Where did I go wrong x2?

[Erai]

As this is my first post on this really pretty-looking forum, let me start with "Hello all!"

Reason I made an account here is that, well, at the moment lil ol sad me may need a little practical, intellectual and/or moral support

I have been trying to get a Traveller campaign going for, oh, about six years now... love the setting! Thing is, all my test-sessions dud so badly that I have not been able to convince any of my -potential- players to actually start a character in a campaign.

I have tried two systems: CT and GT.

Classic Traveller: First (and only) session... Five or six characters died, one after another- during creation, one character ended up as a 22-year old almost unskilled decksweeper, one ended up as Baron such and such, six terms, a bucketload of credits and a Beowulf under his grav belt... and everybody went like oooooookay, that was, erm, fun. Who wants to go out for pizza?

Gave me kind of a hangover, that. Still wonder how that might have gone better...
Crippling characters after missed survival rolls has been considered as an option, but not used- mostly because we were used to balanced parties with characters with "power-levels" that were not too varied.

Second try then: Gurps Traveller. I like Gurps, even if it is mostly for the background material.

But, aaaaanyways. During our test session, we tried out some ship-to-ship combat between an Akkigish Subsidised Merchant and a Stellar class subsidised liner. Which turned out to be exceedingly boring, I'm afraid... it went like poof poof poof with lasers, every missile was easily destroyed by point defense fire. No damage inflicted was great enough to even consider looking at the light damage table, and after, say, 30 minutes of die rolling, the players went like oooooookay, that was, erm, fun. Who wants to go out for pizza?

Since I would really like to give GT another go, the second question (identical to the first) is even more desperate... what did I do wrong?
I mean, GT ship combat hás been designed with thrills and danger in mind, hasn't it?

(btw, there were more tries -stories in themselves, of doom, death, disaster, and desolation, but I think I do know which mistakes I made there at least... firefights with heavy weapons and no body armor= kinda, erm... deadly, we discovered, the hard way )

 

[THHeinrichT1@aol.com]

Hello Erai,

there are several things that come into mind reading your articel.

1) Traveller isn't AD&D, the die roll isn't everything. Especialy on CT, MT, TNE and T4 the Gamesmaster should use his brain instead of letting the dice do the killing. Again... Traveller isn't AD & D... or Paladium for that matter .

2) Characters could be created several ways, we used different ways to generate Characters. First we rolled them like you did. Then we created characters by using a point system. At last we designed them outright using the rules an bending them, this made the characters more believable. A scientist with a shotgun skill of 3 and no scientifics isn't a scientist at all. The combined Inteligence and Education score should allways be the limit of Skills.

3) On Benefits, for every Term served, there were benefits. If you served only one or two terms as enlisted or even petty officer you could only get low to middle class benefits. It isn't logical, that an army private with one to two terms gets 50 000 cr, a TAS-Membership and several high passages.

4) A matter of nobility, Nobles aren't rare in traveller. But player character nobles are. If one noble exist in a campaign of mostly ex-Marines that could have only one meaning: A noble with his privat encourtage of bodyguards, could be fun to play... especialy if the noble has some common sense instead of high ideals and very high noses.

5) On Gurps Traveller, Space battle should be fast paced, visual and player strategy should have an impact on the outcome. Look at the Trillion Credit Squadron for some advices. If you linger on the die roll instead of storytelling virtues it grows boring. Even more so, traveller lives by it's players. I am an Oldtimer to this game as I am an Oldtimer to AD & D, my first Traveller Rulebook was in my hand at the soft age of 14, that is a long way back. It was 1981, I ordered it at the only Bookstore in Germany that had Roleplaying Equipment. At first i was dissapointed, because it used only D6

... But the dissapointment became glee as I learned how fast the rules could be converted.

Regards

Torsten

 

[Whipsnade]

Erai,

Let me tackle the CT parts, others can handle the GT ship combat stuff.

First, since when is character creation a game session? I first ran CT in '78 and played Traveller pretty much steady up until the mid-90s. I never ran chargen during a session.

- In the case of 'oldies', the players had their PCs already.

