Stingy GM's

[DrSkull]

After looking at some of the discussions on "THe perfect PC sidearm" I came away a little horrified. Am I just a completely stingy GM? In all my years of Traveller (about 20) I have never ever given out an FGMP or battledress. Gauss weapons have been pretty rare (I do remember a T4 character who got one as a mustering out benefit because he was Joe sniper). In moments of complete generosit, I have been known to let a PGMP-12 get loose, but that's as far as I'll go.

Listen, you put on your cloth armor, pick up your ACR and like it. If you are mercenaries and you behave yourself, you get grenades, combat armor and maybe a PGMP-12.

 

[phydaux]

Ditto DrSkull. I ran my first mercenary campaign before book 4 was even published, and if an autopistol and ACR were good enough then, they're still good enough now!

 

[far-trader]

It seems fair to me that if a character is rated (i.e. skill 1+ with a weapon) they could chose it as a muster benefit (the old muster out tables of Gun, Blade, etc.) subject to homeworld law level.

So, in CT for example, a character with Laser Carbine skill from a Law Level 1 world could upon rolling Gun while mustering out have an old Laser Carbine and Power Pack. I should note that I reversed the CT muster rule of taking skill with a weapon from after chosing a weapon of 'type' to before, so if you have no skill you can't have that weapon but you could pick up the skill first as a muster roll and if lucky with another muster roll then get the weapon.

As a special bonus I also allow on a muster roll of Gun that a player with Vacc-Suit 2+ from a Law Level 0 world could chose to have an old suit of Combat Armor or for the cost of losing one more muster roll they could take home a suit Battle Dress. I chose skill level 2+ in this case since level 1 was like level 0 for the use of them.

So it was possible but extremely unlikely for a character to muster out kitted up with some Battle Dress and a Laser Rifle in my CT game. Of course if they were not from a military service I'd expect a very good backstory to how and why they have it. I've made similar house rules for the other variants and will have to do so for T20 too, soon as my book gets here.

So is Dr. Skull stingy? No. I'd say he's showing good judgment as a GM concerned with his game's balance. Are other GM's too generous? No. Not if it all balances out. If the players have access, even limited as I did, to heavy gear then you can bet I've graded all the npc's on a similar curve

so someday you'll meet a group that may just have superior firepower, and if you don't exercise better tactics you might be

 

[far-trader]

Of course as a player...

Nothing frosted me more than as an ex/retired Imperial Marine the best I could lay hands on was a crummy autorifle when it seems every divey starport we hit would have religous fanatics taking pot shots at the tourists (us) with Lasers and Grenades. OK, perhaps a small exaggeration, it only happened once or twice but still we always seemed outgunned and outnumbered.

Then again I like to pick appropriate hardware for my PC's. A revolver for the crusty trader Captain, and maybe a Body Pistol for a holdout piece if I got the extra muster roll. A Scout would have his trusted Snub Auto (when they were the zero-G variant). A Noble would have if anything besides his blade (usually a foil) a Body Pistol. My Navy officers usually had a dress cutlass and autopistol. All of these tended to vary of course depending on the generated background and the game.

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

For the most part I'm pretty restrictive with my group as to their weapons, but I'm also blessed with a group that doesn't powergame or abuse rules so I generally don't have to worry about it.

One thing that's been stated in the Spinward Marches, specifically in the Darrian Alien module is that they have most things openly for sale there, so if my group really wants a set of battledress and wants to take the time effort and money to get to Darrian to find a seller I'll let them. So far that has happened rarely and once they got it they knew when and when not to use it.

Another consideration is mustering out rank. True a corporal probably couldn't rate anything nasty, but say a Force Cmdr or a Major in the marines might be able to pull some strings to by a LMG or energy weapon if he's at the right base....

 

[Capt. Blacklight]

I have only seen one honest-to-gosh battledress used by one of my players once. And this one also had a FGMP15 to go with it. I have pulled Imperial Marines out that had all the trimmings on the Battledress once or twice (I'd tell you about it sometime, but I am still under an Imperial Seal and am not allowed to refer to either site.)

Again the usual load out tends toward Cloth and pistols and sharp poking things. I too have been blessed with not really having powergamers in most of my games.

 

[mikeryan]

Most of the people I game with understand the principle of "the GM will scale threats for what the PCs are packing." That means that if they're going to quote The Terminator on their trip to the gun shop, they can expect appropriate opposition (either initially or in response).

Of course, when my current group, with their snub pistols, autopistols and single shotgun-toting amnesiac ex-marine, decided that they needed to invade an island belonging to a small, non-Imperial nation on a balkanized TL5 world, I let them lease combat enviro suits, ACRs with grenade launchers, and a disposable SAM launcher. At bargin prices, no less. Now, they're back to snub pistols, autopistols, and a shotgun.

 

[Tarn]

Originally posted by Mike Ryan:
[QB]Most of the people I game with understand the principle of "the GM will scale threats for what the PCs are packing." [QB]

In my last session one of my players made a similar comment... Oh course, he was refering to a gather info check.

As for weapons, my players are very careful about law levels. So on their ship they are begining to accumulate as arsenal, but they are very picky about what they bring planetside. Currently they are in the outback of a low law planet... lots of gauss rifles. Other times, only knives. They tailor their own response to the situation.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by DrSkull:
After looking at some of the discussions on "THe perfect PC sidearm" I came away a little horrified. Am I just a completely stingy GM? In all my years of Traveller (about 20) I have never ever given out an FGMP or battledress. Gauss weapons have been pretty rare (I do remember a T4 character who got one as a mustering out benefit because he was Joe sniper). In moments of complete generosit, I have been known to let a PGMP-12 get loose, but that's as far as I'll go.

