mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Thanks for that Aramis
What was wrong with CT?
- Thread starter manley_t
- Start date
While the the debate over what was wrong/right with CT will probably go on for a long time, but let me over my problems with the game.
-Character generation: very inflexible, and you usually ended up with a pc not to your dreams, too random. You want to create Han Solo, instead you got Gopher with steward-5 in skills. This also lead to some very odd party mixes. Former admirals in a group of a 2 term other, army forward observer, a marine and maybe a scout.
-The setting: seemed kind of sterile, everything was the same. For example, the Scout service had only one type of scout ship? For an empire of 10,000 worlds there should have been various types of ships, in size, age, etc. Now some could say that a GM should make up his own, true, but GDW did not put any resources into that either. The empire also seemed very static, no ongoing rebellions, wars, noble intrigues, etc. Given human nature you would have thought there would have been something going on all the time. A few of the adventures were of megacorporations hiring the pc's for job (foreshadowing cyberpunk rpg's). But truthfully, if you have access to multi-billions of credits, you should be able to afford a strike on call all of the time, that would be completely untraceable instead of the some guys who just came into the local starport.
CT was good for when it came out, but it failed to grow and change with the gamers in a lot of areas.
-Character generation: very inflexible, and you usually ended up with a pc not to your dreams, too random. You want to create Han Solo, instead you got Gopher with steward-5 in skills. This also lead to some very odd party mixes. Former admirals in a group of a 2 term other, army forward observer, a marine and maybe a scout.
-The setting: seemed kind of sterile, everything was the same. For example, the Scout service had only one type of scout ship? For an empire of 10,000 worlds there should have been various types of ships, in size, age, etc. Now some could say that a GM should make up his own, true, but GDW did not put any resources into that either. The empire also seemed very static, no ongoing rebellions, wars, noble intrigues, etc. Given human nature you would have thought there would have been something going on all the time. A few of the adventures were of megacorporations hiring the pc's for job (foreshadowing cyberpunk rpg's). But truthfully, if you have access to multi-billions of credits, you should be able to afford a strike on call all of the time, that would be completely untraceable instead of the some guys who just came into the local starport.
CT was good for when it came out, but it failed to grow and change with the gamers in a lot of areas.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
That's what house rules are for
I doubt if I've played a game "straight out of the box" for years now - and that includes all rpgs, not just Traveller.
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Well, jackleg, I am a pro-random chargen guy - at least partly. It gives you some quirks to play with. Of course, I don't like the idea of totally random characters - hence, house rules. (Rolling for skill, then picking the table, applying attribute rolls where you want, etc.)
As for the Scout ship, well the idea is that an Imperium that is over 1000yo (and is only at TL15) is a pretty stagnant place. Everything tends to settle toward a design that works, without much innovation. So, you don't get Fords, BMWs, Toyotas, etc. - you get Model Ts. Just remember, you can have it in any color you want, as long as that color is black.
As for the Scout ship, well the idea is that an Imperium that is over 1000yo (and is only at TL15) is a pretty stagnant place. Everything tends to settle toward a design that works, without much innovation. So, you don't get Fords, BMWs, Toyotas, etc. - you get Model Ts. Just remember, you can have it in any color you want, as long as that color is black.
What we also get is potential information overload. A single world alone has the potential to fill a huge book with maps, charts, government agencies, corporate intrigues, cartels, and criminals.
But no matter how much preparation or detail you have, your group is going to nullify vast swaths of it when the game is on. So Classic Traveller provided a skeleton, and the referee needed the imagination to fill in the gaps -- preferably with thought-out plot elements that complement the gameplay preferences of the players themselves. Careful detail to more universally occurring places are helpful, too, such as a few generic but fleshed-out pubs or TAS hostels, and a list of familiar and one-shot NPCs.
Two to four sentences about each world in a subsector could also go a long way in fleshing out an otherwise sterile Imperium.
