Combat in Traveller: some tactical principles
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Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
We (my son and I) crammed an 8 hour session in today. During today's session, we fought a group of six kidnappers without taking a hit, just because we had the chance to set up in covered positions. (Two well-placed grenades also did the heavy lifting.) Initially I had just wanted some help on how to set up combat scenes, but most everyone's answers have been to avoid combat. I reject that reality and substitute it for my own, as Adam Savage would say. I appreciate the help from people that took the time to walk me through what I was doing wrong. Turns out combat is much more engaging than the D&D method, but just as winnable even when outnumbered. We'll fine-tune our NPC and animal stats and equipment as we learn. I didn't even want to play when I sat down today because thinking I needed to avoid combat (not just avoid looking for combat, but actively avoid it completely) seemed like a terrible way to spend the afternoon. We ended up going for 8 hours and had a blast!
alex_greene
Guest
Where do "random" fights in alleyways come about?
Refs ... they don't. Remember, thugs are part of some sort of seedy underworld, but they never just randomly turn up looking for a fight.
Here's the thing. The Travellers should only encounter a thug fight to slow them down from getting to the objective too soon. Thugs are sent by somebody who doesn't want the Travellers to do what they want to do, but they don't necessarily want them dead. They want your Travellers beaten up as a warning, or they want them scared off the trail.
Similarly, if you've been brought before the boss and the criminal mastermind is offering you a job, guess what? He's not going to ask you to rough somebody up. He's already got a goon squad to do that for him. What he wants is someone with real skills - Electronics to set up a neighbourhood mesh network that's off the main data nets, or someone to sneak around and try and find out who kidnapped his daughter (she's safe, she's back home, but the boss paid the ransom and he's deeply resentful, so he wants to know who did the dirty on her so he can send his goons over to remonstrate, because that's what he pays them for).
Your fight scenes are not random. They will serve a purpose, that purpose being to propel the story along. Kill the D&D mode. I mean it. Destroy that whole mindset. If you're still thinking you're playing D&D, you're doing yourself the worst kind of disservice, because you're missing 90% of the point of Traveller.
Refs ... they don't. Remember, thugs are part of some sort of seedy underworld, but they never just randomly turn up looking for a fight.
Here's the thing. The Travellers should only encounter a thug fight to slow them down from getting to the objective too soon. Thugs are sent by somebody who doesn't want the Travellers to do what they want to do, but they don't necessarily want them dead. They want your Travellers beaten up as a warning, or they want them scared off the trail.
Similarly, if you've been brought before the boss and the criminal mastermind is offering you a job, guess what? He's not going to ask you to rough somebody up. He's already got a goon squad to do that for him. What he wants is someone with real skills - Electronics to set up a neighbourhood mesh network that's off the main data nets, or someone to sneak around and try and find out who kidnapped his daughter (she's safe, she's back home, but the boss paid the ransom and he's deeply resentful, so he wants to know who did the dirty on her so he can send his goons over to remonstrate, because that's what he pays them for).
Your fight scenes are not random. They will serve a purpose, that purpose being to propel the story along. Kill the D&D mode. I mean it. Destroy that whole mindset. If you're still thinking you're playing D&D, you're doing yourself the worst kind of disservice, because you're missing 90% of the point of Traveller.
alex_greene
Guest
Oh, the Travellers have the power in them to destroy worlds. They don't need to acquire special moves or weapons. They just show up, often in the most unexpected places. And in their wake, they can leave a trail of disruption across the face of the whole sector.
Their battle cries aren't loud. They are sentences such as "What does this button do?"
I am glad that you had fun. I really like Traveller and it can be played in a variety of styles, ranging from quite fighty to totally pacifistic. Despite the bombast of some pronouncements, fighting is a perfectly legitimate activity within the game. It just has to be taken seriously as a threat to your character, not a sort of routine happenstance. You don't have to run away. You just need to be aware that might be the best option if you aren't prepared for the combat at this time.
