After the MGT debacle, T5 may not look so bad...

[Supplement Four]

There's something strange a-happen' insida me...

I wasn't excited about T5 at all. I felt, from what I'd seen, it was based "too much" on T4. But, now, MGT has exploded, with all its not-so-greatness into my view, and I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

The "strange change" a-happen' insida me is that--now, stop the presses and hold the phone--I'm actually looking forward to see what T5 has to offer.

Yep. You read that right. My hopes are higher for T5 than they were before. I can't explain it. Maybe its just blind hope without reason. Or, maybe it's the oil company method of raising prices 300% so that, when the price falls a bit, you'll be quite happy with the price of gas even though it's 150% higher than where you started.

Yeah, folks. I want to review some posts on T5. I want to see what people think of it. I want to hear some reviews.

And...

....
...
..
.

I hope it is good news.

Cheers!

 

[Foxroe]

Have you been drinking!? :file_19:

Yeah, me too.

I can completely identify with what you're saying. I was really excited by the news of RTT, and now I must admit I'm not so much anymore...

T5 on the other hand... It feels more like Traveller to me (whatever that means). And I'm really not that upset that the release date keeps getting pushed out. I'm sure that just means that Marc wants the material to be as good as possible before putting it out for final testing... at least that's what I'm hoping.

I would also not be surprised that the reason for the delay in release is to push it out past the initial marketing of Mongoose's offering. If RTT does well, T5 can be promoted as the "advanced" version, and if RTT bombs, then T5 can be touted as the alternative.

-Fox

 

[robject]

My hopes are higher for T5 than they were before. I can't explain it. Maybe its just blind hope without reason.

Well, T5 hasn't changed, so it must be your experience. But, I don't think your expectations have changed, either, so the question is: what's more important, your experience or your expectations?

Put another way, has anything other than Mongoose changed your mind about T5, versus sticking with your current, favorite version? If the answer is "no", then I think you'll still be disappointed.

OK, I'll try to put it more clearly: you can't really be more optimistic about T5 unless there's something about T5 to like. So don't go getting my hopes up by saying your hopes are up!

 

[Perseus]

what's more important, your experience or your expectations?

OK, I'll try to put it more clearly: you can't really be more optimistic about T5 unless there's something about T5 to like. So don't go getting my hopes up by saying your hopes are up!

Ya messin' with mah head...I am am looking forward to T5, even if all I can do is pick the best bits out of it for inclusion into MTU. But somehow I can't help but think It might be alright...of course there will be rough edges, there will always be, but it's a bit like anything worthwhile, you gotta take it and work at it a bit to get the best out of it.

 

[atpollard]

But we must face the facts that T5 characters will share more in common with T4 than CT - and that means LOTS of skills and POWERFULL attributes unless Marc has had a fundamental change of heart. I am looking forward to seeing what both RTT and T5 have to offer. However, when the dust settles, I suspect that the CT/MT game mechanics will suit me the best. I like Roll 2D6, 8+ succeeds, few modifiers (and neither RTT or T5 are likely to offer that).

 

[Foxroe]

I’m a big fan of the 2D6-roll-high method as well, and I suspect that the xD6-roll-low mechanic will be the hardest thing for us to swallow.

But I’ve read through the T5 Tasks playtest document a few times, and the system really isn’t as crap-tacular as my initial impression led me to believe. A “fist-full-o’dice”, as it has been called, is probably a bit of an exaggeration, as I think most of the time players will be rolling only 2, 3, or 4 dice at a time. And thankfully there are no half-dice (blech)!

At first I thought that the stats would be continuously overpowering the skills during task resolution, but since characters will have higher skill levels than in CT/MT, things should even out. Also, lower skill levels will increase the task difficulty, thereby reducing the effectiveness of the stat associated with the task when unskilled characters attempt tasks.

