Some playtest material is available here: Traveller 5 Fan Page from the goodness of the downport.com folksOriginally posted by dsoldier:
Anybody knows something of T5 release??
Yes, I was wondering what might be a decent conversion system considering the higher skill levels possible in general for this system.Originally posted by dsoldier:
i think you're right in one thing: "the very important that atributes are", because don't mind how many points in a skill you have if you have a poor atribute.
I keep meaning to have a look but thanks for the briefing ACK.Originally posted by ACK:
Now, what do I think so far?
Tasks/Skills are also there. It is very, very T4'ish unfortunately.
The tasks on the other hand is a roll-under system that places too much emphasis on characteristics in relation to skill rating. This drives me nuts. I do NOT mind the fist full of dice fury model. I can live with that in a heartbeat. Its the whole roll under focuse on physical attribute thing that from a mechanics of the game that drives me nuts. I like a D6 model that it has. The rest I think I can hack around.
It is not perfect or even balanced completely but it does help. I noticed the This is Hard matrix before but still think that attributes are given too much influence in the task system.Originally posted by far-trader:
This Is Hard!
....
I'm sure this has been covered in the posts here already but I'm just now jumping in and thought this needed the extra publicity.
EDIT - Hmm, looking a little deeper (hey! I even signed up on the T5 site a while back and still remembered my password!) it seems the above TIH rule is not as balancing as I thought at first glance. I was operating under the presumption that skill levels would be in the CT 1-5'ish range but they are more in the T4 3-15'ish which makes the TIH mostly useless imo, unless you also increase the task dice by some factor. <sigh> Oh well, it was a nice illusion while it lasted
Too bad too as it seemed so beautiful imo. I was even thinking the next logical step would be a TIE (This is Easy!) rule for times when a character's skill level was higher (maybe 2 better to be reasonable) than the task difficulty.
There are aspects of Marc's Task System I like. I think the Fists of Dice Fury method does lead to a lot of granularity in Task Actions.Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
One of the reasons I like the MT and CT rules is that they are skill based with stats providing small modifiers to skill rolls. It was therefore possible to play characters with rather limited stats but good skills, this encouraged roleplaying.
My concern over T4/T5, TNE even, is that stats became more important than skills and low stats mean a useless (player perception) character. This inevitably leads to munchkinism with players only wanting high stats.
I know from the T5 website that MWM is adamant that this T4.1 skill/task system be used, which is fine by me, it's his game system. Fortunately it's easy enough to use the DGP/MT system with CT/T4 and that's what I'll be doing with T5 as well
Check. Thanks Aramis.Originally posted by Aramis:
Att/5 is MT & DGP-CT
Att/3, Diffs +1 is a fairly common variant for MT.
I got the first part. The second part ??Originally posted by Aramis:
Att/5 is MT & DGP-CT
Att/3, Diffs +1 is a fairly common variant for MT.
No one likes to just me too, but Sigg has succinctly summed up my complaint with the TNE system and what I dislike (along with *roll under*) of T5.Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
One of the reasons I like the MT and CT rules is that they are skill based with stats providing small modifiers to skill rolls. It was therefore possible to play characters with rather limited stats but good skills, this encouraged roleplaying.
My concern over T4/T5, TNE even, is that stats became more important than skills and low stats mean a useless (player perception) character. This inevitably leads to munchkinism with players only wanting high stats.
First, what kind of things? Second, part of my point is that the TLs need to be re-thought (and the lower ones need to be separated a la GURPS).Originally posted by Kafka47:
JameJ, you forget that TL 9 has not yet been achived on a planetary basis but Earth has a very unique UPP in the 21st century. I would suggest you reproduce DGP World Builder's Handbook to UPP construction and that will help explain our TL drag.
For I think part of the problem, is that we are measuring things by Western Europe & USA standards. The technical developments that are happening in East Asia, where property laws are more lax are phenomenal. Agreed, some of the things are attributable to piracy but if you count the rate and diffusion of innovation, it is much quicker there than here.
Cheers,
0.5 secs more like. And most of my players don't enjoy games with roll low. They just have an emotional connection that says a high die roll should mean a good result. And if, as you say, one is intent on playing, one has to cater to an extent to such feelings.Originally posted by TheDS:
I'd rather spend that time PLAYING. Maybe it's only 5 seconds for you, but that does add up rather quickly if you do it a lot.
Actually, I never saw that. Plus, wasn't it 5/10/15 that were important? I didn't think it was round nearest, but round down. Anyway, more important was the Int+Edu skill limit, which lead to everyone with a few terms under their belt trying to get EDU 12+ and a good Int or they'd run out of the ability to add new skills.One other point of agreement-by-contention: I liked the MT task system, such that the characteristic did not overwhelm the skill, BUT it leaves the game full of people with stats of 8 and 13 and little else.
Except that in D20, you build stats up regularly, and building a 12 into a 14 takes a lot longer than building a 13 to a 14. And besides, I hate 'character building' (I'm an evolutionist - roll dice, see what God gives you, the challenge is then to make the best of it).A better example is D20, where EVERYONE strives to have even-numbered stats, because odd-numbered stats are not worth anything.
Works, but that leans more toward a percentile system, and if it takes you 5 seconds to figure out that 27% means rolling over 73 on a percentile then this multiplication and addition would have to e slower yet...I like for things to make a difference, otherwise why have them? So I would take the task in the other direction. Instead of dividing stat by 2 or 3 or 5, multiply skill by 2 or 3 or 5 and then add stat to it.
Most of my players are military folks involved in space science, computer scientists/programmrs, computer techs, or electrical engineers. None of them can do addition or multiplication anymore without a calculator. (Sigh)Yes, the math is a bit tougher than we are used to, but after doing a few times, it becomes second nature. Multiplying small skill numbers, like 1-8, by small multipliers, like 2-5, become memorized very quickly. Some people may even remember these values were in their multiplication tables, something they had to memorize to get out of 1st grade (or whenever). Then simply adding another number which is ~1-15 is not a big deal.
Clearly... to you. Not clearly to me. Or my players.What IS the big deal is: what the heck are you going to roll? Roll-under is clearly superior for this, so we will use that.
Roll D100 +27, break 100. Simple. Taken straight from rolemaster.Originally posted by TheDS:
While my gut tells me that roll-high is a better system, observation has shown that this is untrue. BOTH systems have their uses, and trying to kludge one over the other is at best damned inconvenient.
If I tell you you have a 27% chance of success, are you really gonna wanna take the time to figure out what a successful roll will be in a roll-high system?