How different is GT?

[Cymew]

I have been considering a few GT books. Nobles, Sword Worlds and Starports.

Now, I know that GT differs from original Traveller in a few places. One of the things I hate with GURPS is their system for building vehicles and starships, and I can't stand the other rules much better.

I just browsed the Starports book and discovered they have apparantly changed the time honored tradition of classifying starports A,B,C etc and done a numerical classification instead. I can't for my life understand why.

Anyhow. Considering that I *don't* like the crunchier parts, and would like to convert the most needed parts to regular Traveller equivalances. How useful are the above mentioned books? Is there e.g. an easy way to convert the starport classes?

Any input appreciated.

 

[Flynn]

GT uses the old GURPS Space means of classifying starports, using Roman numerals instead of the CT alphabetical designations. The GT core rulebook has translations, so to speak. It's a simple substitution, letter for roman numberal. (i.e I equals E, II equals D, III equals C, etc.)

Hope that helps,
Flynn

 

[Malenfant]

The starports are I, II, III etc because that's how GURPS Space classifies them, which GT is broadly compatible with. Functionally, they're exactly the same as their OTU equivalents of A, B, C, etc. (I don't recall whether I = A or whether V = A, but if you have the book in front of you it should be easy to figure out). Had GT been a "powered by GURPS" series instead of a GURPS Space series, then it's more probably that they would have just used the original classification system instead.

The world data format is also GURPS Space-like too, which means no UWPs. However, they're still functionally equivalent to the original UWPs, and it's not hard to convert them if you have the UWP tables from book 6 at hand.

The GT books are absolute goldmines for fluff. The Alien races books are really good, Far Trader and First In are great for how trade works and for how scouts work (and for worldbuilding). The Sword Worlds and Rim of Fire books are superb background books full of history and detail (and not a lot of rule-specific material, which makes them very adaptable). In fact, I think the GT books are the best ever published for the game in terms of adding background detail and actually getting something sensible out of the OTU.

 

[Cymew]

Starports don't sound like much of a problem. Not having UWP's sounds worse.

Having to do all the UWP data from Scouts myself kind of defeats the purpose of paying for a book where it's already done in another format...

Now, give me GT - metric and with the UPP, UWP and suchlike and I might start like it better.

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Cymew:
Starports don't sound like much of a problem. Not having UWP's sounds worse.

Having to do all the UWP data from Scouts myself kind of defeats the purpose of paying for a book where it's already done in another format...

Well... it's human readable. Does it really make that much of a difference if a world is described as "diameter 7,000 miles, atmosphere Dense, hydrographics 56%" instead of as "UWP 786"? The worlds are the same, just described differently.

 

[Cymew]

Apart from the miles, everything is readable, but if I have to construct UWP's it takes time and energy I'd rather use for other things. And UWP's is what I'll need to interface with the CT/MT rules I'll use.

 

[Malenfant]

That's my point though - you don't need to construct UWPs. The data used in GT is generally the same data as in the CT/MT sources (there are a few instances in the setting books where worlds have been tweaked a bit to make them work, but mostly they're working from the same UWP).

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Cymew:
Starports don't sound like much of a problem. Not having UWP's sounds worse.

Having to do all the UWP data from Scouts myself kind of defeats the purpose of paying for a book where it's already done in another format...

Now, give me GT - metric and with the UPP, UWP and suchlike and I might start like it better.

Thanks for the help guys!

GT is largely meant to support GURPS:Space and its various extensions, rather than any one of the other Traveller systems.

Lack of proper UWPs, metric measurements, and a convertible Credit are all severe and irritating problems (in that they cause anyone not playing GT who wishes to use them to be faced with a substantial workload).

However, all of the GT books I've looked into are well-written, and many of the more useful mechanics can be exported into the other Traveller systems.

 

[Elliot]

Im not a GURPS man, but I have found it fairly easy to convert to CT/MT (obviously with the exception of char gen and combat) - all the elements are there for an easy-ish conversion.

 

[Glen Allen Mcinnes]

And if you want to be bad to your players give them the GT world disctiptors next time they buy some cheap data and tell them thats what you get for not going to the scouts or TAS for their charts or travel gides

or realy confuse them by using GT TL (or other) ratings on ocaision call it the "Geraing Uiniversity Rationalized Proximasion Scale" and give them a taste of what its like to be raised metric and have to put up with the yanks still using the old imperial mesurments in just about every game or referance miterial.

 

[Anthony]

While lack of UWPs may be a negative for old Traveller grognards, to someone not steeped in Traveller arcana a human readable format is vastly more useful than a UWP. While it may be inconvenient for database designers, overall I believe GURPS Traveller made the right decision by discarding the UWP.

 

[TheDS]

You just have to be able to understand both systems at once, I guess. Traveller has gotten me used to the metric system, though not for everyday measurements. I use metric for scientifical stuff and Imperial when I do things in real life. So I guess I pity non-Americans, who can't think in two systems?

 

[Malenfant]

Let's not have another metric vs imperial flamewar now...

 

[aramis]

I find that GT books, when setting derived, are fairly readable.

