Vladika
SOC-14 1K
Lapdog Vargr?:rofl: NO WAY!
Sycophant Vargr?:nonono: You might befriend a Vargr but I believe it would be out of mutual respect.
A review of T5
- Thread starter pendragonman
- Start date
Lapdog Vargr?:rofl: NO WAY!
Sycophant Vargr?:nonono: You might befriend a Vargr but I believe it would be out of mutual respect.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The Vargr were uplifted from dire wolves, not dogs.
Google the timeline of canine evolution and look at what dogs were like 300,000 years ago.
Think crinos form werewolf - if you have the game - to get a better appreciation of Vargr
Google the timeline of canine evolution and look at what dogs were like 300,000 years ago.
Think crinos form werewolf - if you have the game - to get a better appreciation of Vargr
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Drama is conflict. Now, there are different sources of confict in an rpg, and I do love a great role playing encounter. But, I think most would agree that combat is the root of most RPGs.
Hmmm....
I'm trying to imagin Aliens, Outland, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Babylon 5, Star Wars, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and other great science fiction films and TV shows without combat.
Sure, I enjoyed Silent Running, but one combat session a year? I don't think that would fly in most groups unless you only played a few sessions each year.
I mean, Traveller is pretty heavily influenced by military tropes. Combat does seem central to most people's games.
Even Star Trek has a decent dose of action and combat between it's non-violent stories.
That's a pretty big bite of cheese, you're eating there.
Classic Traveller can be deadly. But, throw in some armor and use the cover and concealment rules. Combat ain't that bad. Nobody's really hurt until two stats go to zero. And, limit civilians to civilian weaponry (keeping Book 4 for the militaries)...you can run a lot of combat, using the Traveller rules, just like they are.
Are you saying that T5 does not need a good combat system, just because you don't use it in your games?
Not surprising; had two players in a gaming group long ago with real-world combat experience, and just a few stories quickly led us to as-far-as-possible-from-shooting territory as we could accomplish. The Referee was right there with our avoidance, and we had a great time.
Muzzlehead
SOC-5
+1 on this... having seen and participated in modern combat in the USMC (as opposed to just gaming it)
Except, most RPG's have that as the CORE rule set.
Slick goal post movement there.
Looking at your list, it seems pretty much limited to one type of adventure.
If I want to hack'n'slash, I'll play AD&D. Our characters are not a cross between "Mary Sue" and a Munchkin. Hell, I don't think any of our group had any gun skill over 2. There are more important skills. Mine is handgun-1. And that is plenty.
Our characters are not extraordinary characters doing extraordinary things. They are ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Drama doesn't require gunplay.
If you are getting in gunfights in civilization (outside of a declared war), and aren't getting thrown in the pokey, you have a shitty GM. Law levels exist in Traveller for a reason. Most of the examples you gave, you are either a member of a military/law enforcement agency or they take place in an area where law enforcement is, well, spotty. Or you are in a war/rebellion.
None of those really exist in the Spinward Marches. Starports are run by the Imperium/Sword World/Darrian/Zhodani Government and they have Marines in Battledress (or their equivalent) on call. Or you are outside of those jurisdictions and subject to local law. Most of which will outgun you and have extradition treaties, if they don't. Governments take things like murder seriously.
We have spent the past 3 years or so in a espionage campaign with some slight detours into mercantile operations (as part of our cover, we needed to actually show a profit.) and archeology (as a side show).
Our group worked for Darrian Intelligence - (Yes, if caught, they would deny any knowledge of our existence.) If we are pooping and snooping in the Sword Worlds, we don't want gunplay.
1. Getting a Darrian Intelligence agent out of a secured Sword Worlds facility without gun-play is a bit harder than going in with guns blazing - and with that approach, we would have been in the next cell over.
2. Breaking into the Sword World's equivalent of Langley is dramatic, and tension-filled. But gun-play would have ruined all of that. The idea is to get in and get out with no one the wiser.
3. Sitting across from your sworn enemy at a Black Jack table and taking him to the cleaners can be dramatic, and tension filled. But the casino isn't going to allow sore losers to start shooting. Even with that, there is the "How do I get out of the casino and back to the ship without getting done in".
4. Being trapped in jump space on a ship with an E-Circuit that thinks the crew is an aberration and needs to be removed isn't something that can be solved with a BFG.
