Starter Traveller

[Laryssa]

D20 Future on the other hand has been dumbed down since the days of Alternity. At least Traveller makes to at least try to understand some physics. In D20 Future, you have fighters dooing loop de loops and wagging their tails, and you don't really know how big the ships are except their longest dimension.

What Traveller needs however is a D&D style adventure module, one with boxed text that the referee reads to the players and with all the opponents stated out and experience points given.

 

[Laryssa]

D20 Future on the other hand has been dumbed down since the days of Alternity. At least Traveller makes to at least try to understand some physics. In D20 Future, you have fighters dooing loop de loops and wagging their tails, and you don't really know how big the ships are except their longest dimension.

What Traveller needs however is a D&D style adventure module, one with boxed text that the referee reads to the players and with all the opponents stated out and experience points given.

 

[mike wightman]

You know, that may not be a bad idea.

 

[mike wightman]

You know, that may not be a bad idea.

 

[Border Reiver]

Agreed. When I bought Starter Traveller all those years ago it came with Shadows. Not bad for starter adventure, a genuine dungeon bash, but Tom is right, a real introduction is needed.

Perhaps a reworking of Kinunir, a dungeon bash onboard an abadoned ship, a rogue AI, perhaps add some robots as flavour or a completely insane psionic survivor. Just some random thinking.

DGP adventure layouts were pretty useful but I no what Tom means. It has to be simple enough for the complete novice to run.

 

[Border Reiver]

Agreed. When I bought Starter Traveller all those years ago it came with Shadows. Not bad for starter adventure, a genuine dungeon bash, but Tom is right, a real introduction is needed.

Perhaps a reworking of Kinunir, a dungeon bash onboard an abadoned ship, a rogue AI, perhaps add some robots as flavour or a completely insane psionic survivor. Just some random thinking.

DGP adventure layouts were pretty useful but I no what Tom means. It has to be simple enough for the complete novice to run.

 

[mike wightman]

And it has to be exctiting.

And fun.

And contemproray.

Put another way, it may upset grognards, but it would allow NEW players to more easily access the Traveller experience...

 

[mike wightman]

And it has to be exctiting.

And fun.

And contemproray.

Put another way, it may upset grognards, but it would allow NEW players to more easily access the Traveller experience...

 

[Border Reiver]

Hurrah!!!

 

[Border Reiver]

Hurrah!!!

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Put another way, it may upset grognards, but it would allow NEW players to more easily access the Traveller experience...

I've got a two players new to Traveller in my new campaign. Both have been gaming for 10-20 years, but neither have played Traveller before.

And, they're both taken with the game.

One of them has said, "I've never had so much fun in a campaign before."

The other has said, "I never knew sci-fi gaming could be so awesome." (He's a die-hard D&D'er.)

What they're talking about isn't just me (not trying to blow my own horn as a GM here at all)...it's THE GAME. It's the universe. It's that TRAVELLER FEEL.

Traveller has an incredibly fun universe to game in. On the one hand, it's derivative of a conglomeration of a butt-load of sci-fi novels, movies, and micro-genres. But, on the right hand, it's got a unique feel of its own that doesn't (in my experience, anyway) show up in other games.

Right from the start, I had these guys. Typically, character generation is a chore--something you have to do before you get your campaign rolling.

In Traveller, chargen is fun! We actually spent the entire first game session generating characters. It's a type of meta-play. Instead of playing a few moments/hours/days/weeks in a characters life during a game session, we used Traveller chargen to "play" the character's entire life (in effect, create his backstory) before he starts the campaign.

One of my new players actually asked me if he could come over and help me generate some NPCs for the campaign. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I usually use software to do this--so, he came over for a couple of nights, and we rolled up some NPCs to use in the game.

Sure, I could have done it faster on the computer the way I usually do, but this dude was just into the chargen of Traveller. He really liked "discovering" who characters were.

Everbody in my campaign is running two characters, and this one player generated the "second" (non-main) character that everybody is running.

And, we had a blast doing it. It was worth the time.

