Announcing: The Open Playtest!

[Jame Rowe]

....nothing at all to do with we Hivers, I can assure you

....mumble mumble mophead.

<...mopmopmop...Hiver...mop...Hiver.........mop...>

*Remembers the trouble aboard the ISS Avenger, brought on by a mopping Hiver*

*Shivers, cries and shivers-and-cries*

 

[captainjack23]

Well, that was quite an eloquent outburst too! - but I would argue that the current rules-set presented so far in character generation, would be enough of a tool-kit for myself to do a decent cyberpunk-style game. You just need to tweak the equipment list and 'attitude' a bit - but that's the sort of thing you could do in a cyberpunk supplement, rather than core rules. I do think that the core-rules should be able to encompass a wide variety of technological concepts though - including VR, Genetic engineering, nanotech and AI, as they may arise in many types of setting.

Okay, fair 'nuff. I just don't want accommodation to overwhelm the genre aspects it already has; you are concerned the opposite way. So, looks like we'll wait and see.

...or, I suppose we could ask the hivers....

 

[Golan2072]

I don't see why Enlisted/NCO characters can't be generated by "compressing" the LBB 4/5/6/7 rules somehow, without having to go down an "extended CharGen sequence for all" approach. MegaTraveller managed to do it...

One of the users (Golan2072) over at the Citizens of the Imperium forums did it too. He put in 6 ranks for enlisted personnel; I would have those in and put in a rule that you can roll for promotion and not commission if you want an NCO.

Here you go. It even has both Technician (similar to citizen, but in a technical/production career) and Colonist careers.

 

[Jame Rowe]

And yes, you have said that, and quite eloquently. Unfortunately, I (politely) disagree. The flavor of Traveller the rules set is, granted, the source of the OTU flavor, BUT.....the flavor is the flavor.
<Polemic mode=on>
I've never seen the need for rule sets which can cover all fantasy settings, nor do I ever expect to see one successfully do so; we all know why- too many kinds of fantasy, interpretations, etc. .

Gaming the future is essentially no different; the future in a game is simply a fantasy setting set in the future, with the disadvantage that there is an absolute confirmation of the model: just wait for the future and see. I have yet see ANY SCIFI RPG, hard soft, near/ far future whatever that was "correct"; I mean, honest to god, Twilight2000 ? Heck, even traveller in 1977, often written and often played by some VERY smart people managed to utterly miss the advent of the microcomputer and the information age.

Why is this important? Because, as is basically accepted in other RPG genres, all you have is flavor, and some ground rules you made up out of thin air. All visions of the future are fantasies, and all rely on flavor. Try to accommodate them all? Not doable. So pick your rules like ice-cream.

Traveller is Traveller -it is unabashedly heroic SF, Gernsbackian, Asimovian, Andersonian, what have you. It does this superbly well. It is not Ian Banks, or the Diamond age, or Snowcrash, or Cordwainer smith.
There are excellent systems that do those- but not traveller (well, not Corwainer Smith, I admit -more's the pity).

Besides, today’s tomorrow is tomorrow’s joke: I mean, steam powered walking boots? Computers with wax cylinders ?
Cyberpunk is already seeming dated given what nano-biogenetics is working on. detail invites comparison. So only give enough for flavor.

<mode =NORMAL>
Thank you for your attention. And down with biochipping nanovirii !

Well, that was quite an eloquent outburst too! - but I would argue that the current rules-set presented so far in character generation, would be enough of a tool-kit for myself to do a decent cyberpunk-style game. You just need to tweak the equipment list and 'attitude' a bit - but that's the sort of thing you could do in a cyberpunk supplement, rather than core rules. I do think that the core-rules should be able to encompass a wide variety of technological concepts though - including VR, Genetic engineering, nanotech and AI, as they may arise in many types of setting.

This is (twistedly) support for my argument that the early TL scale should be revised as I've stated at least twice in this thread; if you want to have a wide range of playable areas you should be able to make them somewhat more different at low TLs.

 

[Dark]

So - can anyone out there explain to me how the aiding rules work here - I've read that paragraph numerous times, but I still can't figure it out. We wanted to try it in our playtest the other night, but couldn't make heads nor tails out of the rule, so we just didn't bother...