People overstate the anti combat thing because it is very different from D&D and making that sink in is important. A Traveller character can usually only take a couple hits (or even just one if the bad guys have rifles or you don't have any armor), don't have clerics to heal them, and stay dead if killed. But as you saw, with preparation and tactical play, combat is fun and very playable.
Sorry I haven't gone through all pages yet so perhaps someone has already mentioned it, but ..huh?
It seems to me that a +1 is VASTLY more useful at the ends of the bell curve than the middle.
Chance of rolling 8+ natively is 42%, with a +1 this goes up to 58%, a slight increase.
Chance of rolling a 12+ is only 2.8%; with a +1 that triples to 8.3%. Even a 10+ goes from 16.7 to 27.8%, nearly double.
It depends what a person is looking for in their game. If you want a heroic "I can pretty much always take out a couple of goons" game, then there are a ton of choices. No harm there.
OTOH Traveller is panned (by some) for its 'lethal' combat ...I wouldn't say it's particularly lethal, just authentic. IRL ain't the movies; numbers mean nearly everything. Two guys will be able to take down even a skilled single person much of the time and nobody's going to enjoy that fight. Most fights aren't that fair, per the old adage.
We use (first stat gone)=knocked prone, (2nd)=unc, (3rd)=dead - works pretty well.
My next campaign starting in roughly a month, I'm actually leading the characters into it by giving them (security forces) pregens, and telling them their task is to secure a nearby farm where some violent druggie criminals are said to be holed up after they got drunk and shot up town night before last. "Sure, they've got some guns, but there's more of you, you have stunners and sidearms, that should be plenty to sort out some drunk redneck hill people...."
Unfortunately, these lightly armed security forces are going to find out that these aren't just some thugs, the bad guys will have grenades, light mgs and maybe even a lightly armored car (there's a plot behind this, to be clear).
They'll get lots of skill checks, exposure to various weapons, environments, cover, concealment, etc.
However: THE POINT IS THAT THE BAD GUYS WIPE THE GOOD GUYS OUT. It's a learning exercise on a)mechanics, b)the lethality of the system.
Maybe we discuss afterward how it could have gone better, and get a consensus of who 'did the best' amongst the players.
Then after that bitter tragedy behind us, we generate characters; their first landfall will be a sort of Firefly-esque town that had some trouble a few days ago and the local security team went out to deal with the bad guys and hasn't come back.
When they get there, the scene will be as (they) left it, bodies where they dropped, etc.
MonsterX
Emperor Mongoose
Having been through similar, I'd say it is a good idea to have a fight like this to make sure the players understand what things to think about when getting in a fight. It can help to have at least two characters each, so that when one gets blown away while standing in the open, the other one learns to take cover. Make sure they know about dodging, diving for cover, going prone, all that stuff. Leadership and tactics rarely get used, because everybody forgets, but maybe they should. It certainly improved my players tactical thinking.My next campaign starting in roughly a month, I'm actually leading the characters into it by giving them (security forces) pregens, and telling them their task is to secure a nearby farm where some violent druggie criminals are said to be holed up after they got drunk and shot up town night before last. "Sure, they've got some guns, but there's more of you, you have stunners and sidearms, that should be plenty to sort out some drunk redneck hill people...."
Unfortunately, these lightly armed security forces are going to find out that these aren't just some thugs, the bad guys will have grenades, light mgs and maybe even a lightly armored car (there's a plot behind this, to be clear).
They'll get lots of skill checks, exposure to various weapons, environments, cover, concealment, etc.
However: THE POINT IS THAT THE BAD GUYS WIPE THE GOOD GUYS OUT. It's a learning exercise on a)mechanics, b)the lethality of the system.
Maybe we discuss afterward how it could have gone better, and get a consensus of who 'did the best' amongst the players.
Then after that bitter tragedy behind us, we generate characters; their first landfall will be a sort of Firefly-esque town that had some trouble a few days ago and the local security team went out to deal with the bad guys and hasn't come back.
