T4 Only: T4 Marc Miller's Traveller Another Look

[Timerover51]

While working on cleaning up the garage (an endless task), I came across a box that I clearly had not looked at in a while, like maybe 1997 or so. Included in it were a bunch of stuff from working GenCon in 1996, plus some AD&D 2nd Edition books that I got for working, but also a copy of Marc Miller's Traveller, aka T4, autographed by Marc, that I had picked up to go with my previous Traveller material.

Scanning through it quickly, I came across a fair amount of underlining which I had done as I was going through it. All I can think of is that I was going through it, and then needed to clean up the house, and put it into the file box with the rest of the 1996 GenCon stuff. The quick scan also administered a boot to my butt for not keeping it out and looking through it more closely. I only underline when something catches my interest or I think needs to be worked on. Clearly, after that quick look, I need to go back and take a longer and more careful look at the rules. I had gotten some of the books on T4 from DriveThru, and I did think that the Pocket Empire book was well done, but now I need to go back and take a better look at the core rules.

One is never too old to learn, or in this case, relearn something. Based on the underlining, this rule set really caught my interest, far more than either MegaTraveller or Traveller: The New Era ever did.

 

[kilemall]

In a sense, you will be reacquainting with your younger self.

 

[saundby]

There is a lot I like in T4. But there are counterbalancing issues that make it difficult to sell to a game group as a system for our next adventure. Variable dice is OK, generally. Even for the casual players who have to be told exactly what to roll each time.

However, roll low is a tough sell with many players. Still, groups can be talked into FGU games and BRP games, so it's not a showstopper with all players.

The increased granularity on the variable dice really is good. Half dice are an annoyance, though.

It's a great system, with blemishes. I have used it for a solo campaign, and mined it and its supplements heavily for my other Traveller games.

 

[mike wightman]

I agree, across the whole range on T4 material there is a lot of great stuff.

I am a great fan of the T4 method for damage resolution, and I like the psionics rules - so both of those have been 'adapted' to my CT+ folder...

I dislike the task system and the knock on effect to character skill level acquisition.

 

[whulorigan]

I agree, across the whole range on T4 material there is a lot of great stuff.

Agreed.

. . . I am a great fan of the T4 method for damage resolution . . .

Triple thumbs-up!
I think the system is both brilliant and simple.

 

[ManOfGrey]

A diamond in the rough.

Granted, I was a late convert to T4. And, admittedly, I think it could have been play-tested a bit more before it was released. But with only a few tweaks, I have grown to really appreciate this incarnation of Traveller.

I understand Traveller, in any of its incarnations, is often used for its basic rules in a setting designed by individual Referees. But the Milieu 0 setting has truly sparked my imagination. As much as I enjoyed the fiction of the Third Imperium, sometimes it felt "constrained." In the classic 1107 setting, there was no place that hadn't been already explored. Every sun, every world, had been visited by someone going back hundreds of years, (at least.) The idea that there was so much uncharted space in Milieu 0 is what set this edition far apart than any of the others. That it was perfectly feasible for players to be the first to step onto an unknown world that had been out of contact for hundreds of years, opened the floodgates of my imagination. It is easy to install a sense of mystery into such a setting. And imagine a game where the players are the first to make contact with the Vargr, or the Aslan, who, to them, are just entries, almost cryptids, contained within some old, dusty computer file. And what of the Vilani? Imagine being the scout crew that re-contacts the Vilani Empire, with Vilani characters on board coming face-to-face with people from the long lost home-world of their distant ancestors. The intrigue that might result is staggering. Do the Vilani from the Third Imperium uphold the Emperor's will? Or do they sympathize with their long lost ancestors, and throw their fortunes in with them?

I have since become a bigger and bigger fan of the variable dice Task system, as well. I feel it was truly innovative. Several games use the idea of rolling a target number or less. (Champions comes to mind almost immediately.) And the half-dice is not a problem in my experience. Several companies sell a d3, which is simply a d6 with 1 to 3 painted on two sides each. Mark one of the "1s" and one of the "3s" with a dot, and you have the means necessary to determine a spectacular success or a critical failure.

