hunter
Ancient - Absent Friend
It appeared as a published option in later prints of the LBB book 1.
1st Preview up for Mongoose Traveller
- Thread starter Echo
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It appeared as a published option in later prints of the LBB book 1.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Agreed on the modifier range. As I've noted in other posts, the 2d6 bell curve is effectively very granular, which means that effectively automatic success/failure will often result with wide modifier spreads. Like you, I've used a limited range for attributes:
Attribute...Mod
2.......-3
3-4....-2
5-6....-1
7........0
8-9....+1
10-11.+2
12-13.+3
14+....+4
Roll is 2d6; 8+ to succeed. CT skill levels, so a skill level of 3+ is a very high skill level. (ADDED)Generally, attributes do not modify the success roll unless the skill description has provision for an "advantageous DM/disadvantageous DM". In that case, a +1 or -1 is typical (advantageous DMs are usually granted when the appropriate attribute is 9+; disadvantageous DMs usually apply when the attribute is 4-).
A related problem is the number of skill levels granted to typical PCs. CT handled this pretty well; Book 4+ chargen systems utterly broke the 2d6 system.
(EDITED to improve clarity)There's also the problem of what to do when you make a base attribute roll for which there is no skill defined. The Mongoose system will make such rolls unreasonably difficult. My solution would be to give an across the board +1 (or somesuch) to all such rolls. So an average person succeeds on an attribute check about as often as he succeeds on a skill check with a skill level of 1.
A nightmare scenario will be a large spread of attribute modifiers combined with large numbers of skills...truly the worst of both worlds.
I suspect that the inclusion of dying during chargen is an homage to Old Schoolers and that there will be rules to mitigate this. The random chargen system is hopelessly behind the times (and probably was even Way Back Then) in any case, so I don't expect that the survival roll will be a deal killer.
I like the covers of the Travellers' Aide products. However, I also appreciate the nod to Old Schoolers. Though, like you, I think they should get the font right (Optima). That said, I agree that a more colorful product would probably attract more new players.
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WarriorKnight
SOC-12
Yea,but thats the fun part. ; )
Yes it is, but you don't need to pay good money for the privilege. You don't need a UWP to come up with your own idea. It's more of a hindrance than help, and the oft ridiculous random outcomes make the whole thing dispiriting.
I hope Mongoose ditch it for the main notation, and use something more useful, although keep it in the corner for backwards compatibilty issues.
Funny you say that. To me is one of Traveller's greatest strenghts. Traveller's character generation is a game in itself. You bid for more years, and thus more skill levels, against the chance of being crippled from aging or death. If death is not a possibility, it becomes too advantagous to go through as many terms as possible and thus the game is spoiled.
I hope that Mongoose do precisely what they have said they will do - which is provide options for both random, and points build chargen.
I like the random chargen for a number of reasons, but I do think the option of allowing players to bulid specific characters should be given too. I don't understand why fans, or critics, of either system need to argue about it any more than that, quite honestly.
I like the random chargen for a number of reasons, but I do think the option of allowing players to bulid specific characters should be given too. I don't understand why fans, or critics, of either system need to argue about it any more than that, quite honestly.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Oh I agree that it's engaging and even entertaining. However, it consumes time and energy that most folks (IMHO) would prefer to spend roleplaying the current adventure. With grownup players, it's hard to get everyone together; I have a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the idea of spending an entire session generating characters.
Also, the Traveller character generation system is seriously in tension with the natural desire for players to determine the kind of character they want to play. I happen to be unenthusiastic about forcing players to play characters they find disagreeable.
A related problem is that the campaign might make certain skill sets very important -- Pilot, Navigator and Engineering, in a starship campaign for instance -- and the character generation system might not cooperate. THe referee then has expend time and energy correcting the problem via hirelings, outright gifts of additional skills, etc.