As for combat, I don’t really know anything about how it will work, but as long as it isn’t RTT’s T&E mess, I’ll likely be content with it. I started a thread the other day to spark discussion on personal and starship combat in T5, but no replies as of yet…

-Fox

 

[robject]

Ya messin' with mah head...I am am looking forward to T5, even if all I can do is pick the best bits out of it for inclusion into MTU. But somehow I can't help but think It might be alright...of course there will be rough edges, there will always be, but it's a bit like anything worthwhile, you gotta take it and work at it a bit to get the best out of it.

LOL, agreed. I'm certain I can use T5 tools for my CT games, and it seems that its richness may not get in the way of playability. Combat appears to be fast.

 

[robject]

But we must face the facts that T5 characters will share more in common with T4 than CT - and that means LOTS of skills and POWERFULL attributes unless Marc has had a fundamental change of heart. I am looking forward to seeing what both RTT and T5 have to offer. However, when the dust settles, I suspect that the CT/MT game mechanics will suit me the best. I like Roll 2D6, 8+ succeeds, few modifiers (and neither RTT or T5 are likely to offer that).

T5 skill levels appear to have a clean mapping to Mongoose Traveller characters: dividing them by two seems to work. Mapping to CT may require a more severe divisor.

And you're right, the simplicity of a CT+ task system is hard to beat for many, many games!

 

[robject]

...I think most of the time players will be rolling only 2, 3, or 4 dice at a time. ...
At first I thought that the stats would be continuously overpowering the skills during task resolution...

As for combat...

The best way I can think to allow characteristics parity with skills is to make characteristic improvements risky.

The personal combat draft I saw required 2D only.

 

[Foxroe]

The personal combat draft I saw required 2D only.

An interesting tidbit!

Assuming that weapon damage is relatively close to what it was in CT (an assumption I'm basing on weapon stats robject posted elsewhere), weapon damage reduces characteristics (the CharGen draft at Traveller.com has you mark off "hit boxes" equal to St/Dx/En), and the mechanic is 2D, does this mean that T5's system will be similar to AHL/MT?

-Fox

 

[Supplement Four]

Put another way, has anything other than Mongoose changed your mind about T5, versus sticking with your current, favorite version? If the answer is "no", then I think you'll still be disappointed.

To be completely fair, I don't know a lot about T5. Just little tid-bits, here and there, that I've gleaned.

I assume it will use the T4-ish task system (not a selling point, in my book). Then again, there's that weapon design system you mentioned. That sounded kinda neat.

I'm going to give T5 an honest look. I'm not even going to let the T4-ish task system hinder me. I'm going to be unbiased when I look at it.

If it flies, it flies.

If it doesn't, it will crash.

But, either way, I'm going to give it a fair "shot" at grabbing my imagination.

And...I've still got CT if it doesn't.

 

[Supplement Four]

The best way I can think to allow characteristics parity with skills is to make characteristic improvements risky.

Or, one could use stats and skills for different things.

 

[Foxroe]

Another suggestion would be to roll 2D6+Stat+Skill > Difficulty. The difficulty levels would have to be higher (say 10+/14+/18+/etc.), and if Skill is less than a target value listed in the task statement, a -4DM is applied (offset by JoT skill).

I know this seems sort of overpowered for a 2D6 method, but I figure this system emphasizes both stat and skill as having as much of an effect each as the random portion of the resolution.

Anyway, just thinking out loud (and dreaming of a 2D6 T5)...

-Fox

 

[Morte]

If T5 is too stat dependent (and I thought it was when I played a game with the playtest rules that were around a few years back), then instead of fiddling with the task system it might be easier to centre-weight the stats.

Instead of rolling 2d6 for your stats when you make the character, roll 4d6/2 or 6d6/3 or whatever you like. That way an ability of 10 would still be very powerful, but it would also be very rare. Instead of the top 10% of PC abilities being an 11 or 12, you could make it a 9 or 10. And so skill variations would become more important compared to ability variations.

You could also come up with a weighted point buy system, with each ability level costing more points than the last, for players who prefer non-random chargen.

 

[Supplement Four]

If T5 is too stat dependent (and I thought it was when I played a game with the playtest rules that were around a few years back....

