Are Imperial Knights a type of soldier, or are they just a form of foppish nobility? Do any take themselves seriously, would they don a suit of combat armor and look for wrongs to right? How do the differ from their medeaval and D&D cousins? Do they believe in Chivalry? Do they conduct duels, or trial by combat?
Imperial Knights
- Thread starter TKalbfus
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far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Hi Tom,
The short answer is yes, but they bear, in most cases, little resemblence beyond the name to ancient Terran Knights who fought on horseback with sword and lance. Think more in terms of modern Knighthood. To elaborate, based on a foggy recollection of the developing history of the Imperium...
Knights of the Imperium
There are many Imperial Orders of Knighthood. Though all hold service to the Imperium and Noblese Oblige as the highest of their codes they each express this in very different ways.
There are, for example, Orders and hence Knighhoods for:
Merchants who have made great names for themselves in expanding or maintaining trade, the lifeblood of the Imperium.
Soldiers, of each of the services, who demonstrated purest devotion to the Imperial cause in times of conflict.
Scientists and educators who have contributed significantly to the illumination of the Imperium.
Professionals from all types of employment, from Actors and Musicians to Engineers and Doctors, who have dedicated themselves to making the Imperium a better place to live.
In short an Imperial Knight might come from any background and their history will dictate the type of quests they undertake and what arms they will carry into battle. From fighting invading forces with lethal weapons to waging war against ignorance in a mobile classroom on a new client world. From inspiring nobility in all through art to preserving nobility in all through medicine.
Each Imperial Knight is special, a shining example of the best of the citizens of the Imperium.
The short answer is yes, but they bear, in most cases, little resemblence beyond the name to ancient Terran Knights who fought on horseback with sword and lance. Think more in terms of modern Knighthood. To elaborate, based on a foggy recollection of the developing history of the Imperium...
Knights of the Imperium
There are many Imperial Orders of Knighthood. Though all hold service to the Imperium and Noblese Oblige as the highest of their codes they each express this in very different ways.
There are, for example, Orders and hence Knighhoods for:
Merchants who have made great names for themselves in expanding or maintaining trade, the lifeblood of the Imperium.
Soldiers, of each of the services, who demonstrated purest devotion to the Imperial cause in times of conflict.
Scientists and educators who have contributed significantly to the illumination of the Imperium.
Professionals from all types of employment, from Actors and Musicians to Engineers and Doctors, who have dedicated themselves to making the Imperium a better place to live.
In short an Imperial Knight might come from any background and their history will dictate the type of quests they undertake and what arms they will carry into battle. From fighting invading forces with lethal weapons to waging war against ignorance in a mobile classroom on a new client world. From inspiring nobility in all through art to preserving nobility in all through medicine.
Each Imperial Knight is special, a shining example of the best of the citizens of the Imperium.
Actually, I think it would be kinda cool if there was a branch of the knight services that served as specialized soliders. I have often introduced many of a retired General as an Imperial knight who is complete with an appentice squire.
Making them akin to the British nobility takes away some of the fun, we could have in destroying the nobility. The imperium one should always remember is not constitutional monarchy but rather an autocracy without an autocrat. (I remember in Starter Traveller or somewhere which stated the Emperor is the final Enigma for players).
Making them akin to the British nobility takes away some of the fun, we could have in destroying the nobility. The imperium one should always remember is not constitutional monarchy but rather an autocracy without an autocrat. (I remember in Starter Traveller or somewhere which stated the Emperor is the final Enigma for players).
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Come to think of it kafka47 there have been two distinct Knights in OTU. Those who began as ordinary citizens and were Knighted (such as I refer to in my previous post) more akin to modern British practice, and those born into the lowest level of the Imperial Nobility with an inherited Knighthood.
Perhaps these would fit well with the autocratic order side of it? They could have a special academy leading to a fast track officer career in the service of their choice, starting at rank 02 instead of 01 perhaps, or maybe a +1 or +2 on all promotions. This would represent special training and indoctrination from early childhood and recognition by the services that these individuals are distinctly special in their devotion to the Imperium.
Perhaps these would fit well with the autocratic order side of it? They could have a special academy leading to a fast track officer career in the service of their choice, starting at rank 02 instead of 01 perhaps, or maybe a +1 or +2 on all promotions. This would represent special training and indoctrination from early childhood and recognition by the services that these individuals are distinctly special in their devotion to the Imperium.