Oh - and just my 2 cents on the whole skill advancement after chargen thing. If you are looking at a span of years to advance a skill, and you can only do one at a time, it would seem somewhat pointless to even bother to have it possible. The impact on any game is negligable, since characters wouldn't make any real meaningful advancement over the course of a campaign (in general). I do agree with the suggestions previously of eliminate 0 level skills from the calculation - almost makes it work (depending on your character). In our campaign, we have one PC with only 3 total levels in skills, while another has near 20...the first guy would benefit from skill advancement, while the other isn't even going to try

 

[Occupant]

Playtest Report on V3.1
Playtest: December 22th 2007
Duration of Playtest: Two hours and forty minutes.
By Warren Okuma

Homeworld:
Nilbog88: Where's Low Pop or Poor? Nobody hunts for food, strange, nobody gets into fist fights, nobody joins gangs...
URLnonGrey: Hey, High pop all you get is computer, which you can get in education.
SimonIllev: Nice to have zero level skills. Hey where's JROTC? I took JROTC, er martial arts. Been practicing martial arts since I was 8.
Warren Okuma: And where's Amber zone? I bet they get good skills.

Classes/Skills:
Nilbog88: Holy smokes they don't teach weapons except for blades! I guess merchants don't have self defense courses when they visit amber zones. Survival rate should be worse if that's the case. (5 terms Merchant rank 1, A38399, 40,000 cr) Advocate-1, Broker-2, Drive (Wheeled)-1, Gun combat (Slug Rifle)-1, Gunnery (turret)-1, Medic-1, Persuade-1, Stealth-1, Steward-1, Streetwise-1, +1 Str, Admin-0, Carouse-0, Computer-0, Drive (Tracked)-0, Physical Science (Chemistry)-0, Steward-0, Trade (Programming)-0, Vacc Suit-0.

URLnonGrey: Nobility have no firearm skills on their skill list. They only teach blades here as well. Lookie, nobles do not shoot skeet or hunt anymore. Man this sucks. (1 term Noble rank 0, 355A5B, 5K medical debt and a +1 soc ) Pilot-2, Sensors-2, Deception-1, Gun combat (Slug Pistol)-1, Persuade-1, Admin-0, Advocate-0, Animals (riding)-0, Comms-0, Computer-0, Diplomat-0, Investigate-0.

SimonIllev: Yeah, you can learn how to shoot only on one table. No wonder why they have a high casualty rate. (4 terms, Scout Rank 2, 765A99, 20,000 cr) Astrogation 3, Comms -2, Diplomat-1, Medic 1, Navigation 1,Stealth-1, Survival-1, Vacc Suit 1, Engineer (Life Support)-0, Engineer (Maneuver)-0, Zero-G-0, Engineer (Power), Gun Combat (Slug Rifle)-0, Mechanic-0, Pilot-0.

Traveller skill package.

Nilbog88: Looks... okay. Next time I'm rolling only on one table for skills. Sure I can do more... but I'm barely competent.
URLnonGrey: Well it's obvious. You get much more different kinds of skills than Classic Traveller Advance Generation and you get about the same amount of skills as Standard Generation. The system is set up to make you suck. It's like Traveller Vista.
SimonIllev: Yup. But we suck at lots of things. I had to take Astrogation 3 just so we don't get a Total Party Kill by misjump if we are going to do jump-2s. We are going to be hurting on engineering.
Warren Okuma: Yeah, it's the system.
SimonIllev: If you do more than one task, you are going to get a huge penalty. In engineering it's all different specialties. You are going to need five engineers at the minimum if you want any kind of decent technical support, like repairs. The multi task penalties are pretty harsh. This is worse than Traveller Vista, this is Pedestrian Vista. I gotta agree this is the worst version of Traveller.

NPC's:
Warren Okuma: Hey, check out the stats on the NPC's.
Nilbog88: Holy crap. This system is set up to make PC's inferior. Except for the belters, all the NPC's have rolled average or above average.
Warren Okuma: And native guide. But it's mostly in physical stats. Some are equal like petty thugs and crewmen, but still...
URLnonGrey: Holy shit! Why don't we play those awesome NPCs instead? Why are we playing losers?
Warren Okuma: And check out the random mission table. About 30 percent is pure combat. And on some professions they don't even have firearms training.

Shopping, Armor:
Warren Okuma: Hey look, Combat armor is off the market.
SimonIllev: That's BS! If we wanted to raise a mercenary unit we can't. This is just wrong.
URLnonGrey: Told you it's a helpless PC game. It looks like the worst Traveller ever.
Nilbog88: I'm rolling for reflec. What do I need?
Warren Okuma: Hard, that's DM-2.
Nilbog88: Crap.
URLnonGrey: Can I get a credit card or borrow money so I can buy equipment?
Warren Okuma: This is playtest with rules as written. I don't see anything. So no. And about combat armor, don't feel bad combat armor, it does not protect against radiation. I'm pretty sure that's an oversight though.

