CT Only: What One Thing Would You Change About Classic Traveller?

[Blue Ghost]

I see what you're getting at.
It's basically a case of "room for homebrew" where the rules enable almost anything and the setting is optional ... rather than the setting being the primary focus with the rules confined to operating within that setting almost exclusively.

It's one of the hazards of game design, knowing that there have to be limits (somewhere) ... whether that be the edge of a map, the limitations of tech levels (and everything those imply in a sci-fi genre) or even the ease of acquisition/loss of "loot" (see: Monty Haul campaign).

Due to the space limitations of LBB 1-3, there simply wasn't room to detail an official game setting in tremendous detail (like you can do now with online tools such as Campfire Blaze that can keep track of EVERYTHING in a setting for you, as a writer). That very lack of room to "definitively define" much of an official setting yielded a kind of No Man's Sky version of Traveller in the early days. Even LBB A1 The Kinunir was limited to only the Regina subsector for a map. Then LBB S3 Spinward Marches came along and we got to see the sector that the Regina subsector was set in ... and after that, the rest is history ... all the way up to online tools such as Traveller Map and the Traveller Wiki sites.

There's a very different ... sense ... of possibilities when you start small but have room to explore and grow and build using that small start as a foundation. A kind of small fish in a small pond that leads to a bigger lake of unexplored possibilities ... rather than being a grain of sand on a beach made up of seemingly countless sand grains. In a very real sense, what amounts to "archipelago campaigns" in which there are known (small) clusters to navigate between and within tend to offer the richest possible settings because each region is "small enough" for a Referee to manage (and keep track of) while also leaving "room" for the archipelago to grow and expand outwards somewhat organically in a spirit of exploration into aster incognita.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

When one of my high school to college era groups did Champions the VIPER supervillain group was an optional bad guy outfit that was offered by the basic rule book. They were a stock bad guy super villain outfit that the players could use in a pinch in lieu of making something themselves or trying to recreate somethiing like DC's Legion of Supervillains or similar supervillain groups. It wasn't "canon". It was there as a tool should you need it.

And to me that's what original flavor Traveller was all about. Even when FASA and Judge's Guild were publishing their addons, there was still a Proto-Traveller feel to the game. And that's how the rules were written. When Hunter was still alive and tabled an offer to write for his T20 ... I was trying to finish my degree at the time, but more importantly, author wise, I had a hard time wrapping my brain around the OTU. I mean I knew it backwards and forwards like a lot of people who post here, but my early experiences with the early "Non-Setting" version of the game is what sticks with me.

I can't say I dislike the OTU for the game, but regardless of why more background material wasn't put into the first basic LBBs, again just my perspective here, I prefer material that doesn't reference the OTU. So the few adventures that I have written were done in that vein.

To me the OTU just feels like it pigeon holes and excludes a lot of possibilities by being the OTU by law as opposed to the OTU as an option should you need it or elements of it. And like I say back in the 60s and 70s there was really new and unique scifi art that was more colorful and imaginative than the pulp book covers from the 50s. So much that Stewart Cowley put them into his Terran Trade Authority series, and Traveller, in my not so humble opinion, rode off of that vibe sparked by Lucas's Star Wars.

So ... reinventing the game, to me, is not dependent on shifting emphasis on the temporal or historic era for the OTU, but getting back to the original basics of being a GURPS like RPG with an optional background for players. That's the game I know, that's the game I grew up with, that's the game I wanted to write for, but other than shooting my mouth off here, I've essentially put it on the shelf and will never go back to it in any form. Such is life.

 

[Fovean]

Thing is, every single version of Traveller has included rules for building your own setting. The OTU has always been optional.

I‘ve never understood the assertion ”the setting is the rules and the rules are the setting.” There are some default assumptions, sure - careers, jump, shipbuilding, trade and so forth - but there’s never been anything preventing anyone from doing what they want with the game.

 

[mike wightman]

The common misconception in the general roleplaying audience is that Traveller is a game set in the Third Imperium. I know it's not, you know it's not, but the vast majority don't.
Third Imperium, room sized computers, die during character generation - those are the most common things I see when Traveller is discussed on general rpg forums.

 

[Dragoner]

The otu is good training for learning the rules, then once you hit the boundaries of where you want to go, the rules are there to help you make your own setting.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Thing is, every single version of Traveller has included rules for building your own setting. The OTU has always been optional.

I‘ve never understood the assertion ”the setting is the rules and the rules are the setting.” There are some default assumptions, sure - careers, jump, shipbuilding, trade and so forth - but there’s never been anything preventing anyone from doing what they want with the game.

Well, maybe, but that's how each new edition comes across to me. So, I don't know. MT had it's civil war, T4 and TNE had thier rediscovery eras and so forth. Whether you interpret the setting as a necessity or not I guess doesn't matter, but there does seem to be a lot of flak posted on other threads about "canon", "eras", "OTU" verse "MTU" and so forth. Just my observation.