Dude, this is an exquisite idea. Please submit this to Hunter as an idea for a TA. And if Hunter's silly enough not to take it, shake Loren's ear over at JTAS. This is good. It's one of the best things I've seen recently. It really can put a stake in the heart of any "Yanks/Brits In Space" cruft.
Thanks,
William
Perhaps an elite fighter squadron could consist of all knights. The fighter might be considered the Traveller equivalent of a knights horse, it isn't that you have to be a knight to be in this squadron, but that if you are accepted into this squadron, you are knighted. All fighter pilots are officers anyway, they have a bunch of people under them (squires) that maintain and rearm the fighter between missions. Not all knights of this sort, but the ones that are might consider themselves the real fighting knights carrying on the traditions of their ancient forebears.
There are one or two examples of Knights in the Linkworlds Cluster pdf adventure available on this website. One is 'Old Bill', a retired (detached duty) Scout, who received his knighthood from the Emperor for piloting his scoutship into the middle of a battle to pick up survivors. The adventure mentions he was given title to some land which he's never bothered to visit.
The other, I think is a Vargr merchant, Jorjak (afaicr), who owns lands run by tenants on Kerin's Tyr.
Realistically, I prefer the idea of knighthoods being akin to modern-day British knighthoods, but I would probably go for the idea of making them inheritable as well. They wouldn't form elite forces, though - this is *not* D&D in space!
The other, I think is a Vargr merchant, Jorjak (afaicr), who owns lands run by tenants on Kerin's Tyr.
Realistically, I prefer the idea of knighthoods being akin to modern-day British knighthoods, but I would probably go for the idea of making them inheritable as well. They wouldn't form elite forces, though - this is *not* D&D in space!
Shadowdancer
SOC-14 1K
This gives me a cool idea for a possible patron/adventure hook: An old man a la Don Quixote who was knighted by the Emperor for service to the Imperium, and now thinks he is a true knight errant out searching for wrongs to right, innocents to protect, monsters to slay, and damsels to de-distress.
Anton said,
Anyway Traveller is not quite D&D in space, the D20 Dragonstar can more legitimately make that claim. Dragonstar relies on magic whereever superscience is called for. For instance starships rely on fusion drives, just like traveller does, but whenever something calls for a violation of Physics as we currently know it, such as FTL technology, instead of inventing something like a Jump Drive or a hyperdrive, DragonStar simply uses Magic, specifically a magic item onboard called the teleportation drive, that casts a variation of the teleport spell to teleport the entire ship. The ship's internal gravity is simply a variation of the reverse gravity spell cast on the entire ship. Not everything is magical, where ever only mere science is called for it is used. A laser pistol is simply a laser pistol. Another version of D&D in Space is SpellJammer, where physics is completely different anc accomodating to wooden sailing ships in space, kind of like "Treasure Planet".
I view Traveller on the otherhand as the "mirror image" of D&D in space, or more precisely "D&D through the looking glass" Socially Traveller is very similar to D&D and that is one of its strengths. Society is organized along a similar line to a medeaval kingdom with nobles ranging in rank from Emperor all the way down to peasant almost precisely matching D&D title for Title. One of the important things about D&D is that it is easy for the DM to run. There are plenty of tables for running random adventures and encounters. Traveller has this too, including random planet generation and a concise format for presenting planetary data, something that Star Wars Role Playing game and Alternity lack. The random encounter table requires you to randomly build the monster you encounter, that can't be helped though with so many planets. Star Wars doesn't have that, if you go to any other planet besides one of the movie planets, or one in which a published adventure was written about, the GM is on his own. I kind of think Traveller should go a little further in this direction by perhaps including Challenge ratings in their creature formats. Starships, spaceships, vehicles, and robots should also have challenge ratings, not that every encounter should be a combat encounter, but when a combat does occur, the referee needs a fast and dirty method to determine Experience points to award. Simply killing bystanders does not generate experience point awards, the creatures or vehicles encountered must be legitimate opponents. Slow healing relative to D&D makes creating an adventure based on PCs infiltrating a compound difficult for a referee. The frequency and HD/SD amount thats good for a 1st level D&D party would kill a 1st level Traveller party, as the latter would have insufficient time to recover from their previous wounds received by the first encounter. The PCs must find areas to convalesce and heal in the dungeon without being disturbed by wandering encounters, it can take weeks to recover all the lost vitality points and wound points.
