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

[Blue Ghost]

Get rid of the combat matrices and replace them with an armour as damage reduction system - see AHL, Striker, MT, T4 all of which have easily adaptable systems, although I go with T4 for my CT+

And now for something that isn't a change as such - replace the missing section from 77 CT that explains that skill throws are not set in tablets of stone and that the referee should make stuff up.

I probably shouldn't be posting because I'm about to change my mind here.

The thing I miss most about Traveller, not as a game as such but as a tool box for game creation, is just that; i.e. the proto-Traveller setting and loose dynamic where there wasn't a task system nor a Greyhawk. I do think the combat system needed an armor mechanic, but I personally miss the days of things like Adventure Zero or Leviathan or Snapshot, where chargen was a thing to do and was a game experience unto itself, and then you gamed out your retirement as a private security or some form of contractor.

Things, at that time, between 79 and 81, felt more free. They felt as if you had more lattitude. When MT came out I welcomed the new combat structure, but the Rebellion thing really didn't interest me nor anyone in my group at the time. The same with the Fifth Frontier War as the adventures we conjured and went on really didn't deal with massive fleet battled between the Zhodani "axis" alliance the Imperial fleet. I and others tended to home brew true science fiction stories and adventures, and clashes between Zho-Imp troop formations, fleets, armor, just weren't on our radar.

It did bug me to no end that there wasn't a defined task system, or an "activation roll" or some other thing to reflect real hard skill use in the game, but it was the day and age when the genre was just more open and freer than it felt like in later years or even today.

I had a fun time with the system, but for me personally I felt more hampered the more the official setting was fleshed out, and sans rules to define operating within it.

 

[infojunky]

It did bug me to no end that there wasn't a defined task system, or an "activation roll" or some other thing to reflect real hard skill use in the game, but it was the day and age when the genre was just more open and freer than it felt like in later years or even today.

I used the 8+ from Book1, as a catch all for skills, adding die mods as needed with AHL as combat system. I have three movement systems with first using AHL/Snapshot while the third using the indoor numbers from the TTB.

I had a fun time with the system, but for me personally I felt more hampered the more the official setting was fleshed out, and sans rules to define operating within it.

See I used what was offered to extend the agent sorta games I was running back in the day.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I tried using the 8+ roll for skills, but with mixed results. Maybe that should have been the rule all along. I don't know.

Like I say, when scifi properties were limited to Trek, Planet of the Apes, Logan's Run, that new movie called Star Wars, and a large swath of books at B. Dalton and other stores, things felt more open. I don't know why. They just did. I guess that's something that you can't really recapture. Oh well.

 

[mike wightman]

The skill descriptions give you many examples of how to use the skill saving throw system.

Ref decides target number, player rolls 2d and applies any DMs the ref has adjudicated.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Really? What page? I don't recall that. I recall Mongoose Matt citing the BBB in his opening reply on the first page. I think the book implies that there could be more than one way to resolve task resolution, but I don't recall any specific examples. Like I say, I typically had people roll under their dex or some other attribute with their skills as DMs.

 

[mike wightman]

LBB1 77 edition page 20:
"Skills and the Referee: It is impossible for any table of information to cover all aspects of every potential situation, and the above listing is by no means complete in its coverage of the effects of skills. This is where the referee becomes an important part of the game process. The above listing of skills and game effects must necessarily be taken as a guide, and followed, altered, or ignored as the actual situation dictates."
It then goes on to say:
"In other situations the referee may feel it necessary to create his own throws and DMs to govern actions"

 

[Blue Ghost]

But what examples does it give? You said many examples. I've read that section over and over and it says the Ref essentially makes up the task roll.

 

[coliver988]

But what examples does it give? You said many examples. I've read that section over and over and it says the Ref essentially makes up the task roll.

Certain skill descriptions gave descriptions, such as the vacc suit giving a +4 per level (which is really huge - Vacc-3 and you should be able to suit up in almost any environment!). Medic, leadership - several of the skills defined in book 1 gave examples.

edit: as an extended example

Ship's boat skill is used as a DM in handling throws to determine various operations and their results. The following examples should illustrate this concept. Assume a hostile attack on a pinnace (small craft) flown by a character with ship's boat-2..Throw 10+ for the pinnace to escape on contact and avoid the attack; DM +2 based on the skill. Throw 8+ to avoid being hit by enemy fire if the escape attempt fails; DM +2, again based on the skill. Alternate these'throws until either escape succeeds of the craft is hit. If the pinnace is hit, throw 5+ for it to be crippled and boarded; 4- for the craft to be destroyed; no DMs apply to this throw for damage type.

