Hammers Slammers
- Thread starter Khan Trav
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Slammers is a milieu or Campaign Setting onto itself. Without significant modification by taking the action outside of the boundaries of the 3I, it is not possible to make it work. If you are running the Twilight Sector by Terra/Sol Games - it is a much better match.
Having said that there are ideas to steal, Slammers provides the excellent backdrop for a Merc Campaign that could be augmented with scenarios from Battlelords... But, again, no Chartered territory would really be good for it in the OTU. So all one can do is steal the best and discard the rest.
Having said that there are ideas to steal, Slammers provides the excellent backdrop for a Merc Campaign that could be augmented with scenarios from Battlelords... But, again, no Chartered territory would really be good for it in the OTU. So all one can do is steal the best and discard the rest.
It's not OTU. The Slammers universe is a fully non-OTU setting for a series of novels by David Drake. SOme of which are pretty good. It's got some seriously different tech paradigms... no grav, but cheap & efficient fusion, and the "powergun"... which may be part of the inspiration for TDX...
As for the Mongoose book... not very good. An excellent companion for the novels, but not a great book for running the Slammers' universe. Detail in the wrong places.
Khan Trav
SOC-12
That is good and bad. I will get the book and adjust them into my campaign accordingly. Instead of Friesland they might come from Gram or somewhere like that. I need them in place on Ruie prior to the fifth frontier war for a little intrigue. Possibly a survey team to a country looking to hire mercs. The Zhodani are there looking to utilize Ruie as a jumping off point for the initial phase of the war going after Regina. My players are there in the middle of it and will have a role in interfering with the Zhodani operation.
More bad than good, actually.
When you read the "Slammers' books, not "if" but "when" because you should read the "Slammers" books, you'll realize that the "Slammers" universe doesn't fit in the "Traveller" universe at all.
Aramis briefly mentioned the technological differences and, believe me, they are vast. The Mongoose book does nothing much the address the differences and instead basically ignores them so the "Slammers" could be shoehorned into "Traveller" with little effort on writer's part.
The "Slammers" universe doesn't have gravitics, the FTL drive is completely different, and there is a widespread FTL communication system too. If the last isn't enough, the "Slammers" employ "powerguns" in sizes ranging from personal weapons to tri-barrel gatlings to tank main batteries. While "powerguns" definitely aren't lasers and aren't exactly plasma guns either, the Mongoose book fails to provide any rules for designing the signature weapons of the "Slammers" universe.
The book is little more than Mongoose ramming the "Slammers" square peg into the round hole of "Traveller" while hoping any purchaser doesn't either notice or care that the two don't fit. "Traveller" could have been changed to support a "Slammers" setting but, because that would have required both work and`creativity, Mongoose took it's usual easy way out and changed the "Slammers" to fit "Traveller" instead.
There's stuff you can borrow and stuff that might suggest things you can do, but there's not enough for a pure "Slammers" campaign that isn't really a set of tabletop wargame scenarios and there certainly isn't enough to import the "Slammers" into "Traveller" without doing great damage to both.
Peter Schutze
SOC-12
>There is however quite a bit that will work once modified
I think this quote says it much better
>"Traveller" could have been changed to support a "Slammers" setting but, because that would have required both work and`creativity, Mongoose took it's usual easy way out and changed the "Slammers" to fit "Traveller" instead
I had high hopes that some of the edges were going to be filed down when they had a few adventures in Signs and Portents .... almost starting to add the small advanced party / RPG aspects in like they did in Battletech/ Mechwarrior
It now seems the Slammers book was a test product that they decided wasnt going to be worth the effort
I think this quote says it much better
>"Traveller" could have been changed to support a "Slammers" setting but, because that would have required both work and`creativity, Mongoose took it's usual easy way out and changed the "Slammers" to fit "Traveller" instead
I had high hopes that some of the edges were going to be filed down when they had a few adventures in Signs and Portents .... almost starting to add the small advanced party / RPG aspects in like they did in Battletech/ Mechwarrior
It now seems the Slammers book was a test product that they decided wasnt going to be worth the effort
Please understand that I'm not telling you you can't do this for your TU. It sounds like an excellent idea. It's just that I've frequently noted a tendency by people to believe that this is what happened in the OTU, and I'd like to set that record straight. The Zhodani never showed up at Regina. There was a rumor reported on Rhylanor that the Zhos had attacked Regina, but it is explicitly stated in one of the timelines that the Zhodani had not appeared at Regina at the time. (In fact, the only indication that any Zhos ever showed up in the Regina system during the 5FW is a TNS newsbrief that appears to have been in error or possibly a bad joke).
Anyway, whatever happened in the Regina system later, the Zhos task force (not a full fleet -- all the Zho fleets that were involved in the original assault are described elsewhere and none of them came near Ruie) that was spotted at Ruie around 180-1107 was on it's way somewhere else. Possibly it was a bluff aimed at luring the Impies to send ships to the wrong places.
Hans
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That was my hope too, especially considering one of Drake's later "Slammers" book was about a small advanced party checking out the situation before the regiment arrived.
