Something new with T5 release ?!?!?!
- Thread starter dsoldier
- Start date
Some playtest material is available here: Traveller 5 Fan Page from the goodness of the downport.com folks
Now, what do I think so far?
The chargen rocks and the quick chargen is great. If you love the lifepath based random chargen you still have it. Do you want to get a character quick? Oh yeah you can get that too. Good stuff.
He does not have the alien chargen in yet but Marc Miller has hinted that it will be in the core rules. Yeah!
Tasks/Skills are also there. It is very, very T4'ish unfortunately.
The Skill list is descriptive and exhaustive and oh my god it is loooong. But it is good.
The tasks on the other hand is a roll-under system that places too much emphasis on characteristics in relation to skill rating. This drives me nuts. I do NOT mind the fist full of dice fury model. I can live with that in a heartbeat. Its the whole roll under focuse on physical attribute thing that from a mechanics of the game that drives me nuts. I like a D6 model that it has. The rest I think I can hack around.
The experience rules as mentioned in the chargen are pretty good. Skill progression is just a little quicker than the glacier speeed of earlier Traveller versions. However, I do have to keep reminding myself that game time passes very quickly when you spend a week in jump here and 3 days getting around a system there and then ... well you get the picture right?
It also includes the idea of focus for post-chargen careers through life pursuits. I use to hate the idea but I am warming up to it quick.
There is also a sample of Starports pdf he put out on starport encounters and it is really good. Descriptive has enough good ideas but does not get bogged down in the little things.
Well, that is the information we have so far. Cruise over to the site and take a look at the stuff.
I am going to make T5 for 2005 my sig soon.
Yes, I was wondering what might be a decent conversion system considering the higher skill levels possible in general for this system.Originally posted by dsoldier:
i think you're right in one thing: "the very important that atributes are", because don't mind how many points in a skill you have if you have a poor atribute.
Could it be a 1/3 attribute for a die modifier and a 4D6 based Universal Task Profile to take into account the higher numbers without throwing in extra modifiers left and right to compensate?
Just wondering.. I think robject and Aramis work better in terms of the math and probability stuff than I do.
I could just go cheap and accept the higher focus on physical attribute and just reverse the system out for a roll-over as opposed to a roll-under system too. That is the part that annoys me the most after all.
For example currently his system is like Dex = A and skill = 3 for 13. You get hit with a 3D6 task. So that is roll under 13 on a 3D6 to succeed. Of course, making it roll-over is easy. The top number on a 3D6 is 18 and the roll-under constant is 13 so you could just subtract 13 from 18 to get 5. Roll over a 5 on a 3D6 to succeed is the roll-over equivilant. In most cases you can do the math in your head.
_
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
I keep meaning to have a look but thanks for the briefing ACK.
I concur with your take on skill vs characteristics for tasks, too bad it's not likely to change. Of course we (that being players who don't like it) could as you say hack around that too. Which Traveller version had: (Characteristic/5) for the bonus? (don't you hate days when the mind won't kick into gear
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
This Is Hard!
Very interesting, just reading some of the tasks notes and got to the TIH section. It actually balances the whole characteristic vs skill thing kinda nicely. Basically if the Task is hard (defined as more dice than skill levels) then the Task is more difficult (add one level).
For example two competitors face off, one with higher Characteristic and Skill 2 the other with lower Characteristic and Skill 3. The contest (Task) is Difficult (3 Die check). The first player (Skill 2) finds that This Is Hard (TIH) and for him it becomes a Formidable (4 Die check) test. This gives the other contestant (Skill 3) an advantage (of 1-6 points) which will offset the Characteristic difference.
I'm sure this has been covered in the posts here already but I'm just now jumping in and thought this needed the extra publicity.
EDIT - Hmm, looking a little deeper (hey! I even signed up on the T5 site a while back and still remembered my password!) it seems the above TIH rule is not as balancing as I thought at first glance. I was operating under the presumption that skill levels would be in the CT 1-5'ish range but they are more in the T4 3-15'ish which makes the TIH mostly useless imo, unless you also increase the task dice by some factor. <sigh> Oh well, it was a nice illusion while it lasted
Too bad too as it seemed so beautiful imo. I was even thinking the next logical step would be a TIE (This is Easy!) rule for times when a character's skill level was higher (maybe 2 better to be reasonable) than the task difficulty.
