Vote Your Canon #3: The Gazelle (consensus: yes, but problems noted)

[infojunky]

Because it's a quick stab at trying to distinguish military hardware and civilian hardware. Unrealized potential to be sure, but there you are.

Note Scouts have military class sensors alongside the drives.

 

[Blue Ghost]

The basic premise was a bit siloed. Exploration campaigns used Scout/Couriers to start with, and probably didn't need to upgrade.

"Space Police" campaigns might use the Type T Patrol Cruiser.

Mercenary campaigns, well, there's the Type M for that. Maybe it can handle dirty fuel, maybe not, but it doesn't much matter since travel is incidental to the campaign -- all the fun shooty stuff happens on the ground and you can handwave the rest.

Commerce campaigns started with a Type A using jump tapes, then Generate. The next step up was to the Type R, and if things went well, that ship could be upgraded to J2/2G. After that, the Type M Liner provided Jump-3. By then, the ref should have built up a decent stock of interesting worlds to visit so the training wheels could come off.

And all of this was built within the '77 rules where you couldn't jump two times without carrying a double load of fuel (for example, a Type S couldn't do J-1 out, then J-1 back again without refueling).

I suppose. It just seems to me that they were tossing in ideas when they were writing the rules. That's kind of all I'm saying, and that the rules, once again, are said to be guidelines by the author.

My personal sense is that the background overtook what was intended, and so you have these anachronisms hanging out in the rule book. It's like ... I don't know ... "Hobbits" being in the old D&D rulebook before the Tolkien estate sued forcing TSR to call them "halflings" ... or ... the old SFB Expansion #1 with it's Motion Picture Era upgrade for the Fed CA before another lawsuit threatened. Only here there's no legal action but just some old school written "hangers on". But it makes for interesting forum discussion.

My view of the rules and game back then, as opposed to now, is, yet again, an open ended "do whatever you want, and here are some tools to help you do it" kind of RPG. Whether Scout Ships were intended to be para-military or military off shoots with military grade do-dads, to me, seems plausible, but perhaps more of a justification as an after thought once the background got really established.

Either way I'm not bothered by the Gazelle nor the Type-S, but they are oddities in my book irregardless of what the old books say.

 

[Grav_Moped]

My personal sense is that the background overtook what was intended,

Very much so. As did actual playing experience (we'd call it "a public beta test" these days).

 

[Blue Ghost]

Well, the atmosphere at the time for the genre as a whole was pretty open ended. And I think the CT rules were written in like spirit with a lot of "wouldn't it be cool if..." attitude by the author.

Threads like this are interesting, but as a former player and GM I tend to shrug my shoulders at it.

 

[aramis]

This should have been multiple answer allowed....
it's official and it's broken. Just like the X-boat after 1981.

 

[Condottiere]

Fuel processors now seem an integral part of the game, and I think we usually can find a tonne where we can install one; comparatively, they're also inexpensive, and occasionally form the basis of a mom and pop business case.

 

[Spinward Flow]

This should have been multiple answer allowed....
it's official and it's broken. Just like the X-boat after 1981.

{ nod nod }

 

[Vargr Breath]

Well, I don't agree with that entirely. I understand that that was probably the thinking behind the rules as written way back in the late 70s, but then there's also the "map your own subsector" mini-campaign suggestion towards the end of the starship travel section. Which, to me at least, trumps the whole idea of exceptions, and needs to open up the possibility to regular Joes in their type-Rs or Beowulfs to "jump the fence" and visit systems that are off the beaten path. That, I think, was actually part of the intent of the game in first place.

Those who dare reap the rewards.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Those who dare reap the rewards.

True, and that's a theme of Traveller (not unique among RPGs, of course).
That said, it's "training wheels" and a defined -- if not explicit -- path of progression.
By the time the players get to the top end of that progression, they'll have the (PC) resources and experience to chart their own path, so to speak.

 

[Dragoner]

Nothing is broken that has a good deck plan.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Nothing is broken that has a good deck plan.

Aye.
Good deck plans solve a lot of ills with the worlds you leave behind in your wake ...

 

[Dragoner]

Aye.
Good deck plans solve a lot of ills with the worlds you leave behind in your wake ...

Someone said, here, in a game, somewhere: "players really connect with a deck plan" and I feel that, esp when picking out which stateroom is yours.

 

[Vargr Breath]

Someone said, here, in a game, somewhere: "players really connect with a deck plan" and I feel that, esp when picking out which stateroom is yours.

Is it just me or is it strange that GDW never did deck plans for the Beowulf Free Trader except the ones in Snapshot and it was just called a 200-ton Tramp Cargo Carrier? I would have thought it would have been in S7-Traders and Gunboats for sure.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I would have thought it would have been in S7-Traders and Gunboats for sure.

Page count was an issue back in those days.

 

[Vargr Breath]

Page count was an issue back in those days.

Yes, but I'm sure the Type A would have been more use than the Express Boat Tender or even the Seeker.

 

[Dragoner]

Is it just me or is it strange that GDW never did deck plans for the Beowulf Free Trader except the ones in Snapshot and it was just called a 200-ton Tramp Cargo Carrier? I would have thought it would have been in S7-Traders and Gunboats for sure.

True, and the Type S is a judges guild design, originally. Though Spinward Marches Campaign, the players steal a Gazelle, and I have played a game where we had a Type T and were the space patrol. It was an OTU/ATU with the Marches "post-apocalyptic" after occupation by the Zhodani. We had to go around, solve problems, and wipe out pockets of resistance. We used the FASA deck plan.

 

[Vargr Breath]

True, and the Type S is a judges guild design, originally. Though Spinward Marches Campaign, the players steal a Gazelle, and I have played a game where we had a Type T and were the space patrol. It was an OTU/ATU with the Marches "post-apocalyptic" after occupation by the Zhodani. We had to go around, solve problems, and wipe out pockets of resistance. We used the FASA deck plan.

We never let rules get in the way of a cool deck plan.

 

[Dragoner]

We never let rules get in the way of a cool deck plan.

Yes. The Chameleon is a perfect example.

 

[Vargr Breath]

Yes. The Chameleon is a perfect example.

The FASA deck plans were great. And in on-board combat the larger the ship the better the action. More places to hide and longer-range shots.

 

[Dragoner]

The FASA deck plans were great. And in on-board combat the larger the ship the better the action. More places to hide and longer-range shots.

Ships are often the "dungeon crawl" of Traveller, and mobile lair where your character keeps their stuff.

Plus we used High Guard to fight the Fifth Frontier War, as Imperials, I tried to defend too many places and lost. Later we used Striker for some ground battles, and then I got the FFW board game, GDW also sent you a character printed out on a dot matrix printer in that. Played that a lot. Then assuming the first loss was it, had a campaign, using Martian Metals minis, FASA, and the Azhanti High Lightning rules, plus I had some other minis, like from Ral Partha I think, marines in power armor vs workers in hard hats. One of our main ships was an X-boat Tender. Through a bunch of boardings vs the Zho's we built a nice little fleet of ships.

Gee, our old Lasalle ran great.