Fringe Cases When Running Classic Traveller

[DiabolicDonut]

I'm new to Classic Traveller and I'm trying to get a feel for adjudicating scenarios not explicitly covered in the 1977 or 1981 rules. I'm aware of Striker, Snapshot, Book 4 Mercenary, Book 5 High Guard, and some of the other supplements but I haven't read everything. The kind of situations I'm talking about are where your group of characters are running through a ship and enter into a hangar bay and unexpectedly encounter an AT-ST, large robot, or similar armored vehicle. How have you handled situations like this in actual campaigns? Do your players just bypass or avoid the obstacle, distract it, fight it? If so, did you switch to the Striker system or just make a ruling using the Traveller personal combat system? I have some ideas as to how I would handle this, but I'm curious how referees handled this in past in when oddball situations would arise. I'd like to get a feel for how people handled this stuff in actual practice. I just started doing this, but the games been around almost half a century now, so I'm sure referees have run into some wild scenarios over the years and I'm curious to hear about some of them.

 

[Spinward Flow]

How have you handled situations like this in actual campaigns? Do your players just bypass or avoid the obstacle, distract it, fight it?

There is no "one size fits all" answer to these questions ... because everything involved depends on context, personalities (of Players and the Referee) and motivations.

Is the "obstacle" something that needs to be overcome/defeated (in order to advance the plot) or is it incidental?
Are there opportunities to "defeat" the obstacle by bluffing (or just brazening things out)?
Is the "obstacle" an unwanted factor (side quest: decline), or would engaging it now have bad consequences later?
Do you just need to neutralize the "obstacle" or does it need to be destroyed (kaboom!)?

All of these things are going to vary from moment to moment, from campaign to campaign.

Additionally, you're always allowed to fall back on the notion that the armament that the Players have will be ... decidedly ineffectual ... against the "obstacle" that they're confronted with. Small arms fire will rarely do significant damage to an armored tank (for example), for what ought to be obvious reasons. A Referee, who knows what the Players have on hand, could just straight up tell the Players ... "You can fight the armored {obstacle} if you want to, but your weapons may be ineffective at damaging it." ... and if the Players don't listen to the warning/hint, they get to enjoy going through Character Generation again.

Character Generation is merely ONE of the places for characters to die.
It's by no means the ONLY way for characters to die.
And characters who lack a sense of self-preservation ... we have a phrase for that.
Go Darwin, Go.

 

[mike wightman]

Classic Traveller out of the box has one glaring omission - vehicle combat rules.

My solution was to adapt the rules for animals of a certain size to be the equivalent to vehicles.

Here is a thread I made about it:

CT Only: Thread 'Vehicle combat using LBB1-3'

Oct 6, 2016

I posted this on another thread so it is somewhat buried.

I thought I would repost it so I can clean it up and get constructive comments.

Vehicle armour
For unarmoured vehicles you have to hit the equivalent of mesh armour with personal scale weapons, light armoured vehicles cloth armour, medium armoured vehicles battle dress and heavy armored vehicle are immune to personal scale weapons.

On a successful hit roll on the smallcraft damage table. Simple as that.

Advanced version
If you really want to go the extra mile, and like rolling damage dice, for each component in the...

• mike wightman
• Replies: 18
• Forum: Classic Traveller

• 

 

[kilemall]

The original CT has an ethos of roll your own, in the form of radically different throws. Read the whole thing, particularly the skills sections, and think in terms of throws that make sense to you. Most of them aren’t straight up base throw plus 1x skill/attribute.

The writers were making it up, for instance Adventure 1 gave a cumulative damage of 1000 points to penetrate bulkheads/hulls. Not really referenced before or since.

I would tend to go abbreviated Striker, but I have it on tap. The animal route is fine, so would say using Robots.

 

[Commander Truestar]

I agree that counter-vehicle rules were a glaring hole in Classic Traveller.
However, I was able to all back on my military training and experience to handle this bit.

Fighting vehicle based opponents is a question of strategies.
Like Luke and other pilots on Hoth, their own vehicle-based weapons couldn't damage the walker's armor. So, they used harpoons (which the script mandated could penetrate the same armor the guns couldn't) to snarl the legs in cables and knock the walkers down.

So, you've come around the corner to see an AT-ST...
1) Do you open up with your heaviest weapons while concentrating on one spot trying to blow through the armor?
2) Do you concentrate fire on exposed sensors that can't be armored because they won't work if behind surfaces?
3) Do you use an 'engage then fade' tactic to lure the vehicle into a maintenance area where there are lifts you can try to lure it into?
4) Do you use the same Engage/Fade tactic to lure the vehicle into a place where the movement paths are limited? Is there machinery you can use to block or trap it?
5) OK, you can't blow the vehicle up. Can you cloud or block the view of the crew inside? Can you use electronics or other systems to negate their sensors?

These are five possible stratagems a group of Traveller characters can use in counter-vehicle situations.

Another consideration is Napoleonic in nature.
Most battles are lost well before they are fought
Napoleon selected battlefields where his artillery could be used against his foes with devastating effect.
Before the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon was ill and let one of his Field Marshals control the movement of his army. Because of that, the Duke of Wellington selected the site and the artillery was useless.
Add to that, faulty intelligence that proved devastating when the Prussian army Napoleon "was told" were vanquished return to the field along with their British and other allies.

Defeating any vehicle or other obstruction on the battlefield is a challenge to the mind and tactics.
Not the gear.
Being able to defeat vehicles is a challenge to the planning put into the mission "before" the op begins.