Traveller Fantasy RPG

[robject]

As I posted earlier, I'm expecting characters to be generated per Book 1, with the typical house rule where 'death' is downgraded to 'wounded'.

The transition from SF to Fantasy adds enough wobble to the system; I'm starting with something simple and familiar.

 

[Mithras]

Well, guys I see movement on this thread - and it is good! Robject - excellent work, in all the right directions. I admire the attempt to stay as close as possible to CT. I did not stick closely to it (with my Roman trading game), but simply used the chargen.

I love some of the UPP characteristics, and fortifications MUST go on. What else is important? Is hydrographics important? I would say no... I do use port facilities, but essentially the trade stats already discussed does that job easily.

I'll add a link to my Roman sailing rules, but my modified CT tables I use to create the ship crews are handwritten, and not on line. The lovely part of this campaign idea, is that I can use 76 Patrons, and can create Random Encounter Tables etc.

http://www.geocities.com/zozergames/roman-sailing.doc

I'm not so interested in Fantasy, but am very interested in a great rules-lite historical game....

 

[aramis]

CT and MT have very similar skill systems... and due to the longer skill list in MT, character skill levels in a given skill tend not to climb too terribly much.

Due to the larger number of cascades, however, it is quite possible to get the Mythic Engineering 8... or other similarly high levels. MT combatted this by both the number of cascades, and the limit in the task system... No matter the skill or stat, Max DM is +8 total between them.

 

[robject]

I'm not so interested in Fantasy, but am very interested in a great rules-lite historical game....

Thanks for the support, and for the URL, too. I'm more generally interested in games set in pre-classical to classical antiquity, myself. That's why I'm wanting to see your material... I have no idea how the Roman sea-trade and sea-warfare should work (Ben-Hur, anyone?), and for that matter the earlier periods with folks like Alexander, then Homer, Phoenecians, Myceneans, Minoans... Ilium, Walusa, Akrotiri...

 

[robject]

I'm looking over your trade rules, and wondering if I can find generalizations that will let me craft "trade codes" for ports that will specify what goods are marked surplus and what are marked as needed...

For instance, a high culture index might mean there's a demand for luxuries and fine craftsmanship. A low index might be looking for more utilitarian stuff. Higher populations may be seeking raw materials, while lower populations would be producing agriculture and said raw materials. Basically applying Traveller to trade.

 

[Jame]

I should mention that on actual Ancient warships, the crew of rowers were generally freemen because it was thought that slaves were unreliable in sea combat (or something like that).

Hopefully this campaign will have some elements of fantasy, like elves, dwarves and orcs in place of aliens.

 

[Mithras]

Thanks for the comments. I was going to try port trade codes, I had one eye on DAROKIN, one of the old gazetters for Basic D&D, which includes trade rules (nicked from Traveller Book 2!) and also trade codes for all Darokin's major cities. I ran out of time, however, and instead came up with a bit of a cheat - the trade zones.

I would prefer individual trade codes, however. If I knew enough about the ancient ports to make them individual and unique. Instead, I might have a few unique ports (Alexandria, Athens, Antioch, Ephesus, etc.) then use zones for the other ports, the Levant, Greece in general, the Nile, etc.

I'm all for your project and will adopt it as soon as it's completed!

I'm looking over your trade rules, and wondering if I can find generalizations that will let me craft "trade codes" for ports that will specify what goods are marked surplus and what are marked as needed...

For instance, a high culture index might mean there's a demand for luxuries and fine craftsmanship. A low index might be looking for more utilitarian stuff. Higher populations may be seeking raw materials, while lower populations would be producing agriculture and said raw materials. Basically applying Traveller to trade.

 

[robject]

I should mention that on actual Ancient warships, the crew of rowers were generally freemen because it was thought that slaves were unreliable in sea combat (or something like that).

Hopefully this campaign will have some elements of fantasy, like elves, dwarves and orcs in place of aliens.

Hi Jame. Yeah, I was pretty unsure of myself and how the game would "feel" starting out, but I think I'm comfortable enough introducing some high-fantasy elements -- elves and orcs in particular.

And some magic. For the moment, can we call Psi "Mana", and assume that Elves have the psionic skills Regeneration and Suspended Animation, from the category "Awareness"? That allows reasonably magic-like Healing, plus the interesting, meditative skill of hibernation.

 

[robject]

I would prefer individual trade codes, however. If I knew enough about the ancient ports to make them individual and unique. Instead, I might have a few unique ports (Alexandria, Athens, Antioch, Ephesus, etc.) then use zones for the other ports, the Levant, Greece in general, the Nile, etc.

I'm all for your project and will adopt it as soon as it's completed!

Quite! Can we note the primary biome (or two) of each city, which become DMs to each type of trade good, similar to Book 2?

The "terrain types" in LBB3 are close-enough matches to the various "biome" lists that I'll try using them directly. So the LBB3-biomes might be:

Alexandria: Desert, Beach
Athens: Rough, Forest
Antioch: Rough, Prairie
Ephesus: River


Add a few more trade codes into the mix (Cp, Sea (i.e. Seaport), In, Ni, Ag, Na, Ri, Po) and we may have something. Offhand, I'd wild-guess:

Alexandria: Cp De Sea In Na Ri
Athens: Cp Rough Forest Ni Na Ri
Antioch: Cp Rough Prairie Ni Ag Ri
Ephesus: River In Ag

So for instance, Fish Sauce DMs might include +1 for Seaports, +1 for River, and +1 for In. Ephesus therefore would have a Fish Sauce DM of +2 for production (i.e. lot size), and -2 for demand (i.e. cost). Would that work?


