CT-What was right

[Ptah]

1) I agree that what caught my eye in 1978 or so was the box. Elegant, simple, serious and enticing. The mayday quote made me want to play this game. To rescue that ship in distress.

2) Character generation. This was so much fun almost agame in itself. I had a crazy friend who convinced me to let him take a minus to his survival roll and apply it as a plus to his comendations roll.

3) Starships. You could get one and build one. Brilliant!

4) Skill based system that worked. The people in the campaign universe could actually be modeled with this system and they still made sense. Unlike most other RPGs of its day, or even now.

5)World creation tables. I recall I got CT for Christmas and spent literally 3 days over the holiday rolling up worlds and creating the universe.

 

[Ptah]

1) I agree that what caught my eye in 1978 or so was the box. Elegant, simple, serious and enticing. The mayday quote made me want to play this game. To rescue that ship in distress.

2) Character generation. This was so much fun almost agame in itself. I had a crazy friend who convinced me to let him take a minus to his survival roll and apply it as a plus to his comendations roll.

3) Starships. You could get one and build one. Brilliant!

4) Skill based system that worked. The people in the campaign universe could actually be modeled with this system and they still made sense. Unlike most other RPGs of its day, or even now.

5)World creation tables. I recall I got CT for Christmas and spent literally 3 days over the holiday rolling up worlds and creating the universe.

 

[Merxiless]

I believe the minus to survival as a DM to decorations was a megatraveller concept, using extended character generation. I recall using it also.

What I like:

All the rules you need to run an adventure in three books or as the Traveller book. When we went to sea, I'd bring the Traveller book, and 2d6. Many months of gaming ensued after working hours in the night across the Pacific.

If I needed inspiration, I'd go topside, and look up and see the Milky Way.

So many things that make it my favorite RPG. The ability to generate whole worlds. The simplicity of UPP.

Figure how many games can be set on a single world? Most RPGs do that, and here we have multiple worlds beyond counting.

The science doesn't jar me. I can't stand things like Shadowrun.

Simple, easy to teach, Some great companies were licensees in the past, doing really good work.

So, nearly 30 years later, I am still playing, and generating systems for scouts to find and explore.

 

[Merxiless]

I believe the minus to survival as a DM to decorations was a megatraveller concept, using extended character generation. I recall using it also.

What I like:

All the rules you need to run an adventure in three books or as the Traveller book. When we went to sea, I'd bring the Traveller book, and 2d6. Many months of gaming ensued after working hours in the night across the Pacific.

If I needed inspiration, I'd go topside, and look up and see the Milky Way.

So many things that make it my favorite RPG. The ability to generate whole worlds. The simplicity of UPP.

Figure how many games can be set on a single world? Most RPGs do that, and here we have multiple worlds beyond counting.

The science doesn't jar me. I can't stand things like Shadowrun.

Simple, easy to teach, Some great companies were licensees in the past, doing really good work.

So, nearly 30 years later, I am still playing, and generating systems for scouts to find and explore.

 

[parmasson]

No single “set in stone” rules. Each edition had its own distinctiveness. LBBs1-3, Starter Edition, The Traveller Book, the later LBBs, they gave you a range of choices.

 

[parmasson]

No single “set in stone” rules. Each edition had its own distinctiveness. LBBs1-3, Starter Edition, The Traveller Book, the later LBBs, they gave you a range of choices.

 

[Darkhstarr]

Simplicity & a great background setting. For my wife it was the first RPG system she really enjoyed playing. Also very smooth, easy play, no grandstanding or bickering over EP's. The only tweak I really used was adding a basic mechanism
for upping skill levels. Combat was fast & very
lethal, even when you didn't want it to be lethal.

 

[Darkhstarr]

Simplicity & a great background setting. For my wife it was the first RPG system she really enjoyed playing. Also very smooth, easy play, no grandstanding or bickering over EP's. The only tweak I really used was adding a basic mechanism
for upping skill levels. Combat was fast & very
lethal, even when you didn't want it to be lethal.

 

[aramis]

CG sold me. I'd been playing for months before I knew the rules were not homegrown by my GM.