Shopping Weapons.
Warren Okuma: Whoa. What's up with the rifle?
SimonIllev: In CT the rifle and the assault rifle did the same damage, but the rifle had a longer range and better armor penetration than the assault rifle.
Warren Okuma: No submachine gun what's up with that? For carbine (light rifle) I'm going to use it as a semi-automatic assault rifle.
URLnonGrey: Well the Rifle is a 7.62mm round and the assault rifle is a 6mm, so of course the assault rifle is going to do more. Bigger bullets do less damage. Hell in Gurps traveller the rifle was 7mm (7D6 dam) and the assault rifle was 5.5mm (5D6 dam).
Warren Okuma: Catch this out: The rifle in this game has a bigger recoil and longer range, and does less damage. Freaky.
Nilbog88: SAN check.
SimonIllev: Shouldn't the advance laser be TL 13 when the x-ray laser tech comes out?
Warren Okuma: Wait for mercenary I guess.
SimonIllev: But there are FGMP's in there...
Warren Okuma: Dunno.

Two gauss rifles and an improvised weapon (broken bottle, grumble, grumble) later...

Equipment.
SimonIllev: Can I get a satellite cell phone with text messaging, phone camera, internet browsing, radio, push to talk, gps, call registers, and video calling?
Warren Okuma: Sorry you are going to have to settle for the primitive, inferior TL12 communicator for 500cr.
Nilbog88: Hey I need a field kit or portable lab or lab on a chip, tricorder, or something, for my chemistry skill?
Warren Okuma: I don't see anything on the equipment list. I guess you just gotta use taste and smell.
SimonIllev: How about an repair kit for with my engineering skills?
Warren Okuma: I don't see anything on the equipment list for such activities. Looks like you don't need tools. Maybe it's in the ships locker.
SimonIllev: So that's why they have five engineering specialties.
Nilbog88: I see bugs, but no bug detectors... I don't see lockpicks or security bypass kits.
URLnonGrey: Or rations or canteens or the survival kit.
Warren Okuma: They bundle rations with the survival module or the ship's locker.
URLnonGrey: Crap. I hate bundling.
Warren Okuma: It get's better. The survival module does not purify water.
SimonIllev: No wonder Scouts die like flies. They get killed by waterborne diseases or killed by the toxins in the water.
Nilbog88: And they can't test the water because they don't have a lab kit. You would think that if you put the skill in your game you would list equipment so that you can use the skill, but this is a "screw the PC's game" so I expected this.
URLnonGrey: Can I get a discarded plastic soda bottle? I wash it out and fill it with water.
Warren Okuma: Sure. I guess that's what all nobles do.
Nilbog88: Okay, I get one too.
Warren Okuma: So where are you putting it?
SimonIllev: Um... no backpacks.
Warren Okuma: Bingo!
Nilbog88: And no rope, so I can't make tie it to anything.
SimonIllev: Hey noble, go get a plastic garbage bag, and go wash it out. So you can carry loot.
URLnonGrey: Good idea. I get one. Can I steal a shopping cart?
Warren Okuma: Sure. There are no prices for a shopping cart, so you will have to steal one. Do you want a sign "will work for food as well?"
URLnonGrey: If it's free, sure. How about a sprayer and a rag?
Warren Okuma: Yeah okay.
URLnonGrey: Tim cup and pencils?
Warren Okuma: Fine.
URLnonGrey: Dark glasses and a long thin white walking stick?
Warren Okuma: Just the dark glasses.
URLnonGrey: Can I sell the dark glasses?
Warren Okuma: What? Oh, ah.. fifty credits.
Nilbog88: Now you can buy stuff.
URLnonGrey: Hell no, I gonna spend three credits on food. I bet I didn't eat for weeks. I'm saving the rest.
Nilbog88: You can dumpster dive for food, or eat the people we kill. What do you need food for?
URLnonGrey: Water then.
Nilbog88: Ah. Point.
SimonIllev: They should put in prices for shopping carts.
Warren Okuma: Don't go there. Let's try out combat.
SimonIllev: Not so hot equipment list, I'm glad it's still in playtest. As is, it's not acceptable.

Combat

Warren Okuma: Okay, two Ine Givar terrorists step out from behind a crate, on the left side, the other on the right side. They have no armor and are armed with carbines (assault rifles that only fire in single shot mode).

Petty thug1: 987765 Gun combat (Slug Rifle)-1 Carbine, no armor.
Petty thug2: 879567 Gun combat (Slug Rifle)-1 Carbine, no armor.