But no matter how much preparation or detail you have, your group is going to nullify vast swaths of it when the game is on. So Classic Traveller provided a skeleton, and the referee needed the imagination to fill in the gaps -- preferably with thought-out plot elements that complement the gameplay preferences of the players themselves. Careful detail to more universally occurring places are helpful, too, such as a few generic but fleshed-out pubs or TAS hostels, and a list of familiar and one-shot NPCs.
Two to four sentences about each world in a subsector could also go a long way in fleshing out an otherwise sterile Imperium.
polypterus
SOC-8
That's what house rules are for
I doubt if I've played a game "straight out of the box" for years now - and that includes all rpgs, not just Traveller.
We basically do the same thing. We run hero system characters in the Traveler universe. I find that players much prefer to design character given X points than roll one up randomly. It's pretty easy just to add/translate the basic traveler skills to the hero system skill list.
I doubt if I've played a game "straight out of the box" for years now - and that includes all rpgs, not just Traveller.
We basically do the same thing. We run hero system characters in the Traveler universe. I find that players much prefer to design character given X points than roll one up randomly. It's pretty easy just to add/translate the basic traveler skills to the hero system skill list.
I've run a few "Out of the Box": Pendragon, T&T (Ok, more correctly, the house rules I've been using for years made it into the 5.5 rules); 2300AD; D&DCyclopedia/Mystara.
Traveller? I quit running traveller straight out of the box when TNE became the primary ruleset.
L5R: all the rules I use are from the rulebooks... but some are from 1st ed and some from second...
Traveller? I quit running traveller straight out of the box when TNE became the primary ruleset.
L5R: all the rules I use are from the rulebooks... but some are from 1st ed and some from second...
Maladominus
SOC-14 1K
It's not GDWs job to flesh out the entire universe in detail. That's the GMs job to "fill in the blanks".... or oftentimes it's the job of the 3rd party licensee who sells you those supplements!
GDW's job was simple: it gave you a nice functional galaxy and just enough background history to play in. It provided you the skeleton framework where you and your playergroup could adventure in. The imaginative/creative GM filled in the rest.
I liked the OTU.... exactly for that reason.
GDW's job was simple: it gave you a nice functional galaxy and just enough background history to play in. It provided you the skeleton framework where you and your playergroup could adventure in. The imaginative/creative GM filled in the rest.
I liked the OTU.... exactly for that reason.
M
Malenfant
Guest
Well, you can't really be a munchkin in Traveller unless you insist on buying an FGMP and Battle Dress...
Min-maxing is impossible since chargen is completely random and the player has extremely little influence on the results (if any at all).
And you're probably more likely to see 'setting lawyers' who'll dig up some obscure bit of canon that screws your game over than rules lawyers in CT
Malenfant forgets/ignores/underrates the player choices over continuing the term, and when you get cascades to pick from (about 1 in 8 cascade in CT, about 1 in 3 in MT, for reference), choice of table, and choice of career.
CT isn't TOTALLY random. Just mostly so. Less so when using advanced careers.
It does DRASTICALLY reduce munchking. However, it is still present in a few joes... the can and will continue to roll on the same table till they fail to reenlist, die from aging, or get the skill they want.
Munchkin power increased a lot with MT due to the higher choice levels, but still is below your average AD&D2 or 3E games level by orders of magnitude. And IME, less than any point based system, as well.
CT isn't TOTALLY random. Just mostly so. Less so when using advanced careers.
It does DRASTICALLY reduce munchking. However, it is still present in a few joes... the can and will continue to roll on the same table till they fail to reenlist, die from aging, or get the skill they want.
Munchkin power increased a lot with MT due to the higher choice levels, but still is below your average AD&D2 or 3E games level by orders of magnitude. And IME, less than any point based system, as well.
M
Malenfant
Guest
Because that's not based on choice in most cases. You have to roll to see if you get re-enlisted after you want to leave.
