Mongoose Mercenary

[Border Reiver]

Ok it arrived today and this is very much some initial impressions.

The book starts with some new career options from Regular Service options like Wet Navy and Airforce (and also some expanded mishap and event tables) to new Mercenary Careers like Warmonger and Guerilla. Not tried them out yet nor gone into much depth but it all seems fairly sound.

New skills and specialities are added (natch).

A large section on Mercenary Tickets and running a merc unit. This looks good. A lot of influence from Battletech/Mechwarrior's Mercennaries Handbook here as well as other sources. Nice work.

Some interesting additions to the combat rules including kill shots as well as a mass combat system that on first inspection looks passable.

New weapons and equipment. Looked interesting but I can see this upsetting both Old Traveller Grognards and Players with Actual Military Experience. Here is a prime example that got me. In the Heavy Weapons section is a Frag Gun? On reading you discover that this is actually an artillery piece designed to fire large caliber shells that will explode above the ground creating an airburst. WTF? Is that all it does? Not very flexible, not exactly King of the Battlefield. Where are the quick and delay options for digging out bunkers or dealing with armour, bomblets, smoke, illumination. Oh well. But there is more. How do these airburst shells work? They detonate when they reach a specific falling velocity. <insert blasphemous curse of choice>! Not to mention that most high angle fire will achieve terminal velocity well before they hit the ground and that firing elevations, weather, shell charge and gun muzzle velocity variance will make fuse calculations the job of a Kray (oh and let's add MRSI to the mix too). A simple wiki inspection will give you a wide range of methods for proximity fusing from time delay to more modern radar fuses, hell for the OTU we could add Gravitic Sensors, why not.

And that's just one weapon. No SMG either.

I'm sure on further reading I'll get over my gunnery humpf and enjoy it but each time I look at a new weapon I just cringe. Really poor work.

I'll give it an initial 6/10

 

[Vile]

Well, it's a waste of several pages, but I'll continue to use my Striker-BRP weapons conversions, anyway. However, what about that character generation stuff? Are these guys going to be just different, but not better than, TMB characters? That's what I hope for, and what I wished CT had done. I want these books to expand the TMB, not make it obsolete.

 

[Border Reiver]

Yup, that's what they are. These are additional careers to add to your choices from the corebook. There are also the expanded event and mishap charts for the Marine and Army careers which improve the chargen experience but don't actually make the characters bigger, faster, stronger etc.

But the equipment really is starting to annoy, especially the heavy weapons but some of the other stuff too. I think someone at Mongoose is picturing Battledress as either some kind of Mecha or like the Ape suits from there Starship Troopers game. Ok so I can see how something like that can be armed with a howitzer fed by a 20 round belt but not battledress. So call it something different from "Artillery Battledress."

 

[Vile]

Oh dear on the gear front, then. I hope they don't innovate too much with High Guard in that case.

Still, I'm glad to see that at least they're not repeating one of the biggest mistakes of CT with the advanced character generation.

 

[Border Reiver]

I almost wish I'd stopped before I hit the equipment pages. :rofl:

There is more good than bad here but the bad is very bad.

 

[Vargas]

Still, I'm glad to see that at least they're not repeating one of the biggest mistakes of CT with the advanced character generation.

Unless you consider advanced chargen to be a feature and not a bug.

 

[jimg]

I read through a few sections and find myself somewhat disappointed with MGT:Mercenary.


On the upside:

• I like the expanded event and mishap tables for military careers, this should help cutdown on the duplication that I've seen with the basic tables.
  
• I like that they char gen gives more options but doesn't produce overpowered characters like CT:Mercenary did.
  
• I like the suggestions for making the new skills available to core book careers.
  
• The mercenary ticket rules seem interesting, but I haven't had a chance to really dig into them yet.

The downside:

• Some truly atrocious art... granted I paid for the rules, not for the art. But this stuff makes the whole project seem amateurish.
  
• The equipment section leaves me completely cold. Border Reiver has already covered some of it, but generally, it's just bad.
  
• In general, the editing/writing feel weak. I know this is a vague complaint, but I don't really want to dig through the text to find examples.
  
• Some of the career tables just seem wrong. In the core book careers, the general pattern was the higher the survival roll, the lower the advancement roll. This made perfect sense to me... the player has to balance risk versus rewards. However, a many of the new careers completely break that pattern, providing higher risks for fewer rewards.

I will use the book, but I'm going to have to house rule a bunch of stuff to make it work for me, and that makes me sad for a new product.

 

[atpollard]

Unless you consider advanced chargen to be a feature and not a bug.

