What was wrong with CT?
- Thread starter manley_t
- Start date
some options:
1) Get a copy of the MT player's handbook, and use the CG tables in there. (More cascades, more choices)
2) have them roll the 1d for skill, then pick the table.
it was enough of a problem that MT used more cascades to provide more options. I sometimes use BOTH the above... can get some really tailored characters that way! [/QB][/QUOTE]
Megatraveller is the ONE system of Traaveller I have never owned or played so I have no idea of how that system worked--thanks tho.
Pappy
Sorry, before I realized how many folks answered my question,I was going to answer each one individually, but I don't think I'm up to that so thanks Aramis, Flykiller (neat name), alanb, Sigg Oddra, robject, Ack and daryen--I think I have tried about half of your suggestions in past games.
There are any number of great suggestions tho and I'll offer these as options to my players and see what happens.
Thanks again
Pappy
There are any number of great suggestions tho and I'll offer these as options to my players and see what happens.
Thanks again
Pappy
Well, as I have said before in another post on another thread maybe this one as well, MT has gotten a bad rap because of the rebellion.
It changed chargen and you ended up getting background skills and more skills per term. Normally this is ok but it needed tweaking because you could luck up and get a real badass right off.
It included a task system that was pretty much straight from the Digest Group.
It had an experience system. It was not a perfect one like Andy Slack's Experience system.
The combat system was modified Striker. It had the idea of better hit=better damage. I use that with a tad of Hyphen's Combat System and shades of other ideas for my own house rules.
The Space Combat system did not feel that much different than the standard system.
The design rules tried to not only integrate Book 2 and Book 5 but changed just enough to tick off the gearheads.
It integrated all the supplement stuff into the core rules.
Aramis has a great post with the big laundry list on the MT part of these boards.
Honestly, I love CT but it still needs a good dose of MT ideas, some people liked aspects of the T4 system and finally I like the T5 quick chargen.
The T5 preview of Tasks and Skills are a bit scary if I understand how the task system works under that system from the pdf. It seems overly complicated and contorted.
Sure, change things and spice things up but god the task system is the core of the system mechanics for goodness sakes and Digest Group gave you the model. Use it.
I think other people mentioned that CT did not have enough pictures. I read back over all the posts in this thread and someone said they actually liked the fact there were few pictures. OMG, that is honestly one of the biggest failings of the wonderful LBB's. Not enough kick ass pictures. Hopefully the T20 lads will let Marc use some of the Bryan Gibson stuff. I like his kind of stylized comic bookish style of art a lot.
There is a artist's concept of a new LBB style book that was very cool. It incorporated most of the style features of LBBs but at the same time had a nice picture built onto part of the design. I know it sounds bad but damn it works.
Milleu 200 page with great LBB concept
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
Just the opposite for my experience. Time can go by quickly when spec-trading.
Well, I'd say that's one way to interpret the LBB1 aging table.
The other way to read the table is that you roll the S.T.s against aging each term until the aging penalty for that block of terms (4-7,8-11,12+) takes effect. For example if you miss one throw at 34 and suffer -1 Dex, you don't check aging for Dex again until 50, but continue checking for End and Str. If you manage to skate by without a penalty on one stat, lucky you; but that's unlikely (~3% for 8+).Being an "old timer" I like the randomness. Games are supposed to be a challenge, and the challenge of a role playing game is to play a role. That isn't quite the same thing as fantasizing yourself as such-and-such and trying to force it into the game.
Friggin' munchkins
Seriously, though, let them pick a table, roll 2 dice, and chose one die result or the other.
I don't know anybody who doesn't have some way to lessen the chances of having a cruddy roll in character creation. Where I come from it was usually 4(3) (roll 4 dice, keep 3) rolling stats in AD&D, and 3(2) in Traveller.
In starting one of the most memorable AD&D campaigns I've ever played we did it differently. Simple 3 dice roll, 3 tries. If you didn't like the first roll again, and again if you didn't like the second. With 3 dice, unmodified, it was taking a real chance. I didn't like the 14, or the 13, and wound up with an 8 for Str.
In D&D there was often no difference between an 8 and a 14: penalties come in at 6 and bonuses at 15. But the psychological effect was such that I didn't risk a third throw again unless the second was spit. The character ended up being my first experience playing a Cleric, and I liked it.
