What would you do different?

[Carlobrand]

Simple question. What would you do different if you could rewrite the rules.

CT Book 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ..., plus Striker. Not MegaTrav, but you can mine MegaTrav for things to add or change in CT. Not GURPS or Mongoose or so forth, but you can mine them too.

For example: slashing the Striker armor conversion and megawatt per EP values so Book-2 missiles make more sense. If it were cut to 100 Mw per EP, a laser could still reach out to 500,000 km in space, an armor rating of 0 in High Guard could be equal to a 20 in Striker (6 cm off steel) and would behave more similarly between the two games: a missile could actually hit and do damage the way it's supposed to.

Or, sandcasters only affect missile fire.

Or, a natural 2 on a High Guard to-hit roll always hits regardless of the target's modifiers, and a High Guard damage roll of 2 results in a Weapon-1 hit regardless of the armor level of the target ship.

Or, the spinal mount extra roll rule is null and void.

 

[Otto Harkaman]

Nevermind

 

[PFVA63]

"What would I do different". Hmmm, that's a lot to consider, and I'd probably have to think it over for awhile. But as a starting point, I think I'd redo a lot of the ship design stuff [maybe a little along the lines of the way stuff is done in Mongoose Traveller, especially with the Capital Ship add ons included in High Guard that you can apply to the smaller ship designs based on the rules from the Core rulebook].

In general I think I'd cap ship design at something mid sized and try and combine Bk 2 and Bk 5 designs into something a bit more coherent and uniform, with maybe alternate sizing rules for some military vs some commercial systems, I'd also try and provide at least some level of differentiation for commercial, military, and exploratory sensors as well. I'd also like to see some stuff added for typical life savings systems and life support systems, including requirements for stuff like lifeboats or lifepods for ships carrying passengers, as well as maybe some scale efficiency benefits for some systems.

As for the actual ship design rules, I think it might be nice if when drafting those rules, the authors have a couple designs drawn up using some initial/rough guidelines as well as just some basic common sense judgement. From these I'd then try and draw some more refined rules to better address how bigger ships maybe more be able to accommodate some stuff more (or perhaps even less) efficient than smaller sized ships.

Additionally, I'd also try and revise the small craft rules to first address what is included within the hull volume of the small craft and then from there give rules for defining how big a space is required onboard the parent hull to accommodate that small craft, taking into account that the small craft could either be attached externally, fitted into a conformal bay, or docked into a hangar (similar to a modern ocean going warship).

In doing so, a small craft that is externally docked or fitted into a conformal bay would likely only require a space equal (or near equal to its internal volume) while a craft fitted into a hangar will likely require a lot of extra space to account for safety envelope clearances (all around & above the craft etc).

I'd also try and include some for of allowance for landing gear on ships and craft (if fitted), air locks, and space requirements for cargo handling equipment etc.

 

[mike wightman]

I could just cut and paste from past threads, or provide a link to my house rules folder , but here is what I would do if I won the lottery and could buy the rights from MWM.

Keep the format of three little black books, but make each of them the maximum page count ever for a LBB - 56 pages.

Characters - same as LBB1 but with the careers from S4 added. Add the MT special duty line to the character generation tables and have a special events matrix.
Allow a points buy option, an ironman option and an anagathics option. Enlisted promotion per term should be allowed.
Expand the skill 0 rule.
Skills/tasks - keep the skill list CT small and have a simple task resolution system with notes for the referee about how to expand it in LBB3 (coming soon)
[shameless plug - I use don't roll a 2, roll 8+, roll 12+, roll a 12 and we'll talk about it ]
Combat - a slightly modified version of T4 has worked well for me for years now. Weapons do from 2-6d damage, armour acts as damage dice reduction, wounds are applied to stats with a description of what a str hit means, an end hit means, a dex hit means. Wound recovery and medical treatment must be included.
Equipment - a selection of typical equipment for PC adventuring should be in this book. All the weapons form LBB1 and 4 should be included.
Experience - the experience rules should be moved to this book and slightly expanded.