- In the case of 'newbies', they could choose a PC from a previously generated list. (The various published adventures had a dozen or so PCs just waiting to be used.) If the 'newbies' liked the game, they could then generate a PC on their own time. As the the GM all I wanted was final say on whether the PC could be used or not(1).

Second, death during chargen is an option and has been so since the later editions of CT. If you fail a survival roll, the PC immediately musters out. They get no skill rolls for that term, no mustering benefits, and only have 2 years added to their age (so no aging rolls).

It's this meta-game 'Risk vs. Reward' that sets Traveller apart from other RPG systems. You only have partial control over your PC's previous career, just as you only have partial control of your own career. You can't spend points precisely as you wish to the exact PC you want. Instead you play a PC that is a tad more realistic.

Next time, hand your players a pregenerated list of PCs, maybe a few dozen, they can choose from.


Have fun,
Bill


1 - I turned down a few, highly skilled PCs.

 

[flykiller]

welcome to coti!

traveller is hard. get the players interested in the adventure, not focused on the game system itself.

1) create an adventure plot, a goal for the players to pursue.

2) consider the adventure. what does it need to make it work? who are the personalities and characters behind it? what is going on that everyone can see? what is going on in the ackground? why should the players want to do this adventure? draw up or get all of this - maps, npc's, equipment, schedules, deckplans.

3) what bill said. draw up a list of pre-generated characters of different backgrounds, strengths, and weaknesses. combat, tech, street-savvy - who has it, who doesn't. make your players choose.

4) put your player characters in the adventure.

 

[parmasson]

For CT Flykiller is 100% right. Pre-generated characters are the only way to go. Make them yourself by fiat (IMHO).
What I have learned about starship combat is that it cannot be the focus of the game and it needs to move!
Another thing I have found during my short time here is that is you have an adventure idea sketched out post it here! Even if you don’t use any of the ideas people give you their input can give you some great ideas. Being able to draw on decades of experience is really helpful especially in the beginning.
Finally, be ready for the players to blow your plot to &^*%.

Good luck!

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by flykiller:
traveller is hard.

I disagree on this point. Traveller is as hard as you want to make it.

The above points are all good. Have your material prepped beforehand, especially characters and the local setting. Use a tired old plot from a TV show or a movie as an introduction, that way the players have something familiar in SciFi to use as a 'handle'. Have the PCs go on a bughunt - like in the movie Aliens. Have the PCs be ethically challenged merchants trying to buy low and sell high - like in the TV show Firefly. Have the PCs be bounty hunters chasing down galactic criminals - like in the anime Cowboy Beebop.

To start out, have the theme of the adventure be familiar - the difference is how the game mechanics work. As time goes on, then push them further from the norm as you wish in incremental steps.

As for getting the players interested and involved, have them help you with background. Make your players generate their own homeworld, they tell you what it is like and you show them the corresponding numbers that will describe it while introducing them to that part of the rules. I've found this to be an excellent angle with new players, hopefully it will be successful for you as well.

 

[flykiller]

Traveller is as hard as you want to make it.

(smile) the players make it considerably more difficult than I want it to be.

As for getting the players interested and involved ... make your players generate their own homeworld, they tell you what it is like and you show them the corresponding numbers that will describe it while introducing them to that part of the rules. I've found this to be an excellent angle with new players, hopefully it will be successful for you as well.

now that is a good suggestion, as long as you can fit it into whatever you've already generated.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Traveller is as hard as you want to make it.

(smile) the players make it considerably more difficult than I want it to be. </font>[/QUOTE]I feel your pain, flykiller.
Best player in my group came up to me last session and wanted to play a "jewel thief that disguises himself as a travelling haberdasher". I suggested he name the PC Plain Simple Garrick. Integrating the PC into adventures was an adventure in itself.

 

[J.C.D.]

As was said, traveller is NOT D&D, in fact that statement, accurate as it was, did not go far enough.

Traveller was meant to be the utter antithesis of D&D.

In traveller the tech was kept low to keep characters and roleplaying from dominating the game, as opposed to D&D where magid, weapons, armor and monsters ran the game and the hwole point was to get to the next level, grab the magic sword, get soem more gold to buy better armor, etc.

in traveller a lot of player characters want money not to buy a new weapon, but to become rich with. Their motivations are not just to 'level up' but to live it up.

