(2300AD) The Invasion campaign is here!

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

Dungeons and Dragons originated as a wargame.

That what Gygax would have had you believe, because his contribution was the "Chainmail" wargame rules. However, original D&D contained alternative combat rules (which became D&D combat) whilst recommending you also buy Chainmail. D&D was really the product of Dave Arneson's mind, and Blackmoor was the orginal setting.

The military aspect of 2300AD wasn't that huge until Invasion. Most of the modules were focused on adventures on interesting new worlds, and the Kafers were a bogieman who often acted as a catalyst. For example, shooting down ISV-5 in Energy Curve. Look at the pre-cyberpunk adventures:

• Beanstalk, the Tricolor's Shadow and Trading Scheme (small adventure in the 1st ed. to introduce the Pentapods): an interesting new planet with many possible adventures. The Kafers sole appearance is as the unknown alien spaceship shot down in the Tricolor's Shadow (a Kafer scout).
• Energy Curve: a survival adventure with first contact with a new primative species (the Klaxun). The Kafers are the catalyst in shooting them down and providing a threat forcing the players away from the crash site (although the Kafers do not land).
• Nyotekundu: an adventure set on a deep space mining platform, involving a crewmember going mad. No Kafers.
• Kafer Dawn & Aurore SB: an extremely well described alien world and adventures on it involving the Kafers, but not in the military sense.
• Ranger: another well described alien world with a new alien race.
• Mission Arcturus: the one module where the players are military or military-adjacent. Describes Station Arcture etc.
• Bayern: a procedural adventure based on a long-range exploration ship

The general structure of a GDW era 2300AD adventure was to introduce a new place and set an adventure (or adventures) there, leaving you seeds for further adventures. This is a good structure; Wesley Street's Liberty followed it and was, to my mind, by far the best 2300AD book Mongoose have put out. It was faithful to established canon, and gave the players actual adventures to play.

Invasion, as put out by GDW, basically gave a background and recommended the players be the crew of a merchant ship or privateer trying to operate on the wartorn French Arm.

Gavin Dady's Nous Voila adventure might be a return to form. Fingers crossed.

 

[Condottiere]

I can't say I'm that familiar with the internal dynamics in gaming companies, however, this has always been fascinating:

... if not, at least half wrong.

 

[Vormaerin]

I personally don't find trade-oriented adventures or scout-oriented adventures particularly exciting, but I don't diss them or call for them not to be published.

I did not diss military adventures or call for them not to be published. I said that I bounced off 2300 back in the day because the marketing that I encountered made it seem like that's all it did, because the ads were heavily about Invasion and the buzz was about its tie to Twilight 2000. I am not interested in games where that is the entirety of what the game does (such as Twilight 2000). I am a strong advocate for a variety of playstyles whether they interest me personally or not.

I like the Invasion prologue. It is a war scenario, but it is not built around the players being soldiers in a military unit, so suitable to a wide range of players and playstyles. I am hopeful that this will continue.

GDW being a wargames company increasingly tended to publish "warzone" large scale events for its games at the expense of everything else, starting with the 5FW and then the Rebellion and 2300's Invasion. Mongoose is currently rehashing that period. But they do have other things going on with Core Expeditions, etc and this new "smokey and the bandit" esque campaign Matt's chortling about just getting the manuscript about. Hopefully the same will be true with 2300.

Right at the moment, though, Mongoose 2300's adventure support is two very specific long term event campaigns: Bayern and Invasion. It needs a lot of those other kinds of adventures such as Bryn mentioned above.

 

[Vormaerin]

As I said, having morale as a core stat changes the game from T:2300 to Invasion, and I have games that are better designed to incorporate such rules - Alien, T2k4e, Mothership...

This. There are a lot better stress rules out there these days than Morale or SAN checks, IMHO. I prefer mechanisms that lead to the player making appropriate decisions to mechanisms that tell the player what their character does.

 

[Grognardia]

I dislike military-focused campaigns - all the fleet dispositions and unit strengths just don't do it for me. What I love about 2300AD is the exploration and sense of wonder you get from discovering new worlds and alien cultures. Give me a good mystery on some distant planet or first contact with a strange new species over troop movements any day.

The setting has so much potential for those "what's out there?" moments that made the original adventures special. That's the stuff that gets me excited to play. Energy Curve, Nyotekundu Sourcebook, Ranger. All brilliant.

