Bishop Odo
SOC-12
Is there a synopsis of what is new with the T5 system? I'm thinking of starting a new campaign and just trying to narrow down the systems used.
Starting or Not T5
- Thread starter Bishop Odo
- Start date
It's a fresh re-write, but is based on lots of prior art.
- Alien characteristics are codified and standardized.
- Careers are more consolidated than Supplement 4 / MegaTraveller.
- Ranges are standardized across tasks, weapons, vehicles, etc.
- Genetics are new, and related topics (clones, semi-organic brains, synthetic people, etc).
- The task system is an improved version of T4's.
- The skills list is consolidated and fixed at 64, but with an innumerable number of specialized knowledges possible.
- Personal combat is new, integrated with vehicle combat, and is hotly debated here on COTI.
- The tools for making guns, armor, and vehicles are new but based more or less on CT.
- Starship design is sort of a blend of Book 2, High Guard, and MegaTraveller, if that makes sense. I love it, but its presentation is too dense.
- The rules for how starship systems work are spelled out in no uncertain terms, some of which is hotly debated here on COTI.
- Star system is similar to, but not the same as, Book 6.
- World generation is pretty much the same as it's always been, with a couple minor additions.
- The mapping stuff is new and very neat.
- Trade and commerce descends from Merchant Prince.
- Psionics is nearly completely new, and strange.
- The rules for robot creation are new.
- The rules for animal creation are new and expanded in scope.
- The rules for defining equipment are new and integrated with the task and combat system.
- The equipment list is new, but uses entries and categories from previous lists.
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Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
If you buzz around the T5 forum, you'll find plenty of discussion on it, both pro and con.
I've been very vocal about how broken and unplayable I think T5 is--that it needs House Rules to run (especially combat--see my sig for a lot of problems and suggested fixes). Yet, there are people playing and quite enjoying T5.
Look around the forum and make your own judgement.
I've been very vocal about how broken and unplayable I think T5 is--that it needs House Rules to run (especially combat--see my sig for a lot of problems and suggested fixes). Yet, there are people playing and quite enjoying T5.
Look around the forum and make your own judgement.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I have no problems being more blunt. A new player will find T5 impossible to use, and probably will be totally turned off by it. I would highly recommend the FREE download of Starter Traveller from DriveThruRPG for any beginning player.
A good 300 to 400 pages of the book could be scrapped with no loss, and it needs a drastic editing job for the rest. A rule book with over 600 pages in NOT a STARTER SET of rules.
A good 300 to 400 pages of the book could be scrapped with no loss, and it needs a drastic editing job for the rest. A rule book with over 600 pages in NOT a STARTER SET of rules.
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Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Seconded.
Starter Traveller was the first set of rules I purchased (good God! Back in the crazy 80's!). It was a box set. It's the rule set that made me fall in love with Traveller--a love affair that's lasted over thirty years now.
And, don't let the title turn you off. When I first saw the words "Starter" before "Traveller", I thought it might be a stripped down version of the rules--something for really young kids.
It's not. It is most of the rules you get with the original rule set. Starter Traveller is completely capable of being the prime rule set for any Classic Traveller game for years and years to come.
Starter Traveller is, today, my second favorite CT rule set, right behind The Traveller Book. I like ST better than the original rules you get in Books 1-3.
And...it's FREE! You can't beat that!
ken at sunrise
SOC-12
A new player will find the T5 core rules difficult to use, and it is clearly not for newbies.
I, too, would also recommend Starter Traveller for beginning players. However, for people who love Traveller, I could recommend the T5 core rules.
The Traveller5 core book is not a starter set of rules. If your suggestion of "scrapping" 300-400 pages means you think a T5 Player's Handbook is a more reasonable starting place for beginners to Traveller, then I think you're probably right.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Starter Traveller is basically Classic Traveller in a slightly different form.
Classic Traveller has 4 "editions"
1.0
The 1977 to 1980 printings of the 3 little black books (3LBB). Not all content the same in each printing, but largely the same content.
2.0
the 1981 and later 3LBB printings. All the same content. MAJOR revisions - combat damage now all in whole dice, rather than dice+adds format. Damage healing and damage taking rules rewritten. Changes to ship creation, including computer requirement, and requiring that MD's need a matched PP. Minor changes elsewhere, too.
2.1
The Traveller Book (TTB). Same content as the 1981 3LBB, with some errata applied, re-presented in a 8.5x11" format hardcover. Differences in the healing rules, differences in ship combat. VERY minor differences.
2.2
Starter Traveller. Same layout for most of the pages as TTB, but the charts and tables are in one book, the rules text in the other. A few signficant differences from TTB - starship combat uses range bands rather than minis; pulse lasers are differentiated from beam lasers. Drugs rules missing. Minor rewrites on a few other bits.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
A T5 Player's Handbook of no more than 96 pages, with no more than one illustration per page average would be more like it.
Bishop, it looks like you've played Traveller for quite a while.
Here's the table of contents for the Core Rules:
http://www.farfuture.net/Contents CDROM T5.pdf
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Starter Traveller is another edition of Classic Traveller from around 1984. Free from rpg drive thru.