Your choices are at the mercy of the dice - you can choose to take them, but the dice will determine whether you will or not. That isn't really choice, IMO.
While we can state all the things that are wrong with CT until the Empire of Man begins. I think most of us could, if we had to run CT and just given the LBB or TB, could come up with house rules to correct chargen, combat, and a few other things in about a day or so.
The real problem may have been with CT is that it was tied to the 3rd Imperium and nothing else. What if GDW had released other setting using the CT rules? We might have had some rule revisions sooner than MT. What if we had a setting that had FTL communications? Or an alien dominated one? Just as TSR let AD&D go beyond Greyhawk, Traveller should have gone beyond the 3rd Imperium. IF that had been the case, we might be looking forward to the next rule revision to update our rules instead of replace them.
I posted on this site 'who was the market for t5?' and a lot of people wondered along with me. What I am trying to say is overall there are things wrong with CT that we all know of and love/hate. Just like those who love a Ford Model T. It was good for its time, but better things have come out since then. I say if you like CT, play it and if you do not, run Traveller with whatever system you and your group love, the Zho thought police will get you soon enough.
The real problem may have been with CT is that it was tied to the 3rd Imperium and nothing else. What if GDW had released other setting using the CT rules? We might have had some rule revisions sooner than MT. What if we had a setting that had FTL communications? Or an alien dominated one? Just as TSR let AD&D go beyond Greyhawk, Traveller should have gone beyond the 3rd Imperium. IF that had been the case, we might be looking forward to the next rule revision to update our rules instead of replace them.
I posted on this site 'who was the market for t5?' and a lot of people wondered along with me. What I am trying to say is overall there are things wrong with CT that we all know of and love/hate. Just like those who love a Ford Model T. It was good for its time, but better things have come out since then. I say if you like CT, play it and if you do not, run Traveller with whatever system you and your group love, the Zho thought police will get you soon enough.
Here's what I think was wrong with it: first, the technology scale seems skewed: for example, I think that a video screen communicator, which for MT is TL 14, could easily be done by TL 9-10, if not earlier - the main reason that a video screen from TL 14 would be different from an earlier one is that it would be a free-floating holoprojection than a video screen. This is especially true on computers, but I've created whole topics on it so I'll keep discussion there.
The other thing is the comparative lack of skills. I'd prefer rolling once a year for skills and special duty (rolling for promotion should, but that's optional to me). That way you can have a character who has enough skills to be competent in a comparatively short time.
Jackleg's pretty much right about the fixes; my only bugaboo would be fixing the computer rules (I like the GURPS 3E rules but have no idea how to apply them to CT).
The other thing is the comparative lack of skills. I'd prefer rolling once a year for skills and special duty (rolling for promotion should, but that's optional to me). That way you can have a character who has enough skills to be competent in a comparatively short time.
Jackleg's pretty much right about the fixes; my only bugaboo would be fixing the computer rules (I like the GURPS 3E rules but have no idea how to apply them to CT).
Avatar0519
SOC-1
I liked CT but always found the 2D6 system way too limitting. I love the T20 system. It makes it compatable with other systems. I can have a Azhanti high Lightning Cruiser slug it out with a Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars and not need a book to tell me how to convert them. I also like that they keep the basics of High Guard and the UWP so it goes from 2D6 to T20 quite smoothly. I'd like to see some materials for T20 versons of Tree krakens, Chamax, and so forth.
As much as I love CT, there are real problems with the game. Some are simple direct problems, others are far more spanning.
Lets look at some of the simpler problems. Character Generation and Advancement. In D&D, you start out with a weak character and through adventuring build a hero by going up levels. When you go up you get new abilities. In Traveller, in particular with CT Basic Characters, Terms are like levels. You get 1-2 skills every 4 years. Once play begins, 4 years of game time to get a skill is painfully slow.