 

[mike wightman]

And now for what I'd do to LBB2.
Vehicles - add a new section for vehicles across the TL range with rules for modifying them. Vehicle combat rules that scale with character combat and starship combat.
Starships - LBB2 with added extras. Provide options for fission power plants, solar collector based jump drives, the full list of military weapons, screens, armour, laboratories, CIC, machine shops etc. bay weapons and small spinals for the 5-12kt ships at the top of the size range.
Space combat - range band system taken from Starter Edition, a task for different characters ro do during combat so there is more player involvement. Surface damage table, internal damage table, radiation damage table
Computers - I like the computer programs rules and how they add to ship combat, I'd add a few more programs though.
Trade and Commerce - leave it as it is for now

 

[mike wightman]

An finally LBB3 gets the treatment.
Tasks - a referees guide to running games, how to use the dice to make stuff up, how to use the dice to resolve stuff. LBB0 and TTA are pretty good sources for cut n paste for this bit.
Encounters - expand slightly with a "how to make an evening's adventure using the NPC reaction table and three rolls on the patron table"
Animal encounters - leave it as it is
World design - this needs a few rules added to make some of the more ridiculous randomly generated outcomes less likely.
Equipment - all the stuff that isn't in LBB1 with one major addition, how to modify stuff for TL changes.
Drugs and character enhancement- may as well put this back in here and add some further character enhancement possibilities using bioengineering, cybernetics etc.
Psionics - the T4 version is really good, cut/paste

 

[aramis]

Me, I'd start with going to 5LBB's... at the 60 page size.

LBB 1 Characters & Combat:
Char Gen - straight from MT basic.
Combat - Striker, but with a damage stat ala MT (which equals the dice from CT 2E). If Pen + 2d6 -7 ≥ AV, do damage. = is x1/2, 1-2 is x1; 3-5, x2; 6+, x3.
Gear

LBB2 Worlds:
Worlds - add pop mods for high habitability and low habitability by rolling an extra die and keeping either high 2d or low 2d.
Include Expanded System Gen.
Mapping of subsectors and worlds (from T5)
Animals - just convert to hits and AV, otherwise unchanged
Travel: upgrade to tasks. Rip from T20
Trade: T20 except for goods determination - that's MT tables, but with prices.

LBB3 Technical Architecture:
T20 ship design, but with formulaic spinals and bays.
Vehicle Design (simplified and parallel to ship design.)
Cybernetics (from TNE's FF&S and 2300 Earth/Cybertech sourcebook)

LBB4 Adventures:
Task System (MT-ish, but 3 point breaks to match striker - Sim 5+, Rout 8+, Chal 11+, Form, 14+, Stag. 17+, Near-impossible 20+
Psionics ripped from T4.
Drugs
Encounters.

LBB 5 Setting:
A two subsector setting chunk
Library data.
THe overview of the 3I, and the Emperors List, Nobles article, and some extra info.

 

[Otto Harkaman]

Along with Cybernetics, Eugenics should be added. One thing that I think TSR Buck Rogers XXVc was right about.

 

[lspitz]

CT is a good starting point.

I'd increase the number and range of skills available in chargen compared to LBB1. They seem pretty miserly at times. Not sure if I'd go all the way to the complexity of the chargen systems in LBB4-7.

I'd introduce more careers to choose from. Folding in the ones from Supplement 4 would be a good start (subject to the same expansion of number and range of skills as the six basic careers from LBB1).

A unified task system would be nice. I've looked at the Universal Game Mechanic thread, and something along the lines of the UGM would work just fine for me. I might just lift it wholesale.

A simple experience system would be nice. Haven't given much thought to the mechanics.

I'd seriously consider making freight and passenger charges proportional to the shipping distance. This means examining the trade system carefully to be sure that it doesn't break (something I haven't gotten to), but my gut feeling is that the PCs come out ahead, but not too far ahead. Would need a fair amount of finesse.



LBB3/LBB6 worldgen would get an overhaul. This is probably where I'd do the most hacking:

- I don't like the way you can generate "cannonball" worlds at the low end. Anything below size 4 that doesn't have a strong tidal power source driving outgassing shouldn't have much in the way of atmosphere or hydrosphere.

- I don't like the fact that the atmosphere types are overloaded- the UWP digit mixes pressure and composition, and the composition is never explicitly defined. They need to be separated.