Very interesting, just reading some of the tasks notes and got to the TIH section. It actually balances the whole characteristic vs skill thing kinda nicely. Basically if the Task is hard (defined as more dice than skill levels) then the Task is more difficult (add one level).
For example two competitors face off, one with higher Characteristic and Skill 2 the other with lower Characteristic and Skill 3. The contest (Task) is Difficult (3 Die check). The first player (Skill 2) finds that This Is Hard (TIH) and for him it becomes a Formidable (4 Die check) test. This gives the other contestant (Skill 3) an advantage (of 1-6 points) which will offset the Characteristic difference.
I'm sure this has been covered in the posts here already but I'm just now jumping in and thought this needed the extra publicity.
EDIT - Hmm, looking a little deeper (hey! I even signed up on the T5 site a while back and still remembered my password!) it seems the above TIH rule is not as balancing as I thought at first glance. I was operating under the presumption that skill levels would be in the CT 1-5'ish range but they are more in the T4 3-15'ish which makes the TIH mostly useless imo, unless you also increase the task dice by some factor. <sigh> Oh well, it was a nice illusion while it lasted
Too bad too as it seemed so beautiful imo. I was even thinking the next logical step would be a TIE (This is Easy!) rule for times when a character's skill level was higher (maybe 2 better to be reasonable) than the task difficulty.
It is not perfect or even balanced completely but it does help. I noticed the This is Hard matrix before but still think that attributes are given too much influence in the task system.Originally posted by far-trader:
This Is Hard!
....
I'm sure this has been covered in the posts here already but I'm just now jumping in and thought this needed the extra publicity.
EDIT - Hmm, looking a little deeper (hey! I even signed up on the T5 site a while back and still remembered my password!) it seems the above TIH rule is not as balancing as I thought at first glance. I was operating under the presumption that skill levels would be in the CT 1-5'ish range but they are more in the T4 3-15'ish which makes the TIH mostly useless imo, unless you also increase the task dice by some factor. <sigh> Oh well, it was a nice illusion while it lasted
Too bad too as it seemed so beautiful imo. I was even thinking the next logical step would be a TIE (This is Easy!) rule for times when a character's skill level was higher (maybe 2 better to be reasonable) than the task difficulty.
However, the This is Hard and other factors are leading me to believe that I could possibly live with the system. Problem is that my players will refuse any roll-under system. To use their words it makes everything feel like a D&D attribute check and on top of that roll-unders go against ingrained lines of thinking about dice oriented games.
If I reverse the polarity (so to speak) of the task system by reducing the max possible number from the die difficulty by the task+attribute constant and ask them to roll over that number as I described much better above I think I can live it and might even sort of enjoy the task system.
I actually like the fist full of dice fury model because it does give you a lot of variation and possibilities for difficulty.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
One of the reasons I like the MT and CT rules is that they are skill based with stats providing small modifiers to skill rolls. It was therefore possible to play characters with rather limited stats but good skills, this encouraged roleplaying.
My concern over T4/T5, TNE even, is that stats became more important than skills and low stats mean a useless (player perception) character. This inevitably leads to munchkinism with players only wanting high stats.
I know from the T5 website that MWM is adamant that this T4.1 skill/task system be used, which is fine by me, it's his game system. Fortunately it's easy enough to use the DGP/MT system with CT/T4 and that's what I'll be doing with T5 as well
My concern over T4/T5, TNE even, is that stats became more important than skills and low stats mean a useless (player perception) character. This inevitably leads to munchkinism with players only wanting high stats.
I know from the T5 website that MWM is adamant that this T4.1 skill/task system be used, which is fine by me, it's his game system. Fortunately it's easy enough to use the DGP/MT system with CT/T4 and that's what I'll be doing with T5 as well
There are aspects of Marc's Task System I like. I think the Fists of Dice Fury method does lead to a lot of granularity in Task Actions.Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
One of the reasons I like the MT and CT rules is that they are skill based with stats providing small modifiers to skill rolls. It was therefore possible to play characters with rather limited stats but good skills, this encouraged roleplaying.