This would also work fine when defining trade zones: you simply apply a set of trade codes to all settlements within a region, unless they have their own codes.

 

[Mithras]

Sorry, I can't find the post where 'cp' was defined....what is that? Otherwise - looks good to me, though I think Beach is to narrow a deginition (ha, nice pun!). Have Alexandria use Desert and Marsh (the Delta). Looking good.

I'll try and type up my Roman LLB1 chargen tonight... there may be ideas there you can mine.

Great stuff.

 

[Jame]

Hi Jame. Yeah, I was pretty unsure of myself and how the game would "feel" starting out, but I think I'm comfortable enough introducing some high-fantasy elements -- elves and orcs in particular.

And some magic. For the moment, can we call Psi "Mana", and assume that Elves have the psionic skills Regeneration and Suspended Animation, from the category "Awareness"? That allows reasonably magic-like Healing, plus the interesting, meditative skill of hibernation.

Okay. What about healing others? Is Empathic Healing acceptable?

 

[robject]

Sorry, I can't find the post where 'cp' was defined....what is that? Otherwise - looks good to me, though I think Beach is to narrow a deginition (ha, nice pun!). Have Alexandria use Desert and Marsh (the Delta). Looking good.

I'll try and type up my Roman LLB1 chargen tonight... there may be ideas there you can mine.

Great stuff.

Awesome. And by the way, your document is a pleasure to look at -- those image insertions really do add body and style.

I'm interested in knowing the rules of thumb you used in crafting seagoing vessels from LBB2 as well!

'Cp' meant 'capital', as in a seat of government. I'm unsure of which cities were capitals...

I'm glad "Beach" isn't useful enough. Consider it gone.

I attempted to rewrite the weather table, so that only one dice throw is needed (i.e. damage from strong winds is already taken into account, preserving the probabilities more or less). I don't know how badly it mucks up your expectations, though, so here it is for your amusement:

2-3  becalmed
4-5  breezy
6-8  fair
9  strong winds
10  stormy
11  strong winds
12  strong winds with hull damage
13+ stormy

 

[robject]

Okay. What about healing others? Is Empathic Healing acceptable?

I was thinking about that, too. I can't see why not.

 

[Mithras]

Here are my first 4 careers. Just use the normal Traveller rolling procedures.

http://www.geocities.com/zozergames/roman-careers.doc

(Hope it works)

 

[robject]

Trying to figure out how to map the goods to trade codes...

              Biomes           Trade Codes
Greece:       
Egypt:        
Phoenicia:    
Anatolia:     

Commodity         DMs for:

Group 1: everyone has these.

Garments, Avg      *
Garments, Fine     *
Salt               *

Group 2: Phoenicians, then Egyptians, then Greeks, mainly:
                                  
Glass             PEG 
Dye, Other        PEG 
Honey             PEG 
Ivorywork         PEG 
Dye, Purple       PE  
Incense           PG  

Group 3: Greeks and Egyptians, mostly:
                      
Linen             GEP 
Horse             GEA 
Dried Fruit       GE  
Grain             EGA 
Books/Scrolls     EG  

Group 4: Miscellaneous:

Ivory             EA                        
Oil               GA  
Wine              GA     

Group 5: Anatolians mainly:
                  
Fish Sauce        AEP 
Precious Stones   A   
Sculpture         A   
Wool              AG  
                  
Silk              AP
Wood, Other       AP
Fine Pottery      PA
Metalwork         PA
Wood, Cedar       PA

 

[Mithras]

Are these +2/-2 DMs, rob?

Trying to figure out how to map the goods to trade codes...

 

[robject]

Here are my first 4 careers. Just use the normal Traveller rolling procedures.

http://www.geocities.com/zozergames/roman-careers.doc

(Hope it works)

Well, it certainly looks like it works...

 

[Jame]

I would put in one for "civilian" and another for "educated civilian."

 

[robject]

Are these +2/-2 DMs, rob?

Not yet - well I guess they could be. They're me trying to sort out which regions are good at which trade goods, to sort of try and see what the implied relationships between the regions are. From there I was hoping to identify things that could be "trade codes", which would encode all of this tidily.

So far I've just got a lot of mush.

 

[Mithras]

I think I have one more career: Barbarian, then I was going to customize: Rogue, Doctor, Noble and Hunter. The Noble will be fun to do. To make chargen work smoothly, I think your right, I do need some kind of civillian. Educated might be Noble, since they can start at SOC A, which is wealthy, but below B, which I've ear-marked as Decurion - member of a local town council. So SOC A is all those grandees with nice town houses, merchants, wealthy surgeons, engineers, etc.

Other, will be the poor. I might have rural and urban. Or I might let Other sort that out for the player (just like the LBB 'Other' career does now.) Lots of Artisan skills, I'll have to see what Megatraveller has in that regard to borrow...

In my notes (linked to in the previous post) I split Mechanics into Carpentry and Blacksmith.

I would put in one for "civilian" and another for "educated civilian."