Traveller 5 - With an update can it eclipse CT?

[Spaceresearcher]

Hello fellow Travellers.
While T5 has been given some rather flat responses, there's a lot that even the most skeptical Traveller fan can't ignore.

Just a side step, a question has to be raised in favour of T5.
That is: If CT is so great, then why have Travellers felt the need to adopt not just 1, not 2, no 6+ and growing alternative add on rule systems? If it's so great then why must it be constantly updated in the rules department?

Personally I think the answer is simple. It's just too archaic to accomodate all a Travellers needs.

Now T5, on the other hand has made a bold attempt to provide an ultimate rules set. A massive expansion. So far the enthusiasm has been a 50/50 balance with those liking T5 ready to get in and give it a whirl, while those not in favour like some things but will stick to there current rules system.

My main gripe with Traveller and something I intend upon being firm about, is sticking to one set of rules. I find using system 68A or the UGM or whatever on top(which is not official in any way) totally annoying. In short, you shouldn't have to.

So I'd propose that with a fix for the rules that are bugging people in some way or an update to incorporate a method to adequately explain it further, could we all be happy and finally have a rules set that the majority could all agree on?

Yeah, I get it, it's kind of cool to have your own customised rules but this poses an issue. 'The founding of a standard'. In some ways Traveller has an underground movement a bit like the Linux computer operating system. It's a great operating system, but overall it's open source chaos, where there's so many varieties you end up with a lot of software that will not run on your version without recompiling source etc. No 2 users may have the same setup or even be able to use all the features of anothers system for example.

Essentially it would be comforting to know there could be a system that all Traveller players the world over could at the very least agree that's the universal standard(T5 with an update), then other things are for personal games only etc.

That way one day when a flotilla of Traveller players all meet at a Gencon etc, they will all be on the same page(no time wasting discussing Tyrano's Rule system megaspecial 101 fantisico etc).

Personally I think T5 could very well present that system once refined and only Traveller players can make that happen.

What do you think?

 

[atpollard]

I don't think so.

Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, The New Era and Mongoose Traveller seem to me to be related in terms of basic game mechanics, just varying widely in how much detail is enough vs too much.

Gurps Traveller uses a very different core mechanic than the CT-MgT family.

T20 uses yet another core mechanic that involves radically different character stats.

Marc Miller's Traveller (T4) and T5 seem to share some common mechanics that are very different from these other groups.

Each version and family of versions have fans who are attracted to those core mechanics for one reason or another. I see it as unlikely that 'one Traveller to rule them all' could gain traction.

T5 seems to have a lot of mechanics that are deliberately designed to have a very different feel from either Gurps Traveller or Mongoose Traveller (selected because all three are currently available in print and supported by a commercial company). Why would someone who likes the GURPS core mechanics and ability to import other GURPS products into a cross-genre campaign want to give up all that they love to play the T5 rules?

Let's make this personal (for me):
I really like the basic 'roll 8+ on 2D6' game mechanic. I like the way the 'curve' encourages median results while allowing for less common extreme results. I like the universal availability and familiarity with the D6 die. I recognize the limited ability of a 2D6 roll to accept modifiers without breaking the statistical bank (auto failure or auto success). I view this as a key feature rather than a bug ... it means that I need to focus on only those modifires to a task that are really big game changers (like making repairs with or without a tool box) and ignore the small stuff (like Dex=7 or Dex=8). I need to grant bonuses or penalties sparingly (+2 is a very big deal and +3 is a game changer).
T5, for all it's virtues, would require me to play a game that 'felt' very different from the CT, MT, TNE and MgT that I love. Why would I want to?

T5 views equipment from a performance criteria. For example, a gun is a gun and what matters is how the game statistics of any particular gun differ from the 'typical' gun (this gun is lighter/heavier or larger/smaller or more/less accurate). The nuts and bolts details like barrel length and caliber don't really matter. That is a perfectly fine way to do things, unless you like those sorts of details. I happen to like knowing that one gun is a 4mm Gauss Pistol with a snub barrel, a second gun is .30 cal target pistol with an extra long barrel chambered for carbine ammunition, and a third pistol is a very heavy revolver chambered for 13mm ammo. I could make these details up for a T5 gun, but I prefer to use FF&S to create an actual unique weapon that is still generally compatible with CT, MT, or MgT.