 

[whulorigan]

Well, maybe, but that's how each new edition comes across to me. So, I don't know. MT had it's civil war, T4 and TNE had thier rediscovery eras and so forth. Whether you interpret the setting as a necessity or not I guess doesn't matter, but there does seem to be a lot of flak posted on other threads about "canon", "eras", "OTU" verse "MTU" and so forth. Just my observation.

That's because the OTU is a setting, just like Greyhawk was a setting for AD&D. When you are discussing a setting, you can talk about what is or is not canonical for that setting. Golden Age (CT ca 1105), Rebellion/Civil War, Milieu:0 and New Era are all eras within that setting, and thus can be discussed from the standpoint of what is or is not canonical. In general I think most people on these boards will presume you are talking about the OTU-setting when you talk about Traveller unless you specify that you are discussing a pure rules-mechanic issue, or that you want to talk about generic setting possibilities and issues.

But what you do in your own campaign with a particular setting, or if you want to toss the OTU altogether and discuss your own independent setting is entirely up to you. You are no more bound to use the OTU (or a variant of it) in your Traveller game any more than you are expected to use Greyhawk if you are playng 1st Ed. AD&D. Use it or make up your own - that is your chioice as a GM/referee. But when you are discussing it on the boards, just make sure you specify that you want to discuss a variant or a generic setting so that everyone is on the same page.

 

[Fovean]

I’m not really a canon type of guy, so it’s easy for me to dismiss the OTU. I started with The Traveller Book, which had a little slice of the Third Imperium, and I thought a lot of that was really cool. But it was so much more fun to build my own subsectors.

By the time MT rolled around I was pretty psyched to revisit the 3I but MT was such a mess and so frustrating that I went back to my old material. Probably cemented my feelings about the OTU right there. There’s a ton of cool stuff about the 3I and a lot of people have done a lot of amazing work there, that I have a lot of respect for. But I prefer to create a subsector with the players, using their character backgrounds, careers and events to build it, and flesh it out as needed.

It is too bad that GDW basically filled up the map right from the get-go. Would have been cool if each iteration opened up new space and new races as it advanced the timeline. Although I suppose if you had been playing since the 70’s it must have felt just like that (I started in the 80’s).

 

[BlackBat242]

Keep it in production in 1987 instead of developing MT.
Or TNE.
Or T4.
Et cetera.

 

[whartung]

I honestly don't get it. The OTU is HUGE enough to find enormous, gaping holes to "raw adventure" in.

Whether it's exploring a lost research post, hunting trophy Barzalooks on the swamp world of Gamma Hydra V, or galavanting across "the imperium" ala TTA or Arrival Vengeance. Just because those star spanning journeys were core in the Imperial mythos, doesn't mean yours has to be.

It sounds like a modern TV lament. "11,000 worlds, and nothing to do."

 

[Spinward Flow]

Did CT ever establish any rules for what higher skill levels could do for crew requirements?

Like instead of needing 2x Engineering-1 crew members for 70 tons of drives (per LBB2) you could instead have 1x Engineering-2 and cover those same 70 tons of drives?

It always felt like extra skill levels beyond 1 or 2 wound up getting "wasted" by how crew requirements worked (you always needed more people).

 

[whartung]

Like instead of needing 2x Engineering-1 crew members for 70 tons of drives (per LBB2) you could instead have 1x Engineering-2 and cover those same 70 tons of drives?

Doesn't make any sense.

It's a workload problem, not an expertise problem. Even if the "expert" engineer may be able to do some tasks faster, sometimes you just need 4 hands.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Did CT ever establish any rules for what higher skill levels could do for crew requirements?

Like instead of needing 2x Engineering-1 crew members for 70 tons of drives (per LBB2) you could instead have 1x Engineering-2 and cover those same 70 tons of drives?

It always felt like extra skill levels beyond 1 or 2 wound up getting "wasted" by how crew requirements worked (you always needed more people).

Engineer-2 wouldn't suffice.

LBB2 '81 p. 16:
"One person may fill two crew positions, providing he or she has the skill to otherwise perform the work. However, because of the added burden, each position is filed with skill minus one, and the individual draws salary equal to 75% of each position; thus, to fill two positions, the character must have at least skill level-2 in each (except steward: level-1)."

The individual would fill the senior position at Engineer-1. However, because he or she would then be effectively an Engineer-1, he or she would not be able to fill a second Engineering position because they'd be Engineer-0 in that role.

On the other hand, you could have an Engineer-3 fill both the Chief Engineer slot and an engineering crew slot, as an Engineer-2 and Engineer-1.

