OK. Sell Mongoose Traveller to me...

[IronCzar]

I get the distinct impression that Mongoose Traveller is not popular on these boards. That's unfortunate, as I consider this place THE place to go for Traveller discussion of all types.

Nevertheless, I will go against the grain - I think that Mongoose Traveller is the definitive edition of the rules, and the closest thing to a 'perfect' Traveller ruleset that we are likely to see.

I say this, primarily, because as fond as I am of Traveller, every single edition contains some rules subsystem that is either broken or that I find unacceptable in some way or another. Conversely, every edition has something in it that stands out as excellent against the equivalents in other editions. Mongoose Traveller strikes the best balance.

If I were running CT, for example, I would want to swap out the combat system, with someting like AHL or Snapshot. And I'd miss the extra options from T4 character creation that I wouldn't have in CT. If I were running T4, I would need some alternate core resolution mechanic to replace the dreadful half-die one in that edition, and I'd miss the much better vehicle/ship design systems of MT. Although not every subsystem in Mongoose Traveller are the best examples among all the verious editions, all of them are above acceptable - I am happy with all of the moving parts. For me, that means that it has the best balance.

It's not perfect, but as we know, no system is. But for me it comes closest to the ideal, with the added benefit of having better compatibility with CT material than a couple other versions do. The complexity level is just about perfect; nice and simple in play, but with enough real meat in the subsystems to keep me busy for ages.

I do, however, recommend the Pocket Edition, at least if you're willing to deal with the pretty small type, because it replicates the CT form factor pretty well and also incoroprates the errata. The full-sized book has now seen 4 printings, only the last of which does this latter. It's also very cheap - it's a rarity to get a complete RPG for $19.95 these days.

I am just starting to look at the supplements, the Spinward Marches book in particular, so no opinion of those just yet.

 

[rust]

Although not every subsystem in Mongoose Traveller are the best examples among all the verious editions, all of them are above acceptable - I am happy with all of the moving parts. For me, that means that it has the best balance.

This is how I see it, too.

True, I use only some of MGT's subsystems for my own BRP-Traveller-Mix sy-
stem, but those subsystems (character generation, ship building, trade sys-
tem ...) are among the best of all the versions, at least for my purposes and
in my opinion.

I very much hope that the world building system in Scout and the vehicle
building system that is already "under construction" are equally good, and
I am looking forward to new ideas from the Babylon 5 supplement as well
as the various interesting third party publications, from Flynn's Guide to Ro-
bots to Career Book 2 (Career Book 1 was perfect for my setting) to new
adventures like Type S or One Crowded Hour.

All in all, since MGT began to be published, the interesting and useful mate-
rial available for my setting and campaign has literally multiplied, and a look
at the various announced publications shows that this will continue for qui-
te a while at least, enabling me to constantly enrich my homegrown setting
and campaign with new and most welcome "stuff".

So, yes, despite some minor nibbles, I am very happy with Mongoose Travel-
ler.

 

[Poppyseed45]

I already have a thread for this but I'll gush here too - just got it and Mercenary and I'm vey happy with both. I like the classic feel with the updated skills and task system (how did a sci-fi game not have scientists?).

Still reading, may find other things not great, but thus far rule-wise I'm liking what I see.

 

[aramis]

I already have a thread for this but I'll gush here too - just got it and Mercenary and I'm vey happy with both. I like the classic feel with the updated skills and task system (how did a sci-fi game not have scientists?).

Still reading, may find other things not great, but thus far rule-wise I'm liking what I see.

CT did, but only in Supplement 4...

MGT Char Gen is absolutely the best of any edition. Enough choice and enough randomness for just about everyone...

 

[spinwardpirate]

I am just starting to look at the supplements, the Spinward Marches book in particular, so no opinion of those just yet.

I don't have the Spinward Marches book, nor 760 Patrons (yet... but in two days hopefully that will change), so I can't comment on those. Other than the obvious typos, gaffs, omissions, stretched deckplans, etc., my only complaint is that the sample characters don't seem to have a normal distribution in their stats, i.e., there are plenty of 11s, 12s, and even a 13 and 14 if memory serves (or Bs, Cs, Ds, and Es if you prefer ) but no 2s, and hardly any 3s. And that's something that I recall fondly about CT, the stats seemed evenly spread, which kept stat creep to a minimum.

But don't let that keep any of you who are reading this from buying it! It's looks like it'll be a fun game to play!
(He says, crossing his fingers and hoping to actually get to play on New Years Day).

 

[rhialto]

But for me it comes closest to the ideal, with the added benefit of having better compatibility with CT material than a couple other versions do. The complexity level is just about perfect; nice and simple in play, but with enough real meat in the subsystems to keep me busy for ages.

This is my opinion, too. MGT + CT canon on CD-ROM = gaming goodness. I almost went with the latter + house-rule compendium, culled from CotI and other on-line resources, but finally opted for MGT in the hopes that the core rules would satisfy my needs. I still find on-the-fly trade to be cumbersome (and really envy my GM from 30 years ago who could read a UWP and tell exactly what it meant...I still have to look most of the codes up), but I've slowly introduced most of the other subsystems to my players (all new hands at Traveller), and the simplicity of 2d6 + few mods is tonic for story-driven gaming. We've done three sessions so far, and the level of interest has grown with each session. Couldn't ask for much more than that.

 

[aramis]

I've said it before: The core rules are workmanlike, functional, and cover a wide range of material, more than CT, T4, GT, TNE. Only MegaTraveller & T20 have a wider range of material in the core rules in the Traveller lines.

