Traveller Untouchables

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by rancke:
What we really have a surfeit of is Minor Human Races with Stark Warrior Traditions. We must have nigh on a dozen of those...

Hans,

Damn straight. I was gnashing my few reamining teeth only halfway through GT:Humaniti when I read yet again that the Bada-Bings are a proud & honorable warrior race and the Sim-Sala-Bims are a proud & honorable warrior race and the Toolazytohaveanoriginalideas are a proud & honorable warrior race... Sheesh, what formulaic dreck.

Over thirty years of official, near-official, and fan development and all we have to show for it among the Human Minor Races are a gaggle of proud & honorable warrior clones. It seems all we've done as a hobby is parrot one another.

How many of the Human Minors have been officially used up now? There's a hard limit, 42 or 46 right?

GT:Behind the Claw even used up one of that limited number with something like a three sentence throw-away paragraph; i.e. Oh, the Mogos of Jobobo are a proud & honorable human minor race that none of the previous thirty years of canonical material about the Marches bothered to ever mention, but we can't be bothered to describe them in any detail whatsoever. We just wanted to use up one of the few remaining HMRs for no real purpose.

I said before that most of Traveller's aliens suffer under a handicap. It's believed that aliens must be available for play as PCs complete with chargen and all the rest. This perceived need handicaps most Traveller aliens in a profound way.

However, removing aliens from the PC-pool doesn't automatically place them in the catagory of events. I believe that there is quite a bit of middle ground here.

'True' aliens needn't be completely incomprehensible, although aliens of that type can be useful in handled sparingly. The Brinn(sp) from MT and the Jgd-il-Jgd(sp) from CT, for example, are not presented in any manner that would make them available as PCs, but they still are playable by the GM as low-order NPCs. Their behavior can be predictable and the PCs can interact with them up to a certain point. The players won't be hiring either as a steward, but they can act as patrons, villians, trade opportunities, or one of a hundred other roles.

Traveller needs more of these 'no PCs' aliens and much less of the 'PC available' type.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Pickles]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Traveller needs more of these 'no PCs' aliens and much less of the 'PC available' type.

An excellent point. We'll see what we can do.

 

[aramis]

I disagree.

To me, the Aliens I use are:
6 Majors, inlcuding Vilani
Playable Minors: Virush, Newt, Ael Yael, Dolphin, Sword Worlder, Darrian
Non-playable Minors: Dandies, Eiboken, Jgd-il-jgd, Solomani Uplifts
Protosentient minors: Chirpers, Hordelings, CHamax, Wypoc Dragons.

Of this crowd, only the Aslan are truly a warrior race.

The addition of more "unplayables" needs to be balanced with more playable, but unlike the GT approach, they need to each be crafted carefully.

Note that I do not use the Ithklur, not due to the concept, but due to the slapstick snide humor, which destroyed suspension of disbelief, as well as feelign like an insult to my religious beliefs.

The aliens, and an imperium, Jump drives, pirates and small traders are "My Traveller"....

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
How many of the Human Minors have been officially used up now? There's a hard limit, 42 or 46 right?

Yes, there's a hard limit of 46 MHRs known to the Imperial scientific community in the Classic Era (there's a little bit of wiggle room there -- the Loeskalth aren't included in that figure, for instance). Of those about 30 (that I know of) have been mentioned in canonical sources.

GT:Behind the Claw even used up one of that limited number with something like a three sentence throw-away paragraph;

One? It had throwaway references to three MHRs (Plus the Garoo, which it said was an MHR but from the description were just a Solomani offshoot). But I wouldn't use the term 'used up'. As far as I'm concerned, until the day Marc Miller shows up at my door and says "Hans, look me in the eye and unplug your ears: The three MHRs from BtC are canonical", I'm going to treat them as non-existing.

However, removing aliens from the PC-pool doesn't automatically place them in the catagory of events.

I didn't say it did. I said that making them incomprehensible more or less placed them in the category of events.

I believe that there is quite a bit of middle ground here.

'True' aliens needn't be completely incomprehensible, although aliens of that type can be useful in handled sparingly. The Brinn(sp) from MT and the Jgd-il-Jgd(sp) from CT, for example, are not presented in any manner that would make them available as PCs, but they still are playable by the GM as low-order NPCs. Their behavior can be predictable and the PCs can interact with them up to a certain point. The players won't be hiring either as a steward, but they can act as patrons, villians, trade opportunities, or one of a hundred other roles.