Nilbog88: Indilar Kuuriku, Merchant A38399, Gun combat (Slug Rifle)-1 Cloth (8), Gauss Rifle.
URLnonGrey: Marquis Leonya Kerrington, Noble, 365A5D, Gun combat (Slug Pistol)-1, Improvised Weapon (no skill), no armor.
SimonIllev: Sam Beris, Scout 764A99, Gun Combat (Slug Rifle)-0. Cloth (8), Gauss Rifle.

Round 1 Fight!
Petty thug1: Initiative 6
Petty thug2: Initiative 6

Nilbog88: Rolls a 3 (-2 for dex) 1
SimonIllev: Rolls a 1
URLnonGrey: Rolls a 2

Thugs use one tick to move out from behind the crates and one to aim.

Thugs: Init 4+2=6
Nilbog88: 3
SimonIllev: 3
URLnonGrey: 4

None of the PC's will take hasty actions. A -3 sucks.

Thugs fire. Misses Nilbog88, plugs SimonIllev and drops him SimonIllev is unconscious.

Round 2: Fight.

Two thugs Initiative 4 do nothing, and add 2.
Nilbog88: does nothing and gets a five. He uses a hasty action to increase it to six so he can fire.

The thugs have better dexterity score and both hit Nilbog88: The first one wounds him the second hit knocks him unconscious.

URLnonGrey: Spends two ticks to move to SimonIllev and spends a tick to pick up the weapon.

Round 3: Fight.

Two thugs do nothing and add 2 and they have a six.
URLnonGrey does nothing and is a five. He takes a hasty action to make it a six.

The thugs have a better dexterity than URLnonGrey and shoots him. One misses, the other drops him.

Playtest session ended due to unanimous player quitting. Went back to GT.

Conclusions and Impressions.

Nilbog88: This was not fun, getting killed without firing a shot and we outnumbered them and we our gunned and out armored them. This is the worst Traveller system. Thank god it's still in playtest.
SimonIllev: Yeah, the worst in 3.1. This is clearly worse than Mark Miller's garbage. I wonder if all games look this bad in it's earliest form? W
URLnonGrey: As is, this is the worst SF game ever. I can't believe you made us play this crap. Yeah, this not even in beta form.

Warren Okuma: Guys, I'm sorry.


To Mongoose: Maybe we are being unfair, but that's what happened, the game just crapped out and that's the honest truth. Sorry Mongoose. Am I the only one who tried to run this?

 

[Allensh]

I've run numerous sessions of the playtest using both versions 1 and 2 and 3.1 and have never had even an iota of the kinds of difficulty you seem to have had. My players very much enjoy the game.

Allen

 

[AKAramis]

I've run numerous sessions of the playtest using both versions 1 and 2 and 3.1 and have never had even an iota of the kinds of difficulty you seem to have had. My players very much enjoy the game.

Allen

Mine enjoy the game, but we feel that, hile the concepts are excellent, especially the basic concepts of tasks, combat, ship combat, and even ship design, we feel the specific numbers plugged in are off.

For example, we feel that the timing and effect die results should be based off of a range of 1-10, not 1-6, since positive modifiers will be common.

We find the multiplicative damage mode wonderful, as it allows very low and fairly high damage results with a higher range of multipliers; the current ones are far too low.

 

[Dyrewulf]

To Mongoose: Maybe we are being unfair, but that's what happened, the game just crapped out and that's the honest truth. Sorry Mongoose. Am I the only one who tried to run this?

You guys really must have been having a bad day. My group all had a blast with chargen for v2 and v3 playtest documents. (Understanding it is a playtest and certain things needed to be tested, we didn't expect it to be ready to be shipped and stocked on shelves)
We ran a meat grinder...as Mongoose Gar has mentioned thats really what he was looking for to be tested...and ran my players through the old meat grinder...and after a day of being shot at...not a single one of my players characters died...although one came close twice...and all of them learned that when the explosives expert yells "fire in the hole" he really means, "Spend your move action to run cause I'm going to throw an explosives package short and kill us all!"

I agree there are some things missing from the chargen and there are ways around some of the issues that you may have had...it isn't too far fetched that your noble pc's did a term in the armed services and picked up some combat skills...English royalty does it...

Maybe it was just the way you edited your notes, but it just seems like your players didn't want to play to begin with, and were just looking to make things out to be far worse than they were without putting in any effort other than what it may have took to pop the top off a soda or rip a bag of chips open.

As I mentioned, my group loved the chargen and the game, it had the same CT feel that we were used to.

 

[Occupant]

Playtest Suggestions:

Two of my players don't want to talk about the game, and Nilbog88 is not talking to me. These are my own fixes to the problems I had. All of these problems have very simple solutions.

