New to Travaller and looking for some suggestions...

[Pyro-Tech]

Hello to everyone!

I'm new to travaller...I picked it up to help suplement a different sci-fi game (I run a sci-fi LARP using nWoD rules) but was in desperate need for one thing....a good ship system!

I found that in travaller and found that little tweaking was needed with the ship construction itself, just how the data was interpreted.

One thing that's kinda crashing though is how expensive ships are.

I love travaller and plan on getting a tabletop game together to actually play it...but how are PC's really supposed to afford any of these ships unless it's leased to them in their line of work or it's stolen?

So my main thing here is this; anyone got some suggestions for lowering costs that don't break the ship construction system? I'm mainly looking for the small craft and lower-end of the middle class of ships to become cheaper while the larger and (obviously) caps stay expensive where the players would need to really work towards them if they ever really became obtainable.

Second, has anyone done a good system for shields? I know High Guard has the black globe generators, but it's not exactly what i was really looking for.


Third, anything good software for mapping and putting together travalelr ships specifically? I have Campaign Cartographer 3 and Fractical Mapper 8 and know I can do deckplans in them...just didn't know if there was anything more specific.

Thanks for any help and I look forward to browsing around in these forums. Travaller is a game I always heard about but never really jumped into. Looking forward to it

 

[Spinward Scout]

...but how are PC's really supposed to afford any of these ships unless it's leased to them in their line of work or it's stolen?

Used ships selling for between 1% and 25% of the original Credits. Serenity wasn't new when Malcolm Reynolds bought it.

Make it a custom or common occurance for people In Your Traveller Universe (refered to as IYTU) to gamble for starships. The Millenium Falcon was 'won' by Han Solo.

A gift of a starship from an extremely rich relative or friend - or a PC is given the ship in someone's Will.

A Detached Scout is basically free.

There's a bunch of ways to get around that starship price tag.

Hope that helps

EDIT: forgot which forum I was in

 

[Whipsnade]

So my main thing here is this; anyone got some suggestions for lowering costs that don't break the ship construction system?

Pyro-Tech,

Earning, gaining, or otherwise getting a ship has been central to Traveller since it's introduction in 1977. It's the primary "hook" built into the game, the primary way GMs can control the players, so there are several ways GMs can handle the issue:

Ignore It: Traveller adventures need not be ship-focused or ship-centric and players can be involved in a myriad of activities which only involve ships on the edges.

Players as Hirelings: The players are simply hired to man a ship by a patron. In the Subsidized Merchant version of this, the players fly a specified route for a fixed period and then are allowed to use the ship as they see fit for another specified period.

Mortgages: This is the "classic" solution. The players "own" the ship as long as they continue paying the mortgage. You can juggle the amount of the mortgage by juggling how long the mortgage as been paid and/or by juggling how old the ship is. Drop the price and give them a clapped out tub that is kept flying with increasing amounts of bubble gum and baling wire.

Ignore It Again: Just give you players a ship. This will remove a big chunk of your control as a GM over the players.

Second, has anyone done a good system for shields? I know High Guard has the black globe generators, but it's not exactly what i was really looking for.

Strictly speaking, shields aren't Traveller and the black globe isn't like anything you've seen on Star Trek, Stargate, or any other sci-fi show. What's more, giving the players access to a black globe without also imposing some other sort of GM control such as the players being active duty military is a recipe for disaster.

Traveller plays differently than d20. It's been more "Nitty-gritty" than "Heroic-cinematic" from the first. Player-characters in Traveller are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, not extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances of first person shooter games, d20, or even GURPS.

Running a Traveller game will be fun for group and part of that fun will come from the game being different from the usual RPGs they've played.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Pyro-Tech]

Thanks for the suggestions so far....right now I'm looking at different things as far as "used" or something in the setting to show an underpriced ship.

As for now, this isn't really Traveller I'm running. I'm using the ship system in a seperate game. Thus the shield question....I know shields don't really "fit" right with the Travelelr RPG (at least in the sense we think of shields from star trek and star wars) and the black globe is pretty crazy. Just that was the closest I found so far.

Right at the top I had said I was using it differently.....so this would be IMTU then *laugh*

Right now I guess just simply either doing the used idea, or just simply discount all prices by a set percent would be my best bet. The reason I'm having to deal with this is primarily the fact that the game isn't centered around ships, but they do help in a few scenario's.

I'll be looking around at some stuff on here still but so far that is what I have come up with and seems to be the thought from other sites/thread's I have read.

Still open to idea's.

And since it was brought up, how do firefly ships compare to Travaller ships? The firefly class ship from same named series was kinda the ship size i was hoping for to work out for players to have access to.

 

[Spinward Scout]

One of the types of shields that might be easy is the 'energize hull plating' from Star Trek: Enterprise. Then you treat the shields as a strengthening of the hull armor or increased hull integrity. Probably one of the more realistic shields, too.

And since it was brought up, how do firefly ships compare to Travaller ships? The firefly class ship from same named series was kinda the ship size i was hoping for to work out for players to have access to.

I think Serenity herself was roughly equivalent to a Traveller Subsidised Merchant.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Characters: Ordinary people with ordinary gear encountering extra-ordinary circumstances and living long enough to profit from it, or at least break even (which sometimes comes down to simple survival).

