Spaceman Spiff Traveller

[robject]

Sometimes you gotta loosen the bonds of "canon" for the sake of fun. Traveller rules are made to be broken. And that's what I was thinking about this morning. So without further ado, my draft overview of a Spaceman Spiff Traveller variant.

http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/rules/DarkHunter.html

 

[far-trader]

Looks like fun, kinda like the "Fluffy" series idea way back in D&D. Looking forward to the full writeup.

Dojix the Trader*

* rolled 3,4 and replaced "the Neighborly", this is still Traveller so we gotta have merchants, and all the rest too, just a suggestion, at least the basics: the Scout, the Trader, the Soldier, the Marine, and the Commander.

 

[robject]

Huh, I didn't think about that, but you're right. A Trader can be plenty o' fun.

How about "Commando" instead of Soldier and Marine?

And we need more dramatic words for "Commander" and "Scout".

 

[ChaserCaffey]

Looks pretty good to me. You might want to consider having all PC ships be the same size, and only give larger ships to the dastardly Zogons.

Some suggestions for the "PCs are nearly indestructable, but all weapons are devestating" rules:

1) Guns all over the place. Everybody and their mother has a TL-15 fusion gun, variously named "zap rays" and "frap guns" and suchlike.

2) Ships are fragile. BL is the only ship combat system I know, so I was thinking of something like every hit automatically dealing a critical hit, with a 1 on the 1D20 indicating that the ship is in flames and must crash-land on the nearest uncharted and inhospitable planet.

3) Divide all weapons damage by 20 when striking PCs. That's why they're Spacemen, and you're not.

-Nezez the Loyal

 

[Jame]

What about psionics, and what about the place the Spacemen are coming from? And mapping?

Don't forget that it should be somewhat comically ironic, and that standards of scale need not apply...

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by robject:
Huh, I didn't think about that, but you're right. A Trader can be plenty o' fun.

How about "Commando" instead of Soldier and Marine?

And we need more dramatic words for "Commander" and "Scout".

Yeah Commando works better I'd agree, no problem here grouping "Army" and "Marines"

Commander ("Navy" natch) is kinda weak and too modest a rank, hmm, I got nothing yet

Oh wait, how's Admiral or somesuch grab ya?

Scout, I dunno, probably personal prejudice but I think Scout is cool

Maybe not dramatic cool but still.

 

[robject]

I think for laziness' sake I'll leave setting details up in the air. If I run a campaign like this, I'll probably use some shade of the Classic Traveller background, but I'd not want to put that in the Spiff Draft.

Likewise for psionics, primarily because Spiff didn't seem to have any. So psionic rules will be bolt-ons from Traveller. Naturally, any Spiffman with Psionic potential would have to have a high PSI.

As for ship sizes, I was debating whether or not to allow players to have large ships, but then I decided to leave it in, and if I want to run a Pure Spiff game, I'd just tell my players that all the ships have to be (for example) between 10 and 30 tons or something.

And that's a good point about the Guns thing. I'll have to specifically mention that every Spiffer carries a Kill-O-Zap FGMP-16 "Zorcher" plasma pistol with 10 shots.

Excellent suggestion on damage mods.

 

[kaladorn]

I think some of Spiff's enemies may have had psi-like powers.

 

[robject]

Yeah, I'm sure you're right. I haven't thought about antagonistic alien empires much... I suppose that's going to be sort of important to sketch out, as well.

I've updated the draft with the other suggestions so far.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by far-trader:

Dojix the Trader

Dojix is a cool name. Kinda fits the genre. Roll up his special characteristics and his ship characteristics, so I can add him as another example.

 

[flykiller]

no mention of captain napalm?

 

[robject]

I also completely forgot about Ditzie. I'll have to work her in somehow.

I've started adding in some adventure & space encounter rules and general sketches on the kind of alien presence one is likely to encounter.

I'm tentatively estimating the Spiff Milieu at TL18.

