Reinventing Traveller

[DaltonSpence]

One of my favorite internal head games is what I call "Cher-ing the Moment" as in "If I could turn back time …" For Traveller this involves going back to the game's creation and making suggestions on how to "improve" it. I know what I would say but I'm curious about how others would respond. (I know this must have been asked before but I don't know how to begin searching for that thread.) Try to limit your "suggestions" to the top three please.

Dalton “who can't sing worth a damn” Spence​

 

[mike wightman]

A better explanation of the skills/saving throw system
use polyhedral dice
balance the skills per career as was eventually done (every career without a rank structure gets 2 skills per term

 

[Dragoner]

A better explanation of the skills/saving throw system
use polyhedral dice
balance the skills per career as was eventually done (every career without a rank structure gets 2 skills per term

This is almost exactly the local system I have been developing for my setting, I showed it to someone on discord, and they said it looked like Traveller updated for the 21st century.

 

[DaltonSpence]

Adding my preferences:

1. A purely point budget based character creation system. (No silly dice rolling until you are seated at the table ready to play.)
2. Base jump drive requirements on total ship mass, not size. Determine ship size afterwards using a component density list. (Do the same with jump shadows and star/planet mass/size.)
3. Make jump space more interesting by adding anomalies (not more than one or two per subsector) to make route planning more challenging. Some will be secrets known only to the referee. Possible anomalies:
   • Variable thickness jump space cell walls. (Dotted = 0 jump points to cross, Double = 2 jump points to cross.) Anomaly may be on just one side of the wall. May vary with time.
   • Black holes. Jump into that hex, you don't come back. Not always charted.
   • Wormholes. Jump into that hex, you end up somewhere else far away (usually another sector entirely). May be one or two way and only there occasionally.
   • Sargasso. Something inhibits M/J-drives making them difficult or impossible to use. The effect may exist only in normal space or extend into jump space. Could be periodic.

Yes these are major changes but why think small.

Dalton “What are your big three changes?” Spence​

 

[Dragoner]

Adding my preferences:

1. A purely point budget based character creation system. (No silly dice rolling until you are seated at the table ready to play.)
2. Base jump drive requirements on total ship mass, not size. Determine ship size afterwards using a component density list. (Do the same with jump shadows and star/planet mass/size.)
3. Make jump space more interesting by adding anomalies (not more than one or two per subsector) to make route planning more challenging. Some will be secrets known only to the referee. Possible anomalies:
   • Variable thickness jump space cell walls. (Dotted = 0 jump points to cross, Double = 2 jump points to cross.) Anomaly may be on just one side of the wall. May vary with time.
   • Black holes. Jump into that hex, you don't come back. Not always charted.
   • Wormholes. Jump into that hex, you end up somewhere else far away (usually another sector entirely). May be one or two way and only there occasionally.
   • Sargasso. Something inhibits M/J-drives making them difficult or impossible to use. The effect may exist only in normal space or extend into jump space. Could be periodic.

Yes these are major changes but why think small.

Dalton “What are your big three changes?” Spence​

Indeed I have the first two: point buy character generation, and ships are tons mass, not volume, at 4 cubic meters per ton. The third is more difficult, as I wave jump as a wormhole. It is good to hear these are things people like as well.

 

[Ildefonse]

1. A more uniform throw system, e.g. 8+ on all task throws, with skill ranks all providing +1/rank to the throw.
2. Tiers of Play: e.g., Heroic Tier (3D6, drop lowest die, for all characteristics; 3 skill rolls/term for all careers) and Epic Tier (4D6, drop lowest 2 dice for all characteristics; 4 skill rolls/term for each career) would allow one to generate characters similar to those modeled from classic sci-fi fiction in the back of S1 and S4.
3. Psionics as a Skill: instead of keeping track of Psionic Strength points spent each time a power is used just make a skill roll as with any other skill

 

[Straybow]