- Planetary orbits everywhere are all exactly the same as in the Sol System? Really? That has to be fixed. It wasn't even realistic when it was published 30+ years ago.

- I'd bring the distribution of stellar spectral types more in line with reality. Three-quarters of all stars are M dwarfs. Everything else is comparatively rare.

- I'd fix the greenhouse effect calculations in LBB6, and add rules to handle tidally locked planets of red dwarf suns (and there will be a LOT of them). Recent research indicates that they don't play by the same climate rules as freely rotating planets, and they can remain habitable at insolation levels twice what you'd expect to send them into a runaway greenhouse condition under the old assumptions.


There are a few other minor things that I might fiddle with, but those are the biggies for me.

 

[McPerth]

FIrst things that come to my mind (I have not read Striker, so I leave it out):

Bk1: Basic CharGen: essentially changing it for MT's.

Bk2: Ship design: making PP fuel dependent on the PP size, not PP number (as it is, the same PP needs more fuel the smaller is the ship). This has been fixed in the changes MgT introduced.

Bk2/Bk5 ship design: keep the same ratio of tonnage for MD/JD for both (they are reversed)

Bk2/Bk5 Starship combat: using something in the way of HP/maximum damage sustained to make ship destoying (vs ship inoperative but easily repairable) more usual (talked about that in multiple threads).

Bk5 Starship combat: allow for an abstract system for fleet combat, as Bk4 does for ground combat (while this could be more a thing for TCS tan for Bk5 proper).

Bk7: forfeit full trade system (also talked about in multiple threads).

 

[PFVA63]

After looking over others posts here, and thinking about it a bit more I think I like the idea of a small book format maybe three hole punched to allow them to fit into a small binder. That way you could keep them all together most of the time, but can pull out specific broad sections (such as "characters and Combat", "Starships", and "Worlds and Adventures") as single bound units.

Trying to do a little brainstorming I was thinking that maybe for the 1st "booklet" ("Characters and (Personal) Combat") I'd maybe rethink a lot of stuff, perhaps even going to have stats being rolled up using 1D6's instead of 2D6's. That way Stats and Skills should be closer in scale. Otherwise, I'd probably suggest rolling up characters similar to the original LBB1 and/or Supplement 4 and I'd also consider trying to simplify and reduce some of the skills into simpler broad categories.

 

[lspitz]

After looking over others posts here, and thinking about it a bit more I think I like the idea of a small book format maybe three hole punched to allow them to fit into a small binder. That way you could keep them all together most of the time, but can pull out specific broad sections (such as "characters and Combat", "Starships", and "Worlds and Adventures") as single bound units.

Trying to do a little brainstorming I was thinking that maybe for the 1st "booklet" ("Characters and (Personal) Combat") I'd maybe rethink a lot of stuff, perhaps even going to have stats being rolled up using 1D6's instead of 2D6's. That way Stats and Skills should be closer in scale. Otherwise, I'd probably suggest rolling up characters similar to the original LBB1 and/or Supplement 4 and I'd also consider trying to simplify and reduce some of the skills into simpler broad categories.

I'm thinking that rolling up stats as 1d6 will have repercussions. At the very least, you're going to have to refigure all the canonical DMs for stats listed in the rules. It also takes the 2d6 bell curve distribution out of the equation, which means that there will be no such thing as an average stat value, and character stats will not cluster around a mean (a central assumption of the original game design).

It's a change in the essential philosophy of how you handle tasks and combat. You're switching from an average-based system dependent on a bell curve distribution to a linear 0-based system. It does line up stat values numerically with the skills more directly, for sure. But it requires a reworking of the way that the task and combat rolls are done, because the statistics of the die rolls and mods will be very different from the CT version. It can certainly be made workable, but the question is, is it worth it enough to you to go through the trouble of hunting down the all the points in the rules where the classical assumptions no longer hold and having to rewrite them? That's a lot of nitpicky work.

Linear distributions are just as viable as bell curves (given a coherent set of supporting rules), but task resolution and combat in the resulting game will necessarily have a different feel to it. If a linear system gives you the sort of task/combat mechanics that you prefer in your own game, then go for it.

