My T5 Personals not working for me.

[Blue Ghost]

When I got my T5 disk I skimmed through it, reading what I thought were key passages here and there. And it seemed reasonable enough. But then I got to the "thing maker" and the "Personal's" section of the rules.

I'm really at a loss as to why codifying NPC reactions to such minutiae is necessary for an RPG. I'm really baffled here, and I have to admit, angry too.

When I or anyone one of the various play groups I was part of ran adventures, part of the fun was the GM, DM, Referee getting into character and adding flavor and texture to the experience.

I remember the reaction table in the old CT rules (I think there was an actual chart in Starter Traveller), but if I recall correctly, that was more of a basic guideline as per the rules. You didn't role for every interaction, every sentence, every nuance a PC gave to an NPC while in the game.

And yet when I came to the personals, I was really disheartened by what I saw and read. Tactics, Strategy, types of interaction, person you're interacting with, and then a whole task to resolve that interaction?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but a skill in CT, and yes, I know this is not CT we are discussing here, but the skill was essentially a quantum value of how good your character was at something, and could act as a DM or general guide to what your character could do with that skill in the game. But looking at the Personal's section, it appears to be strictly a DM.

All the other aspects of the game that people have cited seem to need a great deal of work, and I won't go off on another T5 tirade like others have, but this portion of the game, to me, feels unnecessary, and overly complicates one of the basic and fundamental aspects of Referee-Player interaction; i.e. "Let's act out our characters."

I guess the best way for me to characterize this is that it feels like "stage directions" given to both Ref and Players, and what's worse is that they're generated by a die roll instead of either Ref or Player just using their innate savvy to speak and act for their game piece.

Die rolls are needed for the following;
Combat resolution? totally understand
Engineering task? I get that
Repair an item? without question
Do some task like climb something, jump, throw a ball, pick a lock? I get that too.

But for interpersonal interaction? I get the reaction roll from CT. But T5 seems have gone off the deep end here, in my opinion.

Can someone please explain and justify the expanded game mechanic for interpersonal encounters?

I really don't get it.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

I think having rules around character-universe interactions other than combat strengthens the game.

I've played a few sessions with the personals in place, and their strength is that any character at all can contribute to the story line simply by activating their personals. The way I have Refereed it is to still have the players role play their characters' interactions and decisions, but then the outcome of that action then falls within one of the overall strategies with selected tactics in the section, and the resolution follows.

I have a detailed account of how this played out in-game in my CoTI blog, would be interested in your thoughts.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Which blog entry is it. I'll have a look.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

19 April 2014 has the most detail; 26 April 2014 has a further couple of examples.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I see in the comments you referenced the James Bond game from way back when. Is that where the personals mechanic was drawn, or rather inspired for T5?

Okay, after reading one entry I do have to admit that it is somewhat fascinating. All I remember is one of the local church guys I used to game with heavily referencing the reaction table in the encounter's section. It didn't help that he was obsessive compulsive (a thing which ruined more than one gaming session, and not even of Traveller either).

It sure would be nice if there was a video example of this kind of play. I did like your write up, but I have to confess right here and now, I'm still very skeptical, but only because of my own gaming experiences.

To me this is a new thing, and if I'm to write for T5, then, *as I sigh heavily again*, that means I have to incorporate all this interpersonal stuff into the write up. I say that somewhat tongue in cheek, but also with an edge of seriousness, because I've never seen interpersonal interaction applied this way in Traveller. A game which had a notable free-booting style of play where encounters were concerned.

 

[robject]

To me this is a new thing, and if I'm to write for T5, then, *as I sigh heavily again*, that means I have to incorporate all this interpersonal stuff into the write up. I say that somewhat tongue in cheek, but also with an edge of seriousness, because I've never seen interpersonal interaction applied this way in Traveller. A game which had a notable free-booting style of play where encounters were concerned.

That's certainly an obstacle for me: new rules means this old dog has to learn some new tricks. On the other hand, I see Personals as more or less exactly filling the space that the Reaction Roll held in CT, and I am bound to use it in a rather freewheeling manner. And I'm glad it doesn't require proper "skills". And on the Gripping Hand, I think maybe we've actually used Personals only once per game session.... but then, our games are a bit... action-oriented.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Onjo's write up has opened my eyes to the possibility, but I'm still very iffy on it. It's like a "new mechanic" for an old game that sorta-kinda had one that people used every now and then, only now it seems mandatory, and, to me at least, over-engineered. But, I haven't seen it in action, so maybe I'm being awfully prejudiced here.

But like you pointed out, again my own perspective, most of the Traveller sessions I ran or played in, were about adventuring, which meant shooting aliens, or monster-like animals, occasionally the D&D-ish like trap, and the odd starship combat.

Now, having said THAT, the mini "adventure" of Exit Visa in the TBBB, makes a hell of a lot more sense now. Which, to me at least, means that perhaps this mechanic was intended in CT, but never fully explained properly.