CT Traveller chargen is one of the reasons it's hard for me to look at other versions of Traveller that don't use that mini-game method (like T20, GT, TNE).

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Put another way, it may upset grognards, but it would allow NEW players to more easily access the Traveller experience...

I've got a two players new to Traveller in my new campaign. Both have been gaming for 10-20 years, but neither have played Traveller before.

And, they're both taken with the game.

One of them has said, "I've never had so much fun in a campaign before."

The other has said, "I never knew sci-fi gaming could be so awesome." (He's a die-hard D&D'er.)

What they're talking about isn't just me (not trying to blow my own horn as a GM here at all)...it's THE GAME. It's the universe. It's that TRAVELLER FEEL.

Traveller has an incredibly fun universe to game in. On the one hand, it's derivative of a conglomeration of a butt-load of sci-fi novels, movies, and micro-genres. But, on the right hand, it's got a unique feel of its own that doesn't (in my experience, anyway) show up in other games.

Right from the start, I had these guys. Typically, character generation is a chore--something you have to do before you get your campaign rolling.

In Traveller, chargen is fun! We actually spent the entire first game session generating characters. It's a type of meta-play. Instead of playing a few moments/hours/days/weeks in a characters life during a game session, we used Traveller chargen to "play" the character's entire life (in effect, create his backstory) before he starts the campaign.

One of my new players actually asked me if he could come over and help me generate some NPCs for the campaign. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I usually use software to do this--so, he came over for a couple of nights, and we rolled up some NPCs to use in the game.

Sure, I could have done it faster on the computer the way I usually do, but this dude was just into the chargen of Traveller. He really liked "discovering" who characters were.

Everbody in my campaign is running two characters, and this one player generated the "second" (non-main) character that everybody is running.

And, we had a blast doing it. It was worth the time.

CT Traveller chargen is one of the reasons it's hard for me to look at other versions of Traveller that don't use that mini-game method (like T20, GT, TNE).

 

[aramis]

WJP is right: Traveller has a fairly unique feel amongst even sci-fi games.

T20 CG, however, has some aspects of the mini-game in it. Or more correctly, it's there for those brave enough to use it; the more I hear outside the boards, the less I hear of it being used that way. All too many simply assume 1st level 18YO... but it works for them.

Likewise, TNE has some of the minigame aspects. So does 2300.

What all three do have that CT/MT don't is control over starting skills; for better or for worse, control over starting skills is something that traveller's lack of has been a lambasting point for the general RPG community. Hence the popularity of GT, CORPS Traveller, and similar.

But, for sheer self-play fun, CT/MT CG is a fun game in its own right.

As can be T&C.

 

[aramis]

WJP is right: Traveller has a fairly unique feel amongst even sci-fi games.

T20 CG, however, has some aspects of the mini-game in it. Or more correctly, it's there for those brave enough to use it; the more I hear outside the boards, the less I hear of it being used that way. All too many simply assume 1st level 18YO... but it works for them.

Likewise, TNE has some of the minigame aspects. So does 2300.

What all three do have that CT/MT don't is control over starting skills; for better or for worse, control over starting skills is something that traveller's lack of has been a lambasting point for the general RPG community. Hence the popularity of GT, CORPS Traveller, and similar.

But, for sheer self-play fun, CT/MT CG is a fun game in its own right.

As can be T&C.

 

[Ron]

You can't have everything. I just love Traveller's character generation as not only it creates a background to the character but also highlights the fact that we do not control entirely the skills we learn with life. As a man who is going to hit 40 this year, I fully understand that as a fact of life. However, there are some people that need to control their character generation and thus are more confortable playing GURPS: Traveller. I will not discuss bad taste...

The best character generation system found in Traveller is probably found in MegaTraveller, in which many of the skills are cascade, allowing some level of choice for the players but keeping most of the selection to chance.