MonsterX
Emperor Mongoose
At the high end, you can look at it that way (so needing an 11 instead of a 12, for example). But at the low end, the chance is 91.7% instead of 97.2%. Which is the point I was making: a +4 instead of a +3 is usually not as important as +1 or +2. Of course, you always want as many pluses as you can get, for the effect if nothing else. I disagree that a 16% increase is slight. But it doesn't matter, the point is you should know the probability of getting hit at various ranges, so you can gauge how exposed you can afford to risk being, and what kind of cover and evasion efforts make sense. If someone has an 7+ roll on you with a weapon that does serious damage, the odds are such that you'll want to do whatever you can to give minuses to that. If it is a 12+, you'll not want to be in the open for no reason, but you might risk dashing through the open if there is a reason to do it.
Bense
Cosmic Mongoose
Yes a +1 at the ends of the curve can triple you chance of scoring a hit, but you had such a lousy chance to begin with that it's not likely to really make much difference.
It's like the difference between buying 1 lottery ticket and buying 3. Yes you've technically tripled your chances, but you're still not going to win unless you get very lucky.
I have been stacking odds in my favour with armour. At TL 10 cloth is supposed to be almost indistinguishable from normal clothes. A diplo vest can be worn under normal clothes (and I am assuming under TL 10 Cloth). A Cloth trench coat can be worn over other armour (though this is more obviously armour so best worn out in the boonies). I don't think I am abusing the rule too badly with that combination. Against most normal weapons it means you are taking bruises rather than being eviscerated (unless someone targets your face). AP weapons are more of a threat and some of the automatic gauss pistols in the field catalogue are really scary. The solution is to carry one of your own.
Don't draw a gun unless you are willing to use it - you won't always have to but you have to be willing to. A gun escalates the fight so of you can avoid it then all to the good. Fisticuffs is much more socially acceptable. If you knock someone to the ground, often their mates will help them away and you can go on with your drink. If you gun them down then you are the baddie. One day someone is going to be drawing a bead on you with their gauss rifle while you are unaware and that +6 for aiming is going to make a difference.
My more well heeled characters have started having robot bodyguards armed with stunners. If nothing else they present more targets to chose from.
Don't draw a gun unless you are willing to use it - you won't always have to but you have to be willing to. A gun escalates the fight so of you can avoid it then all to the good. Fisticuffs is much more socially acceptable. If you knock someone to the ground, often their mates will help them away and you can go on with your drink. If you gun them down then you are the baddie. One day someone is going to be drawing a bead on you with their gauss rifle while you are unaware and that +6 for aiming is going to make a difference.
My more well heeled characters have started having robot bodyguards armed with stunners. If nothing else they present more targets to chose from.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
You have a shotgun.
You are skilled in reconnaissance.
You have a map of all the local back alleys.
You are skilled in reconnaissance.
You have a map of all the local back alleys.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
Some thoughts:
Of course D&D style combat habits are a problem. People who have those habits have expectations of how a combat is going to play out. D&D operates on quite a few flawed assumptions, and people accustomed to it don't do particularly well when playing a game operating of different assumptions. When this happens, they can either figure out what happened and try again, or they can get all mad and raise that mournful cry: "this is stupid, let's play D&D".
Something else is a limitation inherent to all ttrps: the disconnect between what the referee/GM imagines to be in the characters' environment, what has been defined in that environment, what should reasonably be in the environment, and the players' perception of what is in the characters' environment. If the characters are in some environment and a gunfight breaks out, their players don't have the immediate visual knowledge of what cover and concealment there is. In the excitement of the moment, people default to there isn't any and say "my guy does this" instead of "wait, what kind of cover and concealment is there". Stopping to ask that question is an unwelcome pause in the action.
Solution? The ref needs to do it.
The ref could have two descriptions of an environment, the usual description and the tactical description.
The usual description: it's a bar with ornate wood paneling, and so on and so forth.
The tactical description: the bar looks like it's made from local hardwood, the tables are too, but the chairs have wicker backs. The dinner service cart is made of relatively thin metal. The piano can conceal one or two guys. There are two sturdy hardwood columns flanking the main entrance.
