules that most of the people that will be playing are comfortable with.

If you're interested, Greg Lee's Cirque is out there.

Well, I ordered it, but it didn't come in time.

I was going to run a FASA adventure, because my brother hasn't read any of those, but most seem to be site-based with very little travelling. Instead I converted the CT-TTA characters for use with T5 and will run some scenarios from that. My brother has read parts of it, but it won't really matter. We won't have time to run the whole campaign.

I have come up with my own version of personal combat that I am going to try out. I based it on the d20SRD. If it works out, I'll post it.

My brother has an adventure for MgT from GKG (I think he said it was the first Clement Sector one) that he is going to run using the MgT beta rules. Hopefully we'll all have a good time regardless of the rule set.

So back to the purpose of the original post. How do we move things forward for T5? Is MWM looking for someone to take up some of Don's mantle? I don't profess to be as knowledgeable as Don, but I wouldn't mind helping if it means cleaning up T5 and turning it into a marketable game that attracts new players.

Cheers,

Baron Ovka

 

[kilemall]

I came to Traveller after having played 2 years of D&D/AD&D, and a couple weeks of Star Frontiers (daily M-F 40min sessions).

We never saw a rulebook until I was given one after playing for 3 months. Already hooked on the game, it became my go-to game for 3 years (A status ended by discovering T2K and Robotech).

Why did I stay with it, 30 years ago? Those very pages that turned Kilgs away. It used Real Rocket Science. Guns killed people. Not every world was a shirtsleeve environment.

CT's combination of simple rules and real science was the appeal of CT. And if you cruise the OSR boards, that's still part of CT's appeal.

MT's fans, myself included, prefer it for its elegance - it's not as simple as CT, but the rules intermesh more tightly, and it's almost as simple in the in play stuff as CT.

And it still (largely) used real rocket science.

My experience too.

But I came from a time when we made up our D&D stuff for ourselves, created our own worlds and character classes, and creating such was a clarion call to ref greatness and not something to abhor.

The real horror show was making my first major wargame purchase StarForce. That game was really hard to make heads or tails of, and I needed a gentle Panzerblitz or Tactics II or Microgame entrée.

 

[kilemall]

So back to the purpose of the original post. How do we move things forward for T5? Is MWM looking for someone to take up some of Don's mantle? I don't profess to be as knowledgeable as Don, but I wouldn't mind helping if it means cleaning up T5 and turning it into a marketable game that attracts new players.

Cheers,

Baron Ovka

Likely what is needed here is less a helpmate and more of a hard-nosed editor.

I have not read the T5 rules but 700 pages is all I need to know that we are talking about run-on and a need for brutal elegant simplicity.

 

[mike wightman]

One improvement I would suggest that is dealt with ASAP is to put back into T5 the random encounter tables from CT - the random people, random patron and rumour matrix are critical to running adventures.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I discussed this briefly with Aramis, and that is my thought is that Traveller, as it stands, needs to establish up front to the potential player and casual reader, that it's emphasis is on law enforcement scenarios and geopolitical scenarios as analogs for societal problems we experience today.

Once you do that, and establish that "monsters" and "unknown science / tech" are not part of Traveller's whole zeitgeist, then you can get it back on track and shed a lot of curiosity baggage by potential players whom, once they discover Traveller's emphasis, can move on.

To make the game more presentable (and in this way, playable), I recommend going back to classic character generation, but also add a HERO-ish like system where you can build a character to emphasize or emulate a character who wanted to specialize in some field, and not leave it to the dice to select his life path in terms of creating him.

The rest is gravy.

I stuck with this game thinking it was another scrappy "living on the edge" publication like so much sci-fi from the 1970s because like those other publications it didn't have a lot of gloss in presentation. It was therefore my thinking that this game probably needed some guidance and capital to reshape it so it could gain a bigger following.