 

[mike wightman]

But what examples does it give? You said many examples. I've read that section over and over and it says the Ref essentially makes up the task roll.

Every single skill entry has an example of a typical saving throw for that skill, it took me many years to realise the importance of the lines I quoted in that those examples are not cast in tablets of stone.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Well okay, I think those are more suggestions than actual examples, but I'll accept that. It's been a while. My task roll was usually to have the player roll under their attribute that related to whatever was going on; typically Dex, Int, sometimes Education. Rarely Strength, hardly ever Social Standing. That verse D&D, Champions, T&T or some other game where they had all kinds of defined saving throws.

 

[Fovean]

We would often use the examples but sometimes they felt off, or I guess not applicable is a better way to say it. In those cases we just used 8+, DM+skill, etc. For stat checks we also did 8+, and modeled Advantageous/Disadv stats with a +1 for stat 9+ and -1 for stat 5-.

Once we found the BITS task rules we used those as they felt just right for us.

 

[whartung]

I tried using the 8+ roll for skills, but with mixed results. Maybe that should have been the rule all along. I don't know.

I'm sorry. I do not understand this mindset. I guess I'm just fast and loose with the rules or something.

What does it matter? IF you have a good relationship with the players, just make stuff up and, uh, roll with it. This is not a competitive situation. In the end, it's about the narrative and having fun. The dice can help form it, but rarely does it determine it.

I mean, if the players get to a locked door and can't open it, kind of ends the adventure. Is that acceptable? So, rolls can fail, and they can try different things, but, in the end, the door is, most likely, going to be opened.

Players get tied up in things like combat, but most referees will have their thumb on the scales if things go awry. Rather than letting dice drive the story, let the players and character do that. The dice add flavor.

Sometimes you don't know how things will come out, so you let the dice rule. That's all fun and games, as it should be, but when it's "important"? No.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Well, I gravitated towards Traveller verse D&D for a lot of reasons, and I gravitated towards RPGs verse warsims like SFB because of the cooperative nature. And so I tried using 8+ for a while, and at various times, but for a game that had things like FGMPs and J1 or J2 ACSes roaming the space ways, it just seemed too simple.

I remember situations like ... picking or hacking a high security electronic lock, or trying to bypass the controls on a hijacked ship, whoever was running the show would use the 8+ roll a lot of the time, where I would use the "roll under attribute" approach much of the time.

I don't know, maybe that was the attraction back during 79 to 81 or 82, and why the system became more frustrating during the mid 80s and beyond. It's not a big deal I suppose. But those early sessions felt more fun. I guess it was just the times.

With D&D or Champions things felt a bit more like a warsim with more defined rules, and almost borderline antagonistic when arguments would crop up between players the GM. That was part of it. So, whatever. I guess I've said all I've had to.

 

[mike wightman]

To quote myself - the beauty of CT LBB1-3 is that the ref is free to make such decisions for themselves.

If you want to use 8+ as the standard target number for situation saving throws you can do so, if on the other hand you want to use a roll under a characteristic check for a saving throw you can do that.

Thing is you can mix and match, the only correct way is the method that you and your players are happy with.

 

[Straybow]

Didn't we do this about a year ago? [rummage thru posts]

No, you can't change "just one thing." As in last year's poll, CT needs (within LBB1-3, not requiring added books):

enlisted ranks, officer ranks, and flag ranks (nothing restricted to 6 increments just because it's the size of the die roll)
standard ship designs that fit standard engines
sensible variants of crew and passenger accommodation
pricing and costs based on build and operation costs (CT passage/cargo costs are an order of magnitude too small)
3D map with distances measured, not rounded to integers (maybe simplified to quasi-2D)
jump time based on distance and drive rating

What would that look like?
* no kCr2 life support handwave, just use financing, maint, and crew costs
* exclusive accommodations 30-50k per week (note that not all jumps would be a full week)
* luxury 20-30k
* kCr10 would be low end double occupancy in a tiny cabin
* cold passage replaced w steerage bunks or seating like partitioned first class air
* cargo based on metric ton (3 m³ ~ 0.2 Td)
* per parsec pricing

 

[whartung]

...and per parsec pricing is RAW

Book 2 '77 page 8:

Passage is always sold on the basis of transport to the announced destination, rather than on the basis of jump distance.