1. ...
2. ...
3. Make jump space more interesting by adding anomalies (not more than one or two per subsector) to make route planning more challenging. Some will be secrets known only to the referee. Possible anomalies:
   • Variable thickness jump space cell walls. (Dotted = 0 jump points to cross, Double = 2 jump points to cross.) Anomaly may be on just one side of the wall. May vary with time.
   • Black holes. Jump into that hex, you don't come back. Not always charted.
   • Wormholes. Jump into that hex, you end up somewhere else far away (usually another sector entirely). May be one or two way and only there occasionally.
   • Sargasso. Something inhibits M/J-drives making them difficult or impossible to use. The effect may exist only in normal space or extend into jump space. Could be periodic.

Yes these are major changes but why think small.

​

Traveller is meant to be hard sci fi, not science fantasy.

Black holes are just local stellar objects. Gravity at a very low level precipitates the bubble out of jump space. Low gravity = long before ship close enough to be "sucked in." The "suck in" part is called the event horizon, which is much smaller than the main sequence stellar radius before the star collapsed. Black holes hundreds of solar mass are still smaller at event horizon than an average star. It would take a galactic core black hole (millions solar mass) to have noticeable gravity at around ¼ LY away (0.075 pc radius, less than 1/6 of hex width, less than 2.4% of hex area).

Wormholes, by very nature, would be even smaller. A wormhole large enough to pilot a ship into would take unfathomable energies, which would shred the ship that enters it. Instead, let's take the science fantasy version. Still barely large enough to fit a ship through it. It would take an extremely diligent search to find it in exploration. Scout surveys might be classified. If the location becomes known outside controlled services then the Navy would guard it.

 

[aramis]

Traveller is meant to be hard sci fi, not science fantasy.

Marc's been pretty explicit about it being based upon 50's and 60's space opera, not "hard sci fi"... it gained a rep for hard SF only because the early competition was pretty much just D&D with spaceships. A look in the back of Supplement 4 shows the kinds of series that were in the GDW staffers' minds... most of which are in the space opera genre.

Space Opera (the RPG) is at roughly the same hardness, but much crunchier rules and different FTL assumptions. Circa 1981. It's explicitly a reaction to Traveller and wanting crunchier rules.
Space Master likewise shares the SF hardness, but has full rules compatibility with RoleMaster. Mid 1980s. And actually ruleswise, more consistent than CT. I've heard it described by some as "Bad D&D in Space"... but it plays well enough.

Metamorphosis Alpha (1975) is a fantasy-in-a-spaceship.
Gamma World is essentially also Met Alpha 2
Starfaring (1975) is silly; play the ship as your character, the party as a convoy, people as tools of the ship.
Empire of the Petal Throne (1976) is D&D on a distant world, with different local physics. It's explicitly stated that at some point, people were taken from earth to Tekumel... Seems pretty much just Sci-Fi used as excuse for pure fantasy.
Starships & Spacemen is harder SF than MA, GW, Starfaring, and EPT, but well less than CT.
Mechanoid Invasion (1981) initially is sci-fi... but adds more and more fantasy per expansion. It's the first Palladium game released. While softer than CT, SO, and SM, it's harder than MA, GW, Starfaring, S&S, and EPT...

 

[mike wightman]

Traveller is not nor was it ever meant to be hard sci fi. It can be used to do hard sci fi but the default rules interpretations that give us the Third Imperium are anything but hard sci fi.

What is it about LBB1-3 that says 'hard sci fi'?
No mention of how gravity works on spacecraft - we know from the grav vehicles chapter that anti-gravity null grav modules are in the setting, but there is no mention of artificial gravity or acceleration compensation in LBB1-3.
Is it the use of slug throwers with only a nod towards laser weapons?
Is it the use of basic physics formulae to computer travel times which are usually handwaved in play anyway?
is it a nod towards Newtonian movement with the 'vector' movement system (this isn't hard science either but it is close enough since momentum vector and displacement vector need to be tracked to determine a ship's movement - 77 edition actually had the optional rule of only mapping half the displacement vector in the turn the acceleration takes place)

Traveller was inspired by the books and magazines read by MWM, the biggest single influence being the Dumarest series. So as Aramis rightly says space opera, pulp sci fi, hard sci fi, military sci fi, science fantasy - all settings are possible.