Again, with just a couple of tweaks to the game mechanics of T4, and you're in business. I'm just sorry it didn't quite live up to its potential "out of the box."

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I am a big fan of Millieu 0 Campaign book. The one combined that Millieu 0 and First Survey sourcebook.
1.It has those extra pages between the two sections showing the growth of the 3I between 0 and 200.
but M0 also had great stuff:
2.It has canon, in-universe origins of TAS, how the UWP system came about, the original Imperial spy network (which has nothing to do with the Imperial Navy or Scout Service heh, heh, heh)
3.Tantalizing tidbits about the Julian Protectorate who no-one besides me or Pakkrat would be interested in.

T4 also had the best sidebar ever "What is Poverty at Tech Level 12?"

 

[Fovean]

...
3.Tantalizing tidbits about the Julian Protectorate who no-one besides me or Pakkrat would be interested in.

T4 also had the best sidebar ever "What is Poverty at Tech Level 12?"

I have been trying to get a campaign going in the Julian Protectorate for a very long time, inspired by Jason Kemp’s Stellar Reaches fanzines. I’ll have to skim a little more closely as I’d missed it here. Very cool region of space with a cool history.

And yeah, that sidebar is excellent

 

[whartung]

T4 also had the best sidebar ever "What is Poverty at Tech Level 12?"

Interesting. Can you summarize its points?

 

[kilemall]

I agree, across the whole range on T4 material there is a lot of great stuff.

I am a great fan of the T4 method for damage resolution, and I like the psionics rules - so both of those have been 'adapted' to my CT+ folder...

I dislike the task system and the knock on effect to character skill level acquisition.

I just have the T4 CSC (bought under the theory that I can homerule any stats/cost but the idea of the gizmos is the thing). I got a smidgen of an idea what combat is like from stats context, but a quick summary would be helpful.

 

[whulorigan]

Interesting. Can you summarize its points?

T4 Core Rules p. 64

WHAT IS POVERTY AT TL12?
Regardless of what the Imperial Office of Human Relations might say, Imperial society is something less than one big happy family. There are people who live on the fringes of that society for one reason or another, who either have to live on the government dole or work at low-pay jobs in areas with a high cost of living.

What is it like to live on the edge? Typically, it means dwelling in a prefab housing unit — along with some hundreds of other people and families — a synthetic apartment block that took someone about a week to throw together and that has been ignored ever since. When first assembled, it was halfway nice... about a hundred years ago. The utilities work, and so do the elevators, but only because they were retrofitted with newer models about twenty years ago.

Maybe you got lucky when you moved in. If the old tenant ruined the place, your unit was refurbished before you took possession. Contractors came in and painted new wall screens in the kitchen and living room. The resolution isn't perfect, and the colors ran here and there, but at least it doesn't have big blotchy patches. Of course, it would hardly matter here anyway, given the apartment's bandwidth. The screen starts to fuzz whenever you talk to more than three people at once on the phone, and the picture breaks up entirely with more than six people on-screen at the same time. (You'll have to go over to your brother's place for the next family reunion if you want to do more than just talk to disembodied voices.)

But at least it beats being homeless. Sometimes you can see the unlucky ones, displaced from some menial job that got automated, unwilling or unable to learn new skills, and too proud or too stupid to do the make-work that the Economic Security Administration provides. Mostly these types don't hang around long. In an Imperial city, being unwilling to support yourself is considered a mental illness, and there are "cures" for that now. People with no ID and no credit are picked up by the ESA sooner or later. After treatment, they tend to volunteer for dangerous, dirty work that no one else wants. Sure, they're gainfully employed, but at what risk. . .

But even those who are dirt poor have significant technological conveniences at their disposal. They may not be able to compete in the business world with other people's cast-offs and garbage, but they can scrounge all the used goods they want from people who have moved on to more technological pastures. The poor can scour junk yards to find clothing, appliances, working computers, and out-of-date software. It might not be compatible with modern hardware, software, or fashion, but it's still better than nothing. In fact, it is better than many a millionaire on a TL7 world would have.

 

[whartung]

Definitely not a vision of a post-scarcity society to be sure.