 

[robject]

Taking ideas from Mike and Wil. My uniting concept: everything uses the same task mechanic.

LBB1

* 10 careers, more generalized than S4. Noble, Rogue, Scouts, Army, Marines, Navy, Merchant, Agent, Entertainer, Citizen.
* Skills - keep the list short.
* Tasks - standardized. Benchmarks for task difficulties: ranges, duration, environment, altitude/depth, etc.
* Combat tasks. Armor soaks damage.
* Armor and weapons list.

LBB2

* A generalized drive potential table, accompanied by open-ended formula.
* A "small craft" drive potential table for hulls 10 to 90 tons.
* Weapons and defenses and emplacements. Weapons and defenses work with Personal Combat, and work the same way. A simple mass fire rule is used instead of explicit batteries.
* Basic Vehicles list and modification rules.
* Stage Effects and Quality Ratings.

LBB3

* The Equipment List (including drugs).
* Trade - some mashup of Merchant Prince and Book 3.
* Animals re-worked to work with Personal Combat.
* World design, with more mapping resources.
* Psionics use the task mechanic. Difficulty increases with range/duration/effect increase.

 

[McPerth]

* Combat tasks. Armor soaks damage.

Making armor soak damage has (IMHO) the problem of making weapons with good stopping power, but low penetration quite letal against armored opponents. If this option is used, I'd suggest giving weapons armor multipliers, as in T2K (after all, it was also GDW).

* Trade - some mashup of Merchant Prince and Book 3.

As now, the trade options I've liked the best are Don McKinney's variant for MT and MgT's.

 

[lspitz]

Hmmm, that's three posters who have argued for keeping the skill list short.

LBB1 + Supplement 4 have around 40 distinct skills (42, to be precise, if I didn't lose count). Not sure how many more are introduced in LBBs 4-7. Some day I'll get around to counting those too.

I think a balance needs to be struck, between too few skill choices and too many. Where that balance lies is going to depend on your own tastes and inclinations. Are you a lumper, or a splitter? I'm guessing that if left to my own devices, I'd end up with a list of about 100 skills, and that anything more would feel excessive to me. Anything less than about 50 would feel incomplete.

One thing that has always struck me as peculiar about the Scientist career is that scientists don't actually have access to any science skills (CT utterly lacks them). Their primary skill, defined as "the skill most likely to be rolled multiple times during chargen, is Computer. I think Traveller could use something like a Research skill (good for journalist and detective types as well as scientists/scholars), and I'd allow scientist characters to pick a specialty (Biology, Physics, Planetology, Archaeology or whatever). I wouldn't necessarily define a science skill list; I'd have a placeholder in the chargen tables labelled "Science Skill" and let the player pick anything within reason that fit the character conception.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

I was actually kind of just thinking something along similar lines. In general I'd be fine with some general skills like "frontier living" or "shipboard life" where you could maybe give a player +1 for doing typical tasks that someone who has lived on the frontier might know (like trying to start a fire or locate water etc) or someone who has spent time on a starship for extended periods of time (like a merchant, navy scout or marine character may have picked up (like avoiding space sickness, making minor repairs or other such stuff) while someone who hasn't had those experiences might have to try as an inexperienced character.

For scientists, journalist, bureaucrats, or regular citizens I'd be happy for a simple "Citizen Career" as long as somewhere in the skill lists are something along the lines of maybe a generic "Career" item where, if that is rolled the player can pick a specific focus that they will get a bonus on. (For example, if a character is meant to be a scientist and he rolls a generic "Career" skill the player could say that may character is a chemist )or at least took chemistry classes) so if a task comes up where experience in chemistry seems like it might help he should get a +1 to that task. Or similarly if the character is supposed to be an expert in "Ancient Studies" or maybe is just a really dedicated Ancients Buff he may be able to argue for a +1 bonus on tasks related to understanding or figuring out an Ancient artifact, etc.)

The main point here being though, that hopefully these don't have to be a separate skill but rather hopefully the players and GM can use common sense and just apply the bonus for using this skill for appropriately related tasks rather than having to have multiple separate specific individual tasks, and multiple different character types and skill tables for each different character type.

Anyway just some thoughts.