Even if you like Advanced Chargen, then Basic Chargen is broken (too few skills per term). It is more an issue of the imbalance between Basic and Advanced Chargen in CT that was 'broken'. MegaTraveller managed to balance them out - generating about the same number of skills either way.

Congratulations to Mongoose Traveller for maintaining the balance between the Core and the Add-Ons.

 

[VT1099ace]

maybe waiting for a second print would fix some problems?

 

[Vargas]

Even if you like Advanced Chargen, then Basic Chargen is broken (too few skills per term). It is more an issue of the imbalance between Basic and Advanced Chargen in CT that was 'broken'. MegaTraveller managed to balance them out - generating about the same number of skills either way.

I guess I'm hung up on the word "broken" because 1) both approaches works just fine when all characters are gen'ed using the same system and 2) I've never viewed Advanced and Basic as being meant to be fully compatible anyway.

My solution in the old days, developed really for those players working from Supplement 4, was to simply allow twice as many skills per term for characters not developed using the Advanced rules.

 

[Supplement Four]

New weapons and equipment. Looked interesting but I can see this upsetting both Old Traveller Grognards and Players with Actual Military Experience. Here is a prime example that got me. In the Heavy Weapons section is a Frag Gun? On reading you discover that this is actually an artillery piece designed to fire large caliber shells that will explode above the ground creating an airburst. WTF? Is that all it does? Not very flexible, not exactly King of the Battlefield. Where are the quick and delay options for digging out bunkers or dealing with armour, bomblets, smoke, illumination. Oh well. But there is more. How do these airburst shells work? They detonate when they reach a specific falling velocity. <insert blasphemous curse of choice>! Not to mention that most high angle fire will achieve terminal velocity well before they hit the ground and that firing elevations, weather, shell charge and gun muzzle velocity variance will make fuse calculations the job of a Kray (oh and let's add MRSI to the mix too). A simple wiki inspection will give you a wide range of methods for proximity fusing from time delay to more modern radar fuses, hell for the OTU we could add Gravitic Sensors, why not.

Wow.

I don't have the words...

Except to say that the people that are making MGT Mongoose's best selling title ever should flat out demand better than this.

As for me, it's just another example of the mediocre-ness evident in Mongoose Traveller since the play test. MGT continues to fall short of expectations.

 

[Supplement Four]

Still, I'm glad to see that at least they're not repeating one of the biggest mistakes of CT with the advanced character generation.

I usually see that line of thought accepted by people who do not enforce the Hard Survival Rule.

Sure, advanced chargen in CT produces characters with more skills. It's a mathematical fact. But, CT advanced chargen characters also die more often. There's a butt-load more Survival throws to pass--you're not just doing it once per four years as you are in Basic chargen.

If you, as GM, don't make your characters die when they blow a Surival Throw, then it is you who are making the Advanced and Basic chargen systems in CT unbalanced.

They're quite balanced if you throw in the chicken factor some players will have and enforce death with blown survival throws.

 

[whartung]

maybe waiting for a second print would fix some problems?

Asking immediately for a second printing seems to point to deeper problems, frankly.

I mean, it's one thing when you look at FF&S2 where the whole thing was practically ruined on its first printing. But the bulk of that WAS from printing and production errors, rather than actually content errors. (Mind, I'm not excusing them.) FF&S2 was a book that needed to be pulled and reprinted immediately, but not necessarily rewritten. I admit to be immediately put off by it, and I threw it in a box never to see it again, but according to some the actual CONTENT of FF&S2 is actually pretty good. It's just horribly presented.

But the issues mentioned so far talk about content, a far more serious problem IMHO.

"Rewriting" key sections and replacing art wholesale is not a "printing" issue.

But we'll have to wait for a more thorough study and review of the book.

 

[jimg]

I usually see that line of thought accepted by people who do not enforce the Hard Survival Rule.

Sure, advanced chargen in CT produces characters with more skills. It's a mathematical fact. But, CT advanced chargen characters also die more often. There's a butt-load more Survival throws to pass--you're not just doing it once per four years as you are in Basic chargen.

If you, as GM, don't make your characters die when they blow a Surival Throw, then it is you who are making the Advanced and Basic chargen systems in CT unbalanced.

They're quite balanced if you throw in the chicken factor some players will have and enforce death with blown survival throws.

My experience with the Hard Survival Rule was that the "chicken factor" never came into play.

My players were not attached to their randomly rolled characters until after char gen was complete. They would consistantly take risky careers and push them until they either reached the rank/skill set they wanted or they died. If they died it was "oh well, I'll try again." One guy kept rolling up and killing off characters for hours. When he was done, he had his combat monster, and everyone else was tired of the process.

