T4 task debate resurrected ;)

[taishon]

Why I like the T4 task system;
1. Hidden Dice allowing for real world uncertainty
(Don't you get fed up with players knowing for sure if they failed or succeeded in everything ?)
2. East and straightforwardness of use.
3. Great combination of simplicity as well as playability and realism.

The main rational criticism of the T4 task system seems to be that is heavily attribute based. (An irrational criticism seems to be the number of dice or the fact that you need to roll low ..both seem silly and not remotely RPG-based criticisms).
Here is my logic that the Attribute-weighted T4 system makes realistic sense;

Instead of thinking of rolling against mainly your attributes plus small skill adds think of it as a situation where you need minimum mental or physical skills to have decent chances at performing a task or some real long-term training/expertise/experience to do. Let me put it this way..if you have very low hand-eye coordination (ie-low dex) then you would definitely need a LOT of gun expertise to shoot properly in a dire situation. Conversely, if you know gun basics and have excellent hand-eye coordination then you can outdraw, outshoot most people with fair expertise. The best athletes, computer techs, artists you name it had damn good genes and excelled right at the get go while the rest of us had to train long and hard for anything comparable.
Sorry to drag this out but let me give you another example. I have done about 15 years of various martial arts. Even taking into account wasting time in some innefficient systems (you know..the ones with elaborate and unrealistic pyramid scheme mentalities) I probably have above-average expertise in Martial Arts skills. However, there was an 19 year old kid who beat the crap out of me after only studying it for 6 months. His innate physical attributes compensated for his lack of expertise. He had tremendous dexterity, strength etc etc. My point isn't to brag about my martial arts but to point our how not using the T4 task system can be unrealistic.
Think of things in reverse. A person with low intelligence cannot possibly achieve a high level of chess skill (or computer programming skill etc) no matter how much experience/training. Most traveller's rules sets do the reverse. The ignore attributes and allow someone to learn and complete tasks that in real life would be quite ridicously tough.
True, an untrained fencer will be beaten by a highly trained one every time no matter what the difference in attributes..but give that untrained fencer with relfexes of a cat some basic fencing skills and I bet they can make up the difference quite readily. There is some unrealism in that an expert fencer should always beat a beginner but an expert fencer should not have low attributes..part of most martial systems is good conditioning. :0)
Anyway..sorry about the rambling but I really have a hard time with the linear, narrow-minded thinking that tends to be responsible for the criticism of the T4 task system. A skill really should be thought of as a combination of a person's mental/physical conditioning, their expertise, their experience, their training etc.
If a person has exceptionally low attributes then it should show as well as exceptionally high ones.
Steve/Sal

 

[taishon]

Why I like the T4 task system;
1. Hidden Dice allowing for real world uncertainty
(Don't you get fed up with players knowing for sure if they failed or succeeded in everything ?)
2. East and straightforwardness of use.
3. Great combination of simplicity as well as playability and realism.

The main rational criticism of the T4 task system seems to be that is heavily attribute based. (An irrational criticism seems to be the number of dice or the fact that you need to roll low ..both seem silly and not remotely RPG-based criticisms).
Here is my logic that the Attribute-weighted T4 system makes realistic sense;

Instead of thinking of rolling against mainly your attributes plus small skill adds think of it as a situation where you need minimum mental or physical skills to have decent chances at performing a task or some real long-term training/expertise/experience to do. Let me put it this way..if you have very low hand-eye coordination (ie-low dex) then you would definitely need a LOT of gun expertise to shoot properly in a dire situation. Conversely, if you know gun basics and have excellent hand-eye coordination then you can outdraw, outshoot most people with fair expertise. The best athletes, computer techs, artists you name it had damn good genes and excelled right at the get go while the rest of us had to train long and hard for anything comparable.
Sorry to drag this out but let me give you another example. I have done about 15 years of various martial arts. Even taking into account wasting time in some innefficient systems (you know..the ones with elaborate and unrealistic pyramid scheme mentalities) I probably have above-average expertise in Martial Arts skills. However, there was an 19 year old kid who beat the crap out of me after only studying it for 6 months. His innate physical attributes compensated for his lack of expertise. He had tremendous dexterity, strength etc etc. My point isn't to brag about my martial arts but to point our how not using the T4 task system can be unrealistic.
Think of things in reverse. A person with low intelligence cannot possibly achieve a high level of chess skill (or computer programming skill etc) no matter how much experience/training. Most traveller's rules sets do the reverse. The ignore attributes and allow someone to learn and complete tasks that in real life would be quite ridicously tough.
True, an untrained fencer will be beaten by a highly trained one every time no matter what the difference in attributes..but give that untrained fencer with relfexes of a cat some basic fencing skills and I bet they can make up the difference quite readily. There is some unrealism in that an expert fencer should always beat a beginner but an expert fencer should not have low attributes..part of most martial systems is good conditioning. :0)
Anyway..sorry about the rambling but I really have a hard time with the linear, narrow-minded thinking that tends to be responsible for the criticism of the T4 task system. A skill really should be thought of as a combination of a person's mental/physical conditioning, their expertise, their experience, their training etc.
If a person has exceptionally low attributes then it should show as well as exceptionally high ones.
Steve/Sal