Isn't it though? At first glance it bears a marked resembalence to D&D. For one thing their is feudalism. These nobles actually have power and responsibilities. Great Britian has nobility too, but they don't have political power anymore and no responsibility as Great Britian is a parlimentary democracy. A knighthood is simply a title awarded for some remarkable achievement, like the Nobel prize.
Anyway Traveller is not quite D&D in space, the D20 Dragonstar can more legitimately make that claim. Dragonstar relies on magic whereever superscience is called for. For instance starships rely on fusion drives, just like traveller does, but whenever something calls for a violation of Physics as we currently know it, such as FTL technology, instead of inventing something like a Jump Drive or a hyperdrive, DragonStar simply uses Magic, specifically a magic item onboard called the teleportation drive, that casts a variation of the teleport spell to teleport the entire ship. The ship's internal gravity is simply a variation of the reverse gravity spell cast on the entire ship. Not everything is magical, where ever only mere science is called for it is used. A laser pistol is simply a laser pistol. Another version of D&D in Space is SpellJammer, where physics is completely different anc accomodating to wooden sailing ships in space, kind of like "Treasure Planet".
I view Traveller on the otherhand as the "mirror image" of D&D in space, or more precisely "D&D through the looking glass" Socially Traveller is very similar to D&D and that is one of its strengths. Society is organized along a similar line to a medeaval kingdom with nobles ranging in rank from Emperor all the way down to peasant almost precisely matching D&D title for Title. One of the important things about D&D is that it is easy for the DM to run. There are plenty of tables for running random adventures and encounters. Traveller has this too, including random planet generation and a concise format for presenting planetary data, something that Star Wars Role Playing game and Alternity lack. The random encounter table requires you to randomly build the monster you encounter, that can't be helped though with so many planets. Star Wars doesn't have that, if you go to any other planet besides one of the movie planets, or one in which a published adventure was written about, the GM is on his own. I kind of think Traveller should go a little further in this direction by perhaps including Challenge ratings in their creature formats. Starships, spaceships, vehicles, and robots should also have challenge ratings, not that every encounter should be a combat encounter, but when a combat does occur, the referee needs a fast and dirty method to determine Experience points to award. Simply killing bystanders does not generate experience point awards, the creatures or vehicles encountered must be legitimate opponents. Slow healing relative to D&D makes creating an adventure based on PCs infiltrating a compound difficult for a referee. The frequency and HD/SD amount thats good for a 1st level D&D party would kill a 1st level Traveller party, as the latter would have insufficient time to recover from their previous wounds received by the first encounter. The PCs must find areas to convalesce and heal in the dungeon without being disturbed by wandering encounters, it can take weeks to recover all the lost vitality points and wound points.
One trick I use is for the nth children (i.e. not the 1st born) of a sufficently connected noble to be inducted into a knightly order by tradition.
Sometimes there is a hook attached, like graduation from the IN Academy or obtaining a doctorate in the Sciences is required before the order is granted.
Sometimes there is a hook attached, like graduation from the IN Academy or obtaining a doctorate in the Sciences is required before the order is granted.
Alternatively: "What, you've found ancient ruins on a planet in the next system and you want us to go in and explore around? Right, we'll need to know the following..."
"The following" would include - atmosphere, communications availability, local flora and fauna descriptions, local political situation, etc., etc.
And a *clever* party (i.e., one that wanted to survive) would only go in properly equipped and armed and with the aim of not getting in to combat. As I said in another thread, D&D is a fantastic game, Traveller is supposed to be realistic to some extent. So combat is quite correctly, deadly.
Yes, if I'm playing or running D&D then there's no problem with a party continuing on after a bit of healing on say 4/5ths of their hit points. Anyone doing, say, spelunking in real life or "ruins exploration" in Traveller and continuing on after encountering that level of damage would need their heads examined, IMHO.