 

[aramis]

CG sold me. I'd been playing for months before I knew the rules were not homegrown by my GM.

 

[Anthony Emmel]

Chello!

The same as others:

1. Layout of the boxed set...Beowulf rocks!
2. Experienced "new PCs"
3. 2d6
4. 8+ for success.
5. Hexadecimal notation (ie, previously stated as "index card chatcters")

Tony

 

[Anthony Emmel]

Chello!

The same as others:

1. Layout of the boxed set...Beowulf rocks!
2. Experienced "new PCs"
3. 2d6
4. 8+ for success.
5. Hexadecimal notation (ie, previously stated as "index card chatcters")

Tony

 

[Gruffty]

Three LBBs: a whole universe in a little black box.

All of the above......<screen wiggles as Gruffty has a flashback moment>

1982: All we needed was a box of LBBs, some dice, a pencil and a pad of paper and we were ready to go.

Simple game mechanics - no huge task system, just 8+ on 2D +/- DMs (see? you don't even have to say which kind of dice to throw!).

Pure simplicity and elegance. No hint of the 3I, Rebellion, Virus, TNE, or Mileu 0 - just our own universe from our own imaginations. Bliss....

<SLAP! Gruffty tumbles back to the here-and-now>.

 

[Gruffty]

Three LBBs: a whole universe in a little black box.

All of the above......<screen wiggles as Gruffty has a flashback moment>

1982: All we needed was a box of LBBs, some dice, a pencil and a pad of paper and we were ready to go.

Simple game mechanics - no huge task system, just 8+ on 2D +/- DMs (see? you don't even have to say which kind of dice to throw!).

Pure simplicity and elegance. No hint of the 3I, Rebellion, Virus, TNE, or Mileu 0 - just our own universe from our own imaginations. Bliss....

<SLAP! Gruffty tumbles back to the here-and-now>.

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
...experience is at the same rate as character generation gains skills...

I think this is something that gets overlooked quite often - I've heard gamers complain how CT characters never advance as a criticism of the system, but my characters are always working to improve skills and attributes.

There are so many things that I like about CT, but the elegance of the rules and the famous quote on the cover always come to mind first when I think of Traveller.

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
...experience is at the same rate as character generation gains skills...

I think this is something that gets overlooked quite often - I've heard gamers complain how CT characters never advance as a criticism of the system, but my characters are always working to improve skills and attributes.

There are so many things that I like about CT, but the elegance of the rules and the famous quote on the cover always come to mind first when I think of Traveller.

 

[mike wightman]

I think that the lack of an experience system in CT is a modern myth of role playing games

It isn't in LBB1, and being hidden away in LBB2 must have lead a lot of people who glanced through the rules the impression that, since there was no experience system in Characters and Combat, there was therefore no experience system in Classic Traveller.

As you say, characters have to work at improvement by allocating time, money (usually both ), and being dedicated to the improvement.

 

[mike wightman]

I think that the lack of an experience system in CT is a modern myth of role playing games

It isn't in LBB1, and being hidden away in LBB2 must have lead a lot of people who glanced through the rules the impression that, since there was no experience system in Characters and Combat, there was therefore no experience system in Classic Traveller.

As you say, characters have to work at improvement by allocating time, money (usually both ), and being dedicated to the improvement.

 

[far-trader]

That and the fact that CT unlike most other rpg's then or now started your character with a (usually) long past and lots of skills. Or put another way* CT generated characters already at high levels rather than starting at 1st level. So the assumption may have been it was a "high level play" game with no advancement beyond that and they didn't look further. And even those who found it must have wondered why it wasn't related to how many "monsters" they'd killed

* just to annoy Bill

 

[far-trader]

That and the fact that CT unlike most other rpg's then or now started your character with a (usually) long past and lots of skills. Or put another way* CT generated characters already at high levels rather than starting at 1st level. So the assumption may have been it was a "high level play" game with no advancement beyond that and they didn't look further. And even those who found it must have wondered why it wasn't related to how many "monsters" they'd killed

* just to annoy Bill