 

[Granpafishy]

I agree with you completely. But lets face it, there are quite a few people out there that consider T4 to be the red-headed step-child, and won't like it no matter how good or bad it is. They will always find fault with it.

I do believe another sticking point is the setting. It being set at the beguining of the 3rd Imp does not 'Advance the Timeline'. Again, I think that this is unreasonable, but it's the way people feel. I don't.

 

[Granpafishy]

I agree with you completely. But lets face it, there are quite a few people out there that consider T4 to be the red-headed step-child, and won't like it no matter how good or bad it is. They will always find fault with it.

I do believe another sticking point is the setting. It being set at the beguining of the 3rd Imp does not 'Advance the Timeline'. Again, I think that this is unreasonable, but it's the way people feel. I don't.

 

[mike wightman]

Do you think there's a reason why the GURPS Traveller forum is already more popular (at least going by number of posts it is )?
I have found much to commend T4. I like the chracter generation, weapon damage/armour system, new descriptions of some of the technology and the setting. A lot of the supplements are still sources of inspiration for me, notably Pocket Empires, Central Supply Catalog, and The Emperor's Arsenal.
But the task system? No thank you. MT/DGP for me (until seeing Aramis's 3d6 version that is) or even my homebrew T2000 derived system.

 

[mike wightman]

Do you think there's a reason why the GURPS Traveller forum is already more popular (at least going by number of posts it is )?
I have found much to commend T4. I like the chracter generation, weapon damage/armour system, new descriptions of some of the technology and the setting. A lot of the supplements are still sources of inspiration for me, notably Pocket Empires, Central Supply Catalog, and The Emperor's Arsenal.
But the task system? No thank you. MT/DGP for me (until seeing Aramis's 3d6 version that is) or even my homebrew T2000 derived system.

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by taishon:
Why I like the T4 task system;
1. Hidden Dice allowing for real world uncertainty
(Don't you get fed up with players knowing for sure if they failed or succeeded in everything ?)
2. East and straightforwardness of use.
3. Great combination of simplicity as well as playability and realism.

...

Check out the T5 playtest materials. With the inclusion of the "This is Hard!" rule which helps to balance atts to skills a bit and a healthy dose of a roll-up conversion by Stephen Thorne (look in T5 forum) I find it to be a quite livable Task System.

Traveller 5 Page with Playtest stuff

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by taishon:
Why I like the T4 task system;
1. Hidden Dice allowing for real world uncertainty
(Don't you get fed up with players knowing for sure if they failed or succeeded in everything ?)
2. East and straightforwardness of use.
3. Great combination of simplicity as well as playability and realism.

...

Check out the T5 playtest materials. With the inclusion of the "This is Hard!" rule which helps to balance atts to skills a bit and a healthy dose of a roll-up conversion by Stephen Thorne (look in T5 forum) I find it to be a quite livable Task System.

Traveller 5 Page with Playtest stuff

 

[aramis]

The biggest problem with T4 tasks, IMO. is that the players roll a number of dice varying with the difficulty.

this adds confusion to some, and means that my homegrown character sheet designs need to include a task table.

I don't mind variable dice by skill (d6 Engine, EABA, Storyteller, LUGTrek, Arroflight).

I prefer roll high, but don't mind terribly roll low. Many of my players have been staunchly roll-high fans. Xd6 mechanics are more the pain for me.

