Fantasy Traveller: Adventurer

[EDG]

I think dmccoy's question is rather misleading - it's not a case of "why play this and not D&D?", because they're not mutually exclusive.

I think people are coming up with "Fantasy Travellers" because:

a) the game hasn't really supported that genre (beyond an inconsequential nod to the existence of TL 0 and TL 1). So there's a gap that some people perceive should be filled.

and

b) they can. The OGL lets people write anything they like for the Traveller ruleset, and it doesn't even need to have "Traveller compatible" on it (I'm kinda wondering what one does call it if it doesn't though - "2d6 OGL"?). Why shouldn't people write Fantasy versions of Traveller now, or Noir versions, or Modern versions?

These appeal to people who like the Traveller rules, and who don't necessarily have any interest in playing D&D or anything else. That alone is good enough reason to do it, IMO.

 

[Eisenmann]

Still chuggin' along.

On top of the Fighting Man career we've got several more in the works including Freeman, Ranger, Rogue, and Nobility.

To give a little more info, the Free Man careers include Tradesman, Sailor, and Merchant. Ranger careers are Scout, Huntsman, and Outrider. Rogue careers are Thief, Footpad, and Pirate. Nobility careers are Cavalry/Knight, Diplomat, Castellan, and Rake.

BTW, does anyone know if WordPress handles tables in a sensible manner?

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

If it is for publication, answer me this question: why should someone play this over D&D?

For much the same reason(s) as anyone would play any other fantasy game over D&D.

Anyway, I think this is a great idea and am certainly looking forward to seeing how it develops over time.

 

[GamerDude]

I think dmccoy's question is rather misleading - it's not a case of "why play this and not D&D?", because they're not mutually exclusive.

Actually, they can easily be...

RolePlaying games are expensive, especially if you want everything out for it. Unless you make quite a bit of money (or just don't do much else) you have to choose.... do I want to Play GURPS or D&D or maybe that new Traveller.

Not everyone has lots of money, and time to run forums and be on others driving up post counts. Most people have real lives, real concerns about where their money goes, and what they are going to spend their small gaming budget on.

 

[kristof65]

If it is for publication, answer me this question: why should someone play this over D&D?

Because they dislike D&D and the growing power creep and munchkinism that is appearing in more and more "modern" games.

Some people like nice low-fantasy games and with WFRP going to a funky 3e this could work for their grim, low end gaming.

*Playing Devil's Advocate*

Ok, why not play 1E D&D or an OGL 1E Clone? It is substantially less powerful than 3E/4E D&D.

Why not? Because there is a basic difference in the core mechanics of Traveller and and all versions of D&D that, IMO, makes a huge difference to the feel of the game. The bulk of it has to do with the leveling system of D&D. It's the very reason I moved away from D&D to my preferred fantasy system, WFRP years ago - - because no matter what edition of D&D, a 1st level character has absolutely no chance against a 10th level character in just about anything.

Another selling point for a Traveller based fantasy game is if you already like the Traveller mechanics, and are familiar with the system, it makes switching between games/genres very easy - this is often a strong selling point for people - familiarity with the system.

Now, that said, you shouldn't just slap a few fantasy labels on Traveller skills/career paths and call it Fantasy Traveller - there is more to it than that - but a decent "clone" of D&D transposed to the Traveller rule set has it's selling points.

 

[GamerDude]

Why not? Because there is a basic difference in the core mechanics of Traveller and and all versions of D&D that, IMO, makes a huge difference to the feel of the game.

I agree that systems designed for a particular genre and feel tend to not translate well to other systems.

I've some friends who just love shadowrun... but got tired of one system for that another for fantasy another for space/scifi and tried D&D 3rd ed/d20 Modern, GURPS, Hero.... nothing had the grit or leathalness for a good ol'fashioned shadowrun game...

So they went back to it.

 

[Eisenmann]

I've some friends who just love shadowrun... but got tired of one system for that another for fantasy another for space/scifi and tried D&D 3rd ed/d20 Modern, GURPS, Hero.... nothing had the grit or leathalness for a good ol'fashioned shadowrun game...

