Was CT any better than T5 when it first came out.

[Spaceresearcher]

With all the recent discussions on the worth of T5, I've been rather curious to learn what fellow Travellers found about CT that made it so attractive at the time.

Essentially as it was practically the only main SciFi RPG system out at the time, I'm of the train of thought that no matter how good or bad it was, it would have been terrific, simply because there wasn't anything else out there to compare it to(fair statement?).

So with T5 now upon us and nothing else of this magnitude to compare it to, is it perhaps unfair to compare T5 to previous editions of Traveller and perhaps look upon it with the same light that CT once had instead?

Is it possible that judgments are clouded by the plethora of other SciFi RPG systems out there? Now there's so much choice, the bar is set to a mega high level?

Seems a topic of high debate so I just thought I'd put forward the discussion forum. It's always nice to know where others are coming from.

Myself, I think the only possible aspect of Traveller I didn't like, was the idea of 'The Virus' in TNE. That to me was not a good thing and imposed limitations, which to me was not what Traveller was all about. Never the less, TNE was a nice looking system too.

 

[ronaldo1]

In my humble opinion, CT while not perfect, was absolutely solid and required very little errata. Just look at the errata that's out there for CT, very little for Books 1-3.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

As I recall it, to me CT seemed pretty decent when I first got it, but it was really my 1st rpg so I didn't have much to compare it against. However, because the original three books were so slim, a lot was left for the players to work out themselves and since later editions of those same three books ended up changing some stuff substantially (like jump drive fuel and x-boat viability) I guess its fair to say that the original authors felt that they were in need of corrections fairly early on. Later on the publication of the two different editions of Book 5 only seemed to continue this trend.

 

[HG_B]

Essentially as it was practically the only main SciFi RPG system out at the time, I'm of the train of thought that no matter how good or bad it was, it would have been terrific, simply because there wasn't anything else out there to compare it to(fair statement?).

Nope. I liked it because it was a pretty good game. If it had been a hard to get through as T5 I wouldn't have played it. Do you remember when it came out?

 

[mechascorpio]

There were other SF RPGs out at that time (Starfaring, Metamorphosis Alpha, Space Quest) and even more shortly after (Space Opera, Space Patrol, Star Frontiers, Universe, Starships & Spacemen). CT was not released in a vacuum of SFRPGs, and within 3 years (about the time of Deluxe Traveller), there were those games and more. IMO, CT was arguably the best and most flexible of these, just with Books 1-3 alone. For the most part, it succeeded because it was better organized, easier to read, easier to pick up and play, and flexible enough to at least try to run in almost any flavor of SF.

These days there are just as many options. Mongoose's Traveller, Stars Without Number, Thousand Suns, Diaspora and more. This time, however, I would not say that T5 in comparison is at all the ruleset that is better organized, easier to read, easier to pick up and play almost any flavor of SF.

 

[Shonner]

Classic Traveller left a lot of stuff to the referee to figure out. And had that strange "The bigger a target is, the harder it is to hit" rule. So I looked at others. But they were no better. SPI's Universe had a very nice world generator, but I was not thrilled with its squaring of numbers etc to get % values for a D100 roll on each turn. Future World was half-baked at the time. Space Opera had too much rules. Then superhero RPGs started getting my interest. Then post-nuclear war RPGs. Then GURPS. Finally Mongoose Traveller was invented.

 

[Spaceresearcher]

There is one system that I really liked and also found the mechanics superb in comparison to Traveller and that was Star Frontiers. All you needed where 2 D10's and everything was a percentile role. Very straight forward. It also had a lot of nice adventures. However what it didn't have going for it was the more hard core approach of Traveller, which factors in starhip design, planet design, travel and even weapons in a more realistic way. That's what I think Traveller has always had over every other system. Diversity would be the key word.

Someone mentioned Universe. Thanks for sharing. I'd been wondering about picking that up, but was concerned it would end up being like Space Opera. A few reviews also turned me off it when they mentioned it was pretty thin on artwork and heavy on tables. (Not that, that's a bad thing, it's just that my primary goal with other games and systems, is normally the artwork as none of them even come close to Traveller for sheer scope and a well thought out universe.

 

[SpaceBadger]

Someone mentioned Universe.

Meh. I bought Universe when it first came out (what was that, 1983, 1984?), kept it less than 24 hours, and returned it to the store where I'd purchased it. They didn't want to take it back since the shrink-wrap had been opened. As I recall, I responded that the flaws weren't visible without actually opening it and reading the rules, making specific references to items that were listed as selling points on the back cover and then were unusable as written. I guess I made my Intimidate roll, because they gave me my money back.

 

[mechascorpio]

Despite its many faults, I loved Universe, still do. It had some great stuff for building characters and worlds/systems. Loved the environmental background for characters and its effects. Its approach to starships was lousy and it was a total cop-out to dump starship combat onto the Delta-Vee wargame. Loved the 3D starmap. I still think it's a shame that SPI screwed up so bad and that TSR pretty much killed Universe and Ares magazine. There were things on the roadmap for Universe that sounded really exciting.

But at the end of the day, CT was still the much better, more complete game, even in just those three little books.

 

[aramis]

With all the recent discussions on the worth of T5, I've been rather curious to learn what fellow Travellers found about CT that made it so attractive at the time.