5. Sneaking into opposition space and delivering needed supplies to the "Freedom Fighters" your government is supporting is not enhanced by getting into gunfights with the local police.
6. Sneaking into closed space to track enemy warships and gather valuable intelligence doesn't lend itself to gunplay.
7. Chasing down and securing a ghost ship from the Darrian Golden Age (TL16 warship) takes reasoning and deduction, not shooting.
8. When you need to take your target alive, you need the threat of violence - not the execution of violence.
9. Discovering an Ancient facility that has doors that open into the future isn't going to be improved by shooting the locals.
10. Being hired to bring a Chamax breeding pair back to an eccentric patron doesn't require gunplay. After all, if you kill the breeding pair, you aren't getting paid.
11. And then there were the short cons & long cons we ran just for grins and giggles.
My group's last misadventure with personal combat:
As part of our cover, we were hired to recover a ship that had skipped on their payments. The ship was on the burn list, so deadly force was authorized. The doctor in our party whipped up a little nerve agent specific to Vargr. It wasn't until after we had killed half the crew and seized the ship that we discovered that we had seized the wrong ship.
Oops.
Now we are looking at charges of Piracy, Mass Murder, and the production of biological weapons - in Imperial space - and we aren't Imperial Citizens. For those of you keeping score at home that is 3 death sentences. And of course, we were disavowed by Darrian Intelligence.
What I am saying is our group isn't interested in doing combat ops. None of us found it to be fun or entertaining.
Our adventures take place in civilization. In civilized societies, you simply can't run around letting your weapon do your thinking. The government has more weaponry and resources than a Traveller. You get in a firefight, even if you get off planet, the fact that you were in one is going to follow you around courtesy of the X-boat network.
There are many careers tracks available other than mercenary. None of our characters had a combat background, which was a subtle hint to the GM that we weren't interested in a Rambo campaign.
With my group, the players have to think. The problems that we deal with are not solved by weaponry, well, not personal weaponry. If we have a hardened target, we drop a rock on them, and pick over the wreckage. Problem solved.
Now that the 5th Frontier war is kicking off (in our game universe), we are getting the hell out of Dodge. We have set a number of tripwires for our backers (Darrian Intelligence), and the Federation of Arden. Wars can be messy, so we are bowing out quietly, and we are going to run Grand Explorations out around the Fulani sector.
My group is into problem-solving, enigmas, and discovering the deep secrets of charted space, not combat.
YMMV.
In Magnus's PBM campaign over in the IC and OOC boards, our group, at present, consists of three Scholars, a Marine-cum-minted-at-mustering-Noble, a robot, and the ship's computer. The latter was going to be the ship itself, but the discussion, while incredibly cool, started moving uncomfortably toward "involuntary servitude"...or worse, so I think we're back to the AI being the character.
Combat, if it ever occurs, will be nasty, brutish, and short, and I'd expect it might end the campaign
.Oooh, oooh, +1! (I especially like the sound of #9 - care to elaborate??)
I don't do military characters either in Traveller. They are ex-military (or former) if anything. See retired.
The core of my Traveller games is the characters and how they interact with each other. The stuff that stories are made from essentially. Character attributes and skills (and how characters are generated and) used in an RPG is very important to me. But even more important is the die mechanic, and how tasks (skill checks) are determined/resolved. Because it's a common central rule of an RPG and it's going to be used a lot. And if a combat action is handled just as any other task is (see Mongoose Traveller), then that makes the die mechanic an even nicer one.
If I wanted to play a military game, I'd play Striker. I have it, but never played it. I didn't know what kind of game it was until after I bought it. I have no interest in miniature wargaming.
What our GM planned, we didn't actually do. Once we had opened the site and figured the doors out - one of them opened onto Regina. We sent a robot through (We are paranoid in the Adventure Zone.) and it tied into the local internet. That was when we discovered it was Regina 10 years in the future.
Another door opened into an office.
While we were deciding what to do in the office, the GM asked what we wanted to do with our robot sitting in a field in Regina.
I suggested that we download a sports almanac, and every winning lottery number for the prior 10 years. Being the greedy players that we are, that doorway going to the office wasn't very interesting anymore to us. Once we had all of this, we agreed that we needed to do something else. Next session, my character is going to either die heroically, providing cover to the rest of the group as we escape our enemies, or more likely, die in a puddle of body fluids after the show trial.
