Cyberware/Gear book for Traveller

[Tyrant]

I've never played any of the previous incarnations of Traveller, but it seems odd that I've never heard anyone who has played it make mention of heavily Cybered characters.

I realise that this is likely due to the default universe of Traveller, but since the Mongoose version will be more universal in approach to allow everyone their own version of the game, I'd like to see a book on cyberware, genetic engineering and all the rest of it.

Gimme fully borged' imperial spec ops. Or Bounty hunters that have lost their fleshy bits over the years and have had to replace them with ugly, industrial looking metal parts.

 

[AKAramis]

I've never played any of the previous incarnations of Traveller, but it seems odd that I've never heard anyone who has played it make mention of heavily Cybered characters.

I realise that this is likely due to the default universe of Traveller, but since the Mongoose version will be more universal in approach to allow everyone their own version of the game, I'd like to see a book on cyberware, genetic engineering and all the rest of it.

In the OTU, many imperial worlds consider you no longer sentient if you're more than X% mechanical, with X ranging from 100 (Sambqis) to 0, with a typical norm in the coreward trailing areas (Domains of Antares and Vland) being 25% by volume...

TNE provided a basic set of cyberware in the FF&S supplement. Most players I know of rejected it simply due to the risks of the surgery to get it installed... One PC died due to a failed medical roll (PC had hired an excellent doc, Dex 12, Skill 6... but a nat 20 came up... ).

MT had some prosthetics and bionics in a DGP article. Most players avoided them, since regrowth drugs were in the same article, and EMP is a real threat in space.

Any space setting needs to make note of the EMP and Radiation potentials for installed cyberware. MT and TNE treatments did so... and so cyberware was an undue risk for spacers.

Oh, and after IY 1135, there is this AI Virus that will use cybernetics as a tool for spreading itself and/or controlling the user.

 

[pasuuli]

I've never played any of the previous incarnations of Traveller, but it seems odd that I've never heard anyone who has played it make mention of heavily Cybered characters.

I realise that this is likely due to the default universe of Traveller, but since the Mongoose version will be more universal in approach to allow everyone their own version of the game, I'd like to see a book on cyberware, genetic engineering and all the rest of it.

Gimme fully borged' imperial spec ops. Or Bounty hunters that have lost their fleshy bits over the years and have had to replace them with ugly, industrial looking metal parts.

Seconded. It'd be a somewhat alternate setting, but bring it.

 

[SnowDog]

Surely there are ways to shield the cyberware from radiation and that should be given at the setting with cyberware and lots of spacefaring. It somehow feels just ... wrong to have both aspects but you can't use implants in space

I know, it's not Traveller but when considering general source books and other settings I would just love to have implants and genemods.

 

[B_Steele]

You'll be happy to know that the Mercenary book has a really hefty equipment section - which does include a few more combat implants. So, if someone has the money and the time, they can get a little more cybered up.

Be careful though, as having a lot of metal and electronics in someone's body could be very detrimental when that EMP grenade goes off nearby...

8)

-Bry

 

[AKAramis]

Surely there are ways to shield the cyberware from radiation and that should be given at the setting with cyberware and lots of spacefaring. It somehow feels just ... wrong to have both aspects but you can't use implants in space

I know, it's not Traveller but when considering general source books and other settings I would just love to have implants and genemods.

Nothing says you can't... but it is the kind of risk that only idiots will take. There are a lot of idiots in the real world...

Any method of radiation shielding sufficient to protect electronics (at least by current principles) is either going to need to ground out (ouch!), heat up (OUCH!), or be thick enough to make it implausible.

And most of the stuff will need external ports, which means the faraday cage won't do it.... (it needs to ground or it heats up, sometimes both.)

 

[captainjack23]

Surely there are ways to shield the cyberware from radiation and that should be given at the setting with cyberware and lots of spacefaring. It somehow feels just ... wrong to have both aspects but you can't use implants in space

I know, it's not Traveller but when considering general source books and other settings I would just love to have implants and genemods.

Nothing says you can't... but it is the kind of risk that only idiots will take. There are a lot of idiots in the real world...

Any method of radiation shielding sufficient to protect electronics (at least by current principles) is either going to need to ground out (ouch!), heat up (OUCH!), or be thick enough to make it implausible.

Plus, there's the well known if unstated effect of jumpspace that prevents automated ships and etc. If it does effect cybetronics it may well render them useful only on the planet of construction.

As reards shielding - well, jumpspace quantum disruption was the reason that ship computers were so damn big in my old CT game...shiieding and redundency. You shut off and isolated all mission critical electronics for a week...anything else was gradually rendered unreliable, which if not mission critical, was shruggable (the equiv of cheap hand calculators and xboxes)

 

[SnowDog]

You have valid points there, AKAramis but we approach this thing from two different perspectives. Yes, I like realism in games, too (comes with the education, I suppose) but what comes to scifi and especially to a setting in very far future or even in totally alternate space-time continuum I tend to lean on what is fun to play. Me, I like cyberpunk and implants. I like genemods and biotech and I like to think that scientist would have found ways to make those things work in space.