Anton said,
The alternative is to have the party go down into the dungeon and after their first combat encounter, retreat and spend a week or two healing their injuries, then they return to the dungeon to resume their adventuring. Now in the same room where they defeating their last opponent, its realistic that there would be a new opponent in its place. It would be hard to get through this 1st level dungeon under these circumstances, but what else is a 1st-level party to do? Since they are 1st level, they have no prior history and therefore have no starship, they need to do something before they get their 1st starship, those darn things are expensive. One idea is for the referee to greatly increase the treasure amounts in the 1st level dungeon from what would normally be the case in D&D. For example, after defeating their first opponent, the PCs would find a suitcase stuffed with 3,000 credit notes each denominated to Cr1,000. If the party accumulates more such treasures throughout the dungeon, by the end of the adventure, they'll have enough money to buy their first starship. Does this sound reasonable. To heal properly, along with each suitcase of cash their are 1d4 bottles of TL17 miracle cure-all of varying potency able to heal 1d8 stamina/1d2 lifeblood, 2d8 Sta/1d4 LB, or 3d8 Sta/1d6 LB respectively, but without those artifacts lying around, this dungeon would be deadly.
Tom
Precisely, D&D is configure such that if a party of 4 first level characters were to encounter and defeat 24 1st-level opponents, that party would advance to 2nd level. Now in Traveller its hard to have a 1st level adventure where a party of 4 1st-level characters can have 24 successive encounters with 1st-level opponents with out getting killed through accumulated wounds. In a Traveller setting, the characters must go down in the dungeon explore a bit until their first combat, after that combat, any injured party members must be replaced and sent to a hospital to recover while new recruits take their place for the next encounter. This goes on for the next 23 combat encounters, and you'd be darn lucky to have any of the original party members are still there when the dungeon is cleared out, if such a person was so lucky he'd advance to 2nd level.
The alternative is to have the party go down into the dungeon and after their first combat encounter, retreat and spend a week or two healing their injuries, then they return to the dungeon to resume their adventuring. Now in the same room where they defeating their last opponent, its realistic that there would be a new opponent in its place. It would be hard to get through this 1st level dungeon under these circumstances, but what else is a 1st-level party to do? Since they are 1st level, they have no prior history and therefore have no starship, they need to do something before they get their 1st starship, those darn things are expensive. One idea is for the referee to greatly increase the treasure amounts in the 1st level dungeon from what would normally be the case in D&D. For example, after defeating their first opponent, the PCs would find a suitcase stuffed with 3,000 credit notes each denominated to Cr1,000. If the party accumulates more such treasures throughout the dungeon, by the end of the adventure, they'll have enough money to buy their first starship. Does this sound reasonable. To heal properly, along with each suitcase of cash their are 1d4 bottles of TL17 miracle cure-all of varying potency able to heal 1d8 stamina/1d2 lifeblood, 2d8 Sta/1d4 LB, or 3d8 Sta/1d6 LB respectively, but without those artifacts lying around, this dungeon would be deadly.
Tom
NO! It sounds totally silly!
Right, I'll preface the rest of my remarks by paraphrasing Hunter's sig - this is your game, play it the way you want.
Having said that, I think (IMHO) you're making the mistake of running Traveller the same way you would run D&D, just substituting guns for bow and arrows, aliens (or whatever) for orcs, and TL17+ 'nanite' drugs for healing potions.
(TL17+, by the way, is, AFAICR, beyond the capability of the Imperium, although I don't have my book handy to check).
Traveller adventures shouldn't be dungeon crawls - even if the characters are first level (and ignoring one of the adventures that came with the CT boxed set
Realistically, what sort of moron is going to leave cases containing MCr3 lying around so badly defended that a first-level party could gain one?
Even more realisitcally, do you not think he/she/it would seriously beef up the defenses if the party managed to get even one case and then retreated? It'd be a good investment to spend even one case on a TL15+, 10th-level average mercenary squad - who would logically wipe out the party on its return
IMO, Traveller just isn't supposed to be run this way. Have a read of the Linkworlds Cluster pdf on this site and get your hands on other published Traveller adventures to see how it should be played.
Logic and 'realism'. And Traveller combat is (quite rightly) deadly, so any smart PC will avoid it except as a last resort or when the odds are greatly in his/her favour.
Assuming you do want to skip prior history and start with 1st level characters (your choice), then to get the PCs into space, you can use any number of other solutions. They don't need to own their own ship straight off - and shouldn't. Acquiring one can be their goal.