Let's talk range bands. Personally, I generally like them. A good map and some extra dice to represent the bad guys (#1 to #6) will help everyone visualize the general situation, so keeping track of roughly how far the target is from the shooter is usually more than enough for me. So I don't have a problem with the basic T5 range bands (but I still don't like rolling a variable number of dice).
BUT:
What about all of the players who live to make those 1000 meter shots at a target sneaking through the bushes? For a fan of wargames/skirmishes, those range bands are not going to cut it. He needs line of sight, cover, wind and elevation modifiers ... and who am I to tell him that he should just learn to like range bands and keep his house rules at home? Let him play GURPS or TNE if it does what he wants.

Your goal seems like a heartache in the making.

 

[KDLadage]

If, for example, Traveller5 were to be re-organized and written with a true core set of rules that were as rules-lite as Classic Traveller; in this, I mean all of Traveller:

• character creation (e.g., something akin to a cleaned up and streamlined Classic Traveller)
• task resolution (a universal system that is simple and quick)
• combat
• world / system generation and basic sub-sector mapping (with a sector mapped and showing a few systems as examples)
• starship construction (with a dozen or so worked examples)
• the maker systems (stripped down to the absolute essentials only)
• a set of relatively generic equipment (all made with the basic maker systems)
• a set of relatively generic alien sophonts (limit these to the standard six stats that humans use)
• etc.

Then, after those truly core rules are presented in the front of the book, more advanced options could then presented:

• advanced character creation (something akin to the LBB 4-6 systems, expanded and cleaned up)
• advanced sophont maker (allowing the use of the genetic profiles)
• advanced versions of the maker systems (fully developed with the ability to get as detailed as FF&S was)
• alternative task resolution systems (current T5, d20, other forms of dice pools, etc.)
• etc.

Assuming that each of the alternative advanced rules presented were written in such a way that a player or group could pick and choose which advanced options they wanted to use without having to alter other system in order to do so (e.g., if I want to use alternative task resolution system X, it should not force me to modify basic system Y, or also employ advanced system Z)... If this could be done, then I think that what you speak of could become a reality. The Traveller codes used in some people's signatures could then be used to describe which advanced rules -- above and beyond the core -- they use. But, sadly, I am fairly certain that this sort of structure and rules set will ever be created.

 

[HG_B]

So I'd propose that with a fix for the rules that are bugging people in some way or an update to incorporate a method to adequately explain it further, could we all be happy and finally have a rules set that the majority could all agree on?

Without the unfinished manuscript (currently being passed off as T5) being finished and re-released, I have a much better chance of being crowned the next Queen of the U.K.

 

[sfchbryan]

In my opinion, not a chance in hell of that happening. Let me count the ways......

Hello fellow Travellers.
While T5 has been given some rather flat responses, there's a lot that even the most skeptical Traveller fan can't ignore.

Just a side step, a question has to be raised in favour of T5.
That is: If CT is so great, then why have Travellers felt the need to adopt not just 1, not 2, no 6+ and growing alternative add on rule systems? If it's so great then why must it be constantly updated in the rules department?

Personally I think the answer is simple. It's just too archaic to accomodate all a Travellers needs.

Now T5, on the other hand has made a bold attempt to provide an ultimate rules set. A massive expansion. So far the enthusiasm has been a 50/50 balance with those liking T5 ready to get in and give it a whirl, while those not in favour like some things but will stick to there current rules system.

My main gripe with Traveller and something I intend upon being firm about, is sticking to one set of rules. I find using system 68A or the UGM or whatever on top(which is not official in any way) totally annoying. In short, you shouldn't have to.

So I'd propose that with a fix for the rules that are bugging people in some way or an update to incorporate a method to adequately explain it further, could we all be happy and finally have a rules set that the majority could all agree on?

Yeah, I get it, it's kind of cool to have your own customised rules but this poses an issue. 'The founding of a standard'. In some ways Traveller has an underground movement a bit like the Linux computer operating system. It's a great operating system, but overall it's open source chaos, where there's so many varieties you end up with a lot of software that will not run on your version without recompiling source etc. No 2 users may have the same setup or even be able to use all the features of anothers system for example.

Essentially it would be comforting to know there could be a system that all Traveller players the world over could at the very least agree that's the universal standard(T5 with an update), then other things are for personal games only etc.

That way one day when a flotilla of Traveller players all meet at a Gencon etc, they will all be on the same page(no time wasting discussing Tyrano's Rule system megaspecial 101 fantisico etc).