 

[ManOfGrey]

Tasks and Combat in T4.

I got a smidgen of an idea what combat is like from stats context, but a quick summary would be helpful.

Combat in T4 is, not surprisingly, tied very closely with T4's Task system. I feel it was innovative because it turned the Task systems in the previous editions on their heads.

Instead of having to roll a target number or greater, in T4 you had to roll a target number or less on a set of dice.

Furthermore, the harder a Task was to complete, the more dice were added to the dice pool you rolled, thus making it harder to get your target number or less.

The target number you had to roll to succeed with a Task was based on an appropriate attribute plus the skill level the character possessed. For example, to shoot someone with a handgun, the target number was a character's Dexterity + Handgun skill. Say they had a Dexterity of 8, and a Handgun-2, the target number would be 8+2 = 10 or less.

In combat the further a target was away from you, the harder it was to hit, because you had to roll a dice pool with more dice as the range increased.

T4 used range bands like previous editions, with the following dice pools assigned to them:

Contact (0-3m) = 1.5d6
Very Short (4-15m) = 2d6
Short (16-45m) = 2.5d6
Medium (46-150m) = 3d6
Long (151-450m) = 3.5d6, and so on.

Also, if you were wearing armor, or a vacc suit, there was (usually) a negative DM applied to your Dexterity, (often -2.)

So, for example, to hit a target at Short range with the Handgun skill above, while wearing Flex armor, your Target number would be 8 (Dexterity) - 2 (Dex modifier for the armor) + 2 (Handgun skill) = 8 or less on 2.5d6.

For the same character to hit the same target but at Medium range instead, it would take an 8 or less on 3d6, which is harder to roll a low number because there are more dice involved.

Armor and damage was handled a little differently than previous editions. Armor was divided up into "flexible" armor, and "rigid" armor. Armor was given a value. For Flex armor, that value was 5, and was "flexable," not "rigid."

A cP003 Pistol had a damage rating of 5, so that translated to dealing 5d6 damage to an unarmored target.

However, if a target was wearing "rigid" armor with an armor value of 5, then 1d6 of damage would be subtracted for every point of armor value. In this case the 5d6 of a cP003 Pistol would be reduced to (5d6 damage - 5 armor) = 0d6.

But if a target was wearing "flexable" armor with an armor value of 5, some of the damage would leak through. 1d6 was still subtracted from the damage for every armor point, but 1 point of damage would "leak" through for every dice of damage the armor protected against. So if a character was shot with a cP003 Pistol wearing Flex armor, the damage would be (5d6 damage - 5 armor) = 0d6 + 5 points.

Damage points were taken off the physical characteristics, Strength, Dexterity, and Endurance, as per previous editions. If one characteristic dropped to 0, then the character was unconscious. If all three characteristics dropped to 0, then the character was dead.

QED.

 

[kilemall]

Ok thanks!


Hmm in one sense it has a similar emphasis on stats to what I do. I have a similar encumbrance based on ergonomics, although I'm going more with Striker armor/pen and getting more armored with thicker armor with greater encumbrance. Striker also allows me to make a distinction between weapon classes gun and melee. I use the term plate to mean rigid, I guess.

Example, I have our present day ballistic cloth at 4 [1], meaning that it does a good job at stopping pistols and ok at rifles, but is vulnerable to penetrating stab weapons. Add ceramic/steel plates and it goes to 6[3] but with encumbrance -1, for a vest set. Give the same level of coverage for the extremities and it's encumbrance -2.

And since stats aren't bell curved out for me, that translates to -1/-2 to hits.

Cloth proper by Traveller standards is an upgrade to a fabric that is both bullet and stab resistant and doesn't get the encumbrance hit for the vest only version, but gets a -1 for all over coverage. Then the CES is a further improvement, total body coverage no encumbrance hit unless you plate it up to 9.

Since I do hit location, I can get that extra tradeoff/refinement to how players kit out and experience consequences.



I'm guessing I absorbed the concepts through that Armory and Ordnance Book 9, which now makes sense as a retrofit of T4 concepts to CT. I just went that crazy step further, to cover why people wear ceramic plates over the torso but not arms and legs.



Thanks again!