I have generated a scientist character that I want to try out for exploration.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
That sounds about right for CT, which is what I play.
I'm 100% sure I've said those exact words on these boards.
You're missing the point. Drama is always combat, but combat is usually one of the key dramatic devices of a roleplaying game.
You've typically got two systems in most rpgs--a task system and a combat system (and many times, the two are the same thing).
Therefore, my comment stands: The combat system is the core of most roleplaying games.
There are few rpgs where combat is not a central part of the core rules.
I'm the GM. And, there are plenty of good reasons to have a story set where combat happens in civilization. If you want a canon example, look no further than The Traveller Adventure, where, in the first episode, the PCs are encouraged to break into a museum then escape off planet, only to go to another world where one of the crew may be captured by religious zealouts--again, where the crew is encouraged by the events to break that crewmember out of the pokey on that world. Lots of chances for gunplay on civilized worlds with Law Levels.
I supposed you think MWM an idiot for writing that adventure*.
Your comment above makes me think that you don't know what you're talking about. Think before you speak.
*MWM also wrote Exit Visa, which is a CT adventure (I belive it was also translated for T4) that focuses on bureacratic red tape and a ship's crew trying to lift from a high law level world--a lot less chance of gunplay in that one.
Bully for your group.
You are acting like I said, "Combat is the only way to enjoy a roleplaying game."
That's not what I said at all. What I said was, "Combat is a core/key system in the vast majority of rpgs published."
Hell, I ran the first several sessions of my Conan campaign--a game that's definitely got a combat focus--without a single combat, and we all had a blast. But, no one can argue that d20 based D&D clones are not combat focused--even though my campaign started off with very little combat.
EDIT:
BTW, you're being rude for no reason. Try explaining your point without raising your hackles.
Last edited:
How are they encouraged?
thalassogen
SOC-12
I really like a good combat system as a mini game of fun. Mind you: I said "game", not "reality" where combat is surely NOT fun at least not for me.
That said, I expect a roleplaying game to have a decent combat system, especially if it provides makers for weapons, armor and giving attention military vehicles and characters.
At the moment I feel that the combat chapter is one of those chapters lacking good explanations and (at least for me) believable resolution (armor protects always the same way until it is totally "annihilated" by the first penetration).
Are there good examples for complete combat engagements out there or would someone be so kind to create such examples to help those people lost like me? That would be greatly appreciated.
That said, I expect a roleplaying game to have a decent combat system, especially if it provides makers for weapons, armor and giving attention military vehicles and characters.
At the moment I feel that the combat chapter is one of those chapters lacking good explanations and (at least for me) believable resolution (armor protects always the same way until it is totally "annihilated" by the first penetration).
Are there good examples for complete combat engagements out there or would someone be so kind to create such examples to help those people lost like me? That would be greatly appreciated.
the.barwickian
SOC-8
And Vargr itself is an Old Norse word for wolf, which can be Anglicised as warg.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Re: Vargr and Wolves:
I have never imagined Vargr as dogmen, though I expect that the same characteristics that made wolves suitable for domestication contributed to their selection to uplift. Though to address an earlier post by aramis dating C. l. familiaris to 15ka, Crockford and Kuzman's (2012) criticism of full domestic status notwithstanding, Germonpré et al. (2009) find DNA evidence for c. l. familiaris dating to 31.7ka.
Re: Combat:
Surely Traveller is big enough to accommodate combat monkey groups and groups interested in other aspects of role playing.
I have never imagined Vargr as dogmen, though I expect that the same characteristics that made wolves suitable for domestication contributed to their selection to uplift. Though to address an earlier post by aramis dating C. l. familiaris to 15ka, Crockford and Kuzman's (2012) criticism of full domestic status notwithstanding, Germonpré et al. (2009) find DNA evidence for c. l. familiaris dating to 31.7ka.
Re: Combat:
Surely Traveller is big enough to accommodate combat monkey groups and groups interested in other aspects of role playing.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Yep, Vargr are uplifted Wolves. Space Wolves. Doggies is derogatory.
I think it's pretty silly if Mongoose made them dogs--and just another reason I stay far, far away from that version of the game.
I think it's pretty silly if Mongoose made them dogs--and just another reason I stay far, far away from that version of the game.
