Traveller Trading Cards

[robject]

I was flipping through my Star Wars cards the other day, old nerd that I am, and I was thinking that perhaps Traveller Cards might be a fun way to encapsulate Traveller information.

For example:

A set of Starship cards, with a four-color, rendered starship on half the card, its name and abbreviated stats on the front, and maybe more details on back.

Question: What kind of starship stats would be most efficiently useful for the front of such a card?

Similarly, a set of Personal equipment cards, with a nice pic of one of Traveller's myriad guns, its name and some stats on the front (damage, range, ???). Or battledress. Or medikit.

Or, how about a set of Character cards, with either generic career-based character profiles and titles, or very specific adventurers drawn from published (Traveller) material? Less useful, perhaps, but a large enough set of character images might be useful for creating a player character's dossier -- a face card, a skill list, a TAS membership card, and equipment cards.

Or, finally, how about World cards, with a nice, rendered world disc, a name, very terse description, and a UWP?


As a lark, for personal amusement, I mocked up a few handfuls of Traveller Trading Cards, using art from CT, MT, TNE, and beyond. Nine of the cards are here:

http://home.comcast.net/~downport/cards/

 

[flykiller]

A set of Starship cards, with a four-color, rendered starship on half the card, its name and abbreviated stats on the front, and maybe more details on back.

poké-high-guard?

could work.

commons: scout ships, frigates
uncommons: cruisers
rares: battleships

energy: crew, fuel

trainers: special maneuvers, captain, training, officers

 

[Fritz_Brown]

My only concern about this is a Traveller card game coming out of it. "Magic" for the Sci-Fi set.

 

[robject]

Egads, no, please, no.

 

[far-trader]

MegaTraveller had a series of Equipiment Data Sheets that were much like this. A good idea, well done, just a victim of the legacy of MT errata.

On a strange note, related only because it seems to be this topic only and I'm stuck on my old Mac today since the PC is playing dead Anyway this topic, and this topic only it seems, won't open in Netscrape but it will in Internet Exploder. I hate IE on the Mac, it's glacially slow. Anyway just an oddness.

 

[robject]

Yeah, Dan, I was thinking of the DGP Data Sheets too. Cards severely restrict the amount of info, but they really could do a similar kind of thing -- sort of provide a kick-start for one's memory, or as an associative index into a sourcebook.

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by r o b:
I was flipping through my Star Wars cards the other day, old nerd that I am, and I was thinking that perhaps Traveller Cards might be a fun way to encapsulate Traveller information.

Interesting. I've seen some games where cards were used and usually they were handy. Just don't require too many to be in your "hand" at any one time. Traveller already uses shortened stat forms for several things.

The Star Wars miniatures game (the WotC collectible one) has a streamlined d20 combat system in almost easy rules. Instead of the Clix games where the stats are on the base and a card is used to decipher the symbols, it uses a card for each character along with a depiction of the character.

I've seen some other miniatures games that did something similar including a pretty good WWII game that didn't require more anything other than cards and a few chits + dice to play. I liked the old Monster Cards for AD&D back in the day.

So sure, this could be fun and useful. A heck of a lot more fun than using @#$@# index cards for everything.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I really like the idea of equipment cards. Post a picture and brief description on the front, relevant game info on the back. Would come in handy during a game, so you don't have to keep going back to the book to look up details on what the item does or how it works within the game.

I used to love the old AD&D spell cards for the same reason.

 

[robject]

Yep, I was thinking of those nice pictures of weapons... in fact, I bet something like that can be cobbled together very easily, perhaps within the Fair Use policy.

Here, how about weapon cards like thse:

 

[kafka47]

Very nice job, Rob. This is one form of trading card that I would whole heartedly support so long as artifical scarcity was not created thereby creating a trading card phenomena that would kill the original market like Mythos almost did for Cthulhu.

BTW, it ought to be Imperial Marines not Lucan's Marines to keep it more neutral.

 

[Darkhstarr]

Illustrated ship trading cards or even just stat cards would be nice. So would be a Classic Traveller Gamemaster's shield. I'm still using my old Judge's Guild Traveller shield(when I can find it-misplaced along with my game notes/character sheets/plans just before Nuke-Con & just found them last week.) & it's good but not complete with needed GM/Player info.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Here's some stuff I been goofing around with for a bit. I try to do a set of Character cards for every crew PC for each campaign I'm in, but sometimes I totally slack off on it.

http://www.geocities.com/chuckshaw2000/cardtests.html

I also did the Trade Goods Cards in the flibrary, tho someone later went and recut them.

I also did a set of monopoly like cards for the Night Parliament Game (which was a flop, BTW) to show the individual holdings of the noble PCs...

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
My only concern about this is a Traveller card game coming out of it. "Magic" for the Sci-Fi set.