I now know better, and having a better understanding of what Traveller actually is, I think I would therefore de-emphasize the tech, other than what's been established, and perhaps put some emphasis on various forms of police procedure, or even on criminal activity in the form of corporate espionage, piracy, and mercenary work for countries/planets under strong corporate influence.

Defining the ton, defining the task roll (combat), and then die modifiers, well organized and easy to understand, is key for this game. One you do that, then the rest can fall into place.

I didn't follow the drama of T5's development, other than adding my two-bits way back when it was first being seriously proposed. I think I also understand a little bit better of why T5 was executed the way it was, but don't have any comment on that other than the hints that I was getting from a couple other BBS members, I think, could have just been told years back. I think that would have avoided a lot of drama.

Just my two bits.

*EDIT*
Get rid of the more advanced labels for more advanced jump drives.
Get rid of whatever invasion from whatever super-race is coming.
Emphasize that you can create whatever realistic world you want for your players with system generation.
No super nor magic tech.

 

[mike wightman]

I couldn't disagree with a post more than this last one - sorry Blue Ghost.

If you read Marc's novel you will find that the monsters are out there.

As to de-emphasis of the technology this was tried with T2300. It was a much lower TL and harder sci-fi setting and it borrowed from popular media of the day (Aliens, Predator etc.).

Which has the bigger following Traveller or 2300AD?

I would recommend you go read the threads by Creativehum - especially his blog - to gain a real insight into what CT was all about.

T5 on the other hand is very much Travller The MWM era - the rules describe the setting that Marc has written.

Get rid of the more advanced labels for more advanced jump drives.

Already deleted from MTU - in MTU advanced jump engines are capable of 1-36 parsec jumps using just the 10% fuel a regular jump 1 drive would use.

Get rid of whatever invasion from whatever super-race is coming.

Easily done - reality manipulation.

Emphasize that you can create whatever realistic world you want for your players with system generation.

Define realistic? We have very limited data about what is really possible out there, and strange worlds are discovered more and more often which require the real world rules to be re-written.

No super nor magic tech.

Artificial gravity and inertial compensation are magic technology, so is damper technology, so is meson technology - what do you keep?

 

[Blue Ghost]

I should have said tech that goes beyond allowing mere functionality of what we know as the Traveller game. I'm sorry you disagree with most of my post. Oh well.

It just strikes me that Traveller is more of a cop-simulator gussied up as sci-fi, and not really a sci-fi game as I believed it was, in spite of all of its trappings. That's what I was trying to get at, and I guess I should have said so more plainly.

 

[mike wightman]

I just don't see it as a cop-simulator.

One of the things that has held my interest in Traveller over the years is the unlimited technology - providing it is coherent within the setting science and doesn't suffer from Star Trek technobabble of the week.

I can run a game based on any TL I want to explore.

 

[aramis]

I just don't see it as a cop-simulator.

Neither, for that matter, do I.

Law enforcement as villain, yes. It's almost a trope of Traveller that cops are a constant source of encounters, and are often hostile, and frequently corrupt.

I do see Corrupt Cops and Surveilance Societies as a part of the trope-set of Traveller.

 

[Blue Ghost]

To stay on topic; Avery doesn't like time travel and a slew of other classic sci-fi tropes, from what I understand, and, as per 2300, wants to keep Traveller predominantly hard-science with a few exceptions.

Based on my three decades with the game, all the games and scenarios that were published had to deal with aspects of law enforcement. So that's how I came up with my ... (▮▮▮▮▮▮n this lap top....keeps adjusting the text size) ... conclusion.

I think if the game sheds a pretense of trying to be the GURPS like game engine for all sci-fi, and sticks with its established universe and set of ... (I'm ready to toss this lap top out the motel window... ) scenarios extracted from real world examples, then I think its own self consistency, playability, and niche will finally fall into place.

Cut down on the super-tech (or trash it), establish Traveller's emphasis (crime fighting and international relations), and then present the background material as the setting, emphasizing the different periods (CT, Virus, MT Rebellion and so forth).

