So - why would you chose CT over MgT?

[Poppyseed45]

I'm asking it here because of the great many CT fans here. Recently, I've got it in mind to run Traveller, and I'm planning on using the 3I as a setting (probably the Spinward Marches even).

Thing is, I'm really, really torn about which version to run. I've got several books for each (for MgT I've got the Core, Merc, HG, and 760 Patrons 1st edition; for CT I've got the first two big floppy books, 0-8 and Supplements 1-13). So, lots of material on either side, but...

But, I think, the issue is feel. I like CT's feel more. Not sure how to pin it down really. More of a play-me vibe going on throughout the text. On the other hand, MgT is definitely more streamlined, and character generation is a hoot. Skill list is more comprehensive, etc. And yet, CT is, to me, simpler, and I feel like I don't need the extra rolls in character creation (like events and mishaps). Kinda prefer to describe those on my own. But MgT is newer, and there are more new people playing it than CT.

So I'm torn. I'm leaning toward CT. But MgT has a good siren song too. So, fellow CT-ers, help me feel it. Why would you chose to run a game of Traveller with CT rather than MgT? Acknowledging that you have both?

 

[Omnivore]

No longer a contributor to this board.

 

[BytePro]

I too prefer the feel of CT - and attribute much of that to aspects other than rules and content. Nostalgia, physical presentation and terseness (largely probably due to the original physical limits of LBBs and printing of the day) factor into to it for me.

A major factor for me is that I have written numerous CT programs over the years (now iDevices!), and CT rules are better suited for such. MgT authors, with more page space to use, tend to throw in outlier cases which make this more involved. They also throw in personal assumptions and misinformed technical 'knowledge' that conflict with my own RW knowledge and experience. CT authors lacked WWW 'resources' of 'knowledge' and had to depend more on their own backgrounds and harder won research with less freedom of space to write in...

All that aside, this doesn't have to be an all or nothing type deal - the two can be mixed...

Notably - the Universal Task Mechanic drops right in to CT. Using it means adding skills is a breeze - name it and one line describe it. Done. Add it to chargen as substitute or optional skill for a given skill or table entry.

I like the MgT events - but, also preferred my own. They are not hard to write up and append to CT chargen. The connections are a definite win with players - both in making for backstory and in allow picking skills to match their desires.

Combat mechanics in MgT seems too stimulationist and fiddly and did not play test well for me (also seems too munchkin/rule lawyer amenable) - but led to me adopting the Universal Task Mechanic for combat. I also account for and track injuries/damage in a roleplay fashion rather than as points (damage by nature from weapon/assault type and quality as derived from dice, rather than simply applying points against stats). My combat is a lot more freeform - less wargame, more roleplay. It is 'off the cuff' as Omnivore says and only poorly documented.

That last is related to the way we play. I produce everything my players get - they don't need or use rule books. Heck, after chargen, they only need to know one page of 'rules' - and that is now largely just the Universal Task Mechanic.

 

[Poppyseed45]

I too prefer the feel of CT - and attribute much of that to aspects other than rules and content. Nostalgia, physical presentation and terseness (largely probably due to the original physical limits of LBBs and printing of the day) factor into to it for me.

[...] They also throw in personal assumptions and misinformed technical 'knowledge' that conflict with my own RW knowledge and experience. CT authors lacked WWW 'resources' of 'knowledge' and had to depend more on their own backgrounds and harder won research with less freedom of space to write in...

Now THAT'S interesting. Hmm. It explains a lot. I panned Mongoose's Mercenary for Traveller because, as a former military school grad (Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets 4 years baby!) the stuff they wrote for the military organizations were basically hilarious. Stuff that's easy to figure out if one digs a little deeper than the mere names of things.

 

[Gray Lensman]

at the risk of being banned

I have already been chastised for this statment once, but I am going to stick to my guns.

Spend all that money on a pootly done rehash OR 35 dollars for the whole thing?

Granted there are a few inovations in Mongrav (oh wait, most of them can be found in TNE).....

OK mods, gripe at me again.

 

[Dragoner]

I like CT because it has the most amount of players, Mongoose has a lot as well and I will switch at some point, though I am waiting to see if Don's revision of the core rules help.

 

[steventirey1985]

I have already been chastised for this statment once, but I am going to stick to my guns.

Spend all that money on a pootly done rehash OR 35 dollars for the whole thing?

Granted there are a few inovations in Mongrav (oh wait, most of them can be found in TNE).....

OK mods, gripe at me again.

Gripe at you for telling the truth? Every Mongoose Traveller product has contained errors. Several books had errors extensive enough that if you sent in your errored copy, they would send you a corrected one. Enough mistakes that they felt a "Great Traveller Clean-Up" was necessary, as was basically ditching 2 of the books (the civilian and military vehicle books) for another book with different rules (which still contained problems, despite it coming out after the start of the Clean-Up.)

Maybe the rules themselves are fine, but their editors should be fired. How do you leave out an entire chapter of a book without noticing?

Now, don't get me wrong, Mongoose Traveller is still an all right game despite the problems, despite its problems. The greatest thing about it, is that a lot of the core rules are free to use.