Personally I think T5 could very well present that system once refined and only Traveller players can make that happen.

What do you think?

1. T5 isn't bringing in new players. Potential players will take 1 look at the size of the book and look for something different to play.

Too much math, too many rules. Even worse, the monolith makes too damned many assumptions on what the players know, not to mention the fact that the rules set is too tightly tied to the OTU.

Then there is the piss-poor artwork - that matters even more today than in the 70's.

And the fact that in the Traveller universe, Human = Caucasian. (Think I am kidding on this? - Go through your Traveller stash & count how many black humans are in the artwork - 1 hand with fingers left over. That may have been ok in the '70's, today, not so much, with the younger crowd anyway.)

2. Every single game mechanic is horribly over-engineered, take too long to execute and a number of them are too poorly thought out. Let me give an example.......

One of the MAJOR new concepts the is concept of FLUX. Turn to page 9 in the monolith. Do you see Flux in the table of contents? No, you don't. Just like you don't see anything else that someone new to the game mechanics would find useful. And don't get me started on the idiotic idea that an index wasn't necessary.

Speaking of Flux, why in the hell do I have a game mechanic integrated into every flipping subsystem that has the most probable result is no change? It is nothing more than useless die rolling, given that I have a GM already.

Let me open the monolith and pick another one.......

The space combat round = 20 minutes - which is about how long it will take someone to work through all of the calculations to conduct 1 space combat round.

Too many charts covering too fine a granularity. (Why is there a need to roll up my parents to create my character?)

Too much is taken out of the hands of the GM and put into a poorly thought out chart.

Traveller should be a GAME, not a simulation. Where is the enjoyment of playing Algebra in space? Nothing in T5 is designed to move swiftly.

3. T5 isn't going to bring in players who use other Traveller rules sets. There is too little continuity from CT/MT/TNE/Gurps/T20/MgT as far as game mechanics. I doubt all that many people who have been playing Traveller since the time of CT/MT are going to be interested in relearning every damned game mechanic. I know I am not.

Personally, I am rejecting T5 as a game system just as firmly as I did TNE. This doesn't mean that I am rejecting every single subsystem - I have seen some things I like & I can integrate it into my current rules set (MT).

And I have no intention of EVER going back to a "small-ship" universe. Piss on that - once your characters have seen a Tigress, they aren't very impressed with a Kinunir. I want a sense of "your not in Kansas anymore"

4. T5 is built on T4 - which was rejected (quite firmly) by the Traveller gaming community. There is a reason we rejected it. It was poorly thought out and poorly playtested.

5. T5 has too many broken systems for it to have been properly playtested.

6. Like other game designers from his era (John Astell, Steven V. Cole, etc), Marc has a vision of where he wants to take the game, and he isn't taking input. It doesn't appear that anyone in the sewing circle had the ability (or the desire) to tell Marc that too much of T5 is FUBAR. This is also why I didn't participate much in the beta when it started almost a decade ago. There is no point in me working on things, when Marc isn't taking input.

Building on T4 was a strategic mistake. Marc should have gone back to CT/MT and started from there.

I have been reading the monolith since I got it - I have come to the reluctant conclusion that it is nothing more than a vanity publication for Marc and the sewing circle. I am glad that they got what they wanted. It kinda sucks for the rest of us, however.

 

[KDLadage]

sfchbryan -- not to put too fine a point on this, but what you have just posted is not in line at all with the OP's question. Sure, you dislike what you got in T5. So do I. You will not be using T5 as a rules set. Neither will I.

But that is irrelevant to the poster's question.

The question, as I read it is this: Could T5 be cut apart, re-assembled with a very simple and fast-moving core set of rules presented in the start of the book, with all of the other (as you call it, over-engineered) parts edited, re-thought, corrected, and placed at the end of the book (or created as Book 2)?

In other words: Can T5 be saved? If so, how?

If your answer is no, then state that. But going into yet another diatribe about the failings of T5 seems out of place and unhelpful. I understand the need to vent (I did so with my review of T5 over at BGG). Further piling on serves to do nothing but entrench the faithful and scare away anyone that might want to see a true Ultimate Edition of Traveller.

IMVHO, yada yada yada...

 

[cuTTer]

Hello fellow Travellers.

Hello Spaceresearcher.

While T5 has been given some rather flat responses, there's a lot that even the most skeptical Traveller fan can't ignore.