So don't try running traveller anything like D&D. Instead look at the players as guys whn want to make a big score, avoid prison, get a better ship or just pay off the one they have already.

If your players get killed too often, try making them a bunch of newbies who get recruited by an old space hand who's lost the rest of his crew and needs some helpers, fast. he can give them sage advice, show them the ropes, etc.

As for getting thru a traveller adventure alive, remember that combat is a last resort. Try bribing, blackmailing, seducing, sneaking, etc.

When people have laser, gauss and plasma weapons, combat tends to be deadly. So try avoiding it.

 

[Maladominus]

Hello Erai and welcome to the forums!

Well it seems that everyone else has lectured you already, so there is no need for me to do that further. LOL

Hang in there. I played Traveller originally in the mid-1980s. And I can tell you that my Solomani Rim campaign was pretty much a failure. I loved the game, I loved the history. I spent tons of money on all the LBBs and GDW supplements.

And I even had 2-3 years experience as a VERY POPULAR Dungeons & Dragons DM and all my D&D players loved my DMing style! So for me, I was just puzzled as to why my Traveller campaign was a failure.

Ah well, live and learn. I'm trying again, but this time there will be quite some differences. For ONE thing, I am now focusing on playing an Internet based Trav campaign using GRIP. For the second thing, I will focus on attracting ONLY players who are already friends and colleagues whom I know are:

#1) already dedicated fans of Science Fiction and

#2) they are already total nerds who love playing all sorts of online roleplaying games.

This time, I'm maximizing my chances of success, and learning lots of tips and suggestions from OTHER experienced Traveller GMs on these forums.... before I launch my modern attempt at a Traveller campaign. LOL

best of luck!

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Maladominus:
[QB]And I even had 2-3 years experience as a VERY POPULAR Dungeons & Dragons DM and all my D&D players loved my DMing style! So for me, I was just puzzled as to why my Traveller campaign was a failure.

I think the problem isn't necessarily with you, it's more with Traveller itself. D&D is a very different kind of game to Traveller - the rewards are a lot more obvious (eg gold, xp, magic weapons etc), there's usually a lot more satisfaction in completing tasks and scenarios.

Traveller on the other hand all too often becomes either beancounters in space, or retired old fogeys gallovanting around the universe doing crime, or is just plain boring. It's not distinctive enough to leap out at people, and there's no real theme to it. So it's not surprising that you're going to struggle keeping people's attention with Traveller compared to D&D.

 

[J.C.D.]

If all else fails, grab some published adventures and try running them to get the feel of it.

There used to be something called 'the traveller adventure' that was a legendary campaign book that supposedly spanned the imperium and would take the PCs 20 years to run thru.

SIGH, if only I had gotten that....

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by J.C.D.:
If all else fails, grab some published adventures and try running them to get the feel of it.

Dunno about that... I mean, the only Traveller adventure I've enjoyed was an original that someone came up with at a convention.

All the 'official' CT adventures that I've seen have been boring as heck. Really, I've never seen adventures more railroaded and flat-out dull than the ones that the Keiths wrote.

The T20 ones are much better, but they still don't really appeal to me. The TNE ones were good IMO, but then I liked TNE.

 

[Hal]

One adventure I ran:
PC's were all about to separate from active service in various branches. They all had one man in common they knew, an NPC starpot authority crewmember who wanted to travel, see the stars rather than service the starfarers. So, near the end of his retirement term, he took nightschool classes on engineering and got certified as an engineer. He approached the daughter of a dead friend and asked if she wanted in or not. He spoke with a navigator/pilot whom he'd known on previous encounters when the pilot/navigator had come to port.
Then, on their first jump out, they ran into a minor problem in the startown poor quarters. Turns out, a street runner saved their bacon and they offered him a job. He wouldn't take the job unless his sister could come with him. So the group offered him and his sister positions as steward and as purser. What they didn't know was that the boy and girl were the last surviving descendants of a Noble who had been wronged by a rogue ONI operative (now the second most powerful individual in ONI after the fifth frontier war). The players were having fun trying to figure out why their ship was being targetted by ruffian type operatives, and discovered themselves in the midst of a plot to assassinate the two kids before their identity could be learned. There is more to the story, but that is the gist of it. Too bad one of the players died (no, not his character, the PLAYER himself).