When the combat is joined, the ref could state the tactical description, then move into the combat. This lets the players know what's there that is tactically useful, and also reminds them about cover, concealment, and using the environment tactically. Soon the players will come to expect this, and they'll get into the habit of thinking about cover, concealment, and other tactical options.
Of course D&D style combat habits are a problem. People who have those habits have expectations of how a combat is going to play out. D&D operates on quite a few flawed assumptions, and people accustomed to it don't do particularly well when playing a game operating of different assumptions. When this happens, they can either figure out what happened and try again, or they can get all mad and raise that mournful cry: "this is stupid, let's play D&D".
Something else is a limitation inherent to all ttrps: the disconnect between what the referee/GM imagines to be in the characters' environment, what has been defined in that environment, what should reasonably be in the environment, and the players' perception of what is in the characters' environment. If the characters are in some environment and a gunfight breaks out, their players don't have the immediate visual knowledge of what cover and concealment there is. In the excitement of the moment, people default to there isn't any and say "my guy does this" instead of "wait, what kind of cover and concealment is there". Stopping to ask that question is an unwelcome pause in the action.
Solution? The ref needs to do it.
The ref could have two descriptions of an environment, the usual description and the tactical description.
The usual description: it's a bar with ornate wood paneling, and so on and so forth.
The tactical description: the bar looks like it's made from local hardwood, the tables are too, but the chairs have wicker backs. The dinner service cart is made of relatively thin metal. The piano can conceal one or two guys. There are two sturdy hardwood columns flanking the main entrance.
When the combat is joined, the ref could state the tactical description, then move into the combat. This lets the players know what's there that is tactically useful, and also reminds them about cover, concealment, and using the environment tactically. Soon the players will come to expect this, and they'll get into the habit of thinking about cover, concealment, and other tactical options.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
A minor quibble. Some people like to fight, and in areas where this is culturally common, a lot of random fights break out for any reason or no reason. Drugs, alcohol, thrills, boredom, turf nonsense, gang nonsense, robbery, yobbery, chavvery, these are all reasons. Some of my relatives and their friends, they're all very old now, mentioned this. One of them mentioned how he frequently had one or two fights every morning walking to the bus stop to go work, and fights with the same or similar people while walking back to his house in the evening. He said that if he didn't fight, then he'd be marked as a pushover and it would be worse. Another said, "I left half my teeth in Liverpool." Of course, now crime like this is much worse and much more violent in many places.
In the context of Traveller, random fights can easily occur, but the ref needs to handle them appropriately.
- Are the characters in a setting where random fights reasonably occur?
- Is the encounter a waste of time that delays the main mission for the session?
- Will the encounter injure characters and prevent them from participating in the session?
- Do the player characters look like people that the local dirtbags would pick on? 4 to 6 rough-looking men moving in a group would probably be left alone, as opposed to one or two men who don't look particularly tough as they wander around looking for their cheap hotel.
- Does the encounter serve as a good introduction to the local setting?
- On the whole, is the encounter worth it?
Words to live by, all very true. IMO most of D&D's random encounters are there just for the gaining of experience points, a mechanic which (thankfully) doesn't exist in Traveller. "2 to 12 bugbears jump out for no apparent reason and kick you in the ass. Roll initiative and get your slice of this experience point pie."
If the ref decides that street violence and crime is commonplace in a particular locale, he can use these "random" fights/crimes to illustrate to the players what kind of a place they're in. Consider them something of an environmental hazard to heighten the tension, or even be a mini-adventure along with the main mission. Also consider that if the player characters have proven themselves to be dangerous when provoked, or look dangerous to begin with, people will most likely leave them alone. On the other hand, a village or neighborhood might unite against the outsiders if the characters shoot a would-be robber, and the characters might find a mob forming against them and people taking potshots at them from windows. It depends on the referee's vision of the local culture, the law level, and how many weapons are floating around.
But, the referee should always ask himself, how will this improve the session?
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
I think you could turn ransoms paid into experience points.
So you could capture the targets, beat them up (experience points), ransom them back to their families, alive, and mostly intact.
So you could capture the targets, beat them up (experience points), ransom them back to their families, alive, and mostly intact.
