Vent-Rant MegaTraveller what I hate about it.

[Hyphen]

"What? Last turn I could comfortably hit him and now, just because he moved 3 meters, I have a snowball's chance in hell to even scratch him? That's BS!"

Ah, I see. Well, sauce for the goose (the same will be true for their return fusion gun fire). And your PC's could use Pinpoint fire and the Tactics point pool to nail the sucker.hopefully that could allow them to think more tactically and maintain the immersion.

Do you often encounter these boundary problems? I usually find that encounters are either much closer (indoors) or further (outdoors) away, where the problem of the step-like range bands are not so evident.

 

[Tobias]

Ah, I see. Well, sauce for the goose (the same will be true for their return fusion gun fire). And your PC's could use Pinpoint fire and the Tactics point pool to nail the sucker.hopefully that could allow them to think more tactically and maintain the immersion.

No, you're still not seeing the problem. It's not that they are angry that they can't hit the enemy. It breaks immersion because it destroys suspension of disbelief. (I'm avoiding the term "unrealistic" here, but it would also be applicable if used properly.)

Do you often encounter these boundary problems? I usually find that encounters are either much closer (indoors) or further (outdoors) away, where the problem of the step-like range bands are not so evident.

They are very much evident. In MegaTraveller, the difference between short and medium range can mean a task level in difficulty. So can the difference between medium and long range.

 

[aramis]

They are very much evident. In MegaTraveller, the difference between short and medium range can mean a task level in difficulty. So can the difference between medium and long range.

Those are also the ranges at which, in actual combat data, accuracy drops radically for persons not firing from braced positions. Not particularly unrealistic. The magnitude might be a bit steep... but really, accuracy drops sharply starting at 5-6m with pistols.

Similar breakpoints occurred in CT Bk1/4, in Striker, and more severely in TNE. And in every other game with discrete range bands I've played. (The ones that didn't usually had steady -X per Y distance - which is actually MORE unrealistic.)

 

[Hyphen]

No, you're still not seeing the problem. It's not that they are angry that they can't hit the enemy. It breaks immersion because it destroys suspension of disbelief.

Ok, so it's more about the magnitude & abruptness of the shift. Sounds like you'ee after a more gradiated mechanism - I guess you could add in a few intermediary range bands to drop Diffs by -2 instead of -4 (since there must be _some_ mechanism to reduce accuracy).

Personally I hate the "inchworm" solutions yiu see in the TNE or d20 rulesets, but these may turn out to be more to the liking of yiur players.

Did you ever get together with your players and nut out a solution?

 

[Tobias]

Those are also the ranges at which, in actual combat data, accuracy drops radically for persons not firing from braced positions. Not particularly unrealistic. The magnitude might be a bit steep... but really, accuracy drops sharply starting at 5-6m with pistols.

Based on my personal experience, this is nonsense. Which "combat data" are you referring to?
Implemented as it is in MegaTraveller, it is definitely nonsense, especially seeing how the situation is exactly the same with rifles.

Similar breakpoints occurred in CT Bk1/4, in Striker,

LBB1/4, yes. Worse even in some cases. But as I explained elsewhere, I consider this system to be nearly unplayable anyway.
AHL/Striker, somewhat. Obviously not quite as bad since the breakpoints are smaller.
(Not that other system making the same mistakes makes it any better...)

(The ones that didn't usually had steady -X per Y distance - which is actually MORE unrealistic.)

Seeing how this is basically the same, only with less granularity: How so?

 

[Tobias]

Ok, so it's more about the magnitude & abruptness of the shift. Sounds like you'ee after a more gradiated mechanism - I guess you could add in a few intermediary range bands to drop Diffs by -2 instead of -4 (since there must be _some_ mechanism to reduce accuracy).

Personally I hate the "inchworm" solutions yiu see in the TNE or d20 rulesets, but these may turn out to be more to the liking of yiur players.

Did you ever get together with your players and nut out a solution?

I just imposed one: I went back to using Striker/AHL and chopped the rangebands in half if needed. The system already has twice the granularity by itself. I like the AHL damage system better anyway. It worked well enough.
(Part of the appeal is that you don't have to do as much fiddling with the ranges in typical shipboard actions.)

For a new campaign, I've been toying with the idea of writing a new combat system integrating STRIKER with the task system, using the task/mishap steps for the damage roll, designing a MT-weapon type range table with 1-point steps and maybe a few more types, and incorporating the Margin of success into the damage roll, plus a few other ideas. But I didn't get around doing it yet, so I'll probably end up using STRIKER again, with a few modifications.

 

[aramis]

Based on my personal experience, this is nonsense. Which "combat data" are you referring to?