T4 has a nummber of great rules... and some really bad ones.

I have taken to using T4 psionics rules in other editions of traveller... I like them, as presented in T4 base book. Simplicity itself. If you can pay, you can do, and you can't pay more than your skill.

 

[aramis]

The biggest problem with T4 tasks, IMO. is that the players roll a number of dice varying with the difficulty.

this adds confusion to some, and means that my homegrown character sheet designs need to include a task table.

I don't mind variable dice by skill (d6 Engine, EABA, Storyteller, LUGTrek, Arroflight).

I prefer roll high, but don't mind terribly roll low. Many of my players have been staunchly roll-high fans. Xd6 mechanics are more the pain for me.

T4 has a nummber of great rules... and some really bad ones.

I have taken to using T4 psionics rules in other editions of traveller... I like them, as presented in T4 base book. Simplicity itself. If you can pay, you can do, and you can't pay more than your skill.

 

[taishon]

I know I am repeating myself but I am looking for active criticism..Basically, I want to attract some players soon and, if there are really vocal rational objections, then I would like to be aware of them. The T4/T5 task system has both realistic uncertainty and simplicity built into..Maybe not as simple as CT but certainly more simple than most other RPGs I can think of. The extra dice needed for harder tasks gives a physical weight to harder tasks (uh oh..I need to carefully grab another 6-sideed D'oh !)
Anyone aware of any traveller rules that handle task uncertainty better ?
Anyway..I doubt i am going to convert the naysayers and the rest is just preaching to the choir. Just hope that i am able to recruit that scarce player pool using the ruleset I prefer.
Sal

 

[taishon]

I know I am repeating myself but I am looking for active criticism..Basically, I want to attract some players soon and, if there are really vocal rational objections, then I would like to be aware of them. The T4/T5 task system has both realistic uncertainty and simplicity built into..Maybe not as simple as CT but certainly more simple than most other RPGs I can think of. The extra dice needed for harder tasks gives a physical weight to harder tasks (uh oh..I need to carefully grab another 6-sideed D'oh !)
Anyone aware of any traveller rules that handle task uncertainty better ?
Anyway..I doubt i am going to convert the naysayers and the rest is just preaching to the choir. Just hope that i am able to recruit that scarce player pool using the ruleset I prefer.
Sal

 

[hirch duckfinder]

t4 had some good bits . personally i don't like any task system , prefering to hear the players blag how they are going to use their skills and then setting them a roll based on other factors. this works fine with ct books 1-7 .

the main problem with t4 was the rather dry presentation and the uninspiring inclusion of a beaurocrat-em-up as the sample 'adventure' ; bit too similar to a day at work , that .

make the adventure interesting , challanging and exiting and the players will not care about the ruleset .

the setting is interesting up to a point , but it is hard to have a brave-new-frontier when the history of the next 1000 years is already mapped out .

varying the no. of dice is ok , but why bother . 2 d6 ct works fine , if it doesn't you are rolling too many dice in your game . and half dice are just silly .
in my not-as-humble-as-it-should-be-opinion.

 

[hirch duckfinder]

t4 had some good bits . personally i don't like any task system , prefering to hear the players blag how they are going to use their skills and then setting them a roll based on other factors. this works fine with ct books 1-7 .

the main problem with t4 was the rather dry presentation and the uninspiring inclusion of a beaurocrat-em-up as the sample 'adventure' ; bit too similar to a day at work , that .

make the adventure interesting , challanging and exiting and the players will not care about the ruleset .

the setting is interesting up to a point , but it is hard to have a brave-new-frontier when the history of the next 1000 years is already mapped out .

varying the no. of dice is ok , but why bother . 2 d6 ct works fine , if it doesn't you are rolling too many dice in your game . and half dice are just silly .
in my not-as-humble-as-it-should-be-opinion.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by taishon:
Anyone aware of any traveller rules that handle task uncertainty better?

Well, IMHO, the DGP/MT task system does it better .
Or you could try Aramis's 3d6 task system , look a couple of posts down.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by taishon:
Anyone aware of any traveller rules that handle task uncertainty better?

Well, IMHO, the DGP/MT task system does it better .
Or you could try Aramis's 3d6 task system , look a couple of posts down.