Just my take. I'd really like to hear other people's thoughts on this.

 

[Ulsyus]

I've been using it in our sessions. Not for every interaction, just as you wouldn't make a player roll to drive a vehicle about in everyday circumstances, but at those narrative points where there's a stake and dramatic or potentially costly consequences from a failure to achieve the required outcome.

I think having rules around character-universe interactions other than combat strengthens the game.

I agree. This has guided some of my players away from the idea of Traveller being a game where we roll for conflict in space and on the ground. While most of the group are pretty good with role-playing, one or two need a little encouragement to become engaged with the scenario, and this has helped them along.

... I see Personals as more or less exactly filling the space that the Reaction Roll held in CT, and I am bound to use it in a rather freewheeling manner. And I'm glad it doesn't require proper "skills". And on the Gripping Hand, I think maybe we've actually used Personals only once per game session....

Yeah, this is the same with my sessions and how we've been using it. Maybe a few times per session rather than once, but it allows for another test and rewards or challenges the players for thinking about what they're doing and how they're going to do it.

Onjo's write up has opened my eyes to the possibility, but I'm still very iffy on it. It's like a "new mechanic" for an old game that sorta-kinda had one that people used every now and then, only now it seems mandatory, and, to me at least, over-engineered. But, I haven't seen it in action, so maybe I'm being awfully prejudiced here.

You might be prejudiced here, but that would depend on what games you've played over the years. I've done a lot of Pendragon in the past, and that uses personality traits for tests of character that allows for a lot of non-combat rolling. That comes down to my experiences. But hey, in YTU there's no reason to use Personals if you don't want to. There's no skills as such involved, so the characters have lost nothing if you don't employ that section of the rules. It's your game after all!

 

[OjnoTheRed]

I see in the comments you referenced the James Bond game from way back when. Is that where the personals mechanic was drawn, or rather inspired for T5?

I can assure you that's just me drawing a parallel; basically T5 isn't the first game to have a bit of detail around personal interactions (as opposed to violence) with detailed rules to drive the game.

Okay, after reading one entry I do have to admit that it is somewhat fascinating. All I remember is one of the local church guys I used to game with heavily referencing the reaction table in the encounter's section. It didn't help that he was obsessive compulsive (a thing which ruined more than one gaming session, and not even of Traveller either).

This is the challenge for me: how to apply the rules in the spirit of keeping the session moving with some structure in place without making the whole thing about obsessively interpreting charts and tables. There is an analogy with combat: get the players describing what they want to do and then apply a rules interpretation. Sometimes this is straightforward: "shoot my rifle at such-and-such target" - OK, that's Difficult (3D) < C + S in combat; for a personal interaction it might be "charm the official a bit to get a better interaction" - OK, that's Carouse (1D) < Strategy x Tactic, a bit of prodding of the player will get them telling you want they want to try. Obviously other interactions are a bit more complex "shoot my rifle at such-and-such target while keeping cover maximised". And so on. I'm still figuring this out, but I reckon it's a bit of an art.

It sure would be nice if there was a video example of this kind of play. I did like your write up, but I have to confess right here and now, I'm still very skeptical, but only because of my own gaming experiences.

To me this is a new thing, and if I'm to write for T5, then, *as I sigh heavily again*, that means I have to incorporate all this interpersonal stuff into the write up. I say that somewhat tongue in cheek, but also with an edge of seriousness, because I've never seen interpersonal interaction applied this way in Traveller. A game which had a notable free-booting style of play where encounters were concerned.

Fair enough to be a bit skeptical! Could I encourage you by saying, though, that because the rules do not rely on particular skills and concentrate on the players getting what they want by a means other than violence, all you need to do in write-ups or preparation is have the NPCs in place as appropriate obstacles to player goals. That is, what we all do as Referees anyway!

I don't want to lose a free-booting style either; the way I am looking at this is we have a high degree of structure for combat, and we are extending this kind of structure to other interactions such as personal interactions and sense interactions.

 

[Blue Ghost]

When I went through the example of play in the book all those years ago, I also read the little blurb in the rules of how you weren't supposed to use the reaction table for every sentence exchanged between the players and the NPCs, nor to overuse it as an actual game mechanic to resolve all PC-NPC interaction.

And yet that's how my friend was using it the few times he ran a game, so it fell out of favor (again, he was the obsessive compulsive one, so that added to the irk factor), and in its place the Ref just pretended to be whatever NPC we came across: Pirate, starport warden, man on the street, some small time crook, Noble, Flag Officer, what not.

And my gut tells me that's how most people resolved their PC- NPC encounters, with perhaps a few reaction rolls here and there. So, when I think of the classic adventures, how we played those, and then I come across T5 with the personals, I can't help but scratch my head some.

I'll keep an open mind for the time being.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Has anybody else run game sessions with the personals?

 

[Draconian]

Using Personals skills is quite a reasonable rule-system. You can role-play your character as much as you want, but that's not going to say anything about how an NPC will react to you.

