A review of T5

[Murdoc]

I'd like to see perhaps different races, such as the wolf line, German sheppard lines, boarder collie lines, labrador lines etc.

Here ya go:

Different breeds (plus one human).

 

[Shonner]

A PSI version of Dr. Moreau.

 

[aramis]

I use var-grr.

that's how I pronounce it, too.

 

[SanDragon]

Ninja poodle Vargr?

Yeah... I'm cuttin' you off...

*locks the liquor cabinet*



I've said /var-grr/ too.

 

[sfchbryan]

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.

Cool story bro, keep moving those goal posts.....

The Traveller Adventure didn't particularly impress me. The fact that Marc wrote it doesn't mean that it is automatically good. He wrote a lot of poorly thought out crap and was incredibly stubborn about fixing it - how many decades did it take to get the UWPs in the OTU fixed? 34 years by my count.

Let's look at that example - "break into a museum"

Break into museum - Breaking & Entering.
Taking something? - Grand Theft. (Stealing artifacts)
Something stolen means Insurance Company (Probably a Megacorp) has to pay out. It ain't going to be cheap.

Aramis Law Enforcement may not care, but you can be damned sure the insurance company (and the museum) will. Further more, those characters aren't going to be able to land on Aramis ever again. Law enforcement may not actively look for the characters, but what happens the next time they show up in the Starport, they will be swept up. Aramis pays Imperial taxes, and whereas the Imperium might not be looking for them, they certainly have an extradition treaty.

I like rationality in my OTU. Decisions have consequences.

 

[pendragonman]

Cool story bro, keep moving those goal posts.....

The Traveller Adventure didn't particularly impress me. The fact that Marc wrote it doesn't mean that it is automatically good. He wrote a lot of poorly thought out crap and was incredibly stubborn about fixing it - how many decades did it take to get the UWPs in the OTU fixed? 34 years by my count.

Let's look at that example - "break into a museum"

Break into museum - Breaking & Entering.
Taking something? - Grand Theft. (Stealing artifacts)
Something stolen means Insurance Company (Probably a Megacorp) has to pay out. It ain't going to be cheap.

Aramis Law Enforcement may not care, but you can be damned sure the insurance company (and the museum) will. Further more, those characters aren't going to be able to land on Aramis ever again. Law enforcement may not actively look for the characters, but what happens the next time they show up in the Starport, they will be swept up. Aramis pays Imperial taxes, and whereas the Imperium might not be looking for them, they certainly have an extradition treaty.

I like rationality in my OTU. Decisions have consequences.

You forget speed of communication. How many thieves who did a bit of B&E in 1870's London were able to completely relocate to Hong Kong and go legit, without fear of extradition? And HK was a British colony at that time.

Speed of communication changes the receiver's perception of the events. After all, if you heard about a theft that happened 3 weeks ago (even from a museum) how concerned are you about the thief being caught? Especially if the theft happened not just three weeks ago but thousands of miles away.

Now suppose that a decade or so has gone by, and the thief has become a local prosperous businessman. Said business man goes back to London to run for an MP position from what was then his neighborhood. Short of a strong positive ID and a mountain of evidence the police aren't going to touch him.

Such is how this would/could work in the written adventure. YTU may vary.

Murder is a different story.

 

[Vladika]

Now suppose that a decade or so has gone by, and the thief has become a local prosperous businessman. Said business man goes back to London to run for an MP position from what was then his neighborhood. Short of a strong positive ID and a mountain of evidence the police aren't going to touch him.

Such is how this would/could work in the written adventure. YTU may vary.

Murder is a different story.

les miserables

 

[Jazzlvraz]

Such is how this would/could work in the written adventure.

Unfortunately, in 1983, Marc didn't have fore-knowledge of DNA as a criminal forensic tool; omni-present CCTV, facial recognition software, and other biometrics followed behind that. Today's Referees might be hard-pressed to exclude those from their games and maintain appropriate suspension of disbelief.

Make a big-enough fuss, and the X-Boat network will spread the word even to whatever equivalent of Hong Kong you choose to re-locate to. That word may thus arrive before you.

 

[Supplement Four]

Different breeds (plus one human).

Every dog needs a master!o:

that's how I pronounce it, too.

There's a pronounciation guide in the CT Aliens Vargr supplement.

Cool story bro, keep moving those goal posts.....

LOL. That's not really helping your argument, but it's entertaining!

The Traveller Adventure didn't particularly impress me.

Sacrilege.

The fact that Marc wrote it doesn't mean that it is automatically good. He wrote a lot of poorly thought out crap and was incredibly stubborn about fixing it - how many decades did it take to get the UWPs in the OTU fixed? 34 years by my count.

He finally fixed them? Crap. I voted for them not to be changed.

Let's look at that example - "break into a museum"

Break into museum - Breaking & Entering.
Taking something? - Grand Theft. (Stealing artifacts)
Something stolen means Insurance Company (Probably a Megacorp) has to pay out. It ain't going to be cheap.

It's an adventure story, dude, not a documentary.

I like rationality in my OTU. Decisions have consequences.