Like MT, MGT suffers from significant errata.

 

[IronCzar]

Like MT, MGT suffers from significant errata.

That statement is unclear to the point of being disingenuous. The MGT core book has, last I checked, 4 pages of errata, plus some odds and ends amounting to maybe another page. The MT core rules have 22 pages of errata. Both are 'significant' in the sense that a home run is 'significant' and DiMaggio's hitting streak is also 'significant'.

While the errors in MgT are certainly 'significant', I can't see that they create an impenetrable barrier to playing the game out of the box. In MT's case, I think they do - I consider MT broken in a number of respects without its errata, marring a very fine game.

I'm also not sure I agree that T20 has a 'wider range' of material in the core rules, but I'd like to hear the specifics of what's in there that MgT is missing; I didn't much care for T20 and never played it aside from an abortive campaign attempt which stalled when we discovered we couldn't figure out how to actually make characters in it.

 

[aramis]

What T20 has that MGT doesn't, core to core only: Pre-career options (College, acadamies), vehicle design, small craft design, fleet-scale craft design, extended system generation, military weapons.

What MT has that MGT doesn't, core 3 (Boxed set) to core only: Pre-career options (College, acadamies), advanced/expanded CGen for Army, Marines, Navy, Scouts, Merchants, vehicle design, small craft design, fleet-scale craft design, extended system generation, military weapons.

By Military

As for errata: My corebook has more than a DOZEN pages of errata, due to being first printing; each printing seems to induce new (but different) errors, just like MT. Now, a large chunk of that is the deckplans and ship designs. But, being low-res raster inclusions in the PDF, the deckplans can't be easily blown up (I could photoenlarge the ones in the core book). MT's massive errata is for the whole line (Box(PM, RM, IE), RC, RebSB, COACC, HT, Knightfall, AV) not just the core books, and is 20 years of FAQ answers as well, plus some addenda. Still unacceptably high by modern standards outside the games industry.

 

[IronCzar]

What T20 has that MGT doesn't, core to core only: Pre-career options (College, acadamies), vehicle design, small craft design, fleet-scale craft design, extended system generation, military weapons.

Granted; the design sequences in T20 are actually excellent.

What MT has that MGT doesn't, core 3 (Boxed set) to core only: Pre-career options (College, acadamies), advanced/expanded CGen for Army, Marines, Navy, Scouts, Merchants, vehicle design, small craft design, fleet-scale craft design, extended system generation, military weapons.

I didn't ask about MT.

The tradeoff, of course, is in complexity; there are a lot of very powerful but complicated subsystems in MT, which is in general the most full-featured 'actual Traveller' (i.e. not using a completely alien system) ruleset.

I would add that while MgT's character creation does not include advanced carers per se, some of the options of such systems are built in, reducing IMO the need for such. Indeed, I have never been a fan of advanced careers, and wouldn't use them unless I were running a campaign set within a single service, even in CT.

As for errata: My corebook has more than a DOZEN pages of errata, due to being first printing; each printing seems to induce new (but different) errors, just like MT. Now, a large chunk of that is the deckplans and ship designs. But, being low-res raster inclusions in the PDF, the deckplans can't be easily blown up (I could photoenlarge the ones in the core book). MT's massive errata is for the whole line (Box(PM, RM, IE), RC, RebSB, COACC, HT, Knightfall, AV) not just the core books, and is 20 years of FAQ answers as well, plus some addenda. Still unacceptably high by modern standards outside the games industry.

The MT errata document in front of me (dated from 1988 - this is what I used in my last MT effort,) is 22 pages, covering just the three core books. Admittedly, that does contain a lot of 'clarifications' as opposed to outright corrections or omissions, but it's still an order of magnitude more important corrections than one can find in MgT, as far as I can tell.

However, I'll be damned if I can find an MgT errata file that's more than 4 pages. I am aware that some deckplans were borked (although I'm not sure that can be considered in any way a major issue - it's not like I don't have a huge quantity of deckplans for various editions,) and I presume there's an older file around somewhere for that, which I would love a link to - I have a 1st printing as well.

(EDIT: If by 'more than a dozen pages' you're referring to the two PDFs of deck plans available on the Mongoose site... that's really not the same kind of thing at all - those files reprint that entire section of the book, including perfectly good data in space-hogging format as well as corrected stuff. Perhaps you actually mean something else.)

Really, though, I think the Pocket version is the way to go, and that has a bunch of stuff updated, plus better art and a far better character sheet. Even the full-sized version, though, is comparatively light on serious errors in comparison to MT.

 

[Allensh]

So far the best thing about MGT is the getting rid of all the different die throws required for the different Traveller weapons. Now you just have one throw to make (8) plus quite a few DMs to reflect cover, weapon type, range, skill etc etc. That one thing removes loads of the inherently overly complex rules in the original Traveller.

The other ting is they seem to have reworked many of the concepts to streamline them whilst explaining properly the workings of the more complex issues. It just all seems to be so much more coherent, less of a faff, and more fun to play. I think Mongoose have saved Traveller from disappearing up its own backside.

In the original Traveller (as I have confirmed by just looking at the 1977 version of the rules) you made two die rolls; one to hit, one for damage. There were a number of modifiers that were applied to that roll but like a lot of the early RPGs, armor made you harder to hit rather than taking off damage points. The whole penetration thing didn't come along, as far as I know, until Striker and then Megatraveller (which I confess I never actually played that much, just read it).

I'm sure if I have erred here I will be corrected

Allen