So they went back to it.

We'll never know if we don't do it.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Well what does Traveller offer as a system right now that can be readily ported to fantasy system.

Sword Combat - The system already has sword/melee built in. What it doesn't currently offer is some way to make a single sword swipe = a single kill. One well placed dagger swipe should be a killing blow. Yea it shouldn't be as easy to do as a katana, but it should still doable. It does have a mass combat system, since most fantasy stories involve some type of mass army fight, that's a plus.

Ranged Combat - Bows and arrows and lower TL siege weapons are present, but could be fleshed out more. There would probably need to be expanded rules for things like having a castle under siege, but it still can be done.

Ships - Treat sailing ships as space ships and you've got combat. Again, merc has a mass combat system, so it can do fleet combat.

High Fantasy Tropes - Air ships, personal sky gliders, things of this nature have their equivilant, but would probably require some mechanical adjusting (and alot of fluff adjusting) to get it to work right.

Magic - Psionics is present, but the base Traveller book assumes Psionics are rare and doesn't dive into them to much. Psion does expand these rules, but they're not OGL. So those need to be ignored and new material written. (For a home system, Psion would be fine though.) Plus you need to ask yourself if this is the "Color of Magic" (to borrow a Terry Pratchet title) you want. Do you want 'generic' magic or do you want 'elemental' magic or do you want 'temporal' magic or D&D-esque 'school' magic or ...? Do you want more than one color of magic in the game? Do you want the ability to have a 'fire caster' to be able to use 'ice magic'? Should a 'future-bender' be able to cancel out a 'mind-bender'? Should there be a Magic the Gathering-esque type of black magic that hurts you almost as it does your opponent? Do you want magic to influence social situations more than Charm Person does in D&D? And how do you balance this magic against sword play? Does everyone have access to magic? Are all PC's assumed to have this magic? How does one gain access to the various kinds of magic and increase their ability in game? These are a very important questions and the answers will modify the rest of the setting (and the system as well). You really can't say "No magic" completely, simply because to many fantasy lovers like magic to be integral to the genre.

Magic Arms - This is where Traveller lacks the most and will require the most work. Does a magical weapon only mean that it does more damage (boring) or does it mean that it can do something cool like makes you faster in combat, turns your sword into a boomerang that damages on the way out and back, increases your ability to intimidate others, increases the range of your arrow if you ricochet it off something, seeks out another target and deal the remaining damage to it if it kills its target, etc?

NPCs/Monsters - does the setting assume humans/humans imbibed with magic are the main bad guys or are there monsters that threaten humanity's existence? Again, much work needs done here.

More food for thought.

 

[Eisenmann]

I want to note that our design intent is aimed at a lower magic historical bent first with more magic as optional. So, from our perspective some of the questions that could be seen as inhibitive may not apply to the Adventurer effort.

 

[EDG]

EDIT: nvm, dmccoy edited out the section of his post that I was commenting on.

 

[dmccoy1693]

I want to stress that I am not trying to sound critical, merely trying to be helpful. I'm not trying to talk anyone out of doing what they desire to do, merely trying to point out things that should be addressed. I"m not putting roadblocks in the way, merely pointing out the roadblocks that exist, helping to form a road map beforehand.

 

[Eisenmann]

Just stopping in to say that we've finished up the Mishaps and Events tables for:

• Barbarian (Horse, Sea, Land)
  Fighting Man (Support, Infantry, Archer)
  Free Man (Tradesman, Sailor, Merchant)
  Nobility (Cavalry/Knight, Diplomat, Castellan, Rake)
  Ranger (Scout, Huntsman, Outrider)
  Rogue (Thief, Footpad, Pirate)

Next is to wrap up Ranks and Benefits for each career as well as the mustering out benefits.

 

[qstor]

You might want to check this thread out too

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=11081

and this

http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/rules/GlassAndGold.html

Mike

 

[EDG]

Samardan Press will be releasing something soon that you might find useful too:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=41089

 

[Eisenmann]

qstor, thanks for the links.

EDG, thanks for the link. I'd love to look but I'm hoping to come up with a clean room implementation because I don't want to step on anyone's toes. Especially if we do decide to actually publish.