1) The most unpopular was the initiative system. If you roll bad on initiatives during ambushes and have a lower dex, than the enemies you can get 2-3 rounds of fire on the PC's before they get to return fire. And if you have to ready your weapon it could be yet another turn to fire.

Solution: Expecting trouble. When you are expecting trouble, you get a +2 to initiative. This will reduce the amount of surprise to 1-2 rounds on a bad initiative roll or 1-3 rounds if you have to draw your weapons.

2) The second most unpopular is the Combat Armor ban. It should be as available as it is in CT. If you want to put restrictions on it, you should attach a law level to it. This would have prevented the TPK. And it would make forming a mercenary unit as a viable option.

3) The third most is the PC poverty. All characters should have some money to start with. Soc times 100 credits is not broken, and will prevent characters from starving to death. I am really, really, really, sick of players asking for cardboard boxes as start up equipment.

4) The fourth is the awesome NPC stats. Either nerf the NPC's (limit them to +4 stats above average) and/or allow the PC's to re-roll any character that does not have an overall bonus of +1.

5) For engineer dump the specialties. I make engineers roll just before the ship enters jump space (aside from repairs, when do you allow the engineers roll?) A -4 roll is quite bad. Dumping the specialties will not ruin the game and make it fun for engineers again.

6) Rifles and Automatic rifles should be 2X+5 and add submachine guns and the table is perfect.

7) Change one skill on one table to give merchants and nobles gun combat. It won't break the game.

8. Add the text "Astrogators typically spend extra time for pluses." (dread sigil pointed that out)

9) You expanded the amount of skills available, so you should give more skill levels. Fair is fair after all. Two per term plus one per promotion seems fair.

Warren Okuma.

Questions:
1) In the rules, when you do a hasty action is it -1 per point of initiative gained (like in the combat example) or -2 as in the rules?

2) In the rules recoil is applied to the timing dice. In the combat example it wasn't. Are you removing the recoil rules?

 

[Occupant]

Maybe it was just the way you edited your notes, but it just seems like your players didn't want to play to begin with, and were just looking to make things out to be far worse than they were without putting in any effort other than what it may have took to pop the top off a soda or rip a bag of chips open.

It started off very nice. But we were in playtest mode. We were pointing out what they didn't like. We've playtested before, and first we find the flaws, then we go over what we liked. We didn't get to the what we liked part. They liked the armor weapon table except for the rifle and auto rifle oh and not selling combat armor and reflec. They expected Traveller and got armor control. They were thinking of forming a mercenary company, to playtest until they saw how available combat armor was. Different expectations, different styles of play I guess.

And the player who always plays engineers got nerfed by having the engineering specialties, just freaked, and the noble who like being rich was very poor and in debt (the medical debt really annoyed him). And we were testing is rules as written, and I didn't see an option ro re-roll. Still have mixed feelings about medical debt.

Oh, I dunno Mongoose might want to add in an option that if you get kicked out in one term, you can do one term and only one term in the draft or drifter.

 

[Dyrewulf]

I can see your frustrations...
I do not think you are the only group that has ever playtested before though...especially currently with this game...there may be a few of us in on this...
As for playtesting strictly what was in playtest doc...my players knew I was going to toss them into a traveller meat grinder so they made characters to support that...having spoken to Gar, he really wanted the combat rules tested so that's where our focus was. Based on the scenario I allowed them to be geared up, knowing that if they were armed with sling-shots and sticks, I'd come at them with bows and spears.
We did find issues and will of course post them with our submission...but if you want to be taken seriously here, maybe...and this is just a friendly suggestion...you should word things a little differently...and this isn't just for you Occupant.
I have read several peoples posts here and if I was the developer I wouldn't take any of those comments seriously. You should write down all the pros and cons of your playtest session, using professional language (regardless if it's a quote from a player) and submit it via email...and of course again here on the boards for people to discuss because that's what this board is here for.
I discovered several issues with v2 and v3 by reading the boards before I even printed those copies out...cut and pasted those posts and stuck it in the document as a form of errata.
Criticism is important to the creative outlet, but you also have to word it correctly, otherwise it just becomes mindless bashing.
After your train wreck of a 1st session, maybe you should pick a section you would want to playtest, discuss it with your players, make your characters again, based on the theme of that session and playtest those rules...however to make sure you are getting a broad outlook, what our group did was rolled 2-3 characters each. It aloud them, and myself, to look at the chargen as well as have extra targets to shoot at.
Anyways, good luck if you continue...