With GURPS you wind up playing an "ordinary" character, because there is no chance of being extraordinary. Or perhaps the munchkins like playing 200 point games?
What, you use the rules to design ships?
I think that was the first thing that got tossed.I'd played a few short campaigns with the 3LBB, and then a few years later a MT campaign got started. Shoot, we spent so much time generating the characters in MT that I was tired of it by the time we were actually out there exploring the galaxy. Designing a ship? God, no! We were hard-studyin' college kids (as opposed to slackers) and didn't dream of wasting that much time.
In CT I drew up some ship plans on graph paper, did a rough calculation of tonnages and then used mass ratios to arrive at Man and Jump ratings. Without any supplements LBB2 gives no clues about exact scales, so I started from the calculated volume of a well-known aircraft carrier and rounded up to 10 m³/ton. That was fun!
Just reading the Freelance ship design examples makes my Engineering-trained head hurt. Why kill the game with "realism" that sucks all the fun out?
Speaking of undecipherable strings of characters, I see things on this board like "kk-- hi-- as va- dr- ith? vr? ne? so(++) zh vi da sy A532" and " tc+ t5+ ru ge- 3i c+ jt au+ ls+ pi+ sodavi"
Give a guy a hint?[Edit: minor corrections]
daryen
SOC-14 1K
That is the IMTU code. For an explanation, go here:Originally posted by Straybow:
Speaking of undecipherable strings of characters, I see things on this board like "kk-- hi-- as va- dr- ith? vr? ne? so(++) zh vi da sy A532" and " tc+ t5+ ru ge- 3i c+ jt au+ ls+ pi+ sodavi"
http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/imtuF.html
Happy reading.
re eiladayn's comment/query related to randomness in character generation:
With the primary intention of giving Book 1 characters access to skills introduced later, I developed a list of optional substitutions.
Example:
Admin: Liaison (Army, Marines); Recruiting (Army, Marines, Navy); Legal (Bureaucrat, Diplomat, Merchant); Interrogation (Army, Marines, Navy, Sailor)
This also has the effect of introducing some choices while keeping the odds against rolling very high skill levels.
We did have a character back in the day with an incredible Gunner skill level rolled straight out of Book 1. A "free pick" system is likely to make such specialists more common. I personally think it's balanced by lessened versatility.
Since it seemed an odd lack in a *science* fiction game, a "Science/Academic Discipline" cascade skill was among my first additions. It (along with "Language") is a common substitute for Computer skill.
I also encourage the creation of "personal interest" or "background" skills (normally left at level-0).
If an experienced player has a compelling and well-visualized character concept, I may skip the rules entirely and accept a writeup that's true to the concept. That would probably spell trouble with "munchkins" — less because of potential character powerfulness than because of players' feeling that it wasn't "fair."
I'm one of those who finds the rolling-up process a boost to the imagination. Creating explanations for the results helps me build a biography. The turns of fate give a sense of being "in" the role and the universe even before active play begins.
With the primary intention of giving Book 1 characters access to skills introduced later, I developed a list of optional substitutions.
Example:
Admin: Liaison (Army, Marines); Recruiting (Army, Marines, Navy); Legal (Bureaucrat, Diplomat, Merchant); Interrogation (Army, Marines, Navy, Sailor)
This also has the effect of introducing some choices while keeping the odds against rolling very high skill levels.
We did have a character back in the day with an incredible Gunner skill level rolled straight out of Book 1. A "free pick" system is likely to make such specialists more common. I personally think it's balanced by lessened versatility.
Since it seemed an odd lack in a *science* fiction game, a "Science/Academic Discipline" cascade skill was among my first additions. It (along with "Language") is a common substitute for Computer skill.
I also encourage the creation of "personal interest" or "background" skills (normally left at level-0).
If an experienced player has a compelling and well-visualized character concept, I may skip the rules entirely and accept a writeup that's true to the concept. That would probably spell trouble with "munchkins" — less because of potential character powerfulness than because of players' feeling that it wasn't "fair."
I'm one of those who finds the rolling-up process a boost to the imagination. Creating explanations for the results helps me build a biography. The turns of fate give a sense of being "in" the role and the universe even before active play begins.