 

[Hal]

Another campaign I ran for my group was that of the Blue Lightning - where the players were part of the Seven Oh Double Natural (ie, 7077th) fighter wing. The Blue Lightning carrier was being used for patrol duties near the sword worlds and the players were trying to figure out the connection between certain events such as vargr raids and their own governmental structure. Eventually, they as a group were ambushed by inbound missles against their rampart fighters (or hightower fighters that some had). One player's fighter augered into a gas giant, another ejected from the craft before impact, and one player lucked out as the missile hit her fighter for minimum damage possible. The thing is, they were part of a military unit responding to day to day life in the Imperial Fighter squadron. Ain't nothing like discovering that you NEVER mess with medical - or they lose all your immunization records. Never tolerate a practical jokester who issues you with a female issue flight suit rather than male issue flight suit (Seems the plumbing is different for the sexes - fancy that!). They also took a perverse delight in dealing with overly officious officers who value a straight uniform over an efficient soldier. Last but not least - NEVER let the powers that be mess with your flight crew, especially one who is such a miracle worker that you KNOW you want to keep with your own fighter craft...

 

[Hal]

For what it is worth, I've not seen how you tried to handle the ship to ship combats. I ended up using the STARFIRE counters to a wargame to game out the combats for ship to ship combat. I'm also not above trying to create my own stuff for use with GURPS TRAVELLER (My campaign predates GURPS STARSHIPS by a long shot). It also helped that I'd been exposed to MAYDAY which, should have been the model rule system for use with ship to ship combat. Unfortunately, I can't really help you with how to make ship to ship combats more interesting. As you've noted, the likelyhood of lasers nailing inbound missiles is rather high. The "tension" of the game should come when the players realize that the inbound missile, if not stopped, WILL hurt them badly. One last comment while I think about it...

I DITCHED the official GURPS missile rules a LONG long time ago. When they first came out I asked "Huh - missiles have to END their movement on a ship in order to hit? Are you insane?!!! That's like saying that a bullet has to end its movement inside a body rather than hit the body, and continue on through! Much of what I used was in fact, inspired by MAYDAY. If you can, I suggest that you find a copy of the TRAVELLER GAMES being reprinted by Far Future Enterprises (A blueish colored book if I recall correctly) and merge/meld the GURPS traveller rules with it.

 

[mike wightman]

I've got a group of players whose eyes glaze over if I try to get Mayday etc. out for ship to ship combat.
At the role playing level I now use a much simpler system - based on the range band approach used in SCT and MT - which allows me to adjust the scale to a PC combat level.
Missiles and mines are much more deadly since they only have to end up in the same range band as the target ship and avoid antimissile fire.

 

[Erai]

Thanks for the replies! I think I will dub my next try at Trav "A new Hope"

I totally agree that part of what I need to do is work on the "fantasy mindset"- I do have my share of experience with GM'ing, but never in an SF setting. And usually in one of the various versions of D&D... and that is what the players in the Traveller sessions were more or less used to. Some of the people I have chartered so far for next time have played lots of cyberpunk and other sfrp games, so there won't be a player-culture-shock excuse the next time
At the other hand... the reason I avoided them for the tests is that these players are waaaay to creative for an inexperienced GM... but oh well, it dóes make for fun adventures, even if they tend to totally derail the scenario, heheh...

I think I will try both classic and Gurps again, but maybe, the best thing for classic is to simply ask the players what kind of character they are envisioning for themselves, and cook up a balanced group of PC's from there myself- and who cares if that means that the party will consist of five psionically charged high-ranked imperial nobles (hmm... this might actually be lots of fun, come to think of it!)

***

I do have a basic campaign idea shelved- short, simple and, hopefully, easy on me as a GM while I am learning the ropes.

Setup goes like this: PC's get a job on a subsidised merchant bound for "somewhere else" with a short stop along the way at a small station in the Bowman system.