Not all card games based on or related to RPGs these days have to be CCG/TCGs.

Munchkin (link) and the only version of SFB I can stomach these days, Star Fleet Battle Force (link), for example.

After burning out on CCG/TCGs I like all-in-one-box card games. Expansions are ok but should be optional. The best of the lot are about as much fun as a rpg or miniatures game but with much less time commitment and complexity. I can get players for these games that would never touch a rpg or miniatures game (yet

) .

I'd be interested in a space/sci-fi themed card game along these lines*, such as something based on/for Traveller. Preferably with a nod to the rules innovations and attention to components of recent "Euro" card games.

(edit: general editing)

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by kafka47:
This is one form of trading card that I would whole heartedly support so long as artifical scarcity was not created thereby creating a trading card phenomena that would kill the original market like Mythos almost did for Cthulhu.

Chaosium almost went under for various reasons. Overprinting Mythos was a major factor. The idea of the CCG itself wasn’t IMO bad and the game’s pretty good. That they have since done mostly reprints and IMO dropped the ball on Pulp Cthulhu, stopped putting d20 stats in their books, etc. likely hasn’t helped either. I don’t know if devoting solely to Call of Cthulhu helped or hurt. As a sidenote there is a new CoC CCG from FFG. Hopefully it’ll do better for Chaosium.

Personally I'm liking the format used by Anachronism (link). You get the starter box with a mat, two sets of playable cards, and a die. Boosters are fixed sets based around a character from history or myth. It's more of a "non-collectible collectible card game".

I do like having rules in a separate booklet though.

A problem with this approach though is a store might end up with (say for a Traveller game of this sort) all the K’Kree and Vilani packs unsold while not being able to keep the Aslan, Solomani, and Vargr packs in stock.

The Hiver packs will not be noticed but you will purchase every single one on the shelf. <Hiver hand wiggle> Especially the one with the blue soccer ball card.

Every Hiver pack has a blue soccer ball card.

(*ahem*)

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Manax Darkhstarr:
Illustrated ship trading cards or even just stat cards would be nice. So would be a Classic Traveller Gamemaster's shield.

I like the examples linked to so far and the Baron's trading cards are very handy, esp. for the price. Traveller has dabbled with using index cards before but I think illustrated trading card size cards would be more appealing and just as, if not more, useful.

As for a CT gaming screen, QLI at one time mentioned one when the T20 screen was being worked on. It's either been canceled or just set aside for now.

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Baron Saarthuran von Gushiddan:
I also did a set of monopoly like cards for the Night Parliament Game (which was a flop, BTW) to show the individual holdings of the noble PCs...

Too bad. To me a "higher view" game like that is one of the few things I think pbem would do better than chat or tabletop gaming. I was busy in other games at the time IIRC.

Cards, virtual or real, could be very helpful in such a game. I always have liked handouts and such for a rpg ever since Call of Cthulhu, which usually had a handouts section in each book.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Nobility, It turned out was quite a thing to handle for the PC. Hiring attendants alone, and assigning them to various tasks was a frustrating process, as was the proper management of bodyguards, yachts, factories, and all sorts of other holdings... One player, an Aslan, had at least 15 Wives (it would literally be unthinkable for him not to be married) , and thier attendants, and entourages, at least 8 of his wives didn't even speak Galanglic!

So it ain't all goin to parties and Art shows!

 

[DElrick]

quote:
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Originally posted by Manax Darkhstarr:
Illustrated ship trading cards or even just stat cards would be nice. So would be a Classic Traveller Gamemaster's shield.
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One of the few JG things that I kept was the CT GM's shield. It's showing it's age and looking a bit patched-up now though.

I like the idea of data cards for starships and weapons. Maybe characters too, although they might be less useful.

I currently use index cards for weapon and ship stats. I also have the old character cards that came with Tarsus and Beltstrike. None have pictures though.

Most useful (to me anyway) would be cards for alien races and animals. I like to be abe to show my players pictures of what they see and it would make things easier than holding up a page from a book/magazine and trying to cover the game stats...

Cheers

David

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I'm not sure how well data cards would work in the real world. They're too easy to lose or get damaged, and if you've got more than a few dozen it could take a while to find the one you want.

OTOH, if they're colour-coded (say, red for guns, blue for ships etc), and they're cheap to replace, maybe it'll work.

Blank ones you can fill in yourself would be handy.

<ping! lightbulb appears!>

Get a cheap pack of playing cards and some suitably-sized labels, scan some appropriate artwork, print the art and stats onto the labels, stick them onto the cards, et viola!

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Or, you can just buy card stock that is perforated into the right size, Andrew. It would save several steps.... I know you can get business card size, and I am pretty positive you can get index card size, too.