There's a lot I can't understand, and not all the things I can't ignore are positive things.

Just a side step, a question has to be raised in favour of T5.

Ok...

That is: If CT is so great, then why have Travellers felt the need to adopt not just 1, not 2, no 6+ and growing alternative add on rule systems?

No idea, but then I'm not one of those fans.

If it's so great then why must it be constantly updated in the rules department?

No idea again, but I'm not convinced that was fan driven. In 30 years Call of Cthulhu had 6 editions that were essentially the same, rules wise. It seemed to do okay, arguably better than Traveller has fared over a similar time period.

Personally I think the answer is simple. It's just too archaic to accomodate all a Travellers needs.

I would agree it's too creaky to satisfy EVERY Traveller's need, but that's not the same thing. Some Travellers never left CT, some did and came back. For some folk, it's all they need.

Now T5, on the other hand has made a bold attempt to provide an ultimate rules set. A massive expansion. So far the enthusiasm has been a 50/50 balance with those liking T5 ready to get in and give it a whirl, while those not in favour like some things but will stick to there current rules system.

It was a bold attempt, north of 175$ bold for me.

My main gripe with Traveller and something I intend upon being firm about, is sticking to one set of rules. I find using system 68A or the UGM or whatever on top(which is not official in any way) totally annoying. In short, you shouldn't have to.

Shouldn't have to? I don't think anyone is trying to make them mandatory. But for that matter you shouldn't have to play with any rules you don't like, homebrewed OR 'official'.

So I'd propose that with a fix for the rules that are bugging people in some way or an update to incorporate a method to adequately explain it further, could we all be happy and finally have a rules set that the majority could all agree on?

When the powers that are have time to provide errata, examples, and answers to common queries, I hope we will at least have a T5 rule set that we can agree on. I don't expect to, and indeed am not really interested in, trying to disenfranchise other Travellers.

Yeah, I get it, it's kind of cool to have your own customised rules but this poses an issue. 'The founding of a standard'. In some ways Traveller has an underground movement a bit like the Linux computer operating system. It's a great operating system, but overall it's open source chaos, where there's so many varieties you end up with a lot of software that will not run on your version without recompiling source etc. No 2 users may have the same setup or even be able to use all the features of anothers system for example.

I'm not sure that can be undone, most GMs will probably wing it if a particular product appeals to them enough.

Essentially it would be comforting to know there could be a system that all Traveller players the world over could at the very least agree that's the universal standard(T5 with an update), then other things are for personal games only etc.

At the moment I'd settle for us being able to agree what the T5 rules actually are, and no, I'm not trying to be funny. Even with that achieved, people will either like it, or not.

That way one day when a flotilla of Traveller players all meet at a Gencon etc, they will all be on the same page(no time wasting discussing Tyrano's Rule system megaspecial 101 fantisico etc).

Do you have a link for that?

Personally I think T5 could very well present that system once refined and only Traveller players can make that happen.

Traveller players, myself included, for my sins, were meant to make that happen 2008-2012. Given the end result after 4 years of playtesting, I'm not overly optimistic.

What do you think?

I refer the right honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.

 

[sfchbryan]

sfchbryan -- not to put too fine a point on this, but what you have just posted is not in line at all with the OP's question. Sure, you dislike what you got in T5. So do I. You will not be using T5 as a rules set. Neither will I.

But that is irrelevant to the poster's question.

The question, as I read it is this: Could T5 be cut apart, re-assembled with a very simple and fast-moving core set of rules presented in the start of the book, with all of the other (as you call it, over-engineered) parts edited, re-thought, corrected, and placed at the end of the book (or created as Book 2)?

In other words: Can T5 be saved? If so, how?

If your answer is no, then state that. But going into yet another diatribe about the failings of T5 seems out of place and unhelpful. I understand the need to vent (I did so with my review of T5 over at BGG). Further piling on serves to do nothing but entrench the faithful and scare away anyone that might want to see a true Ultimate Edition of Traveller.

IMVHO, yada yada yada...

I thought it was, otherwise I wouldn't have put the time & effort into writing it.

No, I don't think it could be cut up & reassembled.

To do that, Marc would have to admit that T5 completely missed the mark.

That isn't happening. As I pointed out - Marc ain't taking input from the Traveller community outside of the sewing circle, and they think T5 is great.

 

[McPerth]

Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, The New Era and Mongoose Traveller seem to me to be related in terms of basic game mechanics, just varying widely in how much detail is enough vs too much.

