Sure, that was kind of my point in answering the OP's question.
Why Did You Use A Different System To Play Traveller?
- Thread starter Nathan Brazil
- Start date
I haven't used the OTU, though not too long ago I used M-Space (Mythras/BRP) with RQ6 weapons supplement, and LBB2 spacecraft, and general Traveller/MT/GT GURPS Space star systems. The M-Space character generation, tasks, combat, circles, is better for a fleshed out character, imo.
Dude it really sounds like the Traveller I play, it’s less about specific rules and more about imagination.
if I wanted a rule for everything I would have stayed with Hero or GURPS.
Some of the older roleplayers were also simulationists from hex and chit wargames trying to model the "real world" into a game. That is why some roleplaying games were organized in outline format with numbered headings (606.13 Initiative , 606.13.1 The Roll 606.13.2 Initiative Modifiers, etc.)
Well, there is HERO Traveller, and GURPS Traveller, so...
And variety is fun. Whether it's using Traveller rules for a modern cyberpunk game (hello, Zaibatsu!) or using different rules to run Traveller, the question is "does it work for the campaign". I'm playing in a PA game set on a waterworld that uses slightly modified CT rules. It works.
I'm sure Traveller using StarORE would work just fine as well.
(Specific rules in Traveller? Why? Marc Miller himself changed the official rules. So which rules are the "pure" ones, those of T4, T5 or CT? Maybe just MegaTraveller? And most importantly, was he wrong to change them, or was he wrong at the beginning when the latest rules didn't exist
?I'd say he got it right at the beginning: the Referee crafts the roll to resolve the situation, and we move on. Systems are an abbreviation of the process, and might lead the game in different directions - but once we have one that works for us, it's fine to stick with it, just as it's fine to keep looking for a better one).
I'm not THAT old, and I'm a simulationist as well
!
A friend wanted to use Champions (now HERO Traveller) way back in ... 84? We never did. I protested saying that the CT rules were fine .... even though they weren't. I just didn't like the crunchy massive super sized die rolls that was the Superhero combat system. Oh sure, 3d6 for a to hit roll, but then 24 dice for damage depending on what you were using ... just overboard in my not so humble opinion.
Get rid of the combat matrix, add an armor verse hit system, task rules and you got your perfect game.
Get rid of the combat matrix, add an armor verse hit system, task rules and you got your perfect game.
This sounds a heck of a lot like Mongoose Traveller, both 1e and 2e.
I will now use a minor action to duck behind my desk to avoid the incoming tomatoes and other rotten vegetables…
.... how many action points is that?
In the meantime have a few of these;
In the meantime have a few of these;
I haven't tried it yet, but I've thought about using the Doctor Who rpg Vortex system for Traveller. I's a 2d6 system like Traveller, but adds Traits which ramps up the system another level, letting you go head to head with the Baddies of the Universe. It seemed interesting when I thought about it, and I think someone on the Forum is running it.
This is not in any way meant as a criticism, it's just a tangential observation:
It's always seemed to me that an essential element of Traveller is that there are no superheroes. Anyone, from a 0th-term Barbarian to the Emperor to the most battle-hardened Marine, can be taken out by a well-placed 7.62mm round if they're in street clothes. To achieve godlike powers and defenses, you're required to accumulate the material, technological, and sociopolitical resources to make them happen under your command. It's possible! Of course it's not at all easy if you're starting as that 0-term Barbarian, but the game has mechanisms by which this can happen.
True, Technology makes you superhuman. As Rambo pointed out, once you're out of the Military, you don't get access to a lot of toys unless you're rich.
A car lets you drive 60 miles per hour or more. With Battle Dress and an FGMP, you're basically Iron Man. A Psionic Assault lets you be Professor X. A Gauss Pistol lets you shoot high-energy needles at someone which could kill them. A Grav Belt lets you fly. An air/raft can let you reach orbit.
I think I saw an energy shield or something in the Central Supply Catalog so Combat would be less deadly.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Dune like personal energy screens at TL15 are a new product in 1105 thanks to their inclusion in the MgT Third Imperium book - how long before the tech is being manufactured on every TL15 industrial world throughout the Imperium?
I should mention the systems I've used for non-Traveller rulesets...
GURPS (before the official GT. Late 1995)
EABA - playtesting EABA coming off of the T20 Playtest
D20 - the T20 playtest and final rules. Players in a one-shot unwilling to learn a "real Traveller edition"...
I wrote for a friend a conversion to VTM1E mechanics. It's on my website.He's used it several times and I got a lot of "That was great" from his players. If you know VTM1E, it's pretty straightforward but also drastic.