(and yeah, I feel the same about all the Fifth Frontier War nonsense Mongoose is writing these days. Snooze fest)

But of course I'm still buying it all. Gotta support Traveller in all its forms

 

[Vormaerin]

You can build good games around mechanics that limit player control of their characters. Pendragon does this, many horror games do this. But the good ones have robust mechanics around this and they are central to how the game is played. Neither of those things describe the morale appendage in Invasion.

First, it's not part of the core rules so the rest of the game doesn't acknowledge it.
Second, it's explicitly a "you are doing this wrong" mechanic: "a useful tool for Referees whose Travellers insist on doing unrealistic actions"
Third, it's a stat. So it is randomly generated and fixed once you are out of Chargen. No way to improve it or modify it in play. Not even with "Campaign points". So if you rolled badly on Morale at the start of the campaign, you are gonna be that way forever.
Fourth, it's not just for combat. It's for other potentially demoralizing or just boring tasks.
Fifth, it's not a 'No, but' activity. It is just 'no, you don't do that"
Sixth, the example task check is "face a modest threat or daunting task: 6+". Doing that should be par for the course for adventurers. Like, that's the job description. So that's like 1/3 of your party on any given "modest threat".


So, imho, *this* morale mechanic is terrible and should not be used. It is possible to make morale a factor in games, but this is absolutely not how to do it. And I don't think making morale mechanics specific to adventures in general works. If that's something the game wants to address, they should build it into the core mechanics. It is too pervasive an effect to be an appendage in a sidebar.

 

[Limpin Legin]

Moral MRL is in the Mongoose Traveller Companion. Never seen TC applied to 2300AD, tho

 

[Vormaerin]

oh yeah, it is the same. I just ignored it in the companion, too, like the Luck and other optional stats. I hadn't realized that the entry in Invasion was a copy/paste of those rules. Still bad, though

 

[Limpin Legin]

I hear you. I don't use the optional stats either. I use Luck but I use a different mechanism than the one in the TC.

The important point for me is that the optional characteristics made me ponder how I can open up an extra dimension to the roleplay situations by placing a different emphasis to the gameplay.

If I do that then I don't need extra stats, but the extra attributes bring about greater consistency, if they are going to be used often.

I can understand why Moral might be a dimension in any Invasion, particularly one centred upon a 'frightening' alien lifeform. But I have the freedom to chose whether I do it quantitively (as a deliberate characteristic check) or qualitatively (as narrative roleplay plot development).

 

[Sigtrygg]

"MORALE
A party of adventurers (player or non-player) which sustains casualties in an encounter will ultimately break or rout if it does not achieve victory.
At the point in which 25% of a party are unconscious or killed, the party must begin throwing for morale. Average morale throw is 7+ to stand, or not break. Valiant parties may have a higher throw. DMs are allowed: +1 if the party is a military unit, +1 if a leader (leader expertise) is present, +1 if the leader has any tactical expertise; –2 if the leader is killed (for two combat rounds, and then until a new leader takes control), –2 if casualties exceed 50%."

I have never, in over 40 years, applied that rule to PCs, it is for the players to decide, not a failed dice throw.

 

[Vormaerin]

There are games that use a morale or stress mechanic, but it properly designed as a tool for the players. Like you have a stress meter, you know what's going to cause or risk more stress, what will relieve it, what kinds of fun things will happen if you push it too far. You are giving the players tools to make decisions about their characters comparable to their wound situation and other kinds of things.

But "roll a 6+ or you can't face the Kafer" isn't that kind of thing.

It's totally fine when my Lieutenant in Advanced Squad Leader blows his morale check and berserks into a German machinegun nest when I was trying to get him to cover. But that's not an RPG mechanic in any way and not how player characters should be treated.

 

[Limpin Legin]

If the players decide then they will just pick the most superhuman win-win outcome for themselves.

But if the plot evolves to let them know that there is an inner enemy (MRL) as well as an outer enemy (Kafer) then that could be a thriller in the making.

I have never, in over 40 years, applied that rule to PCs

But Mongoose Invasion only happens once in a lifetime

 

[Limpin Legin]

It's totally fine when my Lieutenant in Advanced Squad Leader blows his morale check and berserks into a German machinegun nest when I was trying to get him to cover. But that's not an RPG mechanic in any way and not how player characters should be treated.