If it's still the Stat+Skill roll under system from T4, then it will absolutely be "too stat dependent".

I'm going to have to think long and hard about that one. It might be a deal breaker for me.

I'm looking forward to seeing if the rest of the T5 is so neat that I could put up with a stat-dependent task system.

 

[Foxroe]

I’d rather see a 2D6 mechanic, but I don’t think that I’ll have a difficult time swallowing the xD6<Stat+Skill system. The nice thing about the T5 playtest rules was the fact that even though stats seem to count as much as skills, if the skill level doesn’t match the number of dice you’re throwing (difficulty), then you increase the difficulty by two (+2D). What this means is even though a character has a decent governing stat, it’s more difficult for them to succeed at the task if they aren’t skilled enough. I think it’s the equivalent of telling a player, “OK, you can attempt the task with just your skill, if you roll 2D less than your stat.”

Incidentally, the probabilities listed on the chart at the end of the document are incorrect (maybe pulled from T4?). Here’s an updated chart for convenience (I believe it’s accurate):

	Esy	Avg	Dif	For	Stg	Imp
S+C	1D	2D	3D	4D	5D	6D
====================================================
1	17.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2	33.0%	3.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
3	50.0%	8.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
4	67.0%	17.0%	1.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
5	83.0%	28.0%	4.6%	0.4%	>0.0%	0.0%
6	100.0%	42.0%	9.3%	1.2%	0.1%	>0.0%
7	100.0%	58.0%	16.2%	2.7%	0.3%	>0.0%
8	100.0%	72.0%	25.9%	5.4%	0.7%	0.1%
9	100.0%	83.0%	37.5%	9.7%	1.6%	0.2%
10	100.0%	92.0%	50.0%	15.9%	3.2%	0.5%
11	100.0%	97.0%	62.5%	23.9%	5.9%	1.0%
12	100.0%	100.0%	74.1%	33.6%	9.8%	2.0%
13	100.0%	100.0%	83.8%	44.4%	15.2%	3.6%
14	100.0%	100.0%	90.7%	55.6%	22.1%	6.1%
15	100.0%	100.0%	95.4%	66.4%	30.5%	9.6%
16	100.0%	100.0%	98.1%	76.1%	40.0%	14.5%
17	100.0%	100.0%	99.5%	84.1%	50.0%	20.6%
18	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	90.3%	60.0%	27.9%
19	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	94.6%	69.5%	36.3%
20	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	97.3%	77.8%	45.4%
21	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	98.8%	84.8%	54.6%
22	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	99.6%	90.2%	63.7%
23	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	99.9%	94.1%	72.1%
24	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	96.7%	79.4%
25	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	98.4%	85.5%
26	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	99.3%	90.4%
27	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	99.7%	93.9%
28	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	99.9%	96.4%
29	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	<100.0%	98.0%
30	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	99.0%

-Fox

 

[robject]

An interesting tidbit!

Assuming that weapon damage is relatively close to what it was in CT (an assumption I'm basing on weapon stats robject posted elsewhere), weapon damage reduces characteristics (the CharGen draft at Traveller.com has you mark off "hit boxes" equal to St/Dx/En), and the mechanic is 2D, does this mean that T5's system will be similar to AHL/MT?

-Fox

I don't think so. I haven't played either, really, though I own AHL and I know people like it.


The problem with characteristic being equal to skill means chargen has to make characteristic improvement difficult, or otherwise make it painful to not have skill levels.

T5 creates a big difference between characters just based on UPP; in CT there was no ability difference between a 444 and a 999: the 999 just had a few more dice worth of blubber to hit before he went down. (Well that's not technically true, since every weapon had a set of characteristic bonuses and penalties, but in general there were only a handful of character capabilities).

This in turn strengthens the urge in chargen to grab as many physical development points as possible.

The multi-dice mechanic is a way to have more than a +/-2 DM to any task without breaking the task system wide open. A side benefit is that you don't need two values for each characteristic, a "full" version for damage and a "dm" version. They're one and the same.

