Which version do you prefer and why?

[jac]

Yes, yes, I'm sure this has hashed out multiple times, but I'm looking at getting back into Traveller after many years. I played CT back in 79 and early 80s, but I've never played the other versions. I'm not asking for the (N+1)th Flame War, I just want to decide what version or combination I might find best.

By the way, I'm starting with a non-canon universe, if that helps.

Thanks

Jim

 

[Fovean]

Currently playing a house-ruled version of Mongoose Trav, non-canon setting. Works very well - char gen is reminiscent of Classic but updated, lots of new supporting material, quick and easy task system.

After classic things seemed to get very complicated very fast with lots of contradictions. Not to say the Mongoose version is perfect by any means, but it retains the feel of the Classic system and adds some modern ideas.

 

[kafka47]

CT -> combat clean and easy = quick and deadly
MT -> task system just a better worked out system
MgT -> chargen works much better (although, I retain the UPP from previous editions)

MTU = CT+MT+MgT

Appendix what is good for what...

GT -> good for consolidation of CT fluff
T4 -> some interesting aliens but mainly for Milieu 0
TNE -> good fluff and Traveller Chronicle
1248 -> good fluff
T5 -> I like some of the rules but others do not care for.
T20 -> some interesting adventures & parts of Gateway to Destiny

 

[Hemdian]

In the past:

• CT/MT advanced character generation plus house rules. (No basic.)
• MT 'lite' task and combat systems.
• CT era background.
• Bolt on bits of T4 (Pocket Empires, etc).
• PowerProjection if the need arises.

Next: (as before plus...)

• Bolt on bits of T5 (QREBS, etc) and possibly MgT (character generation events?).
• Modify play style for online venue (using MapTool and Skype).

 

[Strummist]

I really like Mongoose - it seems to me a return to the CT LBB days, but with all the lessons learned. As far as the setting goes, it's always around 1105 IMTU, and usually in or around District 268.

 

[Icosahedron]

If you enjoyed CT way back, I'd stick with it. The CT CD is a cheap and effective way of getting back the material you might have let go over the years. Even if you prefer another version, it provides a lot of useful background.

Depends on your setting though. If you want to play in the Rebellion, you'll need the Megatrav background material. If you want to play in the Virus-ridden wilds, you'll need the TNE background material.

I personally prefer Mongoose's chargen sequence, and Mongoose have brought out some useful support supplements, but it's all broadly compatible with CT anyway, and most games in my experience focus on RP to such an extent that choice of rule set is largely academic.

 

[jac]

Yeah, I just might get back into CT with some additions from other systems. I've looked at FF&S (I'm a hopeless gearhead when it comes to games), and I'll probably ste...pla...um, borrow, yeah, thats it, borrow stuff from others. I've looked at the backgrounds of the various systems, I'll definitely be building a custom universe. Not that there's anything wrong with the OTU, I'm also a hopeless world builder as well.

Thanks for the comments.

jac

 

[Dragoner]

If you are going with CT, look at the FFE page for the 443 deal, you can get 4 disks for the price of three, which if you get the CT, FASA, JTAS and Apochrypha 2 CD's are a ton of material.

http://www.farfuture.net/april.html

 

[Colonel Mac]

Started with CT in the very early 80s and found no reason to switch it up. I have borrowed bits from others systems to supplement but love my LBBs. Still haven't exhausted all the options of CT.

 

[Cryton]

I started with CT, and have played every version that has been published since.
I generally tend to use a mash-up of various rules systems, pulling what I, and my players like from each version.

Currently however, I'm working on tacking down a CT defined version of the TU and the 3rd Imperium, for which I'm planning on using as a setting for a T20 game thats been modified to use the 2nd edition Mutants & Masterminds rules.

I am doing this because I had the realization that all the so called "inconstant" parts, design issues, and pseudo-science are all easily explained away when you treat the TU as being a sci-fi adventure comic book.

I know. I am a heretic. But my players love it.

 

[Dragoner]

I think one thing designers miss, is that the biggest sellers in sci-fi is soft sci-fi like Star Wars, it is really about the story. Literally it is a romance where the mythical past has been replaced by a mythical future. Also sci-fi plays the divine fool being able to say things that could not be said in a normal setting for some reason.

 

[Ronnke]

I have a fairly complete CT, GT, and MGT collection with bits n pieces from other evolutions of the game. They are all "my precious".

Started out with CT, and used this almost exclusively until GURPS Traveller was released. I had played GURPS for other games, so I was very familiar with the system and pretty happy when GT presented itself. The main attraction is the flexibility and depth of characters and the wealth of non Traveller material available for GURPS.

I'm currently playing GT:Interstellar Wars, and absolutely in love with this period of the Traveller history. It really has that frontier feel where a clash of cultures plays a part in the game. Plus you get to play actual Terrans, before they became "Solomani", something about that appeals to me.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi

I guess if I had to choose, CT would be my favorite to play since that's what I started with, but I kind of like the setting of GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars.

