As an aside for folks who don't know it, Bruce falls just after Martin and I when it comes to contributions to T20. There were many late night spent talking on the phone, hashing out ideas and mechanics between the two of us. So he does honestly have as much insight on the development of the game as Martin or I.
The biggest challenge I think we faced was coming up with a version of the d20 System that still managed to keep the feel and flavor of Traveller itself. I think we succeeded there which may surprise many who insist that T20 will be nothing more than D&D in space.
We tried to keep as close to the core d20 System rules as much as possible rather than go for major changes. Part of the point of using the d20 license was to draw on that large core of folks already familiar with the basic play of the rules through D&D. If we monkied with the mechanics too much the rules would become to unfamiliar and not likely to be as readily adopted by our target audience.
Rather than change the rules, we tried to layer new options on top of the existing system where we felt some tweaking needed to be made to fit more with the flavor of Traveller itself. The two main areas we concentrated on were Combat and Prior History.
I'm rather proud of the Prior History system honestly. I think it does a great job of simulating the original Classic Traveller character generation system within the scope of the d20 System rules. It's a hybrid of the basic and advanced chargen system from CT, with characters earning XP each term of service rather than individual skills or skill ranks.
On the combat system, one of my major points of focus was on designing a system that allowed combat through all scales of play, from personal to vehicle to starship combat. This system would also allow for seamless cross-scale combat, for example a combat involving individual characters, vehicles, and possibly even starships involved in the same combat all interacting with one another. To solve these issues we developed the Armor Rating and Damage Dice Reduction rules. This let us keep the statistical value ranges for each combat system pretty much the same, while scaling the damage when say you attempt to fire your gauss rifle at the fleeing air/raft.
The other main focus on the combat system was to add a bit more lethality to the d20 combat rules. I've seen some comments elsewhere that the Stamina/Lifeblood system we use in T20 is based on the Wounds/Vitality rules from d20 Star Wars. Actually this isn't the case; Stamina/Lifeblood owes its existance to the Hero Stun/Body rules instead. Both Bruce and I are old Champions fans, and this was the first thing that came to mind when we were hashing out possible ideas.
On the issue of using classes, let me say we went through a TON of concepts. Everything from dropping them altogether, to using only a single class from which everything else was built upon in character development. Needless to say we were a little surprised when d20 Call of Cthulhu came out
Ultimately I made the decision to stick with classes for familiarity. Those who come over to T20 from some other d20 game are familiar with them and how they work making the transition to the T20 rules much easier.
How's that for a start?
Anything specific you want to know?
Also don't forget the Playtesters! The playtest team was INVALUABLE to the development of T20 and let me tell you they contributed a ton to the game. A list of these 20 fine folks (and their handles on these boards) are listed in the credits of the book.
Hunter
