Babylon 5 Traveller or D20?

[Kronos2000]

Hi

I just recently found out that there's also a Babylon 5 setting book and everything for the Traveller game system. I was aware and have the old D20 books.

Now I'm considering actually running a B5 game at some point in the future, but I'm unsure which system would be better.

I'm familiar with the D20 rules, but well, I find them a little bit convoluted in some areas. (a fault of D&D 3.0/3.5 which it's based on, I guess)
However on the flipside, I know practically nothing at all about Traveller, so I would have to learn that system from scratch, but if it's a good one I'm willing to do that.

From the little bit I gleamed from wikipedia and so, Traveller is actually already a fully fleshed out world/universe and so, so I'm a little confused as to how that works together with something like B5, where it's also a full universe and most likely not the same.

I read that some people aren't too happy with the Babylon 5 Traveller book as it was apparently rather light on background info and such things, but that doesn't matter for me, I can easily steal that stuff out of all the D20 books, since that's not system specific.

I'm simply looking at the mechanical side right now, as to which game system is better/easier to learn or play etc.

My second question would be, what books would I need to play B5 Traveller? I assume the Traveller Core Book for the general rules and the Universe of Babylon 5 as well as the Warships of B5 for how to make them work with the B5 setting. Anything else?

Hope you can help me with this, thanks

 

[MongooseMatt]

Tough one

I would say the D20 version was much better developed (getting towards 40 books, as I recall), whereas the Traveller version really just had one (plus a ship book and adventure).

However, I would also say that the Traveller version is the better _game_, and you have an awful lot of Traveller supplements that can be used to flesh the game out with no conversion necessary.

There is also, in S&P, a grand 'epic' B5 campaign for Traveller. Completely free

So, I would lean towards Traveller, but that is just my opinion!

 

[locarno24]

The most important thing you can probably get is Legacies of War!
This is free, and found in Signs & Portents 63+, which you can download for free.
Essentially, it's a Traveller campaign which is seasons 2-3 of Crusade.

As noted, background wasn't too heavy but if you're trying to play B5, it's presumably because you know the universe well enough anyway.

Warships of Babylon 5 is pretty good. Some of the ship's deckplans are nice (the Nova's is really, really nicely done) but most B5 ships are too big for them to really matter, plus for some reason all the B5 weapons from the universe book are really, really weedy compared to 'normal' traveller weapons. Ship combat isn't a big thing - or if it is, swap pulse weapons to particle weapons of equivalent class (turret, barbette, bay) or it'll take you 1,254,708 years to resolve a combat. Several major capital ships are essentially incapable of hurting one another.

I would vote traveller as easier to learn unless your player group is already experienced with D20.
Stats and skills make more sense to me, and there's less paperwork to keep track of.

Plus, it gets people into the right mindset for B5 - combat is really, really deadly no matter how good you think you are, but a smart guy with a high SOC is just as dangerous as a nut with a gun - although for different reasons.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Well, as has been mentioned, there are several distinct settings that 'Traveller' has used/uses... B5 was merely one of them.

I have played it since the initial version first arrived in the UK in the '70's and have always found it an extremely easy basic system to which you can add complexity, as required, by incorporating rules sub-systems from the various supplemental books.

You can make it as complicated as required for your own game... or not. None of the extra books are strictly speaking required, but they tend to be useful to a greater or lesser degree. I would recommend 'High Guard' if you want more space battles, 'Central Supply Catalogue' if you are more focussed on individual PCs and their equipment. Then follow your interests from there.

Hope that helps.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

There are two versions of Bab 5 D20. Do you have the the black covers (D20 3.0)or the blue covers (D20 3.5)? I have am only missing about 3 books and have tthe core books for all three versions.
Each is fairly different it seems to me:
The 3.0 version felt like your standard d20 - everyone gets powers/special abilities.
The 3.5 one was relying more on contacts. The conversion section of skills and special abilities from 3.0 made it feel more like a political sort of game. To me anyways.
The Traveller version is fairly clean as long as you realize that the tech levels in the B5 Galactic Guide do not correspond to expected tech in the Traveller books. You will have great deal more work on your hands if you are converting the other races besides the main empires or the League. Finally, there is the Techno-Mages, Vorlons or Shadows and their tech which are not detailed in B5 Traveller.
I found Traveller a more simple and streamlined game system.

 

[rust]

I'm simply looking at the mechanical side right now, as to which game system is better/easier to learn or play etc.