Secondly along these lines, its too easy to have a nice character then blow a survival roll and have to start over. Or its too easy to fail a re-enlistment role and your starting play with 1-2 total skills while the other players who managed 3-5 terms have much better characters.
On a grander scale, to correct a few of these, the game was hacked on. Its like taking a small software program and continuing to add to it until its a large program rather than building the large program from scratch. The prior will be buggy and hard to maintain where as the latter will be much better. CT + books 4-7 + supplements 1-13 created a lot of inconsistancies in particular with character generation. Books 4-7 added advanced characters that gained skills 1 per year on average and had more depth, yet CoTI, Supplement 4 gave us 12 new "Characters" to play but they remained Basic characters. What combat system do we use? Striker? Mayday? Snapshot?
So it was natural to want to fix the problems by re-writing the rules in one standard form. MT while bringing all of the CT rules under one set of core books and standardizing the char gen, didn't fix the over all problems with the Char gen: Advancement, premature death/end of char gen, etc.
TNE was a grand attempt to solve the problem, but it wasn't Traveller, it was TW2K in the Traveller Universe.
T:Gurps and T20 are like TNE in that they bring their rules to the Traveller Universe.
That leaves us with T4 which should have solved all of our ills. T4 had a chance to do what was needed but it just never got the momentum. It showed up at a time of decline in all game systems.
T20 is Traveller's best hope for a long life. Its the only game system getting any real attention.
I'll give T5 a look, but what would help is not another set of rules, but more detail about the universe. I would by books that were more universially usable but say flushed out a sector or subsector. I would buy books on aliens. Star Wars and Star Trek have lots of aliens. Traveller has about 5-6 races. While of course the documented alien races are the majors, still it would be nice to have an ice planet with blue skinned white haired aliens with antanne and a nasty dispostion.
Lets look at some of the simpler problems. Character Generation and Advancement. In D&D, you start out with a weak character and through adventuring build a hero by going up levels. When you go up you get new abilities. In Traveller, in particular with CT Basic Characters, Terms are like levels. You get 1-2 skills every 4 years. Once play begins, 4 years of game time to get a skill is painfully slow.
Secondly along these lines, its too easy to have a nice character then blow a survival roll and have to start over. Or its too easy to fail a re-enlistment role and your starting play with 1-2 total skills while the other players who managed 3-5 terms have much better characters.
On a grander scale, to correct a few of these, the game was hacked on. Its like taking a small software program and continuing to add to it until its a large program rather than building the large program from scratch. The prior will be buggy and hard to maintain where as the latter will be much better. CT + books 4-7 + supplements 1-13 created a lot of inconsistancies in particular with character generation. Books 4-7 added advanced characters that gained skills 1 per year on average and had more depth, yet CoTI, Supplement 4 gave us 12 new "Characters" to play but they remained Basic characters. What combat system do we use? Striker? Mayday? Snapshot?
So it was natural to want to fix the problems by re-writing the rules in one standard form. MT while bringing all of the CT rules under one set of core books and standardizing the char gen, didn't fix the over all problems with the Char gen: Advancement, premature death/end of char gen, etc.
TNE was a grand attempt to solve the problem, but it wasn't Traveller, it was TW2K in the Traveller Universe.
T:Gurps and T20 are like TNE in that they bring their rules to the Traveller Universe.
That leaves us with T4 which should have solved all of our ills. T4 had a chance to do what was needed but it just never got the momentum. It showed up at a time of decline in all game systems.
T20 is Traveller's best hope for a long life. Its the only game system getting any real attention.
I'll give T5 a look, but what would help is not another set of rules, but more detail about the universe. I would by books that were more universially usable but say flushed out a sector or subsector. I would buy books on aliens. Star Wars and Star Trek have lots of aliens. Traveller has about 5-6 races. While of course the documented alien races are the majors, still it would be nice to have an ice planet with blue skinned white haired aliens with antanne and a nasty dispostion.
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