 

[Ron]

You can't have everything. I just love Traveller's character generation as not only it creates a background to the character but also highlights the fact that we do not control entirely the skills we learn with life. As a man who is going to hit 40 this year, I fully understand that as a fact of life. However, there are some people that need to control their character generation and thus are more confortable playing GURPS: Traveller. I will not discuss bad taste...

The best character generation system found in Traveller is probably found in MegaTraveller, in which many of the skills are cascade, allowing some level of choice for the players but keeping most of the selection to chance.

 

[Maladominus]

Starter Traveller: the Charts and Tables booklet alone is worth gold.

 

[Maladominus]

Starter Traveller: the Charts and Tables booklet alone is worth gold.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by Ron:
I just love Traveller's character generation as not only it creates a background to the character but also highlights the fact that we do not control entirely the skills we learn with life.

Yep. I was a die-hard D&Der, way back in '82, when I first played Traveller. And, I feel in love with Traveller chargen way back then, even having come off D&D.

There are certain things I've wanted to do in my life that I haven't quite accomplished--in effect, I've "chosen the table", but I can't quite get the result on the D6 that I need.

I love how Traveller models that.

As a man who is going to hit 40 this year, I fully understand that as a fact of life.

Welcome to the club, bro. I just turned 40 four months ago.

And...as one of my good friends said: "You're not really turning 40...you're completing your 40th year! You're starting your 41st year!"

However, there are some people that need to control their character generation and thus are more confortable playing GURPS: Traveller.

Three of my players were feeling that way: the two new ones that I mentioned above, and even one of the old-timers who played in my Traveller campaing 7 years ago. We had a great time, but he can't seem to remember much about it.

We had played some WEG's Star Wars (for years), and he wanted to keep playing that game (it's an incredible game--but it does use chargen where you build your own charcter with your allotted dice).

Well, this dude was the one who rolled up the Marquis in our game (roll 12 on his SOC for his single 2D roll at first stat generation, then got a +1SOC during chargen).

Man, it as *made* is game. He's eatin' this thing up. I built the story around his character. He's right in the middle of it.

He's role-playing his ass off with this guy, too. There's so many ways a politically powerful character can be played, and I was quite surprise when I saw a firm, charismatic leader being played. He said he's modeling this guy after young Ronal Regan (he's a die-hard Republican), but what I'm seeing is a true hero that I'd vote for/follow if he were a RL person.

He's doing a great job playing this character. One of the other players is playing the Marquis' head bodyguard, and ex-Army captain, and he said: "Yeah. No problem. My character will take a bullet for him."

That's a high compliment to this player in the rpg world.

So, I ask the guy, outside of the game, "Do you think we would have been here without Traveller chargen--something you didn't want to do?"

And now...he has seen the light.

The best character generation system found in Traveller is probably found in MegaTraveller, in which many of the skills are cascade, allowing some level of choice for the players but keeping most of the selection to chance.

I agree. I steal several things from MT for use in my CT game. It's amazing at how just the Special Duty and "4+ for extra skill" rules patch the rift between basic and advanced chargen.

I consider CT skill very broad, though. In my game, if a charcter as something close, I'll let him use it (many times, I'll let him use it at Skill minus 1 level).

It's only the skill that require specific training do I enforce as saying "You don't have the skill? You can't make the roll." Like Pilot, Engineering, Swimming, Ground Vehcile, etc.

And, I'm not above giving a charcter a level-0 skill on the spot if he needs it, and would probably have it given his background.

"Oh, your character's homeworld is Patinir, the asteroid colony? And you don't have Vacc Suit? Roll INT or less on 2D. If you make it, you have Vacc Suit-0."

"Oh, your character is from a water world and you're drowning right now because you can't swim? Roll EDU or less on 2D. If you make it, you've got Swimming-0."

Even right now, I used basic chargen in my game. In-between games, I went through and looked at everyone's characters. I see a couple of people who went through the Army and the Marines.

Well, the Combat Rifleman skill is not available in basic chargen. So, next session, I'm going to let them change out their Rifle or AutoRifle skills for Combat Rifleman if they make an INT or less check on 2D.