I think T5 reworked that way would work miracles for itself, attract the audience it's always wanted to, and guys like me can remain casual fans and not bang our heads to improve on something that has had some issues in the past. QED.

Just my two bits.

 

[aramis]

2300 is a separate design. Using it as justification for the main Traveller stem is dubious at best.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Eh, I don't know, maybe. I think Traveller's aim was to get young minds to game out real world conflicts in a space setting. If you bracket that philosophy with basic rules and the current setting, then Traveller can maintain the posture it's had since coming onto the scene in the 1970s.

But that's just my opinion.

 

[aramis]

Eh, I don't know, maybe. I think Traveller's aim was to get young minds to game out real world conflicts in a space setting. If you bracket that philosophy with basic rules and the current setting, then Traveller can maintain the posture it's had since coming onto the scene in the 1970s.

But that's just my opinion.

Then perhaps you should listen to those who have a more clear view...

a favorite theme of mine: grey area ethics.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Well okay, but then why exclude things like time travel? I mean someone or group of people travelling forward or backwards in time and taking advantage of history strikes me as being the ultimate in grey area ethics.

 

[aramis]

Well okay, but then why exclude things like time travel? I mean someone or group of people travelling forward or backwards in time and taking advantage of history strikes me as being the ultimate in grey area ethics.

Aside from the obvious that Time Travel isn't sci-fi, but historic fiction?
That it barely works in sci fi where the author has control over the variables (unlike an RPG)?
That the future history isn't robust enough to run time travel as a main theme?

And travel through time IS a theme of Traveller... in the usual =ONE WAY⇒ manner, tho' some times on fast forward. In fact, it's one of the subthemes in Agent.

Also, time travel negates the need for gray areas in Ethics... A time traveller, unless prevented by other means, can go remake the decision, and then if it turns out worse, go back and fix it different. It turns gray area ethics into trial and error with zero consequences other than aging of the time-agent.

Time Travel in RPGs has NEVER been popular. A handful of 3rd string games. Commercial failures. The only commercial success is the Dr. Who RPG currently. And it's less about the time travel than about the other aspects.

 

[Blue Ghost]

When I think of The Argon Gambit, Mission on Mithril, the Spanish Galleon seed in the Earth issue of JTAS, Night of Conquest, and everything else, to me it seemed like a lot of scenarios were crime dramas in a space setting. And I think that's perhaps where the gray ethics are at their best; temptation and so forth.

Like I said, I think it would help T5 a tremendous amount to establish that upfront. Then you don't have morons like me wondering why there's no article or supplement discussing porting of some movie or film to the rules, and why T5 is setup for a certain kind of game scheme.

 

[Blue Ghost]

p.s. on time travel, I'm not a huge fan of it other than Dr. Who, and I wouldn't know how to set up a session that included it, but it seemed like the Doc Who people put a limit on traversing time; how, how often, and from when to when. Not that I want to see that for Traveller... but, well, you know.

 

[aramis]

p.s. on time travel, I'm not a huge fan of it other than Dr. Who, and I wouldn't know how to set up a session that included it, but it seemed like the Doc Who people put a limit on traversing time; how, how often, and from when to when. Not that I want to see that for Traveller... but, well, you know.

Very few can do it well.
If not done well, it totally sucks.

Don't publicly wish for things that would usually suck - it merely makes one unpopular and ignored.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Very few can do it well.
If not done well, it totally sucks.

Don't publicly wish for things that would usually suck - it merely makes one unpopular and ignored.

Well, I wouldn't want that.

Maybe another way of improving T5 is to separate the rules from the official background, and as per the LBBs, put the background into another volume; players guide, Ref's guide and some kind of volume with official history and state of the Imperium.

Maybe another starter version, or lite version in pamphlet form.

 

[JFGarber]

Don't publicly wish for things that would usually suck - it merely makes one unpopular and ignored.

There are lots of ways to become unpopular and ignored.