 

[Carlobrand]

I think I'd like to kill the launch tube. Never made a lot of sense. Maybe replace it with a traffic control center.

 

[lspitz]

Hi,

I was actually kind of just thinking something along similar lines. In general I'd be fine with some general skills like "frontier living" or "shipboard life" where you could maybe give a player +1 for doing typical tasks that someone who has lived on the frontier might know (like trying to start a fire or locate water etc) or someone who has spent time on a starship for extended periods of time (like a merchant, navy scout or marine character may have picked up (like avoiding space sickness, making minor repairs or other such stuff) while someone who hasn't had those experiences might have to try as an inexperienced character.

For scientists, journalist, bureaucrats, or regular citizens I'd be happy for a simple "Citizen Career" as long as somewhere in the skill lists are something along the lines of maybe a generic "Career" item where, if that is rolled the player can pick a specific focus that they will get a bonus on. (For example, if a character is meant to be a scientist and he rolls a generic "Career" skill the player could say that may character is a chemist )or at least took chemistry classes) so if a task comes up where experience in chemistry seems like it might help he should get a +1 to that task. Or similarly if the character is supposed to be an expert in "Ancient Studies" or maybe is just a really dedicated Ancients Buff he may be able to argue for a +1 bonus on tasks related to understanding or figuring out an Ancient artifact, etc.)

The main point here being though, that hopefully these don't have to be a separate skill but rather hopefully the players and GM can use common sense and just apply the bonus for using this skill for appropriately related tasks rather than having to have multiple separate specific individual tasks, and multiple different character types and skill tables for each different character type.

Anyway just some thoughts.

Something like a Career skill could work, as long as the GM doesn't let it become a hat that dispenses an infinite supply of rabbits. If your scientist character is an astrophysicist on Tuesday, he shouldn't be a marine biologist on Wednesday.

I don't mind the use of broadly defined generic skills (and CT already has a couple built in, like Jack-o-T) within reason. It cuts down on the paperwork. And I'll admit, the point at which I draw the line on the need for lumping vs. splitting is pretty subjective.

Playing Devil's Advocate here: it's instructive to ask yourself what happens when you apply the Career skill concept to CT careers that historically have specific skills defining them. Would you be comfortable if your Marine had a generic "Career" skill instead of Gun Combat, Tactics and Battle Dress? It is possible to make an argument that no career needs explicit skills defining them; Marines can do "Marine stuff", Scouts can do "Scout stuff", Bureaucrats can do "Bureaucrat stuff", and we all know what those are, right? How far can you pare down the skill list before you reach a reductio ad adsurdum?

Loosely/broadly defined skills have their place, but personally I'm uncertain about whether they make good skills to define a character's career. I can foresee a lot of arguments about character abilities between the players and the GM, and I don't think you want to go that route if it's your character's primary career skill.

 

[robject]

[...]

I think a balance needs to be struck, between too few skill choices and too many. Where that balance lies is going to depend on your own tastes and inclinations. Are you a lumper, or a splitter?

[snip]

re Lumper vs Splitter: That's a good point -- fewer skills often implicitly include a wide number of specializations.

Mike and I both come from the same Old School. While the Book 1 list does feel too short, I think it still works -- especially for old farts like me who just want to play Traveller and have fun with it. Others need more detail.

MegaTraveller handled the problem by using cascades, which works, but I feel that MT went overboard on the list itself. I don't need to see "Halberd" in an official skills list.

And... while I say that I prefer a shorter skill list, I find that Traveller5 has 64 skills, and yet lists another 60-odd specializations from these skills, and implies that more specializations can be added as needed...

 

[McPerth]

MegaTraveller handled the problem by using cascades, which works, but I feel that MT went overboard on the list itself. I don't need to see "Halberd" in an official skills list.

More than cascades, IMHO, it was the included and serves as that handled the problem in MT. I agree few traveller characters would end with halberd skill, but some of them could use that halberd by having polearms skill, that included it, as well as bayonet, spear and pike.

Likewhise, on small ships with limited crew, the Navigator used to mann the sensors (after all both skills are used at different time) thanks to Navigator skill serving as sensor operations (at -1), and so on...