Traveller --A wide angle approach

[chrome_gnome]

How well does the T20 system handle ship combat?

I am looking to break up our regular D&D game sessions with a T20 campaign centered on startships rather than individual characters. Sort of like the old Privateer series of computer games. We get alot of "in character" playtime with D&D so I'd like to run T20 a little differently.

I use my laptop and Campaign Cartographer alot at the table so I was thinking of something akin to an overgrown modular map based campaign. I hate to use the term "boardgame" but something like that where the players adventure and explore aboard ships and the crews are more like "stats" for the ship. I use hex grid map sections printed from CC2 mounted to faombard to depict combat in D&D and I was thinking a similar approach would be good for T20. I looked at the Imperium boardgame but that is too limited for what I want.

So has anyone used this approach? Any pitfalls to look out for in the system? I am just starting to read the T20 Handbook so I wanted to know in advance if there are certain aspects of the manual I should focus on or skim over.

 

[mike wightman]

Hi there chrome_gnome, welcome aboard

The simple answer to the first part of your question is T20 ship combat works quite well for PC scale ships (10-5000t), but breaks down if used for large ship combat (10kt-1000kt+).

 

[chrome_gnome]

Would you reccomend reading the design sequence section first and foremost? Then going back to read up character clases for generating the crew?

I saw the pregen NPC startship crews in the back of the book but I'm not sure if its better to roll up crews like PCs would or by using a pregen. I saw the pay scales for crew members so I figured I could go either way for creation but I'm not sure because 400+ pages take a bit eve to skim through

 

[mike wightman]

Hmm, if your plan is to have each player run one ship then I would definitely start with the ship designs that you want to use.
This will then give you an idea of how many crew are required on each ship.
I would then use the pre-generated stats in the back of the book for most crew members and only generate characters for major characters onboard ship. The others could be fleshed out later if needed.

 

[aramis]

I'll second Sigg's suggestion, and add a caveat, as well: any ship receipts should be replaced with a 7 cash roll, or TAS, or similar.

The Pregens are likely to be as skilled as a PC can get, so don't waste your time unless:
1) you want someone broader but less highly skilled
2) you want someone inept
3) you want an NPC with some special side skill.

Keep an eye on the time, tho', and don't forget to attrit and promote your NPC's Levels.

In general, tho,
1st term newbie is 1 level in career, 2 if its a base
late 1st term is 2 or 3
2d termers are 3-5th level.
if the class is a base class, then skills in field will usually be 3+CLass level; otherwise 1+Class Level.