They're *hugely* inexperienced (in fact, incapable of running a ship safely!), so they'd be crew, deckhands or whatever, on a noble's yacht, merchant ship, or mercenary cruiser, getting into scrapes on shore leave and so on.
Skipping prior history, IMO, is a mistake. It's a big, dangerous, universe out there and PC's need at least some decent skills starting out. And not just the combat and shipboard ones!
I love and play D&D regularly. I love Traveller. But they are two very different genres and a typical D&D adventure, especially a dungeon crawl, just isn't a typical Traveller adventure, and probably vice versa. The best advice I could give would be to read as much sci-fi as you can get your hands on for adventure inspiration.
But at the end of the day, this is just my two cents worth. As Hunter says, it's your game, play it how you wish.
Regards,
Anton
Anton said,
Anton said,
Now realistically is Mcr3 a lot of money or isn't it? You can't even buy the smallest Free trader or scout ship with that Piddling amount of pocket change, and you think you can hire a whole mercenary company to come down in their Merc Cruiser to defend that suit case? Prior history is just an abtraction of that characters prior adventure career, the main disadvantage is that you end up playing middle aged characters and if your not lucky you still have no starship when you begin adventuring. Now their is an awful temptation on the part of the Referee to use Deus Ex Machina to drop a starship in their lap, (a Mcr30 to Mcr70 starship). Now wouldn't it feel better if the PCs accumulated that vast amount in a dungeon adventure? The alternative is the PCs could simply steal a starship, how many 10th level Mercs would likely be guarding that vs a mere suitcase full of Mcr3 cash? Obviously whoever built the dungeon never meant for all that money to be lying around, and the creatures living in the compound might use the money to built their nests, being too stupid to spend it.
In a way it kind of makes sense that a healing potion would be TL17. If it was TL15 then pharmacutical companies could mass-produce and sell it at every local drug store. At TL17 it takes on the quality of a magic item since Imperial Science can't reproduce it. In D&D Healing potions are magic items, a character can't just whip up a batch whenever their injured. Dungeons in D&D are often the ruins of past civilizations when magic was more common, So it is with Traveller ruins, perhaps their was a civilization that routinely whipped up batches of TL17 healing potions and then fell. Perhaps the dungeon the PCs are exploring is the lost ruins of a factory that made the stuff. Now some creatures have come to inhabit it and are giving the colonists a hard time.
Anton said,
I agree with you, realistically Dungeons aren't very realistic places. They are however the fastest way of getting a group of 1st level characters up to 2nd level. It can be argued that even in D&D dungeons aren't very realistic. Consider this a group of 4 characters break into a fortress and wander around, whenever they encounter something, they kill it. No alarm is raised, the monsters wait in their rooms until the PCs come for them, then they fight them and defeat them, collecting their treasure. In this way the PCs can take a castle where otherwise you'd need an army to storm the gates.Realistically, what sort of moron is going to leave cases containing MCr3 lying around so badly defended that a first-level party could gain one?
Even more realisitcally, do you not think he/she/it would seriously beef up the defenses if the party managed to get even one case and then retreated? It'd be a good investment to spend even one case on a TL15+, 10th-level average mercenary squad - who would logically wipe out the party on its return
Now realistically is Mcr3 a lot of money or isn't it? You can't even buy the smallest Free trader or scout ship with that Piddling amount of pocket change, and you think you can hire a whole mercenary company to come down in their Merc Cruiser to defend that suit case? Prior history is just an abtraction of that characters prior adventure career, the main disadvantage is that you end up playing middle aged characters and if your not lucky you still have no starship when you begin adventuring. Now their is an awful temptation on the part of the Referee to use Deus Ex Machina to drop a starship in their lap, (a Mcr30 to Mcr70 starship). Now wouldn't it feel better if the PCs accumulated that vast amount in a dungeon adventure? The alternative is the PCs could simply steal a starship, how many 10th level Mercs would likely be guarding that vs a mere suitcase full of Mcr3 cash? Obviously whoever built the dungeon never meant for all that money to be lying around, and the creatures living in the compound might use the money to built their nests, being too stupid to spend it.