There things go awry: ship gets attacked by pirates, and gets heavily damaged- radio dies, engines die, captain dies...
And, well, in the the end there are just five or six survivers- who all (Ah, wonderful coincidence!) happen to be Player Characters.
This is the point where the PC's can be "formally introduced" to each other- although, maybe, they are in separate parts of the ship and will have to find each other first

Second session- ship is dead in the water (well, ok, vacuum).
Parts of the ship are depressurised, other parts are radiated, the internal security system has gone bonkers... in other words, the characters get something of an outer-space-dungeoncrawl as they try to reach the vital parts of the ship.

In a pressurised part of the cargo they will discover that some of the cargo seems to very illicit, very valuable, and very alive as well as very dangerous, venomous and whatnot. Great
money-making opportunity... if they can ever get the creatures to a place where they can sell it. (but meanwhile they will need to keep it secure and fed. Oh, and -minor detail- those pirates happened to be specifically after this very creature)

Eventually the PC's will (we hope) reach the ship's boat, which is still pretty much in working order.

They will also be left with the little riddle about the attackers: the attack was carried out by a number of light one-person fighters. But where did they come from?

But that is for later. For now, if the players have managed to find the ship's boat, patch up communications or maybe even the M-drive, they will, in chapter three of the story, either reach or contact a very small decrepit miner outpost. Only ships nearby are non-starships, although there is the occasional supply ship, of course.

And then the story can finally truly begin: PC's are, basically, stranded on an outpost that caters for a number of -sometimes- interesting people and harbors a myriad of problems. And meanwhile there is a valuable ship without an owner, either near the outpost, or floating in
an asteroid belt, a million or so miles away.
If, in the end, the PC's can salvage and repair it, they can either hand over the vessel to the company that insured it, they could claim a nice finders fee... or they could take ownership and, naturally, get in trouble with the skip tracers of said company...
***

PS: I'll be sure to check out Mayday! Workable combat systems... hmmmmmm... yummy

 

[robject]

I've tried getting the crew shot up by pirates, and my group handled it badly. I think I probably did, too. People don't like having their ship crippled underneath them... taking away what scraps of control they had over the game universe is not fun... not until they're quite secure and have other resources they can rely on, and know the ropes, so to speak.

I've also asked my players beforehand what types of characters they'd like to play, and I think my group didn't handle things the way I wanted. I believe my approach was, once again, wrong. We ended up with a seriously mismatched group, where the munchkins had baron marine majors with their own personal battledress and FGMP-15, while the realists had ordinary joes with pistol-1. I was too inexperienced to guide the system from the start, so naturally I was unable to contain their subsequent madness.

The best suggestion I've heard so far is to present them with a list of pregenerated characters, complete with some cash so the players can equip them. This is the best of both worlds: they get a choice in the matter, and you get to design characters which fit the mood of your adventure. The players can even craft their own history for their character.

Craft the characters yourself, or there are free computer programs which can pre-generate characters. I prefer ones which spit out just enough basic information, little more than:

Joe Gunner(34) Army(4) 789886 Cr4000 pistol-2 cutlass-2 pilot-1 survival-2 grav craft-1

Then you, as referee, who knows what the group may lack, can award/reward players with additional skills, rounding off the group before the game begins if necessary.

The next best suggestion was having an NPC guide, either as the owner of their ship, or as their factor who gives them assignments on a regular basis. This is the essence of a patron. Making him a common helper and job-finder gives them a sense of security. It's very nice to have an NPC they know they can trust and, later, help.

I don't think Traveller is easy, either.

Pay attention to what they want to do with their characters. Successfully balancing their skills and goals in the context of an adventure you've presented to them is hard work, but it can be very rewarding. I suppose it depends on the group.

 

[robject]

My opinions and suggestions for your adventure would be to put them in low berths when the ship gets attacked and otherwise crippled. Start them playing by them waking up in their respective areas and wondering where they are, how they got there, etc. You can play it up as a kind of enigma in itself.

That way, they don't get a huge sense of loss by losing a perfectly good ship due to their inability to stop the one-man marauders.