I liked parts of MT's chargen process though I must say that the T5 system looks very promising right from the start. Much of what you talk about in terms of more choices and the addition of background skills were there in MT though you could get really lucky and end up with a completely overboard character even in relation with the Max skills rule.
T5 has a lot of potential in chargen, especially if Marc Miller can get some core Alien character generation stuff in there from the get-go.
The quick generation stuff is laid out very nicely.
I like lifepath based chargen too because it almost forces anyone with half an imagination to come up with a real background for their character.
Me too. Though I'd observe that T20 gives as much background fodder as the "original style" versions (CT, MT, T5) and it also lets you build a character who's closer to what you want or to what the party needs. It has the "life story events" like CT etc, but gives you XP for them to spend on levels as you wish rather than giving you skills directly in prior history.
As for quick chargen... I'm in a T5 hybrid game that just had it's first session, using that method. It struck me that T5 is going to have serious balance issues if PCs are built that way. It's balanced assuming that you will roll a random mix of good skills and less useful ones rather than just picking the good ones, and that the more rewarding careers have higher risks. Balance breaks down if PCs can just choose. Not that everyone cares about balance of course, but it's an issue MWM might like to look at.
[Please don't take this as trying to prove that T20 is better or anything, it's just something for the T5 crowd to think about. After playing, the difference I notice most is that CT/MT/T5 is about stats modified by skills and T20 is about skills modified by stats. Sort of "nature vs nurture".]
Please note that randomly generated characters may still pick their skills... and if they mix with prefabs, there ought to be some normalizing going on.
Do prefabs get to roll on the mustering-out tables? Might that be a reasonable counterbalance?
The nice thing about Life Pursuits is it supports what players already do with their characters: specialize them.
I'm very interested in seeing what the aliens rules look like. Will it be a cross between chargen and animal encounter gen?
And I'm anxious about ship design. The usual worries.
Do prefabs get to roll on the mustering-out tables? Might that be a reasonable counterbalance?
The nice thing about Life Pursuits is it supports what players already do with their characters: specialize them.
I'm very interested in seeing what the aliens rules look like. Will it be a cross between chargen and animal encounter gen?
And I'm anxious about ship design. The usual worries.
In our game they missed out on medals etc but got mustering out bennies. OTOH, the GM nicked all our cash money at the start of the game...
If I ran T5 I think I'd say:
- Prefab terms don't get any commission, promotions, medals or mustering out benefits. They don't count as a term served for bennies. You are guaranteed to enlist and survive, and may pick your skills as per quick chargen within the limits set out below.
- You can mix prefab and random terms as you wish. E.g. do a few random terms to get bennies and rank, then one prefab term if you need to buy Rifle skill to sure your sniper can actually shoot.
- Prefab terms can't raise a skill to be higher than the total number of terms served in careers offering that skill. The limit excludes world skills and skills granted automatically (e.g. a three term Marine with Cutlass 1 as a freebie could buy Cutlass 3 in his last term to get Cutlass 4 overall).
- You can't pick JoT in a prefab, you have to roll it. [It's so over-powered in T5 that it needs balancing by scout fatality rates.]
Bill Coffin
SOC-7
My enthusiasm has gotten the better of me, and I'm chining in here without having gone through all of the previous pages first. My apologies in advance.
What's wrong with CT? I mean, really *wrong* with it? Nothing. It's a great game with solid bones, infinitely expandable and simpe to learn and run. The only real problem I had with it for a long time was so much of it was out of print, but with the arrival of the utterly, utterly splendid reprint books, that worry has evaporated.
What are my gripes about CT? Just that the system was expanded in a piecemeal fashion that requires a lot fo page flipping and remembering of small rules add-ons in funny places. but this is not a problem with the game as designed but rather, how it is ultimately laid out. One day, when I have nothing better to do, I will OCR my reprint books and recompile all of the information therein (esp. weapons and equipment listings) so it's a lot easier to search, and I will call it a day.
What could CT use? A clean fusion of the Striker rules and ship combat rules into a single heavy metal combat system that can resolve everything from a guass rifle vs. a jeep to a particle accelerator barbette vs. a ship of the line. That might include huge numbers, but hey, CT uses the eer-elegant mega-credit, so there is hope.