My point exactly, it just doesn't feel right to start a 40 or 50 something character out at 10th level with his own mustered-out starship, acquiring the starship should be part of the adventure, hence the dungeon. The starship could actually be the dungeon, but a 24 room starship with a monster in each room is a pretty big starship. There would be no piles of treasure to accumulate since the starship itself is the treasure, and the moment the PCs aquire the starship, they become instantly rich. Unless an Imperial tax representative shows up right behind them and charges a 99% treasure tax. The PCs would have to get a starship loan to pay it, and then spend the next 100 years paying off the starship loan in order to own the starship free and clear.
I should be working, so I'll confine myself to the one topic for the moment
I think (if we're both talking about T20!) you need to go re-read the section on awarding XP. In T20, you don't get XP for killing 'monsters'. AFAICR offhand, the recommendation is for 1,000xp per player per session. In my players' first session, that was earned by finding cargo and passengers, equipping themselves, encountering some shady smugglers and getting themselves a charter. Right there, if they'd started at 1st level, they'd have got to 2nd. Four sessions (and plenty of adventure!) later, they actually fired a shot in anger
IMTU, I award 1,000xp per session to each player. I award more if they are involved in something risky and a bit more again if they're in deadly combat.
Cheers,
Anton
(maybe more later)
I know that XP aren't usually awarded for combat encounters per se. It sort of depends on what sort of Traveller adventure your running. Some adventures call for combat, in those adventures you should award XP for every kill. This goes for space combat as well. Suppose your running a naval adventure and the characters are fighter pilots. One character destroys 4 enemy fighters. Each fighter destroyed should be worth a certain amont of XP in this context. A lot of fighter pilots have their kills marked down on their ships. If he destroys a certain amount of fighters he becomes an ace. In Traveller awarding XP is more of an art than a science. The great thing about T20 though is that it is a D20 game and I can refer to other D20 products, such as D&D, for guidance on how much experience to award per kill when the situation warrents the D&D supplement Savage Species has some guidelines on how to set CR for a given creature, depending on his HD, SD for traveller, and his combat abilities, then I turn to the DM's Guide and look up the CR number and compare it to the party level and that determines how much XP to award. If Quick healing is available I calculate the CR and use the DMG tables as is. If fast healing is not available, I'd have to bump up each Creatures CR by a certain amount using my own judgement. One rule to use could be to calculate the percentage of wounds to total party Stamina and lifeblood points and assign an effective level lower than its actual level for the purposes of using the CR table in the DM's guide. I like the awarding of XP to be more of a science rather than an art, or else I might award 3,000 xp if I'm in a good mood or 1,500 xp if I'm in a bad one. its also not good to award 2,000 xp no matter what the PCs do, it has to reflect thier accomplishments. The adventure should also be outlined in some detail before it is actually played so that its not completely arbitrary.
These are just some thoughts.
These are just some thoughts.
My reaction: either the adventure, if purchased, is of very poor quality, or the referee/DM is very new or inexperienced. In either game, I prefer intelligent opposition. The first thing the opposition should be doing, whether they're green bags of XP (orcs) or experienced mercs (with radios!) is raising the alarm! But if that's the sort of game you want, can I suggest Munchkin from Steve Jackson games...
It's roughly US$9 million per case, and you said that there would be enough cases to allow the party to purchase a ship. ("And how will you be paying, sir?" "Cash" "Riiight..." [calls nearest police station]. And we won't even discuss how come there are loads of cases of 'modern' Imperial credits lying around TL17 ruins...).
And if you re-read my post, no, MCr3 wouldn't get you a merc company complete with cruiser - but it would get you a high-TL, high-level squad.
No. To me, it would be bloody silly. Then, that's just me. I prefer verisimillitude in my games, thanks... and 5 or 6 middle-aged peeps pooling their resources for a downpayment on an old ship - or a single character acquiring a beat-up, mortgaged-to-the-hilt ship in prior history - is a lot more realistic than a bunch of 18-year-olds with no skills stumbling across the ancient ruins that everyone else missed, which just happen to contain oodles of spendable cash, which they liberate and spend at Honest Abe's Used Starship Emporium. (And as I pointed out before, how the hell are they going to fly the thing? Let me guess: "I went up a level in last week's dungeon crawl, so this week I'm going to take a level of Traveller, and my Pilot and Astrogation skills both go from zero to eight. Er, I read some manuals while my wounds were healing."
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