 

[robject]

Specifically, I've set the Spiff Milieu at TL18, after the fall of the Fourth Imperium.

 

[Jame]

You should consider putting in Naval and Air Academy, followed by Army, Chargen for those of us who don't have it.

 

[ChaserCaffey]

Those of us who use other versions of Traveller should see what we can do to adapt this mileu into our systems. I have a feeling that most of the basic concepts should transfer pretty well.

When I get home tonight, I'll see if I can gin up some ideas for TNE career tracks for Spacemen to follow and maybe do an FF&S design for the Spaceman Zap Gun (FGMP-18). Any chance that stuff could get posted if I come up with it?

The ship stuff looks abstract enough that TNE designs should be unecessary- a couple rolls, see who gets hit, then move on to the crashing on an uncharted planet. The 10% damage roll should transfer pretty well too, and the fact that TNE characters have "too many" hit points should only help the case.

Any MT or GT fans want to chime in on this?

 

[robject]

My goal is to keep this rather generic for that very reason. I may abstract out some of the chargen details, in fact, so instead of "Gunnery+4" I might rather say something like "Dead shot with ship's guns."

 

[ChaserCaffey]

Originally posted by robject:
My goal is to keep this rather generic for that very reason. I may abstract out some of the chargen details, in fact, so instead of "Gunnery+4" I might rather say something like "Dead shot with ship's guns."

I think that TNE is similar enough that adding 4 to the Gunnery asset (for example) should transfer over fairly well. I'll rough some stuff out tonight or tomorrow and see how it comes out. Maybe an appendix on Spiff for TNE that you could post?

 

[robject]

Depending on the material, sure. In particular, I'd be very happy to see FFS designs.

 

[ChaserCaffey]

Originally posted by robject:
Depending on the material, sure. In particular, I'd be very happy to see FFS designs.

Okay, here are two guns I've designed using FF&S1. Both are TL-18 FGMPs.

The first was designed in an attempt to give the intrepid spacemen something hand-held that looked like what Spiff had in the comics. It came out as follows:

Kill-o-Zap Gun, Mark I

Type: Fusion Gun
TL: 18
Discharge Energy: 1.77 Mj
Wt: 2.67 kg loaded
Ammo: 10 (box magazine)
Bulk: 2 (large hand pistol)
Short Rng: 88.5m
ROF: SA1
Dmg: 15
Pen: 1/2-1-4
Recoil: 15 (!)

While nice, the recoil on it looked a bit impractical. So, I decided to look at something a bit larger, say about the size of the crunch gun in RCEG. Assuming that Battle Spandex doubles strength like Battle Dress, this should be man-portable, and a heckuva killing stick.

Super Zap Gun, Mark I

Type: Fusion Gun
TL: 18
Discharge Energy: 35 Mj
Wt: 52.73 kg loaded
Ammo: 10 (box magazine)
Bulk: 5 (large sniper rifle or HMG)
Short Rng: 3400 m (effectively line-of-sight)
ROF: SA1
Dmg: 68 (Makes a serviceable antitank weapon)
Pen: 1/2-1-4
Recoil: 3

These are both rather extreme, and what I should probably do is a Zap Gun Mark II with a slightly less ridiculous discharge energy and manageable recoil. I have to admit that even though it doesn't look like anything from the comics, I rather like the Super Zap Gun- I have this image of my character in Battle Spandex (which clearly has to function as a vacc suit too) floating outside the enemy warship and blasting at its sensor arrays to allow a daring escape.

 

[robject]

As a matter of fact, you're thinking along the same lines I am... I like the Super Zap Gun. Probably need a different name... "Noisy Cricket Gun", perhaps?

And yes, of course the Battle Spandex is also a vac suit. It's also ablative, so with a Grav-Pack(tm) one could reenter... and it's reflec, meaning lasers bounce harmlessly off it...

How 'bout a Zorcher that does a damage of 10? Would that help the recoil?