What else could CT use? Incorporating the Snapshot rules as an optional element of combat. Don't like them? Play combat as originally written. like them? Run with 'em. Plug and play RPG design, my friends. It works.
Anything else to add on? Perhaps that cool task resoltion chart Andy Slack came up with for helping GMs determine resolution on the fly. Other than that, I would include an expanded chargen system, ala Mercenary, High Guard, Scout, etc. for all of the Citizens of the Imperium classes, just for kicks. CT chargen is one of the bet minigames in RPG history. Why not run with that?
What's wrong with CT? I mean, really *wrong* with it? Nothing. It's a great game with solid bones, infinitely expandable and simpe to learn and run. The only real problem I had with it for a long time was so much of it was out of print, but with the arrival of the utterly, utterly splendid reprint books, that worry has evaporated.
What are my gripes about CT? Just that the system was expanded in a piecemeal fashion that requires a lot fo page flipping and remembering of small rules add-ons in funny places. but this is not a problem with the game as designed but rather, how it is ultimately laid out. One day, when I have nothing better to do, I will OCR my reprint books and recompile all of the information therein (esp. weapons and equipment listings) so it's a lot easier to search, and I will call it a day.
What could CT use? A clean fusion of the Striker rules and ship combat rules into a single heavy metal combat system that can resolve everything from a guass rifle vs. a jeep to a particle accelerator barbette vs. a ship of the line. That might include huge numbers, but hey, CT uses the eer-elegant mega-credit, so there is hope.
What else could CT use? Incorporating the Snapshot rules as an optional element of combat. Don't like them? Play combat as originally written. like them? Run with 'em. Plug and play RPG design, my friends. It works.
Anything else to add on? Perhaps that cool task resoltion chart Andy Slack came up with for helping GMs determine resolution on the fly. Other than that, I would include an expanded chargen system, ala Mercenary, High Guard, Scout, etc. for all of the Citizens of the Imperium classes, just for kicks. CT chargen is one of the bet minigames in RPG history. Why not run with that?
M
Malenfant
Guest
Because most RPGers nowadays aren't interested in playing minigames to make their characters - they want a nice straightforward chargen system that gives them the characters they want to play, not the ones they're lumbered with by random die rolls? Most of the current generation of gamers just want to get that out of the way and jump right into the game with minimum hassle.
Secrect Cow Level
SOC-12
As for the question of random character skills, why not just let the players pick their skills? I do it in my TRAVELLER games and I've never had problems with it. As for players loading up on one or two skills, either limit the number of levels they may have in any skill (say 3 or 4 at most) or create adventures that require a variety of skills to sucessfully complete. Thus well balanced characters are more useful (and fun to play) than two dimensional ones only good at one thing.
Yes, I have no idea why some old-time folks cannot get the concept that it is tough on those who have not had the books forever to pick up all the bits and pieces for advanced chargen, alien chargen, Striker rules etc..etc..
With a serious dash of the DGP Task system and some talk about how to correlate that into the system in a smooth fashion.
Plug and Play RPG Design and choices are important parts of a good system that are too often ignored.
I would say that a quick chargen system ala T5 is needed nowadays simply because so many people want this. It is a shame but can be merged somewhat with a lifepath based chargen solution.
Both a Task System and advanced chargen in one place is important.
What about supplements and advanced rules and such.
I say this all the rules need to be in one place and supplements just add flavor like 76 Patrons and a Traders and Gunboats with detailed descriptions and deckplans for multiple ships. What about Alien Modules? Sure. If someone has always enjoyed and played an Aslan or Vargr correctly then an Alien Module makes great expansion material. Just don't forget to include basic alien pc chargen in the core rules.
M
Malenfant
Guest
I think if you want to have that option, you may as well have a chargen system that does explicitly allow that, rather than have the players figure out how to do it themselves. The current system just assumes everything will be randomly generated and gives no options to deliberately pick things.
We are talking in the T5 forum so it should be noted it has a very nice quick gen system for allowing players to craft a character.
A much less detailed system has been available for CT in Andy Slack's House Rules as well.
I prefer the random path and how the term concept kind of details out the characters past life. But I also understand the reality of modern role-players and how many prefer crafting a character quickly as opposed to the somewhat burdensome process of rolling a character up.
Similar threads