I would recommend Traveller, in my view it fits science fiction better
than the D20 system, and I find it easier to learn and use.

My second question would be, what books would I need to play B5 Traveller?

Obviously the core rules, and the Central Supply Catalogue is a good
choice, because science fiction traditionally has a focus on equipment.
Otherwise it depends entirely on the main theme(s) of your campaign,
there are Traveller supplements which might prove useful for most of
the possible directions your campaign could take.

The Traveller version of the Babylon 5 setting is indeed somewhat weak
when it comes to the background informations, there the D20 version is
much, much better. On the other hand, almost all of that background in-
formation is not tied to a specific game system, it can easily be used with
any other system, too.

 

[Kronos2000]

Hey thank you all for the answers so far.

It seems most of you prefer the Traveller system, though of course there might be a slight bias considering I was posting this in a Traveller forum

However, I did start reading the Traveller rules a little bit and they really don't seem overly complicated, D20 seems a lot worse in that.

Not sure I like the whole randomness of character creation though. I never did, not in D&D either, it just creates characters of vastly different powerlevels. One player rolls 3 18s and nothing below 15, the other guy has 14 as his highest stat. (Yes I've seen that happening)
And some of those events can completely cripple a concept you wanna play. Want to play a veteran soldier turned mercenary for example and then get a serious injury that makes that impossible? Yeah, now that player's going to be happy and have fun, right?
Though letting people cherry pick events from that list seems silly too.

 

[AndrewW]

Not sure I like the whole randomness of character creation though. I never did, not in D&D either, it just creates characters of vastly different powerlevels. One player rolls 3 18s and nothing below 15, the other guy has 14 as his highest stat. (Yes I've seen that happening)

You can always use points and let the players spend them on what they want to.

 

[Kronos2000]

True, I thought about doing that, but how do you then deal with the Events that happen during the term?
I mean they vary widely in terms of usefulness and power, obviously the "Disaster!" ones are worse than "You get an automatic promotion!", so just let them pick whatever they like there?

Ignore the events completely? Doesn't that make them overall weaker though (I mean on average you're coming out with a bonus from those Events)

 

[rust]

I do not have my Traveller Babylon 5 book at hand, but I seem
to remember that it included alternative events for the various
races, taken from the background of the Babylon 5 universe. If
this is right, it should not be too difficult to choose a few plausi-
ble events for each character concept and let the player decide
which ones fit his idea of his character best. In my experience
at least mature players do not "min/max" with the events which
give the highest bonus, they take the events which are most in-
teresting as a roleplaying background for their characters. And
if your players are more into munchkinism, you can always rule
that they have to take as many "bad" events as "good" ones.

 

[Greg Smith]

The character generation events part of the B5 book was one of the better bits of it. Although I think every character had a slim chance of meeting Mr Morden...

A lot of the background in the B5 Traveller book was cut and pasted from the D20 2nd edition book.

The second edition D20 rules were a pretty good set of rules, well adapted to their background. The influence rules were a great addition. It did still suffer from D20-ness though - levels and hit points. We found that that didn't get in the way because B5 was by and large not a combat heavy setting.

There are some great B5 background books - the major race books are great. The Gaim book is awesome. The Ragged Edge campaign is a really good one.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Not sure I like the whole randomness of character creation though. I never did, not in D&D either, it just creates characters of vastly different powerlevels. One player rolls 3 18s and nothing below 15, the other guy has 14 as his highest stat. (Yes I've seen that happening)
And some of those events can completely cripple a concept you wanna play. Want to play a veteran soldier turned mercenary for example and then get a serious injury that makes that impossible? Yeah, now that player's going to be happy and have fun, right?
Though letting people cherry pick events from that list seems silly too.

You can as a Referee institute some simple safeguards to keep things more in balance for you players. As an example, you could:

• *State that all characters are limited to a specific number of terms (as in they were drafted around the same time and are around the same age.
  *When players earn a skill from the tables, allow players not just the table to get a skill from, but the specific skill they could get.
  *Adjust life/near death/death events. Have rolls causing death to be near death experiences.
  *Use the optional point based system adjusting points as you see fit.

Traveller with the rules as written does not have as tight game balance as D20 because, quite frankly, it is not a level based system. Game balance is mostly an issue for combat. Since combat is deadly no matter how good you are, game balance is not a big deal. Players have to realize that going in with swords or guns out all the time is a bad thing. But I feel it makes for a more mature gaming experience. And it fits with the d20 versions, because characters there were only getting about 1 or 2 hp per level and most firearms could kill you with one or two shots.