It's not necessary to use rolls for EVERY NPC, particularly those of a fixed function. A bartender must make you drinks (if you pay) and will automatically drop useful local information of the sort they expect a spacer wants to hear. But an unknown NPC, how will they react to your attempts to buy drinks, befriend, persuade, or threaten? The Personals skills works well with that.

 

[Ulsyus]

Has anybody else run game sessions with the personals?

All of our sessions

 

[Blue Ghost]

What's interesting to me is that there's a huge section devoted to "Personals", and then I seem to recall there's another huge section devoted to something akin to "Personals" in the encounter section, with this massive chart (I'm too lazy to pop in the CD to look it up).

It just seemed so unwieldy and un-Traveller-like, that I actually found myself getting a little upset with T5. I'm just curious how someone works this stuff into an adventure. It's almost alien in that before you rolled a reaction (if your Ref was using them), and resolved the encounter.

Are the Personals section something that's being looked at in the revision?

 

[Blue Ghost]

I'll take that as a "no".

Like I say, most of T5 looks okay to me, but like robject, I'm a CT 2d6 fan, and always will be.

It'll be interesting to see how the revised edition looks and reads.

 

[sfchbryan]

I would say that the core rulebook is written for the referee (and a clueless one at that) as opposed to the players. Marc provided the same level of granularity that the Europa series of games provided to WWII ground operations.

A group doesn't actually have to use every subsystem in the book. If you group doesn't care about a particular subsystem, just ignore it. It is like the concept of flux - 90% of the time it adds no effect to the game - just additional bookkeeping.

In all seriousness, how many times are you going to use 90% of the book? 10% will make you go "How did I live without this" - but every group will have a different 10%.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I suppose that's true. It just seemed like a new "must use" component. I mean PC-NPC interaction is kind of what the whole game is about.

But yeah, it did seem like a little too much detail for my taste.

 

[Lapthorn]

I really like the idea of Personals. It could be a fun expansion of the old CT idea of a reaction roll.

However, it's not well integrated into the rules as it stands.

1) It's unclear (to me anyway) how it integrates with interpersonal skills like Liaison, Diplomacy or Leader.

2) Neither is it clear how it integrates with the cultural expansion. There's the makings of something fun there, but the dots need joined up.

3) The first half of the rules example of page 187, "Talking to the Clerk", is not actually an example of the Personals rules as presented in the rest of the chapter. It has the ref rolling a reaction number for the clerk's responsiveness to carouse, query, persuade and command. It doesn't say to do this in the exposition of the rules. Bizarrely, later in the example, we have the mutually contradictory: "Gustav rolls 6. Gustav rolls 11".

I'm only guessing, but it reads a lot like the example was written for a previous version of Personals and then the change to the final draft of the rules was botched.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

I really like the idea of Personals. It could be a fun expansion of the old CT idea of a reaction roll.

However, it's not well integrated into the rules as it stands.

1) It's unclear (to me anyway) how it integrates with interpersonal skills like Liaison, Diplomacy or Leader.

2) Neither is it clear how it integrates with the cultural expansion. There's the makings of something fun there, but the dots need joined up.

3) The first half of the rules example of page 187, "Talking to the Clerk", is not actually an example of the Personals rules as presented in the rest of the chapter. It has the ref rolling a reaction number for the clerk's responsiveness to carouse, query, persuade and command. It doesn't say to do this in the exposition of the rules. Bizarrely, later in the example, we have the mutually contradictory: "Gustav rolls 6. Gustav rolls 11".

I'm only guessing, but it reads a lot like the example was written for a previous version of Personals and then the change to the final draft of the rules was botched.

1) I agree, surely skills such as liaison could have an influence here - perhaps mods on target numbers?

2) I like your thinking. Strangeness rating of the world vs. attempts to interact could result in application of mods; a relevant World Knowledge would help the interaction.

3) It has been raised as errata - I agree with your assessment, it looks like the example was not revised from a previous draft.

 

[mvdwege]

Has anybody else run game sessions with the personals?

Let me play thread necromancer here: I did.

A local Meetup group runs a monthly RPG Meetup, which is meant as a combination for GMs to run a oneshot of something different for a change, and new players to get an introduction to RPGs. I ran a Traveller5 adventure some time back, based on players having to track down a missing heir from a local Imperial noble.

Play ran mostly on pure roleplaying, but the Personals came in handy when players really wanted to reach a goal in an interaction, be it intimidating a bunch of toughs or bluffing the Port Authorities to get access to a restricted area.

Like Onjo says, it is mostly a matter of asking the player for their goal, let them roleplay a bit and use that to pick the Strategy and mods for the Personal.

I found it a system that is very well suited to loose play; it is not required for every interaction, but as a Referee I can use it to guide NPC interaction at key points without my players feeling I'm railroading them.

It looks like a very involved system when you read the rules, but its really quite smooth in play.