Ships: There are a few ways to make it work for the 'average' Traveller group. (1) Assign a scout vessel to the highest-ranking scout character in the group; (2) Assign a merchant vessel to the highest-ranking Merchant character in the group; (3) Assign a lab vessel to the highest-ranking Scientist character in the group; (4) Assign a safari ship to the character with the highest SOC attribute of 12 or greater. Note that any of these assignments comes with a catch - the 'Assignment' places the vessel and its crew under the authority of (1) the IISS, (2) a Merchant Cartel, (3) a University or Research Center, or (4) a Noble Family (automatic patrons!). At any time the actual 'owners' of the ship may have a special assignment for that ship and crew, one which may involve shooting and/or getting shot at by criminal elements, mercenary companies, military units, coursair groups, bug-eyed aliens, and/or law enforcement personnel.

Worlds: Stick to the rules until you know them well enough to 'fudge' a few stats in the UWP and still retain plausible deniability for how they got that way.

General: Don't try too hard to shoehorn your favorite video game, movie, book, or television series into the Traveller milieu. A few recognizable features here and there add to the Science-Fiction ambiance, but a wholesale appropriation of any popular franchise with "Star-" in its title will devolve Traveller into something other than Traveller, except in name only.

 

[Britti_Lover]

Sandcasters in Traveller do some of the things shields do in other SF universes. Especially if they are held in place with an electromagnetic bottle.

Now, to get a ship cheap, used is always good, long morgages good too. OR - robotic manufacturing of a standard model in the thousands would drive prices down (think Model A).

My Traveller game:

http://www.playbyweb.com/fire1.php?_b=15373

My 2300AD/Cyberpunk game:

http://www.playbyweb.com/mario1.php?_b=15445

 

[sabredog]

I almost always give the players a ship, or at least the chance to win one through some major adventure. The ship isn't the best, but if nobody rolled a scoutship or Free Trader on the benefits table then I give them something along those lines to get them going.

They can trade up later (often the ship may belong to a patron who hired the players and gets the ship back, or parleys the title to it in exchange for the players' services depending on what needs doing), and there are plenty of chances for that if they can come up with some scheme to strike it rich enough. My current group has made enough to actually build a ship from the ground up - happened only once before in 3o+ years of running this game and that ship was called "Heart's Desire"...oh, what fine adventure memories come with that name!

But you should always make the players earn it...however they get ownership they ought to bleed a little into the paint to make it their own.

 

[Shonner]

I love travaller and plan on getting a tabletop game together to actually play it...but how are PC's really supposed to afford any of these ships unless it's leased to them in their line of work or it's stolen?

That was like a kick to the gut when I noticed this too about the game when I was 17 years old and didn't have a job. It was just assumed that everyone had rocketships, or at least jetpacks in the 57th century. Star Trek's "we don't use money anymore to buy things" economy spoiled my generation.

 

[Fox's Master]

Traveller and Serenity

Pyro-Tech,

I'm currently running two completely different campaigns ~ one a Traveller capaign in which my friend of 25+ years plays a former agent/former thief, who gets tangled-up with a pilot and engineer who are attempting to make ends meet after the one of the syndicate members dies in a shootout. Moving from one place to another shuttling cargo, the former agent/thief is a fairly accomplished (Level: 2 Barter) individual in the area of Trade. To that end, it's a match made in paradise. The pilot NPC can keep flying as long as Dominic Foxx (hence my call-sign) keeps them 'out of the red.' Since the costs of ships proved beyond financial comprehension against the economic backdrop, I've reduced the overall cost by 95% - it remains completely playable.

On the other side, I'm running a Serenity campaign, in which a husband and wife operate a Firefly-class ship, attempting to eek out a living on the Border and Rim worlds. The price-point is a bit more realistic, and where the mortgage doesn't get them from time-to-time, the maintenance costs have an adverse effect.

Overall, as others have pointed out, Traveller is like no other game. Yes, it's about ordinary people in extraordinary events ~ but as I like to point out, if I want ordinary people, I don't play an RPG.

FM

 

[Jame]

One thing that's kinda crashing though is how expensive ships are.

My suggestion would be to lower the overall price of ships to between 10% and 50%.

Welcome to the forum; stay, enjoy yourself and have fun!

 

[aramis]

comparing prices (using Cr1=$5), wet naval vessels come out to the same megacredits range for ships in the "adventure class" sizes covered in CT Bk2 & MGT. Even used, they're still frightful expensive... so lowering the relative costs of ships isn't "realistic"... more fun, perhaps, but not realistic.

 

[robject]

Regarding shields. The only Traveller thing that is shield-like is the White Globe, which, unlike the black variety, allows the ship to maneuver, fire weapons, use sensors, and whatnot. It's extremely high tech in Traveller, but I don't see why you can't just port something like that into YTU and call it "typical". Use the black globe's volume and power requirements and cost.

Alternately, you can add-on a different sort of rule to High Guard that allows energy armor. Use the armor rules and prices but require it to hook up to the power plant.

So there's two options.

 

[sabredog]

Andy Slack wrote an article on a shield for Traveller back in the old days. They worked to the effect that they absorbed hits from all weapons at a one point to one hit ratio until all the points are used up and then they "burned out". I don't remember if that meant they couldn't be recharged or just replaced (I'd argue that they could recharge but it would take so long that they were used up for the duration of that combat).

They were like 100K Credits, and .1 or .5 tons per point (I can't remember). The only reason I remember them at all was that I used them long ago for a while to add variety with some advanced alien race. Eventually they stopped working or something like that and the players just yanked them out and sold them to some Megacorp - never to appear again.

BTW: ya know, bonded superdense sounds like the hull plating thing: it's just regular superdense until the power is diverted to it to strengthen the molecular bonds. Like "polarizing" the hull plates on Star Trek. I don't know the values for it for a ship, though, but I think that was covered in MT?