Traveller: Star Trek

[Galahad64]

While I know the reason they havent come out with a "Star Trek" campaign book for Mongoose Traveller (From what I hear, the rights are pretty expensive), Has anyone here done any work on a home grown Star trek Campaign?

I've thought about starting one, but can't decide how I want to do Star Fleet in a rules sense. I was considering setting it up Like any other basic military career set in traveller. Every section of Star Fleet (SF Command, Medical, Security, Engineering, etc) would be a being a different specialization in the same career. This would be easiest, but would mean that all the varied Starfleet departments would share common Mishap, Life Event and Mustering Out Charts (I'm not sure how mustering out would work, since the players would most likely be playing PCs still active in Star Fleet. I think that either Scout or Highguard has rules for playing PCs still active in careers.)

Now, I could also get a good bit more detailed and make the write up somewhat more like the HighGuard and Mercenary Books, Making each SF Department into a distinct Career Path with its own charts. It would be a good bit more work, but would give a better feel for each type of Star Trek Character.

Of course this doesnt even cover the work I'd have to do to tweek the ships rules to include Trek Style Ships (for one thing, they are manned with different numbers of required crew, not to mention the weapontry and gear that are at very different tech levels all at once), describing the different aliens...AND the various personal equipment, non-Federation careers...etc.

So..any Ideas?

 

[Klaus]

The original Enterprise is about 20,000dTons. If you add in plenty of cargo (for long duration) and extras like emergency power, etc, using the variant warp drive rules (j6 = warp 6), it kinda works out about right. Seems under weaponed, with just 20 weapon bays. Any excess space can be mopped up with shield rules.

As for chargen, you don't have to stick to 3 specialities per career. I'd probably go the 'High Guard' route, but a TMB style career with 5 or 6 specialities might work. Different 2-12 Event tables for each one wouldn't be as much work as d66 for each career.

 

[kafka47]

Veteran Traveller players have always described my campaigns as Star Trek like. I rather like the episodic feel of Star Trek and wished that Traveller adventures would emulate it much more (Anomalies came close). And, most what came afterwards were mainly one shots. IMTU, Adventure is always awaiting one jump away. This raises the question how do others handle their campaigns?

 

[beowulf2044]

I did this twenty-eight years ago. I used Traveller for character and skill development after I arranged the careers into Command, Science and Ship Services. Then I used the Star Fleet Technical Manuel along with the Star Trek Medical Reference Guide for the hardware, ships and equipment. Finally I used Lou Zocchi's Star Fleet Combat for the ship to ship stuff (this set included a Dreadnought along with Klingon, Romulan and Tholian vessels).

It all came together and worked quite well, as I recall.

 

[spinwardpirate]

December 14, 1995.
Mostly blank, followed by maybe four or five pages of notes, or skill lists, career lists, conversions (I didn't spend too much time looking). One of my may aborted attempts to get a Traveller Trek game up and running. For that matter, one of my many attempts to get any Trek game up and running.

 

[Galahad64]

Mostly blank, followed by maybe four or five pages of notes, or skill lists, career lists, conversions (I didn't spend too much time looking). One of my may aborted attempts to get a Traveller Trek game up and running. For that matter, one of my many attempts to get any Trek game up and running.

Yeah...that last statement is the thing. Trying to get a Trek RPG started is hard enough, but tying to get a 'CLASSIC' Trek game going is even harder.

Just wish there were more people in the NJ area that were interested.

By the way...I've been looking for a copy of Forbidden Planet lately. The thing is, besides Star Trek, the other traveller thing I've been wanting to start up is one based partly on The Forbidden Planet background. I love the look of the saucer cruisers they have. I had half a mind to mix it up, using things like 'This Island Earth' or 'Lost in Space' (the TV Show...not that thing in the movies) as a sort of back history.

Jonathon

 

[spinwardpirate]

Right. Part of the problem that I have in getting a Trek game going is that my various players either a) just don't like Trek, b) prefer a later version over Classic Trek, or c) don't believe Trek is a viable rpg setting.

I'm hoping all of this will change in two weeks time.

 

[captainjack]

About twenty five years ago, when I still had enough spare time to do things like keep up with the Star fleet battles rules, and run two different games per week, I ran a shortish but fun classic Trek/SFB campaign. It worked pretty well just using the basic traveller + Citizens careers, renamed a lot of stuff, used the early start trek tech stuff (anyone remember the navigational map set ? It had a great discourse on why and how warp drive factors worked)?

Basically, there were two incarnations: in one were the usual CT/MT wandering troublemaker types on the federation frontier (two humans, a Kzin It dude (Chuft-Hacker), and a wanted Klingon criminal posing as a defector (a la Len Deighton spy contacts)). The other batch were the main away team on a secret exploration cruise - supposedly civilian, but really intel owned.

It worked pretty well; though the wandering troublemakers got more play due to players dropping in and out and in again (University group).

If I recall, though, the real plot line was to be the exploration team , which was going beyond the SFB area to find out about the mysterious "big empire" coreward (Yes, it was the Vilani. Buffed up some.), and why this local high tech bubble (the SFB part) existed surrounded by low tech barbarian types until you hit "The Empire".

Players were last seen in a mix up of both player streams, headed into an unexplored deadly hellworld jungle (with a sentient penguin as a guide) to investigate an anomaly, AND dodge the local law. The anomaly was a dimentional portal to the Klingon part of the Mirror Universe -where in my SFBTU(tm) they were pacifist philosopher hippies.

.....and they were never seen again......Fun.

 

[aramis]

I used MT+SFB; Firing a chart weapon was Routine, Gunnery, Int, safe, 1 impulse. Rolling on the normal table at +1 was difficult, +2 Formidable, +3 Impossible. 2d6 table was rolled on at +2 to listed TN (thus skill 1+stat 5-9 was normal rolls). 1d6 table was TN=2* (1+TN) (Same reasons)

Pretty much all SFB die-roll functions were so mapped.
TacInt was gained by rolling Routine SensorOps Edu; Form SensorOps would get +1 level of tacint.

Engineering was Formidable Engr Edu to do LE doubling.
Jamming was routine Commo Edu; free (no-power) was Formidable Commo Edu. √margin was free points.

Piloting was earned turn, routine, unearned diff if 75% TM fulfilled, Form if 50%, and Imp if less. Paid HET, Diff; unpaid must have earned turn, 120° Form, 180°Imp.

DamCon: CDR was Routine (2 app skills for system).
EDR was mapped as above.

Phasers, personal.
Setting number was Damage and pen was 5+setting. STRPG EP totals used. Never actually saw a hand-phaser fired....

 

[captainjack]

Yeah, much the same approach, using the basic CT roll. All the combat was SFB, too, although I did have to make some mods when the players were in small ships -below 1000dt. I think I did up SSDs for most traveller ships, and most of the weapons on such were essentially Ph-3 ; I cant remember what the half assed missile stand-in was. Probes ? ADD ?

 

[aramis]

Type VI drones, dude, Type VI drones on the half-rack!
I figured the Fed-Ex to be a 300-400 tonner.

 

[captainjack]

Type VI drones, dude, Type VI drones on the half-rack!
I figured the Fed-Ex to be a 300-400 tonner.

....your SFB Kung Fu is mighty........(bows)



Yeah, I wanted it to be a freetrader, but it fit much better as a type R.