Also note that if there are multiple crew slots for a skill type, the highest-skilled (or senior) person gets a 10% salary boost. They'd get 165% of the base salary, [i.e. (.75*2)*1.1], rules-as-written, but IMHO that's too low -- it's assigning operational duties to an individual who'd otherwise be in a primarily supervisory position.

As a ref, I'd waive the penalty for being short-handed for a Jump or two if the party had a PC/NPC with enough skill to fill both slots, but would have in-universe regulations that prevented the construction of ships that relied on that. For longer than a couple of Jumps, I'd start having fatigue set in, or have malfunctions occur while the engineer was off-shift. The game mechanics for that would be to roll for malfunctions as though the ship was indeed short-handed, but if the engineer was on-shift (1D for 4+) the malfunction was caught in time to prevent it. Modify as appropriate for larger engineering crews.

Keep in mind that where advanced character generation is used (anything beyond LBB1), "...the average skill level of a non-player character... is assumed to be two." (LBB5 '80 p. 44), so under those rule systems you'd probably have to start with Skill-4 to have the default competency when filling two positions.

 

[mike wightman]

Now that is a rule interpretation I had never thought of - I like it.

 

[coliver988]

It's a workload problem, not an expertise problem. Even if the "expert" engineer may be able to do some tasks faster, sometimes you just need 4 hands.

Exactly. Read the Mythical Man Month if you get a chance. It may be pretty old but it is still applicable and deals with this sort of thing from the software perspective.

 

[RandyB]

Exactly. Read the Mythical Man Month if you get a chance. It may be pretty old but it is still applicable and deals with this sort of thing from the software perspective.

Mythical Man Month is a classic, period. Highly recommended.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Actually, having had more time to think about the notion, perhaps a better interpretation would be ...



Skill levels above 1 (on the character) receive +10% more in salary per +1 over skill-1 (already established).
Throughput of skills into crew roles (so count the -1 for split role before this) is increased by +10% per +1 skill over minimum necessary to fill the crew role (drop fractions) ... would then be the update modification.

Examples:

• So one Engineering-2 skill as a single role crew member can service 35*1*1.1=38 tons of drives.
• Two single role crew members with Engineering-2 can service 35*2*1.1=77 tons of drives ... not just 70.
• But two crew with Engineering-2 in split roles (Engineering/*) are only able to deliver Engineering-1 each, meaning that each can only service 35*2*1.0=70 tons of drives between the two of them (in addition to their other crew role).
  
  
• One Steward-1 as a single role crew member can support 8*1.1=8 High Passengers (remember minimum skill Steward-0).
• Two Steward-1 as single role crew members can support 8*2*1.1=17 High Passengers.
• One Steward-2 as a single role crew member can support 8*1*1.2=9 HIgh Passengers.

The skill levels the character HAS are merely the starting point.
The skill level "throughput" into the crew role assigned is what matters, so the -1 for split role duty between different crew positions definitely counts.

"Double duty" in a single crew role is not permitted ... so you can't use Engineering-2 as a backdoor way to achieve an Engineer/Engineer crew split role assignment, counting a single crew member twice for the same role.



Basically an extrapolation that permits crew skills to "matter" in ways that become relevant to the breakpoint cutoffs for certain requirements (35 tons of drives per engineer, 8 high passengers per steward, etc.). For skills like Gunnery, it means that with Gunnery-2+ you can have fewer gunners than Turrets on a ship, but only when there are "a lot of turrets" on a ship so the drop fractions part of the (house) rule yields a result of one fewer Gunners being needed than when all crew have Gunnery-1.



Note that such a rules extension enables a decided niche role for dedicated crew role specialization in terms of crew requirements, while also making it possible to be a bit more flexible in crew staffing of starships and spacecraft. Sort of a "you get what you pay for" in terms of crew competency, such that extra crew skill levels (which must be paid for in salaries) don't "go to waste" on still needing just as many bodies because crew skill levels above minimum "don't matter" to crew manning requirements.

 

[Condottiere]

I think you need an actual body for an engineering slot, having more experience and/or skill probably just allows you to be more efficient and/or proficient within that slot, or you could use the time saved being more efficient to partially, or wholly, cover another slot.

In terms of compensation, that's probably your skill at bargaining.

 

[willtron3030]

Mythical Man Month is a classic, period. Highly recommended.

Fred Brooks was funny as heck when I met him at a reception (where I was bussing tables in college). What's thought of as Brooks' Law from MMM, "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later", hasn't benefitted me as much as his rules for software toolchains:

1. Dull tools are useless.
2. Sharp tools are dangerous.
3. Never use the sharp end as a handle.

I wish I could find a citation for these, but the morning is getting away from me.

 

[whartung]

Dull tools can be more dangerous.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Dull tools can be more dangerous.

And some of them pass the sophont tests ...