I tried Star Hero 1E (which is Hero System 3E's last released adapted core) but it didn't go well.
2300AD - I used it one campaign for a CT era game. Really upped the deadly and the swinginess of tasks.
GURPS (before the official GT. Late 1995)
EABA - playtesting EABA coming off of the T20 Playtest
D20 - the T20 playtest and final rules. Players in a one-shot unwilling to learn a "real Traveller edition"...
I wrote for a friend a conversion to VTM1E mechanics. It's on my website.He's used it several times and I got a lot of "That was great" from his players. If you know VTM1E, it's pretty straightforward but also drastic.
I tried Star Hero 1E (which is Hero System 3E's last released adapted core) but it didn't go well.
2300AD - I used it one campaign for a CT era game. Really upped the deadly and the swinginess of tasks.
Oy gevult... Yet more Mongoosian "Let's make Traveller into some other IP's redheaded stepchild without a license..."
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
I rather suspect that Mongoose Publishing is highly motivated to keep the franchise commercially successful, balancing current sensibilities and interpreting Tee Five.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Apparently the inner circle approved the change. Their rip off of Star Wars ion cannons are now baseline technology in their Third Imperium too from what I have read over at the Mongoose forums. Oh, and the Sword Worlds were settled by stl transports...
Batman fits into the Traveller framework, as does Iron Man -- hoo boy, does Iron Man fit!
Superman doesn't.
That would be me. Not running. Tinkering. You COULD run a Traveller-esque game. Some things are very easy to convert: Attributes, Skills, and equipment is easy. Some background stuff can be converted to Traits like Alien behaviors. Some things no. Starships are too simple for the gearheaded. Worldbuilding is not nearly scientific accurate. No economic system to speak of for a merchant campaign.
It does promote action and paradoxically combat. Combat is in order of Talkers, Doers, Runners, Fighters (then Agility then dice roll for ties) which gives players plenty of opportunities to surrender, defuse devices or flee before you get shot, just like the TV show. Often the Daleks just wait it is their turn.
Hesitate mixing settings. Tech Levels make a difference as it impacts dice rolls for equipment of other eras. Their scale is extremely compressed. From a T5 standpoint. Reality Manipulation/Engineering (do overs and such) and the new Traveller wiki entries are my basis for placing Time Travel from experimental to ultimate. Also I displayed when Transmat/Matter Transmission because lining them up to match would skew things worse. Tech Levels are sorta like this.
| Vortex | T5 | ||
| 12 | Beyond Comprehension (The White/Black Guardians, The Eternals) | 33+ | The Technological Singularity |
| 11 | Ancient Time Lords (Rassilon, Sutek, The Great Vampires, "The Moment" aka Bad Wolf) | 30-32 | Grandfather |
| 10 | Time Lords | 27-29 | Sons of Grandfather |
| 9 | Advanced Time Faring (Daleks) | 25-26 | The Ancients |
| 8 | Time Faring (51st Century) Captain Jack/Time Agency (Sontarrans) (Stasis Tech) | 22-24 | Fantastic Technologies |
| 7 | Advanced Interstellar Empires (Cybermen) | 17-21 | Galaxiad (Matter Transmission) |
| 6 | Star Faring (22nd - 30th cent.) (Transmat Tech) (Ice Warriors, Zygons, Draconians, etc.) | 10-16 | The Imperiums |
| 5 | Space Travel (mid 20th to 21st century/first FTL ships (FTL invented 2087) | 6-9 | mid 20th to Jump-1 |
| 4 | Industrial (18th - early 20th) | 3-5 | 17th-early 20th |
| 3 | Renaissance (15th to 17th century) | 2 | |
| 2 | Metalworking (Bronze/Iron Ages) | 1 | |
| 1 | Stone Age | 0 |
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Vile
SOC-12
The combat system, both times. First, in the early, '80s I converted the OTU to RuneQuest 2E (and later 3E) because that was my system for everything at the time. Literally everything. In the '90s I discovered Delta Force (coincidentally by authored William Keith Jr.), was taken by that combat system, specifically modern weapons, and converted again - though by this time I had Striker!, and based my conversions on that. That didn't last long, though, because I lost all the tables and couldn't face re-creating them (if you've seen the weapons tables for Delta Force you'll understand), so I went back to RQ3. Sometime after that I drifted out of the OTU and homebrewed my own settings.
The Traveller influence was rife throughout Delta Force... but OMG, the tables... Bill should have been writing for Iron Crown Enterprises...
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