Does anyone know if WordPress has good support for tables? I've yet to create an account for testing. Blogspot's support is so painful that it makes me cringe when thinking about posting the work in progress.

 

[Flynn]

The beauty of the OGL is that if you like the system I produce or even just parts of it, you can use what you like of it and drop the rest. I'm declaring all of it Open Content, except for Product Identity, and so I hope it helps you with your implementation. Your Section 15 will need to include my Section 15 as part of it, per the OGL, and that's advertising enough for me.

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[Eisenmann]

The beauty of the OGL is that if you like the system I produce or even just parts of it, you can use what you like of it and drop the rest. I'm declaring all of it Open Content, except for Product Identity, and so I hope it helps you with your implementation. Your Section 15 will need to include my Section 15 as part of it, per the OGL, and that's advertising enough for me.

With Regards,
Flynn

Well, then. Sold!

 

[Eisenmann]

Just posting up that after a long hiatus we're starting again to chip away at the project.

The Adventurer project got put on hold while we sold our house, moved to a new state, changed jobs, found a new house and unpacked everything.

I literally just looked at the docs and was a bit stunned. I'm surprised how much we had done.

 

[locarno24]

Agreeing with the above - mass combat would be good, along with an ability to pre-generate dukedoms/ports/etc to the same level of detail that I can currently generate systems and sectors.

A successful trading ship (something analagous to the Hanseatic League era in the 'real world') is almost a direct port of the concept of the game - a sort-of-free trader between (sea)ports seperated by days or weeks of travel, each with its own cultures, languages, needs and opportunities, with a few common threads tying them together (real-world - the Church, the various Leagues of cities and the emerging nation-states).

It offers something different to D&D - that is, the stuff that happens outside the dungeon. The politics, the trading, the things that Merchant Prince, Dilettante and Mercenary cover for the future, but in a setting where storms and plague are as big a deal as pirates (who may, or may not, be green and have fangs - depending on your setting.

'Bunch of horse-smelling ruffians descending into a cavern to beat up small greenskins' is fun, but the traveller 'engine' is also much more capable of handling the guildmaster, the baron, and so on. As noted, traveller skills and stats don't change too much - it's mostly contacts, resources, rivals, enemies and so on that one picks up.

After having enough D&D campaign where Generic-Evil-Sorceror #341 has Secretive Assassin Cult #6,883,129 dispatch some nameless minions to off the players in a backwater tavern, I'd very much appreciate a 'high politics' situation where a viable response is to have our bodyguards deal with them, then respond by outbidding him and returning the favour.....

 

[alex_greene]

Y'see, what made Traveller so different from D&D was that the game had its foundations in basic science. Weather patterns followed a climatological and geographic model (no snowstorms in the tropics, big oceans = BIG hurricanes, etc) and wildlife follows an ecological model, e.g. environments like reefs are teeming with life, some deep ocean creatures are red because light in the red spectrum is invisible to Abyssal predators and so on.

And of course, one of the scientific models is economics. Supply and demand. Buy low and sell high. Characters could enjoy a chance to participate in the economics of the area by partaking in trade and enjoying the delights of making money through exciting trade and barter, not to mention the occasional risky but lucrative contraband run. Police forces find themselves subject to budget constraints, which makes them amenable to bribery and so on. Effects have causes: they don't just happen magically.

Characters don't have to go trawling through dungeons for loot that is just sitting there for them to steal - they could enjoy performing tasks for Patrons who needed to get jobs done that they could not do any other way.

They do the job. And then they get paid.

Now bring that into Adventurer. Characters can't just hop into a ship and sail off for a newly-discovered continent across the Great Ocean: they have to acquire a fleet, expeditionary gear, funding. Which means going cap in hand to a sponsor, usually some rich "Black Uncle" willing to bank a risky venture, knowing that he would be getting rewards beyond measure: exotic foodstuffs and cloths, gems, treasure.

New knowledge.

That's so far removed from D&D's tired dungeon crawling. It's an order of magnitude above D&D, and that's saying something.