Which version of Traveller for a high school gaming club?

[flykiller]

if an additional goal of mine was to help encourage a lifelong love of Traveller

(... you mean create a market base?)

'pends on what you mean by "traveller". if you mean "play with traveller", such as

For creative thinking consider giving the students homework:
roll a system and flesh out the details the UWP provides
design the animal encounter tables for a particular environment hex
roll three characters and describe their back stories and how they came to know each other.

and

Can you think of a better way to draw together disparate strands like ecology, biology, zoology, climatology, and the like? Rolling on the animal tables becomes a holistic life sciences lesson.

then I don't think you can. people either like that sort of thing or they don't (and I think on this board you'll see a bias towards playing with traveller). but if by "traveller" you mean an actual game then that will depend on how good any individual game is, and that will depend on how good the game referee is. good players will help, good supporting background materials will help, and good in-game materials will help, but the referee and his vision of the game and of the players' role in it will be the single biggest factor.

 

[rhialto]

but if by "traveller" you mean an actual game then that will depend on how good any individual game is, and that will depend on how good the game referee is. good players will help, good supporting background materials will help, and good in-game materials will help, but the referee and his vision of the game and of the players' role in it will be the single biggest factor.

Indeed: if you think you can wrap your head around the Third Imperium then go that route, but that was the biggest obstacle for me.

I've told my group that we will jointly create the subsector next time around, and I'll leverage ideas from Stars Without Number (free, for the asset tags dripping with inspiration) and Beyond the Wall (for the ideas around co-creation of the setting). This way the setting of play will be ours, not someone else's.

 

[flykiller]

if you think you can wrap your head around the Third Imperium then go that route, but that was the biggest obstacle for me.

I had this big plan for explaining traveller to the new players. I was sitting aside observing them finish up their last game. they were smart, they were fast, they were enthusiastic, I realized that if I tried to explain all my "playing with traveller" background to them they'd turn around and walk. the phrase "cold turkey" came to me. when a couple walked up and wanted an introductory game, I slapped a deckplan and some character sheets on the table. "this is your ship. who wants to be the pilot? who wants to be the engineer? here's what you're doing", and I launched into a pre-planned short adventure. it turned out well.

This way the setting of play will be ours, not someone else's.

every setting belongs to the referee and the players and to no-one else. every game is an atu.

 

[McPerth]

Ehile my favorite versión is MT, it's also the most difficult to find, as GDP products are not published right now (and ebay uses to be quite expensive).

So, I'd suggest either MgT or T5 (moslty depending on their tastes about gaming systems), as they are the current published versions, while not ruling out othre versions whose CD can be bought.

 

[rhialto]

every setting belongs to the referee and the players and to no-one else. every game is an atu.

True, but on the continuum of "developed by the group" and "canon-bound 3I" the former has more "A" than the other, and ought (?) to be easier to adopt than the latter.

 

[aramis]

My "Other" is Cephus.

 

[Spenser TR]

... you mean create a market base?

I do.

In no way am I implying that other aspects should be short-changed. I’m looking to at once help such groups solve issues they may have, make it easier to have a very positive experience, as well as do work that contributes towards developing the Traveller fan base.

I see how using CE could still achieve all of these things, through using Traveller materials in support of a CE-system game. And certainly I agree with you Flykiller that a lot goes into making a successful tabletop RP experience beyond system and materials - with all the resources and smarts in the world I couldn’t control most of that anyway, so I’d just look to affect what I could in support of the above goals.

 

[Quint]

The other piece to the editable version of the C-Engine is that you also add whatever artwork you like. You have to spend some time fixing page numbers in the TOC (I don't thinks it's a dynamic document), but you can customize it quite handily.

D.

 

[flykiller]

True, but on the continuum of "developed by the group" and "canon-bound 3I" the former has more "A" than the other, and ought (?) to be easier to adopt than the latter.

well ... there's a balance. if you try to start at the absolute beginning it can bog down real fast. I'm just not smart or fast enough to swing that. I take the 3i as a shell and go from there.

 

[flykiller]

I’d just look to affect what I could in support of the above goals.

then I might suggest supporting referee development, starting with complete hand-holding setting-introducing adventures and graduating to more elaborate settings with suggested adventures.

 

[Spenser TR]

^this^ makes much sense, of course. A serious effort might include a book about the good such clubs can do for all involved ( with citations ), sample documentation, a discussion why Traveller is a great choice, some set of starting materials ( as you mentioned, Flykiller ), and perhaps additional support in the form of a relevant online forum or wiki/repository.


Definitely all things that have been rolling around in my head. But what I didn't have a clear head on was the version ^_^

I appreciate all the discussion around this.

 

[Whipsnade]

^this^ makes much sense, of course.