 

[rancke]

My answer is that I wouldn't chose either over the other. I'd use CT and MgT both (and all the other versions) and equally for setting material and use the rules system that I liked best[*] to run adventures.

[*] Which happens to be Heltesagaerne, my own house rules. Sort of reminiscent of GURPS[**] but with D20s for resolution and D12s for damage.

[**] But better. ​

​

Hans

 

[Poppyseed45]

My answer is that I wouldn't chose either over the other. I'd use CT and MgT both (and all the other versions) and equally for setting material and use the rules system that I liked best[*] to run adventures.

[*] Which happens to be Heltesagaerne, my own house rules. Sort of reminiscent of GURPS[**] but with D20s for resolution and D12s for damage.

[**] But better. ​

​

Hans

This will sound strange (especially given my thread over in the Mongoose part of the board) but in general, I tend to be a "everything of one edition or none." For example, I don't like mixing any sort of rules (like, for the Burning Empires game I'm currently running, someone suggested using Mouse Guard's method of handling social combat; I laughed and shook my head).

So, really, if I use CT, I'll pretty much use it as-is, save for a few houserules here and there.

 

[BytePro]

While MgT falls short of my personal high expectations in the editing and domain expertise areas, overall I think Mongoose has done a decent job. Most folks don't share my hangups on publishing (though it wouldn't hurt for Mongoose to improve in the editing department ). Also, despite some (not atypical) publishing gaffs, they always stand behind their products. Big kudos for that.

The main CT books saw several editions and probably would have shared the same or worse issues if they were MgT size with their 4x content, not to mention competing in today's market. (In fact, IIRC, MT had more comparable sizes and took quite a beating for its editing mistakes...)

Either edition is quite playable, IMO. Both have workable rule mechanics.

As a Referee, I'm comfortable with CT like an old pair of shoes and it's better for me, but I wouldn't say its generally better for everyone. I am very glad I got MgT as my CT gaming has benefited greatly from it. In my case, I use computers for gaming and CT not only is easier to write programs for, but the LBB format works really well on iPhone and iPad screens.

 

[madmike]

I am a CT referee also and proud of it, first using the CT rules back in 1979. After close to twenty years break, it was a great feeling to come back to the CT rules system and the world of Traveller.

I do like the Mongoose ruleset, being to my mind, a modernised and fully compatible version of CT. As such, I do intend to use MgT interactively to introduce extra material. House ruling of sorts.

I wish that there was a version of MgT 3I Starports back in the day. Superb publication.

 

[E.D.Quibell]

The beauty of CT is it's simpliciy, and it's adaptability to any situation.

It has the ultimate in flexability in it's task mechanic, however I believe you need to impose some type of structure to it, and although it gives you a big hint on this in combat (throw 8+ on 2D6) it doen't for the rest of the game.

As an example say open hart surgary. Now with CT you can assign DMs per skills as you wish, so for open hart surgary you could assign +3 per skill level against an Imposible task. A Surgan (Medical-3) would get +9 DM, while a first aider (Medical-1) would get +3. Formibable (roll 15+ on 2D6) +9 DM plus attribute/5 (I'm an MT guy) say +2 gives the Sergan a roll of 4+ to achieve the task, while the first aider is 10+. In this case skills and experiance counts.

This is the real flexability of the CT task system, after a few of these you can easily configure the task system on the fly for any situation.

CT is far more role playing than roll playing. It's simple, quick and easy.

If you want to start with some structure to your CT task system I would look up the BITS task system and go from there. They lay out dificulty levels and how they cross between each Traveller rule set which means you can use material from any version and adapt it easily to any other (Look up a copy of Stella Reaches for the T20 additions).

Best regards,

Ewan

 

[rancke]

This will sound strange (especially given my thread over in the Mongoose part of the board) but in general, I tend to be a "everything of one edition or none." For example, I don't like mixing any sort of rules (like, for the Burning Empires game I'm currently running, someone suggested using Mouse Guard's method of handling social combat; I laughed and shook my head).

So, really, if I use CT, I'll pretty much use it as-is, save for a few houserules here and there.

I don't get the advantage of that. I suppose that theoretically it is possible that one could have a set of rules that were just the right balance of verisimilitude and gameability and at the same time comprehensive enough to cover everything you need to run a game, so that you wouldn't need to make up rules of your own (I sure haven't come across one yet, though). But even then I don't see any virtue in being able to stick entirely to one game system. Convenience, yes, any real point to it, no.

That's not to say that any rule from any system can be lifted and grafted seamlessly to any other rules system. Perhaps Mouse Guard's rules for social combat are a poor fit for Burning Empires; I don't know either system, so I can't tell. But if Burning Empires lack rules for social combat and those from Mouse Guard would not conflict with other aspects of the BE rules, I can only see advantages to supplementing the one with the other.

Be that as it may, when it comes to settings, I see only downsides to sticking to one specific version. You lose the use of so much setting material by sticking exclusively to CT or Mt or TNE or T4 or T20 or GT or MgT.