All very true, but they are useful to the extent that they're comprehensible. They may be more evocative for being mysterious, but if the GM can't understand their motivations, how can he figure out what they'll do by any other means than using the fifty percent rule ("Either they will or they won't -- flip a coin")? And how can the PCs interact with them if they can't judge the odds of what they're going to do -- except by taking the same sort of precaustions they'd take against flood or fire ("Remember to bring a breath mask in case the Inc-Ompr-Eh-Hens-Ebl breathes clorine today")?


Hans

 

[su_liam]

Originally posted by Heretic Keklas Rekobah:
POP rolls that are dependent upon SIZ, ATM, and HYD. Thus, the more Earth-like a world may be, the more Earthers will be found there.

Abso-bloody-lutely

Psionics

NO PSIONICS. Granted, this puts a cramp on any adventure that requires Zhodani, but who really needs 'em? If need be, just make the Zhos more psionically sensitive than normal -- they can perceive things without using the normal seven physical senses, but that's about it. No psycho-kinesis, no telepathic attack, and no teleporting. (Maybe their apparent teleportation works more like the Droyne mind clouding ability -- you don't notice them unless they want you to, so they only seem to "appear from thin air." Maybe not.)

Going back to the Dune stories. It took quite awhile to figure out whether, "prescience," was actually psionic or something similar to mentat-level simulation. A lot of these things(telepathy, precognition, luck)can be tied to really acute awareness/perception/alertness coupled with the mental tools to properly interpret what's being seen. If you pay attention, and know what to llok for, you can probably pick up on a lie as often as a low-level telepath in traveller rules. Probably better.

Alien Races

Aliens that are more ... ALIEN; incomprehensibly motivated, anatomically unclassifiable, socially unpredictable, and just plain alien aliens! We do not need another cat-like race of honor-driven warriors.

Again, absolute agreement. The Hivers are good, as are, to a lesser degree, the K'kree. The Vegans are okay, I guess, I don't know much about them canonically. I just like the Vargr... sue me.

The Kafer, Pentapods, and really just about every alien in 2300AD rock. I transplanted all of these and slightly modified Droyne to my current non-Traveller universe.

 

[Straybow]

Don't look at me. I could care less about OTU-related fixations. It's a game. It needs to maintain suspension of disbelief.

 

[Darkhstarr]

I kinda like sometimes alien races humans can relate. I also like human races that are alien to 'normal' humans-much like those in Jack Vance's stories.
I agree that Aslan (one of my favorites) are more prideful & greedy than honorable. a point is, if they were honorable, a female human who kicks an Aslan male's butt would still considered a female instead of being officially 'male' by the loser's clan.
Though it amuses my corsair wife's Aslan exec highly every time she dresses in male garb for some Aslan function she has to attend.

 

[BlackBat242]

Aramis listed:
Playable Minors: Virush, Newt, Ael Yael, Dolphin, Sword Worlder, Darrian
Non-playable Minors: Dandies, Eiboken, Jgd-il-jgd, Solomani Uplifts
Protosentient minors: Chirpers, Hordelings, CHamax, Wypoc Dragons.


I would add:
Playable Minors:
Dynchia (JTAS #24){HMR}

Non-playable Minors:
Girug'kagh (JTAS #21) [any encountered would be lost without a K'Kree to tell them what to do]

Hlanssai (JTAS #22) [incapable of long-term goals or enduring loyalty/trust... everything they do depends on the whims of their mood at the time]

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Bill, There is a good reason (well, it's a reason) that a good chunk of the MHRs are "warrior" races: pacifist races don't tend to do well in a violent universe. All the peace-loving MHRs were on the planets that now have lots of pretty ruins - and somebody else living there, to boot.
(I'm back....)

 

[Straybow]

Or became blended with less bloodthirsty conquerors.

 

[BlackBat242]

Either way... they are no longer distinguishable as a separate MHR.

"Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who did not."

 

[jappel]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
Bill, There is a good reason (well, it's a reason) that a good chunk of the MHRs are "warrior" races: pacifist races don't tend to do well in a violent universe. All the peace-loving MHRs were on the planets that now have lots of pretty ruins - and somebody else living there, to boot.

With all respect, there's a considerable range between "warrior" races and those unwilling or unable to defend themselves. Just because a civilization isn't a warrior culture doesn't mean they won't take up arms to defend themselves - or band together with other less warlike races to deal with a common threat. "Not a warrior race" does not equate with "pushover pansies". History is littered with examples of this - and likewise, littered with examples of warrior cultures that were unable to sustain themselves over the long haul, either through the actions of their would-be conquests or the failings of a mono-dimensional culture.