FBI and US Army TraDoc (Training & Doctrine Command) published data on weapon accuracy, circa 1990.

Plus, the idiot neighbors shooting at me thinking I was someone else...

Implemented as it is in MegaTraveller, it is definitely nonsense, especially seeing how the situation is exactly the same with rifles.


LBB1/4, yes. Worse even in some cases. But as I explained elsewhere, I consider this system to be nearly unplayable anyway.
AHL/Striker, somewhat. Obviously not quite as bad since the breakpoints are smaller.

The AHL breakpoint is a singular 3 point shift at a variable range by weapon.

 

[mike wightman]

I've got to agree with Aramis - the chances to hit in MT are pretty realistic - if anything they are too easy and should go up in difficulty.

US law enforcement statistics give an 80% miss chance with firearms in a confrontation, and I believe a german study of rifle fire effectiveness demonstrated close to a 90% miss rate under battlefield conditions.

Sniper fire now is a totally different matter - but then in MT this is represented really well by taking a lot more time over the task (shot).

Gun range targets don't shoot back.

 

[Tobias]

I've got to agree with Aramis - the chances to hit in MT are pretty realistic - if anything they are too easy and should go up in difficulty.

If you think this is about the overall level of difficulty then I suggest you go back and read my previous posts again.

 

[Tobias]

FBI and US Army TraDoc (Training & Doctrine Command) published data on weapon accuracy, circa 1990.

Where?

The AHL breakpoint is a singular 3 point shift at a variable range by weapon.

Umm... no? It's two 2-point shifts, same as STRIKER.

 

[RainOfSteel]

I only purchased the main boxed set rules of MegaTraveller itself a few months ago, around the Spring of 2011. Errata is my number one concern when it comes to actually using it. I purchased it for nostalgia. While I love the skill system, integrating the errata scares me off from using the system.

When it was originally published, with money being very, very tight, I borrowed a copy. I opened it and immediately attempted to use its starship construction system. I rapidly ran into dead ends in the instructions. I put everything back in the box and returned it to its owner. That was my original history with MegaTraveller, busted by errata before even getting anywhere. It influenced my decision not to purchase TNE, as well.

It was much later, in the late 1990s, before I picked up the LBB compilations (again, for nostalgia) and a couple of bits of TNE and T4. I picked up T20 when it came out and liked it, but could not locate a group who would play. Also in the mid-2000s, I picked up a few more bits of TNE, MegaTraveller, and several GURPS: Traveller products. Of late I have also picked up a few Mongoose Traveller products.

-----------

When the Rebellion setting of MegaTraveller was released, I officially hated it with a passion and continued onward with that hatred for many years, right along with my dislike of the TNE destruction of the OTU.

I would like to say that I have tried to leave my hatred behind and have largely succeeded. I can no longer raise up a passionate antipathy for what happened to the OTU milieu. Today I only vaguely dislike the Rebellion and the Destruction, but see where they had their good points, such as they were.

Strange, how things tend to pass over time.

 

[Garyius2003]

The game system was really bad. GDW wanted to run some massive wargame system, with really complex designs. But actually doing it right would have taken too much effort so they halfassed it.

Then the OTU was so great they needed to put forth the slightest effort to set up a new area to game in. That was too hard, better to blow it all up.

Please note I am biting back on how I feel, since LKW is sick and all.

 

[aramis]

The game system was really bad. GDW wanted to run some massive wargame system, with really complex designs. But actually doing it right would have taken too much effort so they halfassed it.

Then the OTU was so great they needed to put forth the slightest effort to set up a new area to game in. That was too hard, better to blow it all up.

Please note I am biting back on how I feel, since LKW is sick and all.

Get your facts straight - MT wasn't designed in-house, but outsourced to DGP. The setting changes were GDW... but implemented by DGP.

 

[McPerth]

The game system was really bad. GDW wanted to run some massive wargame system, with really complex designs.

If the intent when publishing MT was to run some massive wargame, I must agree they failed miserably. I must admit I've never read the mass combat (and so wargame, in MT:RC) rules in detail, but the truth is that they've never appealed me, as I see them nearly useless due to being confuse and incomplete (and I've played wargames and RPG for more than 30 years as now, from purely tactical, as Firefight, ASL or AHL to truly strategic as Third Reich, Empires on Arms or Europa Universalis board game).

I guess they (once more) assumed people that read it knew Striker (I've never had the oportunity to read it) and so most of the rules were inferred from it, but for someone that hasn't read it, they made no sense.

If this is the case, is a too often error in MT assuming things must not be explicited because the players already knew CT, mostly as CT was left out of print by MT, and that left any newcomer orphan of most knowledge needed.