Book 2 '81 page 8:

Passage is always sold on the basis of transport to the announced destination, rather than on the basis of jump distance.

Guess I'm missing which R was W'd about parsec pricing.

 

[Grav_Moped]

standard ship designs that fit standard engines
sensible variants of crew and passenger accommodation
pricing and costs based on build and operation costs (CT passage/cargo costs are an order of magnitude too small)

* no kCr2 life support handwave, just use financing, maint, and crew costs
* exclusive accommodations 30-50k per week (note that not all jumps would be a full week)
* luxury 20-30k
* kCr10 would be low end double occupancy in a tiny cabin
* cold passage replaced w steerage bunks or seating like partitioned first class air
* cargo based on metric ton (3 m³ ~ 0.2 Td)
* per parsec pricing

Agree except for the strikethroughs (keep the 168-hour Jump durations, don't need to divvy up cargo smaller than 1Td).

Completely agree that the cargo rates and passenger fares are decoupled from starship capital and operating costs (above J1, and to some extent even at J1), and that this strongly challenges suspension of disbelief.

Generic cargo shipment in 1/5/10Td increments to X parsecs is a commodity, and its cost should reflect the cost of production (that is, the capital and operating costs of available starships). It's likely that higher Jns can command a promptness bonus but a proportionately smaller fraction of all cargoes will pay it.

Passenger fares should reflect the opportunity cost of the cargo they displace, plus life support and dedicated crew costs.

Per-Jump rates devolve into per-parsec rates because only J1 is competitive on that basis. Thus, all generic-cargo shipment over longer distances will be supplied as a series of J1s unless and until cargo rates compensate higher Jn transport appropriately.

If the "standard hull discount" mechanic is to be retained, at the very least the standard hulls should be derived from commercially-viable, militarily-effective, or otherwise essential (i.e. the XBoat) designs with no wasted drive bay space. (The Subsidized Merchant is a case in point: it should be either sized for matched Size B drives or -- presuming that a J2/2G version is viable -- matched Size D drives, exactly. It isn't.) Otherwise, just reduce the costs of starship hulls across the board.

 

[kilemall]

Per parsec is home rule not RAW but certainly a candidate for fixed CT.

I don’t think the original RAW is all that outrageous when you think big interstellars mass producing ships with an outlook of servicing sector wide routes serving the big IND product distributions and not trading in heavily financed/subsidized trade as per the LBBs.

Or worse, the J4 superfreighters ARE subsidized..

 

[Grav_Moped]

Per parsec is home rule not RAW but certainly a candidate for fixed CT.

I don’t think the original RAW is all that outrageous when you think big interstellars mass producing ships with an outlook of servicing sector wide routes serving the big IND product distributions and not trading in heavily financed/subsidized trade as per the LBBs.

Or worse, the J4 superfreighters ARE subsidized..

It's reasonable enough when used with 200-400Td jump-1 freighters in the boonies. And, honestly, that'd serve for quite a long campaign with the expected progression (Type A, Type R, then upgrade the Type R to J2/2G). By the time anyone notices the flaws, they're doing vastly more profitable spec trading and the flaws don't matter. The problem is if someone wants to get into the intermediate-scale stuff (optimized at 2kTd J1 and 1kTd J2) which should be quite profitable but lack available freight...

Game, not simulation. Works if you play the game as it was expected to be played, glitches if you try to go off those rails.

 

[whartung]

Game, not simulation.

Right.

The question is "What's the goal of the system."

What aspect of play is the trading system there to manifest.

For example, CT has a combat system designed for an RPG. TNE etc. has a combat sim wrapped in an RPG. They're not necessarily the same thing.

Arguably, Far Trader is a "trading sim". Its foundation is a base economic model. While CT has an unbalanced trade system readily exploited, but harmless when used as a mechanic to fuel adventure vs being a means to itself.

What FT may not be (I haven't worked it to that level) is a balanced trading GAME. I don't know how readily exploited FT is compared to CT.

I don't know if any of them were balanced around trying to keep a 200 ton freighter alive on a shoestring budget for any reasonable duration.

I don't know if any of them were balanced at all.

But that goes back to the purpose of the system.

As an adventure seed, any system will work. Arguably, the simpler the better. Something to help keep the lights on as the party galavants across the galaxy.

In contrast to a trading game, such as the 18xx railroad games, designed to be competitively played and balanced among the players.