 

[robject]

Hirch makes a good point: task systems aren't suited to everybody, and different systems strike the fancies of different people. Also, it helps to know when to put the books down and just make the call.

My gaming group found a significant problem with the task rolls, simply because a player with a Dexterity of 10 and a weapon skill of 0 could still hit about 90% of the time. That might not be so bad, except that every high stat rendered a huge block of skills nearly meaningless.

As far as the setting goes; well, it would take an impressive set of players to change 1000 years of history by their actions! Put more constructively: there are ways to personalize a game setting which still fits within a background. This has been done variously from very-wide-angles (bronze age games) to very narrow ones (the Battle of the Bulge). All the traditional Traveller settings are available in Milieu Zero, plus a few that are more viable than before:

* Trade, of course
* Mercs in high demand, because:
* Piracy is actually lucrative
* Exploration is more unpredictable
- and fun, too
- 3 words: The Anililik Run
- 3 more: Long Way Home
* Pocket empires is the reality
* Plundering technology for fun and profit
* Future games become more interesting

That last item needs more text. The games played in the past will shape the history of the Imperium in the players' minds. They'll understand it more fully. Besides, when a new campaign is started in 1100, the referee can throw in a reference to the intrepid adventurers and their scrappy ship way back during the Founding Years, and give the players a share in Imperial history by immortalizing them.

Although, I would prefer the T4 rules encompassed the full Traveller TL range, and were separated from the setting.

 

[robject]

Hirch makes a good point: task systems aren't suited to everybody, and different systems strike the fancies of different people. Also, it helps to know when to put the books down and just make the call.

My gaming group found a significant problem with the task rolls, simply because a player with a Dexterity of 10 and a weapon skill of 0 could still hit about 90% of the time. That might not be so bad, except that every high stat rendered a huge block of skills nearly meaningless.

As far as the setting goes; well, it would take an impressive set of players to change 1000 years of history by their actions! Put more constructively: there are ways to personalize a game setting which still fits within a background. This has been done variously from very-wide-angles (bronze age games) to very narrow ones (the Battle of the Bulge). All the traditional Traveller settings are available in Milieu Zero, plus a few that are more viable than before:

* Trade, of course
* Mercs in high demand, because:
* Piracy is actually lucrative
* Exploration is more unpredictable
- and fun, too
- 3 words: The Anililik Run
- 3 more: Long Way Home
* Pocket empires is the reality
* Plundering technology for fun and profit
* Future games become more interesting

That last item needs more text. The games played in the past will shape the history of the Imperium in the players' minds. They'll understand it more fully. Besides, when a new campaign is started in 1100, the referee can throw in a reference to the intrepid adventurers and their scrappy ship way back during the Founding Years, and give the players a share in Imperial history by immortalizing them.

Although, I would prefer the T4 rules encompassed the full Traveller TL range, and were separated from the setting.

 

[Granpafishy]

Originally posted by robject:
My gaming group found a significant problem with the task rolls, simply because a player with a Dexterity of 10 and a weapon skill of 0 could still hit about 90% of the time. That might not be so bad, except that every high stat rendered a huge block of skills nearly meaningless.

Not meaning to really nit pick, but you do know that if you don't have the skill, then you're rolling under HALF the related attribute? And that is for the Default skills only. The one exception to this is the Jack of all Trades, and it allows you to do a roll on the rest, but still at half the attribute level. If you add in the "This is Hard" rule from T5 beta, then it becomes even more difficult to do something that you're not 'trained' to do. Further, if you use the T5 rule for 'whole' dice, that chance diminishes even more.

 

[Granpafishy]

Originally posted by robject:
My gaming group found a significant problem with the task rolls, simply because a player with a Dexterity of 10 and a weapon skill of 0 could still hit about 90% of the time. That might not be so bad, except that every high stat rendered a huge block of skills nearly meaningless.

Not meaning to really nit pick, but you do know that if you don't have the skill, then you're rolling under HALF the related attribute? And that is for the Default skills only. The one exception to this is the Jack of all Trades, and it allows you to do a roll on the rest, but still at half the attribute level. If you add in the "This is Hard" rule from T5 beta, then it becomes even more difficult to do something that you're not 'trained' to do. Further, if you use the T5 rule for 'whole' dice, that chance diminishes even more.