Yes, it does. It also circles us right back to central issue facing any gaming club: Access to the rules.

With any game, everyone wants to read the rules. With RPGs, having the rules available is even more important. Whether the child is "only" making a PC, rolling up an animal, building a world, or putting together an adventure as a way to learn how to referee, they'll want a copy of the rules. That's where Cepheus Engine comes in.

All versions of Traveller have their good points. All versions of Traveller have something to add to any game. Only CE, however, has legally free rules.

Only with CE can you legally give every child in the group their own copy for the price of running a printer.

I love LBB:2 ship combat. I love building with HG2 and FF&S. I love WBH and GT:FI. MgT's chargen adds lots of excellent bells and whistles. Together PE and IS are a great "paper & pencil" 4X game.

To use any of them, however, I have to buy them.

I don't have to buy Cepheus Engine.

 

[Spenser TR]

I don't have to buy Cepheus Engine.

Absolutely. In no way - in my head, or how I saw it possibly playing out - was I advocating not paying every due fee for every bit of material used.

CE has the serious advantage of being free to distribute, and as you point out Whipsnade and I agree, I feel like a lot of the kids playing will want to -pour- over those rules.

In my thinking through all of this, and certainly before I gave consideration to CE in light of our discussion here and the fine points in favor of it, I saw part of this overall effort possibly being the creation of a "school" or "student and teacher" version of the digital materials. Whichever version seemed right. That version probably didn't have all the various docs of that version's current CD-ROM disc, and probably had a few additional materials only relevant to school clubs.

But my thinking on this was a bit downstream from the version conversation.

 

[Whipsnade]

Absolutely. In no way - in my head, or how I saw it possibly playing out - was I advocating not paying every due fee for every bit of material used.

Please be assured. I was in no way suggesting nor did I believe that you were in any way thinking about not doing things legally. Far from it. As you pointed out from the first, the idea behind the gaming club isn't just to play games but to learn about life.

I'm also aware of the, at best, shoestring budget such a club would have.

... I saw part of this overall effort possibly being the creation of a "school" or "student and teacher" version of the digital materials.

As Quint has reminded us, the CE document is editable. You can use it to create your various versions.

 

[flykiller]

one last thought. whatever sage advice you get here, and whatever glorious plans you come up with, be prepared for the kids to just ditch it all and go their own direction.

 

[Spenser TR]

Adult players tend to do that quite a bit, too... ^_^

 

[simonh]

I think for this sort of situation, I'd go with CE as well. One of the joys of role playing games is the malleability of the rules. Using a free, open and editable rules set will make it a lot easier to bake house rules into game and share them.

A huge advantage of the Traveller family of games is the high degree of inter-operability of the material for the different editions. CE fits into this very well so you can still use supplements from other editions. You can also always port in (your own versions of) rules from other editions if you want.

If I were starting a new Traveller campaign with my regular game groups I'd go with MGT2, but this is a different use case and I can see a lot of advantages of CE here.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Quint]

I think for this sort of situation, I'd go with CE as well. One of the joys of role playing games is the malleability of the rules. Using a free, open and editable rules set will make it a lot easier to bake house rules into game and share them.

Yeah, after a great deal of debate it was the "editable" aspect of this that really sold me as the answer for my game. Sure, some of what I want to do is a fair amount of work - but far less work than typing up my own 100% TQ (aka "Traveller Quint" edition) version.

I mean, in some respects that what I'm making, my own Frankenstein's Monster, but having the vast majority of the creature put together already makes a huge difference.

D.

 

[flykiller]

They’re looking for campaign-style play; while they might do a few one-offs to shake down, they’ll move to regular characters and recurring campaign elements at some point

the group is more important than the game. "let's try traveller" groups are ad hoc and not conducive to any kind of "campaign", as 1) some decide they'd rather do something else and leave and 2) newcomers change existing group dynamics and irritate some into leaving. recommend you establish a group before attempting any kind of long-term game.

 

[simonh]

the group is more important than the game. "let's try traveller" groups are ad hoc and not conducive to any kind of "campaign".

The 'problem' with Traveller (I use quotation marks advisedly) is that it doesn't really bake into itself any one core activity. Many RPGs are built around a core activity such as investigating cosmic horrors, exploring dungeons, fighting super-villains, etc. Traveller is an open world, sandbox kind of game that gives you tools to do all sorts of things.

The nearest thing Traveller really has to that is the trade tables. Tramp trading is a great core activity for a Traveller game, because you can branch it out into all sorts of other activities along the way. For kids new to RPGs it even provides a set of mechanics for automatically generating stuff for the characters to do that's a lot more interesting that just random encounter tables. IMHO that's one of the great advantages Traveller has as a first RPG.

Simon Hibbs