I'd say TNE uses quite diferent game mechanics...

 

[esampson]

1. T5 isn't bringing in new players. Potential players will take 1 look at the size of the book and look for something different to play.

This is not a problem unique to Traveller. The Hero Games System suffers (suffered) from a similar situation where the core rules were two big books that together ran over $90 and 100 pages (if memory serves me correctly).

It isn't that the books are particularly rules dense or badly organized. They include lots and lots of examples and edge case specifics. However the upshot is that players looking to get into the game could be very intimidated. In recent months this has been mitigated by a new stripped down rulesbook.

Too much math, too many rules.

Traveller has always had a pretty good amount of math involved. Even with just the first 3 LBBs when you got into spaceship combat you were doing vector math (of a form). The fourth book added a much more complicated character generation system and the fifth added college before beginning you career and a new system for designing starships that was quite math intensive. The sixth book added a system for completely generating planetary systems that was quite involved and the seventh book could be described as 'Accountancy in Space'.

Even worse, the monolith makes too damned many assumptions on what the players know, not to mention the fact that the rules set is too tightly tied to the OTU.

Not clear to me what assumptions are being made. I'm finding everything pretty well spelled out including stuff I didn't know. As for being tied to the OTU, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you mean the rules are tied to the pre-Rebellion setting before Megatraveller? I'm not really seeing that. Do you mean they are tied to the idea of an empire with nobles, jump drives, predominately slugthrowers and swords for weapons and no FTL communication? Well, yes, the rules are tied to that because the game is Traveller and not 'Generic Space Adventure'.

Then there is the piss-poor artwork - that matters even more today than in the 70's.

The importance of artwork in a game gets argued back and forth. Personally I think the truth of the situation is that artwork might get some extra people through the door but it's the system that will make them stay or go. However artwork isn't free and adding better artwork to the game would increase that $75 barrier to new players we talked about earlier.

And the fact that in the Traveller universe, Human = Caucasian. (Think I am kidding on this? - Go through your Traveller stash & count how many black humans are in the artwork - 1 hand with fingers left over. That may have been ok in the '70's, today, not so much, with the younger crowd anyway.)

That would probably be because the majority of humans in Traveller are Vilani and not Terrans. However that is a technical answer and I admit it doesn't really lessen the emotional impact of those percentages. I don't really want to go any deeper, however, since this discussion should be about T5 and not the prevalence of ethnicities in older Traveller material.

2. Every single game mechanic is horribly over-engineered, take too long to execute and a number of them are too poorly thought out. Let me give an example.......

One of the MAJOR new concepts the is concept of FLUX. Turn to page 9 in the monolith. Do you see Flux in the table of contents? No, you don't. Just like you don't see anything else that someone new to the game mechanics would find useful. And don't get me started on the idiotic idea that an index wasn't necessary.

That's really an example of organization rather than over engineering or taking too long to execute. Whenever there's a call for flux you roll 2 dice. In most cases subtract the first from the second (plain flux). In some special cases you subtract lowest from highest (good flux) or highest from lowest (bad flux).

That is. That's all there is to it (beyond the fact that if you don't have different colored dice you can just roll 2d and subtract 7 for plain flux, but that's not a rule. That's more an observation on probability). Flux roll is called for you roll 2 dice and do really quick math. Hardly an example of over engineered or taking too long to execute (I agree that some of the other systems look like a bit of a pain but flux is a poor example and even with those other systems I've seen far, far worse).

Speaking of Flux, why in the hell do I have a game mechanic integrated into every flipping subsystem that has the most probable result is no change? It is nothing more than useless die rolling, given that I have a GM already.

While the most likely result is no change there is only a 1 in 6 chance of that.

Let me open the monolith and pick another one.......

The space combat round = 20 minutes - which is about how long it will take someone to work through all of the calculations to conduct 1 space combat round.

Starship combat in Traveller has always been a slow affair. Traveller tends towards a much harder Scifi setting than most games and so starship combat tends to be ships doing lots and lots of technical operations as opposed to Han Solo flying through an asteroid field.

Too many charts covering too fine a granularity. (Why is there a need to roll up my parents to create my character?)

There isn't. CG has you either roll up your homeworld or else pick one, and that is because your homeworld culture can influence what skills you have.

Too much is taken out of the hands of the GM and put into a poorly thought out chart.