 

[locarno24]

Not sure I like the whole randomness of character creation though. I never did, not in D&D either, it just creates characters of vastly different powerlevels. One player rolls 3 18s and nothing below 15, the other guy has 14 as his highest stat. (Yes I've seen that happening)
And some of those events can completely cripple a concept you wanna play. Want to play a veteran soldier turned mercenary for example and then get a serious injury that makes that impossible? Yeah, now that player's going to be happy and have fun, right?
Though letting people cherry pick events from that list seems silly too.

Just ignore events if you do 'points-buy' character creation. If people have a particular archetype they want to be, it's just easier.

Also, random character generation isn't as bad as it looks. Even if you roll a 3 for DEX (for example), it's not that much worse in game terms than DEX 8 - it's only a -1 on rolls.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

D20 uses classes and leveling up. Is that still the deal in B5 D20? If so, are you ok with that kind of game mechanic?

 

[locarno24]

It does if I remember correctly.

 

[Myrm]

Not sure I like the whole randomness of character creation though. I never did, not in D&D either, it just creates characters of vastly different powerlevels. One player rolls 3 18s and nothing below 15, the other guy has 14 as his highest stat. (Yes I've seen that happening)

SO have I in DnD and it did produce some of the more memorable characters both ways (even under 1st/2nd Edition where stat bonuses were even more weighted to the high scores) - the class system there does help define areas of expertise and to some extent the careers can do this for a Traveller character where the DMs from stats are much narrower in range. However you cannot get away from the fact that some players simply hate random generation systems - I find them quite fun - as I say my favourite characters have been the unusual results but its not going to be for everyone.

That said this is not a Traveller, or DnD or whatever specific issue - this is a fundamental 'do you want random/how much or do you want construction/how much for character generation issue'

And some of those events can completely cripple a concept you wanna play. Want to play a veteran soldier turned mercenary for example and then get a serious injury that makes that impossible? Yeah, now that player's going to be happy and have fun, right?

Yes this is the downside of an extended backstory set of rolls. If you think this version is bad the older versions were commonly lethal to characters. There are a few options....

One is the fact that the core rulebook does provide a system for points purchase generation of character - this sidesteps all those issues as events don't come into it - at the point a player wants to take risks to get more playtoys I must admit I'm quite heavily towards saying 'play what you get' - so if there is a buy system and they want safe - use that. It is the simplest option.
Second is a kind of mix - I do let players do a second run at random generation if wanted and if they could say before the first what type of character they wanted and the character totally mismatches and then choose to do buying if they were still awful - the buy system does give perfect control.
Third option is more a fact - actually even with all the dice rolls its hard to get a character completely useless in the field you are going for.....just the nature of it. You do have the group packages at the end which can fill those vital skills too.
FOurth is play a low power game - say 2 terms maximum, Level 0 skills there are actually quite useful and a Level 1 is potent.

Essentially a lot of this depends on you and your players and where you draw your personal lines but the system does have a lot of potential for flexibility for fitting your style into the system....one of the strengths I feel of it.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

The Traveller Rules System has a point-buy method that is explained in the Main Rulebook. You can easily use that if you don't want random.

 

[locarno24]

If you think this version is bad the older versions were commonly lethal to characters.

So does this one; some of the Universe of Babylon 5 events are much harsher than the normal Mongoose Traveller rules - I can recall at least one event on the Rangers career which is simply "You are killed."

Hence why I agree with the above. If you want to see where the game takes you; rolling up a character from scratch is brilliant - you could end up with just about anything and it generates quite a nice handful of character background for you. If you really, really want to be a marine heavy gunner (or whatever), go with a points buy system.

 

[qstor]

is there a conversion guide from d20 to the Mongoose Traveller for the ships of b5?

 

[locarno24]

Not that I recall. If you've got the (first edition) High Guard and Universe Of Babylon 5 (plus, ideally, Warships of Babylon 5 and a free download of legacies of war) you've got the ability to build them from scratch.


What ships would you be wanting to convert?


To be honest, most ships you could want are already statted - pretty much all the fighters (including raider deltas), the shadow and vorlon ships, omega destroyers, novas, hyperions, even victory-class destroyers and white stars, plus drakh ships.

Granted, the victory is so bloody big that the deckplan's detail is nigh unreadable, but that's an issue with the size of the ship more than anything.