As I and others have noted, it makes characteristics powerful in the game, since their contribution to a task is more or less equal to that of skill, and one characteristic influences a set of skills. The one place where characteristics have been weakened is in combat, where you can quickly lose their asset when you get hit.

 

[Foxroe]

The problem with characteristic being equal to skill means chargen has to make characteristic improvement difficult, or otherwise make it painful to not have skill levels.

T5 creates a big difference between characters just based on UPP; in CT there was no ability difference between a 444 and a 999: the 999 just had a few more dice worth of blubber to hit before he went down. (Well that's not technically true, since every weapon had a set of characteristic bonuses and penalties, but in general there were only a handful of character capabilities).

This in turn strengthens the urge in chargen to grab as many physical development points as possible.

The multi-dice mechanic is a way to have more than a +/-2 DM to any task without breaking the task system wide open. A side benefit is that you don't need two values for each characteristic, a "full" version for damage and a "dm" version. They're one and the same.

As I and others have noted, it makes characteristics powerful in the game, since their contribution to a task is more or less equal to that of skill, and one characteristic influences a set of skills. The one place where characteristics have been weakened is in combat, where you can quickly lose their asset when you get hit.

While I don't entirely disagree with you with respect to the influence of stats, and while I would still prefer a 2D-high mechanic, this system is really not too shabby IMHO. Here's an example.

If the task statement says:

To repair jump drive coil.
(Dex + Engineering) > Difficult (3D)

and:

Character A has Dex-9 and Engineering-2
Character B has Dex-7 and Engineering-3
Character C has Dex-5 and Engineering-4

Character A only has a 23.9% chance of success. He should leave it to characters B & C because the repair is just too risky (in fact the chances that a failure will be catastrophic for A are much better than B & C's chances considering the "56" rule).

Character B has a 50% chance of success and character C has only a 37.5%. Sure, C has more skill, but that Dex-5 may mean that he is continuously dropping his tools, making it harder to succeed at the task. Despite that, he is still better off than character A. He would only be worse off if his Dex were 3-, but at least his chances of a catastrophic failure would be less.

Character A must have a Dex stat of 12+ to do better than character B, and why not? He still has a decent amount of training, so why shouldn't excellent hand-eye coordination give him an edge? If A had no Engineering skill, then he would need a 14+ in Dex and the referee would have had to established Engineering-0 as a default skill for that character.

So, stats do indeed strongly affect task success, but if you don't have the skill, your Stat means next to squat unless you are a superhero. Looking at the CharGen document, I don't see this happening. While Stat bonuses are not "painful" to acquire, a player that opts to roll all of his/her skill acquisitions on the Physical and Mental tables, and perhaps max out the character's UPP, wouldn't have any worthwhile skills to show for it... and from what I can see, T5 doesn't give "needed" skills away like MongTrav does!

-Fox

 

[robject]

So, stats do indeed strongly affect task success, but if you don't have the skill, your Stat means next to squat unless you are a superhero. Looking at the CharGen document, I don't see this happening.

Quite frankly, there are so few who voice support for this mechanic, that I am taken aback at your defense, which sounds like Marc Miller himself wrote it.

I don't mean to sound critical of the rule, but a survival skill here on COTI is to approach the nD task system with timidity, lest ye be scoffed at.

Anyhow, back to the point. Your example is exactly the type of example Marc uses to explain how the system works. It's so like him that it's spooky.

I've seen maybe five arguments against the task system, and none of them seem to really matter one whit. It's no worse than any other task system, and is stronger than many, including the 2DRH that we all know and love. And, it lets Marc leverage values to be DMs which have been sitting around from Book 1 onward.

I'm going to stop now. Time to sleep.

 

[Foxroe]

Well, I'm not so much defending the mechanic as I am defending my hopes that T5 will be spiffy. I will stop now as well, lest I suffer a public stoning for heresy.

Good night!

-Fox