Also, the character genereration system can create nearly-useless (or nearly Godlike) characters. This can cause the infamous "Traveller Suicide" tactic in which a player intentionally tries to kill off an execrable character. That happened to me a few times -- in one campaign, it was a 22 yr old character with Rifle-1. The irony was that the referee was one of those guys who WOULD NOT kill a player character. Like the immortal who gets the life sentence, I failed to appreciate the hilarity at the time.
So while the Traveller character generation system has some benefits, it also has some costs. And my suspicion is that most modern players will consider the costs to outweigh any benefits.
*I agree that good players and referees can overcome most of these problems. However, I am skeptical that it is a Good Thing for the system to require them to do so.
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GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
The fact is that much of Known Space already has dotmaps in later products, and the presense of gas giants and water can be determined from great distances. More than half of the Imperium has already been done at the "one line UWP" level *in print*. Throwing all that out basically *forces* older OTU players to buy it all again.
The last time "wiping the slate" was tried, the purchasing public castigated Marc and Imperium Games loudly and at length. The changes SJG wrought in the Spinward Marches also attracted a lot of approbation.
The levels of detail I'm suggesting may go so far as to not "renew" some older data, but the idea is to avoid actually changing something just for the sake of change.
My suggestion was just to focus on the Marches and the Rim, for Mongoose, and let third parties negotiate a TTL sector by sector, and then do nothing with the rest, leave it for refs.
So there's no new material in the rest of the OTU for old timers to buy again. They can do what they want with it, assured that no product is going to come along contradicting their MTU.
Having worked on the Spica project, I can tell you that having to fit your ideas around even the bare info found in AoTI has been a giant pain in the backside. It would have been better starting from scratch.
So there's no new material in the rest of the OTU for old timers to buy again. They can do what they want with it, assured that no product is going to come along contradicting their MTU.
Having worked on the Spica project, I can tell you that having to fit your ideas around even the bare info found in AoTI has been a giant pain in the backside. It would have been better starting from scratch.
well ... that's a whole boat-load of material. if each world has one single page devoted to it, that's 440 pages - and one page will not be enough. who will write it all?
and say someone does write it all up. is anyone new to traveller going to read through all of this before starting a game?
and that's another problem. anyone who writes up all of this is going to be writing from _his_ version of traveller. most of us have been working on our versions for decades, and will not be inclined to just walk away from our implementation.
a sector is too big to start off with, _especially_ if it is detailed. I suggest that any new official work ignores us old-timers, focuses on new players, and limits its scope to a few subsectors to the exclusion of all others. jewell and district 268 seem sufficient. this will allow new players to more easily step into the game while giving them plenty of room for action. we old-timers will simply carry on by ourselves as we've always done, and if new players want to expand there is still the rest of the old spinward marches with all of its existing material.
Well how about something that details important, strategic worlds, and those of interest, across the Marches. Not expecting the whole sector in the finest detail all at once!
District 268 is by far the most interesting part of the entire OTU. So is Five Sisters, Regina, and Lunion. There's a nice mix of worlds and issues in each of them. I was loving what Avenger was putting out in 268, before they shifted emphasis to 1248. You could run all kinds of campaigns in those ss, and they'd be good exemplars of what goes on in Traveller.
I want to know more about Regina, for instance. There's precious little info out there on this planet. Why is it so important? What is it's climate? And so on...
How about an explanation as to why there's 2 red zone worlds in Lunion, and how that affects a type A on the Spinward Main.
I have my own ideas on these kind of questions, as I'm sure everyone else does, but they're always subject to being made obsolete by an official product.
I'm not saying detail for absolutely everything, but lets have at least detail for some. Some folk like that, too, and we ain't catered too well by the OTU.
District 268 is by far the most interesting part of the entire OTU. So is Five Sisters, Regina, and Lunion. There's a nice mix of worlds and issues in each of them. I was loving what Avenger was putting out in 268, before they shifted emphasis to 1248. You could run all kinds of campaigns in those ss, and they'd be good exemplars of what goes on in Traveller.