I'll grant this was decades ago with power hungry players and a weak GM, but the survival rolls by themselves were not a significant balancing factor.

 

[Supplement Four]

I'll grant this was decades ago with power hungry players and a weak GM, but the survival rolls by themselves were not a significant balancing factor.

They should be. I've looked at several of them statistically.

 

[Allensh]

My copy is not here yet and I will comment more when it is, but I want to post this reminder:

Mercenary, as with all black-cover MGT products, is not solely for the OTU. There will very likely be things in these books that OTU referees will not want to use. Mongoose intends to separate the Traveller RULES from the Traveller SETTING to make those rules generic for use in any sci-fi setting. In some respects they probably did not go far enough with this in the core book (although I happen to like the balance there). OTU products will be clearly labelled as such (often by the use of cover art ala Spinward Marches).

Again..I have not seen the book. The fact that the SMG thing apparently was not addressed does annoy me slightly (but then I believe the "autopistol" actually is a compact SMG), and some of the stuff would sound off for the OTU...but I know it isn't meant for that.

Maybe Avenger will give us an update of their Guns, Gadgets and Gear book for MGT, or perhaps we can get Mongoose to put out an Imperial Equipment Guide.

Allen

 

[Supplement Four]

I really wish that at least this had been true, but sadly it was not.

That's not very nice.

I used to exclusively use the 'Hard Survival Rule' but found that the rule created STRONGER characters. Any time I rolled a character with characteristics I was not happy with I would put the character in the most dangerous career and keep them there till they died. Not happy with the random skills you have - kill off the character. Didn't get that commission you wanted - character reenlists till they die. Next.

I can certainly see that happening, but if you've got players who are going to abuse the system like that, you might want to enforce some type of house rule with an incentive to complete a character without getting him killed. You might try something like allowing 2-3 tries at a character, and if that doesn't get it, then a cumulative -1 to a random stat starts to appear. The longer they go, the less effect each character will be.

I've never had to do that, but then again, I'm used to players trying to keep alive any character they roll up. A couple of campaigns ago (this is no lie), I had a player roll physical stats of 234. The player did not try to get the character killed, and, instead, ended up making an excellent character that we all remember (guy ended up having Medical-4).

He wasn't a surgeon, but he was a hell of a memorable character, the way the player played him. You'll find some write-ups about him on Freelance Traveller. The character's name: Too Niemerani.

It just depends on your players, I supposed.

But, if I didn't have the role players that I have, I'd sure invent some incentive to stick with a character as rolled rather than trying to get him killed. That's sure not in the spirit of the game.

I have no problem with people voicing positive or negative opinions, but, to me, talking extremely negatively about something someone does not own is just plain [blank]. I'll let people fill in the blank.

You seem to have a problem with my negative opinion of MGT.

 

[Supplement Four]

My copy is not here yet and I will comment more when it is, but I want to post this reminder:

Mercenary, as with all black-cover MGT products, is not solely for the OTU. There will very likely be things in these books that OTU referees will not want to use. Mongoose intends to separate the Traveller RULES from the Traveller SETTING to make those rules generic for use in any sci-fi setting.

I will post this reminder, too:

Classic Traveller was not married to the OTU either. In fact, when CT was first published, there was no OTU. Classic Traveller was published as a generic set of rules, not unlike GURPS, to play any type of science fiction gaming.

Instead of GURPS, a better example would be Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes...a generic set of rules for running spy and action type games in no specific universe.

Yet, as the OTU developed, it used ALL of the generic rules, and Traveller continued to be developed using all of the rules, not excluding stuff.

 

[jimg]

They should be. I've looked at several of them statistically.

They were not, because the player's did not "chicken out" to keep their character alive. They re-rolled until they got what they wanted.

Other than wasted time, the player has no penalty for having the character die in char gen.

So, suppose there is only a 10% chance of surviving 5 terms in a given career. That doesn't mean that only 10% of players who choose that career will have a 5 term veteran, it just means that a given player may have to have an average of 9 characters die before they get their character.

 

[jimg]

If you, as GM, don't make your characters die when they blow a Surival Throw, then it is you who are making the Advanced and Basic chargen systems in CT unbalanced.

I can certainly see that happening, but if you've got players who are going to abuse the system like that, you might want to enforce some type of house rule with an incentive to complete a character without getting him killed. You might try something like allowing 2-3 tries at a character, and if that doesn't get it, then a cumulative -1 to a random stat starts to appear. The longer they go, the less effect each character will be.

The point of my argument was that, contrary to your first statement, the survival roll is not sufficient to balance the character generation systems.

House rules can address the issues and good players can certainly work around them, but the systems are unbalanced as written.