The intent was to use Traveller to run rpg sessions in settings designed by referee based on those inspirations.

 

[kilemall]

It’s a sci-fi story simulator.

 

[willtron3030]

I freely admit to GM-ing Space Fantasy games.

Hard SF should do all the hand-waving up front, and not much of it, even if some of the conceits are not revealed by the GM at first. That's easier to pull off in scripted media (The Expanse, Outland, Moon, Blade Runner) than in a TTRPG.

 

[Condottiere]

Tee Five is probably the final word for the next generation.

However, whoever holds the license probably has some freedom to interpret it to either fit it to the aesthetic it's trying to portray, or attract the critical mass of customers it wants.

 

[mike wightman]

T5 is not what CT was. CT was a set of rules for developing your own setting based on whatever.

T5 is another example of an OTU the role playing game - ie setting is tied to rules and vise versa.

 

[Silverhawk]

T5 is not what CT was. CT was a set of rules for developing your own setting based on whatever.

T5 is another example of an OTU the role playing game - ie setting is tied to rules and vise versa.

True CT and other RPGs of that era were toolkits first with few references to a defined setting. The change to include a setting is that people desired adventures which require the framework of a setting to work for the most part. It also is time consuming to work up a setting. I for one have been trying for years to get mine to where I am ready to try and run it. So I see the appeal of the straight out of the box.

But it doesn't appeal to me. I'm not comfortable with a lot of settings I have looked at over 40 years of gaming. Most have been a lot darker than I prefer. Others were too what I consider 'rigid'. But that is just me. Meantime, I'll keep working on my own TU.

 

[Dragoner]

Most have been a lot darker than I prefer. Others were too what I consider 'rigid'. But that is just me.

You are not alone, that is one of the reasons I made my setting, which others have called hopeful, and positive, I just think of it as non-dystopian.

 

[mike wightman]

The most dystopian OTU is the Third Imperium - if you read between the lines it is a pretty grim place except the frontier regions - although MgT is going with the white hat happy clappy yanks in space Third Imperium.
The TNE setting is oddly the one with the most freedom and potential for exploration and rebuilding, players can make a difference for the side of the good.

As to spending 40 years looking for or developing a setting to suit your needs -

Take my advice - write up a once page outline of what the player characters would know about the setting, ask your players what sort of adventuring they are after, and then get playing. The setting will come alive when there are players running around in it.

You do not need to know the serial numbers of the battle dress undergarments of the fourth cohort, seventh maniple, eleventh star legion to get started having fun adventures.

You don't need to map out an entire sector either, all you need are the planet the players start on and the systems they can reasonably travel to during their initial adventure. The setting will naturally evolve with the players, and don't be afraid to borrow or steal setting or plot ideas the players are discussing among themselves.

 

[Condottiere]

Considering the time and cost required for interstellar travel, most citizens won't leave their star system, and few would venture beyond their subsector.

 

[robject]

1. +1 for balanced skill awards across careers (i.e. "Other").

2. Standardize effects along weapon classes, rather than specific weapons. That is, generalize those combat tables a bit. Alternately, base them on heuristics that we can consistently apply to new weapons.

3. LBB2: make maneuver drives larger, and always use fuel in percentages.

#3 is a two-parter, but I recognize the annoying limits of LBB2 while still loving it.

 

[robject]

Considering the time and cost required for interstellar travel, most citizens won't leave their star system, and few would venture beyond their subsector.

My rule of thumb is: one in a million people "Travel". Easy to remember and a not unreasonable assumption for Traveller.

So our Terra, if it were in an interstellar empire, would presumably have several thousand Travellers. Not just William Shatner.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Traveller Gene

Just leaving the link here for easy reference ...