Really, there's not much that is doing that. People seem to have the idea that a GM must make certain rolls to do things like create a new sophont.

Let me ask you this:

If you were a GM for a game of Classic Traveller and you had an idea for an adventure that took place in an asteroid belt did you randomly generate system after system until you got an asteroid belt with a population, government, and law close to what you wanted? Of course not. You simply built a system with the stats you wanted it to have. Likewise if you wanted an NPC noble did you randomly roll stats until you got a noble and then ran them through the noble career path to see what skills they had? No. You simply gave them the stats they needed. GMs in T5 are likewise free to create whatever they need without resorting to the charts. The charts simply exist to help a GM create something on the fly when they don't have anything particular in mind.

. . .And I have no intention of EVER going back to a "small-ship" universe. Piss on that - once your characters have seen a Tigress, they aren't very impressed with a Kinunir. I want a sense of "your not in Kansas anymore"

But in Classic Traveller "small ship" is all it was. It wasn't until High Guard was released that you could make battleship class ships, and really those ships were suppose to be for players to be cruising around in. They took massive crews to keep running. They were meant to be things to have adventures on or else used for things such as Trillion Credit Squadron.

Do I think T5 is perfect? Far from it. I agree it is not well laid out and desperately in need of an index (I've actually got the PDF on order so I can just do searches for things). I'm not particularly enamored with things such as the current system for generating ships (which requires hulls in 100 ton increments and uses pre-built engines), how damage is resolved in starship combat, how maneuver drives now work, and how ranges are abstracted.

I'm just not ready to declare it stillborn and give up on it.

 

[KDLadage]

I thought it was, otherwise I wouldn't have put the time & effort into writing it.

That's fair. I was just hoping to stem the idea of this becoming yet another 'pile on' thread. If I offended, please accept my apologies.

No, I don't think it could be cut up & reassembled.

To do that, Marc would have to admit that T5 completely missed the mark.
That isn't happening. As I pointed out - Marc ain't taking input from the Traveller community outside of the sewing circle, and they think T5 is great.

I feel that the book could be pulled apart, reedited, corrected, and reassembled into a good game. But if the last part of the quoted material, indeed, true... then I agree with you.

Which placed T5 in a sad state. I just looked, and there are a lot of copies of the T5 book available on eBay and other sales sites. This is not a good time for the Traveller Universe.

 

[atpollard]

I'd say TNE uses quite different game mechanics...

I stand corrected.
Personally, I like to use FF&S as a 'maker' for CT, so from my limited examination of things like weapon damage vs character attributes and 'hit points', the TNE weapons seem to map fairly well to the CT counterparts. My observation was based on a very small sample set.

Is TNE a 2D6 roll high mechanic for most tasks?

 

[whulorigan]

Is TNE a 2D6 roll high mechanic for most tasks?

No. TNE converted Traveller to the GDW "House Rules" System used for Twilight:2000. It is a D6, D10, D20 System. Skills are based on a D20 mechanic (I don't have it in front of me, so I do not remember all of the details).

 

[atpollard]

If, for example, Traveller5 were to be re-organized and written with a true core set of rules that were as rules-lite as Classic Traveller; in this, I mean all of Traveller:

• character creation (e.g., something akin to a cleaned up and streamlined Classic Traveller)
• task resolution (a universal system that is simple and quick)
• combat
• world / system generation and basic sub-sector mapping (with a sector mapped and showing a few systems as examples)
• starship construction (with a dozen or so worked examples)
• the maker systems (stripped down to the absolute essentials only)
• a set of relatively generic equipment (all made with the basic maker systems)
• a set of relatively generic alien sophonts (limit these to the standard six stats that humans use)
• etc.

This sounds like the proposed T5 Players Book and would certainly be interesting to take a look at.
A soft cover at around 100-150 pages and $29 would go a long way towards opening T5 to new players (IMO).

 

[atpollard]

No. TNE converted Traveller to the GDW "House Rules" System used for Twilight:2000. It is a D6, D10, D20 System. Skills are based on a D20 mechanic (I don't have it in front of me, so I do not remember all of the details).

Thanks, so at least parts of TNE might be better matched up with T20 or T4. (didn't T4 use lots of different dice?)

 

[whulorigan]

Thanks, so at least parts of TNE might be better matched up with T20 [FONT=arial,helvetica]or T4[/FONT].