I didn't get into Traveller until 1983... and with CT2E... however, I've compared notes with friends with 1E... and read 1E...

CT was much better edited than T5. CT was better explained than T5 as well. What's there is intelligible.

T5 suffers from Marc's being generally terse. Unfortunately, terse and rules are a bad mixture for most.

CT was mostly Marc, but not entirely - Loren and Frank reviewed and gave feedback, and may have edited it, too. It was Marc's design, but not entirely Marc's work.

The biggest gaps for CT were no vehicle rules, and no small craft design. It was otherwise a solid, playable, intelligible manuscript.

Also, the look...
Most smaller companies didn't use high quality typography. GDW did. (Mention is made of a linotype typecaster by 1987 - it's blamed for some of the errors in transcribing the manuscripts from DGP into the MT core rules).

 

[Spaceresearcher]

For those that are interested there's a copy of Universe on ebay at the moment and it's the 'new' 2nd edition.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SPI-Univ...ard-To-Find-/370146096890?hash=item562e6d36fa

What a price though for a game that was essentially a commercial flop.

 

[PhilB]

My impression of CT (which has to be in retrospect, since I was in primary school when it was first published) is that what it does, it does very well. Hence the relatively few errata. Taking LBB1-3 or even LBB1-7, it has less scope than T5, but I find it works together better than I can make T5 work.
Some of this can certainly be accounted for by subjective taste, nostalgia and experience, all of which favour CT for me. But not all.

 

[atpollard]

I came into Classic Traveller fairly late and it was not my first Sci-fi game:
AD&D, Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Space Opera ...
... and then I found The Traveller Book (followed quickly by LBB4 and LBB5).

I loved the CT balance between simple and crunchy.
It played far better than any previous sci-fi game I had played and became my game-of-choice for the next decade.

I preferred the tools to create my own personal sandbox more than the Official Traveller Universe.

So for me, CT was a better game than a lot of other games that I could have played.
That's my 2cents.

 

[Vladika]

Vastly. Also CT was very well supported, and not just by GDW. As for T5, we will have to wait and see.

 

[tbeard1999]

I think that CT is far better presented than any version of Traveller that came later. (Full disclosure -- I don't have T5, but had access to the playtest files, which I felt were badly flawed).

While CT lacked certain things (a simple vehicle design system for instance; decent military tech [until Book 4 and 5]), what was there was very clearly explained and worked well. Its coverage was stunning, considering that it was equivalent to about 72 8.5x11 pages in length.

I do think that the advanced character generation systems of Book 4+ broke the system and I also think that Book 4 military weapons broke the combat system. But CT itself was a true classic IMHO.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

To some extent I think some here may be looking back a bit with rose colored glasses. If I'm recalling correctly there were some fairly noticeable changes to the 1st three books between their 1st and second printings/editions. Additionally, Books 4 & 5 seemed to make significant changes to how characters were generated, and Book 5 really seemed to change a lot of the basic ship design concepts. And, on top of this, the second edition of Book 5 seemed to vary greatly from the 1st Edition.

Because of things like this from CT we've ended up with a lot of issues in canon where stated designs don't really meet the design rules that they are supposed to represent.

Beyond this too are the oddities with the world generation rules that resulted in weird situations where you could have low tech worlds without breathable atmospheres and/or high tech worlds with no recorded population, etc.

As such, I kind of see CT as having been a bit buggy myself.

 

[HG_B]

As such, I kind of see CT as having been a bit buggy myself.

In 35 years of playing RPG's I haven't played a single one that wasn't "buggy" in some regard.

 

[pendragonman]

In 35 years of playing RPG's I haven't played a single one that wasn't "buggy" in some regard.

Exactly

 

[aramis]

Hi,

To some extent I think some here may be looking back a bit with rose colored glasses. If I'm recalling correctly there were some fairly noticeable changes to the 1st three books between their 1st and second printings/editions. Additionally, Books 4 & 5 seemed to make significant changes to how characters were generated, and Book 5 really seemed to change a lot of the basic ship design concepts. And, on top of this, the second edition of Book 5 seemed to vary greatly from the 1st Edition.

Because of things like this from CT we've ended up with a lot of issues in canon where stated designs don't really meet the design rules that they are supposed to represent.

Beyond this too are the oddities with the world generation rules that resulted in weird situations where you could have low tech worlds without breathable atmospheres and/or high tech worlds with no recorded population, etc.

As such, I kind of see CT as having been a bit buggy myself.

1st and 2nd printing, no. Only a few minor ones.

1st and 2nd editions, oh yeah. I can't find the old thread where we dissected the various printings and editions of CT for niggling details... but there are several HUGE differences between the earlier printings and the 2nd edition of CT in 1981.

The most visible differences:

1E	2e
PP ≥ MD only	PP ≥ MD && PP ≥ JD
Weapon damages in dice+adds	Weapond damages in whole dice only
Some printings have route table	No Routes table
one has Jump Torps*	None have Jump Torps

*I've been told, but have not seen this one.

There are subtle wording differences in healing, especially once one gets to CT 2.1 (TTB) and 2.2(Starter).

 

[Thlaylie]

CT was instantly Awesome and just kept getting better!

I really liked it when the Alien Books came out with those full color dissection pictures.

Aliens are Awesome and fun, math is not.