My concern over T4/T5, TNE even, is that stats became more important than skills and low stats mean a useless (player perception) character. This inevitably leads to munchkinism with players only wanting high stats.
I know from the T5 website that MWM is adamant that this T4.1 skill/task system be used, which is fine by me, it's his game system. Fortunately it's easy enough to use the DGP/MT system with CT/T4 and that's what I'll be doing with T5 as well
If adjusted, the This is Hard rule which gives players or NPCs who have a higher skill level an advantage can be very helpful.
I am starting very slowly to warm up to his skill system but it does give too much of an advantage to high stat characters I admit that.
Also, I will have to convert to a roll-over system as oppossed to a roll-under to prevent a player revolt.
If not I would be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Now lets talk about Skill Progression! One skill level a year as a birthday present? WTF? I guess Marc could have been more rigid and over-defining but he would have had to try really, really hard.
Does not give the ref much wiggle room without going all house rules.
The thing is not even out and I am already starting a House Rules section for the thing.
JameJ, you forget that TL 9 has not yet been achived on a planetary basis but Earth has a very unique UPP in the 21st century. I would suggest you reproduce DGP World Builder's Handbook to UPP construction and that will help explain our TL drag.
For I think part of the problem, is that we are measuring things by Western Europe & USA standards. The technical developments that are happening in East Asia, where property laws are more lax are phenomenal. Agreed, some of the things are attributable to piracy but if you count the rate and diffusion of innovation, it is much quicker there than here.
Cheers,
For I think part of the problem, is that we are measuring things by Western Europe & USA standards. The technical developments that are happening in East Asia, where property laws are more lax are phenomenal. Agreed, some of the things are attributable to piracy but if you count the rate and diffusion of innovation, it is much quicker there than here.
Cheers,
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Check. Thanks Aramis.
No one likes to just me too, but Sigg has succinctly summed up my complaint with the TNE system and what I dislike (along with *roll under*) of T5.
MT made stats contribute, but not dominate - they held (roughly) equal weight to skill levels or perhaps skill levels had about a 25%-30% edge (averages skills 1-3, average stat contributions 1-2). This is 'as it should be' to my thinking.
Stat dependent skill systems encourage uber characters, which just makes for a bland game.
While my gut tells me that roll-high is a better system, observation has shown that this is untrue. BOTH systems have their uses, and trying to kludge one over the other is at best damned inconvenient.
If I tell you you have a 27% chance of success, are you really gonna wanna take the time to figure out what a successful roll will be in a roll-high system? It is SOOO much easier to simply roll your D100 and if you roll 01-27, you succeed. No need to waste precious game time to think about something that is NOT worth thinking about. I'd rather spend that time PLAYING. Maybe it's only 5 seconds for you, but that does add up rather quickly if you do it a lot.
One other point of agreement-by-contention: I liked the MT task system, such that the characteristic did not overwhelm the skill, BUT it leaves the game full of people with stats of 8 and 13 and little else. A better example is D20, where EVERYONE strives to have even-numbered stats, because odd-numbered stats are not worth anything.
I like for things to make a difference, otherwise why have them? So I would take the task in the other direction. Instead of dividing stat by 2 or 3 or 5, multiply skill by 2 or 3 or 5 and then add stat to it. Yes, the math is a bit tougher than we are used to, but after doing a few times, it becomes second nature. Multiplying small skill numbers, like 1-8, by small multipliers, like 2-5, become memorized very quickly. Some people may even remember these values were in their multiplication tables, something they had to memorize to get out of 1st grade (or whenever). Then simply adding another number which is ~1-15 is not a big deal.
What IS the big deal is: what the heck are you going to roll? Roll-under is clearly superior for this, so we will use that.
If we assume an average person is a 7 stat (with 15 being max), and expert-level of skill is 5 (with 8 being max), then we can make a couple samples from that.
Bubba: He'll have a stat of 4 and a skill of 1, making him an amateur, but at least possessing measurable familiarity. Bubba totals up to a value of either 6, 7, or 9, depending on if we use a skill multiplier of 2, 3, or 5.