Perhaps T4. But I think it still has more a feel of older Traveller Rulesets (or even GT in certain ways) as compared to T20 (no character levels, feats, etc). All stats are 2D6-1 (Range 1-11, avrg 6), the Stat "Charisma" is introduced, and tasks are based off of a skill-based controlling stat combined with a skill level. (Don't remember if it was roll high or roll low).

T4 used only D6's, and had a task system that is the forerunner of T5's. (Many D6's / roll low).

I haven't played T20 or TNE (though I own them all), so I am not a good person to ask concerning details.

 

[daltoncalford]

I do not think T5 will ever entice new players.

Not in the format it is currently in and not with some of the rules it has.

There are so many things that gave CT an edge - one was the simplicity in the stats and few skills. A CT scout averaged 2 skills a term. T5, scouts get 8 skills a term. CT used 2d6 while T5 uses the bucket of dice system.
Roll-high vs Roll-low, come on, only experienced role-players like the idea of rolling low - roll high is natural for new players and younger gamers.

So, no, T5 will not in my opinion become a de-facto traveller standard - Mongoose traveller already did that and is closer to CT than any other Traveller variant.

While there are elements of MGT that I do not like, they did listen to the beta testers and changed the game mechanics to meet the demand of the market.

I have never met anyone who actually played T4. I have met people who played all the other versions. Has anyone ever played T4?

I had alot of hope for T5, but, I don't see the current system being much more than an "also-ran" in the history of traveller systems.

 

[aramis]

I do not think T5 will ever entice new players.

Not in the format it is currently in and not with some of the rules it has.

There are so many things that gave CT an edge - one was the simplicity in the stats and few skills. A CT scout averaged 2 skills a term. T5, scouts get 8 skills a term. CT used 2d6 while T5 uses the bucket of dice system.
Roll-high vs Roll-low, come on, only experienced role-players like the idea of rolling low - roll high is natural for new players and younger gamers.

So, no, T5 will not in my opinion become a de-facto traveller standard - Mongoose traveller already did that and is closer to CT than any other Traveller variant.

While there are elements of MGT that I do not like, they did listen to the beta testers and changed the game mechanics to meet the demand of the market.

I have never met anyone who actually played T4. I have met people who played all the other versions. Has anyone ever played T4?

I had alot of hope for T5, but, I don't see the current system being much more than an "also-ran" in the history of traveller systems.

I made those arguments to Marc (via email) with T4's released version, and with the initial T5 drafts released.

Marc has a blind spot favoring roll-low buckets of dice.

 

[sfchbryan]

That's fair. I was just hoping to stem the idea of this becoming yet another 'pile on' thread. If I offended, please accept my apologies.



I feel that the book could be pulled apart, reedited, corrected, and reassembled into a good game. But if the last part of the quoted material, indeed, true... then I agree with you.

Which placed T5 in a sad state. I just looked, and there are a lot of copies of the T5 book available on eBay and other sales sites. This is not a good time for the Traveller Universe.

I disagree on this not being a good time for the Traveller Universe.

I think that T5 should be looked at as a toolbox, not a game system. Whatever your gaming group is interested in as far as system mechanics, there is something in the monolith to fall in love with. Besides, nobody plays RAW, everyone does a mash up of systems for their gaming group.

I think that every group will find 80 to 100 pages that will make them go "How did I ever live without this." But with each group, it will be a different 80 - 100 pages.

There are a number of things in the monolith that I can probably talk my group into using. It won't be easy, I am the only one that owns the book, but there are some things that are better than what is in CT/MT, IMO. I like the star system generation and the world mapping - which is important, since my group is starting a "Combat Archeology" campaign.

I also like the alien creation charts - I'll be working the hell out of them.

In spite of my ranting about Flux - I like the concept - It's one of those things that makes me go "I'm smart, why didn't I think of this." I just don't like the execution - I don't like rolling all those dice when I can simply do a confrontation task, total truth, some truth, no truth. But then, I am more of a MT kind of player (minus that pesky Rebellion nonsense).

"Much of Traveller is solitaire" pg 13. - This is the fatal design philosophy.

 

[atpollard]

I made those arguments to Marc (via email) with T4's released version, and with the initial T5 drafts released.

Marc has a blind spot favoring roll-low buckets of dice.

I've heard from people who actually play it that the T5 mechanics are actually quite fast once you get used to them.

... but, dang, 2D6 roll high is just SO intuitive. I mean who doesn't get 2D6 immediately?