Listen, you put on your cloth armor, pick up your ACR and like it. If you are mercenaries and you behave yourself, you get grenades, combat armor and maybe a PGMP-12.

____________________________________________
Muster out with it? Not in TNE...they did have a tough tussle with a TED on Lote with a chap & his ten guys in TL-14 BD and FGMP-14's. Seven suits were cobbled together from the remains of that scrap they had... and the buggers nearly trashed their ship!
Ammo in the wilds was their concern. Converting a SSR over to a machine shop helped the gauss ammo problem, rechargin the magazines was some work. slug throwers were the mainstay though. STill are.
left over Solomani 2mm "needler" gauss from the occupation are on the blackmarkets..but rare on law abidin worlds.

edited note addenda:
They ran outta ammo for their FGMP-14's, and sold the weapons to the Oriflamman Marine Corps. Flashy, but they only hold ten rds!

Learned em good, and they couldnae say they never had "the best stuff"--sure, and most of it used up against them!!!

 

[valen]

Yeah, I had a shadowrun game tanked the other night by a yahoo with combat armor and a laser rifle. My excuse is that I was on drugs (benadryl) when he was making his character. We are gonna start traveller soon, and I'm fully expecting the players to show up on character creation night packing cats and benadryl for me.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by valen:
Yeah, I had a shadowrun game tanked the other night by a yahoo with combat armor and a laser rifle. My excuse is that I was on drugs (benadryl) when he was making his character. We are gonna start traveller soon, and I'm fully expecting the players to show up on character creation night packing cats and benadryl for me.

_______________________________________
Just remember yer the GM, and remember, some of those things eat a hole in the wallet, and ammo resupply is YOUR domain, lad!

Make em sweat!

 

[justacaveman]

Yeah, I like to restrict my PC's to Autopistols and Blades on Law Level 0 planets.
After all, the natives couldn't be that well armed in a rational universe.


Seriously, look at this planet we're on. Go to Afghanistan or a similar country. Everybody and his brother has AK-47's, RPG-7's, and hand grenades.

It's not a rational universe. Let them have whatever is appropriate for the location and situation. Control excess with custom checks, stubborn officials, and nasty penalties.

 

[phydaux]

Originally posted by LordRhys:
Go to Afghanistan or a similar country. Everybody and his brother has AK-47's, RPG-7's, and hand grenades.

Yeah, and there isn't a two story building to be seen.

You don't get progress until you get the Rule of Law.

/rant

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

Well I tend to encourage my players to accept fancy dress blades engraved by their buddies, or the precious sidearm that's saved their life for twelve years of service, for muster out awards. That and the cash limit on 'weapon' benefits. in T20 keeps excessive armaments to a minimum.

On the other hand. IF the players have the cash and connections, I'm not likely to deny them anythiing.

I just scale the threats accordingly and work on a principal of 'natural consequences'

 

[Listlurker]

I'm also very careful about the level of weaponry and armor I make available to the players.

I used to tell my original group: The Imperium is mostly a big bureaucracy -- they will ignore you, if you ignore them. If you give them a big enough reason to be angry at you, then they will hunt you down and make an example of you, because the gesture of stomping on you will also send a message through the spacelanes about what happens to people who threaten galactic security.

This notion of action/reaction IMTU also applied to players' weapons and armor; having high-end, military-grade stuff would provoke a lot of official questions, and raise a lot of general suspicion in many locales, even if the character had the proper papers for the weapon. As one Starport Authority official told a player, "You don't need a gauss rifle on this planet if all you're doing is sightseeing. Put it back on your ship."

A pair of gauss rifles was about as high-end as my original group ever got, weapons-wise, and those rifles generated their fair share of controversy and trouble in certain places. Armor was almost always Cloth.

Battle Dress and FGMP-15s appeared almost exclusively in the possession of Imperial Marine NPCs (and certain criminals and black marketeers). The players eventually realized that they could acquire such things also, if they tried hard enough -- but they also realized that ordinary adventurers such as themselves owning such things would breed even more complications and potential trouble than the ownership of gauss rifles did.

And, in the meta-gaming sense, they knew that the higher they upped the weapons and armor stakes in our game, the more lethal their opponents would become. They knew that I kept players and major opponents on par, power-wise.

LL

 

[Liam Devlin]

Garf, LL those are precisely the tools a new GM needs to have: action/ reaction & Laissez Faire.
Good answers both of you!

 

[trader jim]

i dont like cheap stingy GMs.....gimmie big guns!!!! and big ships!!!!

 

[phydaux]

Originally posted by trader jim:
i dont like cheap stingy GMs.....gimmie big guns!!!! and big ships!!!!

So Monty, tell us what's behind Door Number Two?

 

[mikeryan]

Originally posted by phydaux:
So Monty, tell us what's behind Door Number Two?

To be fair to Trader Jim, it's only Monty Haulish if you let your players have combat armor and gauss rifles and put them up against folks with autopistols and flak jackets.

 

[Uncle Bob]

On a lot of worlds I've gone ashore with a leather jacket, a roll of dimes, and a belt with a heavy buckle.

Battle Dress and plasma weapons were not available unless you were on active duty with a military unit. If we expected heavy combat some of us could come up with combat armor and gauss rifles, we mostly had CESuits and ACRs.

Oh, and Kabul may be 1-story buildings but Mogdashu has lots of 5-7 story buuildings and Beirut and Sarajavo have skyscrapers.