If they fail that check, the skills stay the same. If they make it, then AutoRifle-2, for example, simply becomces Combat Rifleman-2.

And, in my game, Combat Rifleman is a little bit better skill because I let a player use it for melee combat too (swinging that rifle around, blowing blows, especially if the rifle was fixed with a bayonnet).

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by Ron:
I just love Traveller's character generation as not only it creates a background to the character but also highlights the fact that we do not control entirely the skills we learn with life.

Yep. I was a die-hard D&Der, way back in '82, when I first played Traveller. And, I feel in love with Traveller chargen way back then, even having come off D&D.

There are certain things I've wanted to do in my life that I haven't quite accomplished--in effect, I've "chosen the table", but I can't quite get the result on the D6 that I need.

I love how Traveller models that.

As a man who is going to hit 40 this year, I fully understand that as a fact of life.

Welcome to the club, bro. I just turned 40 four months ago.

And...as one of my good friends said: "You're not really turning 40...you're completing your 40th year! You're starting your 41st year!"

However, there are some people that need to control their character generation and thus are more confortable playing GURPS: Traveller.

Three of my players were feeling that way: the two new ones that I mentioned above, and even one of the old-timers who played in my Traveller campaing 7 years ago. We had a great time, but he can't seem to remember much about it.

We had played some WEG's Star Wars (for years), and he wanted to keep playing that game (it's an incredible game--but it does use chargen where you build your own charcter with your allotted dice).

Well, this dude was the one who rolled up the Marquis in our game (roll 12 on his SOC for his single 2D roll at first stat generation, then got a +1SOC during chargen).

Man, it as *made* is game. He's eatin' this thing up. I built the story around his character. He's right in the middle of it.

He's role-playing his ass off with this guy, too. There's so many ways a politically powerful character can be played, and I was quite surprise when I saw a firm, charismatic leader being played. He said he's modeling this guy after young Ronal Regan (he's a die-hard Republican), but what I'm seeing is a true hero that I'd vote for/follow if he were a RL person.

He's doing a great job playing this character. One of the other players is playing the Marquis' head bodyguard, and ex-Army captain, and he said: "Yeah. No problem. My character will take a bullet for him."

That's a high compliment to this player in the rpg world.

So, I ask the guy, outside of the game, "Do you think we would have been here without Traveller chargen--something you didn't want to do?"

And now...he has seen the light.

The best character generation system found in Traveller is probably found in MegaTraveller, in which many of the skills are cascade, allowing some level of choice for the players but keeping most of the selection to chance.

I agree. I steal several things from MT for use in my CT game. It's amazing at how just the Special Duty and "4+ for extra skill" rules patch the rift between basic and advanced chargen.

I consider CT skill very broad, though. In my game, if a charcter as something close, I'll let him use it (many times, I'll let him use it at Skill minus 1 level).

It's only the skill that require specific training do I enforce as saying "You don't have the skill? You can't make the roll." Like Pilot, Engineering, Swimming, Ground Vehcile, etc.

And, I'm not above giving a charcter a level-0 skill on the spot if he needs it, and would probably have it given his background.

"Oh, your character's homeworld is Patinir, the asteroid colony? And you don't have Vacc Suit? Roll INT or less on 2D. If you make it, you have Vacc Suit-0."

"Oh, your character is from a water world and you're drowning right now because you can't swim? Roll EDU or less on 2D. If you make it, you've got Swimming-0."

Even right now, I used basic chargen in my game. In-between games, I went through and looked at everyone's characters. I see a couple of people who went through the Army and the Marines.

Well, the Combat Rifleman skill is not available in basic chargen. So, next session, I'm going to let them change out their Rifle or AutoRifle skills for Combat Rifleman if they make an INT or less check on 2D.

If they fail that check, the skills stay the same. If they make it, then AutoRifle-2, for example, simply becomces Combat Rifleman-2.

And, in my game, Combat Rifleman is a little bit better skill because I let a player use it for melee combat too (swinging that rifle around, blowing blows, especially if the rifle was fixed with a bayonnet).