Using Far Trader with Mongoose Traveller

[Blustar15]

How much work is it to use FT in any classic Traveller game? I'm using Mongoose now by the way.

Is it possible to use without having to import a bunch of GURPS rules? I mean can I still use the UWP's with Far Trader or will I have to convert everything over? i.e. tech levels etc..


Is it worth it? Are the Far Trader rules actually good in actual play?


thanks

 

[Marchand]

Far Trader is one of my favourite RPG books ever.

The main value-added for me is the rules for generating freight and passenger volumes from a proxy for world gross output (derived from tech level and population). So this does depend on GURPS tech levels. But these are easily converted to Trav TLs.

Chance of acquiring a cargo/passengers increases, for a tramp freighter, on low-trade-vol routes. So tramps have an incentive to stick to those less travelled roads.

Freight and passenger rates then vary randomly. The GM is free to vary the outcome to fit a story, and this can give the players real decisions to make beyond rolling the dice vs merchant skill.

This is a book for grown-ups, written by an economist. I work as an economist myself and have used stuff I learned from Far Trader at work, without of course telling anyone how I knew!

Frustrating - so much I could say, but got to go and make dinner. But couldn't resist a quick outburst of enthusiasm.

 

[mbrinkhues]

The Book is best used while wearing a protective mask. Otherwise you risk silicosis from the massiv amount of bureaucracy in the book. The least impressive of the GT series and mostly useful for the Trader careers (That are GT specific) and some ships in the back (GT specific)

 

[Britti_Lover]

If you don't want to do any work, stick to Mongoose Traveller.

Adapting one edition of Traveller to another will always take a little work.

Its worth it too because some of the books - like Far Trader are quite good.

The amount of work is not much - Traveller is still Traveller.

One thing I really liked in this book were the adventure seeds - these are usable as-is with any Traveller rules edition.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Adaption involves at least:

Mapping the Techlevels
Mapping the Starports classes
Mapping/Checking population numbers

and then it's "Business Administration 101 - Generating trade numbers and routes"

 

[aramis]

GTFT uses the GURPS data, tho much of that is directly convertible. Biggest conversion hassles are
1) TL, since it's important for trade values
2) tasks, since it's thoroughly GURPS

The biggest headache is that the presumption of international economies on one world scaling to interstellar economies; they presumed that it will scale directly. Which means that the trade flows are HUGE, and sometimes quite long.

If you use it, you get a huge volume of trade for major worlds, one requiring huge ships to make happen. Regina was like 1000Td an hour.

 

[Bloo]

This is a book for grown-ups, written by an economist.

Don't forget Chris Thrash.

As I recall, don't have the book near me, Jim said it was based on the "Gravity Model" of trade.