Rules-wise, I find that GURPS tends towards a variety of either excessive details or very broad abstraction, with very little middle ground.

Oh, and "Powered by GURPS" simply means it is a GURPS product not done by SJG, and has a core rulebook which doesn't need GURPS Basic... based upon comments by S.P.Petrick and G.Plana, there is almost no latitude for deviations from GURPS rule-mechanics at all... (GURPS: Prime Directive suffers from many of the same flaws mechanically as GT... like no consideration of the defined "Normal=25pt, Talented normal = 50pt, Hero = 75pt" in building packages.)

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Rules-wise, I find that GURPS tends towards a variety of either excessive details or very broad abstraction, with very little middle ground.

I do wish you'd leave your anti-GURPS bias at the door before you talk about the game, Aramis...

Actually, there's a lot of middle ground in GURPS, if you're talking about it in general. You can pick and choose whatever combination of rules that you're comfortable with to use in your games - that's the whole point. It's not a game of two extremes and nothing else at all.

Oh, and "Powered by GURPS" simply means it is a GURPS product not done by SJG, and has a core rulebook which doesn't need GURPS Basic... based upon comments by S.P.Petrick and G.Plana, there is almost no latitude for deviations from GURPS rule-mechanics at all... (GURPS: Prime Directive suffers from many of the same flaws mechanically as GT... like no consideration of the defined "Normal=25pt, Talented normal = 50pt, Hero = 75pt" in building packages.) [/QB]

Um, no.

"Powered By GURPS" is a way for (a) SJG to publish GURPS books with rules that deviated from the normal GURPS rules and (b) for other companies to release their own GURPS books that didn't have to follow normal GURPS rules. Transhuman Space, Discworld and Hellboy were published by SJG, and all three are PbG books. They also are standalone in the sense that they have GURPS Lite integrated into them. GURPS Traveller, ideally, should be a PbG book. Though last I heard the GT:IW book isn't going to be, apparently.

Two non-SJG PbG books have been published - Conspiracy X and GURPS Prime Directive. Neither of these are particularly good, IMO. I think the fact that no other publishers saw fit to try it out says more about the degree of intervention that SJG required (IIRC all material had to be vetted by SJ before it was published), and I think most publishers would rather screw that and go with d20 which is more popular and less interventionist.

The biggest problem with PbG is that SJG didn't have a damn clue what it actually meant in practise at first (Transhuman Space suffered for this when it was first released as a softback, with no GURPS Lite rules integrated into it). Plus their naming scheme is utterly inconsistent - GURPS WWII is for all intents and purposes a PbG product - yet it's not labelled as such. And GURPS Prime Directive is a PbG product, yet it's labelled as "GURPS".

You are right that it didn't actually allow much deviation from the GURPS rules in practise (which kinda defeated the whole point of it). I remember when we were writing TS: Under Pressure, they lifted the realistic rules that we had written in that and put them into GURPS Blue Planet. Which differed from the underwater rules in GURPS Atlantis (which presumably were the standard rules to use in such a situation in the core GURPS rules). So now we had a GURPS book that used PbG rules, that was inconsistent with previously existing GURPS rules.

PbG could have gone a long way if done right. Unfortunately it was executed in a very confusing manner, with SJG chopping and changing its mind left right and centre about what it meant for ages until they settled on something, but by then nobody was interesting in using it anymore.

 

[Qstor2]

As for the differences between GT UWP and CT data, I believe due to the agreetment between Far Future Enterprises and SJG the differences must be minimal. And Loren Wiseman was editor of the large majority of the books so I would say the books were in good hands

And I agree some of the GT have minimal rules so they can be used with whatever rules system (CT, MT, TNE) you run your game with..

Mike

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Qstor2:
As for the differences between GT UWP and CT data, I believe due to the agreetment between Far Future Enterprises and SJG the differences must be minimal.

Don't think it was really down to the agreement per se, it's just that GT and CT are the same universe so it's only natural that it's consistent. There are some differences though - IIRC one of the Sword Worlds orbits a main sequence star now instead of a white dwarf (because it just didn't work to have a habitable world orbiting a WD), and Smade's World is gone from the Rim of Fire, to be replaced by Demeter (because it was silly to have a world with one family on it that was entirely separate from the interstellar state around it).

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Don't think it was really down to the agreement per se, it's just that GT and CT are the same universe so it's only natural that it's consistent.

As long as the original information is self-consistent, of course.

There are some differences though - IIRC one of the Sword Worlds orbits a main sequence star now instead of a white dwarf (because it just didn't work to have a habitable world orbiting a WD), and Smade's World is gone from the Rim of Fire, to be replaced by Demeter (because it was silly to have a world with one family on it that was entirely separate from the interstellar state around it).

We were able to persuade the editor to let us change a few details by demonstrating to his satisfaction that the previously published information was inconsistent. The biggest change was upping Hofud's population from 500,000 to 500 million (as befitted a world that had been a peer of Sacnoth and Gram for a millenium). Dyrnwyn and Durendal likewise received a retroactive population boost.


Hans