I want to know more about Regina, for instance. There's precious little info out there on this planet. Why is it so important? What is it's climate? And so on...
How about an explanation as to why there's 2 red zone worlds in Lunion, and how that affects a type A on the Spinward Main.
I have my own ideas on these kind of questions, as I'm sure everyone else does, but they're always subject to being made obsolete by an official product.
I'm not saying detail for absolutely everything, but lets have at least detail for some. Some folk like that, too, and we ain't catered too well by the OTU.
can't say I blame 'em. we're an opinionated lot, and anything they do is going to step on someone's game, so I say they should forget us and work on new players exclusively.
but, if you really want an official product that doesn't render your own work obsolete, then the best solution is to draw it up yourself and submit it for official publication.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
I haven't investigated the Spica Project, but the snarky remarks that have leaked out into other fora suggest to me that the problem may not be fitting one person's ideas to existing data, but fitting *too many* people's ideas to too limited an area. A sector is both very large and very small, and it gets smaller if the territories beyond its borders influence it in any organized fashion. With the Solomani and Hivers, "influence" is an understatement.
Spica was one of the broken sector files from way back when, if memory serves. If you don't feel like accepting the theory that Grandfather used his planetkiller to pebble every non-stellar body larger than 1000mi diameter in the sector, you really have nothing to unify the project except a dotmap, port details, gas giants, and polity affiliations. More than two people involved as writers in such a project is a recipe for disaster in my opinion.
well yes, if everyone equally is trying to influence the entire subsector. almost as bad as one or two writers trying to do it all by themselves.
game it, man. delegate. each involved person is in charge of a major world or world cluster, with a certain number of "influence points" to be used on distant worlds as they see fit - the more distant or populated the world, the more "influence points" it costs to control that world. "influence points" could be military ability, trade, religion, etc. if some of the writers want to duke it out in a wargame or a trade war, let them. and when you're all done, you'll have a sector complete with history, npc's, political structures, tensions, fleets, bases, everything you need to make it a game tool for a referee.
Well that would be entirely incorrect. We've had no problem at all delegating areas and sharing out work. There's even a remarkable amount of convergence on different peoples take on things.
The real bitch has been trying to work around map and stellar data that neither conform to book 3 or book 6 (or anything really for that matter) and try to come up with UWPs that were not nonsense (as in, having some correspondence to real astrophysics). We've been coming up with 99% of the content, but had to spend months of painful wrangling to get it to fit the existant 1%. That's not a very economical way of working.
But it's been done, and done well, I think.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Well that would be entirely incorrect. We've had no problem at all delegating areas and sharing out work. There's even a remarkable amount of convergence on different peoples take on things.
The real bitch has been trying to work around map and stellar data that neither conform to book 3 or book 6 (or anything really for that matter) and try to come up with UWPs that were not nonsense (as in, having some correspondence to real astrophysics). We've been coming up with 99% of the content, but had to spend months of painful wrangling to get it to fit the existant 1%. That's not a very economical way of working.
I sit corrected.
I also sit boggled. The project has been tied up trying to apply a stronger taste of reality than *anywhere* else in Known Space? Please tell me that at least these weren't the same problems that GDW corrected 17 years ago for TNE.
I can only say for my bit, I came up with world ideas, then made up UWPs to match, and then there was a long phase of checking vs star type and results that could be produced by the rules, so everything tallied with the rules as stated. That phase is over now. We've more or less completed world building and moving on to other juicy stuff. It wa shaving to match desert or water with star type that was tricky, and the fact that there was no consistent set of definitions as to what these worlds could be (eg: is a Vac world desert or water? common sense says one thing, but the rules said different).
Actually don't have any knowledge of TNE, and as I was making all my worlds from scratch, I'm not really that aware of the system the others might have used.
The results are consistent. Though it looks quite different to some other sectors. Spica might be the only sector that complies with Book 6!