Fair point. I too want a roleplaying game rather than a wargame. But, stated earlier, the MRL characteristic is intended for adjudicating difficult situations where the most effective solution is not necessarily the most plausible when played in-character. Whether you use it or not, doesn't matter, the main point is that it is food for thought on the campaign style. Surely.

 

[Vormaerin]

Character mental state and all that is absolutely a good thing to have as food for thought. Players should be considering that and I often ask questions about their characters' reactions to things to help keep them thinking about more than just number crunching.

But there is no circumstance when I will use a "roll to be in charge of your character" mechanic. I will absolutely play games where there is mental stress consequences and not just physical wounds. But they have to be mechanics that put the players in control. "Woah, Bob, if you do that it'll be wicked, but you know that Reacherclone will probably end up taking Trauma from that because he's almost at his limit, right? If that's what you want to do, go for it!" Then the player decides if the consequences are worth it or if they want to do something else.

I don't have a problem with the concept of morale checks. I have a problem with this kind of mechanic for them. This mechanic is both arbitrary and random. Arbitrary because it only applies when the GM thinks the character wouldn't or shouldn't do the thing. If they aren't always going to be rolling, then players aren't going to know when they can expect to have to roll. It's also random, because there's literally nothing a player can do to control the mechanic. You rolled a random value at Chargen and that's what you have. Nothing you do changes that. And there's no suggestion that the players can do anything except appease the GM to make it more likely they succeed. It's just a raw die roll to do the thing.

More likely, if the GM pulls the "make a morale check" on you, you just do something else to avoid the risk of losing your turn or outright fleeing.

My personal opinion is that RPGs are about the decisions the players make. Making tough decisions is the goal of game play as far as I am concerned. Die rolls should be about the consequences of their actions, not whether they take those actions. I don't expect everyone to have the same playstyle I do. Neither the CT nor the MgT2e system for morale has any interest to me as a mechanic, that's all.

 

[ottarrus]

A somewhat silly personal note here:
I have PTSD and it's sometimes hard for me to get to bed at night. For example, one of the paranoia symptoms that I've learned to live with is that I'm ALWAYS awake at 0300 and stay awake till dawn. What's more, I'm married and I actually like sleeping with the pretty brunette who says she loves me. This being the case, I do most of my game reading on a tablet at night. I dare not try and read history or a novel... I won't sleep till I finish it.
My tablet has been acting up and I thought I'd gotten some sort of virus or bug in it via various pdfs and zip files. But nope, all I have to do was bleach the drive and defrag it. Now I can finally devote the attention it deserves to Invasion....

 

[Vormaerin]

Side arguments about Mongoose' morale rules aside, it's a very promising start. Much more interesting than I expected.

 

[MongooseMatt]

I dislike military-focused campaigns

Invasion and the FFW were not intended to be released at the same time, things just landed that way.

However, I think the manuscript we just received for a new Traveller campaign is going to be right up your street!

 

[Lurking Grue]

Sorry, but have to comment the cover art (which is subjective, of course). That's one sorry looking Kafer on the cover! A far cry from the scary and weird Kafers of the old 2300AD art by Steve Venters and AC Farley (and others I forget now). Just compare this individual to the ones on the cover of Kafer Dawn, for example, and the difference is striking. Same goes for the conveyed mood of these two covers. This new one looks comical and is colored brightly like it came from a superhero comic, not at all a desperate fight for survival like in the Kafer Dawn cover.

There are actual errors in this new Kafer too. The Kafer's hand is all wrong, if you compare it to older art, where there is no thumb as such, but 3 equidistant fingers in a triangle formation. Also the carapace looks wrong, like it was just an elaborate headpiece and some shoulder pads tacked on (the artist must have used Mass Effect's Krogans as a reference, I guess). Maybe these details have changed now and all the old references (like the Kafer Sourcebook) are irrelevant now. If so, I really don't like this new Kafer look.

The composition/positions (don't know the English word for it, sorry) of the human and the Kafer is quite clunky, too. They might as well be dancing disco together...

OK, art rant over. Had to get that off my chest. Apologies. Move along now.

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

Morale has been present in MgT for many years. There was even an alternate in the Drinax books.



I agree that a simple stat is too superficial a mechanic, but that doesn't mean we should simply toss the concept completely.

I spent many years playing the military side of things, but that changed as time passed. I think this is also why I don't really sync with the concept of trivial characters- everyone has a story behind them.

 

[Vormaerin]

That's NPC morale. That's a fine. The morale system we are talking about is having the dice tell the players when their PC's morale breaks.