Hans

 

[rancke]

The beauty of CT is it's simpliciy, and it's adaptability to any situation.

It has the ultimate in flexability in it's task mechanic, however I believe you need to impose some type of structure to it, and although it gives you a big hint on this in combat (throw 8+ on 2D6) it doen't for the rest of the game.

The ultimate in flexibility is TOON's fifty percent rule (Roll a die; on a 1-3 you fail, on a 4-6 you succeed), but most people would find that a trifle crude for anything more realistic than TOON.

My biggest objection to CT is precisely the crudeness of the 2D mechanic. The eleven possible results are far too crude for my needs.

I'm also unhappy with the inability to create certain kinds of characters, most notably the not too bright uneducated combat monster.


Hans

 

[BytePro]

Just some observations...

CT's general task system, such as it is, is 'Referee Fiat' - and, IIRC, even that is not explicitly stated (at least in the first 3 rule books) - just specific 'throws' (saving or basic) are given for particular tasks (spread though out the books) with occasional DMs.

For most stuff the Ref just picks a target value based on whatever...

Surgery is a good example. By the RAW, Medic-3 is required to be called a doctor and doctors can be surgeons if their DEX is 8+. The target number (saving throw value in closest CT terminology) for say, Open Heart surgery is totally up to the Referee. As there are no difficulties (Formidable, etc.) in CT and no 'base throw' - the 'DMs' would typically be factored into by the Ref with an innate knowledge of the 2D6 probability curve. I.E. he might decide a 10+ for a Medic-3, and 6+ for a Medic-4 assuming tools, etc. Or maybe the PC only has a pocket knife and the minimum skill and saving throw values get higher.

For eye surgery the target throw may be totally different...

Tacking a general task mechanic onto CT works great, and on the surface, seems to simplify things even more. But, there is at least one big caveat, IME - the limited range of values with 2D6. DMs can easily accumulate to nullify a roll (or at least the value of effectiveness). Assuming the Ref thought a roll was in order (for random outcome), this means conditionals on DMs - which complicates things.

Ex: in MgT it is very easy to mod a weapon such that the DMs make a hit automatic in almost every case. This is not totally unbelievable (hey, tech can work), but with the combat mechanic, this also means the hits have greater damage effect as well.

Currently, I am using MgT's task mechanic dropped into CT, but using 3D6. The task mechanic isn't absolute - as Ref I can always override it. However, I am starting to feel that 'DM counting' for both me and my players detracts somewhat from the role playing mentality. So, I am considering going back to straight fiat for F2F games (but retaining the task mechanic for PbP games).

 

[Omnivore]

No longer a contributor to this board.

 

[Omnivore]

No longer a contributor to this board.

 

[hdan]

I'll second what most are saying:

[Note: by "CT" here, I expressly mean Books 1-3 or any of the repackagings of those rules. The later CT career books mess with some of the flavor I talk about below IMHO.]

I love MgT for the detailed and flavorful character generation system. MgT *is* CT, but transmogrified into an RPG of this century, not last. Characters are textured and detailed, and fit in well with the way modern players view what a character sheet should be.

I love CT because of its simplicity. To me, the feel of CT is like a sketch (much like the illustrations) - CT rules give you an outline from which the ref and players build a story. Even the combat system reinforces this - everyone declares actions, rolls hits and applies damage at the same time, and then it's up to the Ref to describe what just happened.

[Edit: this is just my impression of CT. I'm sure others will very much disagree because that's how we Traveller players are. ]
CT has a decidedly different approach to skills from most popular modern games - the tone of the game isn't "my skill list is my play book", but rather "my skill list is my resume". Characters are not limited to their listed skills, they are enhanced by them. [Yes, MgT lets characters try anything, but with so many skills on the page, and such a steep unskilled penalty, in my experience, MgT characters are treated more like D&D characters - they do "what it says on the box" so to speak.]

I would play CT with a group of like-minded gamers who enjoy having their character sheet be a guideline, not a play book.

I would play MgT with a group who wants a more involved relationship with their characters, and who prefers a more modern feeling game.

 

[Poppyseed45]

CT has a decidedly different approach to skills from most popular modern games - the tone of the game isn't "my skill list is my play book", but rather "my skill list is my resume". Characters are not limited to their listed skills, they are enhanced by them. [Yes, MgT lets characters try anything, but with so many skills on the page, and such a steep unskilled penalty, in my experience, MgT characters are treated more like D&D characters - they do "what it says on the box" so to speak.]

This is exactly what I want my group to try. In the current game we're running (because the game is built that way) everyone is only trying whatever they have a rating in, and not much more. The game itself sort of encourages people to "have a go" at different things not on their sheet, but it's pretty sketchy that one ought to do so. Whereas for CT, it's built right on (based on the old game assumptions).

I want that feeling back!

 

[ShapeShifter]

With the exception of the (now defunct) Atlantean Edition Conan d20 RPG, everything put out by Mongoose has been offal. Thus, go with Classic Traveller. When you buy from FFE you are supporting Mr. Miller, the Creator. There! Simple!