Fred: He'll have a stat of 7 and a skill of 3, making him able to gain employment with this skill. Fred's total value is 13, 16, or 22.
Albert: He'll have a stat of 12 and a skill of 6, making him not just an expert, but quite probably the top expert available. Albert lives and breathes whatever this subject is. Albert is worth 24, 30, or 42.
Dividing by 6, for our d6, we can see that there are no tasks which can fail with 1 die, and not many that can fail with 2. However, Bubba is going to have difficulty on any task that requires 3 dice, even if our multiplier is 5. Fred can usually succeed against 3-5 dice, depending on our multiplier. Albert should succeed against 6-9 dice fairly frequently.
This indicates to me that our multiplier looks best at about 3, which would make 2d tasks fairly easy and 7d tasks fairly hard for most people. Since there are about 5-7 levels of difficulty, this will work out quite nicely.
A multiplier of 3 gives skills a higher value than stats in a particular task, but not a lot of one. Maybe a multiplier of 4 would be better. I like the idea of TIH, to give skills an even bigger boost, because stats have this huge advantage of affecting lots of skills.
If I tell you you have a 27% chance of success, are you really gonna wanna take the time to figure out what a successful roll will be in a roll-high system? It is SOOO much easier to simply roll your D100 and if you roll 01-27, you succeed. No need to waste precious game time to think about something that is NOT worth thinking about. I'd rather spend that time PLAYING. Maybe it's only 5 seconds for you, but that does add up rather quickly if you do it a lot.
One other point of agreement-by-contention: I liked the MT task system, such that the characteristic did not overwhelm the skill, BUT it leaves the game full of people with stats of 8 and 13 and little else. A better example is D20, where EVERYONE strives to have even-numbered stats, because odd-numbered stats are not worth anything.
I like for things to make a difference, otherwise why have them? So I would take the task in the other direction. Instead of dividing stat by 2 or 3 or 5, multiply skill by 2 or 3 or 5 and then add stat to it. Yes, the math is a bit tougher than we are used to, but after doing a few times, it becomes second nature. Multiplying small skill numbers, like 1-8, by small multipliers, like 2-5, become memorized very quickly. Some people may even remember these values were in their multiplication tables, something they had to memorize to get out of 1st grade (or whenever). Then simply adding another number which is ~1-15 is not a big deal.
What IS the big deal is: what the heck are you going to roll? Roll-under is clearly superior for this, so we will use that.
If we assume an average person is a 7 stat (with 15 being max), and expert-level of skill is 5 (with 8 being max), then we can make a couple samples from that.
Bubba: He'll have a stat of 4 and a skill of 1, making him an amateur, but at least possessing measurable familiarity. Bubba totals up to a value of either 6, 7, or 9, depending on if we use a skill multiplier of 2, 3, or 5.
Fred: He'll have a stat of 7 and a skill of 3, making him able to gain employment with this skill. Fred's total value is 13, 16, or 22.
Albert: He'll have a stat of 12 and a skill of 6, making him not just an expert, but quite probably the top expert available. Albert lives and breathes whatever this subject is. Albert is worth 24, 30, or 42.
Dividing by 6, for our d6, we can see that there are no tasks which can fail with 1 die, and not many that can fail with 2. However, Bubba is going to have difficulty on any task that requires 3 dice, even if our multiplier is 5. Fred can usually succeed against 3-5 dice, depending on our multiplier. Albert should succeed against 6-9 dice fairly frequently.
This indicates to me that our multiplier looks best at about 3, which would make 2d tasks fairly easy and 7d tasks fairly hard for most people. Since there are about 5-7 levels of difficulty, this will work out quite nicely.
A multiplier of 3 gives skills a higher value than stats in a particular task, but not a lot of one. Maybe a multiplier of 4 would be better. I like the idea of TIH, to give skills an even bigger boost, because stats have this huge advantage of affecting lots of skills.
{QUOTE]First, what kind of things? Second, part of my point is that the TLs need to be re-thought (and the lower ones need to be separated a la GURPS). [/QB][/QUOTE]
First, to understand how TL have to broken down to cover different aspects of the overall Technological Level.