To be honest though (I hope that this is OK to say here), as time has gone on I'm kind of thinking I might prefer a more "rules light" set of rules, if they were available, and there are some stuff about the OTU setting and way that Traveller handles some stuff that I think that I'm kind of moving away from.

Specifically, although I kind of prefer smaller ship type stuff, and never really cared much for High Guard, I'm not fully psyched about how Traveller handles some of the combat and such, and am interested in seeing how other games might approach this type stuff.

As such, I am really looking forward to seeing Mongoose's take on 2300AD as it might have some Traveller feel to it even though its a different setting.

Pat

 

[E.D.Quibell]

I'm and MT guy through and through, although I do grugingly admint that MgT have good ideas for character generation and will likley incorporate some of these.

I love the complete flexability of the CT (non) task system, but I'm too lazy to try and figure out each task, and MT while not perfect just ticks all the boxes, and gives an easy and simple skills over stats system you can pick up in seconds and use for a lifetime.

Vehicals and Starships are complex but not too complex.

It all intergarates pretty well, and now that Robots have been adressed, there is nothing really missing.

I'm hoping that T5 will eventually trump MT in the "Everything you need in one system" with a nice ballance of play if I can ever get used to a roll under task system (I know it might be more statistacally correct intelectually, but emotionaly it just doesn't sit right), that is stat over skill (someone with high dex and first aid skills should not be able to perform surgary with any degree of sucess).

Best regards,

Ewan

 

[aramis]

My overall preference is a hybrid of MT and MGT.

If I had to pick one and only one, it would be MT.

MGT is second... and only the core and HG. The rest of the line is drekh as far as I can tell.

 

[AndreaV]

In my games ships are normally a plot device to get characters from point A to point B and when they're not the action is on the inside not out. So HG works fine for me.

 

[warwizard]

Well, let's see I started collecting Traveller back in '77 started JTAS with issue #4, bought the '81 versions, and every supplement and adventure and double adventure book and every traveller themed game GDW came out with , bought every version since EXCEPT the Gurps stuff and perhaps the translight, even bought the T20 book and some of the other guy's stuff that's in the stores now.
Played some GURPS D+D stuff HATED the point buy character generation system, it became an excercize in min-max. Saw GURPS Traveller had that as well and the ONLY gurps title I've bought is the interstellar wars book, and that's just for a sourse book.
I really get into the gearhead stuff, designing ships and analyzing their economic performance. At one point I created a spreadsheet that would accept a full sector + 6 parsec expansion into the next sectors over. The sheet would take the economic extensions and the pocket empires stuff to be able to put a number to the weekly tons of trade goods available at a given system. The sheet would calculate the performance of the ship, and all expenses and automate all the trading that the ship would do, and take care of all the bookeeping. It'd show you all the systems within your ship's jump range and give you an estimate of your profit/loss at that system. You could set a flag to use CT or MT or TNE, or T4 design ships.

So for me the more gearheady the ship design rules , the closer to real world I could make them the better I liked it. But it's all traveller to me. I hated what the rebellion and the virus did to the imperium, so IMTU that is just totally ignored. Dullinor was a good little arch duke and never did anything whatsoever untoward and lived out his life in peace and happiness, as did the trillions of Imperial citizens.
I use the TNE and T4 FF+S in parallel, the TNE has better explainations, the T4 has better organization with (nearly) all the charts in one section. Though the charts need ref to page numbers where the controlling explaination lies.

Otherwize I mix and match whatever sections of rules I like from which ever edition of the rules.

 

[Meteoric Assault]

CT

CT because for me it is clean and simple....yeah the technology side needs to be up dated due to the the micro technology side ( ahem computers and robots) and considering the recent discoveries in astronomy maybe scouts needs a revision for system creation.

What I am wishing for is the CT+ or revision in a binder that is LBB size and you pay for a subscription to receive the updates. You then download print and add to the LBB binder (and of course it is tabbed Book 1-8)

 

[robject]

CT because for me it is clean and simple....yeah the technology side needs to be up dated due to the the micro technology side ( ahem computers and robots) and considering the recent discoveries in astronomy maybe scouts needs a revision for system creation.

What I am wishing for is the CT+ or revision in a binder that is LBB size and you pay for a subscription to receive the updates. You then download print and add to the LBB binder (and of course it is tabbed Book 1-8)

I play Traveller5 in "Classic Mode", disregarding most of the optional extensions. I like CT, the guys in my group know CT best, but I like T5 tasks, and I like the way T5 addresses the various holy wars that have sprung up over the faultlines in Traveller rules (including robots and computers).

My big beef with CT is Book 2 starship design. The system is brilliant, perfect for role-playing games ... and ... the system is horribly terribly limited and broken. T5 is on track to solve that problem.

 

[Meteoric Assault]

I play Traveller5 in "Classic Mode", disregarding most of the optional extensions. I like CT, the guys in my group know CT best, but I like T5 tasks, and I like the way T5 addresses the various holy wars that have sprung up over the faultlines in Traveller rules (including robots and computers).

HOLY WARS? .... humm they must be adults you play with LOL:rofl: