D&D 3E to MG Traveller Conversions

[Rick]

Tom. I do really like your posts - they are very funny and wildly inventive, and usually well worth reading. But - Traveller style fantasy please; no artificial levels or xp, no tael, no trying to shoehorn D&D mechanics into Traveller!
Now - the positives. D&D is a bit too artificial in a lot of ways - I like the idea of using the Traveller system as it forces players to work together to defeat a big bad, because, even in battledress, chances are 1 guy isn't going to take out a Dragon very easily. What this means is, that in game terms, a lot of the nastier D&D creatures will have to be reduced in power before being translated into Traveller stats, hence my post about using a sliding scale.

Couldn't you kill a D&D Style Ancient Red Dragon with a Starship weapon?

With Traveller, what you have is more important than who you are.

I suppose you could, but then why have them in the first place? I was interested in a book which also set up a TL 1-2 society as well, rather than dropping fantasy creatures into space - that way, PC's have less to work with and it is much more interesting (watch the 'Outlander' (2008) film).
With Traveller, who you are and what you do is more important than what you (can) have. If every solution to a problem could be bought at a nearby convenience store, it would be a very pointless game.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Tom. I do really like your posts - they are very funny and wildly inventive, and usually well worth reading. But - Traveller style fantasy please; no artificial levels or xp, no tael, no trying to shoehorn D&D mechanics into Traveller!
Now - the positives. D&D is a bit too artificial in a lot of ways - I like the idea of using the Traveller system as it forces players to work together to defeat a big bad, because, even in battledress, chances are 1 guy isn't going to take out a Dragon very easily. What this means is, that in game terms, a lot of the nastier D&D creatures will have to be reduced in power before being translated into Traveller stats, hence my post about using a sliding scale.

Couldn't you kill a D&D Style Ancient Red Dragon with a Starship weapon?

With Traveller, what you have is more important than who you are.

I suppose you could, but then why have them in the first place? I was interested in a book which also set up a TL 1-2 society as well, rather than dropping fantasy creatures into space - that way, PC's have less to work with and it is much more interesting (watch the 'Outlander' (2008) film).
With Traveller, who you are and what you do is more important than what you (can) have. If every solution to a problem could be bought at a nearby convenience store, it would be a very pointless game.

Yeah, we could do Medieval we did World War II after all. What if we turned it into a time travel series. Do a world book of various periods of historical Earth one for each tech level. We got all the World War II vehicle books, maybe its time to do a World War II world book as well.

 

[Rick]

Why not? Cowboys vs. Xenomorphs has been done. All it needs is a setting with a twist and a catchy title. How about:

Vikings vs. Dragons?
Dogfaces vs. Nazi Zombies?
Musketeers vs. Vampires?
Knights vs. Giants?

:twisted:

 

[Infojunky]

Couldn't you kill a D&D Style Ancient Red Dragon with a Starship weapon?

When this question came up in one of my games the answer was "Dust off, and Nuke it from Orbit. It's the only way to be sure"

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Couldn't you kill a D&D Style Ancient Red Dragon with a Starship weapon?

When this question came up in one of my games the answer was "Dust off, and Nuke it from Orbit. It's the only way to be sure"

That always is the problem with Traveller, what is a challenge for a party on the surface of a planet is not a challenge for a party in a spaceship. The Referee has to match the challenge with what the PCs are likely to have with them. So if they are to encounter a dragon, the Referee has to make sure the PCs are out of their starship before the dragon encounter occurs. This is a lot like the game of "rock, paper, scissors", if you get my meaning.

 

[Reynard]

Look at Star Trek; every time magic or high technology as magic appears, it really effs up a starship and its crews. Same for Traveller crews. Magic in scifi settings can be a breaker since, quite often, the one principle defining magic is it breaks reality.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Look at Star Trek; every time magic or high technology as magic appears, it really effs up a starship and its crews. Same for Traveller crews. Magic in scifi settings can be a breaker since, quite often, the one principle defining magic is it breaks reality.

You mean like Q or the Squire of Gothos, or the God Apollo and so forth. Just the GM having his fun at the players expense it turns out. usually when dealing with such a powerful being, there is only one way to defeat them, find the character's Achilles heel. I don't know how you would design an adventure like that in Traveller. It is easy with Hollywood script writers, but it is hard to predict what the PCs are going to do, or whether they can solve the riddle without the GM dropping a very big hint!

 

[Reynard]

Oh I've designed Uber Bosses in various game systems with either Achilles heels or a WAY AROUND challenges and it becomes a story award to 'defeat' them. When something does not have stats it becomes a plot device or story challenge and is defeatable. Watch movies and you'll see not every creature is taken down merely by fighting.

To give you an idea, and this could be converted to Traveller, I was running a Star Wars first adventure and the players are in a underground prison mining operation. They discover a recent fissure and flee with guards right behind fully armed. The encounter a creature with no stats in a cavern blocking their freedom and the behemoth munches a few guard so they drop their weapon. Shooting the creature is useless. Looking for some other way reveals huge stalactites over the creature. 1+1 equals shoot the stalactites. Creature that can't be stopped is stopped. Awards for job well done and continue with rest of adventure.

Same could go with that dragon in a cave or a mere regenerating troll facing Your Party with bows and arrows or laser carbines.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

The real issue is what effect one is trying to achieve. In my conversion, game balance be damned. Traveller does not have game balance like challenge ratings or levels so...

My converted Great Wym Red Dragon has like
Str 30 Dex 7 End 20 Int 18 Edu 17 Inf 17
Natural armor 29 (scales) (yes, I have gone thru this before) and Melee (natural weapons) 16. So when it hits on an average roll of 7 it rolled a 31 (+StrDM 8 + Skill 16), it hits with its 3d6 claws as 3d6+23 (Effect don't you know).

Sounds right to me...

What is the Inf characteristic? Dragons are intelligent creatures, shouldn't they have a Soc, since they can talk and reason intelligently just like a human could?

Inf = Influence, a rolled up statistic found in the Judge Dredd campaign setting.

You could, but in my interpretation for conversion Social Standing is for use of "human" based social structures. The Charisma and Caste attributes as found Vargr, Kkree and Droyne represent different social structures so I did not want to use those. In Judge Dredd, all the Judges have very high Social Standings compared to ordinary citizens, but Influence is used outright as a 7th attribute. The Influence attribute as found and described in the Judge Dredd book fits better using the force of personality as found in the d20SRD and allows a more apples to apples use of Traveller and Diplomacy and Persuade skills across species who have social structures, but not necesarily human ones.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Tom. I do really like your posts - they are very funny and wildly inventive, and usually well worth reading. But - Traveller style fantasy please; no artificial levels or xp, no tael, no trying to shoehorn D&D mechanics into Traveller!
Now - the positives. D&D is a bit too artificial in a lot of ways - I like the idea of using the Traveller system as it forces players to work together to defeat a big bad, because, even in battledress, chances are 1 guy isn't going to take out a Dragon very easily. What this means is, that in game terms, a lot of the nastier D&D creatures will have to be reduced in power before being translated into Traveller stats, hence my post about using a sliding scale.

Couldn't you kill a D&D Style Ancient Red Dragon with a Starship weapon?

With Traveller, what you have is more important than who you are.

In my conversion, yes, you could kill that Great Wyrm with a starship weapon. 1d6 Starship scale = 50d6 Personal Scale. I see no problem with that.

Traveller is a level-less system. Levels are at best represented by Skill Levels in the appropriate area. Base Attack Bonus and Caster Level as found d20SRD can be simply interpreted as Skill Levels in Melee(your best weapon) and Magic(however you scale it). Dodging takes care of hit points if you have read interpretations of what hp represent from 1st, 2nd and 3rd ed versions of D&D. Traveller hit points are more like the wound points found in derivations of d20, like the old d20 Star Wars game.

My conversions are with a direct intent to make the old campaign ideas and rulesystem to conform to the new one. That Melee (natural weapons) 16 can sure help with dodging and still make a successful attack...

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

The real issue is what effect one is trying to achieve. In my conversion, game balance be damned. Traveller does not have game balance like challenge ratings or levels so...

My converted Great Wym Red Dragon has like
Str 30 Dex 7 End 20 Int 18 Edu 17 Inf 17
Natural armor 29 (scales) (yes, I have gone thru this before) and Melee (natural weapons) 16. So when it hits on an average roll of 7 it rolled a 31 (+StrDM 8 + Skill 16), it hits with its 3d6 claws as 3d6+23 (Effect don't you know).

Sounds right to me...

What is the Inf characteristic? Dragons are intelligent creatures, shouldn't they have a Soc, since they can talk and reason intelligently just like a human could?

Inf = Influence, a rolled up statistic found in the Judge Dredd campaign setting.

You could, but in my interpretation for conversion Social Standing is for use of "human" based social structures. The Charisma and Caste attributes as found Vargr, Kkree and Droyne represent different social structures so I did not want to use those. In Judge Dredd, all the Judges have very high Social Standings compared to ordinary citizens, but Influence is used outright as a 7th attribute. The Influence attribute as found and described in the Judge Dredd book fits better using the force of personality as found in the d20SRD and allows a more apples to apples use of Traveller and Diplomacy and Persuade skills across species who have social structures, but not necesarily human ones.

That said, dragons tend to be anti-social, they keep to themselves, and are more or less loners. Are you sure their Influence characteristic should be so high? Most dragons do not like visitors entering their lairs! The main exception is when they mate. They are very intelligent, but you don't really see societies of dragons. Just adding my 2 cents. On the other hand, Dragons need something like Charisma to intimidate. However maybe Traveller Dragons are different. What if they had starships? A Starship built for a Dragon would tend to be larger, and no Dragons don't make the best fighter pilots, because they can't squeeze into that cockpit!

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Yes, I think that the Influence for my dragon is appropriate. As an aid, read up on the Influence trait in the Judge Dredd book for a better explanation. I do not have the book here at work to quote from. As far as attributes go, in general I take the attribute and divide by 1.5 from d20 to get the Traveller attribute. This allows the D20 3-23 range for human attribute ranges to conform to the 1-15 Traveller human attribute range.
For non-animals (those with a d20 Intelligence above 2)
STR=STR
DEX=DEX
CON=END
INT=EDU
WIS=INT
CHA=INF
Yes, that is right about Intelligence and Wisdom being swapped. Social Standing is usually more a guesswork thing. I use the Book 8 Dilettante rules for scale of planes of existence (planets/subsectors/sectors) along with fudging Divine Rank for really high Social Standing ratings.

For animals (those with a d20 Intelligence of 2 or lower)
STR=STR
DEX=DEX
CON=END
INT=INT
WIS=INS (Instinct) as found in Traveller Core Rule Book
Number Appearing=Pack as found in Traveller Core Rule Book

A dragon's size is in part handled by the Tiny, Small, Large and Huge alien traits. I extended the chart to allow for the D20 range of Sizes

Starship requirements would have to be handled by new rules additions. There is already precedent for that in living requirements for Kkree ships. I am not adverse to new rules in my conversions, just that they only be added and conform to the existing rule system.