This would allow one to see that perhaps Earth is on the cusp of TL 9, as I have always taken the TL A to mean once we have made it to the stars.
Agreed that GURPS have had a more thought out spread for TLs but remember Traveller hadn't changed much since 1977. So therefore, suffers from more than a little utopianism. To completely revise the charts would make large sections of past Traveller very confusing to the newbie therefore, as much as one wants to reflect the real world, I would be prepared to sacriface realism for consistancy.
Lastly, it ought to be remembered the whole issue TLs is that it is heuristic device and never meant as the final comment of the Technological progress or late of it in a civilization just an indicator what type of tools might be found in the hands of the locals.
First, to understand how TL have to broken down to cover different aspects of the overall Technological Level.
This would allow one to see that perhaps Earth is on the cusp of TL 9, as I have always taken the TL A to mean once we have made it to the stars.
Agreed that GURPS have had a more thought out spread for TLs but remember Traveller hadn't changed much since 1977. So therefore, suffers from more than a little utopianism. To completely revise the charts would make large sections of past Traveller very confusing to the newbie therefore, as much as one wants to reflect the real world, I would be prepared to sacriface realism for consistancy.
Lastly, it ought to be remembered the whole issue TLs is that it is heuristic device and never meant as the final comment of the Technological progress or late of it in a civilization just an indicator what type of tools might be found in the hands of the locals.
0.5 secs more like. And most of my players don't enjoy games with roll low. They just have an emotional connection that says a high die roll should mean a good result. And if, as you say, one is intent on playing, one has to cater to an extent to such feelings.
Actually, I never saw that. Plus, wasn't it 5/10/15 that were important? I didn't think it was round nearest, but round down. Anyway, more important was the Int+Edu skill limit, which lead to everyone with a few terms under their belt trying to get EDU 12+ and a good Int or they'd run out of the ability to add new skills.
Except that in D20, you build stats up regularly, and building a 12 into a 14 takes a lot longer than building a 13 to a 14. And besides, I hate 'character building' (I'm an evolutionist - roll dice, see what God gives you, the challenge is then to make the best of it).
Works, but that leans more toward a percentile system, and if it takes you 5 seconds to figure out that 27% means rolling over 73 on a percentile then this multiplication and addition would have to e slower yet...
Most of my players are military folks involved in space science, computer scientists/programmrs, computer techs, or electrical engineers. None of them can do addition or multiplication anymore without a calculator. (Sigh)
The good thing about the DGP system is I can do all that is required - all they have to do is respond to 'roll to beat an 11 please' or 'roll over 6, if you roll over 8, you get critical success'.
Clearly... to you. Not clearly to me. Or my players.
Also, the whole idea of doing the kind of math you suggest is possible for me, but I just see no compelling argument. Roll-lower systems also have (and I'm not going to argue this point here... it'd take too much analysis to illustrate) issues where they come up inferior for representing certain types of modifiers, certain types of difficulties. This has been seen in other game designs that have attempted this. It might work okay for what they're using it for, or not.
But the only real matter is it won't sell to my players, so it won't sell to me, so I might not buy books that include it unless they're so amazing in other regards. So, whether it is a step forward or not in some abstract sense, in one concrete sense (me getting out my wallet) it'd likely be a step back. A lot of the classic players may feel like that.
Roll D100 +27, break 100. Simple. Taken straight from rolemaster.
a few points on the overall discussion:
1) roll under does not always mean "Flat distribution" rolling (EG: Hero System uses a roll-under, rolling on 3d6)
2) Successful multi-dice task systems have been dice based upon character abilities, not dice based upon difficulty. Of the latter, only two marginally succesfull ones come to mind: Tales from the Floating Vagabond, and Alternity.
3) Psychology of the players tends to be more in favor of roll high systems. (TSR did a survey on that...)
4) Most linear Roll low systems can be converted to roll high systems by a break x, roll dice and add skill
For example, converting TNE to a Roll high:
Target 21+ to succeed. Roll 1d20 + Asset. Crit is 31+.
VERY simple.
