MGT Only: Tasks from the MegaTraveller Starship Operator's Manual for Mongoose v2

[Spinward Scout]

I've been wanting to do this for a while. Porting over some ideas from MegaTraveller's Starship Operator's Manual and Imperial Encyclopedia. I worked on it a little the other day, but embellished it more. Let me know if you see anything wrong.

Maneuver Drive Overdrive
According to MegaTraveller's Starship Operating Manual, the M-drive can be pushed into Overdrive, or push the limits of the drive to 400% of normal thrust for short periods of time.

100% Thrust
Routine (6+) Engineering (M-drive) check
1D x 10 Seconds
Requires a check every 5000 minutes or about 3.5 days
For a good Engineer, this might be automatic and not require a roll.

200% Thrust
Average (8+) Engineering (M-drive) check
1D x 10 Seconds
Requires a check every 500 minutes or about 8 hours
For a good Engineer, with Computer Assist, this could be automatic and not require a roll.

300% Thrust
Difficult (10+) Engineering (M-drive) check
1D x 10 Seconds
Requires a check every 50 minutes or about 1 hour

400% Thrust
Very Difficult (12+) Engineering (M-drive) check
1D x 10 Seconds
Requires a check every 5 minutes

_ _ _ _ _

System Crosschecks
System Crosschecks should be performed on the following Skill checks (or Tasks):

Cold or Warm start a Starship
Prepare Maneuver Drive
Prepare Jump Drive for Jump

To do a System Crosscheck, increase the Timeframe by 1 and increase the Task Difficulty by 1 (or the target number by +2).

Failure to do the System Crosscheck on a required Task results in:

A Warning Light and a Bane to every check made on that specific System until a System Crosscheck is completed successfully on that System.
Or
The Referee should determine a serious Event to happen later on that System.

 

[mike wightman]

And this is the reason I dislike the MT/MgT task system - it becomes a library and look up rather than an organic act at the table.
Plus if you have more than one roll to achieve something you are increasing the chances of failure not success.

The outline of the procedure is useful though.

 

[Grav_Moped]

@mike wightman: Having a roll-and-lookup table helps if you're either playing solo, or are new to the game (maybe even the genre!) and are unfamiliar with how things work.

Absolutely agree that usually one wouldn't need to roll for most of those -- roll enough times, even if it's nothing but easy tasks, and eventually you'll fail something that realistically you pretty much couldn't fail.

 

[Vargas]

And this is the reason I dislike the MT/MgT task system - it becomes a library and look up rather than an organic act at the table.

That was my issue with it as well. SOM has some really good details.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Can you show us where that "organic act at the table" is taught?

I can't seem to find rules for it in Mongoose v2.

I'd love to learn how to do it 'on the fly' so to speak.

 

[mike wightman]

Instead of spending minutes flipping through books the referee makes a target number up. If the referee can't decide on a target number then they can secretly roll 3d and take the highest 2 as the target number.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I think I see the issue here.

If you're playing solo, "winging it" by picking both a desired outcome and a target number out of thin air starts to feel like writing fanfiction instead of playing a RPG. Or like cheating at Solitaire! (Not that there's anything wrong with writing fanfiction -- unless that wasn't what you wanted out of the exercise.)

On the other hand,, at a table with a group that's established mutual trust and respect, it's a good way to keep the game moving along.

The core of this is trusting the referee to stay consistent with the spirit of the rules. But when playing solo, the rules are the referee, so they need to be as detailed as practical.

 

[Spinward Scout]

There was a board member called Supplement Four who came up with the idea of 68A for Classic Traveller. The Target for the roll was either 6, 8, or 10.

With Mongoose Traveller v2, you could modify that to 48C with:

4 being Easy
8 being Average (of course)
and
12 being Very Difficult

With Timeframe changes and Modifiers making up the Difficulties in between.

But is it really that simple?

 

[Grav_Moped]

There was a board member called Supplement Four who came up with the idea of 68A for Classic Traveller. The Target for the roll was either 6, 8, or 10.

With Mongoose Traveller v2, you could modify that to 48C with:

4 being Easy
8 being Average (of course)
and
12 being Very Difficult

With Timeframe changes and Modifiers making up the Difficulties in between.

But is it really that simple?

It can be.

That idea loses a lot of detail, and the referee has to understand what the rules expect the difficulty of the situation or task really ought to be, modified for skill, equipment, and diligence. It's going to be wrong (with respect to rules as written) from time to time. It's a good rule of thumb, though!

 

[Grav_Moped]

That is to say, "68A" (or the equivalent in MgT) is what generally underpins the whole system. Tasks need a defined difficulty, and that difficulty may have modifiers (and/or pre-requisites).

 

[mike wightman]

Which means the target number is no longer 4.8.C or 6.8.A or whatever, once the referee has modified the target number is could be anything from 2 to 12.
Which is the CT resolution system...

 

[Spinward Flow]

Indeed it is.
CT relies on a lot of "fairly typical" thresholds for dice rolls, the most obvious one being combat with a starting threshold of 8+ to hit (so misses are more likely than hits). After that, it's just a collection of DMs to determine what YOU need to roll for success.

2468AC

2 = Routine
4 = Easy
6 = Simple
8 = Average
10 = Challenging
12 = Very Difficult

 

[aramis]

That is to say, "68A" (or the equivalent in MgT) is what generally underpins the whole system. Tasks need a defined difficulty, and that difficulty may have modifiers (and/or pre-requisites).

It's worth noting that that's a playstyle, not a universal.

One of the most popular of indie engines has no difficulty rules at all, essentially, 1 explicit and 2 implicit levels:

• Auto success
• roll
• autofail

That engine? Apocalypse World Engine. All tasks share the same difficulty: <=6 fails, 7-10 success with complication 11+ success, on 2d6+ability.
The CT equivalent? all tasks not already defined in rules are 8+ on 2d6+Skill.
Not how CT was envisaged (note that skill levels have values on specific tasks ranging from +1 to +4 in RAW.)

Taking the AWE inspiration further, anything not explicitly mechanicalized is in "Say Yes or Say No" - saying no only when it fails on story sense.

 

[Daidoji Dave]

And this is the reason I dislike the MT/MgT task system - it becomes a library and look up rather than an organic act at the table.
Plus if you have more than one roll to achieve something you are increasing the chances of failure not success.

The outline of the procedure is useful though.

In 1e Mongoose I arrived at almost never using difficulty modifiers plus or minus. Combined with only rolling when the characters are being opposed in their efforts, shot at, or working under adverse circumstances (which is out of the book if heavily paraphrased), plus limiting terms and sticking to random rolling for skills it works just fine. No lookup for anything except combat; once I copied the task chain modifiers down I went some sessions without ever opening a book. It's one reason I prefer core rulebook Mongoose to Classic, even though I see Classic's other attractions (and the limitations of some of Mongoose's supplements).

Admittedly, most of Mongoose's Traveller fans went a different direction. They have a lot of discussion of skills at 4+ even before skill augment wafers and others. And it became apparent in 2e, although it had a lot of things that were individually improvements, that Mongoose had acceded to how their game was being played, and decided to give the public what they wanted, good and hard.

Still, while my approach took a little bit of houseruling (ignoring example modifiers), the more common approach also strikes me as requiring houseruling (many games ignore the first paragraph of the skill chapter on when to roll, and either openly reject random rolling of characters or wink at nudging the dice to get the Skill 4+ character players want to play). You've got two different directions you can go out of the exact same rulebook.