In any case, MT was a RPG, not a wargame, and, as such (once errata are applied and if you know what is inferred from CT), I still believe the best Traveller rules ever done, even if some parts of it (spaceships combat a good example, IMHO) are faulty.

 

[aramis]

If this is the case, is a too often error in MT assuming things must not be explicited because the players already knew CT, mostly as CT was left out of print by MT, and that left any newcomer orphan of most knowledge needed.

In any case, MT was a RPG, not a wargame, and, as such (once errata are applied and if you know what is inferred from CT), I still believe the best Traveller rules ever done, even if some parts of it (spaceships combat a good example, IMHO) are faulty.

The large scale combat rules (Ref's Companion) are not striker based, per se; I've never had a problem understanding them...they are an extension of the excellent-but-poorly-worded personal combat mechanics. (Which were themselves using some striker ratings.)

And they do comprise a good tactical wargame. The ability to field squads vs companies is almost unique to MT; that the system can handle a regiment vs a couple platoons of higher tech is almost totally unique...

And explains the separation of Pen and Damage... by averaging the unit pen and totaling the damages, one gets scalability without all units being of the same general scale.

 

[Tobias]

I guess they (once more) assumed people that read it knew Striker (I've never had the oportunity to read it) and so most of the rules were inferred from it, but for someone that hasn't read it, they made no sense.

I wouldn't say so. Both the personal and the large-scale combat systems do work once you incorporate the errata. I don't think any prior CT knowledge was needed.
Now obviously I don't think the MT combat rules were particularly good, but they worked. As for the large scale system, the ability to apply basically any scale to the units was a nice touch, but again it came at the cost of detail.

 

[Garyius2003]

Get your facts straight - MT wasn't designed in-house, but outsourced to DGP. The setting changes were GDW... but implemented by DGP.

You mad, and I am not your dog.

Get your facts straight They put it out under their name, they contracted for it and supervised.

In fact, almost every RPG is contracted out. Most don't stink.

 

[Cryton]

I had mapped out the SpaceMaster empires (whatever you call them) for a friend onto the Traveller 2d map of Charted Space. Took less than a dozen sectors... very doable.

You have copies of those maps?

 

[aramis]

You mad, and I am not your dog.

Get your facts straight They put it out under their name, they contracted for it and supervised.

In fact, almost every RPG is contracted out. Most don't stink.

Bull. Quite a few are author-publisher.

CT wasn't, nor was TNE - both design teams were GDW-in-house.
Certain companies have a history of outsourcing to independents, but they are not, in fact, anywhere near as many games as "most" - keeping in mind the number of indie games released in the last year numbers in the multiple dozens, most published by their authors, and a few by co-ops (like Diaspora and Hollowpoint, Published by VSCA, whch is a coop including the author of those two, Brad Murray). Lamentations of the Flame Princess is written and published by Jim Lot; he's only recently started hiring others do to work for hire.

To be blunt - there's as much, if not more, to dislike about both CT, TNE, and T4 as there is with MT. GDW has had errata for almost every game I've ever puchased from them, before contracting out to a talented group of amateurs who did a very popular fanzine and a couple nifty licensed products (Grand Survey & Grand Census). Kenzer and Co do all their core books in-house, too.

Oh, and MGT didn't contract out the core - Gareth was, at the time, a staff member at Mongoose. They licensed the setting, but much of their initial work for the Traveller line was in-house work by staffers. Mongoose's Mercenary was also done in house, and their High Guard.

D&D is done in house. Hero Games had Mr. Long in-house for years. RTG's core books were done in-house.

In fact, the companies best known for freelancers are SJG, FASA, and WEG. SJG still does corebooks in house, while FASA and WEG are defunct.

Many companies hire freelancers for supplements, not many for core rules. GDW doing so was an oddity.

 

[Garyius2003]

1. I really like the CT setting, see also GURPS and Mongoose. The choices for adventures and structure are what I like, and broad enough that you can have a small ship in the void or Mora Highport.

2. I didn't like the setting of MT and TNE. It smacked of being too lazy to set up a new sector for more socially disorganized adventures so instead GDW just trashed what they had.

3. CT was a pretty good system. It was first small ship, ala Universe, only playable. Then they did a fairly good job of giving us large Star Wars type ships and combat in an RPG doable fashion. Mongoose recaptures this base system, with some better tweaks and a few worse choices.

4. GURPS is a beast to play, but at least it makes sense as a 'play every setting' system.

5. MT as a system reminded me of two of the Avon Hill games, one ground and one aircraft, smushed together. You didn't play an RPG, you were playing adventures in accounting and statistics. TNE same/same. There was almost no chance of fun or role playing without lots of house rules.