That book, "The Sharp End", just screams to be adapted to RPG play but adapting it with the rules provided by Mongoose would be nearly impossible. I'll explain inside this spoiler tag:
Spoiler:
And that's why the Slammers book is so disappointing.
The Mongoose book is both a poor RPG aid because it only partially adapts the rules to the setting and a poor wargame because those rules are barely touched upon.
If you need a Slammers wargame, there are a good set of miniature rules put out by Crucible games and another older OOP rules set floating around too.
If you need Slammers RPG rules, I suppose GURPS could be used because it allows you to "build" the core technologies involved and the amount of time needed to do that is going to the same as the amount of time you'll need to get fix the Mongoose book. GURPS can become overly detailed however.
Khan Trav
SOC-12
Yes, my bad for some reason I thought it was GURPS. I have been looking for Traveller related stuff online and made an assumption.
Khan Trav
SOC-12
Hans, there is no need to play the Zho apologist. The reason they never actually invaded Regina was due to the actions of the party currently in Ruie at the behest of Norris and the Office of Naval Intelligence. :devil:
Khan Trav
SOC-12
Ok I see your point, the book came in today.
As noted above there is a lot to be desired. I am now thinking about having the slammers present on Ruie but looking at some of the things presented on this site I might be able to mod them. They could use grav technology for the tanks and combat cars right? There is no need for powerguns at all. I realize blowers,power guns, clamshell armor and no win scenarios are their specialty. What about grav tanks for the panzers? Up against the tech level-7 balkanized farm boys of Ruie they would be pretty ominous unless the opfor hired Aramis' Azzkickers.
Khan Trav
SOC-12
I received the book today and you hit it right on the head. It appears they went through the books with a note pad and made notes about ops, character names and whatnot. They have a list of all the campaigns, the when and the where. Most of it could have been created from appendices in one of the books. Then they tack on a modded chargen system and voila I spend 39.95.. I wish I had listened to you all before the credit card purchase!
Sorry you ordered it before reading our responses. Still you can salvage something out of it, right?
Gravitics instead of "blowers" is a very big change. Not an insurmountable change, mind you, just one you need to be mindful of because of the consequences to the effect of terrain on movement.
The tanks and combat cars in Drake's books still require bridges and fords while also tending to avoid swamps and marshes. As hovercraft, they need a hard surface, or a hard surface somewhat below a "mushy" one, to "push" against. They aren't the low mass/wide footprint, water-crossing, hovercraft we use as rescue vehicles, landing craft, or ferries. They're high mass, narrow footprint, bricks which only "work" as hovercraft because of their fusion power plants. (IIRC, Drake has written that his "blowers" are actually physically impossible.)
Thick vegetation also impedes the movement of Drake's Slammers. They can bull their way through saplings and the like just as current armor does, but, in at least two stories, they actually use their artillery to set forests on fire in order to provide lanes for movement of tanks and combat cars.
Compare all that to gravitics. Grav tanks fly. Grav tanks can reach orbit.
Grav vehicles can cross anything anywhere no matter how "fragile" or "mushy". The river that would force the Slammers to build a bridge, the bays, lakes, and ice sheets that would force the Slammers to make a detour, and the seas and oceans which would make the Slammers use other transport do not effect grav vehicles at all. Also, while a blower has to bull or burn it's way through a forest or other dense vegetation, a grav vehicle can simply "hop" over it all or "fly" over to "land" in an otherwise inaccessible clearing.
Imagine playing a wargame where one side must take into account the effects on movement of river, wood, lake, and other similar hexes while the another side can simply ignore all of that and you'll begin to understand just how big a difference there is between gravitics and "blowers".
Where gravitic technology makes tanks in "Traveller" more dangerous because it provides much more "agility", power gun technology makes the weapons in Drake's books more dangerous because it's much more "cheap".
Look at the various fusion guns in "Mercenary", they all require fusion plants for "ammo" while Drake's 20cm main tank guns "only" require those copper-laced "wafers". It gets even worse with personal arms. The Slammers carry pistols, submachineguns, and rifles whose best "Traveller" equivalent for damage are the PGMP and FGMP. Both those "Traveller" weapons require battledress and power packs, but the Slammers carry their versions much like we carry chemically powered slug throwers today.
Sure, the Slammers need actual ammo where "Traveller's" various plasma/fusion weapons can run off power sources, but power guns mean the Slammers are carrying more "boom" for much less "buck" and much more often than any "Traveller" merc outfit could manage.
Years ago, I tried recreating the Slammers for a game with "Mercenaries" and never managed to make things fit together that well. The technological assumptions between the two are just too great. You can use the Slammers as an inspiration for a merc unit with "Traveller" technology, but you aren't going to have anything that resembles the Slammers without actual Slammers technology.
As with FTL communications and FTL travel, Mongoose didn't bother develop any of the signature Slammers' technology for their source book. Instead, they shoehorned the Slammers into "Traveller" and that's one big reason why the book is such a disappointment.
Grav tanks will make mincemeat out of any traditional forces TL 7 can whip up, but traditional forces aren't the only game in town.
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