So, you argue for the realism which is fine and my point is playability and how fascinating the setting is. We approach this whole question at different (not necessarily at opposite) angles.

 

[Emperor Herdan]

Plus, there's the well known if unstated effect of jumpspace that prevents automated ships and etc. If it does effect cybetronics it may well render them useful only on the planet of construction.

As reards shielding - well, jumpspace quantum disruption was the reason that ship computers were so damn big in my old CT game...shiieding and redundency. You shut off and isolated all mission critical electronics for a week...anything else was gradually rendered unreliable, which if not mission critical, was shruggable (the equiv of cheap hand calculators and xboxes)

Pardon me if I'm out-of-date (which I am...) but how does this not explain about the "Virus" of the TNE series/campaign (slightly off topic grant you but Virus ships were certainly capable of jumping about SFAIK)

Take Care

E. Herdan

 

[SnowDog]

Yeah, I have not read TNE material for a long time and I don't either remember anything that says that Virus ships couldn't travel between the systems. Where it was mentioned?

 

[AKAramis]

It's actually explicit in TNE that they can jump.

There is an old explanation for the large computers: it was often theorized that either they were micro vacuum tube computers or some other EMP resistant tech due to jump EMP. Jump flash is mentioned in several products, and shown in several illos...

But the EMP effect of jumping is not canonical.

 

[SnowDog]

Ah, thanks for the info AKAramis! I too thought that Vampire fleets could jump...

I suppose the size of the computers shows the age of game but it's nice that there is setting fluff that explains it

 

[-Daniel-]

I would buy a Cyber book for use with the traveller rules. I would just use it in an ATU rather then the OTU.

Daniel

 

[SnowDog]

I would probably use cybernetics etc. with a setting of my own device or maybe Mongoose will publish a setting for Traveller that will use those?

 

[Dove]

You'll be happy to know that the Mercenary book has a really hefty equipment section - which does include a few more combat implants. So, if someone has the money and the time, they can get a little more cybered up.

Be careful though, as having a lot of metal and electronics in someone's body could be very detrimental when that EMP grenade goes off nearby...

8)

-Bry

But these implants that you speak of, do they not make you lose your status as a citizen?

 

[SnowDog]

I have only played TNE where cybernetics were a big no-no for obvious reasons so I don't know if having cybernetics makes you loose your citizenship or not. If it does, that's sort of interesting...

Anyway, I have understood that Mercenary is quite generic source book. So parts of it might have different effect in Traveller setting than in other settings...

 

[klingsor]

Traveller predated Cyberpunk by many years and even when new its take on technology was in some ways a little old fashioned. Socially too Traveller seems a little old fashioned so the 'punk' part of Cyberpunk did not sit well with classic Traveller. The unrelated 2300 setting did receive a slightly ill fitting Cybertech book to try and ride the wave of Cyberpunk but that was about as much as GDW did. The idea of getting a perfectly good arm replaced with an artificial one just so you could have a gun concealed in it probably seemed as bizarre to them as it does to me.

Even robots did not really get much mention until, I believe, a Special Supplement in JTAS then one of the last little black books though the excellent DGP series made more use of them.

Of course with the new edition everything has changed. While the default setting is still the Traveller universe we know and love we can now use the books more easily for alternative settings so they are supposed to be hard wired into the new books (I have not got one yet so I cannot say).

However having some local planetary culture cybered up would not be alien to Traveller. You just have to be able to explain why – and this I suspect could be a lot of fun to do.

 

[-Daniel-]

I think it comes down to two basic camps:

Those who try and follow the canon of the Traveller Universes to the best of their ability and those who like to play with the background and deviate some.

Just as many Traveller games started to have light sabres, er um power swords at one point, many I saw began to add in Cyber and Bioware. Yes, these things changed how the game felt and did change the overall look of those games. But in many cases the GM/Players did not care.

The real question in my mind as someone who would like to have the option is this: Can I get my Cyber/Bio added in as an optional book without hurting the canon background?

Just as I was not excited about official "mechs" for Traveller or "Power Swords and very powerful Psi"; I am thinking I would like the Cyber type stuff to remain outside the canon.

Daniel

 

[Flynn]

This might make a great third-party product, for whoever wanted to take up the challenge of putting it together...

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[-Daniel-]

This might make a great third-party product, for whoever wanted to take up the challenge of putting it together...

With Regards,
Flynn

I agree, now we just need to find someone more talented then I. :wink:

Daniel