Sure. That's what the GM is for--to color his game with his flavor of choice. Like all GDW adventures, The Traveller Adventure can be run a multitude of ways, and there's plenty of room for an enterprising GM to run with it.

Still....the point is that most rpgs feature a decent amount of combat (man, talk about moving the goal posts!).

I'm still correct about that.

 

[rancke]

Here ya go:

Different breeds (plus one human).

This must be an illustration from Harry Harrison's little-known novellette "The Man From D.O.G.G.Y."!

But really, Vargr separated from the parent stock for 300,000 years and they just happen to have evolved into breeds that parallel domestic dogs on Earth that are only a few centuries old?!? That's not ignoring realism, that's dragging realism down a dark alley and beating it to a pulp with baseball bats and then slitting its throat to put it out of its misery.

Hans

 

[pendragonman]

Unfortunately, in 1983, Marc didn't have fore-knowledge of DNA as a criminal forensic tool; omni-present CCTV, facial recognition software, and other biometrics followed behind that. Today's Referees might be hard-pressed to exclude those from their games and maintain appropriate suspension of disbelief.

Make a big-enough fuss, and the X-Boat network will spread the word even to whatever equivalent of Hong Kong you choose to re-locate to. That word may thus arrive before you.

DNA implies you left some behind. CCTV/Facial recognition is only as good as its database operator. Xboats don't leave every system every day, or arrive in every system every day and any alert that arrives before you may be ignored by locals too busy/too bored/too... to bother.

Never forget that the common element in every one of these options is the vigilance of all persons involved. As long as you aren't a murderer/terrorist the local constabulary will likely wait to deal with it when they catch you doing something else. Bonus charge, if you will.

 

[Bloo]

Xboats don't leave every system every day, or arrive in every system every day...

That depends on the time value of information, they probably should. And given interstellar economics, it is entirely plausible that along some routes, there might be several per day.

 

[Kaeto]

This must be an illustration from Harry Harrison's little-known novellette "The Man From D.O.G.G.Y."!

But really, Vargr separated from the parent stock for 300,000 years and they just happen to have evolved into breeds that parallel domestic dogs on Earth that are only a few centuries old?!? That's not ignoring realism, that's dragging realism down a dark alley and beating it to a pulp with baseball bats and then slitting its throat to put it out of its misery.

Hans

No it was lifted from Palladium's multi-universe game Rifts.

 

[Shonner]

The Traveller Adventure didn't particularly impress me. The fact that Marc wrote it doesn't mean that it is automatically good.

The writing style of that book takes longer to state a rule, it mentions things that the players already know from previous Traveller books, and it often repeats rules already stated in the book. I didn't buy adventure books for a long time for Traveller because of that writing style, even for other versions of Traveller if I saw Marc Miller's name.

 

[pendragonman]

That depends on the time value of information, they probably should. And given interstellar economics, it is entirely plausible that along some routes, there might be several per day.

Bloo,

Please see my original remarks. My point was that the adventure in question was quite possible to do without suspension of disbelief. After all, at every level, there are people involved, and people will take the path of least resistance. Which, in this case, is to not bother paying attention to some theft weeks away when there are trouble enough locally.

 

[Spaceresearcher]

Here ya go:

Different breeds (plus one human).

LOL. Very nice. I havn't seen artwork from RIFTS for a very long time.

 

[Spaceresearcher]

Sean, have you seen DGP's "Vilani & Vargr"? If not, remind me to show you a copy when you come over for our "Grand Tour" game. V&V does just what you're after, differentiating between a series of Vargr "strains" - even going so far as to place them across the Vargr Enclaves.

Now, what I want to know is how to pronounce "Vargr". ;-)

I've always said "var-jer", but I've read responses from others who insist it is "var-grrr".

What you y'all do in your universes?

Thanks David. I saw a very bad PDF of it that I could hardly read so I deleted it. I'd really like to see the DGP version of Vargr, there material is always really well done.

On the album by the Lord Weird Slough Feg (Traveller), they say 'VARGAR' in there songs when they sing about them if that counts.
(Interesting musical fellow Travellers that's about a virus which will turn entire worlds into Vargr).

 

[Spaceresearcher]

Yeah... I'm cuttin' you off...

*locks the liquor cabinet*



I've said /var-grr/ too.

ROFL. Now can you just imagine that poodle as a sentient member of the Vargr race?

 

[Spaceresearcher]

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.

Thanks for sharing sfchbryan, your examples are also great story ideas in themselves. It sounds like your group is going to have an absolute ball if they dare to undertake the new Cirque adventure(touring with a circus in the Spinward Marches). Yeah... for a circus, I think shooting the customers would be very bad for business(hence another fine example of combat optional).

 

[Levi]

On the album by the Lord Weird Slough Feg (Traveller), they say 'VARGAR' in there songs when they sing about them if that counts.
(Interesting musical fellow Travellers that's about a virus which will turn entire worlds into Vargr).

I know we're pretty far off topic, but this thread jumped track a long time ago.

Since you brought up Slough Feg, what are your thoughts on the Traders and Gunboats track on Down Among the Deadmen?